by Clare Carson
No light, apart from the faint yellow crack where the trapdoor met the floor. She absorbed the distant waves rumbling through the joists, and then another noise: tap tap. Death watch beetles, clicking and calling to one another in the dark, their rhythm hypnotic, inducing drowsiness. Perhaps she should sleep for a few hours, a wounded animal curled up in its burrow. She lifted her arm to wipe a tear, and as she did so she heard the scrape of the back door. She froze, caught a sob mid-breath, half choked, placed her hand over her mouth. Waited. Footsteps, hard on the floorboards. A voice. She knew the speaker, his harsh tone unmistakable.
‘Check the other room.’
Crawford. She was sweating, conscious of every breath, every hair standing on end. Scalp prickling as boots trampled above her head. A black block in the crack of light around the trapdoor marked the place where he stood, the line of his soles. She could hear him breathing. The death watch beetle tapped. The boots above her shuffled, reacting to the sound. Then silence, followed by another beetle tap and the footsteps of the sidekick returning.
‘She’s not here.’
Brief pause. Tap tap tap.
‘What’s that noise?’
‘Don’t know.’
Tap tap tap.
‘Is it a bird? Trapped somewhere?’
He was right; she was a caged bird, a crow lured into a Larsen trap. A surge of anger hit her, provoked her. She stretched her hand out, conscious of every rustle of her coat, touched the Dictaphone, felt the familiar buttons and pressed record. The button made a click. She hoped it sounded like the tap of a death watch beetle.
‘There’s that noise again.’
‘Yeah. Odd.’
She held her breath. Silence. Then Crawford spoke. ‘If we don’t find her today, we can catch her later on.’
‘Like her father,’ the sidekick said. ‘I heard he was always worming out of tight corners. He had a reputation for being smart.’
The sidekick’s comment must have touched a nerve. Crawford erupted. ‘Yeah, she’s like her fucking father all right – a total fucking pain.’ He ranted, out of control. ‘You could see it in her face, her stupid bloody eyes taking everything in. She irritated me even then. And so I made a fucking tactical error, I should have walked away. But I needed to know what he was doing there. And it turns out I was right; she’s an evil bitch. She is like her father. I know she’s stuck that fucking date, the May Day fair, in her silly fucking memory.’
‘May Day fair?’ The sidekick sounded perturbed. ‘Isn’t that what...’
Crawford interrupted with a scoff, as if he was dismissing his own outburst, realized he’d lost it.
‘It’s nothing. Forget it. It’s a fucking boring story anyway.’
A death watch beetle tapped by her ear. She jumped, brushed a joist with her arm, froze, held her breath.
The sidekick said, ‘Did you hear that?’
A moment of absolute stillness. Then Crawford said, ‘Yes, I heard.’
‘Do you think it is a trapped bird?’
Crawford kicked his heel against the floorboards. ‘Must be. A trapped fucking bird.’
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move a fraction. Had he worked out where she was hiding?
‘Why don’t you go and fetch the car? I’ll finish up here.’
‘Right you are.’
Footsteps as the sidekick departed. Another sound, a dragging noise. Like heavy furniture being moved. Scraping. She couldn’t work out what was happening above her head. More silence. Feet on boards, Crawford moving away. Was that fabric being ripped? The back door pulled shut. She breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t heard her after all. She was safe, for now anyway. She switched the Dictaphone off, replaced it in her coat pocket, lay back, arms languishing at her side, hit by a wave of indifference. She was numb, drained. She didn’t care about anything any longer, all she wanted to do was sleep, down here among the dead – Dave, Jim, Sonny. Luke. Friends and enemies. Enemies who turned out to be friends. A friend – a lover – who had betrayed her; an enemy within. And she wondered whether she had killed part of herself when she shot Luke; died a little. Lost her heart. She closed her eyes. In the darkness the death watch beetles called. She could lie there for the night, float away, let bleakness descend. Even as she drifted off, a different noise registered in a far corner of her mind. Crackling. And a familiar smell that was comforting. Campfire. For some reason, her body failed to react as it should. She felt no panic, no sense of urgency. She could add the signs together, and yet she wasn’t sure she cared. Perhaps she deserved it. Burned at the stake, a witch’s sentence. Fate. The periodic repetitions, as above so below. She inhaled, wood smoke filling her lungs pleasantly, her mind. This girl looks ill, this girl is ill, this girl looks dead, this girl is dead. In the greyness she could see Jim’s outline, waiting for her, although there was something sad about him, she could tell. He wanted to say something, his words were in her head. Don’t give up. Don’t worry, it’s fine, she said. To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born and a time to die. No, Sonny said, not you. Not yet. A time to heal, to build up, dance. I’m done with dancing, she said. When did dancing ever do me any good?
She reached up and felt the joists above her head with a sense of detachment, an emotionless assessment of the dimensions of her grave; her fingertips found a gelatinous substance, like an eye attached to the beam. What was it? She prodded. Laughed. Nostoc commune, star jelly, witch’s butter; the special ingredient of Allin’s alchemical experiments, the golden contents of the test tube she had lobbed in the air. What had Alastair said about nostoc? Survives radiation. She touched the gloop again, stroked its slimy surface and she heard Dave talking, telling her about the dogged plants of Dungeness, how they sent their roots to far places in search of water. You’ve got to love the blackened spiky stems of the sea kale, he said, its hardiness. Durability. Fight. You owe me one. Do this for me.
She blinked and now she could sense the acrid smoke around her. Shit. Fucking hell. She roused herself. Crawford had set fire to the cabin. Fight, she had to fight. She reached up with her arms, pushed at the boards above her head. They didn’t budge. The scraping noises she had heard earlier fell into place – he had moved the desk on top of the trapdoor. She was locked in. She pushed upward with as much strength as she could muster. No movement at all. Her eyes were watering. She couldn’t tell whether they were tears of madness, or thickening smoke. She was going to die here, locked up under the floorboards of some stupid fisherman’s cottage on a shingle desert at the end of the bloody world. And she only had herself to blame. Jim’s voice said, Get a grip, for fuck’s sake, get a grip.
‘Fuck off,’ she shouted. ‘You’re no bloody help.’
She drew her legs up to her chest, kicked. Pushed and pushed. She heard the desk shifting a little as she managed to tilt the trapdoor. She twisted on to her knees. Placed her shoulders underneath the trapdoor’s edge, pushed her back against the planks. Shit. Shit. The desk slid again. Move. Move. She heaved, strained. Finally the trapdoor budged, the desk lurched, she flipped the lid back, pulled herself out of her prison and into the room, momentarily confused by the smoke, flames crackling, dancing red lights. She ducked, thrust her arm over her mouth and nose and caught sight of the dim glow of the power station, through the kitchen window by the back door, pale amber against the rage of the burning curtain, fire licking the walls. She turned, ran the other way, fumbled with the front door lock, shoved her way out into the night air, heavy with water now, not fog but cold rain on her face mingling with the tears of relief.
*
She traipsed north away from the beach, the research lab, the fishermen’s cabins, the commotion, the cops, the smugglers, trudged through the shingle desert, past the refugee cormorants in their willow tree shelters, the blackthorn clumps, and collapsed on the backseat of the Land Rover.
*
A spider crawled across her face, shimmied along her arm. The sun
was climbing the sky, warming her skin through the Land Rover’s window. She ached as she had never ached before, her coat was ripped, trousers salt-and-mud caked. She was starving. But she was alive. And that felt good. She scooped the spider on her finger. It rolled round, dived, swung away on its thread. She had to go too. Drive home. She stopped at the first phone box she could find, called Harry. He picked up. She shoved the coins in the slot.
‘Harry, it’s me, Sam.’
‘Are you OK?’
‘Not really.’
‘Can you meet me at my allotment?’
‘When?’
‘How long will it take you to get there?’
‘I need to stop somewhere for food, otherwise I’m going to starve. Four hours.’
‘OK, meet you there at two. Drive carefully.’
‘I will.’
‘Don’t keep checking over your shoulder.’
‘It’s a habit.’
‘I know. That’s why I’m telling you not to do it. You don’t have to worry. I’ve sorted it.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Yes.’
She replaced the receiver, relieved to hear his voice, even if she wasn’t convinced he’d sorted anything.
*
Through the Great North Wood, gypsies laughing, woodpeckers tapping; the smell of drifting smoke almost made her panic. Gut reaction. She stood at the top of the hill, looked down on Harry’s patch, watched him tending his oil drum fire. She wound her way around the neat beanpoles, fluffy carrot tops, blousy pink and orange dahlias.
Harry gaped when he spotted her. ‘What have you been doing?’
‘I went camping.’
‘In a puddle?’
‘A marsh.’
‘I see.’ He poked the fire with a stick. ‘I’ve brought some burgers with me. Fancy one?’
‘I’m vegetarian.’
‘Me too. I made them from aduki beans.’
‘Yes please, then.’
‘So, the file. It’s in there.’ He prodded the oil drum again.
‘You’re burning my police file?’
‘Yep.’
She watched the flames reaching higher. ‘Burning awkward police files – is that standard procedure?’
He shot her a sideways glance. ‘Very droll.’ He reached for a wire grill, placed it across the rim of the oil drum. Perhaps Sonny had been right – her jokes could be irritating.
‘How did you get hold of my file anyway?’ she asked.
‘That would be telling.’
‘I’m not sure burning it will make any difference.’
‘It was at the bottom of the pile. Nobody got round to entering it on any computer list. There’s no record. MI5 have nothing on you.’
‘Well, that’s a relief. Thank you. But what about Crawford?’
‘I’ve had a word with him early this morning. I said it all sounded like a mistake, unreliable informant getting overexcited, short of cash, concocting bullshit to keep the money flowing. He agreed. In fact, Crawford said he thinks the whole investigation was a wild goose chase. It’s all too easy to get your hands on firearms in this day and age, and unfortunately your mate Dave managed it, with very tragic consequences. Sad, but straightforward. Which is almost certainly the conclusion the inquest into his death will come to. It’s sorted.’
He gave her a stern look, as if he was daring her to challenge him. She wondered what Crawford was up to. Did he reckon she’d frazzled in the flames at Dungeness? Or had he found another way of getting to her?
‘It’s not sorted at all, Harry. Crawford is after me.’
‘Don’t be daft.’
‘He engineered a contract on me.’
‘Sam. Are you listening? I said don’t be daft. He’s a senior police officer.’
‘Harry. Please. The fact that he’s a senior police officer is hardly a guarantee of probity.’
‘OK. Fair point. But engineering a contract on a twenty-year-old girl is going it some, even for a senior police officer. It’s a wild accusation. Certainly not one that I can see any benefit in you making.’
‘He’s after me.’
‘Why?’ He said it with irritation rather than disbelief, as if he already knew there might be some problem but was hoping he wouldn’t have to deal with it.
‘Because I know something about him I don’t know I know, but he does know I know.’
‘What are you going on about?’
‘Listen. Please.’
He ripped open a Tupperware box, flung a couple of burgers on the grill. ‘Go on then, tell me.’
He poked the burgers with a fork.
She hesitated. ‘Crawford is corrupt – he’s taking a slice from the organized crime he’s supposed to be stopping – drugs, robberies, whatever, you name it. And then he has to cover his tracks, so he leaks information about other cops and undercover operations, when he thinks they are on to him.’
Harry flipped a burger. ‘Listen. There is a mole somewhere in the Force’s senior ranks who has dropped some extremely sensitive information about all sorts of operations, including undercover work, and some officers have been...’ – he fished for the right word – ‘endangered as a result. But Crawford is not the man.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because somebody has tried levelling those charges against him before, and they were proved to be totally baseless. Crawford is clean.’
‘Who made the accusations?’
Harry flipped the second burger.
‘Flint?’ she asked.
‘Yes, it was fucking Flint. I knew I shouldn’t have given you that bloody article.’
‘It wasn’t just the article. I found a note of a meeting with Flint in one of Jim’s old diaries.’
Harry tutted. ‘Fuck it. Fuck that arsehole Flint. He’s one of those smart but stupid types. He can suss things out, but then he fucks up when he tries to do anything with the information.’
‘What information?’
‘Oh Christ, I don’t know why we’re getting into this. Look, Flint claimed that this contact of his, Holder – specializes in laundering gold – told him Crawford had kept him up to date on the investigations into this bullion robbery. Flint reckoned that Holder had noted down all the dates that Crawford had been to see him, all the things he had said. Flint claimed Crawford, and whatever snivelling sidekick he can drag along, takes a cut of the action. Then Crawford leaks information when anybody starts sniffing around. Names of cops, witnesses, details of investigations into the investigations. Pisses it all over the place. Gangsters. Journos. You name it. According to Flint, he’d been at it since the seventies.’
‘Crawford was at it in the seventies?’
‘Everybody was at it in the seventies. The relevant point is that it was easy for Crawford to dismiss Flint’s claims.’
‘Flip them,’ she said.
‘I have.’
‘I meant the accusations, not the burgers. Crawford flipped them back on Flint.’
Harry sighed. ‘Crawford’s a smarter cop than Flint – that’s why he was the boss and Flint was his minion. Flint claimed Crawford was out in the criminal belt doing deals with Holder, but Crawford had an alibi for all the dates he called. Flint was bloody stupid to put it about in the first place without more evidence. More allies. I mean, who is going to believe what some con says about a senior cop?’
‘The criminal belt. Is that where Holder lives?’
Harry rolled his lips, as if he was determined not to speak. A blackbird trilled. He wrinkled his nose. And then he said, ‘Where Holder lived, you mean. He’s dead too. The old two bullets in the back of the head scenario.’
‘Like Flint.’
‘Like Flint. Dead as a fucking doornail.’
‘Did Holder live near where Jim is buried?’
Harry’s eyes shot in her direction, slipped back. ‘Yes.’
Near the village where she had walked the dog with Jim when she was eleven, the site of the May Day fair. She touch
ed the Dictaphone in her pocket again, replayed Crawford’s words in her head. I know she’s stuck that fucking date, the May Day fair, in her silly fucking memory. That fucking date. 1 May 1978. You don’t always know what you know. Unknown known. She knew it, but she didn’t know it mattered. Crawford did. She took a deep breath.
She said, ‘I saw Crawford on 1 May 1978 in the village on the edge of the criminal belt, where Jim is buried.’
‘You didn’t,’ Harry said.
‘I did. I’m telling you. I saw him. Jim disappeared because he didn’t want Crawford to see him with me, which was a mistake, because then Crawford tried to talk to me. Crawford was desperate to find out what Jim was doing there. And that was his mistake. He went for me because I was a soft target. But I wouldn’t have seen him, let alone remembered him if he hadn’t offered me a stupid stick of candyfloss.’
Harry’s face was red. He jabbed the burgers.
‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘You did not see him. You did not talk to him. There was no candyfloss. And let me tell you why.’
He grabbed a bottle of water he had left standing on the ground by his makeshift barbecue, swigged, swished, spat the water on the ground.
‘The May Day fair was what Flint was blathering on about before he copped it. Flint started saying it wasn’t just Holder’s notes, there were other witnesses. No names mentioned. But he did say something about a May Day fair near to Holder’s gaff.’
‘And then Flint was shot.’
‘Yeah. Then Flint was shot.’
She jammed her hand in her coat pocket, shuffled around. ‘Harry, I’ve taped Crawford saying he saw me at a May Day fair.’
She pulled out the Dictaphone.