by Russ Thomas
It climbs, reaching upward for the sky. You watch the graffiti blacken and curl, and see Kelly’s love for Sam evaporate on the wind. You wonder if they were the ones who left behind the used condom that melts and fuses itself to the burning bench.
You stand and watch as the bus shelter is utterly consumed. But it doesn’t help at all because inside your head, still he is screaming.
POSTED BY thefirewatcher AT 6:15 AM
1 COMMENTS
DarrenP said . . .
Loser!!
The media is in a characteristic frenzy. Tyler sits at the breakfast bar that is the sum total of his dining furniture and watches the breakfast program on his laptop while scanning through various alternative news feeds. Theories abound as to how Gerald Cartwright ended up bricked in his own cellar, but no one seems in any doubt that it is Gerald Cartwright, even though no formal identification has yet been made.
Above him, the spotlight he replaced last week crackles and fizzes, cutting in and out. Perhaps it’s just the wrong wattage or something, but he can’t shake the feeling it’s laughing at him. Some subtle movement in the corner of his eye alerts him, and he closes the laptop smoothly. Oscar is standing in the doorway, watching. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of tight yellow jockey shorts. His washboard stomach flexes, and the bold tattoo on his arm glistens in the flickering light.
“Hey,” he says, yawning and stretching somewhat artfully, running one hand down his torso to scratch vaguely at the light downy hair above his waistband.
Tyler stands up and moves to the kettle, deliberately turning his back. “Coffee?”
“Black. Thanks.”
He flicks the switch and feels, more than sees, Oscar lope his way across the open-plan living area. There’s a small cry as he collapses too quickly onto the cheap sofa and discovers the lump of plywood shoved under the cushions to replace the springs.
“You slept on this?” Oscar asks. “You didn’t have to, you know.”
“I don’t have a spare bed.”
Oscar grins at him. “That’s not what I meant.”
Tyler looks away again and goes back to preparing the coffee.
After a few moments Oscar says, “Man, you have a shitload of books.” He’s on his hands and knees now, in front of the bookcase, bright yellow buttocks raised into the air like a fisherman’s shimmering fly. “Did someone nick your telly?” He seems reinvigorated, the forlorn Oscar of the night before nowhere to be seen.
But by the time Tyler carries two mugs of coffee across the room it is the vulnerable Oscar he finds waiting for him, curled up on the sofa, his legs tucked under himself, arms wrapped protectively round that skinny waist. When he speaks it’s quietly, almost reverentially. “I think it’s him,” he whispers.
Tyler places the mug on the coffee table and withdraws to perch on the windowsill. A safe distance.
“Sometimes I can’t really remember him?” Oscar goes on, once again turning a statement into a question. “I can smell him, though. That’s weird, right? Stale cigar smoke. And that gross aftershave he always wore?” He picks at a raised mole on his left arm. If they were a couple, Tyler thinks, he would tell him to get that looked at.
“I know the papers made him out to be some sort of deviant, but, well, I’m not saying he was perfect or anything, but he was my dad, you know? Even if he wasn’t around much?” He stops picking and starts rubbing at the arm with his thumb, as though the blemish is a smudge of dirt he can wipe off.
“Did he go away a lot?”
Oscar nods. “London, mostly. Europe and the U.S. None of us even knew he was missing at first. The media said he’d done a bunk. There was money missing or something?”
It’s a highly sanitized version of events, but he can allow Oscar this; he knows what it is to spend years in denial about a father. But in Gerald Cartwright’s case, it wasn’t just a bit of missing money. Banking irregularities, mis-sold insurance policies and pensions, speculative and reckless trading. And then, later, they discovered the tax evasion, and there were suggestions of money laundering. After that the rumors began about the wild parties, the weekend-long orgies involving a host of famous names, some more believable than others. Prostitutes came forward, again some more believable than others, to tell stories of being bussed up from London in order to satisfy the needs of particularly important clients.
But it was when links were made between a haulage company Cartwright owned and a factory in Eastern Europe that had ties to the Russian Mafia that the rumor mill really went into overdrive. By the time the papers finally got bored, no one believed Gerald Cartwright was anything short of the devil himself.
Oscar sits hugging himself. “At first, they said he killed himself because he couldn’t live with the shame.”
The words strike a little too close to home for Tyler, and he shivers.
“Then they started with the conspiracy theories. They said he was on the bottom of the Thames in concrete boots, or the Black Sea. Or that he got taken out by MI5 or the CIA; that his bones were scattered across some private game reserve in South Africa.” He stops abruptly.
“What do you think?”
Oscar traces the thorny end of one branch of his tattoo with a forefinger. “I think it’s all bullshit!” he says. “All right, the company was involved in some dodgy deals, but no more so than any other multinational.”
How easily he denies his father’s culpability. But maybe he’s right. Maybe they are all at it. The company certainly survived, the board of directors severing all ties with Gerald Cartwright and changing its name. CWI re-floated on the stock exchange and still continued to involve itself in no more dodgy deals than the average multinational. Or so they would have the world believe.
“I think he’s dead, though, if that’s what you mean. I think I’ve always known that.”
Tyler doesn’t answer him. He knows full well how fathers can let you down. Or does Oscar mean something else? Is this a confession?
“I mean . . . he wouldn’t just leave. Not like that. Not after Mum . . .” He looks up, as though noticing Tyler for the first time. He straightens visibly, arching his back and flexing the muscles on his arms.
Despite the fact Oscar is the one in his underwear, it’s Tyler who suddenly feels exposed, sitting on the edge of the windowsill, the hard wood digging into his arse through his jogging pants. He crosses his legs, then uncrosses them again. He wouldn’t just leave. Not like that.
Oscar smiles, and the vulnerability is gone again. Is this a scared little boy play-acting at being a grown-up, or a devious man pretending a false innocence? Tyler can’t decide, nor which might be the more dangerous.
The cheeky grin morphs into something more bitter. “I guess you know all this, though? About Cynthia—” He stops abruptly. “My mum, I mean. About her walking out and all that?”
Tyler knows she left years before Gerald’s disappearance but not much more than that. He knows the original investigation considered Cynthia Cartwright a possible suspect but never managed to trace her. “How old were you when she left?”
“Ten. She just had enough, I guess. I don’t suppose Dad was the easiest bloke to live with.”
Absent fathers, mothers who abandoned their sons. The similarity in their stories is too striking. “Who took care of you when your father wasn’t around?”
“The neighbors. They’re sort of like elderly aunts to me. Lily and Edna. They pretty much raised me anyway, even before Dad—” He stops abruptly, leans forward, and picks up his coffee. He takes a long sip, his shining eyes never leaving Tyler’s own. “Then they shipped me off to boarding school.” He laughs. “I don’t blame them; I was a bit of a shit back then.” He upends the mug and drinks deeply, the protruding Adam’s apple contorting as he swallows.
“Why did you start the work on the house?”
When the mug comes down, the eyes have darkene
d and the sclerae are yellowed and bloodshot. “Why do I get the feeling I’m being interrogated here?”
Tyler takes a leaf out of Doggett’s book and shrugs. The dark eyes pin him to the windowsill.
“I just got back from uni? There was some legal shit; I couldn’t do anything with the house until I turned twenty-one.” Oscar puts down the empty mug, untucks his feet, and places them very deliberately on the coffee table. His hands come to rest on his upper thighs. “Now I can sell it,” he says.
“Why did the builders start in the cellar? Why that specific wall?”
“Because I told them to. They pointed out that the wall had been . . . added.” He seems to be considering the ramifications of this for the first time. Or maybe it’s part of the act. “They told me it wasn’t supporting anything and asked if I wanted it opened up again. I figured the bigger the place, the better the price, right?”
It makes sense. But it could be designed to. The explanation certainly came very readily. Tyler levers himself up from the windowsill and returns to the kitchen, but Oscar follows him.
“Is this an official interrogation,” he asks, “or can anyone join in?” He perches one canary-colored buttock on the stool at the breakfast bar while Tyler wrings out a dishcloth and begins wiping down countertops he’s already cleaned this morning.
“What made you become a copper?”
“My father was a DCI. I guess I grew up with the police.” He turns, looks at Oscar directly. “Did you know who I was when we met?”
“I didn’t get much of a go, did I?” Oscar laughs. “Did I know you were a copper, you mean? Maybe? I’m not sure. Did you tell me when we met? I was pretty wasted that night, to be fair.”
“I didn’t tell you.”
Oscar leans forward on the breakfast bar, biceps flexing. “I guess I didn’t know, then. It wasn’t the thought of the uniform that did it, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I don’t wear a uniform.”
Oscar tuts. “Pity.”
Tyler leans across and disconnects the charger on his laptop. He gathers it up, shovels it into his briefcase, and turns to leave. “I have to get ready for work now.”
But Oscar catches his arm, his grip surprisingly strong. “When will you know?” he asks, and all at once the scared little boy is back. “When will you know if it’s him?”
Tyler looks down and very slowly, very deliberately, prizes his wrist free. “I can’t talk to you about this case,” he says.
When he gets out of the shower Oscar is gone.
* * *
—
The court case is delayed so Tyler watches from the public gallery as Doggett gives evidence. As prosecuting witness, he takes his place in the box, opting to “affirm” rather than swear on any holy book. The Crown prosecutor leads him through his statements. Then Doggett is cross-examined, his evidence tested, his statements double-checked and verified. He occasionally checks his notebook for exact dates and times. The solicitor for the defense does her best to discomfort him, but Doggett speaks quietly, elegantly, and with an authority no one could doubt. He’s a different man to the jiggling DI at the crime scene yesterday.
Meanwhile, the accused stands in the dock, a baby-faced millennial in a sharp suit, trying to appear incapable of the attempted rape he’s being tried for. The jury looks confused. Tyler considers how it might feel to stand where Doggett is now, with Oscar in the place of the suited rapist. It wouldn’t be allowed of course. It would be deemed a conflict of interest and the defense would call for a mistrial.
When Doggett steps down, Tyler leaves the gallery and heads downstairs to meet him, but it’s the DCI who’s waiting. Jordan flicks her head curtly and he follows her outside in silence.
“Jim’s just finishing up with the Crown Prosecution Service,” she says. “Take a seat for a minute.”
He sits and waits for her to go on. He should tell her now. He will tell her. But still he waits.
“How are you getting on with DI Doggett?” she asks finally.
The question surprises him. “He told me he didn’t want me on the case.”
She huffs out a small laugh. “Yes, that sounds like Jim.” She licks her thumb and rubs at a stain on the arm of her jacket. “He asked for you on this.”
“Why?”
She glances at the camera crew setting up outside the entrance to the court. “That’s what I’d like to know.” Jordan smiles at him, the concern vanishing from her face. “Perhaps he thinks he can butter me up by taking you under his wing.”
But Tyler has known this woman a long time and sees the worry hiding behind the professional veneer. “You’re not sure it’s that.”
“DI Doggett is a highly capable officer. But he does have a tendency to do things his own way. I need someone on this case who knows how to follow the book.”
“And that’s me?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. I know you’ve at least read the book, even if you do choose to ignore it when it suits you. And it isn’t as though you’re averse to challenging authority figures when you think they’ve got it wrong.”
“You want me to spy on Doggett for you?”
She swings her head round and fixes him with a dead-eyed stare. “Do try not to be so melodramatic, Adam. I’m saying I can’t afford any cock-ups on this. I need you to make sure the i’s are dotted. That’s all.”
“Diane . . .” He’s going to tell her, he is, but then the defense team is emerging from the court in a tsunami of flash photography and shouted questions. Doggett slips around them unseen, and Jordan stands to greet him.
“Ma’am.”
“Just checking on progress, Jim.”
Doggett’s eyes swing between the two of them. “Progress? Yeah, well, that bastard’s overrated in my opinion.”
Jordan shakes her head. “No cock-ups,” she says again, this time to both of them. Then she walks away without another word.
“Right, son, shake a leg.” The DI heads straight to the parking lot. On the surface he seems undisturbed to find his sergeant in conversation with his superior. But as they reach the car he makes it clear it’s been noted. “I’ve never known the DCI to take this much interest in a sergeant before.”
Tyler opens the driver’s door. Their eyes meet across the roof of the car. “Perhaps I’m just lucky.”
Doggett waits until they’re both in the car before he drops his bombshell. “Nothing to do with her being your godmother, then?”
Tyler ignores him. It’s not meant to be a secret, but few people know. He’s not going to give Doggett the satisfaction of showing surprise, though. He starts the car without another word but, as he reaches for the gearshift, Doggett’s hand leaps out and catches hold of the steering wheel. “I’m not against a bit of friendly nepotism now and again. It’s the way of the world, I know that.” He pauses for effect. “But if I catch you trying to go round me, I’ll crucify you. Is that understood?” He lets go of the wheel without waiting for an answer and turns to look out the window. Tyler slides the car into reverse, and Doggett begins tapping out a tune on the dashboard.
* * *
—
The second letter arrives that morning and takes Lily quite by surprise, even though this is exactly what she’s been waiting for. The post arrives as normal, just after eleven, and there is nothing but a statement from the building society and a catalog from some company called Rest Easy that sells beds for the incapacitated and infirm. Lily has no idea where they got her details from, but got them they have. Mrs. Lillian Bainbridge. Close enough, she supposes. After that she somehow manages to put the whole thing out of her mind for an hour or so and then, all at once, it is there. Another plain white envelope. Staring at her from the mat. No sound of the letter box flapping, nothing. Just one minute it isn’t there, and then it is. It makes the hair stand up all over her body.
Edna is already in the garden but still, Lily can’t help but snatch the envelope up and scrunch it to her middle. She creeps back through the kitchen and hurries up the stairs and into the bedroom. Only when she is looking down on Edna from above, certain she can’t be seen, does she unfold the paper from her clenched fist and smooth it out.
She opens the envelope carefully, though it isn’t sealed, just has the flap tucked in at the back. She pulls out another sheet of paper folded in three and reads the printed words.
If you don’t tell, I will.
Below her, through the cracked-open window, she can hear the gentle groaning of the sun lounger as Edna swings.
How would Edna deal with this? Lily tries to apply her mind to the problem in the same way she has seen Edna do so many times over so many years. Two letters. The first—now folded into the mechanism of the grandmother clock by the fireplace—I know what you did. A statement, nothing more. Designed to unsettle, yes, but not inherently threatening. Lily shakes her head. No, that’s not right. Of course it is threatening! Why else would someone send it? She looks down again at the paper in her hand. The second. If you don’t tell, I will. A statement, but also a demand. But not a demand for money or any sort of recompense. A demand for . . . what? Justice, she supposes. Perhaps a deserving one, if only she could remember.
Oh, it’s all too difficult. Her head is swimming and there are too many gaps. The only thing she’s certain of is that this is not something she can ignore. Not now.
Lily’s eyes stray to the footstool next to the wardrobe. It has a picture of a Cavalier on horseback with three hunting dogs. She crouches down and brushes the woven fabric with her left hand, the letter still clutched in her right. She can’t remember exactly where it came from. Perhaps it belonged to her mother? Yes, that’s right, she’s sure. Edna re-embroidered it a few years after the funeral. Lily has always found the Cavalier rather dashing. She bangs the fabric with the palm of her hand and watches the dust billow up into the air. She pretends it’s the dirt kicked up by the horse’s hooves as it thunders across the woven landscape, the spaniels yapping at its heels. She thinks that perhaps she used to do this when she was a child.