Evil in the Land Without

by Colin Cotterill

  He sat on a rustic rockery to catch his breath and a whiff of common sense. He didn't have a warrant, and they could already do him for breaking and entering. There was an alarm over the back door and both the windows were wired. What he should do now, he decided, was run through to the front of the building and away. But he didn't have time to think about all that.

  He caught sight of the micro-surveillance camera just as the door flew open. Young men in shirtsleeves and ties stampeded down the steps towards him. He wasn't about to fight them, but he could tell they weren't there to negotiate. Two of them grabbed his arms. He felt a pinprick in his thigh.

  17

  Mr. Jessel. Mr. Jessel, can you hear me?"

  John squinted at the woman leaning over his bed. She had some kind of sauce on the lapel of her white coat.

  "You a doctor?"

  "Yup."

  "Did I do something silly?"

  "You got drunk and fell on your head."

  "I don't remember."

  "With a bump that size, I'm surprised you remember what a doctor is."

  But he really didn't remember. Anything. Oh, The Paw was in there of course, and the dead African boys. But details . . . he was missing details. When the doctor left him alone, he tried; he really tried to put some pieces together. It was March 12th. The last date he could put facts to was the 8th. Even then he had to concentrate . . . squeeze the memories out. What in hell's name had he been drinking, and why?

  Emma came by in the afternoon, acting more than ever like an agony aunt. She held his hand and spoke in whispers. He felt like a corpse. She reminded him about the primary-school toilet arrest the previous day. She told him how they'd finished the paperwork early, and he'd announced that he had some business to take care of. It was all news to John.

  "The police picked you up at three a.m. in Soho. You were slumped in an alley, bleeding from the head, and drunk as Lord Glenlivet. Incredibly, given the locale, you still had your wallet on you with twenty pounds in it. Your driving license was gone, but you could have left that in some bar."

  He detected contempt beneath the caring. "Really, Em, I have no recollection at all of the last few days."

  "All the drink catches up on you eventually."

  "It's never been like this. I've been known to forget the night itself, but never the whole week leading up to it. What could have sent me on such a bender?"

  "You've been under a lot of strain. Something had to give eventually, John. This Paw thing would have got to any of us."

  He wanted to slap her. Instead he let her review the previous four days before leaving him alone to his confusion.

  It was a blank, and it remained so, even after the sloppy doctor told him he was okay and could go home. The Soho coppers didn't push the drunk and disorderly charge, and Emma gave him a week of sick leave to get himself together. But how do you begin to get yourself together when you don't know where you left the pieces?

  A drunk, a slob, a bum he may have been, but above all he was a policeman. And even on leave, professional policemen don't stop asking questions. Questions like: How do you get blind drunk in Soho and still have twenty quid in your wallet? He never carried much more than that. Not even on payday. Where was he going that was so urgent he'd leave work in the middle of the afternoon? What volume and strength of booze would it take for someone of his capacity to lose most of a week? And where was his bloody car?

  He found himself rattling around his flat like a loose screw in a gearbox. The drink cupboard was stocked. There were cold lagers in the fridge. He had powerful cravings to get stuck into them. But instead he brewed tea . . . and thought.

  He thought about his father and wondered why those bastards at the insurance company hadn't replied to his letter. But most of all he thought about The Paw and wondered whether this was all his doing. What if he'd met him? What if it was The Paw he'd been going to meet that afternoon? Where the hell was his memory?

  With so much time on his hands, he was able to get really bogged down in thought, and wondering, and tea. The cravings stopped being just mental, and started to hurt him. The apartment with its smelly paint wasn't helping.

  Emma wouldn't let him go to work, but she couldn't stop him following up on investigations of his own. The insurance company was somewhere up town. He could go and see them, have tea with old Jenkins in shipping and hear stories about his good old dad. All he needed was the address.

  He went to the wardrobe and stood on the chair. His balance wasn't functioning properly. It took him three attempts to stand upright. His mother's small brown suitcase wasn't up there among the junk. He must have put it somewhere else. But in a two-room apartment there aren't so many elses. He looked in the few likely places, then the totally unlikely ones. But it wasn't there. He knew he'd brought it home from his mother's. He had written to the IIC. So where was it now?

  He sat on his peach-coloured sofa and raked through his scattered memories. Was that the important business? Had he taken the suitcase somewhere? Back to his mother? He called the old girl, who informed him he was a disgrace and quite mad. He called Aunt Maud, who warned him that the direction his life was heading was one of destruction. He told him quite frankly that he owed it to his sister to lay off the drink and tackle the situation with a clear head. John surprised himself by agreeing and meaning it.

  He walked to the mirror. At the point where his hair was shaved there were five stitches curving over a bump, like an insect sunbathing on a stone. It was a neat straight line. It was nothing like conflict with a broken bottle or a kerb. Just a nice straight line and a bump, as if he'd run headfirst into a metal ruler.

  "Come on, copper," he urged himself. "Give me some answers." But he had to wait several days for them.

  18

  Those were hard days and sleepless nights when the booze he'd been through in his life let him know that it had symbiotic interests in him. It had moved into his body and now possessed great chunks of it. It wasn't about to be evicted or deprived of the companionship of those other bottles over the sink.

  He sweated and wrestled with it and it nipped at his nerve endings. He rattled and twitched and shook without control. The cravings were more powerful than any he'd felt before, and it took all of his discipline to stand before the bottles and tell them they wouldn't be able to humiliate him anymore.

  "Just one last taste," they begged. "Just one final, delicious swig to sign off." It was close. So many times he was ready to listen to them. His hand would reach for them as if it weren't connected to his mind.

  He awoke from some twenty minutes of sleep on the afternoon of his third day of abstinence. The doorbell was so much louder without the alcohol fuzz in his ears. With the memory of Mick clear in his mind, he took up the iron bar from the end of his bed and crept silently to the door. After one deep breath he threw it open and jabbed the weapon towards the figure in the doorway.

  Emma Yardly staggered backwards into the balcony. John dropped the metal and ran forward to catch her arm and stop her toppling backwards down the stairwell. She had an expression of horror on her face.

  "Holy Mother, John. I don't know whether I should call for a psychiatrist or an exorcist. What's happened to you?"

  "What do you mean, Em?" His voice was hoarse. It was the first time he'd spoken for 72 hours. He invited her inside and she entered reluctantly. He could see fear or sadness or something in her eyes.

  "John, have you looked at yourself recently?"

  He hadn't. During the combat he had taped the News of the World over the bathroom mirror. He didn't want to see that face of his. At some stage the image had joined forces with the demons to talk him out of his foolishness. The man in the mirror wanted him to drink.

  He went into the bathroom, tore off the newspaper, and looked in amazement at the corpse that stared back at him. He could see that as they were leaving, the ghosts of Johnnie and Gordon and Stella and Captain Morgan and all the rest had taken with them the characteristics they'd le
t him use, and left him with the frame.

  The hair and stubble on his head were clinging to a hollow grey skull. The puffiness hung down like folds of pastry dough, and his eyeballs were shot with blood from lack of sleep. He was scary looking: almost frightened himself. He probably didn't smell too good either. No wonder the super had opted to stay by the door.

  He walked from the bathroom with a broad smile, and to her amazement he started to laugh.

  She reached for the door handle. "John. I'll come back some other—"

  "Hang on, Em. I know how this looks." He went and sat down. His skin had acquired a bronze stain from the unknown gallons of tea he'd consumed. He was colour co-ordinated with the peach couch. "This is good."

  "It is?"

  "Yes. This is what I look like without drink."

  "Jesus! We should get you down the pub right away. How are you feeling?" She came to join him on the couch. She saw his hands shaking, and an involuntary tic at the corner of his eye, and understood what he was going through.

  "I never felt this awful while I was drinking. Now I know what the kids have to go through at detox. I’ve a new-found respect for the ones that got through it."

  "Are you through it, John?"

  "No. But I think I know the way to the end."

  "You need some help."

  John knew it wasn't just words. She really would go through it with him. He could have talked her out of it, but if the truth were to be told, he needed someone there with him. He went to kiss her cheek, but she got to her feet in a hurry.

  "Don't even think about getting any closer till you've had a shower, Jessel. You stink."

  "Right. So this isn't the caring and sharing rehab programme you're offering then?"

  "It's the 'burn that bloody T-shirt and put the kettle on' approach."

  She stayed for the rest of the afternoon; called in sick for only the second time in her career. It was surprisingly good to have her there. They talked about things that were important to each of them. Sometimes they just sat. She read. He twitched. The shower, the meal she cooked, the company, it all felt right, and when the sun slid down the grimy window-pane and she walked to the door, she had a feeling he would actually be able to sleep. Wrapped in his blanket, clean and combed, he looked like a newborn animal. He met a new Emma, one he should have trusted with the safety of his sister.

  "Don't see me out," she said as she opened the door and stepped into the hall. "Oh, by the way. The people at the Royal Albert Hall would like you to go and pick up your car from their car park." When she quietly clicked the door shut, 17A was standing in her own doorway.

  "You with the social services?" she asked Emma.

  "Sort of. Why?"

  "I could tell you some of the filth that one gets up to in there."

  Emma smiled. "Oh, you don't have to tell me. I'm having an affair with him. He's a real beast." She snarled at the busy woman with her moustache of grey fuzz and skipped off down the stairs.

  19

  He had only slept in fits. When the sun rose, John watched the shadows crawl down his kitchen wall. He felt awful. He felt that if he ever moved from that room, all his organs and body parts would head off in different directions. But he had to go out.

  He had been thinking or dreaming about the news of his car and it was important he should go to find it. Like a man of 148, he walked carefully to the station and took the train up town.

  They were renovating the Albert Hall, and needed to put up scaffolding. Someone from security had called the police to ask whether the officer who parked there could move his car. A trace of the number produced John. When he arrived at the mews behind the Hall, the guard on duty recognized him immediately.

  "I thought you was never comin’ back. You bin sick or somethin’? You look bloody 'orrible."

  "Remember me, do you?"

  "Never forget a face, me. ’Specially the law. I'm an ex copper meself, you know?"

  John knew that was either a lie or a confession. Police don't become car park attendants unless they've been incompetent, or very naughty. "Really? Well, let's see if you still have your touch, shall we? Tell me everything you remember about that day I brought the car here."

  "You serious?" The man's eyes sparkled at the challenge. He grinned and held his chin as all good detectives do when they think. "All right. Let's see. . . . It was about 'alf three, right?"

  "You tell me."

  "Eh? Oh, right. It was definitely 'alf three. You flashed your badge and asked me where you could park that wouldn't get bricks and debris falling on your motor. You was moanin’ about the bastards at the Natural 'Istory who wouldn't let you park there even if you was the bloody prime minister. Right?"

  "Did I tell you where I was going?"

  "You said you'd 'ave to walk all the way back, was all."

  "Ah. You haven't lost it, Officer." John saluted like a starship commander.

  The guard returned the salute, stood to attention, and clicked his heels. John wiped the brick dust from his windscreen, climbed into the car, and drove past him trying his best not to laugh.

  For an hour he cruised the area looking for anything that would spark a memory. But nothing came. The bastards at the Natural History were still bastards and they didn't recognize him or allow him to park inside. Instead he parked on a double yellow behind the tube station and set off on foot. His fight with the bottles had left him weak, so he ambled along slowly and stopped periodically to look around.

  It was completely by chance that he should find what he was looking for. The sun jumped out from behind a cloud and bounced some rays off a small brass plaque across the street. He stood for some while looking at the plaque and the building, but it wasn't until he crossed the street and read the name of the Imperial Insurance Company that he knew this was where he had come that day.

  He tried the huge, oft-painted door, but it didn't yield. He pressed the buzzer, but it gave no sound. It occurred to him that being a Saturday, the staff probably wouldn't be at work anyway. But then a small surveillance camera above the door budged ever so slightly and he knew he was being watched.

  Back at the car, he turned on the windscreen wiper to swish away the parking ticket. He was convinced that the IIC had been his destination four days earlier, and that something bad had happened there. Something so bad he had run over to Soho without his car and got totally rat-faced without spending any money. It must have been something serious.

  The terraced building that housed the IIC had parking spaces in front, and parking meters. But such spots were so rare that most cars never left. The wealthy owners hired boys to feed the metres all day. So, John double parked, allowing one very narrow gap for traffic. His horn was shrill and very annoying, and brought everyone in the street to their widows to see who was leaning on it. Except for the IIC.

  With a rubber band and a half packet of Halls cough drops, he found a way to put the horn on automatic, and left his car to be annoying by itself. He went to the door of the IIC office and tried the buzzer one more time. On this occasion, not only did it sound, it also produced a response.

  "Inspector Jessel. We've been expecting you. If you'd be kind enough to disarm your hooter, I'll unlock the door for you."

  By the time John had moved and quietened his car, the IIC door was ajar and he walked inside. But as soon as he closed the door behind him and started up the uncarpeted staircase, he was already wondering whether he really wanted to be there. Again he had told nobody where he was going, so he could vanish quite easily without any hope of rescue.

  He walked up to the third floor, where a grey man in a grey suit with a grey tie was waiting for him. He held out a firm, dry hand for John to shake. There was something government about that hand and its owner.

  "Please come in."

  John followed the man into a windowless room but which had superlative taste to make up for the absence of daylight. In his physical state, John was pleased to be shown to an armchair and given time to catch
his breath. The man interlocked his fingers and danced them up and down, apparently to give himself something to look at other than John.

  At last he got his wind back. "Why do I get the feeling you're about to say things to me that can't go beyond this room?"

  The man smiled at his dancing fingers. "There are far too many secret-service novels on the market. We've been plundered of every original statement we've ever made. Every time we open our mouths it's a cliché."

  It was John's turn to smile.

  The man had a broad Yorkshire accent and wouldn't have won a part in any spy film John had ever seen. "I knew we'd blown it when we couldn't find your car. The obvious place was the museum."

  "They wouldn't let me park there."

  "We hoped you'd left it at some tube station in the suburbs and come in by train. Then you wouldn't have made the connection. Where was it?"

  "Royal Albert Hall."

  "Damn. All right. What have you worked out so far?"

  What John had worked out, he had done so between the ground and third floors of the IIC. Until then he’d been completely clueless.

  "My dad was a spook."

  "We prefer the term 'Secret Service operative.’"

  Whatever it was called, once confirmed, John felt a sudden rush of pride and relief that his father wasn't boring. He went on: "IIC is your cover. Although I'm a bit confused as to why you’d put your address on the letters."

  "Actually, we don't use this building very often. There's usually only someone here to divert inquiries. I came over just now when the secretary saw you. We assumed you'd be back. It seems you invaded us on a bad day this week. We were short of space so we used this office for an operatives meeting. Normally you wouldn't have found anyone here. I suppose you could say some of the lads overreacted a tad."

  "The bump?"

  "No. That we gave you after. Hope it doesn't hurt too badly. If I'd been here, I would merely have called the police and had you arrested for breaking and entry. But with all the terrorist scares at the moment, they decided to use you for homework."