Night Angels

by Danuta Reah

  The sky had clouded over, and now there was no light for the mirror to reflect. She was just a shape in the darkness. ‘I hang on to my marriage because it’s the only useful thing I can do. Except there isn’t anything useful I can do. I just…’

  Luke’s silhouette obscured the mirror as he stood up. ‘…do penance,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe.’ Her eyes were growing accustomed to the dark now, and she could see him dimly, leaning against the table in front of her, his hands in his pockets. ‘Maybe I need to.’

  He put his arms round her for a moment, rubbing the back of her head. ‘Don’t talk to me about penance, Bishop,’ he said. ‘I’m Irish and a Catholic. Used to be a Catholic,’ he amended. ‘Penance and guilt. I’m good at those.’ He released her and reached into the other pocket of his damp jacket and pulled out a bottle of whisky. ‘Here’s another good catholic remedy,’ he said.

  Hull, Monday evening

  It was raining now, a fine, wetting drizzle that made the ground more slippery and added the discomfort of wet to the cold. A wind was starting up, driving the rain into people’s faces, making the night an unpleasant time to be out. Those who had a choice huddled in their cars in the traffic queues, watching the wipers chunk, chunk against the windscreen, or hurried to close their front doors behind them and shut themselves away from the inhospitable night.

  Anna didn’t care if she was seen, didn’t care who heard her coming, didn’t care about the rain that had soaked her to the skin. She just wanted to find the one person she knew she could trust. She had fallen on the stairs as she threw herself out of the attic room, had picked herself up and been down the second flight and out of the door before she noticed the stabbing pain in her back. She had run, hearing feet clanging on the iron steps of the fire escape, hearing them hit the pavement behind her, a voice shouting as she reached the end of the street. And as she turned the corner, as if her mother was still watching over her, a taxi for hire went past. She waved it down and fell on to the seat. She gave the driver a landmark close to the docks, and hunched over in her seat, catching her breath, feeling the stabbing pains in her back as she breathed and a dull ache in her ankle where she had landed awkwardly.

  She had taken the risk and she had nothing to show for it. Her papers had gone. She had left the bags she had packed in the panic of her flight. She needed somewhere safe, somewhere she could sleep – even for just one night – and know that she was with someone who cared about her. She didn’t want to put him in danger, she didn’t want him to take any risks, but now there was nowhere else. There was just the welfare centre. It had been five months, maybe longer, since she had been there, but she could still remember Matthew’s kindness, and the sadness in his eyes.

  The taxi was slowing for a red light. She could see the driver’s face in the mirror. He was looking at her, and his eyes looked doubtful. They were still some way from the centre, but they had left her pursuer behind. She eased herself along the seat, and as the driver slowed to a stop at the light, she had the door open and was out before he realized what she was doing. The pain in her ankle almost stopped her, but she forced herself away down the first dark street, confident that the small amount she owed him wouldn’t make chasing her worth his while. She would be just another thief, just another gyppo, just another one on the take. She began to walk, limping now that her ankle had stiffened up.

  It was after ten by the time she reached the centre. A sliver of light showed through where the boarding on the window had cracked, but otherwise, the shop looked deserted. The piece of paper was still on the door, black printed on blue, protected by a plastic cover. Welfare Advice Centre. 8.30-5.30. Out of hours, ring night bell.

  She had hoped he would be there. It had always been him before. She didn’t recognize the woman who let her in. The woman said something to Anna in a language she didn’t recognize, the syllables sounding harsh and stabbing. The gestures she made as she hurried Anna through the door into the small office seemed brusque and impatient, but her face was kind, and she brought Anna a hot drink, sweet tea made with boiled milk.

  The tea was syrupy and comforting. The woman pointed at herself and said, ‘Nasim.’ Anna managed a smile and offered her own name. The warmth from the heater was reaching through her and her eyes felt heavy. She was creeping through the bushes, hearing the sound of water dripping, dripping. There was a smell of burning in the air…

  Nasim made a reproving noise and caught the cup as it began to spill on to Anna’s lap. She pushed the cup back into Anna’s hands, and held them round it for a moment, then made fierce gestures towards Anna, indicating that she should drink. Anna smiled weakly and put the cup to her lips again. She heard footsteps and the door at the back of the counter opened. She tensed and then, when she saw the man who edged his way into the room, felt herself relax, truly relax for the first time since Friday morning. He smiled apologetically and then stopped as his eyes focused on Anna, and he came round the counter with a look of welcome, and of concern. His lips moved silently for a moment, then he said, ‘Anna.’ She hadn’t dared hope that he would still be here. She was aware of Nasim hovering, looking as though she wanted to speak.

  ‘Matthew.’ Anna smiled, and she saw him gesture Nasim away. He sat down in the chair next to her, careful of her space. He moved awkwardly, a slight twist to his spine making one shoulder higher than the other. ‘Born with it,’ he’d said with a shrug when Anna had asked. She remembered Krisha, the special shoe she’d had to wear on her twisted foot. Krisha had been born with it, too. Just for a second, she saw a bundle on the ground, the sole of a small foot pointing towards the bushes. She shuddered, and his face registered concern.

  He struggled with the words for a moment, then said, ‘What happened?’ He looked older. There was more grey in his hair, and his eyes looked tired. She put out her hand, and he took it. They sat there together in the cold, damp room with the smell of Calor Gas in the air. He’d wait, she knew, until she was ready to talk. Her eyes wanted to close.

  ‘There’s no one in the back just now,’ he said. ‘Come through there.’

  She got up and followed him through the other door. Beyond the office was another, slightly larger room with a two-seater settee and an armchair. The room was cold, but there was a fire and he lit it, clicking the ignition button twice impatiently when it failed to light the first time. She sank down on to the settee, on the edge, wrapping her arms around herself against the cold. ‘It’ll soon warm up,’ he said. ‘There’s no one using this room tonight.’ He took the blanket that was draped over the back of the settee and wrapped it round her shoulders. She was aware again that her clothes smelt, that she smelt. She wanted to talk to him, but she could feel the first warmth creeping through her, feel the icy numbness of her feet start to give way to sensation, feel sleep creeping through her like a mist that clouded her mind and made her eyes shut and her head droop forwards. Sleep.

  She was pulled briefly back to wakefulness as she felt him tuck the blanket more closely around her, and her mother smiled down at her. Anna. She dropped into the first proper sleep she had had since her flight from the hotel on Friday morning.

  It was evening, and a mist was coming off the river, making the streetlights glow in a halo of white and mingling with the misty breath of people hurrying through the streets. Girls walked in groups in the icy air – tiny skirts, cropped tops, bare skin and Mediterranean clothes in the winter evening. The priest waited at the back of the church. Two worshippers knelt in the pews, almost indistinguishable in the shadows. The light was fading, the colours in the high vaulting darkening to grey as the night came.

  Holy Mass tomorrow. He had said the Mass every day since his ordination, attended Mass every day since he was a child. He couldn’t remember a time when it hadn’t been a central part of his life, and now, as seemed to happen as people got older, the words from his childhood came back – sometimes more easily than the words he said today. Introibo ad altare Dei. Ad Deum qui laetificat juven
tutum meam.

  The Latin Mass: ‘I will go to the altar of God. To God, the joy of my youth.’ The stained glass was dark and waiting. The stone walls and the pillars of the nave rose into shadows. The sanctuary light was a red glow above the altar, and behind it, on the tabernacle, a cross gleamed faintly, the candlelight catching the crucified figure, the stretched limbs and the drooping head. ‘I am poured out like water…’

  Confetior Deo omnipotenti, beatae Mariae semper Virgini…‘I confess to Almighty God…to Blessed Mary, ever a virgin…’ The shadow of the rood screen lay across the aisle, the crucifix massive on the crossbar, the two attendant figures gazing up in meek acceptance. Behind the rood screen, the high altar was dark. When he was a child, he would watch the priest standing with his back to the congregation, raising the chalice, the Precious Blood, and the altar bell would ring three times. The consecration, the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood, the moment of sacrifice.

  He switched out the lights, leaving the church in darkness. He was about to pull the doors closed behind him, when he saw the light in the shadows. He paused, then walked back down the central aisle, towards the place where the side aisle met the transept. Whoever lit the candles had been there that evening. They were only half-burned down, small, steady gleams in the empty church. The blind eyes of the saint stared ahead. The priest looked around. The rows of pews vanished under the pillars, the aisles were dark and silent. He wondered which of the worshippers who had come to the church that evening had lit the candles. He wondered what help that small light in the darkness could give.

  8

  Tuesday morning

  Roz had a headache. She seemed to wake up from nothing, and felt a moment of confusion, then she remembered the night before, sitting across the table from Luke, talking, the mirror on the wall reflecting the dim floor-light. It was like the old days. She remembered pouring more whisky into her glass, putting on a CD and, later, dancing round the room watching the walls spin past her. She remembered giggling helplessly at some slip of the tongue she’d made, something stupid about knives that had taken her fancy and sent her collapsing into her chair as the sheer brilliance of it struck her again. In short, she remembered getting drunk. And now she had a headache.

  The sky had cleared in the night and the first January sun reflected through a gap in the curtains and cut into her eyes. She was lying on her bed, the quilt half off her, wrapped in her dressing gown – that was right, she could vaguely remember taking a shower. And she could remember someone supporting her along the corridor as she rambled her way through an analysis of her situation and her future, with the true self-centredness of the drunk. She was cold. She tried to pull the quilt back over her, but something heavy pinned it down. She opened her eyes and turned her head very slowly. Luke was beside her on the bed, on top of the quilt. He looked strangely vulnerable lying there, his face resting on his hand, the other hand tangled in her hair, which had spread across the pillow.

  She freed herself, trying not to disturb him. His hand was icy cold. He was still wearing the jeans and T-shirt that had been soaked through the night before. His shoes and jacket were on the floor. She sat up, holding her head, her face screwed up against the pain.

  Then she heard it again and realized what had woken her. Knocking at the door. Now she realized she had been conscious of it as she rose out of sleep. It was loud, urgent. ‘All right, all right!’ She was aware of Luke stirring as she rolled out of bed and staggered into her slippers. She ran her fingers through her hair. She’d probably blocked someone in. She’d left her car in the road the night before. Someone had parked half across her gateway and she couldn’t be bothered to manoeuvre round it. ‘Coming,’ she called.

  She had to hunt round for the keys, and then the bolts stuck, but eventually she got the door open. Her house was slightly above the road. The steps wound down to the path, the stone lions on either side. She saw the police car first, and then the two men on her doorstep. She blinked. One of the men held something up for her to look at. ‘DS Anderson,’ he said. ‘Hull Police. Are you Mrs Rosalind Bishop?’

  ‘Doctor,’ she said automatically. Her mind wouldn’t function. She felt thick-headed and slow. Hull?

  ‘Mrs Bishop, Dr Bishop, I’m looking for Luke Hagan…’

  ‘Luke…?’ Seeing his eyes move to look behind her, she turned to see Luke coming down the stairs doing up his belt, looking half asleep, the way she had been just a moment ago.

  ‘Roz,’ he began, ‘did…’ Then he saw the men on the doorstep.

  ‘Luke Hagan?’ The man who’d introduced himself as DS Anderson stepped forward. Luke stared at him blankly and nodded. Anderson looked at Roz and said, ‘Can we come in?’ It wasn’t a question. Roz stood back from the door and the two men came in to the hallway. ‘Mr Hagan, DS Anderson, Hull Police.’ He showed Luke his identification. Luke barely glanced at it. ‘I’m afraid that I have some bad news for you.’ He paused for a moment, watching Luke’s reaction closely.

  Luke looked back at him. His face was white. ‘Gemma,’ he said.

  Anderson nodded. ‘She was found in Hull. It’s bad news,’ he said again. Roz moved towards Luke, her breath catching in her throat. She wanted the man to stop speaking, now. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that Gemma Wishart is dead.’ His voice was flat and formal. He was still watching Luke closely.

  Roz found that she could only focus on the moment. She watched Luke grip the banister and sink down to sit on the stars, his head slumping forward. She crouched beside him, holding his hand that was still icy cold. ‘Luke,’ she said. She remembered her own drunken self-pity of the night before and felt ashamed. Luke must have been anticipating just this outcome, because he seemed like someone hearing something he knew but didn’t want to believe. She looked up at the two officers who were still standing there. ‘What happened?’ she said. ‘Was there an accident? When was she…?’

  They ignored her questions, and the one who hadn’t spoken yet said, ‘Mr Hagan, we need to talk to you. We’d like you to come back with us.’

  Slowly, Luke sat up. His face was deathly white, but he looked calm. ‘I’ll get my stuff,’ he said. Roz tried to follow him up the stairs, but he said sharply, ‘Leave it, Roz.’

  Her head spinning, she looked back at the police officers. They weren’t in uniform and for the first time the significance of this hit her. They were detectives, investigating officers. This was a criminal investigation. Gemma! Her mind, sluggish from the alcohol, made more connections. They wanted to talk to Luke. They’d come here to collect him. She looked at DS Anderson. ‘How did you know Luke was here?’

  For a moment, she thought that he wasn’t going to answer, then he said, ‘Someone at his address told us that Mr Hagan came here last night.’

  Roz tried to think past her headache to formulate her next question, but she heard Luke’s footsteps on the stairs and he came down fully dressed. She wanted to touch him, to give him that reassurance, but she felt inhibited under the eyes of the two officers, and somehow he seemed distant and unapproachable. He looked back at her as he went out of the door. ‘I’ll pick the bike up later,’ he said.

  Blank with shock, she went into the kitchen and, like an automaton, switched on the kettle, put bread under the grill. She went through to the study, where the air was stale with the smell of whisky. She looked at the depleted bottle. They’d drunk a lot last night. And then…but her mind was clearing now. She could remember that they had talked about penance and guilt, sitting at the table, fuelling the debate with whisky. Later, as he was guiding her erratic progress along the corridor to bed, she’d elaborated this into a desire to work for some unidentified deserving poor, a maudlin wish to make some kind of sacrifice of her life. ‘I’ve got to put something back,’ she’d kept insisting.

  Luke had pulled the quilt over her and sat on the bed beside her. ‘You think the Third World has a crying need for a forensic linguist?’ he’d said, stroking her hair, sounding amus
ed. ‘Shut up and go to sleep, Bishop. You’re pissed.’

  The smoke alarm brought her back to the present, its penetrating beeps cutting into her headache like a knife. The bread had caught fire under the grill. She smothered the flames and threw the back door open, trying to clear the smoke and shut the alarm off. Gemma was dead. She wondered how she was going to tell Joanna what had happened.

  She sat at the table crumbling the burnt toast between her fingers and staring blankly at the wall. It was after nine. Gemma was dead. She pulled herself to her feet and went to the phone. She needed to contact Joanna. She phoned Joanna’s extension, but got Alice Carr, the departmental secretary, Peter Cauldwell’s confidante and ally. ‘I’m afraid there’s no one available from your group, Roz,’ Alice had said. ‘Dr Grey is tied up with the police. Isn’t it terrible?’

  She should have realized. Of course, one of the first places the police would go would be Gemma’s work. ‘It must have been such a shock to you, Roz, to have the police on your doorstep first thing.’ Alice’s tone was sympathetic, but the message was clear. I know you spent the night with Luke Hagan. Roz didn’t have the energy to feel angry that the departmental grapevine had got hold of that piece of gossip. Presumably, the police would have come to the same conclusion. There was nothing she could say to Alice to dispel the image that hung in the air: Gemma lying dead and she and Luke…

  She left a message with Alice, one that would undoubtedly get to Peter Cauldwell before it got to Joanna, then she drove into town to the police headquarters, where two detectives grilled her for what seemed like hours. They wanted to know about Luke. They wanted to know about his relationship with Gemma, about Gemma’s social life, about rifts between the pair. She didn’t know. She couldn’t tell them.

  They wanted to know about her relationship with Luke. She told them as honestly as she could, but she couldn’t tell what they made of it. She didn’t tell them that she and Luke had been lovers. That had just been a mistake. It wasn’t something they needed to know. She told them about the Friday meeting, about Gemma’s e-mail and about the data vanishing from the computers. As she told them, it seemed to build up into a sinister picture, but at the time – she tried to explain it to them – it had only seemed strange, puzzling. ‘I thought Gemma had done it,’ she told them.