Vicious Rumer

by Joshua Winning

  I remember the way Rose reacted when I mentioned Reverend Mara. Her expression was as blank as the paper in her pad, but her eyes betrayed something.

  Has Julian set me up? He flicked me off the way he’d remove a bug from his sleeve. Guilty conscience? Am I a scapegoat? The kind of people Julian does business with, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d pissed a dozen people off in the past week alone. And blaming me would be an easy out.

  Perhaps Julian has the Crook Spear.

  No, there’s no such thing! This is all so messed up I can’t keep it straight in my head.

  The contents of the phone stare up at me. They look normal enough, but what do I know? Julian could have bugged it. He could track me, listen in on calls, tell when I’m taking a dump, and I’d be the idiot who trusted him. Meanwhile, he’s scheming to hand me back over to Mara. This time, the Rev’ll chain me up in the pit personally, assuming I survive that long.

  I dash into the cafe’s grotty toilet, dump the phone in the sink and turn the water on. When the phone’s floating, I shut the water off and stare at my exhausted reflection. My hands are in my hair and I realise I have to calm down. First thing a rat does when it’s trapped in a box is panic, then it starts chewing.

  After splashing water on my face, I hurry out of the cafe.

  Bolt lives in Hackney. I could drive but the car’s out of juice. I inspect the crumpled bank notes Julian left me. Over a hundred big ones. He must be feeling really guilty.

  Tube? The thought of being trapped underground constricts my chest.

  Taxi it is.

  I catch a ride with a black cab. The driver tries to make conversation but she gives up when I stop replying. The rumble of the car threatens to rock me to sleep and I resist, though my eyelids scratch like sandpaper. I wonder if I’m concussed. In all the comics I’ve read, that’s a big deal. I hit my head when Nicotine Man tipped me into the pit. Am I awake or am I dreaming all of this?

  Am I still in the pit?

  The taxi drops me off on a small street near Brick Lane.

  ‘You be careful, love, lots of weirdos out there,’ she says as I slam the door. Everybody’s suddenly so worried about me.

  ‘I am the weirdo,’ I mutter.

  The rain’s eased off but the sky’s swollen with black clouds. I check the street and I’m pretty sure I’m not being followed. By Reverend Mara. By Julian. Two days ago, I had no enemies. Now I have enough to start a rock band.

  Shivering into the wind, I approach a run-down row of shops. Most of them are boarded up. Sandwiched between two windows is Bolt’s place. Assuming he’s still here. I eye the displays behind smudged glass. Mildew clings to the mannequins and the clothes wear furry green coats. It looks condemned, but aside from a fresh outbreak of black mould, it’s not much different to how I remember.

  The sign on the door says CLOSED. I knock.

  I count to thirty. Then another thirty. I knock again.

  Part of me hopes Bolt won’t answer. Then I’ll have to find another way. That would be easier than dealing with him.

  Another minute passes and there’s no sign of Bolt.

  I turn to leave and an arm locks around my throat. I grab it, beating against sinewy forearms and the body pressing behind me, but then I’m hoisted back through the shop door and thrown against a wall.

  A face looms towards mine. One side is burnt and waxy, a flinty eye shining at me. His nostrils flare.

  ‘Bolt,’ I gasp, his forearm crushing my throat.

  ‘How you know my name?’ His whisky-soured breath blasts my face.

  ‘It’s… Rumer… you idiot…’

  ‘What are you doing here? Who sent you?’

  ‘Nobody. Bolt… Get the… fuck off me…’

  He shakes me and my lungs are on fire.

  I knee him in the groin and he drops me. We both gasp for air. Bolt throws his weight against the shop door, double-locking it.

  ‘It’s good to see you, too.’ My throat’s dented and sore.

  ‘Can’t bang on a man’s door like that.’ He’s wearing a stained white T-shirt that shows hard muscle and his hair’s long enough to cover the burnt side of his face. It’s hard to tell how old he is. Mid-twenties, but his paranoia ages him.

  ‘I’m guessing you don’t get many visitors these days,’ I say.

  ‘Nobody polite enough to knock.’

  ‘That why the place looks like a neat-freak’s nightmare?’

  ‘What do you want, Rumer?’

  Maybe I hurt him more than I realised. He’s even more of a mess than he was a year ago.

  ‘I need intel.’

  His eyes are dark under his brow.

  ‘Nobody ever comes with flowers,’ he mutters, going past me to the back of the shop. Warily, I follow, trudging up a narrow staircase into the flat above the shop. It’s as creaky as the rest of the place. The lounge walls are cracked, revealing gap-toothed slats beneath the plaster.

  Bolt leans by the window, which is barely covered by a rag of a curtain. Arms crossed, expression as grim as I always remember it.

  ‘Well?’

  That’s the pleasantries out the way, then.

  I don’t know where to start. The past few days have been a chaotic jumble of places and people and faces. Now I’m in a room with Bolt and all I can think about is the fire, the upturned cars, dragging him across the road. Running. Leaving him to bleed into the tarmac.

  I stay by the door and start with the part where Nicotine Man kidnapped me. I don’t stop until I get to the bit where Bolt’s strangling me. I try to read his expression but it remains blank throughout. He always was good at poker. When I finish, his expression’s gloomy.

  ‘And so you decided to involve me,’ he grunts. ‘Should’ve kept strangling you.’

  ‘I figured if anybody knew anything about this, it’d be you.’

  ‘Because everybody knows Bolt’s always caught up in somebody’s messy business.’

  ‘Because you’re a miserable bastard and I knew you’d get some sick pleasure out of seeing somebody else is miserable, too.’

  His laugh cuts the air between us. ‘You’re right, there.’

  We stare at each other. His green eyes are sharp as cut stone and I can tell he’s trying to figure out how he can benefit from this.

  ‘What’s it been, a year?’

  I nod.

  A year since we argued in the car and you were so angry I thought you’d open the door and toss me out into the road.

  Instead, something equally awful happened and Bolt quit his police job, handed his badge in, retreating into the shop his father left him. I watched him for a while, when I had plucked up the courage. He barely came out of the shop for the first six months, even when the bandages weren’t plastered to his face any more. It got too painful, though, and I got busy working for Julian.

  ‘You’re in quite a pickle,’ Bolt says finally.

  ‘I wish I was pickled.’

  He roams the room, his arms still crossed.

  ‘If Reverend Mara wants you, you’re in deep shit.’

  ‘You know who he is?’ My pulse quickens.

  Bolt nods. Chews a fingernail. ‘He’s been throwing his weight around ever since Takehiko Kobayashi died.’

  Everybody in London knows that name. Kobayashi was a Japanese businessman whose roots were tangled in the city’s criminal underworld. Every deal he made, he sealed with blood. He had allies everywhere. The law couldn’t touch him. Twenty years ago he was at the corrupt heart of the City. Then his skull made friends with a bullet.

  ‘Mara?’ I ask.

  ‘Mara worked for Kobayashi. When Kobayashi died, various factions fought for his crown. Mara’s spent almost two decades taking out the competition and now he’s got a foothold, he’s going in for the kill. Wants to become king of the underworld, and he’s got some pretty radical ideas about how to do that.’

  ‘Radical why?’

  ‘The Crook Spear,’ Bolt says.

  ‘But i
t doesn’t exist. He’s chasing some kind of Holy Grail.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. If he has this great, mythical weapon, nobody would dare challenge him.’

  ‘Assuming they believe it has magical powers, too,’ I say.

  ‘I’m not saying it’s not a flawed plan…’

  ‘So it’s a spear.’

  ‘A pointy one, I’m guessing.’

  My mind somersaults. ‘If Mara thinks I have a spear, I can find a spear from somewhere, hand it over, job done. We’d be shot of each other.’

  Bolt’s grin doesn’t inspire confidence. ‘Some people say it’s not a spear.’

  ‘Of course they do. What do they say it is?’

  ‘Hell if I know. It’s all bullshit, Rumer. The guy’s crazier than a flea-bitten cat.’

  Stands to reason.

  ‘Look, if he’s after you, the best you can do is get out of town. If he thinks you have the spear, he won’t give up.’

  ‘I’m not hiding.’

  Bolt comes closer. He’s almost a foot taller than me. His hair hangs over his face and remorse leeches at me as I glimpse the waxy burns.

  ‘Rumer, this guy’s bad. When Kobayashi died, there was talk Mara did it. He killed his own father to take his throne.’

  ‘Wait, Kobayashi was Mara’s dad?’

  Bolt nods. ‘He’s a pit bull. Worse, a Dobermann. He’ll tear you to pieces.’

  I stare up into his shadowy face, then frown. Kobayashi is famous as a mobster, but I know his name from somewhere else. For some reason, I’m thinking about my mother. She knew Kobayashi.

  The curse of Celene Cross.

  I remember the article I read as a teenager. Kobayashi was the monster who formed The Divine Order, the cult my mother joined before she fell pregnant. She worked for him.

  It all comes back to my mother. A snake eating its tail.

  Is that why Mara thinks I have the spear? Something to do with her?

  ‘I should go.’

  ‘What you going to do?’

  ‘Find out who’s setting me up, for a start.’ I descend the stairs back into the shop. Bolt follows.

  ‘You changed,’ he says.

  For a moment he almost looks sane. I forget the guilt and all I want is to forget everything else. Forgetting would be bliss. But I can never forget. Every time I’ve relaxed, somebody’s died.

  ‘You look good.’ Bolt half lingers in shadow. ‘I–’ Before he can say something we’ll both regret, I’m out of the shop and back on the street. I turn into the wind and stop suddenly.

  Further up the street, a figure hurries round a corner and vanishes. I chase after it, but when I reach the corner, there’s nobody in sight. I could swear somebody was watching me.

  It looked like Julian’s assistant, Rose.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  So Rose is after me. I’m sure of it. I only caught a brief glimpse of somebody watching as I left Bolt’s shop, but I could swear it was her. It’s too much of a coincidence, and I’ve never really believed in those. Why is she shadowing me? Did Julian put her up to it? Or is she following me on somebody else’s orders?

  It’s time I set a trap of my own.

  I wander back towards Brick Lane. I shouldn’t go far. If Rose is following me, there’s no point setting a trap if I lose her.

  I size up a hotel and go in. It’s nothing fancy; a chain that probably looks the same no matter which part of the country you’re in. The walls are sunshine yellow. A smiley celebrity probably paid a fortune for her face grins from every leaflet. A fake potted plant sits on the desk. The man behind it is just as genuine, grimacing through fake tan at my bedraggled clothes and hair. I’m surprised he doesn’t shoo me away. Turns out beggars can be choosers.

  ‘Will that be a twin or single room?’ he asks.

  I really want to say ‘twin’ and feed his sordid imagination, but I’m too tired and, honestly, he’s easy prey.

  ‘Single,’ I say, pulling out the bank notes.

  ‘Fill this out.’ He nudges a form across the desk. I use the standard bullshit details I’ve perfected over years of filling out forms – my fake name, Cherry Gently, is too good to retire now – then pay him from my dwindling stock of cash. He hands me a key card. I ride the lift to the fifth floor and wander down a corridor that stinks of cigarettes and cleaning chemicals, then use the key to get into my room.

  The bed looks so fluffy I almost collapse into it at once, but I resist with all my willpower. At the window, I peer through the net curtains. The street seems a long way down, cars honking as they line up. The building across the street is typical London – a fried chicken shop on the ground floor, and everything above it is flats. There’s a flat roof the chicken shop guys probably use to smoke weed. It’s perfect for what I’ve got planned.

  I glance at the digital clock by the bed.

  14:30.

  How long will it take? I’m not sure. If Rose followed me to Bolt’s it stands to reason she’s followed me here, too. I wonder if she saw me check in. Maybe she’s standing outside the door with a gun in her hand. Killing me won’t achieve anything, though. If I’m a scapegoat, she needs me alive.

  I go to the door and press an eye to the peephole.

  The corridor’s clear.

  My feet take me back to the bed, but that would be the end of me. Maybe it’s the exhaustion but for a moment I wonder if an end – ending it all – would be a good thing. I’m a deadly contagion. Spend too much time with me and I’m in your bloodstream, spreading sickness, setting you up for a messy fall.

  On the bureau sits a pot of shiny cutlery. The knife looks blunt, but if I grit my teeth, I should be able to get the job done. That’d rob Rose and Julian and whoever else of the victory. I’d claim it for myself.

  My fingers reach for the knife.

  No. That wouldn’t be a victory. It’d be giving in for good. I imagine the look on my mother’s face, a kind of snarling disappointment, and I reach past the knife, grab the kettle. I fill it with water from the bathroom and make myself a strong cup of instant coffee. It tastes like dirt but I cram biscuits into my mouth, too, and I begin to feel better. Not as cold. My fingers tingle.

  Turning the radio on, I clamber onto the bed and jump up and down on it, stuffing more biscuits into my mouth. I’m fizzing with nervous energy and I can’t stay still.

  Let’s not make it easy for them. Whoever’s setting me up obviously wants me floating in dirty water the way my mother was. Imagine how surprised they’ll be when they discover my backbone’s adamantium like Wolverine’s. All the people I’ve killed, all the guilt and hatred and confusion, it hardens a person. I know what Bolt meant when he said I’d changed.

  I’m not going down without a fight.

  When I look at the clock again, it’s 15:50. The world’s darkening and I should probably get moving before it’s too dark to see properly. The bed looks suitably messy and I leave the bathroom light on, the shower running. If somebody listens at the door, they’ll think I’m in here.

  There’s an umbrella in the wardrobe. I grab it.

  Checking through the peephole, I see the corridor’s clear and crack open the door. Peer out. Still nobody. The door clicks behind me and I hurry for the fire exit, shoving it open, relieved it’s not alarmed. I peer down the metal staircase, checking nobody’s lying in wait, then hurry down it, the stairs clanging in the enclosed space no matter how quietly I step.

  I shove the emergency exit open and hurry into the cold autumn air. At the end of the alley, I glimpse the street and move swiftly towards it, scanning the alley for movement. I’m the only one here.

  At the street, I huddle against the wall, watching. I don’t see Rose. Or Reverend Mara. Or black-masked ninjas with guns. They could be anywhere. I’ll just have to risk it. Better to risk it than get caught in this alley. They could do whatever they liked to me then and nobody would notice.

  The umbrella clicks open and I clutch it low enough to obscure my face. Taking a breath, I hurr
y across the road, my heart thrashing in my chest. Reaching the other side, I hop into another alley.

  It’s almost identical to the one I just left. Filled with bins and tumbling newspaper rags. I feel beady eyes watching me from under the bins and hope it’s only rats.

  A wooden fence runs along the side of the alley. Over it is the space behind the fried chicken shop and a rickety set of stairs is fixed to the back wall. Another fire escape, just where I’d hoped it would be.

  I listen. Hear voices. But they’re coming through a window. Workers in the chicken shop’s kitchen. Tossing the umbrella aside, I grab the fence and heave myself up. Splinters skewer my palms and I grit my teeth, throwing a leg over the fence and rolling to the other side, only just getting my boots under me in time to land.

  Shooting a glance at the back of the chicken shop, I’m relieved the kitchen windows are steamed up. Nobody can see me. If I move quickly, they’ll never know I was there.

  Ignoring my stinging palms I rush for the fire escape, holding my breath the whole way up. I count five windows as I go. At the top, I clamber onto the grey square of roof, weak with relief.

  It’s spitting rain. I stare out across the network of rooftops. Broccoli-like treetops sprout between the buildings and, in the distance, a twinkle of light comes from the skyscrapers in Canary Wharf.

  I’m suddenly aware of how exposed I am. The wind whips my hair into my eyes. Quickly, I cross the roof and crouch by the waist-high ledge, shielded from the road below.

  The hotel rests across the street. Peeking over the edge, I count the windows until I reach a room with a dim glow behind net curtains. The bathroom light I left on. The room’s still empty, as far as I can tell.

  My pulse begins to slow and I slump against a chimney pot.

  Now the waiting begins.

  It’s pitch dark before I’m even aware of the fading light, and with the dark comes a nipping wind. I wrap my coat tighter and put my hood up, but it doesn’t help. The cold’s in my bones. An icy certainty that this is all going to end with me dead and nobody even caring enough to put me in the ground. Which is fine. What have I ever done for anybody?