by Tania Carver
‘Why me?’
He frowned as if the answer was obvious. ‘Because you’ve been there. You’ve seen it. You’ve stared into the abyss.’
‘Oh please.’ Marina had had enough of him. She made to move away once more. Again she felt a restraining hand on her arm.
‘You’re the only reason I came here tonight. I want to spend some time with you. Get to know you. I think we could… hit it off.’ He kept his hand where it was, made no effort to move it.
‘I’ve read your work,’ Marina said, staring at his hand like it was a spider.
Hugo Gwilym smiled, gave a mock bow of his head. ‘I’m flattered. Thank you.’
‘I didn’t agree with a single word of it.’
He froze. For a second or two something dark passed behind his eyes. Quickly – but Marina caught it. He soon replaced it with his smile. ‘We really are going to get on, you and I. I can tell.’
His hand fell from her arm. Slowly, trailing as it went.
Marina stared at him. ‘I’m married, you know.’
‘Absolutely,’ he said, taking a mouthful of wine.
‘Talk to my husband. He’s done more abyss-staring than I have.’
‘Perhaps. Eventually.’ He put his glass down, stared at her. ‘But it’s you I’m interested in. You I want to talk to.’
Clearly, she thought. I should go. Talk to someone else, even. But she stayed where she was.
Hugo Gwilym refilled her wine glass. Marina allowed him to. He raised his, toasted her, staring at her all the while like a hypnotist. She returned the toast.
‘Now the night has become interesting,’ he said.
10
K
eith knew. As soon as he saw the house on the news, he knew. Even with the white tent in front of it, the blue sheet at the side, the glimpses of police going in and out, it was unmistakable.
It was the death house.
He sighed, causing pain to stab at his chest. He closed his eyes, rode it out. Waited until it had subsided, then returned to watching the TV. The reporter was standing in front of the house, heavily made up and bundled up against the cold. Fighting the urge to be somewhere warm in order to deliver a story that she hoped could make her nationally famous.
‘Details are still emerging at this point,’ she was saying in reply to a studio-bound anchor, the wind taking away her breath, ‘but it’s understood that the house had been rented over the Christmas holidays to a single man. It’s still not been disclosed whether the body found inside is him or not.’
That was all he needed to see, to hear. It set his pulse racing, pushing the blood round his body quicker. Hastening his death by a few seconds.
Seeing this on the news, with police and reporters, made it all real. Brought it home to him. What he had done, what he was going to do, what he had agreed to do. And of course, what was going to be done to him. No. It wasn’t a game any more, an abstract idea. It was real. Deadly and real.
Kelly chose that moment to enter the living room. He looked away from the TV, caught her by the doorway. The lurch in his stomach had nothing to do with his illness. She was beautiful, no doubting that. Beautiful but hard. Like a marble Rodin sculpture. She saw him watching, ditched the hardness from her features, expelled the hatred and distaste, turning on her sympathetic face before reaching him.
Good girl, he thought. What I’m paying you for.
Or what you think I’m paying you for.
‘What you watching?’ Her voice was as annoying as ever. With its doomed attempts at refinement, at forcing her West Midlands accent into shapes it wasn’t naturally meant to be in, it sounded like she was mouthing elocution exercises while gargling coal.
‘The news,’ he said, the words tiring him, his breath wheezing out.
‘Shouldn’t watch that,’ Kelly said, taking the remote from his lap and walking away, knowing he wouldn’t be able to follow, and even if he did would be too weak to fight her for it. ‘Gets you all excited. And you don’t want that. Remember what the doctor said.’ Her voice sing-song and patronising.
Keith nodded. ‘Yeah.’ Bet you remember what the doctor said. No sudden shocks. No excitement. With what his body had been through, it could be fatal. Surprised she hadn’t given him more shocks. That was what he would have expected.
But he had a surprise for her. A real big shock. He just wished he could be there to see her face when she got it…
Kelly flicked the remote at the TV. The channel changed to a late-night quiz show. Smug comedians making snide remarks about everyone and everything, the audience laughing like it had been pumped full of nitrous oxide.
He hated it. She walked away, leaving it on.
Bitch.
‘And put some lights on, Keith…’ Before she left the room, she switched on the overhead chandelier. He winced from the sudden glare. He hated overhead lights, had done since childhood. And she knew that, had done it deliberately. He couldn’t bear them to be on in any room he was in. He blamed his parents for that one.
He could remember one night when he was six years old, hearing noise from downstairs, a horrible wailing sound, and getting out of bed to investigate. He found his mother in the living room, the next-door neighbour with his arms wrapped round her, his wife by his side. His mother was screaming, breaking down before his eyes. She had always seemed like such a capable woman. He was terrified seeing her like that.
His mother saw him and grabbed him, clutching him to her. Then she told him.
Your dad’s dead. Car crash.
And started wailing again. This time, he joined her.
The one thing he remembered, the one thing that stuck in his mind from that night, all the way into his adult life, was the overhead light. Shining down at full strength like an unforgiving, unrelenting desert sun. And he had hated them ever since.
Now here he was, sitting in his own living room, his chair wheeled in front of the TV, looking down at the tucked-under tracksuit bottoms, empty from the thighs down, where his legs used to be. The overhead light blazed down, reminding him that there was more than one way to die.
‘Can you turn the… the TV back… I was… was watching that…’
No reply. She could hear him. He was sure of it.
She came back into the room. He noticed that she was dressed up. Spike heels, short, clinging dress. Full hair and make-up. Her pulling gear. What she had been wearing when they first met. His heart sighed once more.
‘Where… where you going?’
‘Just out,’ she said, putting her earring in place. ‘Broad Street with the girls. The Basin.’
‘It’s… late…’
‘I know, but it’s the only time I get to see them. It’s just one night. For Christmas.’
He felt anger rise within him. Anger he was too impotent and weak to use. He knew where she was going, who she was meeting. If not the names, then the type. A younger man. A fitter man. A whole man. A man who wasn’t about to die.
‘So you’re leaving me… alone…’
A flicker passed over her features. It could have been read as guilt, but he knew better. Fear. Even now she couldn’t make him unhappy. Especially now.
‘I won’t be long. I promise. Just a Christmas drink with the girls. Honest.’ She waited, breath held, while he made his mind up.
‘I can’t stop you, can I?’ he said eventually.
She smiled out of relief, then crossed to him and gave him the smallest and most careful of kisses on his cheek. Her perfume hit his lungs harder than mustard gas. He began coughing. She straightened up and left, fluttering her fingers, making promises not to be late. The coughing eventually slowed, then stopped altogether. He swallowed back blood. Felt it run down his throat.
He looked down between what remained of his legs. Saw the plastic rectangle in his crotch, mimicking his impotent penis.
At least she’s left the remote, he thought. That’s something.
Keith flicked the channel over but the news had rolled
on. Men were fighting in the Middle East now. He turned the TV off. Tried to relive what he had just seen.
The house. The body. This is it, he thought. It wasn’t a game any longer. It was for real. And all because he’d talked to that university professor about his bloody stupid book. Funny how one thing could lead to another. From that to this. He tried to smile, but another bout of pain racked his chest, making him cough up more blood. He didn’t swallow it down this time; instead he spat it on to the beige carpet. He looked down at it. Dark against light. Like blood on snow.
He managed to get himself back in control. Closed his eyes.
Not long now.
I just wish I could be there to see the bitch’s face, he thought. When it happens.
11
F
rom the outside, it looked like an old Gothic schoolhouse with its red-brick exterior and leaded casement windows, chimneys and crenellations. Inside had more than a whiff of it too, with dark wood-panelled walls and doors, exposed heavy metal pipework and shiny worn floor tiles the colour of old blood. The rooms would have been big, echoing halls if the twenty-first century hadn’t invaded and subdivided with its plasterboard and glass offices, its laminate cubicles and workstations. Computers, phones, internet, TV all installed and working, keeping the old ghosts at bay, helping the new ones find rest.
It was the home of the West Midlands Major Incident Unit.
The building was an annexe of the main central police station on Steelhouse Lane. With its grey stone front and heavy wooden double doors, the station looked to Phil like a 1950s Hollywood version of a medieval castle. Both buildings were a far cry from the late eighties beige brick urban prison architecture of Southway station that he was used to in Colchester.
Inside his office, Phil held a mug of what he had been informed was tea but looked and felt more like the weather outside. Cold and grey. He hadn’t taken to Birmingham. Or his new team.
He had finished late the previous night, but not too late – overtime hadn’t yet been signed off. They had done what they could, Sperring accompanying Esme Russell and the body to the mortuary for the post-mortem, Khan heading home. Phil had followed suit.
He had been exhausted but unable to rest, tired but wired, the way he always was at the start of a new investigation, potential leads and avenues of investigation fizzing and popping in his head. So he had phoned Eileen, checked Josephina was OK and set about getting a drink, trying to calm himself down. Marina wasn’t in. He remembered she was attending the department’s Christmas party and wasn’t expected back early, so he settled down with his bottle of beer, Wintersleep playing softly in the background. They were living in Moseley village, a suburb of Birmingham between Edgbaston and Balsall Heath that consisted of huge old Edwardian houses, thirties semis and well-established plane trees along the pavements. Many of the large houses had been divided up into flats, attracting students from the nearby universities, as well as lecturers and academics, which gave the centre of the village a relaxed, bohemian air. Marina had described it as a big-city suburban version of Wivenhoe, minus the river, and Phil had laughed but agreed with her.
Marina still wasn’t back when, a couple of hours later, he turned off the CD player, dumped his bottles in the recycling bin and went up to bed.
She was settling in to their new surroundings much better than he was. He was sure she was starting to realise that. She would come home from work energised, sharing anecdotes and stories about her day, laughing as she retold them. He kept silent, having nothing to share with her except the discomfort and unease he felt at his own team and the doubts and uncertainties he had about taking charge once more. He didn’t want to burden her, spoil the obvious enjoyment she was experiencing at her new job, and consequently could feel himself drawing away from her as he tried not to infect her with his darker moods. It wasn’t the healthy thing to do, he knew that, but it was the way he dealt with things. Everything would pick up now he had a major investigation to run. It had to.
It had to.
He took a sip of the tea, grimaced and stepped out of his office into the main workroom of the MIU. The doll’s house had been removed from Glenn McGowan’s rented house the night before. It had been forensically examined overnight and now stood at the side of the murder wall in the briefing room. It was large, wooden, Georgian in design, old. The front wall hinged open. Inside, the majority of the rooms had been laid out in period design. Judging from the peeling wallpaper and the dust collecting on the miniature furniture, it had been done some time ago. The one exception was the living room. It had been recently decorated to match that of the room in which they had found the body – Glenn McGowan, it had just about been confirmed – the night before. Freshly papered pink walls, new furniture. As near to a small facsimile as could be achieved, even down to the crockery on the table.
The only thing missing was the doll.
Phil heard noise behind him, looked up. His superior officer, Detective Chief Inspector Alison Cotter, put her head round the door.
‘There you are, Phil. Morning. Got a minute?’ She turned and walked towards her office. Phil put down his mug and followed.
DCI Cotter’s office was adjacent to his. Bigger and better decorated, it also showed signs of permanent occupancy. Family photos, books on the shelves. Personal souvenirs and mementoes. The opposite of Phil’s office.
Cotter sat down behind her desk. She was in her mid forties, red-haired, with pale skin that glowed inwardly with the kind of vitality regular competitive exercise gave. The squash tournament trophies on the shelves showed how successful she was.
Phil sat down. The photos on Cotter’s desk were angled towards her. Phil knew who they were of. Cotter’s wife, a defence barrister, and their son. She was out and proud, and anyone who had a problem with that would, Phil imagined, feel the business end of a squash racquet. He could imagine Sperring’s opinion on having a lesbian for a boss.
‘So,’ said Cotter, leaning back, sipping the same anonymous grey liquid from her mug that Phil had attempted to drink, ‘I hear you caught a live one last night.’
‘Yeah,’ said Phil. ‘This could be big.’ He didn’t have to go into detail. He knew she would have read up on it.
‘Any clues? Leads? Anything to go on?’
Phil shook his head. ‘Nothing yet. I just put my head round the door to see if there were any updates, but no. Khan’s co-ordinating the door-to-door, collating all that. I’ll get him to run down any CCTV there might be too. Sperring’s following chain of evidence with the body for the post-mortem.’
‘And you?’
‘I’m going to do a bit of legwork this morning. Pay a visit to the letting agency, see if I can find out something about our deceased’s background. Then his place of work. Try to track down any family, friends, see what we can do.’
She gave a professionally rehearsed smile. ‘Good. Glad you’re on top of it.’
‘I am,’ he said and stopped.
Cotter leaned forward. ‘But?’
‘But… I could do with more staff. More bodies on the ground. I’m used to working with a bigger team on a major inquiry.’
‘So am I,’ she said, her features darkening. ‘But this is out of my hands, as you know. We’re being reformed. Having our waste trimmed. Streamlining efficiency. Becoming leaner and meaner. Doing more with less.’
‘And other euphemisms for having our operating budget removed,’ said Phil. ‘I didn’t vote for them.’
‘No,’ said Cotter, lifting an eyebrow, ‘I don’t suppose you did.’
‘I’m sure this one’ll be upgraded,’ said Phil. ‘The media’ll get hold of it. It’s too big for them not to.’
Cotter frowned. ‘Maybe not. There’s no angle. No cute victim. They might leave us alone to do our job.’
‘We’ve got a dead mutilated transvestite. They’re not going to let this one lie.’
She sighed. Gave up on her mug, placed it on the desk. ‘Leave it with me. Let me see what
I can do.’
‘Thanks. I appreciate it.’
She nodded. Looked straight at Phil. ‘How are you getting on, Phil? Taken to your new surroundings yet?’
He didn’t know what to say. He was sure she had seen he wasn’t happy, wasn’t fitting in. ‘You’ll have to ask the team,’ he said.
She smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes. He guessed from that look that she already had asked them. ‘We’re very pleased to have you here. You come highly recommended. Excellent record. A little unconventional, perhaps, but you get results. And Gary Franks is an old friend of mine. I trust him. If he says you’re good, you’re good.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ said Phil.
‘Yes,’ said Cotter. ‘Let’s.’
Phil sensed the meeting was at an end. He rose, left the room, ready to get to work. ‘If you could think about some extra bodies, I’d be very grateful.’
‘I’m sure. We need a result on this one. Let’s make sure we get it.’
Walking out, he felt less reassured than when he had gone in.
12
M
arina had chased her hangover away long enough to get out of bed, make herself a coffee and get back in with the morning papers. Josephina had spent the night with Eileen and she was enjoying the first lie-in she had had for several weeks. She was under the duvet, an old Natalie Merchant album on the bedroom CD player, the mug of hot coffee to her lips, when her mobile rang.
She placed the coffee on the bedside table, picked it up. Her first thought was: Eileen. Something’s happened to Josephina. But she dismissed it from her mind. She could be forgiven for thinking like that after everything that had happened recently. Her second thought: Phil. Catching up with her, wishing her a good morning since they had missed each other the night before.