The First Cut

by Knight, Ali

Troy smiled. Struan hadn’t changed. He was still too talkative, still with Louise. They had known each other a long time and while that didn’t mean someone wasn’t going to cast you aside if a better offer came in, it probably made things safer than with someone new. Because the fear that someone had switched sides, that someone was doing what they shouldn’t, was always there. Struan was a former squaddie turned bouncer, working for a man from Essex who controlled the doors of every major upmarket venue in the West End. Controlling the doors didn’t mean deciding which hen parties or footballers to let in, which paparazzi to tip off; it was all about which drug dealers were allowed to operate inside, and who was cut out. If anyone was found to be working independently and not sharing the proceeds with the owner it was Struan’s job to sort them out, and whether it was immediately down a side alley or with a more organized hammering later, Struan was efficient and effective. Troy had met him when he’d driven Lyndon B to a club off Regent Street for a meeting with the man from Essex. As they waited for their bosses they’d had a few drinks, had a laugh, and found they had a mutual love of poker. They had started playing regularly together and things had gone from there.

  ‘How’s business?’

  Struan swore. ‘Bad. Numbers are down. They’re all out in Shoreditch or at pop-ups in Hackney. Even the tourists are staying away. It’s not like the old days. The party’s over, mate.’

  Good, thought Troy. Struan was still a pessimist, still had money problems, was keen to earn extra however he could. Troy pulled an envelope out of the inside pocket of his linen jacket and handed it to Struan, who put it in a plastic Tesco bag he was carrying. ‘Ten thousand.’ Struan scratched his nose. They had met yesterday and Troy had outlined the job. Meeting today meant he had accepted.

  Troy was busy going through Darek’s list and was keen to extort the maximum amount of money in the shortest time. It felt like a piece of good luck that could run out if he didn’t exploit it quickly. He needed to outsource this new job. He knew how time-consuming following a hit was and he quite liked the idea that he was too busy and important to do it himself. And so Struan had duly stepped in.

  ‘Afterwards, call me from a phone box and tell me someone fainted at Homebase. Oh, and one more thing. Play rough.’

  Struan shrugged and Troy felt a great urge to go and wash his hands.

  ‘Hey,’ said Struan, looking closely at Troy. ‘You’ve had your teeth done.’

  Troy was pleased. No point in paying for improvements if no one noticed. Stealth wealth was bullshit, as far as he could see. ‘Yeah, I had a bit of work.’

  ‘Eh, well, they look really good.’ Struan was nodding, pleased that he’d worked it out. ‘I’m gonna go for a few things myself . . .’ He gave Troy a knowing look. ‘Stops the girlfriend spending it, if you know what I mean.’

  Troy agreed, but didn’t show it. Struan looked like a meat-head but it was a mistake to underestimate him. It was a smart way to spend money. No one could take your nip and tuck off you. Troy wondered if it was the love handles or the double chin Struan would get sucked out. Maybe both. They were all moulding themselves into brighter, shinier versions of their real selves, doing their best to hide their warts: their dark, vicious secrets.

  Troy listened to the horns and a few leftover vuvuzelas as he ambled down the road in the sunshine. His kills didn’t affect him but he did remember them; the first one was hard to forget. He watched two girls in miniskirts link arms in front of him, their hair bouncing on their shoulders like in some shampoo advert. The first job would have been about their age. Must be more than ten years ago now. It didn’t seem that long. He’d learned some valuable lessons from that one. Never hesitate, don’t look them in the eye. She hadn’t fought, but she’d begged. Normally begging left him cold; the mark’s weakness made it easier to be done and be gone. But there was something about her . . . He’d spent too long watching her from behind the curtain, that was the problem. The old appreciation and impossibility of turning away from an attractive woman had temporarily distracted him from the job in hand. It had been a hot night then too and she’d moved lazily this way and that in the bed. Christ, he was only a man, and who could resist having a gander at that? Francesca – that had been her name. She’d suited it, with that tumble of blonde hair swishing against the pillow. It was the last thing he saw of her before the black night swallowed her up. He was nearly at the bedroom door before she hit the ground.

  A man with a megaphone round his neck handed Troy a flyer, which he let slip through his hands to the litter-strewn street.

  She’d sat up in the half light, gloriously naked. God, those breasts! It would have been romantic if he hadn’t been there to kill her, the curtains billowing on the balcony in the warm wind off the ocean . . . Then she’d got up and stretched and he could see the roundness of her stomach, the child growing within.

  A line of policemen at a junction brought Troy back to the present with a jolt. For the first time he wondered who had wanted her dead. That he didn’t think about the past at all was no surprise, considering what was buried there. Be careful, he counselled; don’t go soft in your old age. It wouldn’t do at all to develop a conscience. Find that and you were dead in this business.

  He had been working backwards through Darek’s list, disturbing the past. Some of the information on the neat, handwritten sheet made instant sense to him because he’d done the jobs himself. An area code for a town he remembered, for example. There were few names (Darek had been careful), but Troy had been phoning these numbers and seeing what popped up. Now he wondered which was more valuable: a secret a few years old, or one buried long ago? How much more of a shock would it be to be confronted by what you did, what you desired and executed, in another lifetime? Was it time to resurrect a trail gone cold? Francesca. It was time to stir up the dust that had settled.

  Troy’s chat with Struan was over. They parted with only the briefest of goodbyes and Troy walked down to the Embankment. He stepped into an ancient red phone box and was almost beaten back by the smell of urine. He pulled out the list of phone numbers from a pocket and dialled the number next to Francesca’s name. He was amazed that it rang; he’d been afraid it might have been disconnected many years ago. A voicemail clicked in after a few rings. ‘This is Greg Peterson. Please leave a message.’ Troy put down the receiver and turned back to the fresh air.

  13

  Nicky didn’t pack an overnight bag as she was coming back the same day. She tried to calm herself: it was a glorious Sunday in high summer, she was on an intriguing hunt for information from the past and she was going to a country house. She put the roof down on Greg’s convertible and drove to Lawrence’s flat to pick up Adam. She had insisted on meeting in the street so she could avoid seeing the family again and being subjected to their scrutiny.

  He let out a faux-impressed ‘whoo whoo’ when he saw the car, and jumped into the passenger seat without opening the door. ‘Well, this is a lot flasher than I expected you to be.’

  ‘It was Greg’s choice.’

  Adam stroked the leather seats and put his feet up on the dashboard. Nicky knocked them off with her hand.

  ‘So Greg likes his Beamer box fresh.’

  ‘Yes, he does.’

  ‘So he’s into status symbols.’

  ‘Everyone’s into status symbols.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘But you’re using that big carrot of a house to get me out of town for the day,’ she retorted.

  Adam laughed. ‘Don’t romanticize it. It’s not what you’re thinking.’

  ‘You don’t know what I’m thinking.’ She smiled and started the engine.

  ‘Can I drive?’

  She laughed. ‘No way.’

  ‘Go on, let me drive it.’

  ‘Over my dead body!’

  ‘Go on. I can tell you want me to.’

  ‘No, I don’t!’

  He had his hand along the back of the seat; he was unfazed and enjoying himself. ‘Today is abou
t doing something different, taking you out of your comfort zone. I can show you what this car can really do.’

  ‘My comfort zone is huge, and I know what this car can do.’

  He leaned towards her, whispering, ‘Live a little.’ She held his gaze. There it was again, his knack of bringing out in her an urge to be silly. She held her hands out, just like he had done in the plane when they first met. ‘It’s all yours, Adam, it’s all yours.’

  He grinned at her but didn’t get out of the car, sliding across on top of her instead, so she had to wriggle underneath him into the passenger seat. They were already invading each other’s spaces, breaking down the barriers. Nicky glanced back to see whether Lawrence or Bridget was watching. She felt shame slice through her at what she was doing.

  ‘Put your seatbelt on, we’re going for a ride.’

  Nicky put her sunglasses on and felt the warm sun on her bare arm. They were happily silent for a while as they headed west, soon pulling up at a red light at a four-way crossing, pedestrians crowding the pavement and pouring across the road. Adam revved the engine aggressively.

  ‘No dents,’ she added playfully but Adam ignored her, seemingly in a world of his own. He muttered something under his breath and then without warning swung right, directly into the path of a people carrier, which screeched to a halt in the middle of the junction. A variety of people jumped on horns quicker than to the buzzers on University Challenge and pedestrians froze in mid-stroll. Adam turned right on the red light and tore off down a side street, flattening Nicky to the back of her bucket seat. ‘What the . . .’

  The change in Adam took her completely by surprise. He swung expertly but very fast round a mini roundabout, sped through a series of side streets, and while waiting at another red light he flicked the switch that put the hood up.

  ‘I was enjoying it down,’ she snapped, annoyed and startled at his rash behaviour.

  ‘I’m driving, it’s my shout,’ Adam replied. He leaned over and put some music on.

  She didn’t reply, watching instead as Adam drove like a man in a hurry ‘Why did you do that?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘Adam!’

  ‘It was just a bit of fun.’

  She stared at him, sure he was lying. She checked the wing mirror for the cars behind them but could see nothing out of the ordinary. She wondered if Bea had been following them and if he’d just lost her. Or maybe he was just a young man driving a fast car. She tried hard not to be so annoyed at his reckless posturing, so different from her safety-conscious husband. He began to show off again, accelerating to get through some traffic-calming columns and it took a further ten minutes for her to forgive him.

  They drove for an hour and then he turned off the motorway and they began to twist and turn down a series of smaller and more minor roads.

  ‘Are we getting close?’

  He slowed and pointed to his left. ‘That’s the wall of the estate.’ A large, grey-brick wall snaked along the road and Nicky felt the stirrings of excitement again. ‘Wow. I thought you said it was near the airport. There’s not a soul out here.’

  He slowed almost to a stop then turned up a rough track with no sign and they bounced along, a cloud of dust ballooning out behind them. He shook his head. ‘Track’s got worse.’

  They drove for a while through some woods and eventually came to a high, wrought-iron gate. Adam got out a huge metal key and opened the lock.

  ‘It’s like something from Harry Potter.’ Adam didn’t reply as he swung the gate inwards with a screech. ‘This is going to be amazing, I can tell,’ Nicky said in a burst of enthusiasm.

  ‘Hayersleigh House,’ Adam said, and she realized it was the first time she’d heard the name. Of course, how silly – she’d never thought to ask. All grand houses have names. Her internet search may well have turned up more if she’d—

  She didn’t hear the noise at first because the car was running over gravel, but then they were surrounded by a roar so powerful it seemed as if it would flatten the car. Nicky instinctively ducked, the hairs on her neck jumping to attention.

  ‘What the fuck . . .’ As she turned the sun was obliterated by the underbelly of a plane and for a few seconds they were plunged into the feel of autumn. She could see the wheels above her head, the black oblongs into which they would soon retract, the shiny metal. The wind came after, hot and forceful and infused with petrol fumes, before it died down as the aircraft gained altitude. The BMW felt tiny and tinny and exposed in the face of such power. Nicky watched it go in stunned silence.

  ‘Flight FR687 to Lanzarote. There’ll be another in ten minutes.’

  Nicky’s hands were shaking. ‘It gave me a fright.’

  He turned and pointed. ‘The end of the runway is beyond that wall. There’s a bit of space and a load of barbed wire and fencing and warnings about trespassing, but it’s over there.’ He drove on down the drive. ‘And the house is here.’ They came over a rise and the land fell away, and Nicky saw the sun shining off an ornamental lake in front of a large lawn that sloped up to a house made of the same grey brick as the estate wall. It was a house big enough to have wings and servants’ quarters and stabling; things that the modern world had rendered obsolete. ‘Welcome to Hayersleigh House, our English idyll under the flight path.’

  ‘If you cover your ears,’ Nicky added, and they both laughed.

  The gravel drive ended in a comma of a flourish by the large central door but Adam parked at the back of the house near a side door and a ramshackle collection of outhouses and garages. They got out of the car as another plane came over. ‘Where’s that one going?’ Nicky shouted.

  ‘Sharm el Sheikh?’ Adam shouted back.

  He fiddled around in some pots of dried-up flowers by the back door, fished out a key and opened the door. Nicky stepped straight into a 1970s-style kitchen that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a suburban three-bed semi. It smelled unused and looked unloved. She put her handbag on the small table in the middle of the room and followed Adam past a series of storerooms and then out to a grand entrance hall, bigger than a room in a normal house. Doors led off to the dining room, drawing room and the stairs.

  ‘You’ve got a billiard room!’

  Adam nodded. ‘The felt’s ripped. No one can play on it now.’ He turned to the large double front door. ‘Key’s been lost for years,’ he added.

  ‘Did the ghost steal it?’

  ‘No, the mad woman in the attic did.’

  Nicky watched the dust billow in the sunbeams as she sat on a pew made of dark wood that smelled faintly of a lemon furniture polish. ‘It’s an amazing place, but why is it so run down?’

  ‘My dad’s life is in London now, Connie lived here until she couldn’t do it any more, the planes have increased lots in the last few years . . . We’re in a dispute with the airport about it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They’ve got the permission to expand, which means they want to buy the grounds. Dad’s resisting. He’s been locked in a legal argument with the airport owners for years now. He’s driving Lyndon B mad.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘A guy who owns some regional airports, here and in Spain. He’s the next BAA, if he gets his way.’ Adam opened a door opposite the dining room and walked into the darkness. ‘It’s not an exaggeration to say Dad and Lyndon hate each other.’ Nicky followed him into the drawing room. It was gloomy, with shutters across the bay windows. She reached out for the light switch. ‘Don’t bother. There’s no electricity. There’s a generator if we really need it, but we’re off the mains here.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Dad’s convinced Lyndon’s done something with our supply as it comes across what is now airport land. You know what I think? He just forgot to pay the bill, so Southern Electric cut us off.’

  ‘The entrepreneur versus the aristo.’

  ‘You’re such a journalist, thinking in headlines.’ He yanked at one of the shutters and it opene
d with a grinding clank. She crossed the room to help him as another plane made the windows rattle.

  ‘Did you get used to the planes when you lived here?’ she asked.

  ‘I never lived here. I was sent away to boarding school and was with my dad and Bridget in London in the holidays.’

  With each shutter they opened it was like breathing life into a mausoleum.

  ‘It’s such an amazing view,’ Nicky couldn’t help saying in wonder, as she scrunched her eyes against the sun now flooding the room. The opened shutters revealed a set of patio doors that led to a terrace and then to the grassy slope that ended in the lake, which the sun bounced off like beaten silver. Beyond that were flat fields with huge trees dotted here and there, and far away on the horizon a black line which must have been the wall, on the other side of which lay the airport. ‘So no one lives here now?’

  ‘No. Mrs Perkins is usually here, keeping an eye out, making sure no one makes off with the silver.’

  ‘She must have a job vacuuming without electricity.’

  Adam laughed a little sadly. ‘She lives in the village, but she’s on holiday at the moment. I keep telling Dad to sell, but he’s a stubborn old man.’

  ‘Who cuts the lawn?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lawns need lots of work and these gardens are huge.’

  ‘The deer eat it. There’s no one here, no one at all. It’s just us.’

  Their tour of the ground floor ended in the wine cellar, which was really a small room without a window sandwiched between the storerooms off the kitchen and the back stairs. Most of the shelves were empty, cobwebs dragging down from the low ceiling. Adam jumped down the three wooden steps into the gloom and began brushing dust off labels.

  ‘Is some of this stuff valuable?’ Nicky asked, bending her head to get in.

  ‘I doubt it. Quantity not quality was the mantra.’

  It was cool and dark in the wine cellar, the light failing to reach the furthest corners. Nicky held up a bottle, trying to see whether it was red or white.