Decay Inevitable

by Conrad Williams

  She felt better than she had for a long time. The rest had done her good, but she also felt brighter, more alert. For the first time, she felt confident that she could do the work that had been asked of her and she shivered with the promise Gleave had made, that she would know what it was to be a woman, a real woman, when the last of those targets had had their throats cut.

  Her hands had been busy while she dreamed and plotted. She slipped the bracelet onto her wrist and turned it this way and that in the flickering flames of the candles. They really were such small teeth; too small to chew anything tough, she supposed. But now, in this light, they looked a little like pearls.

  PART TWO

  SOFTSTRIP

  Living is death; dying is life. We are not what we appear to be. On this side of the grave we are exiles, on that citizens; on this side orphans, on that children.

  – Henry Ward Beecher

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: GREETINGS FROM A DEAD MAN

  FOUR DAYS INTO the job, Sean’s back screaming at him, things changed. Rapler and Ronnie Salt walked in on everyone during a tea break. The laughter that had been reverberating around the shattered remains of this fourth-floor suite of offices dwindled to a few nervous coughs. Rapler was white. Sean could see in the others’ faces that this meant something other than the offer of a pay rise.

  Rapler said, “Mr. Lord’s here.”

  Salt pointed at Sean. “Come with us, chum,” he said.

  Sean wondered if he had been rumbled already. Maybe one of the “mourners” at the funeral had spotted him after all and identified him. Maybe he had been recognised as a policeman by someone he had arrested. That was all right. He could come clean and tell them he was off the Force; it was easily proved. Not that they would appreciate an ex-cop in their ranks.

  “We slipped up,” Salt explained. “All new recruits must be doctored by the boss.”

  “You mean vetted, surely?” Sean said, but Salt did not return his smile.

  “Mr. Lord wants a word with you,” Rapler said, fidgeting with his notes. “That’s all. Just a routine chat. He likes to do that with all new employees. I think it’s a nice touch. Makes you feel welcome.”

  Salt snorted. At the foot of the stairs he hung back and allowed Rapler to take Sean through the foyer to the forecourt. A black Shogun was parked rakishly across a number of bays. The man Sean had seen talking in the pub was standing with his arms folded, leaning against the rear doors of the four-by-four. Light collected in the lenses of his sunglasses. Sean wondered if he rued the fact that he was a white man. It spoiled the look he was after, from his scuffed black boots to his black leather trenchcoat.

  “Hi,” Sean said.

  Mr. Lord stared at him but said nothing. He turned to Rapler. “Why are you still here?”

  “Sorry, Vernon,” Rapler said. “I thought you might want me to–”

  “–to fuck off?” Vernon suggested.

  “Yeah.” Rapler scurried away, leafing through the pages on his clipboard.

  “That man,” Vernon said, his eyes on Rapler’s back, “is a first-class nadge sac.”

  Sean laughed sycophantically. “How long have you known him?”

  Vernon turned his shining lenses on Sean. “That, my friend, is one question too many from you. Shut up and come with me.”

  Sean stood his ground. “A: you do not tell me to shut up. B: I am not some arse-kissing loser. Watch what you tell me to do. Like this job is so fucking valuable to me I couldn’t walk away whenever I fucking want to.”

  Vernon regarded him for a moment. Then he nodded. “Fair enough. Come on. Let me buy you a pint.”

  SMOKE AND SWEAT embraced Sean as Vernon Lord pushed him through the doors of the Fallen Angel. The clientele were a rag-bag of damp coats and spoiled teeth. Bottled stout or barley wine was the drink of preference. No smoking ban here. No copper would dare poke his head round the door to check. There was a hubbub of conversation underpinned by the thud of darts hitting a board at the dim reaches of the wedge-shaped lounge. Through greasy windows, Sean watched women in head scarves struggle against the wind as they carried their bags of shopping up Buttermarket Street.

  “What you having?”

  Sean said, “A lager.”

  “Two Kronenbourg,” Vernon said to the barman, who stopped serving the women at the counter to get his drinks.

  “You got a bit of clout round here, then?” Sean asked.

  “All of it deserved, mate. Nothing wrong with a good rep.”

  “A good rep,” Sean repeated. “What does a man do around here to garner himself a good rep?”

  “Garner?” Vernon raised his eyebrows and saluted Sean with his pint. “I like it. Garner. Very educated, aren’t we?” He swigged half of his beer in one movement. “What are you doing humping bricks? Should be humping graduates.”

  “I’m not the first bloke with half a brain to wear a hard-hat.”

  Vernon ruminated on this for a while. “Still, it’s a rare thing. Most of the blokes on my sites. Jesus. If they didn’t have construction, they’d be about as much use as piss in a trumpet.”

  “Look, I’m sorry for the smarts, okay? I just need some work, that’s all. I’ll dumb down.”

  Vernon drained his pint and ordered a couple more without consulting Sean. “Well, fine, but I just need a few references, that’s all. I don’t know who the fuck you are or where the fuck you’ve come from, or what the fuck.”

  “You’re talking like someone who’s got something to hide.”

  “I have got something to hide, mate. I have. I’m quite up front about it. Question is, have you?”

  “I already told Tony. I’m so square, I can’t stop turning corners.”

  “I wish I could believe that.”

  Sean shrugged. “Fuck the job then. Fuck you. But thanks for the drink.”

  Vernon said, “It’s not the demolition I’m worried about. I couldn’t give a toss who works on that.”

  “What then?”

  “I need a sidekick. None of those mashed arses could take care of themselves. You, a different story.”

  “Not interested,” said Sean, while his heartbeat sped up and he thought, Oh yes, oh yes I am. “I don’t stooge for anybody.”

  “You said you needed the job.”

  “I need a job. A job. Doesn’t matter what it is. But one is enough.”

  Vernon thought this over, twisting his glass around and around on the filthy bar. Somebody put some music on the jukebox. Somebody belched loudly.

  “You’ll be well paid,” Vernon said.

  “Look, Vernon. Look, we don’t know each other–”

  “Which is perfect.”

  “–and I really don’t know if I can get back into dodgy stuff.”

  Vernon paused with his glass raised to his mouth. His fingers were surprisingly delicate on such a big man. Pianist’s fingers. No rings. “Get back into it? This gets better. Listen. I’ll make it worth your while.”

  Sean drained his pint and looked at his watch.

  “I have to get back to the lads.”

  “Bollocks to the lads.”

  Sean studied his feet. “Make what worth my while?”

  Vernon smiled. “I’ve got a little sideline going,” he said.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: SOFTLY, SOFTLY

  A CALL TO Sally unearthed no dirt about Vernon. She suggested he might be using an alias. Sean didn’t think so. Something about him convinced Sean that artifice would not stand with this man. The corollary of this, of course, was that Vernon had no convictions. He was clean as the buttons on his coat. Despite this logic, Sean had no problem at all imagining Vernon in Naomi’s bedroom, stabbing her life away with a screwdriver.

  Unhappy with the tension growing in his flat, Sean escaped outside. It was late in the evening. The pubs were getting rowdy. Sullen teenagers gathered under railway bridges or outside fish and chip shops, mouths busy with cigarettes or hidden behind zipped-up collars. Realising he was hungry, Sean ducked into one of
these fish bars. He ordered his supper and let the vinegary, soporific heat melt through his bones and relax him. A couple of girls with vicious make-up flirted with him while he waited, asking him hairdresser questions: “Been on holiday?”

  Back at his flat, he poured a glass of beer and set about his meal. The potatoes inside him, he stretched luxuriously on the sofa and promptly fell asleep. Almost immediately, he heard the telephone ringing. Disorientated by the extreme dark and the silence, he flailed around for the receiver and burbled something approximating a greeting into the mouthpiece. He felt dizzy and sick with the need for sleep.

  “Hi,” said a female voice, far too brightly for the hour, whatever hour it was.

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s, um, hold on a sec... it’s quarter past midnight.”

  “And you are?”

  “I’m pissed.”

  Sean rubbed his face. “Emma, is that you?”

  “Yep. Guilty. Sorry, did I wake you up?”

  “Just a little. What do you want?”

  “To see you.”

  Sean flicked on his bedside lamp. The room leapt away from him; shadows lengthened on the walls. “Emma. It’s late. I’m up early for work in the morning.”

  “I wanted to apologise.”

  “What for?” The taste of yesterday’s beer was thick in the back of his throat, as was the bitterness that had filled him listening to Vernon, pretending to be impressed. Pretending to be drawn to him.

  “I remember you from school, okay? I just pretended not to because... well, because of the embarrassment of it all.”

  “You don’t have to explain to me, Emma.”

  Panicky now. On the verge of tears. “Can I see you? I won’t take up much of your time.”

  Thinking of Naomi. How he should have helped. How he could have been there for her. In time.

  Sean said, “Where?”

  BRIDGE FOOT WAS still busy at this hour. The nearby nightclub was a circus of lurid costumes and loud people emboldened by alcohol. Sean drew the collar of his coat more tightly around him as women in scant dresses and men in shirt sleeves wrestled over cabs or queued at a portable burger bar. It was strange to be on the street at this hour without the compulsion to sort out disputes. They sold ties at the burger bar, for hapless individuals who turned up at the club hoping to be let in but had failed to take note of the dress code. Inscrutable bouncers stood like footballers in a wall defending a free kick. They muttered into headsets that left their hands free to beat the shit out of drunken punters.

  Traffic weaved around him. Under the bridge, the Mersey was sacrament-black. He watched it coursing thickly away, wondering idly how many bodies had been cast into it over the years.

  “Hi.”

  Emma was still a little drunk. Her face was bleached by the flares of sodium and neon, her lips slashes of grey. She was wearing a V-neck sweater and a pair of cargo pants. The tip of her nose was moist.

  “Let’s go and find us a coffee,” said Sean.

  They walked up Bridge Street to the town centre. People were flooding through it in various stages of inebriation. One of the big chain pizza restaurants was still open and the waitress wasn’t bothered that they didn’t want to order any food. By the time their coffees arrived, the town centre was emptying and Emma’s eyes were having trouble focusing.

  Sean said, “You been at anything other than the bottle tonight?”

  Emma giggled. “A little draw, that’s all.”

  “Sounds like you spoilt a perfect evening to be with me.”

  “Icing on the cake, Sean.” She reached out a hand to pat one of his. “You remember Gill Chancellor?”

  Sean nodded. He had had an awful feeling that this meeting might deteriorate into some maudlin retrospective, but now that it was happening, he didn’t mind all that much. “She used to be good at athletics, didn’t she? High jump.”

  Emma started laughing uncontrollably. “Any kind of jump, more like. She turned into a right old bike.”

  “Why do you mention her?”

  “She used to fancy you. But you never noticed.”

  Sean sipped his coffee. It was surprisingly good. “You should have told me.”

  “I might have done, but you were traipsing after some other girl all the time. It was funny. You looked like you were being led around on an invisible leash. We’d see this girl, Naomi, and we’d look at each other and say something like, ‘Three seconds,’ and three seconds later, you’d walk by. You were like one of those Bisto kids.” Emma cracked up again, but the laughter was a little less shrill. The coffee was helping.

  Sean finished his cup and sat back. He didn’t feel ready to talk to Emma about Naomi, but it felt as though the shape of the evening was being taken out of his hands. Emma was moulding the substance of their night together. She kept flashing him glimpses of it, and though he couldn’t recognise what she was aiming for, gradually form was emerging, to the extent that, by the time they had paid the bill and returned to the street, the reason for her need to see him had become clear.

  “Naomi was killed, not that long ago,” she said. “I just wanted to tell you that. I know you were close to her once.”

  Sean put his arms around her and started to laugh.

  “Cry all you like, poor thing. You poor, poor thing.”

  “I’m not crying,” Sean tried to say, but now he could see that she was right. He was crying. He was crying as though his life depended upon it.

  They went back to Emma’s flat. She drew him a hot bath that smelled of vanilla. While he was soaking, she entered the bathroom and handed him a Bloody Mary. Then she sat on the toilet, unashamedly gazing at his body in the water while she rolled a joint on the back of a fashion magazine. It felt like the most natural thing in the world. After a short while, she unshowily began to undress, dropping her clothes in a pile. Then she lit the joint and got into the bath with him.

  “You don’t mind, do you?” she asked, when the water had settled.

  THEY LAY IN bed together, but they did not make love. Sean sensed a bruise in Emma’s life somewhat like his own. Fresh, painful and discolouring everything that made her who she was. Perhaps her impingement on him was a way in which she could begin to help the bruise heal. Her voice was too tiny, too innocent for the words it contained. “I think,” she said. “I think I’ll go back to work tomorrow.”

  “What do you mean, work?”

  “You know.”

  Moonlight made a slow swerve across the white walls of her bedroom. The deep, resonant tick of a grandmother clock climbed the stairs to him from the hallway. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and in sleep she burrowed closer into the warmth of his body. He felt a breast spread languidly across his ribcage. Her heartbeat was rapid and fluttery. He wondered if she was feigning sleep; it didn’t matter.

  Into the dark, he talked about what he had found that day in London. Whether Emma was asleep or not, by the time he had finished talking, his shoulder was wet where her face met it. She never asked him about Naomi again and he never offered any more information about her. But over the coming weeks, they would both learn more about Naomi than they could ever have hoped, or feared, to discover.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: DOOM LOOP

  IT MUST HAVE been the dust from the explosions causing the riot of colours as the sun fell towards the Derbyshire hills. Mist layered the fields surrounding the shattered motorway, thickening by the minute. For miles, the ribbon of road sported knots of destruction where bombs had detonated. Carrying Elisabeth had protected him against the cold, but now he saw how Sadie was walking with her arms crossed, her jaw set rigidly. It would be night soon and the temperature would plummet.

  They had travelled perhaps three or four miles, that was all. Will was exhausted. Twice he had had to stop to make repairs to the stretcher. It would not hold up to much more of a battering. But maybe it wouldn’t have to. Elisabeth was regaining some of her colour and had woken up a few times, the first in order t
o be violently sick. Hopefully, if she rallied quickly, they would be able to improve their progress.

  “Can we stop?” Sadie asked.

  “That’s just what I was thinking,” said Will.

  A church spire was visible above a clutch of trees, about a third of a mile to the east of the motorway. Will set off for it. As they moved into the canopy’s shade, a thick burring noise reached to them from above. Three stubby aircraft with squared-off wings scooted low over the motorway, picking at its ruined length, and the areas around it, with powerful searchlights.

  Sadie said, “Do you think they’re investigating the explosions?”

  Will nodded. “I should think so.”

  They watched the aircraft until their fuselages were no longer visible, just the fingers of light prodding at the remains of the road. He was sure that the aircraft were searching for him. If that was so, then the villages they came across might also be patrolled. He didn’t share this suspicion with Sadie, mainly because he didn’t want to alarm her, but also because he hoped his paranoia was misplaced. Sadie didn’t argue when he suggested they stay in the church for the evening; maybe she had reasons of her own to keep a low profile.