Fan

by Danny Rhodes

  ‘I have to. There’s stuff I need.’

  ‘Well, I’d like to say I’m finished with this business. But I won’t be. There’ll be payback after this. You wait and fucking see. The things we do for our pals, eh?’

  ‘You can handle yourself.’

  ‘Against one or two for sure, but those pricks will sort it so there’s five or six of the bastards. They’ll be tooled up too. Mark my words I’m in for a pasting.’

  Finchy looked BJ in the eyes.

  ‘It’s appreciated,’ he said. ‘For what it’s worth.’

  A moment. The barmaid at the glasses. His face in the mirror behind her.

  ‘But I can’t just fuck off,’ he said. ‘I owe it to her not to do that again.’

  BJ puffed out his cheeks.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, mate, what are you hoping to achieve?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Finchy. ‘Something more than this.’

  He pressed his finger against his chin, winced with pain.

  ‘She’s in a real mess,’ he said. ‘She needs someone to help her through it.’

  ‘And you think that’s you? Fucking hell, mate, you caused half of it in the first place.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  BJ shook his head.

  ‘Do me a favour,’ said Finchy.

  ‘Another one?’

  ‘One more. For old time’s sake.’

  ‘What do you think this was for?’ BJ shoved his swelling knuckles into Finchy’s face.

  ‘I owe you,’ said Finchy. ‘I know I owe you. But I can’t fuck off. Not yet.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Let me stay at your gaff. Just until this is sorted. Just until I know everything’s finished and put to bed.’

  BJ downed the rest of his pint.

  ‘You’re a cunt,’ he said. ‘A soft southern cunt.’

  ‘So I keep hearing.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ said BJ. ‘Not tonight. I’m busy.’

  BJ rested his hand on the bar, displaying his swollen knuckles.

  ‘This needs a nurse’s attention,’ he said.

  ‘And you know a nurse, I suppose.’

  BJ grinned an impish grin.

  ‘What am I going to do tonight then?’ asked Finchy.

  ‘I don’t give a shit,’ said BJ. ‘Lock yourself away and don’t come out?’

  Sunday afternoon in the flat. He spends the time sprawled on the sofa, absorbing a western he’s seen a dozen times. Sunday afternoon recovering from the debacle of Friday, drifting in and out of consciousness.

  A fucking train wreck.

  When the phone rings he ignores it. He knows it’s Jen but he has nothing to say. He can’t find the words. He can hardly fucking think for fuck’s sake. When the film ends he walks to the window, looks out at the darkness, at the orange street lights, at the dullness and drabness.

  He drops back on the sofa, flicks through the channels, one – two – three – four. The phone rings again and he ignores it again. He can feel the change in himself but he doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t know what to do with it. He pulls on his jacket, walks down the stairs and out into the night. He makes his way to the Chinese, orders a takeaway, makes his way home again. He thinks about the barmaid, about Hope Close, about blue-and-white tape flickering in the breeze. He thinks about the all-nighter, the rave.

  And still there’s nothing on the TV. He takes the food to his room, sticks the stereo on, picks at the takeaway. He’s not fucking hungry. He looks at the clock. 7 p.m. He picks up the phone. Some of the lads are heading to the pub, then to T-Gally’s for a smoke. He doesn’t want to go but he doesn’t want to stay in either. He can’t go to Jen’s. He hasn’t got what it takes. He drags his sorry arse to the pub and then he drags it home again. There’s a fracture in his landscape. He can feel it widening. It’s the same with how he feels about Jen.

  Perhaps.

  Maybe.

  He isn’t certain.

  He isn’t certain about anything.

  He’s done next to nothing all day. He climbs into bed, sticks the TV on and lays there seeking out something to occupy his busy mind. And there’s nothing, just him in darkness, thoughts of Jen in his head, thoughts of the American girl, legs, dancing and dancing and dancing. For the first time he feels the aching in his thighs and calves.

  The minutes tick into hours, Summer rain falling on the dark town, running in torrents from the guttering, flooding the street.

  CID in the office when he turns up on Monday morning, a great herd of the bastards milling about the place, taking blokes off left, right and centre for statements. He waits his turn, struggling to focus on the frame, the street names and numbers collecting in black clots, his nervous hands quivering, his heart a fucking jackhammer.

  He notices Spence looking him up and down. Spence, ever the observant.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ says Spence. ‘You’d best confess and put them all out of their misery.’

  He shakes his head, grits his teeth.

  ‘It’s not something to joke about,’ he says, knowing he’s waving a great fuck-off red rag, inviting an onslaught.

  But Spence doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t do anything either. He just leans back on his perch, sucks in his cheeks, starts humming a little tune.

  Boot fucking Hill.

  Finchy tries to switch off to it, takes one breath and then another but it’s no fucking good.

  ‘What are you going to say?’ he asks Spence. ‘What are you going to tell them?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About who she was seeing, who she was involved with.’

  ‘Nothing to do with me,’ says Spence.

  ‘So you’re going to say nothing? What if no fucker says anything?’

  ‘There’s nothing to say, unless you know something I don’t.’

  ‘I don’t know anything…’

  ‘Tell them that, then,’ says Spence.

  ‘But I’ve heard stuff. We’ve all heard stuff.’

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  ‘All I know is where they found her and who delivers up that way. I’ll have to tell them that, I suppose.’

  Spence grins.

  They turn up in the row then, four of them. Two minutes later Finchy finds himself in a side office with a big moustached bastard and his pal, tells them what he knows, tells them more than he knows, tells them stuff he doesn’t have a fucking clue about. He can’t help himself. Everything just drops out of his mouth. Through the window he sees Spence leaving the office down the hall, sees Robbie Box head in after him, sees Robbie Box come out and Dave Hunt go in. Through all of that the big moustached bastard asks him questions, checks his notebook, treads over the facts. He tells the bloke none of it is fact, just hearsay, just office chatter. He tells him until he’s blue in the face but the bastard goes over it anyway, again and again and again.

  It takes him forty-five minutes to get out of there.

  When he arrives at his frame the place is empty. There’s just him with his back to a dozen CID, sharing jokes, sharing notes, sharing their discoveries. He is physically shaking from top to toe. It’s all he can do to prep the rest of the round, all he can muster to bag up and make his way down the row of frames to the exit, where he stands shivering on the ramp, his head a swirling fucking vortex.

  Throughout the round he goes over it all, trying to piece together tiny smithereens of memory, unable to see any patterns, any configurations at all. The previous weekend is a black hole. Friday into Saturday. Pills and thrills. And then what? Everything sucked into a fucking black hole.

  Except dancing and beat, an American girl with perfect skin. And legs, he can remember the legs.

  He’ll never forget the fucking legs.

  Finchy made his way back to the hotel, eyes on the darkness ahead of him, eyes on the darkness behind, looking out for the big fucker and anybody else Jen White’s little brother might have attached himself to. His head was spinning from too much dri
nk. Again. He’d never been able to keep up with BJ and the others. He’d learned that fucking lesson long ago. But somehow he’d had another bellyful. His head was pounding. The trees bordering the sloping avenue that led to the hotel were tilted, in danger of toppling over. Or so it seemed. The street lights were tilted too. Everything was fucking tilted.

  Between bouts of shuffling footsteps he kept looking over his shoulder, just in case. But the avenue behind him was deserted, the blinking traffic lights at the bottom of the incline the only movement in his vision.

  Nothing else stirred.

  He runs into Spence at the breakfast van, him with his bacon and egg bap, Spence with his coffee. Part and parcel of the morning these meetings, when the mail’s not too heavy, when Finchy can get down there. Not Spence. Spence is always there. It’s written into his daily schedule. Just like the ribbing he delivers Finchy every fucking morning.

  ‘Eh up,’ says Spence. ‘Look who it isn’t. ‘

  Robbie’s sat on the steps of the market cross, newspaper on his knees, grease dripping from his sarnie, his lips smeared with egg. He hardly bats an eyelid.

  ‘You were in there a long time,’ says Spence.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘In the office, with CID. Must have had a lot to say.’

  Robbie perks up. Robbie grunts. Robbie senses something.

  ‘They kept asking me questions,’ he says. ‘Everything I told them led to another one.’

  ‘Aye, well I told you to keep your mouth shut.’

  ‘I didn’t tell them anything important,’ he said. ‘Just the same things over and over. It was my walk after all. They wanted to know what I’d seen.’

  ‘But you didn’t see anything.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And you didn’t tell them anything?’

  ‘Why are you so bothered?’

  ‘I’m not,’ says Spence. ‘I’m just watching out for you. You open your mouth it’s you who’ll get it.’

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘From the fuckers you land in the shit, you daft bastard.’

  ‘Fuck me,’ says Robbie. ‘You’ve not been snitching.’

  ‘Have I fuck,’ says Finchy. ‘I don’t know anything to snitch about.’

  ‘No fucker knows anything but some bastard knows everything,’ says Spence.

  ‘You know more than me,’ says Finchy.

  ‘Judging by this morning I’m not so sure,’ says Spence.

  ‘I didn’t tell them anything,’ repeated Finchy.

  ‘I’m not saying you did,’ says Spence. ‘I’m not saying you did.’

  All of this outside the breakfast van in the market square.

  All of this.

  The lobby was deserted. He lurched across the hall into the corridor, made it to his room and then stopped himself. Not tonight. Not fucking tonight. He wandered back to reception. There was no fucker there. He reached over the counter and grabbed a bunch of keys, nabbed the bastards and hopped in the lift, took himself up to the top floor out of the way. He thought about letting himself in a room but didn’t have the bottle to do it. Besides there were no door keys on the bundle, just doors that unlocked cleaning cupboards and routes into the stomach of the place, into the boiler rooms and the attic. He didn’t know what the fuck he was looking for but he knew when he found it. Somewhere at the back of the hotel, somewhere stuck out of the way he found the service elevator and next to it a linen store. It would fucking do. He let himself in and then hurled the keys down the corridor so the staff would find them when they came looking, then he slipped into the far corner of the room, to a great barrow filled with freshly dried bathrobes, imagining the big fucker and Jen’s brother turning up at his room with a crowbar and a hammer, forcing the door open at 3 a.m., wielding the fucking things in the direction of the bed to find him a step ahead of them once again. Stupid bastards. He shut off the light and flopped into the barrow, grinning to himself in the darkness, recalling the moment the big fucker’s nose exploded.

  Fucking hilarious.

  And somewhere amongst it all, amongst the darkness and the smell of fabric conditioner, he found himself opening his eyes to see his old teacher in front of him, six foot six of bone and sinew stooped amongst the sheets and towels, his shoulders draped in a Union Jack with the words ‘Nottingham Forest – Champions of Europe’ emblazoned across its centre. Before he could comprehend this vision the ceiling disappeared to be replaced by a tapestry of stars.

  The constellations.

  His teacher stared up at them, pointing to a shape amongst the heavens, pointing and smiling in wondrous adoration. It was the Forest badge. He could see it clearly. The single oak, nestled there between Orion and the Plough.

  Ludicrous, but he found himself grinning as his head swam. The linen room, transformed now, became his old teacher’s observatory. He could see the books on the shelves, specks of dust dancing in the starlight. He was ten years old. His body filled with a tingling sensation. He laughed as a child in the darkness. The future was an endless horizon. He was in a classroom at his old primary school, sat on the carpet in the reading corner staring up at his teacher’s knees, crammed in place between Judith Jackson and Louise Wallace. In the corner, beside the bookshelf was Stimmo, there with a far-off look on his face, staring down at the carpet, picking at it with his fingers, muttering, silently muttering, fucking miles away. Rain was pouring down the windows in great torrents. The sky was black. The sky was falling. The sky was a ceiling in a linen room in a hotel in the old town a quarter of a century later.

  Stimmo was gone.

  His teacher was gone.

  He closed his eyes and curled himself into a ball in the barrow full of linen, more alone than he had ever been.

  The flat’s quiet, dead of sound until the news kicks in with his alarm clock. Finchy wakes slowly, dragging himself from dark places, hearing a doorbell ringing, dreaming of bare white flesh, tangled red hair, slugs and snails. Fucking spiders. He walked right past the spot, right fucking past it and was oblivious, too comatose to take anything in. He isn’t ever going to take one of those bastard beans again.

  ‘… barmaid who had just finished her shift…’

  He can see her as clear as day in that short skirt, white legs that go on forever, marching home in the early hours, always with somewhere to go, not fucking knowing, not seeing.

  But why would she know? Why would she see?

  Nothing ever happens here.

  Not here.

  Everything happens somewhere else.

  ‘… police following several leads…‘

  A stranger’s hands at her neck, her heels kicking and flexing, her fingernails scratching and scraping. Running out of breath, running out of time, running out of life.

  He hears the doorbell, realises he hasn’t imagined it, pulls himself out of bed and over to the window, yanks it open and looks down on the street. There are two of them. One is the moustached fucker who interviewed him at the depot. They’re in the street outside his flat, in their suits, the moustached and the non-moustached. His heart rate doubles despite himself.

  Fuck.

  What are they doing at his flat?

  He imagines a pair of hands dragging the body across the car park, into the undergrowth, into the slugs and the snails, the spiders and the flies. He imagines happening across her on the way home from his shenanigans with the American bird, him with his blood up, his head, his body, his whole being at the will of a substance he has no control over, his own hands doing those things. It’s fucking absurd but they’re here, aren’t they, here to see him again, to ask their questions and scribble their notes.

  They spot him.

  ‘Inspector Mayhew and Inspector Ritson. Can we come in?’

  Fucking shouting that in the street.

  Curtains already twitching.

  He nods, doing his best to look nonchalant, shitting himself. There are two detectives from the murder squad on his doorstep for fuck’s sake.
>
  ‘I’ll come down,’ he says. He grabs his jeans and polo shirt, wets his hair, his face, tries to look casual. Casual is best. Casual is always best. He descends the two floors to the foyer, hears the clocks, the dozens of clocks, chiming half past the hour. He opens the door. The bird across the street is at her window. He shoots her a glance and she backs away.

  Into the shadows.

  ‘Through here,’ he says to Mr Moustache and Mr Notebook.

  He leads them up the steep stairs, on to the first-floor landing.

  ‘Nice place,’ says Mayhew, says Mr Moustache. ‘Really nice.’

  It isn’t a nice place. It’s a fucking flat above a clock-menders. It has orange lino flooring in the kitchen and a sink that’s seen better days. The living room sofa’s bright fucking yellow, something he picked up for free from a bloke who was skipping it. The carpet has stains on it. The windows don’t fit properly. They rattle in their frames when the wind blows and upset the neighbours. The paint needs a fresh lick. And it’s always too cold or too hot, never just right.

  ‘A few questions. On what we spoke about,’ says Mayhew.

  He nods. His throat’s parched. He can feel himself trembling.

  ‘You said you knew the victim…’

  ‘Knew of her. I said I knew of her.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She was a barmaid in the Bell. She served me drinks. I recognise her from there. And the Crown.’

  ‘You frequent the Crown.’

  A statement, not a question. He has to clarify that. Slippery bastards.

  ‘No. I’ve been there. It’s the postie pub, right opposite … you know where it is.’

  Mr Notebook scribbling. Mr Moustache staring out of the back window, down into the yard.

  ‘Is that yard attached to this place?’

  ‘No, that’s for the flat downstairs.’

  ‘So that’s not your shed then.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you can’t access it from this flat?’

  ‘Not unless you climb out of the window or over the back gate.’

  ‘And do you?’

  ‘Do I what?’

  ‘Climb out of the window.’