by Neil White
Ross’s stomach lurched. ‘Where?’ The patrolman looked towards the window and nodded. ‘Green Meadow Close.’
Glen Ross shut his eyes. ‘Who’s dead?’ he asked, trembling slightly. He was clenching his teeth to fight back the taste of bile.
‘Someone called Rose Wood. A retired woman. Lived alone. Found dead by a neighbour.’
Glen Ross nodded but couldn’t speak.
‘And sir, get this. The neighbour said the last person in the house was Bob Garrett’s son.’
Glen Ross reached for his waste bin and held it to his mouth as he vomited. When he put it down, his chest heaving, he was aware of his room getting busy as people came in to see how he was.
He knew he wasn’t good.
As Nell and Mike began to make their way through the police station, a constable bustled past them. He looked harassed, worried.
Mike turned to Nell and asked, ‘What are we doing now?’
Nell had a half-smile on her face, a distant look. ‘We’re calling for reinforcements,’ she said. ‘I thought that this was some crackpot theory, but that detective was lying, and I want to find out about what.’
‘Are we going back to London?’
Nell turned to him. She shook her head. ‘Call your girlfriend. We’re staying overnight, but we need to call the office. We need some more people.’
Mike understood now. ‘So what do we do right now?’
She looked around. ‘We make trouble around here for a while, ask about Annie Paxman, and then wait for the detective to move. Someone ran in there with some news. That must mean something is happening, and once it does, we follow. Might get him sweating a bit more.’
Mike raised his eyebrows. ‘Is that possible?’
She grinned.
As I pulled up to my house, I looked across at Laura. I could sense that she knew what I was thinking, that the house felt nothing like the one I had grown up in. It felt like bricks and mortar, little else.
‘You’ll be all right,’ she said softly.
Our eyes met for a moment, and I got the feeling that she was about to lean across and kiss me. It was the way her eyes closed, just for longer than a blink, and that sense you get when you know it’s going to happen. The sound of our clothes rustling in the car, of our breathing, was all we could hear.
‘Let’s go inside.’
I stepped out and went to the door. I felt like a stranger there. I turned to Laura.
‘What made you come up here?’
She smiled coyly. ‘I had a rest day.’
I turned the key and went inside. It felt cold and dark.
‘You know some detectives are on their way here?’ she asked.
I put the keys on the table. ‘I saw you making the call earlier.’ I looked at her, tried to gauge her thoughts. ‘It’s not about us any more, you being here. Am I right?’
Laura looked at me. ‘I’ve got a child, back in London.’
‘I know that.’
‘He’s with my mother, because I’m still here, in Lancashire.’
I didn’t answer.
Laura looked at me, challenge in her eyes, but then I saw her relax.
‘Do you think I’m doing all of this because of Annie Paxman, or the football shootings?’
‘Aren’t you?’
She sighed. ‘I could have called it in and headed back to London.’
I caught a look in her eyes, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to recognise it.
‘But there are still things I know which you don’t.’
Her eyes said that she knew. ‘What are you going to do now?’ she asked.
‘Right now?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m going to write that story.’
‘I’m not here for Annie Paxman,’ she said and looked nervous. ‘I’m here for you, Jack Garrett.’ She looked upstairs. ‘And I’m not driving back to London this late, so you’d better decide where you want me to sleep.’
I wanted to hold her right then, like I had always wanted to hold her, since I had first seen her back in that bar in London.
‘I’d like you to stay,’ I said, before I’d had chance to think about what I was saying. ‘If you want, that is.’
She paused. ‘I’d like that.’
FORTY-ONE
I was still at my computer, tapping the keys like I was wired, when Laura came down the stairs.
I heard her footfalls, and as she came into view I saw she was in one of my shirts. She was tall and leggy, so it just crept down her thighs. Her legs were bronzed and lean, and when she came to the bottom of the stairs, she crossed them at the ankles, coy and cute. She looked at me, and I found myself looking back. Her hair curled and waved and streamed over the shirt collar, teasing around the buttons, and the cuffs hung over her hands, just her fingernails showing.
‘I’ve made up the sofa,’ I said simply. ‘I’ll take that. You get some sleep. We need to be alert in the morning.’
Laura glanced at the couch, the twist of her body making the shirt ride up her legs. I noticed she was wearing an ankle bracelet, fine gold blinking in the light. It made her look young, pretty, took her back to the woman she had been before there’d been a child and a husband. Maybe that woman had never gone away?
When she turned round, I looked back up, and her eyes glimmered as she caught my gaze.
‘I was hoping you’d be up there too,’ she said, her eyes flicking upwards.
I didn’t reply.
‘You need someone with you, Jack.’
I looked at her and spotted a glare in her eyes that I’d never seen before. I knew what it meant, that she was taking a risk, worried that I might reject her, make her feel small, but that this was the moment for it. We had crossed the line that had kept us as friends.
She came over to me. My arms stayed by my side, uncertain. She leant forward and kissed me lightly on the cheek, and then took my hand. She led me upstairs without saying a word, and then when we got into the bedroom she flicked off the light. I watched her make her way across the room, her movement caught by the moon outside, her body cast in silver streaks as she climbed into bed.
I got undressed and climbed into bed with her. We didn’t say anything. I turned away from Laura. I wanted to feel her in the bed with me, feel someone close behind me. I wanted to be held.
I pulled the sheets around me, and as I did so, Laura came up behind me. She put her legs into the space behind mine and put her arm around me. It was tender, not passionate, and her legs felt warm and soft, kind of hooked behind mine. Her body fitted against me. I could feel her breasts against my back, and her hand rubbed my shoulder, comforting, her touch paper-fine.
I felt the strain of the last day come to the surface, and I closed my eyes. I sank back into her, felt her arm wrap around me, felt her pull me close.
I turned around to face her. I put my hand to her cheek and brushed my thumb against her skin. She blinked, and in the moonlight I saw her eyes sparkle. She put her hand over mine and held it for a moment, and then brought it to her mouth. She kissed it, a soft caress of my palm. Then she pulled herself closer, slowly, her eyes closing. She brushed a kiss across my lips, hardly a touch, and then kissed me again, this time with more urgency. I put my hand behind her back and pulled her towards me. I felt myself gripping her hair lightly, kissing her, wrapping her closer into me.
She stopped me for a moment and then pushed me onto my back. She was silhouetted against the moonlight. She raised her hands above her head so I could lift the shirt off her. My hands ran slowly up her body as I did so, and when I had tossed it to the floor, she was naked with me. She stayed like that for a moment, her hair cascading onto her bare shoulders, her hands on my chest. Then she leant forward to kiss me again. I became lost in her, and as I drifted with her, I felt my pain melt away.
Liza Radley sat in her chair, looking out through her open window, checking for the twist of headlights along the road leading to her house or the slow purr of an engine. There was
a shotgun across her lap. She was still; she hadn’t made a sound for hours, her head tight with tension.
The television was blaring, but each new bulletin, each retelling of the story so far just cranked the tension up further. She rubbed her forehead. Nothing from David Watts. She closed her eyes and put her head back. Her chest tightened and she blinked back tears. Voices fluttered in her head, soft laughs, whispers, sometimes shouts.
She stayed like that for a few minutes, and when she put her head back down again, tears ran down her nose and dripped onto the stock of the shotgun. She reached out and started to wipe them off, but another one joined them. Her chest got warm with emotion, and she began to shake as more tears came. She put her head back and cried out, tears streaming down her face, her hands gripping the stock hard, the barrels shaking as she sobbed.
‘How many more?’ she wailed. She slid off the chair until she landed on her knees on the floor. She put her head down. ‘How many more?’ Her voice was distorted by pain.
She lifted her head and looked back at the television. It was replaying the scenes from Liverpool, showing clips of grieving Tottenham fans, and then a media camp outside the player’s home. She looked out of the window. All she could see was darkness.
She shut her eyes again, but the tears still crept out, her lashes wet. She put her head to the floor and began to scream, started to thrash her head around, banging her toes on the floor. She lifted her head up and screamed, ‘No, no, no, no,’ her throat pulled taut, her eyes wide. She sank back so that she was kneeling down. She looked again at the television, blurred through tears. The news had moved on to something else.
She gripped the shotgun harder and pointed it at the television. She was shaking and crying. She stood up and let out one long scream, knowing that there was no one within miles to hear her. She squeezed the trigger, paused for a moment, and then shot a blast at the television. The glass shattered; there was a bang, and then smoke from the television mixed in with the smell of gunpowder. The noise echoed round the house, the only sound to fill it for hours.
She sank to her knees, her arms around the barrels of the gun, hugging them. The heat burnt onto her cheek, but she didn’t let go. She began to rock, backwards and forwards, her hair dancing lightly in the breeze coming in through the open window.
FORTY-TWO
The American waited until a car drew near so that he could drown out the sound of his car door closing.
He walked slowly, careful that no one heard the crunch of footsteps coming to a stop outside the house. His eyes flicked to both sides of the street as he walked, checking for signs of neighbours checking on other neighbours. There was nothing. Just dark houses and the occasional streetlight, the wrap of a cool breeze making the leaves on the trees rustle and whisper.
When he got to the Garrett house, he didn’t stop. He turned and walked casually up the driveway, not pausing, not looking around, not panicking, just making like someone returning home. He walked up the side of the house, his steps silent, his movement fluid and invisible, melting into the darkness. Once he was at the back of the house, he paused. He was hidden now, the only light coming from the moon at the front. The house blocked out most of that, except for where the shadows shimmered at the end of the garden. He was still for around five minutes, his breathing light and measured, checking for the sound of doors opening, neighbours wondering who he had been.
There was nothing.
He moved slowly along the back of the house and got himself under the window. He knelt down and listened. He was low down so he would have a head start if anyone came to the door, not in their immediate line of vision.
He waited another five minutes. Still nothing. Not even a bored dog howling.
He checked his knife in his sock. He had cleaned some of the blood off it, but it had less of a gleam than earlier in the evening. His pepper spray was still in his pocket, and the handgun nestled snugly in the holster at the small of his back.
He stood up and put his hand on the door handle. He gave it the gentlest of pushes. It opened an inch, no locks, a light click the only noise. He stopped and smiled. He loved country people.
David Watts was in Manchester. He had felt himself drawn in. There were hotels by the motorway, and a retail park with American restaurants and English shops, but he wanted something more private. Traffic lights punctuated the flow of vehicles every fifty yards or so, and as he looked around he saw movement, the shuffle of traffic heading in or out of the city.
He drove on until commerce turned into housing, and then the closer he got to the city, the closer the houses got, until they were either lined up in rows or boarded up and derelict. He swung into a street he hadn’t driven through for more than two years, a long stretch of terraced housing, heading for a house that used to welcome him whenever he played in Manchester.
When he knocked on the door, he didn’t know what response he would get. When she opened the door, she looked surprised, pleased at first, but then her look clouded when she remembered how he had stopped calling.
‘Hi, David. Long time no see.’
He shrugged, smiled, tried the charm. ‘I was passing. Thought I’d see how you were doing.’
She looked suspicious, reluctant. ‘How do you know I’m not with someone?’
David was about to answer when a voice came from the top of the stairs.
‘Who is it, Mummy?’
She turned around. ‘Back to bed. It’s no one for you.’
‘I just guessed,’ said David, looking towards the stairs.
She turned away, looked angry, but left the door open so he could follow.
David followed her into the back room, trying to remember her name. He used to have a girl near every club, but he’d given it up when a girl from Newcastle sold a Saturday night to the papers.
Then he remembered.
‘How’s life, Julie?’ he asked.
She sat down, and then leant forward to the bottle of Smirnoff on the table. ‘I get by.’
David didn’t answer. He just reached into his pocket and tossed the bag of white powder onto the table. ‘We could have a real party.’
She smiled properly for the first time.
‘Sounds good,’ she said. ‘Sounds really good.’
I didn’t hear the noise.
I was hard asleep, my mind flitting through impossible scenarios, the sheet tangled around my body. I’d tried to stay awake so that I could go back to the story, get it finished before daybreak, but the wrap of Laura’s arms was too warm, too safe.
I woke when I felt Laura lift my arm and put it down on the bed. I felt her move and sit up, and then pause. I opened my eyes, the images coming in blurred at first. When it cleared, I saw Laura was still, her head tilted, as if listening for something. I reached out and touched her back, but she held up her hand so I stopped.
I rubbed my eyes and watched her stand slowly, her naked body framed against the window, curved and sweeping. My mind began to clear, sensing something wasn’t right. She pulled on her jeans, quickly and silently, and then slipped on her T-shirt. She put on her shoes and then crept towards the door.
I was about to ask her what was wrong when I heard it. It was a creak. Downstairs. But it wasn’t just that. It was a creak followed by nothing. A creak that had made whoever was down there halt, waiting to see if we had heard anything. Had they heard us? Had they heard Laura creep out of bed and put on her clothes?
She turned round to look at me. My eyes were quickly adjusting to the darkness. I put my finger to my lips and then beckoned her back to me. She crept over to me, her light steps not making a sound, and knelt down by the side of the bed. She reached to the floor and passed me my clothes. I looked at her. I could see the fear in her eyes, could sense it in her urgency. Someone had killed my father. Now there was someone in the house.
I slipped on my pants, the bed springing as I did, and then put on my shirt, the one worn by Laura earlier in the night. I could smell her on it, a faint
perfume.
I pointed at my camera, which had been on top of my bag on the floor. She looked at me, curiosity in her eyes, and then crept across to get it. When she was there, I whispered that she should open the window. She looked back at me, then at the window. She held her hands out and hunched her shoulders in query, but when I pointed again, she reached across the table and pulled on the window catch. It gave easily, and she was able to open the window, only a slight squeak giving her movements away.
She had a quick glance out and saw why I had asked her to do it. My room was above the bay window, giving a tiled slide to a seven-foot drop to the floor.
She crept back across the room and knelt down beside me. I explained what I wanted her to do. She shook her head, giving me the cop’s answer. I hissed at her that someone was in my house, and that gave me rights. She thought for a moment, and nodded.
Then we both heard a creak. I knew that one. I had heard that creak throughout my adolescence, an early warning to throw the cigarette out of the window, or for a girl to sit up quickly, to look like we hadn’t been doing anything.
Whoever was in the house was at the bottom of the stairs. We kissed, and then stood up. We knew what to do.
As David Watts lay back, he sensed how high Julie was getting. He had an urge not to get there with her.
He looked around. He’d forgotten how bad some of the bad places could be. The cream walls were browning with nicotine and the carpet looked worn, covered in stains. The kitchen stretched out into the back yard, an eighties extension. The wood-effect furniture was cracked and dirty, and when he looked down at the sofa he saw the holes where Julie had relaxed too much with a joint hanging from her fingers. She used to be fun, a party girl. It seemed like she hadn’t realised that the party had ended.
He thought about the American, wondered how he was getting on in Turners Fold. He couldn’t stand that he wasn’t in control. He sat back, looking at the ceiling. His eyes flitted around the cobwebs.
Julie came into view. She was smiling, swaying, dancing, her eyes closed, her dirty blonde hair swishing over her shoulders. He noticed the dark circles under her eyes. She gave a smile intended to be flirty. The glazed focus in her eyes made it look seedy and cheap.