‘What are we drinking?’ I asked.
‘Champagne,’ Nicky said.
‘Excellent.’
‘And absinthe.’
‘Oh dear. By ourselves? Or with even more of your very, very closest friends?’
‘That, my smart chum, remains to be seen.’
Mike and I sat at a table while Nicky went to use the toilet, not for its intended purpose. Or yes, actually, for its intended purpose.
The celebrity count was lower here, down to Geri Halliwell and that guy from TV whose job it is to spend a hundred quid redecorating people’s living rooms.
Mike drummed his hands on the top of his thighs and scanned the room. When we’d met him he’d been like a wild horse let out of a trailer and he hadn’t calmed down any. I didn’t think it was just the Gianluca, as he called the coke, and I wondered if his chat with Ally really had smoothed everything out. I was going to ask him but Nicky came back and then the waitress came over with a champagne bucket and three glasses of green liquid, which Nicky set about cooking up with the professionalism of a hardcore smackhead.
We were having a great time, though it wasn’t quite the night I’d expected. In spite of the chemical help it was far more low key and I had the not unpleasant feeling that this might well be one of the last times that I’d ever go out like this. It wasn’t just that Mike would have a child soon. In the future I would want Sharon to be here as well. Nicky too was far more mellow than I’d ever known him. We weren’t running around, pointing out girls to each other, trying to hook glances from across the bar. Neither of us had any desire to do that. In fact we’d probably have spent the rest of the night on our own if Ruth and Heather hadn’t asked if they could share our table. Heather, she told us, was a PR, with the requisite blonde dye job and little black dress. Ruth was an American film exec over on business.
Nicky instantly perked up, sliding the charm on like a silk shirt. He ordered more champagne and was generous with his stash and after an hour or so Heather’s curvy, comfortable body was snuggled nicely into his. This left me talking to Ruth. Mike had succumbed to the inevitable and was fast asleep, his head on his chest in the corner.
All of a sudden it was the night I’d expected. We seemed to have gone back at least five years. We drank three bottles of champagne, and made several trips to the toilets in ones or twos, remembering too late that once you start on the stuff you have to keep starting. Nicky was engrossed with Heather and I too was enjoying myself. Ruth was funny and sharp, and it felt good to be able to talk to her, and find her attractive, with the knowledge that I wanted nothing to happen, I wasn’t forever thinking about which way it was going to go. I told Ruth about Sharon because I thought it was only fair but she didn’t seem bored to death. So much so that when the lights came up she asked me if I knew another bar where we could go. Nicky suggested his: the Old Ludensian. It was the natural place and would have everything we needed, but Ruth had another idea.
‘So you really are a PI, that wasn’t just bullshit?’
Nicky kissed the side of my face, like a Labrador.
‘He is! He left his trenchcoat at home, that’s all. He’ll call you schweetheart in a minute and slap you around.’
‘No, he looks too nice.’
‘Don’t believe it, he’s so tough he uses that toothpaste that tastes of TCP. I’ve seen it in his bathroom. Look at him, being strong and silent.’
‘That’s the absinthe.’
‘Well, if you really are a PI we should go to your place. I’ve never been in a PI’s office.’
‘And neither have I! I can’t believe it! All these years. We can go to my place after.’ He turned back to Heather. ‘I own a bar. Did I tell you?’
‘You told me!’
‘A very, very cool bar. I own it. Did I say?’
‘My office? You really want to?’
Ruth put her hand on my arm. ‘You got anything to drink?’
‘Whisky,’ I said.
‘Great. Anything to sit on?’
‘Some chairs, a sofa bed.’
‘That’ll be like a davenport?’
‘What?’
‘A couch that turns into a bed. If you want it to?’
‘If you want it to.’
‘Then let’s go,’ Ruth said.
The night air hit us like a truck. In the back of the cab Ruth settled in next to me. Earlier I’d noticed a wedding ring on her left hand. Seeing it there, I’d felt invulnerable in a Frodo Baggins kind of way but its power didn’t seem to be as strong as it had been. No, I was safe. I knew what I wanted to do. Nicky and Heather clearly did too because they were practically doing it. Mike, meanwhile, had fallen asleep again, facing backwards, impervious to the car horns and the jolts and the corners. His head was knocking gently against the window, stubble rash raw on the jowls that were beginning to blur his jaw line. He wasn’t ready. That was the simple truth. I wondered if I ever would be. Again I thought of Sharon and the message she’d left. Here was I, my emotions running towards her like a flood tide, but what was she doing? I had a flash of her in an expat embassy bar, with some floppy-haired Oxbridge foreign correspondent telling her how much he cared about the Afghan people as he filled her wine glass. Shit. The cab swung onto a roundabout and Ruth’s hand curled round the top of my knee.
Outside the Lindauer Building we all made to clamber out but Mike said he wanted to take the cab on home. I was the only one who tried to persuade him not to. I wasn’t sure why but I wanted him to come in. Your last night, I said. Mike didn’t look sure at all but eventually he agreed. Ruth’s smile looked a little forced. Again, the air hit me, right in the stomach this time. We all walked towards the gate, the security bar down across the entrance, a low-watt bulb burning in the little booth next to it. I told everyone to keep the noise down but Mike said not to worry.
‘He’s asleep, the useless sod. Look at him. Ron, half man, half chair.’
We all laughed. Even through the booth we could hear the sound of snoring. Ron sat with his arms folded and his neck right back, his mouth wide open like a goose in the rain.
The Lindauer Building stood in front of us, dark and impassive. It usually gives off an impressive quality of permanence but on that occasion it was moving slightly, from side to side. We set off towards it and Ruth stumbled into me.
‘I’ve got you,’ I said, keeping her upright.
‘Good,’ she replied. ‘Have I got you?’
I laughed for an answer, pretending I didn’t know what she was talking about. I could feel her hip on mine and the side of her breast against my chest as she held onto me. Mike stumbled ahead of us and I suddenly wished he hadn’t come in after all. I didn’t mind Nicky knowing, he was still living on the same planet as me. But no, I wasn’t going to do this. Was I? No, I wasn’t. Pulling my keys out of my pocket was a good excuse for disengaging myself from Ruth. I found the lock somehow and called the lift. From behind me came the voice of Nicky Spade.
‘It was 4.21 in the a.m. The building was dark as an empty grave. The two broads wanted to see where I worked and, hell, that was fine by me. I got paid by the day. The brunette was tall, willowy as a young tree and you sure wanted to have a climb. I was with the blonde and she was hot as a stolen Caddy.’
In the lift he carried on. It was rubbish, Dick Van Dyke bad. And very funny. The lift jerked upwards and my stomach lurched like a dishwasher. It was coming in waves now and I tried to stare through it, running a checklist through my arms and legs to make sure they were still part of the team. When the lift stopped it made Ruth stumble, propelling her into my arms again, and for some reason this was the funniest thing that had ever happened, ever. Once more I could feel her, her breasts not quite as full as Sharon’s, her legs a little longer. When the lift doors opened our little slip was overtaken in hilariousness by the fact that Heather, who had been leaning against the doors, fell right out into the corridor.
Nicky helped Heather up and we all followed Mike towards the cafe,
and my office. Heather’s fall had actually had the effect of bringing her round a little and she moved ahead of us, with Nicky.
‘I walked ‘em along the corridor. The lights were dead as…something that had been killed. A long time ago. Through the window at the end of the hall the moon looked like a rock of crack in a velvet glove. Hey, that one’s not bad. We were drunk as Shane MacGowan on Dean Martin’s stag night. Billy’s mate Mike had more booze in him than Al Capone’s bathtub. He was up ahead, his keys jangling in his hand like a dead man’s bones. The door said Sanctuary Cafe. The blonde wanted mixers but I had all the juice I needed right next to me.
‘Big Mike turned the key and gave the door a push. Then he stood in the doorway, not moving. Then he moved. Backwards. “Hey,” I said, “quit stalling.” Then the big sap dropped to his knees. Helping him up wasn’t going to be easy, but then I’m a guy who likes things difficult. When I got to Mike I…’
I looked past him into the cafe. There. There was blood, blood covering everything. Everything. Everything. The whole place was covered with blood. And there was a girl. She’d… She’d been…she’d been cut up, she’d been all cut up. Oh, Jesus. Oh, sweet heaven.
It was Ally—
Part Two
Chapter Nine
The world had changed. It would never be the same. Ever. Nicky’s face told me that. The rest of my life would be lived in a different space, a different time. Everything before that second was wiped away.
When I stepped past Nicky and looked into the room, I couldn’t see Ally’s face because Mike was holding her, drawing her up into his arms. There are six tables in the cafe, all covered by laminated table cloths. The biggest of the tables is circular, about four feet in diameter, and Ally was lying across the centre of it on her back, her legs hanging down towards me. I couldn’t see her face to begin with but I didn’t rush to her like Mike did, I didn’t try to give her the kiss of life. It wasn’t that I could barely move. It wasn’t that every last ounce of breath had been knocked out of my body, that my throat felt like it was being bound by piano wire. It was because Ally’s death was more evident, more certain, more complete than anything I have ever seen. I couldn’t do anything but stand, to be flooded by what I was seeing, my mind clicking the reality of what my eyes were telling it into place, slowly, one piece of information at a time. Then it stopped, refusing to accept anything else. Shutting off, blocking out the very last piece of information it was receiving, not able to process what my eyes were sending it.
There should have been noise. The room itself looked like it was screaming. All I could hear was my heart. Mike was saying something, I could see him. But all I could hear was the thumping inside me.
When Mike drew away, to look at Ally, to stroke her hair, I finally saw her face. Ally looked unconcerned, one eye rolled back into her head like she was bored. The other was staring at me, a brightly coloured marble full of blood. Her lips were painted blue. Ally had been strangled. That was the first thing that had been done to her. The first thing. The hands that Mike tried to place around his neck were clenched into tiny fists, the two thumbnails blue also. As he held his wife’s body, Ally’s fists banged onto Mike’s back, looking to me like she was desperately trying to get him off her.
I saw all these things, but not in the way I’ve just described them. I was too far gone, the booze and the drugs like a gauze, filtering everything. I tried to leap into the moment but something in me, not just the alcohol, kept me drunk, hobbled. A chemical reaction more than a man. I tried to fight it, claw my way into the present, but when I got near I found that I couldn’t. I couldn’t push right through. I couldn’t let it into my life. I tried harder, I tried to see. I still couldn’t move. Not my feet, my hands, my lungs or anything.
Ally’s one eye was still fixed on me. Her hair was stuck to one side of her face. She was red. Everything around her was spattered with red. The table Ally was lying on, the floor beneath it. Mike’s hands were red, his face, his shirt where he was holding her. My hands were stained, and my shirt too, because I’d moved, I’d tried to get hold of Mike, to get him away. Blood spots had found the chairs, even the walls somehow, and they all revolved round Ally. They all came from her. Moving back from Mike I stood still again, blows raining down on me like a fat fighter who can’t respond. Mike was kneeling on a chair, still lifting Ally, speaking her name, shaking her shoulders, kissing her blank face.
Something told me that I had to do something. I had a flash: this was a crime scene. Mike was trashing a crime scene. I tried again to pull him away, ignoring his elbows, his kicks, his screams, which I could hear now. Finally I stopped. What was the point of it? What good would it do? Instead I fumbled for the phone and hit three nines but nothing happened. Of course. The world had stopped. It couldn’t go on any more. Not past this. My eyes found the socket and saw that the cord had been torn out. I used my mobile instead.
I heard screams from the corridor. Annoying, irrelevant sounds. Mike’s words were also unreal. He kept speaking Ally’s name as he kissed her face, as he pressed his lips against hers. Ally still looked unwilling, slipping out of her husband’s arms like a virgin pawed at by a fat prince. What was he shouting for? Didn’t he know she couldn’t hear him? The noise he was making was unbearable, bursting out of a mine of pain so deep he didn’t sound human. I couldn’t bear it. Again I thought about getting him into the corridor but I couldn’t. My hands would no longer reach out to him. He was somewhere else. Another dimension. Instead I found myself backing away, right out of the room, and I wanted to keep going, so far back that the room was just a dot, the doorway far too small to see inside.
Nicky stepped aside for me. He was standing in the corridor, unable to do anything but stare into the cafe at Mike, practically wrestling with the body of his wife. I stood beside him. Once again I knew that I should act, grab Mike, comfort him, anything. But instead I saw my hand. I saw my hand reaching forward. I saw it push until the door clicked shut, leaving Mike and Ally in the cafe alone. Instantly I felt better, until I heard the girls again. They were huddled together, still screaming. I wanted to shut them up, to bind their mouths or else shove them in there with Mike. And then go home. Instead I leaned back against the wall and slumped slowly down it to the floor as Nicky did the same. We stared at the back of the door. At the handprint I had put there. It was thick and clear, the pressure of Mike’s embrace having restarted the flow of blood from Ally’s body. Two lines began to detach themselves from the print, like a cut wrist. They started to speed up and then were racing, overtaking each other as they ran down to the floor.
Chapter Ten
I don’t believe in fate. Most of the time when people use the word fate they really mean chance. We met in Hawaii and we were both drinking pina colada, and his mother’s name is Betty too. It was fate! No, it was chance. As far as fate goes I’m a sceptic, but when the first police officer to arrive at the Lindauer Building that night turned out to be Andy Gold it seemed like fate had sent him.
Andy had been in the station all night taking confessions on his gang rape and was on his way home again when he heard the call go out on his radio. Andy might well have ignored it if he hadn’t recognized the name of my building. He was alone when he ran up the stairs to the third floor and found us huddled in the corridor, the girls screaming louder at the sound of his footsteps. Andy pushed the door open gingerly and looked inside. Within ten minutes he’d been joined by thirty of his colleagues, flooding into the place like a drug injected into the veins of a patient when it’s far too late.
Ally is dead. Ally is dead. The knowledge kept scrolling round in my mind. Nothing else got in. For the next hour everything else was a blur. Every possible light was on, questions were being asked, people were being calmed down. Mike was being brought out into the corridor. He was lost, he didn’t know where to turn. He made a bolt to get back to Ally but the uniforms who had brought him out managed to get hold of him. When he realized that they weren’t just takin
g him out of the room, but out of the building, he struggled harder, kicking and punching until a medic stuck a needle in his leg. When they eventually took him along the corridor towards the lift he was still conscious, just, looking like it was him who had been stabbed. Ruth and Heather scurried away from Mike as if he had the plague.
Ally is dead.
I don’t know how long I stayed in the building. I was a mess. This new world I lived in was horrible, terrifying. I wanted the old one. I found myself taking only short, small breaths, shaking my head every time I saw Ally’s face, trying to keep the image out. Her eye still looked at me. I was cold, shivering. Andy took me into my office, keeping Nicky and the two girls outside. He asked me what happened. He was patient, but insistent. Somehow I managed to get past the three words that were pounding into me to tell him where we’d been that night, what we’d been doing. He wasn’t taking notes, just wanting to get a picture. When I told him about the absinthe and the champagne it all surged up inside me and I nearly puked over the desk. I just held it together. Andy asked me if champagne and absinthe were all and I said no, telling him how good the coke was. He smiled and said that when all this had died down I’d have to get him some.
‘Coppers’ rates, of course,’ he said.
We were in there what? fifteen, twenty minutes. I knew it wasn’t over, though. I wanted my bed, I wanted to sleep and to wake up and for this not to have happened. But I knew I wouldn’t see my bed for a long time. Andy led me out of the office. The brightness backed me up, making me shiver again. Nicky, Heather and Ruth were all gone. In their place, in front of us, four officers were crawling along the corridor on their hands and knees towards the lift. I couldn’t help thinking they looked quite funny. You won’t catch him going that slow, you’d better get a move on. The officers had white coverall suits on with hoods up, paper slippers over their shoes. Andy started to walk me along the hall.
It Was You Page 6