by David Mark
‘I don’t know. Wallet. Drawings or whatever.’
‘You think my cell is safer?’ asks Owen. He sits forward suddenly. His shirt falls open. A long brown cord hangs around his neck, disappearing into his shirt. As he moves, McAvoy spots the pendant at the end. It is a paper clip, bent to form a shape he does not recognise. It looks like a lower-case ‘m’, with a hanging tail.
‘I can’t give you any more,’ says Owen. ‘The coroner didn’t even mention his arms, for Christ’s sake. I’m sorry all this had to happen. I didn’t mean to get you involved.’
‘The herbs,’ says McAvoy, struggling to keep up. ‘You took the blame. They were his . . .’
‘Salt, pepper, vinegar, mustard. Lovely speedwell. Ask your wife.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I’m sorry,’ says Owen, flicking a glance at the video camera. ‘They’re watching.’
Before McAvoy can speak again, Owen lunges forward and grabs him by his collar with both hands. Instinctively, McAvoy pulls back and Owen is dragged across the table, pure hatred in his face. The door bangs open and three men in white shirts and blue ties rush forward and grab Owen. As he struggles to disentangle himself, McAvoy sees one of the men strike Owen hard in the face with his knee. He pulls himself upright, half compelled to pull the prison officers from his former friend, but something in Owen’s eyes holds him where he stands.
‘Hold his arms,’ shouts one of the guards, as another tells McAvoy that the interview is over.
‘You can’t put this right,’ spits Owen, eyes locked on McAvoy’s. ‘I ain’t saying a fucking thing.’
McAvoy is left standing there as they bundle Owen back out of the door and into the gale.
Standing, looking up at the camera, and wondering how much was performance and how much was pure, white-hot hate.
Chapter Six
The roses are Lithuanian. They are an entirely new variety and look as if they are made up of endless folds of white and pink silk. Their thorns are over an inch long. They are the centrepieces of a dozen different bouquets and they have been strategically placed around the houseboat so that she can see them in whichever direction she’s looking. Some of the bouquets contain lilies, and that is the scent she can smell now, even above the aroma of the skin lotion she rubs into her hips and thighs while considering herself in the full-length mirror.
‘Lankininkas siela,’ he whispered in her ear, both hands over her eyes and steering her down the stairs and through the door. ‘Archer Soul. Named for you. So’s the boat, though you’ll have to change your name to MV Endless Summer.’
The dress she was wearing is ruined. One of the bunches of flowers got knocked over during their lovemaking and a splatter of red pollen from the lilies is smeared across the front.
Detective Chief Inspector Sharon Archer pulls the silk robe from the hook on the back of the bathroom door and enjoys the sensation of it on her damp skin. She rubs mist from the mirror and checks her teeth. She has them expensively whitened every three months. Has herself botoxed every six. Has her eyebrows plucked by an Indian girl using twists of thread. She wonders whether she should put on some make-up, but decides that the man in the bedroom next door will not appreciate it. He is happy to stand the cost of her beautification treatments but will not be pleased at being kept waiting while she applies lipstick and foundation, mascara and creams, just for it to be rubbed off on the Egyptian cotton sheets as he pushes her face into the bed with his firm, unyielding hands.
Satisfied, she turns away from the glass. She catches the smell of lilies again and wonders what it is about the scent that disquiets her. Archer hears her name being called and realises she has been standing still, staring into nothing, lost in memories. She can smell those bloody lilies again. They remind her of something she can’t place.
She shakes herself a little. Pulls open the bathroom door and steps out, smiling.
‘Lovely,’ he says, nodding. ‘You put the roses to shame.’
He’s lying on rumpled white sheets, unashamedly naked. An ashtray rests on his chest and he is smoking a long, white cigarette with a gold band around the filter. In the bedroom, the smell of lilies competes with the scent of menthol and nicotine, freshly brewed coffee and their shared sweat.
‘Don’t know why you showered,’ he says, looking at her with a half-smile. ‘I’m going to mess you up again.’
‘I thought I’d give you a blank canvas to paint on,’ she says, standing at the foot of the bed. She knows from experience not to lie down upon it until invited to do so. Even taking a shower could have been viewed as an act of defiance.
‘You left your phone out,’ he says, nodding at the white-painted dresser. On it sit expensive lotions and perfumes. Her phone is where she left it.
Archer’s stomach knots. She does a quick mental scan of anything incriminating she may have left undeleted in her phone. Can think of nothing, but knows that may not matter.
‘Did you look?’ she asks.
He smiles at her, the cigarette clamped between his small, white teeth.
‘Do I need to?’
‘No,’ she says, feeling her face begin to colour.
‘Why’s that, Sherilyn?’
She tries to hold his gaze and admits defeat. ‘Because you know everything anyway.’
‘So why would I mind you leaving your phone out?’
Archer pulls on her earlobe while she thinks how best to answer. She wears no earrings when she sees him. He likes to pull her hair and doesn’t care whether her jewels are ripped from her lobes when he does so.
‘The battery,’ she says.
He looks at her like a proud parent. ‘Well done, my darling. You win a kiss.’
Meekly, Archer moves around the bed and stands beside him. He reaches up and takes the silk of her robe and drags her forward. She resists for only a second. He has soft lips and they press against hers tenderly. She feels his hand slip inside her robe and she goes stiff in his embrace as she feels the stinging pain upon her taut, tanned stomach. He looks into her eyes while he presses the tip of the cigarette against her belly.
‘You take the battery out,’ he says, not unkindly. ‘You take the battery out and then it can’t be traced. Or you leave it the fuck at home. Or you throw it in the river. I’ve told you this before. The fact that you’ve disobeyed me suggests that you don’t respect me. And that doesn’t make me feel happy. You want me to feel happy, don’t you?’
There are tears in Archer’s eyes, but she refuses to look away. She can smell her skin cooking.
‘Are we going to let this spoil today?’ he asks, cocking his head.
‘No,’ says Archer.
‘Promise?’
She pushes forward. Kisses him. They both have their eyes open and she sees his lenses and his dark irises blend together and multiply, as though she is kissing him through a cracked mirror. She feels the cigarette lift from her skin. He indicates that she should climb over him on to the bed. She does so, trying not to show any pain. He reaches down and takes a melting ice cube from the silver chiller on the hardwood floor and passes it to her. She applies it to her burn while he relights his slightly crumpled cigarette with his lighter. It’s a Ronson. He told her once it was a special edition; a replica of the one used by James Bond in Casino Royale. He hadn’t told her to impress her. Just thought she might be interested. If Archer were honest with herself, she would admit that the man next to her couldn’t give a damn whether she is impressed or not. He bought her this houseboat, moored at South Dock Marina in Southwark, and filled it with a new variety of lilies, because he likes the way such acts make him feel about himself. It should have cost £600,000, but the previous owner was persuaded to settle more cheaply for cash. It has two bedrooms and, for the past month, a team of decorators have been turning it into a palatial extravaganza of whites, creams and natural wood. It’s so damn tasteful that Archer feels as though she is being pressed between the pages of a glossy magazine. Of course, the gift c
omes at a price. She has no doubt that he will fuck his whores here. Has no doubt he will ensure that the same dirty sheets are laid out upon the bed next time she comes to London. He’ll probably tell her, in her moments of ecstasy, that the scent in her nostrils is the sweat of an Albanian teenager he abused while she was driving down. She will cry because he likes it, and then she will climax all the harder.
Archer lets the ice melt against her skin. Enjoys the cooling sensation almost as much as part of her liked the burn.
‘I love the boat,’ she says, drawing her legs up and inspecting the red nail varnish on her toes. As she does so, her robe falls open, and her lover smirks a little as he glimpses her nakedness beneath.
‘I knew you would,’ he says. ‘You don’t have to worry about it. It’s registered in the company name but it’s yours. Yours, as much as anything is. Yours, the way you’re mine.’
Archer nods and looks away. On paper, she is three different people. One of those people is Antonia Snow. She is the owner of a string of nail salons and beauty parlours across South London and last year they had a turnover in excess of eight million pounds. The business cleans up some of her lover’s money. She is rarely needed for anything more elaborate than an appearance at the bank to sign paperwork. For that, she receives a quarterly dividend worth five times her police salary. On top of that, she has received gifts of racehorses, stud ponies, a Porsche Boxster and a houseboat. Were any of it traceable, she would be subject to an internal police inquiry that would land her in prison until she was an old lady. But her lover covers his tracks very well. And besides, were anybody to know the truth about the person she is when not catching criminals, her lover would put them in the ground.
She is about to say something appropriately grateful when she is again assailed by the smell of lilies. Suddenly she remembers. While a detective sergeant in Newcastle, she was hurt while apprehending an armed robber during an early-morning house raid. She ended up in hospital, with a compacted vertebra at the top of her spine. She received gifts of chocolate and wine, teddies and cards. Her boss sent lilies, addressed to the Hunchback of Notre Dame. She smiled upon receiving them, remembering the look on his ratty face as she told him that her school had been named after the French cathedral. He always made her smile. He respected her tenacity and brains. She was nearly twenty years younger than him but they became something akin to best friends. They moved to Humberside Police together. His name was Detective Chief Inspector Colin Ray and a few months ago he learned her secret. She has never asked her lover what he did with him. Doesn’t think she could stand to find out.
‘Did I tell you the roses are Lithuanian?’ he asks, nodding at the vase on the antique steamer trunk at the foot of the bed. ‘Best in the world. Ask anybody.’
‘They’re beautiful,’ she says.
He looks away, content with himself.
Archer wonders whether she could call what she feels for him ‘love’. In her heart, she considers the word too anodyne to suffice. Love makes her think of flimsy, flighty people who need endless reassurance and who pop one another’s spots. What she feels for him is something else. He speaks to a part of her that she used to be ashamed of. He is a violent and dangerous man. She knew who he was when she let him seduce her. She did not know the scale of his ambition but she knew he was very, very bad. It didn’t stop her growing so infatuated with him that when he told her to fuck one of his business associates, she did it without question. She did not set out to be corrupted. That part of her was already there. By the time she was taking money to lose evidence and scare off witnesses for his criminal associates, she was well past the point of analysing her motives. She has no get-out plan. She does not know what she will say if she is ever found out. She simply cannot imagine such a possibility. He is too much in control for that. And from what she can tell, he has dirt on everybody with the power to hurt him.
Archer reaches out and touches the ink upon his shoulder. The face of the devil, skull-like and leering, is staring at her with an expression of both pleasure and pain. An upturned spider squats like a dead hand upon the washboard of his stomach. He has Cyrillic stars tattooed upon his pectoral muscles and knees. Archer knows what they say about this man. Knows what it says about her that she would kill for him in a moment.
He wraps his hands around hers. Brushes the hair back from her face. He is moving down the bed; gliding over the luxurious cotton. She knows where he is going. He wants to put his tongue upon her burned skin. Wants to taste her, but wants to get the angle right, so he can watch himself do it in the mirror.
Archer gives a small huff of disappointment as his phone begins to ring. Quick and businesslike, he stands up and finds his phone.
Naked, he admires himself in the mirror. He answers the phone with a curt ‘Privet’.
She watches him as he listens. Nothing changes in his face but his eyes darken. He reaches forward and plucks the head off one of the roses, crushes it in his palm as he talks, swiftly and quietly. He rattles off a number. Gives a name. Hangs up with a promise that he will be there soon.
On the bed Archer watches him get dressed. He seems to have forgotten she is there. As he slips on his jacket, he looks at her with eyes that are made blacker by the brilliant white of the wall he is standing against.
‘He’s been to see Swainson,’ he says, quietly, rolling the word on his tongue like brandy.
Archer’s mind races. Shock shows in her face as she remembers what the name means. Realises, too, who ‘he’ must be.
‘What did they say to each other?’ she asks, gathering her robe around herself as if somebody is watching.
He shakes his head. Smiles, as if making a decision.
‘Maybe time to stop playing with him,’ he says. ‘He should have been underground years ago. It was indulgence to let him live.’
‘He deserved to suffer,’ says Archer, dutifully, pulling herself on to her knees and looking at him the way a dog would look at its master.
‘Bet they had a lot to talk about,’ he says, staring at the wall and ignoring Archer. ‘Fuck, that Jock bastard gets everywhere.’
‘What can I do?’
In this moment, Archer knows that she is entirely his to command. She doesn’t give a damn about domination, or empowerment, or the bullshit people tell themselves when they realise they’re not sufficiently in love to give or take the odd beating. She would rather be who she is than any of the poor, enfeebled victims who get the shit kicked out of them each Friday and Saturday night by men they weren’t good enough to please. Archer always despised them, even as she was arresting their abusers. She lets this man hurt her because she likes it.
‘The inquest,’ she says, remembering. ‘We dealt with that, didn’t we? Accidental death, no more problems . . .’
He holds up his hand to shush her. Runs it down the inside of her bare leg to her perfect toes. She trembles as he plays with them, unsure whether she will receive a kiss or whether he will produce hedge clippers and snip one off. It is a feeling she knows, and needs.
‘It’s in hand,’ he says, rubbing his thumb against the pad of her big toe. ‘He knows better than to say anything. We own him.’
‘But he’s never told you . . .’
He twists his hand, sudden and violent, and Archer cries out in pain as he dislocates her second-smallest toe.
He looks down on her as she whimpers on the bed, clutching her aching foot.
‘He’ll tell me now,’ he says, half to her and half to himself. ‘The fucker will tell me as he dies.’
Archer watches him leave and hopes to God that by the time he is back in her bed, he will have forgiven her for daring to question him.
Above all, she hopes he will not mind if she gathers up the lilies and throws them into the water. She cannot stand the memories, the realisation that she misses her old friend.
Painfully, she slides across the bed and retrieves her phone from the dresser. For a moment she looks through the windows at the purple sk
y above the docks. Marvels at the blackness of the water and the daffodil yellow of the lamps that light the quay.
Finds herself smiling, through the pain. He’ll come back. In his own way, he loves her. In his own way, he thinks of her as the only person with whom he can be entirely himself.
She knows who he is, who he was, and who he intends to be.
It is four years since he was Detective Superintendent Doug Roper. Three years since he established a consultancy firm in London and began offering security solutions to outfits of questionable morality. For the last couple of years, that company has been little more than a front for a criminal organisation that the authorities call the Headhunters, which has left burned bodies up and down the country and changed the nature of organised crime.
She is his lover. And she will take all the pain he wants to dish out.
Chapter Seven
Wansford Lane, Newport, East Yorkshire. 4.47 p.m.
What little sunshine the day brought is bleeding into darkness by the time McAvoy spots the sudden gap in the hedgerows to his right and swings the car on to a rutted farm track. Through the dirty streaks on the windscreen and the half-hearted rain that blows in from the river, he can make out the distant shape of the main farmhouse. It does not look inviting. He grudgingly lets go of his vague fantasy that some rosy-cheeked farmer’s wife will come out to greet him with a tray of fresh-baked scones, a pot of tea, and offers of a complimentary shoulder rub.
He’s driven with his headlights on all day but in this bruised half-light he feels a sudden urge to flick them to full beam. He slows down to double-check he is in the right place. The sat nav function in his phone confirms he has found Shepton Farm, though he is feeling sufficiently harassed to think that he would have had more success if he had typed ‘arse end of nowhere’ into the address box.
For the past hour he has been teaching the sat nav a variety of new words, cursing it in English, Gaelic and something unintelligible as it repeatedly lost the signal and left him adrift, performing complicated U-turns on single-track roads as he did battle with the landscape, lost in a two-mile stretch of countryside between Newport and Gilberdyke.