I had kept the picture of her that I had drawn. That was all I had left. It was tucked into the back of another notepad, in a drawer, under another notepad. Just in case.
‘God, I know,’ I said. ‘You have no fucking idea.’
I saw Mark smile to himself, but he said nothing else on the subject.
For the next half an hour the three of us chatted nonsense and finished a packet of cigarettes between us. Mark was the first to notice when people started coming out of the church.
The coffin came first, being carried to the car by his fellow pilots, ready to be driven to the military cemetery.
‘You want a lift?’ I asked Harriet, slipping down from the tomb on to the wet grass. ‘It’s no trouble.’
‘Can’t say no. It’s got to be better than driving with Dad.’
I couldn’t help checking her eyes as she answered me, searching them for any dilation out of habit, but there was nothing. I knew better than to draw attention to it, but I was impressed.
We walked back towards the congregation after Harriet found her shoes, and I started psyching myself up for an exchange with Dad. I hoped, if only for Mark’s sake, that it wasn’t too embarrassing.
‘Don’t worry, he’ll probably go easy on you,’ Harriet said, as if my thoughts were visible on my face. ‘It was my turn to be the public disgrace today.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Just taking one for the team.’
I was surprised by how many people I didn’t recognize. Even the ones out of uniform were strangers. I wasn’t aware that Tony, or my parents, had known this many people.
I caught Dad’s eyes through the crowd without meaning to, and grimaced rather than smiled.
‘Did you bring garlic?’ Harriet said to Mark, snorting.
‘More like silver bullets…’
‘I left my bag in the church, I’ll be with you in a sec.’ She patted me on the back, as if to wish me luck, and left us.
I watched Mark, looking people up and down with interest. I was glad he had agreed to come. Not just because he was driving and allowing me to get drunk, but because it was a relief to be around at least one person who I knew would keep their cool. He was unshakable; a total fucking lighthouse.
‘Is that your mum?’ he said, with a nod.
Mum was standing a few feet away, being accosted by two ladies who I assumed, from their Scottish accents, were friends of hers. In the moment of silence before she reached us I found myself face to face with Dad.
There was an awkward silence, but we managed to shake hands.
‘You had nothing to say?’ were the first words out of his mouth.
‘No, I… It was great as it was.’
‘We didn’t think you were going to come. Harri said you didn’t sound certain on the phone.’
‘Yeah, well, you could have always called me yourself.’
He glared at me, went to move on, but spotted Mark.
‘Are you going to introduce us, Nic?’ he said.
‘Dad, this is Mark. Mark, this is my dad.’
I could tell from Mark’s smile that he hated him on sight, but it looked convincing enough to anyone else.
‘Your friend from work?’ Dad said.
‘Yeah.’
‘Is work OK?’ He looked me over, taking in the suit and the Rolex replacing his watch on my wrist. ‘You OK for money?’
I considered telling him where to get off, but it was never the right time or place. I could barely summon the anger towards his act any more; all I felt was pity.
‘Thanks, but I’m fine.’
He nodded at me, and carried on.
Mark raised his eyebrows at me, but said nothing.
It struck me that, somewhere, both sets of parents must be organizing a funeral for Pat and Clare Dyer. Possessions would be dispersed and the house sold off. I couldn’t imagine anyone else in that kitchen when all I remembered it for was the blood on my forearms and slow twirls over glass. I wondered who would take the statue, or whether someone with sense would smash it to fuck.
‘You all right?’ Mark said.
He probably thought too well of me for it to cross his mind that I would still be thinking about her. He expected me to be thinking about Tony, or my dad; about something more appropriate, but she was like a disease in the blood.
‘Yeah… Yeah, fuck. Let’s go. At least there’s brandy at home.’
He grinned and put an arm around my shoulders as we walked towards the road. ‘Brandy’s for heroes, Mr Caruana…’
I laughed, searching my pockets for another packet of cigarettes as we passed another car flying the Union Jack.
‘I hate carols,’ I said, taking out my lighter. ‘And you know what else? I fucking hate poetry too.’
Mark smiled, saluting the flag.
‘Oi.’ Harriet came up behind me and slapped me across the shoulder. ‘This mate of yours is still in there, said he wants a word.’
I frowned. ‘What?’
‘When I went to get my bag there was a young guy hanging around. Glasses, kept needing an inhaler – ring any bells? Said he was there to remind you about something. I said you were outside, but—’
I was already running back towards the church, away from the cars and people and their bemused expressions. Freezing air stung my face until I’d sprinted inside, but inside there was nothing but silence and empty pews, an altar and a gold cross.
It had been difficult to sleep recently, with the nagging awareness that Tristan knew where I lived. I found myself searching for a glimpse of him out of our windows, on the tube, in the overhead mirror, looking through the windscreens of cars behind me…
I walked down the aisle, treading quietly, watching the figures painted on to the stained-glass windows. The men looked down on me, their expressions serene and their eyes, sad. In front of me was Tony’s picture. The fucking pretty boy.
‘Tris?’ I said, listening for a reply amongst the echoes, a puff from an inhaler.
Nothing.
Let it go? Like fuck…
‘Tris!’ I raised my voice, feigning bravado to hide the unease. ‘Come on!’
I reached the first row of pews and something had been left on the seats. Tony’s eyes followed me as I sat down opposite a book of psalms, but he was the only witness. I picked up the white plastic bottle and peeled off the paper that had been taped around it, taking another glance around the church.
It was no use. He was gone. It was as if he didn’t need exits. I half expected to see him watching me from the scenes painted on the windows.
The note said, The Chinese enjoyed the spectacle of death, Jim had decided, as a way of reminding themselves of how precariously they were alive.
Precarious, indeed. I smiled thinly.
It was a bottle of lye.
We hope you enjoyed this book.
For an exclusive preview of Girl Seven, the next gripping book in the London Underground series, read on or click here.
To find out about Hanna Jameson, click here.
To discover more books by Hanna Jameson, click here.
For an invitation from the publisher, click here.
Preview
Read on for the first chapter of
What is the price of revenge?
The day her parents and sister were murdered, Seven did not cry. Instead, she tried to forget. She vowed that one day she would be free from the sight of their blood.
But Seven could not forget. And now that she is part of London’s criminal underworld, she knows men who can maim; men who can kill. But they all have a price.
Will Seven betray her friends to avenge her family?
Or to buy Girl Seven, click here.
Because once you’ve got one scar on your face or your heart, it’s only a matter of time before someone gives you another – and another – until a day doesn’t go by when you aren’t being bashed senseless, nor a town that you haven’t been run out of, and you get to be such a goddamn mess that finally it
doesn’t feel right unless you’re getting the Christ beaten out of you – and within a year of that first damning fall, those first down-borne fists, your first run-out, you wind up with flies buzzing around your eyes, back at the same place, the same town, deader than when you left, bobbing around in the swill – a dirty deadbeat whore in a roadside ditch. But a little part of you doesn’t die. A little part of you lives on. And you make an orphan of that corrupt and contemptible part, dumping it right smack in the lap of the ones who first robbed you of your sweetness, for it is the wicked fruit of their crimes, it is their blood, their sin, it belongs there, this child of blood, this spawn of sin...
Nick Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel
Prologue
I could almost see my block of flats from his window, less than two streets away.
Outside the grey cloud melted into grey buildings. Inside I was wrapped in grey sheets with my legs wrapped around Jensen McNamara’s head. I couldn’t stand him, but he was passably attractive and there was nothing else to do. Everyone here was fucking, being fucked over, getting fucked, on drink, on drugs, on a daily basis.
He was a talker, that was for sure.
‘I fucking knew you wanted it... You know, right from that moment you were scaring those kids away and you caught my eyes through the window and you knew I was watching you but you didn’t find it weird, did you? Most girls would find it weird, get scared by a guy looking at them like that, but not you...’
When a guy has his tongue between your legs there’s really only one acceptable response.
‘Mm.’
It could almost be mistaken for pleasure and I thought I’d heard the end of it. What the fuck else did he expect me to say?
‘Go on, talk dirty to me!’ he said.
I wondered if I could gag him. It could always be passed off as erotic.
‘Talk dirty to me, go on, I bet you can. I bet you can be a right nasty little bitch...’
It was funny listening to him for a while but I lost heart not long after that. Even my naturally tanned skin was starting to look grey, like the walls. Everything looked as though it might have been white once, before the flecks of dirt started spreading. I looked down and saw white streaks where some bodily fluid had cut through the grime on the inside of my right thigh.
I couldn’t do this, not again, not now, not with this fucking running commentary...
‘You can stop now,’ I said to the ceiling.
‘What, babe?’
‘I said you can stop now, it’s fine.’ I swung my legs away from him and over the side of the bed, pulling down the edges of my skirt. ‘I’m not in the mood actually.’
‘What... babe?’
I gave him an exasperated look and stood up.
His hurt pride followed me all the way downstairs and through the doors into the humid air hanging over the estate outside. I walked back towards my tower block with my shoulders hunched and head up. Constantly dodging missiles thrown from the roof taught you to walk with your eyes to the sky.
I’d told my family I’d be back by now. I felt some mild guilt that I hadn’t said goodbye to any of them, hadn’t looked at whatever my little sister had wanted me to look at as I’d left... But then, she was five. How interesting was anything a five-year-old wanted to show you going to be anyway? It was hardly going to be salacious gossip about other people in the building or classified government documents.
I entered the stairwell and broken syringes crunched under my feet. No one touched the handrails now. Too many people had gripped it only to catch their hands on concealed needles.
A gang of kids passed me on the way down, reeking of something faecal.
‘Oi, Jap, you got any fags?’
I was half Japanese and half English and couldn’t be mistaken for either nationality, but the nickname had caught on months ago.
‘No.’ I didn’t make eye contact.
‘Think there’s been a fight upstairs, a big one.’
I looked around at them, eyes narrowed. There were three of them, bony and feral with a spattering of red marks down their arms. Even though they only looked thirteen I was barely taller than them.
‘Yeah?’ I raised my eyebrows.
They shifted.
‘Couple of blokes went up, big geezers, like. They had blades like this,’ said the eldest, holding his hands in the air a foot apart. ‘I thought they were the filth for a second but then there was banging and shouting and all sorts. Someone’s got carved up big time. Look.’
The kid pointed and I followed his finger to the blood on the floor. It wasn’t an unusual sight. It was fresh though; wet enough to catch the light.
My mind was with my parents and my sister as I carried on up the stairs.
‘I wouldn’t go up there. There might still be someone waiting.’
Nausea clouded my head, like I already knew.
I ignored them, avoiding the blood on the floor, trying not to think of the blood on the floor and my parents and my sister and blades like this...
Fifth floor and I stopped.
I didn’t want to go further.
I could see my front door, in pieces.
The bile rising in my throat and all I could think of was my parents and my sister and the blood and blades like this.
I could have turned around then, called for help downstairs and spared myself, but I didn’t. My heart pounded into the silence, thumping on the inside of my skull as I moved forwards to ease myself through the wreckage of the door.
More blood on the carpet and my entire body shook.
Blood on the walls blurred as my eyes filled with tears.
I smelt copper and my eyes refocused on an arm, on the floor, an arm and a body, red matted hair and a five-year-old skull cleaved in two.
Bile hit the carpet with the blood: mine. My knees gave way; choking and shaking, hands over my eyes so hard that my cheekbones bruised but I could still see it, still see it and I would never stop seeing it.
I was out of the flat, scrabbling backwards through the blood as it covered my legs. There was blood on my hands, my hands over my eyes and blood on my face. On my feet, hanging on to the wall, on to the banister, forgetting the needles, and then down the stairs, so fast I was barely touching them...
I crashed through the doors on the bottom floor, back out on to the warm concrete. The three kids I had seen on the stairs were loitering, eyes wide and poised to run.
‘You!’ I pointed with a bloodied hand.
They ran.
I ran.
I was faster.
The nearest boy choked as I yanked him backwards by the hood of his jacket, hitting the tarmac with a strangled yelp and a dry slap before I dragged him up and threw him into the wall.
‘YOU SAW THEM!’
He was thrashing, kicking, almost hanging in mid-air with my hands too tight around his throat.
‘YOU SAW THEM! YOU FUCKING SAW THEM!’
He was screaming, almost louder than me.
The other kids hung back, terrified. ‘Fucking leave him alone! Leave off, what’re you doing?’
I punched him, just to stop the noise, just because he was there. All I could see was the blood, and the arm, and the red matted hair and the five-year-old skull cleaved in two.
I let him go and he sank to the ground, cowering and holding his nose, red outlines around his throat and blood trickling through his fingers. The two other kids came forwards, slinking past me to pick him up and pull him away out of harm’s reach.
‘Crazy bitch...’
None of the blood was my own. It was all from my flat, my carpet, my parents and the five-year-old skull cleaved in two. I caught my reflection in a parked red Peugeot and couldn’t recognize it.
Behind me was grey brick and in front of me blinding sky.
I could hear one of the kids on a phone, calling someone. Their voices were a meaningless hum in my ears, ringing with screams and later with sirens. I wanted it to stop, this relentless sound. I
wanted to back into a corner and drown in silence.
The blood was still wet.
I didn’t go back in, but when the police cars arrived it still hadn’t dried. I sat on the kerb ignoring their questions, trying not to remember, trying to unsee it, but the blood was still on my hands, on my face, on my bare legs, and it wasn’t mine.
I had been less than two streets away and the blood was still wet.
1
Almost three years later and it didn’t feel as though that much had changed. Not really. Everyone was still being fucked. It was just in a slightly nicer and more expensive setting. The Underground club was a place that seemed to form itself around me, like a demanding and dysfunctional family that kept my thoughts and actions occupied day to day, night to night.
I was drifting back and forth across the club floor, ferrying drinks in the dark purple light, when one of the Irish girls stopped me. Onstage behind us, another girl was singing in French. Even after a year of working here I still didn’t register many names or personalities; they all looked the same to me, sounded the same, apart from their various nationalities.
But I hadn’t started working here to make friends.
‘Mark Chester wants you serving his table tonight,’ Irish said, winking at me. She winked all the time, to the point where I’d started to think she had a Tourette’s-like condition.
I scanned the club, recognizing the name but not a face. ‘What, he asked for me? Why?’
‘He probably asked Noel for a rec. He doesn’t play for our team, if you know what I mean, but he likes to talk. I’m well jealous actually; he’s so clever and intellectual, like, you’re going to have such a good night!’
‘So, Noel recommended me for my conversation? Right.’ I could barely contain my sarcasm. ‘Which one is he?’
‘He’s the tall hot one over there. Looks like a model, but a kinda weird one... That one!’
Irish put her cocktails on a tray and pushed her mermaid-like blonde hair behind her shoulders. Her name might have been Elise, but I didn’t have a clue really. ‘He’ll either have whiskey or gin and tonic usually. Go ask him.’
Something You Are Page 29