by TL Dyer
Ange stands in front of the sink, still in her work clothes and heels, hands pinned against the counter behind her. With her make up on and hair done, she looks a long way from the fragile state she was in yesterday. In fact, she looks like she could take my head off.
I throw the keys to the breakfast bar and try to keep calm. Difficult enough to do when confronted with a stranger with a violent history and a blade in his hand, even more so when faced with the woman who’s known me for nineteen years and can recite my habits and traits and family memories better than I can. I must have realized she’d see right through me. I pull out a stool and sit, the air crackling with a tension I’m not sure I have the stomach for. But she’s watching me, waiting for me to ask the question I don’t want to ask.
‘What’s going on?’ I say. With all this with Rumpole, I wouldn’t have picked now as a good time, but if it has to be, I’ll lay it bare, be straight with her. I don’t have the energy for anything else.
‘You should know what he’s done.’
I drag my gaze up to hers. She’s tapping her fingernails against the counter, the twist of her mouth to one side as she chews the inside of her lip. She’s not angry with me, she’s nervous; in that way she gets when she has something to tell me I won’t like.
‘Who?’
‘Your son.’
I glance down the hallway towards the stairs as if I might see him there, or figure it out for myself, or get some kind of clue. But all I have when I look back at her is, what the fuck now?
‘I thought we both agreed he could stay home today,’ I say.
‘It’s not that.’
‘Then what?’
She comes over to sit opposite me at the breakfast bar. ‘Look, Steve. I need you to listen first.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘I thought about not telling you, but—’
‘Not telling me?’
‘Steve,’ she snaps. Wrists resting on the counter, she holds up her palms. ‘Just don’t...’
‘Christ, Ange, spit it out,’ I say, her agitation not helping either of us, but she pins her lips together. I hold up my hands in the same way she does. ‘Alright. Listening.’
‘I called him from work earlier to check how he was. I was afraid maybe he was still upset about yesterday. But he wasn’t, he was fine. Better than fine. He sounded... I don’t know, I can’t put my finger on it. It didn’t sound like him.’
‘Right.’
‘Then when I got home...’ She glances down the hall. ‘Well I could smell it coming up the driveway. His window was wide open.’
I stare at her, waiting for the rest, as if I need to hear it.
‘I come in, and halfway up the stairs I’m certain of it. But when I go in his room, he’s lying there on his bed, listening to music, not doing anything. But I know the smell, Steve. And it wasn’t cigarettes.’
‘Did you catch him with it? Any signs?’
‘No. But he couldn’t look at me straight.’
‘Did you ask him?’
‘He denied it. Gave me that stare. Like I’m stupid—’
I’m up from the stool before she finishes. It topples and crashes to the floor.
‘Steve,’ she calls behind me, but I’m already down the hall, taking the stairs two at a time, and I can smell a trace of it myself now, that stink that’s haunted me most days of my working career, the one that gets in the back of my throat so I taste it on everything I eat afterwards. The same stench that tells me here’s another one busted, another fucking dumb-brained idiot, another waster. And that’s great for them. But here? In my house? My own son?
His bedroom door hits the wall hard enough that I’ll have put a dent in it. Dan jumps upright on the bed so fast his earphones get ripped from his ears and his phone crashes to the floor. It’s the most alert I’ve seen him in years, and makes him look more like the child he used to be. But all I can think is that I want to grab him by the t-shirt and shake some sense into him.
I don’t do that. Not yet, anyway. I stand at the bottom of his bed, and voice calm but with enough of an edge that he won’t be mistaken about my intention, I say, ‘One question. And you’d better give the straight answer or I’ll knock you from here into next week, you understand me?’
‘Steve!’ Ange admonishes, coming in behind me and rushing across the room to close the window.
‘Do you understand me, Dan?’
Mouth agape and eyes wide, he nods. But his mind’s ticking over. He’s not one of those idiots I deal with every day, he’s an intelligent kid, but he’s also shit scared, as he should be, and running through his options, which he shouldn’t.
‘Have you been smoking pot, Dan?’
His chest rises and falls fast, eyes hooked by mine and defeat clear in them all too easy. He nods.
‘In this house?’
Eyes cloud with tears and he nods again.
‘How many times?’
His lip trembles, and out of the corner of my eye I catch Ange’s hand going to her mouth, to stop herself from doing what she wants, which is to comfort him.
‘How many times?’ I repeat, louder.
‘Just the once,’ he says, voice breaking over the words.
‘Just the once?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you lying to me, Dan?’ I say, loud enough that Ange steps up to the bed and tries to catch my eye, but she doesn’t know how to extract the truth out of someone; I do.
‘No. I swear I’m not.’
‘You swear? You’re absolutely sure? Because I’ll find out. And if you’ve lied to me, this will be a hell of a lot worse for you. You know that, Dan, don’t you?’
‘I’m not lying,’ he chokes over a sob. ‘I’ve never done it before.’
‘Never?’
‘No.’
‘Where did you get it?’
‘I...’ He looks at me like he’s trying to think of an answer. If he’s trying to think of an answer, it’s not the right one.
‘Where the fuck did you get it, Dan? Who gave it to you?’
‘Steve, that’s enough,’ Ange says, her hand on my arm, getting between us, interrupting the flow, protecting him, undermining me.
‘I’m a police officer, Ange. How will that look when I can’t control my own son? How about I go book him in myself? Save some other poor sod wasting time with it? Because that’s all kids doing this stuff are. Numb-skulled wasters stopping us from dealing with the more important things, sucking our resources over and over again.’
Ange breaks the glare as footsteps thud over the floor beside us. ‘Dan,’ she calls, but the door slams in its frame and a second later the bathroom door does the same.
I scan the room for all the places he might have hidden it, check under the duvet, the pillows, mattress, his bedside drawers. But when I turn to the wardrobe, Ange stands in my way.
‘It’s not your son you need to worry about keeping control of, Steve. And maybe you should think about why you wanted to do this job in the first place. Because you don’t have to do it. It was your choice. Remember that. And stop beating the rest of us over the head with it.’
She leaves the room, closing the door behind her, and a moment later I hear her tapping at the bathroom door and calling his name. I tut under my breath. Of all the things Dan needs right now, comfort’s the last of them. I open his wardrobe and rifle through clothes, shoes, bags and school books, thinking over his answers to my questions, in particular the one he broke on. Where did you get it? Why break on that one? Was it one of his friends, someone I know? Someone he’s protecting? Not someone like Cranky, then?
I freeze with my hands on his gym bag, in which I find his school-issue shorts and t-shirt and a pack of Rizla papers, opened but full. I put it all back and close the doors, leave his room and go downstairs to the hallway and the jackets hanging on the coat hooks. One of mine is on top of all the others on the last hook. Sometimes when we’re going out to the bins or the shed or the garage, we grab the fi
rst one that’s there, and I can already picture it. I picture Dan pulling on my jacket to go out to the freezing cold garage to look for Rumpole’s things, maybe sit with them a while. And maybe, being a teenager, he rooted about in the pockets. And maybe he found something. Something I’d forgotten about in the pocket of the jacket I was wearing the night I met with Cranky to gauge what he knew about Anna.
I check all the pockets, already knowing I won’t find the weed Cranky sold me that night. Already knowing that the one who supplied Dan, and the one he’s tight-lipped about protecting, is me.
Chapter 33
I spent half of last night in the garage sat on a boxed dinner set given to us as a wedding gift that we’ve never opened, two cans of lager at my feet, one in my hand, and Rumpole’s blanket on my lap. So by the time I’m clocking on for shift the next day, I’m already bracing for a long one. My head’s fuzzy from more than just the drink, and the stitches are giving me murder, itching like crazy, so that all I want to do is tear the bloody things out.
When I stop for a break, I call the hospital while parked across the road from them and check when the stitches are supposed to come out. They tell me they won’t, they’ll just dissolve. I ask how long it takes, and the nurse says if they’re itching that’s a good sign. I hang up with my unuttered response sitting on my tongue, and suffer the rest of the day, stopping in a Superdrug to pick up some cold cream, which works great for the first thirty seconds, and thereafter only if constantly reapplied. But later, when I’m putting the cuffs on a bearded forty-eight-year-old HGV driver for multiple offences, including breaching the terms of his parole and driving without a valid licence, he tells me there’s a smell about me that reminds him of a youngster who used to drop into the cab of his truck in Calais back when he was pressing tarmac cross-continent for Eddie Stobart. After that, I throw the cream in the bin outside the train station and head back to HQ early to tie up the paperwork before end of shift. There’s something I need to do as soon as I’m done here, and I’ve delayed it long enough.
*
The car park’s almost empty at this time of the evening, most of the students already gone. I pull up beside the Mustang, where I get a good view of a thin scratch all the way from the rear wheel arch along the bottom of the panels to the front one. Shame he hasn’t got that patched up.
I go in through the side entrance and follow the signs to lecture theatre number four, the one I was told on the phone when I called ahead to avoid a wasted trip. The corridors are empty and the soles of my shoes peel over the polished linoleum which reflects the light from the windows up at the ceiling. Somewhere down the hall an instrument is being played, deep and throaty. Strings; cello or something similar. I imagine Anna here, walking where I walk, her head full of hopes and aspirations and this the place she’d thought would be the start of it all.
Pausing outside room four, I see a figure through the glass panel of the door, hunched over his desk. He’s marking papers, who passes, who fails. Still making those choices, though with one less student in his class, maybe his best student. Still teaching the same things term after term, still collecting his salary, still a pillar of the college, still breathing.
The door is heavy and squeals on its hinges when I push it open. Dr Adrian Lee Simons, former US citizen and family man, lifts his head from his task, the smile he had planned barely faltering. I’m not the person he was expecting.
‘Hi, can I help you?’ he says, pen in hand.
I cross the room, looking around. ‘Yeah, I think you can.’
‘Are you lost? Who is it you’re looking for?’
It’s not how I picture a lecture theatre. Not one of those bleacher-style setups, where the benches and desks are layered in ascending levels so that everyone gets a good view of the lecturer holding centre stage down at the front. This is just one large room with rows of tables and chairs, like a children’s classroom.
‘Sorry, sir, only I’m due to have a meeting in here shortly?’ Simons says, a question not a statement, though one he won’t be expecting me to have the answer to.
‘West?’ I ask, stopping by the window where I see our cars from here, side by side.
‘Pardon me?’
I glance back over my shoulder. ‘The accent. I’m not great with dialect, but I’d take a stab you’re from out west.’
Simons is wary, but if nothing else, all-American polite. ‘That’s correct. Yes, sir. Seattle.’
‘Nice. How did you end up here?’
I pick up a chair from the nearest desk and bring it over to sit across from him. He puts down his pen, glancing towards the door and the clock on the wall.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m expecting someone.’
I hold out my hands. ‘And here I am.’
‘No, I’m... Sorry, who are you again?’
His dark eyes sink under thick eyebrows, and I can see how the girls would go crazy for him – fresh-faced but with a shadow of stubble, light tan on his neck that suggests he still spends summers and special occasions across the waters with his family. I also see his mind ticking over. He’s an intelligent man. And I don’t trust him already.
Leaning forward, I clasp my hands on his desk. ‘I’m a friend of Anna’s.’
‘Anna?’
‘Yeah, you remember Anna? Anna Johnson. She was a student in your class.’
He holds my gaze but there’s caution there, something he doesn’t want me to see and is doing well to hide, considering.
‘Of course I remember Anna,’ he says, low and guarded. For a moment he looks a lot less of the man he proclaims to be – the Mustang and the accent and the laid-back confidence all paling under the weight of what he’s done.
‘I’m expecting her father any minute,’ he adds.
‘Yeah, no, sorry about that. I’m afraid he won’t be coming.’
Simons leans back in his chair slow enough that it creaks beneath him. ‘So do you mind telling me just who you are?’
‘I already did that. More importantly, Adrian, who are you? Or more specifically, what kind of man are you?’
A hardness comes over his eyes that I imagine few people see. He’s weighing up his options, how fast he can get to that door if he needs to, what his wife packed in his lunch box he could use for protection. A fork from his salad. Gouge my eye out with the spoon from his yogurt.
‘What the fuck is this about?’ he says, a speck of saliva launching from his lips and landing on some poor kid’s paper. He’s on edge. He’s not used to confrontation. Why would he be? Cowards never are.
‘Oh Adrian, such a shame, I’m disappointed. I didn’t have you down as a potty mouth. Good family man like you.’
He’s up from his seat, chair legs scraping over the floor. I do the same, and now we both know where we’re at.
‘Do I need to call security?’
I peer around the room. ‘What with? Is there a button under that desk? Batphone? I hate to tell you this, my friend, but I didn’t see any security on the way in. And Cliff, your usual man, clocked off about half an hour ago. He’s already home in front of the TV by now.’
Simons takes a step back, but I hold up my hands.
‘Easy, tiger. I just want to have a chat with you. That’s all.’
‘About what?’
‘Come on, Adrian. You know what.’
The muscles along his jaw clench while he eyes me long enough to come to a decision, the outcome of which is to gather up the work on his desk.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, picking up his case from the floor and opening it to throw in the papers. ‘I really don’t know what this is about and I need to get home.’
‘Course you do. I can appreciate that, I have a family too. I won’t keep you long.’
‘So if you don’t mind, this conversation is over.’ He clicks the case shut and pulls it from the desk.
I let him get halfway across the room before I say, ‘So does Ellen know about you and Anna, Brad?’
He spins around, tension pulling up his shoulders, something else flooding his throat and cheeks with blood.
‘What are you talking about? Who the hell is Brad?’
There’s a genuine confusion about him that just for a fleeting second has me wondering if I’ve got this entire thing wrong. But I hold firm, remember who I’m dealing with. Simons won’t give everything up easily, he has too much to lose for that.
‘Oh, you didn’t realize that’s what she called you?’ I perch on the end of his desk and force a smile. ‘In her contacts, anyway. To protect herself, I suppose, in case anyone got hold of her phone. Or, god forbid, to protect you. I mean, if that ever got out, that you and she were...’
I intend to say something crude but the words won’t make it out, not with Anna’s face in my mind, and besides there’s no need, I’ve already pressed the right buttons. He strides across the room towards me.
‘Who the hell do you think you are? How dare you?’
‘No, how dare you, Adrian?’ I get up from the desk, and I’ve got a good few inches on him. ‘That’s what I really want to know. How did you dare screw a student, in the process screwing up her life, and still find you can sleep next to your wife at night?’
His case hits the floor at our feet, breaking open and papers scattering. Hands grip my t-shirt, and with more strength than I would’ve given him credit for, he pushes me off balance and against the desk. I let him. He’s breathing hard and something dark burns in his eyes, but he’s not ready to throw a punch yet.
‘I mean, do you even feel guilty, Adrian? Does it keep you up at night? And how many others have there been?’
‘I have never touched a student. Never.’
I laugh. ‘Come on, we both know that’s not true.’
He shakes his head, mouth tangled in disgust, fists curling in my t-shirt. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘No? How about, I think I screwed up last time and I’m really sorry. I miss you... Or even, Usual place. But we’ll have to be quick—’
The punch is hard enough to knock me to the floor and daze me for a second. Mostly because I didn’t think he’d really do it. But I scramble to my feet as the numbness in my cheek recedes and nerve endings flare into life. I hold my hand to my face, move my jaw around.