Borrowed Time

by David Mark

  ‘I hate ticking boxes as much as the next man … woman, sorry … if there’s a link to ongoing case work it shows we’re across this – the database is working, we’re an asset, not a nuisance …’

  ‘It’ll be a pissed-off husband, I’m sure of it. A private eye, snooping around, irritates the wrong person and pays the price …’

  ‘Perhaps. But we’ve taken four separate tips from registered informants indicating that Kukuc is suddenly out of the picture …’

  ‘I don’t see the connection.’

  ‘The pattern of injuries, the location of the body, they all point to somebody with knowledge of crime scenes identified between 1968 and 1972 …’

  ‘Anybody with the internet or a library card could find that out,’ says Bosworth, testily. ‘I don’t see why that leads me to sitting in a damp car in bloody Portsmouth.’

  ‘It’s more a case of showing willing … we asked to be given first refusal and it would be churlish to suddenly decide we’re not that interested after all.’

  ‘You’re the boss.’

  ‘Well, that’s not really the philosophy I want to be associated with. We’re a team. First among equals, if I have a title.’

  ‘That’s one of the things we call you, yep.’

  There is silence as he digests this. Gray is guru-calm. Bosworth’s never heard him raise his voice and he can deal with catastrophic news without a flicker of distress crossing his features. He’s been on a lot of courses. He takes the mental health of his workforce seriously and has managed to secure a ‘mindfulness budget’ from the accountants to ensure that HQ is festooned with greenery and that the canteen serves organic fruit and vegetables. He has dehumidifiers at both ends of the office and has insisted that one interview room be set aside as a ‘safe space’ in which his staff can spend time formatting their thoughts. A private counsellor is on-call, and he’s trying to secure the services of a masseuse to provide neck and shoulder relief for the office staff asked to do more than a standard shift. Bosworth likes working for him, even as she counts down the days to his complete nervous breakdown and practices pulling the correct facial expression upon being asked to take over the unit.

  ‘I just don’t know if I see it myself, Mick,’ she says, enjoying the novelty of using a superior officer’s first name. ‘I can do a damn sight more back in London talking to informants. If somebody’s made a move on Kukuc, that’s big. The fact that a dead man’s car is parked near his warehouse, well, to me that kind of shows there’s no connection. Kukuc knows what he’s doing. He would have had it crushed by now if he was involved. And as for this chap I’m door-stepping … remind me his name …’

  ‘Nunn.’

  ‘Small time, wouldn’t you say? He’s got convictions but a different judge on a different day would have given him a reward instead of a record.’

  ‘I know it’s a pain … you’re appreciated, I promise you. You’ll be mentioned by name in the memorandum to the Home Office. It may not seem it, but it’s jobs like this that will secure the future of SOCA …’

  Bosworth nods, eyes closed, knowing that this is all part of the game. Show willing, she tells herself. Be an asset. Play nice up until the point you have to play nasty.

  ‘Of course, Mick. Who knows, it may still pay off.’

  ‘Thank you. We’ll talk again later.’

  Bosworth hangs up. Looks to her number two and gives a theatrical roll of her eyes. Then she nods at the house they have been watching since before the sunrise. ‘Poor sod,’ she says, begrudgingly. ‘No way out of it. Let’s go ruin his day.’

  FOUR

  7.18 a.m.

  Adam pulls on a pair of jeans, a grandad shirt, and shrugs himself into his pinstriped linen jacket – a pale, wrinkled affair, like a deflated brain. He fishes out a pair of yesterday’s socks from under the bed and pulls them on with the practiced soundlessness of somebody used to slipping away unnoticed at two a.m.

  Checks his phone again. A jaunty ‘good morning’ from Grace, complete with a blow-by-blow account of how their daughter managed to sleep for three whole hours in her cot last night before persuading Mummy to let her climb in with her. Adam smiles as he pictures Tilly’s persuasion tactics. She can make a noise like no other two-year-old: an intense and monstrous shriek that Adam thinks he could only replicate with the aid of a horny fox and an industrial blender. He blows a kiss into the air and hopes it finds its way to her cheek.

  ‘… these are meat shears, Jordan – they’re not scissors, why are they up here? Oh for God’s sake, pass them here …’

  Adam can hear bangs and thumps and shouts coming from Jordan’s room. It had been Adam’s study until a little while ago. Now it’s Jordan’s room. Adam’s old walk-in closet is now Selena’s room. His kitchen is now Zara’s excuse for an office. He feels a tremor in his chest; the hot ash of rising panic, and shakes his head like a dog bothered by a wasp. Distracted, he bumbles his way downstairs. Selena, in her sensible school uniform and smelling of freshly-brushed teeth, is standing holding a mug of coffee, smiling at him like he’s Justin Timberlake.

  ‘Morning, Adam.’

  ‘Morning, poppet. You look nice.’

  ‘I don’t. But thanks.’

  ‘You make the best coffee.’

  ‘It’s all to do with the stirring. Anti-clockwise is best.’

  ‘I had an Auntie Clockwise, once. Total wind-up merchant.’

  ‘Was that a joke? I can laugh if it was a joke.’

  ‘You are a horrible person. Well done.’

  Adam kisses Zara’s teenage daughter on the top of the head as he passes, losing his face in her mess of curls. He gets on well with Selena. They do a lot of clandestine eye-rolling and he likes the way she talks to him. She always seems interested in learning new things. She asks him questions in the unshakeable belief that he will know the answer. She’s too old for hand-holding but she sometimes pokes her wrist through the loop of his arm when they’re pushing the trolley around Tesco. They have fun together, making each other laugh as they pursue the woman with the pricing-gun as she shaves pennies off the cost of perishables fifteen minutes before closing time.

  ‘Are we in mourning?’ asks Adam, nodding at the closed curtains.

  ‘Sorry, forgot,’ mutters Selena, and pulls back the drapes. ‘We never used to open them at our old house. Mum said the sunlight showed up the dust.’

  ‘Well, this is Portsmouth – it’s not a problem we often have.’

  Adam smiles, imagining his mother’s contribution to such a discussion. He doesn’t think he can picture her without an apron and a duster. As a child, the house was so mercilessly disinfected that every time he went outside he caught a cold. His immune system still hasn’t recovered.

  There’s a fine mist of rain speckling the pale blue light. Adam squints out past the overgrown front garden; the small two-bed semi across the road.

  ‘That car’s there again,’ says Selena, at his side. She nods towards the spot where the street curves away towards the main road. A black Mercedes is tucked in behind the white telecommunications van that has recently taken up residence outside number 17.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ says Adam, automatically, and squeezes her forearm. ‘You’re safe, I swear.’

  Selena has answered the door to more than her fair share of unwelcome visitors. Bailiffs and enforcement agents called more often than family and friends when they still lived in the flat in Southsea. She can’t see a white van without worrying that there will be a knock on the door from some intimidating specimen in a black uniform, wearing a lanyard like a medal. She’s paid them off with her birthday and babysitting money. She’s set up repayment plans in her mum’s name. She’s hidden behind the sofa, her hand over Jordan’s mouth, crying into the floor and praying for an earthquake. When she sees an unfamiliar car she knows it means trouble.

  ‘Garr!’

  Adam turns at the sound of an enthusiastic pirate taking the stairs four at a time. Jordan is radiating equal am
ounts of glee and menace. Zara has cut the sleeves off a checked shirt, drawn an eyepatch on his face with felt-tip pen and turned some random piece of material into a bandana. An old pair of school trousers has been given a zig-zag hem with a pair of scissors and his pale legs poke out like sticks. Adam’s relieved to see she hasn’t sawn his leg off for authenticity.

  ‘Excellent,’ says Adam, warmly. ‘You look champion, buddy.’

  ‘Best I could do,’ says Zara, following on. ‘I reckon the other kids will walk all over him – he’s such a plank.’

  ‘You’ve done a great job, darling,’ he says to her, kissing her on the top of the head and hoping he sounds complimentary rather than patronising. ‘Genius.’

  ‘It’ll do,’ says Zara. She’s wearing a little skirt and a hooded sweatshirt that smells of yesterday’s cigarettes. She takes a slurp of Adam’s coffee and glances behind him. ‘Car’s there again,’ she says, quietly.

  ‘I’ll go have a word,’ he says, stroking her cheek with the back of his hand. ‘Let me just wake up a bit.’

  Zara doesn’t reply. She plods through to the kitchen and begins searching for clean crockery. Through the open door he sees her pouring cereal into a blue Tupperware box. She pours the milk without sniffing it first, which Adam takes as proof that she’s definitely distracted by other things.

  ‘Have you done your reading?’ shouts Zara, from the kitchen. ‘Jordan? Have you done your reading?’

  Jordan, who is swinging from the front-door handle as though it is the rigging of a ship and making swipes with an imaginary cutlass, looks up at Adam, pleadingly.

  Adam sighs, and shouts back, ‘I promised him he could read to me on the way to school.’

  ‘You’re OK to take them, are you? I didn’t like to ask …’

  ‘You’re flashing,’ says Jordan, pointing to the duty coffee table by the electric fire where Adam’s mobile phone has been charging overnight. He picks it up and glances at the screen. Four missed calls and a couple of voicemails. The first is from his infant daughter, all giggles and squeaks and a song that might be ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’. The other is eight seconds of near-silence; quiet breathing and the whispered sensation of movement, like air rushing past an open window. Adam checks the caller info. The call came at a little after midnight, the number withheld.

  More out of habit than anything else, Adam rings his mum. She answers on the second ring, the way she always does – snatching the phone from the cradle by the kitchen sink and saying the telephone number, complete with area code.

  ‘Morning Mum.’

  ‘Oh, hello son. Sleep well?’

  ‘I don’t know, I was asleep.’

  ‘You’re always taking the mickey out of me.’

  ‘You make it easy.’

  Adam could talk to his mum for hours without ever once really engaging with the conversation. He makes her laugh when he can. Tells her nothing of any great seriousness. Chats to her like a local radio DJ trying to get the best out of a recalcitrant guest.

  ‘How’s Dad?’

  ‘Better than yesterday. He was asking for apple pie and custard.’

  ‘Did he ask for it or did you suggest it?’

  ‘Does that matter?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  Adam’s dad is dying. His mind is disappearing in tiny increments. Some days he is lucid: funny, cantankerous, clever. Others he is a child, unsure of himself, his wife, unable to recognize his own son – lashing out at the district nurse as she wrestles with the tube that slurps the green slime from his rasping lungs.

  ‘I’ll be over later.’

  ‘Only if you’re free …’

  ‘Cheap. Never free.’

  ‘You are a one.’

  He hangs up and savours the moment. Wishes he could say ‘I love you’ without feeling like a prick. Wishes he had the balls to demand answers.

  It took Adam a month to ask his mum the question that he’d kept locked away for as long as he could remember. Am I really yours, Mum? Am I adopted?

  If she’d said no, he would have accepted it. He’d have kissed her and left it alone. He could have swallowed down his suspicions the way he had since he was a boy. But she’d refused to answer. Refused to engage with it. Refused to be in the same room as him while he asked such terrible things. That was when he’d known. Thirty-six years old, and suddenly his mum wasn’t his mum and his dad wasn’t his dad and everything he thought he knew about himself was a lie.

  He glances at the phone. Still nothing from Larry. It’s been five weeks since they last spoke and Adam is growing more anxious. Each day that goes by without answers adds another layer to the fantastical story that Adam is stewing inside his skull. Each day he concocts fresh narratives about his origins and bloodline. He makes believe that he is a Gypsy prince; the heir to a forgotten fortune; a foundling fished from a river in a wicker basket. He isn’t entirely sure he wants to have such fantasies replaced with truth – even as he yearns for some form of contact from the elusive private detective upon whom Adam has invested his last three grand.

  ‘Car’s gone,’ says Selena, peeking out through the curtains. ‘Probably nothing.’

  Adam breathes out, slowly. He’s grateful. He doesn’t really like confrontation. He’s been a doorman, a debt collector, and a security consultant but he’d rather hide in a cupboard than endure unpleasantness. He’s broken up with his last three partners rather than chide them for imperfection. He wonders whether it runs in the family.

  ‘I suppose we should be …’

  Adam doesn’t finish the sentence. The knock at the door is hard. Official.

  Jordan opens it before Adam has the chance to tell him not to.

  There are two of them. The man is pushing fifty. Plump, with iron-grey hair and the burst capillaries and vampiric lips of a red wine drinker. He’s scowling, half a step behind his companion. She’s small, with dark hair cut short and eyebrows that reach a marked point above her blue eyes, making her seem quizzical; disbelieving.

  ‘Hello there,’ she says, seemingly unperturbed at being greeted by a small pirate. ‘I’m a police officer. So’s my friend here. Oh yes we arrr. I’m looking for Mr Nunn? Is he home?’

  Adam, tucked out of the way, is tempted to conceal himself behind the curtains. He fancies he could stand here, listen to the conversation, then take a view on whether or not to ever emerge.

  ‘Yeah, he was here a moment ago …’

  Adam clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Shoots a look to the kitchen, where Zara stands in the doorway, panic pinching her features. Automatically, he twitches out a smile. Don’t worry, it says. It’s nothing. Whatever they think I’ve done, I didn’t do it …

  ‘Hi,’ he says, gently removing Jordan from the doorway and giving both officers his best smile. ‘I’m Adam Nunn. What’s this about …?’

  The woman smiles at him, an oddly incongruous expression. She looks like she’s trying to sell double-glazing, or initiate him into a cult. Either way, he’s not buying.

  ‘Mr Nunn? Oh that is a relief. You haven’t answered any of the phone calls to your mobile – we were starting to worry.’

  Adam rubs a hand through his hair. ‘I get a bad signal. And I do ignore numbers I don’t recognize. How can I help?’

  Bosworth seems to be using her tongue to work something free from her teeth. She gives a sudden grin of triumph, evidently successful. Then she gives Adam her full attention. Cocks her head, and turns to her colleague. ‘You reckon?’ she asks.

  The older man glares. Shrugs. ‘Could be.’

  Adam looks from one to the other. ‘I’m sorry, what’s going on?’

  ‘Could we come in please, Mr Nunn?’

  Adam crosses his arms, unsure whether to play this out like Hugh Grant or Ray Winstone. He can play both roles – the floundering Englishman, and the cocksure bruiser. ‘Why?’ he asks, settling on a middle ground that emerges sounding like a Waitrose Bob Hoskins. ‘You both look very serious. What’s happening
?’

  ‘I’d rather explain inside …’

  ‘I’ve got to get the kids to school …’

  ‘I’d really rather get in out of the rain.’

  ‘Then tell me what you’re after.’

  The senior officer looks disappointed in him. ‘Mr Nunn, my name is Detective Chief Inspector Cass Bosworth of the Serious and Organised Crime Agency. I’m investigating a murder. I’ve driven a long way.’

  Adam grimaces. SOCA are new. They’re the UK’s answer to the FBI. He doesn’t want to be on their radar. He doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong recently but he can’t say for certain. A picture bursts in his imagination; a memory of past misdeeds and more recent indiscretions. Most have been performed at the behest of Larry Paris. He pictures him. A loud shirt; slick curly hair, gelled into waves and question marks, a dark frame around a fleshy pink face.

  ‘A murder? Whose murder?’

  She gives him a look that’s hard to read, her features as inscrutable as a dinner plate. Sucks her teeth. ‘Do you know a Larry Paris?’

  Fuck.

  ‘Larry? Why?’

  ‘I’d prefer it if you let me ask the questions, Mr Nunn.’

  ‘Yeah, I’d prefer it if you’d brought croissants, but it looks like we’re both disappointed.’

  Behind her, the older policeman tenses up. Bosworth gives a tight smile.

  ‘Do you know him, Mr Nunn?’ asks Bosworth, again. She sounds as though she could keep asking all day.

  Adam can feel waves of panic rising inside him. Feels grief, too, before it is replaced with a sudden, ugly burst of self-interest. Larry has his money.

  ‘Jesus,’ he says, quietly.

  ‘No, otherwise he’d have walked on the water. Now, Mr Nunn, are you going to start cooperating? How did you know Mr Paris?’

  ‘We’ve done some work together,’ says Adam, vaguely. He wishes he had a solicitor to call. Wishes he was all the things he’s claimed to be. ‘Christ, that’s awful. Awful. I mean, he’s a mate, of sorts.’

  Bosworth keeps her eyes on him, staring into him as if examining an oil painting for brushstrokes. ‘Mr Paris was found dead last Saturday morning. We are treating his death as murder.’