Plastic

by Christopher Fowler

  Rennie sulked like a fractious husband, thrusting his hands into his pockets. He was quite attractive in a degenerate way, but I couldn’t see him as husband material; too arrogant, too restless. He seemed less concerned about being shot than being embarrassed.

  ‘If I don’t find the shoes that go with this dress, I’m going to kill you.’ I was only half joking. I piled him with bags and headed for Marks & Spencer. I didn’t care where I shopped. The mere act of exercising purchasing power was enough to restore me. It would be an ignominious end to a career as a crimelord, arrested at the M&S bra and knicker counter.

  ‘What do you think, the grey or the blue?’ I asked, holding different brassieres against my breasts.

  ‘I don’t know, I really don’t care,’ my hostage replied sulkily.

  I let him see the muzzle of the gun again. ‘Make a decision.’

  ‘The blue. This is like being married.’ Rennie shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘Do you want me to sit down over there and leaf through magazines while you rob the till?’

  I changed my clothes in the cubicle with Rennie standing on the other side and the gun trained through the door. Balancing on one leg like an armed flamingo was not an easy thing to do. Shopping had been my drug of choice, and I had gone for one final overdose, hoping it would now be out of my system.

  I applied some lipstick while targeting Rennie in the makeup-mirror, Annie Oakley attempting a trick shot. As I did so, I caught sight of a cashier peering around a rack of remaindered skirts at us, but when I looked back the girl had vanished.

  ‘Just stay close enough for me to shoot you if I have to.’ I piled my hostage high and aimed him at the checkout. I was nudging him with the gun-barrel just as his mobile rang.

  ‘Answer it,’ I commanded.

  He flipped open the phone. ‘Hi... yes, we’ve sorted it out. No, I’m still with her.’ He listened for a moment, then covered the phone. ‘It’s my director. He wants to know where we are. Where are we?’ He took a look around. ‘Marks & Spencer. We’re in ladies’ separates, but I think we’re heading for tops and tights. No, why would I be joking?’

  I was surprised to hear he had a boss. How high did these things go?

  The counter girl was pretty, but heavily made up. She didn’t seem to notice that I looked – quite accurately, as it happened – as if I’d fallen into an incinerator and been tied to a chair. She didn’t see anything beyond the eyeline of her route between counter and screen. She could have been on the fourth quarter of her shift in a factory, filling bullet cases with powder.

  We waited awkwardly as she detagged the items and folded them into carrier bags. I felt the burning panic that had been roaring about inside me receding as each purchase received its tissue-paper prepuce. Rennie withdrew a platinum Amex card and handed it to the cashier. I almost fell in love with him.

  ‘What do you want to do now?’ he asked as we moved toward the exit. Overhead, a soothing voice told us the mall was closing. I was disappointed because there was a perfume concession somewhere above us selling virgin rose-oil at £600 an ounce. Rennie had got off lightly.

  ‘Give me a minute,’ I told him. ‘I’ll think of something.’

  ‘Dinner? Arson? Blackmail? When you abduct someone it’s a good idea to have a plan.’

  I had no answer for him. Now that I had shopped, the familiar thrill was fading to post-coital guilt. We reached the car with a trolley full of purchases and he began loading them onto the rear seat.

  ‘You don’t know, do you?’ he pushed. ‘Look in the back of the car, all the clothes you don’t want. Are you planning a killing spree, or shall we just go and get your legs waxed? You can’t go home, you can’t stay here. You’re stuck between two lives. There’s no quick fix; shopping will never work again after this. I’ll tell you, some of the people who work for me get into drugs. They’re fine for a while, but after that they get so restless they don’t know what to do with themselves, and that’s when it gets dangerous, for me and for them. You’re in the same state, I can see it in your eyes. You have to figure it out, June. What the hell is it you want? Until you figure that out, you’ll never cure your addiction.’

  ‘I’m not listening to you, Mr. Rennie, you kill people.’

  ‘Give me a break, it’s been an unusual week. I explained to you that the girl had to be punished. She was jacked-up all the time and useless at her job. She went missing for days. She’d have died young if she’d stayed in her own country.’

  ‘Instead she ended up in an incinerator.’

  ‘Don’t preach to me. The guy you knifed in Lower Marsh market is still breathing, no thanks to you. He has to have a zipper in his stomach.’

  ‘I thought I’d killed him.’

  ‘Yes, you’ve blazed quite a trail, haven’t you? Interfering here and there, stabbing one of my best men, forcing us to get rid of the doctor and generally screwing everything up wherever you go. Why don’t you let me call your husband and have him take you home? Go and do some damage in the suburbs where it won’t be noticed.’

  ‘He’s divorcing me. And he’s sold the home. I’ve got nothing to go back for.’

  ‘There are plenty more –’

  ‘Don’t say it. I’m nearly thirty. All the women’s magazines agree that the odds of getting into a permanent relationship after the age of thirty are the same as being in a fatal boating accident.’

  ‘Listen, thirty is no age at all. I have sixty-year-olds working for me who look fantastic.’

  ‘I don’t want to bleach my hair and be filmed giving blowjobs on the internet, thank you. Every woman looks good when you only see the back of her head.’

  ‘Ah.’ Rennie thought for a minute. ‘I don’t suppose you’d consider employment in a more legitimate capacity?’

  I suddenly felt so very tired. I sniffed and wiped my eyes, swinging the gun into my right hand and causing Rennie to duck back. ‘Doing what?’ I asked, trying not to let my voice quaver. ‘What can I do? I’m still a housewife, for God’s sake, it’s in my genes. I can’t stop reading the backs of cleaning product packages because it’s too ingrained in me. You’re not even supposed to say “housewife” anymore, you’re an “unwaged homemaker”. But I was rubbish at homemaking, even at school. I dropped out right after we did meringues.’

  ‘Nobody cares whether or not you finished school. You’ve got one major asset you’ve overlooked. You’re respectable. Take a look at yourself. Anyone would trust you. Do you know how rare that is in our line of work?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. It could be a big help. Tell you something, June. I’ll admit I was going to have this little business sorted out in the traditional manner, but that was before I got to know you. I wouldn’t hurt you now. I think you could be an asset to us, I really do.’ He looked over at me and his smile lit up the interior of the Mercedes. ‘Put the gun down, for God’s sake. Let’s go back to the Ziggurat.’

  We drove in silence for a while. I wasn’t about to suddenly drop my guard just because he was being charming. But I lowered the gun onto the seat, and looked sadly back at all the ridiculous carrier bags.

  ‘I don’t want you to hurt Stefan.’

  ‘He used to work for me. I don’t hurt my own people unless I have to. It’s up to him now.’

  ‘Thank you for the clothes. I can’t help myself.’

  ‘We all have our obsessions, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about.’ He pulled up in front of the darkened building. The other car was still there, but there was no sign of any Fosh activity. ‘They’re up in the penthouse.’

  ‘I don’t think I should come up,’ I told him. I was counting on the police not giving up on me, but couldn’t see them anywhere. If I knew they had the place under surveillance there was a still a chance that I could get out, but the odds had fallen to around zero. ‘You could lend me a few pounds, I could check myself into a hotel and think things through for a few days. Maybe come to some kind of decision about my future.’


  ‘I think if you search your heart you’ll find you’ve already made up your mind.’ Rennie’s fingers brushed my shoulder lightly. ‘Tell me, June, when was the last time you had really good sex?’

  ‘That’s none of your business.’ The question was impertinent, but the answer would have shocked him.

  ‘I bet it was a really long time ago.’ He reached back, and before I could see what was happening, he kissed me.

  I remember that kiss. Body warmth, Cartier aftershave, a prickly chin, something else, something stony and secret, so different from Stefan. I broke free, flustered, trying to speak. ‘Listen to me a minute,’ I asked. ‘You don’t know what I’m like.’

  ‘I think I do. If you’d fallen in with a wild crowd or done something crazy instead of trying to please people, you could have got away, but you left it too long and one day you woke up next to a man you didn’t love. You lay in bed watching him sleep, wondering how you could leave and survive. What you should have done was take a chance and walk. Life is too short to worry about what other people think.’

  It was as if he could read my mind. ‘Do you know how often I’ve painted my nails at home?’ I asked him. ‘Every day, while I watched the Living Channel. I thought I was addicted to the smell of polish remover, but since I’ve been here I haven’t even thought about doing it. I don’t think I even care about my cuticles any more.’

  He turned to me and smiled. ‘Scientists say we’re shaped by our environment, June. There’s hardly any hereditary influence at all. After all the social experiments, they discovered that the family no longer has a hold on us. It means there’s still time for us all to change. So how do you want to do it? Benjamin Disraeli said that London is a modern Babylon. It’s a tribal society. All you have to do is pick your tribe.’ It sounded like a line worn thin with previous use, but I didn’t care. He kissed me again, his warm, peculiarly large tongue searching my mouth. I thought of Stefan and felt ashamed, but closed my eyes as he embraced me.

  This time he broke away first. ‘I’m sorry, June.’

  I opened my eyes. Rennie had the gun in his hand. He held it with the muzzle down, as though he felt it was inconsiderate and unnecessary to point it. ‘Let’s go upstairs and figure this whole thing out.’

  This is a really sleazy way to die, I thought as we climbed the stairs into the Ziggurat, my mother’s worst fears will all be confirmed. You failed to have children, your husband walked out on you, of course you were bound to be shot in the head by gangsters. I felt strangely calm, like Anne Boleyn going to the axe. At least I would never have to return to Hamingwell again, never have to spend arid days waiting for nothing in particular to happen, never have to hold dinner conversations so dull that they dried my mouth to sand.

  Rennie guided me, his hand firmly pressed at the base of my spine as I climbed. When we reached the penthouse, I was surprised to see that the two remaining Foshes had revealed a flair for interior decoration. Perhaps they were a couple. The covers were thrown back from the lounge furniture and dozens of fat cream candles had been lit. The room looked positively cosy, although there was no disguising the vulgarity of the soft furnishings.

  I hadn’t expected him to hit me. The blow, the back of his hand across my face, caught me completely by surprise, so that I was thrown down onto the sofa. I tasted blood in my mouth; a tooth had cut my gum, nothing more, but it stung. One of the Foshes inexpertly slipped another plastic tag over my wrists. I studied Rennie, bewildered.

  ‘That was for making me go shopping with you, that’s all.’ He checked the edge of his hand and rubbed it. ‘You shouldn’t get involved with things you don’t understand.’

  ‘I had to. I did it for her.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I couldn’t let Petra go like that,’ I explained, ‘without anyone caring whether she even existed.’

  Rennie considered the point for a minute. ‘I think there’s something I should tell you.’ He shrugged at the Foshes. ‘This wasn’t about Petra hiding the book. That’s not why she was punished. Your friend Stefan knows the truth. You should have asked him when you had the chance.’

  One of the Foshes strolled out of the room and re-entered with a thicker plastic tie looped over his arm.

  ‘No,’ I said quietly.

  I tried to climb over the back of the sofa, but he snapped the thing around my throat in one smooth movement; it was an action made quotidian by repetition. He tightened the band, clicking it until it enclosed my neck tightly. Now I understood why Petra’s hands had been tied. It had been to stop her from wriggling her fingers under the noose.

  ‘You know why we use this, don’t you, June?’ asked Rennie. ‘Everyone understands once it’s on them.’

  I did understand. It was not a method of torture but control, pure and simple. A dog, a slave, a subservient creature who would be forced to obey. Now that I could feel the edge at my neck, it was obvious.

  Rennie slid his arms beneath me and carried me gently to the bedroom, laying me down on the bare mattress. ‘You two, go and put some lights on in the kitchen, and bring Stefan up here.’

  Rennie called the rest of his men out into the hall and said something to them. Even without catching his words, I understood what was to happen. The incinerator would start working as soon as the building works were finished. I twisted my head to read my watch: 21:46pm. I wondered if anyone would ever find me; I wasn’t even wearing my wedding ring anymore. That had vanished in the ransacking of the house. Even my charm bracelet was in the incinerator.

  It was becoming hard to catch my breath. It was as though someone had put a plastic bag over my head. Rennie was arguing with the others about something. I sat up, then tried to stand, but the room was in darkness and my tied wrists made it difficult for me to keep balanced. My vision had started to spackle with orange dots, like phasing television reception.

  I needed to conserve my breath. I remembered that the bedroom had sliding doors leading to the balcony, but couldn’t find the handles with my hands tied behind me. Lost to a world of pain, I fell back and spread my fingers wide, distantly searching for the catch. When I found it, I pushed down hard. The door rumbled softly as I pushed it back. Night air swept into the room, cooling the molten band at my throat.

  I can’t do it again, I thought, not now, I nearly killed myself last time. As it turned out, I didn’t have the option. The top of the yellow rubble pipe had fallen away. There was no other way down.

  I had reached the end of my journey. I was never intended to leave the Ziggurat. Something had always drawn me back here, to my final resting place.

  What would I have sacrificed in return for one more minute, one more second of breath? I was the stroke victim, the heart attack sufferer, the dying patient we must all one day become. The darkness drew choking blinds around me. I felt myself tipping and falling to the balcony floor.

  The pain vanished as I lost consciousness. This is my death, I thought calmly. It’s not so bad. Nothing can hurt me ever again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Flight

  I WAS AWAKE on the floor, and the scalding pain was back. The fall had twisted the muscles of my neck, allowing some small passage of air. There was nowhere for me to even crawl. I thought of throwing myself over the balcony, anything rather than the death I had seen Petra suffer, but the parapet was beyond my reach. Rennie wouldn’t want me falling into the traffic-filled street, where someone might raise an alarm, not when the incinerator…

  The incinerator.

  I tried to clear my oxygen-starved brain. The gas was due to have been turned back on between nine and ten. Ashe had said it would be a while before they could sort out the electrics. No pilot lights. No flames. Someone would have to air the occupied flats because it would only take a spark –

  Rennie’s men had put out the fire in Malcolm’s flat, but had filled the penthouse lounge with candles, and were now carrying lights into the kitchen.

  I prayed for a combustive journey to obl
ivion, but nothing happened. The plastic loop seared as it cut the sides of my neck. The pain shot down my spine, trapping nerves, paralysing me. The least agonising thing I could do was lie very still.

  Why wasn’t the kitchen in flames by now? Ashe had been overcautious, a typical bloody gas board employee justifying his job. I fought to clear my senses through the hammering chaos of a neural firework display, but pain overrode all thought. There was still conversation in the kitchen, but now another voice was being raised.

  Stefan was there with them.

  I could no longer draw breath. I knew the small capillaries in my eyes were bursting, as they did in strangulation victims. The penthouse walls began to slide away in a sparkle of light. All sound was subsumed in the drumming of my blood. I could feel nothing now except the white-hot band around my neck. I tried to crawl, but my limbs refused to obey commands from my blood-starved brain. I knew I had only moments left to live, but I could think of nothing, not my parents, not love or happiness or regret, not my life with Gordon, no memories of my lonely childhood, nothing at all except the all-enclosing pain.

  And then the collar opened. It was like being rushed into a bath of iced water. The force of my returning senses overwhelmed me as I looked up to see Stefan standing in the doorway with his finger to his lips. He had a penknife in one hand.

  He lifted the collar off, and I breathed deeper than I have ever done before or since. Returning with water, Stefan squatted beside me and dribbled it into my open mouth. ‘Juin, I am sorry. They would not come in here. Very bad luck to see a woman die. You must get out of this place right now.’

  ‘What do you think I’ve been trying to do?’ I rasped. Confusion clouded my judgement. I could no longer tell who to trust. I rose to my feet and stumbled past Stefan, out of the room, into the dark tunnel of the corridor, hitting the door frame as I fought to regain balance.

  He tried to come after me, but was abruptly involved in a shoving match with the Foshes. I was momentarily forgotten as their old enmities surfaced. I had one advantage; over the course of the weekend I had come to know my way through the building’s secret folds and angles without the aid of light. I flew out into the stairwell, pumping blood back into my limbs, amazed to be alive.