by Mark Hill
Back-heeling the door shut, he yanked Jordan to his feet, gripped the back of his neck to push him into the living room. The kid wore a vest top and underpants. His spray tan glowed faintly in the winter glare of the tall windows and the impressive panorama of the broiling brown river below. On a table of white glass was a smear of pale dust, an open wrap of coke. Yanking a power cable from it socket, Drake killed the music. He forced Jordan’s face to the table. A faint spurt of breath blossomed on the glass beneath his nose.
‘What did I tell you would happen if I caught you with that stuff?’
The kid’s fingers were splayed rigid on the surface. ‘Mr Drake! Let me … let me …’
On top of everything else, April had been exposed to drugs, had maybe even taken them with Jordan. The certainty of it ignited his fury. He jerked back the young man’s head and smashed his nose down hard. Strings of blood spurted along the glass. Jordan cried out. Drake took gloves from his jacket pocket. The kid lifted himself from the table, cupping his bloody nose in his hands.
‘And I haven’t thanked you for the visit.’
‘What you talking about?’ Babbling now, terror and coke popping goosebumps on his skin. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re saying!’
‘Those thugs you sent to beat me up. That was above and beyond the call of duty.’ Drake stretched the left glove tight over his hand. ‘I’m guessing that was your own idea.’
‘My nose!’ Blood poured through his fingers, pattering into the thick weave of the cream carpet. ‘This is police brutality!’
‘You don’t realise how often I’ve dreamed of this moment, Jordan. How long I’ve wanted to go to work on someone. You were right; it’s a relief to let it out. The fact that it’s you I’m going to beat unconscious makes me very happy.’
When Drake balled his fists and moved forward, Jordan cowered. ‘Woah, woah! All right! I hired a couple of guys to do you over! Thought I’d teach you a lesson. You were giving me grief!’ He nodded at Drake’s face. ‘But no harm done, it don’t look so bad.’
‘I don’t care about my face, Jordan, or that you paid men to kick me around. We’ll let bygones be bygones about that. But I want to know about the other thing.’
‘What other thing?’ Jordan hopped from foot to foot. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’
‘Someone paid you to keep my daughter from me.’ Drake cuffed the top of his peroxided head. Jordan was soft, snide, weak, no amount of gym time could compensate for that. ‘This isn’t a game. Someone’s trying to kill April.’
Jordan flinched. ‘I don’t know what you’re—’
‘Shut up.’ Drake slapped his cheek. ‘My guess is that you were made an offer. This person came to you because they very much want to keep me apart from my daughter.’ Drake nodded at the spectacular view from Jordan’s apartment, the swell of the Thames, the skyline of skyscrapers and bridges and monuments at twilight; at the expensive furniture and decor, the biggest television screen he’d ever seen. ‘I imagine the sports car and the horse, the drugs, all the rest of it, cost a fortune.’
Jordan gawped. ‘Kill her?’
‘Someone’s trying to kill April, and kill me.’ Drake clenched Jordan’s throat, dragged him close. ‘And when he’s done that, I imagine he’s going to want to tie up a few loose ends. You, for example. Because this man, he’s killed many, many people, Jordan, and he won’t think twice about offing a preening little squirt like you.’
Jordan’s eyes bulged. Drake released his throat and he slumped on the table. Gingerly dabbed at the blood streaming from his nose.
‘He said he’d help me out.’ Jordan gulped down air. ‘I got debts, Mr Drake. I made some bad investments. He said he’d look after me if I treated April nice, and kept her away from you. And I did, Mr Drake, I treated her very well.’
‘Till you couldn’t stand it any more, and threw her out.’
‘I don’t want to get tied down. I’m a young guy, my whole life ahead, and I don’t need the grief.’ Jordan looked up warily. ‘I swear, Mr Drake, she hasn’t done any drugs, not with me. She’s not interested in anything like that.’
‘She just wanted to be with you,’ said Drake.
‘Yeah.’ Jordan swallowed. ‘She loved me.’
‘You told him where she was going when she left?’
‘I told him I was through.’ He wiped his nose along his arm, leaving a streak of blood. ‘I let him know I was gonna do it this afternoon.’
‘By phone?’
‘I’ve got an email address.’
‘Tell me about him.’
‘I met him just after I’d started seeing April. I wasn’t all that into her, to be honest.’ He eyed Drake’s clenched fists. ‘She’s too classy for the likes of me.’
‘That’s the first truthful thing you’ve said.’
‘We got talking in a pub. I thought I was going to lose it all and he said he could help. He wanted me to get April away from you. It was a wind-up, he said. I presumed it was someone you’d banged up in the past. He offered a lot of money, no questions asked.’
Drake rubbed his temples. ‘And you thought, yeah, it’ll be easy getting this girl to fall for me, it’ll be a laugh.’
‘It weren’t easy, Mr Drake. She liked me, yeah, but she weren’t interested in … going further.’ Mucus and blood strung between Jordan’s lips. ‘But when her mum died, and things weren’t so good between you, it … got easier.’
‘This man who came to you,’ said Drake, tired, ‘what’s his name?’
‘Mr Smith. Well, that was what he said.’
‘Describe him.’
‘I can do better than that.’ Jordan stumbled to an android phone on a cabinet. ‘I took a sneaky photo of him one night. Just in case, like.’
He swiped a thumb across it, smearing a blob of blood that had dropped from his nose onto the screen, just as Ray Drake’s own phone rang. His stomach lurched when he saw the call was from his daughter’s phone. Turning away from Jordan, he said: ‘Please, don’t hurt her.’
‘Your daughter?’ The electronic laugh howled in his ear. ‘I don’t have your daughter any more.’
The thought that she was already dead sent him staggering to the window to press his forehead against the cold glass, before his legs gave way. The room, the glow of the golden river and the city at twilight, melted away. Drake tried to focus, gripping the phone in both hands to keep it steady.
The thought of what he would hear next terrified him.
She was gone: killed, tortured.
He imagined April’s screams of terror, her agonising last moments. His legs nearly buckled. If he fell, he didn’t know how far he would drop. When Drake tried to respond, his lips moved but nothing came out.
‘I’m visiting another old friend of ours,’ the voice said triumphantly. ‘And we’re waiting for you.’
Drake heard screams in the background. ‘Ray, oh God! Help me!’
The call disconnected and Drake flew towards Jordan.
‘Show me!’ he screamed.
46
1984
When a couple of days went by and Sally didn’t phone, Ray tried not to panic. She had things to do, he reasoned. She was a grown woman with responsibilities, and he had to respect that. She had made him a solemn promise that she would stay in contact, would call him when she was able. But more days passed, a week, and he knew something was wrong.
That home was the last place he wanted to go, but he had no choice. He would wait outside, he decided, until Sally came out and he would ask her why she hadn’t called, why she had made him so worried. But when he arrived he saw her car was gone, and swallowed down the panic he felt.
He waited all day at the bottom of the street, and well into the evening, but he couldn’t – wouldn’t – wait any longer. A red sky was flattening across the slope on the other side of the train track when he hammered on the door of the Longacre.
‘Can I help you, lad?’ asked Gordon, when it opened.
> ‘Where is she?’ Ray tried to look over his shoulder into the home. ‘Where’s Sally?’
Gordon told Ray politely that he was very sorry but he had no idea where she was. She was gone, he said, had decided to leave. It all happened very suddenly; Sally just got up and left. Somewhere up north, he said.
‘No.’ Ray felt the ground lurch beneath his feet. ‘She wouldn’t go without telling me. She wouldn’t just leave.’
‘I don’t know what to tell you,’ said Gordon sadly. ‘If I knew any more …’
‘You’re lying.’ Ray pushed past Gordon and into the office. When he didn’t see her there, he opened the door to the small room at the back. The only light came from a dirty skylight above a mattress. Sheets lay tangled on top of the bedding, and a petrol canister, its pungent fumes overwhelming in the small space, was placed beside a green radiator.
‘I’m going to have to ask you to leave,’ said Gordon, the kids crowding behind him to watch the commotion.
‘Amelia!’ He saw the girl he had met on his last visit. ‘Where’s Sally?’
But the girl just stared. A band of steel coiled tighter around his chest.
‘She left one morning,’ said Gordon. ‘Got a better offer, she said. You now how she is, Raymond, a free spirit.’
‘I don’t believe you.’ Ray was on the verge of tears. ‘You’re lying.’
‘I’m sorry, son. I don’t claim to understand what goes on in that woman’s head.’
‘She wouldn’t go away without telling me.’
Ray walked to the office door, thinking about bolting upstairs, but he saw Elliot stood with Connor and knew he wouldn’t get far.
‘Where is she?’ Ray demanded, but Elliot wouldn’t meet his eyes.
‘I wouldn’t ask Elliot,’ said Gordon quietly. ‘He’ll not tell you anything. He’s one of my pals, one of my Two O’Clock Boys.’
‘Where is she?’ Ray turned to Connor, and thought he saw something unfamiliar in the kid’s defiant stare, something he didn’t understand. Connor’s fists were clenched, the skin of his knuckles stretched white.
‘She left,’ said Ronnie Dent, storming out of the kitchen with his wife, ‘pissed off without telling anyone; and you can do the same.’
‘I want to hear it from him.’ Ray prodded Connor in the chest. ‘I want to hear Connor say it.’
At Gordon’s nod, the Dents moved to either side of Ray to lift him off the floor. He tried to escape, kicking his legs, screaming ‘get off me’ at the top of his voice, but they were too strong and Ray was hurled out the door. He fell down the steps, just managing to stick out his arms to break his fall. His stinging palms were red raw where the skin scraped on the pavement. Ronnie and Gerry laughed.
‘I’m sorry for you, son, and for your loss,’ said Gordon at the door, ‘but stay away now. There’s nothing for you here no more.’
Ray wasn’t finished. He stood to force his way back inside, he wasn’t going to leave until he discovered where she had gone – but Connor blocked his way.
‘Go,’ he said.
‘Tell me where she is.’
‘Get away from here or …’
‘Or what?’ Ray’s cheeks were wet with tears. ‘What will happen?’
‘You don’t want to mess with Connor, lad.’ Gordon made himself comfortable on the top step, like an emperor taking his seat at the Colosseum. ‘He’ll eat you for breakfast.’
Connor could smash him to bits, Ray had no doubt about that, but he didn’t care, he wanted to know where Sally was. He had never in his life felt such anger.
‘She wouldn’t go!’ he cried. ‘She wouldn’t leave me!’
The heel of his hand shot into Connor’s chest. It felt good to lash out, but Ray expected to go down instantly, expected Connor to knock him to the floor and punch and kick him. But Connor didn’t move – and Ray went in swinging.
Screaming in fury, he surged forward, hitting Connor again and again – in the chest and arms, in the face – making him stagger into the road. Connor hunched against Ray’s blows – but he didn’t hit back. Insensible with rage, Ray roared, and the other kids poured onto the street to watch.
And just as suddenly, Ray stopped. Exhausted, fists throbbing, head pounding. Connor’s face was cut and bruised, his teeth blood red from a split lip. Ray covered his eyes and sobbed, right there in the middle of the street, in front of them all.
Because Sally was gone, and there was nothing he could do about it.
‘I’m coming back.’ Ray pointed a trembling finger at Gordon. ‘And I’m going to bring my parents.’
And he would do it. Ray would make Leonard and Myra listen to him. They might not care about the poor kids in this place, or about Sally, but for first time in his life he would make them listen to what he had to say.
‘You do that, lad.’ The manager lifted himself off the step and went inside, taking most of the children with him. Amelia remained, and Kenny and David and Elliot, and a small blond boy Ray had never seen before. And Connor was in front of him, eyes bulging with intense emotion.
‘Where is she?’ Ray asked, but he didn’t expect a reply. His hands pulsed with pain, but he didn’t care.
Connor shook his head.
‘Please,’ said Ray.
‘Gone,’ said Connor, in a voice barely louder than a whisper.
‘Connor, come on, son,’ called Gordon, at the door. All the others had already disappeared inside.
Ray nodded at the home. ‘You can do something,’ he told Connor. ‘Why don’t you do anything?’
‘Let’s go,’ said Gordon, more loudly.
Just before Connor left, Ray saw it on the boy’s face again, just for a second. That look of … what? Confusion, bewilderment, and something else – something that was both frightening and frightened.
And then Ray Drake was left alone in the street with the terrible certainty that he would never see Sally again, and that something inside of him had changed for ever.
47
The plan was to clean up. He would stash his mud-spattered clothes and the rucksack, and take a shower. Stand under the steaming hot spray and wash off the filth and the blood, scrub his skin till it was pink, maybe put on some aftershave.
It wasn’t going to do him any good, because splashing on a bit of Paco Rabanne wouldn’t conceal the stench of guilt and shame lifting off him, Elliot knew that. There was no going back from beating a man to death and stuffing his corpse in the boot of a car. But maybe he wouldn’t frighten the life out of Rhonda when she got home.
And it would give him time to work out what to do next. He would convince her to leave with him – he’d make up some cock and bull story, if he could clear enough space in his head to think of one – and they would go far away, the three of them. Start all over again.
But what he wasn’t banking on was Rhonda being home when he came in, covered in mud from head to toe, his fist red and raw and smeared with dried blood. Elliot stared in shock at the sight of her sitting on the sofa, and a voice spoke behind him.
‘What the …?’
When he turned, twisting his body at the waist so that he didn’t suffer searing neck pain, he saw Dylan at the window.
‘What’s that?’ Rhonda pointed at the rucksack. Elliot dropped it as if it was white hot.
‘Why don’t you leave me and your mum for a few minutes, Dylan, mate?’ If he had intended to say it casually, like they had boring home insurance to discuss, he failed miserably. His terror instantly transmitted to the boy, whose eyes darted to Elliot’s spattered clothes, his bloody hand, the bag pulsing at his feet.
Rhonda asked again: ‘What’s in the bag, Elliot?’
‘Dylan,’ Elliot said, ‘do us a favour and—’
But the teenager rushed to the rucksack. Elliot stiffly tried to reach it first – ‘Leave it!’ – but Dylan whipped it away by the straps, and plunged his hand inside to lift out a fistful of money. An ornate necklace hung off his fingers.
‘I said I’
d get the money back,’ Elliot explained, but Rhonda’s face was set hard. And that was even before Dylan gasped and pulled the gun from the bag, lifting it gingerly between two fingers.
‘Put it down,’ whispered Rhonda. Dylan worked the weapon into his hand so that his finger rested on the trigger guard. ‘I said put it down!’
Her son dropped the gun back into the rucksack. ‘Is this why the police were here earlier?’
‘The police?’ asked Rhonda.
‘No,’ said Elliot. ‘That … that’s not …’
Rhonda stood. ‘Dylan, go and pack a bag.’
Elliot’s nose throbbed, his hand, his neck. ‘I know what it looks like.’
‘Will someone tell me what’s going on?’ Dylan’s voice quivered with fear. For once, when his phone vibrated in his pocket he ignored it.
‘Go upstairs, Dylan. Right now!’
The boy backed away, staring at Elliot, soaking up the desperation in his face, and ran up the stairs. They heard his heavy footfalls above, drawers slamming open.
Rhonda nodded at the bag. ‘Where did you get it?’
He opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Elliot couldn’t tell her what he had done, because it would be the end if he confessed. After all, he had killed a man. Beaten him to death and left him to rot. And there was no going back from that. Not now, not ever.
So he just had to let the scene play out to its bitter conclusion.
Rhonda crouched over the bag. She touched the jewellery – some of it very old, inlaid with sparkling gemstones – and the money, and the personal items that Perry had swept from the safe, the deeds of property and other documents. ‘This isn’t our money, Elliot. This isn’t our savings. Whose it is?’
He shook his head.
‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘Tell me what you’ve done.’
He’d had plenty of opportunity to tell Rhonda all the things he’d done in the past, but never had. It occurred to him with a sinking heart that if he had told her what had happened to him as a boy, when he was a child and didn’t have a choice, she would have forgiven him, supported him, because it was all so long ago. But all those secrets, all those lies, were nothing compared to murdering a man in cold blood.