Down into Darkness

by David Lawrence

  Woolf said no thanks.

  The man offered a Merc C180, a Porsche Boxter, a Lamborghini Gallardo, a BMW Z4, a Ferrari 360, a Jag XK8, a Maserati Spyder.

  Woolf said no thanks.

  The man offered a straight choice: a Swiss SIG Sauer P220 or a Czech CZ75.

  Woolf took the SIG Sauer.

  Melanie Dean sat on the floor and looked at the photographs. There weren’t many; she kept them in a shoe box. They were baby photographs and class photographs and photo-booth foursomes; some had been taken on disposables and were mostly from hen parties or a girls’ night out. There was one taken when Bryony was six, a school photo, in which she was looking straight at the camera and giving a toothy grin. She looked so happy you could almost believe it.

  Melanie had arranged the photos in a semicircular spread, so she could look at them all in turn. She had been down eleven floors and across the DMZ to a liquor store for a bottle of vodka, which was now almost gone, and she looked at the photos, which seemed a little blurred, a touch out of focus, which in fact some of them truly were.

  She closed her eyes and, for a moment or two, slept. A little dream was gifted to her in which she could hear Bryony’s voice but couldn’t see her daughter, so she assumed she must be somewhere in the flat. She went from room to room, but the place was empty and, when she woke, just a few seconds later, it was with the realization that ‘empty’ was the word for it, ‘empty’ was the best possible description, and if she hadn’t been able to find a word before to describe the way things were now and had almost always been, ‘empty’ was it, ‘empty’ was spot on, ‘empty’ was right on the money.

  She picked up Bryony with the toothy grin and slipped her into a pocket, stepped out of her front door on to the walkway, then hopped up on to the concrete balustrade and spread her arms. For a moment she was still, then she tilted an inch, then another, and then she was gone.

  39

  When Tom Davison’s call came through, Stella was on her own in the squad room reading reports.

  He said, ‘I used to enjoy these phone calls.’

  ‘Tom, it was a one-night stand, though I know you don’t want to think of it that way, and there were things I should have told you, and it was my fault and I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry about?’

  ‘Misleading you. Disappointing you. I don’t know…’

  ‘I wasn’t disappointed. Not at the time, only later.’ She didn’t speak. He added, ‘You’re with someone, I know.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So what was I?’

  ‘You were lovely.’

  She hoped it was what he wanted to hear, but she also knew it to be the truth. Her night with him had been strange: strangely exciting, strangely intimate. Stranger still was the fact that she felt uncomfortable using his given name.

  He said, ‘Yeah, okay.’ Then: ‘So, you’ve got a DNA match, and you’ve got a let-down. The match is in all twenty-six CODIS sites; that definitely gives you the same man at the two scenes of crime you nominated: Leonard Pigeon and unidentified female.’

  ‘Bryony Dean.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’

  ‘The same man in what role?’

  ‘Well, he killed them, I think we can safely say that.’

  ‘The let-down being?’

  ‘He’s not on any database, so, apart from being able to put him at both scenes, I can’t be much use to you.’

  ‘Well, we know it’s not copy-cat. That was always a possibility.’

  ‘Okay, so…’ Davison paused. ‘That’s about all I have to say.’

  Stella said, ‘I’m glad we’re not doing this face to face.’

  ‘We already did it face to face.’ Then he laughed: ‘Sorry. My mouth takes off sometimes.’

  ‘I’m glad because I should have spoken a long time ago, and I didn’t, and that was weak of me, and I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be.’

  ‘Sorry if I…’ She was going to say ‘hurt you’ but that felt too intimate, and too likely. ‘If I made things difficult for you.’

  Davison gave a little laugh; a neutral laugh. ‘Don’t worry, Stella. That wasn’t me; it was someone who looked like me.’

  She drove home through an early-evening mist of petrol fumes, the sun filtering through, gold and orange, in-car sound-systems feuding with each other, the sky a high, pale blue fretted with white vapour trails, as one-a-minute planes bellied down into the Heathrow flight path.

  There was something nagging at her, something someone had said, like a tune almost remembered or a name on the tip of the tongue, but she couldn’t call it up.

  Delaney was closing off his piece on a very wealthy man with a gunslinger’s moustache and a wry sense of humour.

  She sat down with him and told him about the encounter on Harefield, she and her mother looking at each other across an unbridgeable gap. It was the first thing she said: not ‘Hi’, or ‘Fancy a drink?’, or ‘How was your day?’

  ‘I saw my mother today. She came back. She’s living on Harefield.’

  Delaney knew the story of Stella and Stella’s mother. He said, ‘What happened?’

  ‘Who knows. Maybe something fouled up in Manchester; maybe she got homesick.’

  ‘No – what happened?’

  It seemed he did fancy a drink, because he went to the fridge for wine.

  ‘Nothing happened. Our eyes met across a crowded slum. She said hello, I said goodbye. Lyrics by Paul McCartney.’

  He handed Stella her drink. ‘That was it?’

  ‘More or less. Not entirely. She’d seen me go in, I think – flat across from hers on another block. She must have been waiting for me to come out. We said a couple of words to each other; I did this…’ She held a fist up to the side of her head, thumb and little finger extended, the universal sign for a telephone.

  ‘And will you do that?’

  ‘Sure, of course. Yes. Obviously.’

  Delaney laughed. ‘So you have her number, then…’

  Stella was silent on that one. ‘She’s living with some guy. Must have brought him with her.’

  ‘He was there?’

  ‘Standing back, just inside the hall.’

  ‘So…’ Delaney closed his laptop and settled into his drink. He expected Stella’s mother to lead to a long evening and more drinks. ‘…how did she look?’

  ‘The way she used to look. Hair from a bottle, lardy makeup, clothes from the seventies.’ She laughed. ‘The time-warp mother.’

  And that, to Delaney’s surprise, was all she had to say on the matter. Sure, they had a few more drinks and, sure, he kept expecting Stella’s mother to reappear, but that didn’t happen. They ate, they watched the news, they went to bed, and that was where he got a hint of what she was really feeling, because she made love to him like someone trying to displace a memory.

  He didn’t hear her get up at 3 a.m. He didn’t hear her pour a drink, ice cracking as the vodka drenched it. He didn’t hear her say, ‘Bitch, you bitch, get the fuck out of my life.’

  40

  On Harefield, 3 a.m. is the beginning of the end of the day for those with business to contract.

  Ricardo Jones was still sharp, though Jonah and the two who sat with him looked a little heavy-lidded, which was less to do with the lateness of the hour than with the top-ups they’d been enjoying throughout the evening. You can do booze and dope on a rota basis, but there’s a risk of nodding off. For the inexperienced, there’s a risk of nodding off for ever.

  Jonah said, ‘Twenty-five, that right?’

  ‘Twenty-five per cent,’ Ricardo agreed.

  ‘No extras, no supplements, I got that right?’

  ‘Twenty-five is a net figure.’

  A silence. Jonah was thinking this through, calculating the risk. On Harefield, he was a big man, but he knew Harefield wasn’t the world. He also knew that someone called Gary… maybe it was Barry… had been pumped full of cavitywall filler and thought this might be considered a warning to
others.

  On the other hand, Jonah had his own rules and didn’t like to be told what to do. What the fuck to do. And twenty-five per cent was one hell of a good deal, whichever way you cut it.

  ‘You offloaded the other gear,’ he said; ‘that was a good job. That was fast, and it was clean.’

  A pair of class cars lifted to order in Mayfair, Ricardo given the type, the registration, the colour, the add-ons, a week in advance; customers located; shipping and customizing arranged; a deal done that had three-way approval.

  ‘Yeah,’ Jonah said, ‘that was sweet.’

  ‘Twenty-five per cent,’ Ricardo assured him, ‘no surprises.’

  ‘How much can you handle?’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Two-fifty.’

  They were talking in hundred thousands.

  ‘Is this ongoing?’

  Jonah hesitated. ‘Just now it’s –’

  ‘Can I get a rollover on this?’

  ‘Man, don’t press me here.’

  ‘Twenty-five per cent, think of that.’

  Ricardo knew that there was always a rollover with drugs. The money kept coming in, because the gear kept going out; there was a need involved, there was a craving.

  Jonah was smoking a Havana-Havana. He took a pull, and for a second or two his face was shrouded in smoke. ‘Do this one,’ he said, ‘impress me. Everything’s a maybe, know what I mean. But listen: you do a good job. I can see that. I’m gonna put a lotta things your way.’

  ‘Including money?’

  Jonah laughed. He said, ‘You’re hungry. I like that.’ The laugh died. ‘Just stay out of my face.’

  Day is night, and night is day. The tower blocks lit up, music like hammers, deals going down, hookers hard at it. Only the civilians were in their beds, the non-coms, deaf, blind and dumb.

  One of the two men who had sat with Jonah was taking a walk on the littered wasteland of the DMZ and making a call to a mobile number known only to a few.

  He said, ‘They’re cutting a deal.’

  ‘For?’

  ‘Two-fifty.’

  ‘Okay.’

  That was all. Jonah’s friend, who was also his enemy, walked off the DMZ to find an all-night bar. He didn’t want to be seen going back into Harefield as if he’d been on some sort of a mission.

  Stanley Bowman snapped his phone shut. The girl in bed with him said, ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Business. Shut up.’

  He closed his eyes, but his mind was busy. After a few moments he got up and took his phone through to the room where he’d had his meeting with John Delaney. The first call went to message, so he called three times more, each time hanging up before the divert could cut in. Finally, he got an answer. A voice with a burr: Irish maybe; maybe American.

  Bowman said, ‘There’s a problem.’

  ‘Same problem?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘Same solution?’

  Bowman paused. ‘Listen, see if a warning will do it. Let’s try a warning.’

  ‘Your choice.’

  ‘The other guy, the first guy, he wouldn’t listen. I had to make a decision.’

  ‘Will this guy listen?’

  ‘Let’s try it. Let’s see.’

  ‘Okay.’ The voice was apologetic but concerned. ‘Only, a warning can have repercussions, you know. For me, for the operative. There can be a kickback. People have friends, you know? They have business friends.’

  ‘Yeah. What are you saying?’

  ‘How well is this guy connected?’

  ‘He’s an asshole. He’s freelance: a nobody.’

  ‘No status…’

  ‘That’s it: no status.’

  ‘One warning.’

  ‘You know about this stuff.’

  ‘Just one, either that’s enough or it’s not.’

  ‘Yes, okay.’ Bowman sighed. ‘Jesus, everyone’s a dealer, everyone’s a fucking entrepreneur. I blame Richard Branson.’

  Aimée was roaming the house, looking for somewhere to settle, but nowhere felt right: not the kitchen table, where family meals were taken, not the living-room sofa, where everyone gathered to watch TV. Least of all the bed, where she would lie alongside her top-notch husband, her caring husband, the husband about whom no one could find a bad word to say.

  She was making plans. She knew that plans and action are not the same thing. She knew that plans are hopes, and hopes are fragile. She also knew that falling in love is an easy task for the loveless, but there were some things, she felt, that just couldn’t be set aside or ignored. One of them was your last chance.

  They would be fine together: Peter and Ben; after the shock, after the brief sense of loss. People changed their lives – it happened every day – and those they left recovered; they became happy in different ways. Everyone knew this; it was a commonplace; and it allowed her to advance her plans to the point where, in her mind’s eye, she left the house for the last time.

  Then, in the midst of that imagined moment, she thought: I can’t do this. I can’t leave them, husband and son, can’t abandon them, can’t bear the thought of their sorrow. It’s beyond me, this new life, it’s out of my reach. As if intending to convince herself, she spoke the words out loud, but it was the voice of some former self speaking, someone trapped by repetition; the words were a mere echo, hollow and fading fast.

  *

  Aimée closed her eyes, and there she was, stepping out into sunlight.

  The sky was cloudless. Her future was laid out like a map of dreams.

  41

  Climate change: the ozone layer peels back, a chunk of Arctic ice the size of Ireland falls into the sea, London overheats and kids cruise all night, some of them packed into a super-tuned Imola-red BMW on Stella’s street at 8 a.m., gaining ground on the inside and clipping the wing mirrors off parked cars.

  Stella called Notting Dene nick and gave them the Beamer’s registration number more in hope than expectation. Getting into her own car produced a moment of déjà vu: whatever had been nagging at her as she’d driven home the night before was still there, like a trapped fly buzzing on the windscreen.

  Something someone said… something she had read.

  She was slowing for a set of lights, when Harriman came through on her mobile. As she picked up, a black Freelander just behind her made a three-lane switch and caught a corresponding three-way horn blast.

  ‘You’re driving.’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m queuing.’

  ‘Okay, well, it took a little while for the cross-referencing to bring up AMIP-5, but I got a call to say that Melanie Dean topped herself.’

  Red went to amber, and everything moved. Stella trapped her phone with her shoulder and shifted gear. The Freelander cross-cut to claim her lane, and she tapped her brake.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘She jumped off the walkway outside her flat.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Not long after we interviewed her.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘You didn’t say anything, Boss. I didn’t say anything.’

  ‘No.’

  A long pause. He asked, ‘Boss? Are you there?’

  ‘Send a global email to the squad. Send the crime report to Collier.’ And send my apologies to the late Melanie Dean.

  ‘I’ve applied for a search warrant…’

  She must have loved seeing that picture. Tree Girl with the eyes patched in.

  ‘… maybe there’s some trace of the boyfriend, Chris, who knows?’

  She must have been really pleased to see us when we dropped in with the positive ID.

  ‘No reason to go to the post-mortem, not that I can see.’

  Yes, it’s your daughter. Your daughter, Bryony. We found her hanging from a tree.

  ‘She was drunk when she jumped.’

  He hung her up naked for everyone to see. And when we showed you the picture, it looked like her, but it didn’t look like her.

  ‘App
arently, she’d done most of a bottle of vodka.’

  It’s odd. It’s strange. Relatives often don’t recognize the dead. They go to the morgue, and someone pulls out the body tray, and the relative, the mother, the father, whoever, they stare, they say, ‘No, I don’t think that’s her.’

  ‘Are you there, Boss? I think I’m losing you.’

  Little Stella Mooney out on the walkway, eighteenth floor, too hot to be inside… Stella with her book and her drink, kids running past but she’s invisible, adults going past but she’s invisible… and even there, even in that miserable place, the sun is catching glass and metal and sending lines of light across walls blotchy with pollution, livid with graffiti.

  Then the book is snatched from her hands and flung high and wide, pages being turned by the breeze, fluttering, catching the sun, her mother’s laugh, the man’s laugh. Little Stella Mooney standing at the walkway’s balustrade and lifting herself up and looking down, the book still airborne, rocking to and fro as it falls, so you could imagine how dreamy its descent, how soft its landing… and Stella wondering how it would feel to follow, to climb up, to let herself go, drifting down, flying almost, the mother’s laugh fading in air until there is just the whicker of the wind in her ears.

  It feels likeable to her. It feels possible.

  The Freelander slipped her on the inside, thought about running a red, then decided against it and shimmied to a stop. Stella beat the light without intending to, clearing the box scant seconds before the lead vehicles from the cross street arrived.

  Not me, she thought. Little Stella Mooney. Not me, but someone who looked like me.

  And suddenly she had it.

  Tom Davison saying, ‘Don’t worry, Stella. That wasn’t me, it was someone who looked like me.’

  Relatives not recognizing the dead.

  Not him. Someone who looked like him.

  She turned into the AMIP-5 car park, another vehicle close behind. It parked alongside – the black Freelander. And there was Collier getting out, giving her a sideways look.

  ‘Passing a signal at red while simultaneously talking on a mobile phone…’