Green Light

by JG Alva

  If he could connect Daniel to his father’s murder, then Daniel would have no more rights to Green Light. He would be done, once and for all. Not that Maggie would see that as its best use. If he really had killed Terry, then she would want to see him strung up…or at least in a prison cell for the rest of his life. But it was at this juncture in his thoughts that he came to a halt. There wouldn’t be anything for him to find. There obviously wasn’t much physical evidence, or the police would have picked up on it. And there obviously weren’t any witnesses either. The one witness had reported it incorrectly, or had made assumptions…or been bought off. That might be worth looking into. What else was there? Sutton supposed he could torture a confession out of Daniel…but that wouldn’t be particularly reliable.

  He realised then that Angela had not called back. He called her again, and she did not answer. It rang six times and then went to her voicemail. He rang Maggie’s number, with the vague idea that Angela might have dropped and broken her phone, but it just rang and rang in his ear.

  He began to get worried then.

  He drove to Green Light, trying to convince himself that he was getting upset about nothing. The shop was shut. The wind had whipped up, and the sky had darkened as thick, pregnant clouds descended. He couldn’t see any lights on. So where was she?

  He decided to knock on the door, in case she was in and lying down. In the dark. It didn’t seem like her. He knocked and waited. The more he thought about it, the more unlikely it seemed that she would be ignoring his calls, would make herself difficult to find, would not find some way to contact him.

  He got scared then.

  It took three kicks to smash the lock on the main entrance to the flat.

  He went quickly through the hall and into the living room. It was deserted. Nothing seemed particularly amiss. No overturned easel, no shattered pots. He was starting to think that he had overreacted.

  But there was a silence about the flat that indicated neither emptiness nor occupation. Some eel of a feeling slithered its way from his belly and settled around his heart, something he couldn’t really define. He checked the kitchen. Empty.

  It was then that he heard a muffled unidentifiable thump.

  The sound had come from the bedroom. At the end of the hall. Every hair on his body seemed to be vibrating. The sound…it was unnatural. There was another thump, just as loud. Angela’s bedroom was the first door on the left in the hallway, and he moved toward it. The bathroom came up on his right, and he quickly checked it. Nobody was in there. He moved to the end of the hall, hesitated in the bedroom doorway.

  Angela was there, on the floor, just behind the door, kicking and flapping on her belly like a fish out of water. Panic shot up his spine. He dropped to his knees beside her, unsteady with shock and fear, hitting the wall with his shoulder accidentally like a drunk.

  “No. Oh God, no.”

  He tried to turn her over. There was blood over the back of her head. He could see it through her hair. It was sticky. What did that tell him? He couldn’t think for a moment. That she had been like this for a while. If the blood had had time to congeal like this.

  “Angela. Angela.” He put his hands under her, to lift her as he turned her. Trying to be gentle. “Angela. Oh God.”

  Her face was like a horror mask, like some frightened dream of a disturbed and psychotic child. She had been chopped and stabbed and battered. Her beautiful face. It was hard to make it out. There was blood and tattered remnants of skin, like pennants. It wasn’t even really a human face. More like a thing.

  She kicked and twitched and spasmed in his hands uncontrollably.

  “Oh God, Angela,” he said miserably. “Oh God.”

  He searched the room for something – anything – that might help him with this situation, and saw Maggie’s body at the base of the window at the foot of the bed. They had gotten Maggie as well. She had been stabbed in the neck. There was a lot of blood. Her eyes were wide open and stared at him.

  “Oh. Oh no. No.”

  There were signs of a struggle in the room: the lamp on the floor at Angela’s feet, the bed set askew. They had both fought, but their attacker had been too much.

  Choking back something that seemed to be bubbling up the back of his throat, he got his hands under Angela and picked her up. She was difficult to hold on to. Like a frightened animal. Convulsions. Brain injuries. Calling an ambulance did not enter his head. Instead, he had to get her down to his car and to the hospital, as quick as he could.

  He blundered down the hall, holding tightly and what must have been painfully to Angela. She almost leaped clean out of his hands as a particularly strong convulsion shook her, and in trying to keep hold of her he lost his footing somehow, and went down awkwardly on his ankle. He didn’t feel it. It was just that his foot wouldn’t work.

  He somehow managed to stand without dropping Angela and carried on, clumsily knocking the door open, and rushing out into the street and then to his car. He opened the door and carefully laid her on the backseat, only dimly aware that the whole world, at least on this day, had become the colour of the dark bruise-purple of the storm clouds overhead. He got in and drove as fast as he could through the winding streets of Bristol, tearing around corners in a fresh burst of rain, in his desperation to save the girl. His girl.

  *

  CHAPTER 16

  They got her into an operating room on time.

  He was told that a haemorrhage in her brain was responsible for the convulsions, that the pressure of all that blood between the skull and the soft tissue was killing her. So they drilled a hole in her head to let the blood out.

  Nine hours later, when they were done, she was certified as being in a coma.

  He sat by her bed and thought about all the ways he had failed her.

  By not staying when she’d asked him to. By not keeping her close. By not protecting her. If he had one job, then it should have been that. And Maggie…It was hard not to feel that it was all his fault. If he hadn’t gotten involved, Maggie might be alive, and Angela would be walking around. But in his arrogance, in his supreme confidence in his own abilities, he had meddled, and he had only made things worse. Much worse. The worst.

  The storm wasn’t the only thing to settle in for the long night. His anger did too. Like a bruise.

  If he was at least partly responsible (if not wholly so), then who else could share that blame? Bobby, for distracting him. Lisa, for setting Bobby on him. Suzanne, for putting her cousin up to it.

  And Daniel.

  For starting all the trouble with Green Light in the first place.

  In the hospital bed, Angela slept on. Her face was a misshapen, battered, bloody mask that someone – through their anger – had forced her to wear. He couldn’t sit here. He couldn’t be beside her, knowing it was his fault. He just couldn’t.

  He touched her hand, got up, and went out into the storm.

  *

  CHAPTER 17

  Sutton banged harshly on the door.

  He no longer cared for subtlety…if he ever had.

  There was a wait. That was good, he thought. He needed the interval to calm down. But at the same time he knew that at any moment his emotions could get away from him. The drive over had helped. Now, the rain that pattered against his head and shoulders helped to cool his boiling anger still further. His heart was pounding thick fiery blood through his body at an increased rate, but his mind was turning to ice.

  In the distance, a rumble of thunder.

  Finally, the door opened.

  “You,” Daniel said. Surprised…but not yet afraid.

  “Where’s your wife?” Sutton asked.

  He was dressed in grey tracksuit bottoms and a red T-shirt. He wore slippers.

  He frowned.

  “What?”

  Sutton rammed his shoulder into the door, busting it open.

  Daniel recoiled, almost losing his balance.

  “
What are you doing?” He asked, outraged.

  They were in a large front hall. At the back, a wide staircase led up to an interior balcony; to Sutton’s left, he could see a living room, with sofas arranged around a large flat screen TV; to his right, a doorway led to a dining room, a large mahogany dining table holding state; beside the stairs, a swing door with a submarine style window led to the kitchen. It was a lavish home. Daniel had been spoilt.

  “You can’t just barge in here,” Daniel said, offended.

  Still not afraid.

  Sutton looked around.

  “It seems that I can.”

  “I’m calling the police,” Daniel said.

  There was a small table against the closest wall, beside the door to the dining room. A small goose neck lamp shone down on a telephone. Daniel turned away slightly as he reached for it.

  Sutton kicked him in the stomach.

  Daniel doubled up with a startled “umph!” and then collapsed to the floor.

  He lay there for a moment, curled around his pain.

  “Where’s your wife?” Sutton asked again.

  Daniel coughed, and tried to sit up. It took some effort.

  “She’s…she’s not here,” he wheezed.

  Sutton smiled. The smile was cold.

  Now Daniel felt afraid.

  “So it’s just us boys,” Sutton said.

  “What do you want?” Daniel asked.

  “Hm. Good question. What do I want?”

  Sutton stepped toward the table on which the phone sat. There was a notepad pleasantly arranged under the lamp, a pen tied to it with a piece of string. The cone of light framed it perfectly. Some kind of a Normal Rockwell in real life.

  The sight of it annoyed him.

  He picked up the table and threw it.

  It sailed across the width of the hall where it hit the wall and broke into half a dozen pieces. The phone and the lamp fell to the floor at his feet, restrained by the cord tethering them to the wall.

  “What do I want?” Sutton said again.

  He reached down and picked up the phone. There was a base unit and a handset. He held them both in his hands, and then he pulled roughly. The cord wasn’t long, and he actually pulled the socket out of the wall. Small pieces of plaster came with it. They showered on to the parquet floor.

  “What do I want?” He shouted. He was working up a head of steam.

  The lamp went next. He pulled the plug out of the wall with a hefty tug, and then threw the whole thing at the kitchen door. Daniel watched it sail over his head and hit the kitchen door. It shattered.

  Standing over Daniel, Sutton said, “I want to get the person who killed Maggie Douglas. That’s what I want.”

  Daniel seemed frozen in that moment, as if the river of time had parted around him.

  Then he said, in hushed tones, “Maggie’s dead?”

  “She was stabbed. In the neck. And Angela’s been beaten. She’s in a coma. Get up.”

  “What?”

  “I said, fucking get up!”

  Daniel scrabbled to get to his feet.

  He held one hand up toward Sutton, to forestall him; the other hand clutched his injured stomach.

  “I didn’t do it,” he said.

  “Which one?”

  “Neither.”

  “No?”

  “No. I swear.”

  “You swear?”

  “Please. Maggie was a friend. Despite our recent…differences. I couldn’t hurt her…let alone kill her. I couldn’t do that to either of them.”

  Sutton stared at him. Was he telling the truth?

  “Where’s your wife?” He asked once more.

  Daniel blinked.

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to know.”

  “Why do you want to know? What has she got to do with it?”

  Sutton shook his head.

  “Oh, Danny, Danny, Danny…”

  “I don’t underst –“

  “Put your hands behind your back,” Sutton instructed.

  “What?”

  Patiently, he repeated, “put your hands behind your back.”

  Still, Daniel did not comply.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m angry, so I want to hit something.”

  “I’m telling you, it wasn’t me –“

  “Then prove it. Put your hands behind your back.”

  “How will that help?”

  Sutton smiled.

  “Because I’m going to ask you some questions. And if I don’t get the right answers, I’m going to punch you in the stomach. I don’t want your hands getting in the way. If your hands do get in the way, then I’ll break your arms. It’s your choice. So…what do you want to do?”

  Daniel stared at him, perhaps trying to work out how he might get out of this, perhaps trying to decide if he was being serious.

  Sutton met that gaze with a stony look of intent.

  “You can’t do this,” Daniel protested.

  Sutton punched him in the face. It was fast; Daniel didn’t even flinch. Still, Sutton didn’t make it too hard a punch – he didn’t want to knock Daniel out. He stumbled backward, looking dazed; he stared at Sutton in astonishment; as Sutton watched, his nose started bleeding.

  Daniel felt it, and reached up a hand to check. He stared at the blood on his fingertips.

  “What the fuck?”

  Sutton hit him again, and again he was too fast for Daniel to avoid it.

  Daniel’s head rocked back.

  When it tilted forward once more, Sutton could see that he had split his lip, and that there was blood on his teeth.

  “Do you want another one?” Sutton asked. “Honestly, you’re better off putting your hands behind your back. At least that way there’s a chance you won’t get hit. If you answer truthfully, that is. This way, well…” Sutton shrugged. “You might not have much of a face left afterward.”

  Daniel stared at him much like someone might stare at a Martian. He had not seen his like before.

  Slowly, reluctantly, he put both of his hands behind his back. He was obviously afraid now. He was trembling.

  “Good,” Sutton said.

  Then he paused. He stared at Daniel. He debated. How much could he take? Could he deal with all of it? Or would it break him?

  And did Sutton really care either way?

  Daniel shifted nervously. His eyes were very big and very round in his face.

  “Where’s your wife?” Sutton asked, one more time.

  “I don’t know.”

  Sutton checked him.

  Truth, he thought.

  “Have you seen her tonight?”

  Daniel shook his head.

  “No.”

  “Were you meant to?”

  A slight hesitation.

  “Yes.”

  “And you have no idea where she might be?”

  Another hesitation.

  “No.”

  Sutton wasn’t so sure about that answer.

  Still, he didn’t hit him. He was doing well, so far. He needed him eager to comply, not stubborn or obstinate, and more pain might force him to act that way, just for the sake of his pride.

  Pain wouldn’t break him, but what Sutton had to say next might.

  “Okay. Tell me this: when did Suzanne tell you that she had decided to kill Maggie?”

  *

  Daniel’s mouth actually hung open in surprise.

  “What?” He said. Not a question. More like a gasp.

  The shock seemed to be real. No such discussion had happened, it appeared.

  Sutton nodded.

  “It’s true,” he said.

  “Suzanne, she…she’s not a murderer.”

  He was aghast, and he wasn’t faking it. Too many strange muscular contractions in his face for his surprise and horror not to be real.

  “I worked it out,” Sutton said. “
At first, I thought it had to be you. No. That’s wrong. Sorry. I was meant to think it was you. By your fiancé, no less. Did you know she came to visit me yesterday?”

  Daniel shook his head as if a fly was in his ear. It was too much to process. He was having trouble internalising all this information.

  “What?”

  “She offered herself to me.”

  “What?”

  “It’s true,” Sutton said, spreading his hands. “I have no reason to lie. I’ve already lost one of only two things that I care about in all this…and the other is not doing well. So even if you lie, you won’t get the same from me. I don’t have the patience. Or the time. Are you getting this, cocker? Am I going too fast for you? Tell me if you want me to slow down.”

  Daniel shook his head. He was sweating. The blood on his face made him look like a savage, like a man who had spent a month in the wild surviving on his wits.

  “She’s not a murderer,” he said again, but more subdued this time, as if he had run out of the energy needed to deny it.

  “But she’s a whore?”

  “No. She’s neither.”

  “Oh, she is, Danny boy,” Sutton said. “And I’m about to tell you why.”

  “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.”

  “You have to. Because you need to. And because I need your help.”

  He stared at Sutton. There was real hate on his face.

  “I’ll never help you.”

  “Alright,” Sutton said. “But you still have to listen. Then we’ll see.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “So she came to see me. She presented herself to me like a femme fatale. Your fiancé. She told me she was afraid that you were going to hurt her. The offer was implicit: if you save me from him, you can have me. You’ll be pleased to know I declined.”

  This last bit seemed to rouse Daniel.

  “I’ve…I’ve never hit her!” He protested.

  “No,” Sutton said. “I didn’t think you had. But at the same time I wasn’t sure. But afterward…it didn’t make sense. There were a few other things as well, that didn’t quite add up. Inconsistencies, if you will. Like, for example, the fact that you actually liked Maggie.”