by JG Alva
Daniel swallowed and said, “I want you to investigate them. The consortium.”
“For Angela’s attack?”
“For all of it. And if you find out they were involved, if they were responsible for Angela, and Maggie, and Suzanne…” A squall of emotion crossed over Daniel’s face before he managed to control it. “Then we punish them. Somehow. Call the police. Do something.”
Sutton stared at him, seeing him anew.
He was standing very stiffly, as if forcing himself up to his full height.
Sutton said, “if I investigate them, and I find out they are responsible – for any of it – then getting Green Light – or not getting it – will be the least of their problems.”
Daniel nodded.
“Alright. What do you want to do?”
“First, I want to see Angela,” Sutton said. “And then afterward, we sit down and you tell me everything you know about the consortium.”
*
CHAPTER 20
Sutton knocked on the familiar burnt sienna door.
It was answered promptly. He had called ahead, so as not to alarm her. An unexpected late night visitor was always a cause for her concern…and she would be more concerned than most.
She opened the door. It had been only weeks, but he had forgotten the severity of her injuries, the depth of the scarring, how the malformed skin altered her, so she was almost like someone else. Not that he cared…But still, it was a shock.
He kept her from seeing his reaction. But he thought she might be aware of it nonetheless. She was a highly sensitive creature, another facet of why he liked her so much.
“Come in,” she said.
*
“You don’t have to worry,” she said.
They stood in the hall. It was as if by her very movements that she tried to repel him.
Sutton noticed that she had developed a habit of holding her head in such a way as to obscure as much of her face as possible behind her hair. To him, it was infuriating; it might be fanciful but looking into her big beautiful brown eyes he thought he could see the real Angela Everleigh…not the one she showed everyone else. It was access to a privileged few, which had now been withdrawn; an invitation rescinded. As if he was being punished for doing nothing wrong.
“You might as well ask a fish to live on land.”
“I know.”
“Daniel thought it was the consortium.”
Angela shook her head and said, “they’ve been to see me. Or that Accounts Manager has. He was particularly unpleasant, but one good thing about this face is that no one can stand to look at it for long. I told him – in no uncertain terms, mind – that I could not sell Green Light. Ever. And he was quick to leave, if not happy to do so.”
“Good.” He was enormously proud.
“Mum would want me to keep it going.”
“She would.”
“God, I miss her,” Angela said, staring at the floor in despair. “She used to drive me nuts, but she was such a big part of my life, she was so…vivid…God. It doesn’t seem like it’s possible that she’s gone.” She tried for an ironic smile, a curtain of hair covering most of it. “Daniel has been to see me a couple of times.”
“So he told me. I must say, I’m surprised.”
“What?”
“Well. That you’d want him round.”
She was pensive for a moment.
“I wouldn’t have, due to his involvement in everything that happened…except…” She hesitated. “Except he misses Mum too. You can see it in his face. He’s genuinely mournful. I think he really did like her.”
“I think he did too.”
“Plus, he’s about the only family I’ve got left now.”
“Not the only family.”
She looked at him from behind her sheaf of hair. The stare was heavy with meaning…or reproach. As if she silently begged him not to open that door again.
He turned away from that look.
Because he was about to be tough on her.
“So tell me who attacked you,” he said.
He sensed her alarm.
“It’s obvious that you know who attacked you,” he said. “Why else would you not be worried?”
She hung her head, scuppered, found out.
“Barry,” she said. “It was Barry that attacked me.”
“What?” He was stunned. “Your ex?”
“And it was Barry that made me…” She indicated her face. “Like this.”
*
“I’ve been an idiot,” Sutton said.
She had finally relented, and let him further into the flat. She led him into the kitchen.
“Suzanne never said anything about attacking you. Only your mother. I just assumed…fuck.”
But it seemed an unbelievable coincidence. How had it happened? Either one or the other had been attacked initially, with the mother or the daughter stumbling on the victim, and then in their distraction were victimised themselves? No wonder he had not put two and two together.
“I kept thinking I was seeing things,” Angela said. “That the man I glimpsed across the street looked like him. That the man at the bus stop had more than a passing resemblance.”
“But it was him,” Sutton said.
She nodded.
“Yes. I think it was. He’d been following me. He confessed as much when he grabbed me in the street. He said he knew I was alone. He said it was time to come back with him. He said he didn’t care how I looked, that he had messed up my face to prove to me that he didn’t care how I looked, that he would love me anyway, so wasn’t that true love?” Angela sobbed. “How sick can one man be?”
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“Because I can’t honestly remember his attack. The last thing I remember is a knock at the door. Then everything is blank up until I woke up in the hospital. He just told me he did it, but the actual incident has…gone. Vanished. Like it’s been erased.”
Or bashed out of your head, Sutton thought.
“But why didn’t you go to the police when he attacked you this time?”
She shrugged.
“Because I don’t even know if he’s still here. You know. In Bristol.”
“I know someone who can check that,” Sutton said. “If you’ve still got his mobile number.”
“Sutton, you don’t have to –“
“Stop it, Angela. I failed your mother –“
“Sutton, you didn’t –“
“I failed your mother. So I’ll do better for you.”
Angela hung her head, bowing to the inevitable.
“What are you going to do?” She asked eventually.
“You want him to stop coming after you?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s what I’ll do.”
“How?”
“I have to find him first.”
“No violence,” Angela said.
Sutton stared at her.
“What?”
“Please,” she said. “There’s been enough violence.”
“Angela, you don’t try and persuade a rabid dog not to bite you by praying –“
“I’m asking you,” she said sternly, showing him the full extent of her facial injuries…perhaps to enforce her argument: see, here, the result of such violence. “No more violence. Please.”
Sutton gave a frustrated sigh.
“Do you want me to send him a strongly worded e-mail?”
“Yes. If that will do the trick.”
“Angela –“
“I don’t know how you are going to do it. But I want you to promise me that you will not use violence.”
Her expression was very solemn.
He shook his head. No violence. She was asking the impossible. Unless…
“Can you stand to go outside?” He asked.
“I’d rather stay here,” she said. “Why?”
“This is the price you have
to pay if we do it your way.”
She debated silently for a moment, and then nodded.
“Alright.”
“Good. I’ll need more information from you on Barry Sheffield. If I’m going to stop him, and I can’t hurt him, then I need to know if there is anything else I can use to…dissuade him.”
*
CHAPTER 21
Finley Henk was good with computers.
Sutton hadn’t know him long, but he had been particularly useful on a couple of occasions. He was nineteen, of average height, and so slight as to appear ill. An overabundance of dark hair made his head appear unusually large on top of a thin, delicate neck. His eyes looked permanently bruised, as if he hadn’t slept for a long time. He always wore baggy, too-large T-shirts in dark colours that hung expansively over tight jeans. He went out, but if he did, it was with some risk; he wasn’t a well man. So if it wasn’t necessary for him to go out, then he didn’t. Instead, his life was led through his computers, and he had enough of them: Sutton counted six in the computer room at the back of his flat.
“Mr Mills –“
“Sutton.”
“Sutton, that’s not really my area of expertise,” the nineteen year old boy said, with a nervous, apologetic glance at Angela.
“But you know someone who can do it?” Sutton pressed.
Finley debated.
“Maybe.”
“Finley?”
“Alright, yes. But you need to tell me why. It’s illegal. My friend would be taking a risk.”
“Finley, this is Angela Everleigh,” Sutton said, stepping back a little. “The man we are looking for attacked her twice – the first time he almost killed her. He won’t stop. He’s obsessed. She’s got a right to defend herself…he doesn’t have any rights. So in order to protect her, I need to know where he is. That’s why we’ve come to you.”
Finley thought about it for a moment and then nodded.
“Okay. Give me the number. I’ll contact my friend and see if he’ll do it.”
Sutton had gotten Angela to write it on a piece of paper, and now she delved into her handbag and passed it to him.
Finley accepted it, glancing surreptitiously at her scarred face. But he had manners enough not to remark upon it.
“How long?” Sutton asked.
“Depends how busy my friend is.”
“How much to get to the front of the queue?”
Finley blinked.
“You’ll pay?” He said.
“I have money,” Angela said.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll ask him.”
Sutton said, “in the meantime, can you do a search on this guy?”
Fin nodded and swivelled his chair back around to face the long computer desk. There were three keyboards atop it.
He selected the nearest one and began typing on it.
“What’s his name?” He asked.
His fingers flew over the keys. Sutton was impressed.
“Barry Sheffield.”
“He lives in Camden,” Angela added. “In London.”
“Is the aunt still alive?” Sutton asked her.
Angela frowned.
“I think so,” she said.
“Hang on,” Fin said, and then typed some more.
In a bank of six monitors, he was looking at a smaller one in the bottom left of the collection. He seemed to bounce through windows faster than Sutton could work out what he was doing.
He stopped typing, and then reached up to turn the monitor slightly toward them.
“Here we go,” he said. “Take a look. Let me know if it’s the right one.”
Sutton and Angela both hunkered toward the monitor, to better read what was displayed there.
It was a digital copy of a newspaper page, Sutton realised. There were photos. Some sections had been blurred out, and some were hard to ascertain what they were meant to identify. None of them were pleasant.
Sutton said, “we need to talk to the aunt. Fin, can you find out where she lives?”
*
London was a two and a half hour car journey away, so they set out the next day, in the morning. But not too early; they didn’t want to get stuck in any rush hour traffic.
Almost all the way to Swindon there was not much conversation. Angela had a hat and a scarf and hid behind both. Besides desultory remarks on the weather – clear and hot – nothing much of any importance passed either of their lips. For Sutton’s part, he felt curiously ill at ease with her. It took him some time to realise that, hidden beneath his noble sacrifice of their relationship to honour her wishes, he still wanted her. It was an insistent feeling, and not readily ignored. Fuck the scars, he wanted her.
The malaise came from the fact that he did not know how to get what he wanted.
“I’m sorry about this,” she said, as they neared Reading. The M4 was clogged with traffic – long after rush hour had passed in a belch of car exhaust fumes – and their progress was slow. “You probably had better things to do today.”
“Not really.”
He could feel her eyes on him.
“Are you mad at me?”
He sighed.
“Of course not.”
“I didn’t ask for your help –“
“You didn’t have to.”
“But if you don’t want to help me that’s fine –“
“Angela, stop it. I’m not angry with you. I’m just not a morning person.”
A moment of silence in the car. They advanced perhaps twenty feet before stopping once again. There was static traffic on all sides. He felt like an animal in a pen.
“You weren’t grumpy that morning you stayed over,” she pointed out.
“That was different,” he said.
“How?”
He smiled.
“We’d spent all night having sex.”
Her mouth hung open for a moment.
“Oh.”
*
“What is a person if not a puzzle?”
“What?”
“We have to frighten him,” Sutton explained, as they were crawling through the busy midday streets of London. They had just crossed over the river into Camden Town, and were now trawling for the correct turning. “He’s obviously not scared of you…but he’s scared of something.”
“Is he?” Angela asked dubiously.
“Everyone is. And from what you’ve told me…I think the thing he fears the most is the truth: that he might actually be the person responsible for the death of his parents. And as such, he is tainted. That all the terrible things he had to endure from his aunt weren’t enough to wipe away his sins. That she might be right about him. That he’s worthless. That’s what the drugs and the alcohol are about…and you. They help relieve him from the truth. If we want him to run, we have to break him. And in order to break him, we have to put pressure on those parts of him most likely to crack.”
“Like a tectonic plate.”
“Or a broken vase. The human mind is such a tangle of neurosis, such a messy bundle of conflict, it can come apart with relative ease. Given the proper application of stress.”
She was silent a moment, absorbed in her surroundings as Sutton drove. A brilliantly white Church, complete with Roman columns, passed by on their left…like an exclamation mark in real life. It didn’t seem to belong.
“Why is a raven like a writing desk?” She asked.
“What?”
“You said that the morning I came to see you. But you never told me the answer. It was really patronising.”
“Was it? I had no idea. I just assumed you weren’t interested.”
“Well. I am. So what is the answer?”
Sutton smiled.
“It’s from Alice in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll proposed that the answer was ‘because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front’.”
Angel
a puzzled over that for a moment.
“Right.”
“But I prefer another answer: Poe wrote on both.”
“There’s more than one answer?”
“The best puzzles usually have more than one answer.”
She nodded. She seemed to take it on board.
Eventually, she said, “I used to feel so sorry for him that I would cry. Barry, I mean. Can you believe it?”
Sutton looked at her, but her head was turned away. A faint reflection – like a ghost – watched him in the passenger window. The ghost was faint enough that he couldn’t see any scars.
“You can still pity him,” he said, “but not in the same way. He’s not well.”
In a voice full of hate, she said, “I have no pity left. Not for anybody but myself.”
*
The Aunt ran a small bed and breakfast in Kentish Town, on a long, wide residential street full of terraced houses.
It was just after lunch when Sutton and Angela walked up the small flight of stone steps to the front door. The door was open, but inside the hall the doors were all shut and, presumably, locked. A small table, no bigger than a single-seater school desk, sat facing the street; it was covered in leaflets for local attractions. An electric push button bell – like a doorbell – had been affixed to the table, and Sutton pressed it. Distantly, somewhere in the house, a soft bong sounded.
Sutton spotted a camera peering down at them from the ceiling.
Moments later, a non-descript grey door opened, and a non-descript grey woman came through it. She wore a baggy brown cardigan over a faded floral housedress. Her hair was long, thick, matted, and comprised of about six different shades of grey. She tried to smile but couldn’t quite manage it; it was as false as a puppet show.
“One night?” She enquired. “Or two?”
“Neither,” Sutton said. “We’re here to talk about your nephew, Barry Sheffield.”
The amiable pretence was immediately dropped.
“What did that poisonous asshole do now?” She asked, without surprise.
*
CHAPTER 22
The kitchen was an assault on the senses; a cacophonous mess of ornaments; an overabundance of cutlery; an unhealthy obsession with crockery; and an inability to discard anything, even if it held no intrinsic value. Dry and dead potted plants clotted the windowsills. Stacks of old newspapers tied together with twine lined the passageways. Anniversary mugs crowded the tops of cupboards. Miscellaneous boxes and containers, of each size, shape and colour imaginable, filled every other available surface.