by Joseph Knox
I thought of the photographs, of being pressed up against Isabelle in a steaming hot hallway. Our lips almost touched.
‘She was a teenage girl.’
‘Well remembered.’
‘Did you find her phone?’
He looked up. ‘What phone?’
‘She had a mobile. It was in her bag the night before, when I took her home.’
‘You’re certain?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Christ,’ he said, rubbing his face. ‘No. No phone. Do you have the number?’
I thought of the message she’d sent me:
Zain knows.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I never got it.’ I said it as naturally as I could, but it felt like he was staring straight into my mind.
‘I’ll look into it.’
‘I could—’
‘No, son.’
‘I need a few more days to sort this out.’
‘How could you possibly sort this out?’
‘I’m close to these people already …’
‘Too close,’ he said. ‘There’ll be a full debrief in a few days’ time. Until then, disappear.’ I had a bad feeling. Parrs’ obsession with the Franchise made Isabelle a statistic. Something he could use to make a case for his one-man war, whether Carver was responsible or not.
‘You know they won’t give you anything.’
‘Do you not understand what’s happening here? Have you not seen what it looks like outside?’ He motioned at the door. ‘This place is the most expensive call-centre in the country today. If you’re very lucky and I can crucify Zain Carver, you might keep your job. But I wouldn’t trust you to talk to a brick wall. Without bloody drinking it or driving it up itself. If we can’t have Carver, Chief Superintendent Chase will be asking me for the next best thing.’ I looked at him. ‘When someone shits the bed, Aidan, it gets hung out to dry.’
‘Just like that.’
‘Just like that?’ he said, ‘Just like that? Your instructions were to leak intelligence to some scumbags and you went fucking …’ he searched for the words, ‘method actor on me.’
I didn’t say anything.
‘You were picked up by Special Branch, literally off the street, spoke to an MP whilst suffering from the DTs and turned up here with a black eye.’
‘I didn’t have the DTs. Someone hit me when I was leaving Rubik’s.’
‘Oh, come on.’
‘It’s true. Before Rossiter’s man picked me up that first time. I woke up face down on the pavement.’
‘Shit-faced, no doubt. You used to be better at this, son.’
Neither of us spoke for a minute.
‘So what do we do next?’
‘Who’s we, Aidan?’
‘What?’
‘We. Who’s we ?’
‘Us,’ I said, not fully understanding.
He scratched his ear and opened a drawer in his desk. When he took out a small digital recording device, I knew my mistake immediately. I wanted to reach out and stop him, but I just sat there. Parrs cued up a particular track and pressed play. When I heard it, I saw sunspots pass in front of my eyes, I felt the blood beating through my ears. I could hear my heart. It was a recording of my own voice.
‘Police,’ I said, ‘Nineteen Fog Lane. Third floor of Grove Place. Flat 36.’ I didn’t want to hear any more. ‘We’ve found a body,’ I said. ‘A young girl’s overdosed.’
Parrs stopped the recording and stared into me with his red eyes. ‘Who’s we ?’ he said. I thought of Catherine. The questions they might ask her and the answers she might give them.
She looked at me from very far away. ‘I’m pregnant.’
Parrs still hadn’t taken his eyes off me. ‘This is beyond self-preservation, son. Beyond right and wrong. A young girl’s dead and the whole world’s watching us. Who was with you in that room?’
I didn’t say anything.
‘Was it Carver?’ he said.
‘I was alone.’
‘If you weren’t then, you are now. You’re suspended. I want detailed reports on my desk tomorrow morning at the latest. I want to see you here, my office, Monday next week. Not a second before. And if I find out you’re lying about anything, son, even what colour socks you were wearing that day, it won’t just be your job. You’ll be finding out how fucking handsome you are in prison. This is your last chance to tell me what’s going on.’
She looked at me from very far away.
I looked into his shining red eyes.
‘There’s nothing going on.’
13
I went through the city with no direction. I’d always been an insomniac and walking aimlessly like that used to help. Every time I looked up, though, I saw that my feet had taken me somewhere familiar.
Muscle memory.
I saw the neon lights of bars where I used to drink, and thought of the people I’d known in them just five years before, when it still seemed like I might do anything.
My mind was recalibrating. Adjusting to Isabelle’s death. I wondered what she’d wanted to talk to me about. I thought of the eighteen tally marks cut into her thighs. Too many to be counting the years she’d been alive. I thought about the smashed mirror, the message, the missing phone. I thought about Parrs, already spinning her death in his favour.
But when I thought about Isabelle herself, I changed direction. I walked into roads and oncoming cars. Pushing her to the back of my mind brought Catherine to the fore. The baby. I’d lied to her, lied about her, destroyed evidence and put us both in an impossible situation. I wondered where she was, if she could be feeling any worse than this.
Intermittent rain had been hazing the streets, and puddles glowed beneath the lights like portals to other dimensions. My feet had taken me home. To the rented room that was just a part of my cover.
The hallway light that had been flickering, on its last legs for days, had finally given up. Climbing the stairs in the dark was difficult, but the promise of sleep kept me going. I stopped on the first-floor landing. My door was ajar. I ran my hand over it, felt splintered wood where the lock had been forced.
Quietly, I pushed it open.
The only light came from the street, but I could see that everything had been turned over. In the living room the sofa had been shredded. The coffee table had been smashed in. The few paperbacks I’d brought with me had been pulled down from the shelves and torn to pieces.
I looked through to the kitchenette.
The drawers had been turned out, the cupboards swept empty. Everything that had been in them – packages, plates, glasses – had been shattered or gutted out on to the floor. I was glad I hadn’t been in.
I walked through to the bedroom, half expecting to find someone in there. The mattress had been knifed. Cross-sectioned and tossed. The bathroom was the last place I looked. Even in the dark I could see that someone had smashed the mirror. First they had written across it in bright red lipstick:
NO ONE CAN EVER KNOW
I stood with my back to the wall, wondering who’d left the message on Isabelle’s mirror. Wondering why they’d do mine as well. What enemy did I have in common with a dead seventeen-year-old? Zain Carver didn’t make sense. Not his goons or girls either. My mind drifted towards David Rossiter and I closed my eyes, feeling everything at once.
There was a cool draught coming from somewhere. I tried to remember if I’d closed the door at the street entrance when I came in. I thought I had.
I knew I had.
When I opened my eyes again they’d adjusted to the dark and I took a step forward. The breeze came stronger, and I could hear street sounds drifting up. I moved out of the bathroom as quickly as I could, through the bedroom, then into the lounge. I was holding my breath when I got to the door. I walked out on to the landing and looked down to the street entrance.
The door was open again.
I could see someone in silhouette, standing at the bottom of the stairs, glaring up at me. The kitchen knife in
his left hand caught the light. Neither of us moved for a second, then we both moved at once.
The shape slipped smoothly out of the doorway and I pushed myself down the stairs after it. I landed in a heap at the bottom, threw myself up and out on to the street.
A shadow turned the far corner and I ran into the road after it. A taxi tried to swerve around me, and someone pulled me by the shoulder, back on to the pavement. I hit the ground hard, the wind knocked out of me, and lay on my back, staring up at the night sky.
A shape blocked out the street light above. Grip was standing over me. He looked off at the corner I’d seen the person run around, and sniffed. Then he looked down, holding out his good hand for me to take.
‘C’mon,’ he said. He helped me up and led the way, back into my flat. I didn’t say anything but I watched him closely. I wondered if he was seeing it for the first time.
14
‘I’d offer you a drink …’ I said, walking past him, into the destroyed room. I turned on the light and crunched across broken glass to the sofa. Its arm was the only piece of padding that had made it. Grip stood in the doorway. I realized that, if he didn’t want me to leave, I wasn’t leaving.
‘Any tips for getting boot marks off the floor?’
‘Bit of white spirit’ll sort it.’ He looked round the room. ‘Y’might just wanna pour it over everything and drop a match, though.’
‘I might. What are you doing here, Grip?’
‘Get a look at the fucker?’
‘No,’ I said. He let out a breath. He moved out of the doorway, stuck his head into the kitchenette and whistled. Then he leaned on a wall, looking at me. He seemed more disjointed than the first time I’d met him, and that was saying something. Then, he’d looked like a reanimated corpse. Now it looked like he’d been built in the dark out of three or four different bodies. His clothes were mismatched. His arms were different sizes. His legs were malnourished, funny even, beneath the over-developed upper body on top of them. One side of his face didn’t even match the other. He looked ill, exhausted, but unique, I suppose.
‘What about you?’ I said.
‘Huh?’
‘Did you get a look at him?’
He sniffed. ‘Nah.’
‘What are you doing here, Grip?’ I repeated.
‘They say anything?’
‘What are you doing here, Grip?’
He glared at me and I realized I’d shouted at him.
‘Wants to see you,’ he said.
‘It’s not a good time.’
‘Not a good time for anyone, mate.’
‘Did someone smash your cups, too?’
His face darkened. I remembered who and what he was, and broke eye contact in a way I hoped implied apology.
‘Isabelle,’ he said. Her name sounded strange in his mouth. ‘What happened?’
‘Cath must’ve told you that by now.’
‘Let’s hear it from you.’
‘All I know is how we found her. The police think it’s an overdose. A bad batch or something.’
‘Police?’
‘Had me in all day.’
He grinned. ‘Makes sense.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Been here a while,’ he said. ‘Saw ’em come in and take their time with the place. Makes sense, I s’pose, if they knew you weren’t coming back any time soon …’
I motioned to the room. ‘Police don’t do this.’
‘When you’re on our side of it, they do.’ He looked away. ‘Don’t forget what side of it you’re on now.’
‘Is that what you’re here to remind me of?’
‘I’m here because he wants to see you. No games.’
‘Thanks for earlier,’ I said. He sniffed again. ‘I mean it, I’d have gone under that cab. Who’s doing all this, Grip?’
‘Started round the time you showed up.’
It wasn’t a serious answer and I waited.
‘You know who’s doing it,’ he said.
‘Why now, though?’
‘It’s her anniversary, innit.’
‘What?’
‘Joanna Greenlaw. Went missing November, ten years back.’
15
We drove in silence. Grip ran an unexpectedly neat, classic-looking muscle car. A dark-coloured Mustang hatchback. Strong, sturdy and compact as its owner. Even goons want to be James Dean. I could see that it took concentration to drive with his bad arm. I thought he was nervous, on edge.
‘Did you see the man at my flat, Grip?’
He didn’t answer.
We arrived at Fairview, parked and walked up the path. There were raised voices coming from inside. Grip knocked at a certain rhythm and they went quiet. Then he opened the door.
Carver was sitting in the hallway chair. He held his phone but for once wasn’t absorbed with it.
Sarah Jane was on the stairs, walking up. She stopped halfway and turned to see who’d come in. There were dark lines beneath her eyes. She gave a joyless little laugh when she saw me, then turned and carried on up.
Carver raised his head.
‘The fuck happened?’ he said. I heard Sarah Jane slam a door behind her. It felt like a full stop at the end of her relationship with us all.
‘I should ask you the same thing,’ I said.
He closed his eyes. ‘Cath says you found her.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And?’
‘And she was naked. Smelt of sex. Had a needle in her arm.’
‘You took her home the night before.’ He looked at me. ‘I saw you fucking leaving.’
‘She was fine when I left her.’ It was at least half true.
‘Sarah Jane says she asked you to take Izzy back to the flat.’
‘She shouldn’t blame herself.’
‘She blames you. Why were you there the next day? When Cath turned up?’ While Carver questioned me, Grip stood staring into the side of my head. I started to have a bad feeling about why I’d been brought here.
‘Izzy asked me to be. She wanted to talk about something.’
‘Talk about what?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘Why would she ask you to meet her the next day and then OD?’
‘I’m not sure she did OD. There was something wrong with whatever she took. It made her arm go blue. And that’s if she took it willingly.’
He swallowed, looked at the floor.
‘Blue?’ said Grip. ‘This is on you, then,’ he jabbed a finger in Carver’s direction.
‘Not now, mate.’
‘When then?’
‘Just not now, all right?’
‘She was a kid. Shouldn’t have been here in the first fucking place.’
‘You’d have sent her back, then, would you?’
Grip walked towards Carver and stopped. ‘I’d have got rid of the shit she jacked.’ He glared at his boss for a second and then went down the hall, into the kitchen and slammed the door behind him. The whole house shook.
‘Drink?’ said Carver, standing up and walking into his study next door. I followed him through. It was the second time I’d been in the room, but my first chance to look around. The main event was his desk. A rich, dark mahogany build, too sturdy to have been made recently. I wondered if it had belonged to his parents, or even people before that.
He poured two tall cognacs, handed the first to me and drained his own in one swallow. He poured himself another and sat in the nearest chair, resuming his slumped position from out in the hall. I sat opposite and waited. I didn’t even remember drinking my cognac, but when I looked down my glass was empty.
‘You did all right.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Got Cath out. She was a mess when she got here.’
‘How is she now?
Carver looked up. ‘Dunno,’ he said, like it hadn’t occurred to him to ask. ‘But she told me what you said. To get Fairview clean. Cops weren’t far behind her and it saved me a headache.’ I wondered
why I’d sent him the warning. At the time, I was still undercover; but it had been more than that. My second life would have ended when Isabelle died. I realized I hadn’t wanted it to.
‘What did the police say?’
‘They had a search warrant, first and foremost. Took some stuff away. Took an informal statement.’ He shrugged. ‘Could’ve been worse.’
‘Anything tricky?’
‘They asked when Izzy first turned up. What she got up to. My relationship with her …’
I didn’t say anything and he looked at me.
‘It was nothing much. She showed up one week with Sarah Jane. Some sob story.’
With Sarah Jane? I wondered if Sarah Jane was a friend of a friend, or if she was connected to Isabelle Rossiter’s life somehow.
‘What was the sob story?’
‘Personal shit,’ he said.
‘Well, it looks bad for them not to have an arrest for the papers. If they had anything, they’d have charged you already. Can they link the flat to you?’
‘Not easily,’ he said. ‘Not on paper.’
‘And did they talk to anyone else?’
He shook his head. ‘Sarah Jane’s got a good head on her shoulders, but not for this shit. She thought we were the good guys.’
‘You don’t?’
‘I don’t think there are any. Listen, with all this going on, you might be able to save me some more headaches.’
‘I might.’
‘Five for getting Cath out of the shit. Ten as a retainer for whatever’s next. Ten for what we talked about before.’ I had to think for a second before I remembered the original operation. Today should have been the day of the sting. In all the madness I’d forgotten to ask Parrs about it.
‘Sounds fair. But I can’t say yes until I know what you’re into. What did Grip mean about the shit she jacked?’
Carver took another drink. ‘You know what troubleshooting is?’
‘Shooting up,’ I said. ‘Test batches.’
He nodded. ‘Summertime, we had a problem. First cut from the brick always goes to someone in-house. We rota it so no one’s getting burned or addicted.’