An Act of Silence

by Colette McBeth

  A question flies through Jay’s mind, Why no trace? But it’s stolen away before he has the chance to say it out loud.

  ‘Oh aye . . . !’ John has scaled a fence. He’s now crouched down in a hedge at the far end of Gabriel’s garden.

  ‘Take a look at this . . .’ He hands Jay the binoculars.

  Look. Don’t. Look. Look. Don’t look. Fuck, fuck. Is she really doing that? He thought that was just for him. The ecstasy painted on her face, that can’t be right. Only Jay could make her come like that. She said so herself. But no, she’s doing it now. It’s in her repertoire, one of her many acts for sad saps like him and Gabriel. They have something in common after all. Now she’s sinking down and her mouth . . . fuck that mouth and those lips . . . fat juicy lips . . .

  ‘Give us the fucking binoculars, you perv! Come on, let’s get back tae the van.’

  John makes a call on the way back to check nothing has changed. Jay doesn’t know what might have changed and what the original plan was, so he keeps shtum, the word bitch melting into his bloodstream to run alongside the drugs.

  He remains in this chemical holding place for hours. Time liquefies, goes gooey in his hands. Now and again he does a reality check and remembers he’s sitting in a van with a guy who repulses him, having just stood in an allotment, watching through binoculars as the woman of his dreams fucks another man (a famous man). Fuck, there’s a lot to be said for the police force.

  Jay won’t be going back to the force.

  The force is elsewhere tonight. It’s flown away. It’s on the Mozart Estate sticking shoes to carpets. There’s no Jedi left in him. It’s the dark side that’s gripping him, squeezing, pulsing, strangling. He can’t make it stop.

  Gabriel leaves the house first. Strange, Jay can’t understand: why would you leave a woman like Mariela in bed alone? But there you go. The street is still dressed in black when she emerges. It’s gone three in the morning and she pulls on a coat, as if stung by the cold, and goes over on her ankle. She curses in a language he doesn’t understand, but he recognises a curse when he hears one. Casting around, her eyes happen on the van and she walks hesitantly towards them. John steps out and opens the back door for her but before this, he turns to Jay: ‘I’m relying on you, pal. Just do as ah say.’

  John tells Jay to sit in the back with her. ‘Hey, it’s you,’ she says, as if he didn’t know. He can’t even raise a smile. Can’t look at her. Her face is red with Gabriel’s stubble, smudged mascara. He thinks of that look he believed was all his until she gave it to Gabriel. He hates her, a viscous drug-fuelled hatred that’s shouting at him, needling him, demanding an answer.

  As the engine starts, Mariela hands Jay a pair of men’s boots. ‘Gabriel’s shoes. Just like I was told.’ She eyes them expectantly, waiting for some kind of acknowledgement: Didn’t I do well?

  The van stops, could only have gone round the corner.

  ‘What now?’ Mariela says as John climbs into the back. ‘Are you taking me home?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  Her eyes flit between the pair of them. John and Jay. Jay and John. ‘Hey, c’mon, what’s happening?’ She’s smiling at first but fear quickly floods the smile. ‘I did everything you told me to do,’ she says. Jay senses her terror and it pleases him. He can feel her heart boom-booming in the van. That’s the style, his anger says, she deserves to be shaken up a little.

  ‘Hey, darlink,’ she says in her accent. Spanish? Italian? He can’t quite remember. ‘It’s me, come on. We had fun, didn’t we?’ She changes tack, reaches her hand out to him. It touches his face and he can smell it on her fingers, her breath.

  ‘You fucking bitch!’ His hand flies out in front of him, connects with her face. She falls back, on to a bag. It’s only a bag, for fuck’s sake. Why is there blood? Too much blood. Jay moves her. She groans, a different groan this time, not one he wants to hear. ‘Mariela, Mariela. Fucking hell. Do something, John.’ John isn’t doing anything, it’s like he’s faded from the picture. Jay edges Mariela off the bag, slowly, gently. He’s practised in first aid. There’s something in there that’s hard, something else sharp that she has fallen on. He unzips it to find a knife, a hammer, handcuffs.

  John’s voice leaks into the air.

  ‘Welcome to the dark side, son.’

  Jay is having one of those nightmares where he’s done something irreversibly bad and he’s waiting to wake up. Wake up. He can’t. This is it. However much he hates Mariela, it doesn’t add up to her listless body.

  John, on the other hand, is in full swing. Like Mariela is all in a day’s work. He’s done it before. Course he’s fucking done it before. This knowledge sends a momentary flare of hope through Jay. John has done this before and he can still breathe and drink a pint and smile. Jay looks again at his face. Has he seen him smile? A proper smile. He hasn’t. The hope is ash. He doesn’t want to be John. He wants to be Jay. The old Jay. DS Huxtable. Not going anywhere fast. Speed is overrated. It costs. Why did nobody tell him this before?

  John is wearing latex gloves. Jesus Christ. Jay has found himself on the wrong side. He solves crimes, doesn’t perpetrate them. John rips Mariela’s dress and for a second Jay thinks he might be trying to help her.

  His perception is quickly undone. John opens the door. They’re right next to the allotments.

  ‘The third plot on the left,’ he tells Jay. ‘Saw some woman with her grandson there today. Looks tidy, like she goes there a lot. We want her to be found as soon as possible.’ He hands Jay a pair of gloves before telling him to put Gabriel’s shoes on. ‘You’ll have tae carry her the rest of the way.’

  Jay can see the plan as clear as day now. He’s finally listening to the lines of unspoken conversation. It’s where he’s been going wrong. The truth, he realises, is packed in between the words where the gaps and silences sit.

  He does what he’s told – what choice does he have? With some difficulty, he carries Mariela’s body (because she’s dead now and even if she isn’t, she will be soon) to the edge of the allotment and leaves her there. But before he walks away he pulls her dress down to make her decent and scratches himself as he finds a few branches to cover her. It is cold, the temperature hovering below zero, and he doesn’t like the idea of her freezing out here. He gives her one last look and decides to close her eyes. Who knows, she could just be sleeping. With any luck, she might wake up from this nightmare. And so will he.

  One last stop before they return home. Jay removes Gabriel’s boots and notices one of his socks is caked with mud. He can’t explain why; did the boot fall off in the allotment? An alarm goes off in his head but it’s drowned out by John hissing at him to hand over the boots. He does as he’s told and John walks up to a house two doors down from Gabriel’s and places the shoes in the wheelie bin.

  Alone, back in his flat, Jay sits on his sofa. Who knows what he does in the hours that follow – watches TV, makes a cup of tea, drinks a beer . . . He really couldn’t say. The only thing he can be sure of is that he’s sitting at the edge of a black hole with a mouth so big it’s only a matter of time before it swallows him.

  When the phone rings and he hears Anna’s voice, he can’t work out how many hours or days have passed.

  But he surprises himself when he says the words: ‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’

  Monday, 17 November 2014

  Charlie

  Monday, the Scotland trip, not too late to drop out.

  And yet.

  It was. I had to go, to put the lie to bed, to find out who Linda was and find my way again.

  I arrived to a silent house, toyed with the notion Linda might have taken off without me. Why else wouldn’t she be crashing about, readying herself for the journey, packing a cool box with sandwiches and the toffees she promised me in return for driving.

  ‘I can’t stand motorways m
yself,’ she’d said.

  ‘Linda?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Linda!’

  I heard her voice, thin and broken as if her signal was running out. I raced up the stairs, two at a time, found her propped up against the wall, circled by a pool of blood.

  I swallowed my scream. Hysterics wouldn’t help.

  ‘It looks worse than it is,’ she said.

  ‘Jesus, Linda, are you OK?’

  My immediate thought was intruders. She’d mentioned having a laptop stolen the year before. In any other circumstances, I would have called 999, but I remembered who I was, who I wasn’t. Questions – didn’t fancy answering them, giving my name and details as a witness. Very few people within the force even know this investigation exists, Jay had said. I needed to call him first before I called anyone else.

  I crouched down to inspect the cut on her head, eased the blood-soaked towel out of her hand.

  ‘Just a fall,’ she said.

  ‘Come on then,’ I said, keeping it light. ‘You can’t sit there all day. Let’s clean you up, and after that you can tell me what the hell happened.’

  I took her into the bedroom, brought a fresh towel for her head, an extra blanket to keep her warm, worked my way around the cut with tepid water and cotton wool. She started to cry, not in pain but because her travel plans were ruined. Tougher than she looked, Linda. I suggested emailing the interviewee, Naomi Parkes, and asking if we could postpone the meeting. Linda muttered her agreement but didn’t appear reassured.

  It was only when I headed back downstairs to make some tea that I saw the state of the living room: the upturned table, coffee cup spilt, plant pot upended. Bloody handprints on the hallway wall. A noise in my head fired like a siren. This wasn’t a fall. Someone had been here. I switched on to autopilot, brought her tea and biscuits, settled down into the armchair next to her bed and said, ‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’

  She repeated the lie about having fallen. Blamed it on a dizzy spell. ‘Nice try.’ I described the mess downstairs, the handprints and footprints painted in blood.

  ‘I should call the police.’ Don’t want to, but I should.

  ‘Please don’t,’ she said, with a force that surprised us both.

  ‘Who did this?’

  ‘Gabriel,’ she said. ‘It was an accident.’

  Linda told me about a woman called Mariela and a body and Gabriel being the last person to see her alive as if she was relaying a fantastical story she didn’t quite believe herself.

  I questioned whether the injury had knocked the sense out of her.

  ‘I’m not making this up,’ she said when she caught my disbelief. ‘I wish I was. He came here because he wanted me to help him. He thought I was calling the police, you see. He wanted to get out, pushed past me, that’s all.’

  ‘And he hit you when you refused?’ She wiped her eyes, winced at the pain. She was diminished, ashamed even. But then, who wouldn’t be, if your only son had done this to you? I felt a swell of hatred towards him.

  ‘Why aren’t they here then?’

  ‘Oh, Anna,’ she said, ‘he’s my son. I was calling a friend first. I wanted his advice, but the damn fool never switches on his phone. Not that I would cover for Gabriel if he had really done something wrong, but I just don’t believe it. This isn’t him.’ She pointed at her face. ‘He’s not a monster. You won’t call the police, will you? Not right now, anyway. I’m not asking you to lie, it’s just . . .’

  ‘You should get some rest,’ I told her when her words started to run slow. She closed her eyes and was gone within seconds.

  I crept downstairs and called Jay from my mobile. He picked up the phone, spoke his name in a voice that suggested he’d just woken up from a long, deep sleep. I tried to explain the situation, that the trip was off, what should we do?

  ‘I’ll be there in half an hour,’ he said, and hung up before I could warn him I had promised Linda I wouldn’t call the police.

  Jay arrived not long afterwards with a colleague he introduced as John. I told them Linda was sleeping, and could they come back later. Jay shook his head; no, that wouldn’t be possible. He looked like shit, blamed it on flu, the worst bout, he said.

  ‘Aren’t they always, where men are concerned.’ He didn’t laugh and before I could say anything else, John was inside, prowling round Linda’s house, telling me not to touch anything; ‘It’s a potential crime scene, so it is.’

  Later, after he’d questioned Linda, he took me aside; ‘You have to persuade her to go to Scotland. It’s only a cut.’ He’d already suggested she should leave the house for her own safety, but Linda, being Linda, was having none of it.

  ‘The woman’s just had a shock, you can’t expect her to drive hundreds of miles.’

  ‘Come on, this has been months in the planning, I don’t want to mess it up now.’ A whiff of desperation rolled off him, stress had formed shadows under his eyes. ‘Besides,’ he said, softer this time, ‘it’s you who’ll be doing the driving. All she has to do is sit there.’

  ‘It’s too late, I’ve already emailed the woman she’s meeting to see if she’ll postpone.’

  He shot me a look full of frustration. ‘I’m going outside for air,’ he said.

  In the end, it was Naomi Parkes’ reply that convinced Linda to go. She said she couldn’t delay the meeting and had been having second thoughts anyway. It was now or never. That settled it. Jay arranged a hire car, since Gabriel had relieved Linda of hers, and promised to keep us up to date with any developments. It was late into the night when we left London.

  The morning beat us to Largs, where we were to catch the ferry. The sky, an intense blue, teased by wisps of cloud. A syrupy glaze settled over the water. Scotland. It was good to be back here, have the canvas stretch out for miles beyond me and soothe my eyes. In London, the buildings were bold and greedy and tussled for space, but here I could catch the horizon and hold it in my gaze.

  When we reached Claremont Cottage, a couple of things hit me. It was remote. Not some quaint village with a pub kind of remote. The road from Dunoon had twirled us round and round until I wondered whether the satnav was playing me for a fool. Our nearest town, Tighnabruiach, was three miles away.

  The second thing I discovered when I tried to call Jay was that there was no reception anywhere in the cottage. No television either.

  Thirdly, a search through the house manual for the Wi-Fi code informed me there wasn’t one:

  We hope you enjoy your time at Claremont Cottage, and make the most of the opportunity to switch off from the distractions of the outside world.

  From the team at Isle Escapes.

  The woman at the general store rose from her chair behind the counter to peer at me like a novelty. Not many new faces around here in mid-November, I guessed.

  ‘I’m visiting for a few days, staying just down the road,’ I said, pre-empting her inquiry. ‘Holiday.’

  ‘You’re brave. Don’t be fooled by that.’ She pointed to the window and the blue sky beyond. ‘It can change in a minute. Whereabouts are ye?’

  ‘Claremont Cottage, just down the road.’

  ‘Oh aye, I know the one. Big place, if yer on yer own.’

  ‘I’m with a friend.’

  ‘First time here?’

  I nodded. ‘I worked in Loch Lomond for years but never made it this far.’

  ‘You and the rest of the population,’ she laughed. ‘We like tae keep it secret. I’m Emily Lune, by the way. Lune as in French for moon. Now what can ah get ye?’

  The woman could talk, and listening to her served as a form of relaxation. She insisted I take some salmon, ‘fished by my own Tom. At least he’s good for something. A knob of butter, four minutes on either side, no more or you’ll ruin it. Ah’ll have some trout for ye
later this week, if yer interested.’

  ‘You’re on,’ I said.

  ‘Some business this, isn’t it?’ She tapped her finger at a newspaper on the counter. ‘That funny man. Murder, they reckon. Just goes to show, ye cannae trust anyone.’

  Emily turned the newspaper around to let me read it. Gabriel Miller was plastered over the front page.

  Comic Arrested on Suspicion of Murder

  He looked bashed up, unlike himself. Linda’s smiling teenage boy nowhere to be found.

  ‘Can I buy a copy?’

  ‘Ah used to stock them, but no bugger bought them around here. Ye can have this one. Ah’ve read it cover tae cover.’

  Outside, I sat by the water and read every word written about Gabriel, about Linda, even the short biography. Gabriel Horatio Miller was born in 1984 . . .

  And then I found a pocket of signal and phoned Jay.

  ‘They found him yesterday. He’s being questioned now. I’ll be in touch as soon as he’s released or charged.’ He suggested hiding the news from Linda in case she decided to come home. ‘And keep her inside. We don’t want anyone to know she’s up there. The last thing we need is for her to be frightened off before the meeting.’

  ‘I’m not her jailer,’ I was surprised at how callous he could be.

  ‘No, but if she leaves, you’ve had a wasted trip.’

  Over the next few days, time fell into a maddening slumber. I took long walks, willed myself to appreciate the lush green hills, the sound of water quickening over rocks, the shriek of a bird, the clouds rushing through a blue sky. Anything to capture my imagination and push time onwards. But my anxiety won every time.

  Waiting for the meeting, being with Linda in such close quarters, removed from the noise and distractions of London, sharpened my dilemma and its edges cut deep in to my skin. Was she the eccentric, generous woman I had come to know over the past eight months, or was she the Linda who had schemed with our abusers to stamp all over the truth?

  Was it possible she was both?