And pissed on her bed.
She made a routine call to the local nick and gave descriptions, then went out on to the street. She could feel the corner of her mouth and the flesh along her cheekbone beginning to swell. There was a hard lump between her gum and the soft tissue of her mouth. She delved with her tongue, lifting the half tooth, and spat it out along with a little streamer of blood. She felt for her car key and it wasn’t in her pocket, so it must have been in her bag, along with some cash she’d recently drawn: two hundred pounds. Her credit cards were in a thin wallet that she always kept in her pocket, but the loss of the money stung.
On the main street, vehicles were backed up between three sets of traffic lights, no one going anywhere, a toxic haze wafting back and forth in the cold air. She jogged down towards Harefield.
The roads that ran on to the estate had once been brightly lit – that was for a month or so. Bright lights were bad for business, so they’d had to go. Now the inroads were dark, the DMZ was dark, and the lights of the tower blocks, far back, shone through the gloom like ships at sea.
Her phone went and she checked the screen. It was Delaney, so she pressed hang-up. Two minutes later it rang again and she was about to repeat the process when she saw Harriman’s name there. She slowed to a walk and answered the call.
He said, ‘I thought you’d be amused to know that Martin Cotter has fingered his wife.’
‘Her motive being?’
‘He wasn’t too specific on that one. His wife,’ Harriman added, ‘and her lover.’
Stella was looking left and right, in shop doorways, along side streets. Three boys in hoodies: it was like looking for pebbles on a beach.
‘Who’s the lover?’
‘Some joke. Some guy she’s been fucking. There’s nothing in it.’
‘It’s clever, though. Accuse the accuser.’
‘He is clever, didn’t you think so?’
‘Mostly I thought he was a scumbag who killed people for fun and I’d be happy to see him on a slab.’
He noticed the real edge of anger in her voice, and he could hear a chorus of horns from the tailback. He said, ‘Where are you?’
‘Out by Harefield. Some lads did the Vigo Street flat.’
She went into a pub and stood at the door to look round. Harriman’s perception of background changed to boy-band music, laughter, the electronic warbling of fruit machines.
‘Oh, shit. Bad one?’
‘They pissed in my bed.’
‘You’re not looking for them?’
‘They were still there when I got back. One of them broke my tooth. And they pissed in my bed!’
‘Jesus Christ, you are looking for them. What do you mean, broke your tooth?’
‘Hit me. Broke my tooth.’
She was back on the street, scanning doorways and bus shelters.
‘Did you call the locals?’
‘Sure. We agreed there was nothing much they could do.’
‘Stay off Harefield. I’ll come down.’
She said, ‘Call for back-up.’
‘Don’t go on to the estate, Stella.’
‘Make the call.’
‘Jesus! Look, you’re angry, you’re not thinking straight, don’t do it.’
‘Make the call.’
Three lads in hoodies eating kebabs and drinking beer from the bottle.
She stepped out into the road and a motorbike cruising the corridor between the lines of cars stood up on its front wheel. Her eyes were on the lads. One had a pattern on the sleeve about where his bicep would be, a flame-pattern that resolved to a snakehead. She recognized it – the guy who’d hit her – and they recognized her as she made the pavement and turned towards them.
They couldn’t believe her. What was this mark doing on the streets seeking them out? This victim? She was walking fast, looking straight at them and without the first idea of what she was going to do if she caught up. Suddenly she felt scared, but she’d come this far. Come this far and, for some stupid reason, couldn’t bring herself to back off. One of them beckoned, as if to say, Come on, then, we’re up for this, which is when the patrol car rolled up to the junction between Harefield and the main road, looking for an opening in the solid nose-to-tail.
The car was between Stella and the boys. She leaned down and tapped on the window, showing her ID, and the driver let down the window. The car smelled of bodies and smoke and fast food. Stella pointed. She said, ‘We’re picking them up – suspicion of breaking and entering.’
The boys edged away towards the dark approach roads, walking slowly at first, looking back to see what was happening, then turning and quickening their pace. The cops looked at Stella, then at the boys. The driver said, ‘They’re about to leg it.’
‘I can see that.’
As she said it, the boys started to run. The second cop activated the roof-bar and the patrol car pulled out and turned against the flow of traffic, hopping the kerb with its nearside wheels canted over, making for the first road into Harefield. Stella ran straight for the DMZ. She was counting on the car catching up with her before she got too far into the estate. The boys were in sight, running hard, heading for the walk-space under Block C.
Stella was sprinting through a garbage-field of junked furniture, white goods, bin-bags, whatever people had tossed out and walked away from. She hacked her leg against a toppled fridge and yelled but ran through the pain. The boys were shadows, slipping into the walk-space. She looked round as she ran. The patrol car was somewhere back on the road, trying to weave and shunt its way out of the gridlock.
She reached Block C and pulled up. The DMZ was dark, though not entirely lightless. There was a half-moon and the sky was almost clear; frost glistened on the scrub grass and on the bald concrete pillars that supported the block. In the walk-space it was total blackout. Someone standing twenty feet back would be invisible, but someone walking in from the perimeter would be a dim silhouette. Either they were waiting for her, or they’d gone straight through to the bull ring.
Stella took a step in, then another, then a third. To begin with, she had been operating on raw anger – They pissed on my bed! – but now all that kept her going was the fact that she’d come this far, to the black edge of things.
She thought, I could die here. One day you wake up and it’s the day of your death. This could be the day. I could have said nothing to Delaney about finding his card in Kimber’s flat, could still be there now, could be eating pasta with a good, red wine, could be expecting to go to bed before bedtime. She thought all this in an eye-blink, and something went past her head with a low witter of slipstream and smashed somewhere off into the darkness.
She said, ‘Police officer.’
Her voice seemed to echo round the walk-space; it stuttered back to her, bringing with it a shrill laugh. Then there was a moment of stand-off, then the laugh came again, louder, throatier. Stella caught its direction and walked towards it. She was frightened now. Too frightened to turn and run. Footsteps rattled off somewhere to her left. She circled the sound, wondering if she could still be seen against the faint moonlight out in the DMZ.
A shape drifted in the dark, and she thought: That ghost again. That ghost, like before. And, like before, a smell came up to her: beer and the sourness of skin, faint and then stronger and then, before she could turn, she was hit from behind, a wild punch that landed between her shoulder blades, making her stagger. She managed to turn, only to take the next punch on the boss of her shoulder. She crouched, angling her body, and kicked out but didn’t connect. She could hear movements though she couldn’t tell what they meant or which way her attacker was moving. The laugh came again, on a gust of foul breath, and suddenly she was locked in an embrace. She wrestled but he held her, face to face, his arms pinning hers, and they staggered together and fell, the breath rushing from her lungs, her head smacking the ground.
The darkness deepened and she seemed to lose consciousness for a second. When she came to, she thought
something was crawling on her, an animal of some kind, then realized that what she could feel were hands. She hit out and struck something. Until then, it hadn’t occurred to her to yell, but that’s what she did next. As if in answer, a light played in the darkness – a torch-beam – and a voice said, ‘Stella?’
The light settled on her for a second, blinding her, then lifted to shine on her attacker. The face above her was framed in wild hair, the mouth laughing a silent laugh, the eyes wandering, white and bald like alabaster eggs.
The patrol car was parked out on the approach road, roof-bar flashing, radio busy. Stella nodded at the two cops. She said, ‘You were a terrific help. I can’t thank you enough.’
The driver shrugged. He said, ‘We were boxed in. Nothing was moving.’
‘Least of all you,’ Harriman said. ‘It didn’t occur to you to get out of the car –’
‘It would have been an obstruction.’
‘You’re an obstruction,’ Harriman observed. ‘Fuck off.’
Stella’s attacker sat in the back of the patrol car. He had foul hair, filthy clothes, a rank smell and a docile smile. He was Beggar Ben. He was Panhandler Pete. There were hundreds of him and some were called Sadie or Jamie. By day, he sat on the streets with his hand out; by night he took to the walk-spaces under the towers with as much strong brew as he could buy.
Harriman had cuffed him and hustled him across the DMZ. Panhandler Pete. He’d laughed that shrill laugh and said, ‘I can’t see so well. I’m good in the dark.’ He wagged his head. ‘She came at me. She was after me.’
‘Tell the arresting sergeant to give him something to eat,’ Stella said.
‘Give him a kick in the head,’ the driver said. ‘We’ll have to go all the way with the windows down; he smells like a fucking drain.’
Stella said, ‘I’ll have to paper this. You’re in great danger of not coming out of it well.’
The driver got in, his partner sat in the back keeping his distance as best he could. Panhandler Pete faced the open window and smiled vacantly. His eyes were little moons.
He said, ‘I can’t see so well. I’m good in the dark, though.’
‘You’re a statistic,’ Harriman told her. ‘Unsolved burglary number billion-squillion-and-four.’
‘I’d better go back,’ she said. ‘Check what they took.’
Harriman laughed. ‘You don’t expect to see it again?’
‘Of course not. Insurance claim. The locals will give me a crime number, I’ll lie about the value.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘Broken tooth, face swelling up, gashed shin, took several blows to the body, otherwise utterly chipper.’
‘What the fuck were you thinking of, Stella?’
They had worked together a lot and each knew things about the other that would never be told. There were times when he called her Boss and other times when he called her Stella. It was a matter of judgement.
‘I was angry.’
‘Meaning you weren’t thinking.’
‘Meaning exactly that. I did start thinking, though, at one point. I thought that I might die.’
They were walking down the main road. The snarl-up was no better and the patrol car was locked in about twenty metres further down. After a moment, they reached the turn-off to Stella’s street. Harriman said, ‘Everyone’s got you teamed up with that journo. Delaney. I didn’t know you still lived here.’
‘I have two addresses,’ she told him. ‘Delaney’s and mine.’
‘I could come back with you.’
‘Help tidy up?’
‘Send out for pizza. Open a bottle of wine.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s okay.’ They had paused on the corner; Stella was walking backwards, very slowly, towards the flat. She asked, ‘How did you know where to look?’
‘I heard you scream.’
‘I didn’t scream.’ Still backing off.
Harriman was wearing a suede jacket with a fleece lining. He zipped it all the way up to the throat and lifted the collar.
As he walked off, he said, ‘Oh yes you did.’
39
She picked a few things up off the floor and swept most of the crap into a corner, but, all in all, she didn’t have the heart for it. One of the tags on her wall read Smiff or Biff. The locals rang to say they were on their way. Stella congratulated them on their speed and told them to bring a camera. Tags are a very personal matter.
She put the phone back on its cradle and saw that the answerphone light was flashing. When she pressed ‘play’ she got George, as she knew she would. He told her that Seattle was just the place for boat designers and that things were going well. In fact, commissions were difficult to avoid and his reputation was spreading.
He said, I’m going to have to stay here for a while.
He said, I need to raise some investment money.
He talked a little about the weather and the people. He sounded pretty good.
Then he said, So we’re going to have to think about selling the flat.
The sofa was tagged in red and black. She sat on it cross-legged. Now she was still, she could feel her various pains. The broken tooth, the bruised face, Panhandler Pete’s lucky punches, the gash on her shin. She played the tape again. It wasn’t sentimentality, just that she’d forgotten his voice, its tone and pitch.
The local cops arrived and took notes. They knew, and Stella knew, that it was a pointless process, but they did it anyway. One was tall, the other short, as if someone with a sense of humour had paired them up. They noted the malicious damage and the tags. They noted the cash that had been in her bag. They noted Stella’s descriptions of the boys. They noted the fact that the intruders had gained entry by the less-than-subtle method of kicking in a rear window. The tall one went into the bedroom, then emerged with a faint smile on his face. Stella knew that uniforms called detectives ‘the Filth’.
He said, ‘It’s an epidemic round here. They don’t always trash the place, but they certainly did a job here. Must have known your routine.’
‘You think detectives have a routine?’
He shrugged. ‘When were you last here?’
‘Ma’am,’ Stella said. No one ever called her that; she hated it.
‘When were you last here, ma’am?’ He tried to sound amused, but it didn’t come off.
‘I don’t live here all the time. A few days ago.’
The short one was the note-taker. He said, ‘So that would be it. You’re lucky you didn’t get squatters.’
‘Squatters would have looked after the place,’ the tall one observed. ‘Squatters aren’t like these people. They’re pretty responsible.’
‘Except they steal people’s homes,’ the short one said.
The tall one was having none of it. ‘Sometimes the places are empty. Sometimes they’re nothing more than investments bought to appreciate in value, I mean, just a way for the rich to get richer.’
Stella said, ‘Have you finished?’
They agreed that they had. Stella would let them have a list of what had been taken. They’d circulate the list. They would let Stella have a crime number, so she could make an insurance claim. The tall one was still wearing the smile when he offered to ask the crime prevention officer to call.
She stripped the bed and shoved everything into a bin-bag, but that was as far as she could get. The headboard was tagged: Biff. The shower was tagged: Smiff. Her underwear was spread round the room and blotched with red. The mirrors bore jokey faces eating giant cocks.
Stella went back to the living space and lifted the phone to call Delaney, then hung up. They’d thrown everything out of the freezer, but the vodka bottle hadn’t broken. She found a coffee mug and washed it and poured herself a drink, but it didn’t make her feel any better.
George, she thought, I’m glad Seattle’s good for you. I’m glad you’re making your way.
Then there were second thoughts. Are you? Are you glad?
Why wouldn’t I b
e?
Because he could be here with you, in a world where you hadn’t ever met John Delaney, or a world where you’d met him and sent him on his way.
I didn’t love George.
Yes, you did.
Not the way I love John Delaney. It was comfortable living with George, it was easy, it was risk-free.
You were bored.
That’s right, I was bored.
He loved you.
I know he did.
He loved you the way you say you love Delaney.
Yes. There was nothing I could do about that.
So here you are, having walked out on Delaney, hearing from George and thinking… what?
Thinking I can’t go back to Delaney tonight, but I will go back.
He lied to you.
He was doing his job. He needed that story. He’d already written half of it in his head.
But he lied. And he withheld information that could have made all the difference. That’s not just a lie, it’s close to betrayal.
You’re right, I know that.
And there’s someone out there killing people and –
I said I know you’re right.
In fact, you could probably bring charges against –
Enough. I know all that.
So I say fuck him. What do you say?
But Stella had nothing more to offer on the subject.
40
She taped a piece of cardboard over the broken window and left the flat. The traffic hadn’t eased, and cabs would be radioing each other to avoid the area, so she started towards the tube, walking quickly, weaving between the late-night shoppers and the drunks and the party-goers. Before she reached the station, she found a neon-lit doorway and behind it an office the size of a cupboard; on the window was an A4 sheet of paper with CAB printed on it. The office hadn’t been there last week and would probably last until just after Christmas. Three men sat on wooden chairs, smoking hard as if to counteract the cold.
Stella showed them her warrant card and they looked worried. When she said she needed a cab, they smiled and nodded and showed her a London map pinned to the wall. Stella pointed to Notting Hill Gate. One of the men nodded to her and left the office. Stella followed. They walked off the main drag and fifty metres down a side road. He blipped the lock on a new Ford. Stella almost laughed out loud: it was so obviously a hire car. She wondered how much the local patrol guys were putting in their pockets. Enough to make Christmas a little more festive.
Cold Kill Page 17