84k

by Claire North

  “Dad’s selling the business to the Company, of course. It’s not like they want it or need it, it’s just that it’s making a profit and they’re making a profit so they may as well invest in something which makes more of a profit. He’s going to stay on as a non-exec and I mean that’s the castle in Scotland sorted, surprisingly cheap castles in Scotland if you buy them run-down then a few mil to refurbish that’s what he says and the Company is very interested in …”

  It occurs to Theo, later, that this was around the time people started to talk about the Company. Not a company, which owned a company which owned … but the Company. The one that owned it all. It had always been there. It was never a secret. Only now it owns so many things that it might as well own it all.

  In a few months’ time the real Theo Miller will be dead, BANG, and the boy who steals his name will slink back to Shawford and there will be a night with Dani Cumali on the beach

  “Off to your fancy university your fancy friends …”

  “I heard you and Andy, I mean that …”

  After.

  Dani and the boy who would be Theo lay together on shingle and it was deeply uncomfortable and rather cold but no one wanted to break the spell—not him, not her, so they lay tangled and it was …

  The morning after, as Theo walked towards Dani’s flat in the morning, bag on his back, head full of dreams of redemption and hope and the future, he saw Dani coming the other way, Andy slung across her shoulders, his arm across her back, owning her, pushing her down with his weight, pulling her along with his walk, and his eyes met Dani’s and he saw …

  All the truth written in them.

  She pretended not to know him, as she and her boyfriend swaggered past, and he pretended not to know them either, and got on the first replacement bus service back to Dover Priory and when the train juddered to a halt in Ashford and sat for twenty minutes creaking and broken on the tracks, the boy who would be Theo threw his phone out of the window and never looked back.

  Later he realised he was an idiot and that was a perfectly good handset he’d destroyed, he should have just jettisoned the SIM card, but at the time it felt like a gesture that mattered.

  Chapter 23

  The day after Dani Cumali died

  the man called Theo took a USB stick with the details of her murder home with him

  put it on the small plywood desk

  took out a mobile phone.

  The phone was a hefty brick, grey in colour. He’d found it in a privet hedge, thrown from a window.

  It still held its charge.

  He turned it off.

  Turned it on.

  Turned it off again.

  He sat on the end of his bed while in the room next door Marvin played bad music far too loud.

  He went downstairs and made pasta.

  Sat back on the end of his bed.

  Fell asleep in his clothes.

  In the morning the phone was still there, and Dani was still dead, and he still had to audit the value of her life and death.

  Theo cycled to work, looked at the route as if for the first time, seeing now the phone repair shops, the laundrettes offering patch jobs on torn trousers, the chippy with a sign in the window explaining how fish was so much better than pizza

  children, going to school

  lunchboxes

  brushed hair

  uniforms

  texting

  shuffling

  running

  he

  nearly cycled into the back of a bus, slammed on the brakes, heard someone shout from an open window, “You’re a vegetable!”

  Laugh.

  Cycled a little more carefully to work.

  And work was …

  She killed her because she was looking at her. She knew just knew that if she didn’t move now it was going to be …

  He said I did it. Sure I did it I did it. Because it needed to be done.

  Look it’s not even theft, the system let me get away with it so I did.

  I dunno. I dunno. It was just. There was just this. I just got so mad.

  Edward Witt said, “Why do you want to do pathology on the Cumali woman? No one will pay for it; she was a patty living in an enclave, we’ll be lucky if we can squeeze seventy grand out of it, and time-wasting stuff like autopsies are the kind of thing a good defence lawyer will laugh out of court …”

  In the too-hot or too-cold or too-wet or too-dry never enough of anything that was ever good enough walls of the Criminal Audit Office, Edward pushed one pink finger down point first in the middle of his desk, driving hard enough to tilt the tip almost to ninety degrees against the knuckle, and declared:

  “Justice is doing the right thing for society. This Cumali case—now I know this sounds harsh—but seventy thousand is a fair sum for her life, the woman was a leech! A patty who was never going to contribute anything meaningful to society, she didn’t even have a pension I mean she was just going to be … and it’s very sad that she died but compared to someone useful, I mean someone who mattered, I think seventy is a good figure to aim for. So get over to Seph Atkins’ lawyer and get this settled so we can move on to cases with greater profit margins.”

  Theo nodded and said not a word, and left the office and walked back to his corner where the orange mushrooms grew, and sat at his desk, and realised that he hadn’t raised his voice at work for nearly twelve years, and had not fought or kicked or raged or wept or experienced anything of much at all to suggest that he was unhappy in his life. Nor could he remember the last time he smiled.

  Chapter 24

  On the canal Theo sat at the back of the boat, steering the Hector towards Cosgrove.

  Neila drew the cards.

  Four of cups, the Magician, the Lovers (inverted), ace of staves, two of swords, four of swords, the Sun (inverted), knave of cups, the Hanged Man (inverted).

  Theo wound the engine down, stuck his head inside, careful to keep the door barely open lest the heat from the stove escape. “We’re nearing the lock. Do you want to stop?”

  There was another boat moored a hundred yards away.

  Neila went to say hi. It was the right thing to do, especially in winter. She liked the simplicity of such things. They had a cup of tea.

  In the night someone started a fire in the distance, the smell of smoke as it blew across the water strong enough to wake Neila, heart racing, fumbling for the light, terror, terror, the worst thing in the world but …

  … the flames were elsewhere, a fist punching the clouds, a blistering smear that made the sky a bowl instead of a roof.

  For a while she watched it from the back of the boat, and Theo came out too, shrouded in a coat, and they stood and watched the blaze, and the sirens did not sing, and no one came.

  In the morning the fire was still burning, lower, and the magnificence of the night was faded to a black scar, soot blown across the water.

  The boat that had moored up from theirs was already gone. The cupboard was growing bare, and they did not head into town.

  Chapter 25

  Theo Miller went to see Seph Atkins and her lawyer.

  She wasn’t being held in the police station. It wasn’t cost- effective.

  They met in an office just south of Holborn. Marble floors, fishbowls on low glass tables holding green branches without leaves that coiled and looped into themselves like angry snakes, something Theo struggled to imagine had ever lived in nature. A waterfall within a glass wall behind the receptionists, a security gate guarded by Company Police, Tasers on the left hip, guns on the right. Vagrants could be Tasered on sight in this part of the city—they caused emotional distress, and emotional distress was basically assault.

  Theo tried not to stare, to imagine what it must be like to wear silk and have a resident’s permit for Zone 1. He stood quietly in front of the reception desk, hands clasped, satchel over his shoulder, and the receptionists ignored him. He coughed. No response. He said, “Excuse me?” and the receptionists looked up,
all three of them, simultaneous, outraged at his audacity. Then the nearest fixed her face in a radiant smile, daring him to think he’d ever seen any other expression on her softly toned features. The transformation was so sudden and complete that Theo nearly jumped, flinching from the brightness of her polished white teeth. She took his fingerprints, a credit rating, gave him a free chocolate in the shape of a heart, a leaflet about civic–corporate partnership and told him to wait.

  Theo ignored the leaflet, listened to the words around him, eyes half-closed, satchel in his lap.

  “When people say monopoly they don’t understand the way our economy works. No one has a monopoly on supply and demand—but the money to fuel growth must come from a dynamic, central source which carries not just a responsibility for economic, but also for cultural growth within the …”

  “I do the law to make a difference. I really do. We’re giving so much back to the nation …”

  “No. Downstairs. In the lobby. Yes, in the lobby! We need to talk now. Now.”

  “Government raises taxes to subsidise business. That’s what economic planning means.”

  The lawyer sent her secretary down to Theo after keeping him waiting barely twenty-five minutes. They did not speak in the elevator up to the twelfth floor, and the secretary did not meet Theo’s eyes.

  An office, larger than any at the Audit Office and smaller than any other in the building, a painting on one wall of great bands of red and orange colour, perhaps a sunset, inverted, or a spilt drink seeping into canvas or the colour of the artist’s anger and conflicted love, it was all very …

  “Mr. Miller. Thank you for coming down so quickly.” A woman, five foot five, sepia-brown skin, rich and warm, doe eyes and a bun of woven silken black hair, dressed in charcoal skirt-suit, sheer tights and black pumps, a chunky black watch on her left wrist, a gold bracelet on her right.

  By night Mala Choudhary practised Muay Thai. She won most of her fights but found those she lost more exciting. She used to do MMA, but it had too many rules and the wrong kind of machismo—the kind that never learned. Her mother calls her a chubby pumpkin, because her legs are muscled and her hips are broad. She secretly didn’t do very well at university, but what does that matter when you excel in the real world?

  She’s going to be a partner soon. She smiles, and Theo Miller tastes something liquid and hot in the roof of his mouth, like car sickness, while standing still.

  “Just before we begin, I will be recording this conversation, is that acceptable?”

  “Fine.”

  A tablet, laid down on the glass table between them, a glimpse of words and images; is that the blasted remnants of Dani Cumali’s head that she swipes away, quick, searching for more pertinent things?

  “Thank you—yes, please send Ms. Atkins in.”

  A command issued to her watch, Theo thought for a moment that Mala Choudhary had gone mad, but no, the watch records her heartbeat, steps walked, calories burned, emails received and of course links to her assistant’s assistant, for all matters where her assistant is busy with more important assisting.

  They waited.

  Theo felt his fingers ripple, once along the desk, looked to see if Mala had spotted the movement, saw no sign, put his hands carefully in his lap, folded into a fist one over the other so tight it hurt.

  Seph Atkins entered the room. She wore a white shirt and blue jeans. She had no jewellery, no make-up, knew that their absence made her handsome. She glanced at Theo, turned her attention to Mala, smiled a smile of tiny white teeth, glanced back to Theo and paused.

  Stopped.

  Looked again.

  Theo stood up, nodded. “Ms. Atkins.”

  “Ms. Atkins, this is Mr. Miller,” exhaled Mala, smooth as single cream, pulling back a chair for her client. “He’s from the Audit Office.”

  Seph sat without taking her eyes off Theo’s face. Mala swung her tablet round, tapped tapped tapped, looked up with a burst of practised brightness, all smile and eye, announced: “Shall we get down to business? Our office has done a preliminary assessment of the case but before sharing our conclusions I was wondering where the Audit Office was currently at in processing this matter?”

  Through the dry heat in his skin, a familiar phrase to carry him through. “We have conducted the initial assessment, and are looking at premeditated first-degree murder as our initial—”

  “Mr. Miller I have to stop you right there, we will of course not be accepting that charge in this case.”

  Theo met Mala’s eyes. Her eyes were easier to meet than Seph Atkins’, and there was that within them that stirred a memory of something resembling … was it anger? He wasn’t sure. He found it hard to remember having felt anything of anything much for a very, very long time.

  “We are confident of success in a first-degree charge. Ms. Atkins entered Ms. Cumali’s house for no other purpose to kill her. Her motivation was—”

  “Self-defence.”

  “Ms. Atkins had a gun. No fingerprints were found on it; Dani Cumali certainly did not clean her fingerprints off the weapon after she was dead. The room had been searched, the bullets were fired at close range to centre mass, there was no attempt to disable, Dani was …”

  He stopped himself.

  Uncoiled his fingers, aching in a clump in his lap. Looked away. Felt Seph Atkins’ gaze on him still, silent, smiling.

  Words from Mala Choudhary. Second-degree, manslaughter, there are mitigating circumstances you see, Ms. Cumali was in fact—if you’ll look at these documents yes there—a history of criminal activities of …

  Theo half-listens.

  There was a case he worked once, a boy, seven, was run over by three teenagers. They hit him, then rolled over him four more times, laughing, and he died. They filmed the whole thing; it was great, it was hilarious it was …

  But the teenagers had money, and the boy was autistic and assessed as being unlikely to contribute very much to society. Then it turned out his mother was an immigrant anyway so it wasn’t like the boy was even a citizen just a scrounger on the nanny state, and that had been Theo’s first case, his first proper homicide as a senior auditor and how much had that cost?

  How much had the boys paid?

  He thought … if he closed his eyes … maybe £35,000 each?

  Maybe a little more, because they’d also damaged a neighbour’s car, and it was a Volvo.

  “If you look here you’ll see that our initial assessment of Dani Cumali’s life was that actually she was barely worth £17,000, and that’s with the societal cost of her demise thrown in, she was in fact a burden on the exchequer and I have seen reports from her managers saying that she was a disruptive element, even with the good fortune to have got parole she was …”

  The parents had paid their children’s indemnity, and one of the kids had been sent off to boarding school on the Isle of Man. The other two had been grounded for a month. They’d also paid for a discretion clause, and no records were retained.

  “A drug user, there are reports that Cumali had been found with—”

  He stood up. “Excuse me,” he barked, cutting through Mala’s flow. “May I use the bathroom?”

  “Of course,” she replied, leaning a little away from the desk, surprised, reassessing. “All the way down on the right.”

  “Thank you.”

  He marched through the office, beautiful, glass and acrylic canvas, comfy sofas in a comfy break room for people to put their feet up and choose a magazine from the extensive and frequently updated collection of lifestyle guides, adventure fables and fashion gloss; the kind of office every kid raised through every corporate—educational partnership school dreamed of working in. Even in Shawford they’d been shown pictures of Budgetfood’s corporate HQ and three students who’d completed their Gold Enterprise Certificates were taken on a tour as a special treat.

  He locked himself in a cubicle in the bathroom and felt

  he felt

  once upon a time he’d had
these feelings he’d felt things there’d been a case a woman raped repeatedly by her partner, that was before they changed the law so that rape within relationships was just a misdemeanour because frankly common sense

  the indemnity had been £7800, but he made that every week with extras so he paid it and did it again

  and again

  and again

  and she

  “You’ve already got the previous case file, just use that!” exclaimed Edward. “We can’t be clogging up the system!”

  what happened to her she jumped in front of a train she

  Theo had felt something then, hadn’t he?

  The old guy beaten to death in his flat the kids who did it couldn’t pay the indemnity but that’s all right the Company sponsored them, put them on its Special Securities team, they’re doing well now they’re big shots in the world of private peace solutions …

  Dani Cumali with her brains blown out not like her case is special not like it matters more or less or differently or

  The man called Theo Miller stares at a grey toilet wall and is grateful that it is not a mirror.

  A swoosh of door. The door is heavy, with a furry strip at its bottom that picks up grey felted dust. Footsteps. A tap. A squelch of soap. The tap stopped. A hot-air dryer, rippling skin like tissue paper in a storm. Stopped. No footsteps. No door. Theo waited. Silence in the bathroom. Theo opened the door of the cubicle.

  Seph Atkins looked at him through the mirror, hands framing the sink on which she leaned, smiling. “I saw you,” she breathed. “I saw you.”

  “Ms. Atkins, you appear to have the wrong bathroom, this is the—”

  “At the enclave. You were in the door. You made like a heron.”