“Spud to Control, come in.”
The speaker crackles into life. “Go ahead, Norm.”
“Do me a favour will you, Rob? I’m needing the alarm on OP block disabled, just for a few seconds, yeah?”
“Got trouble out there?”
“Not really. Just we’ve got a celebrity visit. I’m wanting to let him out the back way, that’s all.”
“Celebrity?”
“Kind of, aye. Marc Niven, you know?”
“Never heard of him.”
Norman raises his eyes to me, with a hint of apology.
“On the radio. The talk show guy. Comes on before Alex. Very good, actually. ” Norman winks and motions me towards the exit.
“If you say so.” We hear a brief electronic warble from Rob’s end. “There you go. Alarm off. You know you need to fill an exception form for that, don’t you, Spud?”
Norman grins. “Piss off,” he says airily into his radio as he feels for the swipe card dangling around his neck. Seconds later the sliding doors are opening and I’m walking free from the building well away from the parked-up pimps, having all but genuflected to Norman Tait for his unknowing rescue act. As I dash home the only thing that stops me whooping, the way I used to when I’d foiled the ambush and galloped away from the school gates, is that my promise to Edona means I’ve somehow committed myself to taking on the outlaws again.
VIII
Back in my own bed I relive Edona’s nightmares. A witness to cold-hearted murder, a victim of multiple rape, a sex slave perhaps not yet out of her teens – the images of her abuse tumble over each other as I pitch between wakeful anxiety and lurid dreams. Underneath the pictures I can hear Edona’s hesitant voice relating her own horrors, breaking my heart as she reaches for the right words in English. I can’t keep myself out of these dreams. I make my first entry as an abuser, contorting my face as I try and fail to climax, then as a coward backing away from a writhing mountain of naked bodies all fucking or being fucked, as a runaway chased along the hard shoulder by nightclub bouncers who swipe at me with knives and rolled up newspapers, finally as a hospital case, lulled into sleep or gently assisted suicide by a foreign nurse singing a haunting lament, drawing me down, already fading as I follow, leaving just a trace of where the past has been.
When I wake up what I remember immediately and most vividly is graffiti on concrete. I lie and think about this for a while. It connects. At least if the dream is to be believed. What I need now (this pun raises my spirits sufficiently to spark me into getting up) is concrete evidence. I have two places I need to visit.
Three actually, though it’s just on the spur of the moment I decide to stop off at Prince Albert Road since I’m taking the car and Amina’s house is more or less en route. I had half-expected there to be a crowd of people gawking at the door of number 110 but the street looks pretty much the same as when I first saw it, except that being mid-morning it’s fully lined with cars parked by people working at The Gate. In fact I can’t find a space all the way along. I do a nifty three-pointer at the end of the street and drive slowly back again, only to find that in the meantime a white van has triple-parked in the middle of the road directly outside Amina’s house, blocking my way. The driver is already busy fixing a Montague & Hope For Sale sign outside the front door of 110.
Forced to wait, I sit and watch him at work, wondering whether this was something Amina had planned to do anyway, now that she has been left to cope on her own with the toddler, or whether it’s the sudden unwanted attention that’s made her decide to move. While I’m thinking about this, two men emerge from a car parked at the kerbside just in front of me and walk up to the house. As they engage the sign-erector in conversation I notice one of them carrying what looks suspiciously like a camera bag over his shoulder. Time to back off, literally. I reverse all the way up Prince Albert Road and make my escape before the press can find an excuse to add stalker to my list of endearing qualities.
Next stop is Oliver’s favourite haunt (and now mine, apparently), the Central Library. I make straight for the newspaper archive section to root around in the drawers. This time I’m not looking to recapture Marc Niven glories – I’m hunting for something in the background of a picture, something that laid a track in my brain the last time I looked at the image, without my even being aware of it until it resurfaced as part of last night’s stream of dreams.
Remembering roughly the date takes me to the right drawer fairly quickly, and pretty soon I’m staring once more at the burnt-out wreckage of Hassan Malik’s car, snapped at the scene of the accident. In the top right corner of the photograph, partly cropped off by the frame, is a distinctive graffiti tag to the right of the bridge rampart struck by the car. It seems to be a flowing depiction of the word toxic, but with a number 7 in place of the i. The newsprint image isn’t quite sharp or full enough to give me all that information – I’m filling in the rest from memory.
Getting a photocopy of the article is about as straightforward as Theseus escaping from the minotaur, only he didn’t have the paperwork to fill in as well, which is why I’m waiting, hanging over the guard rail of the mezzanine floor in a state of vacant boredom when my eye is caught by a distinctive patch of yellow among the book browsers below. Oliver Dunn is in the building.
I watch him cross the aisle to return along the shelves, and as he does he glances up at random so I raise my hand, a little hesitantly given that I’d unceremoniously dumped him last time, and have since become persona non grata in some people’s eyes. I needn’t have worried. Oliver is like a labrador that’s just spotted its owner on the other side of the park, and he practically runs up with a stick in his mouth when I wave him to me.
“Well met, Mr Dunn,” I say, genuinely glad to have his company after the trials of the last couple of days. “Are you up for a little more detective work?”
Soon the two of us are stretching the Audi along the coast road, me driving while Oliver sits with the photocopied press cutting spread out on his knee, peering out of the passenger window. His job is to spot the tag under one of the flyovers that criss-cross the road as it pushes past the industrial estates and retail parks.
“There it is!” he yelps, much earlier than I expected.
“Are you sure?” I’m travelling too fast to stop right there on the hard shoulder so I carry on to the next exit, double back and loop the loop to let us take the same stretch more slowly.
“There, look.” He points as I tuck into the side of the road just short of the bridge, turning my hazards on. Cars speed past my right shoulder and I’m conscious of how dangerously we’re placed, with no proper lay-by here. I glance quickly down at the picture and up again at the bridge.
“It’s not in the same position. See, this one’s further into the bridge and lower down. Right tag though,” I add, sensing Ollie’s disappointment. “Keep looking, I’m sure it’s much further along.”
What I hadn’t appreciated is how busy Mr Toxic 7 has been. Every mile or so along the coast road, almost wherever there is a concrete surface to spray, he has left his calling card. I’d never noticed it before – it’s amazing how these things can pass you by (or you pass them by) for years maybe without ever clocking them until something stirs your attention. When I made the connection in my mind’s eye with the piece of graffiti in the background of the press picture and something I’d seen on the dual carriageway I assumed that all I had to do was drive along there and make the simple match between the one and the other. I hadn’t realised it would involve Ollie and me in trying to complete a jigsaw while playing a game of chicken with motorway traffic.
We have so many false dawns, back-tracking and decelerations that I’m becoming almost immune to horns blasting behind me and windows being wound down for cusses to be thrown by the time we find the genuine spot. Ironically, even before Oliver shouts “There’s one!” for the umpteenth time, I just know we have finally reached the right bridge. Something about the distance we’ve travelled from
town, the skyline, the pronounced bend in the road or just the peculiar drabness of the surroundings makes me realise that we’re approaching the point where last night Emmanuel made Stefan slow down and where I sat up and took notice, expecting the worst. I’ve already taken my foot off the pedal and I’m pulling up to the hard shoulder under the rampart before Oliver has opened his mouth.
This time I actually get out of the car to look around, which makes me appreciate even more what a scary place a road like this can be. I’m buffeted by the slip-stream of vehicles going by. One wagon almost takes me along in its wake as I’m closing the driver’s door. I move as quickly as I can to the safer side next to the rampart to examine Toxic 7’s work. Oliver joins me – at least he’s wearing something approximating to a high visibility jacket – and we stand close together, trying to keep the wind from blowing the press cutting away as we compare the photograph to the scene in front of us.
“This definitely looks right,” I explain to Ollie as his hood flaps over his head. “The picture must have been taken from about where my car is now. If we stand this side the angle of the tag is spot on, so Hassan’s car must have ended up here in the crash, unless the cops moved it before this picture was taken.”
I scan the ground and along the surface of the bridge upright, looking for debris, or scars, or burns, acting just as I imagine a scene-of-crime officer would, only about three months too late. So much for my powers of observation – I’m so preoccupied that it takes a nudge from Oliver to make me glance up and notice the police traffic car that’s rolled up quietly behind the Audi and is now parked next to my back bumper, blue lights strobing.
“Shit!”
The driver doesn’t get out for the moment, just sits taking in the scene, and when he finally does he seems in no hurry about it. He takes a languid look behind him at the traffic, which is already slowing and bunching as if he were some river god casting a freezing spell on the flow with his eyes. His jacket might match Ollie’s for colour, but only one of them looks like a melon. He’s already sussed which one of us definitely doesn’t own the Audi, so he addresses me over the traffic noise.
“Something wrong with your car, sir?”
“Well, ermm…” I look at it, desperately trying to think of a valid reason for stopping. “Not really, it’s just, I wasn’t sure if…”
A voice pipes up at my elbow. “It was me.” The copper and I both turn our attention to Oliver, who rolls back under our gaze, but keeps smiling bravely for the policeman. “I get car sick, see. I asked him to stop.”
“Oh, yes?” The officer stares meaningfully around Ollie’s feet, looking for evidence.
“I felt better when I got out.” Good old Oliver.
“Been travelling a long way, have you, to get sick an’ all? Only I notice these are local plates.”
“Just from town,” I chip in. “Be something he’s eaten, I expect. His diet’s not the best, you know.”
“Aha.” Deeply unconvinced, he sizes us up for a while before he says, “So how do you two know each other, if you don’t mind my asking?”
I shrug. “Just friends, is all.”
“Mmm.” Another look at me. I can tell he has me down for some species of pervert, preying on the vulnerable, but it’s difficult for him to be direct without being able to latch onto something he could present as just cause, so he turns his attention to the car.
“You the owner of this vehicle, sir?”
“Yes. Mostly. There’s some outstanding finance on it.”
“Right. And do you have your driving licence with you?”
“I don’t, no, sorry. I never carry it.”
“You should. Can save a lot of bother in the long run.”
“I’ve never been stopped by the police before.”
“Lucky you then, eh?” As we’re talking he’s already examined the tax disc, checked the keys in the ignition, glanced at the tyres, opened the passenger door. He looks down at the floor-well, then inquiringly at me.
“Red wine stain. Accident with a Tesco carrier bag.”
A flicker of a smile, and I release the breath I’ve been unconsciously holding in. He’s going to let us off. So why does Oliver choose that moment to smear a snot from his nose with his sleeve? It’s not the snot-smearing that’s the problem – repellent though the sight is – it’s the fact that he’s still clutching the press cutting he had stuffed into his pocket when the police car turned up. Even that might have escaped attention if Ollie hadn’t spotted it himself and done a double take worthy of the silent movies. Oliver by name… that’s another fine mess you’ve got me into.
“What’s that you have, sir?”
Ollie blinks helplessly at me as the officer plucks the paper from his hand, holding it at arm’s length at first and letting the wind blow it open away from him, as if he thought it might contain anthrax spores or Oliver’s mucus. Once he’s sure it’s foreign-body-free he brings it closer in to read. He studies the article silently, then looks at the bridge, back to the paper, finally rests his eyes on us, shaking his head. I feel like a pornographer. He jerks his thumb at his car.
“Go and sit in the back of the vehicle, both of you. Use the nearside door.”
As Ollie scrambles over the back seat and I follow him in, heart thudding, the policeman opens up the spacious boot and picks out a couple of red and white cones which he places carefully along the traffic side of the two parked cars before easing himself into the driving seat. He takes off his cap and places it on the seat beside him, then glances in the mirror to smooth his hair and check he has our full attention.
“I want you to take a look out of that window at those two lanes of traffic. What do you notice?”
Ollie is nearer the scene outside, but I take it on myself to answer. “They’re full of cars.”
“Exactly. Choc-a-bloc and getting not very far not very fast. Was it like that before?”
“No.”
“So, what’s changed?”
“Well, I guess we’re causing an obstruction.” This must be obvious to him, so why he’s making us sit here for this lecture instead of travelling to the next lay-by or, better still, just letting us go, only he can answer.
“A minor obstruction is one thing,” he says. “But you want to know the real reason? Rubber-necking. People slowing down to see what’s going on. They see the blues, cars on the hard shoulder, and they’ve got their foot off the gas, looking over, hoping to see some gore. It just takes one or two and before you know there’s a massive queue for no more reason than nosiness. It happens all the time here. Accident black spot. But then you two know that, don’t you?”
“How do you mean?”
“Cos you’re bloody train-spotters, aren’t you? Or whatever the equivalent is for what you do. Seeking out accident scenes. It’s sick-making.”
“We wasn’t,” says Oliver.
“You know the bloke that died in this? Was he a relation?”
The PC picks out the press cutting from his tunic pocket and waves it at us. Ollie’s opening his mouth again, so I dig hard into his side, I hope surreptitiously, and lean forward to answer, “No. Just from what we read in the papers.” I’m not about to spill any beans to this patronising prick.
“I bet you bring flowers, do you? You know, just last week I caught a young lass running right across three lanes to tie some flowers onto a signpost. At least she vaguely knew the lad who’d been killed. Ex-boyfriend, apparently. Half of them, though. They’ve never even met the victim, ‘specially when it’s children knocked down. They come out in their droves. It’s ever since Diana died. Got a bouquet in your boot have you? Written a poem, maybe?”
“No. Who do you think we are?”
“I’ll tell you what you will be, if you don’t give this lot up. Dead at the side of the road, like him. Hear what I’m saying?”
“Yes.” I aim for as much churlishness as I can get away with.
He turns and looks through the space in the seats, sizing
me up again. His eyes flick briefly to Ollie as he says to me, “Does he have a home to go to?”
“’Course, yeah.”
“I suggest you get him back there, sharpish. And think yourself lucky I haven’t booked you. This time. And listen…” his finger pointing like a gun as we’re shuffling out of the door, “I don’t want to see either of you on my patch again, is that clear? We don’t do tourism.”
The policeman gets out of the driver’s side as we spill onto the hard shoulder, and I wait, expecting another sermon, but it’s just to collect the cones that I’m sure he put out for dramatic effect. He throws them into the back of the car and returns to his place behind the wheel, where he sits watching us climb into the Audi. When I pull out cautiously into the stream of traffic he kills his blue lights and follows me, staying on my tail until I leave at the next exit, as if he’s running me out of town. I cross over the dual carriageway and drive back the way we came as the police car disappears in the opposite direction.
Ollie and I say nothing to each other until we’re well past the crash scene and heading back into the city centre. I feel I should apologise to him, but I’m so embarrassed - not only for myself but more especially about how the copper dismissed Ollie as some kind of retard – that I don’t quite know what to say. When I’ve finally worked out a form of words I steal a glance across to check he’s ready to receive an apology, and I’m astonished to find him sitting with a broad grin on his face.
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