by Heidi James
‘What’s going on, Edward.’
‘Nothing to worry about, not really, just push-back from the St Clair camp, not much more than what you’d expect. You’re a pro, Marcus, you know the drill. Stay there, cover this piece and keep your head down. Right?’
‘Shouldn’t I come back?’
‘No. It’s best that you don’t for now, we will deal with this: the legal team are ready, I’ve spoken to the board and we’re all behind you. Alright?’
‘If you say so.’
‘I do, it’s better this way. Just reassure me, for my sake, we’re a hundred per cent on this, aren’t we?’
‘Of course we are, you gave me the go ahead yourself.’
‘I know, but… Good. Fine. I’ll call you later.’
‘OK.’
Ridiculous as it seems now, I decided he was right, it was part of the job, nothing to worry about. If you rattle a cage, they go for you. I could ride it out, I thought, it’ll be fine. The sense of foreboding I had was just paranoia, irrational. Stupid. So I tore the page from the pad and crushed it into a ball; walking outside to the bins by the garage, I tossed it with the soggy left overs, empty bottles and tea bags, irretrievable and unnoticed. I’d call him on his usual number: I had nothing to hide, nothing to fear. Then my phone buzzed, a text from Callum. ‘PRESS CONF PUSHED BACK TILL TOMO. COFFEE?’
‘WHERE?’ I replied.
As I turned to go back inside I caught sight of a bloke, thick-set and bald, wearing a black jacket. He was standing at the edge of our drive looking towards the house; as I moved closer, he turned and strode off behind the yew hedge that separates our property from the neighbours and the road. I waited to see if he came back. He didn’t. I told myself it was probably nothing, that I was losing perspective.
1989
Leysdown. The North Sea slapped and folded on the mud flats that slid from under the shingle where Marcus and Melanie sat. It was cold, but the sky was clear and that hard blue that promises no rain. They had caught the train three towns down to Sittingbourne, and then a bus that juddered through the flat farmland to the village. Melanie wanted a day out and Marcus wanted to be with Melanie.
It was a tiny place: one street lined with amusement arcades, some fish and chip shops, a café and a holiday park whose guests stayed in caravans and prefab chalets resting on brick foundations. The highlight of the holiday park was a small outdoor pool with a slide and a double set of swings for the kids. Small bungalows and narrow houses were plotted in neat cul-de-sacs that led from the main road.
Winnings from the slot machine jangled in Marcus’s pocket like a cowbell. Melanie seemed to have a knack for it, for knowing when to play on until the jackpot paid out and spilled fifty-pence coins into the trough. A fat bloke with no front teeth and a long wiry beard watched them from his cubicle, piles of change arranged in neat rows on the ledge in front of him, protected by Perspex and a locked door.
‘That’s enough,’ she said, breathless with laughter, her hands scooping up the money and dropping it in his trouser pockets. ‘Ice cream?’
Though it was off-season, it stayed open for the locals, although he and Melanie were the only people around apart from the bloke in the amusement arcade and a few older women in the cafes. A strange halfway place, it wasn’t quite a seaside resort, not quite a normal town. Even the shingle, the broken shells and pebbles were almost ground to sand, but not quite. Everything seemed half-finished, or half-broken, depending on how you looked at it. The lights flashed around the entryway of the arcades as if inviting in the ghosts of the apocalypse. It felt unreal, like a sham set-up for a con or a film set without actors or crew. Melanie loved it, she said it was honest; Marcus wasn’t so sure.
He sat licking his ice cream, conventional and ordinary, while she bit through the bottom of the cone and sucked the pink sludge down. She threw the empty wafer to the gulls who waddled just beyond reach, grey and bulky like the tankers out at sea that were just visible as gunmetal slivers on the horizon.
‘My hands are sticky,’ she said, walking to the shore where she bent down to rinse them. Then, instead of straightening up, she flipped upside down and walked through the fizzing surf on her hands, her skirt flopping over her head, showing her pants. Marcus leapt to his feet, clapping and whooping as she took a couple more steps before she dropped upright, curtsied and ran back laughing. The tips of her hair were wet like a paintbrush, her hands red and damp. He took them in his and wrapped them in his coat to dry.
Feeling the cold, they turned to leave and catch the bus. They trudged up the beach, the shingle moving underfoot, watched by a man who sat on the bench at the top of the sea wall. He had the hood of his dark coat pulled up, concealing his face, his hands folded under his arms. Melanie didn’t seem to notice him but Marcus did. He felt him staring at them both as they climbed up to the street.
‘Hello Melanie, up to your old tricks I see,’ he said as they passed, his voice gritty, the texture felt as much as heard. The colour drained from her face. Marcus looked from her to him, and the man winked before tapping his index finger to his nose and pointing back at Marcus as if they were in on some secret together. Beside him Melanie had picked up pace and was pulling him away, her head down, tucked into the collar of her coat.
‘Tell your mum and brother I’ll be over soon,’ he leered, his lips flexing up into his cheeks, flashing a gold molar before he turned back to the sea.
‘Who’s that?’
‘No one,’ she said.
He had never seen her so afraid, and he wouldn’t again until the last time he saw her, the last time before she left for good.
‘You look scared.’
‘No shit? That’s because I am.’
‘So who is he?’
‘Is he following?’ He could feel her trembling; her lips were white and pressed thin against her teeth. Marcus looked back but the man was still on the bench, his back to them. They were almost at the bus stop and the bus was due in five minutes.
‘No, he’s not following. Is he dangerous? Should we call the police?’
‘Jesus, no! He is the fucking police.’
‘What do you mean?’
She didn’t answer and it seemed best not to question her further, but she kept watch, staring at the man until the bus arrived. They sat together in silence until they reached the station. She finally relaxed on the train; as they got closer to home she was her old self again, at least on the surface. He promised himself that he would do anything to protect her, even though he didn’t know what that might entail. But he promised anyway.
The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
I used to trust the details: I collected them like rare objects or signs of revelation. It was a habit I picked up as a kid, noting everything around me, listing the particulars of surroundings, people, sounds and smells... recounting them to myself. It stopped me paying attention to how lonely I felt. That was how I worked, how I wrote: focussing on the small, seemingly incidental details and let them reveal the facts, let the details build the story, report everything you see and hear, inoculate yourself from bias. I believed I was doing good, something vital; something to make it right, to atone. I still collect details, but I don’t trust them. Actually, better to say that I don’t trust myself to interpret them, so they just collect like a film of dust and obscure what should be clear.
‘So how long since your last partner?’
Callum lay next to me, his head propped on his hand. He had a beautiful body, cut and ridged and unshaven. Fair hair spread over his chest then spun a trail down his stomach before fanning and darkening around his cock and balls. Retro. A tribal tattoo, patchy and faded in places, twisted on his bicep. I felt flaccid and pale beside him, and I sucked in my gut.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know. Last serious relationship. When?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘J
ust interested.’
I sat up, pulling the sheet around my waist. ‘A long time ago. Work makes long-term relationships hard.’ I wasn’t going to admit that I’d not had a long-term boyfriend for over twenty years: it would be a confession of my freakishness, my fear, that I didn’t trust myself. How do you explain that?
‘I can relate to that.’
‘Married to the job.’
‘That’s the one.’ He ran his fingers down my back. His place was neat and stylishly bland, like a flat in those estate agent brochures. Everything matching, and revealing nothing about the owner except that they have no taste of their own. My place is similarly characterless, but that’s because it’s practically empty.
‘This place is like a show home.’
He smiled as if I’d paid him a compliment; perhaps I had, if you like that kind of thing.
‘Actually, this was the show home. It did the job and there was no fuss involved so I bought it from the developers lock, stock and barrel.’
‘Wow.’
‘Yeah. I just needed to bring my clothes and personal things. Fill the fridge and get a TV. Simple.’
‘Saves time I guess.’ How light he must have felt, no history to drag him back.
‘Yeah. Brett, my ex, kept our place and I didn’t want to get into a war over possessions, so I just walked away. Left the lot, started again.’ He got up, pulling boxers up over his smooth rump. ‘Coffee? Beer?’
‘Sure. Beer, if you’re having one.’
I lay back on the bed, pushing the pillows up under my neck. The sun dropped in a thick wedge through the window. A fan whirred and turned on the bedside cabinet. Details. No books on the side, no photos. His phone, face down. Everything clean. I considered looking in his wardrobe, one of those fitted types that open up revealing drawers and mirrors and tie racks, but he walked back in with the beers frothing from the popped caps.
‘Brett’s not going to be an issue though, in case you’re wondering.’
I shrugged, tipping my head in a non-committal nod.
‘But you’re not wondering, so it doesn’t matter. Wow.’ He sucked from his beer.
‘What’s the matter?’ I watched as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his bottle almost empty.
‘Nothing. You’re just impressively casual.’ He finished his beer and flopped down on the bed beside me. ‘Mysterious. It’s a bit of a turn-on.’ He pulled down the sheet and reached for me. I put down my beer.
The light had softened and retracted, we were showered and dressed. I admit I liked his company: he was funny and charming. It felt good to be around someone, even if it was pretence. We both checked our phones; mine registered six missed calls from Edward and a text – WE NEED TO TALK. Callum listened to a voicemail, his back to me, nodding to himself, then put the phone in his pocket.
‘Right then, dinner?’
‘I should get back, my mother will be waiting.’
He laughed.
‘I know it sounds pathetic, but I rarely see her. And I’d better work on this story, my editor has left a load of messages.’
‘Fair enough. So when can I see you?’
‘At the press conference?’
‘No, I mean SEE you?’
‘I don’t know. When I’ve filed this piece? Before I head back to London?’
He folded his arms over his chest. ‘So if I give you some details – anonymously, obviously – you finish up and I get to see you?’
‘Something like that.’
‘So anonymous, right?’
‘Yes. Strictly.’
‘And I get dinner?’
‘And maybe dessert...’ I didn’t know why he wanted to be with me, beyond the obvious physical stuff, but I was flattered, I felt myself letting go. What harm would it do? I was leaving in a day or so, there was no real risk.
‘You’re on. It’s nothing we aren’t saying in the press conference tomorrow anyway, you’ll just get the jump on it. No reference to me though, right?’
‘None.’
‘OK, so we’ve identified the victim, he was a police officer. He’d gone missing while working undercover.’
‘Undercover?’
‘Yeah, at the time we had a problem with these local gangs bringing drugs in on the Isle of Sheppey. There are loads of small marinas on the estuary, so it was easy to bring the gear in – ecstasy, acid and speed mainly, some marijuana. He was working those. The team suspected the dealers he was investigating at the time, but they couldn’t bring them in without blowing his cover and all the work he’d done. Besides which, with no body and no evidence they had nothing to go on, just that he had vanished.’
‘And now?’
‘Well, now we have a body. Forensics are doing their thing, so with a bit of luck we’ll be able to solve it. There are suggestions he wasn’t squeaky clean as a police officer, but nothing solid. What we do know is he was killed by a blow to the head and then the body was moved to the burial site.’
‘So that’ll make it harder? Less evidence?’
‘Yeah, but you’d be surprised what we can work with now. The body was wrapped in a large rug which did a pretty good job of preserving it.’
‘That’s useful.’
‘Actually it is in more ways than one. It’s unusual, and we might be able to trace where it was made, then where it was sold and then who knows? Some of the blokes in the station knew him, so it’s important to them to get the murderer. You know, a fellow copper, it hits us all pretty hard.’
‘I can imagine. The rug was unusual how?’ Details, facts, build a story.
‘Just unusual, I can’t say more than that. But for your purposes, there’s no evidence of a conspiracy or government involvement; the body has been there undisturbed all this time. So that puts paid to that theory.’ He watched my reaction.
‘I thought as much, I suspected this was just a local interest story from the start.’
‘Not for the victim and his family it isn’t.’
‘Right. Sorry. Has the victim got a name?’
‘I can’t give you that, even with a promise of dinner. We have to speak to his next of kin first and that’s proving difficult.’
‘Why?’
‘You know how it is. People move on, leave town, disappear. It was a long time ago. It seems a shame in some ways to disturb them now and tell them what happened.’
‘Perhaps it will bring them peace, to finally know.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘And the building work on the link? Can that restart?’
‘Looks like it.’
‘Well, at least the DfT will be pleased.’
I called Edward from the car. ‘I’ll have this piece finished and ready tonight. Just a copper killed by a gang of drug dealers years ago, no evidence of anything else.’
‘Forget about that for now. Listen, this isn’t easy,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry, Marcus, I really am, but I’m going to have to suspend you from work for the time being and I’m going to need your laptop and all your notes and files on the St Clair piece.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I pulled the car over to the side of the road. My body felt heavy, alien. I felt sick.
‘Marcus, don’t make this harder than it already is.’
‘Make what harder? What’s going on? You said there was nothing to worry about.’
‘And that’s what I believed at the time. But things have changed and you’re being investigated, along with all your evidence.’
‘Investigated? Why? By whom?’
‘By the paper for now, but the police aren’t far behind.’
‘Why?’
‘How did you get those emails? Who was your source? The security for St Clair is tighter than a nun’s proverbial.’
‘What are you talking about? How? You know how.
’
‘I need to know who spoke to you.’
‘Hang on a minute, what is going on?’
‘Who is your source? We need them to come forward and back you, back us, up.’
‘I’m not going tell you that, and I don’t have to, you know the law.’
‘Yes, I do, and being a threat to national security overrides Article 10 of the European convention, as well you know.’
‘A threat to national security?’
‘That’s what they’re saying.’
‘Who’s they?’
‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘Of course it does. Who is it? Some thug lawyer hired by the bank? A smug civil servant?’
‘Unfortunately not, it’s a bit more serious than that. I’m under a lot of pressure here to protect you and the paper.’
‘This is ridiculous. They’re trying to intimidate us.’
‘They’ve had to step up police protection for Lord Sunbury and his family. There’s been a riot outside the Embassy building in Libya.’
‘You know that’s absurd. The Embassy is closed, has been for months. They’re using that to scare us off, to shut us up. It’s the oldest trick in the book, come on Edward. Which of Sunbury’s cronies has got to you?’
‘I’m serious. This is serious. Speak to your solicitor, and if you haven’t got one, get one. I need all your notes, transcripts and the identity of your source, otherwise they will take us to court for a disclosure order and if you don’t comply they can jail you. You know that. Just give me what you’ve got. Let me help you.’
‘I can’t. I can’t do that.’
‘Don’t be a hero, Marcus. You’ll bring us all down with you.’
‘I haven’t done anything wrong, Ed, and any investigation will bear that out.’
‘I hope so, I really do, because I’ve just had a meeting where it was made pretty clear that not only do St Clair have evidence to prove your accusations wrong, they can prove that you illegally obtained access to their servers and possibly blackmailed one of their employees, so either you’re a liar or they are.’