Bone Machine

by Martyn Waites

  He looked down again. Through the old stone arch and down the stairs. And the flashback hit him, hard and fast: his father. That vicious, hated bastard.

  And he could see again that violent, abusive man taking one last drunken stumble down the stairs. Could see again the ten-year-old version of himself watching him die.

  His father lying there. Fear in his eyes, blood pooling beneath his skull. Asking for help. Remember picking up his father’s head from the floor almost tenderly.

  Dashing it back down as hard as he could.

  Thinking how pleased his mother would be to know there was just the two of them now and he could never hurt them again.

  He smiled at the memory. Could still feel the same warmth he had felt then.

  A perfect moment.

  He looked away. Loud music and flashing lights made their quayside siren calls up to those seeking drunken, drug-powered licentiousness. Those who wanted to lose themselves, to forget their present. The Historian saw that as a dereliction of their duty as human beings. He would never lose himself. He would never lose control.

  He smiled, ignoring the rain. At his feet was one of his favourite parts of Newcastle’s history. A hidden oubliette, built into the exposed stone flooring of the old fortifications. The council had put a new grate on it, bolted it firmly down so no drunks could throw their friends down it on the way home from the pub just for a laugh. Instead it had become a litter bin for those passing. Crisp packets, fast-food and sweet wrappers, old newspapers and soft drinks cans were all caught up in it. Strewn rubbish floated in the accumulated rainwater at the bottom. He would sometimes come with rubber gloves, bag up the litter and dispose of it responsibly. Bring a flask of instant coffee, a Tupperware of sandwiches. Make a day of it. Or a night of it. Like a relative tending the grave of a departed loved one.

  In a way, that was what it was. The countless souls who had died down there for crimes they either did or didn’t commit, or on the whim of some corrupt feudal chief. Just rotting away in a space too small to even stretch your arms out.

  He heard the cries, the screams, the entreaties. The hopeless sobs, the last breaths. Coming down the centuries like echoes thrown up from a deep well.

  He sighed. Thought of his experiment.

  He had made notes, detailed and intricate, for that. It was almost ready to go ahead, the next stage. His plans were advanced. He even had an idea of who the next one would be. He had singled her out, watched her, recorded her movements. It would be so easy. He smiled. With all that was going on, he thought, you’d think people would be more careful. But some people never learn.

  He smiled. Those who don’t learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.

  Or one in particular.

  She would be the one. She would not just advance his theories; she would prove him right. He was sure of it. He could almost feel the satisfaction that would come from it. The peace. The release.

  The euphoria.

  He heard footsteps, voices. Someone coming up the stone stairs. Laughing, joking. Walking unsteadily. A man and a woman.

  They hadn’t seen him. He watched.

  They stopped before they reached the top, the man pulling the woman into a shadowed alcove, kissing her exploring her with his hands.

  The Historian watched.

  The woman reciprocated in kind.

  The Historian could feel himself becoming aroused. He slid his hand in his pocket, felt the handle of the knife he always carried, began to fondle it. He heard their gasps and sighs. He closed his eyes.

  Then a scream.

  The Historian looked up. The couple were looking directly at him; the woman fearful, the man angry.

  The man was pulling himself together, crossing towards him.

  ‘What’s your game, eh? What d’you think you’re doin’?’

  The Historian looked at him, said nothing.

  ‘That how you get your kicks, is it? Eh?’

  The man stood over him. Even in the rain he was sweating alcohol and violence.

  The Historian said nothing. Just looked at him, barely blinking.

  The man kept clenching and unclenching his fists. He wanted to fight, to hit, but the Historian wasn’t making it easy. He wasn’t playing along.

  The woman crossed to him, put her arm around him.

  ‘Come on, Jeff. Let’s go. We’ll get a taxi, be home in twenty minutes. Come on.’

  The man’s anger was diminishing. But he wasn’t moving.

  ‘Come on,’ said the woman again. ‘He’s just some weirdo. Come on.’

  The man began to yield to her entreaties. He began to walk away. ‘Next time I catch you, though, next time …’

  Clenching and unclenching his fists.

  The Historian could see the encounter had left him unfulfilled. Perhaps his woman would bear the brunt of that later, he thought.

  The couple walked away. The Historian watched them go, then resumed looking over the Tyne, at the oubliette.

  He sighed. He could hear the voices now. They were coming to him strong.

  He smiled. No longer alone.

  Anita was trying to get used to this. Her second night of it.

  She sat on a stool at a bar just opposite one of the quayside’s hotels, a hotel usually used by businessmen attending meetings away from home. She was trying to pretend that she belonged there. Convince others of it too. She wore a full-sleeved black dress, long enough to be modest, short enough to send out the correct signals, and sat with her black-stockinged legs crossed at the ankles, sipping a gin and tonic. She took deep breaths, practised keeping her hands from shaking. Her expression was as blank as she could make it. A stone wall she wanted no one to penetrate. Keep the screaming, tearful sad girl locked up behind it, like an imprisoned princess heroine in a castle from one of her old romantic stories.

  Doing what she had to do to survive.

  No longer one of the lucky ones.

  She had left Decca’s flat feeling more bereft than she had in a long time. She had phoned the two other girls she worked with but they had been told to have nothing to do with her. She understood. Didn’t blame them. It was a fragile net that supported them in this country, the slightest rip could send them all tumbling.

  She had walked around, thought of spending her last bit of money on a hotel. Before she could do that, she had stopped in a bar for a drink. She didn’t know which one. She just wanted somewhere she could sit and think.

  She wasn’t alone for long. A man came to join her. She let him. He was middle-aged, overweight and red-faced. Wearing the obligatory business suit. She looked at him, caught glimpses of what his wife must have once found attractive about him.

  He made it quite clear to her what he had in mind. She pretended to mull it over, weigh up his offer. All the while trembling inside. She thought of her options. They had shrunk, right down to the man opposite her. She had no choice. Accepted his offer. The only proviso being she had to spend the night. He couldn’t believe his luck.

  Back to his hotel. She had done worse things. With worse people. At least she had a bed for the night.

  When she left him in the morning, she gave herself seven hours to find something else, another way of getting by. With seven hours up, she had failed. Every bar, shop and café she went into said they weren’t interested. They weren’t hiring. Not at first: they would look at her face. It was a yes. Then hear her voice. A no. She was foreign. Eastern European. An asylum seeker. A refugee. A tabloid hate figure. A pretty one, admittedly, but still. There were limits. They didn’t tell her she was untrustworthy, perhaps even disease-ridden Inferior. They didn’t have to. She saw it all in their eyes.

  So, with the evening coming down cold and hard like rain, she was back in the bar. She moved her arm to her drink, the fresh cuts on her arms rubbing against the fabric of her dress. She moved her arms some more, just to feel them.

  She had fended off several advances; none of them had struck her as being the right ones. Money, bu
t no shelter. Then she was approached. Middle-aged again. Short and balding this time. Suited, playing with his wedding ring like it weighed too heavily on his finger. A salesman’s smile. An anonymous man.

  He sat next to her, went into the routine. Asked her if the seat was taken. She responded with her own part of the routine. He sat. Ordered drinks. They began talking. He lied. She lied. She didn’t know who lied the most. She didn’t care. Then the questions by him. The artfully placed answers by her. Encouraging, but subtle. Like wearing black-lace lingerie beneath a nine-to-five suit; offering only a tantalizing glimpse. A trailer of forthcoming attractions.

  Then the negotiation. Her proviso offered, agreed to.

  And off they went. He sweating and hot, she sweating and cold.

  At the door, an unexpected piece of gallantry: holding it open for her. In return a smile like he had just bought her a huge diamond ring.

  Then walking back to the hotel, arm in arm.

  At the doors, a final word. ‘You’re lucky you met me, you know.’

  Feigning interest. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because there’s some right nutters out there, you know.’

  She gives a nod. Agreement.

  And in they went. The hotel doors closing silently behind them.

  Sealing them in, like a castle drawbridge pulling up.

  18

  ‘So what d’you fancy, then?’ asked Donovan.

  ‘Surprise me,’ said Katya, smiling.

  It was late. They were back at the cottage in Northumberland. The remains of an Indian takeaway on the coffee table before them, opened bottles of wine and cans of beer and soft drinks at their sides. Jamal had taken himself off to bed, leaving Donovan and Katya alone in the front room. Donovan bent in front of his CD collection, looking for something to play. Something restful. Something that would take away the evening they had just experienced.

  ‘What about some Tom Waits?’ he said. ‘Early stuff. Not later. Not what I want right now.’

  Katya shrugged. Curled up on the sofa. ‘OK.’

  Donovan ran his finger down the spines of the CDs, pausing momentarily at Shawn Colvin’s A Few Small Repairs before selecting Tom Waits’ Closing Time. He slipped the disc into the player. The piano rolled lazily in, sweetly melancholic yet tuneful, soon to be joined by Waits’ voice, which was still quite sweet, not yet affected by his Brechtian Beefheart bawl.

  ‘This is nice.’ Katya smiled.

  ‘Doubt he’s ever been called nice before,’ said Donovan, settling down on the floor, his back to the sofa. Tried to relax.

  They had driven back from Newcastle, suddenly hungry from the night’s exertions. Donovan had stopped for takeaway food and alcohol in Denton, then driven all the way back as fast as he could. He felt there was nothing more that could have been accomplished that night. He would phone Janine Stewart in the morning, go about getting a written statement from Sharon as soon as possible.

  As he drove, Jamal had started to fall asleep in the back of the car; Katya seemed to join him. Donovan didn’t blame them. He felt like nodding off too.

  He still had doubts about involving Jamal in his work, feeling that the boy should be in school. That, however, presented too many challenges. Legally, Jamal wasn’t supposed to be there. Donovan should have informed the authorities that the boy was living with him. But he hadn’t. Jamal had begged him not to, and with good reason: he hadn’t had a very positive experience of those organizations whose job it was to provide for and protect children. Donovan, he felt, could do a better job. Plus, Jamal had argued, the things he had seen on the street, the things he had done just to survive, kind of disqualified him from being with kids his own age. Donovan had his doubts about that, but they had fallen into a loose arrangement. Jamal could stay until he was on his own two feet again. Until there was somewhere he wanted to be more. And in that time, he, Peta and Amar would take responsibility for schooling him. And if he wanted to be with kids his own age, there were children in the village he could hang out with. That was nearly a year ago. Jamal showed no signs of wanting to move on. Donovan, for his part, hadn’t really encouraged him to. They enjoyed each other’s company. Not that they would ever admit it, though. Plus, Jamal had struck up a friendship with a boy in the village. Donovan had never thought that would happen but was glad that it had.

  Katya placed her empty wine glass down on the coffee table.

  ‘Want a refill?’ asked Donovan, reaching for the bottle, filling up her glass without waiting for an answer.

  ‘You drink a lot, Joe. Why, I wonder?’

  ‘No more than anyone else.’ Donovan had drained his final can and was reaching to uncork a half-empty bottle of Black Bush. He poured a couple of fingers into a small tumbler.

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Katya. ‘None of my business.’

  Donovan shrugged. Staring straight ahead, listening to the music. ‘I drink. It’s what I do.’

  Katya nodded. Silence from the pair of them. She reached towards the table, picked up her glass. Drank. Tom Waits singing that he was wishing he could stay a little longer, how the feeling was getting stronger.

  ‘May I ask a question?’ Katya said, once they had drunk a little more, listened a little more.

  ‘You can ask,’ said Donovan with a smile.

  Katya looked at her drink, her fingers playing with the stem, swirling the dark red liquid around as if she would find the words she wanted and the courage to say them within the glass. ‘The locked door. What is behind it?’

  Donovan said nothing. He raised his glass to his lips, drank the whisky, felt the usually smooth drink burn as it went down. Deciding what to say. Tom Waits singing that he was looking at a woman across a bar, hoping he wouldn’t fall in love with her.

  Had another drink. Made up his mind.

  ‘I had a son,’ he said tentatively. ‘I have a daughter, too, but I had a son.’

  He stopped. Katya waited.

  ‘I had a son and he …’ He took another drink. ‘… he disappeared.’

  ‘Disappeared?’

  Donovan nodded. ‘Disappeared. One minute he was there, the next—’ he lifted his lightly clenched hand, opened his fingers ‘—boom.’ The word spoken quietly. A distant explosion. An acid raincloud dispersing.

  Katya said nothing.

  ‘We were in a store, we were buying something for his mum. I turned around and … he was gone. Never found.’

  Katya leaned forward. ‘No trace? No … clues?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’ Donovan sighed, took another drink.

  ‘In my country during war this happened all the time. But not here.’

  ‘I can give you chapter and verse. I’ve memorized it. Five hundred and seventy-five people go missing every day. Over a hundred thousand people aged eighteen or under go missing every year. Children missing for more than a week—’ his voice cracked ‘—for more than a week have a forty-four per cent chance of being hurt.’

  Katya looked at him, said nothing.

  ‘I used to have more than a son. I had a wife. A family. A good job. When David went, all those things went with him.’

  Katya nodded.

  More silence. Tom Waits singing about midnight lullabies.

  Katya began hesitantly: ‘Your wife? Your daughter?’

  ‘Went with the job. After the breakdown.’ Donovan stared at the wall. Saw something that wasn’t there, saw beyond it. ‘Couples never stay together after something like that. Families can never survive. At least mine didn’t.’

  ‘So … that room. That was his room?’

  Donovan nodded. ‘It is his room. He’s never been there. But it’s his room. It’s got his life in it. His past.’ He put the glass to his lips, swallowed more than a mouthful of whisky. ‘His future.’

  ‘His future?’

  ‘I’ve got people out there. Looking. Hunting. For any clue, any sighting. Sharkey has a network out there. When they find anything, they’ll report to me. And I’ll go to him. Whatever’s
happened to him.’

  ‘Do you think that will happen?’

  Tom Waits singing about days of roses, about there being no tomorrow, packing away sorrows and saving them for rainy days.

  ‘I hope so,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve got to hope so.’

  He said nothing more, just stared at the wall.

  ‘I am sorry for you,’ she said. ‘I know what is to lose a loved one, a family, and think you will never see them again.’ She smiled. ‘But I know I will see my brother again. I am lucky.’

  He nodded. ‘And I’m glad for you. Really.’

  A cloud passed over Katya’s face. ‘I will see my brother again, yes? You promised?’

  ‘I promised,’ said Donovan. Arranging a meeting with her brother had been the condition she had made in accompanying Donovan. ‘And you will.’

  She smiled. ‘Thank you. That makes me happy. You are good man, Joe Donovan. I wish the same happiness for you.’

  Donovan smiled. It had a bittersweet edge, like crushed rock salt and lime around a tequila glass. ‘Thank you.’

  She put her hand on his shoulder. It felt smooth and warm to the touch. Donovan couldn’t remember the last time a woman had touched him like that.

  He looked up. She had put her glass down and was leaning forward, her other hand on him too. She bent down, her face before his. Her eyes closed. Hesitantly, she moved forward.

  ‘Don’t,’ he said.

  She stopped, opened her eyes as if from a dream. Pulled back from him. ‘Why? Don’t you … like me?’

  Donovan almost smiled. ‘Yes, I do, Katya. But I haven’t had a very … I don’t have a very good track record. In … with girlfriends. Partners. Not recently. And that’s another story.’