Stone Cold

by Dean Crawford

  Kathryn pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to Ally, who unfolded the paper and scanned the list. She frowned almost immediately.

  ‘What on Earth would you want this lot for?’ she said, and then her eyes widened as she looked at one of the items. ‘Aftershave, for Stephen? Tickets? Where are you going?’

  ‘Just book them using the code I’ve written down,’ Kathryn urged her. ‘No questions. I’ll send you the money tomorrow.’

  ‘A vacation?’ Ally hazarded. ‘So, Miss Stone, perhaps you intend this scheme of yours to end happily for Monsieur Hollister?’

  Kathryn sighed as she stared into her wine glass.

  ‘What we’ve got is too good to just abandon without trying,’ she said. ‘I won’t just walk away if he comes clean about everything that he’s done.’

  Ally humphed as she slipped the list into her pocket.

  ‘A man, come clean? Talk about his problems? Admit his love? I look forward to that, just as I look forward to hearing about how Hell has frozen over.’

  ‘Stephen’s not like other men,’ Kathryn protested. Ally said nothing for a long moment, and Kathryn banged the sofa angrily. ‘He can be different.’

  Kathryn’s phone buzzed nearby on the sofa, and she picked it up and read the name on the screen, atop an SMS message.

  ‘It’s Stephen,’ she said.

  ‘What does he want?’

  Kathryn frowned. ‘He’s coming back home,’ she replied.

  Ally set her glass down. ‘Well, he won’t want me here, he’s never liked me. You going to start on him when he gets back?’

  Kathryn set her phone down and sipped a little more of her wine. ‘I’ve got an idea.’

  Ally looked at Kathryn for a long moment. ‘You really sure about all of this? Why go through with it at all? Why not just walk away?’

  Kathryn sighed. ‘I’m an orphan, Ally. I don’t have anybody else to fall back on.’

  ‘Humph,’ Ally mumbled as she got up and grabbed her coat, ‘well, I hope this works out right honey, but in the meantime you make bloody sure you twist his balls up so close to his chin he’ll never dare cross you again.’

  ***

  14

  Griffin hated nothing more than sitting still in his car. Being a beat cop had taught him how much all law enforcement hated sitting watching some criminal’s home, or a fearful informer’s back, or an even more scared victim’s house in case their attacker returned in the night to finish the job.

  But now he sat rooted to his seat, unable to move.

  The enemy was close at hand.

  He looked out through his rain soaked window at his front door, a thin rectangle of light beyond which his wife would be busying herself in the kitchen. Beside Griffin on the passenger seat was a small bunch of flowers he’d picked up on the way home. He didn’t know if they were roses, tulips or goddamned Venus fly traps. Foliage wasn’t his hot topic. Beside the flowers was a bottle of wine, safer ground. He knew a thing or two about drinking.

  Griffin dragged a hand down his face, trying to rub away the fatigue that had plagued him for so many weeks. Sleep didn’t come easy. In fact, nothing much came easy right now, and yet he knew what a good thing he had. More than once he’d asked himself just why the hell some days he felt like getting up, packing his gear and taking off. He had a home, a wife, a job, a future. He had what many people strove, fought and begged for. And yet he so often felt trapped. It wasn’t like he thought that the grass was greener or any of that shit, he knew too much about real life to spend his time fantasising.

  Griffin shrugged. Maybe he really was just a loner, better off on his own and not bothering everybody else with his moods and maudlin thoughts. From somewhere in the back of his mind his military training kicked in, as it always did when he found himself procrastinating. Attack the problem, solve it, and move on.

  Get up soldier, and get on with it.

  Griffin dragged himself out of his car much as he had often dragged himself out of a warm sleeping bag in the dangerous and bitterly cold wilds of Afghanistan. He walked to the front door as though he were breaching the entrance to Tora Bora caves without the cold comfort of an M–16 cradled in his grasp. Griffin shoved his key into the lock, took a deep breath and pushed the front door open.

  Angela was in the kitchen, sitting at the breakfast table reading a magazine and taking delicate bites from a Dorito in one hand. Strawberry blonde hair cut to her shoulders in a fashionable style, an off–the–shoulder cardigan casual and yet somehow perfect. She glanced up at him and smiled.

  ‘Hey.’ Her eyes flicked to the flowers and the bottle of wine. One eyebrow arched upward. ‘Who died?’

  Griffin shut the door behind him to hide the smile that creased his jaw. Angela had always been a smart ass, in every sense of the phrase. He walked up to the breakfast table and set the flowers and wine down before her.

  ‘I figured I haven’t been doing a great job of all this,’ he said, unable to think of something more profound or moving to say.

  Angela seemed suddenly frozen in time, the Dorito still held in her hand. ‘Go on.’

  Griffin blinked. ‘I didn’t prepare a speech and the store was plain out of red carpets. I just…’

  Griffin’s mind was vacuumed of words and his voice trailed off as his lips went numb. Angela stared at him for a moment longer and then she looked down at the flowers. She tossed her Dorito back into a bowl and walked around the breakfast counter to him.

  ‘You’re a dickhead,’ she said. Griffin opened his mouth to protest, but Angela slipped her arms around his neck, kissed him gently on the lips and beamed up at him. ‘Do you remember the last time you bought me flowers?’

  Griffin struggled. ‘No.’

  ‘That’s because you’ve never bought me flowers, dumbass. What’s happened?’

  Griffin felt the smile creep back onto his features. Maybe he could do this shit after all?

  ‘I don’t know. Nothing. I was just driving home and thinking about the case I’m on is all.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Abduction,’ Griffin said. ‘Guy went and misplaced his wife this morning and we’re having a hard time finding her. I guess it made me wonder how I would feel if that happened to you and me.’

  Angela chuckled. ‘And there was me thinking you’d lost your romantic streak.’

  ‘I do my best,’ Griffin replied.

  Angela looked at the flowers and the wine. ‘Your best is more than acceptable, kind sir. You open the bottle, I’ll finish dinner, ‘kay?’

  Griffin nodded as Angela moved through the kitchen.

  ‘How’s your new friend at the station?’ she asked. ‘The counsellor?’

  Griffin winced. ‘A pain in my ass.’

  ‘Was she behind this little gesture?’

  Griffin sighed as he rummaged for a bottle opener in a draw. ‘No.’ Angela hummed her response, and Griffin turned to her. ‘What, you think I couldn’t have done this on my own?’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ Angela replied as she chopped peppers on a board.

  ‘You implied it.’

  Angela sighed. ‘I guess that this is all a little bit out of the blue, is all, but I don’t want to sound like I’m bitching, okay? I’m just..., interested.’

  ‘Interested in my counsellor?’ Griffin asked.

  ‘In what she’s saying, asking, helping you with,’ Angela admitted.

  ‘You’re jealous I’ve been talking to her and not you?’

  ‘Oh crap, you got me,’ Angela snapped. ‘Of course I’m not jealous. It’s about wanting to know what’s goin’ on up there in that head of yours because I give a damn.’

  Griffin winced again. It seemed remarkable to him that he could not, despite years of marriage, fathom how Angela’s mind worked. How any woman’s mind worked. It was always the same: they sounded like they were accusing him of something, and yet when pressed it turned out they were concerned, or upset or some other shit. Griffin n
ever was able to figure out why they couldn’t just talk straight, ask questions, get answers and move goddamned forward.

  ‘Okay, my bad,’ he replied. ‘Why didn’t you just say that bit first, then follow up with everything else?’

  Angela waved the knife in the air. ‘Because women like to build up to these things.’

  ‘And men like to get to the point.’

  ‘Do they, Scott?’

  Irritation lanced Griffin like a blade. He couldn’t help himself. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘That you can’t just waltz in here with a bunch of flowers and a bottle of wine and figure that weeks of misery will just evaporate from my mind like a hangover.’

  Griffin stared at his wife for a long moment. ‘Misery?’

  Angela sighed, struggled for the right words. ‘It wasn’t all misery, I didn’t mean it like that. Things were…’

  ‘But there was plenty of misery in there, right?’ Griffin challenged her. ‘I don’t know how you cope, life with me being so damned harsh and all.’

  The knife blade buried itself in the chopping board as Angela jabbed a finger at him.

  ‘There you go again! Everybody’s got it worse than you, Scott, isn’t that right? You served in war zones and got caught up in a shoot–out and suddenly the rest of the world is just a bunch of complaining losers compared to The Almighty Griffin.’

  ‘That’s bullshit,’ Griffin winced. ‘And what the hell do you mean “got caught up in a shoot–out”? A little girl died because of me!’

  ‘You didn’t shoot her Scott!’ Angela screamed. ‘You didn’t fucking shoot her, just like you didn’t start a fucking war in Afghanistan! You joined the military and then you joined the goddamned police force, because you can’t stop telling me that it’s what you love to do! So stop complaining when the dangerous jobs that you love to do start having dangerous things happen in them!’

  Angela burst out of the kitchen and barged past him. She grabbed her coat from a rail near the front door and swung it over her shoulders.

  ‘Where are you going now?’ Griffin snapped. ‘Running away from this won’t do any good!’

  ‘I’m not running away from this conversation,’ Angela shot back as she grabbed her keys and handbag. ‘I’m running away from you, Scott. You’re so damned big on how people should get their story straight all the time, but one moment you’re bringing me flowers and the next you’re telling me that I don’t know what I’ve got here. Well I’ll tell you what I’ve got here: every which way to misery, just like I said!’

  Angela yanked the front door of their house open and vanished down the front path as Griffin hurried after her and stood in the doorway.

  ‘You go to that damned sister of yours again and you can damned well stay there!’

  Angela did not reply as she stormed across the front lawn. Her car’s lights flashed as she deactivated the alarm and opened the driver’s door.

  ‘This is it Angela!’ Griffin shouted. ‘You go now, you don’t come back!’

  ‘Fine,’ Angela shouted in reply. ‘I’ll do what you ask, and be decisive!’

  Angela slammed her car door shut, and moments later her car pulled away and vanished into the night.

  ***

  15

  ‘It’s a surprise, okay?’

  Kathryn got into the driver’s seat of her tired old Lincoln and started the engine as Stephen climbed in. The interior of the car was cold enough for their breath to condense on the air. Kathryn turned on the blowers, sending shafts of even colder air blasting past their ears.

  ‘Thanks, that’s working wonders,’ Stephen uttered.

  ‘I’m doing my best,’ Kathryn shot back, willing the engine to warm up a little more.

  ‘Why don’t we just grab a take–away?’ Stephen complained. ‘It’s a freezing night and I’m starving.’

  ‘Because we don’t ever do anything like this anymore,’ Kathryn replied. ‘Come on, how often do we get out of the house and enjoy ourselves a little?’

  ‘Hardly ever,’ Stephen admitted, ‘because we’re broke.’

  ‘Not for long,’ Kathryn smiled cheerily as she drove out of the apartment lot and onto the main road. ‘I’ve got my job now, so things will be better.’

  Stephen closed his eyes and dragged a hand down his face. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve been so wrapped up in things that I forgot all about it. How’s your job been going?’

  ‘Glad you asked,’ Kathryn replied, willing to give him a break seeing as he was clearly exhausted. ‘It’s been going well. I’m assigned to a detective who’s suffering from Post–Traumatic Stress Syndrome.’

  ‘I know how he feels.’

  ‘The hell you do. He’s a former soldier, served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with the army.’

  ‘Sounds like a barrel of laughs.’

  ‘Don’t you ever let up?’

  Stephen sighed. ‘It’s hard to forget about work, you know? Things aren’t going so well, case you hadn’t noticed. I’m sure this detective is a stand–up guy, but it’s hard to think about his problems when we’ve got so many of our own.’

  ‘We have problems?’

  ‘Me,’ Stephen corrected himself. ‘I have problems, at work. Keeps me awake at night.’

  ‘So talk to me about them. We’ve got all night.’

  ‘I need to be up early in the morning.’

  ‘If you’re not sleeping, you will be anyway.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘We’ve got time right now, is all I’m saying,’ Kathryn said as she focused on the route ahead. ‘Tell me about it.’

  Stephen rubbed his forehead with one hand. ‘It’s not interesting, just stuff going missing.’

  ‘Missing? You lost something?’

  ‘No, paperwork on deals, figures, files, crap like that. We need them to seal deals and nobody can find them. Where are we going?’

  ‘It’s a surprise.’

  ‘It’ll be a surprise if your car gets us there.’

  ‘It’s worth the risk,’ Kathryn replied. ‘Like I said, it’ll do us good to get out of the apartment. We can pretend we’re different people for the evening, enjoy ourselves for a change instead of worrying about everything.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Stephen uttered. ‘I’ll be worrying about starvation by then. Have you seen the traffic at this time of night?’

  ‘You’ll enjoy it all the more when we get there then,’ Kathryn said.

  Stephen remained silent and still for several moments. The car was warming up nicely as Kathryn drove, and on an impulse she switched the radio on. A gentle lullaby of country music swelled from the dusty speakers set into the doors.

  ‘Why don’t you have a nap while I’m driving?’ she suggested. ‘You won’t be so tired when we get to the restaurant.’

  Stephen did not reply, but she saw him lean back in his seat and close his eyes.

  Kathryn drove through the galaxies of blazing streetlights, of queuing traffic and busy shop fronts. The blinking navigation lights of aircraft arriving and departing from the airport filled the sky ahead as she drove.

  From time to time Kathryn glanced across at Stephen. Although his eyes were closed, she could tell by the depth of his breathing and the intermittent flickering of his eyeballs beneath the lids that he was not even remotely asleep. The fact that he could pretend to be so for such a long time without becoming bored surprised her immensely, and she wondered what thoughts were drifting through the vaults of his mind. Did he suspect already that she had uncovered his deception and lies?

  Kathryn consoled herself with the thought that it didn’t matter much either way. Stephen was not here to enjoy himself. He was here to suffer.

  Kathryn drove through the city centre, past the diners and the bars that were packed with teenagers, all with their lives stretching ahead of them. The bright lights and festival air hinted at the possibilities of the future, and of those that Kathryn had abandoned long ago. She gripped the steering wheel tighter as she
drove on, and saw the signs for the restaurant she sought just up ahead. The place was called Isaac’s, and boasted a vast range of international cuisine, the kind of place where wealthy people went just to say they’d eaten squid, or octopus, or whatever the hell was fashionable to eat at the time. Stephen had eaten at Isaac’s twice with the other woman in the time that Kathryn had followed them here.

  ‘Which one are we going to?’ Stephen asked from beside her.

  He was feigning coming awake from a doze, squinting his eyes and stretching his legs into the foot wells.

  ‘Just up here,’ Kathryn said. Stephen was already staring at the restaurant as though it were a North Korean labour camp.

  Kathryn affected a disappointed tone. ‘Have you been here before?’

  Stephen hesitated a moment before replying. ‘I think so, maybe once, with work.’

  Kathryn pulled into the lot and parked, switching off the engine and getting out. The wind was bitterly cold as they walked to the restaurant entrance.

  ‘Do you have any idea how expensive this place is?’ Stephen asked.

  ‘Relax,’ Kathryn said. ‘I’m enjoying myself. Let’s not let money spoil the evening, okay?’

  Stephen said no more, hurrying ahead to open the door for her. Kathryn smiled dutifully as she walked in and spoke to the girl at the desk regarding her reservation. Within moments they were led to a secluded table for two half way down the restaurant, which was dominated on one side by a wall of water flowing down a glass screen through vibrant and shimmering beams of light like rainbows.

  ‘Wow,’ Kathryn said and glanced at Stephen. ‘How could you forget being in here?’

  Stephen glanced at the spectacular display. ‘Maybe it wasn’t here before. They’ve probably just sprung a leak.’

  The waiter showed them to their seats, and as they sat down he looked at Stephen. ‘Nice to see you again, sir.’

  Stephen looked up at the waiter. ‘And you.’

  As the waiter turned away, Kathryn looked at Stephen. ‘I thought you said you hadn’t been here recently?’

  ‘I said it was a long time ago, with work I expect. They seem very professional, maybe they’re trained to remember people?’