by I K Watson
“Gosh, a second coming, and some say I am not a religious man. But that's the trouble with Chinese food,” he said, making time while he made up his mind. “You want to eat again so soon afterwards.” He gave in to her first suggestion, that dark taboo. Perhaps because it housed that tighter place and tightness was the thing. And pain, of course, for there it lay. That fine flame-throwing moment, that swift stab of bliss, for just an instant, too short an instant, and then it was gone and then, only indulgence mattered.
But it wasn't easy, even with Luscious Laura, whose stumps had been shattered by a thousand googlies. But the pills she'd fed him had produced a wicked leg-break, and she squealed quite loudly, loudly enough for him to worry about the neighbours on the growing Richmond Park council estate.
His concern for the neighbours ended abruptly as an explosion of light from a large torch held them in its silver beam. Behind it the dark outline of a huge man was just visible. The stocking on his head rounded his shape even more. As the giant figure approached Laura yelped and dived beneath the sheets. But she could still hear his voice, filled with muffled accent. It might have come all the way from Leeds, or some other God-forsaken place.
“Where is he? The two-timing bitch!”
The sheet was ripped away leaving them cowering, quite defenceless. The heavy torch rose above them and the crazy beam zigzagged across the room before at last settling on Laura, first on her quivering breasts and then on her quivering curls. A giant hand reached down to part her legs and the beam focused its full intensity on her sticky wicket.
“It's a girl!” The muffled voice was full of surprise.
The torchlight went out. They heard heavy footsteps on the stairs, then someone falling and cursing and then movements in the shop below and moments later the brass bell ringing out the slamming of the shop door.
“Blimeeey!” Laura sighed her relief. “Who was that? Did you know him?”
Beside her, Mr Lawrence breathed his own relief. “No, I didn’t.” They crept down the stairs to the shop. The blinking neon opposite, red and green, threw the shadows of the ballerinas in the window on to the far wall. They danced. The paintings gathered the light and the painted faces glinted grotesquely. Their bodies glowed red and then green and the green picked up the muscle tone and deepened the hollows.
“How did he get in? I saw you lock the door.”
“These thieves of the night crawl through the crack beneath the door. Even the trusted brass bell let me down tonight. We need garlic, lots of it. It won't keep out the burglars but we can throw it at the cats!” He threw the bolt on the door and turned back into the shop. She'd perched herself on the counter. Her legs dangled. The volcanic light poured in, framing her in its glow.
“Everything's so red and fiery down here,” she whispered. “Just like hell.”
“It is hell, my dear. You can smell the sulphur, hear the clank of chains…” He pointed to the faces in the paintings and then up to the overhead tackle. “See!”
The red turned to green and she became a corpse and her slick became a rotten streak of pus. He shivered at the unholy sight which, of course, was holey too, and he held his breath, waiting for the light to turn again and fill her veins with blood. As the red took hold she smiled at him, wistfully. “Come on, Sir Lancelot, you’ve frightened him off, whoever he was. Bring your helmet and, if you think you need it, your shield, and let's go back to bed.”
The grey December light crawled in with the dawn, adding its gloomy touch to the bedroom. The windows were frostbitten even though the central heating had banged throughout the night. The bedroom was warm and stuffy. In her sleep she had thrown off the bed covers and lay naked, face down. Her breathing was gentle, her sleep untroubled by the creeping light.
He wondered whether he'd snored and checked his chin for froth. His hand remained dry and for a while he lay there pleased with himself.
She looked paler, mixed with buff-yellow. From the hollow of her back the curve of her behind was breathtaking. There could be no finer single line. Stroking it seemed natural. His stalk was still alive, stabbing at the air, made immortal by nocturnal witchery and a handful of pills. He wondered how many men had been inspired by such delight, how many had been led to disaster while drunk on such abandon. He was, nevertheless, aware that the circadian clock was ticking. He was feeling jet-lagged from his ride with Laura, or it might have been the pills, or the unlikely excitement of the night. Whatever it was, with the exception of his dong which was out of control, he was beginning to flag. Even the bedroom door opening made no difference to that.
Paul's face appeared, bright and early, his happiness reaching through the specks of dust held in the heavy air.
“I'm home, Mr Lawrence. Let out early for good behaviour. Gosh, Mr Lawrence, you should be proud of that! A Kodak moment, without a doubt.”
The spell faded slowly, leaving Mr Lawrence befuddled. He tried to smile politely but it wasn’t easy. One of his hands rested on Laura's behind, the other was full of his enthusiasm for it.
Paul looked from right to left then settled on the bed again. Mr Lawrence said, “How in God's name do you people get in? I bolted the door!”
Paul winked. It was obviously a trade secret.
Chapter 12
The day before Paul discovered he had not much in common with Michael Faraday or Georg Ohm, DC Anian Stanford stood in Jack Wooderson's office in Hinckley Police Station.
“Why me, Guv? I'm part of the team.”
The Inspector liked the Guv bit. It tickled him. He also liked the fact that Anian Stanford was standing before him looking faintly manhandled and fragile. He enjoyed the moment, stretching it out. He flicked a speck of white from his uniform. It might have been dandruff, but his face was flaking too. The dark blue threw up everything that was wrong.
“I'm sure we'll manage, Anian,” he said, not even trying to conceal his delight.
She looked over his desk piled with paper. Muddled, disorganized, it mirrored the man. She sat down without invitation and smoothed her skirt over her knees. A defensive move. The thought annoyed her. She said, “That's not what I meant.”
Wooderson wanted a cigarette and thought about a walk to the garage. He said, “There's someone out there who doesn't like women, that's all I know. You must have heard.”
She nodded. Of course she'd heard. Half the world had heard by now. One woman had a breast cut off and another needed fifty stitches to keep hers on.
“And then there's the bomb. They're stretched, calling in all the spare. We'll give it till Monday. If nothing breaks by then I'm afraid you'll have to go. It's out of my hands. DI Cole is due in this afternoon. I'll confirm it with him.”
She coloured up, reddish-brown, hardwood.
Wooderson loved it. It stirred a memory. But that was wrong. The thought was always with him, day and night. Her bony thighs wrapped around him, her groin pressing against him and her hair, flashing along her parting, black as coal and charged with static. It was a gutless sensation. Like bereavement but worse. Time didn't make it easier. Not when he had to see her every day and listen to her conversation with the others, particularly Butler with whom she had formed some kind of attachment.
“Look,” he said. “Believe it or not, I don't want to lose you.” “Why don't I believe you?”
“Anyway, even if you do go and, there's still what, three days? If anything breaks here you'll be back. I'll bell you personally. I've still got your number somewhere.”
He'd said it for a response, nothing more. Control could get her day or night. It went with the job. You couldn’t get away from the job. She said sharply, “Does your wife know you've still got it?”
Wooderson grimaced. The mention of his wife dulled the memory. “Get out of here. Go and iron something. Maybe that chip between your shoulder blades.”
She glared across the desk.
The coldness between them, the result of fall-out, the radiation of bodies that had got too close, felt like t
he curious chill of too much sun. Looking at him now, nicotine stained, ruffled, even a faint trace of dandruff on the blue, she wondered what she'd ever seen in him. Even his aftershave hung around like a cheap cigarette. He looked like a civil servant or a banker who knew there was nothing else till retirement. That sort of acceptance dragged on the face as well as the soul. And the booze he drank the night before and, from the bottle in his desk during the day, came at you from every pore and every breath. Before long, she knew, he'd be history.
But right now, that wasn't soon enough.
She left him looking gloomily out of the first floor window. The city that he could see was dripping under a belt of cloud, the colour of a body on a PM slab, once the blood had been hosed away. DC Anian Stanford was convinced that Inspector Jack Wooderson was a loser, a man who'd climbed one rung too many. Sooner rather than later he would be found out. Unfortunately, she found out too late. In a vindictive sort of way, the way in which lovers part, she looked forward to his downfall.
Her origins lay in the subcontinent, but they were long gone. Thought of occasionally, particularly now that Asians were winning Booker prizes and making inroads into films and TV, but it was more out of sadness than anger. She never wanted to wear a sari, for Christ sakes, but she never knew where she belonged. She called herself British and, that's what her passport said, but the British never accepted that and never would. She was born in England and raised in England but that didn't mean a thing to the Anglo-Saxons. They were islanders, removed from the rest of the world. As far as they were concerned she was from over there, somewhere, and owned a corner shop or a takeaway. And the sooner she got back the better they'd like it.
She had never known her parents. Just hours old she'd been found outside a Catholic orphanage. Anian had been written on the cardboard box. For all the nuns knew, the box might have carried exotic fruit from Asia. Anian might have been the name of a prickly pear. At a year old she'd been adopted from our Blessed Lady's Home by the Stanfords, an English, Catholic, working class family that had a ready made sister for her. Lisa Stanford was two years older and white but in those days blacks and browns could go to whites and no one had a problem.
When she walked from the small office she found three uniforms and a detective sergeant waiting. There were a dozen more uniforms at Hinckley but they were out, on the streets or pulling nights. The four men turned toward her, asking the question. They all knew about her affair with Wooderson.
“I might be seconded to HQ,” she said in a downbeat voice that came at you full of London Town.
DS Sam Butler tut-tutted the idea. He was the only man on the team she trusted. She could talk to him and know that it would go no further. With him there was no innuendo, no eye contact that went on too long and meant something else, no flirting whatsoever. Talking to him was like talking to family. Safe and easy. And predictable. Once Cole had gone and dinner had finished the booze had made conversation easy. The baby had cried and she'd seen him as a father. Some men, not many, were made for the job. Sam Butler was one of them. She'd wondered fleetingly, what sort of father Cole would have made. Not very good, very absent, was her guess. She'd held the baby. Lucy. Arms and legs and big eyes that had stayed blue and a little smile that was wind that kicked you in the middle.
“When?”
Butler's question dragged her back. “Monday, unless we can come up with something new. Oh, Sam, we've got to. This is a real shit.” “Don't worry. We've got a few days yet. I'll think of something.” The DS gave her his best smile of encouragement but it wasn't convincing.
She lowered her voice, “Jack's being an absolute arsehole.” “Expected nothing less, did you?” Butler resisted an impulse to mention office affairs and shrugged. “Men of his age, and mine come to think of it, we tend to panic when we know it's all gone by and there's fuck all in front.”
She threw him a grin. It came from nowhere and changed her mood and his. Still smiling she said, “How can you say that with Lucy and all?” She turned toward the door. “Think of something, Sam. Quickly.” “I will, but in the office you shouldn’t be so familiar – you’ll get people talking and they do enough of that already. You should try sergeant or DS Butler or even skipper. I'm easy.”
She turned back. “You've always been easy Sam.” She stuck out her tongue. It was pink, girlish, and caught Butler right where it hurt. The door swung shut.
Hinckley nick was quiet; it was that time of the morning, the uncivilized hour, the time when milkmen filching double rounds started out. The few patrolling coppers were parked up in their favourite corners, taking turns to close their eyes. A PC on the front desk yawned and stretched. It was close to the end of his shift and he was winding down, as he had been for the last two hours. The desk phone rang. He listened for a few moments then pressed hold. Or at least he meant to. Instead, he cut the line.
“It's Missing Persons, Sarge, about a message sent this afternoon.” Sergeant Mills groaned. He'd been hoping for a quiet end to the shift, now paperwork loomed large. He said, “Missing Persons? At this hour? Are they taking the piss, or what? Who filed it?”
“Came from next door. Sam Butler.”
“Well?”
“Well what, Sarge?”
“Well, what do they say?”
“Oh, yes.” He examined the note he’d scribbled on his pad. “They've made a link with these missing women and two more out of area. The other two are pregnant.”
The Sergeant shook his head. “Pregnant? Are you sure it's for us? Sounds like a wrong number to me. I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll leave a note on DS fucking Butler's desk asking him to get back to… Did you get a name?”
The kozzer drew a quick breath.
“It's always a good idea to get a name, son, particularly if you're going to ring them back. Stick with me. You'll learn something every day.”
Margaret Domey was based at Sheerham and known in the office as the psychologist from hell. When all five-four and slightly swollen belly of her breezed into the nick the duty sergeant pretended to be doing something else. Bollocks to that for a living. She wore a grey two-piece, low heels, and thin lips. She wasn't unattractive and with her slightly fuller figure a lot of the kozzers took more notice than usual.
As she made her way to Cole's office uniforms stood aside and in the IR the conversation died and male defences went up along with the eyebrows.
“Margaret.”
“Rick.”
“Are you back?”
“Tomorrow. Heard a rumour about Geoff Maynard. Tell me it's not true?”
“It's true, but it has nothing to do with your absence. I'll show you.” Cole led her back into the incident room. The team pretended to be hard at it, paperwork, screens, not looking up. She took in the action boards and skimmed through the crime reports before shaking a bemused head. “Interesting. What does Geoff say?”
“Nothing yet. We'll see.”
“But he is coming?”
Cole shrugged.
“He'll come. Sex and violence, it's irresistible. Of course he'll come.”
In Cole's office again and with the door closed she said, “I did think he was in the past. It was a comforting thought.”
He smiled easily, “I know what you mean.”
She said tightly, “He got too close last time. I'll make sure it doesn't happen again.”
“A lot of us feel the same way but the second attack sealed it. You should take a closer look.”
“Tomorrow. I'll have a look tomorrow. They're letting me back for a couple of hours a day.”
“Sam's been on. He'd like you to spend some time at Hinckley. The missing women.”
“That old chestnut. For goodness sake, he's got – ”
Cole cut her short. “He's got an idea or two. I think you'll be able to help him and – ”
“And Sam needs all the help he can get. Tell me something new?” Cole smiled. A couple of weeks with her head down the pan hadn't softened her at all.
“How are you, Margaret?”
She narrowed her eyes. “You want it in one?”
“Go for it.”
“Pregnancy is shit. Don't let anyone ever tell you any different.” “Sounds good to me.”
Her eyes narrowed further. “I know why I like you, Cole. It's your sense of humour.” She smiled. Her lips filled out and for just a moment she looked just right. “I'll see you tomorrow. Right now I'm going to make the most of today. I'm going to spend some money which is every woman's favourite pastime. I've got my eye on a very old chestnut cooking pot.”
Cole remembered that she had an interest in antiques. He guessed her home was cluttered with old things and that there would be little room for a child.
“You know the shop, down the road from the Indian? The Gallery?”
“I know it. Never been in, of course.”
“Of course. But that's where I'm going now. I want the chestnut pan. But I want the feel-good factor too. I want to spend.” Cole laughed. Maybe he liked her, after all.
There was another man on the way whose feelings toward her had never been made clear. And she was frightened of him because he knew too much. He was the only man in the world who had ever made her feel inadequate. More than that even, for she had been quite happy with the subservient role. And now, with Geoff Maynard’s return more than just a possibility, her feelings were edged with apprehension. There was the challenge, certainly, but with that came the possibility of failure. And failure, for Margaret Domey, was not an option. It was some time later when the phone rang and Margaret Domey featured again.
“Ricky?”
“Yes.”
“John Domey.”
“Hello, John. How are you?”
“Good. Listen, old boy, you haven't seen my wife, have you? She mentioned she was popping in.”