by Neil White
Amelia hated the premises, but Charlie refused to move.
So this was it, he thought, as he stared out of the window. The week was about to start. Just another grind through routine court cases. The week will end, and then it will be the same again. A lost weekend, and then Sunday spent wondering what he had said the night before. He watched an old woman walk up the hill, her back bent, as if she had spent most of her life walking up hills that were too steep to live on. That’s how it seemed in Oulton. Too steep, too cold, too isolated. The town didn’t grow or reinvent itself. It just crumbled a slow death, every closure bringing more boarded-up windows, and one more reason for people to head down into the valley and not come back.
As he looked out, he saw something further along the street.
There was the same group of young people he had seen outside the café, all around twenty years old, all in black, their hair long and dyed black to match, their faces pale. There were glints of metal in their faces. One of them had a guitar. He looked older than the rest, with wild dark hair and lighter clothes. Dirty denim rather than black. The others seemed to encircle him as they walked, and most seemed to be smiling.
They must have seen Charlie staring, because they glanced up as they passed below his window. The older one nodded, and Charlie thought he saw him smile.
Chapter Five
John Abbott squinted as he opened his eyes. It wasn’t a bright day, he could tell that from the greyness on the other side of the glass, and there were no curtains or blinds at the window. It was later than the usual waking time, because they woke with nature, but the night before had been a late one.
He waited a few seconds for his eyes to adjust, and then looked towards the window again. There were other people moving elsewhere in the house, but he wasn’t ready to get up.
He felt Gemma stir against him, her skin warm, her arm across his chest. His thoughts went back to the night before and he grimaced. It wasn’t supposed to happen like that. She’d been more excitable than normal and had chosen him again. He could have said no, that it wasn’t right, made up some excuse, but he didn’t. He gave in every time. It was the way she smiled at him, cute, coy, with large appealing eyes, and how she covered her mouth when she giggled.
It was more than just her appeal though. He had needed the warmth and the closeness, although in the harsh light of morning he knew he shouldn’t have done it.
Her leg moved across him and he pushed it away. The noises were getting louder in the house, and so he knew he had to get up. He moved her arm and slid out of bed, although that was a generous description for a mattress on the floor covered in blankets. Only a rug stopped his feet from hitting the cold wooden floor. He looked down. The covers had slipped from her. He shook his head. Gemma was too young, her shoulders thin and bony, her skin pale and mottled. Her face was too innocent for what had happened the night before, her nose small and dappled by freckles, wisps of mousy hair across her cheeks.
He padded over to the window and looked out. He was naked, but it didn’t seem to matter whether anyone could see him outside. The view calmed him. They were on the top of a long slope, with mist in the deep valley below, just bracken and gorse for the most part, but clusters of trees broke up the hills and sheep dotted the slope on the other side. John liked the isolation, the countryside the same as it had been for hundreds of years, the chimneys and terraced streets in a different valley he couldn’t see. He looked down at the Seven Sisters, remnants of a stone circle in the field in front of the cottage, just seven stone fingers rising out of the ground in a grey crescent.
They were in an old stone farmhouse, where everyone slept in cramped quarters, five to a room. The room he was in with Gemma was the exception, the party room, apart from Henry’s room, where he slept alone. The farmhouse owner slept in a room downstairs. John didn’t like to think of that, because he was neglected, too infirm to look after himself.
There was a noise behind him. He turned round. Gemma was sitting up, smiling. He went as if to cover himself, but she laughed.
‘Too late to be embarrassed now,’ she said, her voice light and soft. ‘Nothing is wrong that is beautiful, you know that. Henry said that.’
‘I know that, but, well,’ and he shrugged.
She reached over to the side of the bed and rummaged in a bag. She pulled out a spliff and lit the paper twist at its tip. That warm, cloying smell of cannabis drifted towards him. She took a hard pull and held it in, before letting it out with a cough and a smile. The first one of the day was always the worst. She leaned forward to offer it to him. ‘You’re free, babe. Leave your hang-ups behind.’
He was reluctant, but she thrust it again and said, ‘Come on, it’s okay.’
John went to her to take it from her and rolled it between his fingers, watching as the glowing tip turned soot-grey. He took a small drag and then hacked out a cough when he took in the smoke.
She laughed. ‘I thought you were getting used to it,’ she said, and then flopped back onto the bed.
‘How old are you?’ John asked, his eyes watering from his coughs.
Gemma wagged a finger. ‘I’ve told you before, details spoil a good time.’
‘It’s important though.’
‘But why?’
‘Because of what we did last night.’
‘You’ve so much to learn,’ she said, shaking her head, smiling. ‘You’re not bound by the old rules anymore. Freedom. Remember that word, John. It’s the whole point of us. Don’t you listen to Henry? The law is just what society says we cannot do, but we are not part of that society anymore. We are our own selves, free people, living human beings.’ She turned over and propped herself on her elbows, her chin in her hands. ‘Didn’t you enjoy it?’
John looked at the naked stretch of her body. Her smooth back, her pert backside, and his mind went back to the night before. ‘Yes, I enjoyed it,’ he said, and a flush crept up his cheeks.
She giggled. ‘I can tell,’ she said, looking at his groin.
He took another drag on the spliff and then bent down to pass it back to her. She smiled as she took it, her features lost in a pall of sweet smoke, and there it was again, that disquiet that there was something too childlike about her.
As Gemma took a hard pull, John asked, ‘Where did Henry go last night?’
There was a pause as she held the smoke in her lungs. She smiled as she let it out again, and then said, ‘Why?’
‘Henry went out again, and he goes out a lot. I’m confused, that’s all. He wants me to give everything up for him, for the group, but does he give everything up for me?’
Gemma sat up, her face more serious now. ‘You know things are happening. He has to arrange things, and so he has to meet people.’
‘But he could phone, or email or something.’
‘Haven’t you noticed yet, that we have nothing like that? They can trace where you are and intercept what you are saying. He told you that. Didn’t you understand?’
‘Of course I did. I just thought there must be a better way to organise things.’
Gemma frowned. ‘You ask a lot of questions.’
John paused before he answered. ‘Just curious, that’s all.’
Gemma looked at him, her head cocked, serious for a moment, and then she asked, ‘So how old are you? Thirty?’
‘Twenty-five,’ he said. ‘I’ve got an old face, that’s all.’
‘I like your face,’ she said, her voice softer. ‘Come here.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think we should. I can hear people moving around.’
‘Henry told me to make you happy,’ she said, and then she giggled, her hand over her mouth. ‘I can see that you are happy.’ Gemma parted her legs. Her hips were bony and thin.
John closed his eyes for a moment and tried not to think of how she had been.
‘Is Henry always going to approve everything?’ he said, and opened his eyes again. ‘How can we be free if we need Henry’s approval?’
John shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t do that, you know that.’
‘We have to fight for our freedom,’ Gemma said. ‘You do believe that, don’t you? We are building for something big that will make everyone take notice, and if you don’t believe that, well, there’s no point.’
John nodded, and took a deep breath. ‘I believe in us, you know that.’
‘So come back to bed, because if Henry decides that this shouldn’t happen anymore, it will stop, and I don’t want that, because I want to please you. And you want to please Henry, don’t you?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, I want to please Henry.’ His voice sounded weak.
John went to the bed again. Gemma’s arms went around his neck and he felt her body begin to press against his. He closed his eyes as his resolve weakened, as she guided him towards her.
Chapter Six
Sheldon’s heartbeat was drumming fast again as he skipped up the stone steps to the Lancashire Express offices. Tracey Peters was behind him, walking with a crime scene investigator. There was a uniformed officer in a fluorescent green jacket by the corner of the building, someone’s arm around her. Further along, on a low stone wall, there were people gathered in a huddle.
The newspaper was produced from a large millstone building on the road that sloped down into the valley. It reported on the towns and villages along the Yorkshire border, with courtroom stories and council meetings, road crashes and summer fetes, its articles padded out by items pulled from the internet. Whenever they got a story that was big in Oulton, its base, the paper ran it for as long as people were still interested, and sometimes even beyond.
As Sheldon got near to the large double wooden doors at the top of the steps, someone stepped in front of him. Sheldon recognised him as Jim Kelly, the newsdesk editor, a man in his fifties who smelled of cigarettes and dressed like a journalist cliché, from the grubby blazer to his crumpled cords.
‘Inspector Brown, I was hoping it would be you,’ Kelly said, sweeping his greasy flick of hair over his head.
Sheldon stopped. He’d had press attention in the past, not much of it supportive, with the Express at the heart of it. ‘I hope this isn’t some kind of trick to get a quote,’ he said.
Kelly smiled. ‘It’s better than that, follow me,’ and he headed into the building, Sheldon walking quickly to keep up.
‘Seeing as though you’re here, Inspector,’ Kelly said, over his shoulder, ‘have you got anything I can print?’
Sheldon didn’t answer. Kelly had never been kind to the police in his reporting, and so he wasn’t going to get any special favours.
Kelly shrugged and just kept on walking. Sheldon thought he could see the trace of a smirk.
There were no people left inside, just small clusters of desks and computer monitors, the walls lined with framed front pages. The chairs were pulled untidily away from desks, as if people had left quickly. Their footsteps echoed as they walked, the ceiling high and arched, the building an old Methodist chapel converted fifty years earlier.
Kelly must have seen Sheldon looking at the empty office, because he said, ‘We thought they ought to wait outside until you’d finished.’ He pointed towards a desk at the end of the room, facing out so that it looked over all the others and towards the door. Kelly’s desk. There was a white cardboard box on it, like a cake box. ‘It was handed in at the front desk, in a plastic bag.’
‘Who delivered it?’
‘I don’t know. We don’t have someone at the front all the time. It was left on the desk, that’s all I know.’
Tracey went to the box first, but then let the investigator get in front so that he could take some photographs. Once he had finished, he stepped aside to let Tracey get a proper view.
‘There’s something written on it,’ she said.
Sheldon looked at Kelly, who nodded and said, ‘The face of greed. Has a certain sort of message to it, don’t you think? A great headline.’
‘Did you open the box?’ Sheldon said, his mouth dry, starting to guess what might be inside.
‘I didn’t know what was in there,’ Kelly said, defensively.
The crime scene investigator passed Sheldon a paper mask and a bonnet to put over his hair. Sheldon snapped them on and then went over to the box, pulling on latex gloves, Tracey moving to one side. He took hold of the box by the corners. A trickle of sweat made his eye sting as he started to lift off the lid slowly.
As the lid came off, revealing the contents, Sheldon had to take deep breaths in and out, to calm himself. He gagged but clenched his teeth and forced himself to stay in control. He glanced at Kelly over his paper mask, who said, ‘I spent the first ten years of my career taking photographs of road accidents. These things don’t bother me.’
Sheldon scowled and then closed his eyes to ready himself for what he would see when he looked in the box again. His forehead was moist. He counted to three and then opened his eyes.
There was white tissue, but most of it was smeared dark red. In the middle, nestling in the paper, was a face, except that it looked more like a grotesque mask. The edges of the skin were smooth, as if it had been cut away with a very sharp knife, but Sheldon could make out the more ragged pieces of flesh and muscle stuck to the underside, where someone had reached into the cuts with their fingers and pulled the face away.
But it wasn’t just the sight of the face that made Sheldon’s pulse quicken and a flash of sweat cover his cheeks. It was the feeling that he recognised the person, even though the face had no form, torn away from the bones that had once made the features unique.
He thought back to the body tied to the bed. It had been hard to guess the age. There were tattoos that made him look younger, Maori swirls on the upper arms and onto the shoulders, but the body looked older, pale and flabby.
The face in the box answered that question, the skin soft, a small dark goatee on his chin.
Sheldon’s knees weakened. It couldn’t be him. Jim Kelly was saying something, but the words were indistinct mumbles.
Memories rushed back at him. A dead woman, a large house, the floor wet with spilled booze, but there were no glasses lying around. The dishwasher was running but there was no one there. He had moved through the rooms, looking for an answer to the call that had come in, that a young woman was dead. Then he had found her, floating underwater in the swimming pool, almost at the bottom, naked.
Jim Kelly’s voice became louder. Sheldon opened his eyes and apologised. ‘Sorry, what did you say?’
‘Do I get a quote now?’ Kelly repeated. ‘Is it who I think it is? Billy Privett?’
Tracey said, ‘Shit,’ behind him, but Sheldon shook his head. ‘This does not make the paper yet.’
Kelly smiled. Sheldon guessed that he had already taken photographs, ready for syndication when the time was right, and he had the exclusive.
Sheldon turned away and headed for the exit, not bothering to say goodbye, knowing that the day ahead had got a whole lot more complicated.
Chapter Seven
Charlie walked to the courthouse most days. It was when he got his day together, when he worked out how long each case would take, what he was going to say to his client, what excuses he would spin to the Magistrates. This time, he had Donia with him and his routine was disrupted. All he could hear were the click-click of her heels, like little jabs in his head shaking the last remnants of his hangover.
‘You don’t say much,’ Donia said, when they were almost at the court building. There was a slight tremor to her voice.
He considered her for a moment. She was staring at him, expectantly. He stopped. At least it made the heels go quiet.
‘I have my routines,’ he said. ‘I’ve been doing this job too long to care too much, and so don’t expect me to gush about it. One of my habits is a quiet walk to court. I was just sticking with it.’
‘Okay, I’m sorry,’ she said, and then he felt a stab of guilt when he saw a deep flush
to her cheeks. ‘Do you think the police will catch whoever broke into your office?’
Her naivety made him smile. ‘We haven’t called the police,’ he said. ‘And they won’t care anyway, particularly when there’s been a murder in town. A defence lawyer has had his office burgled – I wouldn’t figure in their priorities much, and what if it’s one of my own clients? Siding with the police would not be good for business.’
‘So you just ignore it?’
‘No point in trying to change things,’ he said, and set off walking again. When he heard her heels fall into step with his, he asked, ‘What are you expecting from this week?’
She seemed to take a long time to think about that. ‘Just to learn more about the law,’ she said.
‘Why law? Have you got a university place?’
‘At Manchester,’ Donia said. ‘I want to experience it first though.’
‘And so you thought my little practice would give you a taste of what it’s all about,’ Charlie said, and then he laughed. ‘Think of it like this; whatever your legal career has in store for you, this week will be just like real life.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘No money and no fun.’
‘Did you always think like that?’
He looked at her, and his mood darkened just for a moment. No, he hadn’t always thought like that, but things hadn’t turned out like he had hoped.
Then Charlie saw something in her eyes. Resentment? He was being dismissive of her career before it had started, when he had made the same decision as her too many years earlier.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and then he smiled. ‘Try and enjoy your week. Maybe you’ll make a better job of your career than I have.’