Body and Soul

by John Harvey

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘I thought, after the therapy and everything …’

  She laughed. ‘The therapy?’

  ‘Yes. I thought it was going well. Thought you’d found a way of coming to terms …’

  ‘What? As in forgetting? You think that’s possible? A few sessions with some shrink and it all goes away?’

  ‘No, just …’

  ‘Just what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘No, you don’t, do you? Don’t know a fucking thing. About me or anything. Hide yourself away down here and you don’t fucking care!’

  Swivelling on her heels, she stomped off through the heather the way they’d come, and Elder slowly levered himself up and set out after her, careful to keep his distance.

  That evening, peace restored, they went to the cinema, the Filmhouse in Newlyn, ate fish and chips leaning over the harbour wall. Katherine had changed the bandages on her arms, while the questions continued to reverberate, unabated, unasked. Accidental? Both arms? The result of self-harming or something more potentially serious, final? If she wants to tell me, Elder persuaded himself with difficulty, she will.

  On the way back across the peninsula, relaxed, Katherine chatted about the movie they’d just seen; about friends, flatmates – Abike, who was a teaching assistant in a local primary school; Stelina, who worked as a ward clerk in Mile End Hospital and was studying for a degree part-time; Chrissy, who juggled working behind a bar with being an artists’ model. When Elder got out a bottle of Scotch back at the cottage, Katherine shook her head and made tea instead. It was quite late by the time tiredness took over and they were away to their beds.

  Elder slept fitfully, riven by familiar dreams. A fisherman’s makeshift hut fashioned from timber and tarpaulin and held together with nails and rope. The lapping of water. Seaweed. Ash. The remains of a fire further back along the beach. The carcass of a seabird plucked clean. When he pressed his weight against the door, the rotting wood gave way and he stumbled into darkness.

  A scream shrilled through him and he was instantly awake.

  A scream from the next-door room.

  Katherine was sitting bolt upright in bed, eyes wide open, staring towards the open window, her body shaking. When he touched her gently, she whimpered and pulled her knees closer to her chest. Her eyes flickered, dilated, then closed.

  ‘It’s all right, Kate,’ he said, easing her back down. ‘It’s just a dream.’

  Her dreams, his dreams: one of the things they shared.

  When she was just sixteen Katherine had been kidnapped by a man named Adam Keach, forced into a van and driven to an isolated location on the North Yorks coast, a ramshackle hut where she had been held prisoner, tortured and raped. It had been Elder who had found her, naked, blood blisters on her arms and legs, bruises discolouring her shoulders and her back.

  Stooping, he kissed her hair now, as he had then.

  Squeezed her hand and left her sleeping.

  Next morning she was gone.

  3

  No matter how hard he tried to shake off Katherine’s words, they continued to sting. Hide yourself away down here and you don’t fucking care! Well, there was truth in that, he supposed, more than he might readily admit. And, like most truths, it was hemmed in by circumstance and things that had, at the time, seemed beyond his control.

  If only we’d stayed in London, he might have said, none of this would have happened. This. The past ten years.

  In response to Joanne’s pleading – it’s a great opportunity, Frank, once in a lifetime; the chance to run her own salon in the high-flying Martyn Miles beauty and fashion empire – he had grudgingly transferred north from London and his job as a detective sergeant in the Met. Not even the proper north: Nottingham, the East Midlands; the Major Crime Unit, detective inspector. Promotion, at least. The pair of them dragging their fourteen-year-old, hormone-battered daughter reluctantly with them.

  How long had it taken for Katherine to kick off at school, collecting last warnings and temporary suspensions like trophies; for Elder, frustrated by what he saw as muddled provincial inefficiency, to shoot his mouth off at his superiors one time too often; and for Joanne, with all the grace and alacrity of the bloody obvious, to fall into the arms of Martyn Miles, self-made multimillionaire and Midlands Businessman of the Year?

  Faced with probable disciplinary action and his wife’s flaunting infidelity, a teenage daughter he no longer seemed to recognise, never mind understand, Elder had done the sensible, adult thing. Thrown his toys out of the pram. Handed in his resignation and, with only a few small savings and a foreshortened police pension behind him, hastened himself as far away as he could without leaving the country entirely. Hied himself off down to Cornwall, the far west, close enough almost to Land’s End to smell the tang of the Atlantic, feel the spray. And with a few exceptions and excursions, there he’d stayed.

  Odd jobs, a bit of manual labour, helping out at harvest, breaking his back alongside crews of Eastern Europeans picking daffodils in the spring. More recently and, with time, less resistant, he’d built upon a friendship fostered over a pint or two, the odd glass of single malt, with a local DI, Trevor Cordon, and for the last couple of years had worked sporadically as a civilian attached to the Devon and Cornwall Police Major Incident Support Team, providing training and assistance for investigations into serious crimes. A double murder, two cases of arson, one of serious sexual assault.

  ‘Shame,’ as Cordon had said, topping up his glass, ‘to let all that experience go to waste.’

  Elder wasn’t so sure. But it kept his mind occupied, helped to pay the rent.

  When he dialled Joanne’s mobile it went straight to voicemail, but within minutes she called him back.

  ‘Frank, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Does something have to be?’

  ‘Usually, yes. Either that or it’s my birthday. It’s not my birthday, is it?’

  ‘I was wondering if you had Kate’s address?’

  ‘Yes, of course. But I thought she was down there with you.’

  ‘She was.’

  ‘Don’t tell me. You had a row.’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Oh, Frank …’

  ‘She’s been cutting herself, that’s what it looks like. Maybe you knew. She had these bandages on her arms.’

  He heard Joanne light a cigarette, slowly exhale. ‘I had a phone call from London, just over a week ago. Homerton Hospital. Someone had found her collapsed on the street and called an ambulance. They were phoning from A & E. She’d cut her wrists.’

  ‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘She asked me not to. Almost the first thing she said when I saw her. Told me she’d tell you herself in her own time.’

  Elder looked out to where two crows were worrying a buzzard away from their nest. If that had been her intention in coming down to see him, then, for whatever reason, it had failed.

  ‘What was it all about, d’you know?’

  ‘She wasn’t exactly forthcoming. Well, you can imagine. But something to do with a relationship, I think. Someone she’d got involved with who’d messed her around, let her down. I’m really not sure.’

  ‘And what she did, was it … was it serious? I mean …’

  ‘Was she trying to take her own life?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Frank, I don’t know. I just don’t know. From what I could tell she was pretty much out of it at the time …’

  ‘Out of it how?’

  ‘She’d been drinking. Quite heavily, I think. Pills, too …’

  ‘Christ!’

  ‘I tried to talk to her, but you know what she’s like …’

  Silence filled the air between them.

  ‘I thought I might get the train up to London tomorrow,’ Elder said. ‘Go and see her.’

  ‘You’re sure that’s a such good idea?’

  ‘No. But I don’t want to just leave it. Do nothing.’

&nbs
p; ‘If you could get her to consider going back into therapy, that would be something.’

  ‘Yes, maybe. But after what she said the other day, I don’t think that’s very likely.’

  He wrote down the address on the back of an old receipt.

  ‘You know where it is?’ Joanne asked.

  ‘Dalston, somewhere. I’ll find it.’

  ‘Tread carefully, Frank. Don’t make things any worse than they already are.’

  When Elder stepped outside, the birds had disappeared, leaving an empty sky. What kind of a father didn’t know his only daughter’s address? How many couples did he know who were truly happy and for how long? How many families?

  It’s being a copper, Frank, Trevor Cordon had said, one of too many nights when they’d closed the pub between them. It’s the job. It skews your way of thinking, the way you see the world. Kids, fourteen, fifteen, out of their heads on heroin. Nine-year-olds giddy on laughing gas. Love as a fist in the face, a form of abuse.

  Elder knew about abuse.

  Used to think he knew about love.

  What had Katherine said? You don’t, do you? Don’t know a fucking thing. About me or anything.

  4

  For all the day had started off fair, by the time the train reached the outskirts of London the skies had darkened and it was threatening rain. Elder followed the crowd down into the Tube, took the Victoria line to Highbury and Islington and changed onto the overground. The address Joanne had given him was ten minutes’ walk from Dalston Junction. The Wilton Estate.

  When he stepped out onto the street it was brightening again and the sun was trying to break through the remaining clouds. A woman with a black-and-white spaniel came towards him and he stopped her to ask for directions, the dog jumping up enthusiastically and leaving damp pawprints on his trousers.

  At the corner of Lansdowne Drive and Forest Road, Elder passed between two low-rise blocks of flats and crossed towards a third. The flat where Katherine was living was on the upper floor, the paint on the front door flaking and in need of a fresh coat, the bell making a small chirruping sound that suggested the battery was running low. After two rings, a young woman in T-shirt and jeans snapped open the door and looked at Elder, surprised.

  ‘You’re not from UPS?’

  ‘Afraid not.’

  ‘I’m expecting a delivery.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘They said between twelve and one.’

  Elder glanced at his watch. ‘Still twenty minutes to go.’

  ‘So …’ She stepped back and gave him an appraising look. ‘You’re not UPS, not here to read the meter, not smart or smarmy enough to be a Jehovah’s Witness, besides which you’re not holding a bible – you must be the police.’

  ‘Not any more.’

  ‘Okay, I give in.’

  ‘I’m Katherine’s father.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I don’t suppose she’s here?’

  ‘Not now, no. But look, you’re really Kate’s dad, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She didn’t say anything.’

  ‘She doesn’t know.’

  The young woman looked at him keenly. ‘You’ve got some kind of identification? I mean, you could be just about anyone.’

  ‘Apart from UPS.’

  ‘Apart from that.’

  Elder took out his wallet and showed her his driving licence.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I suppose you’d better come in.’

  The living room was busy with too many chairs, a television set, bookshelves, a table; what Elder assumed to be a sofa bed, covered with cushions, newspapers and magazines; an overcrowded clothes drier in front of the radiator.

  ‘I’m Stelina.’

  ‘Frank.’

  Her hand was firm and cool.

  ‘I’m not sure where she is. Kate. Seeing someone about a job, perhaps. I shouldn’t think she’ll be long.’

  He nodded in the direction of the table, where an open laptop lay surrounded by loose sheets of paper, a notebook, several large textbooks. ‘Don’t let me stop you, whatever you’re doing.’

  Stelina grimaced. ‘Trying to finish an essay. Only two weeks overdue.’

  ‘You’re studying for what? A degree?’

  ‘Community Development and Public Policy.’

  Elder raised an eyebrow. ‘Good luck with that.’

  She laughed. ‘I was just about to make coffee when the door went.’

  ‘Thanks. If you’re offering.’

  ‘Instant okay?’

  ‘Instant’s fine.’

  ‘There is some of the real stuff but it’s Chrissy’s and she gets antsy if anyone else uses it. Counts the grains. Besides, it’s a faff.’

  Elder opened the door on to the cantilevered balcony and stepped outside. Someone had decided to grow herbs in an old sink with indifferent success. Geraniums fared better, red and white, a long window box attached to the edge of the corrugated-steel shuttering. Below, the same woman he had seen before was walking slowly back across the courtyard, dragging her dog reluctantly behind her.

  Stelina brought two mugs out onto the balcony and stood beside him. ‘Kate, she’s been through a bad time.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Must be a worry.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When she …’ The sentence hung, unfinished.

  ‘Cut her wrists?’

  ‘Yes. She’d been acting sort of strangely for a while. Not speaking. Shutting herself in her room. And drinking. I mean, more than normal. And she looked, well, she looked dreadful. Chrissy tried talking to her. She’s the closest to Kate, I suppose, closer than the rest of us, the one she’s known longest. But she just told her to F off and mind her own fucking business. Then …’ She glanced away. ‘The next thing any of us knew was this phone call from the hospital. You know the rest.’

  ‘I’m not sure if I do.’

  ‘That bastard,’ Stelina said quietly.

  ‘Who? Who d’you mean?’

  ‘Winter. Anthony Winter.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Some artist. Painter. Kate was modelling for him …’

  ‘Modelling?’

  ‘Yes, they had some kind of thing going. I don’t know …’

  Someone knocked on the glass and when they turned it was Katherine.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘Came to see you,’ Elder said.

  They walked, not heading anywhere in particular, talking sporadically, both careful, for now, to avoid the elephant in the room. That morning Katherine had been for an interview at a shop in Stoke Newington that had advertised for someone to work part-time.

  ‘One of those trendy little places that sells everything you don’t need at extravagant prices.’

  ‘How’d it go?’

  Katherine scowled. ‘They wanted someone with retail experience. Bar work, apparently, doesn’t count as retail experience. Not as far as they’re concerned.’

  ‘Bar work? Is that what you’ve been doing?’

  ‘When I can.’

  ‘You can always ask, you know. If you need help with the rent.’

  ‘It’s fine. Really.’

  ‘I know your mum’s been …’

  ‘Dad, just leave it, okay?’

  They bought a couple of sandwiches, a can of Coke and a ginger beer on Kingsland High Street and sat in Gillett Square, watching the skateboarders manoeuvre back and forth at speed.

  ‘I’m sorry about running out on you like that,’ Katherine said eventually.

  ‘That’s okay.’

  ‘It was a lot of pressure, you know?’

  ‘Not what I intended.’

  ‘My fault, I should have realised.’ Katherine smiled. ‘You were a copper for how long?’

  ‘I don’t know. Twenty, twenty-five years.’

  ‘And I expected you not to ask questions? Begin an investigation?’

  ‘That’s not what I was doing. I just …’


  ‘That’s what you’re here for now, though, isn’t it? Why you’ve come all this way? You can’t leave well enough alone.’

  Elder nodded in the direction of Katherine’s arms. ‘Something like that, it’s not so easy.’

  ‘It’s happened, Dad. It’s over. I’m not going to do it again in a hurry.’

  Elder bit into his sandwich; watched as a youth of maybe sixteen, tall, no helmet, pirouetted in the middle of a jump, missed the centre of his board and wobbled dangerously, flailing with both arms, before finally regaining his balance and executing a near-perfect turn.

  ‘Stelina mentioned someone you’d been seeing.’

  ‘Stelina should learn to mind her own business.’

  ‘Some artist? Winter? Anthony Winter?’

  ‘Dad …’

  ‘You were modelling for him, she said.’

  ‘She said too bloody much.’

  Not wanting to fall into the same trap, Elder waited. A small, birdlike woman walked past, pushing two small, straggle-haired dogs in a pram.

  ‘There was a thing, right?’ Katherine said. ‘Between us. Anthony and myself. No big deal. Not for him anyway. Obviously. But it was for me. At least, that’s what I thought. Now it’s over, okay? I never need to see him again and that’s fine.’

  ‘Fine?’

  ‘Dad, it’s what happens. Relationships end. You know that better than me. You and Mum.’ Swallowing the last mouthful of Coke, she got to her feet. ‘You’ll want to make sure you don’t miss your train home.’

  5

  The first time she’d seen him was at the art school. Central St Martin’s. CSM. She’d been waiting for Chrissy, sitting under the glass-and-metal canopy by the entrance from Granary Square, flicking through the pages of a magazine.

  ‘Come and meet me,’ Chrissy had said. ‘I’ll be finished by four. Just after. We can get coffee or something. Maybe a drink later.’

  Why not? Katherine had thought. It wasn’t as if she had anything much else to do. Not then.

  A little way down from where she was sitting, a small crowd had gathered around one of the table-tennis tables; two blokes having a right go at it, smashing the ball and shouting. People egging them on.

  Years ago, the last time she’d played. On holiday. Italy somewhere. The Garfagnana? A villa, so-called. Nothing special, no pool or anything, but there had been a table-tennis table. Full-size. Hidden away in the barn, as if the owners, for whatever reason, hadn’t wanted anyone to find it. Use it. Once they’d realised it was there, they’d played all the time. Her and her dad especially. Her mum getting more and more worked up and angry. ‘Is that what we paid all that money for? To come all this way just to play ping-pong?’