by David Mark
I rub my face and my back suddenly hurts again, and I wipe the dribble from my chin from the wound in my gum, and I see that the saliva on my hand is pink and frothy.
And then I put the pieces together. The bodybuilder. The court case. The cellmate. Minns.
I pick up my bag and grab a towel from the bathroom. T-shirt, tracky bottoms and some running shoes. Blue and orange Bermuda shorts that show off my tan.
Kiss Kerry’s cheek, and out the door.
41
Me.
Stripping down in the cold.
Conscious and proud of my scrapes and scars, my bleeding medals, the stripes on my skin, the mottling at my throat and kidneys.
Just shadows in the half-light, this bruised air.
My skin, goose-pimpled, as I undress in the dark changing room, lit only by the street lamp in the car park, with its windows that won’t shut, its solitary bulb that won’t light; my bare feet in a puddle of icy water.
Naked, now. Naked and shivering.
Minnsy, he’s called.
He’s busy talking to the assistant. Excited. Voice muffling for a moment as he pulls his shirt over his head. Eager to get naked.
“Really good to see you again,” he says to me, grinning. “You gave me a hell of a start. Was going to come back to the caff tomorrow. Was just thinking about you and then you’re here.”
“Small city. Not many gyms. You got me thinking I should get back in shape,” I say, smiling. “Need to burn off a bit of fat and a shit-load of energy.”
“I’m your man,” he says.
The gym assistant is young and plump. Curly brown. He’s wearing tracksuit trousers and a blue T-shirt, and doesn’t look like he should be the face of a gymnasium.
“You’re the only ones tonight, lads,” he says. “Last of the night, I reckon.”
“Well, you make the place so welcoming,” I say, sarcastic, indicating the bare walls and pools of cold water. “You got a heavy bag in there?”
“No, sorry.”
“Have to hang you from the ceiling,” I say, to my new friend.
The assistant gives us a little smile and disappears for a cup of tea and a Mars bar.
I’m alone in the dark with a man twice my size. He’s naked, with a towel over his shoulder, and he’s rubbing the muscles on his forearms.
“You’d expect better for a three-star, wouldn’t you?” he says, gesturing at the cold and graceless changing rooms. Then: “Have a swim and a sauna first, yeah?”
“Right behind you,” I say, smiling.
I wrap a towel around my nakedness and head past the lockers and the showers to the door at the far end of the room. He falls in behind me and I hold the door open to let him go first down the stairs bathed in darkness and slippery underfoot.
“Used to be the place to be, this,” I say, chattily. “Really posh. Had a bad fire a few years ago and was never quite the same. Apparently the manager of the place sent all of the guests to Marks and Sparks in the middle of the night to get replacement clothes, and picked up the tab. That’s class. Don’t get that anymore, do you?”
“There’s no bars on the windows,” he says. “That’s a step up for me.”
“You’re a guest, then?” I ask as he plods down the stairs, two steps ahead of me.
“Yeah and bored to tears with it. Under strict instructions to keep myself to myself.”
“Sounds interesting,” I say, although it isn’t really. “You local? I hear an accent.”
“Gilberdyke. On the way to Goole, y’know. Land of the Coneheads. No forks in the family tree. Twenty kids in a class and only three surnames. I’ve heard all the jokes…”
He pushes open the door to the pool room and I follow him in. It’s dark, but invitingly so. Petrol blue tinge to the light as it emanates from behind the closed door of the steam room. I place my feet carefully, gripping the cold wet tiles with my toes. Minnsy seems at home. Even in the darkness I can see the definition in his calf muscles as he walks, the broadness in his shoulders and the strength in his back, tapering to a taut waist. He’s stronger than me.
Ahead, the pool is perfectly still; a sheet of smoked glass reflecting the light as it flickers around our shadows. The darkness bends and distorts around us as we pull open the door to the steam room and the wave of intense heats grabs us in its fist and pulls us inside.
I look around, enjoying the sudden wash of heat. Wood panels, gaudy blue light, tray of hot rocks, a ladle and a bucket of water. Condensation on every surface, and the slats in the benches look as inviting as a spitting griddle pan.
My new friend steps on the first bench and pulls himself up to the back, where the heat is most savage. I sit on the bench below, and feel the warmth seep into my skin.
“Bit naughty this, isn’t it?” he asks. “Haven’t earned it. Normally need to do 500 crunches before I even consider treating myself to one of these.”
“Fuck it,” I say. “You’re not exactly out of condition.” We sit in silence, then out of politeness, and because I can’t think of anything suggestive, I say: “What line of work you in, then?”
He sucks his teeth. “Used to do telesales. Got out of that racket, though. Can only be told to piss off so many times before it gets to you. Nah, this is more a business trip. An opportunity.” He says it enigmatically, like he wants me to think he’s something more than he is. “Could be a nice little earner.”
I rub my hand over my face and down onto my chest and realise I’m already dripping with sweat.
“Yeah? Go on.”
“Can’t, mate,” he says, shaking his head and pulling his lips down over his teeth. “All very hush-hush.”
“Fair play,” I say, backing off and raising my hands. “None of my business.”
I push myself back against the wall and turn to face him. “You been in here before?” I ask.
“Few times, past couple of days. Not much else to do. Not so bad as prison but not much better. Another day or so to wait it out, then I’m out of here. Take my money and offski.”
“All sounds very intriguing,” I say, and pander to his ego again. Journalistic habit. “You seem like a man worth knowing.”
“Got a bit of clout,” he says, feigning humility. “Lot of people would love to be this close to me right now. Coppers. Crims. Journalists. Family of that poor lass.” He stops and looks away again, then shakes away whatever thought just fluttered into his mind. He seems to drop a bit of the attitude, and he slumps back against the wall. “Big day tomorrow,” he adds.
“Yeah?”
“Fucking big.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
A breath.
Another glance at my body, my scars, and he decides to unburden himself. I think he probably needs a friend as much as I do.
“You read the papers?” he asks.
“When I get the chance.”
“You read the locals? Hull Mail, all that shit?”
“I’m not local, mate. Hotel, remember?”
“But you heard the radio? Trial going on at the moment. Big trial. Few months ago a lass in a wedding dress got cut up. Butchered, she was. Raped. Done in the arse. Real sweetie, too. Fucking terrible. Psycho shit.”
“I remember,” I say. “Big deal when she was missing. They’ve got someone though, yeah? I heard he had coughed to it.”
“Trial’s going on, now. Wrong man, though.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I know the guy that really done it. And tomorrow I’m telling the court. Star witness, me. Gonna get an innocent man off, I am. Hero of the hour. Put that little shit Lewis away instead.”
Me. Holding on. Trying to control it.
“Christ,” I say, and my voice sounds like there’s a foot on my throat. “Wrong man? How did they fuck that up? I thought they found her in his flat, or something? Yeah, I remember it now. They’ll have DNA and forensics and stuff. Hard to see how they got that wrong.”
He bristles, giving me a pisse
d-off look. “Well, they did. I know who did it. He confessed when we were pad-mates.”
A drip falls from the ceiling. I say nothing. Let the silence build.
“The barrister who’s defending the guy in the dock. Big rich prick in a turban. He’s paying for the hotel and keeping me happy.”
“Sweet deal,” I say. I give him a nudge, sweaty skin on sweaty skin. “Who was it then?”
“Lad I knew inside.”
“You done time?”
“In and out, y’know. Bad boy, me.”
“Looks like it will be the making of you though. You play this court case right you’ll be getting well fed.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“Did he really confess, then, this lad you know?”
“Yep. Laughing he was, in our cell. Little ratty fucker. Laughing, about how his mate was going to go down for it, and he was the one who sliced her up.”
“Must have been hard not to tear his throat out.”
Drip.
“Had to keep my nose clean,” he says. “In for drugs, I was. As ever. Couldn’t add GBH to the list. Getting him now, though, ain’t I?”
“Suppose so. Christ, the lad in the dock will think you’re his knight in shining armour.”
“I am.”
“Good lad, is he? The one you’ll be getting off.”
“Oh yeah. Been stitched up.”
“What about the DNA though. Plant that, did they?”
“Must have. You know coppers.”
“Yeah, I do.”
Silence, again. He rubs at his big arms, clearly brooding, then snaps a hard look at me. “Don’t need you making me feel shit about it. He said it. That’s all that matters.”
“Whatever you say, mate. None of my business.”
He’s shaking his head now. Something’s bothering him. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? A bloody journalist…”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, indignant. “I don’t know you from Adam.”
“Did he send you? Choudhury?”
“Choudhury who, mate?”
“Or are you one of the copper’s lads? That slick prick? He said he’d get me. Said I would regret it…”
“You can piss off with your accusations, mate – I only wanted a bit of down-time. You stay in here with your paranoia…”
I start to stand and he closes his huge great hand around my calf and digs his nails in to the muscle. A pain like nothing I’ve experienced before rips through my left leg and I lash out with my right: instinct taking over.
It’s a decent kick, knocking his head back against the wooden wall, but he keeps hold of my leg and I fall with him as he slips from the bench and down onto the wet tiles. We crumple on the sodden floor – hands slipping off oily skin, fighting for purchase, a meaty forearm hitting my jaw, and I claw myself up his body, reaching for his thick neck.
“Get the fuck off…” he hisses, and catches me in the face with a hard right hand. I hit him back. Slam his head against the tiles.
He pushes again. He’s far too strong, and I fall to my left onto the wooden bench, sprawling on the hot wet wood.
He’s pushing himself away from me now, and as he opens the door the cold and the dark flood in. He turns back and tries to stamp on me but I throw myself forward, arms around his waist, and he falls on the hard tiles with me on top of him; half in and half out of the sauna door, between light and dark.
I let go. Raise my hands, and back away. Slither backwards, and feel the cool, wet glass of the door upon my back. Minns scrambles to his feet. Turns. Runs for the stairs.
He slips in a puddle of his own sweat. Skids right and falls like a tree. His head hits the tiles so hard that it bounces.
And I’m sitting there, staring into wide, open eyes, watching them fill with blood; watching the dark water fill with red.
Feeling nothing.
Not even pain.
It’s suddenly all just funny. These bodies. These people who keep dying around me, like I’m a fucking plague. It’s fucking hysterical.
So I start to laugh. Laugh like a lunatic.
I’m still laughing as I slip Minns’s body into the ice-cold plunge pool, and head up the stairs.
The gun is calling like a siren.
42
8.54 p.m.
Owen Lee the Lonely, sliding between two metal barriers and onto the tarmac of Ferensway. One lane closed for the workmen to play with tomorrow. Climbing over the metal rail in the centre of the road, waiting for a gap in the traffic, then scurrying to the far side.
I don’t look at the hotel or the gym as I go. They’re behind me, fewer than fifty feet, but I’ll look that way when I’ve done what I need to do, and I can head back to Kerry, free of distraction.
The adrenaline is leaving my system. I’m shivering, rubbing my arms and stamping my feet as I stomp through the insipid drizzle that turns the city lights into an abstract painting of reds, golds and strips of white.
Shitty end of a shitty city centre. Tattoo parlours and greasy spoons, cheap package holidays and a circle of drunks around the war memorial and its cold rendition of a Tommy rescuing his mate.
The smell of chips and curry sauce from the dirty grills and bright lights of the takeaway.
Me, hands in fists.
Fists in pockets.
And I’m coughing as I push open the door to the Sandringham.
Tony H smiles, but doesn’t show his teeth.
He’s alone in the bar. Alone. No staff. No customers. Just vague half lights, illuminating the tiny bar that only got rid of the sawdust on the floor when the landlord found a nest. Only food is pickled eggs. Clientele usually share three tawny yellow teeth between them. No posters on the walls. No cushions on the chairs. The till isn’t electrical and they don’t do receipts.
Tony H, standing by the bar. No drink in front of him. No cigarette.
His face the colour of a notebook.
The notebook on the bar in front of him.
With his eyes he says sorry.
With a shake of his head, he apologises for what he’s about to do.
With a nod, he points behind me.
I hear sudden movement. Waterproof coats rubbing together. Heavy steps. A camera clicking. A director whispering ‘action’.
And I don’t even turn around as Roper puts his hand on my shoulder, bends my arms at the elbow, and a second set of hands cuffs my wrists together.
“Owen Lee, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of…”
Me, just staring.
Tony looks away first.
I don’t notice his eyes leave mine, or him scribbling in his notebook, or the flashbulb in my face.
I’m staring at the hole in his head that only I can see.
43
11.18 p.m.
Me.
Sitting on a mattress no thicker than a sandwich, shivering in a paper suit.
Black ink on my fingertips. My photo in a file.
It’s all shrunken down, like the TV we had when I was small, with its picture that gradually dwindled down to a tiny dot in the centre of the screen when you pulled the plug from the socket.
I’m inside the dot now. A prisoner in a pixel. Stuck in a full stop.
Trapped in here, in this room with its pale green walls and its white tiles and its black graffiti and its wet floors and dripping ceiling, and the weak light that dribbles through the hole in the metal door.
I sit and hold my bare feet with fingers that don’t remember warmth, and I lose myself in the rocking, the rocking, the rocking back and forth.
44
Boots. Voices. Darkness suddenly darker.
Keys. Metal. Chains.
Iron on steel.
A scraping, like nails on unvarnished clay, like teeth on wool.
Light, filling the room in increments with its pissy yellow glow.
The corridor coughing illumination into my cell.
A shape against the light.
Stepping forward.
Face obscured by the glare.
The sound of a smile. The rasping creak of a smirk creasing stubbled skin.
Me, dressed in paper and pimpled flesh.
Huddled and folded, holding my feet and rocking, rocking, rocking…
Darkness again.
Another figure in the doorway.
Larger. Something in its hand.
Me, raising a hand to my brow as if in salute.
My own thin elbows in my ribs.
Trying to find the style to smile.
A step…
Roper’s face in mine, now.
Breath soft, like a lover’s.
Gently swaying in time with my rocking as he bores through my irises and pushes on.
He steps back.
Brings his arm up and under. Up, then down.
Hard.
The snarl on his face as ugly as the smile now glinting in his eyes.
And I’m on the wet floor with my suit in shreds and blood in my mouth.
Sprawled out and looking up as he stands over me, a telephone book in his right hand.
Thoughts crashing into each other like a pile-up on the motorway. Everything coming to a halt, save for spinning wheels and blinking lights and the first whimpered cries.
He squats down over me, one loafer on my right wrist.
“Sticks and stones may break your bones but names can never hurt you.”
Takes a look at the book in his palm and the blood on my chin.
“Depends how many names.”
*
McAvoy, rounding the corner, sensible shoes beating a rhythm on the lino: a sound like stampeding horses. Still got his pyjama top on under his sweater and jacket. Got him, he’s thinking. This is it. He followed my lead, he says to himself. Went out and got him. Don’t expect a thank you but this could be the start of something. Least he can do is let me in on the interview. I deserve it.
He’d come sprinting into the station the moment he heard the report on the radio that he kept by the bed, turned low, like classical music, soft as Roisin’s gentle breathing…