But by Degrees

by Kit Eyre

  ‘The final cheque bounced while I was stationed in Iraq. Bailiffs turned up at my door and my sodding neighbour let them in. By the time I got back to sort it out, Fitch was on the other end of the phone bleating about procedure and passing the buck. Right piece of work.’

  ‘She wasn’t always diplomatic, but it wasn’t personal. It was the job.’

  ‘Bit of nerve, though, don’t you think?’ he shot back, tapping his heels together. ‘My mum’s been killed by your lot’s negligence and Harriet Fitch stuck the bailiffs on me.’

  I thought over what Lenora had told us, about him not kicking off, and I shivered. ‘But you didn’t know what had happened then. You went looking when you got home.’

  A smirk stretched his lips above his speckled teeth. ‘There we go. You’ve got it.’

  ‘No, you’re not pinning this on Harriet. She was doing her job. I mean, she didn’t even have much to do with the debt recovery side. It was our team who passed it onto the solicitors in Manchester.’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said slowly.

  I swallowed down a mouthful of musty air. ‘Caroline hated putting her name on letters. So, back then, it would’ve been . . .’

  ‘Jude,’ he concluded when I trailed off.

  My legs quivered. Only force of will stopped me leaning against the mouldering door jamb and I managed to stare him down. Maybe he’d wanted an explosive reaction, me to start screaming or something, but, when I held it in, he scoffed and leapt up from the bed. He began prowling in triangles around a gas stove lodged in the middle of the room. I watched him, clutching my stick in case he turned on me. When he finally spun in my direction, his foot kicked over the stove and the side panel splintered loose.

  ‘Fitch and your precious Jude – they’d put the bailiffs on me. Once I was home, I set to thinking about my mam. I’d not got a lot from her in the last year. She couldn’t write anymore. I managed to phone once in a while but it was my Aunty Barbara who dealt with it. Now, she was a bitch and a half. Reckoned I should’ve been here. I had a career – I couldn’t be beholden. It wasn’t as if I could waltz home from Fallujah every five minutes. She wasn’t that ill; she wasn’t that old.’

  ‘So you started wondering what had happened.’

  ‘And Barbara was no help,’ he continued with a scowl. ‘Turns out she hadn’t been visiting, hadn’t seen her in months. How do you die from pneumonia when you’ve been tucked up safely and you’ve got a good constitution? You don’t.’

  ‘People do,’ I said.

  ‘Not my mam, not without something filtering through to Barbara. I knew it wasn’t right, especially when I went and had a look at that dump. No one could’ve been healthy there, not even the staff. I asked around, made myself agreeable. It’s easier to do it when you’ve just got home from Iraq and you’re asking questions about your dead mother. It got me to Lenora.’

  I pressed my lips together. ‘That’s where the charming act wore off. The way I hear it, you waved a knife in her face.’

  ‘She wouldn’t talk. She was guilty as hell, needed a bit of persuasion.’

  ‘Fine – so you got your answers. It was the way she’d been pushed by policy; it was at Knight’s door. So what then? How do you get from there to planting a bomb?’

  A raspy chuckle bounced off the bare walls. ‘It wasn’t my first plan. I tried to get in to see him first. I wanted to wrap my hands round his throat, but he had a fort built up. I bet it’d happened before, people kicking up a fuss. They wouldn’t let me in; I couldn’t even get a meeting with him dressed up as a bloody fish wholesaler from Grimsby.’

  ‘Go on,’ I said when he paused.

  ‘I’d read about your place when I researched. It where Fitch was based, Jude too. I couldn’t get to that slippery sod through his office, but I could hold him to ransom and sort out those two at the same time. Only problem was the move. That hovel you were in, that was perfect for getting in and out of. Interconnecting cellars, nooks and crannies – all I had to do was break in next door and you were none the wiser. Once you’d moved into the city centre, that was out of the question. It had to be before you left that estate.’

  My leg was beginning to throb. I shifted my weight further onto my right leg and the floorboard shrieked. Outside in the corridor, something scraped across the floor, another rat maybe. I tugged my jacket closer until the zip clunked against my stick.

  Radison had started stalking around again, scuffing his heel through the threadbare carpet as he shot me venomous glances. Anyone would think I was the one in the wrong, that he’d tracked me down because I’d killed two of his colleagues.

  ‘I broke in to set the device,’ he continued after a minute. ‘Then it was a question of waiting. It wouldn’t be Fitch on the phone, or Jude. The best I could hope for was you so I kept checking the rotas. I’d followed Fitch and Jude so I had something over you, didn’t I? That wasn’t what I expected, but it did the trick.’

  ‘The trick . . .’ I clamped my mouth shut to stop words flooding out. Once I’d choked them back down, I frowned at him. ‘Harriet was right then – you were listening to us. That’s the only way you could’ve known I was going on the phone after four, isn’t it? That’s why it happened then, not first thing in the morning or whatever.’

  He halted and straightened his spine. ‘Not listening – watching. Interconnecting cellars, remember. I wasn’t outside, I was underneath your feet.’

  ‘That’s why you told Michael,’ I murmured, relenting and pressing my fist into the door jamb to keep me upright. Shreds of wood prickled against my knuckles as I stared into his malevolent little face. ‘You sent us down to the cellar. You wanted to watch.’

  My mind was racing through everything that had happened in that cellar that day.

  Jude had tried pushing me when we’d been down there sorting the paperwork, but I’d swerved well out of the way. So he’d heard me telling Caroline I was covering switchboard and jumped at the chance to get me on the phone. Everything we’d said down there – all the stuff with Michael – none of it had been private. Bile was bubbling at the back of my throat. I forced it down, letting the blur behind my eyes recede before I tried to speak in terse bursts.

  ‘You said you were trying to get to Knight. That doesn’t add up. A few hours and you would’ve had him there. You changed your mind. Why?’

  ‘It wasn’t me who changed my mind,’ he spat. All of a sudden, he’d gained five inches and I leaned back into the doorway. ‘It was him.’

  ‘What – Knight? He was on his bloody way.’

  ‘No, Danni, he wasn’t. He wasn’t. Do you know how I know? I paid someone to watch the slimy bastard. He went home after leaving the office in Manchester, after he’d got the call from Fitch. If she called –’

  ‘She called,’ I interjected.

  ‘At two o’clock the next morning, he was on his way to Spain. What we’d have got, if we’d waited, was a message saying he wasn’t coming.’

  I shook my head. ‘Of course he was. He told Harriet he’d be there.’

  ‘Check the newspapers. The reports for the next day don’t have a statement from Knight, not even condolences. No one could get hold of him, even when it was his patch and his people, the very place he used to work. He flew back in two days later and began playing the caring boss.’

  ‘No, no. He’s a piece of work, but why would he do that?’

  Radison snickered. ‘Why wouldn’t he? You heard Lenora – all he cared about was the bottom line. It got him to the top, didn’t it? Who cares how many people got hurt along the way?’

  ‘Reminds me of someone,’ I muttered.

  ‘I was never after money,’ he snapped.

  Since I’d followed him in here, I’d been flashing between hot and cold. Now every bit of my skin burned and I gripped my stick until my arm pulsated. I bit down on my tongue, but he must’ve seen the motion and he smirked again.

  ‘What?’ he queried.

  ‘When you couldn’t hurt Kn
ight, you went for Jude and Harriet.’

  His ghastly grin grew. ‘No. You went for Jude and Harriet. I gave you the choice.’

  ‘Of who to save!’

  ‘That’s your story and you’re sticking to it?’ He took a step forward, hopping over the toppled stove. ‘I don’t buy it. You knew there was something wrong with that offer, you said as much.’

  ‘I thought you were playing a game.’

  He rapped on the side of his head. ‘In here – you knew.’

  ‘No.’ I clenched my fist. ‘No.’

  ‘Yes. You wanted to hurt them.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, Jude thought so.’

  My teeth tore into the inside of my cheek and I tasted blood again. With another step, he was leering over me, rancid breath making my stomach roll. I edged backwards onto the threshold, a draught catching at the base of my spine. Underneath my feet, the carpet bar squealed and buckled. I gulped in oxygen through my mouth and fixed my eyes on his.

  ‘You’re a coward,’ I told him. ‘All this rubbish about wanting justice, wanting revenge – you couldn’t put your name to it, could you? Afterwards, you just disappeared. Came here, I bet, and spent months living in your own shit and piss, just so you didn’t stand a chance of getting caught. Nothing happened to Knight. Harriet recovered, Jude too – come on, what did you get out of it apart from killing two completely innocent bystanders and busting my leg? You were scared, weren’t you? Scared of being locked up –’

  ‘I’ve been locked up. You don’t know you’re born, living in your nice little flat, screwing men’s wives. You want to try being stuck in the desert, shots coming from all over the place.’

  I straightened my back. ‘Yeah, but you volunteered for that, didn’t you? You chose to go over there and leave your mum rotting in a home that killed her. You’ve said – you didn’t visit or call. You were the one to blame, weren’t you?’

  His bony fingers caught around my collar, tugging me closer. ‘We’re not so different, you and me. That’s what I was waiting for. You turn up and we do it together.’

  ‘Do what?’ I asked as I prised his fingers loose and stumbled away.

  ‘Confess! We were in it together.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You wanted to hurt Harriet.’

  I closed my eyes, shaking my head. ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘You wanted to hurt Jude,’ he persisted with a snicker. ‘You had the gall to feel betrayed after what she did with her husband – her husband. Better to get rid of her and the baby, am I right? Send her out there –’

  My eyes snapped open. ‘I wouldn’t hurt her. I love her.’

  ‘Still?’ he queried and I realised what I’d said. I clasped my hand around my throat as he inched closer again. ‘Talk about glutton for punishment. That’s why you wanted to get your own back. If you couldn’t have her, neither could her husband.’

  ‘I saved her.’

  His breath was swirling around my nose again, speckles of froth glowing in the orange light. ‘Trying to be the hero. Make up for what you’d done.’

  ‘You mean like you did?’ I retorted.

  The sneer on his face faded.

  ‘It was your fault about your mum. You left her there to die. You couldn’t face up to that so you took it out on us. That’s the truth.’

  I’d got the power now. He took one step away then another. I followed him, twirling my stick into the air like a baton. I smiled at his hunched shoulders and watched him scuttling back on his heels. Then I levelled my stick in his direction. He stumbled out of the way, but I carried on going.

  Arms suddenly caught around my waist. Although I struggled, Jude held me fast.

  Maybe it was the momentum, maybe it was sheer surprise. Either way, Radison tumbled backwards over the stove and went flying into the wall. His skull connected with a thwack and he slumped against the legs of the camp bed.

  Chapter 36

  April 2010

  I threw up over the sheets.

  The nurse came in to sponge me clean and managed it without making eye contact once. Mum and Gemma trailed after her, settling either side of my bed but saying nothing until she’d clicked the door closed behind her. Dad had installed himself in the armchair again, unravelling a loose thread from his shirt sleeve to twist around his fingers.

  All the time the nurse had been cleaning me up, tears had been streaming down my cheeks. The door shut and Mum darted forwards to pat them dry with a coarse tissue plucked from a box on the cabinet. She planted a kiss on my head before turning away with tears glistening in her own eyes. I glanced helplessly to Gemma and she motioned to Dad.

  ‘Geoff, why don’t you two go for a coffee? Try the lemon cake.’

  It took a minute to persuade Mum to leave, but he succeeded in steering her out of the room and left Gemma hovering beside me. I thought she’d sit down when we were alone. Instead, she began pacing.

  ‘I didn’t help him,’ I murmured.

  She spun towards me, eyes flashing. ‘Of course not. Please, Dan, don’t let anyone else hear you say that. You could be in trouble. They’re making it out to be something it wasn’t.’

  ‘Who are?’

  ‘The papers,’ she answered with a wave of her hand.

  ‘Gem . . . I don’t understand. I didn’t do anything. How can they say I did?’

  ‘There was more than your dad told you in that letter. It was . . .’ She trailed off and pressed her lips together. ‘Well, it was vile. They couldn’t authenticate it, but it didn’t matter. What he wrote about you and – and –’

  I struggled to sit up, but my left leg wouldn’t budge. ‘And what? Gem – and what?’

  ‘It’s the lesbian angle. He said you were in a relationship with one of your married colleagues, that you couldn’t be trusted. You know what the papers are like. It was painted as lover’s revenge and they hyped it up. The police dismissed it finally, but . . . It hasn’t really gone away yet, with you being unconscious and not able to defend yourself. Harriet’s done her best, though, Dan; she really has.’

  ‘But – but Jude and . . . It wasn’t like that. What’s she said?’ I watched as her cheeks blanched and this time levered myself up using my arms. ‘Is she dead? Is that what you’re not telling me? Dad said –’

  ‘She’s not dead.’

  ‘Then what?’

  Gemma bit her thumb then sighed and perched next to me. ‘Lie down and scoot up, come on.’

  Under her stern gaze, I had no choice but to flop down onto the pillows. She fluffed them about a bit then nestled an arm around my shoulders and dropped a kiss onto my hair. Her old familiar scents of hair mousse mingled with chocolate lip balm were faint, but I still tasted them on my tongue. Since then, I’d grown used to Jude’s smells and the weight of her body against mine. I shifted away from Gemma as best I could, crossing my arms.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said.

  ‘They were like rabid dogs,’ she admitted. ‘The papers, I mean. Because you’d been out there with Jude, they jumped to the right conclusion straight away, but Michael . . . The way he framed it was that you weren’t having an affair with Jude. He said it was harassment, that she’d been complaining about you making advances and that she’d turned you down.’

  I raised myself up again. ‘That’s bullshit.’

  ‘Hey, we know that, of course we do. The trouble is, Dan, it makes a good story. Better for Michael to put around that his wife’s a victim of a vindictive lesbian than –’

  ‘But what’s Jude said?’ I interrupted.

  Gemma withdrew her arm from my shoulders and slipped off the bed, circling around to the door. She scrubbed at her forehead before edging across the tiles in her rubber soles. The squeal pierced through me, but I was more focused on her pinched lips.

  ‘What’s she said?’ I demanded.

  ‘At first, nothing,’ she muttered with a sigh. ‘She was unconscious as well. We don’t know exactly what was wrong with her, they weren’t keen on d
ivulging that sort of information. By the time she was up to making statements, it was . . . Well, she backed him up. She said the affair was a fantasy in your head, that you never –’

  ‘No,’ I cut in.

  ‘Dan, I’m sorry –’

  ‘You’re wrong.’ I tried to dislodge my body from the bed, but my left leg refused and I drooped onto my side. She crossed to help and I shoved her away. ‘Get off. I’m fine.’

  ‘Calm down,’ Gemma said.

  ‘She wouldn’t do that,’ I insisted, fresh tears scalding my eyes. ‘She wouldn’t. She was leaving him, we were going to . . . The baby – what happened?’

  Gemma simply shook her head and the water left in my stomach bubbled into my throat, spluttering across the sheets again. The sour taste lingered, bringing wave after wave of nothing up into my mouth. I closed my eyes and waited for it to end.

  Chapter 37

  July 2011

  ‘Jude . . .’

  ‘Shush, I’ve got you. Come here, come on.’

  I twisted my head away from Radison’s motionless body and buried my face in her hair. She let out a little sigh, strengthening her grip around my waist until all I could feel was her body pressed up against mine. The dull roar of panic in my ears only erupted when another rat dashed across the room and I jolted away from her warmth.

  ‘Oh, God.’ I let my eyes drift to Radison’s blank ones, a thread of drool sliding through his stubble. ‘No, no, no.’

  As I began to move towards him, Jude dragged me back. ‘Danni, it’s too late.’

  ‘It isn’t, it’s not. We can call an ambulance or –’

  ‘No,’ she growled.

  ‘Jude –’

  ‘Come with me a minute,’ she interrupted.

  Before I realised what she was doing, we were out of the room and lurching towards the gloomy kitchen lit up only by that grill near the ceiling. The little I could see suggested it was filthier than the living room, though mostly it was the noise of a loose cupboard door shrieking back and forth that jarred against my nerves. I tried pushing past Jude, but she grasped both my wrists and held me still. In the darkness, all I could see was the outline of her face.