Blood Red City

by Rod Reynolds

  Abi scooped her up. ‘Come on, let’s go and get a drink.’

  Ellie wriggled out of her grip and threw her hands up when she landed on the floor, like a medal winner. ‘Yes! I want a juice.’

  Abi led her out by the hand. ‘Dad, you coming?’

  He shuffled past Stringer and sat down in the chair. ‘No, I’m fine here, thanks.’

  She shot Stringer a look to say I tried and went out the door.

  ‘Mum, can you hear me? It’s Michael.’

  ‘She can hear you fine.’

  ‘What did the doctors say?’

  ‘They’re monitoring her. Same thing they always say.’

  She grimaced again, drawing her legs up towards her this time. He froze, not knowing what to do. Then her expression eased and she opened her eyes again.

  He looked at the old man. ‘Can’t you even give us a minute?’

  He stared back at him, saying nothing.

  Stringer felt her move her hand, fingers curling a fraction around his. ‘William.’

  She said it so softly a breeze could carry it away. The old man leaned closer at hearing his name.

  But she kept her eyes on Stringer, the smile coming back to her face, keener this time. ‘William. I’ve missed you.’

  Stringer sat on the plastic chairs in the corridor outside her room. Abi came out a few minutes after she’d gone back in, holding a can of Lilt. Ellie wasn’t with her. She walked up to him and put her hand on his shoulder. ‘Do you want a mouthful?’

  He waved his arm to say no. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘She’s sleeping again.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Don’t take it to heart,’ she said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘The doctor said it’s too early to tell if this is how she’s going to be now. It might just take some time for the fog to lift.’

  ‘She was already showing signs before.’

  Abi looked at the wall. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What happens next?’

  ‘Give it time, Mike. It’s only been a few hours.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry. Of course.’ He stood up and put his arms around her shoulders. ‘Thanks for everything you’ve done.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ He looked down to where she was pressed to his chest, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  The door opened behind them and Ellie burst out. ‘Mummy? Where are you, Mummy?’ The old man followed after her. She came rushing over and Abi broke away to gather her up. ‘I finished my juice.’

  Stringer looked down and saw her tearstains on his shirt.

  Abi carried Ellie back towards the room. ‘Come on, let’s go and say goodbye to Grandma so we can get you home.’

  ‘I want green pasta for dinner.’

  The old man hovered, coming to a stop a few paces short of him. ‘Apple doesn’t fall so far from the tree, uh?’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it.’

  ‘The resemblance. That’s what’s confused her. You’re the spit of how I looked at your age.’

  ‘Get away from me.’

  ‘Is it so unpalatable?’ He took a step closer. ‘To know the son is so much like his father?’

  Stringer bundled him against the wall, pinning him with his forearm across his throat. ‘There’s one big fucking difference, though, isn’t there?’

  The old man bared his teeth, spittle flying, writhing to try and get free of his grip.

  ‘Maybe that’s the way we square this,’ Stringer said. ‘Maybe we pour cooking oil all over your arm and see what the resemblance is like then.’ He heard a shout along the corridor as if it came from a mile away. He forced his forearm harder into his throat. ‘I mean after all the skin grafts and the surgeries and the fucking hospital visits and all the other shit. Then we really will be the same, won’t we?’

  He felt a hand on his shoulder, prying him away.

  The old man’s throat rippled with tendons. ‘We’re not the same. You deserved everything.’

  A second pair of hands grabbed him and he let go. He looked around and saw it was two porters pulling him away. They were saying something but the words weren’t getting through. Then Abi appeared between them, trying to prise them off him. He wrestled himself free, backing off with his hands up in surrender. The porters stood between him and the old man, forming a barrier. Abi was gripping his face between her hands trying to get something through to him, but he was looking past her. A gap opened up and he saw Ellie bouncing a toy rabbit on the chair and staring right at him.

  CHAPTER 46

  Lydia stood on the Golden Jubilee Bridge, watching the crowds passing beneath her. Webs of giant cables held the bridge up, like metal puppet strings lofted above the river. Two minutes before ten but it was still warm, the people along Southbank in T-shirts and cotton dresses. Through the music and laughter there was an edge to the vibe, the urgency that came with every hot, late-summer night – one last chance to dance, as if the sun might never come back.

  She looked down at the Royal Festival Hall and the concourse in front of it. She was surprised Michael wasn’t early. But even as she thought it, she recognised what she was doing, projecting her assumptions onto him. The same thing she’d done from the start, building a version of the man in her mind that fell apart when it met reality.

  An EE ad played on a digital billboard, green light dancing on the brutalist concrete architecture around it. A plane flew low across the night sky, its own lights lost in the battery of reds and whites and yellows of the skyline; one insignificant among the many. When she lost sight of it, she looked down again and he was there.

  He was standing with his back to the river, scanning the crowd. She stepped away from the railing to keep out of sight, even though she was just another face at that distance. She gave it a minute more, then sent her message to him: Been caught up, can’t make it. Sorry.

  She watched him reach for his phone, the screen glowing bright in the dark as he read her words. He tapped something and then her own phone buzzed with his reply. Are you okay?

  She hit reply. Just work, can’t get away.

  She watched him study his phone again and then slip it into his pocket. He set off as soon as he read it, heading away from the river, and she moved along to the end of the bridge and went slowly down the steps, keeping him in sight.

  She followed him down the side of the Festival Hall and along the neon passageway approaching Waterloo. The station entrance was rammed and she lost him in the crowds for a second, only to spot him again on the concourse, half a head taller than most. She ran over to the Tube entrance and stepped onto the same down escalator he’d taken.

  They rode the Northern Line in adjoining carriages. The Tube was just as packed as the station above, so it wasn’t hard to stay hidden. Lydia watched, standing close to the glass in the connecting door, and couldn’t help thinking about the parallels with Paulina Dobriska.

  He spent the short trip staring at the train doors. Half of London got off at Tottenham Court Road, jostling him around, but he didn’t react, didn’t even seem to notice. He had a look on his face like he might have killed someone if he had.

  And that was the problem. She’d let herself be suckered in, despite all the warning signs. Then she’d dropped the name Andriy Suslov in front of him for the first time, and it’d spooked him worse than Shelby.

  The third spoke on that wheel: herself. What would link Michael to an oligarch suspected in the murder of a journalist? Coming into her life just days after someone tried to kill her. The pieces starting to fit no matter how much she didn’t want them to.

  So now it was time to turn the tables. See what he was hiding.

  He got off at Euston and walked a short way along the main road before turning off. The streets were quieter there and Lydia had to let the leash run long to stay unseen.

  Halfway down the side street, he turned again, disappearing between two monolithic council blocks. She broke into a run to keep up with him, slowing when she got close so he wouldn’t h
ear her footsteps. She stopped at the corner and craned her head around to look, braced to find him waiting there for her, a trap to draw her out. But all she saw was his back, halfway across the courtyard between the flats.

  She stayed where she was as he went up to the entrance door, the block’s name in black letters above it – Palgrave. A few paces short of it, he stopped and turned. A streetlight above doused him in yellow light. He looked in her direction and she shrunk into herself, but his gaze kept moving, as if he was taking in the whole estate.

  Then he threw his arms out, still looking around. It was like he was daring someone unseen to come at him. He took a step forward, his mouth moving now, the words lost to the night. He stood like that for a minute, his face set in an expression that was equal parts defiance and desolation.

  Whatever he was waiting for wouldn’t come. He let his arms drop to his sides, as if in defeat, holding that way for half a minute or more. Finally he turned around and went to buzz the intercom. He waited for the door to open and then he went inside.

  Lydia felt her pulse throbbing in her neck as she tried to decide what to do. The block was eight storeys high, and as she counted she realised there was a communal balcony running along the front of each level, the flats at equal spaces along it. He reappeared on the fourth floor. A door halfway along it opened, expecting him, the silhouette of a woman backlit in the doorway.

  She watched him walk up to the woman and she hugged him briefly and ushered him inside. The door closed and they were gone. It was another assumption busted – that he was a loner who wouldn’t have any attachments in his life. But then why did he buzz the intercom? That suggested a girlfriend or booty call over a wife.

  She thought about calling Singh and Wheldon. There was no easy way to explain it without giving up her lies. But what reason did she have to protect him anymore?

  Stringer kicked his shoes off on the doormat – Abi’s standing order so he wouldn’t wake up Ellie, clattering down the laminate hallway.

  Abi watched him, arms folded. ‘You look terrible.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘About earlier…’

  ‘Was Ellie okay?’

  She let her arms unfurl and fall to her sides. ‘I told her you and Grandad were just playing. She said she understood, but they tell you what you want to hear sometimes.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for—’

  ‘I know.’ She nodded, turning into the small kitchen. ‘You want a drink? Kettle’s boiled.’

  ‘I’m good.’

  She came back clutching a mug to her chest. ‘Look, I don’t want to sound like a cow, but when was the last time you slept?’

  He thought about the question, but when the answer wouldn’t immediately come, he just shook his head.

  ‘You’re not on the gear, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Because the way you were earlier…’

  ‘No. It was him, he wound me up. It’s what he always does.’

  ‘Yeah but you know what he’s doing; it’s the same thing he’s been doing for decades. You normally shrug it off.’

  He walked down the short hallway into the sitting room, dropping onto the sofa. He sat forward, his elbows on his knees. The TV was on but silenced. The room was immaculate, Ellie’s toys packed away in fabric crates in one corner, except for a small table that was laid out for a tea party, the guests three stuffed dinosaurs.

  Abi followed him in but stayed standing. ‘What’s going on, Mike? I can’t ever remember you like this.’

  ‘It’s just work. Something’s gone wrong and I don’t know how to sort it yet. I’ll get there.’

  ‘If you want to talk…’

  ‘You’re dealing with Mum. That’s enough.’

  ‘Still trying to protect me.’

  ‘No. I just appreciate what you’ve taken on. I wish I could do more.’

  She moved past him, bending her knees to rest them on the edge of the armchair opposite so she could stare out the window behind it. She put her hand on the windowsill for balance, an assortment of ornaments and empty vases spaced along the plastic ledge, some of them he recognised as hand-me-downs from Mum. He knew the view like the inside of his eyelids, looking out on the courtyard below and the scrappy grass next to it. From where he sat, all he could see were the lights of the block opposite, a grid pattern of yellow glare.

  ‘Why can’t you go home, Mike?’

  ‘It’s only for a few days while this blows over.’

  ‘And you can’t use the Finsbury Park flat?’

  ‘Just a precaution.’

  Her face was turned away from him but he could sense she’d closed her eyes.

  ‘About that…’ he said.

  She brought her mug to her lips and took a sip.

  ‘I wanted to speak to you earlier, but…’ He set his eyes on the TV, some talking head gabbing on Sky News. ‘I’ve signed the flat over to you and Ellie. There’s a mortgage on it and taxes to pay, I’ll cover all that. There are some papers you need to sign—’

  ‘Mike…’

  ‘I just want some certainty.’

  ‘I thought we’d settled this? I don’t want to move. Ellie’s friends are here, I know the schools, I know the area…’

  ‘I’m not saying move. Especially not right now.’

  ‘Well, what are you saying then? You’re scaring me.’

  ‘I just want to know you’re both taken care of. If you don’t want to live there, you can rent it out and sell it when the mortgage finishes.’

  She slipped back off the chair. ‘And what happens the next time you need to stash someone?’

  ‘I’ll deal with it.’

  ‘Mike, fuck off. You’re talking like you’re … God, I don’t even want to say it.’ She knelt on the floor in front of him. When he kept his eyes on the TV, she thumped him on the arm to make him look at her. ‘Seriously, what are you into?’

  He didn’t answer, but she wouldn’t look away.

  ‘I took a job,’ he said at last. ‘I thought it was the same stuff as usual, but the guy wound up dead.’

  ‘Dead?’ She searched his face. ‘Wait, you didn’t—’

  He put his hand up to stop her. ‘The fuck? Of course not. Who do you think I am?’

  ‘Sorry, sorry. I just…’

  ‘I don’t know for sure who did it, but it’s starting to point one way. And this guy was into some serious shit.’

  ‘So you walk away. You just walk the fuck away.’

  ‘It’s not that simple. And there’s someone else I have to think about.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A journalist. She got dragged into it and…’ He rubbed his face. ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Are you involved with her?’

  He snapped his head up. ‘No. Not like that. It’s just … I feel responsible. She doesn’t know the extent of it.’

  She unfolded her legs from under her and pulled them to her chest. ‘Can you go to the police?’

  He shook his head. ‘Anyway, I’m not out of moves yet.’

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid. Please.’

  ‘Never.’

  In his mind he saw the turquoise waters of Florida Bay stretching in front of him. Tranquil and quiet, a place to erase himself and lifetime of regret. Choosing his own end. He meant what he’d said, but if the moves ran out, that was how it would finish, not with Suslov’s hands around his throat. He deserved that much, if nothing more.

  CHAPTER 47

  Lydia kept her eyes open as she showered. The bathrooms were in the office basement, next to the generator room; in the mornings, when there were queues for the four cubicles that served hundreds of people, there was nothing sinister about the place. But gone midnight, alone down there with her brain already in overdrive, the hum of a working building was playing tricks with her mind.

  Her hair was still wet when she came out of the lift. She saw the Post-it note stuck to her screen as she walked over, but she couldn’t make out what it said un
til she got close. Just one word: SLAG.

  She peeled it off and looked around, maybe a dozen people dotted around the vast office, none of them looking in her direction.

  She switched on her computer. When the screen came to life, it was showing the page of search results about Andriy Suslov she’d had open earlier. She stared at it, thinking about the links between him and Shelby and Michael.

  Play it back: Michael hadn’t reacted when she’d mentioned Shelby to him. There was no sign they knew each other when they’d doorstepped him earlier. She tried to pin down when she’d first spoken his name to him and realised it was only that morning. It felt like it was a week ago. Contrast that to how he’d come off when she dropped Suslov’s name. Her instinct was to confront him about it – but he’d lied to her over and over, so what would be different this time? She kept thinking about Tammy, the way he’d let her name slip – so knowing. She’d watched for him outside the council flat in Camden for more than an hour, but when he still hadn’t reappeared, she’d retreated to the safety of the office. But it wasn’t a wasted trip; she had something now – an unknown personal contact that offered a glimpse inside his privacy.

  Andriy Suslov kept buzzing around her head. She switched to her email and clicked to open a new message before the latest slew of bilge could pump into her inbox. She typed in Dietmar’s address but then her desk phone started ringing. It rarely rang anymore and she didn’t recognise the muted tone at first. She grabbed it up when she saw Stephen’s name showing. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Have you got a minute?’

  ‘Now? What are you still doing here?’

  ‘Working late.’ He coughed away from the phone. ‘So?’

  She looked at the Post-it note where she’d dropped it next to her keyboard. She picked it up. ‘Yeah, sure, I’ll come round.’

  She locked her computer and crossed the floor with the Post-it stuck to her index finger, there for anyone who wanted to see it. The Reptile House was dark apart from Stephen’s office, the light blazing at the end of the corridor. He was sitting at his desk, focusing on his computer.