Something You Are Page 4

  My heart was pounding. ‘Don’t you dare fucking touch me again.’

  ‘I won’t! Get off!’ Pat wrenched his arm away, swaying. He put a hand to his mouth and vomited a dark grey mixture of vodka and bile into the sink.

  I gathered the photos and picked up my bag.

  Pat leant against the counter, his lips resting against his fist and his eyes on the window. He was shaking.

  ‘I’m… sorry,’ I said.

  It took him a while to speak.

  ‘No one’s fault but mine,’ he replied.

  I was parked on a kerb in the Audi, blowing cigarette smoke out of the window in the direction of Edie’s house. It was a stylized, calculated assault of modernity, very much like the woman herself. It was all glass and right angles; so modern it was almost ironic.

  At least it used to be her house. I doubted whether she still lived there. I didn’t know what time Sidney usually got home, but I had no better way to spend the afternoon. He might have been out, taking his son somewhere, maybe visiting family…

  Best to have nothing to lose.

  That was how I had always done things. Apart from the firearms and the roof over my head and other transient objects there was nothing to become attached to. Friends and relatives and children were for people who could hold a conversation for more than ten minutes without wanting to beat the other person into the floor, who could handle small talk and network and do all of the things people were required to do in social situations.

  When I had finished my third cigarette I switched my phone back on to keep myself amused. I sank down in my seat, put my feet up on the dashboard and scrolled through text messages.

  The writing on my hand was still visible.

  ‘Who is K?’

  Thinking back to the photos now, and the blood, I was almost certain Emma had been moved.

  The phone started vibrating and I answered it because I was too bored to ignore it any more.

  ‘Hey, it’s me.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ I shut my eyes at the sound of my sister’s harsh cockney twang. ‘What do you want, Harriet?’

  ‘Er, I need a favour…’

  ‘How did I guess?’

  ‘I’m not doing too good. I had this fight and I got fired and… I just need a little bit of cash. Just a little bit; I’ll pay you back, I promise. It’s just until I find another job.’

  It was almost funny, the regularity and predictability of these requests.

  ‘Why were you fired?’ I asked.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘It never is.’ I rubbed my eyes. ‘So what happened to the last five hundred I gave you?’

  She hesitated. What was most insulting was that she didn’t even bother to sound convincing. Like other addicts I had come across she didn’t speak for herself any more; everything she said was a stock phrase used on everybody in order to get what she wanted. When one didn’t work she moved on to another.

  ‘Um… well, I had to pay off a few debts, and—’

  ‘Don’t give me that shit, it went to your fucking dealer.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘I only need a couple of hundred, just to pay off this debt and pay my rent and then I’m done, I promise. Oh come on, it’s not as if you need it!’

  She had managed to go from self-pity to excuses and then on to anger in less than a minute. I had the option, as I did every time, to tell her to piss off and make her own way, but even as I entertained the thought I knew it would never happen. I hated her sometimes, most of the time these days, but not nearly as much as I hated myself for giving her the money.

  ‘Yeah, you’re always a couple of hundred quid away from being done, aren’t you?’ I said. ‘It would be nice to hear a promise from you one day that I think you might actually keep.’

  ‘Oh please, I really need to pay this guy off and I don’t have anywhere else to—’

  ‘OK, Harriet, OK.’ I just wanted the call to be over. ‘How much do you want, two hundred?’

  ‘Er, could you make it three?’

  I shook my head, fist tightening around the wheel. ‘Fine, three hundred. You can come and pick it up yourself, I’m not gonna waste any petrol money on you.’

  ‘Thanks, Nic, I promise—’

  ‘Whatever.’

  I ended the call. Our parents gave her money too; it wasn’t just me, but that didn’t make me feel much better. Sometimes I caught myself wishing that our childhoods had been harder, more traumatic from an early age. I wished that Dad had been stricter or Mum had drunk too much, that either of them had done anything to unburden us of the responsibility for how our lives had turned out. It wasn’t their fault, none of this was, but that was the problem.

  Tony was the only one who refused to pay. I knew she had stopped asking him years ago, way before he went to Afghanistan. She had stopped seeing him because he was of no use to her, and around the same time I had also started avoiding him. I suspected the real reason was that he reminded us too much of our own failures, but I didn’t like to dwell on it.

  Sidney’s car pulled into the driveway across the road.

  It was half past four.

  I memorized the number plate and watched Edie’s son, Scott, walking up the drive holding a gym bag. He looked in his early teens and held himself like his mother. Sidney was tall, Scandinavian, square-jawed. From the one time I had met him in Edie’s club a few years ago I remembered that he was quite softly spoken for someone with his build.

  I checked my watch again, just to be sure. Time was almost an obsession to me; it had to be, in my line of work. Nothing was more crucial than timing.

  Two more minutes had passed.

  It didn’t look like an easy house to break into, I thought. Someone would have to let me in, or I’d have to find another method of coercion…

  I started the engine and pulled away.

  5

  I dreaded going back to that house, but Pat wasn’t answering his mobile so I had no choice. I stopped at a petrol station and tried to eat a bacon sandwich while sitting half in and half out of the driver’s seat. Seeing my reflection in the rear-view mirror made me think of my mum and ‘Dominic, you don’t eat properly!’

  I should call her, I thought, but the token gesture wouldn’t make much difference. I should have been a better son in many ways.

  I put the rest of the sandwich on the passenger seat and lit a cigarette instead. When I had finished that I lit another and smoked it as I drove, CD player off, radio on, ‘education cuts’, flicking ash out of the window and thinking about the scars on her wrists. Clare turned into Emma, Emma turned into blood, into darkness, into weeds and crushed Pepsi cans.

  As the house came into view I exhaled, looked in the mirror and looked away just as quickly. I stopped, rehearsing half-formed questions as I got out and walked up to the door with my eyes on the windows.

  I rang the bell and waited.

  Rain started to soak through the back of my coat.

  ‘He’s not in.’

  The life was drained from her skin; brittle cheekbones showed beneath clingfilm.

  ‘How long will he be?’ I asked.

  ‘He usually comes back for lunch. You can wait if you like.’

  I would rather have waited in the car but it would have been rude to refuse.

  The air was stale and dust floated in the shafts of light. In the kitchen she turned to face me and her voice was heavy like the air.

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea or something?’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’

  ‘How do you…?’ She swallowed, the words coming out in fractured sighs. ‘How do you take…?’

  I was about to tell her not to worry about it but she was already crying. Fuck, she’s crying. I resisted the urge to panic and took an involuntary step forwards.

  ‘Um…’ I implored my brain for something appropriate to say but came up with nothing. ‘Hey, come on.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, over and over through her ha
nds. ‘I’m sorry…’

  I touched her shoulder, stepped closer and stood with my arm around her until the tears subsided. It wasn’t until I felt her start to calm down and I moved away that I realized how tense I was.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ she said again, sitting down at the dining table and holding the palm of her hand against her forehead. ‘I just keep crying all the time, I can’t… stop crying, it’s pathetic.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ I folded my arms and smiled awkwardly. ‘I don’t really want a cup of tea.’

  She laughed, or at least made the brief motion of laughing.

  I watched the rain hitting the windows in grey sheets and sat down with her.

  ‘Has anyone been round?’ I asked.

  ‘Just a few friends and Pat’s friends, people he works with. I don’t know why they bothered, it’s not as if any of them actually know her…’

  ‘Can I let some air in?’

  She shrugged. ‘If you like.’

  I stood up and opened all the windows. Breathing in their house was like inhaling sand.

  ‘So you’re working for Pat now? Officially?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I spoke down at the worktop. ‘I know you don’t like that.’

  ‘No.’

  I looked up and she was still watching me.

  ‘You’ll find him?’ she said. It was more of a statement than a question.

  ‘That’s what I’m being paid for.’

  ‘And what then?’

  I struggled to look at her and was perplexed as to why. Something about her induced an overwhelming sense of unease. There was guilt there too, which I wasn’t used to.

  ‘I know what you do,’ she said.

  ‘It’s hardly recreation. I do what I’m good at, like Pat does.’ I met her eyes again and they were blank. It was a cheap shot to take. I didn’t know if it was shame that made me redden. ‘I just do as I’m asked.’

  ‘What you’re paid to.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  It sounded more defensive than I intended.

  Silence.

  ‘Emma didn’t have a boyfriend?’ I asked, for what felt like the thousandth time.

  ‘She broke up with Danny. She didn’t mention anyone else.’

  ‘No one?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Can I go over this again? You both called her but her phone was off?’

  ‘Well, it was ringing but she never answered.’

  ‘Right.’ I paused. ‘If it’s OK with you, I’d really like to ask Jenny Hillier a couple of questions.’

  Her eyes were full of fury when she looked at me again, so much so that it almost made me take a step back.

  ‘How did you find out her name?’

  ‘Pat told me.’ I chanced a smile. ‘No subterfuge involved. I’d tell her I’m a private detective working on Pat’s behalf and ask her a few questions about when she was due to meet Emma and if she saw or heard anything suspicious. That’s all, I promise.’

  I doubted that my word would be worth much to her.

  She watched the tabletop, picking at the same splinter that Pat had. ‘Well, you’ll get her number off Pat anyway.’

  ‘That wasn’t why I was asking. If you don’t want me to speak to her then I won’t.’

  ‘What you’re paid for, right?’ There was a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

  ‘Within reason.’

  ‘There’s nothing reasonable about it.’

  The bruise on her wrist had faded, I noticed. My gaze moved from her hands to her neck. Every part of her looked so fragile. Her daughter had been the same. I could see the blood from those scars on her wrists against translucent skin, bruises on her neck…

  I caught her eyes and averted mine, tasting copper on my tongue.

  She took her hands off the table.

  ‘Maybe you should come back later,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’ I picked up my bag and felt dirty for looking at her again. ‘So I’ll ask Pat for Jenny’s number then?’

  ‘Yeah, you do that.’

  I wasn’t sure how to leave, standing in another man’s doorway, thinking about another man’s wife with the taste of blood in my mouth.

  ‘You should eat something,’ I said.

  ‘He’s not paying you to care.’

  I hated the contempt in her tone, hated that it stung. I walked back to the car with my head down against the rain and I had no idea why she made me feel so much shame.

  Pat sent me a text while I was driving, asking me to meet him in some bar in Victoria where I guessed he had been for most of the day. As I was reading it I almost mounted the kerb and some woman started shouting at me.

  I didn’t want to go, but I had little choice. I drove there because he was paying me, and struggled to park.

  When I found Pat inside he was going through his iPhone, and he barely looked up when I stood beside him. The place was crowded, full of university students and draped in silver tinsel, but there was a respectful space around us. Pat commanded that sort of reaction.

  ‘Why wouldn’t she have tried to call me if she was in trouble?’ he said.

  ‘Sometimes people panic. They don’t react how they should.’

  ‘I’d be the first person she’d tell if someone had been giving her hassle, I know I would.’ He searched his Received Calls again and clenched his fist around the phone. ‘I’m her father, for fuck’s sake!’

  ‘You want anything else?’ A girl with metallic red hair leant across the bar.

  ‘Yeah, another vodka and orange.’ Pat pushed away his empty glass without looking up, scrolling through the list of numbers until he surrendered to the fact that what he was looking for didn’t exist.

  ‘Soda water and lime, please,’ I said, smiling and handing her a fiver.

  She gave me the once-over and moved away.

  ‘Nic,’ Pat said, taking off his suit jacket and laying it across the bar. ‘You know sometimes I call her mobile seven or eight times an hour just to hear her voice, you know, asking me to leave a message.’

  It was hard to hate him at times like these, despite his superiority complex and the vacant despondency in his wife’s eyes.

  ‘It’s normal, I think.’

  ‘Have you ever lost anybody? I mean, do you have kids?’

  The answer to both was no, but I suspected that wasn’t the answer he was looking for, so I lied for the sake of normality. ‘Lost somebody, yeah. Kids, no way.’

  ‘Makes sense, I suppose. But you know, you go through all these things, falling in love, getting married and all… that.’ He gestured in the air with his drink. ‘But until you have kids… When you have kids, if you do… you’ll be fucking shocked at the capacity you have to love something.’

  He ran a hand through his hair.

  I nodded as if I understood, but of course I didn’t. I understood pain, could give a master class in it, but this went beyond that. It was like a virus in the soul, something that killed you slowly from the inside.

  ‘You do coke?’ He met my eyes for the first time since I had come in and his pupils were fiercely dilated.

  ‘Not while I’m working.’

  ‘Then you smoke,’ he said, indicating his head.

  I nodded and followed him outside the doors of the pub where we lit our respective cigarettes. It was drizzling. Across the street there was a scattering of blue and red Christmas lights. The only times I had taken coke were with Mark, in our flat before nights out, or wedged into the cubicle of a nightclub toilet, but there were easier habits to maintain. My sister was better at that sort of recreation, but it seemed a sad thing to do alone.

  ‘All right, Pat?’

  Pat looked up without a flicker of recognition at the young man who had approached us.

  ‘All right… er, mate. How are you?’ he said with the grace of a seasoned celebrity.

  ‘Oh never mind me, how are you doing? I heard about your daughter, man, I’m so sorry. It’s horrible, just horrible.’ The
guy nodded at me, pulling a beanie hat down over his ears.

  ‘Oh.’ Pat managed to tighten his lips slightly in an imitation of a smile. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You got anything on who did it yet? The filth find anything?’

  ‘No.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘OK, er, well, I hope you’re OK and everything. I hope your missus is OK too.’

  Pat nodded.

  ‘OK, well… see you around.’

  We watched him leave. It occurred to me that for every client and lackey Pat must have a dozen enemies.

  ‘Do you know anyone who would hold a grudge against you for any reason? I asked, taking long drags to combat the cold. ‘Someone you had a fight with? Anyone who would want to get to you?’

  ‘It’s crossed my mind.’ He exhaled for a long time. ‘Thought it was only a matter of time before you asked me that, but still seems easier not to think about it, even though it might help… It wouldn’t make it easier if it was random, easier isn’t the right word, but to think that someone might have done this because of me…’

  He shook his head and dropped his cigarette to the ground.

  ‘I have other leads to follow,’ I said. ‘If you want more time.’

  ‘Time, huh…’ He snorted and turned to go back inside.

  I stayed, watching the drizzle turn into a dense mist. Paul McCartney was playing from a Wetherspoon’s nearby and I couldn’t listen to it for long. It was too early; festivity forced on us to try and dilute the hopelessness of things.

  I stubbed out the remains of my cigarette and went back inside, feeling short of breath.

  I only caught a few words of the argument before reaching Pat, who was face to face with some college student with a fucking awful haircut and an upturned nose.

  ‘That’s my drink you’ve got there,’ Pat said, taking his suit jacket off the bar and putting it on.

  The kid frowned at him and replied in a painfully thick southern accent, ‘No, I think you’ll find it’s mine.’

  ‘No.’ Pat’s voice was a growl, full of nicotine and coke as he buttoned the jacket and pulled up his sleeves. ‘I think you’ll find it’s mine. You preppy cunt!’ he added as an afterthought.