Authors: Kate Rhodes

Crossbones Yard (7 page)

BOOK: Crossbones Yard

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‘Or is all that emotional stuff just for your patients?’

‘You know fuck all about me. You’ve got no right to make judgements.’

I started to walk away, but his hand closed around my wrist and then he leaned down to kiss me. It crossed my mind to let him, but I turned away just in time. His warm breath touched
my cheek. An odd tingling feeling ran across the back of my neck.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘That was completely out of order.’

‘It certainly was.’ He was still standing too close, my hand resting on his shoulder where I’d pushed him away. His face hovered above me. It looked like he was weighing his chances, wondering whether to try again.

‘I could report you, you know,’ I whispered.

‘Who to?’ He studied my face carefully. ‘Burns wouldn’t do a thing.’

‘To your wife, then.’

He looked shocked. ‘I can explain.’

‘That you’re planning to separate?’ I sneered.

This time he didn’t try to stop me walking away. My legs felt weak as I climbed the stairs, as if they couldn’t be relied on. The kitchen clock said that it was nearly 2 a.m., but there was no point in going to bed. My thoughts would only keep dancing around in my head, refusing to slow down.

It took a long time to get to sleep. I was too angry, with Alvarez for trying to kiss me and with myself for wanting to kiss him back. Maybe he made a habit of approaching women he met at work, then sneaking home to his long-suffering wife, complaining about the demands of his job. It unsettled me that I could still remember the pressure of his hand on my wrist, and his stare, as if he was determined to read my thoughts.

When sleep finally came I dreamed of Crossbones Yard. I was looking through the ironwork gate into the darkness. The tarmac had been replaced by a garden, and a huge crowd of women were holding a party. Lanterns swung from the trees, young girls dancing, while others chatted beside a bonfire. For a time none of them noticed me spying on them, then one by one they turned in my direction. The chatter stopped and so did the music. The dead girl had come back to life, but the crosses on her skin were still there, chains of them circling her wrists like bracelets. She was standing alone at the edge of the crowd. The women’s faces swam in front of me, their expressions neither friendly nor hostile. They were expectant, waiting for me to make the next move. They carried on watching me as I surfaced from the dream.

My head was spinning. Lola’s diet of gin and late nights definitely didn’t agree with me. In the kitchen I knocked back half a litre of orange juice, straight from the carton. My feet
still ached from the marathon walk home. I was checking the fridge to see if I could face eating anything when someone banged on the door. Will was standing on the doormat, twitching from head to foot. For the first time in weeks he came in without having to be coaxed. There were black, greasy stains on his jeans and his hair looked matted, as if it hadn’t been washed in weeks.

‘Do you want some breakfast, Will?’

‘He came back.’ His eyes were so wide open that the dull whites were exposed.

‘Who’s he?’

‘In the night,’ he insisted. ‘I’ve seen him before, but I don’t know what side he’s on.’

‘Ssh.’ I pressed a finger to my lips. ‘Lola’s asleep.’

‘He wanted me to go with him.’

‘Calm down, Will. Come in here and tell me about it.’

He stood in the middle of the kitchen, legs moving compulsively, like a sprinter warming up for a race. My heart was thudding too hard inside my chest. It always upset me when Will described his apparitions. Most of the time I kidded myself that he was on the mend, ignoring his delusions and paranoia. I piled cheese on two slices of bread, and stuck them under the grill. When I handed him a glass of juice the tremor in his hands sent half the liquid slopping on to the floor. It was hard to tell if it was the effect of drugs, or another night sleeping in the freezing cold. He ate his food too fast, melted cheese smearing around his mouth.

‘He knocked on my window.’ Will crammed another chunk of toast into his mouth. ‘I recognised him.’

‘Was it the police?’

Will shook his head. ‘He said he’d give me food and money and a bed for the night.’

‘But you can have all those things here.’

‘He didn’t want anything back, he wasn’t trying to control me.’ The bitterness in Will’s voice ignited then fizzled out. When he spoke again he sounded like a little boy. ‘I said I’d go with him, Al, but he ran off. I must have said something wrong.’ He looked ready to burst into tears.

‘You don’t need to go off with strangers, Will. Come here if you need anything. You know you can do that, don’t you?’

He perched on a stool, chattering quietly to himself, as if an invisible friend was sitting beside him. It was hard to know whether the man he had seen the night before had been real or imaginary, but at least the food was settling him. Maybe later he could be persuaded to take a bath. His smell lingered in the kitchen: damp clothes and sweat with a sour, chemical edge. By the time I had showered and eaten breakfast, Will was asleep on the settee in the lounge, breathing deeply, like he hadn’t shut his eyes for weeks. Just as I was about to go and buy a Sunday paper Lola emerged from her room, wrapped in my favourite blue kimono.

‘Morning, disco queen.’ She gave me a bleary smile. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘A bit frazzled. Will’s flaked out in there.’

Lola’s face lit up. She had always had a soft spot for Will, but the smile slipped from her face when she pushed open the living room door. His thin form was stretched out on the settee, like a living scarecrow.

‘Jesus,’ she whispered. ‘How long’s he been like that?’

‘About six months, but the last few weeks have been the worst. He won’t see a doctor, because he thinks his GP wants to slam him back in hospital. And he’s using every fucking drug he can lay his hands on, except the lithium he needs.’

Lola sat beside me and pressed her hand on top of mine. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Al?’

‘What could you do? I’ve taken him to specialists, but he always runs away.’

‘God, you poor thing.’ Lola’s green eyes fixed on me. ‘When’s the last time you had a good cry?’

‘On my thirtieth birthday. Too much vodka.’

‘You worry me, Al. You really do. I cry if the bus is late, but you’ve forgotten how. You’re so bloody controlled.’

‘So everyone keeps telling me.’

‘Because it’s true.’

‘Someone’s got to be, in my family,’ I said sharply.

‘You don’t have to do it all by yourself.’

‘I do, Lola.’ I stared at her. ‘I’m all he’s got.’

She wrapped an arm round my shoulder. ‘Do you know what you need to do?’

‘I dread to think.’

‘Watch
Love Story
. Do you the world of good to bawl your eyes out for a few hours.’

Lola retreated back to bed with a plate of toast, and I carried on racking my brains. I’d already rung Narcotics Anonymous, and researched rehab centres in the UK and abroad, but none of it was any use unless Will agreed to be treated. He was still fast asleep, hands balled into fists, fighting monsters in his dreams. I tiptoed into the hall and peered under the flap of his rucksack. It was crammed with dirty clothes: socks, shirts and jeans that hadn’t seen a washing machine in weeks. Underneath them there was a copy of
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
, a scrap of paper with phone numbers scrawled all over it and a silver foil package, no bigger than my thumb. I held it to my nose: it was a lump of cannabis resin, giving off its odd smell of treacle and musk. God knows what other drugs he kept hidden under the seats in his van.

I was just about to put everything back when something else caught my eye, glinting against the canvas. I fished it out and let it rest in my hand, cold and compact. Our teacher
showed us flick-knives once at school. He warned us that they were lethal, so all the boys wanted one. A gang of them disappeared behind the science block at lunch break to show off their weapons. I released the safety catch and a six-inch blade flicked out, sharp enough to slice my fingers to the bone.

A picture of my brother as a boy appeared out of nowhere. I remembered the way he used to stand there, completely passive, when my father lashed out at my mother or me. For some reason it was never his turn. All he had to do was watch, and I’d never questioned why. I’d always assumed that he took the path of least resistance, too scared to run or call for help. But the expression on his face had been more complicated than pure fear. There was a mix of emotions there: excitement, voyeurism, maybe even envy of my father’s power.

I stared down at the blade in my hand, then folded it back into its sheath. By now Will was shifting in his sleep, beginning to wake up, so I dropped the knife back into his bag.

By the evening he was less agitated. Lola ran him a bath, and he didn’t even flinch when she teased him about his beard.

‘Going for the beatnik look, are you, William?’

‘I ran out of razors, that’s all.’

‘Use one of mine. Go on, liberate that handsome face of yours.’

Sitting in my room I listened to Lola trying to flirt with Will, as if nothing had changed. It was months since he’d sounded so relaxed. He could string whole sentences together if he chose to. There was no more talk of strangers arriving in the night. Maybe he was fine with everybody else, and it was only me he struggled with.

It was just after nine. No doubt Alvarez would say I was criminally insane if I went for a run, but my trainers were tempting me, sitting patiently beside the wardrobe. When I got outside
there was still no sign of a police car. Maybe they were bored of waiting in the cold, or they had found Morris Cley and slammed him back in his cell. It took a long time to hit my stride. I ran west along the river for a while, trying to pace myself, the backs of my legs aching. But by the Tate Modern I felt like I could run for ever, follow the river through Chelsea and Putney, until it flowed through fields instead of streets. At Lambeth Palace I forced myself to stop. A security guard glared at me through the railings. Maybe he expected me to hop over the wall and throw stones at the stained-glass windows.

After five deep breaths I started the run home, taking a short cut past a line of men queuing for burgers outside Waterloo Station. These were the kind of streets Alvarez wanted women to avoid, full of neglected council blocks and boarded-up shops. For some reason I ended up by Southwark Cathedral, less than a hundred yards from Sean’s flat, with a stitch in my side. It hurt every time I breathed. Sean’s lights were on above the shop, and it was tempting to knock on his front door. At that moment all I wanted was for him to run me a bath, soap my back, then fall into his bed. But it would only be a matter of time before the pressure and the expectations started up again.

The stitch got the better of me as soon as I began to run again. I slumped on a wall outside a run-down pub and tried to catch my breath. The pub sign showed an angel, with a sly smirk on her face and a lopsided halo. I leaned forward and waited for the pain to go.

‘Are you all right, love?’

A dark-haired woman in heavy make-up and a breathtakingly short skirt perched on the wall beside me.

‘Fine, thanks, just a bit out of breath.’

‘Overdone it, have you?’

‘Looks like it, yeah.’

She must have been about my age, but there were deep lines carved around her mouth, as if she had been born with a cigarette between her lips. Her eyes were a soft, out-of-focus blue. She gave an exaggerated shiver.

‘Fucking freezing tonight, isn’t it?’ Her teeth chattered when she spoke.

‘Go back in, don’t worry about me.’

She looked at me as if I was simple. ‘I can’t, love. I’m working.’

‘Working?’

She nodded at the cars crawling past. ‘I might miss one of my regulars.’

I glanced at her outfit: sheer black tights, stilettos, crimson lipstick, Cleopatra lines circling her eyes.

‘Sorry,’ I muttered. ‘Not enough oxygen getting to my brain.’

A car pulled up on the opposite side of the street and the driver’s window lowered a few inches before he sped away.

‘Fucking charming.’ She made a V sign at the departing car.

‘How long have you been doing this?’ I asked.

‘Longer than I want,’ she said, her smile wavering. ‘Did you hear about the girl at Crossbones?’

I thought about confessing that I had been the one who found her, but decided against it. ‘Did you know her?’

The woman shook her head. She fumbled in her bag and brought out a pack of Silk Cut. ‘I stayed at home a few nights after that, I can tell you.’

I thought about the girl, lying in the hospital freezer, eyes wide open, staring at the lining of her silver body bag.

‘I’m stopping in September.’ Her milky eyes kept shifting in and out of focus. ‘I’ve got a place at college to do hairdressing.’

‘That’s great,’ I nodded. ‘What are you called, anyway?’

‘Michelle.’

There was no time to tell her my name, because a black car pulled up and flashed its headlights. It was too dark to make out the driver’s face.

‘That’s one of mine.’ Michelle’s expression hardened. She ground her cigarette into the pavement with the toe of her stiletto.

‘Thanks for the company,’ I said.

‘Best give up the jogging, love.’ She grinned at me. ‘You’re not fit enough.’ She strutted towards the car and leaned down to negotiate with the slimeball behind the wheel.

I thought about calling her back, paying her to go home, but she would only be out again tomorrow, working her patch. I bent over to stretch my hamstrings, and by the time I looked up again the black car had vanished.

Will was still at home, watching TV with Lola, wearing a clean pair of jeans. He looked like a changed man. Even his ragged beard had disappeared.

Lola dragged her eyes from the screen. ‘We saved you some pizza, Al.’

In the kitchen I helped myself to a slice loaded with ham and pepperoni from the takeaway box. The front door slammed before I had taken two bites.

BOOK: Crossbones Yard

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