Cry Baby (4 page)

11.11 PM

‘Erin, you need to stop this now. You need to calm down.’

She is on the bathroom floor, having just spent the last fifteen minutes with her head in the toilet bowl. There is nothing but bile left in her stomach. She can still taste the foul acidic fluid in her mouth, steadily dissolving her teeth. She wishes it would continue on through her jaw and her skull, liquefying them as it goes. Wishes her whole body could dissolve into a rancid puddle on the floor.

‘Erin, are you listening to me?’

She’s not sure she can be bothered to answer him. Everything seems too much effort now. She is responsible for injuring her own baby. No mother can be forgiven for that.

‘ERIN!’

‘WHAT?’ she yells back. Then, softer: ‘What? What do you want from me? What did you do to
Georgia? Is she… Is she… ?’

‘She’s alive, if that’s what you’re asking. You can still get her back alive. But what you need to understand is that I’m not fucking around here. I am serious. When I say I am going to do something, I will do it. Do you believe me, Erin?’

‘Yes,’ she whispers.

‘Do you?’

‘YES! But…’

‘But what, Erin?’

‘I need to know. What you did. Is she hurt? Badly, I mean?’

‘She’ll live. That’s all you need to know. I could’ve hurt her a lot worse, and next time I will. But there won’t be a next time, will there? You know now that you have to do what I say. Isn’t that right?’

‘Yes. But…’

‘The buts again,
Erin? More buts? Are you sure you want to keep questioning me like this?’

There is a razor-edged tone to his voice. A tone that will cut. A tone that will slice her baby into tiny pieces. Ever since she heard
Georgia’s cry of pain, all kinds of images have been jumping into her head of what might have been inflicted. Images of wounding and dismemberment that no mother should conceive of happening to her child. She will have nightmares about those images when this is over. She will have them even if she can get her Georgia back safely.

But there can be no ifs about it. Protecting
Georgia is paramount. She
will
get Georgia back. Even if that means…

A life. Another human life. He wants her to take a life in exchange for the life of her baby.

She knows this already. This is nothing new. But she has to keep repeating it to herself. Has to try to make it real in her head. Because still it seems so absurd that anyone could demand such a thing.

She says, ‘It’s just that… I don’t know if…’ Her lower lip begins to quiver as she wrestles with the thought of what she is being asked to do. ‘Physically, I mean. I don’t know if I am physically capable of killing someone. I could say yes to you now, and then… later, when I’m actually there, with another person, the person you want me to kill, I’m not sure I could do it. Do you understand what I’m saying? It’s not that I’m saying no to you now, okay? But, but… even if I agree now, that doesn’t mean I would have the strength to… you know… when it comes to it.’

‘Erin. Remember what I said to you before. You’ve been chosen for this. I picked you because I know – I know, all right? – that you’re perfectly capable of this. You’re stronger than you think. You can do this.’

She shakes her head in confusion. What does he know? What does he know about me that I don’t even know myself? Where does he get the idea that I’m capable of murder?

Because that’s what this is. Murder. It can’t be dressed up as anything else. There will be no pretending that I didn’t mean to do it. It’s all being planned in advance right now. It will be deliberate, cold-blooded murder. And just because I’m being pressurized into it, will that make me any less guilty? Will an argument of that kind wash with a judge and jury?
I was only following orders.
Yeah, right. Heard that one before. You really want to be associated with the type of people who tried to use that as an excuse?

She says, ‘What if they catch me? If I do this and I get caught, I’ll go to prison. They’ll take my baby from me. Even if I do what you say, I could lose
Georgia.’

‘Don’t worry about that. I know how clever and resourceful you are. You won’t get caught. I’ll be with you all the way. I’ll tell you what to do.’

He makes it sound so easy. Like cooking a meal, or learning to drive a car. You get up, you go out, you kill someone, you come home. What kind of day did you have today, dear? Oh, you know, the usual. Managed to squeeze in a murder in my lunch hour. Nothing special.

She’s still not sure she can do this, but what choice does she have? Doesn’t she at least have to try? Doesn’t she at least have to get some more details? Try to familiarize herself with the situation? Maybe, once she gets a lot more information, maybe then it won’t seem so daunting. Maybe he’s already got something in place for his victim, and all he needs is somebody else to push a button or something like that. Couldn’t that be it? Is she jumping ahead of herself, making something out of what could be nothing?

‘Tell me what you want me to do.’

‘That’s my girl. First thing is to get up off that floor. Go over to the mirror.’

She gets to her feet. Walks unsteadily over to the washbasin and stares at herself in the mirror above it. What a mess. Her dark hair looks like it’s just been subject to a small explosion, and a section of it is covered in puke. Her tears have carried dark rivulets of mascara down her face, her lipstick is skewed across one cheek, and a glistening mucus trail runs from her nostrils down to her chin. Right now she’d make a terrific evil clown.

‘Nice.’

She nods in agreement. ‘I’ve had better days. When I’ve showered, when I’ve slept properly, I’ll look better. In the morning I’ll look okay again. And then we can talk more about what you want me to do.’

‘Uhm, no,
Erin.’

She looks in the mirror at the brooch pinned to her lapel. Tries to picture a man’s face behind it. A face that will match this voice of pure evil.

‘What? What do you mean, no?’

‘I mean not tomorrow. This can’t wait. This happens now.’

She feels her pulse start to race again. How much more of this stress can her body take?

‘Now? No. I can’t. I’m not ready.’

‘Erin, you can’t sleep. Not without your baby. You’re just trying to put off the inevitable. And the longer you put it off, the longer you go without Georgia. It happens now, or not at all. And if it never happens, then Georgia never comes back to you. Do I make myself clear?’

She nods into the mirror. She was fooling herself. She could have guessed it would have to be now, while he has her in the palm of his hand. She just didn’t want to face up to it.

‘I… I need to get cleaned up.’

‘You can do that. You can wash, fix your makeup. Then we go,
Erin. Okay?’

‘All right. But… but I don’t know anything. You haven’t given me any details. I don’t even know who you want me to kill. Who is it? Somebody important? An enemy of yours? Who?’

There’s a lengthy pause then. It lasts so long she thinks the connection has been broken. She looks quizzically at the brooch.

And then it starts. A low rumble of amusement that steadily increases in volume and pitch until it becomes a roar of laughter in her ear.

‘Who?’
he gasps through his laughter.
‘You want to know who I want killed? That’s great, Erin. That’s wonderful.’

And then he continues to laugh.

And she doesn’t understand why.

11.23 PM

‘So,’ says Doyle. ‘Shall we start with some names here? I think that’d be good, don’t you?’

It’s not clear to Doyle that the man seated on the other side of his desk has heard the question. He seems distracted, his eyes snap-glancing at different points in the squadroom. Doyle knows this isn’t going to be easy. The eye-rolls that the uniforms gave him when they brought the guy up told him he had his work cut out with this one.

So be it, thinks Doyle. Kills some time, if nothing else.

‘What do you think?’ he prompts. ‘Some intros?’

The man’s gaze flickers across Doyle’s face, but moves on again.

‘My name’s Doyle. Callum Doyle. I’m a detective here. You know what a detective is?’

‘Yeah,’ says the man, and it’s the first word Doyle has heard him utter. ‘Like a cop.’

‘Well,’ says Doyle. ‘Not just
like
a cop. I
am
a cop. I investigate crimes.’

‘Crimes, yeah. I did a crime. Aw, Jeez. Jesus-Cheeses. It’s bad. Are you gonna kill me?’

Doyle flinches in surprise. ‘What? Kill you? No. Why would I… No. Nobody’s gonna kill you, okay?’

‘Have you got a chair up here?’

‘A chair? Yeah, we got chairs. You’re sitting on one.’

The reaction is unexpected. The man leaps off his seat, then spins to look down at the chair he has just vacated. His hands grasp the hair on both sides of his head as he stares in horror. Doyle jumps to his feet too, ready to tackle this guy if he his actions become more extreme.

‘
Is that it?
’ yells the man. ‘
Is that the chair?
’

‘What chair?’ says Doyle. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The chair. The electric chair. Bzzzz. Are you gonna fry me? Like bacon? Like sausages?’

‘No. Look, it’s just a chair. Like mine.’
Doyle gestures to both chairs, then picks up his visitor’s and shows him the underneath, feeling a little ridiculous at the need to do this. ‘No wires. See? It’s not electric. Now, could you sit down again for me, please?’

Another brief glance. ‘Not electric?’

‘No.’

‘No sizzling?’

‘Nothing like that.’

Slowly, the man edges toward the chair. He starts to sit down, then changes his mind and stands again. He performs another visual inspection to satisfy himself, then lowers himself cautiously.

Doyle looks behind him. Sees that he’s attracted an audience, including LeBlanc, who now has a huge smirk on his face. Doyle realizes he’s just become one half of a double act.

He turns back to the man. ‘Let’s start over, all right? I just wanna ask you some questions. Nobody here is gonna hurt you.’

‘No sizzling.’

‘No.’

‘What about lethal injection? Or gas? Or firing squad? Or—’

‘No! None of that. Just questions. Simple questions. That’s my job. I find things out. I help people.’

‘You said you’re a cop.’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘So do you help criminals?’

‘Well…’

‘I’m a criminal. You won’t help me. You’ll probably shoot me. I see it all the time on the TV. Cops shoot criminals. Or they lock them up. That’s what you’ll do to me.’

Jesus, thinks Doyle. This is going nowhere.

‘One step at a time, all right? I don’t even know if you
are
a criminal yet. All I know is what you told the sergeant downstairs. You remember talking to him? To Sergeant Wilson?’

‘One-three-seven-one.’

‘What?’

‘Sergeant Marcus Wilson. Nine-one-one. Lots of primes. He has candy. Prime candy.’

‘Uh, yeah,’ says Doyle, feeling lost.

The man flicks a hand toward Doyle. ‘You don’t have a number.’

‘A number? I’m not sure what you—’

‘You got a bent nose, though.’

Doyle starts to lift a hand to his face. It’s true, he does have a slight kink in his nose, a legacy of his boxing days. Not many people have the effrontery to point the fact out to him, though.

‘Okay, so you know about my nose, you know my name, you know what I do for a living. How about we even things up a little? Let’s start with your name.’

The man resumes his random search of the squadroom. His leg begins to shake, and he starts tapping the fingertips of his hands together.

Doyle tries to head off another flare-up: ‘You don’t want to tell me your name? Why’s that? We’re friends, aren’t we? Friends tell each other their names.’

Nothing doing. The man doesn’t so much as turn his head toward Doyle.

‘Why won’t you give me your name?’

Doyle decides to wait it out. He sits and watches, but the man says nothing.

‘Look,’ says Doyle, a little too firmly because he can feel his irritation building, ‘if you want me to help you—’

‘You’ll put me in jail,’ the man blurts out. ‘If I tell you who I am or where I live, then you’ll know, and you’ll see what I did, and you’ll lock me up.’

‘But isn’t that why you came here? To tell us what you did? Why did you do that if you don’t want to give me more details?’

‘My mom.’

‘Your mom. What about your mom?’

‘She said I should always say when I’ve done something bad. She made me promise. I always keep my promises.’

Doyle sits back in his chair and watches the man eyeing up the squadroom like a pigeon scanning for crumbs.

Great, he thinks. A guy fesses up to murder, but he won’t tell me who he is or where he lives.

Just great.