David Raker 01 - Chasing the Dead (12 page)

‘Who’s the guy with the tattoo on his arm?’

She shot me a look – a sudden, jerking movement like she’d just been punched. Her eyes widened, her face lost colour. She was trying to work out how I’d made the connection.

‘Walk away from that,’ she said quietly.

‘From what?’

‘From him.’

‘Who is he?’

She paused, ran her tongue around her mouth, then jabbed a finger at the photograph of the boy. ‘He’ll protect what that represents above all else. He will go to the ends of the earth to do it. If you can get what you need and get the fuck out without him seeing, then you should do that. Because the only other way to stop him would be to bring the whole thing down.’

‘Bring it down?’

‘The house of cards.’

‘You mean your organization?’

She nodded. ‘But I think it might be too late for that.’

‘They know who you are. They warned you off once. That’s what they do. They give you a chance. But you coming to the bar this morning, going to the church like you did… They only give you one warning.’

‘So what happens next?’

‘What happens next?’ She paused, looked at me, and we both understood the silence
.
My heart dropped.
You know what happens next, Magnum
.

‘Why?’

‘Why d’you think?’

‘Alex?’

She took a sip of beer, didn’t answer.

‘
Jade?
’

I could hear myself getting impatient. She was still protecting the cause. Still dancing around my questions, even while she was telling me she wanted out. A part of her wanted to break free. But another part of her was so deeply attached to her life, she felt scared about letting go. And she was terrified about the consequences.

‘Why help me?’ I said.

‘Because this whole thing’s outta control.’ She looked at me. Brushed food away from her mouth. ‘We’ve been careless.’

‘Who’s we?’

She didn’t reply.

‘Jade?’

‘We. Us.’ She paused. ‘
Him
.’

‘Who?’

‘The boy?’ I asked her.

‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘His father.’

‘The man with the tattoo?’

She was teetering. Unsure whether to commit.

‘Jade?’

‘No, not the man with the tattoo.’

‘Who then?’

‘The boy’s father…’ She stopped, looked at me. Something glistened in her eyes. ‘I think, in some ways, he’s even worse.’

‘Who’s the boy’s father?’

‘You’ve pissed him off.’

‘Who is he, Jade?’

‘You’ve
really
pissed him off. But maybe it’s happening for a reason. I’m not sure I believe in him any more, in what he’s fighting for and the way he’s fighting it.’ She stopped, a sadness in her eyes, then looked up at the sky. ‘And I’m not sure He does either.’

I followed her gaze.

‘
He?
What is this – some sort of mission from
God
?’

She didn’t reply, but I could tell I’d hit on something. She picked up the statement and the photograph.

‘Jade?’

She pushed her plate aside. ‘I need to pee.’

And then she was gone, weaving between the tables. She passed the serving hatch, scooped up what looked like a napkin, and headed towards a toilet block next

I gave it eight minutes. The thought that Jade might try to escape crossed my mind the instant she left the table. I slid out and headed to the toilet block.

It was a dumping ground at the back – drinks cans, carrier bags, a shopping trolley, needles. Beyond, the railway arches continued, gradually melting into the night. I could see one of the windows was open, and there was a crack in it, top to bottom. I looked at it more closely. In the middle of the crack, about three-quarters of the way up, something had been smeared across it, on the inside of the glass.

‘Jade?’

The door to the women’s toilet was open, swinging in the wind coming in off the arches. Inside, the light was on, and I could see blood spatters on one of the walls closest to the door.

I stepped inside.

Jade was slumped against one of the cubicle doors, her head tilted sideways. Her fingers were wrapped around the steak knife that had come with her burger, the blade streaked in blood. The cuts in her wrists were deep and long, and her lifeblood was still chugging out of them, on to her hands, her clothes, the floor.

I backed away, watching a fresh trail of blood carve down one of the cubicle doors, then turned and looked out towards the arches. They were big mouths of darkness that sucked the noise out of the night.

The breeze picked up again, and – faintly – I heard a noise, like paper flapping. I looked down at her body. Beneath one of her hands, half-hidden by her balled fingers, was a piece of card. I leaned over, took it from her grasp and pocketed it.

Then I got out my phone and called the police.

The police arrived at Strawberry’s ten minutes after I called. There were two of them: Jones and Hilton. Jones was about sixty-five, while Hilton was much younger, nervous, reeking of inexperience. It might even have been his first night on the job. He held up pretty well when Jones beckoned him to the toilet block, both of them kneeling down to look at Jade’s pale body.

They drove me to a station in Dagenham. Taking my statement didn’t last long. It was obvious Jones didn’t believe I’d killed her. Witnesses at the restaurant backed up my account of what had happened. When he asked me why we were there I told him the truth, or a version of it. I knew her, wanted to talk to her and she’d agreed as long as I drove her to her favourite restaurant.

‘You get what you wanted?’ he said.

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

Jones shook his head. ‘Hope she paid for the petrol.’

I got the feeling he was so close to retirement he could smell it. Any case that wanted to stick around wasn’t going to be one of his. That suited me fine. If he’d been a couple of years younger, I might have got a rougher ride. He told me they’d have to keep my

‘That might be a couple of days,’ Jones said, ‘but I wouldn’t bank on it. More likely you won’t be hearing anything from us until the new year.’

After that, he showed me the door.

Liz arrived about forty minutes later. She was the only person I knew who would be up at one in the morning. Perhaps the only person I could turn to in an emergency now. After Derryn died, people stuck close to me for a while. Cooked things, offered advice, sat with me in the still of the house. I had no family left, so I relied on colleagues from my newspaper days, on friends of my parents, on people Derryn had known. Most of them were very good to me – but most of them eventually grew tired of babysitting the sad man. At the end of it all, Liz was the only one left. And the irony was she never even got to meet Derryn.

On the phone I told her where she could find the spare key, and asked her to get some clothes for me. Jones lent me a pair of police-issue trousers and a training top while I waited. When she arrived, she handed me a pair of jeans, a T-shirt and a coat and I changed in an empty locker room at the back of the station. She waited next to the front desk, dressed in tracksuit trousers and a zip-up training top.

‘You okay?’ she asked when I finally emerged again.

I nodded. ‘I’m fine. Let’s get out of here.’

‘I popped into the petrol station on the way over. Thought you might want an energy injection. Black, no sugar.’ She paused. ‘Just how you like it.’

I smiled. ‘Thanks.’

She pulled out, and we drove for a while.

‘I appreciate this, Liz.’

She nodded. ‘You going to tell me what happened?’

I glanced at her. She looked back. She had a dusting of make-up on. Maybe she hadn’t taken it off after work. Or maybe she’d just put it on before she came out. Either way, she looked really good. And, as her perfume filled the car, I felt a momentary connection to her. A buzz. I looked away, out into the night, and tried to imagine where the feeling had come from. It had been a long day. A traumatic one. Perhaps it was just the relief of going home. Or perhaps, for a second, I realized how alone I was again.

‘David?’

I turned back to her. ‘Things got a bit messy today.’

‘With a case?’

I nodded.

‘Are you in trouble?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘David?’

‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Honestly.’

Her eyes moved across my face. ‘Because if you’re in trouble, I can help you.’

‘I know.’

‘I’m a lawyer. It’s my job. I can
help
you, David.’

There was a brief pause. Something passed between us; something unspoken. And then the feeling came again. An ache in the pit of my stomach.

‘Whatever you need,’ she said quietly.

I nodded again.

‘You don’t have to do everything on your own.’

You don’t have to be lonely
.

I looked at her. She leaned into me a little, her perfume coming with it. The fingers of her hand brushed against my leg.
Whatever you need
. Her eyes were dark and serious.

‘I can help you,’ she said, almost a whisper.

She leaned in even closer. My heart shifted in my chest, like an animal waking from hibernation. I moved towards her.

‘I need…’

I thought of Derryn, of her grave.
It’s too soon.
Liz was so close to me I could feel her breath on my face.

‘What?’ she said. ‘Tell me what you need.’

‘I just…’

She studied me – and something changed. She nodded slowly. Then she moved away, slipped the car into first and took off.

‘Liz, I just–’

‘I know.’

‘It’s not that I–’

‘I know,’ she repeated, and glanced at me. One of her eyes glistened. ‘You don’t need to explain, David. I understand.’

I looked at her, my eyes wandering down her body.
You don’t have to be lonely
. Her breasts. Her waist. Her legs. When I looked up again, she was staring at me.

It’s too soon
.

‘I don’t know what I think,’ I said quietly.

She nodded. ‘I understand.’

‘Some days…’ I paused. She turned to me again, her face partially lit in the glow from the streets. ‘Some days it’s what I want.’

She nodded again.

‘But some days…’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said gently, and her fingers touched my leg again. ‘I can help you, David.’

‘I know.’

‘When you’re ready, I can help you.’

*

Inside the
b
of the restaurant’s name was a burger; the lines of the
t
were fries. And in the middle, in shaky handwriting, was ‘
Jade O’Connell, 1 March, Mile End
’.

I fell asleep at three-thirty and woke again at four. The TV was on mute. An empty coffee mug sat on the floor next to the sofa, the remote control resting on top of it. I turned off the TV, picked up the mug and took it through to the kitchen.

That was when I noticed the security light was on.

I stepped up to the kitchen window and looked out into the night. Footsteps led all the way up to the house, one after another in the snow. Then up to the porch, and around to the side of the house.

None of them were mine.

I put the mug down on the counter and walked back through the house to the bedroom. The curtains weren’t quite drawn. Outside, I could see a trail of footprints right in front of the windows, running parallel to the house, and U-turning at the end and coming back on themselves.

Then: a noise.

Somewhere inside the house.

Swivelling, I looked across the darkness of the bedroom. All I could hear now was snow dripping from the gutters. I edged towards the bedroom door and along the hallway.

Click
.

Is that the door?

I tried to remember what the front door sounded like when I opened and closed it, tried to remember
anything
about
any
of the noises the house made. But as I looked along the hallway and waited for the sound to come again, all I could hear was silence.

Maybe it’s an animal
.

Liz had a cat. It set the light off all the time.

Click
.

The noise again.

And this time something moved: the handle of the front door.

For a split second, it felt like the soles of my feet were glued to every fibre of the carpet. Then, as I fixed my gaze on the handle, it moved again: slowly, quietly, tilting downwards until it couldn’t go any further. The door started to come away from the frame. If I’d been asleep, I wouldn’t have heard a thing.

The door opened all the way. The security light leaked a square of yellow light across the hallway, but nothing else: no movement, no shadows, no sounds.

Then a man stepped into the house.

He was dressed head to toe in black, looking into the darkness of the living room, his back turned towards me. On the top of his head was a mask. He pulled it down over his face, felt around in his belt for something – and then turned and looked down the hallway towards me. I stepped back into the bedroom, my back against the wall.

Oh, shit
.

In the light I could see he’d had a gun, silencer attached. And on his face was a plastic Hallowe’en mask. Eyeless. Mouthless. Unmoving. Staring down the hallway and looking for me in the darkness had been the devil.

I turned back to the bedroom.

Two stand-alone wardrobes, full of clothes and shoes. A bookcase. A dresser. The door into the ensuite. No hiding places. No weapons to hand. Nothing to fight back with.

Click
.

A noise from the hallway.

He’s coming
.

The door into the bedroom swung back into a tiny cove, about two feet deep, cut into the wall. It was my only option. I slid behind it, pulling the door as far back towards me as it would go. I could only see in two directions now: right, through the narrow gap between the door and the frame; and left, to the far edge of the bed and the dresser. I looked left.

As I turned, the sound seemed immense; every noise amplifying in my ears, every beat of my heart, every blink of my eyes. I expected to be able to hear the man as he approached, hear
something
, but the house was silent now. No footsteps. No creaks.