DEATHLOOP (32 page)

As Zack drove off in the direction of Stoke Newington he conceded that meeting up with Susan was a bit like betting the house, great if it paid off and you could buy a mansion with the proceeds but disastrous if it didn’t because you’d be homeless and out on the street. When Zack had mooted the idea to Tracy a week or so ago she had shouted him down, insisting Zack did not go anywhere near Susan Wilmot, but Zack hadn’t got where he was today towing the line, so he decided on balance it was worth the risk.

On the corner of Susan’s road, outside the kebab shop, Zack sat in his car a while, watching. He saw her move back and forth across the window once or twice. He recognized that funny little walk more than anything, the way she held her head on one side. She was alone it looked like. Nothing unusual there, Susan was always alone. Even the nutcase downstairs whose flat was stuffed from floor to ceiling with plastic carrier bags wanted nothing to do with her.

Zack parked up further along Susan’s street, walked back to her house and at the front door hit the familiar top bell. He could sense the surprise the sound of it had set off in Susan’s head and the very limited set of possibilities she was considering, the main one being that it was a mistake.

“Yes?” she said, part hopeful, part defeated, “who is this?”

“Susan, it’s Zack.”

He heard her absorb the shock and her subsequent hesitation, then without saying anything else she buzzed him up.

Zack had a brief speech prepared but he waited for a while as Susan took an old bottle of wine from the fridge and rinsed a couple of glasses at the sink.

“How are you?” he said.

“I’m okay,” she replied.

The wine was undrinkable but Zack took a couple of sips to show willing. He perched on the edge of her old chair that was so uninviting with its fierce springs digging out, and its stained fabric. As usual, Susan sat cross legged on the bed.

“I knew you’d taken it,” she said, nodding towards the book. “Why did you do that, by the way? It’s not a first edition or something is it?”

Zack smiled. The idea of making a couple of bob from Susan who had nothing at all was abhorrent, but then… maybe he had asked for it.

“Look Susan, I behaved very badly. I have serious problems with women and you got caught in the crossfire. I made a mistake. I thought we could have a good time for a while and then move on, but I didn’t consider you or your feelings and I regret that. It was totally selfish, and if it’s any consolation I am very much ashamed of my behaviour.”

For a moment, Susan thought something good might be lurking somewhere in Zack’s soliloquy but in the end, as with life in general, Susan was disappointed.

“However, I didn’t rape you,” he continued, “we both know this, and in order for us to continue as friends, maybe… we need to sort this out.”

“You want us to be friends?” she said with a little laugh, “goodness, how funny you are.”

“What I’m getting at,” said Zack, persevering, and aware that this was not going well, “is that this way we’re arch enemies, but when you drop the rape allegation, who knows…” he said with a generous shrug.

“
Gosh
,” she said, “yes, I see… what an opportunity!”

Zack stood up feeling extremely foolish, aware suddenly that their roles had been reversed. How could he have got this so wrong?

“I need a bit of water with this, I’m driving,” said Zack, crossing over to the kitchen area where he opened up the fridge and looked inside.

“You get water from the tap,” she said coming up behind him and slamming the fridge door shut. Zack threw her a smile which told her that he knew what she had been up to, then dropping the pretence, he moved back across the room and this time sat awkwardly on a hard backed chair standing against the wall.

“We could pop out for a drink, maybe,” said Zack, clearly unenthused at the prospect.

“I’m not withdrawing the allegation,” said Susan, “and you know you shouldn’t be here. When I tell the cops, you’ll be in big trouble.”

“Don’t you want an end to this?”

“There will be an end to it when you’re in nick.”

“It’s impossible to prove, you know that don’t you?”

“It’s impossible not to prove too.”

Zack gazed across at her and wondered if his assessment of Susan had been wrong. Perhaps it was all just an act, her childlike understanding, her Alice in Wonderland lack of guile.

“In the end it’s down to who is the most believable on the day,” she said, “and I can be very believable. A girl on the wrong side of the tracks with barely enough money to charge the electric key each week, swept off her feet by a handsome city animal, ruthless, and power mad. Whose side would you be on?”

“Have you done this before?” said Zack, holding Susan’s gaze. “You have, haven’t you? How many times have you got away with this?”

Susan just sat there emitting the most overwhelming sadness and despite everything, Zack could not find it in his heart to drive the point home. Instead, he stood up and left. Outside in the street as he headed back to his car Susan yelled at him from her open window.

“You wait… you’ve had it now, Zack Fortune! Just you wait.”

“Tracy,” said Zack, “this is Jason.”

It was 9 o’clock the following morning and they were all standing in Tracy’s office, a noticeable awkwardness between them.

“Sit down, please,” she said, moving round her desk and sinking into her squeaky, spinning chair. “The hearing has been postponed by the way, they came back to me last night.”

Jason shrugged, he could not have looked more indifferent.

“But we’ll have a chat, and go through all this.”

“So I’ll leave you to it then shall I? Thanks Tracy,” Zack was on his feet again and Jason was too. “No, you stay here, mate.”

“I don’t want to stay here, not without you.”

“Okay,” said Zack patiently, “we have been through this I don’t know how many times. I can’t represent you, but Tracy here can. Now, it’s up to you whether you take my recommendation, you could approach any number of solicitors who do legal aid…”

“I don’t want anyone else, I want you.”

“But you can’t have me, mate, can you?”

“Why not?”

“You know why not.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not allowed, I am not an option, but Tracy here is.”

Tracy found herself contemplating Zack, intensely curious. Where had this patience come from, and this compassion? Had she been asked, she would have said that Zack Fortune would not have passed the time of day with someone like Jason Heart, or even acknowledged his existence, yet here he was surprising her with all this, and here
she
was being drawn to him again… something she really could have done without.

“Look, Jason,” said Tracy, jumping in and trying to help, “Zack has done his bit and now it’s up to us. If after our conversation you don’t like the advice I give you, you can go elsewhere, you are under no obligation to instruct me but you do need
some
advice, and soon. This is a serious charge, so let’s see what we can come up with, what do you say?”

What Jason wanted to say was that he hated the way she eyeballed him over her brown owl glasses that made her look a hundred years old, and like he had just crept out from a sewer. He wanted to say that all women stank, Ms Tracy Bright included, because even Kelly had dumped on him in the end, but Jason didn’t want to piss Zack off so he said none of these things. “All right,” he said instead, as though agreeing to face the firing squad.

“Are you coming back again,” said Jason, “what time? Shall I meet you somewhere?”

“No mate, I’ve got to go to work and I’m late already, but Tracy will keep me in the loop.”

“What loop?” said Jason, knowing full well what he meant but desperate to delay his leaving.

“You’ll be okay, trust me,” said Zack, patting him on the back.

Jason flinched at Zack’s touch, an automatic flash of fear in his eyes and the clearest indictment yet of Jason’s short life. Zack pretended he hadn’t noticed but he had and he found it instantly depressing.

“Can I get you a drink, Jason, a juice or something,” said Tracy, once Zack had gone.

“I’m not a kid, I don’t drink juice,” said Jason, shrinking back into his hood.

“Okay, so let’s make a start, shall we?”

“How do you know Zack Fortune?” Jason demanded.

“We know each other through work,” said Tracy, fully aware that Jason did not believe her. “And how do you know him?”

“Mind your own business,” said Jason.

Half an hour later, as Zack sat down at his desk in his office he noticed a list of names and numbers that had been placed bang in front of him. It was headed: ‘People who might be able to help’. Someone else might have used the more obvious title like, ‘Psychiatrists’ or ‘Psychoanalysts’ or ‘Psychologists’ (what was the difference? Zack could never remember), but not Rose, Rose was discretion itself.

When she came in a few moments later she made no mention of this, she just went through his diary and suggested coffee because Rose had reverted to work mode. All the easy smiles and gentle humour from their dinner date had been replaced by her usual professional distance. He picked the list up and waved it at her.

“Thanks for this, Rose. The best one first, is that it?”

“From what I can gather…” said Rose, just before she left the room.

Zack imagined Rose slaving away at her computer until the early hours, surrounded by books, copies of The Lancet and Internet printouts, digging around for the shrink with the most kudos and the most scalps on their belt. The idea confirmed Rose’s standing in his eyes. How many other assistants would be bothered, or care enough, or be motivated enough? Rose Crawford was still captain of his ship as far as Zack was concerned, and consequently, all was right with the world.

However, all was not right with Veronica’s world. She had driven back from Hertfordshire the night before in a state of panic. Miriam was working on a hotel refurbishment in Copenhagen so she couldn’t get Miriam’s take on things over a heart to heart, although following the dinner at Bellini’s she didn’t really want to confide in her sister anyway as she got the impression that Miriam thought Zack Fortune to be more trouble than he was worth.

Veronica had left all Zack’s calls unanswered because she needed time to reflect. She suspected that if she responded to his request to see her she would blurt everything out and that would provide yet another hurdle of ‘strange things that have happened’ for them to struggle over.

Back home in Thornhill Square she had consumed a fair amount of Southern Comfort and gone to bed. Things would surely look better in the morning. But they didn’t. She went in to the gallery, carried out a few finishing touches to a commission, pumped out the basement that had flooded again and generally kept herself busy, but despite all this the conversation she had endured with Barbara Quinn hung over her like an albatross. She was still on edge when she saw Zack come in, a little after one.

“Are you okay?” he said, picking up on the strange look she gave him straight away.

“Sorry I didn’t get back to you last night… just, you know, work and stuff.”

He knew it wasn’t ‘work and stuff’ but he didn’t push it. Her dismissal of the Italian had convinced him he had nothing to fear from that bastard so he could deal with everything else.

A couple of punters were roaming round the gallery examining various pieces of bewildering junk with learned eyes. Zack suspected they didn’t have a clue what they were looking at but they put on a good show. He took Veronica’s hand and pulled her close, inhaling her musky French perfume that always wafted after her wherever she went. He stifled a desire to rip her clothes off there and then and instead ran a heavy hand through her hair.

“Let’s go downstairs,” he said.

“What if they run off with the Italian sculptures?” said Veronica as they grabbed each other a few moments later up against the cellar wall.

“Then job done I’d say,” said Zack, making Veronica smile.

“
Hello
?” a disembodied voice shouted out tentatively, ten minutes later.

“Yes?” Veronica called back, still out of breath, and pulling her clothes back on.

“I was wondering about the price for the bronze….”

“I’ll be straight up!” Veronica called back, “hang on…”

Zack was watching her, head cocked on one side.

“Stop it, Zack.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop taking the Michael.”

Zack gave her one of his ‘who me?’ looks as she darted from the room and clattered up the stairs in her bright red sixties sling backs. He could hear her now, putting on her selling voice as he filled a kettle and looked up through a tiny window over the sink at all the feet walking to and fro outside. A little later he heard Veronica’s heels stalking back across the floor and coming to rest at the top of the stairs.

“They’ve gone!” she shouted out, “couldn’t get out quick enough when they heard the price!”

At Veronica’s cluttered desk in the gallery they talked over mugs of tea, Zack reporting back what Rose had said during dinner.

“That was Sam’s line too wasn’t it,” said Veronica, “and you dismissed it, and anyway, I thought you dismissed everything to do with psychiatry as a matter of course.”

“Well, yes I do, but I am interested to know if I’m the only one.”

“You mean there might be a name for it,” said Veronica, with a little smile, “it might be a condition?”

“Or the symptom of a condition…”

“Er… wouldn’t we have heard about it by now?” she said, carefully.

Zack looked defensive. “Not necessarily,” he said.

In the end Veronica agreed that it was worth a try, although there was a reservation in her tone of voice that Zack picked up on. All Veronica would say was that psychiatric treatment was complex and lengthy and she wondered whether Zack was suited to it all things considered. Of course Veronica was right and Zack knew she was, psychiatry and Zack Fortune were uneasy bedfellows.

At Cambridge, Zack used to keep himself amused by complaining to Justin Dunsmore of various imagined psychiatric conditions, and poor Justin had done his best to provide Zack with possible explanations, even though his ‘symptoms’ got more and more preposterous each time.