No Alarms (13 page)

‘Just come to see how you are.’

‘Very thoughtful of you.’

‘Yeah, I’m that sort of a guy. Do I get to come in?’

Sharon remembered his place, how flash it had all looked, and the memory must’ve shown in her eyes.

‘Nah, don’t worry, I’m used to a mess. You want to see Mum and Dad’s place.’

They went through to the lounge where a late night movie was flickering through the room, some cop thing made on the cheap, lots of rain and too much talking. At first Justin didn’t mention the job and Sharon didn’t ask, because it was good pretending that wasn’t why he was there. Good spending time in
the in-between space, where they were just two friends hanging together, where this wasn’t about Sharon finally giving in. She could tell he was trying a bit too hard to be funny, but it didn’t matter. He was still Justin. Still different from everybody else she knew, still the best person to be talking to, when she thought about it.

It stayed that way for hours, wandering through conversation like they were lost and didn’t care. The longer it lasted the easier it became to believe this was a place she could be happy, next to him.

‘You know why I came round don’t you?’

They were sitting together on the floor, backs against the bottom of the couch, shoulders touching like they’d been fucking for years.

‘Simon still wants me to do that job doesn’t he?’ Sharon replied.

‘So do I.’

‘Already told you I’m not interested,’ Sharon said, knowing it wasn’t true anymore, knowing there was only one place this could end.

‘Why not?’

‘Why do you think? You wouldn’t, if it was you.’

‘I just think you should, that’s all I’m saying. It’s a lot of money, and it’s sweet as. Simon can be an arsehole but he’s careful. That’s why we haven’t been caught.’

‘Not yet,’ Sharon said.

‘But that’s the thing isn’t it? This much money you can just do it and be out of here. Do you know how many people spend their lives dreaming of shit like this? Dreaming they’ll get some big chance to get it right. One big chance to start again. But
they don’t do they? Most people it never happens. Except it has for you Sharon.’ She’d never heard him like this, talking so much without a pause, making anything sound so important. ‘You can get out after this. Shit we both can, you and me. After this is over. What do you say?’

Sometimes it happens that way, a turn in the conversation you’re not expecting, that can change everything that’s gone before, so all the things you’re certain of fade away. It wasn’t the way the words sounded, although that was surprise enough, it was the way they made her feel.
You and me.
Somewhere deep in her stomach, a feeling she’d never let herself believe in. And now it was there, lured out into the open by some trick she didn’t understand. It complicated everything.

‘I need to know more,’ Sharon said, stalling, hoping the heat rising to her face would fade before he saw it, and the thoughts inside would stop spinning around, settle back into place. She tried to concentrate on details. ‘It’s not you. I don’t trust Simon. I don’t get how come this is worth so much money. I don’t get why he needs me to do it. There must be lots of people. Why doesn’t he get a real slut?’

‘You can’t tell him I told you this okay? He doesn’t even know I’m round here. I was meant to ask you at school, that’s all.’ Justin said it like it meant something more. Something that should have been obvious. ‘He doesn’t do much work for himself anymore. It’s too much hassle. He more specialises, like a contractor or something. He’s got a reputation for being good at the scene. Break-ins, specific thefts, fires, stuff like that. Because we started with burglaries we know how to get in and out without being seen. There’s like a food chain, and the further up it you get the bigger the money is. Same work but bigger rewards, because
the people are more important. Simon’s met this guy who’s getting him some of the big jobs. Like this one. It’s some sort of business crap. The guy whose place we’re getting into pissed someone important off and now they’re setting him up. Me and Simon have to get in and plant some papers or something. The police get a tip-off, do a search and then he’ll go down.’

‘What for?’

‘Dunno,’ Justin shrugged. ‘Fraud or something. I don’t think Simon knows either. It isn’t important see? All we have to know is that we’re planting the papers. They have to go in the right place, in some file, where they should be, but where he won’t see them. In and out, easy as that.’

‘You still haven’t said though have you?’ Sharon pressed. ‘How come he wants me to do it?’

‘Simon’s picky. He doesn’t like working with people he doesn’t know. He trusts you.’ Justin paused, like he’d decided it was time to stop bullshitting. ‘And I asked him to use you too. I wanted you to get this chance.’

Sharon looked at him but he’d turned away, same as his voice had slipped off at the end of the sentence. Cool, unflappable Justin, who nobody had ever seen excited, sitting this close, getting embarrassed. Sharon wanted to grab him, jump on him right there, same as she suddenly wanted to do this job with him, more than she’d ever wanted anything. He was right. This was a chance you didn’t get that often. Maybe her last chance at becoming anything. Maybe it was that important. She made him tell it all again.

The guy’s name was Graham Hutton. He had an apartment building around on the waterfront, up on the fifth floor. He often used prostitutes, always from the same agency. The agency
was getting a cut, and doing it because they didn’t much like him, although Justin wasn’t sure why. So next Wednesday, when Hutton called them up, like he always did, they’d ring Simon. Hutton liked to take the prostitute to dinner first, and then back to his place, where he’d do whatever it was he thought his money entitled him to do. Only Sharon wouldn’t have to hang round to find that out. Simon and Justin would follow Sharon into the building, because the downstairs entry was always locked and was too well lit for a break-in. All she had to do was get to the alarm, before she and Hutton went out. There was a code you could use, which would disable it. Simon knew someone who’d worked on the building, when the security was being put in. If she did that he and Justin could walk in, as soon as she had left. Then Sharon only had to do a runner, some time during the meal. Go to the toilet, keep on walking. Easiest thing in the world. Way too easy for $5000. Way too full of questions Sharon forgot to ask, because believers never do.

‘So you’ll have to find a dress. Not too slutty, they’re not that sort of agency. Just something little, that you could wear out to dinner. Got anything?’

‘Kaz has. I could borrow.’

Kaz, who could do this job with her eyes closed. Who probably wouldn’t even bother doing the runner, if it meant missing out on dessert.

‘Can I see it?’ Justin asked, said in a rush, so she could hear the dryness in his throat.

‘I’ll put it on,’ Sharon replied, not wanting to look at him then, wanting to let the excitement build.

She knew exactly which dress she’d use, same as she knew Justin’d follow her. She heard him stop at the doorway, but she
didn’t turn around. She opened the wardrobe, her back to him, imagining what it might be like just then, inside his head. Not daring to let herself believe it might be exciting, the way it was for her.

She took the dress off the hanger, Kaz’s favourite, short and black. ‘My little never-fail’ she called it.

You’d better be right.

She turned around, holding it in front of her body.

‘What do you think?’

‘Put it on.’

‘Not with you watching,’ Sharon said.

Cos I’d rather you watched me taking it off.

He backed away, only a couple of steps, so she could still feel him there. Her fingers felt clumsy as she hurried to shed her daytime skin. The dress wasn’t too tight, just close enough to do the job. She’d tried it on once before, but that had just been pretending.

‘Okay,’ she said, moving out into the room so she could see herself in the dresser mirror. One fearful glance, too quick to show anything for sure, before Justin edged back into view. He leaned on the doorway, trying too hard to look relaxed.

‘You look great,’ he said, and the shaking beneath the voice gave him away. His eyes made no secret of where they were resting.
All of you looks great,
they said.
Not just your face, or the dress you’re wearing, but all of you. Your legs, your arse, everything I can see, everything I can imagine.

Sharon didn’t speak, cos there wasn’t anything left to say. Her heart had sped up, understanding the risk before she did. Not the risk of rejection, there wasn’t any room left for misunderstanding, but the risk of all the things that would happen
later, she would look back and see this as the starting point. She took two steps forward to the end of Kaz’s bed and stared straight at Justin’s eyes, so he couldn’t look away. Then she slipped the straps off her shoulders and the dress fell straight to the floor. It didn’t catch halfway, like it might have in some other place, at a party with someone she’d just met. She didn’t have to turn or squirm to get her arm out of a tangle. She could just stand there, holding her stare, keeping Justin staring back because she wouldn’t let him go. She didn’t feel embarrassed, like she’d have expected if someone had ever told her she’d be standing this close, so close he could reach out and touch her naked breasts. She felt powerful. That was the feeling, even more than the excitement. The feeling she knew she would keep coming back to.

Sharon turned and walked back to Kaz’s bed, pulling back the covers and climbing in. By the time she looked back Justin’s shirt was already off and as he moved towards her she was relieved to see his slow motion glide was back, that the time for awkwardness was over.

And that’s how it was. Different from all the other times. Not feeling sick with the alcohol, or bored, or pissed off that nothing was turning out how it should be. Not wishing it was someone else, or hoping the person you were trying to pay back would find out. It was hardly sex at all.

Cos it was Justin. So laid back you couldn’t name the feelings, moving so slow you could forget which direction you were headed in, so suddenly you’d find yourself back at the beginning, and you wouldn’t even care. A naked conversation without any of the words, and whenever Sharon moved she could feel his warm body moving with her.

Zinny woke them the next morning, bouncing impatiently on the end of the bed.

‘I didn’t know you were in here,’ he said. ‘I’m hungry.’

‘So what do you want for breakfast then?’ Justin asked, rolling over and draping his arm across Sharon’s shoulder.

‘Hash Browns!’ Zinny squealed without even having to think.

‘Okay. Let me have a shower and then we’re off to McDonalds, right?’

Justin swung out of the bed and Sharon watched his little butt as he passed through the doorway, Zinny skipping behind him like it was nothing strange, following some naked guy he hardly knew down the hallway.

The next Wednesday it rained. Big heavy rain, the sort that can soak you through in a minute, so hard-out even the inside of the house feels damp. Sharon had been rung the night before by Justin, the first time she’d spoken to him all week. It was a short conversation, strictly business. Details about where to meet, and how to get there, and stuff about the alarm, numbers he wouldn’t let her write down. She could tell Simon was there in the background, checking Justin didn’t get anything wrong. Hutton had placed an order with the agency. Justin gave her one chance to pull out and she didn’t take it.

Sharon spent the day inside, trying not to think about it; going to the window every ten minutes, to check on the weather, until Kaz got sick of it.

‘Jesus, sit down will you? What are you expecting to see out there?’

‘I’m just bored.’

‘Should have thought of that before you got kicked out.’

Kaz’d have that forever now, any time she was feeling too lazy to argue.

‘So what’s wrong with you then? You’ve been acting pissed off ever since the weekend.’

‘No more than usual. Where are you going?’

‘Out.’

‘Don’t be stupid. It’s pissing down.’

‘I’ll wear a coat.’

‘What coat?’

‘Could wear a jacket, if you hadn’t stolen it.’

‘You got your money.’

‘Not all of it I bet.’

‘Here, get us some cigarettes while you’re there will you?’

‘Money?’

‘Go to the one down on Pyre Street. Benny owes me a favour.’

‘Okay. Oh yeah, I’m going out tonight.’

‘Where?’

‘Nowhere you’d be allowed. I’m taking your black dress.’

‘Which one?’

‘The little one.’

‘You wear that you’d better get some condoms down at Benny’s too.’

BY SEVEN O’CLOCK, when Sharon got on the train, the rain was getting bored. It was the wind’s turn now, picking up the last few showers and hurling them against the window. Sharon was cold, even with the big padded jacket she wore, hiding the dress from the other passengers. Just a couple of them, commuters going the wrong way, from the cheap jobs back to the expensive houses, too lost in their newspapers to notice her anyway.

She caught a bus from the station, number 12, just like Justin had told her, even though there was another bus that went directly there. He hadn’t told her how him or Simon were getting there, or even where they’d meet her. ‘Just; be there on time,’ he’d said, ‘and we’ll follow you in.’

Sharon had to walk past the big supermarket, where arseholes would fill their trolleys with anything that looked expensive. She cut across its car park, dodging the circuit of impatient cars; their headlights so bright it was like they were hunting her down, their windscreen wipers flapping backwards and forwards like a warning. She kept her head down, not wanting to notice anyone, not wanting to be noticed. Wanting the whole evening to pass by on automatic, so it would be more like watching than taking part.

The apartment was easy to find, just like Justin had said it
would be. A big ugly block of glass and concrete high enough to see out over the tops of the pines on the waterfront. Sharon looked at her watch, 7.45 exactly. Simon and Justin arrived without her seeing them. Neither of them spoke at first. Justin looked nervous, like there was something he wanted to say, something that would have to wait till Simon wasn’t there. Simon just pointed at the voice box, where visitors could register their arrival. Graham Hutton, two thirds way down the list of people with enough money to live in a place like this, and maybe enough secrets too. Sharon hesitated, her finger half a centimetre from the button. Her mind went blank. She panicked and the name she was meant to use slipped further out of reach.

‘Selina,’ Simon muttered, pissed off and dangerous.

‘Yes?’ A voice crackled out of the speaker.

‘Selina, for a Graham Hutton.’

‘Where’s Margo?’

‘Sick.’ Just like they’d planned.

‘One moment.’

But it took longer than that, before the metal gate slid back. It was so heavy Sharon could hear the rollers creaking, and high enough to almost touch the car park ceiling, so you’d never climb over. Simon put his hand out and Sharon gave him her jacket. The cold came suddenly, drawing goosebumps to the legs she’d shaved specially. Then they were in, all three of them. Sharon to walk across to the lift, Simon and Justin to find a quiet place amongst the cars, out of reach of the security cameras.

The lift was tiny, too small to fall over in, no matter how drunk you might be. Sharon closed her eyes and felt it shaking upwards. She tried to fade out, to leave the scene through some crack in her mind, but the lift stopped before she could escape.
The door opened into a narrow, unfriendly corridor. Not ugly or cheap, there was thick carpet and the soft light came from lamps set on two thin wooden stools, but unwelcoming. It had the feel of a place people only passed through, where nothing was welcome to hang long. Hutton’s apartment, 507, was directly in front of her. A simple doorbell this time, a muffled two-tone ring and the sound of a person approaching from the other side.

‘Come in.’ Said quietly. Polite too, and not at all hurried. Not like a person who had ordered some slut to come visiting, who was scared the neighbours might see. More like a person who didn’t care, because it was his house, his money.

The door opened directly into the lounge and Sharon followed him in. He was wearing a grey suit over a layer of aftershave and the light bounced off his bald head.

‘Would you like a drink, ah, I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten.’ He apologised like he meant it, like there were rules here she couldn’t guess at.

‘Selina.’

‘Ah yes. Selina. Pretty name. Drink Selina?’

He was more old than ugly. Maybe fifty. A bit fat, though more soft-looking than huge. His face was creased, like he slept with it folded under his pillow, and when he smiled his teeth gave his years away. And he did smile, that was the creepy part. Smiled like it might make a difference, like there was some chance she might grow to like him.

‘Ah no thanks.’

Sharon looked quickly around, trying to see the number pad of the alarm, that Justin had promised would be there. Instead all she could see was a flat box set into the wall by the door. A small key poked out of its slot, and a green light winked slowly
above the word ‘unarmed’. Sharon felt another alarm sounding, deep inside her head.

‘Is there something wrong Selina?’ Hutton asked, looking like the concerned parent of a friend, but not the sort of friend Sharon would ever bother with.

‘Ah, no, not at all,’ Sharon replied.

‘Right, well sit down then. It’s a very nice dress by the way. And your eyes. So dark. Well look, I won’t be a moment.’

He waited for her to sink into the couch then backed across the room, watching her the whole time. Apart from the main entrance there were three doors leading out of the lounge, all of them closed. He went to the one on the left, and left it open behind him. Sharon felt a coldness prickle over her skin, like it had worked out what was happening and was planning its own escape. She tried not to think what he might be doing there, in the next room. She tried not to think anything.

Sharon would have moved then, to check out the little box with the key, see whether there might be a number pad inside, but the lights went dim. So dim that at first she thought the power had been cut completely. Then her eyes adjusted. The miniature chandelier above her was still glowing faintly.

‘Alright Selina.’ The sound of his voice didn’t travel through the air, the way an ordinary voice might. It came at her along the carpet, crawling up onto her uninvited. Sharon should have known what was happening then, would have, if she’d let herself think about it. But her head was already full, thinking of how it would be, if she let Simon and Justin down. If she failed.

‘Come in here.’ A little sharper, like he wasn’t used to waiting.

Sharon moved to the doorway, still eager not to give the game away.

Play it cool. There’ll be another chance.

She knew it was the bedroom before she reached it. She only got a glimpse of him, sitting up on the end of the bed with something in his hand, before the lights went out completely. Proper darkness this time. The sort that tightens your chest with fear, just when your heart needs more room for its crazy beating.

The new light came as suddenly as the darkness had and was just as frightening. So bright Sharon had to put her hand over her eyes, to stop it blinding her. She realised he was holding a powerful torch and she was trapped in its beam.

‘It’s alright. It’s just after the darkness.’

He spoke soothingly, like she was a child crying herself awake in the middle of a bad dream.

I
wish.

‘Your eyes will adjust. Try not to look directly at it.’

Hutton was no longer there. He was just a voice in the blackness.

‘Come forward now. Not too far. That’s right, just two steps and stop.’

It isn’t going to happen. There’s no fucken way. This was never the deal.

Anger came fast and hard, images of standing over him, beating his head with that big pervert’s torch. Or taking his creaking body and throwing it out the double windows in the room next door, one last look at his expensive view on the way down. No way. She’d said that, every time Justin had asked. She’d never even pretended. Dinner, that was all.

‘What is it dear? What’s wrong? Please, it’s nothing untoward,
I assure you. I just want to look at you.’

Sharon tried to calm down, to get her breath back. She could walk away, now that it wasn’t going the way they’d planned it. Someone had told Simon the wrong thing. No keypad. No dinner. It wouldn’t be her fault. They wouldn’t blame her. They’d understand. She was one step away from turning when she heard the noise. Not loud, but unmistakable. The front door opening. Justin and Simon were in the apartment.

‘Okay,’ Sharon said quickly, not sure what to do. There was no time for thinking about how this had happened. It was a time for getting it right in the moment, for surviving. If she could stall him long enough, give them time to be out of there, this could still work out.

‘Here?’

She stepped forward, just like he’d asked.

‘That’s right dear.’ The light became his eyes, and she could feel the heat of his stare on her face.

Just two minutes. Justin said they’d be in and out in two minutes. I can stall, stop anything bad happening for two minutes.

‘Now turn around. No, slowly.’

Slow, that suited her, same as it suited her to be facing the door. She listened carefully but they were silent, the way the person paying them knew they’d be. The only sound was Hutton’s breathing, getting louder, filling up the room.

‘Now, very slowly Selina, so slowly that I can hardly see it happening, I want you to remove that dress. Let it fall dear. Let it fall.’

He was breathing more quickly, losing control of himself, of the whole situation, relying on his bank account to keep him in the game.

‘No, don’t step out of the shoes dear. Keep the shoes on.’

But I won’t be able to run in these.

Sharon counted time under her breath. A minute had gone by surely. Sixty more seconds and she could go, leave him to his dried-up fantasies. She kept listening, thinking not of Hutton watching but of Justin, who if he could see would be nodding his approval, at the way she kept it together, kept the plan happening.

‘What? What was that?’

Another sound, close, something dropping to the floor. Not so heavy as to be certain but not light enough to go unnoticed.

‘What?’ Sharon tried, although her heart was pumping so hard she could feel her head clouding. It was a fight, just to keep breathing.

‘That noise.’

He sounded disorientated, like a person who has been startled from sleep. The torch light moved from side to side. Sharon’s shadow danced on the wall.

‘I can’t hear anything.’

‘Before.’ But now he sounded uncertain.

‘Is this part of it?’ Sharon asked, forcing herself to stay calm. ‘Do you want me to pretend I’m scared?’

‘What? No, it isn’t. I just thought I heard something, that’s all.’

‘So should I keep going?’

‘Yes. No, not quite yet. In a moment. Wait please.’

He sounded unsettled, like a drunk trying to remember where he’s left his bottle. Sharon waited while the light behind her steadied.

‘Turn around then. Take another step forward.’

She felt the fear return, now she was facing him. So close she could smell him, not just the aftershave that had become a part of the darkness, but another scent beneath it, that told her more than she wanted to know. She was close enough that he could reach out and touch her at any moment, close enough for her to see over the light he held, to make out the dark shape of his head and shoulders. She knew his light would see everything now; the way her lip would tremble if she couldn’t take her mind away, the wet fear on her forehead.

‘Now, Selina.’ He paused, letting the name hang in the room, like he had seen right through it. ‘Undress for me.’

Sharon brought her hands to the thin straps, her last line of defence. She paused.

Surely they can hear this. Surely they’ll find a way of saving me.

‘Come on, don’t be shy.’

Sharon didn’t hear them, but somehow she knew they were there, standing just behind the doorway, out of sight, waiting.

Waiting for what? Come on Justin. You can hear this, you know how it’s all gone wrong. So let me know. Give me some signal, so I can get outta here.

But knowing they were there relaxed her. They wouldn’t let this go too far. They wouldn’t let her get hurt. So she let one strap fall off her shoulder, blocking out everything now, just waiting for the moment, when she could turn and run. She hadn’t stuffed this up. She was doing okay. They’d understand.

‘Excellent.’

Movement in front of her. The torchlight wobbled, and the boys took it as their signal. Bang bang bang, three separate hits, close and violent. Sharon caught the startled look on Hutton’s face, as surprised as she was, as unprepared. The brutal flashes
gave his face an unreal glow, wet with sweat, waxy with the shock of it.

‘What the…’ But his throat gave out and his lips moved to silence. He let the torch go and it fell to the floor. He was trapped, a possum held in headlights. He didn’t even move to do himself up.

Sharon turned on the two of them. Justin still had the camera held high, pointed at the two of them, like he was considering letting off another shot. Understanding hit Sharon hard, taking her breath, disconnecting her brain from her body so she was as stuck as Hutton was. Simon stood at Justin’s shoulder, just a shadow in the darkness, big and ugly and pleased with itself.

You arseholes. You fucken arseholes.

‘Come on, let’s go,’ Justin told her, but too late.

Hutton sprang up behind her, and his cold hand had her throat. She twisted away but he was stronger than he looked. He pulled her weight back towards him and his free hand grabbed her arm and pushed it high behind her back. Sharon felt his grip tighten on her throat and her breath was cut down to small painful gasps.

‘Give me the camera or I’ll break her neck. I swear I will.’

His voice told the truth of it. He wasn’t hard, or in control. But he was frightened and he was desperate. Sharon squirmed, trying to loosen the grip, but he only squeezed harder. She looked at Justin and Simon, pleading with her eyes. Justin looked to the ground, like he knew straight away which side he was on. Simon stared straight past her, all his cold violence focussed on the old man.

‘You think we give a shit about her?’ he mocked. ‘Do what you like. You can have the photos back later, when you’ve
paid for them. We’ll be in touch.’