One of Us (24 page)

“OK, OK,” he held his hands up in defeat. “So where will we meet? You have any idea how long you’re going to be?”

“Meet back here,” I said. “In two hours. That gives you time, and gives me time.” He will be here all night, I thought. If I do not come back. “But it may take longer, so wait for me ten minutes, no more. And if I am not here, write down the hotel on a piece of paper and stick it in the side of the bench, and you go there, and I will come when I am done.”

“Like spies?” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “Like spies.”

Sean looked at me for a very long time. I wanted to cry. I wanted to tell him what to do, if I did not come back at all. I wanted to tell him how important he was to me. I wanted to tell him that I had to do this, but it was for him. I wanted to hug him and not let go for a very long time. Instead I just smiled and said, “OK, then, best go. See you later,” and I walked away. In such stupid ways do people part. If it went wrong, and it probably would, that would be all I left him with. OK then, best go, see you later. It was not much.

Halfway along the path I stopped and turned back to check that he was not following me. I was going to wave, but he had gone already.

“Goodbye Sean,” I said. Just in case. Then I walked on. It would take me half an hour to walk to Corgan’s. I did not know how long it would take me when I got there.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

I heard footsteps inside the flat, and then the door opened.

“Well, well,” Corgan said. “Who are you collecting for then, love? Oxfam?” He had no shirt on, and shaving foam on his face. His body was big, but there was muscle under the fat. He saw me looking and I looked away very quickly. He smiled.

“I have something very important to tell you,” I said.

“I’m on my way out. What tosser let you in the front door?”

“I watched you put the code in when you brought me here. What I have to tell you can’t wait. It is important.”

“Important to you or important to me?”

“To you.”

He looked at his watch, then back at me, a long look from his dead shark eyes. “It better be worth it.”

“It will be.”

He looked at me again, and I held my breath. “Yes,” he said. “I think it will be. One way or another.” He walked back into the flat. I did not close the door properly, in case I needed to get out quickly, and I followed him in.

Corgan was nowhere to be seen. After a couple of minutes, he came out of a room, rubbing his cheeks in that satisfied way men do when they feel to see how smooth they are. He wore a pair of dark trousers, and a very white shirt that was unbuttoned at the sleeves and at the neck.

“So,” he said. “Our doctor.”

“Medical student.”

“Listen, if I call you a doctor, you’re a doctor, so enough with that ‘medical student’ bollocks because it’s starting to get on my tits.”

“I have to tell you something,” I began.

“I’m not ready yet,” he said. “So you wait. Take your coat off, make yourself comfortable.”

“No,” I said. “I think I will keep my coat on.”

He disappeared into another room, and then came back a minute later with a tumbler in one hand, ice cubes clinking in it. He did not offer me a drink. Corgan stared at me for a moment, saying nothing. I just sat on the soft leather of his couch and stared out into space. He laughed, took a swallow of his drink, and then put it down on the glass coffee table in front of the couch.

“You must be psychic,” he said.

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s good timing, you coming here now. I would have been sending for you tomorrow anyway. Got a new project for you, doctor,” he said, stressing the last word.

I did not react, I just waited.

He fished in his pockets, found a pair of large gold cufflinks and began threading them through the cuffs of his shirt. “Elena was a big loss,” he said.

“I bet you miss her very much,” I replied. My policy of remaining silent and not saying anything to provoke him had not started very well.

“Now, don’t be cheeky,” he said. “Because you’re the one with the friend all mixed up in that. If I was you I’d be keeping very quiet on that one, you know what I mean.”

“I told you I was not involved.”

“Oh, well, if you told me...fuck it, go in. Here, do this for me.” He held out his arm towards me. I hesitated. I did not want to touch him, let alone dress him. “Go on,” he said. “I haven’t got all fucking night.”

This is about power, I thought. Showing me, he can make me do whatever he wants. He stood right in front of me, his crotch at the level of my head. I could smell the musk of his aftershave. I took the cufflink in my hand, and did it as quickly as I could. I knew he was looking down on the back of my head as I bent down before him. I knew what it would be making him think. The world felt very close, and very hot.

“The other,” he ordered. I did that one too. He stood there before me for a moment, when I had finished, inches from me, not moving, and I did not breathe.

Then he turned away, picked up the glass from the table, and took another drink.

“I have to tell you about—”

“I’ve not finished yet,” he said. “So wait. I want to be out, got dinner with some very important people and I want to make a good impression, proper people, so shut up while I tell you what I want. Elena kept someone important to me happy, and I want to keep on making him happy. It’s cost me an arm and a leg, and too much bloody effort, but I’ve got a girl coming in tomorrow, going to be just the job. I want you to give her a good going over, make sure she’s in tip top health, not got anything nasty going on, you know what I mean. She’s young, fresh, so there shouldn’t be, but I want her checking. You hear me?”

“I hear you,” I said.

“Good.”

“I hear you but I do not listen to you.”

He sighed. “Now don’t tell me we’ve got to go through this again, Anna. I thought I made it clear to you last time. What is it, you want money now? Getting greedy?”

“I will not do it,” I said. “I do not care what you do to me. I will not do it. That is what I have come here to tell you.”

Corgan was suddenly in motion, slamming his drink down so hard on the glass table that I thought that both would break. I jumped to my feet, walking backwards as he came towards me, and trying to get my hand into my coat pocket.

“Will not?
Will not
? Who the
fuck
do you think you are?”

I did not walk backwards quickly enough, or put my hand in my pocket quickly enough, and Corgan punched me in the face. The blow caught me on my cheekbone and sent me sprawling over the back of the couch. My face felt as if it was on fire. Corgan leaned over, lazily, grabbed my hair in his hand, and dragged me back to my feet.

“What was that, my dear?” He cupped a hand to his ear. “I don’t think I quite heard that right.”

“You heard it,” I said. “I am not going to work for you any more.”

“Oh,” he said. He sounded very calm, a little puzzled, as if I had just set him a particularly puzzling sum to do. He let go of me, and wandered back to pick up his drink. “Oh, is that a fact?”

“Yes, yes it is,” I said.

“I don’t think so,” Corgan said. “And you know it, Anna. Is this another of your little tantrums, stamp your foot at me, tell me what a bad man I am? I don’t think so. I’m going out, haven’t got time for any bollocks like that. You’re attitude has been amusing for a while, but I’m bored of it now. So piss off, there’s a good girl.”

“Don’t talk to me like that,” I said. “Like I am just some girl, worth nothing. You are an evil man.”

He grinned. “Evil’s for fairy tales, Anna. I’m the real world. You have no idea.”

“Oh, I have,” I said. “I know the real too.” And I pulled Daniel’s gun out of my coat pocket and I pointed it at his face.

He stood very still. Then he grinned. “Well, you’ve got more balls than I thought. Put that down now, and we won’t say anything more about it. In a way, it makes me admire you. Wish more of my lot had your balls.”

“Elena,” I said.

Corgan shrugged. “What about her?”

“You killed her.”

“Not me.”

“One of your men, then. Makes no difference.”

“Why would I do that?” Corgan said, his voice soft. “She earned good money for me. Was important to me for reasons you wouldn’t even know. Or would you, Anna? I wonder now.”

“Oh, I know,” I said. “You killed her because you thought she was going to ruin your little plan with Budden.”

Corgan’s eyes widened. “Well, you
are
a dark horse. You’re going to tell me how you found out about that.”

“I have the gun, I am not going to tell you anything.”

“We’ll see,” he said. He was very calm. “I didn’t kill her, you know. Didn’t even learn that she was up to anything until after she was dead, when Danny told me about her and your friend.” He looked at me, smiled. “See you know about that too. He left you out of it, the worthless little cock. I’ll be seeing him about that. Guess he wanted to keep you for himself. You are a clever one aren’t you? So what were you going to do, the three of you?”

“Who killed her?”

He shrugged. “Occupational hazard. Budden’d been to see her that night, did his stuff, went away, drank some more, came back early hours of the morning wanting another go. Over-did it a little, what with the drink, lost control of himself, got carried away, and that was that. So I get a call, but not until the next lunchtime, because the stupid bastard had only gone back home and had a kip, hadn’t he, didn’t even call me straight away. Just remembered there’s a bit of a mess, he says. Needs cleaning up. Sorry, but I broke the toy. So I sent my lads round to clear up. And there you go, I didn’t kill her, you can put the gun down.”

“You did kill her. As good as. And every day, there are girls like her, others, far from their homes, on their backs under disgusting men making money for people like you.”

“Supply and demand,” Corgan said. “I don’t kidnap anyone and make them come over here. Put the gun down.”

“No, you just tell them they will work in a bar, or in a club as a hostess. Then you make them junkies and you make them sleep with men and then after a time they have no choice. I know how it works.”

It was then that I knew I was different from Daniel. I knew that I could. And just for a moment, Corgan knew too. He ran his tongue over his lips, looked pale.

“Leave her alone,” Sean said.

He stood at the end of the passage from the front door, with a knife in his hand. It was one from the boiler room, half covered in plaster and left in the sink. He must have taken it while we were there. Oh, Sean, Sean. You were not meant to follow me. You were meant to find the hotel, and then if I did not come back because Corgan had me, or I had killed him and the police had me, you would have been safe.

“And who,” Corgan said, “the fuck are you, and what are you doing in my fucking flat?” He did not appear to notice the knife, or be afraid in any way.

“Anna, get over here,” Sean said.

I looked over at him, and Corgan reached out and grabbed my hand, twisted it so hard I nearly passed out from the pain. I dropped the gun, but the moment he let go of my hand I stepped forward and kicked it away before he could pick it up

“Stay there,” Corgan said. “And you,” he turned to Sean. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, coming into my home—”

“I’m the one,” Sean said. “I’m the one you’re looking for.”

Corgan stood very still for a moment. “Oh,” he said, in a quiet voice. “You are, are you?”

“Sean, get out,” I said.

“I’m the one who helped Elena,” Sean said. “I’m the one who set everything up for her.”

“Thought you’d run away,” Corgan said, moving slowly around the coffee table, so slowly it was almost as if he was not moving at all.

“I don’t leave my friends,” Sean said, holding the knife out and waving it unsteadily towards Corgan.

“Oh,” Corgan said. “Oh, that’s lovely. So sweet.”

“Sean—” I started to shout, and I dropped to my knees to find the gun, but I could not see where it had gone. Corgan was moving fast, out from behind the table and towards Sean, his left hand lifting into the air, and Sean looked up at it for a second, and then Corgan’s right hand came chopping down on Sean’s wrist, and the knife was on the floor and Corgan’s left hand was in a fist and in Sean’s face and Sean was down on the floor and it was all over, and Corgan was not even out of breath.

Corgan took a step forward and kicked Sean hard several times. I thought of my brother, and I picked up Corgan’s heavy whisky glass from the table and threw it at his head. It missed, just, and smashed against the wall instead. Corgan turned, slowly to show that he did not think that I was any threat to him.

He smiled.

“Right, Anna,” he said in a very conversational voice. “Time for a chat.” He could have been suggesting a trip to the cinema. I moved away, he followed. We stepped in a circle around the couch and table. Sean lay on the floor, not moving.

“Get away from me,” I said.

“Oh, Anna,” Corgan said, moving, all the time moving. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Pig,” I said.

“Oink,” Corgan said and laughed. “Fancy picking up some of Elena’s clients, Anna? I’m going to show you what they get off on. Then they can have you. Shame you’re not a bit younger, I’d make a fucking mint.”

Then he ran for me, moving fast, and I tried to run away but I wasn’t ever going to be fast enough so I turned and stopped and thought at least I will make a fight of it, and then Sean lifted his bloody, broken head from the floor and grabbed at Corgan’s ankle, and Corgan lost his balance, a look of surprise on his face, and he fell full length onto his coffee table, and the glass crashed up and over him like drops of water.

I looked around quickly for a weapon, something that I could hit him with before he got up. I saw a vase on the windowsill, grabbed it, and lifted my arms.

And then I put the vase down on the carpet, and looked at Corgan. A map of red spread out around him on the carpet, little tributaries winding between the major rivers, like someone had dropped a glass of wine. He did not move.

“Get out,” Sean mumbled. “Before he comes to.” He struggled up to a sitting position, wiped his own blood from his face.

I held up a hand. “Wait,” I said. I moved around Corgan, looking at the blood, looking at where he had smashed his forehead against the metal frame that was now bent around him, at the shard of glass sticking out from his leg, at the blood which just kept coming and coming.

“He is unconscious because of the blow to the head,” I said. “But it is the glass in his thigh that will make him bleed to death.”

“Good,” Sean said. “I just wish he was conscious, so he could feel himself dying. What the fuck are you doing?” He managed to get to his feet, where he swayed like a young tree in the wind.

“Search the flat,” I said, crouching down next to Corgan’s body. “Use your sleeves or something so you don’t leave fingerprints.”

“Search for what? Anna, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Money, anything. Anything that might help. And get me towels, quick. Get me some, now, before you do anything else.”

Sean swayed and stared at me.

“Now!”

He muttered something, and staggered through to the kitchen. By the time he came back in with the towels I had torn the trouser away from Corgan’s thigh.

“He was going to kill you, Anna. You heard him. Leave the bastard, let’s get the hell out of here.”

I went to work. Corgan’s flesh pouted at me like it wanted a kiss. I pressed a folded towel down on it hard with one hand, pulling another tight around the top of his leg and tying it hard. I had thought about leaving. I had thought about just walking out, leaving Corgan to lie there while the red stain on the carpet spread wider, and wider, until in the end it did not spread any more.