Something You Are (24 page)

The second and Emma was on the ground, between them, the bullet-hole in her forehead turned in the direction of the
camera. Matt had a gun in his hand and was making some sort of gesture. Next photo he was undoing his jeans. I couldn't see his expression and I didn't want to.

As he was fucking her he had a hand around her jaw, watching her face as if she were still alive.

I looked away for a second, cleared my throat and continued.

Fast-forward through the pictures and Kyle was on his knees, at gunpoint, sobbing, between her legs. Emma was still facing the camera, impassive, dead, with her dad's eyes. Matt was looking at his watch, only half watching the gun he was pointing at Kyle.

The last shot and Matt was caught, mid-kick, the toe of his shoe flying towards her stomach, her jeans lying discarded next to the car. It was the only shot where I could see him properly, but his face seemed empty. He didn't look as if he had even broken into a sweat.

Kyle was sitting on the ground by the car, his knees pulled into his chest, still crying. Making him an accomplice guaranteed his silence.

‘He asked me where my faith was,' I said, snorting. ‘Jesus… So Felix Hudson was actually telling the truth.'

I looked at the photo of Matt, trousers around his ankles, hand around her jaw, and immediately started fantasizing about how slowly I was going to kill him. As I turned them face down and gave them back to Mark, I could feel my face contorting with disgust.

Nothing would ever make me look at the photos again.

Mark put them back in the envelope and smiled. ‘Oh, you gonna “kill him dead”.'

‘“Dead man walking here.”'

‘So we can go home?'

‘Soon as you pack.'

He reclined, leaning back on his elbows. ‘Are you gonna tell me whose blood that is?'

‘“I killed Paul Allen”' – I grinned, throwing in three pairs of jeans – ‘“with an axe.”'

‘Touché. Your business.'

I was surprised Edie agreed to see me. Either she didn't hold grudges for very long, or was just curious as to what I had to say. She met me in a bar not far from our old flat; it was nice to have moved back, even if I still found myself on the lookout for Tristan from time to time.

I expected to be waiting for a while but she wasn't late, for once. She was wearing a huge pair of sunglasses and the same shoes that she had thrown at me last time.

‘Someone got better aim than me?' she remarked, brushing her fingertips across the bruise on my forehead.

‘Girls just line up to throw shoes at my head.'

‘That's what I like to hear.' She sat down and picked up the glass of red wine that I had ordered. ‘Thanks, babe. We're not being watched, are we?'

‘No, Jesus… Look, I know you have no reason to believe me but I'm not some informant. The guy was a source, I paid him for info, not the other way around. You think I don't make enough money without doing
that
?'

For a while she just watched me over the rim of the glass; then she took the sunglasses off. She didn't look as if she was angry, or was going to cut the conversation off and walk away. Instead, she smiled at me.

‘Sid said you came round. Well, he didn't say your name but I guessed it was you.'

‘I promise I wouldn't have hurt Scott.'

‘No, I know you wouldn't. Sid didn't, so he was pretty mad… But does this mean you have something for me?'

I took the DVDs out of my coat and passed them across the table.

‘That's all of them,' I said.

‘For sure?'

‘Certain. You don't have to pay me. Let's just call it an apology, for being stupid enough to get myself caught on camera in the first place.'

‘You're not the only one who's been stupid enough to get caught on camera.' She put them in her handbag, smiling. ‘Thanks. I mean it.'

‘Scott's clever.'

‘Yeah, he is.'

‘Does he read a lot?'

She shrugged and sipped her wine. ‘God knows. Maybe it's the wonders of the internet? Kids can get at anything nowadays.'

I thought of the walls of books, shelf upon shelf, and wondered how she couldn't know that. Sidney had probably been right, it made no difference whether it was her son or her car. I had known that at the time, but it was too late now; it wasn't as if I could take them back.

‘Hey, something weird happened last night,' she said. ‘This girl was in the club asking for you…'

‘Another one wanting to throw a high heel at me?'

‘No, I'm serious, she was called Daisy. Weird name… little blonde thing.'

My first instinct was to laugh. ‘Daisy? Seriously?'

‘Yeah, blonde, doesn't wear much, going into every bar round the West End asking everyone if they knew a Nic Caruana because she needed to speak to you. She said she'd been looking for two days.'

‘Seriously?'

‘Yeah, just going from place to place.' She raised her eyebrows. ‘You haven't got some poor girl into trouble, have you?'

‘What? No, no, not at all. Did she say what it was about?'

I couldn't make sense of the image; Daisy, walking from bar to bar and accosting everyone she met, for two days. I could believe it of her. She seemed crazy enough, bloody-minded enough.

‘I don't know,' Edie said. ‘You don't think I'd tell someone I know you personally? I kicked her out.'

‘Damn…'

‘You know her then? This
Daisy
?'

‘Yeah, I…' I realized I had started standing up, and forced myself back down. ‘Yeah, I know her.'

‘Am I keeping you?'

I grinned. ‘You jealous?'

‘She wasn't a natural blonde.'

This time I did stand up. ‘Sorry, I'd stay but this is really important.'

‘I'm intrigued.' She stood up also and shook my hand. ‘Thank you for these, Nic, and I hope she's worth it.'

‘She's a mouthy little shite,' I said, as I moved around the table towards the door.

‘Aren't all the best women?'

I didn't know what she wanted. I could only imagine that it was something to do with Matt and Kyle. As I ran up to the familiar front door, it occurred to me that I had wanted to come back anyway.

She answered the door with a roll of the eyes and dragged me inside by the sleeve of my coat. ‘Well, you took your merry time, I've got blisters on my fucking heels!'

I stared at her. ‘Have you actually been looking for me for two days?'

‘Well…' She shrugged. ‘You said West End, right? I figured you'd have to have gone out for a drink
sometime
but you know what, no one knows you. You didn't give me some fake name, did you?'

‘No, sorry, that's just what they're meant to say.'

‘Ha! Man of fucking
mystery
!' She punched my arm, swaying a little as she walked away from me into the living room and picked up one of the many half-drunk bottles I could see scattered about. ‘I'm meant to be impressed, eh? You want a drink? I have… cider and… cider, with vodka?'

‘It's midday.'

‘Suit yourself. I ran out of brown, right. It sucks.'

With practised balance, she dropped to the floor,
cross-legged
, and lit a cigarette. She was wearing an oversized white shirt with a belt and red leg-warmers around her shins.

‘Why were you looking for me?'

She laughed to herself, brushing her hair out of her eyes so she could take a drag. ‘You think I'm joking, but I really did just go down all the roads, asking random people, going into bars and asking the barmen… Dense of me really, I mean, this is fucking
London
.'

‘You found me though.' I bent down, trying to meet her eyes. ‘Hey, why did you want to find me?'

‘I'm not stupid,' she said, picking up her cider again and tapping ash into the tray by the sofa. ‘I know that most people think I am, cos of how I dress or how I didn't finish college or anything, but I wanted to say that I'm fucking not. All right?'

I waited for her to stop drinking, and sat down on the floor with her. There were shadows under her eyes and her skin was blotchy with alcohol.

‘You think Kyle and Matt killed her, don't you? I mean, I know you haven't said that, but that is why you're so interested in them, right?'

‘Yeah.'

She pulled a face and concentrated too hard on her next drag. ‘You sure?'

‘Certain. Well, Matt killed her. Kyle was an accomplice, he helped cover it up.'

She nodded, quite violently, and kept nodding for a while. It was impressive, how well she took the confirmation, but she had never struck me as someone who would cry.

‘And Meds?' she said.

‘I suspect Matt worked out that he had spoken to me.'

‘Shit… Was it over her getting rid of the kid?'

‘Apparently. Well, Matt did it, and I think that's why.'

She fiddled with one of her leg-warmers. ‘I really encouraged her, like, “Get rid of it, girl, you're too young.” She was mega torn-up about it… I don't know if she would have kept the thing if we hadn't been so fucking hardline.'

‘It's not your fault.'

‘Well, who knows?'

‘No, Daisy, look at me… It's not.'

Her eyes moved from my face to the mantelpiece behind me, scanning her array of figurines.

‘I know where they are,' she said. ‘Kyle called by the other day. He doesn't know I talked to you but he was picking up stuff.' She reached into the breast pocket of her shirt and handed me a Post-it. ‘I wrote down the address as soon as he was gone; I'd have forgotten it otherwise. I have to drop round some money of his when the drugs sell on.'

I took the Post-it and watched her stubbing her cigarette out in the tray, unfinished. I pictured her, wandering around
the West End with a name and a Post-it with an address on it, meeting all kinds of ridicule and bemusement. I didn't know what to make of her; whether she was remarkable or just fucking mental.

‘Wow, thanks, this is—'

‘You're not gonna arrest them though, are you?
Private
investigator…'

I started to lie, but knew she wouldn't buy it. ‘No. No, I don't arrest people.'

She started nodding again.

‘That doesn't bother you, does it?' I asked.

‘Wouldn't have told ya if it did, would I? I suppose. It's just a weird thought. With Meds dead, and Emma, and now… Like, does killing everyone really make that massive a difference at the end of the day? It's not like it makes it better. It just means everyone's dead.'

‘I just do what I'm paid for.' I kept hoping she might look at me again, but she didn't. ‘It must make it better for who's paying.'

‘I think' – another gulp of cider – ‘you might be full of shit. But what do I know, right? I'm only young and naive and, well, you've got his address now and I spent two days looking for you so…'

I looked at the address. I thought of Clare, and Pat, and the photos.

‘It's justice though, isn't it? It's proper justice.'

‘I suppose I just wish… that I was stupid. Sorry, I wish I didn't know this much about you. You get me?'

‘I get you.' I stood up. ‘It really wasn't your fault. Matt's very… well, I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd done it anyway, even without that particular motive.'

‘Road's closed now. No point going over what we don't
know.' She stretched her legs out into the space where I had been sitting.

I took out my wallet and offered her some notes.

‘Na, it's all right.' She waved me away. ‘It would feel like
I
was being paid to do it or something.'

‘Well, take my number anyway, just in case.' I put the wallet away, regretting the offer, and gave her a card instead. ‘This means a lot. It'll mean a lot to her parents, to me.'

‘Safe. Well, I guess you're all
very
welcome.'

I didn't know why it stung so much, being refused acknowledgement, knowing that last time she had wanted me to come back and now I was certain she didn't. With a quick glance at the birds, I let myself back out and shut the door.

I called Pat.

I picked Pat up from Westminster and, with him belted into his seat and less likely to lose his cool, I told him everything.

Knowing what I did now, about what he let people think, I found myself almost warming to him. He was still conceited as hell and dripping with self-importance, but it was brave, what he had chosen to do.

‘Pregnant,' he said. ‘She never said a fucking word.'

‘She was just scared you'd be angry.'

‘Damn right, I'd have been angry, I'd have…' He shook his head. ‘But I would have been on her side, you know.'

‘It's hard, at her age. You feel like everyone's just waiting for you to fuck up.'

‘You're more likely to remember than me.' He grimaced. ‘Clare would have gone fucking ape-shit.'

The scale of her reaction had shocked me at the time. I could only imagine what she would have done had Emma told her.

‘You know, she was a good mum, when she was on track with it,' he said, resting his elbow on the window. ‘Her and Em didn't see eye to eye on a lot but it was just a clash of personalities. They wouldn't have been good friends, if you know what I mean, but she was good at being a mum.'

‘I don't doubt that.'

‘I just don't want you to get the wrong idea about her, because of how she is.'

It didn't go unnoticed, how he was protecting her reputation again. He couldn't stand anybody thinking badly of her.

‘How did you guys meet?' I asked.

He smiled. ‘She made the move on me in this pub. She was with a load of model friends or whatever, and when they left she just sat down next to me and said she wanted to stay and have another drink. So fucking young, only twenty. I was like a decade older than her but I was head over heels… obviously.'

‘Have you gone back home yet?'

‘I think she needs some more time.' He looked at his hands. ‘She's so fucking exhausting sometimes, but I still don't know what I'd do without her.'

‘You think you'll be all right? I mean, after this?' I stopped at some traffic lights just outside Clapham.

‘I don't know. I don't know if she's ever been completely all right, that's the thing.' He thought about it for a bit, and then said, ‘And I can't see any end. I can't think of any day in the future where I'm going to be
over it
.'

‘It gets easier, so people tell me, eventually.' I snorted. ‘But no, I get what you mean. They're probably talking shit, to be honest.'

‘Reckon this will make me feel better though.'

‘You and me, both.'

‘Thanks for this.'

‘It's just my job.'

I started counting the numbers on the terraced houses, relishing the idea of the looks on their faces. When I spotted number fifty-four, I pulled over and stopped the car. I heard Pat exhale.

‘What are their names again?'

‘Matt and Kyle.' I let myself out and gestured at the boot. ‘You want anything?'

‘Maybe later.' He smirked at me. ‘I'll be fine with the basics for now.'

‘You take downstairs then. I'll head straight up just in case.'

I walked up to the front door, a flimsy red thing with the kind of lock you see on garden sheds. With Pat shielding me from the road I took out my gun and silencer and shot it to pieces.

The door fell straight open when I shoulder-charged it, falling into a hallway and running directly up a narrow flight of stairs. I didn't even hear Pat come in; my eyes were on the next floor. It was the most common method of escape, taking a window from the second floor into the back garden.

I saw white walls, holes in the plaster, a bedroom door slamming shut. I sprinted towards it and kicked it open, right into Kyle's face.

He fell backwards on to the carpet, his shattered nose spewing blood down his front.

‘Please! Please don't shoot!' he was screaming.

There were no weapons in his hands.

I fired a shot into the floor by his head to keep him down, and listened for Pat, coming up the stairs.

‘Anything?' I called.

‘No one down there.'

‘WHERE'S MATT?' I shouted at Kyle, grabbing him by the hair and forcing the gun into his forehead.

‘I don't know! He's not here!'

I glanced at Pat. ‘Nothing?'

‘No one down there.'

‘Fuck!'

I let Kyle go, aimed a kick into the wall, saw a small bookshelf and threw the thing over. I sat down on the end of
the single bed, shaking with anger, thinking of Matt's face, his smug lying face…

‘Which one's this?' Pat asked, his gun aimed at Kyle's head.

‘Kyle.' I looked up. ‘Kyle, this is Pat Dyer.'

Kyle's eyes widened and he started to scrabble away across the floor, towards my feet. ‘Fuck… Fuck, no. Please, I didn't kill her, I didn't mean for this to—'

Pat shot Kyle in the hand and blood hit my face. The bullet had gone through the back of his palm and into the floor. Kyle started screaming, so loud that I had to get down and grab him from behind to muffle the sound.

‘Boot of the car,' I shouted at Pat, holding Kyle as still as I could. ‘Get tape!'

Pat stared at Kyle for a while as if he hadn't heard me, and then turned and went back downstairs.

‘Where's Matt?' I hissed.

When I took my hand away from his mouth he just kept screaming, so I forced him to be quiet and shouted at him again.

‘WHERE'S MATT?'

‘I don't… know. North… I don't…
oh God
…'

I let him cry to himself until Pat came back with the tape, and also a blowtorch. At the sight of him Kyle's struggling intensified, what was left of his left hand flailing in mid-air and getting blood all over me. I stood up and kicked him forwards on to the carpet, and in the few seconds he had free before Pat forced the tape over his mouth, he managed to say, ‘No, I didn't! I
didn't
!'

It had crossed my mind in the car that he hadn't been the one to kill her, but in covering it up he had done himself no favours.

Pat sneered, ‘You as good as did.'

I took a step back. His cheeks were sunken into his face. I couldn't help but see him on his knees between Emma's legs, at gunpoint, trousers round his ankles and tears running down his face…

I hadn't told Pat those details.

There was a horrible hacking sound from behind the gag as Pat taped Kyle's wrists behind his back. I let him get on with it and sat down at the end of the bed again. It wasn't as if I expected him to need any assistance.

He turned the blowtorch on and off a few times, dragged Kyle up and held it against his eye.

A vile smell reached me on the smoke, and I grimaced.

Kyle was thrashing in mid-air as Pat held him up, ignoring the noises coming from behind the tape. His jeans became dark as he pissed himself and urine trickled on to the floor.

I moved a little further down the bed.

‘Wanna watch, Nic?'

‘Na, you're all right.'

I'd heard the sound before, but it always surprised me, hearing someone's eyeball audibly popping.

I swallowed.

Kyle went limp as he passed out, and Pat dropped him to the floor. His right eye socket was a blackened hole, releasing a small trail of blood down his face. The air smelt like charred meat.

‘I like the idea of my face being the last thing that fucker ever sees,' he said, sitting on the floor next to Kyle's prone form and taking out a packet of cigarettes. ‘But he didn't kill her, did he?'

‘Technically, no.'

‘Smoke, Nic? Ha, ironic…'

‘Yes, please.' I took the cigarette and nodded at Kyle. ‘He
helped to cover it up, dispose of the body. But no, he didn't actually do it.'

‘And he was her boyfriend, right?' He gestured with the lighter and I couldn't believe how calm he was.

‘Yeah.'

‘Hm.' He picked up the blowtorch again and blasted the flame against Kyle's neck, blistering the skin. ‘I'll pay you half for this, if you like, as this has gone on a while. Half when you track down the other guy. Is that OK?'

I hadn't thought about the money for a while. ‘God, yeah, that's fine. Don't worry about it.'

‘I thought…' He gave Kyle's face a going-over, releasing a putrid coil of smoke, but he looked bored. ‘I thought it would feel different.'

‘What?' I exhaled towards the mould on the ceiling.

‘This.' He snorted. ‘Hey, shall I pop the other eye and see if that helps?'

I looked at Kyle's hand, at the hole and mess of broken tendons and pulsing blood where his palm used to be. Remembering what Felix Hudson had said, I agreed with Pat. This didn't feel like fun.

‘I thought I'd feel like… like I really fucking wanted it,' he continued. ‘But it… it just feels… God, it all feels pointless now. I mean, like Clare… she wouldn't be proud of me now, because it doesn't make a difference, does it? It doesn't bring…'

He sniffed, took a drag, red eyes blinking through an exhale of smoke.

‘How old is this guy? Nineteen? … It doesn't bring her back,' he said.

It would have been better if it had been Matt, I realized. As it was, Kyle was nothing. He was a fuck-up, who had committed
the worst of his crimes at gunpoint. He was just a mannequin for Pat to vent his rage on; a punch bag with a face drawn on it.

‘Pat,' I said. ‘Everyone I spoke to, Emma's friends and people like that, they all said that she really cared about what you thought. If I asked about her parents, they all said she got on with you.'

I thought I was about to see him cry as he nodded at me, taking the gesture in. But he just took a longer drag on his cigarette, and then stubbed it out on Kyle's arm.

He inhaled his own second-hand smoke. ‘What did they say about Clare?'

It was depressing to witness, how much he cared, and how much she didn't.

I didn't reply quickly enough, and he looked crushed.

‘They were just such different people,' he said, trying to justify my silence. ‘Em was at a difficult age anyway. It was… Em once said to me that if Clare was a girl at school, she'd think she was a spoilt bitch.'

I wasn't sure whether to smile or not until he did, shaking his head.

‘Spoilt bitch?'

‘Spoilt
rich-bitch
. Shouldn't laugh really, but she was just being sixteen, you know. I think Clare wanted Em to be more like her and… well, when you're that age you want to be the opposite of anything your parents are. I understood it.' He nodded at me. ‘Em probably didn't think I did, but I got it.'

We both looked to the window. There was no view; just the wall of the building next to it. Everything seemed so still.

I finished my cigarette, feeling numb inside, thinking about Matt.

Pat stood up.

‘You done already?' I said.

He took out his gun and shot Kyle through the head.

Kyle jerked against the ground to the muffled whistle of the silencer.

I looked at him and swallowed. His face was almost unrecognizable as human. I felt nothing, but was unsure if I would have done the same.

It was probably better this way, rather than letting him live with all this. Looking at him now, at his emaciated frame, it was as if the memories had been physically eating away at his body, like parasites.

‘I'm done,' Pat said, wiping his nose and putting his gun back inside his coat. ‘I'd rather be having a fucking Scotch. Wouldn't you?'

I heard a noise downstairs, like the front door opening very quietly.

Pat didn't react for a moment but I was already down the stairs and out through the open door into the street. I could see his back, turning a corner into a passage behind gardens.

He must have been waiting there, hiding downstairs, waiting for the best moment to sneak out. He should have stayed where he was…

Every fibre of every muscle was straining, focusing on the back of his hoodie. My mind was full of the scenes of what we would do to him when I'd caught him, when I'd brought him back…

We tore across a road, at least two streets away from the house now.

Matt looked back, once, every fibre of every muscle straining for survival against the death that pursued him just as ruthlessly.

Did it bring her back?

It doesn't bring her back
.

I shook the thought out of my head and felt rain on my face.

We were heading towards a secondary school, fenced off from the rest of the street.

Matt hit the chain-link fence at full speed and scrambled over. By the time I reached it he was tearing away across the school field and I had slowed down. I knew I could have climbed it, I knew I could have caught him, but I had slowed down, and then I stopped.

Through the mesh I saw him reach the other side of the field, scale the other fence and disappear.

I couldn't have caught him; he had had too much of a head-start.

It doesn't bring her back
.

Why hadn't I just climbed the fucking fence? Because I hadn't wanted to? Because I couldn't have caught him anyway? Because, at the end of the day, who did the cataclysmic loss of life affect if neither Pat nor Clare really wanted it? It didn't affect anyone apart from me.

What difference did one more mangled body on a bedroom floor make?

I waited by the fence for a long time, shivering, as if I was still going to climb it.