Stone Bruises (32 page)

For a few seconds the only sound is our breathing. Then Jules turns back to his car. I think he’s going to drive off but instead he goes around to the passenger side. He opens the door and leans inside, emerging with something long and slender.

‘I warned you,’ he says, walking towards me.

He’s got a baseball bat.

The situation seems unreal. I take a step back, and as though that’s the trigger he rushes forward. I try to dodge as he swings, gasping in shock as much as pain as the bat smacks into my raised arm. I stumble away as Jules flails wildly, missing more often than he connects, and there’s a clatter of glass as I trip over a box of empty bottles. Off-balance, I only just get my arm up in time as the bat comes at my head. It glances off my shoulder and catches me on the cheek. There’s a hot flash of light, then I’m falling. I land clumsily, sending bottles skittering over the pavement. Numb with panic, I try to scramble away as Jules raises the bat above me, his face contorted.

‘The fuck’s going on?’

The shout comes from across the road. A big figure blocks out the light from the same doorway Jules came from. As it steps into the street I recognize the broad shoulders of Lenny.

‘It’s the cunt from the Zed,’ Jules pants. The bat is still poised ready to swing, but it’s clear he’s deferring to the other man.

The big head moves, trying to make me out in the darkness. ‘What’s he doing here?’

‘He’s heard about Chloe. He’s trying to blame me for—’

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Lenny mutters, and starts towards us.

There’s something terrifying about his unhurried intent, and while Jules is still distracted I grab one of the bottles lying nearby and hurl it at his head. He sees it coming and ducks, and as it shatters behind him I make a run for it. There’s a shout as I barge past, and I feel the bat whoosh past my head close enough to ruffle my hair. Then I’m pounding down the street as hard as I can. Jules’s footsteps are just behind me as Lenny angles across the road to cut me off. There’s nowhere to go, but Jules’s car is dead ahead. Its passenger door is still open, so I throw myself inside. Jules grabs for me and cries out when I slam the door on his arm, trapping it. The baseball bat clatters to the pavement as I heave on the handle, keeping him pinned. His arm’s bleeding where the edge of the door has gouged into it, and as he clutches for me across the seat I see that Lenny has almost reached the car. I can’t keep them both out, so as Jules tries to wrench free I shove the door against him. He stumbles backwards, and as his arm clears the door I yank it shut.

There’s a beautiful
clunk
as I hit the central-locking button and the bolts shoot home. Then the car shudders as Jules hurls himself against it.

‘Open the fucking door!’ he shouts, banging on the glass. ‘You’re dead, you hear me? Fucking dead!’

I’m sprawled across the front seats, gasping for breath. Pushing myself upright, I see why Jules hasn’t used his key to unlock the car.

It’s still in the ignition.

I scramble over to the driver’s seat as he pounds on the passenger window. ‘Don’t you fucking dare!’

My hand shakes as I turn the key and jam my foot down. The car jerks forward and stalls. I flinch at a sudden bang on the door next to me as Lenny rams an elbow against the window. The car rocks as Jules wrenches at the door, yelling as I turn the key again.

‘
No, wait! Don’t—!
’

The engine drowns out his voice. Lenny has picked up the baseball bat but I’m already accelerating away. He jumps back but Jules runs alongside, still hammering on the glass. He’s screaming at me now, but I stamp on the pedal and he abruptly disappears. There’s time for a moment’s relief, then the steering wheel is almost torn from my hands as the car bucks and judders. A clattering comes from the passenger side, as though something’s snagged underneath. The juddering stops as I brake, jerking forward as the car screeches to a halt. I twist round, but there’s no one nearby. In the rear-view mirror I can see Lenny standing motionless in the road behind me.

There’s no sign of Jules.

The engine chugs softly. I look over at the passenger side. The seatbelt is trapped in the door, unspooled and twisted like a miniature noose. When I reach over and open it, the belt snakes sluggishly back inside as it tries to rewind. But the mechanism’s damaged and it soon stops. I stare at the frayed fabric, thinking about Jules groping for me across the seat. How he banged on the window as I sped off.

Leaving the engine running, I climb out of the car.

Lenny is staring down at something lying in the gutter. It isn’t moving, and in the glow from a streetlight I can see the back-to-front wrongness of its limbs. Something black and viscous pools around it, glistening like oil. Any doubts I might have are snuffed by Lenny’s lack of urgency. I automatically take a step forward but stop when he raises his head and looks at me. He’s still holding the baseball bat, and I back away as he starts walking towards me with a deliberation that’s chilling. The driver’s door bumps against my legs, then I’m scrambling into the car and grinding through the gears.

As I roar away, I glance in the rear-view mirror. Lenny has stopped in the middle of the road. My last view is of him staring after me, the baseball bat still gripped in one hand.

I drive until I feel I’ve gone far enough to be safe. Pulling over, I manage to open the door in time to throw up, hanging onto the door as I heave scalding bile into the road. When the spasm’s passed I grope for my phone to call for an ambulance. It won’t do Jules any good but I’m functioning automatically now, obeying the Pavlovian response of a good citizen. Besides, I can’t think of anything else to do.

But my phone’s broken. Its screen is cracked and the casing threatens to come apart in my hand. I don’t know when it happened, but it’s useless. I start driving again, intending to stop at the first public phone I come to. Except I don’t see one. I turn on the windscreen wipers as a sudden downpour smears the glass, turning the world outside into an Impressionist blur. I feel like I’m trapped in a nightmare, but gradually my mind starts to work again. Soon I’m able to think clearly. At least, that’s how it seems at the time.

It’s still raining, but the first flush of a summer dawn is lightening the sky when I pull up outside my flat. Almost feverish with the need to hurry, I let myself in. I’m shaking, hurting all over, but I can’t stay here. Lenny knows who I am, and it’s only a matter of time before he or his business associates find me. I can’t even hand myself in to the police, because I doubt I’d be any safer in prison. There’s only one thing I can think of to do.

I cram clothes and what cash I have lying around into my rucksack, only remembering my passport at the last minute. I take a last look around the small flat, with its shelves of old DVDs and framed film posters. There’s a rare reproduction from
Rififi
, and a print of Vadim’s
Et Dieu … créa la femme
with a luridly breathy Bardot that nearly bankrupted me. None of it seems important now.

I close the door and hurry back out to where I’ve parked Jules’s car. It’s an Audi, sleek and expensive. I don’t look like the sort of person to own an expensive car, but the urge to get away overwhelms everything else.

There’s never any question of where I’m going to go.

I throw my rucksack into the boot and go to open the driver’s door before I stop. I don’t want to see what might be on the passenger side, but I can’t leave without making sure. Checking that the street is still empty, I make myself go around the car. The black paintwork on the rear wheel arch is scraped and dented. But not so much that it will attract any attention, and the rain has washed off whatever blood was there.

There’s nothing to show what I’ve done.

It’s too early for much traffic, and I make good time to the Dover ferry terminal. By now reaction is setting in. I’m hungover and exhausted, aching from the fight earlier. Nothing seems real, and it’s only as I’m buying a ticket that it occurs to me that the car registration number might flag an alert. I’m stunned at my own stupidity for not having abandoned it and boarded as a foot passenger.

But there are no sirens, no alarms. I drive the dead man’s car into the boat’s cavernous metal belly, then go up on deck and watch the white cliffs slowly recede.

A few hours later I’m hitching on a dusty French road under a white sun.

IT DOESN’T TAKE
long to pack. My few clothes and belongings are soon tucked away in the rucksack. I could have left it until morning, but it feels more like a statement of intent to do it now. I’m not going to change my mind this time.

If anything, that makes me even more nervous about Mathilde’s visit.

After that, there’s nothing to do but wait. It’s fully dark outside, though it’s not yet nine o’clock. Another sign that summer’s almost over. Three hours till Mathilde comes. Her copy of
Madame Bovary
lies beside the mattress. Something else I’ll be leaving unfinished. In the glow from the lamp, I look around the shadowed loft. Even with all its junk and cobwebs, it’s come to feel like home. I’ll be sorry to leave it.

I lie on the bed and light another of my last cigarettes. I flick off the flame from the lighter, remembering the photograph from Brighton curling to ash. I wish Gretchen hadn’t burned it, but then I wish a lot of things. Maybe I couldn’t have altered what happened to Chloe, but I’ll always wonder. And even if I could somehow absolve myself of failing her, no one made me go to Docklands that night. Because I did a man is dead. Never mind that it was accidental, or that I was only trying to get away. I killed someone.

There’s no escaping that.

I blow smoke at the ceiling. I have to go back, I know that now. The thought of what will happen is still terrifying, but for my own peace of mind I’ve got to take responsibility for what I’ve done. Yet whenever I think about Mathilde, and what she might want, I feel my resolve wavering.

Then there’s another complication. The plastic package from Jules’s car is still where I hid it after the gendarmes’ visit. I can’t leave it there, but I can hardly take a kilo of cocaine back into the UK with me.

So what do I do with it?

The loft is close and humid, too airless for me to think. I go to the open window. Beyond the grapevines and woods, I can just make out the lake, silver against the darkness. Seeing it gives me a sudden sense of purpose. Mathilde won’t be here for a while yet, and I promised myself I’d swim in it once the stitches came out.

This is my last chance.

I don’t bother with the lamp as I descend from the loft, trusting to familiarity to negotiate the wooden steps. Moonlight floods through the open barn doors, illuminating the crumbling concrete I became so paranoid about. I barely give it a thought as I pass by on my way outside.

The drizzle has stopped. The night smells unbelievably sweet, a fresh breeze stirring the vine leaves. There’s a full moon, but the torn clouds that pass over it cast scurrying shadows on the field. There’s a constant rustle of movement as I enter the woods. Water drips from the branches, darkening the statues hidden among the trees. The white flowers that Gretchen hung around the nymph’s neck seem luminescent when the moonlight touches them, but fade away as another cloud crosses the moon.

Then I’ve left the stone figures behind and ahead of me is the lake. There’s an iron tang to the air, and the black water is shivered by the breeze. A sudden movement makes me start, but it’s only a duck ruffling its feathers. As the moon re-emerges I see there are more of them, dotted around the bank like stones. I make my way to the patch of shingle and strip off. My bare feet look mismatched, one of them unmarked and familiar, the other thin and white, criss-crossed with angry weals.

The frigid water takes away my breath when I walk out into the lake. I reflexively rise onto tiptoe as it laps up to my groin, then wade further out. I pause when the bottom abruptly shelves away, bracing myself before plunging in.

It’s like diving into ice. Cold stabs into my ears as the water closes over my head, then I break into a clumsy crawl. I thrash out towards the centre of the lake, forcing blood into my sluggish limbs. Gasping, I tread water and look around. My wake has left a ragged tear across the surface. Everything seems different out here, strange and still. The water feels bottomless and deep. Below me there’s a flicker of silver as a fish catches the moonlight. Looking down, I see my body suspended in blackness, so pale it looks bloodless.

God, it feels good. I start swimming again, this time in an easy breaststroke. The bluff where I’ve spent so many afternoons rises up in front of me, the sweeping branches of the chestnut tree spread like wings against the sky. Seeing it brings home that I’ve been there for the last time, and as quickly as that any pleasure is snuffed out.

I wanted to swim in the lake, and now I have. There’s no point staying out any longer. I turn to head back, but as I kick out my foot touches something hard. I jerk away before realizing it’s only the submerged rock I’ve seen from the bluff. Tentatively, I stretch out a foot again.

And quickly recoil.

The rock is smooth. Not with the expected slime of algae or weed, but a hard, polished smoothness. I lower one foot, then the other, until I’m standing on it. The water comes up to my chin. The surface below me is flat and slightly convex, pitted with tiny blisters of corrosion. But I don’t need those to tell me it isn’t rock I’m standing on.

It’s a car roof.

I probe around with my toes, mapping its shape. One foot slips off the edge and suddenly there’s nothing beneath me but water. I flail around as the lake closes over my head, coughing and choking as I stand on the roof again. At least I’ve established that it isn’t a car. The roof’s too narrow and truncated for that.

More like the cab of a truck.

Shivering, I look at the lake’s banks. They’re a long way off and too soft and muddy to drive across anyway. No, the only way anything could end up here is if it came off the bluff. I stare up at the overhanging edge, trying to imagine a truck rolling off by accident. It’s too far away, though. For whatever I’m standing on to have got this far out it must have been driven off deliberately.