Sudden Death (13 page)

He had sat down on a bench that was wet with foggy residue and tried to breathe. This time his lungs had responded and provided oxygen and he had felt the creature’s grip loosen as his head thickened pleasurably.

‘There you go,’ he had heard himself say. ‘There you go.’

Now he looked outside the apartment window and down to the gravel driveway that he shared with two of the other apartments, one above, one below. He swore as he saw his old Golf there. Seems like he had driven home. At least it looked unmarked, which hopefully meant he hadn’t hit something or someone.

He sat in his armchair and looked around the room. It didn’t need a CSI team to reconstruct what he had been doing last night. Records and CDs were scattered around the room, most of them on the floor, and his laptop was on the couch, still open and running. He picked it up and placed it on the coffee table. It was burning hot, the fan whirring loudly. He wondered whether a laptop overheating on an old frayed sofa could cause a fire. The effort of wondering caused another blinding stab of pain, but not before he decided that yes it probably could.

Erasmus let out a further groan as his foot found the second bottle of Yamakazi hidden under a record sleeve, The Fall’s
I Am Kurious Oranj
. He was thankful that the record cover and the floor underneath was soaking wet and stank of whisky. A two-bottle night would have left him incapacitated for a couple of days.

Water, he needed water. He walked across to the kitchen diner and poured himself a long glass and drank it down, stumbled over to the couch and took a seat.

Panic. She had been with him for years. Sometimes she would sleep and it was almost as if she had gone away. But then he would sense her, the insomniac twinge in the chest that your 4 a.m. brain told you was cancer, the fear of a late-night phone call, and there she was, not all over you, suffocating you like last night, but there, her breath on your neck, letting you know that she had never gone away.

It was the violence, of course, that had brought it on. Erasmus hated violence and he hated even more men who welcomed it, who sought it out, thinking it some sort of game.

He breathed out.
Relax, relax
, he told himself. Another panic attack now was always possible now he was hung-over and tired: she liked to hunt when the victim was weak.

Erasmus sat forward. He needed a distraction. He hit the laptop space bar and the screen lit up; a cool blue light. Safari was open at a web page. It was Liverpool College for Girls’ website and there was a picture of a girls hockey team. Underneath the picture there was a caption: ‘Liverpool College Girls Hockey Team (Seniors) 2012’ and then a list of names identifying each of the players. Erasmus read the list and then looked back to the photograph. Third from the end, back row, was a pretty, dark haired girl with her hair pulled back. She was wearing no make-up and had healthy red apples in each cheek. The text below identified her as ‘Jess Tallow’. He recognised the surname but couldn’t quite place it.

He had obviously had a busy night. He clicked on the History tab.

He could see the combinations he had tried, there were lots of Google searches: Jess and Liverpool; Jessica and Liverpool and Blood House Bar; Jessica and Natalie Cole; Jessica and Gary Jones; Jessica and Wayne Jennings; Jessica and Everton. The History tab showed over a hundred such searches. The random throwing of darts by a blindfold, drunken, whisky-soaked fool. Even this morning he knew straight away how to find Jessica. It must have taken him hours the night before. So much for alcohol aiding creativity.

He clicked on Facebook and found Natalie Cole. Her profile picture was of her and an almost identical female – same eye make-up, same hair do – sharing a cocktail. Her privacy settings were the lowest. She wanted the world to see her. He navigated the list of friends. There were two Jessicas and one of them sort of matched the girl in the Liverpool College photograph. Sort of matched because the picture on Natalie’s Facebook page was of what looked like an older, much more glamorous woman, pouting at the camera, hand on hips, a mix of sexual invitation and innocence.
Christ knows what her old man thinks seeing his school age daughter go out like this
, thought Erasmus. He clicked on Jess Tallow’s profile but instantly ran up against full privacy settings.

A wave of nausea hit Erasmus and he swallowed hard, breathing through his nose, and just about holding onto last night’s dinner, what ever that had been. If he saw it again now at least he’d know what he had eaten. He chuckled out loud in hysteria

Jess Tallow was from the fee-paying Liverpool College. It seemed football player worship cut across the class barrier. He Googled ‘Tallow’ and ‘Liverpool’ and was rewarded with over five hundred hits. The first five told him that he had been right recognising the name.

Frank Tallow and Partners was a law firm operating from a small office in Castle Street, not five hundred yards from the Blood House Bar. Erasmus had run into Frank at a law society function. He remembered a sneering comment upon being introduced that may have been, ‘I didn’t realise that the military had a legal service,’ before he had turned his back on Erasmus. He had forgotten about him but now recalled his face. A weighty man with a rosy face and a self satisfied air.

Frank specialised in media law, defamation, libel and privacy. The first few links were newspaper articles, PR puff pieces, that showed him standing next to a string of Z-list celebrities, shaking their hand and usually accompanied by some banal text about the partnership.

Erasmus had half been expecting to find references to a missing daughter, a murder even. He wasn’t sure why but he had thought Natalie’s comment that Jess hadn’t been seen in months after threatening to talk to the papers meant she could have been the victim of a plot to silence her. But surely any disappearance of the daughter of Frank Tallow would have made the news? There was nothing.

He clicked through a few more articles. Nothing about the daughter. Although there was a mention, not in the local rag which may take advertising from him, thought Erasmus, about an unsuccessful libel claim by a minor kids TV presenter which had been withdrawn by way of agreement between the parties. Frank Tallow was quoted as saying his client vehemently denied the accusations but for the sake of his family would not be pursuing the newspaper that had hinted at his predilection for young boys. This time there was no accompanying photograph of Frank Tallow shaking hands with the celebrity.

Erasmus sank back into the embrace of the couch and decided that he needed to sleep. There seemed to be liquid concrete setting in the vicinity in of his cerebral cortex. Sleep, he told himself, but his body violently disagreed and he set off running towards the toilet.

CHAPTER 15

The thing is, nobody else knows what it’s like. They think they do, but they don’t. They talk endlessly about how they feel, how their friends have made them feel, how TV makes them feel, how life makes them feel! But they never, ever, ask me how I feel!

I can tell you how I feel. Only you understand. I don’t want you to take this the wrong way but I never knew how lonely I really was until you found me. Only now, now that I know ‘LOVE’ – how strange and exciting it feels to type that word and how insufficient are those four letters to try and encapsulate all that I feel, the fire that flows in veins that were cold and empty – only now do I realise how little I knew of loneliness.

Loneliness is not sitting in your bedroom crying like a child because no one else understands me. It’s not missing my dead pets or wanting to find someone, anyone, to talk to and tell them how I feel. I’ve had that all my life. I can deal with that, you know I can. Loneliness is the absence of love. I was lonely but until I found love, or until it found me, I didn’t know what its absence felt like. Now I do. In the moments when I am waiting for you I feel loneliness of a kind that I never knew existed.

You filled the void and you know – without me telling you so many times it’s scary!! – how I feel because you feel it too. You tell me I am beautiful too. Even my ‘artwork’ – did you like the pictures I sent you? Like filigree you said!! – you understand like nobody understands me.

But a loneliness I can’t bear, I know I can’t live with, stalks my sleepless nights. It’s the thought of the BITCH and whether she may harm you (and Jonathan and Katy, of course) and I would lose you. To have you fill the void and then to be left empty once again would not be to return me to how I was. It would be to KILL me, and – from what you have said – I know you feel the same way too.

I know you may not read this now because of the BITCH but please!! Reply or IM me as soon as you can!!

You have my heart and my blood.

Love,

Your everlasting Red xxx

CHAPTER 16

Frank Tallow’s house was in Mossley Hill, only half a mile from Erasmus’s flat, but the distance was more financial than geographic. It was a large mock Tudor mansion, at least seven bedrooms, thought Erasmus as he smoked a cigarette that made him feel sicker than he already was.

He leant back against one of the gateposts as a wave of dizziness passed through. Once the worst of it had subsided Erasmus walked up the long gravel drive way and rang the doorbell.

Judging by Tallow’s age and career choice, Erasmus had been relying on traditional gender roles to be operating in the Tallow household and on a Thursday afternoon he had expected Mrs Tallow, if there was a Mrs Tallow, to answer the door. He was therefore a little surprised when the door swung open to reveal Frank Tallow himself.

He was dressed casually, jeans and a sweater. He looked older than his fifty years, but yet still had a full head of hair, although Erasmus noticed straight away that the brown colouring was clearly an expensive salon addition. Most surprising of all was that Frank Tallow was wearing a pair of aviator sunglasses inside the house.

‘Yeah, who are you?’ asked Tallow.

Erasmus had given his introduction some thought. What he hadn’t factored in was that at the precise moment that Tallow opened the door a fresh wave of nausea would wash over him and bile fill his mouth. Erasmus staggered to one side and put his arm out to steady himself against the doorframe.

‘Hang on,’ said Erasmus as he took deep breaths. This put off the outgoing bile for a second but then a dry heave came on. Luckily his stomach was empty but he still gagged as he stomach contracted and protested.

‘If you don’t get out of my sight right now I am calling the police!’

Erasmus took a final deep breath.

‘Sorry about that. Something I ate last night.’

Tallow was red in the face.

‘Get the fuck – ’ He squinted. ‘Hang on, don’t I know you from somewhere?’

Erasmus stuck out his right hand. Tallow looked at it with distaste and made no effort to take it.

‘Erasmus Jones, we met at the Liverpool Law Society annual dinner last year.’

Tallow shook his head.

‘Mmm. What do you want?’

Erasmus beamed.

‘I wanted to see Jess, is she in?’

Tallow looked like he might explode. He began to close the door.

‘It’s about the Blood House. You know, the bar in town.’

The door stopped abruptly and Tallow stepped forward and stood inside Erasmus’s personal space. He was a big man, tall and wide, and he loomed above Erasmus.

‘Why the fuck would you want to see Jessica?’

‘I just wanted to ask her a few questions.’

‘About what exactly?’

Erasmus shifted his weight from foot to foot. His nervous system was a little wired from all the caffeine and nicotine he had carpet-bombed it with to counter the effects of the booze.

‘It’s personal.’

Tallow laughed.

‘You want to ask my eighteen-year-old daughter some questions and you won’t tell me what they are? You have to be fucking kidding me.’

‘Is she in?’

Tallow took another step forward, coming within an inch of Erasmus. Erasmus stepped back. He was in no mood, and certainly no physical condition, for a fight.

‘My daughter is away travelling in Australia and New Zealand. She won’t be back for six months. Feel free to come back then.’

Erasmus took another step back.

‘Do you know what will help?’

Tallow looked confused.

‘Cold rump steak, lay it on that shiner, it will be gone in twenty-four hours.’

The look on Tallow’s face told him he had scored a direct hit.

‘Get off my property now!’

Erasmus held up his hand and turned away.

‘I’m going, I’m going.’

He walked down the long path, feeling Tallow’s eyes on him all the way to the gate. He paused and looked at the bins. There was a couple of plastic bin bags spilling out of the recycling bins and one of them, ripped open by a fox, had spewed its contents on the path. There were tins, yoghurt pots, boxes and the usual household detritus scattered around the bins. Something had caught his eye, something that shouldn’t be there. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He looked at them for a second longer but it wouldn’t come. He shrugged his shoulders and pushed open the gate.

Erasmus walked back to his apartment through the park. The previous night’s fog had lifted in the early hours and now his hangover appeared to be easing Erasmus began to appreciate what a beautiful day it was turning into. Cold for sure, but a crystal clear cold made sharper and defined by the weak winter sun and the freezing blue sky. He walked to the centre of the park and took a seat opposite the restored Palm House. He called Pete on his mobile.

‘Hey Erasmus, glad to see your work ethic is as strong as ever, 3.30 p.m. and still not in the office. It’s a good job one of us is at the coalface. And thanks for the goodbye last night by the way. Typical.’

‘Frank Tallow, you know much about him?’

‘Wanker, complete narcissist. Runs a media practice based on his celebrity friends. Was doing well until he backed the wrong horse. He acted for that paedo, Terry TV, and when they lost, it was like he was tarred with the kiddie fiddler brush. I heard the work’s dried up.’