Talking to the Dead (25 page)

I know that guns have safety catches and I fiddle around, trying to work out if the safety catch is on or off. I’ve no idea. Only one way to find out.

I feel half like an idiot and half like I’m Cagney and Lacey. I adopt the pose. Feet apart. Arms out. Steady gaze. Fire.

Nothing.

I put the thing that I think has to be the safety catch into the only other position it can be in and do the same thing again.

The shot is astonishingly loud. Like when Penry hit me, only the audio equivalent. I don’t know if my ears are sensitive, or if guns really are that loud, or if it’s the sheer volume of silence in the barn that threw me.

As I put the gun down, arms trembling slightly, I notice that there are ear defenders there on the straw as well. I wouldn’t even know what to call them if Aled Whatsisface hadn’t mentioned the term. Good old Aled. One of Dad’s boys. My ever reliable dad. The ultimate Mr. Fix-it, the ne’er-do-well made good.

Since I’m here, I figure, I might as well use my time.

I learn how to load the gun, by sliding the magazine out of the handgrip. I practice doing it, until it seems simple. I close my eyes and, in the dark, unload and reload the gun, and flip the safety to off with my thumb. I could probably be faster about it, but I can do it. On the straw, there are four boxes of bullets, all told.

I decide that one box can go on practice.

Fire. Fire. Fire.

Close eyes. Turn around. Then whip round to the targets and fire, fire, fire.

There are 250 bullets or so in the box. I fire about 150 of them. Some of my shots aren’t hitting the target. Plenty of others are hitting white areas: head, hand, groin, leg. But there are plenty hitting black. The target I’m aiming at doesn’t have much of a middle now. It’s looking ragged.

My arms are aching from the effort of holding the gun out, and I put it down, sitting for a rest next to it. There was a posh girl in my year at Cambridge, also a philosopher, who gave names to every significant possession in her life. She had a teddy bear, of course, but her car had a name too. So did her phone. So did both of her laptops and her camera. For all I know she gave names to her knives and forks as well—I don’t know how far these things go with the English aristocracy. Me, I’m not the object-naming sort at all, but if I were then I think this gun would be the first to get a name. A Huw, maybe. Stupid, but just possibly dangerous. Or a Brendan, dead as fish meal but still terrifying prostitutes near you. Or maybe a Jane Alexander, neat, sleek, and a little bit scary.

I decide to finish firing off this box of ammo, then leave with both the gun and one more box of bullets. If there are more than 250 people coming to get me, I’ll just have to take my chances with the paring knife.

I get up again and start my routine. Arms together—ignore the ache—feet apart—both eyes open—breathing steady. Fire. Fire. Fire.

I do the turning around stuff. I try shooting one-handed. My accuracy is definitely worse, but I still wouldn’t like to be the target.

And then as I get ready for another close-my-eyes-turn-fire routine, I suddenly notice that the door I came in through is open. There’s a man standing there. Flat cap. Checked shirt under thick farmer tweed. Ageless. Could be thirty. Could be sixty. He’s looking straight at me. He inclines his head to acknowledge my presence, but otherwise says and does nothing. For the first time, I notice that, up at the other end of the barn, the end which is unlit and in darkness, there are animals stirring. Cattle, I think. Sheep would be out in the fields. I can dimly see amber eyes gleaming in the shadows. I wonder what the cows make of my shooting. Whether this is something they hear often, or almost never.

I wouldn’t know. I pull my ear defenders off.

“Drop your shoulders,” the man tells me. “And soft hands. Don’t tense up. Ease the trigger. You don’t want to jerk it.”

“Okay.”

“Are you right-handed?”

I nod.

“Then left foot slightly forward. Just slightly. Shoulder’s width apart. Select a new target.”

I turn back to the gun. The shooting range has lost some of its dimness, now that my eyes are fully adjusted. Feeling the man’s eyes on my back, I adopt my stance and shoot off a magazine of ten bullets in the space of three or four seconds. I try keeping my shoulders dropped and my hands soft. I’ve left the ear defenders off, but this time I’m expecting the noise and quite like it. It fills the space.

I turn back to the man, who only nods.

I interpret that as a “go on” and shoot off another four magazines. I concentrate on my shoulders and hands, and my accuracy is better. I’ve got nothing to compare it with, but overall I’d say it was good.

I turn back again to the man.

“Good enough. Keep your hands soft.”

“Thank you.”

Another nod. I turn back to the shooting, pull the ear defenders on this time, and finish the box. Soft hands, hard bullets. When I turn back again, the man is gone.

My arms are properly tired now, but I’m happy. I take the gun. (And just where, Monsoon design team, am I meant to stow this baby? Pretty frocks are all very well, but they’re not made for carrying concealed weapons.) I also change my mind and take two boxes of bullets, not one. When Rattigan’s army of the undead emerges from Cardiff Bay to snatch me, they’ll need to number at least five hundred and one. Any fewer than that, and I’m ready for them.

On my way out of the barn, I go over to the cows and promise that they can get some sleep now. Their breath steams, but they make no further comment. A hundred amber eyes follow me out.

In the yard, nothing has changed. No one is present. Nothing moves. I walk back up the track to my car, and drive back the way I came. I’m thinking about Penry. About Huw Fletcher and Brendan Rattigan.

But mostly, I think about that kiss with Dave Brydon. Am I now his girlfriend? I don’t think I’ve ever been that before with anyone. I probably came closest with Ed Saunders, but I don’t think Ed thought me reliable, even then. A lover and a friend, yes. A
girlfriend,
though, I never quite managed.

Thinking about all this now, and for all my cactuslike charms, I realize I would like to be Dave Brydon’s girlfriend. The sort who would remember his birthday, act appropriately in front of his parents, and remember to wear her most expensive knickers on St. Valentine’s Day. I don’t know if that’s an act I’ll ever be able to pull off, but the thought of it is an appealing one. Something I think I’m ready to try. I feel giddy at the prospect. Vertiginous.

And on the last stretch home, reentering the city from the valleys above, I think about Dad. I’ve assumed he’s on the straight-and-narrow now, because he tells me that he is and I generally believe what he tells me. But then again, if Dad procured the gun, he did so with remarkable speed and stage management. I could ask outright, of course, but that hasn’t been the way we operate things. When I joined the police force, I made it pretty clear that at home we’d have a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. I’ve never asked. He’s never told. As far as I’m concerned, I’m happy to let it stay that way.

I also wonder if my dad’s unease around my joining the CID was because he still had things to hide. Things he wouldn’t want my brothers and sisters on the force to know. It’s not the first time I’ve wondered, but it’s the first time I’ve had real doubt about the answer.

I get home sometime after two. I walk up to my front door with kitten heels and ammo boxes in one hand, gun in the other. For the first time in what seems like eternity, I don’t feel frightened at all.

28

Bedtime. Easier now than it’s been recently.

I leave the bed where it is and drag out a futon roll and spare duvet from beneath it. Theoretically the futon is for guests, though I can’t remember any guests ever actually using it. The futon goes on the floor where it can’t be seen from the door. In the best traditions of these things, I heap pillows in the bed itself, so it looks like someone’s sleeping there. Then I make myself at home on the futon, glass of water and alarm clock near my head, gun loaded and by my hand. I shove a chair up against the door, which won’t stop anyone from getting in but will make plenty of noise if they do.

All this is over the top. I know it is. But I feel safe and I sleep like a puppy, which is all that matters.

In the morning, my alarm goes off too early. I feel tired, because I’m a good three hours short of what I need. But who cares? At least I’ve mastered the art of sleeping in my own home. And I haven’t even smoked since Saturday, which is good going for me, especially given the way things are with Lohan.

I get up and stare out at the place where I live. I’m right at the heart of Planet Normal. Its strangest resident maybe, but I don’t care about that. I like a place where dads go to work in the mornings and people grumble when the post is late. If Rattigan’s army of the undead is out there waiting for me, they’re well disguised. There are some clouds dotting the sky. Those high, stately ones, that look like ships sailing in from the west. There aren’t many of them, though, and the sun is already well into its stride. It’s going to be hot.

Drift downstairs. Eat a nectarine straight from the fridge. Make tea. Eat something else, because we citizens of Planet Normal don’t get by on a single nectarine. I unlock my garden shed and open a window in there, because if it’s hot outside, the shed can get boiling. It’ll be too hot even with the window open, but I lock up all the same. I always do.

I’d intended to shower and stuff, but I did all that last night and I’ve already let too much time to drift by to do it all again now. Sharp means sharp, now, Griffiths. Apart from sniffing my wrists to make sure they don’t smell of the firing range, I do as little as I can.

But I have to get dressed. That’s easy, normally. Select a bland, appropriate outfit from the array of bland, appropriate outfits I have in my wardrobe. I used to own almost nothing that wasn’t black, navy, tan, white, charcoal, or a pink so muted that you might as well call it beige. I never thought those colors suited me particularly. I didn’t have an opinion on the subject. It was just a question of following the golden rule: Observe what others do, then follow suit. A palette of muted classic colors seemed like the safest way to achieve the right effect.

Since Kay turned fourteen or fifteen, however, she’s campaigned to get me to liven up my wardrobe. It’s still hardly vibrating with life. It still looks something like an exhibition of Next office wear, 2004–2010. All the same, I have options now that I wouldn’t have had a few years back.
And today I’ll be seeing Dave Brydon.
He’ll be seeing me. I want his eyes on me, and I want his eyes to be hungry ones, sexed up and passionate.

I dispense with my normal functional underwear and put on a bra and knickers from one of the posher Marks & Spencers ranges. White lace. Summery and sexy. No one but me will see them, but it’s a start. And then what? I’m indecisive to begin with, then opt for a floaty, mint green dress and a linen jacket. Brown strappy sandals. More makeup than I’d usually wear, which isn’t saying a lot.

I stare at myself in the mirror. Mirrors tell you nothing you don’t already know, huh? This one does. I see a young woman. Pretty. Tick-the-box, good-solid-passing-grade pretty. Also anxious. She looks a bit like she’s off to see the man who might be on the point of becoming her new boyfriend. Good luck, sister, but I don’t think you’ll need it.

Sharp-means-sharp sends me running from the house. I’ve thrown my gun into my handbag, but the boxes of bullets stay in the house. Va-va-voom over to work, or as va-voomy as traffic allows. One camera almost catches me, but I’m fairly sure I braked in time. Gun from handbag to glove box as I enter the car park.

I’m there in time to hear the huge overnight news. They’ve gone ahead and raided Sikorsky’s place in North London. Jackson is in London with D.I. Hughes. More people are going up now in support. No briefing today, because there’s no one to give it and because no one wants to hear about yesterday when today is where the action is.

It’s slightly weird news, and not just for me. The office is all a bit at a loss. The poor guy—D.C. Jon Breakell—who’s spent a week forlornly combing CCTV footage for anything that might be helpful now faces another day doing just that, well aware that there could be developments up in London that make the whole thing pointless.

And I’m at a loss too. Today was my seeing Dave Brydon day. My floaty green dress day. My day for makeup and girlie sandals. Today wasn’t like any other day of my life. It was going to be my first day practicing to be Dave Brydon’s girlfriend, and I was looking forward to it very much.

I find him at his desk, grabbing a few things before rushing off to London to join the boss.

“Hey, Fi,” he greets me.

No touch. No kiss. Just a look in the eye that tells me I’m not imagining last night.

“Can I see you? I know you have to run. Two minutes.”

He hesitates. We
are
seeing each other. We’re about thirty-six inches apart in a well-lit office and neither of us has lost the power of sight. Brydon clearly doesn’t want the kind of office relationship where we’re both always sneaking off into the stationery cupboard for a snog, nor do I. Still less does he want the kind of office relationship that inserts itself between him and duty.

But I force the issue.

“The stairs down to the print room. Almost no one is going to be using them just now, and there are doors at the top and bottom, which we’ll hear if anyone uses them. I’ll go there now. You follow as soon as you’re done here.”

“Okay. Two minutes. See you there.”

I run down to the print room stairs, then hang around on the turn of the stairs, where no one can see me. I’m fretting and anxious. Even this wait seems like too long.

Then the door at the top bangs and Brydon’s tread starts to clatter down. He’s both heavy and light. Heavy, because he’s a biggish lad, and light because he has a natural athleticism, a bounce that carries through into every movement he makes.

“Hey.”

“Sorry to grab you. I just had to see you. Sorry.”