The Last Voice You Hear (32 page)

The blades forced a way through the thin mesh in front of her, and with all the strength in her lower arms, she brought them together.

It became easier after the first cut, as if there were already a hole, and she was merely tracing its outline with these giant scissors. And though it seemed loud, she was aware that her senses were exaggerating every scuff and scratch she made on the silence, which wasn’t silence anyway – there were giant birds here, moving around their pen; there was wind making its way through the trees in the distance. Even here, miles from a city, there was the ambient pulse of life all around: electricity pounding the wires that crosshatched the roads, and animal feet pounding the tarmac below them.

There was her heartbeat, thumping away without cease. If they couldn’t hear that, these scratches and scuffs from the shears weren’t going to alert them.

She peeled away the section she’d cut, and scrambled through, taking the shears with her. Her night vision was on full now. There was little moon; busy clouds filled the sky. It must have been imagination, but the air inside the pen tasted thicker: rank with birdshit, and avian fear. She was not given to anthropomorphism, but it struck her that this pair had seen their companion destroyed today, and were still burdened with its corpse. Gwyneth, she’d been called. A silly creature which had fancied itself in love. And this brought to mind other silly creatures, or perhaps just overfond ones, who had imagined themselves in similar straits, and met similar ends under trains and in ditches. Love was dangerous, constantly. You needed to watch your back.

When she was sure nothing had changed for at least a minute, she made her way forward.

Movement behind her told her where at least one of the ostriches was, but she didn’t turn round. She treated it as she would a dog, and pretended it didn’t exist. But information kept slipping past her barricades anyway: that ostriches featured in Roman circuses; that they used their feet as weapons. She had no clear picture of an ostrich’s foot, but it was possibly curved and sharp. And they could reach speeds of – what had Russell said? Forty miles an hour? But these were family pets, she reminded herself; kept and fed by humans, for the pleasure their appearance gave. Sarah and Russell must have moved among them time without number. Of course, there’d been three of them then. And they hadn’t spent hours sharing their pen with a slaughtered colleague: with her dead stink, and the buzz of feeding insects.

Shears pointing earthwards, she almost walked into the mesh once again.

The house was a dark mass thirty yards distant. A faint glow from downstairs suggested there was light round the back, but the windows facing Zoë were blank. She studied them, waiting for a shift in the shadows’ configuration which would tell her which rooms the men were watching from, but the only motion came from clouds’ reflections on the dark glass: thick grey mufflers, covering the moon.

Zoë shuddered as something crawled across her grave. Then, praying it was too dark for her to be seen, she followed the mesh round, looking for the gate.

The sauce’s aroma had ripened the air, and Sarah’s apron was polka-dotted red. Connor stood by the mantel. There’d been a bump from the pantry a few minutes before, but other than that, Russell was quiet. Through the window there was nothing to be seen bar her own reflection: hair a little mad, lips a little red. Eyes giving nothing away.

She kept hearing creaks and aching floorboards overhead. The house, complaining about interlopers.

Connor said, ‘Is this nearly done?’

‘Hungry?’

‘Of course.’ This without an edge: it would have been amusing in other circumstances. That he was polite enough to refrain from voicing irritation, but not so much so he’d refrain from killing her when the need arose.

She reached towards a cupboard.

‘Don’t.’

‘What’s your problem?’

‘Tell me what you’re after.’

Exaggerating it – plucking each consonant like a harp-string – she said, ‘I was reaching. For some. Pasta.’

‘Let me get it for you.’

‘Where have you been all my life?’

She pointed to where the pasta lived. He came round, opened the cupboard, lifted down a bag of tagliatelli.

‘Not that. The spaghetti.’

Connor handed her the packet of spaghetti, then moved back to where he’d been standing.

. . . He’s worried, she thought. He thinks the kitchen’s a woman’s ground.

That was okay. She could work with that.

‘I need to boil some water,’ she said. ‘Is that going to be a problem?’

‘Just so long as you don’t get clever.’

‘I’m cooking pasta,’ she said. ‘It’s not rocket science.’

He didn’t respond. She reached down another pan from the overhead rod, this one a stainless steel pot: big, round, twin handles at the lip. Filling it with water made a circus-worth of noises. She closed her eyes, and imagined this was ordinary – another day, another meal with pasta. She’d open a bottle of wine, and share the past few days with Russell. What had she done, these past few days? Being in London was like something she’d once heard about. Toting the pan back to the range, she set it on a ring, and added a splash of oil and a sprinkle of salt.

Outside, in the big world beyond the window, nothing happened. She was utterly alone. Whatever came next, and whether it made things better or worse, was entirely down to her. Living with the consequences was the best possible outcome.

The Sarah she wasn’t glanced back at her from the window. She could have sworn there was a degree of dark knowledge in the look, as if the view from the other side took in all available futures.

Standing directly in front of the range, blocking Connor’s view, Sarah turned the gas off. ‘I could do with a hand here.’

‘Doing what?’

‘I need the back ring.’ She turned to face him. ‘The one with this pan on. It’s too heavy for me to lift.’

‘There are six rings,’ he said.

‘And this is the one I need for the pasta. Unless you can wait another half-hour, while I use the slow one. But I expect the troops are getting restless.’

He put something down on the mantelpiece: Sarah wasn’t sure what. Something he’d picked up, weighed in his hands, turned over; something of hers or Russell’s, or else just something that had wandered among their possessions and settled there, but was soiled now, and always would be. Maybe the whole house was. Nothing remained that wouldn’t always remind her of the casual slaughter of an ostrich she’d saved from the abattoir. But she couldn’t even tell now what it was he’d handled, because he’d put it down without her seeing, and he was coming towards her.

She stepped aside. ‘That one.’ The big, cast-iron Le Creuset, which was too heavy to trust to the overhead rod.

‘Where do you want me to put it?’

‘I just need it out of the way,’ she said. ‘So I can get at the ring.’

He gave what was almost a smile, as if there were this conspiracy they shared in, one that underlay all male/ female dealings, regardless of surface kindness or violence: one that ruled that, when the bottom line was reached, there’d always be a woman asking for help; always be a big strong man to give it. And, still believing this, he gripped the cast-iron pan by its cast-iron handle, and lifted it clear of the range.

It was curious how long this lasted: Connor holding the pan, that slight edge of superiority painted on his face. Sarah thought afterwards that even in the moment of lifting, that edge was melting; giving way to the suspicion that she’d wrongfooted him somehow, the way women always did, when that same bottom line was reached. And the big strong men always fell for it, didn’t they? But that was afterwards. While it was happening, what she was mostly aware of was the beating of her heart, and the curious absence of noise. Though the first thing he did, of course, was make noise. It took a moment or two to get through to her, that was all.

In the same moment, lights burst on all around the house.

The two men – Ross and Burke – emerged from the house and split: Ross to Zoë’s right; the other to her left, where he disappeared round the corner after a moment’s hesitation – there’d been a noise from the house, something like a woman’s scream, just as the lights went on. Zoë tensed, but stayed flat on the ground, hands shading her eyes in case reflection gave her away. She was a yard or so inside the gate to the ostrich pen, which she’d fixed open by jamming the shears in the ground like a tent peg. Cutting through the chain hadn’t been the hard part; the hard part had been doing it quietly – when the shears’ blades met the thin chain between them, the crack sliced the air, and somewhere behind her, the birds – roaming the pen; frightened and curious – ruffled their feathers and spat.

After pinning the door, she sprinted back, flapping her arms to scare the birds through the gate, towards the house. Zoë heard, rather than saw, them leave; they made a noise like something falling down a flight of stairs. A hot stink hung behind them. Then they were gone.

She dropped to the ground an instant before their movement triggered the burglar lights. It was as if God had flipped a switch, and lit everything at once. Seconds later, the two shapes came out: Ross to Zoë’s right; the other to her left, and she watched them flat on the ground, on the dark side of the brightness.

The second man disappeared round the corner. Ross, though, came forward to stand on the edge of the darkness: to stare into it somewhere off to her right. That must be where the birds were: they’d disappeared in a mad flap once the lights came on. She hoped Ross wouldn’t see them. She doubted she’d get a second shot at drawing him from the house.

Ross had his gun out, aiming at the night. The heavy wooden door to the farmhouse was behind him. It had seemed like a plan at the time: get the bad men out by triggering the lights, then sneak in when they weren’t watching. But she’d been banking on more than just two of them emerging: getting inside, even unseen, wouldn’t leave her much better off than she was now. But she had to take a chance on moving. Any moment, he’d figure the birds were loose.

She crawled forward; put her hand on something sharp: a stray shard of gravel. Pain was okay, though. Pain would keep her focused. She kept moving.

I’ll be there.

It’s not just words, that’s the important thing. It’s not just
words and it’s not just music: it’s a promise. So here he is,
keeping his promise.

The man he’s watching he saw earlier, crossing the meadow
between house and treeline. He hadn’t got more than halfway
before falling to his knees and trying to bury himself in his
hands. This had been moving, but at the same time laughable –
like watching a one-man theatre company stage
Lear –
and
anyway, what he’d mostly been interested in was the certain
knowledge that somewhere among the trees, Zoë was watching
too. And he wonders what her feelings were then; whether she
felt for the man – his pathetic display to an audience he didn’t
know he had – or was simply noting him as the weak link. The
latter, he thinks. His Zoë, his Zoë: she is tough. She’s tough, but
she needs him.

And now this weak link stands in the half-world of the light
bordering the house; the light that offers security as long as
you’re wrapped inside it, but makes everywhere else darker. And
he feels alone. Talmadge knows this. He feels alone because he’s
weighed down with the guilt of everything he’s done; he’s lain
awake all night every night since doing it; lay awake last night
in whatever godawful ringroad hotel these men crashed in,
nursing their wounds, and working out where Zoë had gone.
And all he’s waiting for now are words; words he’ll recognize
because they’ve been sheltering in his memory for years; words
that will speak to him as if they’re his alone . . . Words he’ll walk
towards, because he’s nowhere else to go.

Talmadge licks his lips, opens his mouth, and breathes deliberately,
feeling cold air channel through his throat.

. . . It’s easy, giving comfort. It’s a matter of letting people
know they’re not alone.

He moves through the dark, and knows himself unseen. The
policeman stands in the lee of the house, and wouldn’t have
noticed a battalion approaching. He’s supposed to be looking for
Zoë, but it’s obvious his focus is inward, on the demons gnawing
his emotions. This is brutally revealed by the lights hanging from
the guttering, and if he gets close enough, Talmadge will be able
to describe the man’s every last pain. Won’t even need the light.
Will be able to spread his palm across the man’s face and read it
in his fingers like Braille; every line an ache, every wrinkle,
regret.

Sometimes, it’s clear that people need music.

And it isn’t just words, that’s the important thing. It isn’t just
words and it isn’t just music: it’s a promise.

In a perfect world, the last voice you heard would be somebody
singing.

People say I’m the life of the party

’Cause I tell a joke or two

Talmadge pauses, and watches the words reach the man,
crossing from the darkness to the light; carrying with them
everything such words always carry – everyone knows the old
songs. Everyone attaches a moment to them. He doesn’t just
think this: he knows it to be true. He’s not been wrong yet. So
before his own moment closes, he opens his mouth and sings
again.

So take a good look at my face

You’ll see my smile looks out of place

If you look closer it’s easy to trace

The tracks of my tears

And standing there on the dark side of the lights, he waits while
the other man comes to join him.

All pain involves a stripping away of identity; it pulls the sufferer down a level, nearer to where the unmasked live. This had gone a step further, searing Connor’s fingerprints; erasing his individual loops and whorls while filling the air with the stench of scorched meat. The pan handle had been so hot it had taken Connor a moment or two to understand it – he’d had time to lift it clear of the range before pain reached him. Half an hour at least, Sarah had had the gas flamed high, hidden by her body and the pan in front; the acrid smell of warming metal masked by gently cooking sauce. And then he’d screamed and dropped the pan, that expression peeled from his face as if she’d used a blowtorch on it. The pan might have hit his foot. Sarah didn’t notice. She grabbed the other pan and hit him on the temple. Bolognese sauce splashed everywhere: if it had been paint, you could have called this decorating. Connor’s peculiar, high-pitched scream died instantly. Sarah dropped the pan, dropped to her knees; even before going to Russell, she was going through Connor’s pockets. First things first. Outside, the lights had gone on. Here in the kitchen, they went out. A shadow hung in the doorway: Maddock. She scooted to one side; came to rest with her back against the sink unit. The left leg of her jeans was soaked in meat sauce.