The Unblemished (41 page)

'You sold me,' he said.

She nodded. Now she tilted her head and gazed up at him through
her fringe. The freckles across her nose. The chocolate of her irises.
She was the same woman he had taken to see
Eyes Wide Shut
, who
had gripped his hand in the cinema when Dr Bill Harford is ordered
to take off his mask. She was the same woman who had knelt on his
back, as light as wax, to knead his shoulders with massage oil. She
liked to make love while Harold Budd played on her stereo. She got
hungry after sex and wanted cocoa and bacon sandwiches, no matter
the hour. He knew her to the point of knowing her out of existence.

'I arranged for Rohan Vero to be at the Princess Louise when you
were there. He was weak. He was not the man to take us into this new
age. We needed someone young and powerful and ... creative.
Someone with a vision, an eye for how the world is framed, is viewed.'

'So give Rankin a call,' Bo said. 'Fuck's sake, Keiko. I love you.
And you shove my head in all this shit? You bring me to the point of
death?'

'We needed someone with passion. Someone who was hungry,
who needed to fulfil his potential.'

'You needed a failure, you mean. And I fit the bill. Couldn't hack
it as a photographer so –'

'I love your photographs,' she protested. 'But I made the right
choice. You were all over Vero when he dangled that carrot. You
wanted a challenge. This was tailor-made for you. It was what you
were born to.'

'Turning me into a monster? Making me hungry for ... for ...
making me dig up
graves
? I was born to that?'

She did not flinch from his sudden rage. She took it all until his
attack became more personal. He accused her of self-absorption,
insensitivity, lacking patience.

'Patience?' she snapped back. 'Patience? You don't know the
meaning of the word. What is it to sit in a waiting room to see a
doctor about an ache? A splash in the pond of time that doesn't even
make a ripple. We know what it is to wait. To wait for food. I know
some who waited for the taste of blood across a span from the Great
Fire to Waterloo.'

The fight was gone from him. He said, 'Tell me you're not with
them.'

'I am with them,' she said.

He moved to her and reached down to her throat. There was a tiny
constellation of freckles there that he had often observed with an
astronomer's doggedness. He loved the contrast of it against her skin.
Now he saw them for what they were; a part of the illusion, a way to
keep him sweet. He picked one of them off with his fingernails and
flicked it away.

'How often did you have to reapply those?' he asked. 'You'd have
made a great continuity artist.'

She was rising to leave. He didn't know if he was strong enough to
stop her, or whether he should even try. The genie was out of the
bottle. Killing Keiko wasn't going to make things better. It would
only add another layer to his misery.

'This is your life, then. Protecting this cradle of filth. Keeping
watch. What a lonely job. What an existence.'

She was not rising to his bait. He thought she might say what she
usually said when he was digging his fingers into the parts of her that
might hurt.
You don't understand.
And that was right. He didn't. He
didn't want to.

There was a scream, a man's scream. Bo wondered if it was a
warning, but agony had fuelled this. He knew about screams now. He
was an authority. He followed Keiko back to the fold and Sarah was
standing there, her face grey with shock.

'What is it?' he snapped.

'Claire,' she said. 'My baby.'

He pushed past her and into the frills of the wall. Sarah was behind
him, but he stopped her from looking in at what was happening.
After a few seconds, he had to stop too. Blood crept towards him
along the tiles like a slow tide. He stepped back and closed the door
before it could reach him. Sarah was becoming hysterical, screaming
at him to stop the thin man, whatever he was doing. Screaming at him
to save her daughter.

Bo said, 'It isn't your daughter who needs help.' He thought of
Claire, how willowy she was, how tiny her hands, and what those
hands had done in order to get at Gyorsi Salavaria's innards.

The horribly burned man came in fast, faster than his condition
should have allowed, but Sarah could see his eyes were drug glassy
and wild, and the saliva was creaming from his lips. The skin
of his face was charred, and deep red cracks were seated within it; the
blistered fat beneath pushed against the faultlines like the melted
cheese of a pizza. He was fighting his obvious pain with long,
cathartic shrieks. His hands were treacle-black, misshapen; he held
guns in both and was shooting randomly. Another man, in a stained
butcher's apron slathered with blood, capered in his wake, the
scalpels that jutted from his fists glittering in the gunfire.

A hole punched through the Japanese girl's cheek. She turned her
head as if startled by something. Blood slipped from her mouth in a
perfect vertical. There was too much noise for Sarah to hear Bo's
scream, but the tendons in his neck told her he was giving it all he was
worth. She watched him break her fall. She watched him trying to
plug her bleeding wounds with his fingers.

Claire was sitting on the floor watching the action unfold. Sarah
stumbled towards her and gathered her in her arms, trying to shield
her. The thing her daughter clasped to her chest kept appearing in
little slashes and teasers of colour, its tiny eyes and teeth flashing with
acid-white movements. Its wraithlike cheeks and chin were oily with
blood. Sarah heard, she felt, something scratching within the layers of
Claire's clothing. Madness, no doubt, pawing at her mind, looking
for a way in. A bullet caught Claire in the shin, shredding the flesh
back to the bone. She turned her attention to it and began howling,
bucking on the floor as if she had been holed in the throat. 'Claire,'
Sarah whispered, trying to establish whether any major blood vessels
had been hit. 'It's okay. It's all right.'

The shooting had stopped. The burned man strode up to Bo, who
stood up and attacked, utterly silent, intent. There was a long,
grunting struggle. Sarah felt faint when she saw Bo's fingers in the
cracks of the man's burned face, trying to prise it off like an
implacable lid. The burned man was keening, trying to get his arms
free. She saw the danger before Bo did. She was sucking in breath to
warn him when the burned man whipped one of the gun butts across
Bo's temple. Bo staggered to the side, his hand to the wound, blood
welling between his fingers. The burned man waded in and, studiedly,
repeated the assault, this time to the back of Bo's head. A wet impact;
Bo collapsed. The burned man turned to his companion, who was
smoking a cigarette, the end of which was patterned with bloody
prints from his fingers. A comma of blood could be mistaken for a
kiss-curl on his forehead. 'Get the fucking girl,' he rasped.

'Manser,' Sarah said. 'Oh my God.'

'I know, I know,' Manser said. 'Crazy, isn't it? A brand new look.
Everyone wants it.'

He held his gun out straight, although she could see it wobbling as
he drew a bead on her. He was scared. Or in pain from his wounds.
Maybe both. You didn't come back from a burn like that, she
decided, especially if he hadn't had it treated. He was dying. You
could see it in the rot eating him inside out. You could see it in his
grey lips and grey tongue. In the deep shadow scoring the flesh that
hadn't been ravaged by flames.

'Where's Salavaria?' he asked, and then: 'Aw, shit.' He could see,
protruding from the scalloped wall, what remained of his erstwhile
partner, his old friend, his nemesis. Manser seemed to diminish, as if
he had been defeated. Salavaria was little more than a head with its
spine still attached; he was like an oversized snake that has forgotten
how to propel itself. Manser shot him twice in the face. The thing on
Claire's breast whiffled as it was shocked awake, and burrowed deep
into her blouse. Sarah shuddered, held her daughter close. That
scratching again. More intense. And not just from Claire's clothing.
Something beyond. Something trembling through the floor.

'I want you to just stand back,' he said. 'I'm taking the girl.'

'Fuck you,' Sarah said. Manser swivelled the gun in her direction
again. He pulled the trigger. The dry click was somehow louder than
the detonations that had preceded it. He tried the other gun. Again,
the hammer fell on an empty chamber.

'Jesus wept,' said Manser. 'It's an AK-47 for me this Christmas.'

Sarah leaped at Losh as he bent to separate her from her child but
a stiff arm across her chest knocked her back against the wall,
winding her. Losh dragged Claire upright by the hair. He magicked
one of his blades against the shadow beneath her jawline as Sarah
made to retaliate, then replaced it with a blood-stained cloth which
he positioned over her mouth and nose; Claire turned limp in his
arms.

Manser was nodding his head. 'Tops, Loshy. You can have jelly
for afters tonight. Give her here.' To Sarah he said: 'Give her up.'

As he turned to leave, the chamber began to flood. At first Sarah
thought the walls were collapsing and that the scraps raining upon
Losh and Manser were the tortured faces shearing clear of their
housings. But then she saw the likeness between them and the thing
that Claire had been giving suck to. She felt leathery skins scrape
against her as they cascaded into the chamber. They left her alone,
and she knew it was because they could smell Claire on her, in her.
How many had she set free? Losh was brought down not by the
enormous weight of them as they lighted in his hair and dragged
themselves up to his shoulders, but by a dozen of them targeting the
weak spot where his foot joined his leg, slashing into him with teeth
and claws, stripping him to the bone in seconds. Sarah heard the
thwock-thwock
of his stump as he doddered on, his shod foot left
behind. The chamber had constricted; he was trapped between the
walls. He might have been screaming but then so were they. Blood
was up: Losh's and theirs. A frenzy of movement and distress. She felt
something hot and salty spray across her cheek; the mist in the
chamber had turned red. Losh had stopped screaming.

On the floor lay the Queen, badly injured by one of Manser's
random bullets: the reason for Claire's histrionics, not fear for her
own mother, nor her own flesh wound. She swallowed the jealousy
and called her daughter's name until all feeling left her throat. But all
she could see was the back of Manser batting away the shadows, his
determination alone, it seemed, hastening him from the slaughterhouse.
The Queen began to screech, a sound of many nails on a
chalkboard.
Kill it
, thought Sarah.
Put it out of its misery. And ours.
But the sound was too regular to be one of pain. It was a warning
siren. It was a call to arms.

Slumped on the floor, Sarah tried to blink a trickle of blood from
her eyes. Through the fluid, she thought she could see the mouths in
the walls moving in concert, assuming the shape of her pain. But her
grief was too large, too intense, even for this ancient sprawling site of
immense suffering. Nothing could contain it. What did the word
'daughter' mean, after this? What bond existed between a tired
woman who had given everything and a young girl with black,
hungry eyes who was able to pull a man apart as if he were no more
a challenge than a Sunday roast? She could not think of her as Claire
any more. You give the child the name you hope they'll grow into.
Sarah hadn't the words to describe what it was that her daughter had
become. When do you give up? When do you let go of your children?

She slithered across to Bo and pulled him from the girl. His
birdlike weight, his angles and edges, his cold, were all wrong, but she
hugged him fiercely, protectively. He was all she had.

But no, that wasn't the case after all.

Manser parked at midnight on South Wharf Road, by the
junction with Praed Street. This was the last of about a dozen
cars he had used to get back, having to swap every half mile or so
when the build-up of abandoned vehicles became impenetrable. He
was exhausted. He didn't have much time left. The agonies that had
flared across his face, chest and arms over the past hours were gone,
substituted by a creeping numbness. He could not understand how he
had managed to drag the girl up that interminable stairway and down
the treacherous scaffolding. More than once he'd thought, fuck it, let
her fall. Let it all fall. But he had come this far. He didn't know how
he was going to do this. But in death, he was going to have one last
stab at life. Salavaria had been taken from him, but by God, the
Hickman bitch would not get away.

Instead of going directly to the dilapidated pub on the corner he
forced his aching legs to take him to the canal where he listened to the
song of the Marylebone Flyover, hoping for calm, strength. The
sounds emanating from that elevated sweep of road were anything but
soothing. The mechanical chunter of caterpillar tracks and diesel,
military vehicles that reminded him only of the way those fucking
mouths had split open, jaws unhinging like snakes ready to swallow
him whole. The hiss of tyres on rain-soaked tarmac put him in mind
of nothing but the wet air that had sped from Losh's chest when they
burrowed into him. Farther afield, concussions and stitches of gunfire.
London was fighting a war that was already lost.

By the time he returned, he saw in the pub a low-wattage bulb
turning the glass of an upstairs window milky. He went to the door
and tapped on it with a coin in a pre-arranged code. Then he went
back to the car and opened the boot. He wrestled with Claire and
managed to clamp a hand over her mouth, which she bit, hard.

Swearing, he dragged a handkerchief from his pocket and stuffed it in
her mouth, punching her twice to get her still. It was a good thing he
could no longer feel anything in these limbs. She had teeth like razors.
Flaps of skin hung off his roasted palm; he was bleeding badly.
Queasy at the sight of the wound, he staggered with Claire to the
door, which was now open. He went through it and kicked it shut.
Upstairs, Harrison, the landlord, was sitting in a chair containing
more holes than stuffing.

'This was a good boozer before it was closed down,' Manser said,
his excitement unfolding deep within him.

'Was,' Harrison said, keeping his eyes on him. His eyes couldn't
have been wider, more terror-filled, had he stapled them open.
'Everything changes.'

'You don't,' Manser said. 'Christ. Don't you ever wash?'

'What's the point? The smell confuses them. They don't come near
me. They don't even know I'm here.'

'Nobody comes near you, save me. And only because I have to.'

Harrison smiled. 'Didn't anybody ever warn you not to piss off the
people you need help from?'

Manser swallowed his distaste of the smaller man. 'Can't we get
on?' he spat.

Harrison stood up and stretched. 'Where's your partner in grime?'
he said, luxuriously.

Manser pulled a wad from his jacket. 'There's six hundred there.
Privacy please.'

'Let's call it eight hundred.'

A pause. Manser said, 'I don't have it with me. I can get it tomorrow.'

Harrison said, 'Looks of you there'll be no tomorrow.' But he got
up to leave anyway.

As he opened the door, Manser said, 'Nip outside for some fresh
air. See if you can't get yourself eaten.'

Harrison flipped him the Vs, said, 'Nice tan,' and left.

The first incision. Blood squirted up the front of his shirt, much
brighter than the stains already painted upon it. A coppery smell filled
the room. The pockets of the pool table upon which Claire was
spread were filled with beer towels. Losh was there in his mind,
talking him through it, keeping him focused.

'Soft tissue?' Losh said now.

Manser's voice was dry. He needed a drink. His cock was as hard
as a house brick. 'As much off as possible, I'd say.'

'She won't last long,' Losh said.

Manser licked his lips. 'She'll last long enough. Longer than me.'

Manser reached for a Samsonite suitcase. He opened it and pulled
out a hacksaw. Its teeth entertained the light and flung it in every
direction. At least Losh kept his tools clean.

An hour later: 'Is she okay?' Manser asked. He heard Losh's laughter
in reply; an infectious sound. Soon he was laughing too, despite the
pain it ratcheted around his face. As he unbuckled his trousers, a
movement brought his head snapping up.

Manser said, 'Who opened the window?'

But Losh had deserted him.

Nobody had opened the window; the movement of the lace
curtains was being caused by the glass as it bulged into the room.
Manser tore them back at the moment the glass shattered in his face.
He screamed and fell backwards, tripping on the bucket of offcuts
and sprawling to the floor.

His face was burning again. He was blinking furiously, but he
couldn't see anything out of his left eye, only feel the sound of glass
splinters grinding in there. What he could see through his right made
him wish for total blindness. It seemed that strips of the night were
pouring in through the broken window. They fastened themselves to
Manser's face and neck and munched through the flesh like caterpillars
at a leaf. His screams were low and already being disguised by
blood as his throat filled. He began to choke but managed one last
hearty shriek as a major blood vessel parted, spraying colour all
around the room with the abandon of an unmanned hosepipe.

He saw Sarah stepping towards him, her face screwed up with
anger and grief, a cleaver in her hand. She began hacking at his neck
but he could hardly feel it. So much blood had drained from him that
the edges of what he thought were real were fraying, turning grey,
flitting away like burned paper.

'For Andrew,' she was saying, 'for me. For Claire. For Claire. For
Claire.' The blows rained down on him. It was almost comforting. He
wanted to say something to her. He had always wanted to talk about
their names, Hickman and Manser. He wanted to tell her,
where you
end, I begin.
He thought it would be amusing, romantic even. But
what remained of his sight filled with red and he could understand no
more.