Thin Air (35 page)

Jay spotted Gus’ car, a
fashionable four wheel drive vehicle, parked outside the flat. At
least it appeared he hadn’t sold the place and had most likely
moved back in. Jay stood at the bottom of the short flight of steps
while Dex went to open the door. After a few moments, he turned
around. ‘Looks like the locks have been changed.’

Jay slumped against the iron
railings. ‘Fuck and damn! We might have guessed.’ She straightened
up. ‘In that case, we’ll have to go round the back, break in. So
what if someone hears? They won’t see us.’

The alley between the buildings
was in darkness, although when they reached the rear of the
building a security light came on. Clearly, they possessed some
degree of solid presence in the world. Jay picked up a discarded
wine bottle from the top of an over-flowing dust-bin, and broke one
of the flat’s back windows with fierce, precise blows. Dex stood
with folded arms, a few feet away. Jay suspected he didn’t think
this was a good idea, although he offered no opinion.

Jay hoisted herself up onto the
window-sill. ‘Are you coming?’ she asked.

Dex hesitated, then came
forward. ‘OK.’

One after the other, they
dropped into the warm, dark silence of their old home.

It smelled different. Jay didn’t
want to turn on a light, but by the dim radiance of the outside
security lights, she could see that her kitchen had changed. For a
start, it was a mess, and there were new bits of crockery stacked
on the draining board unwashed. The smell was of stale food and
strong perfume. Issy Miyake. Gina’s scent.

Growling beneath her breath, Jay
stalked into the living room. Coats, magazines and newspapers
littered the chairs and sofas. There were more dirty plates on the
floor and the coffee table was smeared with sticky rings. Jay
recognised items that belonged to Gina: a pair of shoes, a pool of
silver chains and pendants on the table. She made a low noise of
disapproval and anger.

Dex came into the room behind
her, exhaled slowly. What must it feel like to him, coming back
here again? How many times had he been here before, unseen?

‘This is vile,’ Jay said. ‘I
feel like I’ve been burgled.’

Dex said nothing. Jay went into
the bedroom, cast her glance over the un-made bed, wrinkled her
nose at the smell of sweat and unwashed socks. Her Japanese kimono,
which Dex had brought back from abroad, lay in a careless, crumpled
heap on top of the bed. Gina must have been wearing it.

Jay felt beyond emotion. She
marched out into the hallway and hauled out a large canvas bag from
the cloak-room. Then she returned to the bedroom, where she began
stuffing some of her possessions into the bag. Dex still said
nothing. Jay was unsure whether he felt awkward on her behalf or
his own. ‘Go into my workroom and see if there’s any money lying
around,’ she said, ‘or my passport, anything. Check the desk
drawers.’ She wanted to claw something back from them, take what
was hers.

Dex left the room without
speaking.

Jay stood still for a moment.
She moved to the untidy dressing table and picked up a gigantic
bottle of Gina’s perfume. She weighed it in her hands. It oozed an
odour of betrayal. Tight-lipped, Jay emptied its contents over the
bed and threw the bottle on the floor. Then, she picked up one of
Gina’s bright red lipsticks and scrawled ‘Friend’ on the mirror.
From the wardrobe, she took an elegant black evening gown that she
used to wear at only the most glitzy functions and arranged it on
the bed, so that it looked like a deflated body. Diamante on the
single shoulder strap glittered coldly in the blue light.

Dex reappeared in the doorway.
‘Bounty,’ he said, holding out a foot-square wooden box. ‘All your
personal effects appear to have been stuffed in here, bank
statements and so on, even a replacement credit card, and also your
passport. Oh, and three pounds fifty in change.’

‘Surprised they didn’t burn
everything,’ Jay said. She stood, hands on hips, looking down at
the bed. ‘I feel like that bitch has tried to steal my life.’

Dex put down the box and curled
his arms around her. He didn’t say anything. It reminded Jay
painfully of the time when they’d been together. He’d never been a
great talker. Gus had always been full of opinions, but Dex had
simply been a pair of arms, a sense of empathy that needed no
words. For a moment, Jay let herself rest her head on his chest.
Then she raised her face to him. ‘I don’t know what to do now. Do I
go to Grant or Julie? Do I try to tell people what happened to me?
Apart from Julie, everyone will think I’m mad.’

Dex’s gaze was steady. ‘There’s
something
I
want to do.’

‘There is? What?’

‘You’re not afraid to face
reality, Jay, or the past. It’s not just about guts, but about
caring. I want to go back to the forest.’

Jay knew at once what he meant.
‘You want to find that boy’s body, don’t you?’

He nodded. ‘Yes. And when I do,
it will be evidence you can do something with.’

Jay took a deep breath, held it.
‘I see.’ She sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Dex, the body is
pretty useless as evidence without your testimony. Would anyone
believe me if I said the information had come from you? Where’s the
proof?’

‘Maybe that doesn’t matter. He
should just be found, that’s all, buried properly.’

‘That would ease your
conscience, I can appreciate that, but perhaps you should think
more about exposing Lorrance. Face this thing with me. I’d help
you, you know that, and your presence and support would help me. If
we go public, surely it would give us a kind of immunity? If
anything happened to us, it’d be too obvious who was
responsible.’

Dex turned away. ‘You don’t know
those people. They’re capable of anything - and of getting away
with it. They’d most likely find a way of discrediting us.’

Jay sighed, slightly impatient.
‘Dex, we should take back our lives. I’m prepared to face up to
things. Why can’t you?’

‘You don’t know those people,’
he said again.

Jay stood up, went to him.
‘You’re afraid of them, I know that.’

Dex pulled away from her. ‘Don’t
humour me. I was there, Jay. You weren’t. Charney is untouchable,
I’m sure of it. I don’t want to risk stirring him up. You don’t
know what might happen to us.’

‘You said yourself that things
are changing,’ Jay reminded him gently. ‘Charney and Lorrance have
enemies. Perhaps we wouldn’t have to make a stand alone.’

Dex stared at her in
incredulity. ‘You’re prepared to take that risk?’

She lowered her eyes. ‘Dex, I
only have your word these men are all-powerful. They intimidated
you when you weren’t in your right mind.’

‘Jay, don’t say that!’ Dex
snapped bitterly. ‘You’ve seen Lestholme. You know what can
happen.’

‘I’ve seen people living in a
sanctuary,’ Jay said. ‘I haven’t seen a fate worse than death.’

Dex rubbed his face. ‘I don’t
know,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t know.’ He looked at her. ‘After the
forest, I could think about it.’

‘OK,’ Jay said. She rubbed his
arm. ‘That would be a start. So, let’s think about practicalities.
How do we get there?’

Dex grinned sheepishly and
dangled some keys in front of her. ‘More bounty,’ he said. ‘I
suspect these are keys to the poncy little four-wheel job
outside.’

Jay took them from him. ‘They
are.’ She frowned. ‘It’s stealing, of course. Gus will report it.
Then what?’

‘By then, it won’t matter,’ Dex
replied.

It was an hour
or so before dawn when Dex turned the vehicle into a winding lane,
very similar to the one where Jay had left her own car perhaps
months before. He swerved off the road and crashed through a
five-bar gate into the forest. Tall, skeletal trees hemmed the
track, dripping moisture. It was an eerie place, like the land of
the dead: no greenery and nothing moved.

Jay had been dozing. She woke up
and murmured, ‘This is it, isn’t it.’

‘Yup,’ Dex said, crashing the
gears. The vehicle, clearly four-wheel drive in a cosmetic sense
only, bounced uncomfortably along the rut-scored track. Jay felt
sure the car would roll at any moment.

Grey light was seeping through
the black branches as Dex brought the vehicle to a halt. Jay looked
in the glove compartment for a flash-light, and was relieved to see
Gus still kept one there. She handed this without words to Dex.
Then, they both got out.

Jay stood shivering in the misty
pre-dawn air. ‘It’s a haunted place,’ she said.

‘Are you up to this?’ Dex asked.
His face was shockingly white.

She nodded. ‘Lead the way.’

They plodded along a narrow
track hemmed by the drooping spars of dead bracken. Unlike the
woods near Julie’s home, there was no evidence of human visitation
around; no Coke cans or wrinkled crisp packets. This was pristine
forest, heavy with ancient presence. Jay felt light-headed,
although weirdly detached about what she soon might see. It was
almost too grotesque to accept as reality. She knew that when she
saw the remains, she wouldn’t be able to think of them as human.
The corpse would look vile, terrible, but her senses wouldn’t
react. She felt driven, concerned only with evidence. If the body
existed, it gave credence to Dex’s story. She wanted to believe
him.

Dex halted and pointed ahead.
‘There,’ he said softly, as if they had come upon some gingerbread
house, or a rare animal; something wondrous.

The first red stain of the dawn
made silhouettes of the naked trees, and now birds were singing.
Jay felt her heart lift. It was unaccountable, but perhaps a human
instinct to be heartened by the dawn, symbolic of renewal. She saw
the ruins; the lower storey appeared to be mostly intact, but there
was no roof, and the walls had crumbled down to reveal the first
floor rooms. Rubble was strewn around the entrance, and the floor
inside. Stepping over the threshold, Jay looked up and saw there
was no ceiling now. A flight of stairs led up to nothing. The place
reminded her of the ghost of Lorrance’s house at Lestholme, only
this was dark, dank and decayed, where the white house was flawless
and light.

Dex turned on the flash-light
and swept its beam around the room. He seemed reluctant to
proceed.

‘Let’s get it over with,’ Jay
said. ‘Where’s the cellar?’

Dex directed the light at the
stairs. Beneath them was a door, wedged open with lumps of broken
plaster. He moved towards it. Neither of them spoke as they made
the difficult decent of the ancient stone steps, which were
slippery and wet beneath their feet. Jay tentatively sniffed the
air. She smelled mildew and damp earth, but no particular reek of
decaying flesh. Perhaps it was too late for that now. She kept her
balance by pressing her hand against the slimy wall. It seemed to
writhe beneath her touch.
This must be done
, she told
herself. Her jaw was clenched tight.

At the bottom of the steps, Dex
paused while Jay caught up with him. The cellar was low-ceilinged
and littered with piles of bricks and what appeared to be broken
wooden boxes. Dex slowly cast the beam of the flash-light over the
rubbish. Jay came to stand beside him and took his arm, watching
the probing eye of radiance. What would they see first: a skeletal
white hand against the earth, a skull? She swallowed painfully.
This must be done.

After a few moments, Dex
expelled a wordless question, and broke away from Jay’s hold. He
climbed over some bricks, casting the light around quickly, this
way and that. The beam swayed drunkenly.

‘What is it?’ Jay asked.

Dex didn’t answer, but hunkered
down in the rubble. He began casting bricks about, pieces of damp
wood, rags of rotten sacking. Jay approached him. She knew already
what he would say next.

‘It’s not here. There’s no
body.’

‘Perhaps you’re not looking in
the right place.’

Dex glanced up at her, his face
spectral in the beam. ‘Jay, believe me, it’s something I’ll never
forget. I know where I put it, and it’s not here.’

‘Perhaps animals...’

‘Lorrance must’ve come back and
moved it. Fuck!’

‘Somebody else might have found
it.’

‘Who? Grave-robbers, Satanists,
skull collectors? Don’t you think it might otherwise have been
reported?’

‘Perhaps it was. I don’t read
the papers every single day or watch the news, and you’ve been
hiding from the world.’

Dex shook his head. ‘No. I just
know it hasn’t been found. I just know.’ He stood up. ‘Lorrance
couldn’t have trusted me that much. He probably came back some time
afterwards and buried the boy. The body could be anywhere. This was
a stupid place to put it in the first place. Too open.’

‘Then we have no evidence.’

‘No, we don’t.’ Dex sighed.

Jay stepped forward and took his
arm again. ‘Dex... I have to ask this. Are you absolutely sure
about what happened that night? You said yourself you were off your
face. Could it have been a dream or a hallucination? You know how
reality and dreams can get very mixed up when your mind’s in an
altered state. What exactly had you taken that night?’

Dex stared at her angrily. His
mouth twitched, but he did not speak.

‘I’m not judging you,’ Jay said
gently. ‘We have to look at every angle.’

Dex released his breath in a
hopeless gasp. ‘God, I don’t know. I haven’t lived in reality since
I walked out of it.’ He shook his head. ‘No. It
did
happen.
I couldn’t have imagined it. The screams, the way the poor kid was
lying on the floor, the blood, the heaviness of the body as we
dragged it from the house. It still had a
smell
, Jay, like a
living thing. Those images will stay with me for the rest of my
life.’

Jay squeezed his arm. ‘We need
to talk about what we’re going to do,’ she said. ‘We need a
breathing space. Can you take us back to Lestholme for a
while?’