Those Who Feel Nothing (15 page)

Will's voice was calm. ‘Stay down.'

‘What has happened to her?' you repeated, your voice equally calm.

You realized Will was sweating. ‘She's gone.'

‘I'm getting up and don't you fucking try to stop me,' you said.

Will showed his palms and stepped back. You got to your feet. Will responded to your stance.

‘Listen,' he said. ‘I'm not happy about this. Believe me. But you're going to blow everything if you're not careful.'

You looked at the sweat rolling down from his hairline, conscious of the wetness of your own face. ‘Where's Michelle?'

Will leaned forward. His voice was quiet. ‘I wish I knew.'

You were planning a complicated sequence of hits, depending on his responses. ‘What happened?'

‘Nothing that makes sense. One minute she's here, the next minute she's gone.' Will stepped back. ‘Way of the modern world.'

You looked at him, grinding your teeth until your jaw ached. ‘She's been unconscious for the past twenty-four hours. You can't just fucking say she's gone and that's the end of it.'

Will leaned forward again. ‘Steady, mate. You've already landed on your arse once.'

‘Where has she gone?'

Will stepped back. ‘You know, you never really explained your relationship with the beautiful Michelle. This wasn't just some simple rescue mission, was it?'

You ignored that. ‘Where is she?'

Will shrugged his big shoulders. ‘She left us.'

You couldn't help yourself. ‘Left
you
? I repeat, she wasn't in any condition to leave anybody.'

‘Apparently she was. She left, and how would I know why? You know why anybody does anything?'

‘I know why
I
do things,' you said, brain racing.

‘Do you? Do you really?' Rogers spat on the floor. Thick phlegm. ‘I somehow doubt that.'

‘What about her father? Isn't Westbrook tearing his hair out?'

‘He is, he is.'

You hit him again. A better blow than before. You caught him on the temple and he reeled, stumbled. You went for the follow-up but he curled away, hugging himself to the floor. You weren't expecting that. You looked down on him.

Then something happened to your head you weren't expecting either but you recognized only too well. You twisted to see who had clobbered you as your brain bounced around in your skull for the second time in a day. An arcing arm withdrawn. A club of some sort in the hand. A familiar face.

You whispered a single word – or maybe you didn't – before you lost consciousness. That face.

‘Westbrook?'

On Marine Parade, the light was biblical. Lowering black clouds, a single beam of sunlight looking like a funnel between sea and sky. Sarah Gilchrist half expected someone to be drawn up from the sea into it or to descend from the sky.

Rafferty was holed up in East Preston, in the opposite direction, but the detour was to pick up some documents the club owner had promised on pain of having his premises closed down.

Gilchrist watched as the clouds coiled around each other and the beam of light vanished as abruptly as it had appeared. There were a handful of runners and dog walkers. A young woman was scattering bread for the seagulls and pigeons. A benign thing to do. Except that as the bread attracted the birds, her son was rushing among them trying to kick them and stamp on their heads.

Gilchrist had never had the mothering instinct. She was almost Victorian in her belief that kids should be seen and not heard – especially in cafés, and extra especially in pubs. A ‘family friendly' pub was a contradiction in terms as far as she was concerned. You want kids? Stay home and look after them until they are old enough to behave properly. Leave the going out to grown-ups who want to stay grown up and not spend half their lives doing baby talk.

Gilchrist drew her breath in sharply. Where had that little internal rant come from?

Further down the beach she could see a gang of visiting football supporters in a conga line, all naked but yoked together by their football scarves around their necks. Every other step they thrust their hips forward and their penises flew out in front of them and flopped back. Well, the bigger ones did. She could hear the raucous laughter of the group even with the window up.

Gilchrist shook her head wearily. ‘You know the word I hate most, Bellamy?'

‘No, ma'am.'

‘Tribe.'

Heap nodded. ‘I'm assuming you've seen football supporters.'

‘Didn't you?'

‘I'm the driver, ma'am.'

‘You mean you don't have the luxury of gazing out of the window watching the world go by.'

‘Your words, ma'am, not mine.'

‘What do you make of this antiquities thing?'

‘It's always been a big criminal business in Brighton. Stealing stuff from all the big houses in the area then getting it across the Channel before the theft is even reported.'

Gilchrist nodded. ‘But that market has been in decline for years. That's why we got rid of our special antiques unit. Maybe there is more of a market for this Asian stuff, given all the New Age, Buddhist stuff around here. Every other garden seems to have a Buddha sitting underneath its wind-chimes.'

‘True, ma'am, but how many people could tell the difference between a twelfth-century Buddha and one cast last week? I mean, I don't think I'm being racist when I say that with the same little smile on them, all the Buddha look the same.'

Gilchrist laughed, watching the football supporters in her side mirror. There had been a near-riot in town the previous evening when the visiting team's supporters had taken defeat badly. During the match one footballer had also almost bitten off the ear of another.

‘Ear-biting – is that a gay thing?' she said. ‘And all that pulling on shirts and shorts. Same deal, surely?'

‘You're back to football. Why would a gay person particularly ear-bite, ma'am?'

‘You're right – I'm getting into deep waters there. Let's just stay with football fans as moronic. Not as individuals but as part of crowd dynamics. They work each other up so much and are so hostile to the supporters of rival teams. Makes absolutely no bloody sense.'

‘Absolutely, ma'am,' Heap said, giving her a quick glance. Gilchrist decided to shut up.

They drove past the Volk's railway. Both of them looked off to their right. An almost naked man was sitting with his back to a lamppost, knees up, one arm raised above his head, a large pool of vomit by his side. He was secured to the lamppost by plastic cable around his wrist.

‘Stag night rather than football supporter, ma'am,' Heap said, stopping the car. He rummaged in the glove compartment and took out a pair of clippers.

The man was half-awake, one eye open, head tilted. He watched Heap and Gilchrist approach. They stepped round the vomit, noticing he had more down his bare chest and on his underpants – those and socks the only clothes he wore.

‘That is some serious puke,' Gilchrist muttered. ‘What has this man eaten?'

‘A horse was stolen from Lewes Stables yesterday,' Heap murmured as he snipped the plastic cable. Gilchrist laughed. The man's arm dropped abruptly.

‘What time's the wedding?' Heap said.

‘Two o'clock,' the man mumbled.

Heap looked at his watch. ‘You've missed it.'

The man tried to focus. ‘What?'

‘Two o'clock today?' Heap said.

‘Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Is today tomorrow?'

Heap looked at Gilchrist. ‘Questions like that can only be answered by someone of a higher rank than either of us.'

Gilchrist smiled. ‘Where are you staying?' she said.

‘They're coming back for me,' he said.

‘Do you know where you're staying?' Heap repeated.

The man shook his head.

‘Are your clothes anywhere around?'

He shrugged. Gilchrist pointed up the road to the club under the arches. ‘You were in there last?'

He nodded.

‘Your friends still there?'

‘Maybe.'

‘What's their uniform?'

‘What?'

‘What did you choose for everyone to wear on your stag night?'

‘Clockwork Orange.'

‘Arty. OK. Don't wander off.'

Heap and Gilchrist got back in the car and drove the twenty yards down to the club. The din of the music cascaded out of the open doors. There was a strong smell of stale booze and piss around the entrance. They walked over to the doormen and flashed their warrant cards.

‘You have a package for us?' Heap said. ‘Your boss is supposed to give us a whole lot of documentation so we know you're not operating illegally and we don't need to close you down.'

The biggest bouncer reached behind a counter and produced a large envelope. Heap took it.

‘Thanks,' Heap said. ‘Listen – is there a gang of guys in there wearing bowler hats with black paint round one of their eyes? I mean each of them with one eye painted, not just one eye among them all.'

Gilchrist glanced at Heap as the biggest bouncer nodded.

Heap pointed back to the lamppost. ‘Make sure they take care of their friend when they stagger out, will you?'

Whether his friends could even look after themselves after a night and half a day pub- and club-crawling was a moot point. They all looked back at the lamppost. The man had gone. Instead there was a small woman standing there. Something was dangling from her hand. She was swaying. She looked familiar.

Gilchrist and Heap walked back to the car and the woman moved towards them. She was smartly dressed. Cashmere coat. She was Asian. Her mouth hung open. She had a kitchen knife in her hand. It was bloody.

Gilchrist watched with horrified fascination as a fat globule of blood slowly separated from the knife's tip and dropped to the concrete. She imagined she heard the splat as it landed. And the next one.

Gilchrist gave Heap's arm a cautionary squeeze. He glanced at her other hand sticking out of her pocket where she was tapping in the code on her mobile asking for urgent back-up.

Gilchrist's attention never wavered from the knife. She wasn't scared but she didn't intend to tackle this woman unless it was absolutely necessary. She hoped Heap felt the same.

‘You recognize her, don't you?' Heap said as they drew closer.

‘The mother who lost her son – the one standing at the side of the road?'

‘Her hands are covered in blood.' Gilchrist looked beyond her, trying to locate the drunken groom. ‘Do you think she's stabbed that guy?'

‘No. I think she's hurt herself. That's her blood.'

They stopped in front of the woman.

‘Can we help?' Heap said.

Gilchrist scrutinized her face. She looked up at Gilchrist, her mouth open in a rictus of misery. There was something particularly distressing because the planes of her face were flat, the eyes expressionless. All emotion was in the silent scream of the open mouth.

The woman said nothing. Just stood there, blood dripping slowly from the knife and off the fingers of her other hand. Heap gestured towards the knife.

‘Do you want to drop that?'

The woman didn't respond. Heap moved his hand, almost casually, to his belt. Gilchrist hoped he wasn't going to Taser her.

‘Do you speak English?' Heap said.

The woman gave the smallest of nods.

‘We want to help you,' Heap said. ‘You're hurt.'

The woman ignored him, her eyes on Gilchrist. Gilchrist glanced beyond the woman. Far off at the other end of the drive she could see a police car slowly approaching. She guessed there was by now another one hidden round the bend behind her.

‘What is your name?' Gilchrist said.

The woman said nothing again.

The police car worked its way through the chicanes. It was now about two hundred yards away.

The woman, her mouth still open, worked her jaw, as if she was trying to devour something. Heap took his phone out and ordered an ambulance.

‘You haven't hurt anybody else, have you?' Gilchrist said.

If there was a reply Gilchrist missed it because of a sudden explosion of chanting from the entrance to the club behind her. It was the drunken repetition of a single line: ‘Who's getting married in the morning?'

Half-a-dozen raucous male voices. Jeering and laughter.

‘Where's the bloody lamppost?' someone shouted.

Gilchrist didn't take her eyes off the woman but in her peripheral vision a gang of drunken men in bowler hats staggered across the road towards the lamppost with the vomit beside it.

‘Where's the bloody groom?' someone else called as everyone sniggered.

Gilchrist flicked a glance across. That's what she was wondering.

She hoped they'd find him wandering on the beach. She looked back at the woman. The woman now seemed to be scrutinizing Gilchrist's face as intently as Gilchrist had scrutinized hers. The knife was still pointing towards the pavement.

The police car halted beside the woman. As a door opened, the woman nodded at Gilchrist, let the knife clatter to the pavement and said just two words: ‘My son.'

She turned to the rear passenger door of the police car and stood as if awaiting instruction.

There were shouts from across the road. One of the men was down on his hands and knees being sick. The others were gathered in a loose semi-circle looking down at something just out of sight over the lip of the shingle incline.

‘Wakey-wakey,' they chanted in rough unison as the woman collapsed into the back seat of the car.

Y
ou're looking at yourself in the mirror. Your ribs ache.
Your
ribs. You can't get over this disjunction between what you see and what you are and what you feel. They must be your ribs but the feeling is outside you. As so much is outside you.

Lately you have often been feeling as if you are looking down on yourself from the corner of the room. The feeling is so strong you fear you are fracturing down the middle.