Two-Way Split (13 page)

"Wait." A man with a heavily strapped nose was threading a path through the crowd. A uniformed policeman exchanged a few words with him and let him past.

When the man smiled, Pearce felt hollowed out.

The man handed him a business card. "Call me."

Pearce didn't look at the card. Lawyer, doctor, journalist. Who cared? He slotted the card beside Pete Thompson's cash in the back pocket of his jeans and climbed into the waiting ambulance.

PART TWO

Transcript from 999 call recorded on January 12
^th
at 11:14 am

Caller: I need you to listen. Someone might have been hurt. I heard loud bangs and crashes and a woman screaming, you know, like several piercing screams and then a man yelled, "I'm going to murder you, you crazy bitch."

Operator: Do you have an address, sir?

Caller: Where the attack took place? Sure. 2F2, 1138 Polwarth Gardens.

Operator: Can I take your name, please?

Caller's reply is muffled.

Operator: Could you repeat that, sir?

Caller hangs up.

12
^th
JANUARY

8:20 am

Pearce turned on the cold tap. Water bounced off the sink's green enamel and splashed his stomach. He twisted the tap anticlockwise, then reached for the towel that hung from a hoop under the sink, bottom edge dangling less than an inch above the cork-tiled bathroom floor.

Blue with a white border, the towel was a present from Mum. "What are you supposed to give someone who's just out of prison?" she had asked. "I didn't know, so I made you this." In the top corner she had embroidered a dove in flight. She'd drawn it freehand and he only knew it was a dove because she'd told him. One day, while she was at work, he had taken the measuring tape out of the toolbox under the sink and measured the bird's wingspan. Those were big wings. Eleven point two times the length of its body, to be exact. The creature's head was tilted skywards, neck stretched like a chick demanding food.

Pearce crumpled the towel in his fist and rubbed the damp hair on his belly until the skin between his stomach and groin turned pink. It helped that the towel was rough. He folded it in half and draped it over his shoulders.

When he turned the tap back on, it coughed a couple of feeble jets of water into the sink before the flow steadied. He held his hand under the tap, fingers curled like talons. Gradually the back of his hand began to ache as the cold seeped through his skin and wrapped around his bones. When he could bear it no longer, he withdrew his hand and replaced it with the other one. He left it there till it throbbed.

It seemed a long time since he'd left the hospital.

At ten past four in the morning the air was still, the sky cloudless as he trudged down Forrest Road. Puddles of yellow light spread on the pavement and the layer of ice on the road looked like chalk. Traffic lights signalled to no one but him.

The palms of his hands hurt.

A plane passed low overhead. He looked up and saw five white lights, one of which was flashing, and a single flashing red light. The engine created two distinct sounds, a low thrum and a quieter high-pitched whine. In a little while, silence returned.

Interruptions were few during the long walk home. Approaching Chambers Street, he heard a shout and the sound of hurried footsteps, but when he turned the corner there was no one in sight. Later, on South Bridge, a car drove by, horn blaring and kids cheering out of an open window. Further on, a flattened cardboard box served as a bedroom wall for the pile of clothing quietly grunting in a disused shop doorway. Outside a corner shop a taxi disgorged its drunken occupant onto the pavement. The driver swore and the drunk swore back. Much later, now in a residential area, a woman crossed to the other side of the street as she passed Pearce, swaying, muttering, her coat wrapped tightly around her.

As he neared home, the occasional light shone from kitchens and bathrooms of early risers. A white cat jumped off a windowsill, hissing at him as it ran under a parked car. He'd never met a cat that could tolerate him. For all he knew, his armpits gave off an unpleasant odour that only those little bastards could smell.

The outside door of his mum's tenement flat was unlocked. Someone had kicked it open a couple of weeks ago and broken the lock. The stairwell lights revealed four half-moons engraved in the skin of each hand where his fingernails had been digging into his palms. He splayed his fingers, stretching the skin.

On the first floor landing a dog started to bark. Pearce had probably set it off by dragging the smell of cat in with him. The barking didn't relent until he was standing in front of his door, rummaging in his pocket for his keys. A ten pence piece poked out of his pocket, clattered onto the stone landing and started to roll towards the stairwell. He slammed his boot on top of the coin and the sound was like a thunderclap. Downstairs the dog started barking again.

The flat was dark and cold.

His mum's bedroom door was open, a shaft of moonlight draped across the empty bed. He walked over to the window and pulled the curtains.

In the kitchen he grabbed a can of Stella out of the fridge and took it into the sitting room. He removed his boots and stretched out on the sofa, knees bent, head resting against a pile of cushions. The beer tasted sour.

After a second sip, he went back to the kitchen and poured the beer down the sink. The smell made him nauseous. He drank some water from the tap, splashed some on his face and drank some more.

Back in the sitting room he selected a CD from his mum's collection. Her twelve CDs were heaped on the floor next to the CD player. In the dark he couldn't make out which album he'd chosen, but it made no difference. Mum never put her CDs back in the right box. He opened the case and prised out the disk.

Power. Flick to CD. Play.

Seconds later he eased the volume down, smiling. Burt Bacharach. "Close To You."

He lay down on the settee and drifted in and out of sleep until dawn began to burn the morning sky.

8:21 am

Pearce turned off the tap and looked at himself in the mirror. He brushed his chin with the back of his freezing hand. He needed a shave.

Later.

He checked his mobile. Cracked, but still working. No messages. He looked at his watch and called Ailsa Lillie.

She slurred her hello.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Who's that? Pearce? Christ. Give me a minute. Let me wake up. Christ."

"Want me to phone you back?"

"It's okay." She yawned. "Christ. What time is it?"

He told her."Shouldn't have phoned so early," he added.

"It's not early. I'm just a lazy cow." She yawned again. "So, did you see him?"

"Yeah. I told him not to come near you or your daughter again."

"And?"

"He said he wouldn't."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"Christ. That easy. You believe him?"

"I think so. I gave him something to think about."

"It's nice of you to phone, Pearce. Even if it is the middle of the night."

"How about you? Did you take the gun back?"

The tone of her voice changed. "No, I didn't." She made an angry noise in her throat. "If you must know, I tried. But Ben wasn't around and apparently nobody knew where he'd gone."

"Good."

"I'll get your money – what?"

"It's not a problem."

"I thought—"

Thompson's cash bulged in Pearce's back pocket. "Your ex is paying off your debt. In full."

"No way." Ailsa's voice rose. "How did you get him to do that? Only time he ever gave me anything was in return for sexual favours."

His throat felt dry. "This time you're getting something for nothing. No blowjob required."

"I don't want anything from him."

 "Take it. It's yours."

"I don't want his money."

"He gave it to me. I'll pay it for you."

"I've got my pride, Pearce."

"Okay, you can owe me instead of Cooper. How's that sound?"

"Better."

"Ailsa, I—" He closed his eyes. Mistake. He was back in the post office, his mum standing in front of him, knife against her throat. His knees buckled. He took a step forward to steady himself.
Stop it.
He tried to open his eyes. He didn't want to see this again. His eyelids were heavy and wouldn't budge. His mum's sweet scent wafted across to him. His tongue felt thick when he said to Ailsa, "Something happened yesterday."

"With Pete?"

"Something else." He heard his mum's breathing, saw the fear in her eyes. As he watched, her attacker dropped the knife and ran. Mum strode forward, slung her arms around Pearce's waist and told him she was fine, just fine.
Lies. Nothing but lies.

"You going to tell me or do I have to guess?" Another pause. Finally Ailsa said, "I'm awake, now, Pearce, but I might as well go back to sleep if you won't talk to me."

The moment his mum died, a firework had started flying around inside his skull. A young nurse tried to console him. She called security when he threw a chair at the wall. He apologised. Didn't point out that he
could
have thrown the chair out the window. And could have thrown the nurse and the security boys out the window after it. They let him sit for a while and, gradually, the anger seeped out of him as it became clear what he had to do. He'd never really had a choice. He saw the years stretch out forever. His life was over. God knows how long he'd get this time. His mum shook her head and accused him of having failed to learn anything.

His eyes snapped open. The illusion vanished. She was wrong. He had learned something. The last ten years may not have taught him much, but one thing he knew. This time he wasn't prepared to spend all morning sharpening a screwdriver.

He said to Ailsa, "I need your help."

9:15 am

The cash was bundled in hundreds.

Robin flicked through a stack of tenners. The notes were limp and faded, well-used. He pressed the wad against his nose and inhaled. Sour beer, fag-ends in loaded ashtrays, the lingering trace of cheap perfume, two in the morning, the barman who looked like his father saying, "You're a leech, son," a woman whose name he didn't know leaning against his shoulder, lifting her head, breathing against his cheek, hair tickling his chin, lifting her head, whispering in his ear, whispering her name, whispering her name again and again, as her eyebrows darkened and fattened and wriggled and fell on his neck.