Acid Lullaby (4 page)

Crouch felt the frustration fermenting in his stomach as he watched her leave. He had seen enough. He knew it was over.

Now, he had to know why.

Around the corner, Liz arrived at the Eurodollar desk to a chorus of jeers and ‘look-at-the-state-of-that’s!’ She slumped into her chair and hung onto her coffee for warmth and support.

‘Good night, then?’ Adrian asked without looking up from his screens.

Liz nodded. ‘The best.’

‘Some loser was looking for you.’

Liz felt another spasm of guilt. She had treated Simon poorly. She had wanted to call it off but had hoped he would get the message by implication. Through the broken glass window of a hangover Liz saw she at least owed him the respect of breaking up properly. She decided to send him an email.

The black cab roared up from the gloom of the Limehouse Link Tunnel onto the highway. Crouch sat in the back, cold sweating with anxiety. The cab turned left at Tobacco Dock. The driver looked over his shoulder and opened the connecting window.

‘Left here, mate?’

‘Yeah,’ Crouch replied, ‘then down Wapping High Street. It’s opposite the tube station. Raleigh Wharf.’

‘Gotcha.’

They arrived two minutes later. Crouch told the cab to wait for him. He hurried into the building as the cabbie opened a plastic thermos flask of coffee.

Crouch unlocked Liz’s apartment. ‘2-1-2-3’ silenced the alarm system.

The flat was humid and smelt of shower-gel. He was nervous and quickly retrieved the Dictaphone from the bookshelf. He was back outside within a minute.

Back in the cab, Crouch took a deep breath and pressed play on the Dictaphone. Nothing happened. The batteries had died. The taxi rumbled back towards Canary Wharf, bouncing along the ancient cobbles of Wapping High Street. Crouch held the muted machine tightly in his hand.

Max Fallon drifted into his office at 8a.m. Wearily, he turned on his computer and noticed he had twenty-six emails. Three were from Liz. He groaned and necked half a bottle of Evian. She had been a disconcertingly good ride but he hoped that she wasn’t a bunny boiler. A barnacle bird at the office was the last thing that he needed. He would trawl through the messages later. For the moment, he would concentrate on fighting dehydration.

Simon Crouch bought two calculator batteries from the shop next to the canteen at Fogle & Moore and hurried down to his office. He closed the door behind him and fumbled the new batteries into the dictaphone. After a deep breath he pressed ‘play’. A light flashed on and through the electrical crackle of the playback he could hear snatches of Liz’s voice.

‘… Fogle & Moore … giving me a frigging pay rise … working my ass off twenty-four-seven.’

There
was
a
mumbling
in
the
background.
Someone
else
was
in
the
room
but
Crouch
couldn’t
determine
who.
He
frowned
as
he
tried
to
decipher
the
answer
and
cursed
the
Dictaphone’s
inadequate
condenser
mic.
Liz’s
voice
broke
through
the
crackle
again.
She
sounded
drunk.

‘… I do work weekends … some weekends … why are you being such an asshole …’

He
could
hear
Liz
laughing.
There
was
a
crash
of
breaking
glass.
Drunk
Liz
dropping
stuff –
he’d
seen
her
do
it
before.

Footsteps.
Footsteps
on
Liz’s
stripped
wooden
floor.
Expensive
footsteps,
getting
louder.
A
man’s
voice.

‘… are all assholes. Didn’t your mother tell you that?’

Fury
engulfed
Simon
Crouch.
Fury
that
she
had
lied
to
him.
Fury
that
he
had
lost
control
of
events.
Terror
at
what
was
coming.
He
could
hear
a
rustling
sound.
Like
the
crumbling
of
a
paper
bag.

‘Shit. There’s wine down the front of your dress.’

Liz’s
reply
was
muffled
and
indistinct.
The
man’s
voice
again.

‘Why don’t you just take it off?’

Crouch stopped the playback and was suddenly sick into his waste basket. He wiped the acid bile from his mouth.
There it was. Cold and brutal. She was screwing him around. His heart was racing. His blood boiled behind his eyes. For a second, he thought about throwing the Dictaphone away. And yet morbid fascination drew him on. He tried for a moment to catch his breath. He removed his tie, its cheapness now stained with vomit. He pressed play.

Liz’s
voice:
‘Whaddya
think?’

Man: ‘
…
king
fantasic.’

Liz:
‘You
planning
on
doing
anything
about
it?’

Man.
He
sounded
drunk
too.
‘What
about
your
boyfriend
…
Mr
Sad-Act
from
Settlements.’

Liz: ‘
…
over.
He’s
nobody.
Now
are
we
gonna
fuck
or
are
you
gonna
talk
shit
all
night?’

Crouch sat back in his chair. It would have been better to walk in on them and catch them in the act: better to have fixed a single frozen horror in his mind. Then he could have turned the image into a jigsaw and picked away at it over time. Now, his imagination was painting dozens of terrible pictures.

He was infuriated by his own idiocy. He was the biggest dickhead on the planet. He had cut her so much slack, believed all her self-esteem bullshit, tolerated the evaporation of their sex life. Aldo had been right all along. She was a piece of garbage. Crouch smashed his hand against the plastic desk. How could he have been so utterly fucking stupid?

The
playback
continued.
Grunting
through
the
distortion.

Man:
‘You
like
this?’

Liz:
‘Fuck
yes
…
Fuck
yes
…
’

Man:
‘…
knew
you
were
a
dirty
bitch
…
’

Liz:
‘Ugh
…
Ugh
…
Fuck
me
…
Fuck
me
…
’

Fawk
me.
Fawk
me.
Crouch found that her accent suddenly revolted him. As if he was eating sludge raked up from the bottom of the East River.

Man:
‘Where
do
you
want
it?’

Liz.
Breathless.
‘Anywhere
Max,
anywhere
you
fucking
want
…
’

You
fawking
want.
Max.
Anywhere
you
fawking
want.
Max.
Max.

The noises went on. Grunting, screams, rustling. Like killing a pig. Eventually, the tape ran out and in the sudden silence of his office, Crouch cried for the first time in ten years. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Max Fallon, the market’s quintessential tosser, screwing his girlfriend. The image sickened and excited him. He found his own desolate arousal even more enraging. It took two hours for his despair to harden into fury.

At 10.30 he read an email from Liz saying she needed space.

At 11.00 he called Aldo.

Friday afternoon was usually a dead loss. The market indices always behaved erratically after lunchtime as hundreds of traders sloshed back to their desks with half a gallon of lager inside them. It was a sunny day too. The bars around Canary Wharf were already spilling people onto the dockside walkways. At 4.30p.m., Fallon gave up and decided to join them. He pulled on his navy blue suit jacket and announced his departure to the trading floor over the intercom: ‘I’m off to the pub. I suggest you wankers join me.’

Insulted but unshackled, the weary traders gave up trying to make sense of the muddled Friday market and headed for the door.

Simon Crouch stood at the far end of the trading floor. His eyes still stung. His guts were still twisted in agony. He saw Fallon striding from his office with Danny Planck jogging to keep up with him. Planck asked Fallon a question and slapped him on the back when he heard the answer. Crouch knew they were talking about Liz. It sickened him. She would be another filthy fairy story that fed the cult of Fallon. He would be the nameless sad act from Settlements that got shat on whenever the story was recycled.

He was not prepared to accept that. Aldo had agreed to meet him at six o’clock. Aldo had a plan. Fallon had something bad coming.

The majority of the 3rd Floor bond jocks soon joined Fallon and Planck in Corney & Barrow. Time slipped by. Fallon was feeling generous and bought three pitchers of lager which were greedily, ungratefully received. He ordered a Japanese premium beer for himself. It came in a frosted glass; ice cold. It was a nice touch. Fallon enjoyed bestowing his largesse on the little people. They thought it made him one of them. He knew it was about control.

Tall and imperious Pieter Richter drifted over and floated at Fallon’s side. He was ambitious and aggressive: the youngest director in Sales & Trading.

‘So come on, man!’ Richter boomed, Harvard Business School hadn’t quite ironed out his German accent, ‘did you stiff her?’

Fallon was enjoying the attention.

‘What kind of question’s that?’ Fallon wore a grin that spoke a thousand words.

‘You stiffed her.’ Richter turned to Planck. ‘Can you believe this lucky son of a bitch?’

Planck solemnly nodded his agreement. ‘It’s a disgrace. Nice, innocent girl like that.’

Fallon almost choked on his beer. ‘Do me a favour! Innocent? She half ripped my flesh off.’

‘Show us, man,’ Richter demanded.

At the far end of the bar Simon Crouch bought a pint of Heineken for himself and a Vodka Mule for Aldo. He watched the laughing traders. Fallon’s voice, pure mockney, rose above them.

‘Piss off!’ Fallon shouted. ‘Just ’cause you don’t get any.’

‘This is bullshit, man,’ Richter teased. ‘You didn’t fuck nobody.’

Planck grinned. ‘You won’t say that when you see your bonus.’

Fallon hated being taunted. He was a God. He would provide a revelation for the unbelievers.

‘All right, then.’ He slipped off his jacket and lifted up the back of his shirt. ‘What about that, then?’

Even Crouch could see the angry red nail marks scratched along Fallon’s hairless back. He recognized them. Six months ago he had worn them himself, proudly like a medal. He swallowed the acid that suddenly spurted into the back of his throat. Aldo grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out of the bar. The shrieks of the traders tumbled out of the door after them.

There was a small standing area outside the bar that overlooked the dock. Aldo dragged Crouch over and pushed him into the wall. His friend was ready to explode. Tears brimmed in Crouch’s red eyes.

‘That prick.’ He spat the words into Aldo’s face. Aldo could taste the beer. ‘I’m going to rip his head off.’

Aldo pushed Crouch back into the wall. ‘Don’t be stupid. We talked about this. You want to get even, then get smart.’ Aldo reached into his right jacket pocket and withdrew a tightly folded square of tin foil. Crouch’s body began to relax and he watched his friend discreetly unwrap the silver paper.

‘What’s that?’ said Crouch, brushing the tears of fury from his eyes.

Aldo held up the unwrapped parcel so Crouch could see it. ‘This, mate, is revenge.’

On the tin foil lay three white pills.

They heard shouting from inside the bar. Crouch could make out Planck’s voice rising above the mayhem. He looked back through the doorway.

‘Jesus, Maxy, you were supposed to screw her not murder her!’ Planck was spluttering lager over the gathering.

‘What can I say?’ Fallon replied loudly. ‘She was out of control. I’ve got a gift.’

‘This calls for a celebration!’ Pieter Richter sloshed a shot of vodka into the nearest trader’s glasses. ‘To Max’s prick. For refusing to die quietly.’

There was a wave of laughter. Max was loving it; the adoration of the little people. The control.

Outside, Simon Crouch tried to control his emotions and took the tin foil sheet from Aldo.

‘What’s your idea, then?’ His voice was cracking.

Aldo shot a quick look around him.

‘We fix the wanker. Spike his drink. Scramble his brain.’

‘You’re kidding?’

‘Am I smiling?’

Crouch picked up one of the pills and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger.

‘What are they then?’

Aldo smiled. ‘They are what you might call experimental. We call ’em “Lobotomies”. Active ingredient is a close relative of an old friend: lysergic acid diethylamide.’

Crouch was dismissive. ‘You want to give this prick an acid trip?’ He handed the pills back to Aldo. ‘Waste of time. I want to kick his head in. Not send him to dreamland for a couple of hours.’