Crime (36 page)

By his silence, Gareth Horsburgh recognised that true terror would now be visited upon him, by someone who really did understand punishment.

— Ye know, ah don’t see that. Gillman shook his head. — Ah see a middle-aged guy who lives at hame with ehs ma.

You couldn’t stay. You sprang to your feet, headed out and down the stairs, shamed again by the beast. A pursuing Toal caught up with you on the path outside. In the biting cold air, your boss gave you the spiel about being a good man, who’d done a good job. About not taking the Robertson route and going down. Then he’d whispered, — You were caught on camera, leaving a bar in Newcastle frequented by drug dealers.

— Boss, I –

— Don’t say anything, Ray. Toal’s head whipped back and forth. — It’s been taken care of. Don’t speak to anybody about this. I’ve made an appointment for you to go and see Melissa Collingwood in counselling. You are officially on leave till further notice. Go to Trudi’s, Ray.

You nodded, walked down into Comely Bank Avenue and jumped in a taxi up to the Jeanie Deans pub. All you could think of was: I didn’t consider the camera in the centre, at the burger bar. They had one there, to check who was going in and out of the toilets, and over the counters for robbery and staff assaults. I just didn’t think about the night before. Why? Because all I thought about was Angela, what a dirty, lazy cow she was, who’d poisoned her own kid with her crap food.

So you went to the bar you used to frequent with Robbo and several other burned-out dissaffected cops. Met a few of the boys there and drank a lot of vodka, before being felled by a sick joke.

18

Decked

LENNOX DRIVES BACK
towards the Gulf Coast at a steady eighty; air con off and windows down, taking in the scent of the night, as he vacates the freeway for the connecting fork to Highway 41, passing on to the curving slip road for Bologna.

At thirty-five he feels suddenly older, sensing the seasons quickly chasing him down. Twenty-eight to thirty-four seemed static, a welcome hiatus after two decades of almost overwhelming volatility, but then his thirty-fifth year had delivered a quantum leap into middle age. Smitten by angst, he wonders about his next cataclysmic anniversary, and the urge to savour almost overwhelms. Lennox feels he should be looking at the eminence of the flickering stars through the dark, naked treetops, but he’s too intent on steering down this winding drive, treacherous after America’s breezy highways and waiting to claim him for its own. His need to concentrate is a response to his fatigue, but also because he feels an uneasy seduction lurking in those heavens; the stars seem closer down here, frozen detonated fireworks clustering in the air with a judging, perilous aspect.

The air at ground level is still almost gossamer in its humidity, but the swishing palm trees overhead signal a building wind as the road snakes even more keenly. Then, to his right, lights of varying intensity shimmer through the trees as the town rises out from the mangrove swamp.

As he drives towards the harbour, the marina is on the left: moon-globe street lamps beam in ripples over the water, the stars now a pallid glimmer in the inky sky above, and he can see thunderhead clouds glowing ominously through the mottled darkness to the north. Passing over the swamplands, they draw winds from the mangrove bushes as they loom in menacing approach.

Pulling into the near empty lot, he sees Chet’s boat moored under a burning lamp. As he exits the car, a solitary figure emerges from the office on the brokerage strip. — You’re sure lucky to catch ol Chet. Don Wynter twirls a set of keys, glancing to the berthed boat. — Reckon he’s plannin on takin a long trip. Down to the Keys, or maybe even the Bahamas. Plenty supplies; I know that cause I sell em to him, the old boy laughs. — Pretty tight-lipped about it all. Reckon he got some sweet thing tucked away.

— Anybody else on the boat? Lennox asks.

— Don’t reckon so, the loquacious harbour master says, and begins to expand, but Lennox has turned abruptly and stolen off towards the vessel. Stepping on to the gangplank, he looks down at the oily water before hopping on to the pristine craft. It’s dark, but light emanates from the cabin below. However, Chet is on the bridge, and both men are startled by the unexpected presence of the other. — Lennox. What … what are you doing here?

— I left something, he says gruffly and heads without invitation downstairs to the galley kitchen and dining area. The dog-eared
Perfect Bride
lies on the table where Tianna left it; apparently untouched. He picks it up, the beaming visage of the model bride strangely welcoming. Then he notes that the door of the larger bedroom is shut. He opens it and looks inside. Empty. So he heads up the four oak steps and back to the rear deck of the boat.

Chet stands trembling in front of him, but although a breeze is mounting, it hasn’t yet shifted the humidity from the air and it isn’t cold. He regards the magazine in Lennox’s hand. — Must be valuable, for you to come back for it.

— Aye, Lennox acknowledges, — it is. Then he looks up at the sky. — Weather’s turned a wee bit.

— Forecast isn’t too bad though. The rain clouds should blow over us, Chet says, distractedly. — Tianna nice and safe?

Lennox’s antenna tingles. Tianna’s safety has become an afterthought. — Aye. She’s with friends of mine.

— Good, Chet says uneasily.

Lennox feels something spike his arm. He lashes out with the magazine in his other hand, slapping sunburn, but crumpling the mosquito that has bloated on his blood. — Bastard, he snaps.

— You become immune and they don’t carry malaria here.

— I don’t intend to stick around long enough to become immune, Lennox says. — Just one question, although he knows, in cop tradition, that others will follow, — has Lance Dearing ever been on this boat?

As the words leave his lips, he becomes aware that Chet is actually looking over his shoulder. And then he hears a scrambling on the steps behind him. But Lennox can’t react in time as he feels something collide with him at force and it’s as if his teeth are being pushed out of his face from behind. He stumbles forward, fighting to stay conscious, but an explosion of orange in his head is fading to black.
Fight through this shite. Fight
. He feels no sensation but sees a mess of mashed-up red snapper and fries sloshing from him on to the deck. Then somebody is on him, forcing him down into his own vomit. He can’t resist; he’s a puppet with the strings cut. Immediately he thinks Dearing and Johnnie, as he feels his wrists being bound with something – he suspects fishing twine – followed by his ankles. Lennox slams his eyelids shut and grinds his teeth together. He’s aware of a spasm in his gullet now, and counts silently, hoping for a lull that will enable him to either swallow or expel his partial regurgitations. Then he seems to be breathing cool air through a hole in his chest.

As his vision clears, he draws up his knees and examines his ankles, confirming his suspicion as to the nature of his bondage. Then a pole dancer in silhouette and a slogan
I SUPPORT SINGLE MOMS
comes into vision, and Johnnie is crouching over him. As well as the T-shirt he wears a pair of polyester slacks. Lennox’s bleary eyes pan in jagged survey: no sign of Dearing. He sees the blue logo of
Perfect Bride
as the magazine lies face up in his vomit.

Johnnie holds a big, rusty shifting wrench, and he’s barking something at Chet. Lennox can’t make out the words. His skull throbs and the stink of his own vomit lodges in his nose and throat. His breaths have gathered the velocity of a steam locomotive. Each one demands attention. Resting his head on the deck, he shuts his eyes and lies in a stupor for what might have been hours, but on opening them the distance from the harbour lights indicates the passage of only a few minutes.

He tries to swallow. Saliva won’t come together in his arid mouth and throat. His head bangs, his eardrums pop, the acrid stench of his own puke rises from his shirt. The tendons in his neck are strained, as if his skull is lead. The tight binding on his wrists prevents him wiping the stinging sweat from his eyes. He considers his location, propped up against the deck seating at the rear of the craft. He can see Chet at the helm as the boat surges forward. The old taxman can’t look at Lennox, as if witnessing his humiliation is too big a cross to bear.

A deep fear grips him. Dealing with people who had been murdered in suspicious circumstances has made him even less disposed to joining their ranks. Cops wanted to know what the dead person on the table ate, what they wore, drank, read, who they knew, who they fucked, and how they liked to do it. They’d poke around under your fingernails, in your mouth, up your arse, around your genitals and inside your stomach. Then they’d pore over your mail, diary, emails, bank accounts and investments, till they knew you better than you’d known yourself. Lennox has always been tormented by the mortifying sense that his spirit self would be compelled to bear witness to the ignominious abuse of his worldly remains.

The last thing he wants is to be touched but it’s strangely comforting as a hand under his armpit yanks him upright. Then his skull hurts so bad, he envisions his head as physically split open, brains pouring from the back of it, slopping across the slick, white fibreglass of the boat into the sea. Sickness sinks through his body like a dropped anchor. He digs in his trainered soles, trying to get traction on a deck made slippery by his own puke. — It’s okay, a voice says in his ear. His arse feels the moulded seat and he swivels his hips to assist the force guiding him on to it. — You okay? Johnnie asks, the genuine concern in his voice surprising Lennox.

— I think you fractured my skull. He stares at the thick stubble on Johnnie’s chin. — I need to go to a hospital.

— If you’re sharp enough to talk like that, then you don’t need no hospital. Johnnie’s manner is now contrary and childlike.

— So you’re a doctor, then?

Johnnie has lost the wrench, but Lennox sees a sheathed diving knife attached to his belt, incongrous against the polyester leg. — I didn’t wanna hurt you, he says, shaking his head, — but why you gotta go poking your big fucking nose into other people’s business?

— It goes with the territory, he says, flexing against his bounds. The unyielding nature of the constraints induces a panic he struggles to fight. He’s going to drown. To be cast overboard. To have his breath crushed from his lungs by the force of the sea. He can picture the last air he will expel, a bubble rendered tangible and measurable by the water around it. See it explode in liberation to the surface, while his lifeless body floats below.

— What territory is that? Johnnie asks.

Lennox can’t think of what to say. Then Chet stalls the boat, cutting the engine to slow cruising speed. Thinking of the moth, Lennox shudders. As terror dances behind his eyes, he realises his notions of a dignified death were fanciful.

How did I get here?

—
Mr Confectioner, he was the one that fucked my heid
. Every time Lennox encountered Horsburgh, he wanted the world to swallow one of them up. Afterwards, he’d repair to the pub; drinking to try and obliterate the stuff he’d heard spill from this man’s mouth. A line of cocaine helped. Was it Horsey, Mr Confectioner, who’d led him here?

— What’s the fucking hold-up? Johnnie roars at Chet. — We ain’t here to look at no fuckin dolphins!

A seabird squawks, and Lennox feels the spray made by the boat cleaning his face. An astonishing calm descends on him, his thoughts seeming to become abstract. A strange but urgent consideration hits him:
the missing piece in the jigsaw has to be a twenty-plus-goals-a-season striker. At present there was far too big a goal-scoring burden on Skacel and Hartley in the midfield
. Then he sees that Chet is losing it, giving Johnnie the fear-of-running-aground routine. — We are in the goddamn shallows and this boat weighs twenty-three thousand pounds, and that was before your lardy ass stepped on to it. Unless you want me to run aground and have the coastguard out to us, I suggest we proceed with fucking caution!

Johnnie aims a sulky gape at Chet; he goes to say something then stops. Instead, holding the boat’s peripheral rail, he turns to Lennox. — Right, asshole. Who the fuck are you?

Lennox still thinks of Mr Confectioner, Gareth Horsburgh. The arrogance of the taunting beast: like it was an act he’d run through on many private occasions. He recalls asking Stuart how he prepared for his acting roles; the corrupt young solicitor in
Taggart
, the intern vet in
Take the High Road
, the drug-addled ned in
The Vice
.

Find the character’s essence. Become one with it, harness it
.

What would Horsburgh do if he were the captive? He would be derisive, sneering his contempt at those insects. The supercilious civil servant, with his briefcase and sandwiches, would delight in being the biggest, brightest, most evil beast in this jungle
.

— I never intended to get involved in all this, Johnnie. He hears his tones clipped and precise. — Now I’m going to ask you to do something for me.

— What … what the fuck do you want
me
to do for
you
?

— I’m going to ask you to get rid of me.

And Ray Lennox, Mr Confectioner, tries to rise. His arse gets an inch from the seat, before the boat’s motion thumps him back, jarring his spine.

— Hold it right there or that is exactly what I will do, Johnnie says, — throw your miserable interfering ass overboard!

— But I want you to. I want to make it easy for you, Lennox the Confectioner urges, trying to thrust himself up again. — Just help me up and I’ll jump.

— Not from my boat you won’t, Chet blusters above the engine’s growl. — I’ve never lost anybody at sea yet and I don’t intend –

— Shut the fuck up! Johnnie bellows, then pushes Lennox back on to the seat with one hand, gripping the handrail with the other. — I’m warning you, asshole!

Lennox looks at Johnnie with his now deliciously half-shut eyes, feeling the throb of power in his constrained limbs. — You know what I want. Because you know that I’m like you and there’s only room for one of us.