Shatter (46 page)

‘I’m going to leave your hands in front of you but if you take off the mask, I will punish you. Do you understand?’

She doesn’t respond.

‘I will close off the hosepipe unless you acknowledge my question. Will you leave the mask alone?’

She nods.

I take her back to the bed and sit her upright. Her breathing is steadier. Her narrow chest rises and falls. Stepping backwards, I turn on her mobile phone and wait for the screen to
light. Then I press the camera function and capture the image.

‘Be quiet now. I have to go out for a while. I’ll bring you back something to eat.’

She shakes her head, sobbing into the mask.

‘Don’t worry. I won’t be long.’

I walk out of the house and down the steps. There is a garage within a copse of trees. My van is parked inside, next to a Range Rover that belongs to the Arab. He very helpfully left
the keys on a hook in the pantry, alongside a dozen others, neatly labelled for the electricity box and the mailbox. Strangely, I couldn’t find one for the shed. Not to worry.

‘We shall take the Range Rover today,’ I announce to myself.

‘Very good, sir.’

A Ferrari Spider one day, a Range Rover the next— life is good.

The garage door rises automatically. Gravel murmurs beneath the tyres.

When I reach Bridge Road I turn right and right again into Clifton Down Road, weaving through Victoria Square and along Queen’s Road. Shoppers are spilling onto the footpaths
and Sunday afternoon traffic clogs the intersections. I turn into a multi-storey car park beside the Bristol Ice Rink and swing up the concrete ramps, looking for an open space.

The Range Rover locks with a reassuring clunk and a flash of lights. I walk down the stairs and out into the open, following Frogmore Street until I can mingle with the shoppers and
tourists.

The curving façade of the Council House is ahead of me and beyond that the cathedral. Traffic lights change. Gears engage. An open-top bus trundles past spouting diesel fumes.

I wait at the lights and turn on the mobile. The screen lights up with a singsong tune.

Menu. Options. Last number dialled.

She answers hopefully. ‘Charlie?’

‘Hello, Julianne, did you miss me?’

‘I want to speak to Charlie.’

‘I’m afraid she’s busy.’

‘I need to know she’s OK.’

‘Trust me.’

‘No. Let me hear her.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

I press the play button. The tape turns. Charlie’s screams are filling her ears, shredding her heart; opening the cracks a little wider in her mind.

I stop the tape. Julianne’s breath is vibrating.

‘Is your husband listening?’

‘No.’

‘What did he say about me?’

‘He says you won’t hurt Charlie. He says you don’t hurt children.’

‘And you believe him.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What else did he say about me?’

‘He says you want to punish women… to punish me. But I’ve done nothing to hurt you. Charlie has done nothing. Please, let me talk to her.’

Her whining voice is starting to annoy me.

‘Have you ever been unfaithful, Julianne?’

‘No.’

‘You’re lying to me. You’re just like all the others. You’re a conniving, two-faced, backstabbing slut with a pesthole between your legs and another on your face.’

A woman pedestrian has overheard me. Her eyes go wide. I lean closer and say, ‘Boo!’ She trips over herself trying to get away.

Crossing the road, I walk through the gardens in the cathedral plaza. Mothers push prams. Older couples sit on benches. Pigeons flutter in the eaves.

‘I’m going to ask you again, Julianne, have you ever been unfaithful.’

‘No,’ she sobs.

‘What about with your boss? You make all those phone calls to him. You stay with him in London.’

‘He’s a friend.’

‘I’ve heard you talking to him, Julianne. I heard what you said.’

‘No… no. I don’t want to talk about that.’

‘That’s because the police are listening to the call,’ I say. ‘You’re terrified your husband might learn the truth. Shall I tell him?’

‘He knows the truth.’

‘Shall I tell him you grew tired of lying in his bed, looking at his spotty back, and had an affair?’

‘Please don’t. I just want to talk to Charlie.’

I peer through the misty rain at the buildings on the far side of Park Street. Silhouetted on the roof of the Wine Museum is a phone tower. It’s probably the closest.

‘I know this call is being recorded, Julianne. It must be a real party line. And your job is to keep me on the phone for as long as possible so they can track the signal.’

She hesitates. ‘No.’

‘You’re not a very good liar. I’ve worked with some of the best liars, but they never lied to me for long.’

Crossing College Green in the shadow of the cathedral, I glance along Anchor Road. There must be fifteen phone towers within half a mile of here. How long will it take them to find
me?

‘Charlie is very flexible, isn’t she? The way she can bend her body. She can put her knees behind her ears. She’s making me very happy.’

‘Please don’t touch her.’

‘It’s far too late for that. You should be hoping I don’t kill her.’

‘Why are you doing this?’

‘Ask your husband.’

‘He’s not here.’

‘Why’s that? Have you two had a fight? Did you kick him out? Do you blame him for this?’

‘What do you want from us?’

‘I want what he has.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I want what’s mine.’

‘Your wife and daughter are dead.’

‘Is that what he told you?’

‘I’m very sorry for your loss, Mr Tyler, but we haven’t done anything to hurt you. Please let Charlie go.’

‘Have her periods started?’

‘What difference does that make?’

‘I want to know if she’s ovulating. Maybe I’ll put a baby in her. You can be a grandmother, a glamorous granny.’

‘Take me instead.’

‘Why would I want a grandmother? I’ll be honest with you, Julianne, you’re a fine looking woman, but I prefer your daughter. It’s not that I’m into little girls. I’m not a pervert. You see,
Julianne, when I fuck her, I’m going to be fucking you. When I hurt her, I’m going to be hurting you. I can touch you in ways that you can’t even imagine, without laying a finger on
you.’

I look up and down the street and cross over. People walk around me, occasionally jostling my shoulder and apologising. My eyes scan the street ahead.

‘I’ll do anything you want,’ she sobs.

‘Anything?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t believe you. You’re going to have to prove it.’

‘How?’

‘You have to show me.’

‘OK, but only if you show me Charlie.’

‘I can do that. I’ll let you see her right now. I’m sending you something.’

I press a button and the photograph transmits. I wait, listening for her reaction. There it is! It’s a sharp intake of breath, the strangled cry. She is lost for words, staring at her daughter’s
head, encased in masking tape, breathing through a tube.

‘Give my regards to your husband, Julianne. Tell him he’s running out of time.’

Police cars are heading south along St Augustine’s Parade. I step onto a bus heading north, watching the police pass in the opposite direction. I lean my head against the window
and look down the Christmas Steps, falling away to my right.

Five minutes later, I step off the bus in Lower Maudlin Street before the roundabout. Stretching my arms above my head, I feel the vertebrae crack and pop along my spine.

The bus has turned the corner. Wedged between two seats, in a hamburger wrapper, the mobile phone is still transmitting. Out of sight and out of mind.

58

Sniffy nudges her bony head into my ankle, purring as she rubs her body along my calf and twirls to come back again. She’s hungry. I open the refrigerator and find a half-open can of cat food covered in foil. I spoon some into her bowl and pour her some milk.

The kitchen table is covered with the debris of the day. Emma had cheese sandwiches and juice for lunch. She didn’t eat the crusts. Charlie used to be the same. ‘My hair is curly enough,’ she told me at age five. ‘I think I’ve had enough crusts.’

I wil never forget seeing Charlie born. She arrived two weeks late, on a bitter January night. I guess she wanted to stay somewhere warm. The obstetrician induced her with Prostaglandin and told us the drug would take eight hours to work so he was going home to bed. Julianne went into accelerated labour and was ful y dilated within three hours. There wasn’t enough time for the obstetrician to get back to the hospital. A big black midwife delivered Charlie, ordering me around the delivery suite like a puppy that needed housetraining.

Julianne didn’t want me looking ‘at the business end’, she said. She wanted me to stay up next to her face, wiping her brow and holding her hand. I didn’t fol ow orders. Once I saw the dark-haired crown of the baby’s head appear between her thighs, I wasn’t going anywhere. I had a front row seat for the best show in town.

‘It’s a girl,’ I said to Julianne.

‘Are you sure?’

I looked again. ‘Oh, yeah.’

Then I seem to remember there was competition to see which of us would cry first— the baby or me. Charlie won because I cheated and hid my face. I had never been so satisfied taking total credit for something I had so little to do with.

The midwife handed me the scissors to cut the umbilical cord. She swaddled Charlie and handed her to me. It was Charlie’s birthday, yet I was the one getting al the presents. I carried her across to a mirror and stared at our reflections. She opened the bluest of eyes and looked at me. To this day, I have never been looked at like that.

Julianne had passed out, exhausted. Charlie did the same. I wanted to wake her up. I mean, what child sleeps through her birthday? I wanted her to look at me just like before, like I was the first person she had ever seen.

The humming refrigerator rattles into stil ness and in the sudden quietness I feel a smal ceaseless tremor vibrating inside me, expanding, fil ing my lungs. I am disconnected. Cold. My hands have stopped shaking. Suddenly, I seem to be paralysed by an odourless, colourless, invisible gas. Despair.

I don’t hear the door open. I don’t hear footsteps.

‘Hel o.’

I open my eyes. Darcy is standing in the kitchen, wearing a beanie, a denim jacket and patched jeans.

‘How did you get here?’

‘A friend brought me.’

I turn to the door and see Ruiz, rumpled, careworn, stil wearing his rugby tie at half-mast.

‘How are you doing, Joe?’

‘Not so good.’

He shuffles closer. If he hugs me I’l start to cry. Darcy does it for him, putting her arms around my neck and squeezing me from behind.

‘I heard it on the radio,’ she says. ‘Is it the same man— the one I met on the train?’

‘Yes.’

She takes off her rainbow-coloured gloves. Her cheeks are flushed with the change in temperature.

‘How did you two find each other?’ I ask.

Darcy glances at Ruiz. ‘I’ve sort of been staying with him.’

I look at the two of them in amazement.

‘Since when?’

‘Since I ran away.’

Then I remember the clothes in the dryer in Ruiz’s laundry; a tartan skirt in the wicker basket. I should have recognised it. Darcy was wearing it when she first turned up at the cottage.

I look at Ruiz. ‘You said your daughter was home.’

‘She is,’ he replies, shrugging away my anger as easily as he does his overcoat.

‘Claire’s a dancer,’ adds Darcy. ‘Did you know she trained with the Royal Bal et? She says there’s a special hardship scholarship for people like me. She’s going to help me apply.’

I’m not real y listening to the substance of what she’s saying. I’m stil waiting for Ruiz to explain.

‘The kid needed a few days. I didn’t think there was any harm.’

‘I was worried about her.’

‘She’s not your concern.’

There’s an edge to the statement. I wonder how much he knows.

Darcy is stil talking. ‘Vincent found my father. I met him. It was pretty weird, but OK. I thought he’d be better looking, you know, tal er or maybe famous, but he’s just an ordinary old guy.

Normal. He’s a food importer. He brings in caviar. That’s fish eggs. He let me try some. Talk about gross. He said it tasted like ocean spray, I thought it tasted like shit.’

‘Language,’ says Ruiz. Darcy looks at him sheepishly.

Ruiz has taken a seat opposite me, placing his hands flat on the table. ‘I checked the guy out. Lives in Cambridge. Married. Two kids. He’s al right.’

Then he changes the subject and asks about Julianne.

‘She’s gone with the police.’

‘You should be with her.’

‘She doesn’t want me there and the police think I’m a liability.’

‘A liability— that’s an interesting analysis. Then again, I’ve often thought your ideas were dangerously subversive.’

‘I’m hardly a radical.’

‘More like a candidate for Rotary.’

He’s teasing me. I can’t find the energy to smile.

Darcy asks after Emma. She’s gone. My parents have taken her to Wales, along with Imogen. My mother burst into tears when she saw Charlie’s room and didn’t stop sobbing until my father gave her an oversized box of tissues and told her to wait in the car. Then God’s-personal-physician-in-waiting gave me his stiff upper lip speech, which sounded like something Michael Caine delivered in
Zulu
.