The Mercy Seat (27 page)

‘I’ve got some messages for you …’

He knew they’d be from journalists asking him to talk to them. He’d done it often enough himself.

‘Bin them,’ he said, ‘the lot.’

‘And Mr Sharkey has arrived. He said he has to see you urgently.’

‘He can fuck off as well,’ said Donovan.

‘Excuse me?’ said the receptionist, eyes saucer-wide.

Donovan smiled apologetically. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You didn’t deserve to hear that. Thinking out loud.’

She nodded, apology accepted.

He made his way up to his room, called the
Herald.

Asked for all the information they had on Colin Huntley.

Colin Huntley could no longer tell if it was day or night.

His time was measured not in hours or minutes but in more basic, yet abstract, forms. The length of time between food deliveries. Between ingestion and bowel movements. Drinking and urinating. The number of rats seen in any one time.

A single bare bulb illuminated the place, an artificial, permanent sun, throwing out more shadows than light. Since Gary Myers’ enforced departure, along with a few old stinking blankets to keep out the bitter cold, Colin had been given a few old paperbacks to read. Jeffrey Archer. John Grisham. Tom Clancy. Colin suspected this was part of the torture.

The pain in his arm was still there. Another constant. And he didn’t feel at all well.

He wondered if he was going mad. Mephisto was trying to break him, he knew that. He could hear his voice even when he wasn’t there.

‘Make the call,’ the voice said, more insistent now. ‘Once you’ve done that you’ll be able to go free. And be rich.’

He couldn’t make the call. He wished he could. Because once he had, he would never be free …

The chains rattled, the padlock was released, the key turned in the lock. The door opened.

Colin squinted against the light. He no longer bothered reaching for the hood. He knew who his captors were, and his body was too weary to be pushed through the motions. With Gary Myers gone, there was no need for pretence.

It was Hammer.

‘Brought something to keep you company,’ he said.

Keeping the inset door open, he went back outside, dragged in what looked like a rolled-up rug. He pulled it across the floor, laid it next to Colin, began unwrapping it.

Colin, still chained to the radiator, pulled himself forward, tried to see. Something about it looked familiar. What was inside even more so.

‘Caroline!’

Hammer turned, swatted him with the back of his hand, sent him sprawling backwards against the wall. His arm hurt even more.

‘Keep your voice down, cunt,’ said Hammer. ‘Or I’ll take her away again. Piece by piece.’

‘Suh – sorry …’

Colin pulled himself upright again, rubbed his injured face with his hand. He was bleeding. He didn’t care. Caroline was here. His daughter.

His new world.

Hammer finished unwrapping Caroline, left her lying on the spread rug. Her wrists and ankles had been bound, her mouth sealed with a strip of gaffer tape. Her eyes darted all around the room. Even the sight of her father couldn’t wipe the terror from her features.

Hammer ripped the tape from her mouth, slit the bonds on her wrists and ankles. The cuff that had held Gary Myers was still attached to the radiator. Hammer yanked Caroline’s arm across, ignoring her yelp of pain, roughly closed it round her wrist. He stood up.

‘There,’ he said. ‘Happy families.’

He left, locking the door firmly behind him.

Father and daughter looked at each other, emotions rollercoastering around inside them. Then fell into each other’s arms. Or as far as they could manage, the cuffs clanking against pipes, chafing against skin, pulling them in opposite directions.

Huge waves of emotion built inside them, came crashing down as cascading tears, enormous, jerking sobs. Desperately clinging to each other, not wanting to let go for fear the other would be borne away again.

Eventually the tears washed themselves out. They pulled apart, looked at each other. Checking the other was real.

‘Caroline …’ Colin’s voice was like old, untreated leather, cracked and stiff from disuse. ‘Caroline … what … have they hurt you?’

Caroline shook her head. ‘No …’ She grabbed him again. ‘Oh Dad … I thought you were dead …’

‘No, no, I’m still here …’

She pulled back, studied him again. More closely this time.

‘Oh my God … Look at you … What have they done to you?’

Colin involuntarily cradled his arm. ‘It’s … all right … I’m all right …’

They hugged again. Tears and sobs broke, subsided.

She looked at him again. Quizzical now.

‘What’s going on? Why are you here?’

Colin sighed, slid back against the wall.

‘Oh Caroline,’ he said, ‘I’ve done a terrible thing …’

‘That was brilliant, mate.’

‘Yeah, Mikey, best you’ve ever done.’

‘Had them right there, mate, right there.’

Mikey was walking over the High Level Bridge back to Gateshead, his mockney employers alongside him. He smiled, nodded.

‘Thanks,’ Mikey said. ‘Felt good.’

The blackened metal frame of the High Level was all-encompassing, the nuts, bolts, girders and uprights of the Victorian construction keeping the sunshine out. But Mikey didn’t care. He could see a way out, light at the end of the tunnel.

Because he had an ally.

Janine had walked in to the Prince of Wales twenty minutes after their encounter in front of the police station. He saw her stand inside the doorway, look around uncertainly. He waved, she acknowledged. Made her way warily towards him.

He tried to see himself from her point of view: scruffy, unshaven, cheaply dressed. Clinging to the fashions of ten, fifteen years ago. Carrying prison around with him.

Mikey could well understand her wariness.

She sat down opposite him, began going through her handbag.

‘I didn’t …’ Mikey cleared his throat, tried again. ‘I’ll get you a drink. Didn’t know what you … what you wanted.’

He made to rise.

‘I’m fine,’ she said.

She pulled out her mobile, punched in numbers. Her hands, Mikey noticed, were shaking.

‘Hello, Mam,’ she said into the phone. ‘I’m just havin’ a drink wth a friend after work.’ A pause, listening. ‘The Prince of Wales. No, I won’t be long. I’ll call you when I’m leavin’.’

Mikey drank his pint.

Janine replaced the phone in her bag, sat back on the chair, looked at him.

‘So,’ she said, ‘what were you gonna do to Alan Keenyside?’

Mikey licked his lips. Despite his pint his mouth felt dry.

‘Do his car,’ he said. ‘Hurt him. I dunno.’ He tried to make the next words sound light. Jokey. ‘Kill him, even.’

‘That’s what he deserves.’ Janine nodded, her gaze fixed on Mikey’s pint. Intense. Impassive.

Mikey sighed. Felt unburdening himself was now an imperative. ‘He’s ruinin’ my life. I just wanted to … strike back at him.’

Janine gave a hollow laugh. ‘You’ll have to try harder than that.’ She dug into her bag again, brought out a packet of Silk Cut and a lighter. Shook a cigarette from the pack, placed it between her lips and tried, hands trembling, to light it.

‘Here,’ Mikey said, leaning across the table, ‘let me.’

He held her lighter. She recoiled from his touch. He pulled away.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s me. I’m just … Never mind.’

She had another go. Managed to get it lit. Took a drag, held it, exhaled. ‘And with the smoke went some of her tension. ‘He’s a bastard,’ she said. ‘And you couldn’t hurt him enough. Even if you killed him it wouldn’t be enough.’ She
took another drag. ‘So what did he do to you?’

Mikey thought the best way to prove he meant her no harm was to tell her the truth. Or as much as he could. He didn’t want to tell her about prison. At least not yet. She might run. ‘He made me a drug dealer.’

Janine just stared at him.

‘He said I would be one of his paid informants. I mean, I didn’t even want to do that,’ he said. ‘But he made me. An’ then he made me a dealer.’

‘How?’

‘He gets his informants to tell him about local dealers. Where they are, when their next shipment is comin’ in, that kind of thing. Then him an’ his squad arrest them. Then skim off them. Take their stuff. Then give the stuff to his paid informants to peddle it.’

‘Why d’you do it?’

Mikey sighed. ‘Because if I didn’t he’d have me in prison.’

‘Could he do that?’

Mikey tried to smile. ‘What d’you think?’

Another drag. Another release of tension. Janine nodded. ‘Alan Keenyside enjoys ruinin’ people’s lives. Doesn’t even have to make money out of it. He’ll just do it for fun.’

‘What about you?’

She looked at her cigarette, as if weighing up what to tell him. Decision made, she began. ‘Him an’ me started seein’ each other. I knew he was married, but I thought it was only a bit o’ fun.’ She shook her head. ‘By God, I grew up fast.’

Another drag. Mikey said nothing.

‘I was flattered, you know? This big detective askin’ out one of the filin’ clerks. A civilian. An’ he was very persuasive. Chased an’ chased …’ She shook her head, almost smiled. ‘Knew what to say to make you feel special, you know?’

Although he didn’t, Mikey nodded.

She sucked the last ember of life out of her cigarette, stubbed the butt out hard in the ashtray. ‘Bastard.’ She sighed. Stared off somewhere Mikey couldn’t see. Then delved back into her bag, produced another Silk Cut, lit up again. Her hand didn’t shake as much this time.

‘It was romantic.’ She leaned forward, into her story now. ‘Dinners in flash restaurants. Drinks in posh cocktail bars. An’ dresses to wear in them. Nights out. Weekends away. It was fun, darin’.’

Another sigh, another drag.

Mikey was surprised by how much Janine was telling him. She must really need to talk, he thought, really need to get Keenyside out of her system. And who better to confide in than someone who’s not only a stranger but hates the man as much as she does?

‘Then things began to change.’ A shadow fell on her features. ‘He started to … make me do things. Force me.’ Her eyes dropped back to the cigarette, became focused on the burning tip. The slightest breeze inflaming it, quickening its deterioration to ash and smoke.

‘Physical things,’ she said to the cigarette, ‘sexual things. Unpleasant things.’

Mikey felt uncomfortable. This was the first time a woman had spoken to him about sex. He felt himself blush.

She put the cigarette to her lips, drew down hard.

Burning the tip. Ash and smoke.

‘He liked the control,’ she said. ‘He got off on that. Got his kicks.’

Mikey shook his head. ‘Bastard …’

‘I had a friend once,’ Janine said, ‘who lived with a bloke who used to beat her up. I’d say, “How can you live with ’im? Get away.” An’ she would say, “But I love ’im. ’E’ll change.”’ She sighed. ‘I used to think she was soft. But I don’t now. Because I know it can happen to anyone. It happened to me.’

The shadow across her features darkened. She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Then it got worse. Drugs.’

She stubbed her cigarette out, thought about it, decided to light another. Hands steadier all the time.

‘I’ve done drugs before,’ she said. ‘Y’know, down the Bigg Market or the Quay or out clubbin’. Coke an’ ecstasy. Bit o’ blow. I mean, who hasn’t?’

Mikey nodded, said nothing.

‘Enjoyed them. Nothin’ against them. But Alan wanted me to do heroin. Crack. Well, not want me to do it, make me do it. He forced me. An’ then … an’ then …’ She shook her head, averted her eyes. ‘He … did things to me. Made me do things. Horrible things …’

She shivered, eyes seeing something Mikey couldn’t, didn’t want to see.

‘I was a real mess.’ Her voice sounded small, like a child lost in a big world. Mikey sat forward, strained to listen.

‘A real mess … An’ I didn’t know what to do. Who to … talk to. Anythin’.’

She shook her head, lost in her story now.

‘I mean, me mam was good. She was great.’

Mikey nodded.

‘She really helped. Gave us the strength I needed to pull away from him.’ She gave a small, sad smile. Then a little laugh. ‘Me dad wanted to do him in. I couldn’t let ’im. Didn’t tell ’im who he was or what he did.’ Her voice darkened. ‘An’ I couldn’t tell either of them what he’d done to me.’

Mikey noticed that his glass was empty. Decided to forgo a refill until Janine had finished her story.

‘But they gave us the strength to get help. Seek treatment. Work was good an’ all. I told them I was really ill. Couldn’t tell them about him, of course. But they let me have sick leave to sort meself out.’ She sighed. ‘An’ it was goin’ well.’ She sat up straight in her seat. ‘Really well. I was back at
work, avoidin’ ’im an’ seekin’ a new job as well. I kept me distance, kept meself strong.’

Another sigh. And the shadow fell again.

‘But then he came back. All apologetic, y’know. Sorry about before, one last chance, not like that any more, promise things’ll be different …’ She shook her head.

‘But you told him to get lost.’

She dropped her head. Shook it slowly and sadly. When she spoke, her voice had shrunk again.

‘I had … sex with him.’

Mikey said nothing.

‘Not only that,’ she said, eyes still downcast, voice a tremulous, fragile thing, ‘I found out I was pregnant.’

‘What?’

She nodded again. Struggled to control her voice, her body. ‘I told him, confronted him. He just laughed. Told me to go an’ have an abortion.’

She sighed, looked at her cigarettes, decided against one. Forgot there was one already smouldering in the ashtray.

‘If it had just been that, though … it was the abuse as well. It was a mongrel, he said.’ She spat the word out. ‘A mongrel … Have it cut out, thrown away … stamp on it … stamp on it …’

Her hand went to her face, covered her nose and mouth. She screwed her eyes tight shut, but the long-dammed, long-threatened tears forced their way out.

Mikey didn’t know what to do, what to say. He wanted to comfort her, hold her, tell her she had a friend, that things would be all right. But he didn’t know how to touch her, find the words that would make her stop crying. So he sat still, waiting for this particular wave of sadness to ride itself out of her.