The Mercy Seat (34 page)

‘Yes, a poison. I’m sure you’ve got loads of stuff like that lying around up there. What we do is introduce it to the water supply they’ve just installed, then watch them fall over one by one. Blame it on some kind of bug. Impurity in the system they set up. Or use a traceable poison. Make it seem like a suicide pact. Make them out to be some kind of death cult.’ Keenyside gave a small laugh. ‘Exciting, isn’t it? Like working for the CIA.’

Colin shook his head. The pain increased. ‘No … no … That’s awful …’

‘Drastic times, Colin, drastic measures needed.’ He gestured towards the door. ‘You can always go home, Colin. Back to the noise, the smell. Back to your new neighbours.’

Colin shook his head. The ache had become a pain.

‘Ever heard of Chechnya?’ asked Keenyside.

Colin nodded.

‘Lots of stuff gone on there you never hear of over here. They have a way of dealing with undesirables. Want to hear it?’

Colin said nothing, just sat, shoulders slumped.

Keenyside told him. How the Russian army treated their prisoners. Made an example of them to the rest.

Told him about the gas masks. The mustard gas.

The torture and interrogation.

The broken prisoner returned, a human warning to the others.

Told him how it could be applied to their problem.

‘All we would need would be one person,’ Keenyside said. ‘Just one. And when they see what’s happened to him, they won’t want to stay around in case the same happens to them. Just one. To make an example of. Can you think of one you’d like that to happen to?’

Colin said nothing. He looked in pain.

‘I can,’ said Keenyside.

Colin shook his head.

He locked eyes with Colin. ‘D’you want rid of them, Colin? Really want rid of them?’

Colin sighed. The inside of his head felt like it was being chipped away at by hundreds of tiny pickaxes. He couldn’t think.

‘I want … peace …’

Keenyside kept his eyes locked.

‘Peace costs,’ he said. ‘Real, long-lasting peace.’

‘How much?’ His throat felt parched.

‘Financially? Nothing. Only your complicity.’

Colin stared wildly around, pained and lost.

‘That or nothing,’ Keenyside said.

Colin looked at the floor. Picked up his untouched whisky. Downed it in one. Nodded.

‘I’ll pay.’

Keenyside smiled. ‘Good man.’ He sat back.

Colin felt exhausted. Dirty. Sweat ran and danced all over his body. He was shaking.

But his headache seemed to be receding.

‘I feel like Faust … with Mephistopheles …’

Keenyside kept smiling, his eyes glittering.

‘Whatever,’ he said. He pointed a finger at the other man. ‘Your glass is empty, Colin. Another?’

Colin nodded.

Caroline stared at him. Like she was unable to reconcile the father she had known all her life with the things he was telling her.

‘Tosher … what happened to him?’

‘I … I don’t know …’ He looked away from her, hid his eyes. Tried not to look in the centre of the room. At the stains on the floor. ‘I just appropriated their compound for them. I don’t know.’

‘Appropriated … You let them …’ She shook her head, incredulous. ‘What about the rest of the travellers? What happened to them?’

He saw flames dance before his eyes. Heard screams and cries of pain.

‘I said I don’t know,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t know … what they did …’ He sighed, shook his head. ‘Look, I had to do something. I’d lost Helen. I could have lost you.’ He sighed. ‘I had to do something …’

The words had sunk in. Anger was beginning to rise within Caroline now. ‘What d’you mean you had to do something? It was never going to last between me and Tosher. You knew that. It was just a bit of fun. God knows
I needed it after all we’d been through. He and I just went out a few times. Rode on his bike with him. That’s all. I was never going to go away with him. You knew that.’ She shook her head. ‘My God …’

‘That’s not how it seemed to me at the time …’ He was close to tears. ‘Look, I knew what I’d done was bad. I tried to make it up to you with the flat. Helping you move, decorating, helping you pay …’

Caroline stared at him, eyes cold. ‘I just … I don’t know what to say to you …’

He reached out his hand to her.

‘Don’t touch me. Just don’t touch me.’

Colin said nothing. Stared at the chain that bound him to the radiator. By extension, to his daughter. He gave another sad, slow shake of his head.

The silence stretched out. Eventually Caroline spoke.

‘And all this—’ she gestured with her hand, rattling the chain as she did so ‘—Keenyside, the whole thing, is because of what you did to Tosher?’

‘Kind of,’ said Colin in a small voice. ‘An extension of that, you might say. A consequence. Let me explain.’

‘No,’ she said quickly. She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. ‘I don’t think I know you. I don’t think I want to know you …’

The silence stretched out indefinitely.

And now she lay there sleeping. And he watched her.

Not knowing what she was thinking about.

What she thought of him.

What he thought of himself.

Donovan had always found seaside towns out of season depressing. He imagined this one just as depressing in season.

Jaywick Sands just beside Clacton. A flat stretch of Essex sliding into the North Sea. Perhaps it had once been a thriving, pleasant resort – although Donovan doubted it – but was now in terminal decline.

Peta drove, Donovan map-read. Out of London, up the A12 to Essex, superstores, retail parks and industrial estates proliferating, then receding, replaced by flat, functional countryside, neatly divided into utilitarian strips and squares.

Donovan had woken up in the hotel room entangled in his sheet and duvet, his hair lank and sweat-plastered to his head, mouth crusted, body stinking of sweat and guilt.

He lay back and groaned, let the past night’s jigsaw fit itself together.

The music, the booze.

The ghosts, the gun …

Then nothing.

He looked to the side of the bed, confused to see, amid all the strewn papers, a duvet and pillow there. Then remembered.

Peta.

And groaned again.

On the pillow a note, hoping he managed to get some rest and a time to meet her in the restaurant for breakfast.

He looked at his watch, slowly pulled himself from his bed, forced his way into the bathroom, head spinning,
stomach churning. His hangover, he knew, wouldn’t shift. It would hang around all day, resurfacing like a guilty secret, reminding him of its presence.

He showered, trying to shove the previous night to the back of his mind, made his way down to breakfast wearing an old Batman T-shirt and olive-green combats. He was wary about meeting Peta; he couldn’t remember what he had told her. He found her sitting, pink-cheeked, perky and radiant from her morning swim, eating a toasted bagel and fresh fruit, drinking Earl Grey tea. She looked up at his approach.

‘How are you?’ Real concern in her eyes.

Donovan shrugged. Peta nodded.

‘You OK for today?’

Donovan nodded.

‘Good,’ she said. Went back to her bagel.

Donovan stared at her. ‘Look,’ he began uncomfortably. ‘Last night. I might have said some things that … I don’t know, I’m …’

She smiled. And Donovan felt like he had a friend. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Honestly.’

He nodded. ‘Thanks. Sorry for being a …’

‘Nothing to be ashamed of. We’ve all been there. Or somewhere similar. Part of being human.’

Donovan looked at her, wanting to ask more, not daring.

She shrugged. ‘You’ve had a rough few days. Let’s forget it. Get some food inside you. You’ll feel better.’

He did as he was told, ordered himself a full English. If he couldn’t stop his heart with a gun, he thought wryly, he would find another way.

It arrived. A piled mass of oil-fried comfort food. He stared at the egg, saw his spoon-faced reflection in its bulbous yellow eye. He looked sick.

Started eating.

‘Right,’ said Peta, businesslike, ‘Today. Jaywick. Is that right?’

Donovan nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he said through a mouthful of bacon, ‘Jaywick. In Essex.’

‘And that’s where this Tosher now lives?’

Donovan nodded. ‘He was kind of a spokesman for the travellers back then. Self-elected, of course.’

‘What’s he like?’

‘Dark, long-haired, good-looking biker.’

Peta smiled. ‘Nice.’

‘And an arrogant, cocky bastard. The type who goes through life knowing he’s going to get away with whatever he wants to do.’ The smile still hadn’t faded from Peta’s face. ‘Obnoxious. Mouthy. Just in case you’re getting any ideas.’

Peta ignored him. ‘What’s he doing in Jaywick?’

‘Settled down, apparently. Regular citizen, now. That’s how I found him so quickly.’

‘Born to be mild.’

Donovan smiled. ‘Very good.’

Peta pointed to his plate. It was empty.

‘You needed that.’

He looked at her, sketched a brief, fragile smile.

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I needed that.’

The Broadway, an uneven, potholed strip of tarmac, was Jaywick’s main street. Peta drove, Donovan looked out of the window.

Most buildings one storey, the odd one two. Nothing looked inviting or well-maintained. Jaywick had a poverty more than financial; it seeped into the architecture, lacked spirit and hope. A flat, front-boarded façade described itself as Wonderland: Slots of Fun. Next to it a bookie. A dowdy hair salon and a run-down Chinese takeaway. A Shop ’n’ Save. The pub: the Never Say Die.

‘Looks like last rites have been given,’ said Donovan.

Past a boarded-up, weed-choked shell that had once proclaimed itself a casino. A social club that looked anything but social. A cut-price food shop discounting sell-by skirters and stale stuff. A derelict pub ringed by wire mesh and
DANGER: KEEP OUT
signs. A café with a warped frontage of paint-flaked wood and hanging baskets of dead flowers stood detached from the rest of the strip.

‘Hungry?’ asked Peta.

‘Not enough,’ replied Donovan.

All round were expanses of weeds and rubble dotted with empty, derelict buildings. The dull sky clamped the Earth down, flattening it out, stretching it away for miles, keeping it depressed like a thick iron-grey blanket.

‘Where are we headed?’ Peta asked.

‘The Broadlands Estate,’ said Donovan. ‘Shouldn’t be far now.’

They arrived.

‘Jesus,’ said Peta. ‘Munchkin town.’

Originally single-storey summer-holiday chalets from over half a century ago, the houses were now virtually all permanently occupied. Cars dotted round. The further in they went, the less functional the cars became. Eventually they became rusting, burned out husks, scavenger-picked for anything of use, left to rot in the potholed, rubble and rubbish-strewn broken streets.

The houses became less well maintained and ultimately derelict. In among these were barely habitable, but occupied, homes.

Peta shook her head. ‘City of God,’ she said.

‘But without the sun,’ said Donovan.

They drove, slowly for fear of damaging the car from a chunk of stone or an unseen hole, until they found the address they were looking for. Pulled up in front of it.

It was pebbledash and chipped, its windows grimy, the net curtains filthy. Weeds choked it. The roof tiles were old and mossed. An abstract sculpture of rubbish and waste fronted the small wall. The door had once been green.

‘This the one?’ asked Peta, not bothering to hide her distaste.

‘This is the one.’

Donovan took a deep breath, walked up the uneven path to the front door, knocked on it.

And waited.

A dog barked within. Donovan and Peta looked at each other.

Eventually they heard the sound of someone moving laboriously towards the door. The noises stopped.

‘Who is it?’

The voice was broken, rasping and ripping, like bleeding skin dragged over shattered, sharpened glass.

Peta looked at Donovan, alarmed. He looked wary.

‘Tosher?’ said Donovan. ‘Don’t know if you can remember me. Joe Donovan. Used to be a reporter.’

‘Yeah.’ The word was dredged up from ruined lungs. Followed by a sound that may have been a laugh or a death rattle. ‘I remember yer. Now fuck off.’

Donovan and Peta exchanged glances. The dog kept barking. Donovan tried again.

‘I appreciate that you might not want to talk to me, Tosher, but if I could just have five or ten minutes …’

No reply. Just the barking dog.

Donovan looked to Peta, shrugged. ‘I’ll pay you.’

A pause, then: ‘How much?’

‘Five hundred pounds.’

Another laugh/death rattle. ‘A thousand.’

‘Five hundred’s all I’ve got, Tosher. Take it or leave it.’

Another ruined rumble, a door slamming. The dog’s
barking became more distant, muffled. Then the sound of chains being removed, bolts being undone. The door opened.

And there stood Tosher.

Donovan tried not to let the shock appear on his face. The good-looking, dark-maned arrogant biker was gone. In his place stood the physical embodiment of the voice they had heard. His black hair was now predominantly grey, still long but sparse; pink scalp could be glimpsed through it. His face was lined, crinkled, like the life had been sucked out of it. His body too: cheap T-shirt and jeans hung off his emaciated frame. Although still the same height, he looked shorter, like his body had never uncurled from a blow it had received.

But it was the eyes. They looked dead, closed down after witnessing, experiencing, too much.

‘Yeah,’ said Tosher. He knew why Donovan was staring. ‘Two years is a long time.’

Without another word, Tosher turned and walked back into the house, a painful, shuffling limp. Taking that as their cue, Donovan and Peta followed, closing the door behind them.

Tosher led them into the living room, where he slowly lowered himself down into an old, worn velour armchair. Stained and threadbare, it was matched by the sofa Donovan and Peta sat themselves down on.

Somewhere in the house the dog barked and scratched.