Authors: A. J. Reid
The apartment was empty when we returned. Rachel poured wine while I turned on the heating and found us a duvet.
‘Tell me how we get these tapes,’ I said, slumping into the couch.
Rachel took a big gulp from her glass. ‘We need to get into the library. I know where she keeps them.’
‘And how do we get past the electric fence, armed guards, razor wire, starved Dobermans, alarm system … ?’
Rachel smiled and rooted in her bag for a few seconds. ‘One electric gate,’ she said, holding up a remote control in her right hand. ‘And one alarm system.’
‘I took them when they were all … Doing whatever they were doing with each other in Doyle’s pool that night.’
‘It's a trap. She's baiting you. She'll wait until you're in there, then call the coppers she has on her payroll. Trust me: she meant for you to take those things.’
‘Don't you think I'd thought of that? Do you even know what I've been through the past two years? Maybe you don’t have the spine for this.’
‘The spine for what?’ I asked.
‘You know what I mean.’
‘So what am I? A henchman?’ I drained my glass and went to get a refill.
‘I don’t like being used.’
‘That's not it,’ she said.
‘Do you know what will happen if we get caught? I'll go to prison and never come out. I really thought ... that this was, we were ... you know.’
‘This is the only way that we can stay together,’ Rachel whispered in my ear.
‘I don't want to hurt anyone,’ I replied.
‘You sound like my mother. How about another drink?’ she said, turning her back on me.
‘Your mum’s had it rough, too. You can’t blame her.’
‘She doesn’t know what Doyle’s like. She says I’m just looking for someone to blame.’
‘So your mother blames herself?’
‘Of course she does,’ Rachel said. ‘But I know my dad wouldn’t have left us the way he did without a good reason.’
‘And Doyle gave him one,’ I said. ‘A reason, I mean. He only left to protect you and your mum.’
‘If he did sleep with her, he can go to Hell,’ she said. ‘But I know he didn’t: he wouldn’t have done that to us.’
We drank the rest of the bottle, made love and fell asleep together on the couch. The sea air from the ferry ride, the warmth of Rachel’s body and the wine conspired to sedate me enough for my first decent sleep in weeks.
When Rachel and I woke in the morning, there was no sign of Emma. No thigh-length boots slung on the living-room floor, no empty bottles or rolled up notes lying around, no garish, barely-there underwear draped on the arms of the sofa. Admittedly, she always made an effort once she was up and about, but that usually wasn't until mid-afternoon. Upon checking her room, her bed was still made and the windows shut, which she always opened when she slept, no matter what the weather, usually making her door shudder with every gust of wind.
I tried her mobile, but it went straight to voicemail, leaving me no choice but to carry on as planned. Not turning up to work was sure to seal my fate. I packed up my Father Christmas suit and knocked on the bathroom door to hurry Rachel up.
While I was waiting, I stepped out on to the balcony of the apartment. The sun was rising, the city only just stirring into life. The car horns and the sirens and the squealing of brakes were few and far between, but an hour from now the mayhem would resume, as it did every day. The glow-in-the-dark hands of my watch read a quarter to seven. I inhaled deeply, catching the scent of the bakeries, the docks and the exhaust fumes from the tired buses wheezing their way around the city.
Christmas Eve had never felt so doomed.
I still had no idea what I was doing. I felt like an actor who was about to step out in front a packed theatre without ever having read the script. Pulling my reefer jacket's collar up round my neck, I folded the lapels inside each other to keep the jacket closed and looked over the circuitry of the city one last time before Rachel called me to help her find her coat.
As we stepped out of the apartment building, the snow-covered cars, streets and buildings lulled us into a false sense of serenity. The world about us was not cool and picturesque today. It was ablaze with terrible possibilities, with faces hiding behind every corner and whispers from the depths of every shadow, our plan being to break into Doyle’s place while the Christmas staff party was going on.
From the moment we entered the department store, every CCTV crocodile eye whirred at us as we walked past. Rachel and I walked the path to the staff changing rooms like tightrope walkers without safety nets.
‘What do you think we’ll find on those tapes in Doyle’s library?’ I whispered to her.
‘Anything that will help me find my father,’ she said. ‘Or get revenge on Doyle. Anything at all.’
The sweat had begun to trickle into the small of my back and I felt light-headed, so I stopped walking and leant on a display cabinet full of expensive teddy bears. I rested my head against the glass and stared into the bear’s unsympathetic eyes until Rachel dragged me away.
As I pulled on my Father Christmas outfit in the changing room, I enjoyed a few last moments of silence before casting off into the sea of shoppers and their kids. Everyone else was already dressed and out there. My shiny black boots tapped on the tiled floor, echoing around the showers and the locker room. I half expected Brett, my old boxing coach, to come shuffling through the door in his moth-eaten cardigan and battered old shoes.
‘You look like a squashed tur-mart-ih.’
The changing room door was opened slowly and deliberately. Completely dressed now, I stood up and brushed myself down. I made sure that my beard was positioned correctly and picked up my security card. I was expecting someone in management since all the sales assistants were already out on the floor, hustling away in their affected pronunciation, so when I was confronted by the Cosmetics girls in the middle of the men's changing rooms, it came as a surprise. The Audrey Hepburn look-a-like produced a key and locked the door behind her.
‘All set for the Christmas party? It looks good on you,’ she said, picking at the gold belt buckle with her long fingernails.
‘I can think of something else that would look good on him,’ said the blonde one.
‘Have either of you ever been in love?’ I asked.
‘At least twice a week,’ said Audrey
‘He's so sweet. He still believes in ... that.’
‘I might ask you the same thing,’ Audrey said.
‘Not until recently,’ I replied.
Audrey stepped towards me, her breasts heaving in her white shirt, her hips swaying in her black skirt.
‘I know who you’re talking about. She's beautiful,’ Audrey said, resting her cool hand on my cheek.
I stepped back and picked up my sack of toys, declaring that I must get to work. Only after I'd already turned to exit did I remember that Audrey had locked the door. She slinked past me and handed me the key.
‘See you at the party, then.’
Having met Rachel outside her changing rooms, we continued on our way to the grotto until we saw Robinson at one of the water coolers. He was filmed in sweat and his skin was grey. After draining the paper cup, he threw it aside and ushered both of us into his small, but highly-furnished office.
‘Sit down. We haven't much time,’ he said, scurrying around the desk that was too large for the cosy dimensions of the room.
‘What's this about?’ Rachel asked.
‘You should both get the hell out of here while you can,’ he said. ‘I don't know what she has on you, but it must be bad.’
‘And what does she have on you, Mr. Robinson?’ I asked. ‘What’s making
you
sweat this morning?’
‘It’s not appropriate ...’
Rachel interrupted. ‘I think that ship has sailed, don't you?’
Robinson was clearly uncomfortable with the adversarial tone in his hallowed tomb, where he had resigned himself to eking out his life under Doyle's thrall.
‘Mr. Robinson, you should tell us,’ I said. ‘We have a plan.’
‘Yes, the house,’ he sighed, twirling an expensive-looking pen on his ink blotter. ‘The library crossed my mind once or twice. Have either of you any cat-burgling experience?’
Robinson didn't even lift his eyes from the blotter to drive home the sarcasm.
Rachel and I looked at each other, remaining silent. She cast her eyes towards the security card she had hidden in her breast pocket and smiled at me.
Robinson leant on his desk with his head in his hands.
‘How did it get to this?’
‘Mr. Robinson ... we don't need to know what Doyle's got on you. We know what she's capable of,’ I said. ‘Why don't you help us? Give us something we can use.’
Robinson's hands dropped from his face, making him look more like a lost child than a department manager. ‘If she goes down, I go down.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘I could have stopped it. I could have saved him,’ mumbled Robinson, his eyes glazing over.
I went rooting in the cabinet in the corner of the room and poured him a large whiskey, resisting the temptation to take a swig from the bottle. He picked up the crystal tumbler from the green ink blotter with a trembling hand and drained it in one go, holding it up for a refill.
‘Everything used to be just … Normal. The same fears and dreams as everybody else,’ Robinson said, draining the second glass.
‘My father ...’ Rachel began.
‘Your father …’ Robinson spluttered, choking on the fiery remnants of his glass, ‘… was no fool. I should have done what he did.’
‘Is he dead?’ she asked.
Robinson got up and refilled his tumbler himself, his back to us. The whisky glugged from the bottle before he lifted the glass to his head and tipped it back.
‘Only Doyle knows where he is,’ he murmured, looking out of the panoramic window across the snow-covered town.
‘Then he's alive?’
Robinson brought the glass to his temple as if to cool his brow, then resumed drinking from it.
‘He's alive.’
Rachel broke down into tears on my shoulder.
‘I'm sorry,’ she said.
‘No need to apologise, Miss Mackenzie,’ Robinson said, draining his third large glass of scotch. ‘I should be the one apologising.’
There was silence as we waited for him to explain.
‘I love my wife. And I love my children,’ he said, leaning his head against the icy glass of the window. ‘They must never find out.’
‘Find out what, Mr. Robinson?’ Rachel asked.
‘I don’t know if I can say it.’
‘Did you hurt anyone?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘Not me. But I
knew
.’
‘Tanner?’
Robinson turned to look at me with red, impatient eyes.
‘I should have told Albert myself, but she had me by the balls
.
The tapes ...’
‘Tapes?’
‘Video tapes she threatened to show my family,’ Robinson said.
‘We get the idea,’ said Rachel.
‘We were all consenting adults. It was never ... we didn't ...’
‘Forget it,’ I said, remembering the bizarre scene at the Captain's Rest. Robinson shook his head.
‘Well, I think things have escalated a bit since the good old days.’
‘Graziano and I threw Albert’s body in the river,’ Robinson said, slurring from the scotch and walking over to the window. ‘I helped them cover it up. God forgive me.’
Rachel steadied him on his feet and led him back to his chair.
‘Where are these tapes?’ she asked him.
‘I'm taking a leaf out of your father's book and getting the hell out of here,’ Robinson slurred, picking up his briefcase and heading for the door.
‘No,’ Rachel said, standing in his path.
Robinson postponed his drunken hustle for a second to look at us.
‘You
must
leave.’
‘Where is my father?’ Rachel asked.
And with that he stormed past her and out of the office, only to return five seconds later to swipe the remaining bottle of scotch from the cabinet for his journey into the unknown.
‘Please forgive me,’ he said, closing the door behind him.
The afternoon had been filled with all the chaos one might expect of a department store grotto on Christmas Eve. Tantrums, screaming fits, pushing, shoving, spitting … And that was just the parents. Mercifully, the queue had dwindled to only six kids and their mothers, who seemed desperate to get the whole affair over with as quickly and painlessly as possible, creaking under the strain of their shopping bags. Even the gormless security statue moved to glance at his watch.
There was an announcement through the speaker system that all employees should report to the staff changing rooms immediately upon finishing their shift, which animated the statue further, causing it to look skywards to the crackly voice of God and sigh heavily.
Shortly afterwards, when all the customers had gone, the speakers crackled to life again with the strains of
Oh Come, All Ye Faithful
, followed by Doyle's electrified purr:
Would all members of staff please report to Clothing? Men to Men's, women to Women's.
One of the security silverbacks appeared and said that he had been instructed to accompany us to our respective departments.
The speakers hissed and crackled one more time before falling silent:
I have a surprise for you.