East of Innocence (12 page)

The reconstruction attracted a crowd of bystanders, the same people who rush to throw flowers at the spot where someone they do not know has died. Rosie’s boyfriend had agreed to play himself in the reconstruction, a fact that I would imagine counted in his favour. However, one member of the public clearly did not share my view. As the filming
ended, he ran at the boyfriend, assaulting him; the police were on the scene already but it took them several seconds to understand what was happening and come to the boyfriend’s aid, by which point he had been stabbed in the back seven times with a kitchen knife. The man who assaulted him was wrestled to the ground, handcuffed and led away through the watching crowd to the police car; along the way, people patted him on the back, told him, ‘Well done, mate, did the right thing, spot on.’ As the police car pulled away, several people applauded.

While the assailant was being charged with attempted murder and Rosie’s boyfriend was fighting for his life in hospital, I was trying to get to sleep, my mind drowsily flitting between two states: imagining what my mother might be like, and worrying about what might have happened to her. My father’s reaction had been extreme even by his standards; it felt as if there had been fear behind his aggression. But why? What was he afraid of, or trying to hide? No matter how many times I told myself that I was being overly dramatic, I could not help but think that perhaps my mother did not leave us; perhaps, like Rosie, she disappeared into a blackness she would never leave. Was my father capable of that, of murder? I did not have to consider for long; he was an angry and embittered man and I had no doubt that he hated women. With thoughts like these, I gradually drifted off; it was a warm night and I had left the window open in the hope of a breeze.

*

My dreams were punctuated by strange noises and filled with convoluted tales of being hunted by faceless enemies, the dreams of a man with a fever. I woke up around three and saw a black shape next to my bed, felt breath on my face. Not sure whether I was still dreaming, I did not feel any fear, instead simply grunted a disorientated ‘Yes?’ The shape retreated, turned and left and the sound of footsteps down my stairs brought me back to sudden clarity and I swung out of bed and on to my landing, finding a switch and throwing the light on to I think two people who were leaving through my front door. I followed and ran down the stairs through the open door into the night and saw two, maybe three figures running down the street. I ran out after them but as they turned the corner I knew that in bare feet I had no chance of catching them. As I realised this, I also realised that I was yelling enraged threats and vulgarities at their departing backs, sounding like an inebriated man in a pub brandishing a pool cue. Across the street a light came on, a window opened; it was Ronald, a diffident man with three children and a pushy wife, who works in the City for, I believe, a major insurance firm. He peered out, skinny arms braced on the windowsill; he did not have his glasses and I imagined he had been ordered out of bed by his wife, outraged that scenes like this had the temerity to play out in her street.

‘Is everything okay?’ he half spoke, half hissed, nervously.

‘Go to bed, Ronald,’ I said, dismissing him. I was suddenly aware that I was in the middle of my street wearing only boxer shorts. The sight must have been frightening for
anyone who did not know me, maybe frightening for anybody who did. With a suit on I can pass for a civilised man; half-naked I am a different proposition. But with Ronald it does not matter much, I lost his family’s good opinion long ago. Last summer, I was leaving my house when a man drove past my car, clipping the wing mirror and breaking it. He paused, considered, then drove on so I ran out and stood in front of his car, then walked to his door, pulled him out through the open window and pinned him with one hand to his bonnet as I went through his wallet with the other, pulling out notes. Ronald’s wife witnessed this and since then every time she has seen me she has shepherded her children close to her with one arm and quickened her walk. If I am honest, I can’t really blame her.

I got back in my house exhilarated at having caught men in my own home and at the thought that I could have inflicted damage on them, frustrated that they got away and intrigued by what they wanted. I put on a dressing gown and sat and watched rolling news for hours, making irrational connections between the different stories to reinforce my view that the world is essentially a dangerous and inhuman place with little to redeem it. Around six o’clock, I dozed off and woke up at nine, hot from the blazing sunlight pouring through my living-room window on to the sofa where I lay. I had sweated on to the leather and in my dressing gown must have looked like a wrestler fallen on hard times, sleeping off the previous evening’s shameful defeat on a borrowed couch. Not the finest night of my life.

Now I am standing in my office, looking at the wreckage of my professional life and thinking that the day isn’t shaping up to be an unqualified winner either. When I arrived, my glass door was smashed and walking into my office I saw that somebody had gone through every drawer and file, lifted the carpet tiles, taken out the polystyrene squares of the false ceiling and looked into the cavity above. There are only two possible culprits, Halliday or Baldwin. And Halliday has just engaged me as his pet crooked lawyer, which narrows the shortlist down to one. Baldwin, it seems, won’t stop until he’s got his hands on the discs Terry Campion asked me to look after for him. This thought does not bother me; I took a dislike to Baldwin when he tried to intimidate me in my own office and I remind myself that I have got something he wants. As a lawyer, you never know when a bit of influence with the police is going to come in useful. Of course I have not kept the discs on my premises, or at home; Baldwin has either underestimated me woefully or he is simply desperate. One thing I do know for sure: I will cross paths again with Baldwin, and soon.

‘Redecorating? Thought this place needed a bit of love.’

I turn and see one of the men who had accompanied Halliday when he came to put the screws on me standing at my office door. He is holding a pile of paperwork and wearing an amused smile.

‘Who are you?’

‘Eddie,’ he says. ‘Brought you this, from Mr Halliday.’
Mr
Halliday. Please. ‘Should be everything you need.’ He looks about, takes in the mess. ‘Where’d I put it?’

Every surface is covered with my scattered work, my filing cabinets on their sides, my desk buried under paper. ‘For the moment,’ I say, ‘you can stick it up your arse.’

‘Not very nice,’ Eddie says, unruffled. ‘He’s keen for you to get to work soon as. I’ll stick it on the desk.’ He makes some space and puts the files down. I right one of my filing cabinets, grunting with the effort, and when I look up Eddie is standing against the wall, legs apart and hands clasped over his crotch like a doorman outside a nightclub.

‘Anything else?’ I say.

‘Mr Halliday wants me to keep an eye on you.’

‘So you thought you’d take him literally.’

Eddie doesn’t answer; I suspect he is having difficulty getting to the bottom of that last sentence. He leans his shoulders against my office wall, making himself as comfortable as he can in a room with only one intact chair. This is too much.

‘You realise this kind of thing can take weeks? You going to stand there all that time?’

Eddie shrugs. ‘If I have to.’

I look around the devastation in my office and can feel my pulse hurrying. I have not slept well and have a lot of work to do and Eddie has picked the wrong time to be pressuring me, irrespective of who his boss is.

‘Look,’ I say. ‘This is my office. I have client confidentialities to respect, other cases to take care of. No offence, but it’s going to be hard to do that with some hired goon standing in the corner.’ Eddie frowns. ‘By hired goon, Eddie, I mean you.’

Eddie smiles. ‘Not going anywhere.’

‘Yes, Eddie, you are. If Halliday wants me to work for him, I’ll do it my way, in my own time. He doesn’t like it, he can find another lawyer. That what he wants?’

Eddie looks conflicted, his mouth slightly open as he works out the best thing to do. Even he knows that bent lawyers are a little thin on the ground, and that Halliday won’t be keen on finding another. He has his orders, but I am not going to budge. What to do? It cannot be easy, being Eddie.

He comes to a decision, crosses to the desk, finds a pen and writes on top of the pile of paperwork.

‘Here’s my number. Give me a call if you need anything.’ He writes slowly, forming the numbers with difficulty, his tongue held between his teeth. I wonder whether Eddie still points at aeroplanes. He finishes, stands up. I hold the door to the entrance hall open. Eddie stops as he passes me.

‘Be back tomorrow. Better be progress, sunshine.’ For a second I believe he considers patting me on the cheek, there’s a good boy, but he sees the look in my eyes and reconsiders. Perhaps he isn’t as stupid as I thought. Instead, he leaves quietly and I close the door behind him, breathe deeply, try to calm down. My life seems to be full of uninvited and malign presences right now and I have the feeling that I am losing control, that my existence is being co-opted by outside forces. I look over at the pile of papers Eddie has left for me and have to fight down an urge to kick it all across the chaos of my office.

After Eddie has gone, I spend several hours rebuilding my files, matching paperwork, putting it into piles and
eventually into folders, which I place back into my filing cabinets. This process does little to improve my mood as I realise just how paltry and mundane my caseload is. Never before has my previous life as a successful City lawyer seemed so far away and for the first time the thought of what my previous colleagues are now doing and achieving bothers me enormously, makes me question myself.

To escape from these existential doubts, I get into my car and drive to the hospital where Billy Morrison is still lying with his leg in traction. At least here I can make some kind of difference, unconventional as it may be from a legal perspective. I walk into his ward where he is reading a magazine with a picture of a girl on the front wearing only a pair of bikini bottoms, the word ‘Philippa!’ splashed across the cover and the dots on the ‘i’s of her name covering her nipples. He is absorbed and does not see me approach so I bat the cover against him and he looks up. I can see a brief panic in his eyes and I regret frightening him; he is clearly haunted by the spectre of Halliday. Billy recovers and gives me a cocksure smile.

‘Danny! ’Choo doing here?’

‘How are you, Billy?’

‘Good, blinding. They give me a bed bath the other day, right, all sponges like, everywhere. You ever had one?’

‘No.’

‘Coupla sorts, nurses, should’ve seen them. So halfway through…’ Billy lowers his voice to what he probably believes is a discreet whisper. ‘I get, you know. Aroused.’

There’s no preamble, no nicety with Billy; he just dives straight in. ‘I’m sure they’ve seen it all before,’ I say.

‘You reckon? Know what they did? Only milked me, din’t they? Said it was a shame I was NHS, else they’d’ve given me the works. Their words.’

Billy beams up at me, expecting me to be impressed by his immature fibs. I shake my head at him, admonishing a child. ‘I spoke to Halliday. Looks like you’re in the clear.’

He sits up, looks at me with wide eyes. ‘Yeah? Really?’

‘Just, Billy? Keep out of his way.’

‘Yeah, no problem, brilliant. Really? He’s letting it drop?’

‘Reckons you’ll have learned your lesson.’

‘Oh fuck yeah. Yeah, I mean, definitely.’ Billy sinks back down into his pillow, his mind released from the fear he’s been feeling these past few days, racing forward to plans for the future now that he has one. I can see his lips move faintly as he tells himself stories with happy endings. He rouses himself.

‘Danny, listen, thanks, man. Dunno what to say. I knew you’d come through.’

‘Don’t worry about it. Just stay safe.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I will.’ He smiles and I pat his good leg and turn to go. As I do so, a thought strikes Billy.

‘Danny?’

‘Yes, Billy?’

‘I still getting that money? For the Blu-ray?’

15

THE NEXT MORNING
, I am taking a shower when I hear the doorbell ring. Thinking it might be a delivery, I hustle down the stairs and open the door in my towel, ready to sign. Instead, I am shown a warrant card held by one of two policemen and I recognise Sergeant Hicklin from the other night, when I had gone to the station to bail out Gabe. Next to him is his over-enthusiastic constable, Dawson. I instinctively think of Gabe and wonder what trouble he is in now; whether he has inflicted it on others, or on himself. I open the door wider, gripping the edge, tense with anxiety.

‘Get you out of the shower, sir?’ asks Hicklin. His voice lacks the good humour of the last time we met; it is all business today. I gaze at him levelly, not bothering to answer such a redundant question. Instead, I ask, ‘This about Mr McBride?’