Authors: Martyn Waites
Tags: #Crime, #Thriller, #Mystery, #Detective, #Hard-Boiled, #Suspense, #UK
Mary's Prayer
Mary's Prayer
Stephen Larkin [1]
Martyn Waites
UK (2013)
Sober and disillusioned with London, tabloid journalist Stephen
Larkin reluctantly accepts an assignment to cover a gangland funeral
back home in Newcastle.
Several years earlier he
had left sick and disgusted, vowing never to return, but the pull of the
city, and the promise of a juicy story, finally persuades him to
return. While there, Larkin's old flame Charlotte asks him to check out
the alleged suicide of her friend Mary - a course of action that will
leave Larkin bruised, battered and with some painful memories of the
city he was trying to forget.
Martyn Waites was born and raised in Newcastle Upon Tyne. He has written nine novels under his own name and five under the
name Tania Carver alongside his wife, Linda. His work has been selected as Guardian book of the year, he’s been nominated
for every major British crime fiction award and is an international bestseller.
‘The leading light of a new generation of hard-hitting contemporary crime novelists’ –
Daily Mirror
‘Grips, and squeezes, and won’t let go. Waites’ lean, exhilarating prose is from the heart and from the guts, and that’s exactly
where it hits you’ – Mark Billingham
‘Brutal, mesmerising stuff’ – Ian Rankin
‘An ambitious, tautly-plotted thriller which offers a stark antidote to PD James’ cosy world of middle-class murder’ –
Time Out
‘If you like your tales dark, brutal, realistic, with a pinch of Northern humour – don’t wait any longer – Waites is your
man’ –
Shots
‘Breathless, contemporary and credible, a thriller with a dark heart and guts to spare’ –
Guardian
‘The book houses an audacious energy and if you’re in any way a fan of Ian Rankin or Stephen Booth, this mesmerising thriller
will be right up your street’ –
Accent
‘If you like gritty crime noir in the style of Ian Rankin, this is the book for you … Waites brings his characters to life
with skill and verve, with more than a few nasty surprises. A riveting whodunit you really won’t be able to put down’ –
Lifestyle
‘A reckless energy which demands attention and respect’ –
Literary Review
The Joe Donovan Series
The Mercy Seat
Bone Machine
White Riot
Speak No Evil
The Stephen Larkin Series
Mary’s Prayer
Little Triggers
Candleland
Born Under Punches
The White Room
Also by Tania Carver
The Surrogate
The Creeper
Cage of Bones
Choked
The Doll’s House
Published by Sphere
ISBN: 978 0 7515 5435 9
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 1997 by Martyn Waites
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Sphere
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DY
Thank you to Fabiola Hickson,
Kate Callaghan, Elenore Lawson, Hazel Waites,
and especially Caroline Montgomery.
Without you, etc…
Above all, this book is for Linda.
I’m writing this just after you’ve gone. I didn’t mean for this to be addressed to you; it didn’t start out that way, but
that’s how it ended up. You know what I think of you – I mean, what I thought of you.
I’m playing your favourite song. Our song. At least, you once said it was your favourite, but since you lied about everything
else why should you tell the truth about that?
You’ve made me hate you. Is that what you wanted? Well, if it was, you’ve succeeded, and what’s more you’ve made me hate myself.
So I hope you’re satisfied. I’ve nothing left. You’ve given me only one option. And this time I’m going to do it. I’ve pulled
the arm out of the record player so the song will keep playing – my record player, the one you thought was so quaint – and
that’s how they’ll find me. They’ll hear the song and they’ll say that’s just how I was: a candle in the wind, never knowing
who to cling to. I hope you’ll be sorry. But I doubt it.
They’ll find this, of course. And when they do, they’ll know the truth.
They’ll know that you killed me.
The clawhammer drove the spike in cleanly, expertly. Larkin screamed, jaggering his vocal chords.
‘Shh,’ the man said. ‘You’ll wake the neighbours. People have to get up for work in the morning.’
Larkin’s screaming subsided into wracking sobs. He moved his head slowly to the right to see the damage. Slowly, because he
didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see the body next to him on the mattress. He observed that his right hand was now nailed
to the floor, palm upwards. He tried to keep a clear head, stay conscious despite the pain. The man looked at him lying there
and smiled, light glinting off the tiny silver razors hanging from his nipples.
‘Now try writing with that,’ he said, and laughed; his two stooges did the same. Then he stopped abruptly; his face became
set and mean. The stooges took their cue and immediately fell silent, expectant. The man straddled Larkin’s immobile body.
‘You’re a naughty boy,’ his impeccable public school accent continued, ‘and we’re the house prefects. We’ve come to teach
you a lesson.’ He grabbed Larkin’s hair, pulling him off the floor slightly. Larkin whimpered as his hand strained against
the nail.
‘If you live – and to be honest, it’s looking doubtful – you can take this as a warning. Stay away from me. Carry your scars
as a reminder.’ He stood up. ‘I don’t think I need add to that, do I?’
Larkin didn’t reply.
‘Then it’s over to you, boys.’ And with that he stood aside and the silent stooges stepped forward, staring down at Larkin,
marking their targets, as their boss stroked his erection through his leather trousers.
The first kick gave him double vision. The next kick dislocated his jaw.
He felt as if he’d stuck his head in a bonfire. Instinctively he raised his hands to his face, but only the left one – the
one that had been protecting his balls – came up. Pain rippled up his arm as his right hand wrenched against the nail. He
tried to click his jaw back into place, rolling simultaneously to dodge a blow that would have put him on dialysis for life;
the tear in his right hand grew bigger.
The boots recommenced their attack, stamping and grinding until he thought he would faint. Then the onslaught stopped and
he heard the boots walking away. It must be over. For the time being.
He lay there for a long time – minutes or hours, he couldn’t tell which – making up his mind to live rather than die. Then
he turned his head to the left, and saw the clawhammer well within reach. Quickly, desperately, he stretched for it, his fingers
scrabbling, not knowing where the boots had gone or when they would be back. And then he had it, and frantically he inserted
the claw under the head of the nail in his right hand, knowing he had to endure the agony of release if he was to stand a
chance. There was a sudden noise behind him; the boots were back. Larkin hadn’t been quick enough. His feeble struggles continued
until they snatched the hammer from his weak grasp and threw it into the corner of the room.
‘Naughty, naughty.’ He felt a whoosh of air next to his face as a heavy, solid object – a baseball bat? – came crashing down.
Somehow he found the strength to twist his head, roll his body to dodge the blow. But he was defeated. They were playing with
him. If Larkin had opened his eyes he would have seen them smiling.
Larkin had given up any thought of fighting back. In
fact, he was fast giving up any thought of living. As the uninhabited towerblock of his body began, floor by floor, to plunge
into darkness, a peculiar thought struck him. It wasn’t the whole of his life that was flashing before his eyes – it was just
the last few bastard days …
Thursday had started off as usual. Days on which he couldn’t be bothered to write – and they were on the increase – tended
to follow the same well-worn pattern:
He’d got up, studiously ignoring the word processor on the table beside his bed, and got dressed. His clothes rarely varied
in style: faded Levis, boots, plaid shirt and leather jacket. His armour for facing the world.
Next he’d collected the
Guardian
from his doormat. It offered the standard 1990s news diet: a man in North London tied to his bed, tortured and left to die
while two boys went on a spending spree with his credit cards; talk of a peace deal in Northern Ireland; a crisis in an unpronounceable
country he had never heard of; and a diatribe, from the Canute faction of the government, stating that Britain was an island
and would never be part of Europe. Nothing special.
He took a final look round, as if to memorise the last place he’d been, and prepared to face the world.
He peered cautiously round the front door. It was vital to do this; too many times he’d stepped out and found an episode of
The Bill
taking place on his doorstep. Urban terrorism would be central to the plot, or, if the actor was black, drug-dealing. Larkin
wasn’t keen to incur the wrath of some hysterical luvvy director screaming that his shot was ruined. And he was a bit pissed
off that the media viewed his home territory as a war zone. If it were true it might have been cause for congratulation; but
Borough, South London, was not where the action was. And no TV producer was going to tell him otherwise. Just because it looked
like Beirut with tube trains didn’t make it hell on earth; more like an unimaginative Catholic’s vision of purgatory, perhaps.
He walked down Great Dover Street to the tube. A
few abrupt halts in dark tunnels later, he was in the West End. Thankfully, with the onset of autumn, the tourist season was
coming to a close so the city’s supply of fat Americans, backpacking colonials and recession-proof Japanese had dwindled.
Was he being mean-spirited or, worse, racist to think such things? He decided he was, but he wasn’t in a mood to care.
He trawled aimlessly through the second-hand bookshops in Charing Cross Road. Larkin looked for everything and anything and
was known to all the dealers. They had nothing to offer him today, though, apart from a slim, grey paperback on werewolves
– a limited print run from a small press.
The author believed in his subject and that was good enough for Larkin. He’d read them all: from how the spatial geometry
in certain East End churches could attract demons, to every conspiracy theory going on JFK and Jack the Ripper. For a man
like Larkin, who had long since lost his faith in the truth, it was a glimpse into another world.
His routine took him on to a cappuccino in Old Compton Street and a look at the book he had purchased. If it was interesting,
this would turn into two cappuccinos; maybe three.
Then came the walking, the observing. Soho was good for that. He was content now not to participate, to watch life from the
sidelines. There was the furtive sex show crowd – single businessmen, usually; the prostitutes, posing as passers-by, walking
round the same block every fifteen minutes and fooling no one; the sad couples with dead love lives hoping for an expensive
cheap thrill. Then there were the newer arrivals: the anodyne admen, the media whores, the pickpockets. People trying to hustle,
people trying to score, people confused by their own desires. Larkin thought if you stood still in Soho for long enough you’d
see it all.
He felt hungry so he went to the cheapest Chinese restaurant he could find: one with a huge plate-glass window, enabling him
to continue watching. Over the
road, amongst the rubbish from Berwick Street market, an old, bald Greek, his coat tied around his waist, foraged through
discarded boxes of soft and rotten fruit. He looked up, saw Larkin watching him; he stopped momentarily, gave Larkin a look
that asked him to pity what he was reduced to. The look also said that if Larkin moved in on his pitch he’d slice his eyes.
Larkin finished his plate of sweet and sour carcinogens and moved off to the pub. He always frequented the same one: The Duke
of Clarence, just off Brewer Street. It didn’t look much from the outside so it didn’t attract the tourists; and it wasn’t
much inside either so the Soho luvvies steered clear. It was a good place to drink.
Larkin drank to give himself strength and occasional inspiration. Plus he enjoyed it. And after swearing off drugs, it was
the only vice he allowed himself.
Harold was behind the counter: never Harry, always Harold. Harold was the man who understood, everyone’s best friend. A small
man with an immaculately pressed white shirt, cufflinks, starched collar and bow tie. You could tell the days of the week
by Harold’s bow tie. Today it was yellow with small black diamonds – so it must be Thursday.
‘Afternoon, Larkin. Usual, is it?’
Larkin nodded and Harold headed toward the Kronenbourg pump. Larkin felt no particular brand loyalty; all that mattered was
that his lager should be draught, and as strong as possible.
Harold came back with the beer. ‘How’s tricks, Mr Larkin?’
‘Mustn’t grumble, Harold. Well I do, but nobody listens.’ Harold laughed politely. ‘The rent gets paid and I can still afford
a pint, so I’ve not got too many complaints.’
‘Glad to hear it, Mr Larkin.’
‘How are you, anyway? How’s Maeve?’
A shadow flitted quickly across Harold’s bland face and was gone. ‘She’s doing as well as can be expected.’
Maeve, Harold’s wife, had gone to the doctor
complaining of a stomach upset. He had told her to eat more roughage; she had done so, and the pain got worse. She returned
to the doctor who, reluctantly, referred her to a specialist – who slit her open and found inoperable cancer of the colon,
now spread to virtually every major organ and a few minor ones. All the hospital could do was to send her home ‘to die with
dignity’. She was now virtually comatose – which meant that Harold, in addition to running the pub, had to feed her, change
her clothes and clean up when she soiled the bedclothes. That was the modern NHS’s idea of dying with dignity.
Harold was bearing up well, but Larkin did notice his whisky glass was twice as full as usual. Still, he kept smiling – probably
because he wouldn’t know what to do if he stopped.
Larkin thanked him for the beer, sent his best wishes to Maeve and went to sit with his drink in a corner. As he was about
to get settled, his pager sounded; the rest of the pub looked daggers at him, incredulous that a yuppie had invaded their
sanctuary. He shrugged apologetically and trudged off to the pay phone.
He knew who it was. He dialled the only person who ever paged him: his editor.
‘Is Lindsay there? It’s Larkin. I’ve just been paged.’
The secretary put him through.
‘Larkin. You want to see me?’
‘Why else would I buzz you? It’s the only way to get hold of you. That’s why I bought you that pager, darling.’
‘What d’you want?’
‘So abrupt! Is that any way to talk to your lover?’
‘I’m not your lover. I’m just someone you fuck when the mood takes you.’
‘And what a good fuck you are. For a journalist.’
‘Lindsay—’
‘Sorry, darling – don’t have time to get personal. This is more important. This is work.’
‘If it’s about the article, you can have it when I—’
‘Oh, screw the article, darling. The world is hardly on
tenterhooks to hear that Elvis is alive and well and living in Beckton.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘What d’you think I mean? You’re going to be a proper reporter again. “Scoop” Larkin.’ She started to laugh at her own joke,
her merriment rapidly descending into a hacking cough; Larkin could hear her dragging on a Silk Cut to restore her equanimity.
‘OK, Lindsay, what’s the catch?’
‘
Catch
? Lover, you disappoint me. There’s no catch. It’s a
story
. Remember what that is? You write it, the photographer gets some snaps, we print it. Now go and get your bag packed. You’re
off to Newcastle.’
‘Newcastle?’
‘That’s right, loverboy. You’re going home.’