Authors: Kate Rhodes
Crossbones Yard (15 page)
Alvarez had undergone a personality change. He was wearing a crumpled blue linen shirt and worn-out jeans, as if he had made a conscious decision not to be a policeman for the evening.
‘Tell me this isn’t happening,’ I muttered.
‘I’m afraid it is.’ Alvarez looked like he could smile at any minute. ‘It’s all your nightmares rolled into one, isn’t it?’
‘Pretty much. The only thing that could be worse is getting stuck in a lift with you.’
‘I don’t know.’ He lounged in his chair, his gaze travelling across my body. ‘I can think of worse ways to spend an afternoon.’
On the other side of the table Tejo looked smug, as though she had won a medal for successful matchmaking. Alvarez carried on watching me, like a cat appraising a bowl of cream. My only option was to be polite until I could think of an excuse and leave.
‘So, how do you know Hari?’ I asked.
‘It’s Tejo I know best actually. She’s been unbelievable. Definitely not your common-or-garden shrink.’ Alvarez glanced at his plate.
He was interrupted before he could elaborate. The woman sitting to his right finally managed to grab his attention.
‘Did I hear you say something about gardens?’ she purred. ‘I’m passionate about them, always have been.’
Alvarez twisted round to talk to her. She was a well-built brunette, with a pink, animated face. She must have prepared herself for the evening’s lack of alcohol by visiting the pub first. Her words slurred as she tried to connect with Alvarez. Soon she was simpering about the virtues of perennials over annuals, fluttering her eyelashes as she explained that she needed help with digging out a buddleia that had taken hold beside her patio.
Kyoko gave me a sympathetic look, then leaned over to whisper something.
‘Don’t worry. It’s you he likes, not her.’
I shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. He’s married anyway.’
Kyoko raised her eyebrows. ‘You’re not seeing the whole picture, Alice.’ She held up her finger and thumb like she was holding a fragment of glass. ‘Only a little piece of it.’
‘Sorry?’
She gave a gentle smile. ‘Men wear wedding rings for all sorts of different reasons, don’t they?’ Then she turned away to chat to someone else.
Alvarez was still locked in conversation with the brunette, who had balanced her cleavage on the table for him to admire. I concentrated on eating. Tejo had remembered my favourites from our flat-sharing days: lentil curry, ochra, naan bread oozing with coconut. I was still trying to work out why Alvarez would advertise himself as married if he was divorced, when he turned to face me again.
‘Great meal,’ he commented, dipping a piece of bread into a dish of raita. ‘But I’m surprised you like it.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s not very English. But you are to the core, aren’t you?’
‘I know where this is going.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘You’re going to give me the whole spiel about Brits loving the Queen and not expressing their emotions, right?’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’ He held up his hands innocently. ‘I’d say the English aren’t that different to the Spanish − loyal, defiant, a bit arrogant sometimes. The only difference is that you can’t cook or dance.’
‘Rubbish. I’m a great dancer.’
He helped himself to a spoonful of lime pickle. It gave me an opportunity to study him. His messy hair was swept back from his forehead, the usual fine growth of stubble visible against his skin. The thin vertical line between his eyebrows was still there. For some reason I wanted to reach out and touch it. It was a fight to keep my hands still.
‘Go on then, tell me how you ended up in London,’ I said. ‘There’s no chance of escape, so you might as well.’
‘I’d hate to bore you, Alice. I know you have a short attention span when it comes to male company.’
‘If it gets tedious I’ll let you know.’
He balanced his fork on his plate. ‘My father grew up in a little seaside town, north of Valencia. People grow oranges there and take a lot of siestas.’
‘Sounds perfect.’
‘Not for him. He was looking for adventure, so he hitchhiked to Madrid, became a journalist for
El País
, and met my mother.’
El País
, and met my mother.’
‘What was she doing?’
‘She’s from London. She was studying languages at the university.’
‘So this anti-English thing is just a con. In reality, you’re a Brit.’
‘I never denied it.’ He caught my eye. ‘You jumped to conclusions, Alice. I spent a long time in Spain, but I’ve lived here since my teens.’
He leaned against the arm of my chair, close enough for me to study the way his eyelashes swept against his cheek.
Thank God we weren’t on our own. Alvarez drew back and my breathing returned to normal. It annoyed me that he could affect me so much, even when I was as sober as a judge.
Thank God we weren’t on our own. Alvarez drew back and my breathing returned to normal. It annoyed me that he could affect me so much, even when I was as sober as a judge.
‘Your turn,’ he said. ‘Give me your life story. I don’t know the first thing about you.’
‘Rubbish. You’ve got the name and address of every man I’ve ever said hello to.’ I frowned. ‘And don’t kid yourself I’ve forgiven you for that, by the way.’
‘I don’t.’ He held my eye for a beat longer than necessary.
‘What do you want to know, anyway?’
‘Everything, starting at the beginning.’ He was so attentive I thought he might pull a notebook from his pocket and start writing things down.
I took a deep breath. ‘Well, I grew up in Blackheath.’
‘Very classy.’
‘Not really.’ I stared at my upturned hand, lying on the table like a fish out of water. For some reason my voice had dried up on me.
‘That’s all you’ve got to say about your childhood. Five words?’
‘It’s a dinner party for God’s sake.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s what people do at parties, Alice. They chat about themselves, get to know each other.’
I folded my arms. ‘There’s nothing to tell. My parents weren’t happy and things got complicated. End of story.’
‘And your brother got caught in the middle?’
‘Something like that, yeah.’
‘It’s strange you don’t like to talk.’ Alvarez studied me thoughtfully. ‘You collect people’s stories, but you won’t tell your own.’
‘Because I don’t want to,’ I shrugged. ‘I hear conversations all day. When I’m off duty I want to run, and dance, and eat, and—’
‘And what?’ He held my gaze.
‘I want to live in my body, not my head.’
His eyes narrowed. Under the table I felt his hand brush my skin, travelling up the length of my thigh, pulling back the silk of my dress. I drew in a quick gasp of breath.
His hand closed round mine. ‘Come on, we’re leaving.’
‘We can’t just go before the dessert.’
‘Yes, we can,’ he insisted.
The next few minutes went into overdrive. Alvarez skirted round the crowded kitchen and leaned down to talk to Tejo. She glanced at me, smiling, then patted him on the shoulder. The faces of the other guests held a range of expressions as we said goodbye. Kyoko beamed approvingly, but the brunette looked outraged, as if I had stolen her fiancé. We made it to the front door before touching each other again. Then the kiss went on for ever. It was completely different from Sean, more urgent, like he couldn’t have stopped himself, even if he tried. His hands tugged at the belt of my dress.
‘You could get arrested for this, you know,’ I whispered.
‘Worth it, definitely.’ He buried his face in the nape of my neck, hands closing around my waist. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Yours?’
‘It’s a mess.’ His expression was unreadable under the streetlight. ‘Let’s go to yours.’
‘No way. The square’s crawling with your mates.’
‘Not tonight.’ Alvarez shook his head. ‘I said I’d take care of you until morning.’
‘You presumptuous bastard.’
‘We could stop, but you don’t want to, do you?’ He kissed me again.
I didn’t have enough breath to reply.
‘My place is only ten minutes away,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll grab my stuff then I’ll drive you.’
We didn’t talk as we walked past Ruskin Park, but his hand held mine so tightly that my knuckles hurt. A couple of times he pulled me into the shadows and kissed me until my head spun. After a few minutes we arrived at Kemerton Road.
‘This is it. Home sweet home,’ he said.
‘Nice,’ I nodded. The house was a tall Victorian end of terrace with a bay window, elegant but slightly shabby.
‘Want to come in while I grab some stuff?’ He leaned down to kiss me again.
I shook my head. ‘I’ll wait here.’
Alvarez jogged up the steps to his house and my phone began to vibrate in my coat pocket. I thought about turning it off, but it was bound to be Will. By now he would have come to his senses and need me to pick him up. I didn’t recognise the number, but it had to be him. Who else would ring me so late at night? He was sobbing into the receiver.
‘It’s okay, Will. Where are you? I’ll come and get you.’
He was trying to keep it together, clearing his throat to explain. But when the voice finally started to speak, it didn’t belong to my brother.
‘Something terrible’s happened.’ For once my mother’s ice maiden act had melted. Her voice shook like a child’s after a bad dream.
Alvarez emerged from his house with a bag slung over his shoulder just as I was stuffing the phone back into my pocket.
‘I’ve got to go to the hospital,’ I muttered. ‘It’s urgent.’
‘I’ll take you.’ He was already heading across the street to his car, but a taxi was driving towards us.
‘I’d better go on my own, I’m sorry.’
As the taxi pulled away I pressed my hand against the window but he didn’t bother to wave. He just stood beside his car. It looked like he was trying to decide whether to follow me, or let me disappear.
The taxi ride took for ever, crawling down the Old Kent Road, past a procession of cafés and the tiny shops Tejo and I visited when we were students, with bolts of gaudy Indian silks stacked to the ceiling. They were locked behind metal grilles, as though they wouldn’t survive the night without body armour. The driver dropped me on the wrong side of the square, and I kept my mind empty as I ran across the quadrangle to Bermondsey Wing. There was no point in guessing what had happened until my mother gave me the full story.
She was waiting in the corridor on the third floor. There was no sign that she had allowed herself to shed a tear. She was dressed in a velvet jacket, patent leather shoes, not a hair out of place. Maybe she had been at the theatre, or having dinner with friends when the phone call came. She flinched as I leaned down to kiss her cheek. I perched next to her on the bench.
‘What happened, Mum?’
She pursed her lips. ‘They won’t say how he got his injuries.’
‘I thought he collapsed. You didn’t tell me he’d been hurt.’
‘How could I? You hung up before I could finish.’ Her grey eyes had frosted over. ‘They think he may have fallen.’
‘Fallen from what?’
‘Stop it, Alice. How can I think straight with you repeating everything I say?’
‘Sorry, go ahead.’
‘Thank you.’ She fixed me with her best librarian’s glare. ‘He was found in a car park. Someone heard him screaming and called an ambulance.’ She pressed her fingers to her mouth, trying to hold back the words.
I forced myself to take deep breaths. ‘Just tell me what you know.’
‘Like I said, they took him away for X-rays. I haven’t seen him.’ Her face was expressionless, but the strip lights were punishing. The wrinkles and age spots she normally concealed so skilfully stood out like a sore thumb. ‘The police keep asking if he’s come round, so they can interview him. What on earth’s been going on, Alice?’
For a moment I considered giving her the full story: I had stumbled across two dead women in as many weeks, and someone was sending me psychotic love letters.
‘Nothing.’ I shook my head. ‘Nothing at all.’
She was about to argue when a familiar voice greeted me. Things were shifting from bad to worse. Sean was standing there in his favourite Savile Row suit, looking puzzled. ‘I didn’t know you’d been called.’
‘I haven’t. I’m here to see my brother Will.’
Sean did a double-take. It took a moment for his impeccable professional manner to re-establish itself.
‘Could we talk privately, please?’ He bent down and spoke to my mother in a respectful murmur. ‘Nothing to worry about, Mrs Quentin, your son’s being well looked after.’
My mother looked relieved to be spared the medical details. She had always been squeamish. We ate meat every day when I was a child, but she always refused to touch it. It sat in the fridge under a thick layer of cellophane, sliced into neat pink cubes by the butcher.
Sean led me to his consulting room beside operating
theatre one. Ancient rock music throbbed through the wall: Aerosmith or Bon Jovi. One of the surgeons always played the worst music he could find, to annoy his interns. Sean looked awkward. Maybe he didn’t know whether to treat me like a patient, or someone he used to have sex with every day.
theatre one. Ancient rock music throbbed through the wall: Aerosmith or Bon Jovi. One of the surgeons always played the worst music he could find, to annoy his interns. Sean looked awkward. Maybe he didn’t know whether to treat me like a patient, or someone he used to have sex with every day.
‘Look, Sean, just tell me what happened please.’
He dug his hands into the pockets of his jacket. ‘The first thing is that he’s serious but stable.’
I let out a long breath. At least that meant he was likely to survive.
‘But he’ll need several operations. His back’s okay. I was worried he had a lumbar fracture at first. But the thing is, Alice, there’s no way we can operate tonight.’
‘How come?’
‘We need the bloods back from toxicology.’ His gaze drifted back to my face. ‘He was hallucinating when he came in. Do you know what he’s been taking?’
I took a deep breath. ‘Heroin, methadone, ketamine, crystal meth. You name it. He’s a walking pharmaceutical laboratory.’
‘Jesus, Alice.’ Sean’s expression was a mix of rage and frustration. ‘Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?’
The answer stuck in my throat. I was sick of talking about it, to an army of GPs and social workers and drug counsellors and probation officers. Watching it happen had been hard enough, like seeing the same train derailing every day, carriage by carriage, in slow motion.
‘Do you want to see the X-rays? It’s not a pretty sight I’m afraid.’ Sean flicked on the light box and the images made me wince. He studied me coldly as I stared at them. ‘Your brother couldn’t tell us what happened, but he must have fallen quite a distance to do that much damage.’
I forced myself to look at the X-rays again. One leg had
two clean breaks, but the other was a complete mess, shin and thigh bones in fragments. Even with expert surgery, he wouldn’t be able to stand for months.
two clean breaks, but the other was a complete mess, shin and thigh bones in fragments. Even with expert surgery, he wouldn’t be able to stand for months.
I was shaking when I let myself out of the consulting room, and halfway along the corridor before I remembered that I hadn’t said goodbye. My mother was sitting in exactly the same position as before, clutching her expensive handbag, as if someone might try to wrestle it from her hands. She seemed reluctant to move, but eventually she followed me along the corridor.
Will was in a room just big enough for his bed, an oxygen tank and the supply of diamorphine he was hooked up to. He was fast asleep, white face burrowed into the pillow, his ruined legs hidden under a metal frame, protecting them from the weight of the bedding.
‘Is he conscious?’ my mother whispered.
‘Sedated,’ I replied, ‘until the morning.’
My mother inspected her son’s face in silence before turning to me. ‘I trusted you,’ she said quietly.
‘Sorry?’
‘He parked his van outside your flat,’ she hissed. ‘He wanted your help, but you did absolutely nothing.’
‘So this is all down to me, is it?’
My mother’s eyes glittered like wet pebbles. ‘It’s you he reached out to, Alice, not me.’
‘Displacement,’ I replied.
‘Pardon?’ My mother reacted like I had sworn at her. She had been enjoying her rampage down the warpath, but the word had thrown her off track.
‘You didn’t protect us when we were kids, and now it’s easier to blame someone else. Anyone, but never yourself.’
‘Don’t bring up the past.’ She was trying not to shout. ‘Now is not the time.’
‘Exactly,’ I agreed. Will shifted uncomfortably in his
drug-induced sleep, as if the tension was infecting his dreams. ‘Go home, Mum. There’s nothing you can do.’
drug-induced sleep, as if the tension was infecting his dreams. ‘Go home, Mum. There’s nothing you can do.’
Her protests were short-lived. She was desperate to jump in her car, breathe in the lemon air freshener she always used.
After she had gone I sat with Will, even though he wouldn’t come round for hours. His cheekbones were even sharper than before, eye sockets blacker. When I squeezed his hand his eyelids fluttered, but he was too far under to respond.
Don Burns was chatting to a nurse at the far end of the corridor when I stepped outside. His silhouette was impossible to miss, grey and circular, blocking out the light. I escaped into the stairwell before he could see me.
Outside in the quadrangle, I pulled in long gulps of fresh air. It was just after 3 a.m., and my mind wasn’t working properly. The sensible thing would have been to find a cab on Great Maze Pond, but my feet took me in the opposite direction. I stopped at a cashpoint on Borough High Street, then headed in the direction of Sean’s flat. By now the Angel pub was deserted. Even the landlord must have hit the sack, lights out in every window. I sat down on the brick wall and waited. Several cars crawled by; one man even rolled down his window and asked me for a price.
‘Fuck off,’ I yelled, and his grubby SUV disappeared with an angry screech of brakes.
Twenty minutes later the person I had been waiting for arrived. Michelle spilled out of a brand-new yellow sports car. Maybe some businessman had decided to treat himself to a bit of rough while the wife was out of town. She was wearing six-inch heels and a black leather mini skirt. She must have consulted the Internet to see what kind of get-up attracted the highest price.
‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ I asked.
She peered at my face. ‘Not another fucking social worker, are you?’
‘I talked to you last week, when I was out running.’
‘Oh yeah, I remember. I thought you’d croak on me.’ She lit a cigarette and inhaled for ever, like smoke was a better life source than oxygen. ‘Enjoy our little chat, did you?’ Her pupils were as big as saucers in her pinched white face. She looked like a child that’s been left by itself for days. Out of the corner of my eye I could see cars trailing past, rolling down their windows to check what was on offer, slowly moving off again.
‘The thing is, Michelle, my brother got hurt tonight.’
‘Yeah?’ Tears welled in her eyes immediately. She must have forgotten how to protect herself from other people’s concerns.
‘He’ll be in hospital for weeks.’
‘There are some sick bastards about.’ She glanced around, as though she were afraid someone might be eavesdropping. ‘This bloke picked up my friend yesterday. He kept saying stuff to her.’
‘What kind of stuff?’
‘How he was going to hurt her, she didn’t deserve to be alive. She had to fight her way out.’
‘But you’re still here.’
‘No choice.’ She stared straight ahead, a curtain of dyed black hair obscuring her face.
‘Go home.’ I pulled a hundred pounds out of my pocket. ‘Take a taxi. It’s not safe out here, for any of you.’
She hesitated for a moment, then reached out for the money. Her expression was uncertain. Maybe it was too hard to believe that she was getting something without having to pay anything in return.
‘Tell me your name again.’
‘Alice.’
‘You’re an angel, Alice.’ She flung her arms round me, then teetered towards the night bus stop like a kid learning to use stilts, turning back several times to wave goodbye.
I sat on the wall, gathering my energy for the walk home in the opposite direction. God knows what Alvarez would say if he could see me chatting to prostitutes in the middle of the night. My head spun. It was hard not to smile when I remembered the way he kissed me, as if he had forgotten how to breathe.
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