No Mercy (11 page)

‘Don’t give me that,’ he said, shuffling closer to her and nudging her elbow. ‘You can’t tell half the story and not the rest. Are you going to spill or not?’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I still have to figure out whether you’re the kind of guy who can be trusted.’

‘I am. I’m the most trustworthy guy you could ever hope to meet.’

‘And I should believe that because…?’

Rick’s voice took on a mock-wheedling edge. ‘Because you’re a great judge of character. Because you know that really, deep down, you want to tell. Because your secret’s safe with me.’

‘As I said, it’s not exactly a secret.’

‘What if I crossed my heart and hoped to die?’

‘That tends to work better for eight-year-olds.’

Rick sat back, folded his arms and gave a sigh. ‘Well, I’m done. I’ve given you all my best lines, but it appears that tonight the famed Mallory powers of persuasion are failing to persuade.’

‘Famed, huh?’

‘Well, I don’t like to blow my own trumpet, but…’

‘Your modesty is most becoming.’

Rick gave a small bow. ‘Thank you. Although I would like to add that allegedly a problem shared is a problem halved.’

‘Do I have a problem?’

‘Delia seems to think so, judging by the expression on her face yesterday.’

‘Mm, you could have a point.’

And so, finally, Maddie told him what had happened with Delia and what she’d later found out from Solomon. By the time she’d finished, Rick was looking pensive.

‘So what do you think?’ she asked.

‘It sounds kind of…’

‘Kind of what?’

He paused for a few seconds before replying. ‘Like someone else’s argument. Are you sure you want to get caught in the middle of it?’

‘Not especially,’ she said. ‘But until I know what it’s all about, I can’t really make a decision one way or the other.’

‘Maybe you should talk to Delia again.’

Maddie wrinkled her nose. ‘Or maybe not. I don’t think I’m her favourite person at the moment.’

‘You want me to have a word?’

‘No, I don’t want you getting dragged into this. I’ll wait for a while, see if Solomon comes up with anything else.’

‘If in doubt, do nothing.’

Maddie gave him a look. ‘You think I’m wrong to wait?’

‘It just… it just sounds like something you shouldn’t get involved in. This guy’s in jail and he’s in for murder. I don’t mean to be judgemental, but is that really someone you want to be working for?’

Maddie put her elbows on the table and placed her chin in her hands. His view, she noted, was the polar opposite to Solomon’s. ‘And how pleased is Cato going to be if I tell him I’m not going to tend the grave any more?’

‘You worried about that?’

‘Of course I’m worried. Like you said, the guy’s inside for murder. He’s hardly the sort of man you want to get on the wrong side of.’ But in truth that wasn’t the only reason for her reluctance to terminate the contract. She’d developed an attachment to Lucy Rivers’s grave, one that was not perhaps entirely healthy but which she didn’t yet feel ready to give up. It was the place she went to think about Greta.

Rick picked up a beer mat and tapped it against the side of his glass. His face had become thoughtful again. ‘It’s too quiet on the west side. If I was you, I wouldn’t spend more time there than I had to. I mean, there was that bloke the other day…’

Maddie was reminded of the drifting smell of cigarette smoke, of the feeling of being watched. She remembered with a jolt the rush of fear, of adrenalin, and her overwhelming urge to run. Fight or flight? She had chosen the latter. Now, even though Rick knew nothing of her sprint down the path, she felt the need to play down the incident. ‘I’m sure it was nothing. I’ve never had any trouble there before. Anyway, I can take care of myself.’

Rick looked at her, concern gathering in fine lines at the corners of his eyes. Then his lips parted and a smile appeared. ‘Yeah, but you’re not the one I’m worried about, babe. It’s the poor bloke who tries to creep up on you. There are enough corpses in that cemetery already.’

Maddie laughed. ‘Is that what they call a back-handed compliment?’

‘That’s what they call a plea from an overworked gravedigger.’

‘I’ll watch my back. I’ll even keep an eye out for those zombies you’re always banging on about.’

‘Ah,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘in my experience it’s not the living dead you need to watch out for; it’s the living, breathing buggers who cause all the trouble.’

‘I can believe it.’

‘And so?’

Maddie met his gaze again, their eyes locking. ‘And so?’

‘You’ll be careful, right?’

‘Course I will.’ But even as she said the words, Maddie felt an odd feeling run through her. It was as if she was having some kind of premonition. It was like someone had walked over her grave.

Eli Glass unlocked the heavy wrought-iron gates at eight o’clock precisely. ‘Easy does it,’ he murmured as he carefully drew them back. Every weekend, for almost fifty years, he had carried out the same procedure. First he opened the gates at the main entrance before walking through the cemetery to the second set. During the week Bob Cannon or Delia Shields did the honours, but on Saturday and Sunday the job was his.

Back in the day, his father had done the very same thing. It was a Glass tradition, but once Eli was gone, there would be no one left to carry it on. He had no children. He hadn’t even got a wife. A thin, mirthless laugh escaped from his lips. As if any woman would marry a man like him! Everyone knew that Eli Glass was crazy.

He set off down the main thoroughfare, sniffing at the morning air. It always smelled nicer in the cemetery, fresher and cleaner than on the street. Like the countryside, he thought, although he couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d been there. Back when he was a nipper, he reckoned. Anyway, you didn’t need the country when it was all right here on your doorstep, the trees, plants and flowers, the squirrels, birds and foxes. There were plenty of parts you could walk and not meet another human being – leastways, not one who was above ground.

He’d been a nipper too when he’d first set foot in the graveyard, keeping close to his dad, although he hadn’t been afraid. No, not afraid, only wary. And it was smart to be wary with all the dead folks wanting to be heard. His father, though, never listened to a word they said; he kept his ears firmly closed to the clamour.

‘There ain’t nothin’ to hear, son,’ he’d insist. ‘At least, nothin’ that’s any of our business.’

But Eli hadn’t been able to blank out the voices; they’d washed over and around him like waves battering on the shore. It had taken a while before he’d been able to separate one from the other, to make out individuals, to gradually come to recognise the men and women who surrounded him.

‘He’s got the gift,’ his mother had said.

But talk like that made his father angry. ‘It ain’t no gift. Don’t you go encouraging the lad.’

His dad had been small and wiry, but strong with it. You had to be strong back in those days with graves to dig by hand and no heavy machinery to do the hard graft for you. It took a pickaxe in the winter to break the ice on the ground. Things were easier now, but Eli still missed the old ways. He liked the connection to the soil, the hard slog, the feeling of achievement when the job was done. There was something… well, impersonal, about getting a chunk of steel to dig a final resting place.

Eli reached the second set of gates and went through the same procedure as the first. These gates, although solid, weren’t as grand as the ones at the front. He drew them back and dropped the bolts into the holes in the ground. How many times had he done this before? Too many to count. The action was automatic now, second nature to him. After the gates were secured, he glanced up and down the street, saw nothing to interest him and retreated into the cemetery.

Fifteen, he’d been, when he’d first come to work here on a proper legal basis, but he’d been coming with his dad for years before that, learning the trade and getting his hands dirty. There was none of that health and safety lark in the sixties, at least none that was taken seriously. And boys could leave school before they’d started to shave. Glad he’d been, bleedin’ overjoyed, to leave that place behind.

‘You don’t want to take no heed of them boys,’ his mother used to say, as she brushed the dirt off his blazer. ‘Ignorant, that’s what they are. You know the problem? People are scared, Eli. They’re scared of anyone who’s different to themselves. They want everyone to be the same, and by that I mean the same as
them.
And what kind of a world would that be, eh? A world full of idiots.’

Eli’s shoulders tightened as he turned off the main thoroughfare on to one of the narrower paths. He’d had no desire to be different, to be anything other than ordinary. For a long time he’d stopped speaking about the voices, but now he no longer cared what others thought of him. If he was still not entirely comfortable in his own skin, he had at least grown accustomed to it.

He came to Lizzie Street’s grave – once the most powerful woman in the East End – and stopped for a moment to gaze at the plot. A bunch of yellow chrysanthemums was turning brown in the urn. Not a loving gesture from her husband or from her son either. Neither of them gave a damn. When it came to family, the only legacy Lizzie had left was one of bitterness and resentment. A faint muttering came from the ground, but Eli didn’t hang about. He had learned long ago not to get involved in other people’s arguments.

Lowering his head, he pushed on until he came in view of the old chapel. A sight for sore eyes it had been back when he’d first come here, with its beautiful white stone, tall steeple and rose-stained windows. Like a fairy-tale castle. They’d held funerals in it then, but not any more. It had been closed to the public for years. The roof was leaking, and vandals had broken most of the glass.

Eli stood and stared at the building. Sometimes, when no one else was around, he would go inside and sit on one of the ornately carved pews. The lower part of the building was boarded up, but he still had a key to the heavy metal door. No one had thought to ask for it back. It was still and peaceful inside, with pure pale light, like rays from heaven, slanting in through the upper windows.

A thin sigh escaped from his lips as he resumed his walk. Nothing was like it had been. Time passed, the world changed, and everything became altered. The shattered windows of the church saddened and disgusted him. There was no respect now for God or religion. Eli wasn’t overly fond of God – the two of them had parted company long ago – but he still believed in a deity’s right to have his house protected from mindless yobs.

‘Animals,’ he muttered under his breath.

The creatures crept in at night, bringing their lager and their foil and their pipes, leaving all the shit behind for Eli to clear up in the morning: empty cans, needles and used johnnies. As if he didn’t have better things to do than pick up all their crap. There was other stuff went on too, bad stuff that he didn’t like to dwell on. You messed with the Devil, he thought, and the Devil would mess with you.

In summer, the cemetery closed at six o’clock. Fifteen minutes before, Eli would get into the truck and make a circuit of the grounds, checking that everyone was gone before he locked the gates again. There were, however, some who chose not to leave, who hid in the bushes or the old crumbling crypts. For a few of the Kellston homeless, sleeping with the dead was a more agreeable prospect than taking their chances on the street. Eli knew they were there but never threw them out. As well as the things he pretended not to hear were the things he pretended not to see.

Delia Shields didn’t approve. Her thin lips would purse into a moue of distaste, as if the cemetery was her property and she didn’t want it littered with unfortunates.

‘Do try and move them on, Eli,’ she’d say. ‘This really isn’t the place for them.’

Missing the point, he thought, that the reason they were here was because they didn’t have a place. But then people like Delia had no sympathy for those who had fallen on hard times. She didn’t believe in bad luck, couldn’t grasp how despair could bring a person to their knees.

Eli knew that Delia didn’t like him. It was the kind of dislike that sprang from suspicion and fear. He was odd; he was different; he scared and repulsed her. But it was more than that. She feared him because he
knew
things. She saw her secrets reflected in his eyes. That was why she couldn’t meet his gaze, why she could barely stand to be in his company. More than once she had suggested retirement, eager to see the back of him.

‘You’ve worked hard for all these years. Why not take a rest? You deserve it.’

‘And do what?’ he’d asked.

‘Oh, you know. Put your feet up, enjoy yourself, have a nice holiday.’

‘I don’t care for holidays. Can’t see the reason in ’em. Come to that, I don’t care much for sitting on my arse all day neither.’

Delia’s face had hardened into irritation and impatience. ‘Everyone has to retire eventually.’

‘And I’ll do it when I’m good and ready.’ He was still strong and active, still capable of doing his duties, and they’d have a fight on their hands if they tried to get shot of him. No, he intended to keep going for as long as he could. He’d seen the old geezers in the pub, their eyes blank and empty, with nothing more to look forward to than the next pint being passed across the bar.

Eli was approaching the west side now, with its overgrown tangle of grass and weeds. ‘You’ll not get rid of me that easy,’ he muttered. He headed down the narrow, twisting path, his strides long and steady. His boots made a dull thump against the dry earth. Above him, the sky was a clear sheet of blue without a cloud in it. The sun’s rays warmed his shoulders and the top of his head. From beyond the walls he could hear the sound of traffic, but it was no more than a distant buzz. Here, in the place of the dead, the external world was of no consequence.

When he came to the grave, he stopped and stood gazing at it. ‘Lucy,’ he murmured. He did not expect a response and did not receive one. It had been a long time since she’d last spoken to him. His eyes narrowed a little as he stared at the polished headstone. He’d preferred it when the plot was overgrown and hidden, before the girl with the long brown hair had come and cleared away the blanket of ivy. Even with the sun shining down, the ground now seemed cold and exposed.

Eli took a pouch of tobacco from his pocket and slowly, carefully rolled a cigarette. He placed the skinny fag between his lips, struck a match and lit it. While he smoked, he thought about the past, about those long-gone summer days when Lucy would come to the cemetery. A vision, that’s what she’d been, the most beautiful woman he had ever set eyes on.

He could have told her – although she wouldn’t have listened – that no man was worth it. Broken hearts could be healed, could be glued back together. Hope could be found with the passing of time. His own heart began to thump as he thought about the day he’d found her lying in the silvery water. Shallow, it had been, barely deep enough to drown a child. Her fair hair spread out like a fan. Her eyes still partly open. Her white dress wrapped around her like a shroud.

For a moment he could feel again the tug on his shoulders as he’d half pulled, half dragged her out. Already knowing that it was too late. That had been the first, the only time he had touched her. Her skin smooth and pale and icy. Her mouth slightly open, her curved lips parted as if waiting to be kissed.

He had studied that mouth for longer than he should. And although no sound had come from it, he had heard the whispers on the breeze. Grief had played out its notes on the still summer air. A terrible accident, that’s what they said later. But he knew hopelessness when he saw it. He knew desperation and despair.

Eli shifted from one foot to the other. His sunken cheeks hollowed into caverns as he pulled hard on the cigarette. His chest tightened as he held and then expelled the smoke. It drifted for a while, a thin, aimless cloud, before dissolving into nothingness. His gaze slid down to the dark roses, their colour red as blood.

‘Lucy,’ he murmured again.

It was only then that he stepped forward and laid his hand on top of the stone. Eli believed in justice. Not in courts and police and barristers and judges, but in a natural law, a law that righted wrongs no matter how old they were. What goes around comes around – and that bastard had, eventually, got what he deserved.

So what was happening now? There was a stirring, a shifting, as if Lucy Rivers was slowly waking from a long and dreamless sleep. Over and over she drew him back to her grave, but then presented him with silence. The breath caught in the back of his throat. Something was unfinished. That was what he sensed. The past was catching up and loose ends were starting to unravel.