The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die (13 page)

When Danny’s boy, Jez, had first summoned her to be vetted by the king himself, she could see that Danny had eyes bigger than his belly. Nodding, smiling, touching her hair, checking her shape.

Disappointment and shame threatened to overcome her when she saw him. She had wanted him to be a monster. But Danny was all that. Built like a swimmer. He had the soft, dark eyes of a more sensitive soul with curling lashes. A mixed ancestry had given him high cheekbones, a strong jawline and a straight, narrow nose. Mocha chocalata yaya. Even in his uniform of G-Star Raw and Superdry, Ella wondered if there was a deeper finesse to Danny.

‘I hear you doing all right as the new girl in the crew,’ he said, gold tooth glinting in the Ikea lamplight of his absent mother’s living room. ‘If I’d known you was such a honey, I’d have got Jez and the boys to lay off yous. You wanna suck my dick?’

Finesse? Was I fucking mental?

‘No thanks.’

‘You a lesbian?’

‘Why? ’Cos I won’t suck your dick?’

Ella’s heart pounded. She felt like somebody had clamped her head in a vice and was squeezing hard. On the one hand, his advances felt like violence. Danny already had his tough cut of stewing steak but now he wanted to carve off his pound of sirloin too. Ella’s flesh hadn’t been on the menu when she’d agreed to take on Detective Gordon the Gargoyle’s ‘mission’. She had algebra to do.

On the other hand, she didn’t want to betray her real intentions to Danny. Last thing she needed was to be tailed by that weirdo, Jez; her meet with the Gargoyle discovered and reported back. Vengeance would come to Letitia’s door in the form of another Molotov cocktail. A flaming apocalypse of a drink that even a rum’n’Coke chaser wouldn’t douse. Also, it had been one year, two months and fifteen days since Ella had dumped her first boyfriend. Danny was fine. She was no virgin and she knew the score … She felt a spasm of anticipation.

Then, feeling both used and elated afterwards:

‘I thought me and you were friends!’ Tonya protested. ‘And now you been fucking my fella behind my back, innit, you skank!’

Danny was conciliatory. ‘Hey, hey. I got enough love for both of yous, yeah?’ He grabbed his crotch. ‘No need to get feisty. I got something special lined up. An important job. I need both of you in my inner circle. Know what I mean?’

Not really, arsehole
. Ella nodded, curiosity sated for now.

But her need overcame her scepticism. She had started to feel Stockholm-syndrome-sexy. Letitia’s baby was sweet sixteen now and only a shadow of that mother lingered. So, Ella saw the invitation to join Danny and his girl as a warm bonus in her new life of subterfuge and pretence. Teenage kicks. And maybe it had been a happy compromise for Tonya too. Ella could tell that she didn’t trust Danny not to walk off with her into the urban sunset.

Now the three of them shuffled around on the creaking Argos divan. Danny’s bed, so Danny led. Two years’ worth of dust on the MFI bedroom furniture. High five. For real. She didn’t tell the Gargoyle about these bits.

‘What is he planning?’ the Gargoyle asked, staring straight ahead in the Ford, exhaling cigarette smoke off to the side, where it hit the window and left a blueish-yellow patina.

Ella looked at the Gargoyle’s whisky drinker’s nose. It confirmed her suspicion that life chasing Dannys was stressful. She carefully noted his frayed collar and the grime on the cuffs of his overcoat.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘He said it was something big.’

The Gargoyle fixed her with soft, bloodshot eyes. ‘Be careful,’ he said. ‘Are you being careful?’

Ella nodded. ‘I’m right in there. They haven’t got a clue. They trust me.’

The Gargoyle patted her hand. It was a fatherly pat but her eyes still flicked to his crotch. Just to check.

‘When the time comes, will you let us mic you up?’

Ella lifted her eyes and stared blankly out of the windscreen. It was leafy here. Near school and away from the sharp scrutiny of Jez, who moved around the estate like an insomniac puma in the undergrowth. Danny’s twenty-four-seven sentry. But this was not his territory
, thank God
.

‘Look, this is very difficult for me. I don’t want to lose my …’ She searched for the words. She’d read them in a book. She wanted the Gargoyle to understand. ‘… my moral compass. I think that’s the phrase, isn’t it?’

The Gargoyle nodded slowly and lit another cigarette. ‘You’ll get counselling when you’ve finished. I know it’s hard. We’ll look after you.’

She could feel tears rolling hot down her cheeks now. She was drowning in guilt. The shame of enjoying the excitement and low-rent glamour. She was Danny’s cheap teen porno-queen. Just like Tonya.

‘All I want to do is get some …’ The words jostled for space in the back of her throat before they came out. ‘… space. I need silence and … and … calm and … clean. I want to study and just be left to …’ She flapped her hand in front of her face. Ella was an expert in holding it together but, today, the seams were all coming apart. She shook her head violently. ‘I’m just really struggling to …’

‘Cope?’

‘No.’

‘Sleep?’

‘
No
.’ The Gargoyle wouldn’t let her get a word in edgeways.
Shut up!
‘I’m struggling to do my schoolwork.’ There. It was out.

‘Schoolwork? Is that all?’ He started to chuckle quietly.

She looked at him dumbfounded.
Bastard!
He just didn’t understand. ‘Is that all? I’ve got my GCSE mocks next week. I’m in the middle of revising. That’s
everything.
’

She stiffened. At that moment, she realised the Gargoyle couldn’t throw her the buoy she needed to keep her afloat. She would have to save herself.
An iron discipline and a backbone of steel. That’s what I have and that’s all I need.

‘Do you want to duck out?’ the Gargoyle asked, offering her a blue packet of Kleenex. ‘I know we’re asking a lot. But it’s—’

‘No,’ Ella said. ‘This is about more than saving my mother’s arse. I’ll see this through because it’s the right thing to do.’

‘Good girl.’

From: George McKenzie

To: Sally Wright 11.28

Subject: Stuff going down

Hiya Sally,

Thanks for your emails.

Things have gone a bit weird here with the attacks in Amsterdam and Utrecht. But I’m okay. Paul van den Bergen just wanted some insight into political stuff. I’ve just left it at that, don’t worry.

Just thought I’d give you the heads up: I’ve got into a spot of bother with Dr Fennemans. It’s nothing big, but I have to sit his lectures out until the start of next term and go for one-to-ones with him instead. A fate worse than death. The guy’s a misogynist idiot.

Everything else is fine.

George

PS: Did my mother say what she wanted to speak to me so urgently about?

George stared at the email. Her finger hovered over the mouse button. Part of her didn’t want to begin a dialogue about being in hot water with Fennemans. Riling Sally would risk killing the Cambridge goose and its golden eggs. But it made sense to warn the senior tutor of the fracas up front, before Fennemans had chance to malign her.

George read what she had written again. And again. She dusted the screen and her keyboard.

‘Just send it!’ she shouted, finally forcing her finger to override her ambivalent brain.

Next, she listened again to the angry message left on her mobile phone two days into the new term by the PhD student who was the editor of
The Moment
blog.
She could hear the fury in his normally passive voice.

‘George. It’s Bert de Vries. I’m not going to take your post down, because
The Moment
believes in freedom of speech, but I’ll tell you now, it’s eloquent but it sucks. I’m really
really
annoyed at you. We’ve put a disclaimer on the blog. I don’t want trouble with the bloody police over pro-terror writing. Call me. I want an explanation.’

George growled and threw her phone onto her bed. She lay on her chaise longue, staring at the cracks in her ornate ceiling. Melancholy threatened but she pushed it aside.

‘I’m doing the right thing. Bert’s opinion doesn’t count,’ she told the ceiling. Sat up abruptly. ‘And Fennemans … well, he can just fuck off.’

Briefly she wondered about her mother. The unanswered demand for attention had been trying to force its way out of the confines of her paranoia box since Sally had mentioned her making contact. George kept steadfastly pushing it back inside.
There’s no room for her bullshit now. Screw her.

George stood and looked out of her window. Her stomach growled but she knew she had only two tangerines in the food cupboard. She checked her hair and carefully ringed her eyes with black eyeliner. She threw on her winter boots and her sheepskin coat. Ad would have food. Then she remembered it was Saturday. Ad would have the Milkmaid in tow.

Trying and failing to quell the burgeoning tide of jealousy that was rising within her, George clattered down the stairs. It was dry outside. Her breath steamed as the mid-January air bit into her chest. There, in the red light district with its narrow alleys and lascivious back streets, she felt suddenly bricked in; suffocated.

She resolved to cheer herself up with some flowers. Pulling on her hood and dragging hard on her cigarette, she pushed past Japanese tourists, families out shopping with small kids and coach parties full of Americans being led by umbrella-toting guides to the wide banks of the Singel canal. The flower market was in full swing. Amongst the hyacinth smells and cupcake colours, George’s heartbeat started to slow.

She bought a bunch of bright yellow tulips and a packet of syrup waffles. She wandered aimlessly among the crowds in silence, snaffling down the sweet, late breakfast she didn’t even like. Drinking in the hotchpotch of houseboats, four- and five-storey houses and Dutch faces, she tried to evoke the delight and wonder she had felt when she had first set eyes on that place. It had reminded her of the pots of pansies and petunias her mother helped her to grow as a child. The time before, when she was small and things were good. One day, she would have her own garden where she could grow delicate, beautiful things.

Peering ahead, George’s gaze fell on a young couple holding hands. They looked like a clipping out of a wedding magazine. Picture perfect, sta-pressed, spray-starched. The lavender-scented love of the blonde and long-limbed. Ad and Astrid, tiptoeing through the tulips. Seeing them was ripping a Band-Aid off an already angry wound. She turned abruptly, with the intention of heading back towards the Cracked Pot Coffee Shop.

But then she spotted something in her peripheral vision that made her pulse quicken. Short-term memories started snapping into place. It was the third time since beginning her stroll up Singel that somebody had bobbed into the shadows when she had turned around quickly. Too tall and broad to be a woman.

Decision time. Fight or flight?

George realised she was one of a dwindling number of foreign students. Feeble prey for an unseen predator. She quickened her pace. Hastened towards familiar turf and friendly faces. Was she still being followed? She turned around surreptitiously. Her pursuer had definitely slipped inside a flower stall again. Only about five metres behind her now.

By the time she reached the fringes of the red light district, she was almost running. She had to check herself, slow up, appear unruffled and in control. But as she reached the entrance to the Cracked Pot Coffee Shop, her instincts screamed at her that somebody was standing right behind her.

She stopped short and turned around quickly, keys wedged between each finger on her right hand in a makeshift knuckleduster. She was ready. Heart drumming inside her chest.

Ad sat in the café in silence. He studied Astrid’s face as she ate her ham and cheese sandwich. Her manners were impeccable. She took small bites and dropped no crumbs. She didn’t forget herself and start to speak with her mouth full, churning her food around like clothes in a washing machine on spin. Unlike George. She wore a miniskirt with leggings underneath that emphasised her gazelle-like legs. Her straight blonde hair was tied using a leather hair barrette. It pushed its way out of its bondage to form a perfect bouncy fan. Effortlessly elegant. Unlike George. Her skin was blushingly clear. Her blue eyes were shiny. She was, to all intents and purposes, a real Dutch beauty. Unlike George. And yet, Ad mused, Astrid was too perfect, like a well-groomed Afghan hound at a dog show. He felt instantly guilty for thinking such a thing.

‘So, my parents and your parents had dinner last weekend round ours,’ she said, stopping between mouthfuls. ‘It was
so
funny because your mum and my mum … can you guess?’

‘No.’

‘They had worn the same skirt!’ She started to laugh.

Ad observed that it was a delighted titter. Even if the observation had merited it, there was no lecherous guffaw, no hiccoughing, no silent heaving. No smutty anecdote to follow.

‘Fancy that,’ Astrid said.

Ad smiled and tried to imagine his blousy mother wearing something as equally floral and polyester as his future mother-in-law. Had they electrocuted each other with static when they embraced? The mental image crumbled as he noticed Astrid leaning towards him, expecting a response.

‘Fancy,’ he said. ‘How’s work?’

Astrid pushed her plate away with the second half of her sandwich untouched. ‘This new girl has started. The manager has put me in charge. I’m showing her the ropes on laces, waterproofing spray and colour restorer. It’s the till next week. I’ve got to explain how the store room is ordered.’

Ad nodded sagely and kept nodding as Astrid expanded on how the credit card of local councillor, André de Vos, had been refused when he tried to buy loafers, and how Mrs Kooper had bought her son the wrong-sized shoes for school, despite the advice she was given. After ten minutes of uninterrupted footwear-based reporting with very little drawing of breath, Astrid paused and cocked her head on the side inquisitively.