Dry as a bone.
Goddamn her
Jo had no chance –and no room, either –to manoeuvre before Anna’d handed her a second bottle, grabbed the stool and plonked herself down on it. She was drinking red wine. Burgundy.
‘Jesus you’re
soaking.
’
Jo looked down at herself, ‘I know. I…’
‘I have had the worst fucking day,’ Anna interrupted, ‘you simply would not
believe…
’
She scrabbled around in her pockets and pulled out her cigarettes and a lighter, ‘Smoke?’
‘No. No I…’
‘
Nurse.
Of course you bloody don’t. Do you mind?’
‘Not at all. And thanks for…’
Jo raised the second bottle.
Anna lit up. She inhaled, she exhaled.
‘So,’ she smiled, slipping the packet and her lighter back into her pocket, ‘what’s the story?’
‘Pardon?’
Did she know about the hospital?
The trouble?
How could she?
‘With Wesley. What’s the story there? I almost shat my
pants
when I saw it was you walking along that road tonight. I couldn’t…’
Jo peeked surreptitiously towards the thin man by the bar. Anna was such a foghorn –such a
squawker –
he must be…
She shifted on her stool. Her coat fell from her lap –
Damn
‘You okay there, Josie?’
She retrieved the coat.
‘No I’m… That’s fine.’
She bundled it up again, trying not to spill her beers. She’d barely touched the first one. She sucked on it to gain time. Drank down about half, inhaled, hiccuped, apologised, then wiped off her mouth with her hand.
But Anna had focus. She had zeal.
‘So what’s the story with Wesley? Eddie said you actually
knew
those two old men out there this evening. The grumpy one’s called Doc. He’s the leader, apparently. His son Followed, but only very briefly. Drowned in Anglesey a couple of months back. Got caught up in that whole chocolate-wrapper-challenge thing. It was all over the papers.’
‘The Loiter.’
‘Pardon?
‘That’s… That’s what they…’
Anna’s eyes tightened fractionally, ‘So you
are
involved with them to some degree?’
‘Well, no… I mean…’ Jo nodded (Anna’s powers of deduction were plainly not all they might be), ‘only by sheer coincidence… I wasn’t… I just happened to bump into them earlier.’
Anna was nodding too now, encouraging her.
‘I didn’t really…’
‘And you also know, I presume,’ she interjected, ‘the kind of man you’re dealing with here?’ Jo’s eyes widened, uncertainly. She slowly shook her head. ‘He’s a pig.’
Jo swallowed, with difficulty.
‘Killed his only brother,’ Anna continued, stony-faced, ‘trapped him in an abandoned fridge and then left him there to die. Totally cold-blooded.’
Jo struggled to hide her dismay, ‘But he was only…’
‘Seven. That’s
way
too old for accidents. He was the kind of child who’d pull the wings off butterflies. Probably broke into churches and stole the collection with his mates. Played on the organ. Pissed in the vestry. That kind of thing.’
Jo wriggled on her seat. She peered over at Arthur, agonisedly –
Nothing
Anna sipped on her drink, ‘His father was a seaman. Always away at sea. Mother didn’t clamp down on him
nearly
hard enough if you ask me…’
Jo inspected her beer bottle. She didn’t want an argument.
‘And obviously –from the Force’s point of view –if people didn’t feel the need to Follow,’ Anna rolled her eyes expressively, ‘then there wouldn’t be…’
She sucked on her cigarette, disapproval oozing from every orifice.
Jo stared back at her, bright with embarrassment.
‘When he arrived on Wednesday,’ she continued, ‘they contacted us straight away…’
‘Sorry?’ Jo butted in.
‘Pardon?’
‘
They
contacted the force?’
‘Meaning?’
‘You said
they
contacted the force?’
‘Yeah,’ Anna nodded, missing the point (on purpose, was it?), ‘but he was clever. He stayed over on the far side –Northwick, Westwick, Salting. No roads. I mean we’re happy to go out on surveillance, but we draw the line at hanging around in the middle of a freezing field all day just to watch some arse-wipe catching a rabbit and taking a shit in a ditch…’
Jo winced, sympathetically.
‘He was spotted on the rubbish dump at one point. Somebody reported him. He was catching seabirds apparently. We thought we might be able to detain him on it for a while, but he got out of there too quick and always went for the unprotected species. He’s a cunning little twat. Survived out of jail for this long, let’s face it.’
‘Apart from…’
‘The first two convictions. Of course. But that’s what made him. The publicity. Eddie says he walks the perimeter every day,’ Anna continued, then she paused, speculatively, ‘although I guess you must know that already if you’ve been…’
‘
No,
’ Jo jumped in. ‘No I don’t know anything. I was only in town this morning and I came across…
uh…
’
Patty
‘… This… This
boy
asked me for a handout for his train fare home. I took him for something to eat… the Wimpy. That was…’
‘Oh the
boy,
’ Anna nodded. ‘Yeah. Eddie said everybody kept going on about some boy…’
‘He Follows. He lives in Derby. I think he has an outstanding care order, so…’
‘Eddie said he thought you might be involved from some kind of weird, environmental standpoint. Wesley likes to project that whole…
you
know. The Green thing. But we couldn’t figure out…’
‘Oh God no,’ Jo demurred, ‘I…’
‘Well that’s something at least. Because he’s honestly –and I have first-hand experience of this –he’s a
total
bastard. Very messed up. Very nasty.’
Jo was staring at Anna with a kind of wild unfocussedness. Anna frowned at her, impatiently, ‘Are you…?’
Jo blinked, ‘So how come… what was… why did you have to speak to him this evening, then?’
Anna shrugged, coldly. ‘Just police business,’ she drained her glass, ‘but he’d better watch his back. He steps out of line and we’re gonna take real delight in nabbing him. I’m not kidding…’
Jo nodded, mutely. Not approving. Not disapproving.
‘He was down in Camber before coming here. Did you know that?’
Jo shook her head, ‘No I…’
‘The
hypocrisy
of the man. He went to Rye. The town. They have a port there. And they know for a
fact
that he changed the signs on the river. They have signs near the port stating that members of the public shouldn’t feed the gulls –the gulls mess on the boats and some of them are feral. This gull apparently attacked a child and nearly severed its finger…’
Jo frowned, gently, ‘I hardly think that a gull would…’
‘Oh
yeah.
I forgot,’ Anna laughed, ‘you’re into all that natural history crap. Well anyhow, he changed the signs. Replaced them. And nobody could tell for a while because he’d done them
exactly
the same, and everyone who used the port regularly was taken in. You know?’
‘So what did they…?’
‘Oh stuff about how tourists were at liberty to feed the birds if they wanted and that the people who thought they could dictate on this matter because they owned a boat or sat on a council were deluded. That animals possessed universal rights. The sky is free.
You
know… Just the same bollocks as always. Really
petty.
He’s such an unreservedly small-minded little fucker. I think that’s actually what I hate most about him.’
Josephine nodded. She sipped on her beer again.
‘He’s mentally deranged. And that
hand
of his. When I spoke to him earlier he lifted that hand and put it on his cheek…’ Anna re-enacted this gesture, her nose wrinkling up in distaste, ‘I know it doesn’t sound like much but it was actually really… It was disgusting. He fed that hand to a bird apparently. I don’t believe a word of it. It’s just part of the myth.’
Jo shrugged.
‘I mean, sure, he stole that woman’s pond in 1989. Some deluded little tart he was shagging. That was true.’
‘
Shit.
’
They both turned around. The thin man had spilled his drink. A glutinous, bloody-coloured mess was rapidly spreading over the counter. The barman was scowling. Jo blinked. Anna paused for just a second and then continued talking, ‘She was a recruitment officer for a major bank. He applied for a job there but didn’t get it because of his…’
She lifted her hand.
‘So then he tracked her down and had sex with her. She asked him if he’d help her fix her pond –install a new water purifier. But he objected –for some fucked-up reason –and the next thing she knew, he’d stolen the damn thing. An antique pond. No trace of it left. All the fish just left on the verandah swimming around in glass bowls. A lawn laid over where the hole had been. Really,
really
psycho stuff. I read the police notes.
Scary.
’
‘I think the theft was intended to be… to be
symbolic,
’ Jo muttered.
Anna gave Jo a warning look. ‘Afterwards he released some
eels –
can you believe it? From a pie and mash shop in the East End. Bow… In actual fact that might’ve been before. I forget the proper
order
of things… But they tried to prosecute. Couldn’t find him for about eighteen months after. He was walking to the coast, alongside the river. There was much less access then. He’s obsessed by the Estuary, although he hails from Gloucester, originally.’
Jo nodded.
‘All tiny misdemeanours,’ Anna persisted, ‘petty felonies. But –and now get
this,
Josie –he won’t pay child support for his own kid. Has to be hauled up in front of a court. Claims he’s penniless. Even after the book and all that other stuff. Cash off the internet. Sponsors and what-not. And let’s not forget the deal he must’ve struck with those confectionery people. No
money,
he says. He is
warped.
He is seriously messed up.’
Anna paused for a long drag on her fag. Jo tried to fill in the gap, ‘Yes. But I don’t suppose it’s…’
‘They know for a
fact,
for example,’ Anna continued, ‘that he
broke into the Soane’s Museum in London,
repeatedly.
I was reading this today on my print-out, just before the machine went down… And that’s another thing. Apparently there’s some kind of…’
‘The… Sorry… The Soames Museum?’ Jo interrupted.
‘Oh God, yes. It’s in High Holborn. London. Some strange architectural Museum. They had a real problem with pigeons soiling the sandstone building so they got a trap set up inside this atrium thingy –I dunno. It’s complicated. All totally above board, though. They had one bird as bait, to lure the others. It was
nothing…
’
Anna waved her hand around in the air to dissipate the cloud of smoke hanging in front of Josephine’s face, ‘But Wesley decided to break in and set the birds free. Literally
three
bloody birds maximum.
Pigeons.
And he really messed the joint up. Not just the once, either. He did it several times. And this place was virtually
impossible
to access, which I suppose he deserves credit for –oh
Christ,
just listen to me. They had to hire a full-time guard. And he
still
broke in again. He definitely wasn’t working alone in that instance. They don’t think he was working alone…’
Anna threw her cigarette onto the floor, stubbed it out with her heel and glanced around the bar, catching the eye of the tall, dark-haired man Jo had part-recognised earlier. The man with the ponytail. Slick-looking. Big. Raincoated.
‘Fucking
Bo,
’ Anna muttered. ‘Tennis Ace. Dyslexic. Premature ejaculator. Oh
bollocks.
He’s coming over. Don’t mention a word of what we’ve been discussing. He’s become a journalist since we were all at…’
‘Anna, Anna,
Anna.
’
The ponytailed man kissed Anna on her neck, pushing his hands around her waist, from the back. But even as he was caressing her he was staring –tight-eyed –at Josephine across her shoulder. He had an agenda. It was manifest.
‘Fuck off, Bo,’ Anna chided, elbowing him in the chest when he didn’t instantly relinquish his grip on her.
Bo took this in his stride, letting go, crouching down and sliding his broad hand across her leg instead. He unleashed a flirtatious part-smile part-sneer in Jo’s direction (he thought he was Gary Numan with bigger muscles and a little more hair –or Brian
Ferry circa
Love Is The Drug),
‘I don’t know if you realise this,’ he stage-whispered, ‘but anything you say to Anna here, even in casual conversation, may well be taken down as evidence and used against you, later.’
Jo’s expression did not change. Her face remained as smooth and uncomplicated as the pale shell on a hen’s egg.
‘Hang on…’ he paused for a second, ‘weren’t we at school together?’
He was still staring at her intently.
‘And didn’t I actually see you
Following
earlier?’
‘Jo’s working at Southend General,’ Anna curtly intervened, knocking his hand from her knee, ‘where she’s making great strides in the gynaecological department. She’s heading an environmental sanitary product campaign. You may’ve read about her in the local press.’
‘No
way,
’ Bo was smirking, ‘you’re fucking with me.’
Anna shrugged at Jo, apologetically, ‘He’s not terribly clever, and he doesn’t
read
much, either. Only the sport, which he writes, very badly. And sometimes, I suspect, not even that.’
Bo swigged on his beer. ‘Anna and I dated for a while,’ he told Jo, burping, ‘but I dumped her. She’s still smarting.’
‘His penis is the size of my little finger,’ Anna continued, unabashedly, ‘same thickness, same length. His biggest muscle is his tongue. And he never put
that
to much good use, as I recollect.’