The room suddenly seems smaller. The chill of this desolate, enclosed space seems to wrap itself around McAvoy like a damp shroud. He has to fight not to openly shiver.
‘I’m not some wimpy lass,’ says Ashleigh, as if this is an important point. ‘I can punch my weight. I don’t cry all the
bloody time like a baby. I’ve been through stuff, but I’ve done my best to put it behind me. But when I woke up and there was a man in my bedroom I thought my heart was going to stop. It was like it had never gone away.’
McAvoy closes his eyes. Tries to imagine what went through her mind and then stops himself when it becomes too painful to endure.
‘Was he …?’
‘Naked? No. Didn’t have the light on either. He was just a shape at the end of the bed. A weight. I’m not tall and I sleep with my feet drawn up but I stretched out and felt this lump. I thought I might have left the laundry basket at the foot of the bed or something daft like that, but then the weight shifted. I opened my eyes and could tell there was somebody there. Looking back, I suppose I might have thought it was my son, but it didn’t feel like that. He felt wrong, somehow. I knew. Knew it was happening again.’
McAvoy scratches his head, hard enough to hurt. ‘What happened?’
‘I’m not a screamer,’ she says. ‘I shout, if I do anything. But I didn’t even do that. I just sat up and asked if there was somebody there, and then he spoke. Just sitting there, on the end of the bed. He spoke, like we were friends or family and he wanted a chat.’
McAvoy can find no better way to express his feelings than by swearing. ‘Fucking hell.’
‘He said it was my fault. People like me. We’d saved him. Hoyer-Wood could have died that night but people like me had saved his life. He said he wanted to punish me. People like me.’
‘Did he have a weapon? Fuel? A flame?’ asks McAvoy.
‘I don’t think so,’ she says. ‘It was dark and I was trying not to wet myself. But even though I was bloody terrified, I was angry at him for what he said.’
‘What did you say to him?’ McAvoy asks.
‘I told him that I’d suffered at that bastard’s hands more than anyone. That if he thought I had somehow saved his life out of fear or compassion, he was out of his mind. I told him that I wished him dead every fucking day and that if he had the chance, he should find the crippled bastard and kill him – not me. Not people who had suffered enough.’
McAvoy pictures it. Pictures Ashleigh, scared yet defiant, talking to a voice in the darkness.
‘Did he hurt you?’
Ashleigh gives what could be called a laugh. ‘He started to snivel,’ she says, eyes wide. ‘Started to fucking shake. Said he was lost. Said he wanted to put things right but didn’t know what to do. He even started to say sorry …’
McAvoy rubs at his eyebrow. Licks his teeth and tastes elderberry cordial and chocolate on his tongue.
‘What happened, Ashleigh?’
‘I put the light on,’ she says, eyes closed again. ‘And he ran.’
‘You saw him?’ asks McAvoy, sitting forward. ‘You saw his face?’
Ashleigh shrugs. ‘Maybe. A shape. Half a face.’
‘And you never called the police?’
She shakes her head. ‘I never told anybody. Not until now. I thought whoever it was had changed their mind. They were confused. Upset. They could have killed me as I slept but they didn’t. Then all this started. I knew you had to know. So I’m telling you.’
McAvoy is about to speak when a knock on the interview room door breaks the silence. A moment later, Helen Tremberg enters, holding a sheet of paper. To McAvoy, she looks ill. She’s pale and there is darkness under her eyes. She looks like she has been vomiting and there are sweat patches under the arms of her white blouse.
‘A word, Sarge?’
McAvoy gestures at Ashleigh. Tries to suggest with his gaze that now is not a good time. He looks across the table at the short, red-headed woman who has endured more than anybody should have to. She is not looking at him. She is looking at the piece of paper trailing loosely from Helen Tremberg’s hand.
Suddenly, Ashleigh stands and darts towards the door. She grabs the paper from Helen’s hand and seems to crumple. She reaches out to the table, and McAvoy grabs her before she can fall.
She looks at him, uncertainty and confusion in her eyes. She brandishes the piece of paper; the print-out of a ten-year-old mugshot.
‘Him,’ she says, stabbing a finger onto the page. ‘It was fucking him!’
McAvoy looks at the page and then up at Helen, who is opening and closing her mouth, wordlessly.
He takes the page. Looks at the image of a teenage boy.
Locks eyes with Angelo Caneva.
7.48 p.m.
Sodium street lights, the neon of a kebab shop and the faint cigarette glow of an unfamiliar sun.
A taxi office, just off Hull’s Hedon Road. Knackered cars parked on double-yellow lines and a drunk pissing against the graffiti and chipboard of the boarded-up convenience store next door.
Inside the office, Adam Downey is leaning forward to snort a line of high-quality cocaine off the glossy front cover of a porno magazine. He’s laid out the line on the thigh of a black woman. He likes the effect. Better yet, he likes the sudden rush that is thumping up his nose and eyeballs and into his brain, filling him with a sudden fervour and fury and causing him to emit a strange, animal growl as he raises his head to the ceiling and feels the drugs fill his system.
Downey has never been the sort of drug pusher to sample too much of his own product. He likes to smoke a spliff while watching a movie, and one of the girls he sees regularly has pretty toes that look extra special when holding a nice fat joint out for him to take a puff upon. But he hasn’t taken much cocaine. Truth be told, he’s a little frightened of it. Despite making his
living by selling the white powder in bulk, he’s seen too many people come to depend upon it to want to start sticking too much of it up his nose. Besides, the product that passes through his hands is a little too pure. Once it’s been through a few dealers and been cut with glucose and a little bicarbonate of soda, he might consider the occasional line to help him stay awake or better enjoy a night out. But the idea of waking up and reaching for a cellophane wrap of the stuff makes him feel uncomfortable.
Adam Downey has decided to make an exception tonight.
Half an hour ago, the telephone rang in the taxi office. It was the voice that Downey has come to fear. He’d told him the name of the woman who had taken his money. Told him she was a copper’s wife. Told him what he had to do. Downey had agreed, even as his insides turned to water. He’d thought he was just dealing with some pikey bitch. He’d thought that his boys could have a fun time with her and that would be the end of it. He’d entertained visions of sticking a few extra quid in her knickers when they were done, so she knew there were no hard feelings save the one in his pants. Now the evening’s entertainment has become overloaded with risk. He’s heard about the copper she’s married to. Heard the rumours.
Downey is worried, even though he has three good men to lend a hand. Two Turks and Big Bruno are going to watch his back. They are each formidable and reliable. Bruno, in particular, is an intimidating specimen. He’s a black guy with a Hull accent. He has long dreadlocks and wears shorts all year round. He has muscles on top of muscles, rippling like storm clouds across his skin, and Downey knows that despite his deep laugh and playfulness with the other drivers, Bruno has a violent side. He’s killed before. Downey saw it happen. Saw Bruno smash a
fifteen-kilo dumb-bell over the head of an enforcer who made the mistake of inviting him into his home to discuss a peaceful resolution to their differences.
As he stares up at the ceiling and fully opens his jaws, Downey feels the drugs fill his system. He bounces his legs, feeling tightness in his toes. He stands and looks at himself in the mirror that covers one full wall of the tiny space. It faces a desk that carries an old computer and a stack of unread paperwork. He examines himself. He’s dressed for the occasion, in a baggy white T-shirt with a designer tattoo pattern across the chest. He’s wearing tight jeans that sag, fashionably, at the arse, with slip-on shoes and no socks. He’s accessorised effectively, with diamond earring and expensive watch. He looks good, and the bruises add an air of menace to the pop-star image he tends to affect. He stares into his own eyes. Tells himself he can do this. He has men at his disposal. He just beat a serious charge.
You’re beautiful, mate. You’re the prince of the fucking city …
As the drugs course through his system, he begins to feel untouchable. Begins to question his orders. He’s been told to give Roisin McAvoy a message, but not in the way he had wanted to. He is under instructions not to hurt her. The voice had told him that the organisation has other plans for McAvoy. He’s not to hurt her. Not to make a scene.
Fuck them!
The cocaine emboldens him. He had been looking forward to making that bitch cry. He’d been dreaming about closing his hand around that tiny throat, crushing those full lips until they burst like ripe fruit. He turns and spits on the floor. He looks at his hands and sees that they are trembling. He closes them into fists. His nose is running so he rubs it with the back of his
hand. His movements are frantic. He is surprised to find that his dick has gone hard. He wants to do this. Wants it to happen now. Wants her in front of him, begging …
Downey pushes open the door to the main office, where Bruno and the Turks are sitting in mismatched chairs. He grunts. Tells them it’s time. They stand up without saying a word. The Turks had signed up for the job even before learning what it was. He’d just told them he needed back-up and there was cash in it for them. They’re a curious pair. Memluk is the taller of the two at just over six feet. Tokcan is a quiet lad who has fallen in love with Fruit Pastilles since arriving in England and always seems to be chewing. Neither is over thirty. They’re tanned and unshaven, dark-haired and fit. They both liked Hakan. They know that, somehow, the woman they are going to visit tonight was responsible for his disappearance, and are looking forward to taking out their frustrations. Downey realises he should tell them the plan has changed. They’re not to hurt her. Not to make a fuss. But he finds himself unable to.
‘Time to play,’ says Downey, and is rewarded with a trio of smiles.
They head outside, into air that feels baking hot despite the hour. The sky reminds him of a white towel that has been mixed in with a dark wash.
Downey and his men climb, wordlessly, into a large American 4x4. Bruno had turned up in it tonight and nobody has questioned him about its origins. It’s large, comfortable and stylish, and Downey feels very much at home as he slides, dizzily, into the leather passenger seat and hears the throaty hum of the engine turning over.
‘We good, Boss?’
Bruno asks the question quietly. The two Turks are on their team, but there is an unspoken agreement that the men in the front of the car are in charge.
Downey nods. His head is spinning. His eyes are open but he’s struggling to take in much about the scene before him. He shakes his head and slaps his cheeks. Focuses. Sees …
The car is cruising down Hedon Road, past the entrance to the docks; the cemetery; the prison. He watches the landscape change as they approach the flyover. To his left is Sammy’s Point, where the glass-panelled city aquarium sits on a jutting spit of land. They cross the River Hull, its muddy banks curving down to chocolate-coloured water. They pass through a city that Downey thinks of as his own. He finds himself giggling as he waves a hello to the statue at the crossroads. It’s a man on a golden horse. It might be a king. It’s stood there for as long as he can remember. Downey once heard a rumour that the sculptor killed himself because he got the stirrups wrong. It’s outside a pub that used to be run by a local rugby legend called Flash Flanagan, a good old bloke who wore Elvis glasses and became a fixture in the Old Town after he retired from the game. Played on a Lions tour, apparently. The story goes that he turned up for the flight without a passport and carrying his clothes in a carrier bag …
My city, my people, my city, my people …
Downey’s mind feels alive.
Wired.
Memories are fizzing inside his skull. The lights on the dual carriageway seem to be blurring and forming shapes. He wants to talk to Bruno. Wants to tell him that he’s on top of everything and that this is just another step down a road he’s already mapped out. But his mouth feels dry and his heart is beating too
hard, so he says nothing. Just closes his eyes and lets the car drift towards the Humber Bridge. Enjoys a fantasy or two and lets his brain become a pan of popping corn.
You’re the man, Downey. The man!
He feels powerful. A fucking king! Feels tired, too. Feels his eyes closing even as his blood fizzes with excitement.
Minutes later, Bruno’s hand is on his shoulder, shaking him awake. The vehicle is parked on a nondescript side street in the small town of Hessle. He vaguely remembers telling Bruno this was the plan.
‘This way.’
He points and sets off up the road, looking in the windows of the large, three-storey townhouses. Nice place. Decent folk. Could kill them all with a point and a nod …
He crosses a main road then down a little back alley, leaves and branches sticking out from the slats in the old fence, dead leaves crinkling and turning to dust underfoot. They emerge on the foreshore. Downey looks up at the Humber Bridge. He’s walked across it plenty of times. His mam did some sort of charity jog for breast cancer across it a few years back. It’s a familiar, comforting thing.
The Turks are muttering between themselves. He gives them a nod and they smile back, all teeth and stubble.
‘Oh, we’re going to have such fun …’
Downey checks his phone. Double-checks the address. Walks on, softly, until he finds the house. Four cottages, side by side. White paint and a pale blue trim. Picket fence and dainty eaves. Welcoming lights and herbs in a window box, freshly labelled, the soil a rich brown.