Death & the City Book Two (4 page)

"Thanks," he says. "Is anyone else here yet? I need them to get this other tree off my back. All sorts of things are crawling up and biting me on the butt."

I remember he doesn't know what's impaled him to the tree, but just pat him on an undamaged elbow.

"It's not a tree, it's just stag antlers," I say, being of the medical opinion that information is better than surprise or shock. Damon blanches slightly, but handles it well, probably because I'm taking the lesser-of-two-evils viewpoint. "Should be very easy to get you out."

"Yeah, piece of cake," says a voice behind me, and I look over my shoulder to see the two from Special Unit. One is wearing a faded baseball cap, and the other, what look like Tru-3D dark glasses. Both have on white papery anti-contamination overalls. The one in the shades had spoken. "We've just got to wait for the ambulance to get here, you've got puncture wounds that risk haemorrhage if we move you sooner, it looks like. Might need Fire Service as well if we need to cut the antlers or the tree. We're from Special Incident Unit. What's your name, fella?"

While they go through the formalities again, Baseball Hat inclines his head that I should step aside for a word.

"Anything useful?" he asks, producing a yellow plastic biohazard bag, and holding it open for me to dump my used medical exam kit in.

"He's in too much pain to give anything away," I report, peeling the gloves off, inside-out, one inside the other. "The trees are full of bullets. Must have had a car boot full of ammo."

"Yeah, that's our job to recover as well, lucky us. Like metal detector nerds. How's your car doing?"

"Fine for now, but if it goes up like his, I will be Boogling parts on recall."

He just grins.

"Do you remember cherry bombs?" he says, and I nod. "Like driving over popcorn. Imagine making one this big."

"Sounds like asking for trouble," I remark politely.

I don't feel like acknowledging anyone else I know from school at the moment. Particularly with their kind of associations. But I don't mind small-talk, as long as nothing specific is brought up. Charlie and Sparky had always operated slightly adrift of the law. That is to say, were blackmailing them first.

All three uniform services arrive in a convoy, although I'm glad to see it's not Stalk Watch on Fire Duty, or anyone that Elaine's Prodded on Facebuddy, or set fire alarms off deliberately to attract. It is W.P.C. Drury and colleagues, and it is Adam Grayson, but as I give Drury a quizzical look she indicates that it's 'merely precautionary' and he's attending in his most basic professional capacity - not his most complicated one. He doesn't even look my way as he heads for the casualty, which I do feel relieved about.

"We'll have a chat to our lad when he's comfortable somewhere, and find out what he knows," she tells me. "Well done calling it in. There's been a steady flow of traffic through here, and not a bugger noticed anything unusual. Did you see the skid marks in the soot? Probably thought it was a freak puddle."

"Must have been quite a blast," I remark. "Maybe someone heard it."

"Only whispers we've picked up are rumours of a thunderclap, and old biddies on the phone rushing out to get their washing in." Drury shrugs, at the capacity of Western humanity to explain away most things with logic or unreliable weather. "Never mind. Was this the worst of it?"

"I was just completing the circle, about another twenty degrees back to where I started. A lot of dead birds. Some were probably in flight overhead. I had to finish off a few, if you find metal ball-bearing shot that looks out of place, that was me."

She nods, and for a second looks unhappy.

"Yeah, I'd have done the same," she agrees. "It's okay, you can go. We know where to find you if you need to give us a statement."

We shake hands and I return to my car, dumping the rucksack back behind the front seats. I'm curious as to why nobody else driving along here noticed what I did. Unless they didn't all have a deer jump out to make a bigger point to them.

I squint up at the slashed trees as I start my car again, reversing back so that I can pull out from behind Drury's checkered squad car. Hmmm. Could be mistaken for over-zealous hedge trimming.

People, I think to myself. Stuck in their own heads in their own lives and their own perceptions of the world, all over the planet, not noticing anything outside of their own chatter. I'm sure I have a personality like that, in one of my survival stages. Then the planet decided it needed someone to take notice of it, and gave me the job, because I needed a reality.

A hard habit to break, once you've got the knack of it.

Chapter 22:
Vanilla Blackmail

It's not that I don't LIKE being myself. The primal instinct one that pre-empts personality. Personality being something that requires interaction with others, like a Facebuddy account, to exist in anything more than a two-dimensional concept. I see more, I hear more, somehow I
know
more when I'm being my unburdened, un-obligated to anyone self. Things don't bog me down or get in my way. Weird things, like the ranting Arson Fairy I accidentally imagined, which I can still hear shouting about his mushrooms, coincide with bits of reality that only I would notice, such as reuniting with Sparky, working for Special Unit. One of the biggest pyromaniacs in our school when we were kids, who made his own 'mushrooms' which were miniature atomic explosions in the chemistry lab, and sometimes pottery kiln, and frequently cookery class. His exploding atomic soufflé was the best one. The problem I have, is not with being myself. It's NOT being myself, to fit in with everyone else. And how fickle they are. And how growing up puts all of your experiences in youth away in some box, and your personality gained while growing up is meant to retire with it. Relegated as not relevant to adult life, so that you can fit in, be accepted and take responsibilities.

I don't shirk being an adult. I do the work, I walk the walk. I just don't believe in talking the talk until you've walked that bit, and not having a relationship seems to mean I've missed the main part of that. I just compensate by reading plenty about the subject, so that I can take an academic approach if the subject comes up. So essentially, I feel like a nerdy bookworm kid on the subject - not an experienced adult woman. Kind of strange.

I think that's the part the original me resents. That I felt forced to educate myself through books, when what I really should be experiencing is life. And now the original me is resenting Connor, because half of me feels as though it's all come too late now. While the other half doesn't believe anything will come of it, and it's just a game he's playing to get one thing, at which point he'll drop it.

The funny thing though, is he appears to be going through a similar dilemma. Half of him wanting to do things formally; half of him wanting to hang out and just see what happens on the off chance. So in a way, each of us is fitting the other's differing needs, with our own divided commitment on the idea of a relationship. We both have an idea of what's wrong, and fulfil the criteria for each other on that; and also both have concepts of how things should be done right, having a natural inclination for it, which also seems to work between us. And because he knows me in a real sense, he doesn't make me squirm uncomfortably with awkward questions I hear from customers at work, such as
'How come a gorgeous thing like you is doing this job instead of at home with a husband waiting on you?'
Hmmm. Basically, first of all I didn't know that husbands were meant to do that, so it'll be something to note if it happens and has since elevated my expectations beyond the range of inexperienced comprehension; and secondly,
'Gorgeous thing'
is something I've only heard men start saying in the last two years. Before that, as it's fairly clear now, I was more Cabbage Patch doll than Barbie doll. By that estimation, my evaluation is that I've only been on the man-seeking-future-wife radar for the last eighteen months or so. Not my entire adulthood.

Also, I do say 'No' an awful lot. Based on the fact that I work where drunk men congregate, and I'm a woman standing in a corner going nowhere and meeting up with no-one in a big hurry. It's easier now to say 'No' than yes. 'No' means I don't even have to waste time wondering. Not having the experience means I don't have pattern-matches to infiltrate, and knowing that I'm going to say
it
to all drunk people regardless, means not even my curiosity is aroused.

Connor always seems to know when I get stuck in this loop thinking about him, because he rings.

"Whereabouts are you at the moment?" he asks.

"Just parked outside my Mum's, I'm picking up Junior." I get out of the car and lock it.

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I guess," I reply. "Another strange car incident earlier. Suburban or urban anti-personnel project gone wrong, by the look of it."

"Yeah, I heard from head office. They think it was the paintwork. Meant to be the same as yours, but too unstable, like nitro-glycerine. They think a herd of deer crossing ran into it while it was stationary, and the entire bodywork detonated. Slate grey is a stupid colour for a car. Should have made it yellow. With a big hazard light on the top."

"Other than that, do you know if it was armed?"

"There's a lot of metal down there but the scatter distribution means it does look as though it was loose rounds being transported, not a Jack-In-The-Box like yours." Connor heaves a sigh. "I've been stuck in the Forensics lab all day. They've put me on a professional development training schedule. Apparently they think I've got too much time on my hands, seeing as I manage to analyse CCTV and sound recordings for them in my spare time, to clear the backlog. Like you, being promoted to target research. Only in your case I guess it doesn't feel much like promotion. More like going backwards to what you were doing before door work."

"A bit," I admit. "The technology's better now. Plus I feel as though I have more insight on what to look for, instead of just anything made up from whatever's on their washing-line, which was all I had to do most of the time. How are you finding it?"

"Weird," says Connor. "I get the feeling they're trying to turn me into the guy who's life I'm leading at the moment. The one who's an industrial incident loss claims insurance investigator, on the Engineering Forensics side in his real job, when he's not pretending to be a bin man in Oz. Speaking of whom, I got some stuff forwarded to me in the mail from him. I need to show you some of it. Part of your side of the bargain in the wingman deal. Would you be free if I pick you up after you finish work, or do you need to get home?"

"No, that would be okay," I agree, glad that he's asking appropriately. "I'll see you then."

"Cool," he says. "I would have stopped by at work tonight anyway, but I wanted to ring and catch up as well, so I thought I'd check it was okay first. See you later."

I feel a lot better as we disconnect, and I head towards the house. Conversation with him feels as though it's getting easier as time passes. More normal. As if we could be anyone, almost. To some romantics - or romance adrenaline junkies – I expect this is the bit they start to worry where 'the spark' has gone, the bit where you picked on and teased and bullied each other, and made each other half miserable and half excited all the time over the mystery of what would happen next. But I've never been a fan of 'the spark' because it just reminds me of school bullying, and feels like abuse, allowing a stranger to mistreat you in order to let them through your defences and get under your skin. That's the reason defences are there. To keep out abusers. Not to be merely selective about who you allow to abuse you.

I'm realising that the comfortable bit, the secure feeling I'm starting to get glimpses of - particularly like just now when it comes after I've been worrying myself about him - is the better side of it. The more romantic side of it as far as I'm concerned.

I wonder how long it can last.

I arrive home with Junior, to find her games have arrived from iBay, and also my punk stilettos, which upon opening turn out to be the real thing, with silver studs and red leather soles, worth about a grand more than I paid for them, having thought I was buying very well-made Chinese designer label look-alikes. Connor will have to do something pretty special before he earns a date with me wearing those. Junior hurtles upstairs with her new accoutrements, and presently is heard shouting "Eat brains! Eat brains!" as she trains her new Zombies to come when called for dinner.

I look in the fridge and freezer, and decide we're having pasta. I'm just organising ingredients for a chicken, pea, onion and bacon version of carbonara sauce, when head office ring.

"You need to visit Terry Dyer's before work tonight," they say. "Maybe you could give him some dietary advice."