One of Us (14 page)

“And your friend Sean, does he know Elena?”

I shrugged. “They’ve met through me, maybe once. We have had coffee together. That’s all.”

“That’s all?” Corgan did not take his eyes for me, not for a moment. Never mind what I say, I thought. If I look the wrong way, react the wrong way, just once, I am dead.

“That’s all.”

“Not what I understand,” Corgan said. “I understand that there’s something been going on between them. More than just coffee. Was he fucking her?”

“No!”

“How do you know?”

“I—I just know.”

“Was he fucking you?” Kav’s voice came from close behind me.

“No,” I said, without turning to face him. “Is anyone fucking you? I would be amazed.”

There was a noise behind me, the sound of movement towards me, but Corgan shook his head, and nothing happened. I did not look behind. I did not want to give them the satisfaction.

“What we think,” Nicky said. “Is that he was. And more.”

“And you didn’t know about this?” Corgan stared at me.

I shook my head. “It’s bullshit. And so what, anyway?” I said, angry still. That did not need faking. It was so easy to turn fear into anger. Ask any mother who has lost her child in a shop for a minute. “I still do not understand, all these questions, Sean, Elena. Corgan, what is going on?”

“Elena’s dead,” he said, and he watched me very closely.

I frowned, shook my head. “No. No, she isn’t, I saw her just the other day, what do you mean—”

“Oh, she is. But that’s not what this is about.”

“What—how? How did—” I tried to look as if I was in shock, hearing the news for the first time. I felt so scared, it was not hard to be convincing.

He ignored me. “What concerns me, and what should concern you, Anna, is that I know that before she died Elena was up to something. Whatever she was up to she wouldn’t have done on her own, on account of her just being a stupid tart, so I’m thinking that someone must have been helping her, someone smart, someone smart in the head but stupid in common sense because fucking around in my business is a stupid thing to do if you want to stay alive. You know anyone like that Anna?”

I said nothing. There was silence in the room.

“Asked you a question,” Corgan said.

“I do not know what the fuck you are talking about,” I said, and from behind me one of the men, I think that it was Kav, stabbed me hard in the kidneys with stiffened fingers. It brought tears to my eyes. “Leave me alone,” I said. “If I do not know, I do not know. I was not helping Elena with anything other than getting well. It is what I do, all I do. I do your work, I do what you see, and this is how you treat me.”

“What about your friend?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and I felt like I had betrayed Sean by saying it.

“If he was in with Elena, seeing her, think he could be stupid enough to think he could take me on?”

I shrugged. “No. I do not know. No.” I did not know what to say. I did not want to make them think they were right about Sean. But then Sean was not here, in this room, and I was, and I had to get out of it.

“Thought he was your friend? You know him, think he’d do something rash if it meant him getting fucked on a regular basis?”

“I told you, I don’t know. Maybe.” I almost expected to hear a cock crow. “You’d have to ask him.”

Corgan nodded. “I will.”

I felt sick. It felt as if there was no air in this room.

“Which means I need to find him, Anna. So tell me, where’s he gone?”

“I do not know,” I said, and now there was no need to lie. “I do not know.” And I started to cry. In part, it was because I could not stop myself from crying, because I was scared, for me and for Sean, and because my life was frightening and pointless, and because I still did not know if these men would hurt me. And in part, it was because it gave me something to hide behind.

Corgan walked up to me, very close. He took my chin in his hand, tilted my head up so I was looking at him. He lifted his hand, and I flinched. He brushed the hair out of my eyes. His touch was very gentle.

“If I find out you are lying,” he said, “and that you’re involved in this, you will end up like her. She’s nowhere, Anna. Cleaned up. Gone. Like she was never even here, and who’s to know otherwise? If you know where he is, and don’t tell me, you will end up like her. You understand me Anna?” His hand on my chin spread out wider, around my neck. Not tight. It did not need to be. I nodded. “So think very hard, Anna. Think about where he might be. And if you think of anything, you tell me, understand?”

I nodded again. I was going to walk out of here. He would not be saying this if I was not going to walk out of here.

Corgan let go of me, turned away.

“See that you do,” he said. “Now get out of here.”

The men behind me parted. I bit my lip, and I turned and I ran out between the men, who laughed at me as I went. I ran down the stairs, and through the empty, shrouded restaurant, and I ran down the street, all the time expecting to feel a hand drag me back, back into that room. But no-one touched me, and I ran and I ran until I could not run any more, and I stopped and was sick in a litter bin, while a small boy watched, horrified and fascinated all at the same time.

~

I hoped that Sean was two hundred kilometres away by now, more, inventing a new life for himself in another city where Corgan and his men could not find him. But in case he was not, I had to look for him. It hurt that he had left me, but he had told me that he would do it, and I had said that I would take the risk, so I could not be too angry. In theory. In fact I was very angry, but I was also very scared for him, and I wanted to find him so I could shout at him, and maybe hit him once or twice, and then hug him so tight he could not breathe. And then make him get on a coach or a train and leave this place. Leave me.

I walked around the neighbourhood, asked in cramped, steamy cafes and newspaper shops where they sold papers in a dozen languages. I could not think what else to do. Then I had an idea, and I walked to the street where we had our coffee with Elena. Our last coffee with Elena.

I went into the public library, just across the road from the cafe. They had a place in the library where you could get onto the internet. Sean spent a lot of time in the library, sometimes on the computers, sometimes in amongst the books. I think he wished he had not dropped out of university, and his time in the library was his way to carry on studying, to feel that he still had a connection with minds and learning. Also, it was warm and it was dry and it did not cost anything, and the days when he was not working were long and they were cold and if you did not do something, they were longer still.

He was not there. I had not really thought that he would be. A little group of young African men sat clustered round one PC, laughing while one read out an email from a friend. Other people gave them dirty looks, but they did not notice, or did not care. They were not laughing very loud, anyway. A girl sat with a stack of books on the desk next to her, none of them open, and when I glanced over her shoulder I could see she was copying text from the web and pasting it into a document. There’s your next essay, I thought. I walked around the other side of the desks. An old man tutted and rattled his keyboard with anger when the PC would not do what he wanted it to. An overweight man in his mid-twenties who smelt of sweat, and of worse things too, clicked through pages of news without looking, because he kept flicking his gaze over to the girl, staring at her while her head was down, and away as soon as she looked up. I looked around, and saw a man in a blue short-sleeved shirt, blue tie, name badge clipped to his pocket, watching the tables. I caught his gaze, nodded my head towards the man, then the girl. The library assistant nodded, with an expression that lacked any kind of surprise.

I walked over to the enquiries desk, and asked them if they would be able to tell me if someone had been in using the computers. You had to show your library card to book a place. The woman behind the desk said she was sorry, but she could not tell me.

“It’s important,” I said.

She smiled again and said, “I’m sure it is, but I’m sorry, I really can’t. Data protection.”

“OK,” I said. “Can you tell me if you’ve seen someone then? He is here quite a lot. Very quiet man, about thirty, fairish hair but it is not very, about six foot. Very polite.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Really I am.”

“I know,” I said. “Data protection.”

“Yes,” she said. “Sorry.”

“Me too.”

I walked round every one of the little passages between the shelves. He was not there. For all that I knew, he was not even in the city. I walked out of the library, saying that over and over again in my head, hoping that this would make it true. I had to check myself, as I walked past the security desk, to make sure that I was not talking out loud.

When I got out onto the street, the wind tugged and pulled at my clothes, and I stood on the pavement, lost. I did not know where to look next. Then I thought of one man who would have an interest in helping me find Sean. One man who would have contacts in the city, and who would not betray me to Corgan. I hesitated for a moment, because the thought of talking to him scared me. But I was getting used to being scared, and if I wanted to find Sean, I did not have much choice.

I went back into the library, and went to the Enquiries counter. A middle-aged man in glasses was typing something into a computer. A much younger man with an elaborate nest of hair that did not quite suit him, and a jumper that did not quite fit him, struggled with a pile of books in his arms bigger than he could manage. He was trying to slide them onto a shelf without dropping any.

“Can I help?” the man in glasses asked, punching one last key on the computer as if it made a full stop to what he had been doing.

“I need to find an address please,” I said. “Can you help me?”

“Local?” The man behind the counter pushed his glasses back up his nose.

“Yes,” I said. “It is a nightclub, called Shanahans. It used to be called the Eclipse.”

“I’m sure we can find that,” the man said, and reached around for a directory, but the young man said, “Bower Street,” and then the top book slid off his pile and onto the floor with a slap, and the older man turned round and glared at him.

“Sorry,” he said, and with an effort he managed to get his remaining books on the shelf. He bent and picked up the one that he had dropped, brushing at the cover to show that it was fine, really. “Shanahans, it’s over on Bower Street. Not been the Eclipse for years.”

“Can you show me how to get to Bower Street, please?” The young man was about to tell me, but the older man gave him a look, so he rearranged his hair and shambled off to get another pile of books. The older man showed me on a map, and drew out the roads on a piece of paper, in so much detail I am surprised he did not add the names of the people who lived in the houses along the way. Bower Street was not very far. Even if it had been, it would not have made much difference. I did not have much choice. Not if I wanted to find Sean.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The club was shut up, blank. Late that night, the lights would come on and the doors would open. Men with thick necks and three-quarter length black coats would stand at the doors, watching out for trouble and for short skirts. Now, though, it was two closed doors, windows painted black, a dark stain on the pavement just outside. I made my hand into a fist and banged on the beaten copper-coloured metal of the door. It was cold, and made my hand hurt. I waited a moment or two but nobody came. I hammered again, counted to thirty and only then did I stop. My hand hurt even more now.

A lock rattled, and one of the doors opened. The man who stood there was very tall, his head shaven, a sculpted goatee beard on his chin. He looked as if he had his head on upside down. He peered past me down the street, first one way, and then the other. He looked at me, frowned as if he was puzzled, then looked back along the street.

“Funny,” he said. “I thought I heard a knock. But there’s no-one here. You ain’t seen anyone, have you?”

“It was me,” I said, although I knew that he knew. “I knocked.”

“You?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Lot of noise for your size, then. Anyway, there’s nothing going.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No jobs. No work. Nothing going. Another time, come round when we’re open, eh. But there’s nothing now.” He started to close the door again.

“I have come to see Lomax,” I said.

He stopped closing the door, looked at me through the space that was left. Did his puzzled face again. “Think you’ve got the wrong address.”

“When you try and look like you do not know what I am talking about, you are shit,” I said. “My advice, do not play poker.”

Now he made an offended face.

“Better,” I said. “But still do not play poker. I have to see Lomax. I have information for him.”

“I said there’s no-one here called Lomax,” he said. “You not listening?”

I took a breath. “Tell him I have something the Ukrainian will want to know.”

The man looked at me for a long time without saying anything. Then he closed the door, and locked it. I stood and waited, looking at my reflection in a thousand blurry copper fingerprints. After a few minutes the door opened again. It was the same man, and this time when he looked up and down the street he did so with purpose.

“Right, in,” he said, and held the door open. As soon as I was through, he shut it and locked it behind us. A set of stairs led up into the nightclub. I put my foot on the first step, but he took hold of my coat and pulled me back. He pushed my arms up from my sides, ran his hands over my body. There was nowhere that he did not touch me, but there was not anywhere that he lingered, and his touch felt like that of a doctor, confident and professional, with permission to be where it was. It still made the flesh on my arms rise up like it was cold, and my feet twitched because I wanted to stamp on his instep.

“I hope there’s good reason for you being here,” he said very quietly. “Because if there isn’t, it’s me that’s going to have to teach you not to fuck important people around. And I really don’t want to have to do that to a woman.”

“I bet you do not,” I said, and this time he really did look offended. He let go of me.

“Go on, up.”

I walked up the stairs, the man just behind me. The place smelt of stale beer and old smoke, washed over with disinfectant. We got to the top of the stairs and the man’s hand touched the small of my back for a moment, guiding me on through a lobby. There were toilets to either side. The doors to one were propped open and a woman was mopping inside. She did not look up as we passed. We walked through the nightclub, my shoes clacking on the sticky wood of the dance floor. A man was behind the bar, counting bottles, and another man was up a ladder, leaning out and fiddling with some lights and swearing a lot. Neither of them looked at us either. With the ordinary lights on, the nightclub looked much smaller than it would do later when people were in, and everything was shadow that held the promise of things that never turned out to be as good when seen in the light.

Again the hand in the small of my back, and we turned round the corner of the bar and through a door marked Private. There were more stairs, a corridor that doubled back on the way we had come, and then we were standing outside an unmarked door and there was nowhere else to go.

“Here we go,” my escort said, and he knocked once on the door and then opened it. It was too late to back off. My legs felt wobbly, like I had just stepped off a ship. I took a deep breath, and started to walk before they gave out completely.

Another man was sitting back in a chair, booted feet up on a desk. He could have been the brother of my escort, he too was tall, and bald, and looked like he lived in a gym. He was smoking a cigarette, and watching a set of monitors. He did not look at us. I looked at the monitors. The club, the bar, the DJ booth, the stairs, the street outside. He would have seen me from the first moment I had banged on the door.

“Lomax?” I said.

The man behind the desk swivelled in his chair a little so he could see me, but did not say anything. I stood waiting.

“No,” a voice just behind me said. “I’m Lomax.”

I did that thing that you do when you try not to show that you are startled, even though you never manage it unless you are a cat. I took a breath, turned. He was standing just behind me, a short man with greying hair, hands on his hips. Corgan looked like a man who could do violence. This man looked like a man who would do crosswords. But I knew what looks were worth.

“So,” he said. “Who are you?” His suit was cut to make his shoulders look wider. I did not look down but I guessed that his heels were also made to make him look taller.

“I am Anna,” I said.

“Yeah, look, I don’t want to know who you are, I want to know
what
you are, you understand? Whose you are. Coming round here, bold as brass, talking about people as if you know them. You police?”

“Not unless they’re getting a bit desperate,” the man who had brought me up the stairs muttered.

“I am not police,” I said.

“So I repeat myself,” Lomax said. “For the last time. Who the fuck are you?”

“I work for Corgan,” I said. The men in the room looked at each other, words unspoken but said plain enough. Questions, answers, decisions.

“Do you now,” Lomax said. “Do you indeed. Sit down.” He nodded his head towards a couch against one wall of the office. He walked to the other side of the room to an identical couch, all chrome and black leather, that faced the first. I sat down. He sat down. My escort came and slouched against the wall, just to the side of my couch. The man behind the desk leaned back in his swivel chair, and stared up at the ceiling.

“Loz,” Lomax said. “Stop pissing about with my chair, I had it set just right for my back. You ever had a bad back?” This last comment was to me.

“Sometimes,” I said.

“Not like this you haven’t. Fucking murder. So, why is one of Corgan’s girls coming and banging on my door?”

“I do not—I am not—I work for him, I am not one of those girls.”

“Well I did wonder,” Lomax said. “You don’t look the part.”

I was not sure whether this was a compliment or not. “I do medical work for him, when he needs it. That is all that I do.”

Lomax raised an eyebrow, and then nodded. The man leaning against the wall said, “Ahhh,” like someone who had just worked out a difficult maths problem.

“Heard about you,” Lomax said. “Heard he’d got himself a new doctor.”

“Medical student.”

Lomax laughed. “Fuck me, I hope you passed your exams.” The other men joined in.

“I treated the man you shot.”

They stopped laughing then, all of a sudden, like I had turned a switch off.

“I haven’t shot anyone,” Lomax said, his voice very quiet.

I shrugged. “You, your men, it is not important. The man Kav, he was shot. I treated him. I heard Corgan say that your men had shot him, and you were going to pay.”

“Did he now,” Lomax said. “He send you here with that message? Anyway, he can try.”

“He will,” I said. “But I speak only for myself. There is one thing that is holding him back from trying. A man like him is not scared by many things, but he is scared that the man called the Ukrainian will find out if he tries to take revenge against you. In the same way you are probably scared that the Ukrainian will find out your men have been fighting with Corgan’s.”

There was a long silence. I swallowed, and felt as if something was stuck in my throat. It would be very easy for me to say the wrong thing, and if I did, these men could do bad things to me. The trouble was, I did not know what was right and what was wrong. All I could do was guess. It struck me that this did not seem like much of a plan. I swallowed again and wished that I had thought of this before I had banged on those bright copper doors. I should have talked to Daniel about this. I had believed in my own abilities before now, and look what it had led to.

“Have you come here to threaten me?” Lomax said. He asked it without any force, like he was asking if it was raining out. I was not stupid enough to think that this meant anything.

“No,” I said. “Not at all.”

“You work for the Ukrainian? You sound like you’re from his neck of the woods.”

“A thousand kilometres or more away,” I said. “Not the same at all. I do not work for him.”

Lomax grunted, unconvinced.

We sat in silence for a little while. Somewhere a long way away an avalanche of empty bottles crashed into a bin.

“Well then, doctor. What are you here for? See, I can’t work out your angle in all of this. You’re Corgan’s, but you are here, and say you’re not here for him. You say you’re not sent by the Ukrainian either. So. What
are
you here for?”

I swallowed again, but there was no moisture there. I did not want to look weak by asking for a drink. I sat very straight on the couch, and pressed my ankles hard together, the pain something hard and clear to stop the panic that was rising within me like floodwater, slow and steady and unstoppable. I took a breath.

“I have come to give you Corgan.”