Pecking Order (30 page)

He removed a paper knife from his top drawer and, holding the package flat on his desk, slid the point beneath the envelope's flap and sliced it open. With his other hand, he lifted the unopened end of the envelope up. But whatever was inside refused to budge. He lifted the end higher and shook it. Suddenly something gave way and a jumble of chickens' feet flooded his desk, spilling across the document.

He pushed himself backwards, eyes wide in shock. The contents lay there, twisted and stiff and a coppery, sour smell began to fill the room. He lifted up the envelope and tentatively looked inside. Crumpled at the bottom was a scrap of paper. He jiggled the envelope up and down, but it was stuck. Gingerly, he pushed his hand inside and grasped the paper with the tips of two fingers. When he withdrew his hand, it was covered in scales of chicken skin.

I know what you've done, it read. And that single word again: Scum.

Eric sat staring for a long time, his mind reluctantly accepting the fact that his plan had been compromised. This second action couldn't have been the work of any disgruntled footballer. Someone, somewhere, knew. By using a pair of tongs from the kitchen he was able to pick up the severed feet and place them in a large bowl without too much difficulty. What took longer was removing the scales of skin. Semi translucent, they became almost invisible on the pages of the proposal in front of him. Each one stuck stubbornly to the paper, forcing him to use the tip of his paperknife to prise them off.

Back in the kitchen he emptied the claws into the bin, placed the bowl and utensils in the sink and then scrubbed his hands.

For the rest of the morning he paced round the house, trying to make sense of the situation and fathom some answers. It was useless trying to study Patricia's document; his mind was consumed by the dilemma. It ate away at his concentration like a locust on a leaf. Again and again, he found himself staring out of the window at the swaying tops of the fir trees in a nearby garden. As the strength of the wind picked up and then ebbed away his mind vacillated wildly from possibility to possibility. Every avenue he went down led to the same conclusion: Rubble must have told someone. It was the only possible explanation.

By late afternoon he reluctantly left the house and walked to a public phone box several streets away. But, with the phone in his hand and finger above the button he paused again. He was loathe to make contact. The plan had appeared to work so perfectly - by breaking his rule of never speaking to Rubble again, he was linking himself to the only thing that could connect him to the murders. His shoulders and neck felt tight and a headache throbbed at the base of his skull. Slamming the phone back down, he strode angrily home, the wind swirling around his head, teasing his hair, pulling it out of place. Back in his kitchen he held up a glass of water and watched two paracetamol as they slowly dissolved in a stream of tiny bubbles. As soon as the water touched his lips, he realised how dry his mouth and throat were. It occurred to him that he hadn't eaten or drunk a thing since breakfast. Lethargically, he went to his cupboard and looked at the tins inside. Though his stomach felt empty it was a hollow, tight sensation and he knew that he could only handle soup. Examining the shelves he saw to his dismay there was only one can inside: cream of chicken.

He remembered the farm-owner telling him what sort of food the dead chickens were used for - and gave up opening the tin. Instead, he buttered a couple of pieces of bread and ate in silence at the kitchen table, a glass of water by his elbow, a small bone moving under his temples as he chewed.

By mid-evening he felt mentally exhausted. He realised he'd been watching a sporting event on the television. It was, he concluded, a clear indication of how preoccupied he was. Normally he would immediately switch over whenever sport came on. He flicked the TV off and wearily climbed the stairs.

As was his habit, he filled the bathroom sink half full of hot water to wash his face and neck. After staring in the mirror for a while, mind still absorbed by the issue of Rubble, he walked across the landing to his bedroom, forgetting to pull the plug or even brush his teeth.

Once in bed he switched the light off and lay back. In the darkness he listened to the sounds of his house settling down for the night. The usual succession of metallic clangs from the boiler in the cupboard outside on the landing, the occasional creak from timbers in the attic, a knocking sound from the pipes running under the floorboards. As the minutes passed the noises lessened in frequency and quietness began to assert itself. Now, with his head rigid and tense against the pillow, smaller sounds became audible. The quiet hum of the fridge in the kitchen downstairs, a faint tick-tick as gusts of wind blew against the windows, making the glass shiver slightly in the window frame. And a faint, high-pitched noise he couldn't quite locate.

The sound had an uncomfortable quality to it, as if it carried a note of pain. It sounded again and the memory of the chicken's last screech before Rubble landed with both feet on its head forced its way back to the front of Eric's agitated mind. The harder he tried not to, the more he found himself concentrating on the noise. It was at once piercing and insubstantial; one second it seemed to be carried from far away on the night wind, the next it could have been coming from under his very bed.

He turned on his side and pressed one ear against the pillow. But with every new gust of wind the sound carried into his room again. A sharp, beseeching note that suddenly ended as the wind died down. He wasn't sure how long it took for him to doze off. At one stage he lifted his head from the pillow and saw that the glowing numbers on his bedside clock read 2:17. It seemed that for the rest of the night, he slept for only a few minutes before the noise would rouse him yet again from his restless slumber.

Eventually dawn started to break and, as the light grew stronger behind his curtains, the wind dropped and the sound finally ceased. He heard Mr Robert's car start up as usual at 6:45 so he could get on the motorway just ahead of the morning rush, he listened to the sound of the Morrisons' front door opening and their dog gratefully running around, claws scratching on the paved driveway. He got up just after 7:30 and looked at the sunken eyes of a desperate man in the bathroom mirror.

With a forefinger and thumb, he prised his eyelids apart and examined the threadlike network of red lines stretching across the surface of each eyeball. After splashing his face with the cold water lying in the sink, he went downstairs in his pyjamas and sat at his desk. A while later he saw that he was holding a pen in his hand. He looked at the sheet of paper on the desk before him. It was covered from top to bottom in an endless repetition of Rubble's phone number.

Chapter 50

Clare gazed at the telephone console on the desk in front of her. It was now almost eleven at night; she'd got into the call centre early in the hope Rubble would ring. Knowing he’d never called her later than ten-thirty, she’d reluctantly accepted the night was likely to be fruitless. Deciding to give it just another hour, she was about to press the 'call-wrap-up' button and go to the kitchen for a cup of tea when Brian's voice sounded in her headset.

'Hi ladies, Brian speaking. I know a lot of you are having an unpleasant time with the ‘Girl Next Door’ line, so Mr Nolan's come in to talk to us about it. All incoming calls are on hold, so as soon as the last live calls are dealt with, he'll begin.'

This will be interesting, thought Clare, leaning back in her chair.

After a couple of minutes Brian spoke again, 'OK, there's only two calls still going, so I'll speak to those girls myself later. Now, here's Mr Nolan.'

Clare heard some low scratching noises as the headset was adjusted, then a gruff voice said, 'They can hear me now?'

'Yes.' Brian's voice in the background.

It suddenly occurred to Clare that she had never actually seen the owner before, so she stood up to look over the top of her partition screen. One by one almost every other woman did the same until a mass of heads bobbed up out of their small compartments.

Visible through the glass panes of Brian's office was an obese giant of a man. Sweat glistened on his baldhead and, with fingers covered in gold rings, he pulled a handkerchief from the breast pocket of a suit that, despite looking hideous, obviously cost a fortune. Dabbing the material to his forehead, he began speaking in an abrupt manner, 'OK, Girl Next Door is, if you don't already know, going like the frigging clappers. Since it went live the percentage of Calls Answered in this place has dropped to under eighty-five per cent. Not your fault girls, but it's unacceptable.'

He looked down at Brian, who shrank back fractionally in his seat. 'What you lot will do something about though, is your exit rates. There's too many of you just cutting off callers when they start getting a bit over-excited. The thing is, Girl Next Door is what you make of it. Use your brains and the sky's the limit. You've got a ready-made five minutes of small talk before the punter even starts choking his chicken. Do your homework, girls. Find out how the local football teams are doing. Who scored on Saturday, who's out injured, was the latest Johnny Foreigner a wise purchase? Find out about the latest trendy bars, which roads are currently being dug up if you're driving into the city centre, where the next multiplex is being built, which is the best place in town for a pizza. You've got a whole city in common with these callers - use it to your advantage.'

Clare wanted to ask about the threats of violence, callers' claims they knew where the office was, that they would turn up at the door for the real thing. But her line was closed: this was a one-way conversation.

'Now, if you can't handle it, you're free to leave. I can fill your seat like that.' He clicked his fingers. 'There's plenty of girls trying to turn tricks out there,' he glanced at the windows, 'who would jump at the chance of earning some easy money in a nice warm office by just talking dirty to some bloke. It's up to you.' Now his voice hardened. 'The calls are lining up so make your decisions - sit back down or fuck off.'

He nodded at Brian who pressed a few buttons and every console in the room started to flash. One by one the girls' heads disappeared and the quiet murmur of voices refilled the room.

In Brian's office Mr Nolan took off the headset, the underside of the plastic band shiny with sweat from the top of his skull. Hesitating at the sight of it, Brian slowly slid it on.

'Right, that seems to have sorted the stupid bitches out,' said Mr Nolan, coughing into a handkerchief. 'I'm getting out of here; those musty partition walls really set my chest off. Any of them walk out, I want to know their names, and tell them they can whistle for any wages owing.' Without another word he opened Brian's door and left the office.

In her cubicle Clare waited another five minutes then hit 'call wrap-up' and walked over to the kitchen. Inside Mary was in the middle of an intense conversation with Jayne and Vanessa. The three women nodded quickly to Clare.

'However bad it gets up here, it's never going to be worse than working the streets down there,' continued Mary. 'Don't forget the lower you sink, the harder it is to climb back up. And when you're touching the bottom, no one wants to let you past. Because if they do, where does that leave them? Believe me, I've been there.'

'True, but some of these callers are really getting to me,' answered Jayne, drawing so hard on a cigarette, flecks of glowing ash flew from the end.

'Tell her about the one you had earlier, Jayne,' said Vanessa.

Jayne blew out a thin stream of smoke in disgust. 'Oh God - if it wasn't for old Davis at the local nick, I'd have given up this job by now.’

Clare listened in silence, dunking a tea bag in and out of the steaming water in her mug.

'This really sick bastard rang. Nice at first, as they usually are. Then suddenly he turned. Started whispering about razors and all sorts. I could tell he wasn't going to stop and I was about to press the exit button when he suddenly said, "Don't go for that button." Well, you can imagine my shock. It was like he could actually see me.'

All four women thought about the mass of dark windows in the empty office block facing their building.

'Then he said he knew where I was working, what I looked like, what I was doing. I don't know if he heard me scrabbling for a fag on my desk, but he said he liked the way cigarettes made my voice

a bit husky. That was it, I hit call-wrap-up, went straight through to Brian's office and got him to give me the last caller's identity for my line. 'Course, the bastard was ringing Girl Next Door, so it was a local number. Next I gave Sergeant Davis a call ...'

'Who's this Sergeant Davis?' Mary interrupted.

'You never dealt with him?' asked Jayne, incredulously. 'He used to work vice around here for years. Heart of gold is what he's got. He'd look out for us - tell the nasty punters to piss off out of it, follow any non-payers and tell them not to show their faces again. We used to offer him freebies in the back of his van, but he'd never take them. Just wanted to make sure we were safe.'

'Probably had a daughter or ex-girlfriend who'd been on the game,' said Vanessa.

'Anyway,' Jayne continued. 'He's duty officer at Stanton Street nick nowadays, so I called him and got him to check the location of the number. Turned out to be a phone somewhere out in Culcheth. So the sicko is, thank God, bloody miles away.'

Clare had been taking all this in. 'So Brian can get the caller's number off his computer?'

The three women looked at Clare.

Jayne said, 'Easily. That thing's got everything on it. Clare, if you get any of those callers on your horoscope line, tell us right away won't you?'

'I already have. He's not threatened me yet, but he's scary. I'm expecting him to call all the time - he's got my identity number so he just comes straight through to me.'

'And he says he knows where you are?' asked Mary.

‘Well, kind of. But it's more like I want to know where he is. Just to put me at ease.'