Something You Are (7 page)

We were both laughing but I couldn't remember why.

I was tired suddenly.

I wondered what Clare was doing.

I thought about asking Mark more about her, but he had fallen asleep with smudges of eyeliner under his eyes.

An address in my pocket and a cigarette between my lips.

Driving through Peckham.

Reaching Greenwich, hung-over as fuck.

Rain pummelled the windscreen from white cloud as I parked at the bottom of Shooters Hill. I walked up to a small detached house with my collar up and head down, numb with paracetamol.

I had an address, NI number and a brief description that painted Kyle Browning as a small-time coke dealer. I had suspected for years that one of Mark's sources was a computer hacker of some kind, able to find addresses, phone numbers, vehicles and even medical records. He had never been willing to discuss it, which was fair enough.

There was a footmark in the centre of the door and the wood around the lock was splintered. I kicked some empty bottles off the step and rang the bell. After a few seconds I knocked and the door opened, revealing a small skinny boy who looked as though he had been through a tropical storm.

‘'Lo?'

‘Kyle around?'

It seemed to take a while for the meaning of the two words to register in his mind.

‘… Kyle?'

‘Yeah, Kyle, is he in?'

A shrug. ‘Guess so.'

The boy jerked his head and staggered away inside, away from the light.

I followed him and shut the door. Through the gloom I could make out young bodies strewn around the hallway and living room in varying states of consciousness. Brittle plastic crunched under my shoes and I looked down to see the fragments of a syringe.

Sweat, piss and vomit hung in the air with the smoke.

‘Where's Kyle?' I asked again, fighting to urge to throw up.

The boy turned, rubbing his eyes and brushing a sheet of blond hair out of his face. ‘Er… dunno, could be upstairs, I guess? Saw him go up there with a couple of girls last night.'

‘Thanks.'

The boy grunted and shuffled into the living room.

I turned around and stepped over the teenagers on the floor before making my way upstairs. I tripped on the frayed rug adorning the landing and craned my head around the nearest door.

‘Kyle?'

A dishevelled blond head surfaced from the double bed with blotches of mascara under her eyes. The redhead next to her also stirred, casting a glance in my direction before pulling a pillow over her head.

‘Mm, what?' the blonde murmured.

‘Kyle Browning?'

‘Who?' She blinked the sleep from her eyes and grinned, her eyes glazed. ‘Wo, were you at the party last night? Didn't see you, you're hot…'

‘Er…' I wasn't sure how to respond. ‘Thanks.'

‘Come join us.' The girl rolled on to her back.

‘No thanks, I've got to find someone.'

I backed away from the door and the redhead raised her
face from the mattress again. I reckoned that they had a combined age of about thirty.

‘Kyle?' she said.

I came back to the doorway. ‘Yeah, do you know where he is?'

Behind her the blonde rolled on to her side, one hand playing with her bra strap and the other between her legs.

‘Yeah… in the other room. Probably tripping out.'

‘Thanks.'

The blonde gave me a coquettish wave as I went across the hall to the other door.

I kicked it open.

‘What the fuck?'

A young lad with chiselled features and long hair was doing up the zip of his jeans.

One of the naked girls sitting on the bed screamed and pulled the duvet up around her chest. The other one stared at me, a needle sticking out of her forearm and a belt between her teeth, either too shocked or too stoned to react.

‘Kyle?'

I saw the guy's eyes dart left and right at the sound of his name.

He glared. ‘Who the… who the fuck are you?'

‘I'm here about Emma Dyer.'

I clocked the more responsive girl swiping something off the bedside table that looked like a clear packet of pills. But in the moment I took my eyes off Kyle—

I dodged the fist heading for my face and aimed a kick at his shins. I went to kick him again when someone grabbed me from behind. The screaming so close to my ear and the sharp pain across my neck made the room blur. Whoever it was, they were surprisingly light as I whirled them around. It was
only when I threw them off my back and turned to land a blow that I realized it was one of the girls.

She was all ribs and backcombed hair.

I averted my eyes but the room was empty, save for the other girl slumped against the headboard. The belt dropped from her mouth and she leant her head sideways against her shoulder, her eyes meeting mine with an expression that said: Like I give a fuck. She had a tattoo of a heart on her pelvis, where the bones jutted out. I'd walked in on Harriet shooting up once, and her face had been the same.

A door slammed downstairs.

I looked back at the girl on the floor, livid.

‘Are you a policeman?' she said, shaking, an arm across her chest. ‘Because the drugs aren't his, I swear.'

‘I'm not the police, fortunately for you.'

‘Oh…'

She shifted backwards a little and glanced at the door. It occurred to me that she thought I was going to rape her, and my lip curled at the assumption. She was pretty, but in the most tasteless of ways, like you might catch something. The insides of her arms were yellow with bruising.

‘Fuck's sake.' I raised a hand to block the sight of her body and left the room. ‘I hope he's fucking worth it.'

On my way downstairs I came across the boy who had let me in, meandering around the hallway sipping tea from a chipped white mug.

‘Oh, hi!' he said. ‘You find Kyle?'

I resisted the urge to tip the tea over his head and sat down at the foot of the stairs, my hangover catching up with me again.

‘No… he left.'

‘Oh, bugger.' The boy nodded.

I didn't attempt to hide my annoyance. ‘Yeah,
bugger
.'

‘You want some tea, man? You look wiped.'

I wanted to reply scathingly, but my irritation dissipated a little in the face of the boy's demeanour.

‘Sure, all right.'

The boy smiled and walked unsteadily into the kitchen.

‘What's yer name then, man?' he said. ‘Haven't seen you round here before.'

‘Nic.'

‘Cool. I'm Joe.' He poured water into another broken mug and swirled the tea bag around, squinting in the weak light from the window. ‘You work with Kyle? You look kinda older than him.'

‘No.' I glanced back down the hall and at the cigarette burns on the wall. ‘Must've been one hell of a party last night.'

‘Yeah, Kyle does know how to throw 'em. Dunno where he gets the money to keep payin' for so many sweets. I can barely afford a fuckin' half-ounce nowadays, I'm fuckin' skint.'

He handed me the tea.

‘Coke?' I enquired, remembering Mark's brief description of Kyle's occupation.

He grinned. ‘Oh, all sorts. Coke, Es, acid, smack, anything you want. Amazin' really, he has a party like this like three or four times a week.'

I looked down the hall again. That sounded like a lot for a common drug dealer to be paying for on a regular basis.

‘Why you lookin' for him anyway?'

Joe sounded as though he couldn't really care less about the answer. He looked harmless enough to be trustworthy.

‘It's about a girl called Emma Dyer,' I said. ‘Do you know her?'

His face broke into a smile. ‘Oh, her – yeah, Kyle used to bring her here a lot. Man, she was wild, I've never seen a girl
snort that much in my life. Haven't seen her in a while though. She all right?'

‘She's dead.'

He rubbed his watery eyes, taking a while to absorb what was being said. ‘Fuck, man… fuck, you aren't the filth, are you?'

‘No, I'm just trying to track Kyle down to talk to him about Emma. I think he was the last person to see her alive.'

‘Oh fuck, man, fuck…' He rubbed his eyes again roughly, sobering up in an instant. ‘You think he killed her or something?'

‘I don't know, that's what I'm trying to find out. But could you help me? Maybe give me the name of someone Kyle works with so I can speak to them?'

He had both hands to his head. ‘Well… if you want someone who knows where he might be then you can always speak to Matt Masters. He's not here, he's not usually around, but he lives a couple of houses down the road at number three. He knew Emma quite well, he was mates with them both.'

‘Is he a dealer too?'

‘Yeah. Mostly weed though.'

‘Cheers.' I smiled. ‘What's your name again?'

‘Joe, but everyone calls me Meds cos I have to take injections all the time.'

‘Diabetic?'

‘Yeah. Sucks, cos, you know, I can't do much of this.' He made a gesture back at the living room. ‘Or even drink that much, really. But yeah, all my mates call me Meds.'

I put my cup down on the side. ‘Thanks for the tea.'

‘No worries, man.'

‘Oh, and do you mind not mentioning that you talked to me? It's kinda sensitive.'

‘Yeah, whatever.'

‘Thanks, that's a big help. Just don't touch the hard stuff, yeah? That stuff fucks with your head.'

He returned my smile with a hint of bravado. ‘Yeah, a mate of mine used to say that if you abuse something it'll abuse you back.'

‘Your mate spoke a lot of sense.'

‘Not really – he's dead.'

There was an awkward silence. I wondered whether Clare had been anything like her daughter at this age, whether the scars had ever been accompanied by a scattering of loose cocaine on a dressing table, empty bottles of Bacardi and the stale smell of too much sex and cum-stained mattresses.

‘How old are you?' I asked, not knowing why I cared.

‘Seventeen… My mate, he was called Dave. He topped himself last year.'

His matter-of-fact tone made my skin crawl. At least some kids deserved the luxury of a normal childhood, away from all this shit.

‘I'm sorry.'

Another house, another kitchen, another apology.

‘It's cool, man. It was what he wanted, I think. They said it was an accident but I never thought so.'

I glanced at the door and heard someone vomiting upstairs.

‘Look, I've got to go… but take care of yourself. This is a bad scene for kids to get into. Believe me, I know.'

Another shrug. ‘Only scene there is around here for us. If you're not doing this you ain't doing anything. But I get what you mean, thanks.'

I nodded and turned towards the kitchen door to leave.

‘Hey, I'm sorry about that Emma girl, man. I hope you find the bastard who did it.'

‘Me too,' I said.

Every time I saw my sister there was less of her. She was evaporating under her clothes. There were two or three inches of roots showing beneath the blond. Before the drugs the only thing that had stopped her short of being beautiful was her teeth: Scottish canines like mine. Now she was only
twenty-four
but looked twice that age.

I watched her for a while from my car as she sat down on the steps leading up to the entrance to my building. She looked down at her fingers and said something to herself under her breath, moving her head left and right as if she was whispering a song.

It took a few minutes to psych myself up for the encounter before I got out and crossed the road. As I got closer I found it hard to hide my distaste.

‘Fucking hell, Harri, how's Auschwitz?'

‘Did I ask for your opinion?' She stood up, shivering and hugging herself with stick-like arms. ‘Let me in, it's freezing.'

She hadn't looked at me.

I unlocked the door and swallowed down the hate and the love and the guilt, the lies, the snide comments, the years of silence and not talking about the past and the drug money, always back to the drug money. It was the only thing left that kept this sick mockery of a relationship functioning.

The lift was out of order so we climbed the stairwell to the top floor. I dropped my bag by the door, glad that Mark wasn't home.

‘Three hundred, right?' I said.

‘Yeah.' She waited in the doorway and watched as I found my chequebook. ‘I need money for the train too, I used up the last of it getting over here.'

‘Three-thirty then?'

I crouched and got thirty pounds out of my wallet. It was easier to look down at the bag and the cheque than to look at her. I felt sick to think that she was like this because of me, because I couldn't say no, because it was all that could make her happy.

‘How are your personal branch of Santander?' I asked.

‘Oh, fuck you.' She was watching the cheque. ‘Like you've called Mum lately.'

‘Yeah, well…' There was nothing to say to that. ‘Anything from Tony?'

‘Just a letter, last week.' She indicated her head at the cheque. ‘Can I have that?'

‘What did he say?'

‘Nothing new. Asking how everyone was, misses everyone, you know, stuff.'

I kept hold of the cheque.

She folded her arms. ‘He asked whether you had met a nice girl yet, how work was, um… said he missed you, said to look after Mum and Dad, said that he might be back soon but he doesn't want to get his hopes up, blah blah blah, you can have the bloody thing if you like… Can I have my money now?'

My
money.

I still hadn't looked at her properly, but I doubted she had looked at me either.

‘Still with that dick?' I asked.

‘If you mean Garry,' she said, ‘then yeah. Why do you care?'

‘Well, I never used to think you deserved each other but…'

‘No, go on. You clearly have something to say, get it off your chest, why don't you?'

‘How long is this going to go on, Harri?'

She looked at me then, with brown eyes identical to our dad's. ‘What?'

It hurt to speak to her like this, physically hurt. ‘No, come on. How much longer are you going to do this?'

‘Do what?'

‘This!' I gestured at her. ‘
This
, for fuck's sake! When are you going to grow the fuck up?'

‘What's your fucking problem all of a sudden?'

It was always my problem. Never her fucking problem.

‘It's my money you're pissing away,' I snapped. It was easier to be angry about the money than to tell her what I really thought. ‘I'm the fucking financial go-between for you and your dealer, that's my problem.'

‘Well, fuck you, keep your money then, I'll just get some myself!'

She turned around and tried to slam the front door in my face on the way out.

‘No, Harri, wait!'

I grabbed my keys and hurried down the stairs after her.

‘Fuck off.'

‘Just take it.' I caught her arm on the landing, felt the bone through her cardigan and recoiled before I could stop myself.

She glared at me as if I'd slapped her.

‘Take the money, please.' I held the money out. It was all I could do.

‘You think you're so much better than me – why? Because you're the one giving me money?' Her fingers curled around the notes and the cheque. ‘Let me in on your secret to happiness one day, Nic. I'm fucking dying to know.'

I leant against the banister and watched her go. There was no dignified way I was going to have the last word, so I turned and went back upstairs to the top floor. The man passing me on the way down took two puffs from his inhaler.

The flat felt strange in the aftermath of her presence. These were two parts of my life that would never be reconciled.

To the top floor
…

The thought sent a shudder down my spine and I felt sick suddenly.

On the way down
…

I ran back to the door, down the stairs, from landing to landing with my head full of white noise and adrenalin. I threw open the main entrance and looked left and right down the road without seeing anyone; no one that looked like him anyway. I tried to remember what he had been wearing, the colour, style,
anything
. He had been wearing glasses… and the inhaler…

His face was a featureless blur.

‘Argh, fuck!'

I sprinted back up the stairs and realized that I'd have to pack some things.

How could I have been so stupid? How could someone have caught me so off guard?

When I was back inside I paced from the hallway to the kitchen, scouring for any sign of something wrong. Nothing seemed to be missing. I picked up my mobile and started to text Mark, telling him not to come home, when I spotted something on the coffee table: a slip of paper.

Bring thee to meet his shadow.

I read it again, and again, wondering where I'd read it before, and ran into the bedroom to find my suitcase. It struck me, as I flung open the wardrobe and pulled it down, that no one had been in the stairwell when Harriet had come up.

He must have already been in here.

I glanced at the door, unnerved by the silence, and recovered my automatic from a shoebox under the bed before packing the rest of my clothes.

By the time I arrived at our safe house, another equally stylish flat not too far from our usual place in the West End, Mark was already sitting on the sofa watching TV.

I left his suitcase in the hall, went back down for mine and took Mark's lack of acknowledgement for irritation. I rubbed my eyes, trying to find the words. It had occurred to me on the way here that the man was more likely to be involved with the work I was doing for Edie Franco than Pat's case. It didn't make me feel any better, but it made more sense.

‘Hey, I'm sorry,' I said, reddening with shame. ‘I must have fucked up somewhere, I don't know who he—'

‘Shh.'

I realized that he was engrossed in the news, despite the sound being muted. It was only then that I noticed the protests on the screen.

Above a red and yellow news ticker of current affairs two boys were smashing a reinforced window with blocks of concrete; one wearing black and one green. Their faces were covered.
Cut
, and riot police were lashing out with batons across a metal barrier.
Cut
, and the boys were smashing the same window again.

‘Fucking hell,' I said, leaning against the back of the sofa. ‘No wonder you couldn't get through Westminster today.'

I looked down at Mark but his gaze hadn't left the screen. His legs were drawn into his chest and his eyes were glassy.

‘Jesus, are you all right?'

‘It's so fucking wrong.'

‘Can I turn the sound on?'

He shrugged.

I sat down and hit the mute button. I read the news, tried to understand as much of it as I could despite the statistics and the pointless rhetoric, but I never engaged with it in the same way Mark did.

‘They're talking about
respect
. Stupid
fucking
idiots.' He sniffed and his hands balled into fists. ‘I went down there today, for a few hours.'

‘What for?'

‘You know, a bit of community service never hurt anyone.' He looked up at me. ‘You get a lot of groups who take advantage of this sort of thing, neo-Nazis and people like that. A few of them were crowding around this girl, knocked her over, cowardly fuckers, so me and another guy picked her up and got her away. The guy with me was obviously under the mistaken impression the police were there to help and he called out to them, and this young officer just smirked and said, “Well, you wanted free speech.”'

When I raised my eyes back to the TV we were looking down from a bird's-eye view. The crowd had become fluid, police distinguished only by the odd neon yellow jacket amongst the black.

‘It's just so fucking wrong, what they're doing. Only hits the poor kids the hardest.'

‘Speaks the Oxford student with the trust fund,' I said, sarcastically.

‘Just because I had it easy doesn't mean I have to become a wanker.' There was a hint of a smile. ‘I miss that place.'

How we had both arrived here wasn't a topic either of us talked about often, not that I wanted to. The years I'd spent in juvie he'd spent cycling beside canals, but at least my path
was an obvious one; I'd never understood why Mark was here.

‘Did you bring any whiskey with you?'

‘Yeah.' I went back to the suitcases and found the bottle wrapped in T-shirts. ‘Triple?'

‘We're watching the prospects of a generation being obliterated, on a widescreen TV, in real time. You bet I want a triple.'

I poured two glasses and sat down beside him. It had started raining outside, again.

‘Cheers,' he said. ‘You know, when the world ends, if we're around to see it, this is how we'll be watching it too. We'll all be on News 24 watching the mushroom clouds coming towards us… Can you imagine? We'll watch the correspondents cutting out one by one.'

I brought my knees up and rested my forehead on them. ‘I'm so fucking sorry about this.'

‘Don't be daft, we've all done it.'

‘You've never had to move me out.'

He ignored me and slapped the side of my leg. In the ten years we had known each other he had never let me apologize for anything. He was the only person I'd met who looked as if he belonged in his world, as if he had made peace with the spectres of self-loathing, doubt and morality that hounded the rest of us.

Over the rim of his glass he watched the TV with a kind of wistful brutality in his expression as the camera panned over the Houses of Parliament.

I wished that I could clear my mind of the girls. There were too many girls, girls with scars on their wrists and women with death in their eyes and girls without faces left in alleyways.

I considered telling Mark about the piece of paper and the familiar phrase but decided against it, for now.

Bring thee to meet his shadow.

Wikipedia told me it was a line by Edgar Allan Poe, some guy who apparently invented detective fiction. Whoever left the note was obviously some public-school wanker. I wasn't, so I figured I'd track him down the old-fashioned way.

‘Will you come to Emma Dyer's funeral with me?' I asked, staring at my drink. ‘Just for another pair of eyes, you know.'

‘If you like, of course I will.' He paused. ‘Why is this job getting to you so much?'

‘I don't know.' It was the only answer I had and it was the truth. ‘The coldness of it, maybe? Maybe her age? I don't know… How can you tell?'

‘We've been in situations like this before and I've never seen you drink a whiskey that slow.'