The Mercy Seat (13 page)

And go to Newcastle. Book into a hotel, go drinking, eat out. See life, but not touch it.

All the time he was in the city he was never of it. The people in this city seemed so sure of themselves; indestructible as they planned their jobs, lives, futures. Dreams. Secure in the knowledge they would live them out. He had been like that once. Now, he felt like a citizen of a parallel, invisible city, one with no such self-delusional surety, where there was no point making plans for the future because a roll of some capricious god’s dice would upset them, where inhabitants knew that hope and despair were the same thing.

Before he had left he had said goodbye to David. Stood in the centre of the room and whispered:

‘I’m going away for a little bit, but I’ll be back soon. I’m doing this for you.’

He smiled at the images of his son, tried to quell the rising excitement at being involved with something again, tried to ignore the guilt that excitement provoked.

Donovan turned his back on the railing, looked at the street. The Crown Court building stood before him, bars and restaurants dotted around and filling up. He checked his watch: eight p.m. The boy should be here any time.

Donovan was dressed as he had described himself over the phone: three-quarter-length brown-leather jacket, old Levi’s, Timberlands. Hair long, greying. The boy had not offered a
description of himself, but he had formed a mental image of what he would look like. He doubted he would be disappointed.

Another check of the watch: nearly five past eight. He put his hands in his pockets, tapped his feet. Despite everything, he wanted to smile. The thrill of being involved again was getting to him.

And then he saw the boy. Or who he assumed was the boy. A teenager, small-looking, wearing baggy jeans, trainers and an Avirex leather jacket embossed with brands and adverts like a Formula One driver. Light-skinned black boy, he stood out against the crowd. Most of the people around him were relaxed, out for a good time. The boy looked like he was calculating the odds, on the make.

In the city but not of it. Another inhabitant from that parallel, invisible city.

He clocked Donovan, who nodded. The boy approached.

Getting close, Donovan looked into the boy’s eyes. They were wary and, although the arrogant swagger attempted disguise, scared.

Donovan smiled. ‘We meet at last.’

The boy nodded.

‘Got the disc?’

The boy’s eyes darted quickly around, like swallows trapped in a barn. Scoping the area for backup to rain down on him, Donovan thought.

‘Not here, man.’

‘What?’

‘Not here, man. Back at the hotel.’

Donovan was impressed. He was managing to speak without moving his lips. If there were anyone watching, they wouldn’t be able to lip-read.

‘The hotel.’

‘Yeah, man, like we agreed. Anybody watchin’ thinks you just picked me up. You a john.’

‘A what?’

‘A punter, man. You know.’

‘Thanks a lot,’ said Donovan. ‘Do I look like the kind of person who picks up boys, then?’

‘Don’t matter what you look like, man. S’what you want. Now, your hotel, yeah?’

The boy shot another glance around. Perhaps it’s him being watched, thought Donovan. Not me.

‘Come on, then,’ he said. ‘My hotel.’

Donovan’s hotel fronted the river along the Close at the base of the hill up to Forth Street. Along the hill was a series of old stairways leading away from the Tyne and up to the city itself. Some were self-explanatory – Castle Stairs, Tuthill Stairs, Long Stairs – one invited explanation – Dog Leap Stairs – and one was obvious and cautionary – Breakneck Stairs.

Donovan’s hotel was directly opposite Breakneck Stairs.

Neither had spoken on the walk back.

The night had moved in, obscuring the moon with heavy clouds. A storm was coming.

‘Close the curtains, man.’

Donovan closed the curtains and stepped away from the window. He turned to face the boy, who was standing at the other side of the double bed staring at him, unmoving.

‘So,’ said Donovan, opening the minibar and uncapping a bottle of chilled beer, ‘you got a name?’

‘Tony Montana,’ said Jamal, lip curling in arrogance.

Donovan smiled. He admired front in people with whom he was dealing. Gave him something to work with.

‘How original,’ he said. ‘If you’re going to lie, at least pick a better film.’

Donovan smiled. Jamal almost did, stopped himself.

Donovan took a mouthful of beer, nodded towards the minibar.

‘Want anything?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ said Jamal, and gestured towards Donovan’s beer.

Donovan took out another, uncapped it, passed it across.

‘Say hello to your leetle friend,’ he said as he did so.

Jamal gave a small but genuine smile, which soon disappeared.

It’s a start, thought Donovan, progress. Something to help open negotiations. He sat down on the bed. Jamal remained standing.

‘So what’s your real name, then?’

Jamal thought for a moment, then, decision made, said: ‘Jamal.’

‘Jamal,’ repeated Donovan, ‘You Muslim?’

Jamal looked confused. ‘Why?’

‘It’s a Muslim name,’ he said. ‘Thought you must be Muslim.’

‘Nah, man, it’s from my dad. He was some African warrior.’

Donovan sat forward, interested. ‘Really? Is he back in Africa now?’

Jamal shrugged. ‘Dunno. ’Swhat my mum tole me when I was little.’

Donovan nodded. He was starting to put together a picture of the boy. His mix of street hardness and naivety. A lost boy.

He thought of his own lost boy.

‘What you starin’ at me like that for, man?’ Jamal seemed angry and uncomfortable.

Donovan thought for a moment. ‘You’re just different from how I imagined you’d look from your voice on the phone.’

‘Yeah? Well, so are you, man. I wasn’t expectin’ no scruffy hippie.’

Donovan caught a look at himself in the mirror. He smiled.

‘Yeah, Jamal,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a point.’

The two of them regarded each other, drank their beer. Jamal leaned against the side cupboard, tense, ready to dart for the door at any moment.

Donovan knew he should press on, get the disc into his possession, but Jamal intrigued him. He wanted to find out more about him.

‘So, Jamal,’ he said, ‘you’re a hustler, that right?’

Jamal shrugged. ‘Yeah. S’pose so.’

‘How d’you get into that?’

Jamal’s mood changed. He began to pace the room, agitatedly.

‘What you wanna know for? You some fuckin’ social worker?’

‘No, I’m not a social worker—’

‘Then you get off on it? You a pervert or somethin’?’

‘Neither, Jamal. I’m just interested.’ Donovan sighed, looked at the angry boy with the scared, hurt eyes. Made a decision he couldn’t explain to himself.

‘I had a son,’ he said, ‘and he disappeared. He’d be eight now. And I looked, but I never found him.’

‘An’ you think I seen him?’ Jamal stopped pacing. His voice had a superficial dismissiveness and arrogance, but it was the eyes again. They gave him away. Donovan’s admission had affected him. He just didn’t know how to react to it.

‘No,’ said Donovan calmly and quietly. ‘I just wondered what it involved. How you survived. How you coped. You know, just in case …’ He shrugged.

Jamal looked around at the door. Uncomfortable.

‘Look, man, let’s do the fuckin’ business, yeah?’ He was waving his beer bottle around, gesturing with it. ‘I’m sorry about your son an’ that, but let’s do the business. Ain’t got all night.’

Donovan drained his bottle, stood up. He crossed to the sideboard, powered up his laptop.

‘You got the disc?’

‘You got the money?’

‘That drawer there,’ said Donovan pointing.

‘Lemme see.’

Donovan opened the drawer. Jamal crossed the room, looked in. Saw bundles of notes, neatly laid out in two piles. He extended his hand. Donovan slammed the drawer shut.

‘Disc first,’ he said.

‘Didn’t look that much,’ said Jamal. ‘That all of it?’

‘That’s all of it.’ He held out his hand. ‘Please.’

Jamal took the minidisc from his pocket, handed it over. Donovan placed it on the CD tray, watched it slide back in.

‘So how did you come by this?’ he asked.

‘Found it.’ Jamal shrugged. His body shivered.

Donovan looked at him closely. ‘Where?’

‘London.’

He had further questions to ask, but his media player was asking him to press PLAY. He did so.

‘Hope this is worth waiting for,’ he said.

A voice came out of the speakers. High-pitched, camp even, but with an ugly, hard edge to it. A voice Donovan had never heard before.

‘I doubt this was what you were expecting, was it?’ the voice said. ‘It’s Mr Donovan, isn’t it? Well, if you’re listening to this it means that Jamal has been a good boy and done as he was told.’

Donovan looked at Jamal, who looked at the carpet. The voice continued.

‘There is another disc, and what is on it is very interesting to the right person. Are you the right person, Mr Donovan? I think you are. And I think you will want it. Jamal will tell you how. And Mr Donovan? Needless to say,
the price has just gone up. Quite a bit. Goodbye, Mr Donovan. I look forward to hearing from you.’

Donovan pressed
STOP
.

‘Sorry, man,’ said Jamal. ‘They found out. Cut me out, an’ …’ He shrugged, shivered again. ‘You gotta do what they say, man. They bad people.’

‘Who are “they”?’

Jamal shrugged, shook his head. ‘Bad, bad people …’

Donovan sighed, angry and impotent suddenly.

Jamal stood staring at him, mouth moving like he wanted to articulate something but couldn’t find the words.

‘I …’ he began. ‘I’m … sorry about your son, man.’

Donovan nodded. He had to do something, take some kind of action. He saw Jamal walk towards the door.

‘Wait there, Jamal,’ he said. ‘Don’t go. I want to talk to you.’

Jamal stopped, waited. Donovan picked up his mobile, speed-dialled Maria. She answered.

‘It’s Donovan. Listen, things have changed.’

Maria gave a bitter laugh. ‘You’re telling me,’ she said. ‘Look, I’m on my way up.’

‘From London?’

‘From the hotel lobby. I’ll reach your room in a couple of minutes.’

‘What?’

‘Everything’s changed, Joe. Gary Myers has turned up. Dead.’

She broke the connection.

‘Wait there!’

Jamal was trying to slip out of the door.

Donovan threw the mobile on the bed.

There came a crash of thunder.

Rain lashed against the window.

The storm had broken.

Jamal stood up. Donovan caught the movement, pointed a finger.

‘I said, stay where you are.’

Jamal sat back down on the corner of the bed, warily, his eyes never leaving Donovan. Waiting.

From beyond the door came occasional voices, lift movement, footsteps, doors opening and closing. The other city going about its business. Inside the hotel room, time had ground to a tense halt. The lighting dark and diffuse, the only sounds breathing and the rain pummelling the glass like tracer fire. Now part of the shadow city.

Maria sat on an armchair beneath the window. Donovan stood, his back to the mirror, staring ahead.

‘Tell me again,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I took it in first time.’

Maria looked around the room, down at her hastily packed suitcase, back to Donovan.

‘He’s dead. Gary Myers is dead.’ She stopped talking, shook her head, as if speaking the words had made the act itself happen. ‘Dead …’

‘Murdered?’ asked Donovan. Trying to quell the shock, letting his long-disused journalistic instincts kick in. Working through his emotions.

She shrugged. ‘Don’t know. They haven’t done the postmortem yet. They found him in the Pennines. At the bottom of some steep hill. By the gorge at Allen Banks. Off the path.’

‘Who found him?’

‘Some—’ With guilty self-admonishment, Maria stopped herself smiling. ‘Some amateur photographers. Naturists, I suppose.’

‘In this weather?’

‘Specialist interest. The readers’ wives brigade.’

Donovan smiled despite himself. ‘Doggers?’

Maria reddened. ‘Doggers.’

Jamal looked between the pair of them, trying to gauge their reactions. He had heard of the practice of going to some out-of-the-way place, letting strangers watch you have sex, join in even. Didn’t know why they were making such a big thing of it, he thought. A lot better than some of the stuff he had been asked to do.

While they were talking, he slowly got to his feet, began to edge his way to the door.

‘Stay where you are.’ Donovan again.

Jamal sighed, sat down.

‘What was he doing there?’ said Maria almost to herself.

‘What were they doing there?’ replied Donovan, then continued, answering himself. ‘A secluded spot. Secluded but accessible. You can get up to what you want there. Having sex without being disturbed, or …’

‘Dump bodies,’ said Maria with a shiver. ‘Without being disturbed.’

Donovan looked at Maria, who couldn’t hold his gaze, looked away.

‘I know it’s jumping to conclusions,’ she said, ‘but I …’ She sighed, shook her head.

‘What do the police say?’ asked Donovan.

‘Nothing firm until they get the preliminary results.’ She sighed, her chest and shoulders almost rigid.

No one spoke. No sounds but the outside world, the rain.

Maria explained why she was there and not at the office.
Sharkey’s idea, she said. Thought Donovan was on to something that could solve the mystery of Gary Myers’ death. Something important.

‘And are you?’ she asked.

He turned to Jamal. ‘Are we?’

Jamal shook his head. ‘Oh man,’ he said, ‘don’t do this …’

‘There are complications.’ Donovan played the disc for Maria. As it finished, she sighed, sat back.

‘This changes everything,’ she said.

‘You do realize,’ said Donovan to Jamal, ‘that it’s Gary Myers, the man whose voice you said was on that disc, who’s now dead?’