What I Tell You In the Dark (18 page)

‘There is no need to be raising your voice, sir.' His
sir
is a different kind – it's like a halfway point between being spoken to and being touched.

‘Was I raising my voice? I certainly didn't mean to.'

‘Can you please step to one side, sir?'

He puts a hand on my shoulder and starts to pull me. I lock my legs in place.

‘Don't touch me,' I tell him, a little louder than I'd intended.

He takes a half step towards me so that we're toe to toe. His hand is still gripping my shoulder.

‘Are we going to have a problem here?' he asks, quietly, beyond the hearing of the other few people who are sitting waiting for their various appointments.

‘I
said
don't touch me.' I knock his hand off my shoulder.

A few seconds later I'm outside. He remains standing at the door as I walk away, making sure that I follow his advice and sling my hook.

I spend the rest of the morning wandering from payphone to payphone trying Natalie's number. Every time it clicks straight into voicemail. I don't know what to do, so I do what I have always done when I've needed to remind myself that I'm not alone. I watch you, and I draw my comfort from your strength. For two millennia, I did this. I eased the loneliness of His disfavour by looking in on the lives of men. For so long I had nothing. Nothing but you.

One woman I see when I'm seated on a bench near some market stalls fills me with such intense emotion that I feel I might burst under the strain of it. She is there with a very old lady who is clearly her mother. The resemblance is unmistakable. The younger woman is already beginning to age in the same way – the stoop that has rounded the mother's back is already beginning in the daughter's shoulders; their hands, their eyes, all of it is the same. Their progress from stall to stall is slow because the mother must move cautiously, and even when they stop to look at something, the younger woman takes great care to make sure that nothing is rushed. She does not choose the fruit herself, which would be easier for her, but instead she reaches for an apple and gives it to her mother so that she might turn it over in her hands, or she selects a small piece of yellow-fleshed plum that the man has sliced up on a dish for people to try. The old woman chews it for a long time with her eyes closed, lost in the past, while her daughter waits patiently at her side.

It is these small acts of everyday love that sustain me as I listen each time to the empty ringing of Natalie's phone, and as I find myself surrounded by the lurid calling cards of prostitutes that are posted up in every phone box. The very paper itself seems soaked in squalor and abuse, but I know better than to risk being seen ripping them down, as I would like to. The kinds of men who put them there would be certain to hurt anyone who interfered with their business. And I am not sure I could cope with that. Not today.

It's just after midday when Natalie finally answers the phone.

‘I'm so glad you're there,' I tell her, ecstatic at the sound of her voice. ‘I've been trying you all morning. I've just been walking the streets calling your phone. I lost my phone when I was … Look, it doesn't matter now. The important thing is that I've managed to reach you now and …'

‘Will, you need to slow down.'

She's right. I'm gabbling. I need to take my time.

‘Sorry – I just really need to see you. I came to your work but –'

‘Yes, I know. They told me.' There's a distance in her tone that I hadn't expected. The plan we made seems to be a thing of the past. Confirming this, she adds, ‘That's my place of work, Will.'

It's an oddly formal phrasing. Once again, I feel the stab of concern that she may not be alone, that others are orchestrating this.

‘Look, where can we meet?' I need to get her out of there. ‘I don't think me coming back to your office is such a great idea after this morning.'

‘I'm not sure meeting is such a great idea either, Will.' It's a little startling, the way she suddenly raises my name like a barrier between us. ‘We can just talk on the phone.'

‘What? No. That isn't going to work.'

I don't like how this conversation is going, how this whole day has gone. My Magpie never brushed me aside like this. I try hard to make myself sound reasonable, like how I was by the fire in Jersey – at rest.

‘Look, there's clearly some kind of misunderstanding. I don't know what it is but all we need to do is sit down and figure it out. We just need to talk it through. If you want me to explain what all the figures mean, I'd be happy to –'

‘I can't print any of what you sent me,' she says quickly, like she's been desperate to get it off her chest. ‘I'm really sorry but there's just no way. I can't take a chance on material like that. I'm sure you understand, Will – especially not now, after Leveson. I've spoken to the lawyers about it – that's where I've been all morning, in meetings with them. They say there's just no way. Not unless you can prove to us that this data has not been obtained illegally and,' for the first time, she softens her tone a little, ‘I think we both know you can't.'

‘I …' My vision is going a bit grainy. ‘I don't really understand what you're saying to me.' I have to half-bend over and lean my arm against the glass of the phone box to keep from buckling. ‘The information is accurate. It's all true. What does it matter how I got it?'

‘I know this is a shock,' she sounds pretty shaky herself, ‘but there's nothing I can do about it. The legal team have the final say and they …' she trails off. ‘There's no point in me repeating myself. Obviously, though, I'm not saying that there won't be a point in the future when we can revisit this. I'm not going to just leave it, Will. I want you to know that. I'm going to keep pressuring for comment –'

‘Stop!' My head is reeling. ‘Just … just hold on for a second. Please. I can make this right, I can …'

‘No, Will. You can't. You're not getting it – this is a detrimental
issue for the paper now, after you sent those mails. I have been told not to touch it.'

‘But it's the truth! We both know it is. Isn't that all that matters these days?' I can hear the pleading in my voice, but so what? This
is
a plea. ‘People publish all kinds of things, everyone leaks stuff. You can't just say you're not going to try.'

‘You're being naïve. I'm not an activist, Will, I'm a journalist.'

‘Exactly! And you sat there and you said to me … do you remember what you said? You said the paper couldn't run it as it was, that you needed some “hard evidence”. Those were your exact words. Well, now you have it. That is precisely what I've given you.'

‘I know what I said.' She sounds irritated with me, as if I'm the one who's making this unpleasant. ‘I don't like this any more than you do.'

‘Then do something about it.' I let that hang for a second or two. There's really nothing more to add. People can't just turn away from their responsibilities. But after a few seconds when the line is still silent, I find myself asking, ‘Is this why you became a journalist? To have a bunch of lawyers tell you what you can and cannot write? That doesn't sound much like
Veritas vos liberabit
, or whatever grand motto you have printed on the front of your newspaper. It sounds like toeing the party line.'

‘Oh grow up, would you? I have to live in the real world, Will. Okay?'

She sounds really upset. I am too. The receiver is shaking against my ear. Getting into a fight with her is the last thing I wanted. I tell her that.

‘Me too,' she says. ‘I'm so sorry. I wish that …'

‘It's okay,' I just about manage to tell her before hanging up. But the thing is, it's not okay. It's about as far from okay as it's possible to get.

I stand there for a while just staring into space, trying to make sense of what I've just heard. I realise at some point that I'm staring at a postcard touting the number for an escort service. I swipe at it and catch the edge of my palm on something sharp. I watch the blood well out and drip on to the cement floor.

The sharp rapping of someone knocking on the glass snaps me to my senses. I step out on to the pavement, leaving a single bloody handprint on the door. Seeing this, the man who was in such a hurry to get in there thinks better of it and walks away without a word.

‘Is this what You wanted?' I shout.

Thinking I'm talking to him, the man quickens his pace.

‘Why do You thwart me?' I raise my face to the sky. ‘Why do You hate me?' My words have deflated to almost nothing, just a low sob, barely audible even to me.

Overhead, the clouds continue to drift, dark-boned, unmoved by the dramas below.

11

The rest of the day is a blur. It only comes clear to me again when I find myself back where I started, outside the newspaper offices, trying to pick out a window where I might catch a glimpse of Natalie. It is dark now and getting on for rush hour, so I am able to stand here on the pavement without fear of being noticed and chased off by one of their henchmen.

Dumb instinct has led me full circle, to the only real foothold I have. There must be a way for me to persuade her. All I need is to see her, and for her to see me, and hear my words in person, not dying in the vacuum of a phone conversation. Spatial proximity: a core requirement for bonding. Any chemist will tell you that.

This is not her fault
, I keep reminding myself.
She knows not what she does
.

I have to wait a long time before she appears. At one point shortly after dark, people were flowing out of the building in a more or less uninterrupted stream but by the time Natalie emerges it has reduced down to just dribs and drabs, sputtering out singly and in pairs. There are even some who are beginning to arrive, ready to start working the night shift.

As I cross the street towards her I am suddenly acutely aware of my dishevelled appearance. I pull the lapels of Will's jacket tight together to hide my rumpled shirt, I even reach up to pointlessly smooth down my clippered hair. It is not until I'm just a few steps behind her and am about to call her name that I realise the man she is walking next to is actually with her. They are deep in conversation. He is quite a bit older than her but is
broad-shouldered and vigorous, a real straight arrow. Natalie seems small and girlish at his side. She is doing most of the talking. Once or twice he says a few words to her but mainly he just listens, strong-jawed, presidential in his bearing.

When I call out her name they both turn at the same time. I barely notice him anymore, though – my eyes are locked on her.

‘Will! What are you doing here? I thought … What's
happened
to you? You look awful.'

She's right. I caught sight of myself earlier in the rear view mirror of the cab – the bruise on my nose now spread across to my eye, the black frosting of blood around my nostrils. And now my scabby hand, tightened to a half claw.

‘It's just a couple of bumps and bruises – it looks worse than it is.' I try to give her one of those closed-mouth smiles that let people know there's nothing to fear – a wonderful relic of your animal past, if you don't mind me saying (
Look, no teeth!
).

But it clearly doesn't work. She looks afraid. Instinctively she puts her hand on her companion's arm and turns to him for help. I look at him too.

Oh no.

He's staring right into my eyes.

Oh please, no. It can't be.

‘Christ alive, you
have
been in the wars,' he says, with such a depth of private, targeted nastiness that there can be no doubt.

It is. It's him. It's Abaddon – if that is in fact his real name. Only He knows what he's called or where he came from, the rest of us just know him by his blood-soaked track record and the various
noms de guerre
he's picked up along the way – Abaddon, Angel of the Lord, Malak, Apollyon, the list goes on. The point is he's the Big Man's thug, the one who gets sent in to do the Good Lord's wet work, which means if you're seeing him, you're not long for this world.

Like most people who find themselves faced with him, my first impulse is to bolt, to just turn on my heel and run as fast and as far as I can. But somehow I find the courage to stay.

His eyes are still boring into me.

Look at the state of you
. He says this without moving his lips, without altering a single muscle in his face.
You're shaking like a schoolgirl
.
It's a disgrace
.
You, my son, are a disgrace
.

He may have chosen a shiny white corporate captain to jump in with but Abaddon is always Abaddon – he can never be fully disguised. It's the eyes. I've seen those eyes before, and once seen, never forgotten.

‘Will, this is David Saint-Clair, head of our Legal Department. Will?'

I am only dimly aware of her voice. I cannot tear my gaze from Abaddon.

‘Why don't you head back to the office,' he says to her with horrifying gentleness. And as he's speaking these words I realise that it was him on the phone this morning. Of course it was. He's had me pegged this whole time, letting me run around collecting up my evidence, knowing that all he had to do was wait downstream, mouth agape.

As she starts to go, I step sideways to try to grab her arm, to stop her from leaving me alone with my defeat, alone with him, but he manages to get between us and push me back with a sharp, deliberate nudge in the ribs, right between the fifth and sixth – where the lance went into my crucified body – taking his opportunity to remind me of that.

‘Any physical act of aggression,' he informs me loudly enough for her to hear, ‘will be construed as assault.' He keeps his face turned towards me so that she is unable to see his gloating expression. ‘I must warn you of that,' he adds, with a little wink.