Girl Seven (16 page)

I tried not to look at his slashed finger. It made me want to cry.

‘I’m really sorry,’ I said, cross-legged and hunched over. ‘But I really need to know where the money is. If you don’t tell me I’m gonna have to kill your wife and I don’t wanna do that, OK? But I
have
to kill you, you get that, right? You’ve fucking
seen
me!’

‘If you hadn’t got me all trussed-up I’d break your fucking neck, right, bitch...’

I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Thanks. No, really, thanks. More of that and I’ll stop feeling so bad about it.’

I stretched both my legs out and got to my feet, making a load of strenuous sounds as if I had a bad back or hip.

Looking at the clock, I saw that I still had just over an hour.

‘Where’s the money, Issa?’ I shrugged. ‘Or I will cut your fucking finger off.’

He just glared at me. It was almost scary imagining what he must have been thinking: a million different ways to kill me horribly.

Without a word I picked up the knife again, knelt down by him and jammed it into his already bleeding finger. When he cried out I just twisted it harder, and harder, feeling the blade collide with bone and work its way through the skin on the other side.

I retched a little.

‘FUCK! OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK!’

‘Where is it, you fucking sack of shit!’

‘Microwave! Fucking microwave!’

‘What?’

I withdrew the knife and he screamed, ‘The microwave isn’t a fucking microwave!’

Dropping the knife again I ran back to the kitchen and opened all the small rectangular cupboards until I came across the microwave. It looked normal from the outside, but when I opened the door there was nothing behind it but a hole in the wall.

I reached inside, feeling around until my hands gripped the handles of a heavy bag, and dragged it out.

It fell to the floor with a solid thump.

There was nothing else in the hole so I dragged the bag back through to the living room.

I realized too late that I had dropped the knife right next to Taggart’s hands, and he had been sawing through the tape with a violent flailing motion.

He had one arm free when I ran for the gun on the floor.

I felt it wrap around my ankle and drag me down.

There was blood in my mouth and I was being wrenched backwards.

I kicked and kicked until I felt my feet connect with flesh and then I scrambled for the Derringer and turned and fired it into his face, which caved in under the bullet and showered me with blood as the recoil sent the gun spiralling out of my hands and the sound of the shot impacted against the inside of my skull and my ears began ringing.

I’d bitten through my bottom lip when I fell and it hurt like fuck.

Hands over my ears, I struggled into a kneeling position.

Issa Taggart was dead. He was really fucking dead.

I hadn’t been this close to a dead person since my parents and sister. I kept watching him, sure he was going to move, because he was human-shaped and humans always moved, but he didn’t. The human in him was gone. Now he was just a lump, like the sofa he was lying next to.

Grimacing, I stood up and put my knife and empty gun back in my bag. I went upstairs, dragged the duvet off their bed and took it downstairs to put over the body. Hopefully his wife would know he was dead on sight and wouldn’t feel the need to look, wouldn’t scar herself with the memory of seeing her husband wrapped in masking tape, sans finger, sans face...

I pulled a bag on to each shoulder and switched the lights off on my way out of the room, so I didn’t have to look at the body or the photos of his wife and baby.

At least he didn’t make me kill them, I thought.

I let myself out of the house and walked shakily down the driveway and a little way down the road, to where the Russians were still waiting in total darkness in their car. They had turned around while I’d been gone.

The last of the daylight had died while I’d been inside.

Isaak opened the back door and shifted over to let me in.

I swung the bags in before me in silence.

Everyone looked at me.

I looked at my hands.

The driver started the car and pulled away.

Alexei grabbed the new bag from the middle seat and unzip­ped it. His eyes widened in the yellow intervals of light from the passing lampposts.

He muttered something in Russian, and Isaak undid his seatbelt to lean forwards and look.

‘All there?’ I asked.

Alexei zipped the bag back up and pushed it into the foot­well. ‘Yes, it is.’

I nodded.

‘Is he dead?’ Isaak turned to me, his face blank with shock.

‘What do you think?’ I said, taking the leather gloves off and stuffing them in my bag. ‘I want my cut tonight so you might as well count it now.’

Alexei picked up the bag and rested it on his knees, appar­ently lost in thought.

The driver looked at me in the overhead mirror and said, ‘Well done.’

I heard him but tried to think about nothing. Not even the mountaintop or the leaves on the wind.

I’d seen it in loads of gangster and war movies: the scene where some inexperienced youngster takes their first human life, often by accident, as I had just done. They always ended up standing fully clothed under a shower sobbing into the tiles, writhing and gurning with flashbacks, claw­ing at their hair and face, plagued by sleeplessness and hallu­cinations of blood on hands. Hell, fictional women had thrown themselves from castle walls over it.

I didn’t have any of that.

Feeling weirded-out by the strained car journey, I left my travel bag, now heavy with money, in the living room and let myself drop face down on to my bed.

It was almost midnight.

I refused to think any more about what had just happened. In the car I’d started to dwell on the idea of Taggart’s wife returning, picturing the changing expressions on her face, but I dismissed it. It was like a fire door closing in my mind. If I didn’t want to think about something, I shut it off and let it burn itself out without my direct attention.

My limbs were limp with exhaustion, but I made myself get back up, put Bob Dylan on my iPod just inside the bathroom door and go for a shower.

I didn’t cry in the shower; just washed.

When I came out of the bathroom I fell straight back into the bed still wrapped in my towel. I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remembered was being woken up by the sound of my phone ringing in the living room.

I launched myself off my bed, thinking that it might be the Russians, or Noel having found out about the body and money...

But it was Daisy.

‘Can I come over?’

I shook sleep out of my eyes and glanced at the clock, but I wasn’t that attached to the idea of sleep anyway and she sounded uncharacteristically glum.

‘Yeah, go for it. You OK?’

‘I’m outside actually, pissed and... I have Smirnoff Ice.’

I smiled while simultaneously kicking my travel bag out of sight down by the side of the sofa. ‘Come up. I’ll buzz you in.’

‘Wheeey! Thanks, bub.’

I buzzed her in and quickly made sure the bag was hidden before letting her in, holding the towel in place under my armpit.

Daisy swayed inside wearing a jumper and tights, and handed me a Smirnoff Ice. ‘I don’t know why I bought them. Imagine if I’d been hit by a bus or something, I’d have
died
with these things. People would think I was the sort of girl who drinks Smirnoff Ice at one in the morning.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind for an epitaph.’

‘I’m a cheap date, me. I think I’m just pissed on the E num­bers.’ She hopped around on one foot taking her ankle boots off and collapsed on to the sofa, putting her feet up on the arm. ‘Sometimes when I talk to Nic I think he’s just pretending to be dense so that he doesn’t have to say anything. Seriously, I ask him a question and he just stares at me, like “Huh?” It’s like living with Kevin the teenager.’

‘Have you guys had an argument?’

I sat down on the rug and opened the Smirnoff Ice with my lighter. It didn’t even count as alcohol in my mind. I wasn’t even sure you
could
get drunk on it.

‘Yeah and no, not really. I just didn’t want to stay there; he drags such a fucking atmosphere around when he’s sulking.’ She smiled to herself. ‘I never thought I’d ever have to like him that much, that’s the problem. Let alone say it or... show it or anything. I thought people who did that should be euthanized.’

I shrugged. ‘Suppose so.’

‘Did that happen with you and Monobrow?’ she asked, sticking her legs up in the air and looking at them.

I sipped the syrupy liquid. ‘What do you mean? Fuck, this is disgusting.’

‘I know, right!’ She cackled. ‘It’s bottled diabetes and it’s so fucking good... I mean, that’s how you tell, isn’t it? You start off looking happy and then after a bit just them walking around
existing
makes you sad. Fuck knows Nic is really pissing me off with all the
existing
he’s doing right now. Even the way he eats Frosties makes me wanna punch him in the face, you know? Just...
right
in the face.’

‘Not so much. I don’t think I’ve ever been into someone enough to want to punch them in the face.’ I shrugged. ‘I want to punch random people in the face all the time though so I don’t think I discriminate on the grounds of whether I want to shag them or not.’

‘Bull.’ She rolled on to her side. ‘So if it’s not Monobrow, who is it?’

‘Who?’

‘Your bottled diabetes.’ She giggled, and carried on giggling for a while at her own joke. ‘Come on, I moan to you about Nic all the time and you’ve never told me anything about you. What about this guy you used to live with? Is he on holiday or something?’

‘That guy, um... No, he’s away for good, I think. And we were definitely never a thing.’

‘Then who is it? Come on, who’s the guy?’

I didn’t answer her. I was finding it weird enough having this discussion when not even two hours ago I’d shot a man in the head. I felt guilty even replaying the memory in my mind. I felt like Daisy would almost be able to see it.

‘Does Nic ever talk to you much about his job?’ I asked, finding it difficult to talk about him as if we hadn’t met.

In truth, I’d thought about him a lot since he had drawn the picture for me, the one that was now in my kitchen. He was a hard man to stop thinking about. Unlike Mark, who wore much of his cunning and delight in his profession on his face, Nic had the air of a naive introvert, as if, given the choice, he wouldn’t speak to strangers at all. It was compelling. I hadn’t been able to envision it before, but he and Daisy must complement each other with their antithetical approaches to life.

‘Oooh, nice evasion, Seven, how
very
smooth.’ Daisy winked at me. ‘Yeah, sometimes.’

‘Like, details?’

‘Well, not names and stuff but if I ask he tells me things. Think he doesn’t get much chance to talk about it and... this might be bad, but... I find it really interesting. Does that mean I’m sick? Some kinda psycho?’

‘You are a psychopath.’ I grinned at her.

She covered her mouth. ‘No way, I’m a sick puppy, right! I can’t believe I’m telling you this but... fuck, I enjoy hearing about it. Sometimes... I think I even find it attractive. There, I said it! I dig it, I think it’s hot!’

I mock-gasped. ‘You find danger hot? You
deviant
!’

‘Well no, I wouldn’t find the idea of
me
being in danger hot, but it’s just a fantasy thing. Sometimes... fuck, this is
wrong
, you can’t tell
anyone
! But sometimes I have this fantasy that he’s just gone out, been in this big fight, has blood all over him and then he comes home and fucks me.’ She screwed her face up. ‘Argh, God, it’s
horrible
, isn’t it! I’m a
horrible fucked-up
person!’

‘Please, like every woman who has a rape fantasy
wants
to be raped? Of course not, it’s fantasy, you don’t actually want it to happen to you in real life.’

She thought for a moment.

‘No,’ she said, grimacing. ‘Ew. I bet you’re into all that too, right?’

I shook my head, taking another gulp of Smirnoff Ice and feeling thirteen years old. ‘Uh-uh. Not my thing.’

‘What? You’re seriously telling me you don’t get sick of being your oh-so-empowered self sometimes and just want a guy to... throw you down and...
do stuff
to you?’ She looked positively giddy at the thought.

‘You’re such a westerner,’ I said, knowing how patronizing I sounded. ‘Where I come from a lot of girls are... Well, it’s got better as generations go by, but girls where I come from are so
agreeable
. It’s not the done thing to be loud and brash or... opinionated in front of men, really. Here you can do and say what you like. You can fetishize being dominated because it’s a novelty for you. Westerners wouldn’t know self-restraint if it smacked them in the face with a dildo. Though you would probably like that!’

Daisy cackled, but appeared to be thinking. ‘I never thought about it like that. Man, I don’t know if I could hack it where you come from.’

I sighed. ‘I’d go back and live in my old street in a second. I miss how clean everything is.’

‘Why don’t you?’ She snorted to herself. ‘Fuck, I don’t mean that in a bitchy way! But why don’t you, if you want to?’

‘Well, I can’t afford it, and there’s no one there.’

‘No great star-crossed love? Some guy? I thought there might be...’

I stared at her until she relented, sitting up and spreading her hands.

It seemed to have irritated her. ‘OK, OK, I fucking give up. You know
everything
about me and, as ever, I know sweet fuck-all about you.’

‘For the love of
fuck
, Daisy, there isn’t some guy!’

‘All right,
chill
,
Winston
!’

‘It’s a girl, OK.’

Daisy’s expression fell into confusion, then picked up so as not to seem offensively surprised. I wondered if she’d ever suspected or given it any thought. After she recovered from the initial shock, she shrugged.