One of Us (25 page)

“I can’t leave,” I said. “Doing this, this is me. If I leave, I am like him. Like the men who killed my father. Maybe, like my father. And I cannot be that, Sean. Cannot do that. This me, Sean, this is who I am. Leaving him to die is not who I am. Quick now, search. Everywhere.”

I worked on Corgan, and my hands and my mind forgot everything and just did what they were trained to do. Sean came back after a while, and stood near me. “We need to get out,” he said. He had a sports bag slung over his shoulder.

I got to my feet, my legs cramped from kneeling. “Use a towel, wipe anything we have touched—that vase, the handles of things. Get the gun out from under the couch, I can’t reach it, and wipe that too. And be careful. If you can, pick up the broken whisky glass over there, I threw it at him. I need to phone.”

I pulled the sleeves of my jumper down over my hands and picked up the phone and dialled.

“Ambulance,” I said.

I described Corgan’s injury, gave the address, ignored the request for my name. “There are guns here,” I said. “And drugs. You need the police too. This man, he is a bad man. The police must look into him. He runs prostitutes, illegal immigrants, I know his men have killed people, there will be evidence here, they just need to look. Tell them to look.”

The man on the phone asked for my name again.

“And tell them to listen to the tape,” I said, “It will give them everything.” I hung up. Sean was standing by the door, a sports bag in one hand, towel full of broken glass in the other.

“You haven’t,” he said.

“I have,” I said, and I kept my jumper down over my hand, took the recorder from my coat pocket, and left it on the floor near Corgan. “And I listened to you when you said how to use it. Everything he said is on there.”

“So are you,” Sean said.

I shrugged. “Who am I?”

“Come on,” he said, and we left.

On the way down the stairs, we did not speak. I was anxious that we might be seen, but we passed no-one. We headed out the back way, and found a door that led into a maintenance area. Another door there led to the outside. It was locked, but Sean kicked at the lock two or three times and it burst open.

“Always wanted to do that,” he said. We stuck our heads out. It was an alley full of bins and broken boxes. We walked to the far end, eyes to the ground, and as we passed the last bin, fifty metres from Corgan’s building, Sean dropped the glass and towel in. Then we were out on the street, the world going on around us as if nothing had happened.

“Have I got blood on me?” I said to Sean.

“Not that I can see,” he said. “How’s my face?”

“Scary,” I said. “So not much change. You need to wash it. There is blood around your nose. Is it broken?”

“Ah, now the doctor thinks of me. Good to know I’m not completely forgotten. I dunno. It hurts like a bastard.”

“Here, stop.” I pulled out a tissue from my coat, wet it and held his chin in my fingers while I dabbed at the blood on his face.

“Last woman who did this to me was my mum,” Sean said.

“I bet you kept still for her,” I said. “So do so for me. There, you will do. I do not think it is broken. But stay out of the lights, you will frighten old ladies and children.”

We walked along the street. In the distance, we could hear sirens.

“Do you think he’ll live?” Sean said.

“I think so,” I said. “Although I do not know for sure.”

“If he lives, you know he’ll come after us.”

“Yes.”

“Whether he gets nicked or not. Someone like Corgan, he has people.”

“Yes. He has people. But we have something too. We don’t exist, Sean. Leave here, another city, another name, another shitty job. Who can find us? You can’t be found if you don’t exist.”

“True. So you’re going to leave here?”

“Yes,” I said. “I have to.”

“Am I coming?”

“I do not know,” I said. “Are you?”

“Would you like me to?”

“Yes,” I said. “I think I would.”

Sean grinned, a big happy smile. He had blood on his teeth. “Good,” he said. “Good.”

He looked smug, like a cat that has eaten the fish you bought for dinner but knows that you can not prove it.

“What?” I said. “I know I am wonderful company, but it is not that good news.”

“You haven’t asked me,” he said.

“Haven’t asked you what?”

“What’s in the bag.” He lifted up the sports bag and dangled it between us. We came to a halt on the street.

“Tell me,” I said.

“Two things that I found at Corgan’s.”

“Tell me.”

“OK,” Sean said. “One. Money. A lot of money. Christ knows what it’s for or from, best not to think, but it was all in this bag in his wardrobe. Didn’t exactly have time to count it back there, but it’s thousands.”

I closed my eyes for a moment. I knew what I was going to do with the money. We would take a little, to get to away from this place. The rest, I would send to the address that I had on a torn-out piece of paper in my purse. To Elena’s family, for her beautiful boy.

“I wish we had been able to do something about Lomax, about the Ukrainian,” I said. “They are as bad as Corgan. Someone else will take his place.”

“Maybe,” Sean said. “But you wanted to do something for Elena, and we can only do what we can, Anna. It’s better than nothing.”

We stood there for a moment or two, in the drizzle, and I thought about Elena and I thought about the photo of her little boy. I am sorry, I said to him. I am so sorry.

“You said you found two things.”

“Yeah,” Sean said. “Found these in the kitchen. Fancy one?”

“Yes,” I said, and I took the chocolate bar from him. “Yes, I do.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

We waited at the railway station, just outside the cafe where I had first met Daniel. That seemed a very long time ago. A few people wandered in to the station, wearing suits, and carrying briefcases, and rubbing bleary eyes. A little red truck came down the pavement, brushing the litter up and spraying water out behind it, and we ducked into the entrance to the cafe so that the driver could clean all of the pavement. I was very cold, and very tired. We did not think that anywhere had been safe to go, so we had just walked the streets, talking.

I wondered what would happen to Daniel. I thought that he would probably end up working for whoever took over from Corgan. Someone would. It would be like a vacuum, there would be space for a little while, and then it would be filled and business would go on as usual. Daniel would sit in the cafe again in a month, or two months, and he would brush his hair from his eyes and he would grin like a schoolboy and he would be charming some other Anna. I thought he would probably be doing the same thing in twenty years’ time, still making his speech about going places, onwards and upwards, balding and unshaven and not really charming anyone any more.

“Love your new face Sean,” I said. “I wouldn’t go back to that plastic surgeon though, if I were you.”

“Do you think?” Sean said. “I think I quite suit this look. Like I’m an ex-boxer or something.”

“Mmm. Or something.”

We stopped in front of the big board in the station, a dozen cities in glowing orange letters.

“Where d’you fancy?” Sean said. “Any preference?”

“Surprise me,” I said. Sean wandered over to the ticket office, and I waited, watching the destinations change, wondering where we would end up. Knowing that wherever it was, the city would be much the same as the one that we were leaving. People moved about me, busy going places, leading their lives. I felt like I was in one of those photographs where time was speeded up, and people moved in a blur around me the camera, standing still. Sean came back, tickets tucked into the top pocket of his jacket.

“Come on,” he said. “Platform four, we’ve got five minutes.”

On the platform, before we got onto the train, I took from my pocket the papers that Corgan had given me. Everything that said I belonged here, was legal, could not be sent back home. Stuck between the pages was the ring-pull that Sean had given me.

I tore the papers in half, and each piece in half again. Then I dropped all of them into a yellow bin on the wall. The ring-pull, I put back in my pocket. I might need that.

“Who shall we be then?” Sean asked.

“Anyone we want,” I said, and we got onto the train.