The Cutting Crew (20 page)

At the moment, we weren't going anywhere. We were waiting.

'What did he say he looked like?' Rosh asked me.

'He didn't.'

'He didn't say what he looked like?'

I shook my head.

The call had come through on my mobile a little after seven, waking us all up. My first thought, culled from the half-memory of trying to phone her, was that it would be Rachel. When I picked it up and looked at the display with bleary eyes I saw that the number wasn't recognised, and so instead I thought: Keleigh. But then, when I pressed green and said hello, it was a man's voice that answered me. And he hadn't told me what he looked like.

'He just said to meet him here.'

'Well, that's handy,' Lucy said quietly.

'Absolutely. I asked him, but he just said that we were cops. Said he was sure we'd spot him.'

Lucy didn't say anything at all to that - she just frowned and looked away down the street. Rosh was more thoughtful. I felt somewhere between the two of them: tired and irritable; expectant;

cautiously interested. The adrenaline from yesterday was resting in me like vinegar, and perhaps this would be something to sweeten it with. I was nervous, though. There are good breaks and bad breaks, and after last night none of us was taking any chances. I had my gun within easy reach, and I was sure that Rosh and Lucy did too.

Lucy finished looking around and said, 'He's late.'

It was twenty to nine. He was only ten minutes late, but it still made me nervous. Nobody seemed to be paying us much attention, and yet I felt watched. In fact, I'd been feeling watched in some way or other for the last few days. Although the sheer impersonal business of the crossroads was the opposite of the solitude of the motel last night, the effect was very much the same: we were painfully visible; glaringly obvious. We stood out in the rush of people like rocks in a stream.

I looked to my left and started to say something, but I found that a man was standing there, directly next to me, and I immediately stopped talking and stepped quickly away. He seemed to have come from nowhere. My hand was inside my jacket and on my gun even as I realised that he wasn't paying us any attention. And on face value he wouldn't have been much of a threat if he was. Rosh and Lucy moved around next to me. The man was ignoring us and just staring down at the ground - although it was difficult to tell because he was wearing big, black goggles that wrapped around his face all the way from his nose to his ears.

He was about twenty years old, tall and almost painfully thin, dressed in an old white T-shirt and grey-green combats. His arms didn't seem to taper whatsoever between his wrist and his elbow and, as he crouched down beside me, I noticed that there was no contour to his thighs: no real muscle there beneath the paint stained material. The kid - not a man at all - was like a set of straws placed at hard angles to each other. Now he was squatting the goggles enhanced the naturally insectile appearance of his skinny body and made him look almost alien. It probably didn't help much that he had long, bright purple hair, tied back in a ponytail.

Purple hair, I thought. So this must be Keleigh's boyfriend.

A few people were looking at him as they walked past, their eyes glancing from him to us and then away again: back to business.

The boy didn't seem interested, either in the three of us or the throng passing behind him. Instead, he was studying the black-tiled pavement, where he had rested a sheet of card that had once been white and was now stained with a trampled rainbow. Before any of us could say anything, I heard a solid metallic rattle and then a hiss as he sprayed paint onto the card. His knuckles jutted out white, full of careful intent, moving the can he was holding steadily and efficiently back and forth across the card, covering it in yellow mist.

'Hey, Picasso,' Lucy said. 'What the fuck do you think you're doing?'

The boy ignored her. He sprayed the paint for another couple of seconds, and then Lucy started to move around me. At the same time, the hissing stopped and the can disappeared into the boy's knapsack. He moved the card away to reveal a stark yellow tattoo on the black tiles:

FONDLY

I THINK

OF YOU

I was so startled that I took a step back. Where had I seen this before? I thought back. It had been on the university campus, perhaps. Not the same words, but the style had been the same and I was in no doubt that the author was too.

'An old one,' the thin boy said. 'But it's my favourite.'

'Did you know graffiti is a crime?' Rosh asked.

The kid stood up and turned to face us, holding the card down by his side. Now, I could vaguely see the empty letters he'd carved out of it. With the goggles hiding the kid's eyes it was impossible to tell whether he was actually looking at us or just had his head pointing our way.

'It's art,' he said.

'It doesn't look like art to me,' Lucy said.

'And obviously she's a connoisseur,' I added.

'Well,' the kid said, breathing out and sounding entirely unbothered by the criticism. 'Maybe not. But you don't look like cops. It's a weird fucking world.'

'You're the guy that rang me this morning, then.'

His head didn't move, but his perception seemed to shift slightly towards me.

'Yeah, I rang you. You left your card with my friend.'

'That would make you Jamie, right?' I said.

'Yeah.'

'And you're Keleigh Groves's boyfriend.'

He shook his head, although not in denial, and said: 'I don't want to talk about it here.'

'Where, then?'

'Whitelocks,' he said. 'It's at the edge of Horse, over by--'

'I know where it is.'

As soon as he'd said it, I'd felt another jolt of recognition. First it had been the graffiti and now this. I'd started off in Whitelocks the night that Sean had sent me the letter. I remembered it well: the older woman smoking the cigarette; the picture of the eye taped to the wall at the bottom of the alleyway. And--

- and then suddenly, without warning, the people moving through the crossroads resolved themselves into a pattern I could see clearly. It was mathematical, predictable and obvious. I saw it for a full second, had chance to question what I was seeing and confirm it, and--

- and then it was gone again. And they were just people going about their random business.

I shook my head.

The boy had tilted his head and seemed to be staring at me from behind the goggles.

'That okay?'

'That's fine,' I said. 'When?'

'Half hour,' he said. 'I'll meet you there.'

Before any of us could do anything to stop him he was gone: moving off up the street, his head looking this way and that, goggles still in place. He swung the knapsack up onto a shoulder that looked too thin to support it, and then he disappeared among the people.

'What do you think?' I said.

Lucy stepped past me, stuffed her hands in her pockets and then turned back around.

'This is the guy that Keleigh was off with last night, when you went round?'

I nodded.

'Well then, I think we go to Whitelocks.'

'Good,' I said. 'It's not even nine yet, but I could do with a drink.'

We started walking and Lucy lit a cigarette.

Rosh said, 'God bless the twenty-four-hour city.'

Whitelocks: this time early morning and therefore a very different proposition. It was pretty much dead inside - just a handful of old guys, all sitting or leaning by themselves. The jangle of fruit machines had been replaced by the sizzle of breakfasts cooking and the clank of washed glasses being lined up overhead. People's attentions were all held by the television in the corner, which was showing news: the buildup to the annual boxing, mostly. What little conversation there was appeared to be coming entirely from behind the bar. In the broad alleyway outside, hanging baskets of flowers were leaking water and the slabs underneath were soaked.

Further down, there was a scraping swish, as someone moved an old broom across the wet ground with a steady, authoritative rhythm.

The picture of the eye had been taken down, I noticed. Even so, I felt that odd sensation of being watched and yet not watched. I had a strange feeling that whatever the boy was going to tell us would be something so obvious that we'd known it already without realising.

He had bought himself a Coke and was waiting for us at one of the old brown benches outside. The goggles rested on the table in front of him, but you could still see the imprint of where they'd been on his forehead.

'Two minutes,' Rosh told us, heading inside to fetch some drinks.

Lucy and I sat down across from Jamie and waited for Rosh to come back. The kid didn't acknowledge us in any way, but when Rosh brought out three beers, he looked up and the sun caught his eyes. He was wearing purple contact lenses.

'So what can I do for you?' he said when we'd settled.

I took a sip of my beer and told him:

'We're here because of Alison.'

Jamie didn't seem unduly fazed by this.

'Yeah, we figured you would be.'

' "We" being you and Keleigh?' Rosh said.

' "We" being me and Keleigh. That's right.'

I asked, 'Where's Keleigh now?'

'She's safe.'

'Yeah,' I pressed. 'But where is she safe?'

'Safe somewhere.' He shook his head. 'Look, she doesn't want to be involved in this at the moment. Even if she did, I want to keep her out.'

'You're her boyfriend?' Lucy prompted.

He nodded.

That would have to do for now, I thought. We could give him a little rope, trust him slightly, hear him out. For one thing, he might be able to tell us just as much as Keleigh could, but it would also give us the chance to form an opinion. If he was on the level then we could tell him a little more, and maybe we could persuade him to take us to her then.

'Okay,' I said. 'And both of you knew Alison. How was that? It was through uni, right?'

'Yeah.'

He took another sip of Coke. Ice was clinking in the glass.

Rosh said, 'Can you tell us anything about her disappearance?'

Jamie considered this quietly, and I watched him while he did. I got the impression that there was probably a great deal he could tell us, but that he didn't know where to begin. Or maybe just how.

After a few moments, he settled on it.

'I can tell you I know she's dead.'

'How do you know that?' Lucy asked.

Jamie just looked at her. Even for Lucy, who could eyeball with the best of them, purple contacts were clearly a new experience.

She actually looked away.

He said, 'Because I'm not an idiot?'

I decided to change tack a little.

'Right. Do you know a lecturer named Dr Mark Harris?'

Jamie frowned at that, putting the glass back down on the table.

Then, he slid it around slightly, blurring the circular water stain it had left on the wood.

'Harris worked with us a while on our art project,' he said, studying the glass. Then, he tilted it a little. 'He was sort of an advisor, I'd guess you'd say. Like a consultant.'

'He was in the History department, though?'

'Yeah,' Jamie said. 'Our project was based on the history of the city.'

Rosh said, 'And have you heard from him recently?'

'Why?'

The kid was frowning again - and because it was the second time it really caught my attention. The mention of Harris's name seemed to have genuinely confused him, as though he hadn't been expecting it to come up. I hoped that Keleigh really was safe, and not just safe somewhere with Harris.

Rosh said, 'Well, we have reason to believe he was involved in Alison's disappearance.'

Jamie shook his head immediately.

'No. He didn't have anything to do with that.'

'What makes you so sure?' I said.