The Cutting Crew (26 page)

I could remember sitting in my flat and crying when she decided to be with Rich, but the memory was featureless and arid: black and white and lacking sound. All those text messages I'd sent, followed by the stretches of time when she'd never reply - I had those in my head now, and they felt empty. Just husks of recollection with nothing inside them. No panic, no pain. Nothing.

What had I done?

That question crept quietly into my head and everything went still for a second.

And then thoughts of Rachel returned, and these were entirely different. When I dug into these, my fingers went all the way. I sipped my coffee and her life came to me - not in a flash or a series of images, but as impressions that I couldn't put into words. I thought of her loving me so much and being so happy; of her being prepared to do anything for me. Leaving herself totally open and not even being afraid that I'd hurt her. And then the bewilderment - the deep, stupid wound I'd made in her. The gathering of herself afterwards. Trying to hold herself together and find some sensation inside her other than pain.

Those emotions - all at once; a rich, awful palette - beating out of my memory of her in a rainbow of fever. In that moment, I realised how much I loved her and how much I'd hurt her; and I closed my eyes.

My mobile started ringing.

I picked it up, thinking it would be either Rosh or Lucy, but when I looked at the display it showed rachel.

I held the phone in my hand for a second, just staring at it. The coffee shop around me receded slightly. Although I could tell that people were stopping their conversations and beginning to look at me, they had all faded into the background, out of importance.

The mobile kept ringing.

rachel

Finally, I pressed green and held the phone to my ear.

'Hello.'

'Martin?'

'Yeah.' The guy on the next table was still looking at me. I glared at him and he looked away very quickly. I said, 'I'm here.'

'You were trying to get hold of me? I had missed calls.'

I tried to place the expression in her voice, but I couldn't pin it down. It was too ... normal, I realised. Since the split, I'd become used to deciphering a whole range of her emotions - from anger, hatred and pain to resilience and pride - but right now she sounded like she had before I'd left. Except not quite.

'Yeah,' I said. 'I was worried about you. I wanted to talk to you and make sure you were all right.'

There was silence for a second, and then when she spoke she sounded indignant and annoyed.

'Of course I'm all right.'

'I didn't mean it like that,' I said quickly. 'I was just worried about you.'

'Why - because I wasn't answering my phone?' She laughed. 'I don't have to answer my phone when you ring if I don't want to.'

'I know you don't.'

'I think you gave up that right, didn't you?'

'What right?'

'Fucking hell, never mind.' She seemed to gather herself a little: to pull the persona back together. 'So is that all you wanted?'

So, I thought, was that all I wanted - to check that she was okay? No, I decided, not really. But I needed to think more carefully about it. She'd had enough of my bullshit and whatever I said at this point was only going to be more of the same.

Fondly, I thought out of nowhere, "I think of you.

'There's more I want to say,' I said. 'But not right now.'

She gave me a small, sarcastic laugh. 'Very cryptic'

'Yeah,' I said, frowning. 'Yeah. Look - this is going to sound shit, but it might be an idea to get out of the house for a few days.'

She paused, and then sounded indignant again.

'Well - what's that supposed to mean? Why should I get out of the house?'

'There's been some trouble,' I said, knowing how bad this was sounding. 'And it might be safer for you not to be at home right now. That's all I'm saying. This isn't about us.'

'Well, I'm not at home right now,' she said, matter of factly.

'Right. Where are you?'

'With a friend,' she said. And then: 'A guy.'

A guy.

Not the first, I reminded myself quickly. Over the last couple of months there'd been a few times when Rachel had gone on dates with men, and generally she'd told me in advance, hoping for some kind of reaction. In that, she'd always been let down; I'd felt very little. In fact, I'd told her that it was good, and that I hoped she found someone who could make her happy. It had always seemed to me as though I meant it - and it had probably pissed her off no end.

Now, I did my best to remember how that ambivalence had felt, but I couldn't replicate it. Inside, I was panicked, churning.

'Oh,' I said. 'Right. Okay.'

'Just some guy,' she said. 'I met him last night.'

'Right.'

'Yeah. I went out to a club.'

'Right,' I said again. 'What's his name?'

It seemed like a natural question.

'His name's Sean,' Rachel said.

I picked up my coffee and drained the rest of it in one. I was shaking. He was called Sean, this guy. Of course he was called Sean. That just seemed right.

She said, 'Not your Sean, obviously.'

'No,' I said. 'I'd imagine not.'

'So I've not been home,' she concluded, and I could hear it in her voice that she was hammering the truth home in the hope I might feel it. For the first time, I did. But I surprised myself when something entirely unconnected burst from the back of my mind, and I blurted out:

'What was it called?'

Another brief pause, and then she sounded confused.

'What was what called?'

'The club,' I said, feeling impatient. 'Where you met this guy.'

'Oh. It was Spooks, or something. On the edge of Wasp. You know it?'

'Yeah, I know it.'

Another coincidence. It felt ridiculous, but I'd known what she was going to tell me before she'd said it - Spooks, that shitty club I'd been drinking in the other night, while Jamie had been delivering Sean's envelope to me. Full of rough men and women on the pull. Rachel had gone there too. Coincidence. And now she was telling me while I was sitting in the cafe we'd been in two days earlier. I'd just been walking past and wandered in. Does it count as a coincidence if you bring it about yourself?

Rachel said, 'Why do you want to know?'

'I was just curious. It's nothing.'

'Oh right. Well--'

'Where are you now?'

'I'm not sure,' she said. 'Somewhere in Turtle, I think.'

'You think?"

Jesus. This was Rachel I was speaking to. Before I'd messed up, she'd been my Rachel, and now here she was, going back to a guy's house when she didn't know who he was. She didn't even know where she was, for fuck's sake.

'It's none of your business anymore,' she said.

'You should just ... I don't know. You should be more careful.'

She repeated herself in a slow, cold voice:

'It's none of your business anymore, Martin.'

'Look,' I said. 'Just ... be careful. Okay?'

'I'm always careful. Really careful.'

'No, seriously. There are things--'

'So anyway - have you arranged to move the rest of your things?'

I paused.

'No. Not yet.'

Burn it all, I'd thought, but I didn't think anything now. At the moment, all my stuff occupied a place in my head that didn't have any windows.

'Why not?' she said.

'I looked into it,' I said. 'It's just - it's been at the back of my mind.'

'Move it to the front. And then move the rest of your shit out of my house.'

'Rachel--'

'Goodbye, Martin.'

The phone buzzed in my ear. I pulled it away and looked at it for a moment, as though staring stupidly might magically re-establish a connection.

call complete: 02:41.

I panicked and thought: fuck self-respect. Speed-dial button 1 - I pressed it and put the phone back to my ear. Maybe it would make it worse, but there were things I could say regardless, and they'd start with sorry. But the phone rang a few times and then buzzed again. I listened as the pre-recorded message kicked in. Sorry, but the phone you are trying to contact appears to be off-line.

Shit.

Without warning, all of that coffee tried to force its way up my throat, and I had to swallow to fight it down. I put the phone on the table and rested my head on my hand. Closed my eyes. Ran my fingers back and forth through my hair a little, massaging my scalp.

The air was ringing with the same tension as before.

I'm going insane.

And then I thought: send her a text message.

'Sir?'

I stopped, and looked up. It was the guy from behind the counter.

'We're very full. Are you going to order another drink?'

I glanced around and saw that a few of the people nearby were watching me cautiously. When I looked up, they looked away. Had I been talking to myself? Maybe so - the waiter's body language told me that he was ready to deal with me if I caused any trouble.

For a second, I hated him so badly that I could barely contain it, and it half occurred to me to pull out my gun and show the other customers what causing a fucking scene would really be like.

'If you're not going to order--'

'Save it.' I stood up. 'I was just leaving.'

He took my empty cup and shadowed me to the door, increasing my desire to shoot him somewhere immensely painful, but my legs were shaky and when I got outside I was grateful for the fresh air.

Clear your head, I thought, but I couldn't. A hurricane might, but not today's slight, warm breeze, not when my head was so brimful of buzzing rubbish. With Rachel. Sean. What we'd done to Halloran. All the coincidences that were maybe just that but seemed like they weren't. I started walking, and with every step it felt more and more as though everything in the world was going to reach out and strike me.

I walked for a while, heading in the vague direction of my flat. It might not be safe and so I had no real inclination to go there, but walking had always had a calming effect on me. As I approached the border, a little south of my makeshift home, I was beginning to feel better. Then, my phone rang again, and I stopped by some railings to answer it.

rosh

'Yeah?' I said.

'Martin?' Rosh sounded concerned. 'Where are you?'

'I'm not sure.' Turtle somewhere. 'I'm in Horse. Edge of Horse, I think. Why?'

'Is everything okay there?'

'Yeah. Yeah, it's fine.'

'How did it go?'

'What?'

'Hedge,' he said. 'How did it go with Hedge?'

'Oh - right.'

So I told him about my visit to Oxley, although in hindsight there wasn't much to say. Out in the fresh air, the computer program seemed irrelevant. I mentioned it briefly and Rosh didn't seem overly interested.

'Well, he confirmed parts of Jamie's story, anyway,' I said.

'Okay.'

'How was Harris?'

'Not okay.'

Rosh went through the details. A couple of kids had found Harris's car earlier that morning, idling at the edge of some wasteland in Snail. There was a tube leading from the exhaust pipe to the front window. The kids - being kids - had peered in and had run and told their parents, and officers arrived at the scene a few minutes later. Harris himself was already very dead - slumped in the driver's seat, supported by a now quite redundant seatbelt and apparently had been for some time. It was estimated that he'd died in the early hours of the morning. The obvious assumption was suicide, but Rosh wasn't convinced and neither was I.

'He had some abrasions to the head,' Rosh said. 'We won't know more until the forensics come back, but I have a weird feeling they won't tell us much.'