Bone Machine (15 page)

And things would unravel again.

But not as bad as they had been, down as low as the point he had once reached. He had never contemplated picking up the gun
again. The old revolver. Loading the bullet, spinning the chamber, placing it against his temple, waiting for the click.

Russian roulette. Just a game. But one with the power of life and death over himself. A way of taking away the pain. Permanently,
perhaps.

He had vowed never to reach that state again. No matter what he went through.

He had thrown the gun away. Into the river, down the Tyne.

Lost.

But he still had dreams.

Sometimes David would sit at the end of the bed and talk.

He would have aged. Real time. Three years older. Nine years old. And Donovan would talk to him. Father and son. Ask him anything.
Anything. And he would answer.

Except one question. The important one.

Where are you? Alive or dead? Where are you?

No answer. That would be David’s cue to disappear, Donovan’s time to wake up.

He would lie there, grasping at air, clinging.

To dreams.

He looked at the sleeping woman next to him. Wondered what was going through her head, what her dreams were about. What haunted
her.

He put his arm around her, closed his eyes. He didn’t want dreams tonight. He wanted sleep. And when it came he hoped it would
be deep, restful.

Black and empty.

Jamal lay awake.

He had heard them talking, playing that fucking awful music. Then a silence. Then them both coming up to bed together. Then
the noises from Donovan’s bedroom. He knew what was going on. He wasn’t stupid.

He lay there, trying not to listen.

It wasn’t right. It shouldn’t have happened. Katya seemed OK, but she shouldn’t have gone to bed with Joe.

Didn’t know why; it just wasn’t right.

He lay there. He, too, had heard the rain stop. He turned over on his side, pulled the duvet around him, closed his eyes.
Tried to sleep. Tried hard to sleep.

He didn’t know why, but it just wasn’t right.

The rain held off. The sun seemed to be considering putting in an appearance. There was wind, though. Threatening to be strong,
cold even. Too early for spring, but even the illusion of spring would do.

Michael Nell didn’t care what the weather was like. He could have stepped into the middle of a tornado and he would have been
happy. Or happier than where he had just come from.

He stood on the steps of Market Street police station and took in Newcastle city centre, took in the world.

Buses. Cars. Pedestrians. People going somewhere, going nowhere. The mundanity of an existence he purported to despise. He
never thought he would be as pleased to see that Saturday mundanity again.

They had let him go. He couldn’t believe it. They had let him go.

Days of questioning, of sitting in that stinking room, the words going around and around in an ever-decreasing circle, each
time with a little more knowledge, designed to wrong-foot him, force him into making a mistake, an admission of guilt, circling
tighter and tighter until they eventually enclosed him, suffocated him, the only chance of air coming with a full confession.

But he hadn’t given one. He hadn’t cracked.

And then this. They had let him go.

He stood on the steps and looked around. The fledgling euphoria that had been building up within him disappeared.
There, sitting in a silver Vauxhall Vectra, were those two bastard coppers. Nattrass and Turnbull.

He felt himself begin to shake, swallowed hard.

Walk away. Just walk away. Don’t give them the satisfaction.

He found his feet moving towards the Vectra. Crossing Market Street, ignoring oncoming buses, walking, his path direct like
a heat-seeking missile.

He saw them look up, get out of the car. Saw Turnbull, that hard-faced, evil fucker, smile. Crack his knuckles even.

Nell walked faster.

He reached the car. They were waiting for him.

‘This it, then?’ Nell said. ‘The welcoming committee?’

‘Have to be, won’t it?’ said Turnbull, squaring up for a fight. ‘Don’t see your daddy here, do you? Or that high-priced lawyer?
Just us.’ He gave a nod to the police station, laughed. ‘That’s what you get when you come down here. Just us.’

‘I’m innocent,’ Nell said, his voice breaking. ‘I did nothing wrong and you can’t touch me.’

Turnbull went up to him, nose to nose. His voice was low, carrying the promise of violence. ‘You’re dirty. You did it. We’ll
find something.’

Nell’s earlier anger was being replaced by fear. He didn’t doubt what this copper was saying, didn’t doubt that he could do
it if he wanted to.

The other one, Nattrass, stepped in. ‘Be on your way, please, Mr Nell. You’re free to go. But please keep yourself available,
because we may need to interview you again.’ She almost smiled.

‘I’ll … I’ll do you … This, this is harassment.’

Turnbull smiled, pointed at Market Street police station. ‘Care to step over there and make a complaint? We’ll be happy to
accompany you.’

Nell backed off. Turnbull gave another unpleasant smile. Nell could smell the alcohol simmering and sweating its way out of
him.

Nell turned away. He couldn’t bear them both looking at him.

‘Keep lookin’ over your shoulder, matey boy,’ said Turnbull. ‘One day we’ll be there.’

There was nothing Nell could do. He began to walk away.

The rain had held off. The sun had put in an appearance. There was no wind, strong or otherwise.

Michael Nell didn’t care what the weather was like. He wanted to scream, to shout.

He wanted to cry.

He walked away into the sunshine.

‘So they’ve let him go?’ said Donovan, looking at Janine Stewart.

‘This morning. Couldn’t keep him any longer. Failed to prove a case.’

Donovan nodded. He was listening to the words, but not hearing them. The power-dressed Janine Stewart was breaking up, the
office around her fragmenting. In her place was Katya. They were still back in bed.

Her body: thin, lean, small-breasted, like a sinuous rope of muscle wrapped around him. Holding tight on to him. Digging in,
pulling him further into her. Her eyes not closed but wide open, staring at him, into him.

It had been intense. More intense than he had imagined it would be. If he had had any expectations, they would have involved
warmth, acceptance. An end to loneliness, an intimacy with another. He had wanted to go easy, gently: he thought she must
have been damaged and fragile. But she wasn’t having any of it.

Irrespective of which position they had been in, and there had been many, or what activity they had been engaged in at the
time, Donovan felt, knew, that she had been in charge. Taking him with her, leading him on, getting him where she wanted him.
He had been taken, roughly, violently. Her eyes either closed or fixed on something he couldn’t see, perhaps something he
didn’t want to see.

Afterwards they had talked.

‘Thank you,’ she had said, her hands stroking his hot, still sweating skin. ‘What I needed.’

‘Good.’

‘You enjoyed it?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, eyes flicking away from her. ‘Course I did.’

‘You seemed … not to let yourself go. Is this famous British reserve?’ She gave a small laugh. ‘Is your upper lip stiff?’

Donovan had smiled. ‘Not my upper lip. No, I’m just a bit … out of practice, that’s all.’

She kept looking at him.

‘I just … didn’t want to hurt you. You know. After all you’ve been through. Been forced to do, and that. Thought I should
be … I don’t know. Gentle. Respectful.’

She propped herself up, looked at him. ‘I am not a flower, Joe. To be just admired. I am stronger. With needs. Like you. Like
everyone.’

‘I know. It’s just …’

She smiled. ‘It does not matter.’

She kissed him. Hard. He responded. Getting hard again. Hands over each other’s bodies. She pulled away, looked into his eyes
again.

‘I will not break,’ she said, then smiled. Secrets were contained in that smile. Secrets Donovan might want to take. ‘But
I will bend …’

And she had. And so had he.

‘Joe? Mr Donovan?’

Donovan looked up. Janine Stewart was looking at him.

‘Are you all right?’

Donovan looked around, surprised to find himself back in Stewart’s office.

‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.’

Stewart looked at him as if she didn’t agree with his words. Donovan felt he should say something.

‘So have they … has there been any, erm, any other lines of enquiry?’

Stewart raised her eyebrows. It was, thought Donovan, what passed for a shrug from her. ‘They’re still trying to find eyewitnesses
for Ashley’s disappearance from her street in Fenham. Apparently two young men and an old man pushing an old woman in a wheelchair
haven’t come forward.’

‘Can they trace them?’

‘They’re trying. Not holding out much hope, but you never know. Stranger things have happened. And they’re doing the usual.
Door-to-door community teams. Mobile office set up in the estate beside the graveyard Ashley was found in.’

‘Anything?’

‘Nothing so far. Nothing solid.’

Donovan nodded. ‘Forensics?’

‘Not that I’ve heard. Nothing that links my client in.’ She sat back. ‘But Michael Nell, despite the shaky and circumstantial
evidence, is still their prime suspect. We haven’t heard the last from them.’

‘No.’

‘But thank you for your work. Very well done.’ She looked at the file lying on her desk. Donovan had made it as comprehensive
as possible. Including his brush with Nattrass
and Turnbull. Excluding the involvement of Katya. She was just obliquely referred to as a source.

‘Send in your invoice and we’ll pay you straight away.’

‘Thank you.’

Donovan nodded, gone again. Back to earlier that morning, getting up.

Jamal had been in a strange mood. Donovan had met him, unsmiling, in the kitchen. Said hello to the boy, but received only
a grunt in return.

‘You OK?’ Donovan had asked, putting the kettle on.

Jamal shrugged, took his toast into the front room. Sat on the sofa, turned on the TV. Stared at it. Hard.

Donovan followed him. ‘What’s up?’

‘Nothin’.’ Mumbled through a mouthful of toast and jam.

Jamal turned up the volume with the remote. A music video of a band Donovan knew Jamal didn’t like.

Donovan sat on the arm of the sofa. ‘You sure there’s nothing wrong? You can tell me. You know that.’

‘Can I?’

There was something behind the words, something Donovan couldn’t place. Anger? Resentment? Disappointment? Donovan thought.

Katya.

He sighed. ‘What’s this about?’ he said, having a fair idea. ‘Do I know what this is about?’

On the TV was a New York band with skinny ties and abrasive guitars. Everything Jamal hated, yet he stared at them, enrapt,
as if he was hanging on to their every word.

Donovan waited.

‘It’s not right,’ Jamal said eventually, mumbling again.

‘What’s not?’

Jamal turned to him then. Donovan saw something had torn behind his eyes. ‘You slept with Katya. Don’t deny it, man, ’cos
I heard yous.’

Donovan sighed. ‘Yes, Katya and I slept together. Why do you have a problem with that?’

Jamal turned back to the TV. Shrugged again. ‘’Cos. ’Snot right. That’s all.’

Donovan looked at the boy, struggling with emotions he didn’t understand. He wondered how best to explain, what the right
words would be.

He wondered what he would say if it was his own son asking him the question.

‘It
was
right, Jamal. It felt right. For Katya as well.’

Jamal looked at him again. When he spoke, there was genuine pain behind his words. ‘You’re meant to be protecting her, man.
That’s not protecting her. That’s … that’s … abuse, man. That’s what, what used to happen to me …’ His voice became smaller.
He swallowed his final words.

Donovan’s heart went out to the boy. When they had met, Jamal had been living one step above the street, selling his body
to perverts and paedophiles. Donovan’s intervention had changed all that. He thought the boy had grown, mentally and emotionally
as well as physically. Perhaps not as much as he had thought.

‘It’s not the same,’ Donovan said. ‘It was Katya’s idea as much as mine.’ More so, he thought, but didn’t say that. ‘We’re
both consenting adults. That means we both wanted to do it. One doesn’t force the other. It’s not abuse when that happens.
And, despite what she’s been through, she has needs too. We both do.’

Jamal looked at Donovan, almost as if seeing him for the first time. He looked away. Shrugged. ‘Just sayin’. Doesn’t feel
right, that’s all.’

Donovan stood up. ‘I’m sorry, Jamal. But it’s happened, and that’s that. Doesn’t change anything else here.’

Jamal kept staring at the TV.

‘Look, I’ve got to go into Newcastle today. You want to come with me? Ask Jake if he wants to come.’ Jake was Jamal’s friend
from the village. Complete opposites, Donovan had first thought: he was white, middle class, privately educated. His parents
weren’t too happy about them mixing, but there was nothing they could do about it. The boys had strong friendship that belied
their backgrounds.

Jamal shrugged.

‘Go around the record shops. Whatever you two get up to.’

Jamal gave a small nod.

‘Good.’ He found a smile. ‘Look, Katya being here doesn’t change anything. Jamal, we’re still best mates.’

Jamal nodded, tried to keep his face hard, his features set. Donovan knew the look. Knew what insecurities and softnesses
lay behind it too.

The kettle clicked. Donovan walked back into the kitchen. Made coffee for himself and Katya.

Took it back upstairs. Thinking of Jamal’s words and his own answers. Wondering which one was right.

‘Is that all right, Joe? Mr Donovan?’

‘Yeah.’

Donovan looked up. He was back in Stewart’s office. He had no idea whether he had just agreed to sleep with all the men in
Janine Stewart’s company or run naked through Newcastle city centre. He hoped he hadn’t agreed to forgo his fee. That would
be really bad news.

Stewart, from the look on her face, seemed equally unconvinced by his response.

‘Yeah,’ he said again. ‘That’ll be fine.’

‘So even though we don’t need the written testimony, you’ll be happy to undertake further work for us?’

That must have been it. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘No problem.’ He blinked hard.

Stewart leaned forward. Scrutinized him. ‘Are you all right, Mr Donovan?’

Donovan rubbed his face. ‘Just tired. Was up late. Writing your report.’

‘Very diligent.’ She stood up, extended her hand. ‘Well, thank you for your time. I’m sure we’ll be in touch.’

Donovan thanked her and walked out into the street. He needed a coffee. Or preferably something stronger.