Dead Pretty (21 page)

He was now a White Van Man for a while, nothing could be more anonymous than that. Any police that passed him on the way back to Julie and Carl wouldn't give him a second glance; they were far too busy.

It took him a minute to break in and another two to drive the van away. He was soon back on the hillside. Mark pulled the van off the road, as far into the trees as he could. Carl looked better. There was a little more colour in his face but none at all in Julie's. In the gloom of the trees she looked like a ghost.

‘All right,' Carl murmured.

‘I've got us some transport.'

‘Just get us out of here, Mark.'

Mark carried Carl and propped him up on the seat of the van, covering him with most of the clothes he had. Julie got in on the other side and cradled Carl's head in her hands. Mark drove to the hospital, a few miles from Carl's house. Carl drifted in and out of consciousness but Mark thought he had a good chance of pulling through now. What worried him more was Julie, whether she could cope with the questions she might be asked at the hospital. Thank Christ they hadn't shot Carl. The hospital would be straight onto the police. No, Carl had the right type of injuries, the worst they'd think was that he'd been beaten up by somebody and wanted to keep it quiet. Maybe it wouldn't go any further. It all came down to Julie now, and who could blame her if she cracked?

‘We're here,' Mark said. He drove up to the A & E entrance, parked the van outside and helped get Carl in.

‘He fell down the stairs, remember that,' Mark said to his mother. ‘Fell down the stairs.'

Seeing the state of Carl, a porter ran out to meet them. Mark let him take Carl from him.

‘Stay with him, Mam. Look, can I have the key to your place? I need to go back there and get straightened up.'

‘Others might come for you.'

‘No, they won't, Mam. They won't even know about this, not today, at least.'

Julie fumbled in her pocket, as the porter put Carl in a wheelchair and pushed him into the building.

‘Bloody stupid,' Carl was muttering. ‘Missed my footing and went straight down 'em. An' my car's been bloody nicked an' all. What a morning.'

‘Here,' Julie said, ‘take it. Just leave us, Mark. Leave us alone.'

Her face was desperate, and the horror of this day was already being played back in her eyes, but they were still alive.

Mark turned to go, anxious to get the van away. Julie caught at his arm, reached up and hugged him briefly.

‘You've topped everything with this,' she whispered, tears streaming down her face.

‘I know. Look, Mam …'

‘No more words. I have to go in with Carl.'

‘The worst is over now, Mam.'

‘Is it?'

Mark pushed notes into Julie's hand. She stood at the entrance to casualty as Carl disappeared inside, torn between him and Mark. Ambulances were honking at his obstructing van, so Mark turned away quickly.

As he drove away Mark kept the look on his mother's face in his mind. He'd seen it many times in the past. In the early days it was able to renew itself with the false hope he'd offered time and again, until it changed, became harder, until it no longer believed anything Mark said. That was how it looked now.

It took Mark an hour to get back to Julie's place, driving carefully, feeling every roadside camera on him. He left the van half a mile away and walked the rest of the way along the sea front, still smelling of last night's fire and glad of the air. Quite a few people were about, mainly old. He passed an elderly couple who smiled hesitantly at him. He nodded back, and realised he probably looked quite menacing in his unkempt clothes with the sack slung over his shoulder.

Mark needed to get some sleep and it would have to be in Julie's flat. Dangerous, but it all depended how much Angelo had communicated with his people. Mark's hunch was that they had come after him on their own initiative. They wanted a result, good news to present to Amsterdam, and he was too tired to look for anywhere else.

He let himself into the flat, dumped the rucksack by the door, and slumped down on the sofa. There was no message from Julie on the mobile. He thought of checking how Carl was but let it go. Best not to bother her now. He took out Angelo's notebook and began to thumb through it.

The phone woke Mark up, the notebook falling to the floor as he jumped.

‘I've been texting you for hours,' Julie said. ‘Why haven't you answered?'

‘Must have fallen asleep. What's the news on Carl?'

‘He went unconscious as soon as he was inside. They're operating on him. His head. Something about relieving the pressure on his brain. They said it's serious but they haven't told me much. I'm just the girlfriend, aren't I? They've been in touch with his ex, but she hasn't showed up yet. Perhaps she won't bother.'

‘Right.'

‘What are we going to do, Mark?'

‘Just sit tight, Mam. It's over, as far as you and Carl are concerned.'

‘You've already said that, and I didn't believe it then.'

‘Has anyone asked any awkward questions?'

‘Not really. We kept to the story. It was the last thing Carl said before he passed out, 'bout falling down those bloody stairs. If he doesn't make it, the last thing he said will be a lie.'

‘He will make it, Mam. Believe it.'

‘You'll be saying you will, next.'

‘I'll be doing my best.'

‘If Carl hadn't done what he did, they'd have killed us, wouldn't they?'

Mark didn't answer.

‘Wouldn't they, Mark?'

‘Probably.'

‘Probably!'

‘Okay, yes.'

‘You needed help, Mark, and you'll need it again. Didn't you make any good friends in London, anyone who could help. Hide you, even?'

‘Not really. You know me. Anyway, I've always been good at hiding myself.'

‘Aye, from a few idiots and half-arsed local cops. Not animals like these.'

‘Maybe the worst is over anyway. They couldn't have expected anything like this to happen. Could be they'll let it go, now.'

‘Mark, no more bullshit. My head's coming round now, I'm starting to go over what's happened today. Starting to really believe it happened.'

‘Look, Mam, however it pans out, I'll keep it away from you and Carl. I swear to you, and I'll be off in the morning.'

Julie was silent, but he could hear her rapid breathing.

‘I'll phone you before I go,' Mark said. ‘Stay in a hotel near the hospital for a few days. Use some of that money. They won't know about Carl or his place, I'm sure. Those two must have followed you from the flat, they'd know about that from Lena. They were working on their own, it wasn't orders. Trust me, just this one time, Mam.'

Julie turned her phone off quickly. Mark felt like she was turning
him
off, off and out of her life for good, and there was nothing he could do about it. Except maybe survive.

Mark looked around the flat. There were no photographs of Shane around. He checked her bedroom. None there either, but there was one of him and Julie, when he was about ten. He had a hard glint in his eyes even then, but she still looked hopeful. She was glad she'd had him, no matter how tough it was, that was what she used to say. As he grew older, the more he felt under pressure to make up for her lack of a steady partner, and the more pressure he felt, the more he fucked up.

Mark ran a bath, put some of the contents of Julie's bottles into it and sank down under the foam. It was still only Monday afternoon. Four days post-Lena that had lasted for ever. He needed to go over it all now, to force himself to work out a position. He'd been lucky so far, even if he might have got Julie's new man killed and freaked her out for good, it was still luck that he was alive, and four of them were down. He couldn't stop his mind making it into a scorecard. Four-two to him, maybe four-three if Carl didn't make it.

Maybe his instinct had been right all along with Lena. He wondered about that night she came onto him. He'd had good-looking women before but no one like her. Now he couldn't be sure if he'd ever really meant anything to her. Maybe she'd picked someone who was hiding from the past because that made her own life easier. No questions. No explanations. Mark had opened up more and more to her, daring to feel things he'd thought had been crushed out of him long ago. Mark didn't want to think she'd been faking. If only he could have got Tony to talk to him in Coventry, he might have had the sense to step back, even let it go. No, even if those bastards had forced his hand, he
was
fooling himself
.
The hurt and loss was too great. There had been nothing to fight back against when Shane was taken, this time there was plenty. All that had been in his head when he opened Agani's door was the need and desire to kill, he knew it now, and had to deal with it. Everything had been lightning fast. A weekend of killing, and maybe an end to it within days, not the drawn-out hell of waiting for news, like Shane. Mark just prayed that he was right about Angelo and his brother being the only ones who knew about Carl.

Shane was in his usual place. Somewhere deep underground, maybe an old mine shaft. Calling to him, his voice faint, tear-stained, and echoing off dripping walls, asking why he'd been left, asking endlessly until his cries dwindled to nothing. Then Lena was there, but her world was light, full of movement, she was on the catwalk, taking his picture in front of the Eiffel Tower, pulling him onto her on that king-sized bed. Shane and Lena were together now, Shane was holding her hand and taking her down.

As he awoke Mark shivered and his eyes burned with the bath salts. The water was barely warm, he turned on the hot tap but he'd used it all. He got out of the bath quickly. Black dog was a good name for depression and it was snapping at him now. He was cold to the bone and the nerve started up again. So much had gone on this day it had been pushed away, but it was there again now. The headache wouldn't be far behind.

Mark found a towelling robe that must have been Carl's, for it fitted, and made himself coffee. He poured what was left of his cheap whisky into it. He should eat, but couldn't face it, so he sat in a chair by the window with the drink, and Angelo's notebook. There was a trace of Julie's perfume on the robe, better quality than the stuff she used to use. It summed up her recent life, a stab at something better, which might have worked.

There was still some light in the sky, and the Bristol Channel was just visible from Julie's window, a sluggish grey-silver in the autumn light, an enlarged version of the smudge he'd seen from his hilltops.

Mark thumbed through the book. Agani's name was here, and Tony's, Lena's and many others that meant nothing to Mark. Their London address was next to Lena's name, and their phone numbers, including his mobile. There were lots of notes in Albanian and figures that were probably sums of money. He was surprised that this was Angelo's writing. It was very neat and small, almost girlish. There seemed to be a whole section on Amsterdam, names he couldn't pronounce, but he found what he was looking for.
Stellachi
.
Angelo had even underlined the name for him. A few others were grouped with it
,
and the name of a club.
SexLand
. At least this was in English. International language, international activity. Underneath this were a list of addresses.

Mark had been abroad twice. Paris with Lena, Amsterdam on a job. He'd been asked to find a Brit hiding there. An accountant who'd gotten greedy and legged it with a fair bit of his company's cash. The agency was onto a good payout if Mark brought him back. He did, without too much trouble. That man had almost faded from his memory but Mark remembered where he'd been holed up. A squalid hotel overlooking the girls in windows, people pushing crack on corners, and as good an assortment of multi-racial lowlife as you could ever invent, milling around alongside dark canals, waterways that looked like they didn't want to be there. It hadn't seemed so bad in the night, when he'd first hit town, darkness was always good for covering up crap, but when he'd followed that man in daylight, it was different. Neon club lights looked pathetic in the grey November light, women his mother's age looking expectantly through the glass at would-be punters, like animals bored stiff in a zoo; middle-aged tourists checking out peep shows on pavements, Japs and fat Yanks gathered in excited groups, pointing fingers, and giggling like girls. Stuff Mark would have laughed at once, but at twenty-nine it made him feel pissed-off. Even as a kid, porn had bored him. He'd preferred to live it himself. The man he was after was middle aged and nervous, had a complexion like uncooked sausage, and most of his new life lay under his bed in fifty-quid notes.
Proctor
, Mark suddenly remembered the man's name. When Mark turned up, Proctor was docile and obedient, becoming once again the man he'd always been, before that one rush of blood, frightened at what he'd done, and the raw life on the street outside. Mark thought he might have even been glad he'd been found. It was the only attempt to break out the poor bastard had ever made in his life, but at least he had tried something. Mark almost let him go.

Julie had a chair that you could kick back and rest your feet on another section that sprang up. Mark took advantage of it as he made his plans to be on the ferry by tomorrow evening.

*

‘Must have been a hell of a flight of stairs.'

‘How do you mean?'

The doctor was tall, as tall as Mark, but much better groomed, and safe. That was the thing about hospitals, Julie realised. Even if they dealt with death and sometimes were a lie, they still
felt
safe. The world outside was somewhere else and always would be.

‘Well, Mr Phillips has a serious head injury, a few broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder. He's gone up for a scan to his head now. We'll have a better idea of the damage then. You just found him in the house, you say?'