DEATHLOOP (43 page)

“Leave me alone, Zack, just leave me alone.”

“I’ll come back later.”

“No, I don’t want you to, don’t come back at all.”

Brian Smith was surprised to see Zack Fortune diving into the station and this time of his own accord. He hoped some kind of confession would be forthcoming although he doubted it. He deliberately took more time than he needed to, making the bastard wait. Finally, the charge desk as tidy as he could make it, he picked up a mug with the slogan ‘Sex Maniac’ on its side and padded over.

“Yes? Can I help you?” he said, as if the likelihood was extremely remote.

“I’d like a word, if that’s okay.”

Brian took him to the pokiest room on the premises, looking more like a store cupboard for incendiary chemicals than anything else. They stood across from each other, warily.

“I think it was Susan Wilmot who attacked Veronica.”

Brian looked thrown. “What makes you say that?” he said, as though the idea was absurdly left field, but for the moment anyway he was prepared to run with it. “Did Miss French tell you this, because she has made no such allegation to us.”

“She’s still confused, but suddenly she knows about the rape allegation and Susan is the only person who could have told her, unless you did.”

Brian pondered for a moment. “Getting her own back, eh?”

“She’s unstable, I told you that all along.”

“You do seem to attract them, don’t you?” said Brian.

“Well, yes,” said Zack, “lame ducks do seem to attach themselves to me for some strange reason.”

“I wonder why that is?” said Brian, evenly, with a swift, sickly smile.

“That’s it, that’s all I’ve come to say. But if it was Susan, then there’s no telling what she might do next. From what I can gather, Veronica is very lucky to be alive.”

There was only one person Zack wanted to be with and that was Sam, so within an hour of his conversation with Brian Smith, he had installed himself in his hospital room with newspapers, magazines, a packet of fig rolls, a box of chocolates and a bunch of grapes, making Sam laugh as he emptied the bag of supplies on his bed.

“You moving in then?”

“Sounds good to me, room for one more in that bed?” said Zack, not entirely flippantly.

“What’s up, doc?”

“Oh God, Sam, you really don’t want to know.” But of course Sam did want to know, and so Zack set about telling him.

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” said Sam, “would you?”

“
Him
? Who’s him?”

“Susan of course…”

“Not
him
Sam,
her
…”

“Bugger,” said Sam, “but I’m getting better, aren’t I? Please tell me that the language is getting better.”

“You’re doing brilliant, mate,” said Zack, “anyway, despite Tracy warning me not to go anywhere near, I went to see our Miss Wilmot.”

“
You twit
,” said Sam, “you moron.”

“I know, don’t you start.”

“And?”

“I’d always thought her devoid of guile, unaware…”

“Dim you mean?”

“Okay, maybe that, too, but suddenly she seemed anything but.”

“Attempted murder now?” said Sam, shaking his head, “where do you
find
these women?”

“Plus of course, we don’t know what she’s plotting next.”

Zack grabbed a couple of chocolates and set about devouring them.

“Why do you do that? I’ve often wondered.”

“Why do I do what?”

“Word is that chocolates are different flavours, mate, but you stuff two into your gob at once.”

“Well I’m sure psychiatrists would have some elaborate theory but it’s pretty typical isn’t it? Everything to excess, I’m surprised you had to ask.”

“Silly me, yes of course…”

“I stayed at your place last night, did Clarissa tell you?”

Sam looked surprised. “No, she didn’t.”

“My flat was my sanctuary at one time but I think I’d find it very difficult to go back there right now.”

Sam shrugged. “You don’t have to go back there, stay with the lady wife for the time being, she’ll look after you.” It was a fleeting look that Zack shot him, but Sam was onto it straight away. “What now?”

Zack faltered, looking reluctant suddenly to be drawn. “You’re okay, aren’t you, Sam, you and Clarissa?”

Sam took his time, and despite close scrutiny, Zack was unable to predict what was coming next.

“Yes, well… we are now.”

“Was it me? Did I cause all the trouble?”

“Probably, usually it is you… in fact now I come to think of it, it’s always bloody well you.”

“Don’t do it again, will you, you bastard little goblin?”

“Do what again?”

“Let me think I’m losing you.”

“Okey dokey, mate,” said Sam with a self-satisfied grin, “okey dokey.”

They didn’t talk much after that, just skimmed the papers, watched TV, ate, drank, snoozed. A nurse threw Zack out at 9 pm.

On the way back to Baker Street, Zack thought long and hard about Veronica. Sam had told him to take her threats with a pinch of salt, that she must still be in shock, that she was understandably super-sensitive right now. But Zack wasn’t so sure. Veronica was a black and white sort of person, she didn’t do grey, so her disappointment and her complaints at being excluded from his life didn’t surprise him one bit when he thought about it.

Trust had reared its ugly head before with girlfriends, and for good reason. Zack had come to the conclusion eons ago that he had a pathological distrust of all women whatever guise they came in, Veronica included. Was this the holding back that Barbara Quinn had talked of? The get out of jail free card that he kept sticking out of his top pocket? It didn’t take much analysis to work out why. The only female figure of any influence in his life had been his mother, who he realised pretty early on was not to be trusted with a quarter of mint humbugs. It would probably require a great deal of patience from Veronica or any woman for that matter to cut a swathe through the dense bracken of suspicion he had cultivated around himself, and why should they bother? They’d only fail in the long run after all.

Obviously Veronica needed to recuperate. A slanging match concerning unstable women and accusations of rape would hardly be conducive to the healing process, so Zack thought it best to leave her in peace for a while. Miriam and some other faceless members of her family would hold the fort until her parents arrived from Canada, and would probably prefer to do it without his help anyway. He would send flowers and notes and cards, all the stuff he knew women liked, but he would stay away until she was better able to deal with him. He was looking forward to an evening at home with Clarissa, who would provide the security and the non judgemental support he needed at the moment, plus… Clarissa could cook a mean beef goulash into the bargain.

Susan was in a state of high anxiety and had been for days. Each time she heard the bell sound round the house, alerting people from other flats that someone was on the step and requiring access, she tensed, thinking they had made a mistake and that this person was in fact, coming for her.

She had done this for as long as she could remember, brooded on something so much, worked out a plan of action, but ended up regretting that plan of action almost as soon as she had carried it out. She shouldn’t have attacked Veronica, but when she started threatening the police, it had just got out of hand. Susan really wanted to warn Veronica about the kind of person Zack was, at least she liked to think that now, but Susan had to admit she wasn’t sure if that was originally her intention.

Sometimes Susan thought she should get out more and meet people, men especially, not just ones that stopped her in the street. She liked the man downstairs, Jacob, although Zack had warned her that he had mental health issues just because he collected plastic carrier bags. Susan thought it was more likely to be some kind of ecology initiative but Zack burst out laughing when she’d suggested it, saying he didn’t think so.

Recently, she’d started pushing little notes under his door, asking if he’d like to come up for coffee sometime, but he hadn’t responded. She’d knocked occasionally, every week or so since she’d first moved in, just to be friendly. She would always hear him in his hallway, rummaging around amongst the plastic so she knew he was in there, but he never opened up, not once. Zack had told her that he was probably too busy counting his carrier bags which he seemed to think extremely funny for some reason.

Susan realised she had to forget Zack Fortune. If he found out what had happened he would hate her. Susan could only hope that the accident had caused Veronica memory loss and confusion, and there was also a distinct possibility that hitting her head on the stairs like she did might just render Veronica incapable of saying anything much at all. Susan didn’t think she would cope too well in prison, and yet here she was, (or here she had been), embarking on a course of action that would probably result in her ending up in one. Maybe she had gone a little mad following the end of her affair with Zack, maybe she should see someone.

Susan’s friend Hannah had said that the best revenge for being dumped was to live well but Susan couldn’t get her head round that at all. What was the point of living well if the person wasn’t around to see it? How would he know she was living well on the other side of town operating in a completely different social circle? Was the idea to send a report every week or so just to keep him up to speed? Really, that girl!

Ever since Darren had walked out on her following the “
Claire’s Knee
” fiasco, Hannah had read every book she could lay her hands on. Susan liked books too, but she wasn’t obsessive about it. She knew Keats off by heart, but she could be excused for that, because Keats was the most famous of the romantic poets and everyone acknowledged the fact that familiarity with his texts was essential for educational and emotional development, but Hannah even read war stories and psychology tracts and cookery books, in fact anything she could find for ten pence down at Helping Hands on the High Street. Then she would phone Susan up and lecture her on information gleaned.

Susan liked Hannah, but her advice regarding her private life she felt was deeply flawed. After all, Hannah was convinced ‘
Jules et Jim
’ had been responsible for the breakdown of her relationship with Zack, just like ‘
Claire’s Knee
’ had been the tipping point with Darren, but Zack had seemed genuinely amused at the idea, so clearly Hannah had got the wrong end of the stick there.

Susan was in the hallway listening outside Jacob’s door when she heard squealing tyres racing up outside. There seemed to be quite a few cars there now, and people were collecting on the pavement and the porch, finally there was loud knocking at the front door. A policeman leant forward with his hand shielding the sun’s reflection, staring through the leaded glass and tapping his knuckle against it. He shouted Susan’s name and told her to open up. Fleetingly, she thought about running back upstairs and trying to make her way out onto the flat roof but how far would she have got? She could do this if she kept her wits about her, after all, she had got herself out of worse scrapes in the past, so Susan took a moment to compose herself, then went to open up the door.

The duty solicitor that had been wheeled in to represent Susan’s interests did not impress her one bit. He was much too old and seedy for Susan’s liking. Everyone knew that duty solicitors were either wildly idealistic or just not very good, and Susan decided Maurice Pitts fell into the latter category. He looked across at her from time to time as though she were lucky to have him. On the contrary, she wanted to say, he was lucky to have her, someone who could stop all this unnecessary intrusion into her private life without recourse to this man’s lack lustre legal acumen. Susan was quite confident she could sort all this out for herself.

Susan had asked for Tracy Bright to represent her, but the request had been refused for some reason. Brian Smith said there would have been a ‘conflict of interest’. Susan asked reasonably enough how the truth could ever be conflicted, but it looked like old Brian couldn’t even be bothered to reply. Susan had been a little disappointed to note that Brian Smith seemed to be suspicious of her this time round. She had only spoken to him once before, not long after her sessions with the rape squad, and then briefly, but she got the impression that he was very much on her side. Now he seemed aloof, hostile almost.

Susan professed to know nothing about any accident, and asked him to fill her in. She made all the right noises, expressing concern for Veronica and saying that she had simply gone round there to warn her about Zack. She explained that Veronica rushing off like that for no reason took her completely by surprise. When she realised she had gone, she simply called the lift and went on her way. The idea that she was in any way responsible for Veronica’s accident or her injuries was absurd. She was a pacifist anyway, she told Brian, she followed the teachings of Buddha, and violence was expressly forbidden. In fact, there was a large mouse in her studio apartment in Stoke Newington but because of her religious beliefs she couldn’t kill it. If she was unable to do away with a mouse, pushing someone down stairs would be completely out of character. Susan said that she felt very sorry for Veronica, but of course the fall had nothing to do with her.

There were moments when she felt Brian Smith believed her, but there were other moments when she got the impression that he thought he was in the presence of a mad woman. He scoured her face when she spoke for signs of deceit and she watched him do it, but Susan was good at all that, maintaining eye contact, not allowing her eyelids to blink too rapidly and remaining unruffled.

Susan had read somewhere years ago that the thing that did for most criminals was inconsistency, the common perception being that lies are forgotten and truths remembered. Susan became interested in this notion, and one of the reasons she decided to learn The Complete Works of John Keats off by heart was to train herself to recall information at will. Therefore, it was the cause of huge regret to Susan that the cops had cottoned on to her real name, and consequently a couple of unfortunate incidents in her past. This was one of the reasons they gave for dropping her allegations against Zack, but she consoled herself that her sloppiness in that department was a lesson well learned and it certainly wouldn’t happen again. Susan would make damn sure of that.