The Salt Marsh (26 page)

‘I can look after myself,' she said.

The damp cobbles were slippery underfoot. A sleek black cat trotted past with a luscious dead pigeon in its mouth.

‘It's dangerous being a pigeon in this city,' he said. ‘Deadly enemies round every corner.'

She ignored him.

‘You have to be sharp if you're a pigeon. You can't afford to give anybody the benefit of the doubt in this town. You might as well hand them a loaded gun.'

He was the one with the loaded gun. She shuddered, became conscious of the Firebird pressing her stomach. She touched it through her tee shirt, felt the shape of the grip. She stopped walking, thought for a moment, and then she said, ‘I took the Firebird.'

He nodded. ‘That's fine. I want you to have it.'

‘I want you to show me how to use it.'

*

The sky cleared as they drove east along the river through Rotherhithe to Deptford's borders. They found a derelict warehouse on the waterfront; a disoriented seagull flitting between the ceiling pipes, moonlight falling through missing roof panels. She removed the Firebird from the belt of her trousers, tested it in her hand, the feel of the grip, the tension of the safety catch.

‘Speed is the most important thing,' Sonny said. ‘Don't hesitate. Hold the grip in both hands. Extend your arms out front. Like this.' He moved behind her, wrapped his arms round hers, held her hands in his, warm breath on her neck; the smell of sweat engulfed her. She twisted round to say something, found herself pulled right in to him, face to face.

He said, ‘It helps to keep an eye on what you're trying to shoot.'

She turned away again, unnerved by how easily he had drawn her in, how vulnerable she would be if he turned on her. She concentrated on the Firebird, determined to learn how to use it well.

THIRTEEN

T
HE FAMILIAR WHISTLE
floated on the air outside her bedroom window. She pulled on her clothes, careered down the stairs, through the front door and sprinted to the main road. The early-morning street was empty apart from a bin truck and a solitary figure, striding away under the railway arches, his swagger instantly recognizable.

She shouted after him. ‘Jim.'

He didn't react. She pelted along the pavement, past the Vauxhall Tavern, under the railway, across the Albert Embankment, to the Thames. A trail of dark footprints marked the foreshore. She followed the tracks, across the mud, along the concrete channel of the Effra run-off to the sluice gate, pulled the torch from her pocket and directed its beam through the chink between iron and brick. A shadow grew and slid along the tunnel wall.

‘Jim.'

No answer. She stared at the footprints in the sludge, heading under the sluice and into the tunnel – as if the gate had magically lifted for the trail-maker. She bent and traced the shoe marks with her finger, felt the indentations, uncertain whether she could trust her perceptions. Waking dream. She squatted there for a while, arms wrapped around her knees, seat of trousers hovering above the outflow, and stared at the sluice gate. Eventually the Effra's bilge forced her to stand.

*

She jumped down from the chute, traipsed across the grey sand to the embankment. At the top of the ramp she stooped, eased the bellarmine from its hiding place, tipped the bottle and allowed the felt heart to fall into her cupped palm. Rainwater had dribbled inside. The dressmaker's pins were leaching rust into the fabric heart. The bark was soft. She squished the woody slither between her fingers; it disintegrated. If she wasn't sure before, she knew it now: she had broken the bottle's seal, upended its contents, flipped the counter-curse and reversed its power through her own stupidity. The dark forces were against her. She replaced the fetishes in the vase and stored it neatly in its hiding place, stood back and surveyed the river. The ancient jetty posts were visible above the low water, blackened and eroded by time and the tides. She didn't care who or what was against her, she was going to find Luke anyway.

*

She crossed the well-trodden ground of the old Vauxhall pleasure gardens and examined the leads in her head. Spyder was dead. That left the cryptic note from Dave – 55 pluto – P. Grogan's number that nobody was answering and the objects she had collected from Bane House – the clenched fist feminist badge and the matchbook from Heaven. The nightclub was a long shot, but worth a try. Nothing to lose, although she wasn't sure how she would sell the idea to Sonny. She reached her front door, rummaged in her coat pocket, fingers touching scraps of paper, penknife, torch, Rizlas, everything but the bloody key, and as she fumbled she heard Sonny's voice coming from the hall; a phone conversation.

‘I keep telling you, you've got to give me a chance. It's not easy, ja. You've got to hold off. I need more time.'

She stood hand in pocket, mind on red alert. Who was he talking to? He needed more time to do what exactly? She located the key, gripped and twisted it in the lock, heart pounding, slammed the door open. Sonny had retreated to the kitchen.

‘Do you want some scrambled egg?' he asked as she entered, unperturbed by her frosty glare. He cracked and whisked the eggs with a fork, tipped the yellow gloop into a saucepan.

‘You were talking to somebody on my phone.'

He glanced up from the pan. ‘Sorry. I should have asked. I'll give you some coins for the call. I had some unfinished business I needed to sort.'

‘What business was that then?'

He reached for the salt pot. ‘Nothing. The usual.'

‘The usual?'

He tipped the pot, shook it. ‘You know.'

‘No, I don't know. Tell me.'

‘Drugs. The toot you threw out the van window, I bought it on tick, and I was just calling the dealer to let him know I'm going to give him the cash in a couple of days. The thing is, he lives at the far end of north London, and I can't be bothered to make the trip up there right now.'

He went to the oven, ignited the gas. She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Why was she prepared to believe him? Was it because she, the undercover cop's daughter, was so used to turning a blind eye to what her father was doing she had lost the faculty of clear-sightedness or was it because she needed him on her side? He stirred the eggs, concentrated on the curds forming in the bottom of the pan.

She asked, ‘Will you help me with something?'

‘Sure.'

‘I want to find the person I saw the night before Dave died, hanging around Bane House, that old smuggler's place out on the saltmarsh.'

‘Why do you want to do that?' He lifted the pan from the flame, continued beating.

‘I haven't got much else to go on. There has to be some connection between this person at Bane House and Dave's death. And there's obviously a connection between Dave's death and Luke's disappearance. If I can trace the person from Bane House, maybe I can find a lead to Luke.'

‘Sure, but even if those connections exist, how are you going to find this person?'

‘Well, I think it's a woman. I saw the figure in the distance so maybe I was mistaken. But they dropped this feminist badge.' She pointed to the clenched fist pinned to her coat.

‘It doesn't prove anything.'

‘I realize that. It's a hunch.'

‘And knowing this person is a woman hardly helps you locate her.'

‘I also found a book of matches from Heaven.'

‘You mean the gay nightclub?'

‘Yes.'

He opened a cupboard, grabbed two plates.

‘Look, it's a long shot. But there's only one mixed night a week, and I've been to it a couple of times – I know one of the bouncers – and not many women go. I reckon, if we went along, I could pick her out in the crowd if she was there.'

‘Do you want some scrambled egg?'

She nodded. ‘We could go tonight.'

He dolloped the egg on the plates, butter-yellow. ‘That really is a long shot.'

‘I know. We could have a dance if she doesn't appear.'

*

They bought sandwiches from a deli on Old Compton Street and sat on the patchy grass of Soho Square. Sonny examined the Dictaphone she had purchased from Tottenham Court Road; it held a micro-cassette, exactly the same size as the one in her answering machine. The Dictaphone was small enough to carry in a jacket and powerful enough, according to the shop assistant, to pick up muffled voices against nightclub noise so long as you kept it in an outside pocket, microphone uppermost. The whistler's messages on her answering machine had sparked the idea of taking a Dictaphone along to Heaven. If they did locate the woman from Bane House, she reckoned one of them could try talking to her and record the conversation.

Sonny's scepticism was irritating her but, despite his doubts, he practised switching the machine on and off surreptitiously – a quick hand dip into his pocket as if he was searching for his Zippo – attracted by the mechanics of subterfuge. She watched the passers-by. Soho was changing. She had been on a Reclaim the Night march through Soho's backstreets a few years previously. Then the straggle of hard-core feminists protesting against porn and sexual violence had been met with dirty looks from the punters and bemused cat-calls from the strippers hanging out in the peep-show doors. Now the same peep-show joints were boarded and the kerb crawlers were young and attractive. Old Compton Street was cleaning up its act. Not the result of their protest, she suspected. The trendy cafés with their aluminium chairs and steaming Gaggias were pushing the sex industry out – along with all the bent cops who were getting backhanders from the porn business.

‘Wonder where the dirty money is these days,' she mused. She thought she was talking to herself.

Sonny replied, ‘Drugs.'

‘Drugs?'

He shrugged. She was sure he knew more than he was telling her.

*

Heaven was underneath the railway arches behind Charing Cross station at the end of a dingy street lined with overflowing rubbish bins, cardboard box homes and their bedraggled owners. The bouncer opened the doors and they were in a different world; a vast, strobe-lit, Jocelyn Brown throbbing space full of leather, dirty denim and sweating bodies. AIDS had taken the edge off the hedonism, but the club still had an air of contagious abandon. Sam relaxed in Heaven's atmosphere. Sonny moved awkwardly, shrinking into himself, trying to separate himself from his surroundings, unnerved by the come-on looks he was attracting perhaps. Or agitated by Sam's plans. They wandered smoky passages, past dancers in podium cages, across beer-sticky floors and found Frannie near the VIP bar, kitted out in black leather. She assessed Sonny through kohl-rimmed eyes. He glanced down at the floor.

Frannie's job was to patrol the bars and keep a check on excesses. She had a sharp eye and a sharper tongue, which was why Max the club manager employed her. He didn't give a toss that she was a woman working in a gay men's club. Neither did she. Sam knew Frannie through the West End nightclub worker fraternity. They had hit it off over a cryptic crossword puzzle.

‘Have you come for a dance?' Frannie shouted. It was difficult to make yourself heard over the thumping hi-energy beat.

Sam cupped her hand, yelled into Frannie's ear. ‘I'm looking for a woman.'

‘You've come to the wrong place.'

‘No. I'm looking for a particular woman and I think she's been here.'

‘What does she look like? I know most of the women who are regulars.'

‘Tall, thin, blackish hair, sort of spiky.'

Frannie narrowed her eyes, lit a fag, sucked hard, made its tip burn red.

‘I worry about you. You can be so bloody green sometimes. You're the kind of girl drug dealers pick up to use as a mule.'

‘I'm not that stupid.'

‘I hope not.'

‘Does that mean you think you've seen this woman?'

‘You didn't give me much to go on.' She blasted smoke jets from her nostrils. ‘Why don't you just go off and have a dance?' She glanced at Sonny. ‘With your new boyfriend.'

Sam reddened. ‘He's not my boyfriend.'

Frannie edged closer, whispered in her ear, ‘He looks all right to me.' She grabbed Sam's hand, slipped something into her palm, crushed her fingers around it.

‘Enjoy.' She gave Sonny another once-over, winked as she walked away. Sam opened her fist, found a brown glass bottle lying there,
Sniff Me
on its label.

‘Poppers. Amyl,' she said. ‘It's not illegal. You inhale. Like this.'

She unscrewed the lid, thumb over bottle top, up to her nose. Breathed deep. Her head exploded with the rush and intense, uncontrollable desire, her insides pouring out and taking over. Donna Summer ‘I Feel Love'. She yanked Sonny. She wanted to dance. He resisted. For a moment, she was struggling with him, tugging him closer, lost in the high, heart pounding with the music. And then she came crashing down, two-minute hit over. She realized what she was doing, let her arms flop to her side. His eyes were wet.

‘I don't like dancing,' he said.

‘Sorry.'

‘It doesn't matter.' He wiped his forehead with his sleeve. ‘I sometimes wish my life could be different. I'd like to erase the past and start again.'

‘There's always time to change. The past doesn't have to shape your future.'

He shook his head. ‘That's hippy bullshit. Some things can't be erased. Some events set the course for everything that comes afterwards.'

‘No. Not true.' She wasn't sure she meant it. She suspected he was right. She was still plummeting, hadn't bottomed out yet, didn't know what she was doing there dancing in this club because everything was pointless. She might as well give up, hand herself over to Crawford, confess her sins, whatever they were – make some up if necessary – she was probably too late to help Luke anyway. She had cursed Dave and Luke and everybody around her. She tugged on Sonny's sleeve, intending to pull him to the entrance, then through the strobe flash she saw a figure leaning against the wall – skinny, black crimped hair, pale powdered skin, ripped biker jacket and dull, dark eyes, vacant, purple-ringed. She could have been dead, a zombie. The woman lifted her arm to her face, dragged on a cigarette, her movements jerky in the white blasts of light, an actor in a silent horror movie.