Ash and Bone

2

Maddy stood on the cobbled stones outside, drivers slowing down to gawk through misted windows as they passed. The rain fell in thin, seamless lines, giving the road a dull sheen. She didn't smoke, never really had, but there seemed to be a cigarette in her hand.

Without her hearing him approach, Mallory was at her side.

'You okay?'

'Yes, I think so.'

'Holding up, that's good, that's good.'

Maddy opened her fingers and watched the cigarette fall to the ground.

'You'll be coming with us for a drink. Later. A wee celebration.'

'I don't know.'

'It's expected.' His fingers grazed her arm. 'No need to stay long. Show your face. That's all.'

She stared at him, not knowing what to say. The hair on his head was iron grey, matted down by the rain.

'That's settled then.' With a brief smile, he turned and walked away.

Behind them, the business of recording and cleaning up went on. Grant's girlfriend was sitting in the back seat of a police car with one of the officers, someone's topcoat round her shoulders, tea from a thermos in both hands. An ambulance stood waiting to take Grant's body to the mortuary, once the preliminary examinations had been carried out. Paul Draper was in one of the intensive care wards at UCH, fighting for his life. A celebration, Maddy thought…

The club was on Gray's Inn Road, the far side of King's Cross, the function room on the first floor. A shield bearing the coat of arms of St David was on the wall above the long bar, Van Morrison and Rod Stewart rasping alternately through the speakers at either end, barely holding their own against the noise. Forty or fifty people and, for the next hour or so, free booze.

Two of the snooker tables had been covered over and were already crowded with discarded glasses, large and small. At the third table Maurice Repton stood repetitiously chalking his cue, watching as the young Asian DC he was playing potted the last red and lined up the pink. He saw Maddy glance in his direction and acknowledged her with a nod.

'Buy you a drink?' The SO19 officer from the Transit, ginger moustache, was alongside her, smiling hopefully.

'I thought the boss had put his card behind the bar.'

'So he has. Stupid really, something to say.'

Maddy said nothing and hoped he'd go away.

'Graeme Loftus,' he said, holding out his hand.

'Maddy Birch.'

Loftus made a signal towards the barman and pushed an empty pint glass in his direction.

'You?'

Maddy shook her head.

'In the thick of it, what I hear.'

'You could say that.'

'Lucky bastard.'

'You think so?'

Loftus lifted his fresh pint, spilling beer down the back of his hand. 'Never got a look-in where we were.'

'Ask Paul Draper where he'd rather've been,' Maddy said. 'Ask his wife.'

'Paul…? Oh, yes, him. Poor sod. Still hanging on, isn't he?'

'Last I heard.'

'Look,' Loftus said, 'when we're through here, you wouldn't fancy…'

'No,' Maddy said.

'Okay, suit yourself.' There was an edge to Loftus's voice as he turned and shouldered his way back into the fray.

Standing a little apart, George Mallory seemed to be warming up to make a speech, his voice, now and again, sawing through the general cacophony of sound.

Whenever Maddy closed her eyes, she saw Grant's head imploding like a bloodied rose. She drained her glass and headed for the stairs.

Repton was just exiting the Gents, still zipping up his fly.

'Not going?'

'No,' she lied.

'Good. Come and have a drink with me.' Taking her by the elbow, he steered her back towards the bar.' What'll it be?'

'Tonic water'll be fine.'

'Gin and tonic for the lady,' Repton called. 'Scotch for me.'

Maddy knew better than to protest.

Five or so years younger than Mallory, slightly built, Repton was wearing a grey suit with a faint stripe, a dark blue tie with silver fleur-de-lis. His fingernails looked to have been trimmed and buffed. Dapper, was that the word? Once upon a time it probably was.

Repton downed his whisky at a single swallow. 'There,' he said, 'that's my bit for race relations. Letting one of our brown-skinned brethren get the better of me, eighty-seven points to thirteen.' He winked. 'Hubris. The Atkins diet of the soul. And you. No after-effects from this morning, I see. Still looking like the proverbial million, give or take.'

Maddy had deliberately chosen a green cord skirt that was full and finished well below the knee, a loose cotton top the colour of cold porridge, American Tan tights and shoes with a low heel. 'I look like shit,' she said.

'Young Loftus didn't seem to think so. Practically coming in his pants just standing next to you.'

Colour flared in Maddy's cheeks.

'Sorry,' Repton said. 'Nothing out of line, I trust. Not going to haul me up before some board or other? Sexual fucking harassment.' He winked again. 'Load of bollocks, don't you think? Empirically speaking.'

'I've heard worse, sir,' Maddy said.

'I'm pleased to hear it.'

Maddy sipped her drink.

'Oh, oh,' Repton said, nudging her arm. 'Here comes George's speech.' He gave her flesh a generous squeeze. 'Mentioned in dispatches, I'd not be surprised.'

She left as soon as she possibly could, pulling the need-the-Ladies trick and grabbing her coat from the pile in the cloakroom below; a brisk stride to King's Cross and then the Northern Line to Archway. She could walk from there in ten minutes or less.

When she'd first transferred down from Lincoln, three years ago now, she'd stayed in a hostel: forever taking other women's hair out of the bath; listening to their war stories in the corridors, Saturday nights when they'd been out on the pull; cleaning them up after they'd been sick in the sink, wiping their sorry faces and listening to their woes. Everyone's favourite auntie.

As soon as she could she'd moved out, rented a room and looked around for something to buy, something she could afford. She'd been lucky to get the flat when she did, prices about to take a hike and families with young kids starting to colonise what had previously been the province of single mums on social security, economic migrants, labourers sharing three to a room and old jossers who'd been there long enough to remember the Blitz.

Compared to what she'd had in Lincoln, a new-build maisonette just a bus ride from the city centre, it wasn't much. Three rooms and a bathroom on the ground floor, the kitchen no bigger than a cupboard; French windows leading out to the strip of garden she shared with the people upstairs. Whoever had lived there before had had a love affair with red paint; when she woke up in the mornings it vibrated behind her eyes.

Gradually, when her shifts didn't leave her too knackered, she brought the place into line, made it feel more her own. Two lots of undercoat in both bedroom and living room and then a quiet pale green on top. Doing the same to the kitchen would have meant taking down too many shelves and she resorted to covering as much as she could with postcards and old photographs. Those sunflowers in garish reproduction; the village outside Louth where her parents used to live.

Coming in this evening she threw her coat down on the bed, kicked off her shoes, and wandered into the living room, flicking through the TV channels before switching off again. She'd missed the news.

She thought she'd make a cup of tea.

Waiting for the kettle to boil, she phoned the hospital where they'd taken Paul Draper.

'Are you a relative?'

'A colleague. I was with him when…'

'I'm sorry. We can only pass on information to the immediate family.'

What the hell did that mean? Maddy wondered. Did it mean he was still in the middle of some bloody operation? Did it mean he was dead?

She took her tea back into the living room and, without switching on the light, sat, legs curled up beneath her, on the settee she'd bought from an auction room near the Angel.

The look on Graeme Loftus's face came back to her, the scarcely veiled anger in his voice when she'd turned him down; Maurice Repton's fingers hard and quick against her arm. Was there ever a situation, she thought, when men, most men, didn't feel it their right to test the waters, chat the chat, rub up against you like a dog sniffing for a bitch on heat.

Tired, she closed her eyes and when she did so she saw Grant in the converted warehouse, scrambling to his feet.

'Fucking bitch!'

As he moves towards her, his hands… what are his hands doing?… the left one reaching out towards her, fingers spread, the right… where is the right?… is it curving low, low and out of sight, reaching for something perhaps…?

The gun in Mallory's hand fires twice, the barest of intervals between, and when she opens her eyes again, Grant is no more.

The pistol on the floor. A Derringer, no bigger than the span of a man's hand: a weapon that, once upon a time, was only seen in Western movies on rainy Sunday afternoons, emerging from the sleeve of some two-bit gambler caught dealing from a crooked deck.

Now you see it, now you don't.

Maddy shivered.

Her tea was cold.

Setting it down, she glanced towards the French windows and, for an instant, behind the faint reflection of her own face, something moved.

Maddy froze.

Two seconds, maybe four, no more. Swift to her feet, she turned the key in the door, slipped back both bolts and stepped outside. Leaves from next door's fruitless pear tree were sprinkled on the grass. Shrubs and faded flowers in the borders to each side. At the garden end a thick mesh of buddleia, interspersed with holly, stood head high and dark, enough of a breeze to turn the spear-shaped leaves.

Maddy stood quite still.

Other than the sounds of the city shifting about her nothing stirred.

Her heart slowed to a normal beat.

That's all it had been, then, only something moving in the wind.

Back inside, she locked the door, drew the curtains, went carefully to bed.