The Calling

CHAPTER 2

Luther walks through the red door before 6 a.m.

Zoe’s already up. She’s in the kitchen making coffee, bed-headed and lovely in silk pyjamas. She smells of sleep and home and that scent behind her ears, the scent of her skin.

She takes a carton of orange juice from the fridge, pours herself a glass. ‘So did you tell her?’

‘Babe,’ he says, taking off his coat. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t get the chance.’

She drinks almost a whole glass of juice, then wipes her mouth with the back of a hand. ‘What does that mean, exactly?’

Luther nods at the floor. It’s his tell, a signal that he’s lying. He knows it. He says, ‘It’s just, the timing was wrong.’

‘The timing’s always wrong.’ She puts the juice back in the fridge. Then she crosses her arms, silently counts down from five. ‘Do you actually want to do this?’

‘I do,’ he says. ‘I absolutely do.’

‘Because you look like death, John. You actually look ill. When’s the last time you slept?’

He doesn’t know. But he knows his mind’s not right. At night his skull cracks open and spiders crawl inside.

‘When’s the last time you did anything,’ she says, ‘except work?’

Zoe’s a lawyer, specializing in human rights and immigration. She earns good money; they’ve got a nice Victorian house with a red door. A little shabby inside. Scuffed skirting. 1970s heating. No kids. Lots of books.

She turned to him in bed one morning, propped her head on the heel of her hand, her hair mussy and chaotic. Winter rain peppered like gravel against the window. The central heating was on the fritz: they’d slept in their socks. It was too cold to get out of bed.

She said, ‘Sod it. Let’s go somewhere.’

He said, ‘Go where?’

‘I don’t know. Anywhere. Wherever. When did we last have a holiday?’

‘We went on that boat thing.’

He was referring to a holiday they’d taken with Zoe’s colleague and her husband. Photographs showed four smiling people propped near the rudder of a barge, raising wine glasses. But it had been a disaster: Luther alienated and withdrawn, Zoe brittle and blithely make-do.

Luther said, ‘That can’t have been the last holiday.’

‘Where then? Where have we been?’

He didn’t know.

‘We made all these promises to each other,’ Zoe said, ending his silence. ‘About how it would be. We’d travel. We’d spend time together. So how come none of it happened?’

He lay on his back and listened to the icy rain. Then he turned, propping himself up on an elbow. He said, ‘Are you happy?’

‘Not really, no. Are you?’

His heart hammered in his chest.

‘We go days and days,’ she said. ‘We hardly speak. I just want to see a bit more of you. I want it to actually be like we’re married.’

‘Me, too,’ he said. ‘But look — if our biggest problem is that we’d like to spend more time together then, well… that’s not so bad, is it? Not when you look at other people.’

She shrugged.

Luther loves his wife. She’s the straw at which he clutches. It mystifies him that he needs to tell her this. When he tries, she gets embarrassed: she laughs and makes a humorously appalled face.

Propped up in bed on that cold morning, he banished thoughts of the dead kid and said, ‘So what are you thinking?’

‘We take a year off,’ she said. ‘Rent out the house to cover the mortgage.’

‘I don’t want strangers living in my house.’

She batted his upper arm, impatiently. ‘Let me finish? Can I at least finish?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Well, actually there’s not much more to say. We just, we pack and we travel.’

‘Where?’

‘Anywhere. Where do you want to go?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘There must be somewhere.’

‘Antarctica.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Let’s go to Antarctica. You can fly there from South America or New Zealand. I don’t even think it costs that much. Not really. Not in the scheme of things.’

‘Can you actually do that?’

‘Apparently.’

He sat up, scratched his head, suddenly taken with the idea. ‘I’ve always fancied New Zealand,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why.’

‘Turkey’s on my list,’ she said. ‘Turkey’s good. Let’s do Turkey.’

‘I’m not big on beaches.’

He didn’t like to sit in the sun, having people nose at what he was reading.

‘You can read in the hotel,’ she said. ‘We could meet for lunch. Have a siesta. Make love. Theatre in the evening.’

‘You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?’

‘Yep. We’d need to update your passport.’

‘Do we?’

‘It ran out.’

‘Seriously? When?’

‘Two and a half years ago.’

He rubbed his head. ‘All right. Fuck it. Let’s do it.’

She laughed and hugged him and they made love like they were already on holiday.

That was nearly a year ago.

Now he’s standing exhausted in the kitchen at just gone six in the morning, dazed by lack of sleep, placing two bowls of muesli on the breakfast bar; a late night snack for him, breakfast for her. He says, ‘I was going to ask her today.’

He means his boss, Detective Superintendent Teller.

Zoe makes a mouth with her fingers and thumb: yada yada yada. Heard it before.

Luther picks up a bowl of muesli, turns his back to her, shovels cereal into his mouth. ‘The thing is, Ian got hurt.’

He allows her a moment. Ashamed of himself.

‘Oh, God,’ she says. ‘How bad?’

‘Not too bad. I picked him up from A and E, took him home.’

‘What happened?’

‘He was cornered somewhere. We’re not sure by who. But they gave him a pretty good kicking. So we’re a detective down.’

‘Okay,’ she says, relieved that Ian’s all right. ‘But that doesn’t mean you can’t tell her, does it? Whatever happens, she’ll need a few weeks to arrange cover for you. You know that. Ian being in hospital is not an excuse.’

‘No,’ he says. ‘It’s not. You’re right.’

‘So tell her?’

‘I will.’

‘Seriously,’ she says. ‘Tell her.’

She’s imploring him. But it’s not about the holiday. It’s about something else.

Zoe sometimes has flashes of what she believes to be psychic insights. Many involve him. Two nights ago, she cried out in her sleep. ‘Marked!’ she said.

He’d meant to ask what that meant. What was marked? What had she been seeing in that secret time behind her eyes?

He says, ‘I will. I’ll ask her. I promise.’

‘Or else, John,’ she says. ‘Seriously.’

‘Or else what?’

‘You can’t go on like this,’ she says. ‘You just can’t.’

He knows she’s right.

He’s trudging upstairs to the shower when his phone rings. He checks out the caller display: Teller, Rose.

He answers, listens.

Tells her he’ll be there as soon as he can. Then he washes his face, brushes his teeth, puts on a clean shirt. He kisses his wife.

‘I’ll ask her today,’ he says, meaning it. ‘I’ll ask her this morning.’

Then he heads out to the crime scene.