“Jesus,” mutters Rowan. “There must have been an enquiry. I mean, that’s pretty damn suspicious …,”
“All a bit above my pay grade,” says Vicky. “We did have a staff meeting not long after where the owners told us the police weren’t looking for anybody. As far as they were concerned it was either a suicide or an accident and neither was going to lead them to a righting of a wrong so it was left well alone. His funeral was pretty. Barely a dry eye in the house. I just hope he’s at peace now.”
“Who told Eve?” asks Rowan.
Vicky shakes her head. “I didn’t have the pleasure. It was days after he died that I saw her and by then she had her hard face on. She was sorting through his things. I wanted to ask her what the goodbye note had said but it wasn’t really my place. Next thing was when she asked me whether I could do a bit of cleaning for her, just a couple of days a week. I’d quit the care home by then. Too many bad memories.”
Rowan rubs his gloved hand across his chin. He feels the stubble rasp against the soft leather. He glances up at the sound of a chair squeaking across the floor. Shipley and Robin are moving towards him, their body language speaking entirely in capital letters and exclamation marks.
“Where the hell would he get a pig mask?” asks Rowan, perplexed.
“I don’t know,” says Vicky, and it’s clear she’s wondered the same herself countless times. “It’s just such a horrid thing to happen. I always thought he was proud of being a policeman but towards the end he’d go on about being filthy, being a beast, being a pig – muttering in his sleep with tears running down his face. He stopped using the communal areas, retreated inside himself …
“Here we go,” mutters Rowan.
Vicky turn at the sound of raised voice. Whips her head back to Rowan in alarm. “Don’t get involved,” she hisses, quickly. “They’re just dickheads really.”
“I saw you looking,” spits Daz, standing unsteadily by the table. “Want a bit, do you? She’s cheap. Posh boy like you could afford her I’m sure.”
Rowan looks up, eyes on Daz. There’s a tingling in his gut but he’ll be damned if he’s going to show fear.
“Posh boy?” asks Rowan, quietly. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“You look posh to me,” says Robin, behind him.
“I should imagine everybody looks posh to you, mate,” smiles Rowan, giving him his attention. “That’s what comes with being a couple of steps down the evolutionary scale. Maybe if you were in a cage full of monkeys you could aspire to being middle class but even then I have my doubts.”
“What’s he saying?” asks Robin, nudging Daz. “Is he taking the piss? Daz, is he taking the piss?”
Daz leans forward, both hands on the table top, looming over Vicky. She growls a complaint but when she tries to wriggle free he puts a hand on her shoulder and holds her where she is.
“I know you,” growls Daz. “Know your hippy sister too. Fucking lezza. You’re the writer.”
“I’m a writer,” corrects Rowan. “If there was only one, my sales would be better.”
“You’re a cheeky shite,” spits Dazl, his breath all larger and tobacco and pickled onion crisps. He sneers at Rowan’s gloved hands. “What’s with the gloves? Not want to get your nancy-boy hands dirty?”
“Nancy boy?” asks Rowan, breaking into a smile. “Can you hear yourself? How old are you?”
“Old enough, you cunt,” says Daz, pushing forward until they are almost nose to nose. Rowan can see pastry crumbs in his back teeth and there’s white powder crusting one nostril.
“I’ve had a spot of bother,” says Rowan, brightly. “I’ve got some nasty injuries under here. I’m recuperating, which is the main reason that I’m sitting here politely and you’re not bleeding.”
Daz laughs, loud and bitter, turning to his aptly-named sidekick. “Do you hear this wanker, Rob? Do you fucking hear him?”
“Fuck it,” mutters Rowan, under his breath. “Fuck it all.”
Daz turns back to face him and Rowan lunges out of his chair like a spring. His forehead slams into the bridge of Daz’s nose and he hears the crunch of displaced cartilage and a spray of hot sticky wetness on his face. Daz crumples back like a collapsing building, knocking over glasses, tangling his feet in the chairs. Beside him, Robin’s mouth opens in absolute shock and Rowan turns on him, blood on his forehead, hair hanging loose across his face, eyes wide around pin-prick pupils.
“Do something,” begs Rowan, and picks up an empty glass, wielding it like a dagger. “Fucking do something, I dare you.”
Robin backs away, hands raised. Behind him, the other customers are popping up like meerkats. The girl at the table has her hands to her mouth, her mascara sticking her spindly eyelashes together. He gives her a smile and an absurd thumbs-up. She doesn’t move.
Rowan becomes aware of a thudding in his chest. There’s a taste of sour fruit and iron on his tongue. His head is starting to throb. He’s panting, half mad, as he gives his attention back to Vicky. The blood has drained from her face but she holds his gaze. There is no pain as he retrieves a card from his pocket and places it down on the table-top for her. She takes it, her hands shaking. He stands and wipes his face with his gloved palm. He’s suddenly greasy with sweat.
“You saw,” he mutters. He raises his voice for the benefit of the barman. “I never started that.”
“You bloody finished it,” whispers Vicky.
Rowan stands, legs shaking. Manages to pick his way out from the booth, glass still in hand. Robin is leaning over his fallen mate, who is making a grotesque, porcine snuffling sound: blood forming a slick goatee on his chin. Rowan rolls his eyes, his mood changing, suddenly full of regret. “Recovery position,” he mutters, heading for the door. He puts the empty glass on the bar. The barman nods his thanks, though Rowan isn’t completely sure which service he is grateful for.
“I’m not like this,” mumbles Rowan, pushing open the door and feeling the cold air slap his hot face. He glances back at the other drinkers. “I’m not like this,” he says, again.
Nobody speaks.
He barges out and onto the street, his chest tight, blood surging in his ears like pebbles rolled by the tide.
Bends double, and pukes two and a half pints into the gutter, all bile and acid and flat real ale. He staggers away. Reaches for his stone as if it is a holy relic. Manages to stop the recording at the third attempt. Names the file ‘Vicky’. Controls his breathing and phones Serendipity.
“Please,” he says, and finds his cannot turn the word into a sentence. He just repeats it, tottering down towards the harbour in the swirling rain, his face full of pig-masks and blood. Then again, for emphasis: “Please.”
34
Rowan stares out at a blur of rocks and trees, disappearing greyly down to the water’s edge. The taller trees have been decapitated by fog. Beside him, he sees Serendipity looking at his hands.
“They’ll heal,” she says, quietly. “Eventually, everything does. It hurts for a while but if it doesn’t kill you, it persuades you to come back stronger. I know I said I wouldn’t ask, but what are you going to do to the man who did it?”