David Jackson - Marked

Speaking of pains. .

The rib hurts like crazy. A red-hot dagger into the chest every time he breathes or moves, both of which he tends to do frequently. Who would have guessed that such a tiny crack could make its presence felt so emphatically?

The hospital staff told him there was nothing more they could do for the rib. Rest and strong painkillers is what they prescribed. They told him he was lucky to come through an assault like that with nothing more serious. Said he was, in fact, fortunate to be alive.

He wanted to laugh when they told him that. He does it now instead. Naked in front of the mirror, he lets out a long, loud burst of laughter, stopping only when the tears running down his cheeks are those not of amusement but of indescribable agony.

He hasn’t taken the painkillers. He wants to experience this pain. He is so used to others enduring pain at his hands in the tattoo shop, and yet he has suffered very little in his lifetime. He has never broken a bone before or had toothache or even a severe headache. Pain has always been something to avoid, to fear. He feels that he is somehow conquering that fear. He is becoming stronger. He can cope much more easily with what life may throw at him.

Bring it on, Doyle, you miserable, puny fuck. Bring it on.

‘You need to talk with her.’

This from Rachel, across the dinner table. It’s spaghetti bolognese tonight. Not fish. There shouldn’t be bones. If there are bones, then his wife has planted them there to teach him a lesson.

‘Tomorrow,’ he says, even though he knows it’s pointless.

‘No, not tomorrow. I know what it’s like when you’re working a homicide. We hardly ever see you. You’ll be out before Amy is up for breakfast, and you’ll be home after she’s gone to bed. I’m not complaining about that. That’s just how it is. To be honest, I’m a little surprised you’re home right now. But since you are, you should take the opportunity to talk to Amy. It can’t wait, Cal.’

The reason Doyle is home right now is that it’s probably his only chance today to see his family and have a decent meal. He hasn’t told Rachel yet, but he’s got a busy night planned, and it doesn’t involve dancing or drinking. It doesn’t involve solving the murder of Megan Hamlyn either. As far as Doyle is concerned, he’s already nailed that one. All he needs to do now is find a way to prove it. And it’s precisely because of what he intends to do tonight that he is determined the couple of hours he can spend at home now will be friction-free.

‘All right,’ he says. ‘Gimme five minutes, okay?’

She smiles at him. Doyle finishes his meal. Doesn’t find a single bone.

‘What’s for dessert?’ he asks.

‘Chocolate mousse,’ says Rachel. ‘It’ll be your reward for counseling Amy.’

Doyle frowns at her. ‘You do know that attempting to bribe a police officer is a felony, don’t you?’

‘It’s also an offense for an officer to accept a bribe. Let’s see what you do when the chocolate mousse is on the table in front of you.’

Doyle gets up from his chair and starts to head out of the living room.

‘This mousse better not be something you made up just to get your own way,’ he says.

He finds Amy in her bedroom. She’s lying on her bed, wrapped in a fluffy white towel, her head buried in a book.

He’s had a lot of conversations with Amy in this room. For some reason, it has become a place of opening up, of voicing fears and innermost thoughts and wishes for the future. And not only by Amy. Doyle has often found himself putting his own opinions and worries under the spotlight during these brief one-on-ones with his only daughter. She has that effect on him. Her innocence and complete trust never fail to make him lower his shield.

‘Hey, sugar,’ he says. ‘What’s the book?’

She looks up at him, beams a cheeky smile. ‘Hi, Daddy. It’s about stromony.’

‘Stromony, huh? What’s that?’

She looks wide-eyed at him. ‘You don’t know what stromony is?’

‘Nope. Is it about dinosaurs?’

‘No, silly.’

‘Ponies?’

‘Uh-uh.’

‘Fairies?’

‘No, Daddy,’ she says in despair. ‘It’s about stars and planets and space.’

‘Ah. And little green moon goblins?’

‘No. No moon goblins. Don’t you know anything?’

‘Not a lot, I guess.’

He tries to dredge up a fascinating astronomical fact, and fails miserably. All that comes to mind is a limerick that begins, ‘There was a young space-girl from Venus,’ but he decides it’s best not to share it.

He says, ‘Tell me something about stromony.’

‘Well. .’ says Amy. ‘You know all the stars?’

‘You mean the movie stars?’

‘No, silly. The stars in the sky. The twinkly ones.’

‘Oh, those stars. What about them?’

‘Well, they’re really suns.’

Doyle allows his jaw to go slack. ‘No. Suns? Tiny little suns?’

‘No, they’re not tiny. They’re big, like our sun. But they’re really far away.’

‘How far? You mean, like, from here to Ellie’s apartment?’

‘More than that.’

‘How about here to New Jersey?’

‘More.’

‘To the North Pole?’

Amy has to think about this one. ‘Can we see the North Pole from here?’

‘No.’

‘Then maybe not that far.’

‘But still a long way,’ Doyle says.

‘Yes.’

‘Wow!’

‘Yes, it’s amazable, isn’t it?’

‘It certainly is amazable. Are you doing this stuff at school too?’

He thinks, Subtle switch, you sly dog.

‘Sometimes. Not all the time.’

‘No. You have to do lots of other work too, don’t you?’

‘Yes. Hundreds.’

‘Sure. And I bet you get through lots of pencils and erasers and things, don’t you?’

Amy goes quiet then, and drops her gaze. Even at seven she can see Doyle’s ploy for what it is. She knows exactly where this is headed.

‘Honey, you listening to me?’

She nods. Says nothing for a while. Then: ‘Are you mad at me?’

‘No. Why would I be mad at you?’

‘I don’t know. Mommy’s mad at me.’

‘No she isn’t. She just wants to understand.’

Amy picks at a stray thread on the edge of her towel.

‘Pumpkin?’ says Doyle. ‘Is there something going on at school? Something you don’t want to talk about?’

Amy shakes her head.

‘You sure?’

‘Yes. I told Mommy. I don’t know how those things got in my backpack.’

‘You didn’t put them there?’

‘No.’

‘You weren’t looking after them for a friend?’

‘No.’

Her head is bowed really low now. So low that Doyle cannot see her expression. But it seems to him that she is on the edge of tears. He feels his own heart cracking.

And then a sequence of images starts to play in his head. He is back in Proust’s tattoo parlor. Ripping the guy’s shirt off. Threatening him. Letting him know that there is no doubt in Doyle’s mind about his guilt.

So why the difference?

Why the heavy-handed approach with Proust and the soft touch with Amy? Why believe one and not the other?

And what if he’s wrong? What if Proust is actually innocent and his own daughter has become a thief? Is that possible? Could Doyle’s own judgment be so impaired?

No, he tells himself. I’m right, on both counts. Even if nobody else trusts me on this, I’m right.

‘All right, Amy,’ he says. And when she doesn’t reply, he touches a curled finger to her chin and raises her face to look at him. ‘I believe you. No big deal, okay?’

He spends a few more minutes with her, changing the subject and doing his best to blot the earlier conversation out of her mind. But when he leaves her bedroom he cannot shake off the profoundly sad feeling that a little something has died between the two of them tonight, and with it, a little of his belief in himself.