Phil Kurthausen - Sudden Death

Erasmus shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

‘Can’t social services help? Your doctor?’

Karen shot him a look that could have been contempt but her tone didn’t change.

‘Of course I’ve spoken to them and the school. They have procedures in place, counselling courses, they always have done, even in our day. Rebecca has agreed to go.’

‘How can I help?’

She looked up at him, this woman whose face still had the power to make him shudder, but who, in truth, in many ways he barely recognised.

‘I haven’t told you the worst bit. Three days ago I came home early and – ’ she gulped, shut her eyes, and then recovered herself ‘ – the house was quiet, I thought no one was home. I took off my suit, you know how it is when you get home from work, you want to relax, and I decided to run a bath. I walked into the bathroom and I found Rebecca in the bath.’

She paused.

‘Was she OK?’

‘She was naked in the bath, with her iPad propped in front of her, and there was blood in the water. I looked at her and just knew what she had been doing, but she screamed at me to get out, that she was on her period. But I know that’s not true, we’re synched. She had been cutting herself and you know when they do it in a bath … ’ She shook her head. ‘Erasmus, there was a razor blade on the side of the bath. I think she was going to … Shit.’ She raised her hand to her temple.

Erasmus bit his lip.

‘I’m sorry. It’s just I know what she was thinking of doing. What am I going to do?’

‘Did you speak to her about it?’

‘Of course I did, I even managed not to shout, God knows how. I asked her what she was watching on her iPad in the bath.’ She smiled wanly. ‘But she told me it was none of my business. None of my business, my own child’s life.’

This time the tears came.

Erasmus wanted to get up, walk around the desk and hold her, but the weight of the years and the history between them acted like a force field around him preventing any reaction.

She composed herself.

‘I think she was messaging this boy Ethan at the time. Why else would she have her iPad there? I don’t know any Ethan. I’ve spoken to the school and they don’t have an Ethan there. Rebecca won’t tell me anything. I’m sure he’s been influencing her.’

Erasmus leaned back. One of these days he would get a nice straightforward legal case, a dispute over a hedge boundary, a divorce case maybe. Or maybe not, his reputation seemed set after the mayor’s case the previous year.

‘And you want me to find this Ethan?’

She nodded.

‘I’m scared, Erasmus.’

At that moment she looked like the twenty-five-year-old who had broken his heart.

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Karen nodded. He led her out into the other office, all the time wanting to touch her on the arm but resisting because he didn’t trust what that feeling may do to him.

Pete had removed his headphones and appeared to be doing some work on the computer. On closer inspection Erasmus could see he was on the Racing Post website. He looked up.

‘You two, er, all right?’

‘We’re fine,’ said Karen.

‘We are going to be working on a job for Karen. I’ll fill you in.’

He saw Karen out and then walked back into the office. Pete ran his fingers through his long hair.

‘I hope you know what you’re doing. You’ve told me what happened when she left you the first time.’

‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you that time is a great healer,’ said Erasmus. ‘I’m going to open a new file.’

He shut the door to his office behind him and walked over to the large window that overlooked the river. He stood there and the feelings that swept through him were as strong as the tides twisting and pulling at the Mersey below.

CHAPTER 7

Quitting hadn’t been as straightforward as Erasmus thought it would be.

He had gone home and opened a fresh bottle of Yamakazi, and then played some Fall and Pixie tracks from his Mac until the liquid concrete above his eyes had set. Press repeat, Friday through Sunday. He had deliberately not left the house in the evening. The twelve steps were all well and good but Erasmus knew that if he left the house drunk he wouldn’t be returning on his own. His mentor, Martha, swore that this was what had kept her faithful to her husband for the past eighteen months. Denial of service, she called it. Erasmus thought it might just be dealing with the symptoms rather than the cause but if the result was the same –not having sex with random strangers – then who cared? He had come too close that night at the club and wasn’t it true that some of the anger he directed at Gary Jones had sprung from his own self loathing at succumbing once again?

The fact that he might be replacing one addiction with another in the form of alcohol was a risk he was prepared to take, or rather thought he was happy to take until he woke up on Monday morning to the sound of his mobile phone like an electronic rat burrowing into his brain and gnawing on his awake switch.

He swore and reached for the source of his pain. The mobile was lodged under the sofa cushion he had fallen asleep on. He dug it out and answered.

It was Ted.

‘Why haven’t you been answering your phone?’

Erasmus started to speak but his throat seemed to be clogged with cotton wool. He reached for a mug and luckily it had some cold tea in it. He drained it.

‘Business trip,’ he said.

‘I heard what happened. These kids can be a handful sometimes.’

Erasmus dug out a pack of Marlboro lights from the pocket of his trousers and lit one with a lighter he didn’t recognise. This was a bad sign. Instinctively, he looked around for the girl whose lighter this might be.

‘Those “kids” nearly fucking killed me.’

Ted chuckled.

‘I heard you made them pay, as well. I’ve had Gary Jones’s agent, Steve Cowley, on the line screaming at me that I should sack you. Apparently Gary soiled himself and the other players have been taking the Michael ever since.’

Erasmus inhaled, so much guilt and pleasure in one tiny object. They should charge double for them, he thought.

‘You can’t sack me, I quit.’

Ted ignored him.

‘Of course, what Gary wants isn’t so important. He is coming to the end of his career, no one wants him but us now, and so I can ignore that. The interesting thing is that Wayne has taken to you.’

Erasmus shook his head as though this might help dislodge the sharp crack of pain that seemed to be forming on the right-hand side of his brain.

‘Didn’t you hear? I quit. Those fuckers nearly did what the Taliban couldn’t manage.’

‘I’ll double your hourly rate.’

Erasmus stubbed out the cigarette in the nearest receptacle, a chipped tea-stained mug with a picture of Mickey Mouse on it: a relic from a past life. Briefly, an image of his daughter, Abby, came into his mind. He dismissed it quickly, he hadn’t seen her in over six months. He wanted to put all the blame for that on his ex-wife Miranda but the truth was that the fault lay squarely between them.

Double rates. Truth was that the firm only had one client at the moment that was actually willing to pay their standard rates and Erasmus was speaking to him right now.

‘I usually take silence as agreement,’ said Ted, chuckling again.

Erasmus looked around. At the age of thirty-nine he had finally managed to buy a flat with the last of his resettlement money from the army that he hadn’t blown on his two-year voyage of self destruction around the globe. It was in an old Victorian mansion, with high ceilings, damp and a panoramic view of Sefton Park and the local patch of a skag dealer called Eric. The decayed grandeur of the place had appealed to Erasmus and although it still did, waking up cold and shivering most mornings because the place leaked heat was starting to lose its appeal. But it was all he had, and what little it was depended on the mortgage being paid on time.