Stephen Booth - Blind to the Bones

‘What name is she going under?’ she said.

She could hear the man breathing. He wasn’t someone who answered questions too quickly – a habit he had probably learned the hard way.

‘Not the one you know,’ he said.

Fry was unduly conscious of his masculine bulk as he slumped in the seat next to her, with his right elbow and leg positioned too close, intruding a little too far into her personal space. The interior of a car was too confined for her ever to feel differently. And it didn’t matter who it was in the passenger seat – one of her DCs, Gavin Murfin or Ben Cooper – it was always the same. She had thought for a while of telling Murfin he’d have to ride in the back seat. But she knew he would have liked it, because he could pretend he was a passenger in a taxi, and she was his chauffeur. And God knew what damage it would do to her back seat. During the winter, there had been fungi growing from the carpet in the front, where Murfin had scattered his constant supply of junk food.

‘No, I didn’t think it would be the name I know,’ she said. ‘That’s why I’m asking you.’

He didn’t reply, and Fry knew that he was smirking, even without turning her head to look at him. She tried to remember whether she had any air freshener in her glove compartment. She would need to use it once he had left, to take away the memory of him.

‘I need a name,’ she said. ‘And I need an address.’

She could hear him fumbling around in his pockets, then realized that he had taken out a packet of cigarettes. She heard a click and saw the tiny flame reflected in the glass of the windscreen.

‘If you light that up in my car, I’ll shove it down your throat,’ she said.

The man laughed, but let the flame die.

‘What are you doing here on your own?’ he said. ‘Where’s your partner? Aren’t you supposed to work in pairs? I mean, it can be a bit dangerous, can’t it? Especially for a female.’

‘Not for me.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘Well, I believe you, love. Thousands wouldn’t.’

‘I couldn’t give a damn what you believe. I’m not here to discuss your powers of perception, or even whether you’re able to see what’s in front of your face. But if you push me, you’ll find out.’

‘All right, all right. Keep your hair on.’

Fry turned away to stare out of the driver’s side window, as if she might be able to forget that he was there if she couldn’t see him out of the corner of her eye. But she was still aware of him through the small noises of his movements, the sound of his breathing, his male smell, and the sulphurous whiff of the match he had struck. She knew there were drops of rain glistening on his scalp among the freckles and the tufts of ginger hair, and she was aware of the dark, wet patches on the shoulders of his coat. And with two of them sitting in a stationary car, the interior was getting too warm from their body heat and the glass was starting to steam up. She wound down the window a couple of inches.

They were parked in a street between the dark, blank walls of crumbling factories. But straight ahead, she could see traffic lights and a busier road that was well lit, with cars passing constantly, and a row of terraced houses with flickering TV screens visible through their curtains and shadows passing in front of lamps in upstairs windows. One of the factories must have a night shift. She could hear the rumble of machinery from somewhere nearby.

‘A name?’ she said impatiently.

‘She’s living with a bloke called Akerman. Johnny Akerman. Not many folks will mess with him. He’s well known around those parts.’

‘Which parts?’

‘Eh?’

‘I need an address.’

‘I can’t tell you that, love.’

‘Look, don’t waste my time.’

‘I can’t do it.’

‘Can’t, or won’t?’

She felt him turning towards her in his seat. His knee touched the gear stick. A fold of his coat fell over the handbrake towards her, and she instinctively flicked it away. He was holding out his hands in a gesture of appeal, and his face was a pale smear that she was much too aware of. He was willing her to meet his eyes, but she couldn’t.

‘It’s not worth it,’ he said. ‘It could get me a hell of a lot of bother. I mean, it’s not as if there’s anything in it for me , is there?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Fry. ‘You’re going to feel a whole lot better, after you tell me.’

‘I don’t think so, darling.’

Fry pressed the button to close the central locking and reached out to start the ignition.

‘Hey, what are you doing?’ he said.

‘I think we should go for a little ride.’

‘No way. I’m getting out.’

‘I suggest you put your seat belt on,’ said Fry. ‘It’s not safe without, you know.’

‘For God’s sake –’

She pulled out from the kerb and drove towards the lights at the end of the road.

‘This is the compromise,’ she said. ‘And it’s entirely for your benefit. You say you can’t give me the address for this Akerman. OK. I accept that. So what we do instead is, we go for a little drive.’

‘Where to?’

‘You decide,’ she said. ‘You give me directions.’

She could practically hear him working it out. He was wondering what the best way was to get out of this madwoman’s car.

‘Right, left or straight on at the lights?’ she said.

He was silent so long that she had almost reached the lights, and she was beginning to think that he wouldn’t go along with it. But he was, after all, a man who didn’t answer questions too quickly.

‘If I were you, I’d go left,’ he said. ‘It’s the scenic route.’

They drove for a few minutes. Fry’s passenger hardly spoke, but gave her directions by holding up a hand at junctions to indicate left or right. She guessed he was thinking that he would honestly be able to say that he had never told her anything.

‘Stop here,’ he said.

‘Is this it?’

‘I get out here.’

They were in a street of Victorian terraces, with little flights of steps to their front doors and drawn curtains. Fry pulled up in front of a row of shops, mostly boarded up, but for an Asian greengrocer’s where the lights were still on.

‘Is this it?’ she said again.

‘Yes,’ he snapped. ‘The red door. But if you’re going to try to get in there, you’re crazier than I thought.’

‘Thanks for the concern. It’s touching.’

He got out, slammed the door and in a moment had vanished into the darkness, walking quickly in the shadow of the deserted shop fronts.

Fry had no intention of going into the house. She was prepared to wait for as long as necessary.

In the end, it took two hours. When the woman finally appeared, Fry got out of the car and walked towards her along the pavement, pulling up the collar of her black coat and tucking her chin into her red scarf. She stared at the woman openly, trying to see the girl she was looking for in the way that the woman walked, the angle she held her head, or the look in her eyes.

Fry didn’t stop or speak to the woman. She walked on past her, and continued to the end of the block, where she came to a halt on the kerb and stared blankly at the corner of an empty florist’s shop. For a few seconds, she had been walking along an entirely different street in another city, in a different time. She had been a younger Diane Fry, the one who had looked into every face she passed, expecting to see someone else. But trying to see ghosts never worked. It hadn’t then, and it didn’t work now.

As Fry listened to the woman’s footsteps fade away behind her, a door opened and closed, a car sounded its horn on the corner and drove away with a screech of tyres, and she realized that she had forgotten where she was.