Nicola Barker - Darkmans

He spoke with great sincerity, almost tenderly. She continued to stare at him, passively, as if dazed.

‘And I’m really sorry about your mum…’

He pulled out his fags.

‘My mum?’

She frowned, slowly emerging from her stupor.

‘I told Gaffar to be nice,’ he tapped a cigarette out and stuck it into his mouth. ‘It was just part of the service.’

‘Back up a minute…’ she scowled, ‘I ain’t followin’…’

‘I told him to do it. I paid him.’

She allowed this news to sink in for a second.

‘An’ muggins , here?’ she demanded, pointing to herself, indignantly.

‘Pardon?’

He was searching for his lighter.

‘Did you tell him to butter me up?’

‘In your case,’ he smiled, removing the cigarette and propping it behind his ear (as a tutting nurse marched by), ‘he didn’t take much asking…’

‘ Wow …’ She slowly shook her head, her few paltry illusions finally shattering, ‘I honestly can’t believe what a tit I’ve been. What an unbelievable fuckin’ tit …’

He found his lighter. An old blue bic .

‘…What a total, brainless, fuckin’ ditz …’

He glanced up.

‘You was just bored !’ she exclaimed, almost as if delighted by this cruel insight. ‘ That’s the honest truth of it. There was no mystery. You just wanted rid an’ I was too clueless to see it…’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ he maintained.

‘Bollocks it wasn’t.’

‘Look…’

‘Fuck off,’ she interrupted, flapping him away with her bony hand. ‘Please don’t get all narky, Kell…’

‘Narky?’ The veins stood out on her neck. ‘ Narky?! You think this is narky?’

‘Okay,’ he shrugged, ‘whatever. You can think what you like…’ ‘I will,’ she said, still flapping.

He pointed to the photocopied sheets. ‘Should I return those to Beede for you?’

‘Nah. Don’t trouble yourself,’ she snapped.

He stared at her, perplexed.

‘I’m am sorry,’ he muttered, shrugging. ‘You’re a funny girl, a sweet girl…’

‘Fuck off , already,’ she hissed, turning her sharp face away and slamming her head, violently, into her pillow, then lifting it, cussing, and repeating the process, twice.

Beede shone the torch into the rear of the car, briefly illuminating the hunched-up form of a small, sleeping child, covered in a messy pile of clothes and coats and blankets. The dog sat nearby, stiff and alert, her huge, round eyes reflecting the light of the torch eerily back at him.

‘I’d’ve kept the heater on,’ Elen said, shivering, ‘but I was worried the battery might go flat.’

She looked terrible, bedraggled.

‘You must be freezing,’ he exclaimed, reaching out his hand to touch the damp fabric of her sleeve, ‘and you’re soaked through…’

‘It rained steadily,’ she said, ‘while we were searching…’

‘Drive him home,’ he told her gently, ‘and have a warm bath, a hot drink. That’ll soon sort you out.’

She nodded, but she didn’t seem to be listening. Her eyes were scanning the dark horizon.

‘Drive him home,’ he repeated. ‘ Seriously . There’s nothing more you can do here.’

‘We were talking about the woods,’ she said, ‘and then there was this stupid…this misunderstanding . He mentioned Bixley several times. It seemed important. He had this strange kind of…I don’t know…’ her voice gradually petered out.

She unfolded the map and pointed. ‘I found his shoe and his jumper here…’ She pointed again ‘…This is where he left the car.’

‘That’s about 3, 4 miles,’ Beede calculated. ‘So he was travelling at speed…’

‘I just headed straight for the wooded areas,’ she shrugged, helplessly, ‘more out of instinct than anything…’

She passed him the map as if she couldn’t bear touching it any more, as if she was disgusted by it, by the places that it had unwittingly led her. Her hands were shaking.

‘Thanks.’

He took it, folded it and thrust it into his coat pocket.

‘No,’ she said. ‘ No . Thank you . I don’t know what I’d’ve done if you hadn’t come.’

She stared down at the damp tarmac, utterly drained and forlorn, swaying slightly in the blustering wind.

‘Come here,’ he suddenly found himself murmuring, holding out his arms (or if it wasn’t him — and how could it be? — then it was the gentle one, it was Danny who called to her). She moved slowly towards him as if propelled not so much by whim as by a terrible inability to actually resist anything. He drew her, protectively, to his chest. She fell against him, a dead weight at first and then she suddenly reached out her arms and clasped her hands tightly around him, pushing her face into his neck with a tiny expulsion of breath. Her nose was icy against his skin. He flattened out his palms and gently patted her back. She felt so tiny to him, so thin, like some kind of fragile mouse or bird, and her hair was so soft, smelled so sweet, like marzipan and fresh linen.

He touched his cheek to the side of her head. His lip almost brushed her ear.

She was shivering. She was icy.

‘You’re so cold,’ Danny whispered, ‘slip your arms under my coat.’ She nodded and unfastened her hands. He yanked open his coat and enveloped her in it, pulling the front flaps either side of her and securing them with his arms. She nestled against him, her own arms pulled up close in front of her at first and then gradually — as she felt his warmth — her hands flattened against his chest and then worked their way around his ribs, around his sides, around his back, until they made contact with each other, then one hand fell, slid slowly down, until it reached the waist of his trousers. On the left-hand side — where his shirt had come untucked — her icy fingers touched his skin.

He shuddered, closed his eyes and breathed her in.

She snuggled up still closer. He thought she might be crying.

‘There,’ he whispered softly, ‘hush.’

‘I felt so lonely,’ she said, ‘so cold inside, and the day went on forever. And everything I did …everything I said was just…’

Her body shook.

He lifted his hand and cupped it around the back of her nape, pushing his fingers into the delicately boned base of her skull, then gently angled her head under his chin, her cheek into his collarbone.

‘Save me,’ she implored him, pushing her smooth forehead against the gap in his shirt, but Beede didn’t hear her (Thank God he didn’t hear her — what could Beede do, after all?), only Danny heard and Danny said, ‘I’ll look after you. I’ll take care of you. Don’t worry any more. You’re perfectly safe here.’

‘I feel safe,’ she said, breathing into him, and he could feel her lips parting and the warmth of her breath on his skin.

Kane was standing in the steamy bathroom (the door propped open to improve the ventilation), carefully greasing back his wayward blond mane with the aid of a small quantity of coconut hair oil. He’d recently bathed and shaved, had applied a modest amount of cologne, was wearing a clean, grey t-shirt, a soft, white, Adidas hoodie and a new pair of dark-blue, engineered Levis. He looked pristine.

‘So,’ Gaffar said, wandering in and pulling off his leather jacket. ‘You speak for Kelly, eh?’

‘I had a call from Hinxhill at five,’ Kane said, perusing the blur of Gaffar in the fogged-up mirror. ‘Did you finally make it over there?’