Conrad Williams - Decay Inevitable

Sean laughed. “I’m as much a policeman as you are a circus clown.”

“I don’t mean anything by it, mate,” Nicky said. “I don’t want to get on the wrong side of you or anything, but you don’t half act like a copper sometimes.”

“How do you mean?” Sean asked, trying to appear amused.

“The silences. The one-word questions. The look. You have got the classic look of a copper.”

“Which is?”

“No offence, but bland as fuck. You know. Dead cold stare. No expression.”

“And you’d know all about that, would you?”

Nicky grinned. “Too much. I’ve been a good lad these past five years, but I was a terror, let me tell you, when I was in my teens.”

“So what about Vernon? What’s he up to?”

“You tell me, PC.”

Sean kicked the hammer across the floor. “That isn’t funny. And I’d prefer it if you didn’t bring this up again with any of the others.”

“Why not? It’s just a laugh.”

“I don’t find it funny. And I don’t want people thinking I’ve got anything to do with our boys in blue. Okay? Jesus Christ, I’ve had a hard enough time as it is without being mistaken for a fucking flatfoot as well.”

Nicky patted him on the arm. “I’m sorry, all right? I’m a tit. Speak my mind, that’s all. No harm meant.”

“Okay, then. Let’s forget it. But Vernon... tell me about Vernon.”

Born Vernon Lord, nobody knows where, nobody knows when. Left school without any qualifications. Worked for a series of low-lifes and hoods across the Northwest of England and, for a short period, as bodyguard to a stripper in a Soho bar.

Never married. No form. No known relatives.

Vernon Lord now lives in a very nice house in Appleton. He knows his martial arts and his military history. He knows his weapons best of all.

It is rumoured that he has murdered in the region of seventeen people over the last twenty-five years.

What is it with this fucker? Sean thought. No form? No form? The man is a psychopath. He was standing over the stove, steaming some broccoli to go with his re-heated curry from the previous night.

As if summoning the man, his mobile chirped. It was Vernon.

“Tomorrow night. Runcorn. I need to drop by on a client. And then we’ve got to get some video rolling. Can you come?”

“I don’t know about that, Vernon. I’m supposed to be cooking dinner for a friend.”

“You’re not doing too badly, are you? Only been here five minutes and you’ve got work and mates coming out of your backside. Bird is it?”

“A friend,” Sean reiterated.

“Name?”

“I couldn’t possibly tell you that.”

“Aww, and us best chums and all. You can tell me.”

“Esmerelda, her name is. Esmerelda Arbuckle. The third.”

“Right. I see. So the job. The job. You won’t do it? I strongly advise that you do. Bring your woman with you. Big, is she?”

“Go to hell, Vernon. I’m not your puppet.” Phone down.

Sean poured himself a drink. A large brandy. No longer hungry, he switched off the stove and took his glass to the window. Some view. Not that he was taking it in. The steep embankment choked with nettles and fast-food wrappers was a dark slab in the night, bejewelled with frost. The sleepers gleamed coldly atop it. Something squirmed through the undergrowth: a rat, maybe, or a cat. A bottle smashed in the alleyway and a flurry of giggles followed the sound.

Sean was thinking of Tim Enever.

He had left Nicky when the questions had veered too close to home, using his thirst as an excuse. The rest of the building was consumed with noises generated by the wind. He was convinced that there must be animals living on some of these floors, judging by some of the scratching and scampering sounds that echoed through the walls. The others were working a floor beneath him and Nicky, stripping out architraves and dados and skirting boards. He saw Tim leaving them, scuffing his way towards the lifts that were no longer working and standing in front of them for a few seconds before the penny dropped. Plodding to the stairwell, he descended two floors and moved into a room off the main corridor; this much Sean could see from where he stood.

Sean followed. He watched Tim moving through the rooms of what had once been a suite of offices. A notice board on the wall contained a holiday planner for 1994 and a photograph from an office party: three men and three women adorned with tinsel, wearing funny hats and booze-loosened smiles. Tim observed the traffic through the window as it was chased along the carriageway by sunlight slipping from a bank of hard, black cloud low to the west. Then he went to the opposite wall and placed his hands against the plaster, moving them as a doctor might against the flesh of a worried patient. He was whispering too, words that Sean couldn’t fathom, though he recognised the tenderness in the delivery of them.

“Tim?”

Tim moved as quickly as he could away from the wall: still a languid movement. “What?” He blinked.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing. Wandering around.” His voice was wet, catarrhal. Listening to him breathe was like listening to a sucking wound in casualty.

“You were touching that wall up like it was your girlfriend.”

Tim reddened. He pushed the babyfine floss of his hair away from his eyes and made to walk past Sean. It was easy to block his path. A cobweb would have impeded him.

“What were you doing, Tim?”

“I. Was. Do-ing. No-thing.” Enunciating every syllable, Tim tried to stare out Sean, summoning as much fury to his puppy face as possible.

“Okay, Tim,” Sean said at last. “I don’t mean anything. I was just curious.”

Tim seemed to slump; relief wiped the pitiful attempt at pique from his features. “Do you want anything from the shop? I’m just off to get Salty a packet of fig biscuits.”

“Bottle of water,” Sean said. “Thanks.”

“Right. Put the money in the tin, won’t you?”

“Always do. See you later. We’re going to the pub, aren’t we?”

Tim nodded. He was waiting for Sean to leave the room with him. Sean didn’t disappoint, heading back up to where Nicky Preece was stationed, but as soon as Tim had pushed through the revolving doors, Sean was back down the stairs. He retraced his steps through the offices to the wall that Tim had been caressing. It was a wall scarred by tiny holes where nails or tacks had fastened charts and plans and diagrams to it. Pale green paint was chipped here and there, revealing a sickly pink undercoat. Feeling somewhat self-conscious, Sean placed his hands against the wall in the same way that Tim had. The plaster was warm to the touch and he could feel a slight vibration: no doubt Jez or Robbie or Lutz working with a power tool down below. Sean moved his hands across the wall, wondering what it was that Tim had been doing. Could he have some kind of demolition fetish?

He pushed himself away, chuckling to himself and feeling embarrassed that he had allowed Tim to get at him like that. At the threshold of the room he heard the wind getting up outside the building, howling through the brick nets and chutes and scaffolding. The traffic had dwindled on the carriageway. The cloud had infected the entire sky. It was as though the sun didn’t exist any more.

EMMA ARRIVED JUST as the evening news was beginning on the television. Sean let her into the flat and then returned to the set, where a man with too-pink skin was standing by a curve of motorway. A crater in the road’s surface was the size of a large roundabout, straddling the central reservation. The crash barriers had ruptured and bent like toffee. Days after the explosions on the M6 and M1, forensic teams were combing the area around the detonated bombs, looking for clues.