Читать книгу The Rule of Fear - Luke Delaney - Страница 11

King had keys, but still he knocked on the front door then took a step back. He wrung the neck of a bottle of wine while he waited next to Sara, who was holding an elaborate bunch of flowers and a box of expensive chocolates.

They listened as heavy, military-sounding footsteps approached followed by the sound of at least two locks being freed. The door swung ceremonially open, revealing the tall, straight-backed figure of a man in his sixties standing unsmiling in the entrance, his hair cut short and neat, his clothes as clean and pressed as his uniform had been before he retired as a full colonel from the army.

‘Made it here at last then,’ he greeted them.

‘Dad,’ said King.

‘And how are you, Sara?’ his father asked, ignoring his son as he stepped aside to allow them to enter.

‘I’m fine thank you, Mr King,’ she answered through a nervous smile.

‘No need to stand on ceremonies,’ he told her. ‘I keep reminding you to call me Graham. Everyone else does these days.’

‘Sorry,’ she apologized. ‘I keep forgetting. I’m fine thank you, Graham.’

‘You’d better come and say hello to your mother,’ he told King. ‘Let her know you’re still alive. For some reason she still worries about you. Can’t think why.’

‘No,’ King rolled his eyes at Sara when he was sure his father couldn’t see. ‘Nor can I.’

The two couples began to eat their way through the meal that King’s mother, Emily, had taken hours preparing. King couldn’t help but think what a pointless exercise it had been – taking so much time to make something that would disappear in minutes and probably not be appreciated by anyone. He became increasingly aware of the growing pain in his shoulder and back as he watched his mother picking at her food as she’d done all her life – ensuring she remained slim for the Colonel. Her ash-blonde hair was pulled back into a permanent ponytail and she spoke with a heavily clipped accent – on the rare occasions her husband allowed her to get a word in edgeways. Even now, King felt he hardly knew her. He had been sent to boarding school at seven years old and then on to university and finally the police. This was their home, not his. As far as he was concerned, they’d never shared a home.

‘You still haven’t asked about Scott,’ Graham reprimanded him, with no attempt to conceal his annoyance at King’s apparent lack of interest in his own brother.

‘I was going to,’ he replied, ‘when Mum wasn’t around.’

‘What’s your mother’s presence got to do with anything?’ Graham demanded.

‘Well, I didn’t know if she wanted to talk about it,’ he explained. ‘She gets upset.’

‘Nonsense,’ Graham insisted. ‘Your mother’s fine. It’s not like he’s not going to make a full recovery. It’s not like he’s lost any limbs or been disfigured. Many have, you know. If you ask me he’s been bloody lucky.’

‘Funny idea of luck,’ King argued, ‘being shot.’

‘Could have stood on an IED,’ Sara added awkwardly before realizing she wasn’t helping – drawing stony looks from both King and his father.

‘He’s going to be fine,’ Emily tried to end it. ‘That’s all that matters.’

‘Quite,’ Graham huffed as they settled into silent eating until Sara tried once more to break the tension.

‘How long has Scott been back from Afghanistan now?’ she asked.

‘Six months or so,’ Graham answered.

‘Weren’t we supposed to have left there more than a year ago?’ she asked naïvely.

Graham cleared his throat to answer, but King spoke before he could. ‘Not everyone,’ he explained. ‘The army left some military advisors behind.’

‘Shot by the very people he was supposed to be helping train,’ Graham spat the words out like bile. ‘Let the whole lot of them go to hell in a handcart,’ he added.

‘Where is he now?’ Sara asked, making King move uncomfortably in his chair.

‘Still in hospital,’ Emily quickly told her, as if only she had the right to answer the question.

‘But he’s getting out very soon,’ Graham took over again, ‘as Jack would have known if he ever bothered to visit him.’

‘I did know he was being released soon,’ King surprised them.

‘You didn’t tell me,’ Sara smiled uncomfortably.

‘That’s because Scott doesn’t like me talking about him to other people,’ he explained.

‘He didn’t tell me you’d visited him,’ Graham said, suspicion thick in his voice.

‘What Scott and I do is no one else’s business.’

‘Christ,’ Graham laughed. ‘You’re not schoolboys any more keeping silly secrets. For God’s sake, it’s not bad enough Scott got himself shot in Afghanistan – you manage to get yourself stabbed in the police. What sort of an idiot almost gets himself killed walking the beat?’

‘It can be a difficult job, Mr King.’ Sara had forgotten his father’s instructions to call him by his Christian name. ‘Policing London is dangerous. You can never be sure what you’ll walk into round the next corner.’

‘Nonsense,’ Graham dismissed her. ‘Joining the army in this day and age was always going to present certain risks. Scott knew that and so did your mother and I, but almost getting yourself killed walking around East bloody London. I mean …’

‘Which is exactly why I didn’t join the army,’ King fought back. ‘What’s the point of doing a job where you’ve got a good chance of being blown up or shot? Sounds like a pretty stupid thing to want to do to me.’

‘Which is probably why you got injured in the first place,’ Graham accused him. ‘A touch of karma, I think. You spent so much time avoiding joining the army because you were afraid of being injured, you got injured anyway.’

‘I don’t think so,’ King replied, just about holding it together.

‘The police,’ Graham held his arms out dramatically. ‘There’s no future in it.’

‘He’s on accelerated promotion,’ Sara reminded him.

‘Accelerated promotion,’ Graham scoffed. ‘He’s a sergeant. Now if he’d joined the army he would have started at lieutenant – the equivalent rank of inspector. None of this playing around in the other ranks nonsense. It’s not too late, you know,’ he continued down a familiar track. ‘I could still pull some strings and get you into Sandhurst. You’re still young enough, just.’

‘It’s not for me,’ King insisted. ‘I’m not like you or Scott.’

‘And what exactly is wrong with being like me or Scott?’ he demanded.

‘Nothing,’ King looked for a way to escape the conversation.

‘Then at least think about it.’

‘No,’ he answered bluntly.

‘Why not?’ his father demanded.

‘Because the army’s for fools,’ he couldn’t stop himself from blurting out.

His father breathed in deeply, preparing to attack before his wife finally stepped in to bring matters to an end. ‘That’s enough, you two,’ she insisted with a smile, as if the argument had been nothing more than friendly jousting. ‘We’re just glad that both you and Scott have fully recovered. You gave us quite a scare.’

‘Indeed,’ her husband forced himself to agree – the redness in his face and his slight trembling betraying the anger he still harboured.

‘It wasn’t intentional,’ King told them, happy to continue with the fight until he felt Sara kick him under the table. ‘But at the end of the day Scott’s going to recover and that’s all that matters.’

‘Good,’ his mother finished it for this occasion at least. ‘Now eat your dinner. You’re getting too skinny.’

Kelly Royston walked to Susie Ubana’s maisonette and reached through the metal grid to knock on the front door. After a few seconds the door opened slightly and Ubana peered through the gap, relaxing when she saw it was only Kelly – someone she’d known for years, having watched her growing up on the estate. She opened the door fully, but kept the metal grid firmly closed. Their meeting looked like a prison visit in an American jail.

‘You gonna open this … barricade?’ Kelly asked.

‘No,’ Ubana answered bluntly. ‘D’you want something?’

Kelly sighed and opened her clenched fist, revealing a crumpled five-pound note and a handful of loose change. ‘I need an eighth of Lebanese red,’ she told her. ‘It’s all there,’ she assured Ubana as they both looked at the mess of cash in her palm. Kelly saw the look of distaste on Ubana’s face at her offering. ‘What d’you expect?’ she asked. ‘Brand new tenners out the cash machine?’

‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ Ubana answered, awkwardly holding out both her hands through the grid and cupping them as if she was holding water. Kelly tipped the banknote and coins into her hands and watched them retreat back beyond the grid. ‘Wait there,’ Ubana told her and disappeared inside.

Kelly leaned against the wall and looked out over the estate as the night grew ever darker, its silence punctuated by the occasional scream of a child, shout of a drunk or bark of a dog. Her mind wandered to the young cop who’d arrested her mother’s boyfriend earlier in the day. She knew she’d affected him in a way she could affect pretty much any man she chose to, but he was different. Very different. He was a policeman. The men and boys on the estate were largely desperate fools she could manipulate like putty, taking whatever she liked from them with just the promise of intimacy with her at some distant, unspecified point in the future. At seventeen she already knew that to them she promised the chance of escape to a better world where they could have something wonderful and beautiful. Even if it only lasted for a few minutes, it would be the best thing that would ever happen to most of them. But would the young policeman be so easily enthralled by the drug of her beauty?

After a couple of minutes Ubana returned and ended her daydreaming.

‘Here,’ she told Kelly, easing her clenched fist through the grid. Kelly pushed herself off the wall and took hold of Ubana’s fist as if they were shaking hands in a slightly strange way until she felt Ubana’s well-practised fingers push the small parcel wrapped in clingfilm into the palm of her hand. Quickly she slipped it down the front of her skintight jeans and nestled it in her public hair, but she didn’t then scamper away as Ubana had expected. ‘Don’t wait around here long,’ Ubana warned her. ‘Not with that on you. One of them new coppers might be hanging around.’

‘Think they’ll want to search me?’ Kelly smiled mischievously, but her charms were wasted on Ubana.

‘They’ll want to arrest you,’ Ubana told her grimly. ‘And me.’

‘I wouldn’t mind being searched by one of them,’ Kelly ignored her.

‘Oh yeah,’ Ubana looked her up and down. ‘And which one would that be?’

‘The one in charge,’ Kelly answered, moving from hip to hip.

‘That’ll be the sergeant then,’ Ubana said sarcastically.

‘Yeah. Him,’ Kelly agreed. ‘The one with the stripes. The good-looking one – well, good-looking for a cop.’

‘What you got in that young mind of yours?’ Ubana asked suspiciously.

‘Nothing,’ Kelly lied, blinking her wide almond-shaped eyes and for once looking younger than she was. ‘I was just saying …’

‘I’d get those crazy notions out your head if I was you, girl,’ Ubana cautioned her. ‘I’ve spoken to the man. He ain’t interested in the likes of you, unless he’s arresting you. He’s pure, you know. He’s here to bring the bad times to us. Sure, he’s starting with the local thugs and fools, but what d’you think he’s gonna do after they’re all gone? He’s gonna come after people like me and that will not be good. Where would you get your puff from then, Kelly?’ The girl just shrugged disinterestedly. ‘Yeah, exactly,’ Ubana told her. ‘I’ve seen his type before. Best thing for us is he gets his promotion or joins the CID or whatever it is he’s after and fucks off and leaves us alone, before he has a chance to do any real damage. He’s already been here too long.’

‘You shouldn’t be so afraid,’ Kelly dismissed her fears. ‘You just need to know how to control him.’

‘Really,’ Ubana replied patronizingly.

‘Really,’ Kelly continued. ‘There isn’t a man on the planet I couldn’t control.’

‘What do you know about men?’ Ubana asked. ‘You’re too young to know anything much. Too young to even know that.’

‘We’ll see,’ Kelly answered, walking backwards and smiling before elegantly spinning on her heels, never looking back as she strolled away. ‘We’ll see.’

King nursed their car through the light evening traffic as Sara sat in the passenger seat still talking relentlessly about the evening they’d just spent with his parents – continually shaking her head and groaning with frustration. He listened to her many complaints as his head throbbed from the stress of being in the company of his parents, while his back and shoulder ached as if the knife was still buried deep in his body. But he said nothing to her as she continued to list the crimes against his parents and even managed to smile and appear amused by her ranting.

‘Honestly,’ she told him, ‘I don’t know how you got through the night without a drink. Jesus, your dad. How did you put up with that growing up?’

‘I told you,’ he explained. ‘I was never at home or almost never. I went to boarding school.’

‘Yeah. I remember,’ she replied, rolling her eyes. ‘Nice parents – sending you away for your entire childhood.’

‘They’re not that bad,’ he half-heartedly tried to convince her. ‘Just a bit military, I suppose.’

‘Oh, God,’ she reminded him, ‘and all that crap about “it’s still not too late to go to Sandhurst”. Is he serious?’

‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘I think he probably is.’

‘Christ,’ she complained. ‘You’d think he’d have had enough of his sons being in the army after what happened to Scott.’

‘Don’t drag Scott into this,’ he snapped at her.

‘I’m not,’ she said. ‘It’s just after what happened to him and everything, you would have thought the last thing your parents would want is for their other son to join the army too. It’s not like you haven’t already been through enough.’

‘He just doesn’t know what else to say,’ he told her. ‘Doesn’t know what else to do.’

‘Well, he could help Scott for one thing,’ she argued, ‘instead of having a go at you.’

‘As far as he’s concerned, Scott’s all fixed,’ he explained. ‘Dad only sees the physical wounds.’

‘He doesn’t know Scott has post traumatic stress?’

‘No,’ he answered, ‘and Scott doesn’t want him to know.’

‘Why?’ she questioned.

‘Do you really need to ask?’ He looked at her quizzically.

‘Fair point,’ she conceded and allowed a silence to settle in the car for a while before breaking it. ‘Do you ever think you might have it?’ she asked a little nervously.

‘Have what?’ he smiled.

‘PST,’ she told him.

‘No,’ he managed to laugh it off, praying that the tightening in his stomach and the deafening sound of blood rushing around inside his head weren’t somehow manifesting themselves in a form Sara could see. He’d convinced the psychiatrists he was fine, not that any of them had dug too deep, each seemingly in a rush to move on to the next patient – teenagers with eating disorders and suicidal housewives. Sometimes he even fooled himself he was fine, but never for long. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me other than a stiff back and a sore shoulder. I passed my psychs – remember?’

‘It wasn’t a test,’ she corrected him. ‘They were just trying to find out if you needed help.’

‘And they found out I didn’t,’ he reminded her.

‘So long as you were truthful with them.’

‘Course I was,’ he assured her.

‘I doubt it,’ she accused him. ‘I know what you blokes are like – especially cops. You’d admit to anything before you admitted to struggling emotionally. You’re such a bunch of macho losers.’

‘If I was struggling I’d tell you,’ he lied. ‘But I’m not, so that’s the end of it.’ He dug his fingers deep into his aching shoulder, trying to ease the pain.

‘I’m sorry,’ she apologized. ‘I wasn’t trying to—’

‘I know,’ he cut her off, making her turn away. ‘Look,’ he softened. ‘It’s just my parents. They have a knack of pissing me off. But I’m fine,’ he insisted. ‘I’m absolutely fine.’

They shuffled through the front door of their small flat together feeling deflated and tired. They both kicked off their shoes and Sara threw herself into the inexpensive but comfortable sofa, before immediately jumping up again.

‘I’m exhausted,’ she told him. ‘I need to go to bed. If I fall asleep on that sofa you’ll never get me out of it. You coming?’

‘In a minute,’ he answered. ‘I need some painkillers and a drink first.’

‘I bet you do,’ she said without smiling. ‘Don’t be too long.’

‘I won’t be,’ he assured her, although in truth he had no idea how long he’d be.

‘See you in a minute then.’ She headed towards their bedroom while he went to the kitchen, turning on the under-cabinet lighting that only dimly illuminated the room. He pulled a beer from the fridge and popped the top off the bottle, placing it carefully on the small kitchen table before crossing the room and beginning to search for painkillers. Even in the poor light he found the buprenorphine easily enough. He pressed two tablets from the tinfoil and headed back to the table where he slumped in a chair, quickly throwing the pills in his mouth and washing them down with a long drink. The racing thoughts about his parents, his brother and Sara slowed to a flickering procession of still pictures in his mind, until finally they were pushed aside by the memories of the day he’d accepted a seemingly innocuous call to deal with a domestic dispute.

He shook his head, trying to expel the images from his mind, but they remained strong and vivid – the young girl walking like a ghost from the house, the crimson spreading slow and steady through her pristine white dress, collapsing into his arms as her father, her would-be killer, burst through the door. He winced as he once again felt the knife bury deep into his back and shoulder – his memory fast-forwarding to the point where he was beating the father unconscious and then he was inside the house and moving up the stairs to the room where he found the twelve-year-old girl lying face-down on her bed. He saw himself in the room standing over her, but not touching her as he had in reality – just standing there looking down at her dead body before walking backwards out of the room.

And then he entered the other room – the scene of bloody slaughter – the mother lying stabbed over and over on the bed with her brave teenage son on the floor next to her, his failed attempts to save his mother costing him his own young life. Only now, in his conscious nightmare, there was even more blood than there had really been. So much more that it pooled around the soles of his shoes as he walked slowly into the room – his feet sinking into the blood-saturated carpet as thick maroon liquid still poured from every wound on the mother’s body, yet more pouring from her son’s mouth, ears, nose and eyes.

King fled from the room in a panic, stumbling into the hallway and somehow becoming lost and disorientated in the small house, leaving bloody fingerprints on the walls as he used them to try and steady himself before he finally fell through a door and into another bedroom – the bedroom where he’d found the youngest girl lying peacefully on her back, pale and lifeless. Only in the terror of his waking dream she wasn’t lying, but sitting on the bed, her dead eyes staring at him, now wide and crystal blue – not closed as her father – her killer had left them. He inched towards her, his hand rising slowly and reaching out to her as her pale lips parted, her tongue garishly red in contrast. Words formed in her mouth before finally escaping, although they took an age to reach him, as if he was watching a badly lip-synched film. But eventually he could hear what she was saying – her voice soft and broken, but more terrifying than the loudest screams. Why didn’t you save me? Why didn’t you save me?

‘Fuck!’ He jumped to his feet, grabbing his shoulder as he instantly became aware of the pain in his body. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he pleaded as he shook the last remnants of the day-terror away. He drained the rest of his beer in one and took several deep breaths to steady himself, his pulse rate slowing as he recognized his surroundings and realized the girl wasn’t real – not any more.

He headed for the fridge, pulling the door open before immediately closing it and resting his head on the cold metal. ‘There was nothing I could do,’ he whispered to the ghost of the little girl. ‘You were gone before I got there. There was nothing I could do. Fuck,’ he said a little louder and yanked the fridge open, taking another beer from inside. ‘You were gone before I got there.’