DEATHLOOP Page 5

  Sam looked like he wasn’t so sure.

  “And why ask me to catch her? The girl was intent on killing herself, did she want to flatten me as well?”

  Sam puffed out his cheeks and for the moment could think of nothing to say.

  “As soon as I turned into the street I heard her… actually, it was like she’d been waiting for me to turn up.”

  “Maybe she was calling to someone else, maybe you misheard her.”

  “There was no one else there… the street was completely deserted, until she jumped of course…”

  “Did the cops come?”

  “I’m sure they did, but I didn’t wait to find out. How did she know me, Sam? What did she want me to do?”

  “You need to go home and get your head down, mate, sleep helps with stuff like this.”

  Zack was expecting this. Sam’s remedy for everything was sleep. Zack stood up and started to pace, he glanced out of the window then back at Sam who was still perched on his desk, sidesaddle, like a tubby little parrot on a swing.

  “I heard what happened last night by the way, with Susan… difficult?”

  “Not as difficult as this.”

  “So what did you do afterwards,” said Sam, as though the thought had just occurred to him.

  “Afterwards?”

  “Have you been here since? I mean for two hours?”

  “No, but don’t ask me where I’ve been because I couldn’t tell you.”

  This seemed to confirm things for Sam. “Listen, mate, go back home and get some shut eye, things will look better when you wake up.”

  The door opened revealing Geoff bewildered by Zack’s sports garb and about to mention it.

  “Zack has had a bit of a shock, Geoff,” said Sam.

  “Oh really?”

  “He’s just witnessed a suicide, a jumper, in Brunswick Street.”

  “Oh heck, that’s terrible, you should go home. We’ll cope I shouldn’t wonder.”

  And with that, Geoff threw Zack a vaguely reassuring smile and ambled off.

  As Zack left Emerson Buildings a little after 9 o’clock and turned off down Chancery Street on his way home, Jason Heart came running up and snatched his arm.

  “You’re Zack Fortune, aren’t you?”

  Startled, Zack snatched his arm back. “Excuse me?”

  “I need help,” said Jason.

  “Don’t we all, mate,” said Zack, “don’t we all.” About to move off again, Zack turned back and looked at the boy more closely. “What’s wrong?”

  “You’re a lawyer aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but not the kind you need, I stopped doing criminal law a while back.”

  Jason looked crushed for a moment, then rallied. “Yes but you still know it, you haven’t forgotten it or anything?”

  “No,” said Zack patiently, “but it’s not what I do, I can’t help you I’m afraid.”

  “How about lunch?” said Jason eagerly, playing his trump card.

  There was something about this boy that was vaguely appealing to Zack, his naivety maybe, his persistence? Zack softened, and Jason saw him soften. “You’re hungry are you, is that it?”

  “I’m always hungry.”

  “Well it’s too early for lunch,” said Zack, suddenly grateful for the distraction, “but we can grab a bite to eat somewhere and you can fill me in.”

  Zack and Jason lounged on low leather sofas at the back of a coffee house on the corner of Fleet Street, both looking out of place, Zack in his running gear, Jason in a bundle of baggy rags.

  “Okay,” said Zack, “what’s the problem?”

  “Possession with intent to supply,” said Jason.

  “How much are we talking about exactly?”

  “A lot,” said Jason, “crack cocaine and they don’t like crack much these days do they?”

  “No, you’re right there,” said Zack, “they don’t. I’m sorry I don’t know your name…”

  “Jason,” he said, “Jason Heart.”

  “Look, Jason, I’m a fully-fledged member of the capitalist classes now, the legal aid stuff I used to do is no more. I can recommend someone.”

  “I don’t want them I want you.”

  They held eye contact for a few moments.

  “And what’s so special about me?”

  “They say you’re the best, they say if anyone can get you off, Zack Fortune can.”

  “Well that’s very kind of these people whoever they are but they’re a little behind the times.”

  “So what’s this stuff you do now?”

  “Contracts, property, leases, loan restructuring…”

  “So why do it if you don’t like it? What’s the point?”

  On the verge of justifying himself for some reason he didn’t, for some reason, he owned up.

  “I’ve sold out,” said Zack, with a shrug.

  “Then you should be ashamed of yourself, Zack Fortune,” said Jason.

  Back at his flat Zack mulled over his conversation with Jason for some time, not exactly the comfort of strangers, but close. Within minutes, a street kid saw right through him, saw what Zack had been denying to himself for two years. He hated it at Nyman Holder and Drew, the only attraction being Sam Stein and he had 24 hour access to Sam anyway. The money was good but the work was dire. He loathed the acres of fine print he had to plough through, it bored him rigid, and all for the benefit of making very rich people a great deal richer.

  He’d been happy at Kentish Town Advice Centre, probably the happiest he’d ever been, and at Bridgeman, Harter and Sachs with their never ending supply of armed robbers who slipped you wads of fifty pound notes in brown paper envelopes if you got them off.

  Zack had told Jason to bring all the paperwork to his office and he would see what he could do. Why he had done that he did not know. Although there was nothing to stop him standing up in court and pleading for a 16 year old drug dealer, the likelihood of him actually doing so was remote.

  Zack kept the news on all day, keen to hear about the suicide, but nothing came up. There had been a huge fire at a chemical plant in Hatfield and most of the coverage centred on that. At 12 o’clock he wandered down to the corner shop for the Evening Standard and scoured the pages, but nothing there either. Zack thought it strange, but then he decided that suicides had become so common place lately, maybe it no longer constituted news. Zack had been down occasionally in his adult life but never once had he contemplated suicide, and he couldn’t quite get on the same page with those that did. Generally speaking life was good. His childhood had been dire, no question, but from Cambridge on things had certainly looked up.

  If nothing else, the girl’s suicide had put Susan and her broken heart into perspective. When he had left Susan last night he’d phoned Clarissa telling her that he just needed to get back, it had been one hell of a day. She understood and between them they decided to keep Susan’s identity secret. Carlo would be covered by his insurance, and what was the point of the Crown against Susan Wilmot? They’d give her a fine she’d struggle to pay and she’d have a criminal record. Poor Susan had enough on her plate without all that.

  By the end of the day Zack felt recovered enough to call Sam.

  “So… how’s things?” said Sam, pleased to hear from him.

  “A lot better, thanks, mate.”

  “You took my advice then?

  This made Zack smile. How could he tell Sam that he’d resisted the idea of an afternoon nap? He’d have felt like an OAP if he’d done that.

  “Absolutely, of course I did, which is why I’m raring to go.”

  “Raring to go where?” asked Sam, a distinct note of caution in his voice.

  “I thought you and me would take a tipple at The Mango Tree, 10ish…”

  “I’m getting too old for midnight escapades at The Mango Tree.”

  “No one is,” said Zack.

  The Mango Tree was a pretty dodgy club down at the rough end of Portobello Road, not far from the flyover and Zack lov
ed it there. The place was run by Rufus and his extended family from Somalia, boasting maverick doormen, an eccentric till on the bar that rarely opened, and a lot of boys who stood about on the stairs carrying brown paper carrier bags stuffed to the brim with God knows what.

  Sam always felt a little uneasy in The Mango Tree, and after a little exploration one day noted that there was no real fire escape to speak of, at least he couldn’t find one, if disaster struck they’d be burnt to a crisp. Sam mentioned it to Zack in passing, hoping it would put him off but if anything he seemed buoyed up by the information. “Well what do you expect,” Zack said right back at him, “health and bloody safety?”

  Zack arrived first and found a table, luckily, as the place was filling up, and a little while later he saw Sam walk in, managing to look both lost and shifty at the same time. Sam waved over, bobbed through the crowd, and slid himself along a bench to where a few glasses stood on the table between them.

  “Nothing on the news, was there?” said Sam after a few moments.

  “Not a sausage,” said Zack, catching Sam’s eye, convinced now that Sam thought he’d made the whole thing up.

  “And you still can’t think who she might be?”

  “A stranger,” said Zack, “that’s all I know, a stranger.”

  A couple got up to dance. The woman, early thirties, danced despondently, like she was coping with some huge sadness. She was very much Zack’s type this woman, beautiful and interesting with long auburn curly hair, tight jeans, a silk shift, silver bangles, and high heels. Zack noticed that her toe nails were painted bright blue.

  About ten minutes later Zack got up and moved in. He’d seen her heading for the bar alone and so he bumped into her, just slightly, but enough to make an apology the polite thing to do.

  “Sorry,” he said, “clumsy of me.”

  “How long are we expected to wait?” she said, glancing behind the bar at two young men deep in conversation, as though the waiting hoard of hopeful drinkers had nothing to do with them at all.

  “What?” said Zack, leaning closer, and breathing in her perfume.

  “To get served,” she replied, pitching her voice over the music, which had just been turned up a few decibels by the DJ, “unmotivated work force or what?”

  “The first hour’s always the worst,” said Zack.

  She smiled, displaying a fine set of teeth, although there was quite a gap between the top two.

  “I’m Zachariah Fortune by the way, people call me Zack.”

  “What a wonderful name,” she said brightly, as though it had instantly fired her imagination.

  “It does me, and what wonderful teeth, a great gap, well done.”

  She laughed, they both did, and suddenly they were alone, neither conscious of anyone else around them, then, for no reason that Zack could think of, he shivered.

  “Do you have a name by any remote chance?”

  “Yes, I do, funnily enough,” she said, cocking her head on one side.

  “You don’t want me to guess, do you, because we might be here for some time?”

  “Veronica, Veronica French.”

  “The Veronica French?”

  “The very same…”

  “But of course, I should have known.”

  Zack led her to the dance floor where they didn’t dance as such, just sort of held on, engrossed, mesmerized, unbelieving. Before long Veronica’s dreary boyfriend stormed up and grabbing her by the hand yanked her off, like a school girl who’d been dawdling and was due back on the bus. She turned to Zack with a blinding smile and a shrug. Zack remained where he was for a few moments until his view of Veronica was obliterated by a gang of students, off their heads on something and dancing like demons. He shot back to Sam, his eyes alive suddenly.

  “Hell, Sam, did you see that woman?”

  “Yes, I did, and I saw her boyfriend too.”

  “Isn’t she beautiful? Did you see that gap in her teeth? Divine, mate, like a young Lauren Hutton… Veronica French her name is. Have you ever heard such a fantastic name in your life, it suits her don’t you think!”

  “Yeah, and Peter Pan suits someone else I know. When I ask myself will Zack Fortune ever grow up? Answers on a post card please…”

  “Come on, Sam, she’s sensational…”

  “Another disaster in the offing, mate, trust me on this.”

  Over the next hour, a little light headed as he’d been drinking on an empty stomach, Zack tried to hunt her down, but it looked like Veronica French had gone. This was common practice when Zack was around. Most blokes took one look at him, realised they were hopelessly outclassed and suddenly remembered they had to be elsewhere, dragging their girlfriends off with them. In many ways it was flattering, but in this case, bloody annoying. As Zack made his way to the gents, he began to wonder if he’d be reduced to looking her up in the phone book – if they still had such things.

  The toilets were hidden away rather appropriately in the bowels of the building along winding corridors punctuated by mysterious locked doors. You didn’t dwell in the gents in The Mango Tree, you just got in and got out again, sharpish. Cokeheads often clogged the place up, sharing lines, their eyes as red as Mars, but not tonight, bizarrely, even though the place was packed, Zack was alone, at least… he thought he was alone.

  He leant on the broken sink and gazed at his reflection in a cracked mirror, then he ran a tap, splashed a little water on his face, and flicked it off, no such thing as paper towels here - you were lucky to get toilet paper, but when he looked back, his eye caught a flicker of movement behind him. Zack swung round, alarmed, fear making him breathless, but there was no one, he was still alone.

  As the door of the gents closed behind him, Zack turned off to the left. He had never gone this way before, the staircase back up to the club was the other way. He turned into another corridor, and another. The walls were painted uniformly red, and all the doors and their frames were painted with the same emulsion, as if to make doubly sure they didn’t open. Zack found himself wondering what lay behind them. After he had turned three corners he stopped. A very long corridor stretched out in front of him, exactly the same as the others, but unlike the others this one was not empty. Right at its end, propped up against the wall, a stout middle aged man sat on the floor, his legs splayed out wide, making him look like a toy left out of its box.

  When Zack came to rest in front of the man, in an instant, he froze, his breathing suspended and like a butterfly pinned to a board all he could do was stare down at this puffy Buddha, grotesque and bloated in his helplessness. The man’s lips were pulled back, a spider of dark blood crawling out between them, his eyes like pure white marbles nestling loosely in his baggy sockets.

  “Zachariah… you’re here, I knew you’d come. Help me.”

  Despite the deadlock the man’s grin broadened momentarily and his face lit up like the target of a search light. Then, as though in response to a far off starting pistol, all at once he sagged, a squelching sounded in his throat and his head shrunk into his chest that deflated like a punctured beach ball, dispensing with procrastination once and for all, death was swift.

  Zack’s body, still rigid, denied his brain’s command to flee, the horror that sped through him exacerbated by his inability to escape from it, and the very real possibility that he would die here, a reluctant waxwork, like a once living creature set in formaldehyde, doomed to be eternally inert.

  Then, as decay crept steadily through the blackened corpse oozing at his feet, Zack slowly began freeing up, there were the stirrings of movement, and a thaw. First his lungs swung out, greedy for oxygen, then sweeping up from his feet his joints released until he could move again and he was able to run.

  Free of his invisible restraints Zack raced off along more corridors than could ever exist in one building, all punctuated with those red doors that he knew would not open. He ran wildly through the labyrinth until his legs gave up on him, as desperate as a hare in a coursing circle to find hi
s way out. But then, when panic had almost defeated him he turned into a different corridor, a big black door standing right at its end. As he raced towards it he noted that this door looked serviceable enough, as though it actually provided access in and out. Zack sent up a little prayer as he threw himself against it, and it gave, and he barged outside… hauling air inside him, luxuriating in the simple act of breathing. He darted along a back street to a connecting road where Veronica was waiting, as though at some point in the evening their meeting had been arranged.

  “Come on,” she said, “we have to be quick.”

  From a distance the boyfriend saw them and shouted out, which prompted Veronica and Zack to move faster. They jumped into a cab, engine running, door open. The cab did a U turn and as they drove past the boyfriend and their eyes met, Zack saw him recoil in shock, his eyes full of fear, then Veronica’s boyfriend crossed himself.

  CHAPTER 7

  Under normal circumstances Zack would have regarded the presence of Veronica French in his flat enormously exciting, as it was he would have preferred it had she just left her phone number and gone.

  He had tried to calm down in the cab, but he was still jumpy. Once or twice he caught the eye of the driver in his rear view mirror and this spooked him. Why had the cab been waiting there? Why was the engine running and the door standing open as though the driver knew they only had a few seconds to shake the boyfriend off? How did Veronica know he’d be racing along the alleyway and be there in exactly the right spot to meet him? Who was the old boy in the club, and most of all how come he was witness to another death of another stranger who seemed to know him?

  “This is the most amazing view,” she said, turning to the window.

  “Better than TV, certainly, but then, hey… what isn’t these days.”

  She looked at him, wondering whether he regretted agreeing to this, it was as though he didn’t want her there at all.

  “Listen, maybe I’d better leave you to it,” said Veronica, “I feel like I’m intruding.”

  “Of course not, it’s good that you’re here,” he said, without conviction.

  In the cab, Veronica had told him that she lived with her boyfriend, Jean-Paul, but he had become impossible lately. Zack had wanted to say well what do you expect, he’s French, they’re all bloody impossible, but he didn’t, he just listened to a litany of mistakes the poor sod had made, making a mental note of each one so as not to repeat them. All pretty minor Zack concluded, but then you could say that Susan’s were as well. What it boiled down to was this: that when someone really starts getting on your nerves for whatever reason, it’s time to get a quote from the removal guys because it sure won’t get any better.