Decay Inevitable

“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?”