The Girls Beneath

I lie face down. They say nothing. Emre is forced to nod and give the impression that all this is pretty normal stuff.

I breathe in. It’s a man’s smell but I don’t think he’s been in this bed. I admit this must look unorthodox.

I reach down into the gap between bed and wall and pluck out a piece of paper. I act like that’s all I needed. I pull it out. Cream A5, full of colour on one side. Purples, greens, blues, reds. The picture started as a useful subterfuge, but now I look at it, it could be more than that.

My eyes scan it and see patterns. Triangles here. A grid. I map it in an instant. I understand the components, the smallest minutiae of shades within shades, but my mind can’t quite make out what it’s supposed to be.

‘What is this?’ I say.

‘It’s a picture,’ she says.

‘It’s a house next to a playground,’ Emre says.

‘Does she like drawing?’ I say, taking a slow step toward her.

‘Probably. I don’t –’

‘Know everything about her, do you?’ I say.

‘She’s a girl. She takes art. I’d say she likes drawing,’ she says. I’ve riled her a little.

‘Why draw this?’ I say. I have to focus to see what they see so easily. The house and playground coming into shape like a constellation.

‘Why draw anything?’ she says.

‘Exactly!’ I say.

Emre Bartu shuffles from side to side.

‘I don’t know, I don’t recognise it, it’s just a picture,’ she says.

‘It’s quite childish,’ I say.

‘She’s a child,’ she says.

‘Not really,’ I say.

‘She’s sixteen…’ says Bartu, taking no side.

‘Would you say she’s childish? Young for her age?’

‘Not really. She’s mature. We have adult conversations.’

‘Then why does she draw like this?’

‘It’s just a picture,’ she says.

‘Have you seen it before?’ I say.

‘No…’ she says.

‘No “definitely not”, or no “maybe”?’ I say.

‘It’s just a picture,’ Bartu says, as much of a reproach as he can muster without it seeming like a professional dressing down.

I toss the paper away and head for the chest at the foot of the bed. I open the uneven bottom drawer. I run my hand along the materials inside.

I smell blue again.

Winter garments. My hand rummages further, I feel something underneath a patterned scarf, I lift it up and underneath I feel cool, smooth, synthetic material. Then I take a look and step back again, vocalising my surprise with a level of drama I didn’t intend.

‘What is it?’ she says, as she goes over to look.

Emre looks at me. I was rooting around too much. I don’t want to intrude or offend, I only want to help, but my new brain makes delicacy difficult. And it’s too late for regrets, I’ve found something.

She pulls them out from under the scarf. She looks at me tersely, then back at them.

Did you know that photo paper is mostly made from gelatine? Our images are preserved forever, burned onto crushed animal matter. You need the thickening agent of the gelatine from cow’s bones to hold the glossy silver halide crystals together.

She holds them for Emre Bartu to see and then quickly draws them away. I don’t like surprises. I didn’t want to see a young girl’s naked body. There are twenty or thirty pictures.

‘Do you think she took these herself, Ms Fraser?’ Emre Bartu says.

‘I don’t know. I don’t think she has a Polaroid.’

‘Maybe a friend has one,’ Bartu says.

‘I wouldn’t know, I’m sorry.’

I could say, ‘I think there’s an awful lot you don’t know’ at this point, but I manage not to. She’s looking at me differently now. Grudgingly pleased we’ve shown a bit more fervour than the last two did. I don’t want to spoil this emerging good will.

‘Should I be worried about this?’ she says.

‘Depends what sort of friend took them,’ Emre says. Careful, Bartu.

‘Yeah, it does,’ she says, staring at them. She offers them back to me, unsure what the protocol dictates. Her hand shakes a little as she pushes them it towards me.

‘No! No. Put them back where we found them, I think,’ I say, glancing at Emre.

We can’t bring evidence back with us. We’ll have to do this without analysing anything, officially anyway. We need to leave everything as we found it, like night thieves covering their tracks. That way it will be longer until we’re found out.

‘Thanks for your time. We should go,’ he says again.

‘Please, take my number, in case you need anything,’ I say, handing her one of my pre-prepared cards. Emre tenses up again as I do so.

‘Thank you,’ she says. She’s grateful. A profound sensation of joy comes over me. We head downstairs, I think about the blue smell as we reach her door, the smell that would feel like mahogany, and sound like an ‘F’ note.

‘Who wears the aftershave?’ I say.

‘No one, we haven’t had a man in this house for five years.’

My olfactory sense is good but not that good.

‘Tanya’s dad?’

‘Is in Canada. They’ve never met. And they don’t need to.’

‘And five years ago?’ Emre says.

‘A boyfriend I was seeing, but I’m through with all that.’

We nod and I work through the possibilities. A man has been there and not so long ago. That’s what it smells like to me.

‘It’s probably my perfume you can smell. Is it important?’

I take in the oddness of the structure of this sentence. They both take in the oddness of me.

‘No, not important. Yes, it’s probably the perfume,’ I lie.

Then I notice a Siberian cat with canary-coloured eyes creep up to the front door and pry in. It looks up at me, I return the favour and we understand each other somehow.

‘Monkey,’ she says. ‘Come on in.’ She picks him up and gives me a look. Bartu is as amazed as he should be by this partial confirmation of my previous deduction. But I don’t even smile, I just revel in it. Then ponder…

Monkey? What sort of name is that for a cat? You can call it any stupid name you want, but don’t call it the name of another existing animal. Language is tough enough without that kind of nonsense. That really annoys me for a second. I resolve to remember to name my cat, but be a lot more careful than she’s been about it.

I nod to her and turn to leave abruptly. Emre follows, saying ‘Bye then’. By the time she says it in return I’m ten feet away and walking back to the station.

I notice it’s getting dark as Emre appears alongside me. I think about what sort of man would’ve worn that aftershave. I think about the colour blue. I think about why she’s lying to me.

9

‘My body is tired, tired, tired

But my brain is wired, wired, in the night

My liver is fired, like a fire alight in the cold

Think we’ll keep the thing alive before we get too old’

‘We’re not done in there,’ I warn him in the locker room.

‘Tom. We’re extremely done in there. We’re not going anywhere near her or this ever again,’ he says, sotto voce.

‘Come on. You know that’s not true. We’re just getting started,’ I bark back.

There’s no one around. The others told us on the radio that they were back on time and were heading home. Emre is extra annoyed because he had to tell Levine that we’re late in because ‘someone thought there might have been a break in at the library, but it turned out to be nothing’.

Liar. That was his first lie. I try not to tell lies. He probably does, too, but he got backed into a corner and didn’t want to get into trouble.

In reality, the only other thing we had to do on our shift was to go and get a description of some shoplifters from John’s Food and Wine. Shoplifters always get me down for some reason. That and the school visit wouldn’t have taken up our whole time, even it was a half shift. So he needed to create another event to explain us coming back twenty minutes late.

He could’ve said we lost track of time.

He could have told the truth and put it all on me.

But he didn’t.

He told a lie, a white one but a lie all the same. Now he’s with me, we’re bound together, because I know about the lie and I know he’s the sort of person who isn’t averse to deception. It’ll be tough for him to get away from me and my plans, but he doesn’t know that yet. I can only wait for his reticence to wither and then drop off.

‘We can’t do this anymore,’ Bartu says as we step outside in our civvies.

‘It sounds like you’re breaking up with me. It’s only our first date.’

‘I’ll lose my job. I need it. I’ve got aspirations.’

‘Yes, me too, I’ve got aspirations, Emre Bartu.’

‘I don’t think they’re the same aspirations.’

He lights a cigarette. Emre smokes.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘You smoke.’

‘Yes. What’s wrong with that? Don’t say the obvious.’

‘I have to say I see this as very weak.’

‘Really?’

‘But then I’m very judgemental.’

‘Everyone’s got their thing to get them through the day.’

‘I don’t like to be dependent. On anything, never have.’

‘They don’t smoke me. I smoke them.’

‘I’m not so sure.’

‘What’s your thing?’

‘Words.’

‘But you can’t read properly, right?’

‘I’m working on it. Why don’t you try quitting?’

‘Because I’m dedicated.’

‘You’re not that dedicated. You’re giving up on this case.’

‘It’s not my case to give up on. Give me a break will you?’

This all happens quite slowly but it’s the fastest bit of conversation I’ve been able to take part in for a while and I’m pleased with myself.

I batted it back and forth, it was a decent rally. My mind is getting sharper. I break into a broad smile, pleased with myself for everything that has happened today. He clocks this as we arrive at his car. I go to get in on the passenger side.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I need a lift.’

‘Ok, fine. Where do you live?’

‘By Seven Sisters station.’

‘That’s not on my way.’

‘Are you going to make me walk? I got shot in the head.’

Emre just sighs and cracks; he likes me, he’s trying to pretend he doesn’t, but he likes me.

He backs the car out as I find an open packet of bonbons in his glove compartment.

‘Headlights,’ I say, popping one into my mouth.

‘I was just about to. You’re Mr Rules all of a sudden, huh?’

‘Can’t see without headlights,’ I say, shrugging. He’s flustered.

Our lights crawl along the road in front of us as we cut through the biting evening air. The misted breath of the passers-by rises and drifts up to join the milky clouds above. The temperature has dropped and it’s going to start snowing again soon apparently. It hasn’t snowed since the day of my accident. This is supposed to be one of the coldest winters in London on record, something about a cold front from the Atlantic. 68 days of snow were scheduled so that gives us a few more by the end of a freezing February, by my reckoning.

I’m not interested in the photos. Teenagers are mostly into that stuff. Once you hit fifteen it’s all warm cider and dick pics these days. Look at me! I’ve got one of these! Observe me!

I’m more interested in the picture she drew.

The scent of aftershave in the house.

‘Hey Emre, remind me to remember that Ms Fraser had a rosewood coloured afro that nicely complemented her skin tone, will you?’

‘Okay. Why?’

‘So I remember who she is.’

‘We’re not going back there.’

‘Well, just in case.’

‘You spent an hour with her, are you that forgetful?’

‘I’m not forgetful at all. I’m just not so good with faces.’

‘Is anyone that bad with faces?’

‘Yes, I am. Since the accident. Tomorrow I won’t recognise you either unless I write it down. No offence. Everyone’s face is like a plain black suitcase. I see the shapes and they means nothing to me, it’s like a foreign language. You know that phrase, I don’t remember names but I never forget a face? That’s the opposite of me. Don’t tell anyone though, they won’t like it.’

‘Hmm. No shit. That’s not typically how you’d want a member of the police force to be.’

‘Nothing about me is typically how you’d want a member of the police force to be. But then I’m not a typical person. And I’m not really a member of the police force.’

‘Okay. I think I understand that.’

‘Good. Then we’re on the same page.’

‘I wouldn’t go that far.’

He’s right, I’m not on the same page as anyone, not anymore. We’re not even in the same library.

We drive past low price trainer stores and a football ground.

‘Listen, Tom, I can’t come with you on this trip you’re on. So I’m just going to tell Levine he should find you someone else.’

‘What will you say?’

‘I’ll say we don’t get on.’

‘Why lie?’

‘How do you know I’m lying?’

‘Because you can’t fool me, you like me.’

‘Is that right?’

‘Yep. Also, you’ve already told a lie and I know about it and if I tell them about it, it won’t look good for you. I could make trouble for you, Emre Bartu. And I don’t want to do that.’

‘Is that a threat? Are you threatening me now?’

‘Yes, but it’s only ‘cos I like you. Pull over.’

‘What?’

‘Pull over!’

I grab the wheel and that forces Emre to slam on the brakes. We both fly forward but our belts do their jobs and we don’t even suffer a minor whiplash, so I don’t know what he’s so angry about.

‘Are you crazy!?’ he shouts

‘I’m not crazy,’ I mutter as I get out and approach the black car at the side of the road that had drifted into my vision.

Ever since I heard the words ‘missing girl’ I’ve been looking for a blacked out car. You don’t see many cars with blacked out windows and you certainly don’t see many halfway up the kerb without number plates front or back.

I stalk around it and Emre follows.

No broken windows. Tickets all over it. Possibly dumped. Hubcaps missing, which tells me it’s been there long enough for people to start stripping it for parts but not long enough for it to be towed.

‘Tom? Can we do this tomorrow? We can check it out then if you’re interested, but I wanna get home to my girlfriend.’

Most support officers don’t carry batons due to the ‘nonconfrontational’ nature of our work, but we are authorised to do so. I told Levine it would make me feel more comfortable.

‘You’ve got a girlfriend? Nice, good for you,’ I say, smashing into the passenger window with my baton.

‘Shit! Tom? Don’t do that. Let’s do this when we’re on the clock tomorrow, okay? We’ll do it together. We’ll stick together, I promise, but not now.’

It takes a few hits to get through. Then I clear off the loose shards and take a look inside.

It smells chartreuse. It would taste of ink and sound like an E flat. Owing to the blacked out windows it’s dark. But it’s the smell I’m interested in. He joins me, poking his head inside.

‘What would you say that smell is, Emre?’

‘Er, I don’t know. I can’t smell anything.’

Chartreuse, refined yellowing pear-like green, a colour named after a French liqueur.

‘I can’t see anything either,’ he says, interest growing. But I spy the outline of a patterned glove, that I’d say is part of a set. But the other glove, and the possible matching hat and scarf, are nowhere to be seen. Leaving the single glove there, alone, lying limply on the back seat.

Girl missing: Blacked out windows.

It’s like word association. It’s just how my brain works now. That’s not to say I’m right, but if a girl goes missing there are only so many options.

1. She’s gone of her own free will.

2. She’s walked into a trap.

3. She’s been picked up and taken somewhere against her will.

And if she’s been taken somewhere you’re going to have to do that with a degree of care. You’re going to have to pacify her, or make sure no one sees her struggle, hence the blacked out car.

Robbery: blood on broken window.

Arson: check the insurance.

GBH: check romantic history.

Missing girl: car with blacked out windows.

It’s just something I do. ‘Be open to the fact that the simplest answer is sometimes the best one.’ Even the training officer said that. In other words, clichés become clichés for a reason. They’re neither to be worshipped or ignored.

I should’ve been watching Bartu instead of wandering through these thoughts though, because when I turn to him he’s in the process of doing something uncharacteristically stupid.

‘My phone’s got a torch app, but it’s dead. Here,’ he says, flicking his Zippo alight and leaning it into the car just as something tells me that the chartreuse might be something to be concerned about.

‘No!’ I shout, grabbing him. He drops the thing and I throw both of us back as the car goes up in flames. We hit the ground, hard.

The next thing I notice is the white smell of our burnt hair.

I close my eyes, half expecting the whole thing to go up – boom! But it doesn’t. It’s not quite how you’d want it to be. But it’s still a spectacle the upholstery definitely isn’t going to survive.

‘Fuck!’ he shouts. He’d definitely be worse off if he’d leaned further in, and ended up half the man he used to be facially.

The car blazes beautifully against the night sky, as snow begins to fall. Embers rise, passing white flakes, kissing them hello and goodbye as they rise towards the abyss above.

‘Fire Alight’ starts playing on a loop in my head. It’s another lullaby I wrote in the ward; you won’t know it. My subconscious has a dark sense of humour.

Missing girl. Blacked out car that sets alight. If all this doesn’t pique Emre’s interest, then it damn well should do.

The chartreuse and blue are linked. I think the scents have shades of each other within them, now I picture them together.

‘Fuck,’ he repeats, more from anger than pain.

I face the flames. I’m resolved. It’s my time to shine.

I pick him up and dust us both down. Then I pull him back again, as something goes bang!

We fall down onto our arses. And watch the car shake. Muffled cracks and bangs rumble away in there.

Bang. Crack. Bang.

I picture the shadow of a jittery guy in a blacked out car on the day I was shot. This car, I’m guessing. I sniggered as he sped away. I’m not sniggering now.

Cars don’t explode if you shoot into the petrol tank like in the movies. It wouldn’t happen that way, trust me. Cars don’t tend to do anything that dramatic, unless they happen to be, for instance, filled with fireworks.

Boom!

The boot lifts clean off and rolls a few metres away from us. Lights pulsate from the back of the car, then are flung out onto the ground causing three-second long lakes of green and red sparks, as high-pitched whistles join the other noises and we hold our ears.

But still, it’s the fireworks not the tank that has exploded. Because petrol tanks don’t tend to explode.

Unless, for example, those fireworks spark an even bigger fire, that heats the petrol in the tank below to combustion point.

Whoomph! A noise that puts the gunpowder bangs into context. I’m closer than I want to be, as the tank explodes.

Grey smoke and debris shoot into the night air.

Then a single rocket escapes and shoots over the London skyline. It’s a hell of a show. You can’t help but just sit, watch and shake your head at the spectacle of it all.

Fire. Gunpowder. You slam some things together and the world reacts accordingly.

Me. Bartu.

Girls and boys.

Bullets. Brains.

The smooth neck of the London city sky and everything else, that glints blade-like underneath.

We watch it in wonder.

‘Fuck’ indeed.

The sky lights up. A millisecond of day in our evening time. Like sheet lightning.

Documented Telephone Conversation #1

It rings.

‘Hello?’ she says.

‘Hello.’

‘Hello. Who is this?’

‘Err…’

The silence drags.

‘Oh,’ she says.

‘Hmm,’ comes the non-committal noise across the line.

‘You hid your number,’ she says.

‘Did I?’

‘You know you did,’ she says.

‘Yeah…’

The caller starts to tap their knee nervously. The receiver of the call shifts her seating position, but she doesn’t feel the need to talk. Then she gets up and moves into another room, perhaps so she can speak more freely, it is the evening after all and she may not be alone. She settles down in her new position, wherever that may be. She hasn’t been wherever she currently is for very long. Then she breathes a sigh across the line.

‘Are you alone?’

‘How’ve you been?’ she says, not taking the bait.

‘I’ve been worse. I’ve been better.’

‘Do you need to talk?’ she says.

‘Yes, I do, I need to talk. I don’t want to, but I need to.’

‘What do you need to talk about?’ she says.

‘I just need to talk, and hearing your voice isn’t bad either. Not too bad I suppose.’

‘How’s your new job going?’

‘It’s going,’ I murmur.

I know that she senses the tension of it. Anger or the unsaid can so easily sound like flirtation but that’s not what she wants. She doesn’t want any of it. She wants to get on with her life and to not feel bad for wanting that. She feels that as it was me who called, the onus is on me to drive beginnings, otherwise it’s like someone insisting on coming to your house in the afternoon only to lie dormant on your sofa. We both feel the silences take on different forms, which is one of the miracles that everyone has felt since the advent of the telephone call and has been repeated thousands of times all over the world since. It’s a kind of telepathy. We’ve picked up where we left off.

‘So what’s happened since we last spoke? Anything big?’

‘You could say that,’ I say.

‘You sound different,’ Anita says.

‘I am,’ I say.

‘What happened?’

Amongst the many fragments of advice that Ryans has given me, talking to someone I knew well before the accident stood out. He would even like to meet with somebody who can attest to certain changes in me. ‘It’s difficult to know where you’re headed if we don’t know where you’ve been’, he says. But there is only really one who knew me before and I don’t want her talking to him about me.

I should talk because I’m told that it will help. But it stings.

‘The fundamental requirements for my work. Do you remember I read them to you?’ I say.

‘Yes. I think so.’

‘Inspire confidence with your presence. Don’t jump to conclusions about what you see and hear. Win co-operation through good-humoured persuasion. Display good stamina for working on foot.’

‘So… how are you doing?’ Anita says

‘Well… my stamina for working on foot is good.’

‘Ha.’ She laughs her laugh.

‘Don’t laugh.’

‘I wasn’t laughing at you. Have you lost your sense of humour?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Can’t find it anywhere. Also, I’ve become impulsive. Also, you’re subtly slurring, which indicates you might soon get a migraine. I read a new study. You should take magnesium tablets.’

‘Seriously, none of this sounds at all like you,’ she says.

‘So you’ve said. I should tell you, a thing happened. There was an accident, a bad one. It happened to me. Don’t you read the paper?’

‘No. What accident?’ she says.

I breathe. Quick ones. Three in and three out.

‘I won’t bother you with it. I needed to talk. Now I have.’

‘Are you okay? You seem so different.’

‘People change. Goodbye,’ I say.

‘No, I want to see you. Please. I’m worried. I still… I do love… ’