He just lay there then, not moving, not making a sound, a thin dribble of blood oozing from his half-open mouth, and for a moment or two, I thought I might have killed him. And as I knelt down beside him to check for a pulse, I could already hear a self-recriminating voice in my head saying, Now you’ve done it, haven’t you? Now you’ve really gone and fucked things up. But after a few heart-stopping seconds of fumbling around, trying unsuccessfully to find a pulse, I finally felt the faint movement of blood beneath my finger.
He was alive.
Everything was OK.
Nothing to worry about.
I reached into his pockets and removed his cigarettes and a lighter, then I went over and sat down on the bed, lit a cigarette, and waited for him to wake up.
It didn’t take long. Within a few minutes he started groaning and coughing, and pretty soon he’d opened his eyes, spat on the floor, and heaved himself up into a sitting position. He didn’t look too good — his right eye was blackening where I’d kicked him, his throat was swollen and red, and his face had turned a sickly grey colour. He couldn’t sit up straight because of the pain in his groin, and every time he took a breath it sounded like he was dying.
‘You all right?’ I asked him.
He coughed, spat again, and looked at me. ‘Fuck you.’
I threw him his packet of cigarettes, half of which I’d already removed for myself. He took one out and put it in his mouth, and I threw him his lighter. He lit the cigarette and immediately started coughing again. I took one of his cigarettes from my pocket and held out my hand, waiting for him to throw the lighter back. He glared at me for a moment, then grudgingly lobbed it over.
‘Just so you know,’ I said to him, lighting the cigarette. ‘If you come anywhere near me again, I’m going to kill you. All right?’
‘Fuck you,’ he said again, but there was nothing in his voice — no venom, no violence, no threat — and I knew he was just making a noise, an animal response. He was hurt, wounded. Physically and emotionally. And I didn’t think I’d have any more problems with him. But even so, as I watched him crawl back across the floor to his bed, and painfully clamber onto it, I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping that night.
13
After a long and sleepless night, I was finally released from the cell at nine o’clock the next morning. The custody officer who let me out wasn’t the same one who’d locked me up, and I got the impression that — unlike his predecessor — this one wasn’t in on the set-up.
‘What’s the matter with him?’ he asked me, looking over as Big Bastard started coughing his guts up again. He’d been doing it most of the night — coughing, choking, spitting up gobs of God knows what. But apart from that — and the two occasions when I’d had to put up with him crawling out of bed for a long, loud, and foul-smelling piss — he hadn’t been any trouble at all.
‘I don’t know what’s the matter with him,’ I said, glancing over at the still-coughing Big Bastard. I think he’s got asthma or something.’
I was let off with a caution for the kerb-crawling offence and bailed to attend court for the drink-driving charge.
‘Where’s my car?’ I asked the custody officer as he passed me a large manila envelope containing my belongings.
He shrugged. ‘Where you left it, I suppose.’
‘Any chance of a lift?’
He laughed.
As I emptied out the envelope and started putting all my stuff back in my pockets, the custody officer passed me a form.
‘Make sure everything’s there,’ he said, ‘then sign at the bottom.’
It was all there — phone, keys, photograph, lighter … everything except the packet of cigarettes that Tasha had given me.
I looked at the custody officer. ‘There should be a packet of Marlboro.’
He checked the form. ‘There’s no cigarettes listed here.’
‘Are you sure?’
He looked at the form again. ‘Sorry, mate … there’s a cigarette lighter down here, but no cigarettes.’ He looked at me. ‘Are you sure you didn’t finish them?’
I shook my head. ‘I had them when I got here last night, and I clearly remember the custody officer taking them off me.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, smiling, ‘but you were pissed last night, weren’t you? We all forget things that happened and remember things that didn’t happen when we’re pissed, don’t we?’
I looked at him — a harmless, passionless man — and I knew that he didn’t have anything to do with whatever was going on here. As far as he was concerned, it was simply a matter of a missing packet of cigarettes. To Mick Bishop though … well, I had to assume that at some point last night, after I’d been locked up, he’d gone through my belongings, looking for anything that might interest him, and he must have spotted the registration number of the Nissan Almera that Tasha had jotted down on the back of the cigarette packet … and the number must have meant something to him. And that had to mean that there was a link between Bishop and the Nissan, which in turn had to mean there was a link between him and Anna Gerrish. It had to. Why else would Bishop take the gamble of keeping the cigarette packet, in the hope that I wouldn’t remember the registration number without it, when he must have known that once I’d realised what he’d done, I’d realise why he’d done it.
‘Are you all right, son?’ the custody officer asked me.
‘Uh, yeah …’ I told him. ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’
‘If you want me to check about the cigarettes, I could probably get in touch with one of the officers who dealt with you — ’
‘No, that’s all right, thanks. Don’t worry about it.’
When I left the police station, the rain had stopped and a pale-purple October sky hung low over the morning streets. There was a strange light to the air, an unreal haze that seemed to both clarify and deaden everything at the same time. It reminded me of the feeling you get when you come out of the cinema into the late afternoon daylight and you’re suddenly faced with the humdrum brilliance of the real world again. The sights, the smells, the sounds …
It was all too real.
It was Friday morning. I was dirty and tired, my breath stank, my skin itched, my head was aching. And I didn’t even have any cigarettes.
I headed off towards town.
I was coming out of a newsagent’s on Eastgate Hill, tearing the cellophane off a packet of Marlboro, when I heard someone calling out to me. ‘John! Over here!’ And when I looked up, I saw Mick Bishop leaning across the passenger seat of a blue Vectra stopped at the side of the road. He pushed open the door and waved at me to get in. I thought about it for a second, realised that I didn’t have much choice, and went over and got in the car.
‘All right?’ Bishop said as I closed the door.
‘Yeah …’
He smiled at me. ‘I thought you might need a lift back to your car.’
‘Thanks.’
‘London Road?’
I nodded.
He looked at me for a moment, slyly amused, then he pulled out into the traffic and drove away.
‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ I asked him.
‘Do you have to?’
‘Yeah.’
‘All right, but open the window.’
I cracked the window and lit a cigarette, sighing audibly as I breathed out the smoke.
‘Rough night?’ Bishop said.