‘Stay strong… ’
Pascoe had said that, whispered it at the end of the last call. Helen had told her that she needed to go – she was keen to get all the calls over with before anyone started asking about Stephen Mitchell – and Pascoe had said that she would call again in an hour. Then she’d said it, quickly.
Stay strong. Where the hell had that come from?
It sounded weird, oddly intimate, touchy-feely. Not the sort of thing Helen was expecting, had grown used to, not… professional. Then again, perhaps it was just Pascoe’s job to make it sound exactly as though she really was Helen’s closest friend. Maybe she reacted differently when the hostage was a copper.
Or maybe there was nothing strange at all about what Pascoe had said, and it was just another of the thoughts that had begun to reel and crash aimlessly around inside Helen’s head. She’d looked into the faces of plenty of drunks and sky-high addicts in holding cells, met enough people whose minds were not functioning properly, temporarily or otherwise. She’d listened to the ramblings.
She recognised the patterns.
She was hot and it was sticky and she could not think what day it was without really concentrating. When she closed her eyes, the lights that swam around behind them exploded together and fused into faces: Jenny, Paul, her father. A man she’d seen on the train a few weeks before who’d smiled and who she’d fantasised about for several days. After a few moments, the lights trailed away like dying fireworks and the features began to dissolve. She tried to picture Tom Thorne, but couldn’t. Just a sketch, a shape, somewhere between sad and scary.
She thought about Thai food and wine and a hot bath.
She thought about Paul’s broken head and a bloom of blood.
She thought about Alfie.
It had been nine months, more, since she had last felt him sucking at her, having never really felt good about it, never felt relaxed or capable or natural like her sister had been. But now, thinking about her son’s drool drying on her neck and his fat little legs, she felt an ache in her breast as though she might start to leak at any moment.
A pressure, building.
She thought about the gun on the desk and the scissors in the desk drawer.
Akhtar walked back in from the shop. He had cleared away the remains of their most recent meal: the crisp packets and empty cans, the ice-cream wrappers. He sat at the desk looking serious and for a few minutes neither of them spoke.
‘It seems that we have finally run out of things to talk about,’ Akhtar said eventually. ‘Perhaps we should watch some television.’
Helen said she didn’t mind, but Akhtar did not move. He stared at her and when he rubbed his face, his palm rasped against the stubble. He smoothed down the hair at the side of his head and she could see the dark patches underneath his arms.
‘There are some programmes at this time of day you might enjoy,’ he said.
‘I told you it’s fine.’
‘I was thinking you might like it, that was all.’
‘Whatever you want,’ Helen said, fighting to keep the irritation from her voice.
Akhtar leaned across to switch on the television, then sat back clutching the remote. He flicked between the channels. The picture was far better on some than others.
‘Nadira tells me about these programmes,’ he said, sitting back. ‘She watches them at home in the afternoon, all curled up with coffee and damned chocolates, like some kind of princess, you know? Antiques and holidays and people moving to the countryside.’
Helen nodded.
‘That’s all you get these days, isn’t it? Reality programmes or murder mysteries. Reality and crime.’
Helen nodded again.
‘I know, I know,’ Akhtar said. ‘You’re sitting there thinking to yourself, look at where we are, for heaven’s sake!’
Helen kept her eyes fixed on the screen, on the couple being led around a garden, tried hard to focus on the monotonous commentary. To distract herself.
Thinking: Alfie, gun, scissors, Alfie, gun…
‘You’re asking yourself, why do we even need the bloody television?’
Thinking: stay strong.