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He gave the lead a tug and pulled Toby, his black Labrador, away from the tombstone of an unknown soul lost at sea. The graveyard attached to St Christopher's, here at the estuary mouth of the Mersey in Crosby, was filled with such tombstones, testament to the killing power of the sea that lay beyond.
Toby who had been about to leave his calling card on the tombstone gave a low grumble and then rubbed himself on Marcus's leg. Marcus patted his haunches.
‘Good man,’ he said to the dog.
The vicar had noticed Marcus now and was waving to him, beckoning him over. For a second Marcus considered walking over but instead he raised his hand and turned his back to the vicar, pulling Toby towards the graveyard gates.
Outside the churchyard the eastbound carriageway was beginning to clog up with the evening exodus of vehicles from the city heading towards the suburbs of Crosby, Formby and Southport. It was almost dark at 5 p.m., and black clouds were rolling in from the Atlantic carrying rain destined for the west coast. Marcus drew up the high collars of his overcoat and decided that he would cut Toby's walk short this evening. A quick stroll down to the beach, let him do his business and then home to a four-pack of Stella and Coronation Street.
He cut down Shore Drive and soon he was on the beach. It had been transformed with the arrival of the Gormley statues a few years previously. Part of the whole Capital of Culture thing. Most of it a massive waste of money, in Marcus’ opinion. There were people starving in this city, you only had to open your eyes to see it, and yet it was acceptable to have millions of pounds going into the pockets of non-local celebrity artists for a pile of junk.
But, the statutes, even he had to admit, were an impressive and moving sight. The work was called Another Place. One hundred ghostly, life-size cast-iron figures dotted along three kilometres of the Crosby shore, sparse in some areas and becoming more congregated as they reached out far into the sea. The statues were cast from a mould of the artist's own body, his genitalia on open show. And had the church spoken out about it? Not a dickybird, as usual. It seemed anything was allowed these days, except criticising the deviants. No wonder everything was going to Hell in a handcart.
Marcus led Toby across the sand dunes and down onto the shore. The beach was deserted and the incoming tide was already covering some of the statues. Soon they would soon be completely submerged.
Toby sniffed at a dead seagull and then took an exploratory nibble. Marcus dragged the dog onwards along the shore. He wanted to get away from the orange sodium streetlighting that cast its soft glow on the sand.
The rain was getting heavier. It was slating in off the sea almost horizontally and straight into his face. In the distance the Seaforth Atlantic terminal was lit up with arc lights, like a cityscape from some future metropolis. In front of it, huge wind turbines were revolving in the first of winter's real storms.
Out of the gloom another dog walker appeared, his face almost totally obscured by the hood of his Berghaus jacket. The man was being led by a Malumute. Some people had no idea about dogs, thought Marcus. He would never be led by Toby.
He gave the chain a tug. Toby's muzzle was cast downwards now as though even he wanted his walk to end. Marcus turned his face towards the rain driving in from the dark sea and pulled Toby out towards the shadows where there was a statue not yet surrendered to the advancing sea.
The statue was over six foot tall. It faced the oncoming sea as though in silent expectation. Marcus stood for a moment looking at the eyeless statue facing the Atlantic and the New World. Maybe he should have left all those years ago when he had the chance.
‘Bollocks to it all!’ he shouted into the wind and rain. He took a nip from his hip flask, the brandy was cheap but it felt like home.
Toby wagged his tail.
The sand was mushy here but it would be twenty minutes or so he reckoned before the sea covered this statue.
Toby sniffed around the base of the statue and then settled on his haunches.
‘Good lad,’ said Marcus. He patted the dog.
The water was lapping at this feet and he would have to get out of here soon. Maybe a pint and a packet of cheese and onion crisps in the Hangman's Noose, his favourite pub on the front. That would be just the ticket on a night like this. He gave a shiver, part from cold and part in greedy expectation of his pint.
And then a hand gripped his shoulder.
Marcus froze, an image of the statue coming to life filled his mind. The muscles in his legs loosened. He thought he might collapse but the hand remained on his shoulder.
Slowly, he turned around.
There was a man standing next to the statue, his arm outstretched, gripping Marcus's shoulder tightly. The man was wearing a black balaclava and only his eyes, dark against a pale skin, could be seen.
Marcus didn't need to see any more of the man's face, he knew instantly who he was: he was judgement. Marcus felt his knees begin to buckle. Toby had adopted a submissive position sprawled by Marcus's feet on the wet sand, ears back and whimpering.
‘What do you want?’ Marcus managed to splutter.
The man had something in his hand and he was teasing it back and forth. Marcus, an ex-soldier, recognised it for what it was: a ligature made of black leather.
Marcus crossed himself. ‘I'm so sorry.’
The man asked Marcus a question.
CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_168f2214-a466-519b-8de7-d63d10254021)
For Erasmus, home was an apartment in the rather grandly named Atlantic Way complex. Part of a development that had originally been built for aspiring young professionals, a mix of new build apartments and regulation town houses built on the site of an old cotton warehouse as part of the process of Capital of Culture gentrification prior to the crash. Post-crash the tide had started to come the other way and now the complex was on the outer rim of what was considered acceptable housing for the middle classes who had moved into the city from the surrounding suburbs. It stood like a Roman fort at the edge of the city, abutting the neighboring ‘problem’ estate of the Dingle with its black bricked terraces, survivors of slum clearances, and sixties tower blocks.
Built quickly and running to seed even quicker, the apartments were originally intended to be the first apartment for a class of young professionals that simply didn't exist post-crash. Now the complex was for the lonely and those whose relationships had broken down: the last apartment.
At weekends there was a seemingly never-ending procession of deliveries from the IKEA store. When he thought of his new home Erasmus thought of broken people putting together flatpack furniture.
Erasmus’ apartment didn't suffer from this surfeit of Swedish pine. It didn't suffer from a surfeit of furniture full stop. There were two bedrooms, his, which contained a bed, some clothes rails and lots of books scattered on the floor, and Abby's which he had painted pink and filled with cushions, a large bed and some of her favourite toys liberated from Miranda's house. The living/dining area had an old couch and a small TV. Erasmus refused to buy anything that suggested permanence. This was not his life, not yet.
He plugged his mobile phone into a charger and it blinked into life. He had three new messages.
The first message was from Miranda asking him how Abby's ‘show and tell’ class had gone. As soon as he heard the message he shut his eyes and cursed Dan, Jenna and most of all, himself. How could he have forgotten?
The second message was from Miranda and was more strident and urgent and eventually pleading that her appointment schedule meant she couldn't get to the school without letting down her patients and he had promised Abby and her that he would be there.
On the third message her tone had changed. She told him that she had ducked out of her meeting, handing over her work to a junior colleague and gone to Abby's class, and thanked Erasmus ‘for his kind fucking assistance’.
Erasmus clicked off his messages and as soon as he did so his phone began to ring. He recognised the tone immediately as one that Abby had downloaded as her identifying tone on his phone. It was a sickly saccharine pop song version of the Smiths ‘Girlfriend in a Coma’ from the latest X Factor winner.
Erasmus hit answer.
‘Hi Daddy,’ said Abby.
‘Hey sweetheart, I'm sorry I missed your class today. I was caught up in work.’
‘I didn't get a chance to do it, Daddy. The teachers sent us home. Mum had to come and pick me up with Jeff.’
Erasmus felt sick. Jeff was a name he didn't know. He took a deep breath.
‘Daddy, what's a scab?’
He decided to duck the ‘scab’ conversation. ‘I'll tell you when I see you, better yet, ask your mum. By the way, honey, can you put your mum on?’
‘OK, Daddy, I love you! Are you still not smoking?’
Her anxiety for him caused Erasmus’ stomach to churn. She shouldn't have to worry about him.
‘Honey, of course. I made you a promise and you know what they are?’
There was a pause.
‘I remember. It's the most important thing in the world. Mum, Dad wants to speak to you!’
‘Love you, Abby,’ he replied to an empty line.
The phone crackled as it was passed from daughter to mother.
‘Erasmus.’
Miranda's tone of voice was one that Erasmus had filed under ‘Disappointment’. It was a resigned and frustrated tone that had not appeared in their marriage until after he returned from Afghanistan. She had plenty to be disappointed about. The word ‘irresponsible’ was repeated over and over. She had a point and Erasmus had been prepared to let her vent but there was a ‘Jeff’ in the equation now.
‘Why was your phone switched off?’
An image of Jenna popped into Erasmus’ head. He dismissed it. ‘The battery was dead and I had a meeting with a client. And what's so important that you can't get away?’
‘Patients. You know I was lucky to get a job with the breaks in my CV. I can't let people down.’
‘Yeah me too especially in a place two hundred miles away from home.’ A cheap shot that made Erasmus wince even as he said it. They both knew why she had moved north.
‘Look, we need to keep things as normal as possible. Liverpool represents a new start for all of us, including you.’
‘You chose to come here. I only came to be near Abby!’ Even as he was shouting he hated himself, he knew how petulant it all sounded but he couldn't stop.
Miranda sighed. ‘Look, just try and keep your phone switched on. The two of us have to look after Abby.’
He knew he was going to say it, knew it wouldn't help, but he couldn't stop himself. ‘Aren't you forgetting to count Jeff.’ He spat out the name.
There was a catch in her voice when she responded and for a second Erasmus thought that Miranda was going to cry.
‘Jeff's not important.’
‘Except when you're fucking him.’
‘Goodbye, Erasmus.’
The line went dead.
Erasmus banged his mobile phone on the dining table repeatedly. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’
CHAPTER 6 (#ulink_533824c5-4574-58e9-a582-87e5d1ccdbb2)
Across the city, on the steps of the town hall, Mayor Lynch stubbed out his cigarette and then popped a mint into his mouth. He had promised his wife Daphne that he would give up once in office, but, like many of his election promises, it was proving harder to deliver than promise.
The Mayor hesitated before opening the service door that led back into the council offices. He didn't want to have to make the decision that was waiting for him inside. He looked up into the cold blue skies as though hoping for inspiration. None was forthcoming.
‘Sod it,’ he said to nobody.
He opened the door and stepped back into the building. When he reached the antechamber outside his office he noticed that his door stood ajar. Andrea, his PA, was standing outside looking flustered.
‘I told them you weren't in but Anthony was with them and said it was fine. I told him that they should wait out here but you know Anthony. I'm sorry Mayor Lynch.’
He gave her wrist a sympathetic squeeze. ‘Don't worry, you did the right thing. I told Anthony to take them straight in.’
He had told him no such thing and he felt a wave of angry blood break across his cheeks. He pushed the door to his office open and was initially relieved to see that no one was sitting behind his desk. He had expected Anthony to be sitting there with his feet up.
The Mayor recognised the sound of Anthony's polite cough and turned to face him. By the window were four armchairs. He recognised the occupants of two of them. The third was a man he had never seen before.
The Mayor put on his game face and smiled at his guests. ‘Mr Bovind and Mr?’
The third man didn't speak or indeed move a muscle to register the Mayor's presence. He was wearing a black suit over a tough wiry frame and the way he sat in the armchair reminded the Mayor of a cat: relaxed but poised, ready to strike. The man's head was bowed, his hands resting in his lap. He looked asleep, or at prayer. The Mayor noticed a roughly inked tattoo of an angel on the man's right hand.
Anthony stood up. He could always rely on Anthony's manners.
‘Yes, you know Kirk, of course.’
The Mayor extended his hand to the software billionaire who ignored it but instead stood up and embraced him like a long lost brother.
Kirk Bovind was one of the world's richest men and certainly the richest man that had ever come from Liverpool since the days of the slavers but he looked like a catalogue model from the seventies. He had a slim build, was tall, had a Californian golden tan, dark brown hair and the shiniest, whitest teeth and eyes that the Mayor had ever seen. Kirk was dressed in a pastel green polo shirt and chinos with bare brown feet wrapped in expensive Italian leather loafers and he didn't look a day over thirty although the Mayor knew that he was at least forty-five.
The Mayor had Googled Bovind a couple of times but Bovind's lawyers and computer experts were ruthless in the removal of any personal information from the web. Information on his company Intracom was widely available but little was known about its founder, CEO and main shareholder. The Intracom PR department had only released a few scant details: Bovind was born in Allerton, Liverpool, to a single mother and educated by the brothers at St Edward's until the age of sixteen when he left for America having gained a scholarship to study Computer Science at MIT. Ten years later he founded Intracom, providing cheap software solutions to schools and winning contract after contract from state governments before launching the product that made Intracom a global business, its family friendly search engine, Lightspeed. The rest was counting dollars.
Kirk let the Mayor free from his embrace.
‘You look tired, Mayor,’ said Kirk.
The Mayor tried to laugh it off.
‘What can I say, the pressures of the job.’
‘I've heard all about it from Anthony and I'm here to help you.’
Kirk flashed his brilliant teeth at the Mayor and then sat back down in his armchair, looking at the stranger sitting in the other armchair and then at Anthony.
Anthony stared back at the Mayor but didn't say a word and for an absurd moment Mayor Lynch thought that they would stay stuck in this silence as no one wanted to introduce the man to the Mayor and the man seemed in no hurry to speak or even acknowledge the presence of the Mayor.
Bovind obliged.
‘And I don't think you've met my spiritual adviser, Pastor Thomas Canch?’
Thomas Canch didn't offer his hand but rather nodded his head ever so slightly in the Mayor's direction. The Mayor got his first proper look at the man. Taut pale skin covered the man's bald head and face. His eyes were sharp flints of grey and shadowed in the recesses of deep sockets. The Mayor nodded back and was relieved that he could turn his eyes away from the Pastor back towards Bovind.
Anthony sat down. ‘We've been discussing Kirk's kind offer,’ he said by way of explanation to the Mayor.
Mayor Lynch noticed the ‘we've’ and wondered what Bovind had promised Anthony. ‘You know my difficulties with this proposal,’ said Mayor Lynch.
Bovind smiled again. ‘I do and I respect that position but I believe that you are going to want to change your mind Mr Mayor. Your city's situation is common knowledge. Only I can save you and our city.’
The Mayor felt a twist in his stomach. He knew he would have to accept the offer but even now he wanted to refuse and run from the building but he knew that he couldn't do that. What stopped him, he wondered? Ambition, pride, or most likely just the lack of will to extract himself from this difficult situation. And there was something else too. He realised with a start that he was frightened of these men, Bovind and the Pastor. There was something unspoken between them, something he would never understand, and it was something dark and strong. The Mayor started to shake his head.
Bovind leaned forward in his chair and placed his hands, palm upwards, on his knees.
‘Let's cut to the chase: Liverpool is bankrupt. Anthony has shared the figures with me. It's grim reading. If you were one of my companies I would be shutting you down today, hell yesterday! Essential services – the hospitals, waste management – are just about coping but the money will run out in, let's see, three weeks’ time unless you get some more central funding.’
