Fallen Read online

  Fallen

  Martin Hyde

  PART ONE

  Andrew

  Andrew Cummings surveyed the London Docklands from his fiftieth-floor office in One Canada Square, the highest peak in London. The Thames snaked its way through the skyline, framed by the newly completed HSBC and Citigroup towers. Skeletons of future skyscrapers surrounded him at every angle.

  All around him the city was rising, but he was falling.

  How long would it take to hit the ground from here? Twenty seconds? Fifteen?

  He tore himself away from the window and resumed his pacing.

  On the wall-mounted flat screen, a BBC reporter read the details of the Queen Mother’s passing - the first news story in three days to rival Apollo Pharmaceuticals’ own media shitstorm.

  The muted clap of his heels echoed through the fog of his thoughts.

  He needed to focus. The board meeting was in - he checked his Patek Philippe - fifteen minutes.

  Fuck.

  He fell into his desk chair and set his Newton’s cradle in motion. The metronomic chink of the balls lulled him back to the present.

  He pulled out his bottom desk drawer and fumbled for his eight ball of cocaine. He heaped the powder in the groove behind his thumb and swiped it across his nose. A cold, alpine wind stung his sinuses. Blood rushed to his head.

  The monitor on his desk displayed the London Stock Exchange. In red text – Panic! - Apollo Pharmaceuticals (APP) showed an 11.2 percent drop before the market had closed for the Easter weekend. Worse still, they had dragged the FTSE 100 down 4.8 percent.

  And there had been two more deaths since.

  The morning’s papers fanned across his walnut desktop. He scanned the headlines with a fresh dose of disgust.

  Fourth Death in Apollo Drug Trial, cried The Guardian.

  Schizophrenic Apollo Subject Murders Wife, roared The Times.

  The Sun, the Independent, and the Daily Mail had been no more forgiving.

  Worse than the headlines was the grainy black and white photograph in The Times of the test subject, Edward Dennis. He stared out at Andrew, the black holes of his pupils burning with ineffable horror.

  The image of him biting into his wife’s jugular flashed through Andrew’s mind. He shuddered.

  A speck of crimson blotted the man’s face. And then another.

  Blood dripped in perfect synchronicity with the sound of the Newton’s cradle before he cupped a hand under his nose, roamed for a tissue with the other.

  Finding none, he went to the bathroom and rolled off a stretch of toilet paper. He wiped up the blood and blocked his nose with cotton wool. He did not have time to sit around nursing a nosebleed with the board meeting in… Jesus, eight minutes.

  He swallowed the bitter, coke-infused blood and washed his hands and face. His shirt was stained crimson, but he could hide that with his jacket.

  Two nosebleeds in a week. This was getting out of control. He needed to pump the brakes on the powder - just as soon as the dust had settled on the scandal.

  Andrew returned to his desk, fastened his jacket over the blood stains.

  He looked up at the sound of his name. On the TV, the BBC studio was replaced by a shot of himself walking through Canary Wharf, surrounded by a swarm of journalists.

  ‘Do you have anything to say to the families of the deceased, Mr Cummings?’ a reporter called over the din. The camera closed in on his face before Andrew swatted it away.

  ‘Although Apollo’s CEO has refused to comment,’ the newsreader said, ‘we have their head of media communications in the studio.’ The camera cut back to reveal the man to whom Andrew had offered a substantial bonus only hours ago, on the mere condition he didn’t fuck this up any further. ‘So, tell us, Mr Brockbank, is there any danger of further fatalities?’

  Andrew snatched the remote and killed the TV. He took deep, measured breaths, both hands splayed on the desktop. The minute hand of his Patek Philippe pointed accusingly at five-to.

  He stood and cautiously withdrew the sodden cotton wool from his nostril. He poised a wad of toilet paper underneath to catch any blood but none came.

  Andrew stuffed the toilet paper into his pocket and headed for the door, careful to breathe only through his mouth.

  SIMBA

  ‘Spare any change?’

  The crowd flowed endlessly out of Camden tube station. A faceless mass of bodies. They didn’t see him, and he didn’t see them.

  He saw only one thing.

  ‘Spare any change?’

  The din was white noise to his ears: individual voices and footfalls were no more human than the murmur of car engines.

  The street was a grainy silent movie. The only colour was the silver and gold coins occasionally dropped into his McDonald’s cup.

  ‘Spare any change?’

  A girl in a blue Card Factory polo and gold hooped earrings snapped around. ‘Get a job, you junky prick,’ she spat in a South London accent. Lewisham, probably.

  He twisted his hips, rolled his shoulders to shift the aches, but now he was acutely aware of the cold, unyielding ground beneath him. His body was a sack of meat wrapped in skin, but soon the rough edges would soften. The tension would melt away.

  ‘Spare any change?’

  A hand emerged from the crowd, dropped some shrapnel into his cup.

  Yes. There we go. Another hour or two and we’ll be safe. And then I’ll be quiet. You know I will.

  ‘Hello, stranger.’ A hiking bag hit the ground and Daisy slid down the wall beside him. Something was different about her. She wore eyeliner and lipstick - a rarity - but there was something else too.

  ‘You’re in a good mood.’

  She shrugged. ‘Just happy to see you, innit.’ Her mask slipped for a moment, and he saw the eternal ache bleed into her features before she averted her eyes. She took a packet of Lambert kings out, lit one, and passed another to Simba.

  ‘Thanks. How was Sam’s?’

  ‘Alright, actually,’ she said, exhaling. ‘We just linked and watched TV.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Simba said. A well-dressed twenty-something met his eye. ‘Spare any change?’ he asked, but the man looked away.

  ‘Hey, allow that, man,’ Daisy said. She reached into the pocket of her Adidas jacket and produced a twenty-pound note between two fingers.

  ‘He paid you?’ Simba asked.

  ‘No,’ she said defensively. ‘I swiped it.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘What?’ she laughed. ‘Don’t tell me you wouldn’t.’

  ‘No, it’s just… You should be careful. You don’t want to get hurt again.’

  Daisy kissed her teeth, glanced up and down the street as though searching for someone who would dare try their luck. ‘I can take care of myself, man.’

  This was true. And there was the blade she carried; although, to his knowledge, she’d only used it on herself so far. On the nights she couldn’t score.

  ‘I know.’

  She elbowed him lightly. ‘Come on. Let’s get out of here. Let me link K.’

  ‘Alright.’ He got to his feet, shrugged into his rucksack, and slung his sleeping bag around his neck like a giant, novelty scarf.

  Daisy led the charge up Camden High Street to the nearest phone box. He waited outside as she went into the booth and used the phone.

  ‘He’ll meet us by the lock in twenty,’ Daisy said when she stepped out.

  ‘Safe. You want to go now?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  They waded up the street and down the steps to Camden Lock. A cool breeze came from the canal, caressed his hair and face. They sat by the water and shared another cigarette. Daisy leaned her head on his shoulder.

  ‘Where we sleeping tonight?’ he asked.

  ‘I was gonna go Terry’s yard. He’s got a flat in Whitechapel, you know?’

  ‘Really? Won’t he mind me coming?’

  ‘Why would he mind?’

  Simba pointed to his face. He’d crossed his fair share of mindless racists in the ends.

  ‘Nah, man. He’s cool. You got money for the tube, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve got a few quid. And we can shoot there?’

  ‘I told you, man. He’s cool.’ She punched him lightly on the shoulder, knocking ash from his cigarette. ‘I’ve missed you, you know? Did you miss me?’

  Simba smiled. ‘Of course.’ He scanned the lock. ‘What time is it?’

  Daisy drew back her sleeve and checked her Hello Kitty watch. ‘Quarter-to. He’ll be like five minutes.’

  They walked under the bridge and waited in the cool dimness. Snippets of strangers’ conversations echoed around the space as they passed.

  ‘Yo, that’s him,’ Daisy said as a youth in a grey tracksuit rounded the corner. ‘Wait here.’ She walked to meet K, and they shook hands to perform the deal.

  ‘Alright, let’s go,’ she said, digging her hands into her pockets. Simba imagined the plastic-wrapped powder balled in her fist.

  The knot in his stomach loosened.

  That’s it, Simba. Feed me. We’ve been hungry for so long.

  Soon the voice would fall silent. Just a sharp prick as the cold needle slid into his vein and the warmth drained every tension from his body.

  Soon he would drift into oblivion.

  KAREN

  Karen fanned her thumb absentmindedly down the pages of the travel brochure in her lap - a window into a world for which she had yearned her whole adult life. She was a lonely princess and London was her tower. Where was the dragon lurking now?

  Soon
she would be free. Two months and six days, to be exact. Then Venice, the Himalayas, and Times Square would not just be pictures in a book, but living, breathing worlds around her.

  She’d been waiting for so long. There was so much to see.

  She closed her eyes as she swayed on the swing seat, imagined the smell of the sea on the faint breeze. The smell of vast, unexplored worlds.

  Andrew had travelled to every continent on business trips. Even Saff had been on school trips to Paris and Milan. They had both downplayed their experiences for her benefit, but she knew what she was missing from the things they didn’t say.

  Two months and six days until Saff’s eighteenth birthday. And then Karen would be free, and it would be Saffron resigned to the tower, to a life of dos and do nots. A life of constant surveillance.

  For all her excitement concerning her imminent freedom, there was a slowly inflating balloon of apprehension pressing against the walls of her stomach. It would be a big change for Saffron, the biggest transition of her life. And it wasn’t like she could talk to her friends or a therapist about it. Only Karen understood the weight of her new burden.

  Congratulations, honey, you’re eighteen! You can vote, watch eighteen-rated movies in the cinema, and go out drinking with your friends. But unlike all of your friends, you’re also now confined to the Greater London area, you have to carry a second mobile phone everywhere you go, and you have to bear a child before you hit forty or the contract is void. Oh, and you can never tell anyone about this little arrangement except immediate family and your spouse when you marry.

  Would it be the same man that had come on Karen’s own eighteenth birthday? The man in the dark suit. He would be much older now, of course. She used to be able to recall his image, but the memory was scrambled now, like a chewed-up tape.

  She’d sat at the desk in her father’s study as the mysterious agent had opened his briefcase and slid a paper contract across the surface. He’d smoked a cigarette as Karen scanned through the contract. Her father had read it too, given her a shrug and a nod, and she’d signed it. Signed away twenty-three years of her life just like that.

  Soon it would be Saff’s turn.

  ‘Mum?’

  Karen jerked around. Saff stood beside the swing seat. When had she come home?

  ‘Jesus, honey,’ she laughed. ‘You trying to send me to an early grave?’

  ‘Sorry.’ Saff looked at the ground like a chastised child. ‘There are journalists outside,’ she said.

  ‘Oh. Did you say anything to them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay, good. Just leave it to your father.’

  Saff had a strange look in her eyes. Had she been crying?

  ‘Honey, are you...okay?’

  ‘I need to tell you something,’ Saff said seriously.

  Karen sat up, planted both feet on the ground to stop the swing seat. ‘Oh, God. You’re pregnant aren’t you?’

  ‘No. It’s not that.’

  ‘You’re on drugs?’

  ‘What? No. I…’ She lifted her left hand, showed Karen the diamond ring on her finger. ‘Rory proposed.’ A fragile, girlish laugh escaped her. ‘I said yes.’

  The balloon in Karen’s stomach burst.

  ‘Oh, dear.’

  She knew she should say something else, but nothing came. How did she feel about this? How was she supposed to feel?

  It was too soon. It was far too soon.

  Rory was Saff’s first love. She was seventeen. She didn’t know what she was committing to.

  ‘Are you happy for me?’ Saff asked uncertainly.

  ‘Of course I’m happy for you.’ She folded Saff into her chest, tears filming over her vision. ‘It’s just a lot to take in. That’s all.’

  ‘I know,’ breathed Saff, crying herself.

  Karen regarded her daughter, a surreal composite of both the young girl whose hair she’d once brushed and the woman she was yet to be.

  ‘Probably best we don’t tell your father. Not for a week or so.’

  Saff let out a breath of relief and wiped her eyes with a ball of tissue. ‘Yeah. That’s what I was thinking.’

  ‘God. My daughter’s getting married. Go on. Show me the ring again,’ she said.

  Saff gave a broken laugh as Karen took her hand and raised it to the light.

  ‘He has taste,’ she said and smiled with finality, though the questions were stacking in her head for further rumination.

  Shit. Tomorrow was Sunday. Her parents were coming at eleven. She had so much to think about and so little time to think it.

  ‘Oh, and probably best not to say anything to my parents, either. Have you told any of the girls yet?’

  ‘No. I wanted to tell you first.’

  ‘Oh, honey,’ she said, and hugged Saff again. ‘Come with me.’ Karen got to her feet, spilling the travel brochure to the lawn. ‘Come on.’

  She took Saff’s hand and led her back through the kitchen and into the living room. She opened the drinks cabinet and searched for the Bordeaux her parents had gifted her and Andrew at their engagement party. She’d kept it for when her first child got engaged. Her only child.

  ‘Get the glasses,’ she told Saff, peeling off the wrap and turning in the corkscrew. She just needed to be careful not to leave the bottle out when Andrew was home; she didn’t know if he’d remember which wine she’d reserved but she couldn’t take any chances. He was under too much pressure as it was, even if he wouldn’t admit it.

  ‘Can’t I just have a cider or something?’ Saff asked.

  Karen waved away the ridiculous notion. ‘Nonsense. I’ve been saving this.’ She poured them both a glass and handed Saff hers. ‘So,’ she said, raising her glass, ‘to a happy marriage.’

  Saff blushed, chimed her glass against Karen’s. It echoed like a gong to signal the beginning of some new chapter.

  Karen drank. The wine was rich, a landscape with a bittersweet history in her mouth.

  She sunk into the sofa. ‘So, tell me everything.’

  MAC

  Mac leaned against the passenger window and aimed an air-con vent at his face. If he was lucky, he’d be able to squeeze in an hour or so of sleep before his night shift.

  Charlotte turned left on Seven Sisters Road, going past Luke’s old school. Mac turned inquisitively to her.

  ‘Just filling up,’ she said, pulling into the Texaco garage. Despite the relative traffic, the garage was deserted besides a cluster of youths outside the shop.

  Charlotte stopped outside the first pump and killed the engine.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Mac said, freeing himself from his seatbelt.

  ‘I can manage,’ Charlotte said, a little sternly. She compensated with a strained smile. ‘Back in a sec.’ She climbed out of the Golf and started to fill the car.

  Mac glanced at Luke in the rear-view, who stared absently out of the window, and turned on the radio.

  ‘…died in her sleep at the Royal Lodge in Windsor with the Queen by her side. At a hundred and one, she was the longest living member of the royal family in history. No decision has yet been reached as to whether the Queen and her family will attend the Easter service at St George’s Chapel tomorrow.

  ‘In other news, a fourth death has been revealed in the Apollo Pharmaceuticals scandal. Following two suicides and a murder, a man named as Edward Dennis has also killed his wife during a heated argument last night. It has been confirmed that Mr Dennis suffered from Paranoid Schizophrenia and was part of the third phase pharmaceutical trial. Apollo Pharmaceuticals, in collaboration with the World Health Organisation, have ordered an urgent recall of all antipsychotics from the trial, and all participants are urged to stop their medication and consult their pharmacist immediately.’

  Mac changed the station.

  In the street outside, it seemed just another day. Traffic dragged by. Charlotte returned the petrol nozzle to its cradle. If there was one thing he’d learned in the Met, it was that no matter how calm the city appeared, there was always some violence, some secret chaos unfolding somewhere.

  Charlotte opened the rear-door, reached inside for her purse, and ruffled Luke’s hair. Mac watched her walk into the shop. The hoodies paid her little notice.

  A moped with a blue Domino’s Pizza box on the back pulled up beside them.