— NO! Oh my God … No! Robyn’s chest heaves. But her terror is real: he knows she wasn’t part of Tianna’s abuse.
— I’m sorry. He stops the disc with the remote. — I had to be sure that you weren’t involved in this.
— What? What do you … who … Robyn’s eyes bulge, her chest heaving as she struggles for breath.
Shame’s mass aggregates in him and his eyes fall to the floor. — They probably gave Tianna something, some kind of sedative. Not on the boat, most likely in the car on the way out there, on Alligator Alley. He looks back to her. — While you were in rehab.
— But she was with Sta— Robyn starts, looks to the couch and the face covered with the towel. — No … NO! WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY BABY, YOU FUCKING EVIL BITCH?!
— Robyn, Lennox says, — do you remember Vince, back in Alabama?
— Yes. Robyn is barely audible as her hate-filled eyes screw into Starry, who holds the towel in front of her face like a mask.
He squeezes her hand to get her to focus on him. — You left Mobile to get away from him. Took Tianna, cause you knew what he was like? She told you, and you believed her, didn’t you?
— I … yes … He told me he loved me!
— Vince was involved in an organised paedophile ring: the same one as Lance and Johnnie. The same one that Jimmy Clemson in Jacksonville was part of.
— No … how can that be …? she cries, but a terrible understanding is starting to settle in her eyes.
— The deal is that they identify single women: marginal, lonely, with young children. They exchange information mainly through a website, but also on these sales training functions. I got the list of members from the computer. They devise a control strategy, pass the info around to other paedophiles, one or more of whom then stalk the woman and attempt to manipulate her into entering a sexual relationship with them. Once that goal’s achieved, they quickly move on to the child. If the mother develops any suspicion about what they’re up to, they simply withdraw, passing the woman’s contact details on to the next member who steps in and attempts to groom them again.
— Oh my God … Robyn whines through hands that cover her eyes. — Tianna … what have I done … what have they done to my Tia?
The ball in his throat burns again, but Lennox forces himself to carry on.
— The code of the group is not to take risks. Gaining the mother’s trust, they befriend the kid, taking an interest; becoming the surrogate father the child wants to have around, slowly building up the emotional intimacy and the physical contact. Take my hand. Give me a hug. A wee kiss. Then they declare love, but tell the child it must be a secret. All the time they praise the kid, singling them out, so they believe the love they share is special, thus rationalising the need to keep it secret and exclusive. That’s how it ends up, Lennox nods to the screen.
Miserable, low, rhythmic sobs emanate from Robyn, her eyes still covered by her hands. Her pores seem to have opened up, as if in order to absorb everything out of the fetid air. Then she glares in seething rage at Starry, who sits silently, bizarrely, with the towel now over her head. — PUT IT BACK ON, I WANNA FUCKING SEE WHAT THEY’VE DONE!
— No, Lennox says. — If you want to watch more, it’s on your own time. He looks to Starry, reminding him of a hooded falcon, a predator made passive by the cover. — This paedophile ring had a handover strategy. Once you worked out Vince’s game in Mobile, he got in touch with Clemson in Jacksonville.
— I didn’t know … how could I have known …?
— You couldn’t. When you sussed there was something dodgy about this Clemson guy, he got in touch with Johnnie and then Lance in Miami.
— He was a pig, Robyn spits. — Vince I would never have figured … but Clemson was a lousy fuckin pig!
— And some. So when they start getting more and more kinky, by this time, through the sheer process of erosion, you’re thinking: ‘That’s what guys are like, maybe I’m just a little hung-up.’ By now you’ve been isolated from all your girlfriends and family back home. And they have this fucker here, he points at Starry, — working for them, telling you it’s all hunky-dory. You were starting to get suspicious, but they’d already gotten everything they wanted from you. He nods to the videodisc.
— They got me so fucked up, gave me all that free shit: the coke, the meth, the grass, the downers …
— Starry had you in that specific bar the other night, to meet someone, who, all being well, would have been your next beau. Remember that guy I had the run-in with?
A miserable nod, followed by a bloodcurdling, — WHY? at Starry. — Just tell me why!
Starry, sequestered by the bloody towel, is murmuring what sounds like a prayer in Spanish.
Lennox talks over them: — She mistook me for him. Then, when the real deal came along, she realised she’d fucked up. After trying to throw us together, she then started to vie with you for my attention, remember?
— I can’t believe it. All of them … Vince, Jimmy, Johnnie, Lance … all in on it … Her eyes widen in stark horror. — Chet! Is Tianna with him!?
— No, she’s safe. Anyway, Chet was different. He was a lonely old guy who missed his wife. They befriended him in order to get use of the boat. They used him like they used you. Employed similar tactics. Became his buddies. Dearing was a cop; like a lot of people, Chet trusted cops, he says, and she’s so greedy for his words he feels like a parent bird feeding its fledgling. — They showed him some stag movies as buddies sometimes do. Lennox recoils at the thought: sometimes buddies do more. Then it was, ‘We like to film our own shows. Can we use your boat?’
For a while Robyn can’t speak. When she finally finds her voice she mutters, — My baby, my baby, my baby …
— She’s safe now. She’s a strong kid, he says briskly, — and she needs you, we need you to show some strength now. The cops’ll be here soon.
She nods in assent, but her face is crumbling as Lennox continues. — Chet liked to watch the home-made stag videos. When he saw you appear in one, he drew the line and left them to it. But then Johnnie and Lance started getting more outlandish. The women became younger. Sometimes they weren’t women. Chet was freaked out at those visitors to his boat, but by then it was plain blackmail. He’s a proud, straight old guy. He didn’t want the law or his respectable neighbours at Grove Marina thinking he moved in such circles. But they grew sloppy and careless, especially Johnnie. They started storing the videos on his boat.
Starry rattles the cuff against the pipes.
Lennox draws a deep breath. Clenches the fist that had pummelled itself into fragments. Never to be the same again. Shards floating around in cartilage and tendon. — Chet found their website. It wasn’t incriminating, but it posted their membership list and a meetings timetable. There’s eight of them, including Dearing, at the Embassy Hotel right now, or more likely by now on the run from the Miami–Dade PD. The subject of their conference was probably you and a few other single mothers in South Florida.
Robyn exhales in a long gasp, holding her shoulders and rocking. — Why did Chet …?
— He was planning to go to the police. He was working up the bottle, the courage, he elaborates in response to her confusion, — gathering the evidence: Dearing’s a cop, remember?
— So Chet’s still my friend …
— In a sense, Lennox concedes, and recounts an old phrase his father often used, — but you’re always better with a cunning enemy than a stupid friend, before permitting the cop in him to take over: — However, he was inadvertently assisting them and he’ll have to live with those consequences.
Robyn’s hands go back over her face. Then her voice wheezes through her fingers: — What have I done, Ray?
— You’ve been a victim of a particularly fucking evil scam, he says, as another holy recitation in Spanish comes out from under the stained towel.
— But why … why me?
— You’ve a young daughter. Your lifestyle makes you vulnerable. Exposes her, and y
ou.
— I ain’t a bad person, she pleads, — I jus –
Lennox waves her down. — I can’t criticise your lifestyle, because it’s pretty much the same as my own. The crucial difference is that I don’t have a kid to look after. Get it together, while there’s still something left.
— You … you’re FBI?
— No. I’m from Edinburgh, on holiday. Planning a wedding, like I told you.
Robyn’s baffled face again finds its focus by narrowing on Starry, now peering through her towel, like a burka. — You set the whole thing up. You! She looks at Lennox. — She hates me! Hates me cause I’ve got Tianna!
— My son was sixteen when he was shot dead, Starry groans.
— It was some gang thing! He deserved it! Angel was no good! Robyn screams, then tears across the room, her bunched fists flying at Starry. It’s only when she goes to pick up a large tiger-striped glass vase that Lennox feels moved to restrain her. — LEMME GO, I WANNA KILL THAT FUCKIN EVIL BITCH!
It’s not easy to hold on to her; fury has given Robyn a power supernatural to her slight frame. Eventually the fight leaves her and she dissolves in his arms, allowing herself to be led back across the room and on to the couch. — She’ll get it, no worries. He crouches down and takes her hand in his. Guilt pours from him. I let Britney down by misjudging Angela Hamil. Now I’ve let down Robyn by misjudging her – or judging her; it’s the same thing.
For some reason he recalls the time when, in twelve-year-old rage, he’d inexplicably barged into his sister Jackie’s bedroom, unintentionally interrupting her as she performed fellatio on a boyfriend. There had been a family row afterwards. Not about his intrusion or her indiscretion, but later when she’d found her old doll Marjorie in the attic, the one that was both their favourites. COCKSUCKING SLUT was scribbled on its plastic face in big biro letters.
He regards Robyn’s pitted countenance, desecrated by mascara and tears. — Now we should go and get Tianna before the police come by.
Robyn is about to nod in agreement when she sees the door swing open behind Lennox. — They’re right here already, a voice tells them.
Lennox turns to face Lance Dearing who dangles a spare key. — Lover’s trust, he smiles. The second thing that Lennox registers is that there is something different about Dearing: bifocal lenses slice his eyes into an impenetrable dark section and a cloudy lower part. The third thing is that Dearing is pointing a handgun at him.
— Who the fuck are you, Ray? And don’t gimme that wedding-planner shit. You sure got ol Tiger real good. Found him pretty bust up on that restroom floor: blood, shit and teeth everywhere. His head nods in wary admiration. — So who the fuck are you!
— Does it matter now? It’s over, Lance.
— For you and me both.
— Lance baby, lemme go, honey, let’s just take off, Starry begs.
For some reason Lennox looks Dearing up and down, suddenly contemptuous of his black, stonewashed denim shirt, tucked into off-white canvas trousers, with those showroom white sneakers. — You’re no gaunny shoot me. You’ve never shot anybody, he says calmly, thinking of Bill Riordan, the retired New York cop. But this was the South. Was Florida the real South? Was it a hunting state? Fishing, surely.
Dearing scowls and something dulls in his eyes, behind the lower halves of the bifocals. — And how in hell’s name would you know that?
In despair, Lennox realises that he has no way of knowing. He thinks about his father. About Britney. Wonders, in an instant, if he’ll see them over the other side: if death really is like that.
— Lance, Starry implores.
— MY LITTLE GIRL, YOU FUCKIN MONSTER! Robyn roars, rising.
Dearing points the gun at her. — Sit on your dumb ass, you crazy bitch, or I’ll make a fuckin orphan outta her!
Robyn shrivels up and falls back into the couch, her arms wrapped around herself, a trail of snot dripping from nose to chest.
— It’s over, Lennox repeats, looking to the disc sticking out of the DVD player under the TV set. — Johnnie’s in custody. Try calling him if you don’t believe me. Or rather you might try Chet. He’s turned himself in, and you too, obviously. I thought you’d have been busted at the hotel. Doesnae matter, the local cops will have circulated the list to the FBI. He points at the sheets of papers on the couch. Your name isn’t on it, but they’ve got a copy of you starring in your own show. Johnnie was careless. Carried those DVDs everywhere: a veritable Blockbuster on legs. It’s finished, Lance.
Dearing’s jaw quivers a little.
Starry still wretchedly entreating: — Let me go, Lance, please! Let’s get the fuck outta here!
Lance Dearing ignores her and looks down at the papers, then at the DVD. His eyes pop and a white incandescence seems to light him from within. — Never figured it would turn out this way. Jus wanted to do a good job, is all. Had some fun that got a lil’ outta hand.
— It wasn’t fun, Lennox says.
— Perhaps not, Dearing wearily concedes. — I guess we can all fall from grace.
— The best thing you can do now is –
Lennox is jolted into silence as Lance Dearing raises the gun and pulls the trigger.
22
Clean-Up
ATHUNDEROUS BOOM, AND for a second Lennox thinks he’s been shot. Then he sees Dearing leap backwards, hurtling through the doorway and partially into the hall, blood pouring from his chin. Lennox advances quickly, grabbing the throw from the couch and dropping it over Lance Dearing’s face, though not before he witnesses that the exit wound has come out of his cheekbone, shattering part of his top jaw. Teeth spill out across the floor like pearls from a broken necklace.
Robyn sees little, shielded by the door opening from the hall into the lounge. All that’s visible to her are Lance Dearing’s legs, writhing slowly on the floor. Lennox takes her by the hand, hauling her from the couch. She’s in shock, almost as incapacitated as the spreadeagled Dearing; he knows his own shutdown is in the post. He pulls the disc from the DVD player and picks up the list.
He glances back at Starry. The bridge of her nose is swollen and her eyes are starting to blacken. Lennox can barely look at her; his own diminishment evidenced in her wreckage. In panic she thrashes at the fur shackle that fastens her to the radiator. — Don’t leave me!
Lennox ignores her; she can stay till the police arrive and try to explain everything to them. He holds Robyn’s head up, forcing her not to look at Dearing or the bloodstains on the wall or the stuff running down the door frame as he steps over the bespattered beast cop. — Now we’ll go and see Tianna, right? he says as they cross the threshold. She’s bewildered and feral, zoological-looking against cinder-block wall and cold metal banister. — Just wait here a wee minute, Lennox says, going back inside and closing the door behind him.
He crouches over Lance Dearing, astonished he still has the gun in his hand, dragging it along the floor, manoeuvring it towards his own head. The throw partially spills off his bloody face. He fires again before Lennox is able to react. The bullet grazes the top of his skull and ricochets down the hall, sticking in the bottom of the bathroom door.
Dearing’s next shot whistles into the skirting board. Lennox pulls back the remainder of the throw to expose the whole of the broken face. — Help me, Lance Dearing croaks softly, — finish it …
Lennox slowly shakes his head. — I already have, Dearing. But I’m fucked if I’m finishing you. No way, he says, stepping on Dearing’s wrist, then, with his other foot, kicking the gun from his weak grip. — I’m no helping a fuckin nonce. With the blood you’re losing, I just hope that the ambulance gets here in time and can patch you up. I don’t want you to die, because you don’t fuckin deserve it. You should be made to live with what you’ve done. Lennox feels gripped by a terrible energy. — Help a cunt like you? A stoat? A beast polisman? I look fuckin sweet, he spits, knowing that Miami’s cons will be harder on Dearing than any bullet, and he wants this man to have the same fate as Confe
ctioner: to live in fear of being stabbed, bummed, bullied, and he’s shamed by this realisation. They’ve won. Diminished us. Dragged us down to their level with our pathetic bloodlust. You could wipe them all off the face of the Earth, and you would still lose.
Starry’s screams and Dearing’s throaty groans fill the apartment in a dread orchestration of misery. — SHUT THE FUCK UP, Lennox roars cathartically, and for a few seconds the noise abates. — Just shut the fuck up, ya nonce cunts, and think about how totally fucked youse are now, and he hears the burning growl of angry satisfaction come from deep within him.
He steps outside to see Robyn. Shivering, and self-cradling, she now looks about the same age as Tianna. But the crucial thing is that she isn’t.
A young guy in a vest and tracksuit bottoms comes bounding up the stairs as Lennox shuts the door. — I thought I heard noises, he says. — It was like gunshots, I –
He sees the blood on Lennox. Looks at him in slack-jawed shock.
— It certainly was, Lennox agrees. — Somebody’s just shot himself. Might be an idea to call the police, and an ambulance, he says, ushering Robyn down the stairs, his arm round her thin shoulders.
— Sure thing! The guy eagerly bounces back down the stairs ahead of them.
They get outside and into the Volkswagen and Lennox drives to the car hire. On the way he hears sirens, wonders if they might be for Dearing. Perhaps not. The shock is kicking in, and he feels a pervasive numbness swamping him. Then, as he sees the signs for a gas station, the mundane thought hits him: fill up the tank. — I need to bring back a full tank of gas, he astonishes himself by saying to a perplexed Robyn, as he pulls into the forecourt.
T.W. Pye is working the graveyard shift. He looks suspiciously at Lennox as he walks into the office. Then his eyes expand bulbously as he notices the blood and dried vomit down the foreigner’s front. They go outside to the returning lot where the German car stands. Pye shuffles round it, lowers his great perspiring bulk inside, and pokes about for a bit. Lennox notes that a rash of oxide blight, like spots breaking out on someone’s face after an alcoholic binge, has spored on the green body along the rim above the wheel. This has either escaped the clerk’s attention or has no relevance to him. — Well, the car looks okay, he says, hoisting himself up and looking at a trembling Robyn. — And you got a full tank, he gripes at Lennox. — But you seem in a bit of a mess there, buddy.