The Tied Man
Three hours in, with Lilith still crashed out on the divan, we got to the shots I’d been dreading: my encounter with the fuckers currently locked in the dungeon. I managed to handle myself better this time, but they were no easier on the eye.
It was the first time that Nat reacted to anything that he’d seen. He sat back and pinched the bridge of his nose, and exhaled slowly. ‘Well, she’s certainly thorough,’ he said.
He’d just spent the best part of a night looking at me laid bare in every sense of the word and still he managed to look me in the eye. I was impressed. ‘Sorry for doubting you. Before. All of this -’ I gestured at the computer and the selection of gadgets across the desk. ‘I’m not exactly an expert, as you can guess. Just didn’t seem possible, that’s all…’
‘Not a problem. Nearly there now: just keep telling yourself, this time tomorrow you’ll be in Santa Marita.’
‘Yeah. Yeah, I guess I will. Shit.’ I’d barely dared think of the aftermath, never mind discuss it.
‘It’s a good place to heal,’ Nat said. ‘Trust me.’
‘It’ll need to be.’
‘It worked for me. Remember I told you about doing this as my Masters’?’
I nodded.
‘Well towards the end, it really started to get to me. And I mean really. I know it’s nothing like being on the receiving end, but I stopped eating, sleeping, all that stuff – turned out my computer was a hell of a lot easier to switch off than my head. Had a complete breakdown by the time I was twenty two,’ he said, matter-of-factly.
‘No shit.’
‘Oh yeah, full-on meltdown. My mum and dad were all for getting me sectioned, so I did a geographical – that’s how I ended up in Santa Marita. Now life’s all sun, sea and an award-winning dope farm.’
‘Nice. That where you met Lili?’
‘S’right.’ All the time we were talking, Nat was typing away.
‘Does she know? About the, er…’
‘Crack-up?’ Nat smiled. ‘Can you imagine being with Lilith for more than a minute and her not know everything about you, just by looking at the way you hold your knife and fork?’
‘Not now you come to mention it, no. Seems a bit harsh, mind – dragging you back into all this shite if it’s already sent you up the wall the once.’
‘That’s how I knew it was important.’
I smiled. ‘She’s a fuckin’ force of nature once she gets going, mind you.’
Nat glanced over to where Lilith slept. ‘She’s amazing,’ he said, and just for a moment he looked like he’d been kicked in the balls.
I didn’t know what the hell to say. ‘Um, sorry?’ I volunteered.
Nat shrugged, and gave me a rueful grin. ‘Ah, fuck it, I can wallow around in a mire of self-pity as much as I like, but at the end of the day she chose you, mate. I’ll live. Eventually.’ He cracked his knuckles and straightened the keyboard. ‘So. Shall we continue catching bastards?’
‘Good plan.’ I had another mouthful of the bilge-whisky; to my surprise, there was only an inch left in the decanter.
‘Right, let’s get rid of that chamber of horrors.’ Nat opened another file, and a new picture came up on screen. For once, it didn’t involve me; it was a shot of a client that Blaine had dealt with personally. The face was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him; to my surprise, Nat clocked him straight away. ‘I don’t think we let Lilith see this one,’ he said.
Lilith
‘Let Lilith see what?’ I asked.
‘Ooh, fuck.’ Finn actually laughed, which was the last thing I expected to hear right now. Nat just sat there and looked sheepish.
‘This,’ he finally said, and angled the screen towards me.
It was a picture of my father, lying on a bed. He was wearing a giant nappy and precious little else, an oversized dummy hung around his neck, and he was cuddling an Albermarle teddy bear. ‘Oh, the ridiculous old man.’ I pushed back the blanket and went to take a closer look.
‘Want some?’ Finn offered me a decanter with a couple of mouthfuls of liquid left in it; I guessed it had been full not too long before. I wordlessly took it and finished off what had been a fairly decent Laphroaig.
‘Look, Lilith, we don’t have to do anything with this one,’ Nat said. ‘I can just delete it.’