The Last Darkness by Campbell Armstrong Page B

‘You don’t scare me. I don’t have to tell you a bloody thing.’ She stretched out a hand and held the tip of her index finger over a red button marked ALARM .
    He said, ‘No, don’t do that.’
    â€˜Then back off. And if you want to know anything about Joseph Lindsay, I suggest you call the police. Talk to a detective called Perlman. Or Inspector Scullion. I’m sure they’d be delighted to answer your questions. I hate this – a woman can’t go anywhere in this bloody city without some fucking perve annoying her. Bugger off.’
    â€˜Please,’ he said.
    â€˜This is where I get out.’
    The lift slowed, halted. The door opened. The woman moved to exit, Marak stepped in front of her. He pressed a button and the door closed again.
    â€˜I don’t want to talk to the police,’ he said. ‘Tell me where I can find Joseph Lindsay. This is all I am asking.’
    â€˜Open that fucking door,’ she said.
    He struck her. He hit her once with the flat of his hand and her nose bled. The blood ran down her overcoat. Marak was devoured by shame. He’d never hit a woman before. He’d always respected women, always. He took off his scarf and reached towards her face to stem the blood and she misinterpreted his movement – perhaps she saw herself strangled – and she backhanded him, a sharp ring on her right hand piercing the skin of his upper lip. The pain stung him. His range of vision was filled a moment with all kinds of disturbances. The lift door opened, the woman shoved him and moved past, and he stepped after her, catching her as she hurried towards a rank of parked cars. He swung her round to face him. He was furious with himself. Shame and anger and pain. In his mind he’d seen this all differently. He’d ask the question. The woman would answer. A civilized exchange. He’d go away. That was it. Distilled and simple. Not like this.
    â€˜I am sorry, the blow, I didn’t intend …’ he said. ‘Just tell me what I want to know, please.’
    â€˜I wouldn’t tell you the time of day if you were on your hands and knees and begging. Go on, hit me again, I dare you,’ and she turned her face up to him, offering him the target, taunting him. She knows how to fight, he thought. She’d fought before. This was nothing new to her.
    â€˜Go on, smack me again, big man, what’s stopping you?’
    He took a step back. It had all gone wrong. He tasted blood in his mouth.
    â€˜Well, you bastard? Can’t work up the balls, eh? Well, fuck you ,’ and she turned and walked in the direction of the cars and Marak was about to chase after her again when he was aware of a man in a navy-blue uniform emerging from a doorway to his right. Security.
    He turned and ran towards a stairway that led to the street, and he clattered down the steps, slipping where pedestrians had left slicks of melted snow, and clutching the handrail to break his tumble. He heard the guard shout Hey you and the voice echoed in the stairwell. Marak made it outside, but it wasn’t the place where he’d first entered the building. He found himself in a narrow alley, and he ran until he reached the main street again where the illuminated letter P hung in the dark sky. He used his scarf to wipe blood from his mouth: the wrong approach, but how could you know she’d act like that? You have no powers of prediction. You thought she’d be scared enough to tell you what you wanted to know. And that would be the end of the matter. You’d be polite, firm, but not violent. He thought about the Moroccan in the Haifa restaurant, and remembered what he’d said: you have courage, and you have been patient, and now you are doing a wonderful thing –
    A wonderful thing, yes. Hitting a woman. And running away like a jackrabbit. He raged against himself. His dead father rose in his head, furious as a thunderstorm. This is not