Cages by David Mark (acx book reading TXT) 📕

There are reports about the unsolved crime in the News and Star, the local newspaper for Carlisle. A handful of pieces on the BBC website. A link to Wikipedia and a list of unsolved murders. He skim-reads a few. There’s a byline on some of the newspaper stories. The same reporter each time the case is brought up. Ruth Baxter. He glances at the magazine article. Rotates it. There’s a tiny credit in the bottom right-hand corner. Words: Ruth Baxter.

He finishes the whisky. Googles the journalist. Finds her Twitter profile. She’s freelance now, and always interested in ‘real-life’ stories. The accompanying picture shows a bookish, smiling young woman with glasses and sensible brown hair. There’s an email address attached. He closes his eyes. Drains the whisky. Puts her name into Google and finds her details on a freelance directory. It contains a mobile phone number.

Rufus looks to where Annabeth lays, still unawares. Experiences a moment of self-loathing, as he wonders what he is doing, or what he’s doing it for. What had she said before she fell asleep? She needed leverage? Well how was he supposed to help her find that if he didn’t know any of the details. Sure, this might have nothing to do with her current panic, but he can’t be sure of that until he at least digs about. He’s a writer, after all. He needs to understand people if he wants to think the way they do. More than anything else, he likes the feelings that are flooding him. He feels not so much like an author, but like one of the vastly more interesting people that he makes up.

He stands and moves to the back door. Opens it wide and steps out into the dark, damp air.

Dials the number, and closes the door behind him.

Ruth Baxter answers on the fourth ring.

‘Mr Orton,’ she answers, breathlessly. ‘I’m so glad you called back! I really need to talk to you …’

TWENTY-SIX

When he closes his eyes, the rain sounds like fire. It’s a crackling noise, something just short of static; millions of soft raindrops striking hard surfaces: the glass of the kitchen window; the closed door; the shed roof; the parasol in next door’s garden; the damp wool of his jersey; and the unprotected skin of his face. He’s going to get soaked. Going to go back in drenched to the skin. Will probably catch his death …

He doesn’t know where the thoughts come from. Just knows that while he’s considering them, some other part of his brain is sorting itself out, and limbering up to perform. It has always been this way. He opens his mouth, and somebody else takes over. He can busk and improvise like the finest New Orleans jazz band, leaving the part of himself that he thinks of as his true self, to ponder important things like the sound of raindrops.

‘Yes, sorry about the delay,’ says Rufus, licking his lips. Tastes whisky. Tastes rain. Stares into the darkness of the little garden, taking notes. Neat garden, mowed lawn, some bedding plants suffering under the onslaught; raindrops captured in the faint yellow glow given off by a neighbour’s security light. ‘I’ve got an awful line at this end, I just got the name and number. Ruth, yes?’

‘Yes, yes. Ruth Baxter. Freelance journalist but there’s no need to slam the phone down.’ She says it with a smile in her voice – a line she must have used countless times. Her accent is broad Yorkshire. ‘I’ve read one of your books, by the way. Belting stuff. Was is called … aye, The Minotaur, or something like that. About a scholar who gets obsessed with Ancient Greece and ends up locking his family in some place he’s built … all wordy, clever, from what I remember …’

Rufus rolls his eyes. If people can’t remember the title or the details of the plot he’d rather they didn’t claim to know his work.

‘Good, good. Long time ago, that one. I’ve written since, of course. You might like the new one—’

‘Brilliant, brilliant,’ says the reporter, brushing his words aside. ‘Anyway, as I said, I’m a freelancer. Based out of Pontefract, if you know it … sorry, I’m just looking for the right notebook, you’ve caught me on the hop …’

Rufus listens to the muffled sound of footsteps and the hiss of muffled chatter. A door opens, then another one slams. The tone of the air changes. She sounds as though she’s now sitting in a smaller space.

‘Ruth?’

‘Right, belting, belting. God, bloody awful weather, isn’t it? My gran always said that you know you’re getting old when your conversations turn to weather inside four sentences … right, so, am I right in thinking you’ve been doing some teaching at HMP Holderness?’

Rufus pauses, unsure whether to take the lead or see how things play out. He decides to play to type and perform his usual affable Englishman routine. ‘Yes, yes I am, a real honour … not my usual environment but that’s really rather what attracted me to the opportunity …’ He hears himself begin a long, rambling tangent. He didn’t think there would be any press interest in his presence at a prison, but hey, if she wants to print something he’s glad to be interviewed.

‘Yes, belting … that’s what I’d heard. And can I ask you for your take on what happened during today’s class? I understand you were involved in a violent altercation with an inmate.’

Rufus freezes. A strange iron taste fills his mouth and he feels as though he has briefly ceased to function. He has to remind himself to breathe. Christ, he doesn’t need this. Doesn’t need his great comeback to be as a thug brawling with an attendee at a creative writing session. He lets out a dry laugh. It sounds hollow.

‘Oh, the little set-to? Gosh, I’m sorry, Ms Baxter, but I fear somebody’s been pulling your leg. The sessions are going rather well, actually. Really very rewarding. Of course, tensions run high