Reckoning Point, стр. 37

face hopeful as she answers. Then its déjà vu all over again as her friend’s face drains of all colour and she lets out an animalistic wail. The phone is dropped, Brigitta’s friends rally around, one of them picking up the mobile and speaking into it. The girl who now has the phone, a pretty, Flemish girl barely out of her teens, talks fluid Dutch into the handset. Her expression, like Brigitta’s, changes rapidly and by the time she has hung up an eerie silence has befallen the table.

“It’s Amber,” the girl half shouts. “Amber’s dead!”

There’s a collective noise, shrieks and screams that rise in crescendo to an angry roar. Elian feels her face getting hot and abruptly she turns her attention to Brigitta. The girls close in on Brigitta, surrounding her, protecting her, talking in a dozen different languages over each other and Elian looks over their heads in the direction of Gevers Deynootweg and Lev’s apartment. And with Brigitta distracted by her girlfriends, Elian slips away.

35

LEV

1058 GEVERS DEYNOOTWEG

9.7.15 Early afternoon

The last three days have passed in a blur of nothingness for Lev. Since the discovery of Cilla’s body, Lev has only left his apartment to go to the supermarket underneath his home or across the tracks to score from the boys who hang around the beach. When the gates to the pier close they move inside through a tear in the chain link fence, and Lev meets with them after dark. They know him now, the drug selling youths, and the transactions are swift and simple. After he has scored Lev stays with them. He takes comfort from their company, even though they barely talk.

When he woke up today the sun was shining fiercely, and with the memory of the coppers and their raid receding a little, he dragged a plastic kitchen chair out of the front door and sat on the balcony. Now, with his face tilted towards the sun he begins to feel a bit better, more like his old self.

“Good afternoon!”

Lev sits upright at the cheery greeting, cursing for falling asleep and looks around in the direction of where the voice came from. He relaxes as he spots Roland lumbering towards him.

“Hey, Roland, what’re you up to?” Lev asks, settling back into his chair.

Roland shrugs and leans against the railing, looking out over the road and smiling at nothing.

Lev cringes, not knowing how to proceed with this man who seems totally lacking in social skills. Then, he hears another voice; this one is high pitched and makes Lev want to rub at his ears. The voice drifts up the stairs, followed moments later by his annoying neighbour, Joy.

“Oh well, party time, is it?”

She’s wearing a red dress with white polka dots, shoes with far too much of a heel for daytime and scarlet red lipstick. Lev rolls his eyes and contemplates picking up his chair, taking it inside and leaving her and Roland out on the balcony.

“Good afternoon, Joy.” Roland is positively beaming at her arrival and Lev heaves out a sigh.

“Too much sun for me,” he says. “Think I’d better move in there for some shade.”

“Good idea, it’s baking out here,” says Joy and to Lev’s dismay she saunters past him into the cool of his apartment, with Roland right behind her.

“Oh, it is a party!”

As Lev picks up the chair and his cigarette packet he hears her crowing from inside and hurries inside to find her, hands on knees, inspecting the previous two days drugs paraphernalia on his coffee table. He can’t believe he wasn’t more careful, especially with the policemen who paid him a visit only three days ago. He makes to sweep them off the table and stash them safely, but Joy puts her hand on his arm.

He looks down at her hand clamped around his wrist, her red talons digging into his bare arm and he stiffens. She must feel it, the change in his energy, but instead of removing her hand she looks up at him, a wicked smile on her painted lips. It might be the residual substances still in him, or just the fact that he simply can’t stand her, but through gritted teeth, eventually he speaks.

“Get your fucking hands off me.”

But Joy wants to play, a reaction is what she wanted and she smiles back, showing small, even, white teeth. He sees where the red lipstick has bled into the lines around her mouth, and as if sensing him staring at them, her smile changes to a snarl. With her left hand she reaches across him and closes her hand around the white powder, nestled in the tinfoil pouch on the tabletop. Lev yanks his hand away and closes it around her wrist, squeezing tight until she yelps.

“Let go, you crazy bastard!” she shrieks.

Her voice, naturally loud, has even more volume in her anger and with his free hand he clamps it over her face, pinching his own lips together with distaste as he feels her wet mouth under his hand. “Shut up, you’re the crazy one, fucking crazy bitch, poking your nose in uninvited, hanging around, desperate for– fuck, what the FUCK!”

He’s not sure what happened, but hard pieces of something have hit him in the face, there’s a rainstorm of crystal falling around his head. He hears a repeated punching noise and sees something moving rapidly in the direction of Joy. He lets go of her, grabs his shirt and pulls it up to swipe at his face, wincing as he feels tiny pieces of what feels like glass cutting his cheeks from where it’s falling out of his hair.

He looks around, assesses the situation and knows that the drugs have dulled him, as it takes too many moments for him to understand what has happened. He looks down, sees shards glinting in