WE’LL START before the obvious point because the real beginning of this story comes a couple of days earlier than that. Instead of opening with the gorgeous dame walking into the office on Cage Street we’ll instead go to a flat on Haugen Road, over in the Bakers Moor district in the east of the city.
There were forty people in a room that could hold twenty, in a flat that housed six and was designed for three. That’s always the way on the east side of Challaid, too much life for the space. The music was loud and indistinguishable from the general racket, shite, to be succinct; the crowd packed so tight it was hard to tell who was dancing and who was waving for help. It was hot and, boy, was it sweaty, the movements slow. A young couple were kissing with the passion of people who had uncovered a new art form and wanted to perfect it, fast. Darian Ross stood back against the wall by the door, on his own, and watched.
Girls in vest tops and shorts and boys in T-shirts with unwitty slogans printed on the front, shimmering brows on blissed faces.
A constant and aimless sway of bodies in the absence of actual dancing.
A pill passed discreetly from one hand to another.
A shout and then a bottle breaking, the crowd pausing in anticipation of a violent follow-up and then carrying on, disappointed, when they realized it wasn’t coming.
Someone was trying to make themselves heard close by and failing, the music screaming and the babble of voices always rising in the battle to be heard above it. This was what other people’s joy looked and sounded like. A gap just large enough for him to raise his hand cleared and Darian took a sip from his warm beer can.
His eyes never wavered, fixed on the same couple.
The girl had black hair in a bob and big teeth, but he couldn’t see the rest of her. They were deep in the crowd, Darian catching occasional glances of their heads as they looked into each other’s eyes, the man doing all the talking.
He was older than her, older than most of the people in the room. She and they were teenagers; the man she had her arms around was twenty-seven. Brown hair combed back, average height, an ordinary, clean-shaven face and small, dark eyes that always seemed to have a light trapped inside them. Not a lot to look at, but his charisma held him above the ordinary mass of boys that usually chased her.
Two young girls had offered Darian a body to lean on earlier in the evening when there had been more room to approach but he had turned them both away, not interested. The only person he was there to see was the man with the unremarkable face. As the crowds filled the flat and the temperature rose, the light had faded from the room, too. Darian was handsome, light brown hair, feminine features, large brown eyes and full lips, six feet and slim with an intense look. In the dark he could lean back against the wall by the door and play the detached observer, still just young enough at twenty-two to slot in and not look like a creepy bastard. He’d picked his spot to make sure anyone who left had to parade right past him. More coming than going, and it had reached the point where a couple arrived and instantly decided that being crushed in a sweaty crowd was not actually the best available option for a Friday night. In this city there were always, always better options.
The beer in his can was flat and had lived long enough to rise to room temperature but he didn’t notice. Darian sipped from it only so that he wouldn’t be the only person standing still. In this room the man not moving was the man who stood out, so he’d occasionally nod his head self-consciously to the thudding music he hadn’t yet identified. He found his excitement in silent moments, but this crowd was looking for something else. Most of them wanted more from life than peace and quiet, and one of them wanted everything.
Darian lost sight of the couple for a few seconds, a wave of bodies rising in front of them. Where the hell did they go? Shit, lost them. No, wait, there, he saw them again. Picked them up, walking toward the door beside him, politely nudging past partygoers to reach the exit. The ordinary face leaning down to speak into the ear hidden by dark hair. She smiled, buzzing, eyes wide and too alert, looking forward to being somewhere else. They managed to escape the scrum and passed Darian, out of the flat.
He let them go and counted slowly to ten, then counted a second time to make sure he had it right. He put the beer can on the floor for someone else to kick over, spun off the wall and walked out through the door, not looking back at the crowd that had barely noticed his presence and didn’t spot his departure at all.