by Alex Pavesi
‘Well, do you have an alibi?’
Grant smiled. ‘Not off the top of my head, no.’
‘Then you can prove your innocence by telling me the real reason you came to this island. You left your wife and job and came to live as a hermit out here – but why?’
His smile straightened. ‘That got very personal very quickly.’
Julia noticed that his hand was clenched tight around the stem of his wineglass, shaking slightly. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but I’m not just making small talk. In a sense, by publishing this book we’re going into business together. I have to be able to trust you.’
Grant shook his head. ‘I don’t want to talk about things that happened more than twenty years ago.’ He lifted his hands defensively, his wineglass in one of them. ‘You can ask me about anything else.’
He dropped his hands to the table, but the movement was clumsy and a shard broke off from the foot of the glass, where it hit the hard surface. It spun across the tablecloth and came to a stop in front of Julia, visible only as a tangle of translucent lines above the white material.
‘You haven’t remarried in twenty years. Can I ask about that?’
Grant put down the broken glass and began to tear open the few remaining mussels with his fingernails; a useless compulsion. ‘No, you cannot.’
‘Why don’t you write any more?’
‘It’s late. These questions are making me tired.’ The last shell refused to open, so to add the final full stop to the conversation Grant picked up the middle plate from the table in front of him and emptied it over the railing, sending the mussels spinning towards the sea. There followed the scattered sounds of the shells raining on the rocks and a loud clunk as he dropped the plate back on the table.
Julia closed her notebook.
7. An Inferno in Theatre Land
At first the fire was just a string of smoke drifting from a second-storey window, with a few passers-by pointing at it and commenting. It looked like somebody was flying a kite. Then it thickened to a single, perfect curl that could have been taken straight from a shampoo advertisement. It soon spread beyond that one window and the whole top half of the building seemed to grow mouldy with smoke. After that it moved quickly: complex, branching trees of dense black smoke began to emerge, blossoming in the fertile, sweltering heat. The building was one of London’s largest, grandest department stores – with thousands of people inside, and a fortune in clothes and furniture – and it seemed about to be crushed by a huge demonic hand, the slim fingers scratching at the sky.
Helen Garrick, sitting alone at a table for two, had watched this progress over the last half hour; the slight twist in the road meant that although the fire was on the same side of the street – and about two hundred yards away – she could see it quite clearly from her seat by the window.
To begin with it had seemed a kind of entertainment, a welcome distraction from dining by herself, but when the first body had crawled from the building after the initial evacuation – an elderly man in a porter’s uniform who had been trampled in the rush – she found herself feeling terribly guilty and ashamed, and barely able to eat her main course. A few noodles, that was all. But as grotesque as that sight was, it was nothing compared to the horror towards the top of the building, where the last two rows of windows showed the looping, ineffectual activity of people coming to realize they were trapped. They were screaming and smashing the glass, and repeatedly leaning out and looking down, but there was nowhere for them to go. And Helen realized then that although the fire had initially looked quite harmless – a string of colourless bunting, blowing about in the wind – there must have been people trapped inside from the start, as soon as the single staircase filled up with smoke. Any lingering excitement turned to shame at that point and she ate the rest of her meal with tears in her eyes.
The crackle of conversation from inside the restaurant provided a fitting soundtrack to the fire outside, a mix of loud voices and the low continuous hum of chaos, while the repeated tapping of a spoon against a wineglass gave a good imitation of an alarm.
The tapping continued until the sounds of the restaurant died down and the manager was left standing in a silent room with everybody staring at him, like a circus performer about to eat a giant glass egg.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he gesticulated with the glass and spoon. ‘Do we have a doctor dining with us this evening?’ He was needle thin, with a strong accent and an impish beard; nobody stirred. ‘Or an off-duty policeman?’ There was an evasive swell. ‘A man of military rank, perhaps?’ A gentle muttering, but nothing conclusive. ‘Someone who holds an unspecified position of responsibility in the community?’ Still the room was silent. ‘Very good. Please inform your waiter should the situation change.’
He bowed, briefly, and left them to their meals.
‘Wants someone to help with an evacuation.’ A man at the table next to Helen’s sat back and offered his judgement. ‘In case it comes to it.’
That can’t possibly be right, she thought. The fire was still two hundred yards away. If they evacuated here, why not the whole of West London?
A waiter was passing by her table; she held her hand up to catch his attention. He leaned down to her. ‘Is everything all right, madame?’
She’d felt a great deal of sympathy for the restaurant manager. She knew what it was like to ask for volunteers and not receive any; it was a boulder that you’d pushed to the top of a hill rolling back down to the bottom, leaving you standing at the blackboard about to cry. And behind that was the knowledge that you’d now have to pick on somebody and spend the rest of the day feeling mean. Was it the sympathy that inspired her to put herself forward, or the guilt she’d been wallowing in for the last twenty minutes? Or was it that wicked impulse to do the thing least expected of her, which overcame her sometimes? Perhaps a mix of all three.
She spoke discreetly. ‘You might let your colleague know that I’m a teacher at a girl’s school in Guildford, if that’s any use to him. I assume he wanted a man.’
She was led to the restaurant manager, Mr Lau, feeling like a sacrificial victim, or as if she was thirteen again and being sent to see the headmistress. Since she was new to her profession, she often spent her time weighing her behaviour against her own experiences of school – which, after all, weren’t so far in the past, with the Sisters still haunting the edges of her infrequent nightmares – and she definitely felt the same apprehension now as she had done on those occasions. And the same underlying embarrassment, which always came with the vague sense that she wasn’t wearing the right clothes.
He stood waiting for her in a hidden corner of the restaurant, at the bottom of a staircase richly carpeted in deep red, like a tongue hanging down from the floor above.
‘Mr Lau?’
The staircase disappeared into darkness behind him; he drew her up a few steps so that they could talk more privately, leaving her standing slightly beneath him with his willowy figure floating against the red background; it gave him the look of a preacher or a judge.
‘Madame,’ he bowed, his gesticulations filling the width of the staircase.
‘Helen, Helen Garrick.’ She offered her hand; he kissed it.
‘You would hope to find at least one honourable person in any crowded restaurant, but I must admit I was doubtful.’
‘You’re welcome,’ she said, relieved to find him speaking to her as an equal, forgetting her daydreams of being disciplined. ‘How may I help you?’
‘I must ask you to perform a rather delicate task.’ He seemed hesitant. ‘You will have the eternal gratitude of this establishment.’
‘Is it to do with the fire down the street?’
‘The fire? No, not directly. The fire is smoke and mirrors, a distraction.’
‘Oh,’ said Helen, slightly disappointed.
He stared at the carpet with a studied look of concern, twisting his beard between his fingertips. ‘These are troubling times. I am sad to say there has bee
n a death on the premises.’
Helen gasped. ‘Oh gosh.’
‘We have a number of private rooms upstairs. One of them is in use this evening, for what I believe is a birthday party. A happy occasion. But the host has been killed. Murdered, to be precise.’
The word sounded glorious in his decorous accent, with both syllables equally stressed.
‘Murdered?’ Her eyes widened; what exactly was he going to ask of her? ‘But then you must fetch the police.’
‘We have a telephone; I have just spoken to the police.’ He began to sound tense. ‘The situation is a little difficult. They will send somebody, of course. But every policeman in the area is currently busy with the fire outside. Closing roads and evacuating buildings, I understand. Something of an emergency.’
She nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘Until that situation is under control, it is apparently unthinkable that they could spare anyone to secure our crime scene. I was asked to arrange that myself.’
‘Oh.’ She began to see where this was going.
‘They told me it is not, strictly speaking, urgent. Since no one is in immediate danger.’
‘Well, that’s for the best, at least.’
‘I do not have the staff to spare,’ he continued. ‘Several who should have turned up by now have been delayed, by the fire. I explained this to the police. They told me that any doctor or teacher would suffice, just to keep an eye on things until they arrive.’
She felt sure they wouldn’t have said teacher, but didn’t challenge him. ‘Yes, I understand.’ There was no chance of her refusing now, even if it meant missing her train. ‘What exactly do I have to do?’
‘Simply keep watch. To make sure that the crime scene is undisturbed, that none of the guests tamper with it, or leave. It should only be for a short time.’
‘The guests are still there?’ She tried to hide her disappointment; she’d had visions of herself drinking wine alone with a corpse, watching the sun set.
‘Five of them. We will turn away any others that arrive. But I was asked to make sure that none of the five leave until an officer has recorded their details.’
‘And was the murderer one of them?’
Mr Lau gave a long and thoughtful sigh. ‘It’s possible, yes. But I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I felt there was any danger. Just stick with the group and there will be safety in numbers.’
‘All right.’ Helen was suddenly nervous; in her head she was cursing herself for offering to help. She’d thought it would be something that could be finished with quickly.
Mr Lau took her hand. ‘Madame, I will of course invite you back here on a date of your choosing, to dine with us once again. To dine with me personally. And there will be no charge, as there will be none today.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, weakly.
‘I will be down here if you need me; all you have to do is call out.’
And with that he led her up the blood-rich staircase and opened the door that faced them at the top. As they stepped side by side through the doorway their combined shape contracted, like a hand forming a fist or a throat in the act of swallowing.
This time the sense of being led to a sacrifice was more apt; the five guests stood in a half-circle around the room, a skyline of human flesh, and looked inquisitively at Helen, wondering who she was and what potential she provided. A few glances were exchanged between them, then there was a kind of click and the whole scene came to life.
Mr Lau stepped forward to speak. ‘I have talked with the police, on the telephone.’ There was a swell of interest from the five assorted faces. ‘They will be here soon.’ He paced a little, like a man on stage. ‘They request that all of you remain here until an officer arrives. But the fire is slowing things down. Miss Garrick is here on their behalf.’
He waved his hand; ten eyes looked at her.
‘She will be taking charge in the meantime and ensuring that nothing is moved or interfered with. And that nobody leaves.’
This handover – from a natural authority figure to a pretender – would have had more impact if she hadn’t been standing directly behind him, eclipsed by his slim form. She felt like a magic trick that had gone wrong. She stepped forward slightly.
The five guests were formed of a very glamorous man and woman – evidently some kind of couple – standing nearest to the door; another man and woman, standing slightly more awkwardly next to one another at the furthest corner of the room; and a third woman, leaning against the wall.
The glamorous woman spoke to Mr Lau, ignoring Helen. ‘Can’t we go outside for some air, while it’s still light, and come back when the police have managed to find their way here?’
Mr Lau smiled patiently. He took a step backwards. ‘I am afraid that is impossible, I have been given instructions to detain you on the premises.’
‘It’s absurd,’ said the same woman, her voice sultry and disbelieving. ‘It’s obscene. To be trapped in here, with a dead body not ten yards away.’
The woman in the corner – weak-looking, with large blue eyes and a dark blue dress – cried out at this image and leaned for support on the man standing beside her. She hooked her hand over his shoulder and rested her head on her forearm; it was clear that they weren’t romantically involved. The man wore a brown suit. He had dark bushy eyebrows and his hair was a wiry grey, though he couldn’t have been more than forty.
This is just like a school trip, thought Helen.
There’d been a visit to St Albans at the start of the summer. She’d had to march a whole crowd of young girls – twenty-five or so – from the train station out to the Roman ruins, their bobbing heads a mosaic of precocious haircuts. On that trip Helen had learned of and come to hate the various types of troublemaker that were endemic to such outings, and these people here were no different: the woman who had spoken was the calm, seemingly reasonable kind that would instinctively baulk at authority and use her constant questions as a means of disruption. That type could never be argued with, it was like talking to the tide.
‘I agree with you,’ said Helen. ‘I don’t like being here myself. But we should do as we’ve been told.’
The woman in blue, her eyes ringed with tears, spoke up at this: ‘You might say that, but you haven’t seen the body. You haven’t seen what it did to him.’
The sultry woman smiled and looked at Helen. ‘And who are you, exactly? You’re not with the police?’
‘I’ve just come up here to keep watch.’ Helen laughed, and risked a joke: ‘I suppose I’m more sober than most of you.’
There was no response.
A slight creak came from behind her. She turned around. Mr Lau, evidently satisfied with the situation, was creeping out of the room. He bowed at an angle so slight it was almost invisible, then opened the door and departed.
Helen turned back to the room; the five faces were still staring at her.
The glamorous woman’s partner – an attractive young man, with a pile of soft blond hair above his well-defined features – stepped forward with a charming smile and extended his hand. ‘Where are my manners? My name is Griff, Griff Banks.’
They shook hands warmly. ‘Thank you. I’m Helen.’ She turned to the others; this situation was familiar to her. ‘Perhaps you could all tell me your names.’
Griff stepped back and put an arm around the woman beside him, who looked away. ‘This here is Scarlett.’
Helen turned to the other couple, who were scruffy in comparison. The man in brown was staring out of the window, presumably looking at the fire, with the daylight tangled in his thinning hair. He turned slowly towards Helen, as if dragging himself away from the critical moment of a boxing match, and seemed for a few seconds to have forgotten his lines. ‘Oh. My name is Andrew Carter. I’m pleased to meet you.’ He gave a smile that showed off his bad teeth, and squeezed his weeping companion as if she was an overripe fruit. All the sadness seemed to spill out of her as her blue dress crumpled. ‘This is my sister, Van
essa. I’m sorry, she’s taken this very badly.’
‘Oh, that’s nothing to apologize about,’ said Helen. She was, in fact, wondering why the others hadn’t taken it worse. Shock, she supposed. Vanessa dried her eyes and walked over to shake Helen’s hand, moving with a slight limp.
‘Nice to meet you.’
Helen turned to where the third woman was standing nervously in a green dress; the bookend of the group, drinking a glass of cold black wine in the shadows. She put down the glass on one of several small tables scattered around the room, and cleared her throat. ‘Hello. My name is Wendy Copeland.’ Not knowing what to do next, she waved indistinctly at the other guests. ‘Hello, everybody.’
‘Thank you,’ said Helen. ‘And might someone tell me where the body is? I’m afraid I’ve been given very little information.’
Griff raised his hand. ‘He’s in the lavatory.’
‘Will you show me? If you don’t mind.’
He frowned. ‘Are you sure? It’s not pleasant.’
Helen was guided mostly by morbid curiosity. But she also felt that, if pressed, she could argue that she had to know the extent of the crime scene to be able to keep a watch on it, so she was unusually insistent. ‘Yes, please. I am sure.’
Griff looked her up and down. ‘Well then,’ he said, and turned to the wall that was on her left. He opened the small door there. Helen went to join him. Scarlett, left alone by the window, watched the two of them suspiciously.
The room was larger than she’d expected, with a sink and mirror opposite the door and the toilet against the right-hand wall. Between the two was a small broken window. There was a shelf stocked with miniature towels to the right of the toilet, and a bin next to the door. Underlining all of these features was the body itself, lying diagonally across the floor with its head at the end nearest to them.
It was the body of a man lying on his back with his face covered by a black suit jacket, which had been removed and placed back-to-front on top of him. A channel of lumpy blood ran down it from roughly where his chin would be, as if he’d recently eaten something indigestible and spat it all back up again.