‘Good advice.’
‘No Facebook or any other social media. You don’t use those dating websites do you?’
‘No. But I can use the internet?’
‘Just make sure you’ve turned off all location finders in any device you use. And definitely no selfies.’
‘No problem.’
‘So that’s about it. Use a false name and date of birth, pay only in cash, don’t be photographed, don’t write anything down, don’t touch anything, don’t be seen.’
‘That’s all?’
‘I realise it’s a tall order, but I don’t see that you have any choice.’
‘Or I could go to the police.’
Alastair looked at Jon for a moment, his face reddening, trying by the looks of it to keep something under control. His breathing was heavy. He nodded and then nodded again. Then with a flick of his head he gestured for Jon to lean in. He did the same and spoke in slow, low tones.
‘You. do. that. and. you… are dead. As dead as that cow.’ He was pointing to the steak on the next table. ‘It is as simple as that. You go to the police and then they know where you are. They’ve got you. You’re not the PM and you’re not one of them so don’t go thinking you’ll be getting twenty-four hour protection which is the only thing that would keep you safe once you go to the cops. Are we clear on this?’
‘Yeah.’ Jon nodded slowly. ‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘Don’t just suppose, dear boy. Don’t just suppose. This is no time for suppositions. We do however need some solid theories to work with. This Emerald for instance. She’s obviously a private investigator.’
‘You think?’
‘That toilet ruse,’ said Alastair. ‘Oldest trick in the book.’
‘What. You mean she…?’
‘She meant you to see that will, exactly, while still being able to argue it was an accident. Maintain her integrity and all of that. But unfortunately you didn’t read it when you had the chance, so we’re still in the dark on that one. More’s the pity. We’d be a damn sight better off if we knew what the devil it was she was trying to tell you.’
‘And then there’s Romy…’
‘Romy. Yes. Ex-wives, oh how we love them.’
‘I find it very difficult to believe Romy’s got anything to do with this but I can’t help but think I should be changing my will. I should have done it years ago anyway.’
‘You should have, I’m afraid it’s too late now. Nothing in writing, remember? Anyway, I suspect things have gone too far for something like that to make a difference.’
‘But if anything happens to me, she gets everything.’
‘Which means you’re dead anyway, don’t worry about it. We’re working on it not coming to that, remember?’
‘Mm.’
‘What I’d like to know,’ Alastair said, ‘is who the rasher of crispy bacon was.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The contents of the body bag.’
‘Jesus.’
‘The remains, from your house. There’s been no news on that front. Or rather, no news they’ve deigned to share with us. It did make me think though. Some art dealer disappeared recently. Called Norton Rattatroop, heard of him?’
‘Vaguely,’ Jon said.
At the same time, he noticed that the man at the next table – not the one dressed all in black but his imperious-looking, red-faced companion – was paying Alastair more than the usual amount of interest. Alastair’s voice had risen again, and possibly his “body bag” or his “Rattatroop” had drawn the attention. And even though the man had looked away again immediately, Jon could tell he was all ears.
‘Well,’ Alastair said, ‘he was visiting London. From Venice.’
‘Venice. My brother’s a painter in Venice.’
‘Well if he is, he’d better watch his step or he’ll end up in a canal. Rattatroop’s disappearance has been linked to a war on the black market which the Russians―’
‘Dreadful business.’ It was the sanguine diner at the next table. So he had been all ears after all. His friend appeared less than excited about the interruption to their own conversation. ‘I’m an art dealer myself and let me tell you, what you read about those people is only the half of it.’
‘I don’t doubt it for a moment,’ Alastair said. ‘Not for a moment. Anarchy rules OK, yes?’
‘I’ll say!’ the sanguine man said, before his black-attired friend drew him back into their conversation.
Alastair threw Jon a look which he read as saying “Keep an eye on that one”. ‘But he’s right you know,’ Alastair said softly. ‘It’s only the half of it.’
‘So do you think it’s got something to do with my brother? He’d probably know this Rattatroop chap if he operates out of Venice.’
‘Your brother’s a painter, you say? What’s his name?’
‘Adam. Adam Greenbridge, he’s my half-brother. Actually he goes by the name Adam Ponteverde, or has done since he moved to Italy.’
‘Hah. Ponte verde, green bridge, that’s good.’
‘I’d always assumed it had something to do with the money. The million pounds.’
Alastair was thinking again.
‘Put it this way,’ he said. ‘Rattatroop’s Armenian. The Armenians aren’t nearly as bad as the Albanians. My first reaction to all this, when you first told me, was it’s the work of the Albanians.’
‘Really?’
‘Terrible race, and as they say, you get the mafia you deserve. The Albanians’ll turn your cat into a hat. It’s true. They sell them as wildcat pelts. Just take a walk through the Shepherd’s Bush Market if you don’t believe me. It’s why I always get so bloody worried whenever Bertie goes missing.’
‘So you think the Albanians―’
‘The Russians though, they’re even worse. Far worse. The Russians are in a class of their own. They make the Albanians look like Buddhists. You get on the wrong side of them… They’ll kill your child in front of you and not even blink… and then turn your cat into a hat and wear it to the funeral!’
The man at the next table was glancing over so often by this point that he may as well have pulled up a chair and joined them. Alastair returned the attention with a polite, slightly forced smile before lowering his voice again.
‘We talk about the mob, in Italy say, and it sounds like we’re talking about one organization but it never is. And that applies particularly to Russia. And normally these syndicates are at each other’s throats, vying for territory etcetera, but at the moment―’
‘And you’re saying they’re involved with Art. Why would that interest them?’
‘The money obviously.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought there was enough in it for them.’
Alastair sighed loudly. ‘Just think about it. Ninety-nine percent of western wealth is owned by people who like….? What. Ping pong? Curling? No. Art. So there’s your money right there.’
‘OK.’
‘Just because you traffick drugs and extort the innocent, doesn’t mean you can’t nick a few Picassos on the side. Throw in some kidnapping and you’re set.’
‘Kidnapping?’
‘They can legalize drugs, they’re never going to legalize kidnapping are they! So anyway. Where were we.’
‘The Russians.’
‘Yes! So now the Russians have banded together to snuff out the Ukrainians. Major rumble in the jungle. Fight to the death. Eventually, when the Ukrainians have gone, it’ll all settle down again, no doubt. Go back to how it was. But right now, that’s how it is. That’s the state of play.’
‘Did you read this somewhere?’
‘I have eyes, my boy. Eyes and ears. And beyond that, like the phones, don’t ask.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘The reach of these people is frightening. No-one is immune. Not the police, not politicians. Not judges.’
‘You’re thinking of Nevers.’
‘I’m thinking of everybody. Because you know what’s
happening here don’t you. In societies… in civilizations that take a downward turn, everybody is corruptible. And there are two important points to make about this and don’t you forget them. First, we always try to blame it all on a single person, one person becomes the face of evil, whereas the truth is it’s nearly always a large number of people who are responsible. And second… crime’s fingers always end up extending too far. The real victims are the innocent end-consumers. And most of the time they’re women. It’s the women who always cop it.’
‘And the barristers,’ said Jon.
‘Yes, kill all the lawyers as Dick the Butcher said. But no. That’s not what really happens. It’s always the end-consumer who gets nailed, and in our poor excuse for a tribal society, that means women. Women are the innocents.’
‘Not the ones I know.’
‘And one more thing on the first point, what I was saying about evil being attributed to the one person?… well you’ve heard of bilocation I presume.’
‘Um…well, vaguely. Isn’t it when―’
‘Like doppelgängers. Or vardogrs in Scandinavian folklore. Bilocation is the ability to appear in two places at once. Vardogrs are a person’s doppelgänger that turns up before the real person does. Similar kind of deal. Various saints have supposedly had the power to bilocate. So when society begins to fall apart…’
‘Anti-saints start bilocating?’
‘Precisely! Or at least people imagine that they do. I’m obviously not saying there are really doppelgängers out there. It’s all a question of perception, it’s how these people operate, how they convince you you’re beaten.’
‘And this helps me how?’
‘We’re talking about what you’re up against. What I’m saying is, you have to be careful not to inflate your enemy and assume there is one all-powerful person you’re fighting.’
‘I’m not sure how assuming there are more of them is terribly comforting.’
‘I’m not here to comfort you, old chap. I’m here to help you.’
Their meal arrived. By the time Jon had eaten the last of his steak, the two men at the next table had gone. He never saw them leave.
‘The main thing,’ Alastair said, after confirming he hadn’t seen them leave either, ‘is for you to get out of London. Yes? Go to Lucinda. If you need to contact me, my phone number’s on the door of the fridge, it’s the number for the emergency plumber. OK? Now go there. Will you do that?’
‘I suppose so,’ Jon said glumly.
‘This isn’t forever, remember. Just until whatever it is blows over. A bit like this storm on the way.’
‘What storm?’
‘You haven’t read the papers? One of those rogues stomping in off the Atlantic. Due on Monday I think. Do you remember the storm of eighty-seven? The London hurricane? What a lulu.’
53.
The sound of a key in the front door.
He strolled in and threw his keys down on the glass coffee table. Like he did every time, he’d smash it one day. He tore off his overcoat, and came over to her. Gave her a perfunctory kiss. On the lips, but cold, unfeeling, and holding his hand on her head – on her clean red hair – longer than he had any right to.
‘Fuck,’ he said eventually and he headed out to the kitchen. ‘What a day.’
And he was gone again. Unbelievable. She picked up her book and started reading. Or pretended she was reading, she couldn’t think anymore, and certainly not with him around. He’ll pour himself a drink (ice cubes, Vodka from the freezer, tonic from the fridge), re-enter the room and then slump down opposite her, on the sofa.
She was still wearing her green dress. For him.
He’d told her the apartment was the priciest in the area – not just pricey but top of the pile – and the area was non-negotiable. She couldn’t be too far from where he worked and anyway, why would she want to be? All the more time together. But of course he’d stopped the lunchtime look-ins – the “conjugal visits” as he so tactfully called them – they lasted less than a week. But “the area”, it’s such a wonderful area anyway, why would she want to live anywhere else? What, you mean apart from the rubbish on the streets, and the drug addicts, and the needles and the rapes and the advertising teams having their loud conversations on the footpath like we all want to listen…? It’s wonderful darling, you’re right! And with the best metro station in all of Paris!
But she wasn’t in Paris anymore.
He returned from the kitchen with a drink and sank into the sofa.
‘Fuck,’ he said again, after he closed his eyes. She wondered if he’d actually seen her yet, today. He certainly didn’t last night when he left at midnight, didn’t turn on a light anywhere, didn’t need to, he had the routine down pat by now, didn’t he.
She wondered why his wife put up with it. Maybe she had her own thing going on. Or maybe she didn’t exist.
‘How are you.’ It was barely a question.
‘Mm,’ she said, giving barely an answer. A kind of test.
‘What say we go out for dinner for a change.’ His eyes were still closed.
‘What say you fuck me instead,’ she responded, barely audible, but another test. There was a long pause.
‘I know this place…’ Irwin said eventually.
Three hours earlier, she’d taken off her green dress and she was standing on her own, in a crowded room, naked.
She could feel the gaze of the man near the window and she shuddered. Just slightly. Not enough for any of the other students to notice, but enough, no doubt, for this one.
Most of the time, in these classes, she was only barely aware of the students’ presence: as soon as she removed her kimono she entered a world that excluded everyone in the room. Venus. She’d land on the surface: four hundred and fifty degrees, but that was just fine with her. Because under the thick clouds of sulphuric acid, she was hidden from all those prying Earth-bound telescopes. On this particular day however, the man in the dark grey suit and the frameless glasses had also, somehow, entered the Venusian atmosphere, dropped beneath the clouds and planted his flag next to hers.
She had a trick of looking without appearing to (it was a peripheral vision thing). She could watch any of the students drawing her without them knowing it. She didn’t need to do it if she was mentally absent – if she was on Venus – but today she found herself putting up the periscope. And she didn’t like what she saw.
This man – in her mind he was called N., because he looked like a Neville, in his suit, and his blue-checked socks and brown shoes – he wasn’t doing much drawing as far as she could tell. Perhaps some very occasional, desultory scratching movements with his pencil hand, but she doubted there was much to see on his sketchpad. And he was blinking a lot, too. People who blinked a lot were invariably insane, she knew that from experience.
She shuddered again, this time from the cold (and wondered why the hell Andy had to open that fucking window, he might’ve been hot but what about her?).
When the class came to an end, she was relieved to be re-wrapping herself in her kimono, it was a welcome barrier between her and N., that was what it was really about, she never usually cared. There were always horny young males who loved staring at her arse and her breasts and her crotch – especially the slim line of her pubic hair, like a pointing index finger (she kept it clipped that way for their benefit, in fact, as much as anyone else’s). They made her laugh (inside, of course), they were harmless, but this guy… he was licking her. And the looks he was giving her. She felt like a roast ready for carving.
So when she saw N. board her bus on the way home, she was understandably ruffled. He sat down in one of the few rear-facing seats and it was hard to avoid looking at him, there was a clear line of vision. Every time their eyes met – which was almost every time she dared to look up – he didn’t react, showed no signs of either recognition or embarrassment. Just allowed his gaze to remain on her for a moment – a split second too long – before slowly, too slowly, shifting his atte
ntion elsewhere, as if he hadn’t registered her presence.
When she got off at her stop, she could barely bring herself to look around. To her great relief, she got off alone. But when she looked into the bus as it began to move, her eyes irresistibly locked onto N.’s. And this time he was staring at her, staring hard as the bus roared off down the street.
Her body shook as if she’d just been thrust into and pulled out of a glacial lake.
When she got home – back to her flat, her prison – she showered and lay on her bed, still naked but dry and allowed the thoughts of her day to float up and away. She lay on her stomach and did what she always did after days like these: she thought, not of Irwin, but of those young men in the class, and imagined they were drawing her, in theory, but really just eyeing her up, barely looking at their sketchpads, just staring at her beautiful arse. Exposed, just for them.
But this time, N. was there, creeping into every image. Inescapable.
54.
Despite his promise, Jon didn’t leave London. Not that evening at least.
After dinner with Alastair, he made his way with his BOAC ‘attaché case’ to Victoria – so he’d be able to quickly jump on a train to Sussex the next morning at Victoria Station. He checked in to the Victoria Park Plaza Hotel on Vauxhall Bridge Road, putting to good use, in lieu of a credit card, one of the ‘wads’ Alastair had been talking about.
The BOAC shoulder bag with its wads of cash wasn’t all he checked in with. On the way there he’d done some shopping, and apart from two new shirts and a few changes of socks and underwear, he’d also picked up a small laptop. The phone Alastair had left him was anything but ‘smart’ and Jon needed a good quality screen for what he planned to do. Luckily what Alastair had provided him with was a lot of wads. They looked suspiciously grimy, like they’d been dragged through a tunnel but maybe it was another one of those things he wasn’t supposed to be asking about. No doubt.
He eventually got the laptop working and despite hanging out for one, he postponed his shower. Because what he had to do more than anything else was skype his half-brother in Venice.
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