When I pulled up in Hanover Street, however, I realised he had passed out. I was tempted to leave him to sleep in the car, but relented.
There followed a long and frustrating rigmarole of coaxing him from the Mercedes and half dragging, half carrying him through the gate and up the outside stairs. Cursing drunkenly to myself, it occurred to me that lugging him was perhaps akin to transporting a corpse and, at such a hateful thought, I dropped him to the concrete, where he landed with a fishy slap.
‘Ouch,’ he grumbled. ‘Cold. So cold.’
Dawn was breaking, and the clouds above us were swollen with pearly light. Birds chirped and flitted from branch to branch in the trees; it was hard not to interpret their chatter as anything but mocking. Despite the cold, I was damp with perspiration. I wondered whether I should leave him there.
Then Sally was with us, barefoot, clutching a white fur coat about herself. She was wan, dishevelled, shockingly beautiful. I was troubled by her unexpected appearance. She, however, seemed wholly unsurprised to see us in such a state.
‘Darling,’ she murmured, crouching beside Max. ‘Darling, come on.’
Max groaned.
Again Sally attempted to get him upright. She rubbed his shoulders, ran her fingers through his black hair.
Max got to his hands and knees. ‘I’ve done a terrible thing,’ he muttered.
I stepped forwards, panicked. That precise moment, on a public walkway outside a neighbour’s apartment, was neither the time nor the place for a confession. ‘Max,’ I hissed.
Max gazed blearily at Sally, then at me. His lips were flecked with spittle. ‘I’ve done a lot of terrible things. Beaucoup de choses …’
‘I know,’ Sally said. ‘We all have, my love. But it doesn’t matter to me.’
He grabbed her by the arm. ‘It was amazing, Sally.’ He looked at me as if seeking confirmation. ‘Wasn’t it, Tom?’
I was too petrified to speak. Eve’s piercing voice drifted from the apartment across the garden, saying something about a protester, her voice muffled by glass.
Max smiled to himself and stumbled to his feet. Sally and I each took hold of an arm and managed to propel him into their apartment, along the hall and into the bedroom. He toppled facedown onto the bed and into a deep and oafish slumber. He was still wearing his rumpled gaberdine raincoat.
‘You need to keep an eye on him,’ I told her as she walked me back towards the door. We stopped in the hallway.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘It’s nothing.’
She kissed me on the mouth. ‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s a lot and you know it.’
I wondered what she suspected. I felt that meaningful words needed to be said but, alone in her presence, I was overcome by shyness. She considered me with an expression resembling love, but not quite. Pity, perhaps. A long pause. Those divine fingers tucking loose hair behind her ear, a stabbing glimpse of her sloping breast in the fall of her coat, a waft of her sleep.
‘It’s OK,’ she said with a shake of her head, as if eager to dispel any sentiment threatening to cloud the situation. ‘We’re almost there. It will be over soon.’
It was a small consolation. ‘And then what?’
She took something from her pocket and handed me a plastic bottle of Serepax. ‘Here. Why don’t you take one or two of these? You look like you need some sleep.’
I took hold of her wrist. ‘Please answer me. What will happen afterwards? To us?’
She brushed me off. ‘Please don’t.’
‘Do you know what happened last night?’
There was a shout from the rear of the apartment, followed by a thump. I backed away from Sally as Max appeared, more disorderly than ever.
‘Ah,’ he said, spying me and staggering down the short hall.
*
‘Leave us,’ he whispered to Sally before turning to me.
‘Max, I think —’ Sally began.
He loomed over her. He raised a hand as if to strike her — indeed, she flinched ever so slightly — but he smoothed his hair instead. ‘Sally, please. I said: leave us alone for a second. I need to speak to Tom. It’s private.’
Sally turned on her heel and stalked back towards the bedroom.
‘You shouldn’t talk to her like that,’ I said in a quavering voice.
Max gave me a withering look. ‘What did you say?’
I opened my mouth to speak but faltered before uttering another word.
‘Don’t you worry unduly about my wife,’ he warned, peering after her up the dim hallway. Then, satisfied we were alone, he fumbled in his coat pocket. ‘Here, put this back under the floorboards, will you. I forgot about it.’
I looked at what he held out in his hand. It was the pistol. Horrified, I shrank back.
Perhaps mistaking my disgust for mere reluctance to accept something that didn’t belong to me, he pressed the pistol on me again. ‘No, no. It’s yours. It’s your aunt’s.’
‘Max. I don’t want that thing in my apartment.’
He grabbed and screwed up my shirtfront with unexpected violence. ‘Listen,’ he said in a voice low and fierce. ‘What happened has happened. I did it for all of us, you included. And you’re involved, whether you like it or not. You were there, my boy.’
The pistol was jammed into my ribs. I was too frightened to speak. When at last I could, I whispered, ‘Are you going to shoot me now?’
He scrutinised my face as if he’d forgotten who I was. Then he released his grip on my clothes. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I unloaded it before we left Queel’s place, remember?’
I recalled nothing of the sort but shrugged nevertheless with agreement or, at the very least, compliance.
‘It goes in a shoebox under a floorboard in the entrance hall. Beneath the rug. Wedge the board up with a butter knife and toss it in. Perfectly secure. Your aunt kept it for her own safety. Had it for years.’
I took the pistol. It was cold and solid. I stared at it there in my palm. ‘How did you even get into my place?’
‘I have a key.’
I recalled the night before the heist when I had returned home to find him in my apartment.
‘Your aunt wanted Sally and me to have one in case she fell over in the shower. You know how old people are. Now, put that thing in your pocket, for God’s sake. Mr Orlovsky likes to be up early. Don’t let anyone see it.’ Max pushed past me towards the front door.
The idea of going back to my apartment alone was intolerable, and I grabbed his arm — idiotically, like a Titanic survivor expecting succour from an iceberg. ‘What happens now?’
‘Nothing. Say nothing to anyone. Stick the pistol in your pocket, take it home and put it back where it belongs.’
‘Shouldn’t we throw it away? Chuck it in the river?’
‘Pull yourself together. The worst thing you can do now is panic.’
He yanked himself free of my grip and watched me pocket the gun before opening the door and stepping aside to let me pass.
‘One more thing,’ he whispered through the crack in the door before he shut it completely. ‘Wipe it clean. Your fingerprints are all over it now.’
*
There was indeed a shabby shoebox beneath the loose floorboard in the hall. It was, of course, the board that always creaked when stepped upon.
I wiped the gun with a tea towel, wrapped it in the same tea towel and put it into the shoebox before replacing the board and arranging the Persian rug over the top. I pressed my weight on it. Sure enough, it squeaked as if in pain. I re-checked to ensure it was not noticeable, walking over the spot a number of times and crouching on hands and knees in search of telltale lumps or inconsistencies.
In the bathroom I washed my hands and splashed water on my face. Then I sat on my sofa and tried to rest. Everything was alien, as if my furniture had been switched with replicas during the night; good replicas, but off kilter enough to snag my attention. Did my coffee table always have that chip in the corner? Was the sideb
oard always that height?
I stood up and paced about before sitting, this time in an armchair. After a few minutes I removed the gun and wiped it again with a wet dishcloth before returning it and reconfiguring the hiding place — the board, the rug — once again. Standing in the kitchen, I threw down a large slug of whisky. The linoleum was cold, even through the soles of my shoes, as if I were standing on an Arctic cliff. I held a shaking hand out in front of my face for a long time. I don’t know why. I wondered, as I have wondered ever since, how I should feel about what had happened last night. I couldn’t say I felt bad about Queel’s death, or certainly no more than a formal regret, but I was aghast at my unwitting involvement.
I had a very long, very hot shower, just stood there with the water pouring onto my head and shoulders. Afterwards, I inspected myself in the cabinet mirror. My face vanished beneath the film of steam, only to be revealed again when I wiped the glass clear with my palm. Over and again I performed this task — hoping, perhaps, to surprise myself and catch a glimpse of the man I was becoming, rather than the boy I had been for eighteen years.
What did people see now? When they published photographs in the newspapers, rapists always looked like rapists, serial killers like serial killers — almost as if their physiognomy had determined their actions, rather than the other way around. Could one tell, by looking at me, that I was implicated in murder, in theft and forgery? For obscure reasons I have always assumed the worst of myself; on that morning I had the feeling that, rather than having done something totally unexpected, I had uncovered an aspect of my character hitherto well concealed. Years later, with a chill of recognition that is perhaps the only real measure of artistic truth, I encountered the passage in Freud where he speculates: In many criminals, especially youthful ones, it is possible to detect a very powerful sense of guilt which existed before the crime, and is therefore not its result but its motive.
The phone rang, startling me. I didn’t move and let it ring out, but it rang again and didn’t stop.
I picked up the receiver and held it to my ear. I was still naked and damp from the shower. Water dripped onto the floorboards. All I heard was an electronic crackling noise, as if sparks were festering at the other end.
Then the voice of an English-sounding woman. ‘Hello? Hello?’
‘Yes, hello?’
‘Oh, at last. I’m looking for Helen.’
‘She’s not here.’
‘Pardon?’
‘I said she’s not here.’
‘Oh. I’ve been ringing for ages. There’s been no answer for weeks. Is she away?’
I was unsure what to say.
‘Hello?’ the woman said again. ‘Can you hear me? It’s rather a bad line.’
‘Who is this?’
‘Could you please tell me where Helen is? I’m a very old friend of hers.’
‘Helen is … Helen died. Late last year.’
The connection fizzled some more, then dropped out. I hung up. A minute or so later the phone rang again, but instead of answering it, I ripped the plug from the wall in a sudden fury.
I put on a bathrobe, swallowed two Serepax, and lay on the couch. It was still early Saturday morning. My skin felt thick and uncomfortable, more like an ill-fitting coat than part of my body. Under the door, the wind moaned like a goblin. I heard birds, the equine cloppity clop of two women wearing high heels walking in the street below. Then nothing, or nearly nothing, just oblivion’s dark roar.
TWENTY-ONE
I DIDN’T LEAVE MY APARTMENT ALL WEEKEND. I WAS SUPPOSED to work Saturday night at the restaurant but couldn’t face it; I didn’t even phone in sick.
The discovery of Queel’s body was on the television news on Sunday evening. Police said there were no leads yet, although he was known to have made enemies during his years working as an art dealer. There was footage taken outside his apartment block, and a shot of Anna Donatella’s gallery space in Richmond. A female neighbour said he was a quiet man, who sometimes threw small parties. No one had heard anything out of the ordinary on Friday night, which was a relief.
Despite this, it seemed impossible that we would not be caught. I waited — with fear, yes, but also with resignation — for the police to pound on my door, and it was during these interminable few days that I understood that vertiginous longing of the criminal to be apprehended; it would, at least, bring the whole episode to an end.
But nothing happened. I endured myself utterly alone. Every few hours I would wake, whereupon I’d shuffle about my apartment before taking more sleeping pills. I wasted an entire morning perched on the edge of my bed. I contemplated the walls and chewed my fingernails until they bled. When hunger occurred to me — as an obligation rather than a physical need — I chewed dry bread and slurped souring milk from the carton, spilling it down my chest and onto the kitchen floor.
I might have gone to the police to explain my role in the crimes in which I was implicated and to make a bid for some sort of clemency. Although present, my participation was incidental to what had happened. I drove the getaway car, as it were, but didn’t take the painting, nor did I paint the forgery. I was there when Queel was murdered, but I had no idea what Max had planned and I didn’t pull the trigger myself. Justifications, certainly, but the truth nonetheless.
But — and this is also true — it never occurred to me to go to the police. Not once. I wanted to live in France with Sally and Max and James and have the life they promised me; I wanted to catch the train to visit Edward and Gertrude in Berlin, to wander by the Seine, write books. Already I knew my future to be entwined with theirs, and there was no way that future was going to take place in this faraway land in which we were unlucky enough to be born. I had found my people; I loved them and would have done anything for them. Even the risk of jail was preferable to losing them. And I wanted, most of all, to be with Sally.
*
Very early on Tuesday morning there came a rapping on my front door. I was in the kitchen washing the dishes, only two metres from whoever was knocking. I froze, and listened with a soggy scourer in one hand. The tap dripped. Finally, a voice whispered my name. It was Max. I opened the door, glad to see a familiar face.
‘I thought you might have been the police,’ I said.
Max scowled and gestured for me to be quiet. He came inside, checking that we were alone. ‘I’ve been ringing you.’ He picked up the telephone receiver and jiggled the cradle. ‘It’s disconnected.’
I was puzzled for a second before remembering. ‘Oh, yes. I, er, unplugged it. To try to get some sleep.’
He bent down. When he stood again, he held up the plug ripped from the wall socket. It was no more than a broken rectangle of plastic and a spray of torn wires.
I shrugged.
He replaced the receiver and regarded me through his fringe of black hair. ‘You look dreadful.’
‘Thanks. I’ve been having trouble —’
‘And it smells in here. Like an old dog.’
‘Again. Thanks.’
‘We need you at the warehouse.’
‘Why?’
‘The forgery is ready. We’re getting rid of it today. That National Gallery director was knocking on studio doors all over the city at the weekend. He even published a letter of appeal in the paper. They’re convinced that local artists are responsible. It’s only a matter of time before they come to Edward and Gertrude’s place. Anyway, you have to drive us to Spencer Street Station, and George and Tamsin are going to leave the forgery in a locker.’
‘In a locker?’
‘Yes. Then we’ll ring the gallery and tell them where it is.’
‘What?’
‘We need to get rid of the bloody painting, get rid of both of them. Wash our hands of the whole thing, get out of this country.’
‘I can’t drive you.’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘I can’t. You said all I had to do was drive you from the NGV to Edward and Gertrude’s place. That was the de
al.’
He came towards me, and not in a friendly manner. ‘Look, I know this hasn’t gone the way we intended but we’re almost there, I promise.’
I stepped back, almost tripping over a pile of books stacked along a wall. To buy myself some time, I lit a cigarette. Without warning, rain drummed on the roof and spattered from the gutter onto the walkway outside my apartment. Then the squall passed, and everything again fell quiet.
‘We need your help, Tom. You’ve been great. So helpful. You’re one of the few we can trust. Please.’
‘I’m scared.’
‘I know you are, but there’s no need to be. We’re nearly there. No one saw a thing the other night.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Trust me. I know what I’m doing. Look, if there was any chance of us getting caught it would have happened by now. There is nothing to worry about, I promise.’
This didn’t make much sense, but I was assuaged by his paltry reassurances — because, I suppose, I so desperately wanted to be.
Max indicated the rug in the hallway. ‘Did you put the you-know-what back where I told you?’
I nodded.
He went over and smoothed out a stubborn ridge of the Persian rug with the toe of his shoe. Then he glanced up at me and smiled. ‘Shall we go then?’
There was no point in arguing but, in a pathetic display of autonomy, I made a show of hesitating before agreeing to accompany him.
It is perhaps a testament to my inherent narcissism to assume that great alterations within my soul must be reflected in the physical world, although I doubt I am alone in this. After all, who has not — after enduring the death of a parent, say, or surviving severe illness — felt an urge to impress upon others an aspect of one’s newest self, even if it is only telling a passing stranger of what has happened?
And so it was for me on leaving the grounds of Cairo for the first time in days. I was perplexed and disappointed to notice that everything looked exactly as it had the week before, indeed much the same (change in season notwithstanding) as when I first arrived eight months ago: trees, roads, tennis courts, traffic. People went about their business. A dog chased a ball in the park across the road. Two mothers pushing prams laughed at a joke as they ambled beneath the trees. Did they not know, I thought, whom they had passed in the street?
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