by Mick Herron
‘It’s April.’
‘I know.’
‘Cricket’s not for ages.’
There was this to be said for kindness to strangers: it didn’t take long for the strangers to put you off. You could be cured immediately, and never have to bother again.
She plugged it in. Deepman pointed out the cable for the aerial: she connected that too. When she turned it on, an American chat show brawled into life; one of those horrors featuring overweight crackers who’d slept with their siblings, or eaten their neighbours’ dog. Like other acts of global terrorism, this had an hypnotic quality; she switched it off before it sucked the life force from her.
‘Did you speak to them, then?’ he asked her.
‘Speak to who?’
‘The police. You said you’d speak to them.’
Zoë tried racking her brain for a memory of saying that, then realized there was no point. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t, or even that he didn’t really think she had. What mattered was, he was telling her now that’s what she’d said. It had become established fact, and denying it wouldn’t get her anywhere.
Not for the first time, she reflected there were advantages to age.
‘What did I say I’d speak to them about?’
‘Why they reckon he did it.’
‘You mean, why they think that? Or why he did it?’
Deepman looked at her with scorn. ‘You speak English? Why they reckon he did it.’
He turned his back on her and disappeared into the bathroom. A moment later, Zoë was on her way, reflexively flipping the light switch as she passed, which made nothing happen. He had yet to resolve the light bulb problem. The front door was hanging open; she closed it as she left.
Behind the wheel of her car, she sat resolutely ignoring the fact that she’d just wasted two hours dispossessing herself of a working television set; concentrated, instead, on the idea that she might be hungry. It was a little off the track for salad bars and soup parlours, so she started the car and cruised. Telling herself as she did that she definitely had no memory of promising Deepman she’d speak to the police. Inasmuch as she owed him anything, which she didn’t, she’d paid in full.
There was a small parade of shops not far distant; among them a café, where she chose a sandwich from a list on a blackboard. An alarming – if approximate – twenty per cent of everybody Zoë had ever heard say ‘espresso’ said ‘expresso’ instead, and here it was, up on this blackboard: ‘expresso coffee’. But now she discovered that maybe she’d been wrong all this time, because whatever they gave her, it wasn’t espresso. When she’d finished, she wandered the length of the mini-drag, whose shops were a clutter of grocers, video outlets, betting shops. And a hardware store. She went into the hardware store.
Back at the highrise, the lift still worked. This time Zoë paused on the balcony, reminding herself of height and danger. It occurred to her that she did not know from which building Wensley had pitched to his death. For no reason she could pin down, she was sure this was not the one.
The door to Joseph Deepman’s flat was ajar. She knew she’d closed it on leaving.
Her grip tightening on the paper bag she held, Zoë called his name. There was no reply. She stepped into the flat, wondering if she was imagining the icy touch on the back of her neck. In the hallway, she heard nothing, not even the ticking of a clock: time’s heartbeat. She called his name again. Putting the bag down, she moved into the sitting room. Nobody there. In the kitchen, she found a bottle on the table. Whisky, not a great brand, an inch or two from full.
Somewhere in the larger world of the highrise, something slammed.
‘Mr Deepman?’
The bathroom door swung open at her fingertouch. His body lay piled in the bathtub: a complicated mess lacking arms, legs, a head; in the fraction of a second before she recognized this for what it was – his dirty laundry, dumped here for convenience – it struck her what a hell of a job it must have been, to accomplish this in the space of a lunch hour. To remove his extremities, and rinse away his blood. Then she was turning away, moving towards his bedroom, because that was where the body must be: the only room in the flat unaccounted for.
It lay on the bed, so stiff it might have been its own sarcophagus.
Then it farted, loudly.
Zoë, backing out, backed smack into the man behind her:
‘Fucking hell –’
He moved aside just quickly enough to avoid her kick, and was covering his face, visibly frightened, by the time she was ready to hit him. So she waited, instead, until he’d lowered his hands, and his fear turned to outrage; she shifted from attacked to attacker in the time it took him to say ‘What the hell –’
‘It’s okay. I’m a friend.’
‘What’s that mean? I’ve never seen you in my life.’
He was younger than Zoë; somewhere in that vague arena of the late thirties: medium height, hair buzz-cut to suede; light, but it might have been mouse-brown, given the chance. He had pale eyes, pale skin; eyebrows so much an afterthought, they looked plucked. His top was light blue, with rolled-up sleeves. And his mood was finely balanced; things could get ugly, or he might be laughing about this soon.
‘Of him, I mean. Of Deepman.’ She lowered her hands. ‘The door was open. I thought – I thought something had happened.’
‘Like what?’
Like somebody had chopped him into sections and decorated the bathroom with him didn’t seem a good answer. ‘Who can tell?’
‘You services?’
‘No.’
‘So what, then? You’re not really a friend.’
She said, ‘I’m doing an old man a favour, that’s all.’
‘Right.’
‘That’s hard to believe?’
‘You’re not from round here, are you?’
She didn’t like being interrogated, but he had a point. Not for the first time she regretted getting involved; wished she could wind back the days, and do it differently. Mr Deepman? I scammed your grandson once; gave him a really foul instruction. Probably not the only adult to do that, but every little helps, right? She could have walked away if she’d said that. He could have sorted out his own bloody TV, his sodding light bulbs.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
‘Why?’
‘Because it saves me making one up.’
‘It’s Chris.’
‘I’m Zoë. Were you here all this time?’
‘I’d just popped next door. I didn’t mean to startle you.
Not if you’re what you say you are. Doing him a good turn, I mean.’
‘He was short a TV.’
‘There’s a lot of it about. Theft. Burglary.’
‘Has he been drinking?’
Chris said, ‘He’s had a couple, he’s lying down. Asleep is the only place he’ll fall,’ and Zoë wondered if she were that transparent, or if he was just good at between-the-lines.
She said, ‘Have you known him long?’
‘Not really.’
‘And you’re, what? Are you services?’
He said, ‘I’m not religious, if that’s worrying you.’
‘It crossed my mind.’
‘There’s people round here, they’ve enough problems. They don’t need someone trying to buy their soul in return for a little grocery shopping.’
‘Speaking of which,’ she said. She retrieved the bag of light bulbs, and emptied it on to the table.
‘That’s good,’ he said, ‘I’d been meaning to get some myself,’ and for the first time he smiled, and Zoë saw that his ordinariness – the pancake mask his features seemed ready to settle into – could vanish as smoothly as if a switch had been thrown.
They roamed the flat, replacing bulbs that didn’t work. It didn’t feel like kindness once the lights were on; more an act of exposure, training light on to corners best hidden. Zoë remembered the scrum of reporters on Severn Street, their cameras aimed like torches. Meanwhile, here in the flat, surprising amounts
of dust swam upwards, as if magnetism were involved. And in the old man’s room, he lay fully clothed on the bed; the smell of used alcohol tainted the air, along with others she didn’t want to dwell on. When she closed the door, he didn’t stir.
In the kitchen, Chris was washing up. ‘It doesn’t matter how long they’ve been on their own,’ he said. ‘The ones who had wives. They still expect a woman to turn up any time, to clear away.’
‘Do you do a lot of this?’
‘No. The bare minimum, to keep my conscience quiet.’
It seemed like he’d accepted her; he was easier now.
‘I didn’t realize he was a drinker.’
‘He’s not, much. Couple of glasses, he’s away with the pixies.’
‘Did you bring it?’
‘Bring what?’
‘The bottle.’
He flushed. ‘You think I’d do that? Go round supplying booze to frail old men?’
‘Possibly. I don’t know you.’
‘Well . . . Well then stuff you, all right?’
‘I didn’t say I thought it was a bad idea.’
He was shaking his head. ‘You’re kind of weird, you know that?’
‘I think of myself as normal. I suppose most people do.’
She took her cigarettes out, and he said, ‘I don’t think you should smoke in here.’
‘What do you do for a living, Chris?’
‘Is that your business?’
‘No.’ She put the cigarettes away. ‘Do you think he’s all right?’
‘You were just there.’
‘Still . . .’
‘He doesn’t need strapping in.’
‘I’ll take your word for it. If he rolls off the bed and breaks his neck, though, I don’t want to be the one tells his daughter.’
Chris said, ‘If it makes you any happier, I’ll go and check, all right?’
As soon as he’d gone, she unmagneted the note stuck to the fridge she’d not noticed earlier and pocketed it. He was back immediately: ‘Sleeping like a baby.’
‘Did you know Wensley?’
‘. . . No.’
‘He used to call here.’
‘I’m sure he did. I don’t visit to a regular schedule, is that all right with you?’
‘I think we got off on the wrong foot, Chris.’
‘You tried to break my face.’
‘No. I almost tried.’
He said, ‘You’re probably a nice lady underneath. I mean, you brought him a TV and all. If you didn’t think you were Roy Keane, we might get along.’
Chris might not be the pushover he appeared, she decided.
She left him to it, and on the drive back home half-managed to convince herself that that was a line drawn, a chapter closed; that the Deepman story was separate and different, and her own job clearly defined. But she couldn’t quite banish the old man’s words – You speak English? Why they reckon he did it – and the second set of lights she stopped at, she fished the swiped note from her pocket, and transferred it to her wallet.
A name – just ‘Chris’ – and a mobile number. Just in case.
iv
That evening she felt restless; animated, but not in a good way. Animated like one of those East European cartoons, where the figures jerk and the background never changes. She ate standing up, brushed her teeth and headed for town. The bars on George Street had big glass frontages, and from outside might have been broadcasting wide-screen footage of a good time happening elsewhere. She drank a large glass of white wine in one, then moved next door and ordered another, and lit a cigarette while waiting. When it came, it was already paid for.
‘Gentleman down the far end,’ said the bartender.
Something about gentleman in a Geordie accent made it a slur.
It took a second to place the gentleman in question – she’d not noticed him on arrival. He’d been on yesterday’s trains, wearing an aubergine top and a rueful grin; had offered her his seat on the journey back. He was dressier now: jacket and tie; the jacket urban khaki, as if he were a hunter of some sort. Well, that figured. Zoë nodded, then he disappeared from view behind a crowd of young excitables.
She was glad she’d ordered a large glass.
There were only so many directions once you’d ruled one out. She could study the Cunard posters on the walls, or just stare into the mirror behind the bar – one of those mirrors that didn’t tell a true story. It made Zoë younger, somehow. This would be the effect of distance: the mirror you can’t get close to is the mirror that likes you best. This one had erased some living, and it was a curiously smoother Zoë looking back at her. The kind of Zoë this Zoë should probably take under her wing; drop a few hints about situations best avoided. What struck her, though, was what they had in common: the dark tight crop of curls; the darker eyes giving nothing away.
‘You managed to find a seat this time, I see.’
(He’d worked his line out, then.)
‘Only there are tables back there, if you’d prefer.’
‘I’m good.’ She hesitated. ‘Thanks for the drink.’
‘You’re welcome. You weren’t on the train today.’
‘It was a one-off,’ said Zoë.
He was a little old for the bar, which made Zoë beyond redemption. But the difference was – Zoë Boehm thought this – he was hoping no one would notice, while she didn’t give a damn. Even in the mirror, he was late twenties. Allow him the light and some high maintenance, he’d be mid-thirties, still ten years too young.
‘Do you mind if I join you?’
She shrugged.
The crowd had dissipated or moved elsewhere. Jay Harper took the stool next to her, explaining that he’d been Jamie until that TV chef took off, and then rebranded because he ‘wasn’t what people expected a Jamie to be any more.’ Zoë nodded, wondering how many times he’d said that; wondering, also, what people expected a ‘Jamie’ to be, and what kind of grown man worried about such things, and changed his name so easily, as if slipping from one identity to the next. He helped her out on this by filling in background detail; polished enough that he could have released it as a single. She took in the outline – PPE, job in the City, long-term relationship foundering on the twin issues of children and marriage – while fleshing it out with observations of her own: he wasn’t a real drinker; he had a good dentist; and his tousled hair was tousled the way a cobweb was an accident. There were bald spaces there; not huge, but to a used-to-be-Jamie, they probably shone pillar-box red.
‘And what about you, Zoë? Was it business took you to London?’
‘That’s right.’ But she didn’t want him pursuing that topic: some people got antsy when her line of work was revealed. Joe, glibly, had used to say this was because everyone had something to hide. Zoë felt it had more to do with justifiable distrust of the secret-hunters.
She bought another round. Not a real drinker, he had something with Coke in it. The last sticky half-inch of his previous stood abandoned on the counter.
‘This is probably not a sentence that should pass my lips,’ he said, ‘but do you come here often?’
‘It’s my first time.’
‘Bit superficial, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure what a genuine supercruiser’s wet bar looks like.’
‘Good one.’ He touched the knot of his tie briefly. His fingers were surprisingly worn. She wondered if he gardened, or dug an allotment, and with a sudden wave of weariness wished he did, and would talk about it. Instead of this tired ritual. She should get up and leave, but didn’t. ‘Gets busy later, so I’m told. All the thirtysomething lonely hearts, looking for love in all the wrong places.’
She said, ‘So where would the right place be?’
‘Wish they knew.’ He placed his glass on the counter, and Zoë heard the ice ring. ‘Do you know what the collective noun is? A desperation.’
‘That’s kind of cold.’
‘I don’t mean to be. But something’s going
on, more than just the biological time bomb. Something almost . . . feral. It’s like the last-chance saloon, you know? A man could announce he was clean and single and get damaged in the rush.’
‘Nice for you.’
‘I’m just saying that’s what it’s like. It’s a sad indictment of our society, if you ask me, and I’m sure there are plenty men taking advantage. Me, I’m just making an observation.’
Zoë said, ‘I’ve often thought, the downside of those Bridget Jones books is men read them and think they’ve learned something about women.’
‘You’re not a man-hater, are you?’
‘I pick my hatreds carefully, Jay. I wouldn’t waste one on a whole gender.’
‘Well, I’m not talking about all women either. I’m talking about the ones, they’re single, they’re looking at forty, they come to places like this, they might as well be carrying neon signs.’
‘What did you have in mind when you bought me that drink, Jay?’
‘You don’t think I’m classing you with them, do you?’
She didn’t reply.
‘You’re an interesting-looking woman.’
Zoë nodded thoughtfully; swirled her glass. There was a hint of debris in her wine, settling at the bottom.
‘That was a compliment.’
‘I could tell.’
‘You’re not strung too high, are you, Zoë? I like that in a woman.’
She said, ‘When I hear a phrase like that . . .’
‘Sorry.’
‘. . . I start wondering which decade I wandered into.’ She finished her drink. ‘You’re probably a nice guy, Jay, but somehow I don’t think our future’s written in the stars.’
Outside a chill had set in, and underdressed people leaving bars and restaurants clouded the air with their breath, and shivered. Zoë fastened the top popper on her leather jacket, and thought about smoking, but didn’t. She also thought about Caroline Daniels, and wondered if her romance had started like that – if Caroline had come to a bar, looking for love in all the wrong places, which was probably a song. But then, it was only the wrong place if you didn’t find what you were looking for. Zoë was unaware of any rule that said love couldn’t begin with a pick-up.
Or a lonely-hearts column. Or a stranger on a train. Or a conversation in a lost property office.