by Mick Herron
But Zoë felt alive. Felt more vital than in months, performing this illegal – this stupid – invasion.
The machine fell silent, half its job done. She inserted the clean disk, started it copying, then took herself to the other room; beginning to get used to this; beginning to move like a professional – on the balls of her feet, making next to no noise. And so busy congratulating herself she hit the light switch without thinking, and the sudden harsh brilliance of a naked bulb split her vision in two.
It sounded like sirens going off in her head.
She froze, making sure they really were in her head, not out in the world. On the street below, life continued: people going about their evening; none of them remotely bothered by a light above a closed charity shop. Get a fucking grip, Zoë instructed herself, very nearly aloud. There was a painful dragging sound somewhere close; it took her a moment to register it as her own breathing. She let it calm before turning to the room’s contents.
Like next door, there were boxes here; unlike next door, most had labels attached – dog/cat food; jigsaws; paperbacks; misc. items. Sometimes, you had to trust the paperwork. Ignoring food, games and ornaments, she opened the first book box and checked the topmost paperback’s flyleaf for a signature: somebody called Debbie Squiggle had owned it, once upon a time. The box held maybe forty similar; there were three boxes labelled ‘books’, and Zoë asked herself how useful examining each and every one would be, and found an answer quite quickly.
Clothes on the floor in a corner managed to be both neatly folded and piled in a heap at the same time. No knowing if any had been Victoria’s. An unmarked box held nothing but blank sheets of paper. Wild geese suggested themselves, but alongside other qualities, Zoë could be seriously pigheaded. There were other boxes; there were more corners. If she found nothing, she was at least going to know there’d been nothing to find. But Six. Set a time limit. Five minutes more, tops. Enough to copy a second disk; to check the rest of this room. But she forgot about the second disk immediately she found the auction boxes.
This was how they were labelled: ‘For auction’. The same careful hand that had printed the rest. They sat below the window; neither hidden nor prominent – they were, after all, just four more boxes; whose contents, the records (heavy boxed sets of thick black vinyl), were all of operas; their names at once familiar and incomprehensible to Zoë, to whom the form was a locked room. The boxed sets made an impressive, heavy-looking mass comprising God knew how many hours’ music. If she started at one end and listened right through to the other, she might emerge significantly less ignorant, she supposed. But perhaps significantly less inclined to carry on living, also. It occurred to her that you could cram all this on to few enough CDs to snugly fit a shoebox, but the expense had presumably been beyond Victoria Ingalls – or perhaps she’d preferred the old-fashioned way. The CD boom gave everyone a chance to purge their musical history, though most went on to make the same mistakes again. But Victoria must have been happy with her choices.
There was never doubt in Zoë’s mind that these were Victoria’s records.
It made every kind of sense: how often did a shop like this – not the high-end of the charity market – wind up with treasure trove? A collection this size must be worth thousands. Too valuable to sell piecemeal downstairs. So it had been kept for auction; meanwhile, here it rested, arranged according to principles Zoë didn’t have the first clue about: Puccini next to Jan´a˘cek next to Mozart. Chronology or theme or taste: light and heavy: whatever. Now that she’d found them, what did they tell her? The answer remained an obstinate zero.
There was shouting out on the street, briefly – pub-bound youth – but it neither startled nor worried her; she was entirely inside her own space. The maze she’d thought about earlier came to mind, the one where you passed through door after door, moving ever further from your starting point, with no idea where you were going. She was hearing from her inner Zoë again, and the tone was unimpressed. So what, exactly, were you expecting? That exactly irritated. Zoë knelt, and ran a hand across the top edge of the ranked sets of records in the first box; automatically began to count, but stopped when she noticed. There was something here, but it meant nothing to her – one more language she was unversed in. Victoria Ingalls was dead as ever, and all Zoë’d found was something of the life she’d left behind. So what were you expecting? Exactly? She felt she’d won an argument she didn’t even believe in herself.
She ran the same hand across the second box, feeling mute music in cardboard packaging.
Next door, the disk had finished copying. She should take it, for what it was worth, and run; she should remember the final rule – the same as it ever was: for dating, fucking, breaking up. For burglary. Don’t get caught. Ultimately, Alison hadn’t taught her anything Zoë didn’t know already, and this, too, was the same as it ever was.
She ran a hand across the third box; felt the same rank of unknown pleasures beneath her fingertips, and tried to imagine owning them – their being part of her life’s furnishings; the physical objects the backdrop to her daily events, and the music they held the soundtrack. To collect them – not just the expense, but the actual time involved in choosing them, in learning them, in keeping on collecting – must have been immense; must have demanded commitment and tenacity. Which was what she was thinking when she became aware of an oddity she couldn’t put her finger on.
Putting a finger on, though, was the answer . . . She ran her hand across the tightly jammed boxes once more, and registered what had snagged her attention: something tucked between two records, pushing them apart so a slight gap intervened that her fingers had noticed, but into which they wouldn’t fit. A chime struck in her brain, and she knew her five minutes were up, that she should be out of here – risk increased exponentially, and her chances of walking away were shrinking by the moment – but shrugged these mental warnings off, and eased a record from the box instead, to give her fingers room. The Cunning Little Vixen caught her eye; words unattached to any tune her mind remembered. Laying it aside she pulled another out, then another, until she had enough space to pull the foreign object free. When she’d done so, she barely glanced at it; its existence, right that moment, was enough for her purposes.
Zoë replaced the records in the order she’d removed them, then stood and scanned the room, to check what difference her presence had made. None, as far as she could tell. Another of Alison’s rules swam into mind, but swam out again too quickly for the words to form. It didn’t matter. She was done. She switched off the light and went next door, where the old computer had managed its trick, and was waiting, churning asthmatically, for somebody to make it perform another. Zoë retrieved the copied disk, put the others back where she’d found them, then shut the computer down. Downstairs, she killed the light in the hallway, and stepped into the yard. Way up yonder was a full moon, or a moon so very nearly full it made no difference. By the time she was over the wall and in the lane she wasn’t a burglar at all, but a woman out on her own, mid-evening: pretty respectable-looking on the whole, though her jacket had seen better days.
iii
It had not escaped Zoë’s attention that she was growing older. A dozen reminders nipped her daily, which in time would double then double again . . . But it was only lately, sifting dead women’s relics, that it had struck her how much everything else was ageing too. Her possessions, like theirs, were well embarked on the bleak trajectory from newly desirable to shabby-familiar: one day, everything she owned would be packed in boxes, and junked or sold for charity. Even gifts once cried over. And there wasn’t a lot could be done about this. The physical form – the body you tenanted – could be shored up: there was no shame now in going under the knife; it was an available alternative you’d be a fool to dismiss out of hand. And there were other measures, varyingly drastic – Botox injection, HRT, laser correction, toyboy: whatever worked. But it was all throwing money on top of a weary infrastructure: things looked brighter, gleamier
, as if they’d probably work, but irreversible corrosion ate the foundations below. The high-speed trains all stopped when the signals failed. And the things you owned grew worn and faded, and were destined for boxes in the end.
Do I need a drink or what? she asked herself.
Zoë was in the car, heading back to Oxford; smoking, driving too fast; still agitated from her break-in, and alarmed at how alive it had made her feel. Was this what she’d been missing? And was it illegality or triumph boosting her? A triumph that tasted oddly like ash, because what it signified was somebody’s murder. It was the reason Victoria’s possessions had ended in boxes.
It lay barely examined on the seat beside her. She didn’t need to examine it: the fact that it existed was enough. It wasn’t proof of anything, not to anybody else; to Zoë, it was all the proof she needed.
As I walk this land of broken dreams I have visions of many things
She didn’t know she knew the words. But there was this about pop music: it crept into you like mist under an ill-fitting door, until words you didn’t know you knew had taken up residence – words like love, heartbreak, forever. People her age spent years having poetry hammered into them at school, and emerged without a couplet intact. But each and every one knew what followed ‘I’ll never dance with another.’
But happiness is just an illusion Filled with sadness and confusion
What becomes of the brokenhearted Who had love that’s now departed I know I’ve got to find Some kind of peace of mind, baby . . .
Jimmy Ruffin. Motown Records. 1966. She couldn’t begin to remember last time she’d seen a seven-inch single in a paper sleeve; it was like something recovered from a time capsule, meant to remind you what you’d been doing while Armstrong walked the moon. And it had been tucked into Victoria Ingalls’ record collection, as out of place as a cat in a kennel. Zoë, looking for Caroline Daniels, had found this instead: two jigsaw pieces that didn’t lock together. Now, instead of stubbing it in the ashtray, she tossed her cigarette through the open window and saw in her rearview sparks scatter the dark road behind her. I know I’ve got to find some kind of peace of mind. It was always a mistake to look for solutions in a lyric, but there was a point here, that was true. Peace of mind. Easier sung than found.
And now that I know this, she was asking herself, what am I going to do?
Her flat was in darkness. There was no wine in her fridge. Zoë couldn’t remember finishing a bottle, but then, couldn’t remember starting one either. She put the record on her desk, then in afterthought in a drawer instead, which she locked. It wasn’t terribly late yet; it felt terribly late, but wasn’t. Not too late to drink coffee, but coffee wasn’t what she needed. Alan Talmadge, she thought. She spoke the words aloud, to hear a killer’s name in the open air. ‘Alan Talmadge.’ Which wasn’t his name. She felt absurd, as if she’d essayed a satanic rite; uttered a fiendish name to conjure evil. What did she do with what she knew? Which wasn’t quite suspicion – felt like certainty – but boiled down to less than conjecture (this song, that song; two tunes in two wrong places).
She had a man friend, though . . . I saw him leaving her flat.
We do, don’t we? We like to boast about our little conquests . . .
. . . It was still coursing through her veins; that life-force she’d generated performing the break-in. She said his not-name aloud again. ‘Alan Talmadge.’ I’m going to find you. Proof or no proof: I know you’re out there, whoever you are. Sitting at her desk, in the pool of light her anglepoise cast, her index finger made a pile of the scatter of paperclips it found; a slow methodical gathering she was barely aware of. I know what you do. I’ll find you. Trust me.
The phone rang.
So on edge, so alive she was, it might have killed her.
She picked up, spoke her name, and in the moment before the silence broke wondered if she’d conjured Tal-madge out of the ether, by discovering what he did. A cigarette called to her, but it was trapped in her jacket pocket, on the far side of the room.
‘Zoë? It’s Jay, Zoë. Jay Harper? We met –’
‘I remember.’
I’m talking about women, they’re single, they’re looking at forty, they might as well be carrying neon signs.
‘Zoë?’
‘But I don’t remember giving you my number.’
‘You’re in the book. I don’t remember you saying you were a private eye.’
‘You didn’t ask.’
‘It goes to show, we have unfinished business.’
Her finger disrupted the tidy pile it had made of the paperclips. ‘You can’t be finding things that difficult.’
‘Difficult?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I’m not ringing you because I like a challenge, Zoë. What would that make me?’ He didn’t leave a pause. It wasn’t really a question. ‘I enjoyed your company. I’d like to see you again. That’s all.’
At the heart of the paperclip pile she found a tightly rolled ball of silver foil. Hardly aiming – choosing a target, but not looking at it – Zoë flicked, hard. It missed the door handle by barely an inch.
‘You keep going silent.’
She sighed. ‘Jay. I must have ten years on you, and that’s adding five to what you think you’re getting away with.
You seriously imagine I need that kind of grief?’
‘So how old do I think I’m getting away with? Twenty-two?’
‘Nice try.’
‘All I’m asking is, a drink? Seriously, Zoë, you strike me as more used to giving grief than getting it. You’ve nothing to worry about where I’m concerned.’
That had the air of famous last words, she thought: the kind that get said by somebody else. Like This isn’t going to hurt, much, or It’s all right, I’ll catch you.
‘I’ll make it easy. I’ll tell you where I am right now.’ He told her: a pub, one she knew well. This was because it was five minutes’ walk away. ‘And unless you save me from myself, I’ll be here until kicking out. Which, given my regrettably unmacho capacity for alcohol, means I’ll get hopelessly drunk, sleep in tomorrow, miss my train, miss a very serious meeting, and lose my job. Which will be your fault.’
‘So no pressure, then –’
‘Later.’
– and he was gone, like that. She was listening to a dial tone.
It’s Sunday tomorrow, she thought.
And: Not a chance, she also thought . . . She spread her hand, and swiped the paperclips across the desk, on to the floor, into the wastebin. There was a tingling at her finger- tips, at her toes, the roots of her hair – none of the obvious sexual playgrounds, but if her body thought it was fooling her, it had another think coming. Not a chance, she thought again, but she wasn’t even kidding herself.
There were various reasons Zoë liked this pub, among them its blackboard listing available cocktails: Guinness and bitter, bitter shandy, lager top. In the back room, where there was a sofa and an armchair, she found Jay Harper, who’d bagged the sofa. A pint glass, almost full, sat in front of him. He was reading The Independent.
‘I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.’
There was a piano, and, on the walls, photos of obscure jazz performers, along with ancient revue bills, and vinyl recordings from best-forgotten eras, such as the polka craze of the fifties. A young man on the piano stool was studying sheet music, while two women talked quietly in a nook. A drift of crushed monkey-nut shells littered the floor. ‘Well, you don’t look dangerously intoxicated.’
‘Don’t underestimate this stuff. It’s called Monks’ Brain Mortilyzer, or something. More than a pint, and you’re technically dead.’
‘Sounds tempting. But I’ll stick to wine.’
While he fetched it, she claimed the armchair, trying not to wonder what had brought her here. Wine, but not only wine. The body, after all, was a traitor. But wasn’t this research, of a sort? – it brought her closer to Caroline, to Victoria, and might bring insight into the
ir story. Though largely, they’d always remain mysterious to her. Sometimes, it was as if other people had minds of their own. And the most unlikely among them ran on kamikaze hearts.
. . . And the body, anyway, was a traitor . . . The thought hollowed her out, dried her mouth; she had forgotten for whole hours thoughts of envelopes and examinations and we’ll have to fix you up with an appointment . . . Murder and love had edged out cancer, but only for a while, only for a while. There was probably an equation awaiting calcula- tion; some very precise formula which would balance these extremes. For the moment, cancer was winning; it had swamped Alan Talmadge and his murderous loves, and everything around her grew larger of a sudden, while noises boomed as if the room had become a sound tunnel. She very badly needed a drink. Because the body was a traitor. And then Jay was back, handing her a glass which she took without a word. She had her first large swallow before he’d even sat down.
He looked at her. ‘Bad day, or just thrilled to see me?’
‘You have no idea.’
‘How thrilled –’
‘The day I’ve had.’
He sat, and resumed his pint. In this light Jay seemed older than he had in the bright bar; it should have been the other way round, but somehow the softer context was hard on him, and didn’t let him get away with much. She decided she preferred this. Pubs were realer than bars. Here, Jay looked like he worked for a living. He was relaxing, but obviously had a life to relax from. ‘Want to tell me about it?’ he asked.
‘Not really.’
‘It’s going to be a long evening.’
‘I didn’t mean to come,’ she told him. ‘I’m not sure why I did.’
‘So long as you’re here.’
Reaching for a cigarette was easier than replying.
He said, ‘I think you got the wrong idea about me last night.’