by Iain Banks
"Or a journalist?" I suggest, raising my eyebrows.
"Or a journalist," the inspector agrees blandly, leaning back against the window-frame, silhouetted by the bright gleam of rushing cloud outside. "You wouldn't happen to know those codes, would you, Mr Colley?"
"Not off the top of my head, no," I say. "They're kept on the paper's computer system these days, protected by a password. But I do write on defence and security matters, amongst other things, and I do know the password, so I have got access to the codes. I can't prove I don't know what they are, if that's what you're getting at."
"Not really getting at anything, Mr Colley. It's just… interesting."
"Look, Detective Inspector," I say, sighing and putting out my cigarette, "I'm a single man, I live alone, I do a lot of work from home and from… all over Scotland; I phone it into the paper. I'll be honest with you; I really have no idea whether I've got alibis for all those dates or not. Quite possibly I do; I have a lot of professional lunches and dinners and just general meetings, keeping in contact with people; people whose word I think you'd take, like police top brass and lawyers and advocates." It never does any harm to remind an inquisitive cop you know people like those. "But, come on." I laugh lightly, holding my arms out. "I mean, anyway; do I look like a murderer?"
The detective inspector laughs too. "No, you don't, Mr Colley." He draws on the cigarette. "No," he says. He brings the cigarette carefully over to the table, leans past me to fold the stub into the ashtray and says, "I helped interview Dennis Nilsen; remember him, Mr Colley? Guy that killed all those blokes?"
I nod as the DI returns to the window. I don't like the way we're going here.
"Young men, lots of young men; under his floorboards, buried in the garden… bloody football team of stiffs, he had." He looks out the window again, away from me. He shakes his head. "He didn't look like a murderer, either."
The door opens and Sergeant Flavell comes in with my new lap-top. Suddenly I have a bad feeling about all this.
I'm in the bar of the Cafe Royal, through the wall from the restaurant where I had lunch with Y and William last week. Above the noise of the bar's chattering patrons I can hear the distant clanking and clattering of cutlery and crockery coming over the tall partition wall and echoing off the place's high, ornate ceiling. I'm staring at the gallery of the island bar while my pal Al is away having a pee and I'm experiencing an optical illusion or something because things are not right; I can see those bottles on the gallery ahead of me, and I can see their reflections behind them, but I can't see me! I can't see my own reflection!.
Al comes back through the throng, politely elbows his way between a couple of people, lifts his coat off his bar stool and leans on the bar beside me, drinking his pint.
"Help me Al," I say. "I'm going crazy or I've become a fucking vampire or something."
Al looks at me. He's older than me — forty-two, I think — mousy hair, teacup-sized bald patch, a couple of fetching parallel scars above his nose that make him look like he's frowning all the time but usually he's laughing, actually. Bit smaller than me. Engineering consultant; met him at one of these stupid paint-ball-guns-in-the-woods boys" games that management tend to think are such a team-spirit-building hoot.
"What are you talking about, you incredible cretin, Colley?"
I nod at the gallery ahead of me. I can see people there, behind the bottles, just as I can see people behind me. I swear they're the same people and I ought to be between them and the mirror behind the bottles but I still can't see myself. I nod again, hoping that the movement will show up in the mirror but it doesn't.
"Look!" I say. "Look: in the mirror!"
It is a mirror, isn't it? I stare. Glass shelves. Brass supports. Bottle of Stoly Red facing me and its back visible in the mirror; likewise a bottle of blue Smirnoff, label facing me and the plain white back of the label visible through the bottle and the vodka inside. Same with the bottle of Bacardi alongside. I can see the little label on the back of the bottle in the mirror, and see it through the bottle from the front. Of course it's a mirror!
Al moves his head so that his chin is on my shoulder. He peers forwards. He takes a pair of glasses I know he's a little sensitive about from his jacket pocket and puts them on.
"What?" he says, sounding exasperated. A bar person gets in the way, pulling a pint and then turning to the optics above where I'm looking, and I have to move my head, trying to see, but I can't until she moves away.
"Cameron, what are you gibbering about?" Al says. He turns, looking at me. I look in the mirror again.
Christ! I can't see him either!
Maybe it's all those Southern Comforts we had earlier, drinking to Bush's defeat by Clinton. Thank fuck we didn't have Buds like Al suggested; how could he even think about polluting our bodies with a brewed-in-the-UK copy of a beer that's basically just fizzy piss even in its original incarnation (and they have the nerve to advertise it here as "The Genuine Article'! Another one of those Great Lies In Advertising, aimed at the brain-dead of Essex, their grey matter irretrievably compromised by years of reading the Sun and drinking Skol, the bastards).
I point, getting a funny look from a bar person passing at the time as I almost poke her in the eye.
"I'm invisible!" I squawk.
"You're pissed," Al says, going back to his pint.
One of the people in the mirror is looking at me. I realise I'm still pointing. I turn and look behind me but there's just a whole load of backs and bodies; nobody looking at me. I turn back and stare at the mirror, just as the bar person I almost assaulted reaches up and takes the bottle of Bacardi down from the shelf. I stare. Its reflection is still there! Even more amazing!
The man who was looking at me is still looking at me. Then it occurs to me I can see a bit of a tile mural on the wall above him. I turn round and look above the people behind me; there is still a fair bit of light coming in through the tall, engraved windows. No mural. I turn back again as the bar person puts the Bacardi bottle back on the shelf. It is not quite straight, and slightly out of position. One of the older male bar staff passes by, reaches up and sets the bottle in exactly the right position again to maintain the mirror illusion before going to a pump and rilling a couple of pint glasses with 80-shilling. I glare at him as he comes towards me. The complete bastard. Then I pull back, afraid, as he comes right up and puts the glasses down in front of Al and me. I look down at my own glass and see it's empty just as the bar man takes it away and accepts the money from Al, who pours the last few millimetres from his old glass into his new one.
I shake my head. "No, man," I say, sighing and looking up at the ceiling. "I can't handle all this."
"What?" Al says, frowning.
"I can't handle this. Today's just been…"
"You look like shit, Cameron," Al tells me. He nods past me. "Look, there's a couple of proper seats. Let's sit down."
"Okay. Let's get some fags, eh?"
"No! You're giving up, remember?"
"Yeah, but it's been a difficult day, Al…"
"Just head for those seats, okay?"
I forget my coat but Al remembers it. We sit at the end of one of the bar's ribbed green leather semicircular benches, pints on the oval table.
"Do I really look like shit?"
"Cam, you look shafted."
"Fuck off, you uncivil bastard."
"Just calling it the way I see it."
"I've had a traumatic day," I tell him, pulling my Drizabone about me. "Grilled by the fuzz."
"Sounds painful, certainly."
"Thanks for coming for a drink, Al," I tell him, looking into his eyes with drunken sincerity and punching him lightly on the forearm.
"Ouch! Will you stop that?" He rubs his arm. "But anyway; think comparatively little of it."
"Al, you got any fags on you at all, Al?"
"No, I still haven't."
"Oh. Oh well. But I really appreciate you coming for this drink, really, Al. You're my only pa
l who isn't another fucking hack… Well, apart from Andy. And… well, anyway; I really appreciate being able to tell you all this shit."
"And share it with the rest of the bar if I didn't keep telling you to shut up."
"Yeah, but you wouldn't believe what they're getting at. I mean, you wouldn't believe what they're trying to fucking pin on me."
"A badge that says Nil By Mouth, perhaps?"
I wave this away and bend closer to him. "I'm serious. They think I've been murdering people!"
Al sighs deeply. "What a gift for dramatic hyperbole you possess, Cameron."
"It's true!"
"No…" Al says calmly. "I think if it was true they wouldn't have let you go, Cameron. You'd be in a cell; you'd be looking at bars, not trying to drink one dry."
"But I haven't got an alibi!" I whisper angrily. "I haven't got any fucking alibis! Some cunt's trying to set me up! I'm not kidding; they're trying to set me up! They call me on the phone and get me to go to some lonely spot and wait for a phone call on a public box or get me to stay home all night, meanwhile they're offing some fucker! I mean, by the sound of it every one of the bastards deserved to die… though actually he hasn't killed them all, just seriously assaulted some of them, whatever the hell they mean by that, wouldn't tell me… but I didn't do it! And the police are fucking crazy, man! They think I had enough time to get to the fucking airport, get down south or wherever and kill these Tory fuckwits. Christ, they took my new computer! My lap-top! Heinous bastards! They've even told me to keep them informed of my movements; can you believe that? I've got to report in to the local police if I go anywhere! What a nerve! I tried ringing some of the cops I know, top-brass types, to find out what they knew about all this, but they were all out or at meetings. Suspicious as fuck." I glance at my watch. "I got to get home, Al; I have to flush all my stuff down the toilet, or eat it or something…" I drink some of my pint, spilling a little on my chin. "But I'm being set up, I'm not kidding; some bastard rings up calling himself —»
"— Mr Archer," Al sighs.
I stare at him. I can't believe this. "How do you know?" I screech.
"Because this is about the fifth time you've told me this."
"Shit." I think about this. "Do you think I might be getting drunk?"
"Oh, shut up and drink your beer."
"Good idea… You got any fags on you at all, Al?"
An hour later and Al's made me return a packet of fags I bought and taken one slim panatella from my lips just as I was about to light it at the bar and taken me round to the Burger King and made me eat a cheeseburger and drink a large milk and I seem to have sobered up a bit except now my balance has gone and I'm having trouble standing. Al has to help me and insists we get a taxi and refuses to drive or let me drive and I accuse him of being scared because of his record.
"I'm heading for the hills, I'm telling you," I tell him as we make it out through the door and into the open air.
"Sound thinking," Al says. "It's always worked for me."
"Yeah." I say, nodding emphatically and gazing up at the sky. It's sunset and the air is cold. We head west along Princes Street. "I'm heading for the hills, getting out of town," I tell him. "I'm going to ditch all the gear in my flat first, but then that's me; I'm off. I think I'll tell the boys in blue exactly where I'm going so they can check up I'm not this fucking serial killer/assaulter or whatever, but I'm rattled, man, I'm telling you, I don't mind admitting it. I'm off to the Highlands, I'm off to Stromefirry-nofirry."
"Where?" Al buttons his coat as we turn up St Andrew Street and the wind gusts down from St Andrew Square.
"Stromefirry-nofirry."
"Ha!" Al laughs. "Aye, of course; Stromefirry-nofirry. I've seen that sign, too."
Al leaves me propped against a wall while he pops into a shop and gets some flowers.
"Get us a packet of Rothmans, Al!" I shout but I don't think he hears me. I stand there sighing heavily and smiling bravely at passers-by.
Al reappears with a bunch of flowers.
I throw my arms wide. "Al, you shouldn't have."
"Good, because I haven't." He takes me by the arm and we head to the kerb, looking for a taxi. He sniffs at the flowers. "They're for Andi."
"Andy?" I say, surprised. "All right; I'll take them." I reach for the flowers but miss.
Al nudges me in the ribs. "Not that Andy," he says, waving at a taxi with its light on. It clatters by. "They're for my wife, you buffoon, not this dissolute "eighties boom-victim moping in his gloomy mansion."
"Hotel," I correct him, and help him to wave at the next taxi. Somehow I stagger into the gutter and almost fall but Al saves me. The taxi — which was slowing down and turning towards us — steers away and picks up speed again. I glare after it. "Bastard."
"Idiot," I hear Al agreeing. He takes my arm again and starts to lead me across the street. "Come on, Mr Sobriety; we'll get one from the rank on Hanover Street."
"But my car!"
"Forget it. Pick it up tomorrow."
"Yeah, I will, and then I'm heading for the hills, I'm telling you."
"Good idea."
"Heading for the hills, I'm fucking telling you…"
"Yes, you are, aren't you?"
"… for the fucking hills, man…"
I get home and Al sees me to my door and I tell him I'm fine and he goes and I dump all my stuff down the toilet except for some speed which I snort, and the rest which I suck. Then I go to bed but I can't sleep and the phone rings and I answer it.
"Cameron; Neil."
"Oh, wow, yeah; hi, Neil."
"Yes… well, I'm just calling to say sorry, but I can't help you."
"Yeah, right… what?"
"Do the words «chase», «goose» and «wild» mean anything to you?"
"Ah, pardon?"
"Never mind. As I said, I can't help you, old son. It's a dead end, understand? There's no link; nothing to find out. It's your story, but if I were you I'd drop it."
"Ah, yeah, umm…"
"Are you all right?"
"Yeah! Yeah, I'm…"
"You sound stoned."
"Yeah… No!"
"Well, I'm glad we've got that cleared up. I'll reiterate; I can't help you. You're on a wild-goose chase, so just let it drop."
"Okay, okay…"
"Yes, well, I'll let you get back to whatever combination of substances it is you're currently abusing. Goodnight, Cameron."
"Yeah; "night."
I put the phone down and sit on the edge of the bed, thinking, What the fuck was that about? So these guys all just died coincidentally? There's no connection with my Mr Archer or Daniel Smout? I really don't like the sound of all this.
I lie down again and try to sleep but I can't and I can't stop thinking about guys tied to trees with nooses round their necks waiting for a train, or jerking around in baths while a drill sparks and bubbles under the water, or drowning in farm cesspits; I try to stop thinking about that sort of gory, ghastly stuff and think about Y for a while instead and have a wank and still don't sleep and eventually after a lot more not-sleeping I'm dying for a cigarette and so I get up and go out but I must have slept after all because it's half two in the morning all of a sudden and there's nowhere open and by now my head's sore but I really need some tobacco so I hoof it uphill through Royal Circus and up Howe Street until finally a cab stops and I get him to take me through the quiet streets to the Cowgate where the Kasbar's still open, God bless the awful dive that it is, and at last I can buy some fags — Regal because that's all they have behind the bar and the machine's not working but it doesn't matter; I've got a cigarette in my mouth and a pint in my hand (medicinal, and anyway I don't think they serve Perrier in the Kasbar and even if they did some seven-foot biker would probably push a glass in your face just on general principles and then drag you screaming into the gents and shove your head down an unflushed toilet but hey I'm not complaining that's part of the character of the place) and I'm happy now.
I leave at four, walking from the Cowgate up to Hunter Square where the waist-high glass-tiled roof of the underground toilets glows with hundreds of little blue marbles; one of the Lux Europae exhibits. I head down Fleshmarket Close, forgetting the station is still closed at this time in the morning, so detour up Waverley Bridge and stroll along Princes Street beneath more abstract light sculptures, watching a street-cleaning machine as it trundles growling along the road, brushing and sucking at the gutters.
I'm home by five and up again by eleven when there's a phone call that's more than ordinarily interesting that changes my plans and so I go into work and have to pay Frank ('Milltown of Towie? Give in? Molten of Toil!) his twenty quid because the Tories scraped through the Maastricht vote with less of a margin that I'd anticipated and I try to phone Neil to make sure I didn't dream that call last night, but he's out.
CHAPTER 6: EXOCET DECK
I drive the car up the little single-track road leading towards the low hills; the headlights create a deep channel of illumination between the hedges. I'm dressed in black jeans, black boots and a dark blue polo-neck over a navy shirt and two vests. I've wearing thin black leather gloves. I find a track leading off the road into a stand of trees; I take the car up as far as it will go, then turn the lights out. The clock on the dash says it's 03:10. I wait a minute; no traffic passes, so I guess I haven't been seen. My heart is thudding already.
The night is cold when I get out of the car. There's a half-moon but it's obscured ninety per cent of the time by a lot of low, fast-moving cloud producing occasional freezing gusts of rain. The wind is loud in the leaf-bare branches overhead. I head down the track to the road, then look back to the car; it's almost fully hidden. I cross the tarmac and climb a fence, then take the ski-mask from my trouser pocket and pull it over my head. I follow the line of the hedge along the side of the road, ducking once as a car drives past on the road; its headlights sweep along the hedge above me. The car carries on into the night. I start breathing again.