by Ian Rankin
Reeve was studying an envelope. He turned it over in his hands. “This is Jim’s handwriting.”
“What?” She gazed at the envelope.
“It’s his handwriting. Postmarked London, the day before he flew to the States.” He held the envelope up to the light, shook it, pressed its contents between thumb and forefinger. “Not just paper,” he said. He peeled apart the two glued flaps. He would never use ready-seal envelopes himself; they were too easy to tamper with. He pulled out a sheet of A4 paper, double-folded. A small key fell out of the paper onto the table. While Fliss picked up the key, Reeve unfolded the paper. The writing was a drunken scrawl.
“Pete’s new address—5 Harrington Lane.”
He showed it to Fliss. “What do you reckon?”
She fetched her street guide. There was only one Harring-ton Lane in London—just off the upper Holloway Road, near Archway.
“It’s not that far,” said Fliss. Her car was being fixed at a garage in Crouch End, so they called for a cab.
“Yeah,” said Pete Cavendish, “like Jim said, you can’t be too careful. And I had the garage gutted out, sold my car and my motorbike. I’ve gone ecology, see. I use a bicycle now. I reckon everybody should.” He was in his late twenties, a photographer. Jim Reeve had put work his way in the past, so Pete had been happy to oblige when Jim asked a favor.
Reeve hadn’t considered his brother’s car. He’d imagined it would be sitting in some long-term car lot out near Heathrow—and as far as he was concerned they could keep it.
Cavendish put him right. “Those places cost a fortune. No, he reckoned this was a better bet.”
They were walking from 5 Harrington Lane, a terraced house, to the garage Pete Cavendish owned. They’d come out through his back door, crossed what might have been the garden, been shown through a gate at the back which Cavendish then repadlocked shut, and were in an alley backing onto two rows of houses whose backyards faced each other. The lane had become a dumping ground for everything from potato chip bags to mattresses and sofas. One sofa had been set alight and was charred to a crisp, showing springs and clumps of wadding. It was nearly dark, but the alley was blessed with a single working streetlight. Cavendish had brought a flashlight with him.
“I think the reason he did that,” Cavendish said, meaning Jim’s letter to himself, “was he was drunk, and he hadn’t been to my new place before. He probably reckoned he’d forget the bloody address and never find me again, or his old car. See, Jim had a kind of dinosaur brain—there was a little bit of it working even when he’d had a drink. It was his ancient consciousness.”
Pete Cavendish spoke with a hand-rolled cigarette in his mouth. He had a ponytail and gray wizened cheeks. The holes in his jeans weren’t there by design, and the heel was loose on one of his sneakers. Reeve had noticed some cans of Super Lager on the kitchen counter. He’d seen Cavendish swig from one before they set off. Ecology and dinosaurs. If Cavendish kept drinking, he’d be seeing green dinosaurs in his dreams.
They passed seven garages before coming to a stop. Caven-dish kicked away some empty cans and a bag of bottles from the front of his own private garage, then took the key from Reeve that Jim had mailed to his own home. He turned it in the lock, pulled the handle, and the garage door groaned open. It stuck halfway up, but halfway was enough. The streetlight barely penetrated the interior gloom.
Cavendish switched on the flashlight. “Doesn’t look as though any of the kids have been in here,” he said, checking the floor and walls. Reeve didn’t ask what he’d thought he might find—glue, spray paint, used vials of crack?
There was only the car.
It was a battered Saab 900 of indeterminate color—charcoal came closest—with a chip out of the windshield, the fixings for side mirrors but no actual mirrors, and one door (replaced after a collision) a different color from the rest of the body. Reeve had never let his brother drive him anywhere in the Saab, and had never seen Jim drive it. It used to sit outside the flat with a tarpaulin over it.
“He spent a grand getting it done up,” Cavendish said.
“Money well spent,” Reeve muttered.
“Not on the outside, on the inside: new engine, transmission, clutch. He could’ve bought another car cheaper, but he loved this old tank.” Cavendish patted it fondly.
“Keys?” Reeve asked. Cavendish handed them over. Reeve unlocked the car and looked inside, checking under the seats and in the glove compartment. He came up with chewing gum, parking tickets, and a book of matches from the same Indian restaurant where he’d eaten lunch.
“The boot?” Fliss suggested. Reeve was unwilling; this would be it, the very last option, their last chance to move any further forward. He turned the key and felt the trunk spring open. Cavendish shone the flashlight in. There was something nestling there, covered with a tartan traveling rug. Reeve pulled off the rug, revealing a large cardboard box advertising its contents to be twelve one-liter bottles of dishwashing liquid. It was the kind of box you picked up from supermarkets and corner shops. He opened its flaps. There were papers inside, maybe half a boxful. He pulled out the top sheet and angled it into the failing flashlight.
“Bingo,” he said.
He lifted the box out, and Fliss locked the trunk. The box was awkward rather than heavy.
“Can we call for a cab from your phone?” Reeve asked Cavendish.
“Yeah, sure.” They left the garage, and Cavendish locked it tight. “Just one thing,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“What’s going to happen to the car?”
Reeve thought about it for all of two seconds. “It’s yours,” he told Cavendish. “Jim would have wanted it that way.”
NINE
January 13
I suppose if this turns into a story, I’ll have to credit Marco with the genesis—though he’d probably stress he’s more of a Pink Floyd fan. He wears a T-shirt which must date back to Dark Side of the Moon. It’s black with the prism logo on it—only he says it’s a pyramid. Sure, but light doesn’t enter a pyramid white and come out the seven colors of the rainbow. It only does that with prisms, so it must be a prism. He says I’m missing the point, maaann. The point is, the album’s a concept album and the concept is everyday madness. Pure white light into a myriad of colors. The everyday gone mad.
But then why is it a damned pyramid? Why not a teacup or a toaster or even a typewriter? Marco laughs, remembering that party of his and how I looked at a poster on his wall and thought it was sailing boats on a rippling blue sea, pictured near sunset with some heavy filtering.
And it wasn’t. It was pyramids. It was the poster that came with Dark Side of the Moon and I was sober when I mistook it. Sober as a judge. Later, I was drunk as a lord and trying to get my hand up Marco’s girlfriend’s kilt until she reminded me, her mouth shiveringly close to my ear, that Marco had done a bit of judo in his time and part of his left ear was missing. So, fair enough, I retracted my hand. You do, don’t you?
Where the fuck was I? The story. The story.
It’s about madness, too: that’s why I used the Pink Floyd reference. I could use it as a lead into the story proper. “Tales of Everyday Madness.” Was that a book or a film? Did someone give me that at charades one time? Absolutely impossible. Yes, charades, at Marco’s party. And Marco’s team was making half its titles up. The bastard even dumped in some that were in Italian.
Marco is Italian, and that is also relevant to the story. This is a story he told me last night in the Stoat and Whistle. I said to him, why haven’t you told me this before? Know what he said? He said, this is the first serious (not to mention intelligible) conversation we’ve ever had. And when I thought about it, he was probably right. What’s more, he only got round to telling his story because we’d run out of Tottenham jokes. Here’s the last one we told. What’s the difference between a man with no knob and a Spurs player? A man with no knob’s got more chance of scoring.
See, we were desperate.
“I think he was drunk when he typed this.”
“Full of spelling mistakes?”
“No, just full of shit.”
They were back in the Crouch End flat. They’d brought a carry-out back with them—Chinese this time, with some lagers and Cokes bought from the corner shop. The tin trays of food sat half-uneaten on the living room’s coffee table.
“What about you?” Reeve asked.
“Photocopies mostly. Articles from medical and scientific journals. Looks like he was calling up anything he could find on mad cow disease. Plus on genetic patents. There’s an interesting article about the company that owns the patent on all genetically engineered cotton. Might not be relevant.” She gnawed on a plastic chopstick. The chopsticks had been fifty pence a pair extra. Reeve rubbed his jaw, feeling the need for a shave. And a bath. And some sleep. He tried not to think about what time his body made it; tried to dismiss the eight hours he’d wound his watch forward, and the sleep he hadn’t taken on the plane.
He started reading again.
Marco is a journalist. He’s over here for a year, more if they like his reports, as London correspondent for some glossy Milan rag. They keep faxing him to say they want more royal family, more champagne balls, more Wimbledon and Ascot. He’s tried telling them Wimbledon and Ascot come once a year, but they just keep sending the faxes to their London office. Marco’s thinking of chucking it. He used to be a “serious” journalist, real hard copy, until he sniffed more money in the air. Moved from daily to weekly, newspaper to magazine. He said at the time he was just sick of journalism; he wanted easy money and a break from Italy. Italian politics depressed him. The corruption depressed him. He’d had a colleague, a good friend, blown up by a parcel bomb when he tried to zero in on some minister with Mafia connections. Ba-boom, and up and away to the great leader column in the sky. Or maybe the elevator down to the basement, glowing fires and typing up the classifieds.
Marco told me about some of the scandals, and I was matching him conspiracy for conspiracy, chicanery for chicanery, payoff for payoff. Then he told me he covered the Spanish cooking oil tragedy. I recalled it only vaguely. 1981, hundreds died. Contaminated oil—yes?
And Marco said, “Maybe.”
So then he told his side of it, which didn’t quite tally with the official line at the time or since. Because according to Marco, some of the people who died hadn’t touched the oil (rapeseed oil it was—memo to self, get clippings out of library). They hadn’t bought it, hadn’t used it—simple as that. So what caused the deaths? Marco’s idea—and it wasn’t original, he got it from other researchers into the area—was that these things called—hold on, I wrote it down—Jesus, it’s taken me ten minutes to track it down. Should’ve known to look first on my fag packet. OPs, that what it says. OPs were to blame. He did tell me what they are, but I’ve forgotten. Better look into it tomorrow.
“OPs,” Reeve said.
“What?”
“Any mention of them in the stuff you’re reading?”
She smiled. “Sorry, I stopped reading a while back. I’m not taking it in anymore.” She yawned, stretching her arms up, hands clenched. The fabric of her sweater tightened, raising the profile of her breasts.
“Shit,” said Reeve, suddenly realizing. “I’ve got to get a room.”
“What?”
“A hotel room. I wasn’t planning on being here this late.”
She paused before answering. “You can sleep where you are. That sofa’s plenty comfy enough; I’ve fallen asleep on it a few times myself. I’ll just check out Newsnight if that’s all right, see what I’ve missed today and what I can expect to read tomorrow, and then I’ll leave you to it.”
He stared at her.
“It’s all right, really it is,” she said. “You’re perfectly safe with me.”
She had blue eyes. He’d noticed them before, but they seemed bluer now. And she didn’t smell of perfume, just soap.
“We can read the rest over breakfast,” she said, switching on the TV. “I need a clear head to take in half of what I’m reading. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy: it doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue, does it? And nor does it trip off the eyeballs. Bloody boffins just refuse to call it mad cow disease. I hope to God that’s not what this is all about, the beefburgers of the damned—and bloody John Selwyn Gummer stuffing one down his poor sodding daughter’s throat. Do you remember that photo?”
“Why do you say that?”
She was engrossed in the TV. “Say what?”
“That you hope it’s not about bovine spongy whatsit.”
She glanced at him. “Because it’s been covered, Gordon. It’s old news. Besides, the public are physically repelled by scare stories. They’d rather not know about them. That’s why they end up in the Grauniad or Private Eye. You’ve heard of the right to know? Well, the good old British public has another inalienable right: the right not to know, not to worry. They want a cheap paper with some cartoons and funny headlines and a good telly section. They do not want to know about diseases that eat their flesh, meat that makes them mad, or eggs that can put them in casualty. You tell them about the bow doors on ferries, they still troop on and off them every weekend, heading for Calais and cheap beer.” She turned to him again. “Know why?”
“Why?”
“Because they don’t think lightning strikes twice. If some other bugger has died that makes it so much less likely that they will.” She turned back to the TV, then smiled. “Sorry, I’m ranting.”
“You have a low regard for your readers?”
“On the contrary, I have a very high regard for my readers. They are discriminating and knowledgeable.” She turned the sound up a little, losing herself in the news. Reeve put down the sheets of paper he was still holding. Sticking out from below the sofa was a newspaper. He pulled it out. It was the paper Fliss worked for.
“Isn’t he a dish?” she muttered, a rhetorical question apparently. She was talking to herself about the news presenter.
Reeve went through to the kitchen to boil some more water. He knew he should call Joan again, let her know the score, but the telephone was in the living room. He sat down at the kitchen table and spread out the paper which he’d brought through with him. He started examining each page, looking for the byline Fliss Hornby. He didn’t find it. He went through the paper again. This time he found it.
He made two mugs of instant decaf and took them back through to the living room. Fliss had tucked her legs beneath her and was hugging them. She sat forward ever so slightly in her chair, a fan seeking a better view, though there was nothing between her and her idol. Then Reeve was in the way, handing her the mug.
“You work on the fashion page,” he said.
“It’s still journalism, isn’t it?” Obviously she’d had this conversation before.
“I thought you were —”
“What?” She glared at him. “A proper journalist? An investigative journalist?”
“No, I just thought . . . Never mind.”
He sat down, aware she was angry with him. Tactful, Gordon, he thought. Nil out of ten for leadership. Had he told her he appreciated all she’d done today? She’d halved his workload, been able to explain things to him—bits of journalist’s shorthand on the disks, for example. He might have been there all day, and spent a wasted day, instead of which he had something. He had the genesis; that’s what Jim had called it. The genesis of whatever had led him to San Diego and his death. It was a start. Tomorrow things might get more serious.
He kept looking at Fliss. If she’d turned in his direction, he’d have smiled an apology. But she was staring unblinking at the screen, her neck taut. Reeve seemed to have the ability to piss women off. Look at Joan. Most days now there was an argument between them; not when Allan was around—they were determined to put up a “front”—but whenever he wasn’t th
ere. There was enough electricity in the air to light the whole building.
After Newsnight was watched in silence, Fliss said a curt good night, but then came back into the room with a spare duvet and a pillow.
“I’m sorry,” Reeve told her. “I didn’t mean to imply anything. It’s just that you never said anything, and you’ve been acting all day like you were Scoop Newshound, the paper’s only investigative reporter.”
She smiled. “Scoop Newshound?”
He shrugged, smiling also.
“I forgive you,” she said. “First one up tomorrow goes for milk and bread, right?”
“Right, Fliss.”
“Good night, then.” She showed no sign of moving from the doorway. Reeve had pulled off his blue cotton sweater and was wearing a long-sleeved white T-shirt. She appraised his body for a moment, and gave a smile and a noise that was halfway between a sigh and humming, then turned and walked away.
He found it hard to sleep. He was too tired; or rather, he was exhausted but not tired. His brain wouldn’t work—as he discovered when he tried carrying on with Jim’s notes—but it wouldn’t be still either. Images flitted through his mind, bouncing along like a ball through a series of puddles. Snatches of conversations, songs, echoes of the two films he’d watched on the flight, his trip on the Underground, the taxicabs, the Indian restaurant, surprising Fliss in the kitchen. Songs . . . tunes . . .
Row, row, row your boat.
He jerked from the sofa, standing in the middle of the floor in his T-shirt and underpants, trembling. He switched on the TV, turning the sound all the way down. Nighttime television: mindless and bright. He looked out of the window. A halo of orange sodium, a dog barking in the near distance, a car cruising past. He watched it, studied it. The driver was staring straight ahead. There were cars parked outside, solid lines of them on both sides of the street, ready for tomorrow’s race.
He padded through to the kitchen on bare feet and switched on the kettle again. Rooting in the box of assorted herbal tea bags, he found spearmint and decided to give it a try. Back in the hallway, he noticed that Fliss’s bedroom door was ajar. More than ajar in fact: it was halfway open. Was it an invitation? He’d be bound to see it if he used the kitchen or the bathroom. Her light was off. He listened for her breathing, but the fridge in the kitchen was making too much noise.