Dead Air

by Iain Banks

  ‘Well, we don’t really do requests,’ I heard some fuckwit part of my brain say.

  What?

  ‘Oh,’ he said, looking down for a moment.

  Was I fucking crazy?

  His coat looked thick and very dark and glossy.

  Did I really want to die that fucking much?

  He wore narrow, black, highly polished brogues and very fine black leather gloves, though he’d taken off the right one to shake my hand.

  ‘But,’ I said, clapping my hands together and smiling. ‘For… for…’ For somebody I’m shagging the fucking arse off for hours on end whenever I get the opportunity. ‘For a friend of Sir Jamie’s, and… and for such a beautiful, ah, ice-skater… I think we can make an exception.’ I nodded. Merrial was smiling now. ‘In fact I’m certain we can,’ I told him. Because you see I have absolutely no principles whatsoever, when it comes right down to it, and I’ll do anything – anything at all – to save my miserable, lying, hypocritical hide.

  ‘That’s very kind, Mr Nott,’ he said evenly. ‘I appreciate it.’

  ‘Oh, ah, not at all.’ I love doing favours for people I hate.

  He twisted from the waist about two degrees as he said, ‘Here’s my card.’ And the big blond guy with the metre-wide shoulders was suddenly there at Merrial’s side and presenting me with a plain white business card, which I took quickly so they wouldn’t see my trembling fingers. ‘Call me if I can ever do you a favour.’

  ‘Ah, right.’ Well, you could die conveniently. How about that? I put the card in a pocket. ‘Thank you.’

  Mr Merrial nodded slowly. ‘Well, we have to go now. Good to meet you.’

  ‘And you.’ You fucking nasty murdering gangster bastard.

  Mr Merrial turned to go, then stopped. ‘Oh,’ he said. He smiled his blade-thin smile again. Fucking hell, you crime lord cunt, I was just about getting my jangling nerves back into some sort of order and now you’re giving me a fucking Colombo moment? ‘I should tell you her name, shouldn’t I?’ Of course you shouldn’t, you dickhead, there’s no fucking need; it’s Celia. Ceel. Babe babe babe sometimes when I’m coming deep inside her.

  ‘Oh! Well, yes, it might help.’

  ‘It’s Celia Jane.’

  ‘Celia Jane?’ I blurted. Well done, Kenneth, put plenty of emphasis in there. Clearly you do still want to die.

  He nodded. ‘Celia Jane.’ He reached out and patted my elbow once before turning away.

  They moved off through the crowd, the blond dude leaving a spacious wake. Celia – sorry; Celia Jane – left the ice at one of the rink’s access points and they met her there. The blond guy produced a coat and a pair of shoes for her. She didn’t look at me and she held on to her husband’s arm while she changed from the skates to the shoes. I wiped my eyes with my hands. When I opened my eyes again, Mr and Mrs Merrial and their bulky minder had gone.

  I was still shivering when Jo arrived back with two little polystyrene cups of steaming mulled wine.

  ‘Here. Look like you need it, too. You’re very pale. You okay?’

  ‘Just fine. Thanks.’

  ‘You fuckin spoke to the guy? He shook hands wif you?’

  ‘His wife’s a fan.’

  ‘What of? Knee-cappings?’

  ‘Of mine, you buffoon.’

  ‘You’re fuckin kiddin me, man!’ Ed’s voice went very high; the speaker in my mobile struggled to cope.

  I filled in the details of meeting Mr M at Somerset House.

  ‘Aow yeah; they used to register stuff there, didn’t they? Burfs and marriages. An defs.’

  ‘Yeah, well, now it’s got an artificially cold heart and that’s where I bumped into him.’

  ‘An you’re goin to play his missus a record?’

  ‘Damn right I am.’

  ‘Sweet, man! An he says now he owes you a favour?’

  ‘Well, that’s what he implied, but-’

  ‘Ask him to find out who’s got it in for you, then. Fuckin ell, dedicate a whole show to his bitch an he’ll fuckin rub them out for you as well.’

  ‘I think that might be a little excessive.’

  ‘He’s an excessive geezer, mate.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I think I’ll keep him well away from whatever messes I’m already in.’

  ‘Wisdom, Kennif.’

  I drummed the fingers of my left hand on my right arm. I was standing on the deck of the Temple Belle, looking out at the dark waters. Jo was below, opening some Korean take-away containers just delivered from a restaurant in Chelsea. I’d felt I just had to tell somebody at least something of what had happened that afternoon, and Ed had been the obvious choice. ‘Or do you think maybe I should ask him for help?’ I said. ‘I know he’s a villain but he did seem quite friendly; helpful, almost. I mean, maybe-’

  ‘Na, I don’t really fink you should. I was kiddin. Just you keep your skinny white ass away from people like that.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘I’m sure, man.’

  ‘Yeah, but he didn’t seem that bad, I mean-’

  ‘Listen. I’m gonna tell you sumfink about your Mr Merrial.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a bit orrible, but I fink you need tellin.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘Right.’ I heard Ed take a deep breath. Or possibly a toke. ‘He’s got this really big fucker works for him, right? Blond geezer built like a fuckin nuclear bunker.’

  ‘I’ve seen him. He handed me Mr M’s card this afternoon.’

  ‘Right. Well, this is wot I heard from somebody wot was there when this appened once. When Mr Merrial wants to find sumfink out from somebody wot does not want to tell him, or if he’s upset wif somebody, right, he has them tied to a chair wif their legs straight out an their feet tied to another chair, and then the big blond guy comes an sits on their legs an bounces up and down wif increasin force until either they talk or their knees bend the wrong way and their legs snap.’

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake! Oh Jesus Christ, that’s fucking sick.’

  ‘An I eard this from a bruvver who is definitely wot you’d call a usually reliable source, too, mate, an not given to tellin milky whites. He was taken along to see wot would happen to him if he ever crossed Mr Merrial. Actually I fink the bruvver must have tried on sumfink very slightly dodgy himself an Mr M wanted to give him a ever so mild warning. So he got to see. And hear.’

  ‘I feel ill.’

  ‘This bruvver’s a big fucker, too. An he can handle himself, but I swear when he was tellin me all this he fuckin went grey. Grey, Kennif.’

  ‘Green,’ I gulped. ‘Me; now.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I juss fot you ought to know, before you go gettin any more involved wif people like that.’

  ‘Ken?’ Jo yelled from below.

  ‘That’s my tea out, Ed. Though I do seem to have lost my appetite, for some reason. Anyway, thanks for the warning.’

  ‘No probs.’

  ‘I’ll see you.’

  ‘Yeah; you take care. Strenf, bruvver. Bye.’

  I didn’t look properly at Mr Merrial’s card until the following morning, just before doing my under-vehicle bomb-check and heading for work. The Merrials lived in Ascot Square, Belgravia. I stopped at the side of the Landy and wondered about putting their home number into my phone, then decided I ought to. I placed it in Location 96, overwriting Celia’s mobile number. I never had got round to removing it – I still liked scrolling through to look at it sometimes – but entering her home phone there seemed fitting somehow.

  I’d barely finished doing this when the phone buzzed in my hand; Phil, at the office. It was another dull December day and the rain had just started. I de-alarmed and unlocked the Landy and climbed in out of the rain as I said, ‘Yup?’

  ‘Breaking News.’

  I put the keys in the ignition. ‘What about it?’

  ‘It’s starting on Jan fourteenth.’

  ‘What, next year? Kind of rushing things a bit, aren’t they?’
r />   ‘It’s a month away. But it’s definite, this time.’

  ‘Of course it is, Philip.’

  ‘No, it’s firmly scheduled. And you’re in it.’

  ‘Not the world’s most reassuring phraseology.’

  ‘They’ve started doing publicity and everything.’

  ‘Everything. Well.’

  ‘The PR people are mentioning your name. There’s a buzz.’

  ‘A sound so often associated with dead, decaying things, don’t you find?’

  ‘Will you stop being so sodding cynical?’

  ‘Probably shortly after I stop being so damn alive.’

  ‘I thought you’d want to know.’

  ‘You’re right. It was the uncertainty that was killing me.’

  ‘If all you can do is be sarcastic-’

  ‘Then it should be a good show today.’

  I heard him laugh. I went to start the Landy, then sat back again and waved my hands even though Phil couldn’t see me. ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ I said. ‘Why do TV people have to make such a big deal about everything? It’s one fucking item on a minority interest telly show, not an unknown play by Shakespeare written on the back of the missing bit from the “Unfinished Symphony”.’ I put my hand on the keys again.

  Phil said, ‘You on your way in?’

  ‘Better than being on the way out.’

  ‘Save it for the show. Safe journey.’

  ‘It’s Chelsea to Soho, Phil, not the Paris-Dakar rally.’

  ‘So we’ll see you soon. Take care.’

  ‘Yeah, bye.’

  I put the phone away. I looked at my hand, resting on the Landy’s keys, dangling from the ignition. People kept telling me to take care. I looked out across the Landy’s battered bonnet, still not twisting the key in the ignition. It was raining quite hard now. I sighed, then got out and did the checking-for-bombs-under-the-vehicle bit. Nothing there.

  ‘I’m all for globalism. I mean, if you’re talking about the sort of globalisation that says, Stuff whatever you people voted for, you’ll let us privatise your water and hike the prices five hundred per cent or else, then, no. Exclude me in. What I’m for is the globalism of the United Nations, imperfect though it may be, the globalism of arms treaties, the globalism of the Geneva Convention – possibly the next suspect piece of internationalism Dubya and his chums will want to withdraw from – the globalism of the International Court of Justice the US refuses to sign up for, the globalism of anti-pollution measures, and d’you know why, Phil? Because the winds know no boundaries. The globalism of the-’

  ‘The ground.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The ground, and the sea, and space. Those are boundaries, for the wind.’

  I hit the FX of a lonely desert wind blowing through a long-abandoned ghost town, tumbleweed rolling across the dust between the creaking wooden ruins.

  ‘What, like that?’ I said, glaring at him.

  ‘Possibly.’ He was grinning back at me over his Wall Street Journal.

  ‘I was, just possibly, on a roll there.’

  ‘I’ve interrupted your flow, haven’t I?’

  ‘You are a veritable stopcock, Philip.’

  ‘U-bend.’

  ‘Beg pardon?’

  ‘I thought I’d get that in before you did.’

  ‘You’re just a trust fund of straight lines this morning, aren’t you?’

  ‘It’s a living.’

  ‘Listen, Phil, if I may be allowed to put on my Serious Voice for a moment.’

  ‘Oh no, not another Charity Announcement.’

  ‘No. But, Philip, as you know, we don’t tend to do requests.’

  Phil looked surprised. ‘Well, we can’t; most of those you receive are anatomically impossible anyway.’

  ‘I think you’ll find there’s a small private clinic in Tangier that would happily prove you wrong, for a price, Philsy-Willsy, but that’s as maybe.’

  ‘Keep going.’

  ‘Na, yesterday I bumped into somebody I met at a party once and I said I’d play a request for his wife.’

  Phil blinked at me. I raised the dead air stopwatch threateningly. ‘Is that it?’ he said.

  ‘Sometimes, Phil, it’s just banality all the way down.’

  ‘Is this a new spot on the show? Guess The Relevance?’

  ‘Nope. So, for the lovely Celia Jane, here’s “Have a Nice Day”, from the Stereophonics.’

  I hit Play and swept the faders.

  Phil looked nonplussed. He looked at the faders and listened to the song play in his headphones. ‘You’re not even talking up to the vocals,’ he said, more to himself. He spread his arms. ‘What’s all this about?’

  I eased my cans down round my neck to give my ears a rest. ‘What you hear is what you get,’ I told him. I nodded at the unit spinning the CD. ‘We were going to play it anyway. No extra paperwork involved.’

  The skin around his eyes crinkled. ‘You trying to get into this woman’s knickers?’

  ‘Phil! I told you; she’s married.’

  Phil laughed loudly. ‘Since when has that ever stopped you?’

  ‘You can be so cynical sometimes, Philip. You want to watch it; the wind’ll change and you’ll stay that way.’

  ‘It’s protective coloration around you, chum.’

  ‘What’s wrong with playing a request?’

  ‘We never do it.’

  ‘So it’s a change.’

  ‘There has to be an ulterior motive somewhere.’

  ‘Will you just leave it? There’s nothing going on.’

  ‘I know the way your mind works, Ken. There has to be. You’re more a creature of habit and ritual than you think you are.’

  I shook my head. ‘Okay, I confess I was put in a slightly awkward situation by a… a friend of Sir Jamie’s,’ I said, glancing at the track’s run time on the play list and then at the studio clock.

  ‘Ah-hah!’

  ‘There’s no bleedin Ah-hah! to it. Look; the guy’s some sort of big shot, he knows the Dear Owner, we met unexpectedly yesterday and I sort of stumbled into promising I’d play a song for his missus.’

  ‘Who is a looker, I bet,’ Phil said.

  ‘He’s a big shot, like I say. They usually are. See people like that with a plain or ordinary-looking woman and you know it must be love. Will you stop looking at me like that?’

  ‘Well, this was unexpected.’

  ‘I wanted to say thank you.’

  ‘Jesus, what sort of Christmas box do you tip your postman?’

  Ceel smiled. ‘Also, I won’t be able to see you again until after the New Year. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Ah well.’

  ‘You had something planned this afternoon, didn’t you?’

  I shook my head. ‘Nothing; appointment with some lawyers. They can wait.’

  ‘You’re not in trouble, are you?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s not my own lawyers. Just a statement about an accident I witnessed a month or two back. So, what are you doing over the holidays?’

  ‘Going home.’

  ‘To the island?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mr M too?’

  ‘Yes. And what about you?’

  ‘Staying here in London.’ Almost a year earlier it had been agreed I’d spend Xmas with Jo and her family in Manchester, but now Jo would be abroad over Christmas and New Year, dutifully helping Addicta strike while the iron of fame was hot. I couldn’t even go back to see my own parents; they’d decided long ago they were fed up with Scottish winters and the whole seasonal rigmarole, and had spent the last few holidays – and would be spending the one up-coming – in Tenerife. ‘Anyway, I’m glad we could meet up now.’

  ‘It was just luck that John had to leave this morning. Amsterdam, again.’ She looked at her watch, which was all she was wearing. A flicker of a frown had passed across her face as she’d pronounced the word ‘Amsterdam’. ‘However, we only have until two thirty.’

  I levered m
yself up on one elbow and looked at her in the soft light spilling from the bathroom and a reading light above the scroll-top desk. She lay luxuriantly, legs spread, brown-gold hair strewn across the white sheets and one plump pillow like a fabulously braided river delta, one arm drawn up underneath her head, the fern-print of the long-ago lightning a fabulous marquetry on her dark honey skin. ‘I had no idea you’d be there yesterday,’ I told her. I shook my head. ‘You looked so, so beautiful. I should have ducked away but I couldn’t take my eyes off you.’

  She stroked my arm. ‘It’s all right. I was worried, when I realised he’d seen me recognise you, but he thought he knew you already, from the party, or perhaps a photograph in the papers. He has a very good memory.’

  ‘So he left early this morning and didn’t hear me play your record?’

  ‘Yes. But I heard it.’

  I looked around. ‘And decided on here.’

  We were back at the Dorchester where our affair had begun. The big tree outside, the one we’d stared at from the suite a couple of floors above, in the mix of moon and flood light back in May, was leafless now. No silence this time. I said, ‘I confess I had been wondering what you’d do when you ran out of posh hotels we hadn’t already been to. One scenario I imagined had us going steadily down-market until we ended up sharing a bottom bunk in a dormitory in a back-packers’ hostel in Earl’s Court.’

  She gave a small laugh. ‘That would be an awful lot of assignations, even restricting ourselves to central London.’

  ‘I’m an optimist. So, what did make you decide to come back here?’

  ‘Well, I had thought to return on our first anniversary…’

  ‘Really?’ I said, smiling broadly. ‘There is romance in your trim little soul after all, Celia Jane.’

  She pinched my arm, making me yelp and have to rub the site. There might be a bruise. This was especially mean, of course, because I was not allowed to leave a mark on her.

  ‘Ah,’ she said, holding up one finger. ‘But then I thought that that would be a kind of a pattern in itself, and so dangerous.’

  ‘You would have made such a great spy.’

  ‘And also it felt like something had changed, now that our different worlds have become entangled again.’

  ‘A wee, cowering, terrified part of me imagined that it had changed utterly, and you would never want to see me again,’ I confessed. ‘Spell broken. You know.’