by Iain Banks
So I couldn’t risk it. But meanwhile I’d sat here slugging water and thinking about it and wasted a few minutes. Well done, Kenneth. Ten past eleven. Get going.
Traffic was relatively light. It was a pleasantly mild winter morning; high cloud and a watery sun. Breezy. Why the fuck couldn’t it be breezy in fucking Inverness? And dry in the Peak fucking District? I could have gone faster, but I stuck to between thirty and thirty-five. This would be no time to be caught speeding, especially with God knew how much alcohol still sloshing about in my system.
Ascot Square was quiet. Bunches of silver balloons tied to railings indicated there’d been a party in one of the grand town-houses on the other side of the square from the Merrials’. Maybe a twenty-fifth anniversary or something. Lots of Mercs, Jags and BMWs, plus Range Rovers and a brace of Rollers or Bentleys; Audi A2s and a couple of Smarts, too. The Merrials lived in number eleven, near the centre of the imposing, four-storeys-plus-basement terrace. No obvious signs of life at number eleven.
Tall limes and beeches in the private gardens in the centre of the square. I drove on through into Eccleston Street then into Chester Square. I parked in a residents only space for a couple of minutes, climbing into the back of the Landy and pulling on my overalls. Brand new, basically; I’d got them when I bought the Landy, thinking I’d do my own repairs. And a size too small; my shirt sleeves and the bottom of my 501s protruded from the green overalls by a good two or three centimetres. Great; so now I looked stupid as well as villainous. I had an old Sony Music Awards baseball cap; I put that on too. Bit of a giveaway industry-wise, but what else was I supposed to do? Sunglasses from the cubby box between the front seats.
Gloves! Of course I needed gloves. I was going to break into a house, or make an illegal entry or whatever the legally nice definition was. I didn’t want to go leaving fingerprints all over the fucking place. Gloves. I had some somewhere. I rummaged behind the bench seats on either side, feeling down between the seat cushions and the back rests. Blimey, you could hide a complete fucking tool kit along here… gloves. Got them. They were thick, padded things for pulling out bramble bushes or hauling on winch wires or some such manly shit as that, not at all the sort of fine, thin things you’d want for the delicate business of letting yourself into somebody else’s house, but, shit, they’d just have to do.
I jumped back into the front and set off again, back past Ascot Square proper and round into the mews behind it on the south side. Lots of close-packed but very expensive mews properties with differing treatments of the old architecture; a jumbled variety of windows large and small, balconies, awnings and outside steps. Lots of plants, too; hanging baskets, big pot plants and trailing vines. Oh shit; and a family loading up their Landy Discovery. Young couple and three kids getting their cool boxes and child seats sorted for a day out. Shit! What sort of time was this to be setting out for the day? It was practically noon! Best bit of the day gone, dammit! Couldn’t the miserable fucking curs have got their shit together a bit closer to breakfast?
The man looked up when he saw my battered Short-Wheelbase approaching down the cobbles. Took a good look at me. Hmm, don’t recognise that beaten-up old wreck, or the shifty looking weirdo with the sunglasses driving it. Not a resident I’ve ever seen before. And that’s not a Power or Gas company van. You could practically see the thought bubbles.
I wound the window down and stopped by the Disco. ‘Scuse me, mite. Zis Ascot Mews Norf?’
‘Ah, na,’ said the man. ‘This is Siythe, actually.’
‘Sarf?’ I said. ‘Ah, roight.’ I looked over at the other seat, as though there was something there I was consulting. ‘Roight. Ta, mite,’ I said, and reversed out again.
I parked up near the corner of Eccleston Street and Eaton Square, pretending to study an A to Z. The Disco swung out into the traffic and headed for the river ten long, long minutes later. I pulled back into Ascot Mews South, drove on past the mews cottages into the last part of the lane where the garages and tall garden walls began. I counted my way along to number eleven, but I needn’t have bothered; there was a number eleven on the gleaming green pedestrian door that gave out onto the lane beside the equally freshly painted garage doors.
I’d rehearsed this in my mind already. Best done quickly given it had to be done at all. Ignore the rear windows of the houses on the other side of the lane and those next door to number eleven. I killed the engine, got out, locked the door, climbed onto the roof via the front bumper and bonnet – the aluminium roof flexed under my feet, which I actually had the reserve brain power to feel slightly disappointed by – then I jumped up onto the rounded top of the tall stone wall.
Japanese garden; raked gravel forming dry round lakelets with big smooth boulders forming islands in the frozen ripples of greyness. Small, tidily clipped bushes and shrubs; a still pool with another big boulder. Decking under green awnings. Something about its calm organisation told me this was Celia’s garden more than her husband’s. I looked down. I was going to have to drop the whole way, into more gravel. It was easily three and a half metres.
I swung one leg over, then the other, and let myself dangle as far to the ground as I could. In Scotland, as kids, we’d called this dreeping. I had no idea what it was called down here. I couldn’t get any real hand-hold on the smooth round top of the wall so just had to keep as much friction as I could on my forearms and gloved hands until gravity took over and I dropped to the gravel bed. It was mercifully deep. I hit and rolled and didn’t break anything. I’d have to do some remedial work on the gravel bed-work with a rake, though. I looked up at the wall. I’d worry about getting out again later. I smoothed the gravel out a bit now, while I thought of it, just in case I forgot later. It didn’t look perfect but it might pass as the result of a cat coming into the garden. I checked the door in the garden wall. The lock was some sort of ruggedised outdoor Chubb; I tried to open it but it looked like you needed a key even from the inside.
My phone went as I was walking up the path towards the stone with the key inside. There was a sort of slit on each side of the overalls so you could get at the pockets of whatever you were wearing underneath. I hauled the Motorola out through one of those. Ceel.
‘I’m in the back garden,’ I said.
‘Good. I’ve just had a thought. John should have the car. Use the keys just to the right of the back door, once you’ve got in, to open the garage and put your car in. It might look less suspicious.’
I hadn’t paid much attention to the garage doors. I had the impression they were pretty tall, but I might have been wrong. ‘It’s a Land Rover,’ I said. ‘Two metres tall at least. Might not fit.’
‘No, it should. It’s an old coach house.’
‘Okay, then. Good idea.’ I stopped opposite the third lantern and looked down at a neat arrangement of smooth, varied stones. ‘Hold on. What if he comes back? Seeing a Land Rover parked outside your back wall might be a little puzzling; finding the thing sitting inside his own garage…’
‘Hmm, you’re right. Also, I phoned the Weather Centre. The Peak District has had more rain than expected overnight. I think it’s very likely he will be back later today.’
‘Oh, shit. What about you? How are the flights looking?’
‘ Aberdeen is out. It’s a three- or four-hour drive to Edinburgh or Glasgow. I’m trying to arrange a charter from a smaller airport closer to here but it’s not proving easy.’
‘Well, I’m in here already anyway. Hold on.’ I stooped to the stones. The thick gloves meant I took a couple of attempts, but after a few seconds and some muttered curses I was able to announce, ‘I’ve got the key.’
‘You have the alarm number?’
‘Memorised and written down. The door in the garden wall, back into the mews, into the lane; where would I find the key for that?’
‘To the left of the back door in the utility room, looking out. It has a green plastic tag.’
‘Can I lock the door without it? I’m trying to get out
without having to climb the wall.’
‘Let me think.’ Ceel was silent for a couple of seconds. ‘Yes. Use the key, open the door, put the key back, put the little button down on the lock and then close the door from outside. That will do it. Don’t forget to put the house back-door key back inside the stone first.’
‘Christ,’ I said, putting one hand over my eyes. ‘Do I so not need all this with a serious fucking hangover.’ I took a deep breath, straightened up. ‘Okay. Never mind. Right. I’ve got all that. Thanks.’
‘Good luck, Kenneth.’
‘You too, kid.’
The back door swung closed and re-locked. I walked quickly through the utility room, the kitchen and along the hall; an insistent beeping noise was sounding from the far end, near the front door. I punched the code into the alarm unit but the thick gloves meant I must have pressed the wrong buttons. I felt sweat prick on my brow as I started again. The beeping went on. I was going to run out of time. I whipped my right glove off and entered the code properly. The noise stopped. My heart was thudding, my hands still shaking. I took a few deep breaths. I used a paper handkerchief to polish the keys I’d touched, then I put the glove back on. God, I was hot. I took off the stupid baseball cap and shoved it into a pocket. Something made me think that I should keep doing things while I thought of them, so I went to the back door, left it unlocked on the catch and wedged with a welly boot while I went out to the garden and replaced the key inside the artificial stone.
I closed the back door again. As I walked along to the foot of the stairs near the main door I realised I seriously needed to visit the toilet. This was ridiculous – for all I knew a suspicious neighbour was already on the phone to the local nick telling them she’d just seen a guy in badly fitting overalls jumping into a back garden – but I really was going to have to get to a loo in the next minute or so or basically I was going to soil myself. Partly, I guessed, it was the result of my colossal alcohol intake from the previous night, but partly it was simple fear. I recalled reading something about this, how burglars who left crap in the middle of their victim’s carpets weren’t necessarily just being shits themselves. They just couldn’t help themselves. Breaking into somebody else’s house was a scary thing to do; most people would be scared shitless. And – as a rule – they weren’t invading the privacy of fucking London crime lords.
I ran up the stairs and started looking for a toilet, opening doors into a sitting-room, a library, a small cinema, another sitting-room, and a walk-in cupboard before finding one that wouldn’t open, which must be the study where the answering machine was.
Oh my God, I was going to shit my pants. I could feel my bowels loosening, a muscle down there starting to spasm as I tried to hold things in. No loo here that I could see. Upstairs; I knew there was a toilet up there; that was where Celia’s bedroom was with its en suite bathroom. I did a weird, knee-knocking sort of walk to the stairs leading up to the next storey, then minced up the steps, sucking in my belly as though this would stop the disaster I was expecting any second. Even as I got to the next floor I was thinking, What was I doing? Running up here had been stupid; there must be a loo downstairs, on the ground floor, where the kitchen and dining-room would be.
Too late now. I ran along to a door whose room probably looked to the rear of the house, overlooking the Japanese garden. I was sucking my cheeks in – I mean my cheeks on my face as well as the cheeks of my bum – as though in sympathy. My whole body was trembling now; I nearly fell as I stumbled through the door and into the room. Bedroom. Big. Dark behind dark-grey vertical blinds shielding two tall windows.
There was a door to each side of the wide, black and white bed. I pulled the left one open; a fucking dressing-room. Jesus fucking Christ, what was it with these rich fuckers? Couldn’t they just have fucking wardrobes like fucking normal people, the self-indulgent sons of bitches? I hobbled round the bed, trying to keep my legs together and yet still walk, and actually putting my right hand to my backside, trying to press upwards, help keep things in. Oh Christ, oh Christ; if this door didn’t lead to a loo, I was going to shit my fucking pants.
The door swung open and I was looking straight at a beautiful white china loo with a rich dark wooden seat and lid. I quickly pulled both gloves off.
My whimper of relief turned to a terrible keening of frustrated rage and despair as I had to waste a few seconds I hadn’t been accounting for – and which I might not have to spare – as I had to tear at my stupid fucking under-size overalls before I could even get to my jeans and pants. I only just remembered to lift the lid of the loo before I turned round.
I started shitting even before my backside hit the wooden rim of the toilet. It was a ghastly, splattery and appallingly malodorous experience, but I believed I’d – just – succeeded in keeping within the bounds of social shitting behaviour.
Sitting back, I closed my eyes, breathing through my mouth to escape the putrid smell of what was going on down below, and – for a few, brief, fleeting moments – just let myself surf along the wave of animal relief surging through my body.
‘Fucking hell,’ I breathed.
Cleaning up took a while. I’d nearly finished when I realised that I’d just taken a seriously fucking rancid dump in what looked like John Merrial’s own bathroom, not Ceel’s. The toiletries spread about the shelves were all masculine and there was a shaving mirror and an electric razor on a shelf above one of the two big wash-handbasins. When I thought about it, I realised that the clothes in the dressing-room I’d looked in earlier had indeed been male clothes; in the wide-eyed terror of the moment, I hadn’t even noticed.
Flushing a couple of times extra and using a loo brush to make sure there were no marks left seemed like a good idea.
I left the place as I’d found it, apart from the smell. I used an air-freshener, more in deference to my mother’s early bathroom training than because it would make any difference; Alpine Glade would be every bit as suspicious as Fetid Faeces if Merrial happened to come home in the next hour or so and decided the first thing he needed was a nice shower to freshen up after a hard day’s caving.
The perfectly folded towels in the bathroom intimidated me, so after I’d washed my hands I just wiped them dry on my overalls rather than sully those snowy white expanses. I did some more wiping down of touched surfaces with the paper hanky.
A few more deep breaths and a drink of water from the cold tap and I was just about steady and calm enough to continue. I found another large bedroom across the hall, also with a view to the rear. This bedroom was all pale greens and blues, from ceiling and walls and carpets to the furniture and fittings. Bursts of tropical colour on the walls were provided by paintings of riotous jungle scenes, all profuse abstractions of flowers, leaves, sky and rocks, shot through with what looked like squadrons of parrots or cockatiels racing across the scenes, caught in blurs of chromatic chaos.
Thick black Venetian blinds covered windows of a similar size to those in the room across the hall. Maybe everybody hereabouts kept their blinds closed all the time, I thought, allowing hope to blossom again. Maybe nobody would have seen me make the leap over the garden wall.
Pale furniture. A large dressing table with combs and bottles and a small ring tree with a few rings on it, all tidy, neatly arranged. It was very warm.
Definitely Ceel’s room, I thought. The bathroom was on the opposite side to the room across the hall. I had to take the damn stupid big gloves off again. Why hadn’t I thought of this? If I’d only taken a minute to look ahead I’d have realised back on the fucking Temple Belle that I’d need a good thin pair of gloves for this. Oh well. The Yale key was secured to the floor of the little box of tampons by a piece of double-sided tape. I confess I held a few of the tampons, looking at them, then, still holding them, looked round the bathroom; at her bath and, alongside it, a big steam-cabinet shower, with a seat. I found myself smiling as I looked at the loo.
Oh, God, what sort of poor pathetic loon was I, caressing the
woman’s tampons and staring fondly, love-struck, at her toilet seat, for fuck’s sake? Get fucking real, Kenneth. And get fucking moving, fuckwit. I put the tampons back and replaced the box, then did the wiping-finger-touched-surfaces bit again.
I went down to the locked door on the first floor. I had a little more time to look around. The house was furnished in a slightly dated respectable style that was probably about right for the building. Actually it looked a lot like some of the slightly more modern hotel suites Ceel and I had been in. She must have felt at home. Not as stiflingly hot, though.
The study door opened with the key and I let it close behind me. The study was more old-fashioned than what I’d seen of the rest of the house. The big desk was un-ironic retro, with a gold-tooled burgundy leather top and a brass lamp with a green glass shade. The computer was a Hewlett Packard with a big plasma screen. Ha! I’d just known Merrial wouldn’t be a Mac guy. I couldn’t see any sign of a gun safe, but I guessed it might be hidden.
The answering machine was on its own little table near the door. I looked at it accusingly, as though this was all its fault. You see the trouble you’ve put me to, you nasty little piece of office-beige shite? I moved towards it.
That was when I heard the siren.
It must have been on the fringes of my hearing for a couple of seconds. I’d been feeling a general unease, which seemed at odds with the fact I was now within sight of the thing I’d spent so much effort, angst and sweat getting to. Then I realised: a siren. The Emergency Services. You stop hearing the sound in a big city after a while.
If you’re driving – and providing you’re not the sort of cack-brained bozo who can have a fucking twenty-tonne fire engine right behind him with its lights flaring and its siren screaming and still not realise it’s time to Get The Fuck Out Of The Way – then you do still take notice when you hear a siren; you start looking at side streets, checking the rear-view every few seconds, watching for people pulling out of the way or bumping up onto kerbs or swerving into bus stops to clear a path for the vehicle with the blue lights. Otherwise, you hear it but you pay no attention unless it signifies something you’re waiting for, or it keeps getting louder all the time until it gets very loud and then stops.