Plastic

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘Well, you have to give yourself up. They’re bound to have got your fingerprints on the... what was it...’

  ‘An apple corer, although it may have been a combi-potato peeler.’

  ‘Even muggers have rights now. He’ll probably want to sue you if he’s still alive. It’ll be easy enough to trace you.’

  ‘But not to find me,’ I insisted. ‘There’s one safe place I can go.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Malcolm’s apartment. They have no reason to look there, why would they when it’s the wrong flat to begin with? Azymuth was attacked back in his own flat. I’ll find out where Petra was living somehow. Maybe the street is just spelled wrong.’

  ‘And then what? What are you going to do, walk in there and make tea for them, ask them to cough up the address of a strangled porn star? And suppose they did, would you then go around there alone and walk in on a bunch of gangsters? I don’t know this side of you, June. You got yourself into a panic when one of your salad servers got stuck in the dishwasher, and now you’re planning to do a Travis Bickle. I’m sorry, but this is where I bail out. I have to mix a drink and take it back to bed with me. I can’t be part of this paranoid fantasy.’

  ‘I thought you were a friend.’

  ‘I am also a wife and mother, and as a family we’re pretty screwed up at the moment, something I’d quite like to sort out.’

  ‘I never heard you say that before. You told me you hated your life.’

  ‘Yeah, well.’ Lou lit a cigarette, embarrassed. ‘I talk a good game,’ she said. ‘You’d better leave before Darren wakes up.’

  I hated losing my only real friend, but I had to see the weekend through. As I was leaving Lou’s kitchen I saw her mobile and purse lying on the counter, and slipped them into my pocket. I had left my shoulderbag at the Ziggurat. With only loose cash and a handful of cut-up credit cards left, I needed money to get back to town. Besides, Lou would always be able to borrow from Darren. It was a good job he hadn’t left his wallet; I’m not sure I would have been able to resist his credit cards.

  I was walking back to the house when I thought of Stefan. He would at least be able to warn me if anyone had come back to the Ziggurat. I decided to head into town and ask him for help.

  When I put my hand in my jacket pocket, I realised I still had the tiny key from the floor of Azymuth’s apartment. Now I took it out and examined the faint engraved letters. The word MOM made no sense, so I turned it upside down. WOW.

  I’d seen the logo dozens of times before.

  World Of Wood.

  The name on the only card I still possessed. We’d bought our dining room furniture there. The World Of Wood was a discount megastore that people like Azymuth would never have heard of. I felt sure that the key was Petra’s, and that it would unlock something purchased from there. The good thing about megastores is that they’re open on Sundays.

  I admit it now, I got distracted.

  I should have been heading for Stefan’s container, but somehow I was sidetracked into a shopping trip. This is what comes of not having a properly thought-out plan. The bus stopped right outside the outlet, one of a series of depressing corrugated-steel boxes built on the outskirts of Hamingwell next to a vast ugly mall. The place was empty; the credit crunch had cleared out browsers.

  I made my way through arrangements of Thanet leatherette swivel-chairs in search of someone who could help. I suddenly realised how long I’d been deprived of shopping. A baggy brown velvet sofa the colour of elephant dung looked positively inviting. I dropped into it and eased off my shoes.

  ‘Can I help you at all?’ asked a beautifully spoken young black man who looked like he’d recently been polished. Beneath his gaze, I became aware that in my all-black action-figure outfit I no longer resembled other housewives from the Hamingwell area. I produced the key and handed it to him.

  ‘I wonder, can you tell me what this opens?’

  The young man, whose badge identified him as Sholto, presented me with a fabulous helpful smile before accepting the key. Sholto, I thought, your mother must have had high hopes for you, and look where you’ve ended up. You should be angry, not cheerful.

  ‘This could belong to any number of products,’ he explained. ‘Do you have a record of your purchases?’

  ‘If I did, do you think I’d be asking you what it’s for?’

  ‘If you’d like to come with me.’ He led the way to the rear wall of the store, which was lined with fake dining rooms and lounges, like little theatre sets. ‘I’d say it’s from one of our older models. These keys are pretty much interchangeable. They’re not security keys. They’re more for decoration.’

  ‘What do they fit?’ I asked, looking at the rows of dark cherrywood shelves.

  ‘Bookcases,’ he shrugged. ‘This is a bookcase key.’ He stopped before a glass-panelled case with double doors and fitted the key in the lock. One twist and the front of the case opened. ‘See?’

  ‘That wouldn’t keep anyone out, though, would it? I mean, they could just break the glass and put their hand through, or pull at the door until the lock smashed.’

  ‘Er... I suppose so, yes.’

  I’m behaving abnormally, I thought, I sound like a B-movie detective. The salesman left my side and leaned into a cupboard to flick a rack of switches.

  Every lamp in the store came on, an illuminated mirror-maze of gilded soft furnishings. I stared about myself in a state of retail hypnosis. The World Of Wood card in my pocket glowed with an inner warmth, as though it was responding to the life of the store.

  ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’ asked the salesman.

  I tried to fight the feeling, I really did. I took a long, deep breath and held it. Then I released a carefully controlled smile.

  ‘I’d like to see your standard lamps,’ I told him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Relapse

  THE NEXT TWO hours were, frankly, a blur.

  All I knew was that I had done it again, after I had sworn not to. Worse, I had betrayed a friend. It turned out that Lou kept a plastic wallet of credit cards in her purse along with – foolish woman – her pin number.

  I bought a fat-legged Georgiana table, four burgundy velour cushions with piped gold stitching, the Alicante foldaway dinette unit with built-in carriage clock, a dozen double-Damask dinner napkins hand-stitched by Sardinian nuns and a limited-edition ceramic sad-faced clown. At that point I hit my limit in the wonderful World Of Wood.

  Fatally, the slip that came with my receipt offered me discount credit at Fabulous Fitness, which happened to be next door. Lou’s VISA came out for the Electro-Stim Facial Spa, a pair of invisible shoe infill height maximizers and a flesh-coloured back brace.

  This was my old stamping ground. The mall was crowded with angry-faced girls bulging out of tight shocking-pink tops, the kind of premature mothers who looked feral and cornered by life. Everything was within easy walking distance, and you were encouraged to keep walking; guards kept moving teenagers from benches.

  Despite my recent conversion to minimalist understatement in the Ziggurat apartments, I slipped back into my former cluttery lifestyle as though I had never left it. With eyes wide and tubes unblocked by so many glittering retail opportunities, I set off to smack up Lou’s American Express card.

  Before I went spending, I always liked to case the joint online, like a burglar. That way I could work out how long it would take me to get from mixed separates to designer eveningwear, just in case they decided to evacuate the building suddenly and I hadn’t finished shopping. Department stores try to distract you with perfumes and cutesy gold fiddlebobs, but it never works with us professionals. I can cover most malls in under an hour without a bathroom break. You have to be able to do these things properly. The staff smell bonuses and follow me like starving wolves. Most can be lured into performing the function of human clothes-rails with a pleasant smile and a teasing hint of retail frailty.

  Two doors alo
ng from the designer clothing outlet I discovered PC World, Toys ‘R’ Us and Adventure, where I bought a tent and several scuba accessories. By the time I reached Spangles, the discount jewellery outlet, I was being trailed by two store detectives and a suspicious security guard. The assistant refused to let me open an account there because I became confused about my home address and foolishly presented her with three options, my old Hamingwell home, Lou’s billing address and for good measure, Malcolm’s apartment in the Ziggurat.

  When I eyed an Emeralique necklace with a centre pendant big enough to choke a walrus, the store detective pinned me over a display case and rummaged through my pockets. When the cops showed up I was convinced they would somehow connect me with the murderous path I had blazed across London, but they seemed more interested in discussing the previous night’s football with each other.

  Mr. Barjatya, the manager of the World Of Wood, was a hefty Asian man who looked as if he had recently been dipped in chip fat. He swept into the store and spoke with the guards, and when he saw that I was their captive, his expression became even more surprised.

  ‘Mrs. Cryer, I didn’t know it was you. This is one of my best customers,’ he told the policeman. ‘Please let her sit down.’ I collapsed on a divan as Mr. Barjatya explained that it was probably just an unfortunate mistake and that he would speak with the other managers about not pressing charges. I felt sure he knew I was guilty, but incredibly, he let me go. Presumably he and the other managers were familiar with the spending habits of lonely housewives and preferred to protect someone whom they considered to be a long-term investment. I would return, he hoped, to gratefully spend a fortune in his store the next time I was afflicted with a shopping brain-cloud.

  I needed to clear my head and start thinking straight, so I shared a mug of coffee with Mr. Barjatya, who politely suggested that after I’d had a chance to rest I might like to arrange 24-month payment plans with him. I agreed so enthusiastically that I felt guilty about climbing out of the window of the ladies’ toilet and legging it across the car park, but I was determined not to stay in Hamingwell any longer than was necessary.

  I clung to the knowledge that nobody knew about Malcolm’s flat. I would be able to stay there, at least until I could return the keys. On my way back into London, I ignored the five messages on Lou’s mobile and decided to check in with Stefan. When I arrived outside the yellow container I found him cooking Toulouse sausages on his Calor Gas stove. He handed me one without thinking, as though it had already become a habit to let me check his cuisine.

  ‘One day you’ll have to come to dinner properly,’ he suggested. ‘There are some policemen looking for you.’

  ‘Who?’ I asked, alarmed. ‘When was this?’

  ‘I’ve just been talking to them. They said to call them if I saw you, then they took half my sausages and some napkins. They were in a white Rover in the corner of the car park. You just missed them.’

  I wasn’t sure whether to feel comforted. ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘That I didn’t think you’d come back.’

  ‘I had to, Stefan. People can’t be allowed to disappear without a trace.’ I thought it best not to explain why both sides of the law were looking for me.

  ‘Why can’t they? It happens all the time. This is nothing to do with you. Everyone is on the move, you can’t expect to keep track. Look at me, I am paid in cash. There is no paperwork. I am invisible. You can always get lost in the crowd.’ Stefan slipped his hand from my waist in order to give his saucepan of fried onions a stir. ‘The police find the body of a teenaged girl in a park, and to me the question is not who killed her, but why have her parents not reported her missing? No-one knows how to behave anymore. Why should you risk yourself for someone you didn’t even know?’

  ‘I don’t see that I have a choice.’

  ‘You mean you feel responsible for what happened.’

  ‘I’ve contributed to the injuries and possible deaths of three people, Stefan. It seems unlikely that my path could cross with people like this, but the two worlds have bisected somehow, and the result has been some kind of... misinterpretation. Getting to the truth is the least I can do. It’s the decent thing.’

  ‘I always hear this word in England, and I don’t know what it means. Something selfish, I think. These people who got hurt are living in a world you should not pretend to be part of.’

  ‘So they can just go around behaving however they like and we’re all supposed not to notice?’

  ‘They’re just not very fucking nice, okay? I don’t like to think of a lady like you staying in that building with those animals. They pretend they’re respectable, just because they have professional careers. Just because they’re doctors.’

  ‘Wait, what do you mean?’

  ‘Many of the big apartments have been bought by doctors. Not good ones, I think, not honest ones, the other kind.’

  ‘You’re sure about this? They’re all doctors?’

  ‘That’s what we heard, and they’re all friends, many Russians I think.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Come with me, I can show you the cars.’

  ‘But the car park is empty,’ I said, pointing to the bare tarmac spaces beside the building.

  ‘That is only for visitors. Residents have their own floor.’

  I followed Stefan to the grille at the base of the building, and we peered down into the underground car park. Six identical dark blue Mercedes 350 saloons were parked beside each other. Even in the shadows their chrome and enamel gleamed with lascivious opulence. All six shared the same three-letter combinations on their plates. It looked like a shadowy megastore called ‘World Of Wealth’.

  Stefan rose and began walking back toward the container.

  ‘Wait,’ I begged, running after him, ‘Stefan, tell me, what else do you know about them?’

  ‘Nothing. Maybe they all work together. Who knows what goes on? The city is filled with these groups, they keep their secrets and cover their tracks. I’m just a manual worker, I have nothing to do with them, and nor should you. I’ll tell you this. Last month one of them ran over the foreman’s bull terrier and broke its leg. I was the only one who saw him do it. I also saw him check his rear-view mirror and back the car over it again rather than take it to a vet. I see it all, but I say nothing.’ He broke into a gallop. ‘I think my dinner is burning,’ he called back. ‘You can join me if you want.’

  ‘Save me some,’ I shouted as I headed up into the Ziggurat, pausing briefly to look back.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. Find out enough to call the police when I get away from here.’

  ‘They’ll think you’re crazy.’

  Stefan was at the door of his container with a saucepan in one hand, wrapped in the breeze-blown purple beads that hung across the entrance. For a moment I wondered if he was as crazy as the rest of them.

  I looked around for the police, but there was no-one in sight. Anyway, what more could I have dared to tell them? That I had witnessed more violence or that I had stabbed someone in the street before being caught shoplifting?

  By now I was getting used to a six-flight run up the building’s central staircase. Dr. Elliot answered my knock. He had no choice, as I was hammering hard and would happily have battered the door down. I’d seen his silly fetishwear laid out on the bed and wasn’t scared of him. He could have answered the door dressed as Lady Gaga and I’d have breezed right past.

  ‘You lied to me,’ I said breathlessly, pushing into the hall when he answered. ‘You know Dr. Azymuth and the others. You know what’s been going on around here. You might as well tell me, just to get me out of your hair.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Responsibility

  ‘YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE come back, Mrs. – I keep forgetting your damned name. They’re looking all over for you. We’ve had the police up here, knocking on all the apartment doors. I didn’t answer. You know, you’re making
life very difficult for everybody.’

  Elliot appeared even more sickly than he had at our last meeting. This time I could tell that he had ingested some kind of drug. His skin was the colour of tracing paper and the shoulders of his undignified shortie dressing gown were dark with sweat. I explained what I now knew to be the truth, but he seemed inattentive, his eye diverted by the ominous dark clouds building beyond the lounge windows.

  ‘You know I’m not going to go away,’ I warned him, ‘not until you tell me the truth about what they did to that poor girl.’

  Elliot grimaced and batted me away, as if he could no longer be bothered with lies. ‘There’s nothing much to tell. If I do, you must promise that you’ll leave immediately. You’ve gone beyond just being a nuisance, you know.’ He waved his hand drowsily at the door. ‘I really don’t want you here. I can’t afford to be involved.’ Behind him, the dissected figure of Maurice was outlined against a golden sliver of sun.

  ‘I just want to understand for my own peace of mind.’

  ‘Well, I certainly can’t give you that.’

  ‘Fine. Tell me something and I’ll go away, I promise.’

  ‘All right, come and sit beside me.’ I sat at a safe distance from his bare upper thighs. ‘Here.’ He tugged one of the Ziggurat brochures from the back of the sofa and laid it out. ‘Floor plans of the building. Corridors, exits, stairwells. The land is a royal estate, leased to a private international consortium and subleased to preferred suppliers. The biggest supplier has several hundred companies registered in the city, one of which is a very profitable international outfit called Slavista, one subsection of which is a company called Slavstars. Are you managing to follow me so far?’

  My God, I thought, the home of Mark Antony, he of the protruding toga. From princes to porn stars in a few degrees of separation.