by Heide Goody
“I thought I heard moans.”
“Yes. But I think I’m all better now.” She shuffled uneasily. “You posted pizza through my letterbox.”
“I…” He looked sheepish. “It seemed the right thing at the time.”
“Did it really?”
“We said pizza at ten.”
Morag wondered if he had OCD or Asperger’s or severed heads in his freezer. No, he wouldn’t have frozen heads in his freezer; he was too soft and gentle. He had a personality as yielding and as passive as a sponge. He was a teddy bear in human form. She suspected he was just lonely.
“Shall we try again?” she said.
“Pizza?” said Richard.
“Or something.”
“Or something.”
“We could go out Friday night. I mean, go out for something, not go out together.”
“We wouldn’t go together?”
“No, we’d be together,” said Morag, struggling. “I meant, we could go out together, not go out together.”
“Right,” he said, not giving her any glimmer of comprehension.
“What do you do for fun, Richard?”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
He thought about it. “I like chocolate oranges.”
“It’s not an activity though.”
“No.”
“Are you a big drinker? A real ale aficionado? Do you go to art galleries? Do you play squash? Go to concerts? Open mic nights?”
“Yes,” nodded Richard.
“What, the open…?”
“Mic nights,” he said. “I do.”
“Music? Comedy?”
“Both.”
“You play an instrument?”
“Absolutely.” He held his hands out uncertainly, miming something vague.
“Bagpipes?”
He clicked his fingers. “Got it in one,” he said.
Morag was momentarily lost for words. “Er, ok. An open mic night somewhere on Friday, possibly featuring bagpipes.”
“It’s not a date,” said Richard, smiling.
“No,” agreed Morag, contemplating the evening ahead. “It’s really not, is it? Okay.”
She sidled past and out the door. The taxi was still there, waiting. She climbed in.
“Take me to work,” she said and then checked herself. “Wait.”
The taxi driver did nothing, didn’t move.
“You’re Kaxeos, right?” she said. “Or, you’re an extension of him. You understand what I’m saying and you know everything that Kaxeos knows.”
Nothing.
“There’s going to be a major incursion on Friday, tomorrow, isn’t there? Rampaging gods, pestilence and horror rolling out across the city? Death and destruction?”
The taxi driver made no movement.
“The Nadirian or Zildrohar-Cqulu. Which is it?”
There was no response.
“You won’t tell,” she said. She thought. “But you’ll take me where I want to go. Okay, sunshine, assuming they’re in the city, physically or potentially, take me to them.”
The taxi driver looked at her in the mirror.
“The nearest one,” she said. “Take me to the nearest one.”
Still, the taxi driver was motionless.
She tried it in Venislarn. “Yo-Kaxeos, pes hroventizh kash-ka Venislarn-achlat’t.”
The taxi driver pulled away.
“Thank you,” she said.
The driver turned left at the end of the road, along the main road to the next turning, left again and left a third time. They stopped. Morag looked out at 27 Franklin Road.
“Yeah, that’s really not what I asked,” she sighed. She looked up at the old, subdivided house. Three floors. On the top floor the pale curtains were speckled with aggressive mildew.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “Back to the office, my good man. To the Library.”
Vivian led the five Waters Crew boys into Room Three. The samakha gangsters hung timidly behind her as though the room might contain unspeakable tortures or a horror from beyond the stars when, in actuality, it held nothing more ominous than Archdeacon Silas Adjei, Leandra from marketing and a circle of chairs. Although, she thought, clergymen, vacuous PR people and an invitation to sit down and share one’s feelings probably featured frequently in many people’s ideas of torture.
“I don’ts have to do this. Ggh!” said Tony T. “‘Gainst my human rights.”
“You have no rights,” said Vivian. “In.”
Death Roe, Pupfish, Fluke and Tony T — Tyrone, Michael, Harvey and Anthony – trooped inside sullenly, gills fluttering, fish lips pouting.
“Hey, homies,” grinned Leandra, giving each a stick-on name badge as they entered. Fluke regarded his suspiciously and sniffed it.
“S’too bright in here,” said Tony T. “Gonna hurt my – ggh! – eyes, dog.”
“He got rights,” said Death Roe.
“Here, let me,” said Silas and stood to change the lighting.
Pupfish scrawled on his name badge and passed the felt tip to Tony T.
“Your names in English,” instructed Vivian.
“You dissing my heritage, Mrs Grey?”
“No, Tony. I have seen your attempts at writing in Venislarn. It is just embarrassing. Now sit.”
Leandra passed a large bowl of chocolate bars along the circle. “Take as many as you like, boys.”
“What’s this?” said Tony T.
“Adn-bhul stranger danger,” said Fluke.
“Cougar wants to – ggh! – buy a feel of my codpiece, dog.” Tony T grabbed at himself through his tracksuit trousers.
“These real Kit Kats,” said Pupfish. “Not the – ggh! – knockoff ones from Lidl my mom gets.”
“Everyone calls your momma Kit Kat, Pup,” Fluke laughed.
“No, they don’t.”
“Cos she takes four fingers. Ggh!”
Tony T offered an explanatory mime. The rest of the Waters Crew laughed dutifully. With their leader dead and his lieutenant locked up indefinitely, it hadn’t taken them long to find a new hierarchy.
“You will watch your language in front of the archdeacon, Anthony,” said Vivian.
“Church man,” said Tony T. “I seen your god. He’s the one who up and died like a punk bitch.”
“And you parade him round with a stick up his – ggh! – ass,” said Pupfish.
“Michael!”
“No, it’s all right, Vivian,” said Silas softly, sitting forward. “Seems you lads do know something about God. He came to earth as a man but the authorities treated him like a criminal and he was killed by those who were jealous of him and hated him for speaking the truth.”
“Like Tupac,” said Fluke.
“Muda!” said Pupfish. “Is everything like – ggh! – Tupac to you?”
“But God, in the form of Jesus. He overturned death. He defeated death. And he rose, having paid for all the evil in the world. Now, that’s God, my God. But I know nothing about your backgrounds or your beliefs. And that’s what this morning’s all about.”
“You want to know what – ggh! – we believe?” said Tony T.
“Mmm-hmm. It’s about dialogue. Conversation.”
“And we thought we’d kick things off with some ice-breakers,” Leandra broke in chirpily. “Break that ice. Break it down.”
No one in the room appeared to share her enthusiasm. Not a soul.
“Everyone’s had a chance to take a chocolate bar or two. Or three or four. What we’re going to do is go around the circle and everyone – that’s everyone, Vivian – is going to tell us some facts about themselves, one for every chocolate bar they took.”
Pupfish looked at the half dozen Kit Kats in his hands. “Shit,” he said, with feeling.
Morag knocked on Vaughn Sitterson’s office door, waited for a response of some sort and then, when there wasn’t one, she let herself in.
The man behind the desk jumped to his feet in flustered surprise. His e
yes darted everywhere – the desk, the computer, the wall, the door – as though he had just been interrupted doing something unpardonable and was looking for evidence to sweep out of sight.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Morag wavered in the doorway. “I knocked.”
“I heard,” said Vaughn. “I’m just…”
Morag attempted to catch his eye and, when she failed, smiled at him anyway. “I’m Morag. I’m the new investigator.”
“Of course you are,” said Vaughn.
She shook his offered hand. It was like shaking hands with fog: insubstantial and gone in an instant.
“I thought I might drop in,” she said, “seeing as we’ve not met yet.”
“No, we haven’t, have we? Very much remiss,” he said. “Well, it’s good to meet you. Are you sitting? I mean, do sit.”
Morag was already sitting. Vaughn sat down and looked at his computer screen. Morag realised that her first impression, that he was bald, was incorrect. He had hair but it was so fine and colourless as to be almost transparent.
“Well,” he said.
“I just wanted to say, first of all, that I’m really grateful for the position here. I don’t know how much you talk to Jim Bannerman in Edinburgh?”
“We know each other of old.” Vaughn shifted his gaze from the screen to papers on the desk.
“I don’t know if strings had to be pulled to make this possible. It was a quick transfer.”
“It was, but it’s all part of the service.”
“Is it? And I really, really must say I’m particularly grateful,” she said with slow and deliberate emphasis, “for the flat you’ve provided for me.”
“Happy to help.”
“It’s in Bourneville.”
“Lovely area, yes.”
Morag waited and wondered. If she waited long enough, would the consular chief have to look up to check that she was still there?
“Do you do that for all new members of staff?” she said. “Find them accommodation?”
He moved a sheet aside, looked at the one beneath it and put the original back.
“Not always, Miss Murray. But, given the short notice and the distance you’d come, I thought… we thought…”
“Again, that’s very kind, sir,” she said. “Have you seen the flat?”
“Seen the flat?”
“You know of it? Maybe it’s one that you – we – own.”
He frowned to himself and then spotted a piece of imaginary fluff on his lapel and brushed it off. “Is there a problem with the accommodation?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “The neighbours…”
“Yes?” he said, perhaps a bit too quickly.
Morag thought of the weird music and the mildewed curtains and the noises that emanated from the flat above hers. “Are they persons of interest?” she asked.
“Not sure what you mean,” he said.
Morag swore inside her head. The fucker was going to try and brazen this out. “You referred to me as the Caledonian Sleeper. To Lois. When I first arrived.”
“The train you came on?” he suggested.
“Ah,” she said. “You see, I was thinking of a different meaning to the word ‘sleeper’.”
“Are we just making chit-chat now, Miss Murray? I’m sure there’s work to be done and I hear Rod is in the hospital.”
“A sleeper agent,” she said. “One who is planted but is left to settle into their cover and not given any instructions for a significant period of time.”
“Work to be done,” Vaughn repeated.
“And the best sleeper agents are possibly those who don’t even know they are sleeper agents. Even better are those who you wish to plant in an extremely hostile environment but who are conveniently, in a manner of speaking, already dead.”
“I do believe you’ve completely lost me now,” said Vaughn.
“I don’t think so,” she said and stood. She stopped by the open door. “Sir?”
“Yes?”
“Sir.”
She waited and he almost managed to look at her. But she did have his attention at least.
“What happened to your predecessor, sir?” she asked.
“Hmmm?”
“How did Greg Robinson die?”
“Have we got that?” said Leandra. “Tony is the farmer. Fluke is the fox.”
“Damn straight,” said the samakha youth.
“Silas, you’re the sheep. Pupfish, you’re the crate of melons.”
“What am I?” said Death Roe.
“You’re the helpful bystander. You’re going to tell Tony T what to do.”
“No one’s gonna tell this – ggh! – melon farmer what to do,” said Tony T.
Chairs had been placed in rows on either side of the room to symbolise river banks. Fluke and Silas had been given cuddly toys, a fox and a sheep respectively. Tony T held a piece of paper saying ‘I am the farmer’. Pupfish’s piece of paper simply said ‘Melons’.
“Ghh! – just like his mom,” said Tony T.
“What?” said Pupfish.
“Nah, he’s got – ggh! – better melons than his mom,” said Fluke.
“Harvey, be nice,” warned Vivian from the sidelines.
“Sorry, Mrs Grey.”
“Okay, lads,” said Silas. “We can crack this puzzle.”
“Do you know what you need to do?” said Leandra.
“Sure,” said Tony T. “I got to get my cracker ass – ggh! – goods back from market. Only one at a time. Fox, get in my boat.”
“Ggh! That’s not a good idea,” said Fluke.
“You do what I say.”
“Just sayin’, dog”
“Fluke, I am the farmer.”
“Easy, Darth Vader.” Fluke ambled over to Tony T’s side and they shuffled across the ‘river’ between the two chairs.
“That ain’t gonna work,” said Death Roe.
“Sheep’s gonna eat the melons,” said Fluke.
Pupfish looked at Silas. “Eat my melons.”
Silas shrugged and held out his sheep to Pupfish’s bit of paper. “Nom nom nom,” he said, smiling.
Fluke cracked up and slapped his knee.
“Maybe we can try again,” said Silas. “And this time, I don’t want to eat the melons.”
“Funny, man,” said Death Roe.
“Okay, let’s press reset,” said Leandra. They wandered back into place.
“I don’t – ggh! – get it,” said Pupfish. “What’s a fox?”
“A fox!” said Fluke. “A bindog, dog.”
Pupfish shook his head. “What kind of stupid ass – ggh! – melon farmer buys a bindog from market?”
“Maybe he said he’d get your mom a – ggh! – waste disposal,” said Tony T.
“Leave my mom alone!”
“Many done tried and failed. She’s so damn needy – ggh! – her glun’u got a tractor beam.”
“Anthony,” said Vivian.
“You can still hear the screams of the dudes it’s eaten.”
“Enough!”
Tony T shot Vivian a look. She held it and matched it. “Do you want me to take you outside and have a word with you, Anthony?” she said.
He broke within seconds.
“No,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“No, Mrs Grey.”
“Right.”
“So, are we going to solve this?” said Silas.
“It’s impossible.” Death Roe gave a good impression of a sulk.
“Not if we work together,” said Silas.
Tony coughed through his gills. “Fasho,” he said. “Pup – ggh! – get your melons in my boat.”
“Classic Tony T pick up line,” said Fluke.
“You dissin’ me, Fluke?”
“I didn’t say nathan, dog. Ggh! I’m just a fox.”
Nina guided the next taxi driver into Room Two and physically sat him down. “Right. Name?”
He said nothing, just as the sixteen previous taxi drive
rs had said nothing.
“No name? Okay, I’m going to check you for ID.” She opened his thin coat and took a wallet from his inside pocket.
“Let’s have a look-see…” She pulled out a wad of notes. “A good day’s take. Mind if I look after that for you?”
In a smooth one-handed movement, she folded the notes over her index finger and stuffed them in her own pocket. She then took out his driving licence.
“Hussain Ali. Hello, Hussain.” There wasn’t a flicker on his lined, unshaven face. “How long have you been working for Mr Kaxeos, huh?”
Nothing.
“Is there someone at home who’s wondering where you are? Is there a Mrs Ali? Lots of little Alis? No?” She popped her lips, bored, and raised her phone to take a photo.
“Look this way, Hussain. This way. Working with the camera, yeah? Hey.” She clicked her fingers repeatedly. “Look! Look! A fare!” As she took the picture, there was a knock at the door.
“Yo.”
Lois popped her head in.
“Chief Inspector Lee is here, bab.”
“Top banana. Could you get someone down here to watch over Hussain here? He’s like a crazy party animal.” She looked back to Hussain Ali, as still as a waxwork and considerably less lifelike. “Look at him. Crazy.”
Nina sashayed out into the corridor. She felt reckless and restless and suspected she might have overdone it on the bottles of Boost. Chief Inspector Ricky Lee, the local police-Venislarn liaison, was in reception chatting to Morag.
“Ricky,” she said. “Still shooting unarmed black kids?”
“Still? We’re only just moving on from shooting unarmed Irishmen. You still poking the Dungeon Dimensions with a pointy stick?”
“Every day.”
Ricky Lee grinned. Ricky had a goofy grin but he was cute looking guy and had an entertainingly lax attitude to marriage vows.
“You here for the two dozen taxi drivers I hauled in last night?”
“And you wonder why they say you’re insatiable. No. Not taxi drivers.”
“Something’s happened at the cathedral,” said Morag.
“Which one?” said Nina.
“St Philips. Pigeon Park,” said Ricky. “I gather you’ve got the interfaith link officer here too.”
Nina took them to Room Two. “I’ll warn you, they’re doing some kinda samakha sweat lodge love-in thing. Could be ugly.”
She pushed the door open. Tony T was standing on a row of chairs, pointing an imaginary pistol at Fluke.