She hadn't finished speaking when David heard another voice related to the business. I go Fru-go-go, I go Fru-go-go... The chant was in his pocket—the official ringtone Andrea had convinced the staff it was advisable to download. He gave her an apologetic grimace as he took out the phone. "It's Stephanie," he said. "She wouldn't call if it wasn't important. She knows I'm at work."
"Take it then, but be quick."
He was making to do so when Bill said "There's a thought."
"Hold on, Steph." David wished he didn't have to delay hearing from her so as to ask "What is?"
"Just thinking about advertising us. Maybe she could make some foreign dishes to hand out to our passing trade."
David suspected this was a bid to placate Andrea, who said "Ask her, David."
"Steph, I'm here. What's the matter?"
"This is going to sound strange." As he made to urge her to go on she said "I wondered if you knew if there's a locksmith round here."
"A locksmith." In some confusion David said to his colleagues "A locksmith round here."
"I know where there's one." When he held out a hand to get the information from her Andrea said "You haven't done what I asked yet."
His bemusement seemed to leave him no words of his own. "What you asked..."
"Shall I speak to her myself?" As her point caught up with him Andrea said "Dishes for a promotion."
"Just quickly, Steph, we wondered if you'd like to come up with a few dishes we could use to advertise some of the countries we're offering."
"Bring them over from the restaurant, you mean? I'll ask Mick when I see him. He should have opened up by now, but he isn't here and we can't get in."
"Has someone called him?"
"Of course I did. He isn't answering. His wife will have a spare key, but she's in Tenerife." Much like an apology Stephanie said "I don't know if she booked through you."
"That doesn't matter now." As Andrea's face made it plain that she wanted to know what he meant, David said "The restaurant's locked up and nobody's got a key."
"There's a locksmith opposite the bombed church,"
"Andrea says there's a locksmith at the top of your road." With an urgency he couldn't explain to himself David said "Will you let me know when everything's sorted out?"
"I'll call you. I'm going up the hill right now."
He had an acute sense that despite being just a few hundred yards away she was somehow out of reach. As he pocketed the phone he told Andrea "She'll have to ask her manager about the food."
"Maybe I should just speak direct to him."
"They don't know what's happened to him," David said and was overtaken by a terrible suspicion. "I'm sure he must be all right," he blurted, which came nowhere near convincing him.
Would it help to look at the Lucky blog? Before he could make for the staff room the phones rang in chorus on the counter. He had an irrational notion that the call might be related to his fears, and grabbed the extension next to his computer, only to find that the caller was a woman hoping for an upgrade on a Caribbean cruise. It took him almost half an hour of keying options and listening to yet another pledge of the importance of his call to bring him a live voice. At least there had been a cancellation on the voyage, and he was able to book a better cabin. Once he'd left the message on the customer's phone he told Andrea "I'd like to take my break."
The smell of coffee that always lingered in the staffroom seemed unusually acrid, and caught in his dry throat as he shut the door. When he sat on an unyielding chair and laid his mobile on the table, the internet icon seemed to grow restless with the pulse in his eyes. His finger was as loath to touch the screen as it had been eager to jab the keys at the counter. It was hovering over the phone when its closeness wakened the connection as though something was impatient to be seen. Now he had no excuse not to bring up the blog, and there was a new phrase at the top of the stack in the sidebar. No, I don't need, it said.
He'd barely tapped the words when the entry took over the miniature screen. As he read the rest of the opening sentence, not just his finger but his entire body froze. No, I don't need a menu. It could be a coincidence, he tried to think—-but his gaze was straying down the page, and a black swarm of words seemed to rise to meet it. "No," he found himself repeating and then simply thinking, as if the first word of the entry had lodged in his head to taunt him.
As he read on he felt he was growing hollow, no more than a vulnerable shell. When he reached the end, the page seemed to trap his gaze and his mind. He couldn't look away, and he was afraid to think. While he was desperate to speak to Stephanie, he was just as scared to hear. The blogger's full name was in the open now, and he felt as if it was mocking him. Nobody could know it except David—at least, only Stephanie did, and he had to dismiss the deranged idea that she could be in any way responsible for the blog. He didn't know how long he'd stared at the screen—long enough that a stain of decay appeared to spread around every word—when he heard the door open behind him. He twisted around in a convulsion of guilt to see Emily watching him. "Andrea's wondering what's happened to you," she said.
"Nothing. Nothing's happened. I'm the same." As Emily made for the percolator he switched off his mobile for fear that she might glimpse the blog. "I lost track, that's all," he said and dodged out of the room.
He was escaping her scrutiny, but there was more at the counter. Before he could try to hide himself in work Helen said "Are you feeling ill David?"
"Not had any bad news, have you, old son?" Bill said as if he hoped he could extend his grin.
"No news at all, and nothing's wrong with me," David said.
"That isn't how you looked," Helen said and tilted her head as he confirmed her concern by lurching almost out of the chair.
The contents of his pocket had jerked like an extra set of nerves. As he snatched out the phone, nearly dropping it from haste, it began to chant. I go Fru- He cut off the ringtone and pleaded "Yes, Steph."
"Gosh, you sound worried. Is everything all right?"
For a parched moment he couldn't speak. "If it is with you," he was able to wish.
"Everything's fine here. I was just calling to say."
"It's all right with me, then," David said and risked asking "Still no sign of Mick?"
"Not a sound. You can thank Andrea for me if you like. The locksmith's here and he's opening the door."
David felt as if he was striving to hold the situation together—to keep it no worse than mundane—by telling Andrea "Steph says thank you for the locksmith."
Her frown at the phone call relented a little. "Has she had time to think up any dishes for us?"
At least he would be keeping Stephanie in touch with him. "Steph..."
"Hold on, he's giving me a receipt. Goodbye and thanks again." Having veered away, her voice came back. "All fixed, David," she said. "I'm going in now."
She was ending the call. Almost too fast for clarity he said "Andrea was wondering if you'd thought about our promotion."
"Her problems matter more than anybody else's, you mean. Did she hear that? I don't really care if she did." More gently Stephanie said "I'll do it if it helps you, David. Just let me hang my coat up and I'll think."
She was heading for the kitchen. David didn't know if he was holding his breath or simply unable to breathe. He sucked in a gasp's worth of air as he heard her say "Oh. Oh gosh."
"What's wrong?" Her tone wasn't letting him know how serious the problem was. "What is it, Steph?" he begged.
"Bartek. He's here."
"That's your assistant. You're saying he's arrived. Is that what you're saying?"
"I'm talking to him," Stephanie said, and her voice receded. "Can you come here, Bartek? I don't want to put the light on till you do."
"Why not?" Even more nervously David said "Where are you now?"
Perhaps she didn't hear him, unless she hadn't time to answer. In the distance he heard her say "He's been here all the time, Bartek. Mick, can you hear us? Oh, g
ood."
For an instant David was able to believe shed meant that, and then he grasped that whatever she could see had stopped her halfway through a dismayed phrase. Her phone must have been close to the light-switch, since the click sounded ominously loud. It was followed by far too prolonged a silence before Stephanie said "Don't touch him. Call an ambulance."
David heard a faraway response in which he couldn't distinguish a word. "I'll do it myself," Stephanie said less patiently than he'd ever known her to speak, and then her voice returned to him. "I've got to ring off, David. We need the medics, and maybe I should call the police as well."
"Before you go," David said and forced himself to continue, "can't you tell me what's wrong?"
"Mick." As David's mouth grew drier still she said "I don't know if we should touch him, but there's a lot of blood." The sight or the idea seemed to catch up with her, because it took her an audible effort to add "I'll call you when I can."
David was holding a voiceless phone, and all his workmates were watching him. He had to take an unsteady breath to help himself grasp that they were wondering why he'd sounded anxious. "Her manager," he said, struggling to confine himself to what he was supposed to know. "He's been injured or it may be worse than that. They can't tell yet," he said and glanced at Andrea. He was looking for disappointment, he realised—for her to betray that she was more concerned with her life than with anybody else's. He couldn't see any evidence of that, but until he looked away he was possessed by loathing. It was so intense that it terrified him almost as much as the Newless blog, not least because it was just as impossible to understand.
EIGHTEEN
As soon as Andrea told him to take his lunch David retreated to the staffroom and called Stephanie. She answered readily enough—her voice did, asking whoever he was to leave a message. When he tried phoning the restaurant, it was Mick who greeted him. The manager told him the opening hours and exhorted him to leave at least his name and number, at which point David made haste to end the call. He couldn't bear to know as little as he did, although might more knowledge prove to be even more unbearable? He was pacing the room like a trapped beast, and there seemed to be nowhere else to go except over to Mediterranean Mick's.
The glow from a sky like a wad of fog muffled all the colours of the streets and of everybody in them. The yellow and white of the police van with two of its wheels on the pavement outside Mick's looked as deadened as the lights on its roof. When David crossed the narrow street he did his best to feel defiant—he had every excuse to be there; he was with Stephanie, after all—but by the time he reached the window he'd decided he was just a passer-by with no reason to be questioned by the police. Though all the lights were on inside the restaurant the place was deserted, which he took to mean that the police were in the kitchen— the scene of the crime. Was the body still in there? Might they be examining the disfigured face, the gashed throat, or finding fingerprints on the knife? As he glimpsed a blurred shadow on its way to emerging from the kitchen he dodged out of sight, impelled by a sense of guilt too confused to deal with or even define. He could only try to lose himself in the crowds until he had to go back to work.
At least he needn't hide his state. His colleagues would expect him to be concerned for Stephanie, after all. Even Andrea made the effort to meet him with a relatively sympathetic look. He had customers to distract him, though the automated messages he had to listen to on their behalf and the lifeless interludes of waiting to be answered let all his hectic thoughts swarm back. Once he deleted an entire booking he'd just taken, and as he took the customer's details again he found he didn't care whether Andrea had noticed his incompetence. Apparently she hadn't, and when she locked up for the night she said "Tell Stephanie not to worry too much about what we need till she's recovered if she has to."
David let her and the rest of the staff leave him behind on the way downhill, but he'd taken just a few steps when he was aware of being watched. At first he didn't see who was waiting on a bench in the middle of the pedestrian pavement that occupied the road. "How long have you been there?" he said, close to a rebuke.
"Not too long," Stephanie said, pinching her coat collar shut with the hand she wasn't holding out to him. "I didn't want to come in when Andrea might have objected. I can do without that just now."
"Sorry," David said, which referred to a good deal and was wholly inadequate. "How are you feeling?"
As she squeezed his hand and then held on she said "A bit shaken still."
"So, Mick." When this proved insufficient David had to say "He's..."
"Yes," Stephanie said as if they were enacting the kind of derivative script he would have produced as a writer. "I had to touch him after all to see if there was a pulse. He felt like meat that's just defrosted." Plainly she needed to say this, along with "Maybe I thought that because there was a knife."
David wasn't eager for any more details. "Sorry? he said.
"You don't have to keep saying that. Nothing's any fault of yours."
He felt his mouth open before he knew what would escape. "Will you have talked to the police?"
"Do you mind if we walk? I think I've sat here long enough."
Perhaps she didn't want the woman who'd just found space on the bench to overhear, but the delay worked on his nerves. He and Stephanie were wandering downhill by the time she said "Why do you ask?"
"I just—" Rather than admit his reasons David said "I was hoping they didn't make you feel worse."
"They did their best not to. They've their job to do like us."
"What did they want to know?"
"Just the circumstances. In case they had any bearing, I suppose."
The details felt too imminent again, however desperate he was to learn them. "Would you like a drink somewhere?" David said.
"Not yet. I might soon. Shall we just go home?"
He wasn't sure whose home she meant until she led the way through the crowds to the bus stop, where he couldn't keep quiet any longer. "You were saying the circumstances," he murmured.
"I don't think I did."
"You were saying the police wanted to hear about them."
"I mean I don't think I told them to you."
He mustn't lose patience when she'd had to deal with finding Mick, but he urged "Well, do it now."
She might have if a bus hadn't swung around the corner to cruise uphill to the stop. David followed her to the nearest empty seat on the single-decker, in the front section where the seats crouched low—the stalls, he thought a writer might have called them, with the circle elevated behind. As the bus left the stop he felt as if his nervousness was tugging his lips apart. "What happened before, before you found him?"
"You know, David."
He was afraid he did, but how could she realise? Had she read the Newless blog? He didn't know if that would come as a relief or aggravate his panic. "How do I?" he demanded.
"David, what's the matter with you? You took my calls."
"Not the lock." He nearly laughed but was nervous of how it might sound. "Before that," he said and managed to add "Say last night."
"Why are you thinking of that?"
"Because, because I thought the police might have asked about it."
"A few things did happen." As the bus reached the next stop she said "Arguments with customers, for one thing."
Stephanie fell silent while passengers crowded onto the bus. "Who?" David had to prompt her. "Who was arguing?"
"Mick with some of them."
By now the aisle was packed, and a fleshy man made bulkier by a quilted coat grabbed the metal pole in front of David. "Pull your knee in, mate."
Pressing his knees together made David feel they were helping him force out a question. "What was the argument about?"
"He took a dislike to a couple." Not much louder than the muffled rumble of the wheels Stephanie said "They weren't men enough for his taste."
"That was all there was to it," David yearned to believe.
"I wish it had been. No, I wouldn't have wanted that either." Almost too quietly for him to catch Stephanie said "One of them had a gluten problem and we must have served him a taste. Bartek swears he didn't mean to let it anywhere near. I know it wasn't me." With less hope than ever David said "Was that all?"
"Mick blamed both of us. Well, the kitchen's my responsibility."
"Then he should have paid you what you're worth." This didn't save David from having to add "I meant was that all with the customers."
"It wasn't quite."
The bus sped past a queue it had no room for, and the man in the aisle lurched against David. "Watch the elbow, pal."
David hauled the arm across his body and clasped Stephanie's hand with that one too. "What else?"
"Some of the other diners didn't like the way he spoke to those and told him so, and then he started lecturing somebody about his table manners."
David was almost as reluctant to continue as to be alone with his thoughts. "You said the arguments were one thing."
"Did I?" Stephanie was silent while the bus swung uphill out of town, and then she said "It really doesn't matter any more, but he was drinking after we locked up and he tried to get too friendly. Don't worry, he didn't take much fending off."
"Did you tell the police?"
"What reason would I have? I don't think I would have told them even if he'd been alive."
"I meant in case they could possibly have thought you—"
The bus came to an abrupt halt—a passenger had belatedly rung the bell—and the man in the aisle bumped into David's shoulder. "Can't you shove up, lad?"
"Where would you like him to go?" Stephanie retorted. "He's given you more room than you deserve. He can't project himself somewhere else."
"You've got a fierce one there, lad," the man said, not entirely in admiration. "Watch out she doesn't turn on you as well. Trust me, I know what it's like."
"Maybe you don't know enough." David hardly knew what he was saying. "Maybe you need to be taught."
Think Yourself Lucky Page 11