by Amy Bird
So I take the bits of paper and I walk to Hendon. To all the people in Holborn, Camden, Golders’ Green and Finchley in their big cars as I walk, I say this: You have a car because you are commodity to be bought. You have nothing innate, deep inside you, worth giving for free. You have never known true male friendship. True closeness.
Luke, like me, will walk.
His long muscular legs power his feet down on the pavement, up then down, suppressing the earth, containing it, ruling it.
My legs, power up, power down, contacting, grounding.
He was made for this earth, to own it with fellow men, to live for free, not to be bought or sold. He was made for the closest comradeship, where men can inhabit each other’s souls.
And I will inhabit again. Not directly. But indirectly. Through Luke. Through Nicole. Then share my message. And book four shall be seen as what must be. The truth of all time.
It is fair to say, though, that by the time I get to Hendon, I do crave a Maserati, even a second-hand one. It is a long walk. And for my blisters, despite my victory of friendship, I would like to know what Jimmy did for that Maserati.
Chapter 17
At the car rental shop, Steve is on the front desk. We nod at each other. I wave my agreement.
‘Can I just get the cheque, please?’ I ask, which I think is quite funny. Steve doesn’t get it, or at least he doesn’t laugh. He clearly doesn’t go to restaurants often enough. Not like me, Adam and Nicole.
‘I’ll get Prakesh,’ he says, and disappears into the backroom.
I see there are two cardboard boxes on the front desk with my name on. One ‘Dan docs’ and one ‘Dan stuff’, lids sellotaped down. How thoughtful of them to package these up for me. I start to slit the opening to ‘Dan stuff’ with my keys – or actually, now I look at them, Ally’s keys. How they came to be in my hands is a mystery to me, but I might as well make use of them now. The box is too small to contain a Maserati, but it’s still intriguing. I’m about to lift the lid when Steve reappears with Prakesh.
‘Those aren’t for you, Dan,’ says Prakesh, gesturing at the boxes.
‘How can they not be for me? They have my name on,’ I challenge.
‘Yeah, but they don’t say “Dan’s stuff”, do they? Just “Dan stuff”,’ Prakesh retorts.
‘But who else would be interested in Dan stuff?’ I ask.
‘I’m not able to disclose that information,’ Prakesh says.
They are probably starting a bonfire. That, or DC Huhne has been here.
I ask which it is. Prakesh does a little zipping motion along his lips, a bit like a body bag, but probably to denote silence (which is like a body bag too). But I see Steve wriggle a bit when DC Huhne is mentioned. So. She has expressed an interest in me. The question is: what interests her? The same thing that fixates Nicole, or the Ally incident? I can hardly ask Prakesh or Steve that. So I change tack.
‘The agreement doesn’t say you can have this stuff,’ I say, which is supposition really, because I’m only going on what Mr McNulty told me.
‘It doesn’t say we can’t,’ says Prakesh. ‘You’re waiving all your rights under the agreement.’
‘Not all of them,’ I say, thinking of liberty.
‘Okay, so you’re not waiving your rights to personal injury claims, but everything else.’
I’m not sure what claims I have to personal injury. Luke may have more. I’d be happy to waive both of them, to be untraceable: ‘I waive all rights to claim either I or my creation have personally injured anyone in the making of my art’. But I understand why I cannot do that. Even if Prakesh does not.
Still, I would like those boxes.
There are two ways to get what you want. One is to take it. The other is to pretend you don’t want it, but get it anyway, an indirect route. Over the years, I have become a master of both. Hence, book three. And indeed, book four.
In this scenario, I think I need an indirect route. I hatch a plan: once we have signed the agreement, I will order a cab without telling the others – wait around the corner for it. Then, when it comes, I will tell the driver I have a bad back, and ask him to go and collect the boxes for me. He can say, ‘Boxes for Huhne? I’ve been sent to collect them.’ Then I will have them, and DC Huhne won’t. True, when Huhne does eventually turn up, they will figure out something has happened, but by that point, the boxes will be in a bonfire of my own creation. Whatever’s in them.
Prakesh leads me into the back office and shuts the door. As he does so, I hear the shop door tinkle. A customer. Or Huhne? I try to catch a glimpse but our door is already shut.
We do a little signing ceremony. Or rather, we get out biros and scribble dates. Then Prakesh hands me a cheque. What I was expecting, but nice to see. I have plans for this money, the first this afternoon. After the boxes, and the taxi fare, of course.
‘Have you seen Jimmy recently?’ I ask, as we are standing up.
Prakesh shakes his head.
‘Good to keep in touch with old colleagues, though, right?’ I say.
‘Not always,’ Prakesh replies.
‘Perhaps I should pay him a visit,’ I say. Or just the Maserati. I would like to visit that.
But when Prakesh shows me back to the front desk, it’s not the Maserati I’m thinking of. It’s the boxes. And why they have gone.
Chapter 18
There is nothing in the boxes that can prove anything, I tell myself, as I head to the armourers.
At best, in ‘Dan stuff’, there will be a mug, a Pot Noodle sachet or two, maybe a spare shirt. Maybe there will also be fingerprints. But they already have those. And Ally doesn’t, nor her flat. I was careful of that. But the box will not have hair follicles or semen in. I do not collect that at my work place. Therefore it is unimportant, I tell myself.
I do not know what ‘Dan docs’ is. I suspect it is not collected Post-its with doodles on them. I am pretty sure somebody would have thrown them in the bin. Maybe it is all the forms I have filled in over the years – or just the ones since The Accident, when they went through all our forms. So again, there is nothing they can find there.
It is more the fact that they want the boxes that bothers me.
If they find me out, they find me out. They will catch Luke too.
But they mustn’t do it before my brilliance. My brilliance that will emerge in book four. I can write that from wherever they take me. Plenty of time again, like in Feltham. But I cannot do my research from there. I cannot make Luke complete. I must do that now, while there is time.
I was pleased to find the armourers is just round the corner from the car rental shop. Also, that it is actually called an armourers. Not a foil shop. Much grander, much more relevant. Because I need my armour. A lobster has an exoskeleton, but I do not, and nor does Luke. We need protection (and thankfully, smart Luke used protection, with Ally). Sometimes attack is the best form of defence, too. I will need to remember that.
The website showed me pictures of foils, épées and sabres. The foil is the most classical weapon – like a duelling sword. That was the one I wanted first. But it is too flimsy. I might as well try to fight with my violin bow. I am torn between an épée and a sabre. An épée is more romantic, leaner. But the sabre uses the side of its blade. It is heavier. More like a weapon.
I pick up one of the display sabres and weigh it in my hands. Yes, this feels right. It is not very sharp, but with enough force, it will have an impact. And it’s much more feasible for Luke, in the book, if not in life, than just a knife.
En garde! Luke sprang forward in a feint attack, then retreated. He drew his opponent on, prepared to parry, but they missed him. While they were recovering from his false move, he lunged. He struck them – blade, then point, blade, then point – his wrists oscillating behind the hilt of the sabre. He would disengage when he was through, but his opponent wanted this fight, wanted the stab, the blood—
‘Arrêt! Arrêt! Stop!’
A man is shouting at me.
I look up. I have an audience. I don’t know why. All I was doing was feeling a blade. Then I see my feet are in the en garde stance and my sabre is extended. Oh. I see. It was Luke.
‘Sir,’ says the man, his hand on my sabre. ‘I appreciate you wish to get a feel for the blade, but please – we must consider the safety of our customers. I must ask you do put down the sabre.’
I could take this little grey man if I want to. But in the background, in the armoury, I see men with spanners and machines that could crush me. Besides, we are on the same side here. My fight is not with him. It is not really with anyone. I just wish to have a defence against further horseplay, should I need it. And to take an attack position against, or rather an assertive position, for Luke, for closeness, for progress.
‘Sir?’ asks the man.
I disengage.
‘Thank you,’ he says. The small crowd dissipates, until it’s just me and him. ‘I’m assuming you would like to buy? Shall we discuss your requirements?’
I think it is best not to reveal my requirements, so I just tell him I want a sabre and a mask.
‘You already have the jacket and gloves and everything, then?’ he asks me.
I don’t, but he wouldn’t understand my explanation. So I just say yes.
He offers me various bespoking and personalising measures. But my project is already sufficiently bespoke. Anything else would be overkill.
I pay and then I own my sabre and my mask. I am equipped. On the walk to the bank to pay in the settlement cheque, I am tempted to pull out the sabre and examine its shiny heaviness. I could put on the mask, too. Then there’d be no risk of Luke or Dan ever being detected. But I remember that banks are not keen on masked men, so I just carry the tools along with me. My secret. Like the keys, in my pocket.
The keys.
Not in my pocket.
I reach around, every millimetre of my pocket. I pat my leg, my groin, my ankles, both sides. No keys. There is nobody around, and I am wearing boxers. So I take off the trousers and give them a shake. No keys.
That is because, I realise, they were on the box. The box that was in the car rental shop. And is now gone. Perhaps to DC Huhne.
Chapter 19
I must parry, I must parry. I must go back to the car rental shop. The boxes of stuff and docs are one thing, two things, but the keys are quite another. They are potential proof, of where I’ve been, what I’ve done – me, Luke, whoever – and they will speed our descent. Maybe now, even now, DC Huhne is with a sly and slow grin putting the keys in Ally’s lock and turning, turning. She will still be able to smile, because she won’t have received my picture. No daughter to distract her, just a forensics team dusting for prints on the keys, which I so carelessly left, thinking it was my trophy, my keepsake for all time. And DS Pearce patting her on the back. Why didn’t I put them in the box, with the rest of the treasure, with book three? Or just post them through the letterbox of the apartment block? Or throw them in the Thames?
I run with all the running that I have learnt back to the car rental shop. The boxes of armour swing by my sides. Maybe, when Prakesh interrupted me, I didn’t leave the keys on the box. Maybe, just maybe, they are on the counter. Maybe when I get to the shop, I will see them, glinting on the counter, ready for me to reclaim.
I push open the door of the shop. The bell tinkles merrily – or perhaps funereally, because I see no keys on the counter.
Steve stares at me. Maybe I am red and hot. Maybe I look guilty. I try to be normal.
‘Steve, mate. I think I left my keys here. You seen them?’
Steve shakes his head. ‘Nah, mate. Sorry. Prakesh!’ he shouts into the back room. ‘Dan’s here. Says he left some keys. Seen them?’
Prakesh sticks his head out of the backroom.
‘No, sorry, I haven’t,’ he says.
Maybe the keys fell off the box lid on the way to the car. I consider getting on my hands and knees to search the carpet. But that might arouse suspicion, of the importance of the keys. Because usually, if it’s your own house, you call the locksmith, right? You don’t crawl around on the floor. I don’t want Prakesh and Steve to remember me doing this.
And besides, I’m wasting time. If it’s inevitable I’m caught, I must get on, I must progress. I leave the shop, staring intently at the carpet as I go, scanning my eyes back and forth like a metal detector. I do the same on the pavement outside, but nothing. There’s a chance nothing will happen. There’s a chance DC Huhne, or whichever of her minions collected the boxes, will just think, Oh, here are some keys on this box, I’ll return them to the shop. Or they might have fallen inside the box, and therefore just be part of whatever Pot Noodle clutter there is inside it. But if DC Huhne wants to make DI, they will be checked.
Forget walking. I run to the bank. There is a poster of Luke pinned to one of the walls. DC Huhne is doing her job well. I do not acknowledge Luke. Instead, I head straight for an available window. The teller tells me I can pay the money into the account rather than getting cash. But I want cash. Who knows what they do with your bank accounts, when they catch you. This is my money, my project money. I will use what I need today. The rest can nestle safely with book three, in my treasure box. They won’t let me take that with me, to jail – they don’t let you take anything, none of your possessions, it’s insane. I will only have what is in me, my brain, and what I can create while I’m there.
And I must act. I must continue the plan. First, I must perfect my fencing. Then I must get the violin, and I must visit Nicole.
Chapter 20
Directory Enquiries, or 118, or whoever they are, do not have listings for emergency fencers. Or rather they do, but not the right ones. I realise this when they ask me if it has blown over. I think they know something I don’t – it would never blow over, I would need to defend myself. Then I understand. I tell them I don’t even have a garden and hang up.
Instead, I 118 the Hendon armourer and ask them about which local club had a meeting today. None today, but one tomorrow. Not on the North Circular. No fencing there, apparently. But Highgate. £6. Kit provided. An investment I can afford. I take their number so I can phone them and book.
I wonder if I should tell them it is research. They might let me go to the session for free. Or they might delight in the idea of being famous. But no. I don’t want distractions. I don’t want to have to tell them about the other books, and nor do I want to tell them I am a novice – I am an established author, even though none of my works, life-changing though they are, have been published. And besides, if I disclose my authorial identity they may put on an act, may not teach me fencing as it is meant to be taught. Nor can I tell them I am fighting for survival. That will tip them off, make them call the police, call me a madman. I know how they will think of me.
Instead, I call as a member of the public, under cover.
‘Hello, Charles speaking,’ a man says, when I phone. It could well be the future king. He has the right accent.
‘Is this the right number for fencing?’ I ask.
‘Yes, it certainly is! How can I help?’
This would be the moment to tell him everything, to say: you can make me invincible; you can make Luke impenetrable; you can teach me to defend my otherwise soft, indefensible, frame.
Instead, I say, ‘I’d like to register for your class tomorrow night.’
‘Oh, no need to register,’ says Charles. ‘Just turn up – we’re hardly over-subscribed.’
‘But I’ll have an opponent?’ I ask, because it’s important to practise as if it is reality.
‘You and I can spar together if we have to!’ Charles offers. ‘See you at six tomorrow. You know where we are?’
‘Yes,’ I say, because I am a consummate researcher. I have an address, so I can find my way. I hang up.
Until tomorrow then. But tomorrow is so far away! If I hadn’t dallied, delayed, I would have gone before now, wouldn’t be losing this time, this twenty-four hours. So prec
ious, now that Huhne may have the key, may be able to unlock the Ally secret. I should have been researching everything, all the time.
Now, even now, as I stand in Hendon, I should not move without researching. Think: How does Luke walk? Foot forward. He leads with his right. His heel comes down to the ground, then toe. Good. Is it the same with his left? Heel then toe. Right. But how about the length of his stride? I stay where I am and look back down between my legs. Impossible to measure. His stride is the length of a confident man’s. No, no – I need facts! I hear someone behind me, walking quickly. No nails dragging concrete so not Huhne. Is there red, maybe Nicole? I turn my head. No. A man, unknown.
‘Measure me!’ I shout as he approaches.
‘What?’ he says, slowing slightly.
‘Measure me!’ I repeat.
He calls me a name and continues his walk, speeding his pace.
I am stuck then, because I must know how long Luke’s stride should be. But what if his stride is not always the same? Do I need an average, to count every stride he takes, so I know, definitely about his character? How about if every stride I take, I can move my back foot up to the front foot to see how many shoe-lengths each stride is. And write it down in my notebook. Yes!
6
5
4
5
3
5
5
5
5
But now I am controlling him, influencing his needs. I will have to abandon those results, start again. And how do I even know how he would hold a pen, write, think, speak, anything? But hang on; no, I know how he writes, because of the napkin. He writes in lipstick with capitals. I don’t have any lipstick. But I have a biro. And numbers are always capitals.