A Snowball in Hell

by Christopher Brookmyre

  Angelique feels a reprise of that involuntary surge as he comes to the front and walks across the stage, ever closer to her, a deck of cards in his hand. Will he look her way, she wonders, and if so, will he see her? The lights are bright, and even though she’s at the front, she may appear no more distinct than a silhouette. Besides, with his evidently practised stagecraft and effortlessly polished professionalism, he’s unlikely to skip a beat, so how would she tell either way?

  He fans the cards, turning a little on his heel, and scans the front row.

  Yeah, she’s pretty sure he sees her.

  He recovers from the fright, albeit not exactly seamlessly, and proceeds to keep Angelique spellbound for much of the next hour. She forgets where she is several times, lost in just watching him perform; maybe even in just watching him. There’s a wrenching inside each time she remembers the reality, but soon enough she’s lost again. He looks happy. He looks like he belongs. He is doing what he was meant to be doing, she can see that, and wishes she felt the same way; has been wishing it for several years now. She thinks of talking to him by the Seine, what he told her about his father, how he rejected what his dad wanted for him: rejected all of this. She looks at the set, remembers her first impression: embracing the past. Embracing his past. Reconciled to himself, reconciled to who he ought to be. What can she possibly do here but jeopardise all of that?

  Then, once he has taken his bows and she is left there, alone at her table, she finds herself thinking only of why she has to.

  When she pictures her mum and dad, she doesn’t envisage them as they were the last time she saw them, or before she left for Dougnac’s job in Paris. She sees them as she did growing up, when they seemed larger, more vivid, the most dominant force in her life. They drove her crazy, but only because they loved her so much. She used to think James was the apple of their eyes, that he could do no wrong, was extended far more freedoms, granted so much more slack. She, by comparison, never seemed able to do enough right, and she felt like they were always on her case, keeping her under permanent surveillance. Hence her having to lie about going to the cinema so that she could sneak off to watch Rangers at Love Street, while James had free rein to travel to Aberdeen, Dundee or Edinburgh to watch the Tims. Hence James’s choice of profession was a source of pride and hers was a source of disappointment if not outright disapproval. Being a lawyer was something they could relate to: her dad had been one in Kampala, after all, before having to settle for the reduced – but welcome, to a refugee – circumstances of a clerk in a tax office. To two people expelled by Amin with one child in arms and another on the way, however, the position of police officer carried no such upstanding connotations. To them, cops were paid thugs, bullies, sneaks and cheats. They enforced laws but did not make or even debate them, thus they were, even given the benefit of the doubt, a lesser profession, for lesser people. Then, of course, there was the small matter of that paucity of men ‘on the horizon’, and the even more conspicuous absence of tiny feet pattering somewhere in their wake.

  She thinks of these things now because they, more than the easier times and the happier memories, bring home how much she was loved. They fussed, they protected, they fretted – they bloody well surveilled – all because she was so precious to them. They wanted it all to be perfect for their little girl, their wee princess.

  She remembers being held in her dad’s arms, how no matter her age, it would still make her feel like she was three years old and that the world was full of love, care and security. These past weeks, she has felt as bereft of love, care and security as she has ever done in her life.

  The slight and soft-footed figure of Morrit approaches from the side of the stage, smiling coolly, politely, nothing overbearing. He says ‘I’ll take you to see him now,’ and offers her a hand up from her seat. It’s like he already knows this is going to be delicate. He leads her backstage and down a short passageway. She tries to think of what she ought to say but her mind is just white noise: never mind words, there are no images, no memories, no thoughts whatsoever.

  She is barely aware of walking through the door; it almost feels like she has disappeared from her seat and rematerialised inside the dressing room. She is definitely unaware of Morrit leaving; the guy simply vanishes, leaving her standing a few short feet away from Zal, close enough to smell his cologne mingled with the fine, fresh sweat of his exertions under the lights.

  They look at each other a moment. His bow-tie is undone, his top few buttons loosened, the tops of tattoos visible on his chest: just slightly dressed down, it’s enough to make him look entirely the man she remembers.

  She knows she won’t be able to speak. She doesn’t know what to say, how to explain anything: from why she wasn’t at the Musée d’Orsay to why she is here now. She glances down at herself, her skinny, suffering form in this travel-creased old dress, and feels suddenly wretched, wonders how she could have deluded herself that whatever happened between them was enough to justify her being here, that any spark of it could remain in this man all these years later, far less enough to ask of him what she must.

  And then he says: ‘I missed you,’ and it sounds like everything she needs to give voice to, condensed into three simple words.

  She tries to reciprocate, but even ‘I missed you too’ is three words too many; she’s not even sure if she managed an audible ‘I’. She wonders can she try again, but already feels herself fill up. There can be no words now. She steps forward and throws herself against him, just as she’s throwing herself on his mercy. His arms enclose her, the most welcome weight upon her shoulders. She buries her face in the open part of his shirt, as though it will stifle her tears, prevent weeping becoming full sobs. It does, just about. She feels his head bow down, his nose against her head, breathing in the smell of her hair. Then one of his hands cups itself around her cheek, tentatively testing whether she’s ready to lift her face again. She isn’t, quite, but she wants to kiss him more than she wants to further stem her tears.

  She lifts her head and kisses him tenderly, delicately, feeling the sobs subside and even the tears dry as she closes her eyes and loses herself in his taste, his scent, his touch, the sensation of being pressed against him. Then in the instant their tongues brush together, something is ignited, and delicacy is no longer enough. She kisses him deeply, insistent beyond desperate, and feels a popping sensation close to her breast as her hand tugs his shirt open a little too impatiently and tears off a button. She places a hand on his chest, but feels her wrist still snagged by material, so she puts her hand inside his waistband, intending to haul out his shirt. As she does so, her fingers brush against his cock, at fatefully the same moment his hand rides up the back of her leg and cups her right cheek through the M&S cotton. There’s no going back from there. Not in this dress.

  She pulls him down to the floor, lays him back and takes him inside her. After only a few seconds, she feels him spasm. He’s lasted a lot longer than on their first encounter, but it’s not enough. Not this time, not now. Maybe if she’d given into the sobs, but she didn’t. She takes his hand, guides it between her legs. He’s ejaculated but he’s still inside, still hard. She needs this, needs the release, needs any kind of release, and his hand, his wonderful hand, his taste, his smell, the feel of him against her, the feel of him inside her, gives her that. He makes her come. As the song – their song – prophesied, he will always make her come.

  She lies there on top of him for a while, breathless, reeling, his hand stroking her hair, her cheek against his chest. Then, when she feels ready, she turns her head and looks him in the face.

  Her first words to him in five years are a sheepish: ‘Is there a bathroom round here?’

  Zal nods to a door at one end of the room.

  She climbs off him and scuttles away, grabbing her so easily discarded knickers from the floor as she passes them. Should maybe have worn jeans...

  ‘So, how you been?’ he asks, the casualness of it his way of acknowledging the chasm s
ince last they spoke. He’s inviting her laughter but its onset feels like it will trigger more tears, so she reins in both.

  ‘I’ve been better,’ she states. ‘I’m in trouble, Zal. I’m in a lot of trouble.’

  He nods, like it’s no great surprise. ‘Well, I brought you plenty back in the day. Only seems fair you should take some to me.’

  He’s smiling, looking sympathetic, inviting her to talk, but as ever, it’s hard to know what else is going on in there.

  ‘I hate to bring this to you. It’s not fair to bring it to anybody, but you’re the only person I believe can help me. I wouldn’t have come otherwise.’

  He smiles again, but there’s a sadness in the corners of his mouth, something even he isn’t quite able to hide. It speaks of regret, disappointment. Angelique knows he’ll help, but he knows it may cost him.

  He squats down at a knee-high fridge tucked under a table and pulls it open, his fingers oscillating back and forth between bottles of beer and mineral water. Angelique indicates the purer stuff. He ignores her and hands her a chilled Dos Equis instead, a gesture to which she can’t help but smile just a little.

  ‘Take your time,’ he says. ‘Talk to me. Tell me where it hurts.’

  ‘So,’ Zal says, when it’s clear Angelique is all talked out, her bottle empty and her eyes red. ‘Let me just see if I got this straight. Threatening to kill loved ones in order to coerce a resourceful individual into carrying out nefarious deeds. How on earth could that scenario have made you think of me?’

  She manages a pretend shrug, but Zal can tell it’s an effort. Everything is an effort. She’s drained in ways he can all too readily imagine. He gave her a beer but wishes he had some elixir he could offer to truly restore her to the woman she ought to be. There’s a familiar anger starting to burn inside, one long since quenched these past few years. Oh yeah, she came to the right guy, for any number of reasons. He just wishes there were circumstances under which she would have come anyway. She came because she needed him, not because she wanted him. He understands that, and knows he mustn’t lose sight of it. It’s okay to love her; that’s not where the danger lies.

  ‘It’s not just your empathy I’m relying on,’ she says. ‘More your professional expertise. To me, this looks like a near-impossible situation. If memory serves, that’s your specialty, but it’s a big ask, Zal, a very big ask, and not one I’m sure I’ve any right to make of you.’

  Zal thinks of the decision he made in that apartment in Palma, when Fleet first came for him the night before his intended trip to Paris: the easiest to make and the hardest to bear. He did that for her. He gave her up – for her. He is thus able to tell her, with confidence and sincerity, if not a great deal of regret:

  ‘There’s nothing you couldn’t ask of me, Angelique.’

  Including taking the same decision again.

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Remember when you asked me out?’ she says. ‘When you called up the officer investigating the robbery you just pulled off and asked her to meet you for a drink?’

  ‘The story rings a bell.’

  ‘When I agreed, I asked you, “What have we got to lose?”’

  Zal grins at the memory.

  ‘And I replied: “Off the top of my head, everything.”’

  ‘Well, that’s just it, Zal, it’s different now. I’m here with my hand out because I’ve already lost everything and I’m hoping for a miracle to get it back. I’ve nothing left to lose. If you help me, you’ve got everything to lose, and don’t try telling me otherwise: I saw you onstage tonight. You’re happy, you’re doing what you were always meant to. You’ve left behind all the kind of shit I’d be dragging you back into.’

  ‘I won’t lie to you. I am doing pretty good these days. I might even have said I was happy, till you walked in and reminded me what happy really means.’

  ‘Zal, don’t,’ she says. She’s trying to sound like she’s just being modest, but he hears what she’s really saying: don’t pin your hopes of happiness on me, because I can’t help you. However, she hasn’t understood what he’s really saying.

  ‘No, listen to me. I’ve lost stuff before, lost what I built up, lost out on my hopes and plans. So what? You can always build those things back up. You can make new plans, build a new life. The only thing we can truly lose forever is people: I know that better than most. Everything else is replaceable.’

  And the thing I could least stand to lose forever, the thing I could never replace, is sitting right here, he doesn’t add, though inside he’s yelling it. It’s for both their sakes. He needs her to know she won’t owe him anything, can’t afford for there to be any kind of contract implied by this.

  ‘That’s why I’m saying this, Zal. You could lose everything because you could lose your life. These people are more dangerous than anything you’ve dealt with before.’

  ‘I’ve dealt with a lot of bad people, Angelique. I’ve met gangsters, killers, thieves, assassins, crooked cops, crooked guards. I’ve met men I couldn’t last two minutes with if we were locked in a room together. I’ve met men who would kill grandmas and babes-in-arms if it guaranteed their next fix. I’ve met men who’ve ordered murders just to prove a point, and I’ve met the men who execute those commands. But I’ve yet to meet one I couldn’t fool.’

  At this, her eyes finally light a couple of watts. She knows of which he speaks. Their fingers interlock and she manages a sad smile: still lost, but reassured just a little.

  He appreciates the danger is no joke, understands what she’s asking and knows he’ll give it. He’ll supply the illusions she needs. He’s doing that already, and not just in his bravado: he’s supplied an illusion by concealing his own feelings, his own wants and his own intentions. He’ll do anything for her, and he’ll make the same sacrifice he did before. He’ll save her from the bad guys, and then he’ll save her from himself.

  Thieves like us

  ‘So this is what it feels like to be a crook,’ she says, as they sit in a ‘stolen’ van, parked in a secluded side-street from which they are observing the Provence Troisième Arrondissement evidence repository on the outskirts of Toulon.

  ‘Now don’t you start with that shit,’ Zal replies. ‘I was an ex–criminal until you showed up, officer. What kind of a cop do you call yourself? I hadn’t committed a crime in five years, then I’m in your company forty-eight hours and you’ve got me carrying out a heist on a high-security police facility, on top of grand theft auto for boosting our ride.’

  ‘Don’t be melodramatic: we haven’t stolen anything.’

  ‘Are we, or are we not, sitting in a stolen van?’

  ‘Taking refuge in pedantry, very masterful. I’m just saying: this is giving me a worthwhile insight into the criminal mind.’

  ‘And you’ll learn what it feels like to be in lockdown pretty soon. Just be thankful it’s solitary.’

  They hired the van in Barcelona and drove up overnight. Zal had reported the van stolen first thing that morning in Toulon, telling the police he had gone to grab some breakfast and come back to find it missing. The vehicle itself was not a big worry, it being a hire van and covered by insurance, but the contents were irreplaceable. While he was doing this, Angelique had been parking it in a secluded spot not far from where they sat right now.

  It had been a long drive north, ought to have been a time to catch up, but she didn’t feel like talking. Zal seemed to understand, though he talked enough for both of them, and she was happy just to listen.

  Zal had dropped everything for her: let the ship sail without him and cancelled all shows for that leg of the trip.

  ‘It’s not like they can fire me – I’m out of contract in a couple of months anyway. Plus I’ve never dicked them around before: barely took a day off in four years. Why the hell would I? To travel?’

  ‘Just don’t burn any bridges,’ she warned him. It was one thing to help out with the job in Toulon, but there was no timescale for dealing with Darcourt. He co
uld (and this was the thought that threatened to paralyse her by day and steal her rest at night) simply disappear again, decide he’d had his fun. Maybe there was no game-plan, no grander scheme. Look how many years had passed between his previous surfacings: the Baker kidnapping, the Lombardy massacre and now his stark-reality-TV abominations. If he went to ground again, then all was lost.

  Zal told her he’d decided it was time to move on anyway, though as he didn’t elaborate, it sounded like another line to make her feel better. Making her feel better was his second great talent, one he was exercising to regular and very welcome effect; she just couldn’t work out what was in it for him. With Zal, there was always an angle, and his inscrutability meant that you would never see it until it was too late to make your own move. Back in Glasgow, he had played her, more than once. Whatever else passed between them, she had been left with her doubts as to whether it was all part of his scheme. She knew that, in the end, his motives had been decent. She knew he was a decent man. Whether he was, more simply, a good man had remained a hazier question. Here, however, there was no way of playing her, no unseen motive.

  The very end of that song – their song – plays in her head: a girl asking, ‘Can this be for real?’; a male voice yelling: ‘Noooo!’

  Discreet inquiries through her French police contacts revealed that Bouviere’s files were being protected by more than mere medical ethics. The late surgeon having rendered his services throughout a certain unsavoury but influential and highly motivated constituency, the clean-up of his premises and the ordering of his effects had not been left to a few lowly gendarmes and janitors armed with carpet-sweepers and bin-bags. Lawyers acting for anonymous parties had brought pressure to bear through medical and judicial channels in order to procure – or at least secure – any files pertaining to their clients. It was a murky business, full of counter-claims and jurisdictional wrangling, and with no resolution imminently pending, it had been ruled that the files must remain in a secure repository so that nobody – in particular the police – could have a thumb through them in the meantime.