The Mammoth Book Best International Crime

by Maxim Jakubowski

  “But we . . .”

  “Were bit by the same snake? Mysterious, isn’t it? Perhaps you’ve gotten something in your system that I haven’t.”

  It finally dawned on Ken. He looked at the empty, glass tube on the ground, and tried to stand up, but his legs wouldn’t obey. He had such intense pain in his armpits.

  “Had you paid attention during your lessons, you would have looked at the plastic seal on the tube before you gave yourself the injections, Ken.”

  Red, thought Ken. Red seal. He had injected himself with poison.

  “But there were no other tubes for Egyptian cobra. I checked them all. None with blue seals. No serum . . .”

  His father shrugged. Ken gasped for air. The buzzing of the insects had become a constant pressure against his eardrums.

  “You knew it all along.You knew . . . why . . . I came.”

  “No, I didn’t know. But I’m not dumb, so I didn’t count it out either. And I would have stopped you if you had tried to give me the injection.”

  Ken couldn’t feel the tears that ran down his cheeks.

  “Father . . . drive me back, now.Time . . .”

  But his father didn’t hear him. He had gotten up and gazed towards the other side of the river.

  “Adolph says that they’re good swimmers, but I’ve never seen it myself.”

  He looked up at the sky. The sun hung well over the trees on the hilltops, but he knew that when seven o’clock came, it would be as though someone had cut an invisible thread.The sun would dive, in free-fall, behind the horizon, and it would be pitch black in less than a quarter of an hour.

  The white bird screeched one last time, then took to the air.

  “It’s time to be getting home. Adolph should have dinner ready soon.”

  Ken knew that he didn’t have a chance.

  Translation by Susan Loyd

  Huxley

  Chad Taylor

  Angela Bane gave her first violin performance aged five at her parents’ second wedding. Her father braced himself when he saw her mount the podium with her tiny stride, but in fact she turned out to be quite good.That night when she was asleep Angela fell out of bed and broke her chin, and so couldn’t hold the violin for months afterwards. Her practice fell away and she didn’t play again, although she could still read music now.

  Angela’s parents divorced again five years later. Phillip went overseas and Louise kept Angela and her baby brother Ben.Their first nanny was quite good but she got pregnant after a year and was replaced by a widow named Diane Crawley. Diane looked after Angela for eight years, and so naturally Angela trusted her with money.

  “Diane was like a parent to me,” Angela told me as she lit up in the gazebo. “Phillip would send me cash from Hong Kong or the islands or wherever he was working, I think because he felt guilty, and I didn’t want to tell Louise about it so I would just put it away in one of my jewellery boxes. I also felt guilty about it, so when Diane found it and offered to help me keep it secret, naturally I was relieved. And of course there were no records of it, and Phillip doesn’t remember now, with the drinking.”

  It always sounded odd to me when children used their parents’ first names.

  “Do you remember how much money it was?” I said.

  “Oh sure. Like eight thousand,” Angela said, blinking her bright blue eyes. “And this was nine years ago, for whatever the money was worth then.”

  “And Diane refuses to give it back.”

  “I didn’t even ask for it.When Louise told her that we wouldn’t be needing a nanny any more because I’m an adult now, I just asked Diane for clarification – no pressure or anything – and she went through the roof and started yelling. So I had to tell mum and she fired Diane and now Diane’s threatening legal action for unfair dismissal. Her sister is a lawyer. And Louise being a corporate manager and everything, a court case would really damage her.”

  Angela sucked in her lower lip. Her jaw curved to the left where it had healed.The break was what doctors call a guardsman’s fall, when you land without extending your hands.The asymmetrical bite lent her the air of breeding. That, along with the house that could have contained my apartment three times.The Bane house was architect-designed and curved in a U around the pool.The pool was not quite long enough to swim a length and the grounds weren’t quite big enough to run around, but you can’t have everything, I guess.

  Angela also complained that the gazebo was draughty but we could talk there in private. Louise was out but the Banes seemed to operate an open-door policy: two parties Angela described as friends had appeared in the lounge and waved to us through the glass in the hour we had been talking. We could also light up in the gazebo, as Angela had pointed out before she produced a joint the size of a cigarillo. As the little room filled with smoke some of it curled away through a gap under the doors and betrayed the ventilation she had talked about.

  “I think it’s cool that you smoke,” she said. “I thought a cop might not be into it.”

  “I wasn’t with the police for very long.” I winced as I stretched my knees. “Besides, this is medicinal.”

  “My little brother Ben plays rugby,” she said, brightly.

  “I saw the photos.” There were two framed portraits on the wall in his room. I played his school many moons ago.They had matching jerseys and we borrowed their scales for the weigh-in. “So what do you want me to do about Diane?”

  “Louise just can’t know, ay,” Angela said. “She’s stressed out enough about it already.”

  “So you’re the client?”

  “I can afford it.” Angela inspected the roach and sniffed. “I just think if someone talked to Diane, then she would come round. It’s a clash of personalities.”

  “Do you know if she’s working for anyone else?”

  “No. She’s gone to ground, I think.”

  “Did she leave a number?”

  “Only the phone we gave her. She was a live-in.”

  “And her sister?”

  “I think she’s in the book.”

  “Then I’ll get one of my men on to it.”

  “Do you work with a partner?”

  “No. I shook my head. That was a joke. I hate working with other people.”

  “I thought you were a team player.”

  I shrugged. “It’s just the nature of the job. You’re the only person you can rely on.”

  Angela stood up, suddenly.

  “Would you like a swim, Huxley?”

  “I think I should get started.”

  But she was already peeling off her jeans. “Come on, then.”

  She stripped down to her T-shirt and her briefs and disappeared in a well-trained arc.

  Fortunately I was wearing boxers. The water was cold: when I came up my ears were buzzing and my skull rang like a bell. I spluttered and snorted and rubbed my eyes. Angela enjoyed that. She laughed. And she of course saw my tattoo: Jim Morrison’s head and shoulders, almost life-size, stretched between my shoulders and my waist. His long hair flowed outside the picture frame: above his head was a clear white brigantine, a reference to “The Crystal Ship” from their debut album. The caption below the frame, inked in the same green as the rest of the portrait, said “Riders on the Storm”.The lines had spread a little over the decades but the stare remained bold. I had thought about getting it touched up but Ricky who inked it died and it didn’t seem right letting someone else do it. It took four nights for him to cut it and months more to heal.

  “Who’s that?” Angela said.

  “Jim Morrison.”

  “Do you like him?”

  Diane’s son Ivan was an auto electrician. His garage was in Papatoetoe. The yard was filled with cars, but silent. The only noise in his office came from the aquarium pump. It wasn’t working very well: the axolotls were barely visible inside the tank. Their dark skin was flaking off in patches.

  “I’ve gotta fucking clean that, ay,” Ivan Crawley said. He was a barrel of a man with a short leg
and a worried look. “They’re the wife’s.”

  “I was actually looking for your mother,” I said, trying to make the statement not sound like a challenge. He had one better leg than me even with the limp.

  “Is it about money?” he winced.

  “Pretty much.”

  “It fucking always is.” He opened the cheque book on his desk. The broken stubs were smudged with oil. “How much?”

  “More than that.”

  “You want to take a car?”

  I looked at the vehicles in the yard. “Are they yours?”

  “I can always write one off, ay. People hate paying for fucking electrical.”

  “So you don’t know where she is?”

  “No.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “It fucking is,” he said. “Out.”

  Angela had described Diane’s sister as a lawyer but her Ponsonby Road chambers looked more like a collective or a government shop. Marsha Crawley did a lot of social work as well as representing a wildlife organization and a company that wanted to save the mangroves but the vehicle in her parking space was a four-wheel drive. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Marsha also smoked. I watched her sharing a cigarette on the sidewalk with her colleagues or maybe a client, blowing smoke into the spring air. Marsha was rail thin and dressed entirely in black, which made her look thinner.There was no point in talking to her yet.

  I was watching Marsha from the passenger seat of my car. It was less conspicuous than sitting behind the wheel.Two spaces in front of me a man in a cut-down Commodore was using the same trick. Marsha dropped her cigarette and stepped on it and went back inside, still talking, oblivious to all the attention she was getting. The man in the Commodore pretended not to look at me in the passenger mirror and I pretended not to look at him as I got out and walked up to the car and tapped the window.

  Sonny Tewera’s gold tooth flashed when he smiled and his eyes were pink. He was keeping his shoulder down with cortisone so he could coach his boy’s sevens every other weekend.

  “So who hired you, Sonny?” I said.

  “The mother.” He looked puzzled. “What about you?”

  “The daughter.”

  “The little stoner chick? Cheers to that, bro.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “For true, man. She’s cute.”

  “She’s young enough to be my daughter, Sonny.”

  “Richer, but,” he said. “Made a move on her yet?”

  Sonny and I stopped off at the sports bar on College Hill. The shutters were down against the sun and the Roosters game was on. We got a standing table which hurt me more after twenty minutes than it did him. His Nikes were as big as a loaf of bread. Sonny watched the game with a cheerful expression. Every surface of his face was either pushing out or pushed in: his grin was the only thing that was flat. It stayed on his face if he was hitting people or being hit himself. He had gone to the trouble of getting a gold front tooth but he still had two missing on the side. Sonny was that sort of guy. His ears were pierced but he wore nothing in them.

  “So how much is she paying you?” he said.

  “The usual fee.”

  “You give her a quote?”

  “Standard rate.”

  “Everyone wants a quote now.”

  “Times are tight.”

  “I’ll say. Can you imagine having a nanny for ten years?”

  “Nine years,” I said. “And they had two.”

  “Nice pool.”

  “The gazebo is draughty,” I said.

  “Mum told me the house shifted ten years after it was built.”

  “Architect designed.”

  “Fuck that shit,” he said. “You want another round?”

  “I should get going.”

  “You found the nanny yet?”

  “Have you?”

  “Nah. Call me if you do, though, hey? We could save money if we team up.”

  “I don’t do teams.”

  “I could do some running for you.”

  “I can run.”

  “To the bathroom, maybe.”

  “Listen.” I put my hand on his shoulder and felt the muscles I used to have. “Maybe after I talk to her, I’ll give you a tinkle.”

  “Sweet.” Sonny drained his glass, chuckling and swallowing at the same time.

  Her knock was as loud as a man’s. I opened the door.

  Diane Crawley was taller than her sister, with wide cheekbones and a narrow nose. Her skin was maybe a little pale, but freckled. She was holding a slightly battered briefcase – she had an easy grip on the handle. Her hair was medium length, tied back. Her pants suit was a pants suit.

  “As you can see, I’m not hiding,” she said. “And I want you to stop bothering my son.” Her tone of speaking was low and steady. It was put on, I thought: the manner you’d adopt to calm a child. I rubbed my eyes. It was late.

  “Late in the morning,” she corrected me. “What are you doing still sitting round? Why aren’t you out? Don’t you work?”

  “Gentleman’s hours.” I smiled. She did not.

  “I won’t bother you by coming in,” she said. “I didn’t come here to have a conversation. I need you to leave my son alone. He has quite enough to deal with as it is, running a business with his disability.”

  “I wouldn’t like to go up against him.”

  “You would not. He does well for his size, and his means. But my concerns are not his and I want you to leave him alone.”

  “I understand Angela Bane lent you some money.”

  “Angela Bane is a darling girl but quite the fantasist. She is prone to clinical depression, like her mother, and is a drug user. I expect an ex-policeman would have determined that.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “It was simple enough to find out,” she said. “Ivan took down your registration and my sister looked it up. Anyone can be a detective nowadays, Mr Huxley.”

  “And I count on it,” I said. “Angela has financial records—”

  “She does not.”

  “—But you do, so she can demand an audit, and it will take a long time, and it will be dull, and your reputation will be harmed, as will your sister’s if she’s daft enough to follow you into the small claims court.”

  It was a good speech, but Diane was already turning away.

  I stood outside my door in my boxers. The elevator opened and she stepped inside after glancing back at me with something like pity.

  “She’s such a cow,” Angela said, waving her hand across her face.The gazebo was totally filled with smoke. She might as well have been trying to scoop a hole in the swimming pool. “So is that it?”

  “No, it“s an update. I wanted you to know where I was. Client briefing and so on.” I closed my eyes and let my head fall back for a minute. “I’m going to go to her place and have a look-see.”

  “You’re going to burgle Diane’s apartment?”

  “I’m going to see if there’s any evidence of her financial status in plain view,” I said. “Or just out of plain view.” I sat forward again. “I’m just going to grab it.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?”

  “I’m pretty sure, yes.”

  “So we can’t use the evidence in a court case or anything.”

  “This isn’t TV,” I said. “It’s never going to go to court. The amount’s just too small. A few thousand dollars over several years – anyone can hide that.There’s no record, no legal solution. Even the police will tell you that.”

  “They did tell me that.”

  “Did you tell me that they told you that?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Neither do I.” I frowned. This was very good shit. “Never mind. What I need is for you to call a meeting with Diane, on a certain night, so I know she’s not home, and text me when she’s there, and not, and – you know.” I wiggled my hand. “Stuff.”

  “What do you do, normally? Do you just hit people?”

  “No.
Not at all.” I felt a little offended by the idea. “I menace them.”

  “With your bad knees.”

  “Nobody else knows they’re bad. When I was playing I could cover half a field in ten seconds.”

  “Ten?”

  “Maybe twelve. But I was good. I could bring any man down, and I never dropped the ball.”

  “You still look fit, Huxley.”

  “Ha.”

  “I mean it. I wouldn’t mind.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “It’s my job. I’m a silly little rich girl. That’s what you think, isn’t it? Here.” She held out the joint.

  “Ta. I don’t think that.”

  “Not even a little bit?”

  “Maybe the rich part.” I held my breath. “But I could tell that from the house.”

  She held her nose and giggled. “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “I’m not.”

  She guffawed. She slapped my chest with her hand. She had small, lovely hands. Even her slap was soft.

  Angela sent me a text: she’s here now. A few minutes later she sent me another. It said: she’s here now.Then she sent me another one, which said: she’s here now. By the third time the phone rang I was halfway into Diane’s little second floor apartment, clambering over the dividing wall between the downstairs units and gripping the rails. Diane lived in a cute little retirement block in Mission Bay: I had worked out who was home by counting the blaring TV sets. I wondered whether I should put the cell on vibrate but everybody in the block was deaf so I left it on ring.

  My knees didn’t hurt to climb but when I landed on my feet I could have screamed. I crouched there for a moment to catch my breath and let the pain ebb. Diane had left her lights on.The unit was modern but the decor was homespun bordering on fussy: thick carpet, crocheted hangings, hand-turned planters. The balcony was lined with feeder pots, two sets of hanging chimes and random crystals.The deck furniture was woven cane: a faux glass fishing float in a string bag. The aluminium slider doors were latched. I unlatched them.

  The place smelled like instant coffee. I could have done with a cup but I put that out of my mind and started taking the place apart – gently, piece by piece, and then putting the pieces back. Diane was a tidy widow. She kept the books. I took them. I was standing on the balcony putting the sliding doors back on the latch when my cell phone rang.