Darkmans (11 page)

For some arcane reason Kane felt strangely comforted by this caption (something – however weird – translated from Latin. That was
him
, that was Beede: obscure, marginal, bookish, inaccessible…).

He sneered (feeling the comforting re-emergence of all his former prejudices), and turned back a few pages, his eye randomly settling
on a small sub-heading entitled, ‘The Frantic Search for the Father’. He started, slapped the book shut, and threw it down.

Paranoia

He closed his eyes (pushing back a sudden panic –

Push

Push
)

– swallowed hard and tried to focus his mind again –

Tramadol

Yes

He imagined a small blister-pack in his pocket, rested an illusory hand upon it, heard the neat click and the tiny rattle –

Ahhh

It worked just like magic.

Righty-ho…

Next up: three neat paperbacks, all by the same author: a Dutchman called Johan Huizinga. These had been exceptionally well-thumbed (even by Beede’s standards – and he was nothing if not thorough). The first was entitled
The Waning of the Middle Ages
(a historical classic, it claimed on the back). Numerous pages had been turned over at their corners (approaching a third of the total), and there was still one of Beede’s red pencils jammed rudely inside it (Beede liked to underline relevant words and sentences as he read – a strange quality in someone usually so circumspect – showing very little respect, Kane always felt, for the integrity – and binding – of a book).

He opened the text to its pencil marker and read (underlined with great zeal): ‘So violent and motley was life that it bore the mixed smell of blood and roses.’ ‘Smell’ had been circled and then asterisked. Underneath that: ‘After the close of the Middle Ages
the mortal sins of pride, anger and covetousness have never again shown the unabashed insolence with which they manifested themselves in the life of preceding centuries.’

Next to this, in the margin, in block capitals, Beede had written: ‘UNTIL NOW!’

Kane shut the book with a snort. His search became more impatient.

Another Huizinga book:
Men and Ideas: History, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance
, was tossed on to the floor, followed by – uh –
Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture
 –

Eh?!

– with its lovely cover (red and black, the kind of graphics favoured by the best casinos in 1950s Vegas). Sample quote: ‘The human mind can only disengage itself from the magic circle of play by turning towards the ultimate.’

Wha?!

He sniffed. This was getting him nowhere, but that was okay, because it was pretty much where he wanted to be…

Right

A.R. Myers,
England in the Late Middle Ages;
Mary Clive,
This Sun of York: A Biography of Edward IV
; Joseph and Frances Gies,
Life in a Medieval Castle
 –

Hmmn…

Was there some kind of
theme
emerging here? Kane frowned. It was a little strange, perhaps – this intense level of focus on such a particular time-frame – but –

Aw heck!

– the history he could take. It was bone-dry, like Beede. The history made
sense
to him. It was old and silly and wonderfully unthreatening.
It didn’t shock or unsettle or confound. It was dead. It was done. It was
after.

Phew

Next up –

Ay ay
 –

Shakespeare: The Complete Plays
(markers in all of the
Henries
and
Richard III
), followed – hard-upon – by another ridiculously
hefty
volume: John Ayto’s
Dictionary of Word Origins.
Kane lugged it aside, with a small grunt, boredly. Under that, Robert Burchfield’s far more svelte and shapely
The English Language.
He flipped it over and ran his eye across a brief spiel on the back about how the mother tongue was so ‘resilient’ and so ‘flexible’…

‘The English Language is like a fleet of juggernaut trucks,’ he read, somewhat perplexedly, ‘that goes on regardless.’

Really?!

Well, uh…Okay…

Under that –

C’mon, c’mon…

– a hardback:
Art of the Late Middle Ages
(purchased from Abebooks.com – the invoice shoved inside – from its original source of Multnomah County Library – at £29.50 – with shipping) –

Huh?!

Beede buying books on the
internet?
! Kane gently yuck-yucked –
Is this an end to the world as we know it?

In this particular instance the front flap had been employed as a marker within the belly of the text. Kane opened the book to this place, casually. He inhaled sharply as his eyes alighted upon the stark, photographic reproduction of a sculpture entitled
Death Disguised as
a Monk.
The sculpture consisted of an eerily animated skeleton – in wood, exquisitely carved – the bony skull and arms of which peeked out, ominously, from the sumptuous folds of a monk’s cowl. Its expression was at once delirious – the gaping smile, the hollow eyes, the pointing finger – and…and
poignant
, somehow.

As he held the book several more pages flipped over, revealing a small, black and white illustration of a woodcut (1493) in which a group of skeletons performed a macabre jig over an open grave. Next to this image, in Beede’s characteristic red pencil (that creepy, teacher-y,
bloody
pencil), he had written:

‘DEATH –

He
said
it was a dance.’

Burning

Kane sniffed, then frowned, then shook his head –

Don’t be ridiculous

He put the book down. He was at the bottom of the pile, now, with only one volume remaining:

The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology
by Russell Hope Robbins.

Kane picked it up. It was a heavy tome (old, hardback, the fine cover preserved in plastic). He looked for a book-mark and found one (of sorts), pulling it out as he turned to the spot. It was a business card for a company called Petaborough Restorations (no address, just a number). On the back of thecard, in very shaky writing, Kane read: ‘Peter’s
exactly
what you need (Did an absolutely
superb
job on Longport for the Weald and Downland Museum). J.P.’

Kane gazed at this card for a minute, half-frowning, then casually pocketed it.

Good

He glanced down at the text. He found himself in the segment entitled ‘Possession’. It consisted – in the main – of a series of lists. His eye settled, arbitrarily, upon one of them: a treatise (
Rouen
, 1644)
which detailed the eleven main indications of true possession. Next to each item on this list Beede had inserted a series of tiny, red marks. Item One: ‘To
think
oneself possessed’ carried a minute question mark. Item Two: ‘To lead a wicked life’ had a minuscule cross –

etc

Point Nine: ‘To be tired of living [
s’ennuyer de vivre et se désespérer
]’ had been strongly underlined –

Burning

Kane sneezed, hard, as he slapped the book shut (a sudden interest in the wonders of
Satanism
? Well this was definitely a turn up). He blinked, winced, inhaled…

No.
No.
Hang on – it
was
burning. For sure. He quickly glanced behind him –

Shit!

A cat! A fucking Siamese
cat.
Just standing there, its blue eyes boring into him, unblinking, its grey tail twisting up like a plume of smoke. He looked down and saw his Marlboro burning a hole in the rug. The cat lifted its head and then coughed (with just a touch of fastidiousness).

‘
Fuck!
’

Kane lunged for the cigarette. The cat pranced away. Gaffar jumped up, with a hiss (Gaffar hated cats).

‘You
bastard
!’ Kane yelled, snatching up the still-red-embered stub and observing – much to his horror – the ugly, black hole in Beede’s Moroccan rug.

‘Shit, shit,
shit.
’

Beede loved his rug. Kane thought of it as Moroccan, but it celebrated – in words and pictures – some kind of crazy, phallic-shaped public monument in Afghanistan, surrounded by tiny planes (which looked like birds) with MINARET OF FIAM written on the periphery, semi-back-to-front. It was a ridiculous object. Kane remembered it – almost fondly – from his boyhood –

No
 –

Perhaps that’s a false memory

Gaffar had already bounded over. He was staring down at the spot in dismay. He seemed to instinctively appreciate that this unsightly burn was a big deal for Kane (and Kane instinctively appreciated his awareness of this fact).

‘Smoking could seriously damage your health,’ Gaffar announced portentously, his accent almost cut-glass.

‘You’re not wrong there,’ Kane murmured despairingly. ‘Beede
loves
this stupid rug.’

‘He go crazy?’ Gaffar enquired.

‘No,’ Kane shook his head. ‘Not crazy. It’ll simply…
uh
…it’ll
confirm
something…’ He paused, then gave up. ‘Yeah, absolutely fucking
psychotic,
’ he muttered.

‘Leave,’ Gaffar said. ‘I do.
Go!
’

He waved Kane away.

Kane glanced over at him, almost poignantly. ‘You think you can
fix
this?’

Gaffar nodded. ‘Turkish.’ He pointed to himself, as if that was explanation enough.

‘
Really?
’

Gaffar nodded.
‘My mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother,’
he lied, effortlessly,
‘all sweated blood over the carpet looms of Diyarbakir.
’

‘So you
know
about rugs? You think you can sort this out for me?’ Gaffar nodded again. ‘
Leave
,’ he ordered, ‘I am mend.’

Kane stood up just in time to observe the troublesome Siamese jumping lightly on to the kitchen counter. He glowered at it. ‘I can’t believe Beede’s got himself a cat,’ he murmured, taking a speculative step towards it, ‘and a fucking
pedigree
at that. Beede hates domestic animals. Cats especially…’

He paused. ‘At least…’ He frowned, his voice petering out.

Gaffar hissed. The cat flattened its ears in response. Gaffar picked up Beede’s Tupperware beaker and lobbed it at the cat. He scored a direct hit. He whooped. The cat kicked off the counter – its hackles up – and dashed, full pelt, into the sanctuary of Beede’s bedroom.

Kane rapidly shot after it, across the living-room, through the kitchen, but then faltered – like a mime suddenly hitting an invisible wall –

Bang!

– just on the cusp of entry.

I mean Beede’s
bed
room…? His monkish cloister? His inner sanctum? His
lair
?

Beede’s
bed
room? Was
nothing
sacred?

Kane drew a long, deep breath (steeling his resolve; throwing back his shoulders, sticking up his chin and
squinting
; like a heroic Sir Edmund Hillary trapped inside a
damnable
snowstorm), then entered, boldly, on the exhale.

She was lying on a trolley in the hospital corridor, propped up on her elbow and reading an old copy of
Marie Claire.
She’d already made firm friends with two of the porters, one of whom was still buzzing around in the background; perhaps imagining – even though she was obviously suffering from a serious fracture – that he might be on to a Good Thing here.

And what more could she expect (the porter’s lascivious expression seemed to proclaim, as he slouched priapically against the Nurses’ Station and hungrily appraised her)? She was a
Broad
, after all. They were a degenerate bunch. The now-legendary Jason Broad’d had his stomach pumped on the exact same Casualty Ward a mere eighteen months earlier, and had celebrated this momentous occasion with – wait for it – a can of Budweiser (downed it in one, the nutter)! Dr Morton almost had a coronary; was actually quoted as saying that ‘Jason Broad should take out a restraining order
on himself
’ (and if his current three-year prison sentence was anything to go by, then he’d pretty much followed the doctor’s orders to the letter).

The whole family were delinquent (it was totally genetic): the dad, a child-fancier, the mother a basket case, the brothers all hoodlums, the sisters, sluts. The uncle was a trickster and the cousins, simpletons (although – so far as anyone knew – there was nothing concrete on the aunt).

Perhaps sensing herself the focal-point of somebody’s attentions, Kelly suddenly glanced up –

Ah
…

Patrick?

Is that his name?

She nodded and smiled politely. He smiled back –

Christ she wants me

– then turned and muttered something to the nurse on duty. The nurse sniggered, peering over. Kelly’s mouth tightened. She looked down, her cheeks flushing.

The second (and rather more hands-on) porter had delivered Beede a message just as soon as he’d arrived at work: less a polite invitation to pop up and see Kelly, than a haughty – if carefully phrased – injunction (in the idiom of The Whips, this was definitely a Three Liner).

Even so, he didn’t head up there immediately. He changed into his spotless white uniform, tinkered away at a faulty dryer, put on four wash-loads in quick succession, then took the service lift from his musty but well-ordered Basement Empire to the exotic, chaotic heights of Casualty (delivering a batch of clean towels to Paediatrics on the way).

As he strolled along the corridor, he observed (with some amusement) that Kelly had her nose buried in an article about a charitable Aids Trust in Southern Africa (whatever next?
Principia Philosophia
?).

‘Better sort yourself out, first,’ he volunteered dryly, ‘before you apply, eh?’

She started, guiltily, at the unexpected sound of his voice, then her chin jerked up defiantly. ‘Ha
ha.
’ She slapped the magazine down, scowling.

‘I believe you left your two dogs at the flat,’ he continued (completely undaunted by his frosty reception). ‘They’re currently standing guard in the hallway. One of them mauled Kane’s house guest.’

‘S
crew
the blasted dogs,’ she whispered crossly. ‘Why ain’t you returned my calls? Why’ve you been avoidin’ me?’

Beede’s brows rose slightly, but before he could open his mouth to answer she’d already charged on, ‘An’
that
was your big mistake, see? I ain’t no fool. You’ve been avoidin’ me ‘cos’ you
feel
bad, an’ you feel bad…’ she poked a skinny index finger into his chest, ‘because
you
stole those drugs from Kane and then sold
me
up the bloody Mersey. I’ve been thinkin’ about it a lot – for
days
, in fact – and nothin’ else adds up.’

Beede’s expression did not change.

‘So you fractured your leg?’ he asked, at normal volume.

Kelly was briefly put off her stride by his refusal to engage with her. She
admired
Beede, after all. She didn’t understand him –

Of course not

– but she respected him. She saw him as a being of an entirely different order –

Celestial/monkish

– a fraction cold, perhaps, but noble, defiant, honourable. One-dimensional –

Certainly

– a little
boring
, maybe. But entirely trustworthy. Above reproach – or so she’d thought – like the Good King in a fairy story.

‘I fell off your stupid
wall
,’ she grumbled.

‘Why?’

‘I was waitin’ for ya. To have it out.’

‘But why did you fall?’ he persisted.

‘I had a row.’

He didn’t seem surprised by this. ‘With whom?’

Kelly pushed her shoulders back, dramatically. ‘That coloured bitch who killed Paul.’

‘Ah,’ Beede quickly put two and two together. ‘That would be Winifred.’

She nodded (not a little deflated by his emotionless response).

‘Anyway,’ Beede spoke very gently (as if dealing with an Alzheimer’s patient who’d been discovered trying to buy a cup of tea in the staff canteen with a tampon), ‘he
isn’t
dead, is he?’

‘Stop tryin’ to wriggle off the damn hook,’ she growled.

‘I wasn’t ever
on
it, Kelly,’ Beede said gravely (but there was an edge of steel in his voice). ‘And Paul
isn’t
dead. He’s very much alive.’ ‘He’s a fuckin’
vegetable
,’ Kelly bleated. ‘An’
she
did that. Said as much herself. It was
her
who got him started: took him under her wing when he was feelin’ low, got him into dope an’ sniff an’ all that other shit. Then, once he was hooked, once he was well and truly
screwed
, kicked up her posh, little heels an’ cheerfully buggered off.’

‘If it makes you feel better to apportion blame…’ Beede murmured, imperturbably.

‘Private bloody
school
, a new bloody
life.
Fine for
her…
’ Kelly
continued, then she paused, as if only just registering his interjection. ‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘It bloody
does…
’ (Beede smiled. He was familiar with Kelly’s conversational stock-car racing – the dramatic zoom past, the sudden handbrake turn, the skid, the spin.)

‘…though I ain’t sure what you
mean
by that, exactly,’ she finished off, scowling.

‘If it makes you feel better to focus all your understandable
rancour
on somebody else – somebody who is, to all intents and purposes, quite extraneous to the situation – then that’s perfectly understandable…’ Beede said benignly. ‘In fact it’s utterly human.’

Kelly was quiet for a while, then, ‘You’re head-fucking me,’ she announced.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘You
are.
’

‘I merely stated a simple truth about your brother.’

‘No,’ she paused. ‘
No.
I’m wise to your tricks, see? On the surface you’re pretendin’ to be all sweet and kind and
charmin
’ about it – like butter wouldn’t melt – but underneath, what you’re
really
sayin’ – what you’re really
thinkin’
– is that
I’m
somehow to blame for what’s happened to him…’

‘Not that you
are
,’ Beede mildly demurred, ‘but that perhaps – at some level – you
believe
you might be.’

Kelly gasped (her hand flew to her chest). ‘You think I scragged my own
brother
?!’

‘Now you’re just being hysterical,’ Beede snapped, barely managing to compose his features in time to nod, politely, at a passing Staff Matron.

‘Fuck
off
I am!’

‘Good.
Fine.
Whatever you say, Kelly.’

She stared up at him, in wonderment, the scales apparently fallen. ‘Oh. My. God. You are
evil.
’

‘I’d better get back,’ Beede smiled, crisply (no point in a denial). ‘It may’ve escaped your attention, but I’m actually meant to be employed by this hospital.’

‘Yeah. That’d be right.
Off
you go, Grandad…’ Kelly waved him away, airily. ‘Back to work. Back to the
grindstone
, eh? Back to cleanin’ your
dirty,
bloody laundry…’

Her voice oozed ill-will.

Beede didn’t respond, initially, he just cocked his head and gazed
at her, blankly, as if inexplicably baffled by the words she’d just uttered. Kelly shifted, uneasily, under his vigorous scrutiny.

Then – quite out of the blue – he smiled. He
beamed.
‘Have I got this all wrong…?’ he asked (suddenly the very essence of genial avuncularity). ‘Or were you actually experimenting with a clever piece of
word
-play there?’

Before she could muster up an answer (she’d half-opened her mouth, in preparation, but had yet to rally her considerable intellectual forces – she was still in shock from the fall, after all), he’d patted her, encouragingly, on her bony shoulder.

‘Because if you were, I’m
very
impressed, dear. Well done.
Bravo!
’

Kelly’s eyes bulged at this near-perfect kiss-off.

‘And by the way…’ Beede continued, benevolently, ‘if you were hoping for a visit from your
mother
any time soon…’ (Her mouth quickly snapped shut again. Oh
God.
The very
thought
almost calcified her entire bone-structure) –’…then you’ll be delighted to know,’ he purred soothingly, ‘that she’s here.’

The cat had found sanctuary in its basket. Only a piercing pair of china-blue eyes were now visible, peeking out at him, anxiously, from the creaking confines of its smart, wicker corral. Kane blew an idle raspberry at it, and the cat hunched down even lower, emitting a strangely haunting, dog-like yowl.

He glanced around him. It’d been a long while since he’d ventured inside Beede’s bedroom, but during this considerable interim, a dramatic transformation – a
revolution
– had taken place.

Where previously Beede had been the master of decorative understatement (books, reading lamp, bed, eiderdown, matching Victorian dark-wood cupboard and chest of drawers) now the place was like some kind of Aladdin’s cave: a veritable bring-and-buy sale of disparate objects, for the most part stacked up in crates (which now covered – floor to ceiling – three of the four walls).

The crates had been turned on to their sides, so that the items within were individually showcased; almost as if inhabiting their own miniature plywood theatres. Kane remembered staging theatrical endeavours of this kind himself, as a boy, in cardboard boxes; with badly painted back-drops, a batch of plastic animals and his Action Man – but –

Hey
…

– surely Beede was taking things a little
far
here…?

Even the cat’s basket had been placed inside a crate. And each crate – Kane scowled as he bent down to inspect one – was tagged with a crisp, white label containing a date, a description of the item – eg:

13.08.2002

Three coffee mugs c. 1997

One bears the inscription: The world’s best fisherman

Cup three has slight chip on lip

– as well as a digital image of the item/s in question neatly affixed underneath.

Kane found himself staring at the photograph of the mugs for some minutes –

Has Beede completely lost his marbles?

Or is it me?

Is it the weed?

Has my fantasy/fact facility become utterly jumbled?

He was finally stirred from his reverie by a hoarse cough from the cat –

Hairball?

He moved over to inspect its crate (squatted down to read the label):

22.12.2002

Blue-point Siamese

‘Chairman Miaow’, aka ‘Manny’

Three years old

Neutered male

He stared at its photograph, then directly at the animal –

Hmmn.

A good likeness.

The cat returned his stare, unblinking.

Kane’s mind suddenly turned to the chiropodist –

Ella?

No

Ellen?

He thought about her hands and her long, plain, brown hair –

Uh
…

Then he focussed in on his foot. A small verruca, hidden underneath the arch (which he’d possessed – almost without noticing – for seven years? Eight?) had actually been niggling him for several weeks now (new trainers – he reasoned – with slightly higher insoles. A different distribution of pressure, of body weight…That’d set it off. Those tiny, jabbing sensations. Those sharp bouts of ferocious itching –

Urgh
).

He flexed his toes and stood up. His phone vibrated inside his pocket. He took it out and inspected it, stepping back. As he stepped, he kicked into a tray of damp cat litter. The grey granules peppered the surrounding carpet.

‘
Shit
,’ he looked down, scowling, lifting his feet, gingerly.

Now what?

He shoved his phone away, squatted down and scooped a few of the granules on to his hand, wincing, fastidiously, as he dropped them back into the tray again. As they fell he noticed that the base of the tray had been lined with –

Not newspaper, but…

– a letter…Handwritten. He tipped the tray up slightly to enable him to read it more easily. At the top of the page was the heading: Ryan Monkeith Road Crossing Initiative.

Ryan Monkeith? The name rang a bell, for some reason. He frowned for a moment, struggling to remember…

Ah…Yes!

But of course!

Ryan Monkeith – son of Laura – Laura with the dodgy tranquilliser habit – Blonde Laura – Scatty Laura…

It’d been all over the local news the previous year –

But Laura never…

– after he’d been killed crossing a road close to one of the new developments – a pedestrian blackspot…

The A292?

The Hythe Road?

The A251?

They were trying to build a bridge or install a crossing or something –

Weren’t they?

In his honour?

– to be funded by his grandad or uncle or godfather. Some powerful local contractor…

Kane inspected the letter. It was the second page.

‘…people like yourself,’ it said, in a feminine hand, ‘with your background in local politics, fundraising skills and the confidence of the local community…’