Darkmans (31 page)

‘What?’ Kane scowled –

Pedestrian?!

‘Pedestrian,’ she repeated.

‘Just like my father, you mean?’

He battled to swallow down his fury.

‘Good
God
, no,’ Winifred exclaimed, ‘not like Beede at all. The way I see it, we were completely wrong about Beede. Beede’s great value. He’s a maverick – a total hotspur. In fact I’ve become quite
enamoured
by Beede of late,’ she half-joked. ‘He’s definitely an acquired taste.’

Kane rolled his eyes underneath his fringe.

‘Stop rolling your eyes,’ she said, ‘underneath your fringe.’

He stiffened.

‘You know,’ she continued, her voice sweetening up, ‘the more I actually stop and
think
about it…’

His eyes tightened. An alarm bell started to chime. He remembered her using that phrase in the past: ‘The more I actually stop and
think
about it…’

Winifred stopping and actually
thinking
was never entirely a good thing. Winifred stopping and thinking often precipitated a sudden, wild leap into…into…

Where
, exactly?

The wilderness?

The darkness?

The frying-pan?

The
shit
?

‘Perhaps we should let this one go,’ he said, warily. ‘I
am
drunk. Vodka. You were right. And I’m feeling a little…
uh…
’ ‘But just when things were getting
interesting
,’ she purred.

‘I’ve gotta go,’ he said, ‘I need a pee. Someone’s just…someone’s banging on the door. Can you hear that?’

He held up the phone. There
was
banging.

‘Okay,’ she conceded.

‘I loved the book, by the way.’

‘Thanks.’

‘It was great. Well done. You did good, Win.’

‘I did
good
,’ she echoed, mockingly, as he mumbled his hasty farewells.

They met on Kingsnorth Road, just along from the Post Office. It was shortly after ten. Beede was perched astride his Douglas, adjacent to the phone booth, his jaw set – and his arms firmly folded – against the cold east wind. He’d been waiting for approximately fifteen minutes.

Dory unwound the window of his Rover saloon as he drew up alongside him. ‘You really should get a mobile,’ he barked, ‘that whole, “I’m in a phone-booth but I’ve only got twenty pence” routine could certainly grow a little thin…’

‘How’re your timings?’ Beede asked (ignoring Dory’s carping), hopping off his bike and leaning down towards him, his breath finely condensing. ‘D’you want to head off somewhere?’

‘I’ve only got ten minutes,’ Dory said, glancing irritably towards the clock on his dash. ‘Work’s crazy right now.’

‘That’s plenty,’ Beede shrugged, ‘I only wanted to check up…’ he faltered, ‘I mean
catch
up…’

He turned, masking his slight embarrassment by pretending to make doubly sure that his bike was firmly positioned on its stand.

Dory didn’t seem to register Beede’s linguistic glitch. He merely nodded, abruptly, wound his window back up again, flipped on his indicator, pulled slowly forward and parked. Once the vehicle was stationary, Beede walked around to the passenger side, opened the door and clambered in.

‘I’ll switch the heating to max,’ Dory muttered, leaning forward. ‘You must be freezing.’

‘It’s certainly a little…
uh…
’ Beede slammed the door shut and removed his gloves, ‘
nippy.
’

Dory adjusted the heating and then turned off his lights to preserve the battery. They sat quietly together for a few moments in the gentle gloom.

‘I actually took the liberty,’ Dory suddenly reached down into his
side-pocket and lifted out a large, sealed carton, ‘of getting you a coffee. A
latte.
’

‘Thanks,’ Beede carefully took it from him (his voice a little surprised, his fingers still leaden), ‘that’s much appreciated.’

Dory shrugged. ‘I know how much you loathe these disposable things, but I was getting one for myself…’

‘No,’ Beede insisted, slowly easing off the carton’s lid and then appreciatively inhaling the coffee’s milky aroma, ‘this is great. Just what the doctor ordered. My circulation’s gone haywire. It’s pretty damn cold out there.’

As he inhaled, the steam from the carton promptly condensed on to the lenses of his glasses.

‘No sugar,’ Dory said.

‘Spot on.’

Dory reached down and withdrew a second cup. ‘I’m still on my herbal tea regime,’ he said, ‘you know, trying to cut down on my caffeine intake…’

‘I admire your self-control,’ Beede peered at him, amiably, through the blur. ‘In truth, I should probably be doing the same…’

He took a quick sip of his coffee. It was extraordinarily hot and extremely sweet. There were – at the very least – four sachets of sugar in it. On swallowing, his brows automatically arched and his glasses – correspondingly – shifted down his nose a way.

‘Well that’s…’ he swallowed for a second time to try and flush some of the excess sweetness from his tongue, ‘that’s
definitely
hitting the spot.’

Dory nodded, apparently satisfied.

‘So how’d it all pan out?’ Beede wondered (maintaining a consistent – almost
unerring
– brightness of tone). ‘With the police, I mean?’

Dory opened his mouth to answer, but before he could actually speak Beede entered a hurried plea on his own behalf. ‘I’ve been ridiculously over-worked myself – flat-out in the laundry – or I would’ve rung sooner, obviously…’

‘Obviously,’ Dory echoed, peeling off the lid from his carton of tea.

The car rapidly filled with the rich scent of chocolate.

‘
Damn.
’

Dory stared into the cup. ‘They’ve given me the wrong order. They’ve given me chocolate…’

Beede said nothing, just glanced at him, sideways (in his extensive
experience of Dory – of
life
, in general – he’d discovered that what you might call ‘true’ mistakes were surprisingly few and far between).

‘Is your coffee as it should be?’ Dory asked.

‘Absolutely,’ he lied.

‘
Damn!
’ Dory repeated, staring into his cup. He took a sip and grimaced.

‘It didn’t pan out well…’ he slung the lid on to the dashboard, reverting – with a scowl – to their former subject, ‘unfortunately I’d left my phone in the car, remember?’

Beede shook his head, not quite following. His eyes wandered to Dory’s lid on the dash, then beyond it, to the air vents at the base of the windscreen. A small, black writing pad – a jotter – had been temporarily placed there (or had accidentally slipped down into that position), and its pages were gently rustling in the warm breeze from the fan.

‘My
phone
?’ Dory repeated.

Still, Beede didn’t catch on.

‘Well the
story
, if you recollect,’ Dory explained (his special emphasis on ‘story’ making his mixed feelings on the subject perfectly clear), ‘was that a gang of kids had stolen my car, but I’d been
phoned
by someone to tell me where they’d dumped it…’

‘Oh. Okay. But your phone…’

‘Exactly. Still in the car. Sitting bang in the middle of the front
seat
, to be precise.’

Beede’s shoulders tensed up. ‘You think they noticed?’

‘Well they’re
policemen
, Beede,’ Dory scoffed. ‘It’s just basic observation…’

‘You could’ve had
two
phones,’ Beede interjected. ‘Some people do, apparently.’

Isidore stared at him, cryptically. ‘In the same way that – just for the sake of
argument
, say – there could’ve been two horses?’

‘Pardon?’

Beede was now totally all at sea.

‘Forget it…’ Dory shrugged. ‘The bottom line was that they seemed to find the whole situation rather…uh…
perplexing.
No.
Improbable…
And then there were the
other
issues – the other
questions
– like whether I’d actually left my keys in the car – which I had – I mean, they were just dangling there, in the ignition…’

‘That’s not…’ Beede cleared his throat, uneasily, ‘that’s not sounding like a
great
scenario, certainly.’

‘I mean I work in security, and the police – as you already know – have this natural…’

He scowled, unable – temporarily – to latch on to the right word.

‘Antipathy?’ Beede cautiously filled in.

‘Precisely.’

Beede slowly pushed his glasses back up his nose again.

‘And as if
that
wasn’t quite enough to contend with,’ Dory continued (growing more querulous with every passing second), ‘they then wanted to know
who
it was exactly that had phoned to inform me…’

‘Well surely that’s the easy part…’ Beede shrugged, ‘
I
did.
Me.
’

‘Pardon?’

Dory frowned at him.

‘Wasn’t that the whole point of the thing? Of the alibi? I phoned you. I recognised your car as I was passing. Then I went off to catch the horse and you eventually joined me…’

‘Oh,’ Dory said, dully, ‘I see. Is that what we agreed?’

‘Yes…’ Beede paused, ‘at least…’

‘And is that what you told them?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘
Great.
’

Dory took a huge swig of his chocolate, and then swallowed, blinking furiously.

‘So what was your story, then?’ Beede wondered.

‘I told them that a work colleague had rung. I didn’t mention you. I wasn’t specific.’

‘Well I
am
a work colleague…’ Beede frowned ‘…In fact – now I come to think of it – I believe they may’ve actually
asked
if we worked together at some point…’

‘And you said…?’

‘I said “of course” – I mean we
do…
’

Dory nodded, frowning. ‘Anyhow,’ he took a third, slightly smaller, sip of his chocolate, ‘they said if they needed to talk again then they’d get back in touch over the next couple of days…’ he grimaced, ‘but as yet I’ve heard nothing, so I’m just quietly hoping…’

‘That it’ll simply go away?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Touch wood.’

Beede lifted his fist and glanced around him. The dashboard was inlaid with a wood veneer. He rapped at it, smartly.

‘That’s plastic,’ Dory muttered, curling his hands around his carton. He cleared his throat, then he cleared it again. ‘God. I can really
feel
this chocolate taking a hold – you know? The caffeine – the
sugar.
I’ve grown so unaccustomed to it.’

‘That’s probably just stress,’ Beede debunked.

‘Probably,’ Dory conceded, but then he deftly placed the lid back on to his cup and slipped it – with a small shudder – back into his side-pocket.

Silence

‘I received a letter from Pat Monkeith today,’ Beede tentatively introduced a new subject, ‘informing me that I’d been nominated – and by
you
of all people – as Chairman for the new committee…’

Dory wasn’t biting: ‘I’m…I don’t know…’ he suddenly slumped down in his seat, shaking his handsome head, miserably, ‘even after all these long years of trying to make good – of plastering over the cracks – of
white
washing and
bull
shitting – I still remain, quite simply, the world’s most terrible…most…most
clumsy
, most
lack
-witted, most
ineffectual
liar…’

Beede snorted. Or – more to the point – he
found
himself snorting (a loud, cynical,
disbelieving
kind of snort). Then he blinked, shocked.

Dory stared at him, hurt. ‘But I
am.
’

‘Well hopefully…’ Beede struggled to cover up his clumsy
faux-pas
‘…hopefully some kind of major fraud or…or
murder
will’ve taken place over the last couple of days which’ll completely snow them under and quietly enable you to just slip off their radar…’

He was joking. But not entirely.

‘A gang rape,’ Dory shrugged, ‘or an indecent assault. That’d be
dandy
, huh?’

He delivered Beede a reproachful glare. Beede’s eyes returned – inexorably – to the flapping journal.

Silence

‘I’m sorry,’ Dory muttered, finally, ‘I don’t mean to harp on about
it…I’m just…it’s just…I hate
living
like this, Beede. Lying. Taking risks. It’s exhausting. I’m simply not…not
equipped…
’

‘I know,’ Beede patted Dory’s arm, reassuringly, ‘who on earth would be?’

‘I find it physically draining.’

Beede nodded, vehemently.

‘And I feel this overwhelming…this…this
huge
burden of guilt. This awful
weight
…’ he pointed to the centre of his diaphragm ‘…right here. Crushing down on me…’

‘That’s just stupid,’ Beede interjected tersely, ‘and illogical.’

‘Pardon?’

‘It’s pointless to feel guilty about something you have no control over.’

‘Sure.
Sure.
I know what you’re saying – I mean I understand your
logic
, perfectly…’ Dory shook his head, ‘but it’s all just too
easy
, Beede. Don’t you see? Because at some level I
am
responsible – I
must
be. And I simply can’t allow myself to keep…’

‘It’s not a question of allowing…’ Beede interrupted again. ‘But it
is
!’ Dory smacked down both hands, hard, on to the steering wheel (perhaps merely intending to express his frustration, or to add a little extra emphasis to his conversation, but somehow conniving to knock into the Rover’s horn mechanism). The horn blasted, loudly.

Beede jumped back, alarmed. He almost spilled his coffee.

‘Sorry,’ Dory looked slightly rueful.

Silence

‘Has something else happened, Isidore?’ Beede murmured, on finally regaining his equilibrium. ‘Something I don’t know about? Something you haven’t told me?’

Dory tipped back his head, with a soft grunt, and gazed up at the ceiling. He lifted his hand and gently massaged his throat, almost as if trying to ease the words out of it. When he eventually spoke his voice was uncharacteristically husky. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it has.’

‘Would it help to talk about it?’

Dory lowered his chin and stared straight ahead of him. He drew a deep breath. ‘I took a paternity test,’ he told the dashboard, coldly, ‘for Fleet.’

‘Sorry?’

Beede didn’t know quite what he’d been expecting, but it certainly hadn’t been that. ‘You took…?’

Dory nodded.

‘But
why
?’

‘I don’t know. It was on a…a
whim.
It just…the idea just
came
to me. And I wish now – more than anything – that I hadn’t. That I didn’t. But I did.’

‘Have you had the result?’

‘Yes.’ Dory nodded.

Beede stared at him, leaning forward slightly, tensed.

‘And there’s something else,’ Dory continued, flatly, ‘something almost
worse
…’

‘Pardon?’

Beede still hadn’t quite got his head around the paternity issue.

‘It’s Elen. She has these…these awful…’ He winced.

‘What?’

‘Bruises,’ he muttered.

‘
Bruises?
Where?’

‘Her arm. Just above her wrist. There.’

Dory indicated the approximate area on his own arm.

‘I see.’

Beede was quiet for a while. ‘Did she happen to mention how she got them?’

Dory nodded. ‘She said she almost fell down some steps – at the McArthur Glen – but then someone put out a hand and grabbed her. Pulled her back. Quite roughly.’

‘Maybe it’s true…’ Beede didn’t sound confident, ‘I mean maybe they did.’

Dory slowly shook his head. ‘When I came home the other night and she was sleeping – she’d dozed off in front of the tv, waiting up for me – I quietly leaned over…’

He slowly re-enacted the movement – the lean – and as he did so an icy chill surrounded Beede’s heart.

‘I quietly leaned over,’ Dory repeated (still leaning, a strange and unsettling expression on his face – an almost
predatory
expression – but when he spoke, it was still with Dory’s familiar accent, Dory’s
familiar voice), ‘and I had a proper look. On closer inspection the fingerprints – the marks – corresponded – and I mean
exactly
– to the dimensions of my own hands.’