Darkmans (36 page)

‘Life invariably gets more complicated,’ Beede promptly informed her, ‘if your needs grow too particular.’

‘I know,’ she nodded, ‘and they hire
Moguls
, too. It’s store policy. I mean don’t get me
wrong
…’

‘I think you’ll probably find,’ Beede interrupted her, with a small smile,
‘that the word you’re searching for here is “Mongol”. Although – strictly speaking – a Mongol is someone from Mongolia, which is a country in the remote, mountainous regions of the USSR…’

She gazed at him, blankly.

‘The real
irony
is that you’re not as far off-track as you might suppose,’ he continued, ‘because a Mogul – used in its original form – was actually a person of the Mongolian
race
– for example the Mongolian conquerors of India became known as “Moguls” because of their extraordinary wealth and power…’

Laura opened her mouth and then closed it again.

‘I believe the word Mogul,’ he doggedly persisted, ‘is originally derived from the Persian,
Mughul…
’

‘Can I just
say
,’ she took a small step closer (rapidly putting their linguistic differences behind her), ‘while I have this little opportunity, that I was sorry not to seem more
positive
when Pat mentioned your appointment to the Road Crossing Committee yesterday. The trouble is that Charlie isn’t very
keen
on the whole thing, but Pat’s got this bee in her bonnet…’

Now it was Beede’s turn to stare at her, blankly.

‘I mean it’s not that he doesn’t
like
the idea – he does – it’s just the way he sees it, it doesn’t really matter
how
many road crossings we build, or
where
they are, because they’ll never bring Ryan back. And when Pat keeps harping on about it, it just makes him feel…’

‘Beede!’

It was Gaffar (red-cheeked, slightly out of breath, wearing Kane’s Dennis the Menace scarf). Beede turned, frowning, ‘
Uh…
Oh.
Gaffar…
’ he blinked.

‘Hello, Laura…’ Gaffar grabbed Laura’s hand and squeezed it, smiling, then he turned to Beede.
‘What’s up, old man? You look all cross, all red, all stiff…’

Laura snatched her hand back. ‘
Gaffar.
What on earth are you doing here?’

‘Huh?’

‘Do you two know each other?’ Beede asked, clutching at his shoulder. Laura turned to Beede, startled. ‘No. Not at all.’

She glanced around her, slightly panicked. The kid was returning, pushing a long, silver worm of trolleys ahead of him. ‘There’s my trolley…’

She moved forward. ‘That’s
fantastic.
Well
done…uh…
’ she squinted at his name tag, ‘well done,
Brian.
’ She unlatched her trolley from the front.

‘Oh…’ She frowned, inspecting it, ‘…but there’s no…’ she pointed, ‘
you
know…the little metal thingy with the…’ she paused for a moment, uneasily, weighing up her priorities ‘…Although…Forget it. It doesn’t…I mean really
must…
’

She waved blithely at the assembled company and charged off.

Pause

‘So that went
very
well, I think,’ Beede deadpanned.

‘She’s trapped in this suffocating marriage,’
Gaffar sighed, gazing poignantly after her.
‘Separate bedrooms. Her son died last year. She blames herself for the whole thing because she was having an affair. Her husband’s an insensitive pig who has no understanding of her needs. He’s obsessed by this five-year-old
African macaw
which he got from an Exotic Bird Rescue Centre in
Canterbury.
He’s taught it all the catchphrases from
Top Gear.
Sleeps with it. Takes it to work. Rings it – whenever he goes out – and leaves these idiotic messages on the answerphone…’

‘Laura
Monkeith
?’ Beede asked.

‘Always wants a bloody trolley with a
clip
-board,’ Brian interjected.

‘But I’ve seen her here loads and she never has no bloody
list
to pin on it.’

‘
Yes…
’ Beede frowned and checked his watch. It was late.
He
was late. ‘…Although I suppose your function in fetching the trolley for her,’ he mused (almost to himself), ‘is principally a
palliative
one.’

Brian stared at him, doubtfully.

‘In other words,’ Beede expanded, ‘not only are you providing an essential service here, but you’re also – at a more general level – caring for the very particular
emotional
needs of the community…’

As he was speaking, an especially large, high branch came crashing down on to the tarmac, followed by a loud, almost Bacchanalian roar from the small team of contractors.

‘…Which is precisely
why
,’ Beede concluded, with an angry flourish (not really even convincing himself with this tenuous piece of logic), ‘if only for
your
sake, Brian, they should leave those
blasted
trees alone.’

Kane dialled the number. It rang for what seemed like an age, and then, just as he was finally abandoning all hope –

‘Hello?’

A woman answered. An older woman, with a pleasantly mischievous voice. An engagingly
English
voice. A voice of the linnet and the sparrow. A voice of the bramble and the hedgerow.

‘Hi,’ Kane responded, ‘is this the right number for Peter?’

‘Why?’ she asked, curtly. ‘Who wants to know?’

‘I just need quick word with him,’ Kane said. ‘Is he around?’

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘A friend,’ he said, ‘well – a friend of a friend.’

‘Stuff and nonsense,’ she said, ‘Peter doesn’t
have
any friends.’

‘Oh.’

Kane was taken aback.

‘He’s utterly
friendless
,’ she said, with evident delight.

Pause

‘Well how
dreadful
for him,’ Kane drawled, finally catching up.

‘Isn’t it, though?’

‘And how about you?’ Kane wondered.

‘How about me?’

‘Aren’t
you
his friend?’

‘Good
God
, no.’

‘His wife?’ Kane guessed.

‘Peter?
Married?!
Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘His secretary, then?’

‘Absolutely not,’ she hotly denied in one breath, ‘but in the
loosest
possible sense,
yes
,’ she confirmed – somewhat quixotically – with the next.

‘His mistress?’

‘We do share a bed…’ she mused, ‘and blankets and pillows, if
that
counts for anything…’ she paused, ‘although the most
genuine
description of my overall role here would probably be…’ she paused again, ‘…that of
maid.
’

‘“A man needs a maid.”’

Kane automatically quoted Neil Young.

‘“Just someone to keep his house clean, fix his meals and go away,”’ she quoted back.

‘Marry me!’ Kane exclaimed.

‘So who exactly,’ she staunchly ignored his flirting, ‘
is
this deluded friend of yours?’

Kane quickly grabbed a hold of the business card and flipped it over. ‘J.P.,’ he said.

‘J.P.?’

‘Yes. Peter worked with him on…’ Kane inspected the card again ‘…on Longport, for the Weald and Downland…’

‘Are you in a car right now?’ she interrupted him. ‘Are you driving?’

Kane was speeding up Silver Hill on his way home from visiting a client in the outer reaches of St Michaels.

‘No. Not
driving
as such,’ he lied, ‘I’m just idling at a light, actually.’

‘
Ssssh
for a second,’ she hushed him.

He was quiet.

‘You’re driving a Mercedes,
C
220,’ she said, ‘and you’re a liar. You’re speeding up Silver Hill in completely the wrong gear.’ Kane double-blinked. He glanced into his rearview mirror and flipped down his indicator.

‘Bear with me for one second,’ he said, braking, changing gear and promptly pulling his car off the road.

‘So how the
hell
’d you figure that out?’ he demanded, brutally yanking his handbrake up.

‘
Urgh.
Sticky handbrake,’ she said. ‘It’s that particular model, I’m sure of it. I had one myself but I wrote it off – three-car pile-up, on my way home from a house sale in Cheam. It had the sticky handbrake and this tiny, maddening little
knock
when I drove uphill in fourth.’

Kane frowned. ‘Were you hurt?’

‘Excuse me?’ she sounded briefly distracted. Her voice was a little further away from the receiver than before.

‘When you wrote it off. Were you hurt?’

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ she said, drawing closer again, ‘it was a bloody
Merc.
’

‘Good point,’ he said.

‘What colour’s yours?’

‘She’s a blonde.’

‘Mine too! Although mine was a mink. I called her The Mink…’

She sighed, ‘I do miss her dreadfully.’

‘So what do you drive now?’

‘A customised Lada.’

‘What?’

‘And a van. I have a small van…’

‘A
Lada
?’

‘Yes. A Lada. Why? Do you have a problem with that?’

‘It’s just an odd…an unusual…uh…
progresssion.
In terms of style.’

‘Not at all. Where’s your imagination? It’s an absolute
gem.
I had it shipped over from Jamaica.’

‘Jamaica? A
Lada
? Are you serious?’

‘Of course I am,’ she sounded vaguely insulted, ‘they import them to use as taxis over there. They love them. Give a Lada a spray job, darken the windows, and
hey-presto:
you’re transformed into some seedy, low-ranking apparatchik in a fabulous, Eastern Bloc spy drama.’

‘Wonderful,’ Kane said, flatly.

‘It
is
,’ she insisted.

‘And you shipped it over from Jamaica?’

‘Yes. Although they actually customise them in Hackney so it was a ridiculous way to go about things. But it felt right. It felt good. The car has a certain…
swagger
which you simply couldn’t get any other way. A certain, indefinable
je ne sais quoi.
But enough of my Lada,’ she said, ‘when exactly did you speak to J.P. about Peter?’

‘Yesterday,’ Kane lied.

‘Yesterday?’

She sounded surprised.

‘So how’d you go about guessing I was on Silver Hill?’ he tried to distract her.

‘Pure conjecture.’

‘Seriously?’

‘No. Pure deduction, Watson. The engine was knocking – so I reasoned
that you were on a hill. Your phone reception is good, so I reasoned that you were nearby. I heard a fire engine siren sounding – in fact I can still hear it. I’m very familiar with the sirens from that particular station. We only live just around the corner…’

‘You and Peter,’ Kane said.

‘We two,’ she sighed.

A short silence followed in which Kane could’ve sworn he heard the distant pumping of a pair of old bellows.

‘Is that a cigar?’

He took a wild guess.

‘Yup. Just went out,’ she said. ‘Clever little
you.
’

Kane smirked.

‘So how’s J.P. bearing up?’ she wondered.

He heard a match being struck.

‘Pardon?’

She inhaled.

‘J.P.’s health?’

‘Uh…It’s good. Pretty good. Fairly good. I mean…’ Kane carefully hedged his bets, ‘under the circumstances…’

‘Yes…’ as she spoke he could hear her pulling a tiny fleck of loose tobacco from her lip, ‘although the “circumstances” – as you so aptly put it – aren’t really what you might call
conducive
to good health, are they?’

‘Uh…no,’ Kane said.

‘Quite the
opposite
, in fact.’

Kane cleared his throat. He sensed a problem. He grimaced. He took the bull by the horns.

‘Am I missing something?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’ She sounded perfectly cheerful. ‘What you are missing is the small but necessary detail of J.P.’s tragic demise.’

‘Oh.’

‘J.P.’s dead.
Ka-put.
He died late last year.’

‘God.’

‘Bowel cancer,’ she added, just for good measure.

‘I see…’ Kane bit his lip. ‘Right. So now I guess – from where you’re standing – I must be looking a little…
uh…
?’

‘Stupid? Yes.’ She paused. ‘And I’m
sitting
, actually. Or perching. On the edge of a counter.’

‘Did you know J.P. well?’

‘Well?’

Kane winced. ‘I mean were you close?’

‘Close?
Hmmn.
I don’t know. Certainly not as close as you and he appear to be.’

‘Okay,’ he drew a deep breath. ‘Just tell me straight…’

‘J.P. was my brother.’

‘
Shit.
’ Kane was mortified. ‘
Seriously?
’

‘Yes,
seriously.
It was all very serious. J.P. was very serious. His illness was very serious. His death was very serious. Death – in general – I find, can be like that…’

‘I’m a dick,’ Kane said.

‘Truly,’ she chuckled, ‘I can’t
wait
to tell Peter this story. Peter will think this all
terribly
droll.’

‘Droll,’ Kane parroted. ‘That’s one way of looking at it.’

As he spoke Kane heard what he presumed to be a small alarm of some kind sounding in the background.

‘I’m all out of time,’ she said, ‘so let’s cut to the chase, shall we?

What’s the real reason for your call?’

‘I found Peter’s number in an old book.’

‘What?’
she scoffed. ‘Scribbled into the margins of some dusty tome?’

‘No. On a
card
inside a book. A business card. And I was just interested…’

‘Which book?’ she scoffed. ‘
The Reader’s Digest Compendium of Tall Stories
?’

‘A history book,’ Kane scowled, humiliated. ‘I don’t remember the title. A book about the criminal underclass of the sixteenth century…’

‘Whose book?’

‘My book.’

‘
Whose
book?’

There was no escaping it.

‘The book originally belonged to Daniel Beede.’

‘No it didn’t,’ she demurred, ‘the book originally belonged to me. It’s that fabulous Penguin anthology edited by Gamini Salgado. I actually lent it to him.’

Silence

‘Which I suppose would make
you…
’ she cheerfully continued, ‘his charming yet horribly degenerate son, Kane.’

‘Yes. I suppose it would.’

‘In truth I’d already guessed,’ she confessed, ‘I was just playing you along. I was on to you from the start. You have identical voices. Not the accent, obviously, because his is so beautiful and yours is quite appalling, but the timbre, the
tone.
’

‘I’ll have to take your word on that,’ he said, hurt.

‘Before I go,’ she said, brusquely, ‘because I really
must…
Have you considered selling your car?’

‘Pardon?’

‘The Blonde. Might you sell?’

He gave this a moment’s consideration. ‘Well it wasn’t the
foremost
thought in my mind when I rang you…’

Then he paused and quickly reassessed, ‘How much for?’

‘Whatever you want. Whatever it takes. Just ask Beede – I’m old and rich and
incredibly
spoiled.’

‘But what about the Lada?’ he wondered. ‘I thought the Lada had a certain…uh…
swagger…
’

‘We’ll do a deal,’ she sounded delighted by the idea, ‘we’ll do a Part Exchange.’

‘I’d need to
see
her first, obviously…’

‘She’s a he. I call him The Commissar.’

‘I’ll have to see
him
, then.’

‘Fine. Come on over.’

Kane turned the key in his ignition. The Blonde coughed then started to hum.

‘So how’d I reach you?’ he asked.

‘Reach me?’ he could almost hear her smirking. ‘But you already
reached
me, dear,’ she said.

Gaffar was – much to Beede’s intense exasperation – every inch ‘the showman’ on the fruit aisle (all he lacked was a spot-light, a costume and a drumroll): he serenaded the bananas; he juggled
the apples; he plucked a black grape from a large bunch, balanced it on his chin, then flipped it up into his mouth and swallowed it, whole.

His jaunty mood was sustained – quite convincingly – as they journeyed through the vegetables: he was perky by the broccoli, tranquil by the onions, sanguine by the potatoes…

The first clue that anything was even
remotely
amiss manifested itself as they drew abreast of the avocados (a certain stiffness of gait, a sudden quietness). By the time they’d reached the tomatoes (a distance of 2 feet on, at best) his good mood had taken a serious nose-dive (nervous yawning, uncontrolled scratching, a thin line of sweat on his upper lip).

At the beetroots –
‘God have mercy!’
– he seemed merely a shadow of his former, extrovert self: his complexion looked pallid, waxy, almost
ashen
; his lips were moist and quivering; his eyes started slightly from their sockets as they ransacked the shelves…

But the radishes, it seemed, were to be the final straw.

‘No.’

He ground to a shuddering halt in front of them, gesticulating weakly.

‘Is
enough.
’

He passed Beede the shopping list and the basket. Beede handed him back his knapsack and his helmet.

‘Okay,’ Beede sighed, ‘let’s just get this over with, shall we?’ And off he went.

He followed the list as best he could –

Cucumber, spring onions, celery…

– but there was some confusion around the issue of the
type
of mixed salad required, so he grabbed both – the bag and the sealed plastic bowl – and went off in search of confirmation.

Gaffar, meanwhile, was idling dreamily in the cheese aisle, quietly weighing up the distinct culinary virtues of Gorgonzola, Feta and minted Halloumi.

Beede strolled up behind him. ‘So which is preferable?’ he asked. ‘The unenvironmental plastic tub or the horrendously overpriced shredded stuff in the bag?’

Gaffar turned, saw the tub held cruelly aloft, and promptly swooned.

He turned right at the public phone box and into Ox Lane (just as she’d instructed), then right again down Barnfield. ‘There’s a line of normal-looking houses,’ she’d said, ‘intersected by a small, dirt track. Take the track. And do watch out for the geese…’

‘I’ll drive carefully,’ he assured her.

‘No. I mean
you
watch out,’ she explained. ‘They’re savages. Just sound your horn as you pull up, then sit tight. I can’t come out myself – I’m right in the middle of something – so I’ll send a dog to guide you.
Two
dogs. I’ll send Koto and Pinch. Do exactly as they ask and you should be just fine…’

Should?!

She wasn’t exaggerating. The geese (white-feathered, blue-eyed, mud-splattered, brightly beaked – beautiful geese, he supposed – if he’d been in a mind to consider a goose beautiful –

Am I in that mind?

– he gazed at them, quizzically –

Uh…No.
)

– were strident, vicious and hysterical. There were about thirty of them, in total, and as soon as he applied his brakes they surrounded the car like a gang of little hooligans; battering at the paintwork, jabbing at the metal trim, honking cacophonously.