Darkmans (84 page)

There was a story about a pair of goose wings (John tied them – Icarus-like – to his shoulders, pretending he was going to launch himself from a high tower), and the story in which he bled his wife, by force (under the foot, arm and tongue) after she dared to criticise him to a neighbour. And finally, of course, there was the cruel story which Winnie had taken such interest in – where Scogin had set fire…

Kane was suddenly flashed by the van behind him –

Eh?

He glanced up. The long queue of traffic in front had recently inched forward while he’d been engrossed in his reading. Kane harrumphed, took off his handbrake, accelerated, and slowly made up the distance.

He returned to the document…Yeah – setting fire to the
barn.
John had been living in Oxford at the time, and his wife had complained to him about the pushy, local vagrants…

The van behind honked its horn. Kane started and peered up. The car directly in front of him (a new Volkswagen) had just crept forward by a total distance of approximately 3 measly feet. Kane wound down his window – with some effort (the car had manual winders) – stuck out his hand into the frosty, afternoon air and showed the bolshy driver his middle finger –

So fuck you, too
 –

Idiot.

The car honked its horn again.

Kane gritted his teeth. He slapped the steering wheel. He gazed into his rearview mirror, cursing under his breath. Then –

Screw it

– he caved. He lifted the handbrake and moved the car gently forward –

There!

Happy now?

The car flashed him –

Yeah. I should think so, too.

Kane glanced into his side-mirror, then back down at his reading matter –

The barn…

He began to read. He stopped reading. He closed his eyes –

Now just hang on one…

He opened his eyes and peered into his side-mirror –

Cigar

The driver of the van behind was smoking a cigar. And he was –

No, she…

Her

– she was holding it regally aloft, her dainty hand neatly encased in a soft, white glove.

Kane laughed to himself, wryly. He slowly shook his head. Then he jumped out of the car and strolled over to the van.

‘I have a train to catch, Kane,’ Peta informed him with a caustic look. ‘So if you could just bring yourself to actually
concentrate
…’

‘Are you leaving for good?’ he demanded.

‘For the better, I hope,’ she responded smartly.

‘Was it a sudden decision?’

‘I suppose all decisions are,’ she mused, ‘when you finally make them.’

He frowned at her.

‘So how are you warming to The Commissar?’ she wondered. ‘Pretty well,’ he conceded. ‘Although the handling…’

‘Urgh,
the handling,’ Peta interrupted him, scandalised, ‘quite
shocking,
isn’t it? So clunky and unyielding…’

‘Although I love the stickers on the back,’ Kane admitted, ‘the Jamaican flag was a master-stroke.’

‘I thought you might give the car to your friend,’ Peta told him. ‘Did you find the registration documents in the glove box?’

‘My friend?’

‘Yes. Your crazy friend. The friend who worships peacocks.’

‘Sorry?’ Kane frowned. ‘Do I actually have a friend like that?’

‘Yes. You know…the Kurd. The one who’s terrified of salad.’

‘Gaffar?’

‘That’s him. Gaffar. I thought you could give it to Gaffar. I thought it might quite suit him.’

‘Or perhaps I could give it to Beede,’ Kane volunteered.

‘Oh really?’ Peta didn’t seem especially taken by the idea. ‘But d’you think it’s entirely Beede’s
style?’

She raised a single, perfectly etched brow at him, then took a puff on her cigar.

‘I suppose he could always sell it,’ Kane suggested, ‘and use it to pay off some of the interest on his huge debt.’

Peta turned to look at him in mock-surprise. ‘Beede’s hugely in debt?’

‘Beede’s problem,’ Kane cordially informed her, ‘is that he’s developed this strange, little habit. It involves paying a professional forger to duplicate random objects…’

‘An artist,’ Peta interrupted.

‘What?’

‘He’s been paying an
artist,
not a forger.’

She paused for a moment. ‘Do you think it might be a good idea,’ she abruptly changed the subject, ‘to turn the engine off?’

‘Pardon?’

‘The Commissar…’ she pointed. ‘You appear to have left the engine running.’

Kane peered over at the car (his expression one of studied indifference). ‘So what happened to
your
friend?’ he wondered.

‘
My
friend?’

‘Yes. Your friend with the incomprehensible accent. The woman you claimed to have – now what was the word you used…?’ He deliberated for a moment. ‘Ah yes,
collected.’

‘You mean Ann?’

‘Was that her name?’

‘Still is,’ she said, tartly.

‘So how many other people do you have?’ Kane enquired.

‘Have? In what
sense?’

‘Well a collection can never be just
one,
can it?’

Peta merely smiled at this.

‘Did you collect Beede I wonder?’ Kane continued, silkily. ‘Did you collect
Dory,
perhaps?’

‘Did I collect
you?’
Peta asked, with a smirk. She offered him a puff on her cigar, but he refused.

‘So let me get this straight…’ Kane continued.

‘Don’t you just adore this song?’ Peta interrupted him. She reached into the van and turned up the volume on her scruffy, old cassette player. A cacophonous horn cut through the icy air around him.

Kane scowled. ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s
Bird,
you ignorant boy…’ she leaned in again and turned it up still louder. ‘Charlie Parker. “Steeplechase”. It’s based on the chords from “I Got Rhythm”. Miles is in the mix there too, somewhere…’

She tapped her cigar ash, rhythmically, on to the tarmac. ‘This was actually one of the first recordings Bird made after seven months in Camarillo Sanatorium. Before that he’d been living like a tramp, in a garage, subsisting on charity handouts. He’d developed schizophrenia…’ she shrugged. ‘Although the booze was his real problem…’

She took another puff on her cigar, then coughed and tapped at her chest, impatiently.

‘When he finally came out,’ she continued, her eyes watering slightly, ‘he got a regular gig at the Hi De Ho Club, and apparently, each night, before he’d even blow a note, he’d sink eight double whiskies, back-to-back.’

She leaned in and adjusted the volume again.

‘Miles left shortly after they recorded this session. They say Charlie never got over it. Miles was like his adopted son…’

They both listened to the music for a while, in silence.

‘Anyhow,’ Peta frowned (changing the subject, on a whim), ‘it was all totally above board. There was nothing remotely dubious in it.’

‘Sorry?’

Kane was still thinking about Miles and Charlie.

‘The work I did for Beede. I charged him, per hour, at my standard
rate. If he’d been anyone else I’d’ve charged him double – the work itself was soul-destroying; stupid, pointless,
incredibly
tedious…’

‘Did you ever think to ask why?’ Kane asked.

‘Why what?’

‘Why he wanted you to duplicate those objects?’

‘Of course not,’ she snapped, ‘I already
told
you, it isn’t my place to ask questions like that. It wouldn’t be polite.’

‘Polite?’
Kane snorted. ‘Maybe you just didn’t bother asking because you didn’t actually need to. You’d hired a detective. You already knew…’

‘Oh really?’ Peta delivered him a droll look. ‘And what did I
know,
exactly?’

‘That it was all part of some kind of crazy vendetta against Tom Higson.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Higson was behind the theft of those tiles from the old mill, and to pay him back Beede resolved to duplicate his life. To turn everything he touched – everything he cared about – into a lie…’

‘But it wasn’t just a straightforward duplication,’ Peta expanded, helpfully, ‘I was instructed to build a tiny fault into each piece. Something to help generate this indefinable sense of unease…’

‘Did he say that was why?’

Kane was shocked.

‘He didn’t need to. It was obvious.’

‘Okay,’ Kane scowled, ‘so here’s the part I don’t get…’

He reached out and took Peta’s cigar from her, then inhaled on it, deeply. ‘What I can’t understand,’ he exhaled, then passed the cigar back, ‘is why he came to you, when you were the very person Higson had stolen the tiles for.’

Peta inhaled on the cigar herself. She didn’t speak.

‘I guess you must’ve wanted me to know…’ Kane reasoned.

‘The photo in the barn,’ Peta interrupted wistfully, ‘a bit of a giveaway, huh?’

Kane nodded.

‘What can I say?’ she smirked. ‘I just love to dance on the razor’s edge.’

‘But what you still haven’t explained,’ Kane persisted, ‘is why Beede came to
you…
’

‘That’s simple,’ she shrugged, ‘because I’m the best.’

‘But didn’t he know about your involvement? Didn’t he have the slightest inkling?’

‘Ah.
The million dollar question,’ Peta sighed. ‘Did he or didn’t he?’

Kane was quiet for a while, and then, ‘Beede’s hardly famed for his great sense of humour,’ he mused, ‘but is it remotely possible that he might’ve commissioned you as…I dunno…almost as some weird kind of
joke?’

‘Don’t think it hasn’t dawned on me,’ Peta grimaced. ‘My passion – my
reason
– is to celebrate beauty…’

‘But Beede transformed you into the queen of the ceramic donkey, the chipped coffee pot, the mug-tree…’

Kane sniggered. ‘Perhaps the
real
mug here…’

‘Was me. Yeah,’ Peta growled.
‘Hilarious.’

‘But if you suspected as much up front,’ Kane frowned, ‘then why didn’t you simply turn him down – refuse the job?’

Peta gave this question some serious consideration.

‘I suppose because I was intrigued – at least to begin with…amused, tantalised,
seduced.
And maybe there was a small element of guilt…’

‘Guilty?’
Kane chortled.
‘You?!’

‘And I wanted to keep an eye on him,’ Peta persisted, ‘I wanted to see how it might play out. I wanted to…’

‘Collect
him?’

‘No.
Protect
him, if you must know. From himself, in the main.’

‘Wow,’
Kane slowly shook his head. ‘Well you’ve certainly done one
helluva
job.’

Peta shot him a sour look. Kane glanced over at the traffic. There was now a space in front of the Lada of about 10 or 12 feet.

‘So what did you make of the scheme?’ he wondered, turning back.

‘Beede’s scheme?’ Peta rolled her eyes. ‘What do you
think
I thought? It was ludicrous. It was idiotic. I couldn’t make head or tail of it…I mean Tom’s a law unto himself. He’s brash. He’s totally unsentimental. He lacks integrity. He lacks
empathy.
What could
Tom
be expected to understand about the
essence
of a thing? The
heart
of a thing?’

She paused. ‘Although Pat – Tom’s poor
wife
…’

‘But you went ahead with it, just the same…’

‘Uh…’
Peta inspected the glowing tip of her cigar, ‘well,
yes
and no…’

She tried to repress a smirk.

Kane frowned. ‘You duplicated the objects…’

‘Absolutely,’ she nodded, ‘I did a grand job. In fact I did
such
a grand job…’

Peta pondered something for a while. ‘Are you much of a poker player, Kane?’ she wondered.

‘Sure. I play the odd hand…’

‘Then you’ll be familiar with the concept of a double-bluff?’ Kane nodded, slowly.

‘Well let’s just say,’ Peta grinned, ‘that if there
was
a joke played, then I wasn’t the only victim of it.’

Kane stared at her, bemused. Then the coin dropped. ‘You swapped the things
back
?’

She shrugged, coyly.

‘But…’ Kane scratched his head, confused. ‘When?
How?’ ‘Urgh,’
she waved her hand, airily. ‘Let’s not get into all of that. It wasn’t
difficult,
trust me…’

‘But he paid you forty grand,’ Kane was horrified. ‘Money he obviously didn’t have. He paid you in good faith…’

‘Good
faith?’
Peta chuckled. ‘Just listen to yourself! What’s happening to you, Kane?’ She reached out and tousled his hair. ‘How
sweet
you suddenly sound…’

Kane glowered at her.

‘Anyway,’ she confided (in the kind of voice you might use when counselling an idealistic child about why it was fine for his parents to lie about the existence of Father Christmas), ‘I think you’ll find that these things generally have a strange way of working themselves out.’

‘Do they?’ Kane wasn’t buying it. ‘How, exactly?’

‘The way I’m seeing it,’ Peta shrugged, ‘forty grand is a small price to pay to get your only son back.’

Kane scowled.

‘So what about Dory?’ he demanded, keen to move on. ‘How did he fit into the whole thing? Did he help Dad? Did he betray him?’

‘Oh
please
don’t make me trawl through all this, Kane,’ Peta groaned, ‘I’ve got a train to catch. And life’s too short. Just enjoy the
mystery.
Take from the situation what you
need.
Be selective. Pick and mix. You’re usually so talented at that.’

‘But I saw Dory in your cottage,’ Kane wouldn’t let it drop, ‘and I know you said you’d hired a private detective. That’s what Dory does,
isn’t it? I also know that he’s cunning, that he’s fucked up. That he hung a bell on Beede’s cat. Or Higson’s cat. Or whoever the hell’s cat it actually was…’

‘A bell?’ Peta seemed astonished.

‘I know that Dory was actually there when the tiles were stolen, that he was on the scene during the burning down of Higson’s warehouses, that he had some kind of a grudge against Harvey, something that possibly even went back way beyond…’

‘Are you sure you shouldn’t turn the engine off?’ Peta was peering over towards The Commissar again. ‘In my experience…’