DEATHLOOP (39 page)

“So?”

“So… as bewildering as people find it, we’re just mates, the idea of getting naked with Sam Stein turns my stomach.”

Justin mulled this over for a while and Zack watched him, hoping his latest denial would kick the whole debate into touch once and for all.

“And things are very good at the moment, no more dead people, no more rows, no more fights, I’m getting on top of the paranoia, no more criminal charges… they’ve dropped the Renfield inquiry, so I’m off the hook there… I have the beautiful Veronica to come home to, what more could I possibly want?”

“Plenty,” said Justin, “knowing you. But you’ll be pleased to hear that the stoat is no more, I dumped him.”

“Nothing to do with me, I hope.”

“Everything to do with you.”

“Anyway, mates are better,” said Zack, tapping him on the hand, “much more resilient.”

“But with zero sexual interest,” said Justin, gloomily.

“Sex is overrated Justin, take it from me…”

“If only,” said Justin, making Zack laugh, “if only…”

When their food came they started on it in a desultory way, as though they had to make the effort, but neither looked enthused at the idea.

“Does everyone grow up?” said Zack.

“What?”

“Well look at us, white linen table cloth, Chablis, sea food stew for God’s sake… not that long ago we were eating spaghetti hoops from the tin.”

“And didn’t they taste good?”

“After a night of substance abuse they tasted like nectar. Michelin stars notwithstanding… this stuff comes nowhere near.”

“Life was fun then, wasn’t it, despite all the dramas and the cries of unrequited love, it was the best time of our lives.”

“It was bloody brilliant, but did we know it then do you think?”

“Maybe, although for me everything was tempered by my passion for you.”

“What about that bloke Matthew?”

“What about him?”

“I thought he was pretty special.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, his father was a butcher,” said Justin, as though that explained everything.

Zack found himself distracted by a couple of young women seated at the next table. One of them reminded him of Clarissa, corkscrew hair, big features, a generous mouth. She’d smiled over once or twice and Zack smiled back, but it was a token smile and nothing else, compared to Veronica, no one came near.

Justin looked uneasy, but covered, poured more wine and held up the empty bottle to the waiter to signal a replacement. “Listen Zack,” he said rather earnestly, “I met someone the other day, quite by chance, an ex-boyfriend of Simon’s actually. You’ll never guess what he’s up to now…”

“Surprise me.”

“Past life regression,” said Justin.

“Really?” said Zack, a distinct note of caution in his voice.

“I collared him of course, curious more than anything on your behalf and gave him the basics…”

“Thanks Justin, but I’ve done with all that now. Don’t Look Back as Bob Dylan once said. It was stress, that’s all.”

Awkward glances were shared between them and in that moment they both knew it had nothing whatsoever to do with stress, but they also knew it was probably best all round if for now they deluded themselves into thinking otherwise.

Jason liked it in Zack’s car park, he knew exactly where to hide when the Mercedes shot past him and twice now he had watched Zack drive out, although Zack had not seen him either time because he’d made sure he didn’t. Jason had found a little access door which opened onto a short turned staircase, and the staircase took him inside the block to the ground floor. Jason was pleased with this discovery. He decided that someone must have forgotten to lock this door because it got him into the building and that probably wasn’t allowed.

Once, when Zack had driven off somewhere, he sneaked up to the lifts which didn’t have the security device that the ones in the car park had, and managed to get up to the 15
^th
floor. He stood outside Zack’s door and ran his hands over the smooth wood, then went back down to ground level again. No point in knocking because he wasn’t in. There were stairs in the block too and sometimes he would run up and down them and perch on the deep window ledges eating crisps or playing games on his mobile. Jason was beginning to feel at home at Claremont. No one disturbed him on the staircase because everyone took the lifts.

Sometimes he amused himself guessing which floor the lift would stop at, and sometimes too he would sneak a glimpse through the glass doors watching people as they set off to their flats. No one seemed to know anyone else, no chats on the landings, no knocking on doors to borrow a tea bag or a cup of milk. Jason decided that all the people living in the block were probably as important as Zack, people who had to live quietly, in silence almost in order to help them make space ships or design bombs and stuff like that.

Once when asked where he lived by a policeman he had given Zack’s address… 45 Claremont, 105 Isaiah Street, WC2. The policeman didn’t know any different and wrote it down in his book, the idiot. Then another time, Jason brought his sleeping bag to the car park and slept on the turn in the little staircase, but he decided not to do it again because the fumes from the cars had wafted in, making him cough and he had to be careful. Had anyone caught him there he would probably have been in serious trouble. Jason much preferred skulking around Claremont than fighting with the Asian boy in Holloway, and anyway soon he’d be moving into Zack’s flat for good.

Despite drinking four bottles of wine, both Justin and Zack returned to the house from Imogen’s stubbornly sober. The information that Justin had gleaned from Simon’s ex, veiled in secrecy as it still was, clanking along in their wake like some old cart behind a horse. Justin grabbed a couple of bottles from the cellar and brought them up rather eagerly, Zack thought, as though their goal of drunkenness had yet to be achieved and the clock was ticking. They started on the bottles in silence sitting across from each other at the kitchen table.

“How’s Clarissa, you didn’t say.”

“Wonderful, not one semblance of blame has fallen from her lips. By rights she should have lynched me.”

Justin gave Zack his old fashioned look, but he let it pass. He found it wearying, Justin’s insistence that the whole world was in love with him, instead he grabbed one of Justin’s cheroots and lit up. “So what did he say, this guy… Simon’s ex…” said Zack finally, giving in to curiosity as they both knew he would.

“He gave me this,” he said, passing over what looked like a self-published manual of some description displaying the title ‘The Circle of Death’ by Russell Garrity.

Zack grabbed the book and immediately chucked it down again.

“I thought you’d be interested.”

“You know who this guy is, don’t you?”

“The one who fell from the bridge.”

“The local soothsayer who failed to soothsay his own death. I rest my case.”

Justin smiled and looked relieved Zack noticed, as though a dreaded task had been taken from him. Half an hour later he stood up and said he was going to bed, complaining of an early start. The evening had not exactly gone with a swing. There was something unspoken between them, but there was also an understanding that they would leave it, and resurrect it next time, because neither had the energy for it this evening.

Zack waited for a good ten minutes before grabbing the book and flicking open the cover, the beat of his heart somewhere up in his throat. There was an indistinct photograph of Russell looking spruced and pompous next to a potted biography which made him out to be nothing short of a miracle worker. There was also a quote from ‘local medium’, Barbara Quinn, gushing in her praise of Russell’s mighty powers, and a couple of other quotes from equally dubious sources. Zack threw the book back down again, furious suddenly at the quack fear mongers who spread their bile, unrestrained by a Nation that restrains just about everything else. Instead, he grabbed another bottle of wine and set about opening it.

The house was quiet, just the hollow ticking of a grandfather clock from somewhere. Zack thought about going to bed but his mind was too active, it needed to be dulled by alcohol and for some reason the alcohol already consumed had comprehensively failed to deliver. So glass in hand, Zack wandered into the hall and then into a large sitting room stuffed full of antiques and ceramics. It had a dead, impersonal atmosphere, like a museum. He squatted on a chaise longue for a few minutes but it felt like he was imposing, so he got up again and crossed into another room on the other side of the hall.

Sagging sofas and chairs arranged in a semi-circle around the fireplace looked used at least, and on a cold day, once the fire was lit, Zack decided that the room would no doubt be inviting. Zack cast his eye over a large display of photographs pinned up onto a board, Zack featuring prominently among them. One of him crossing a street, unaware. One of him and a girl he used to go out with and whose name he could never remember, plus a few more of girls gazing up at him, star-struck. One of Sam and Justin up a tree, and one of him with his head obscured by some blur of light. Nothing was familiar about this photograph, neither the clothes he was wearing, nor the room in which he stood, but it was him, no question. He pulled the photo from the board and was examining it when the phone rang, making him jump. He returned to the kitchen, picked up the handset and listened to distant shallow breathing which had a strange sense of regret about it, even in the few seconds Zack allowed it to continue unchallenged.

“Hello…”

“It’s Edward here, Justin’s friend, well Simon’s friend… and that’s Zack I take it…”

“Things are fine now, Edward,” said Zack, butting in, “but I appreciate your concern.”

In the hesitation that followed Zack sensed that Edward very much thought otherwise, then the phone went dead and placing it gently back into its cradle, Zack gazed down at it as though he had imagined the whole thing.

Then, from nowhere, a sense of being watched crept up on him and he swung round from one darkened window to the next. Justin didn’t go in for curtains, or blinds, no doubt believing that they were unnecessary in such a remote spot, but now Zack found the dead black oblongs that punctuated the walls unnerving. He left the kitchen and set off upstairs. Justin was lying in bed as the door opened and Zack walked in.

“Who was that on the phone?”

“Wrong number,” said Zack, thrusting the photograph at him.

Justin clicked on a bedside light and frowned. “Where did you find that?”

“With all the others on the pin board downstairs.”

“So where is this place?”

“You tell me.”

“I’ve never seen it before.”

“The room, the photograph, what?”

“Both.”

“So how come it was with the others?”

“Simon, I suppose, playing tricks,” said Justin, with barely a hesitation. It was the best he could come up with, but he didn’t believe it and Zack knew he didn’t.

Zack walked over to the window, following the distant glow of car head lights as they forged off along a winding lane out of town. “I’m sorry I woke you by the way.”

“You didn’t. I can’t sleep with you in the house, it’s impossible.”

“I don’t know what they do to alcohol these days, but it consistently fails to do the business in my experience, got any drugs?”

There was a split second hesitation, then Justin climbed out of bed and crossed the room, pulling open the top drawer of a Georgian dresser he brought out a wrap of cocaine.

“Be my guest.”

“Now he tells me,” said Zack, visibly cheered.

An hour later they were dancing around to UB40 on Justin’s old tape deck and dragging out pieces of retro chic from the wardrobe to drape round themselves. Zack ended up sporting a black Homburg and a feather boa, Justin looking very svelte in a Victorian lace gown, saying “
a handbag?
” over and over again until Zack told him to put a sock in it, he got the point. Within an hour they’d got through the entire stash.

“Phone up and get some more.”

“It’s 2 am, and we’re in Creed Mill Bridge, matey, not Ladbroke Grove.”

“So what the hell are you bloody doing here?” said Zack, exasperated.

“Breathing clean air.”

“Clean air is overrated, Justin, just like sex,” said Zack, rifling through drawers, convinced Justin was holding out on him.

“Hey! Keep out of my things, you.”

“Why does cocaine
do
this?” Zack shouted out dramatically. “It’s only a mild stimulant after all, but just like Oliver Twist it always bloody leaves you baying for more.”

“Get into bed with me,” said Justin, “let me hold you.”

Giving up on his search Zack did as he was told and found the action bizarrely comforting.

“I love you, Zack Fortune, you monster.”

“I know you do, mate.”

Within minutes Zack was asleep.

The next morning, over breakfast, Zack told Justin just how devoted he was to Veronica and Justin pretended to be pleased.

“I like women, I love women, but not where I live, now suddenly it’s okay.”

“So is that it now, you and her?”

“I’d like to
think
so,” said Zack, reassuring Justin with his caution.

Zack picked up Russell’s book and flicked open the cover. “This woman, this Barbara Quinn, she’s the one that met up with Veronica, telling her we were both about to die. The only way to avoid it according to her was to split up. Not the most romantic start to a relationship is it?”

“Advice you’ve chosen to ignore.”

“Yes, I suppose we have.”

“But you can’t ignore it, can you?”

“It’s ridiculous tripe… but sure, there’s a part of me that thinks what if she’s right…”

“Then why don’t you go and see her?”

“What?”

“Maybe Veronica got it wrong, maybe she misunderstood.”

“I don’t think so.”

“But worth checking,” said Justin, pushing papers into an old leather briefcase and making for the door, “see you soon gorgeous, look after yourself won’t you?”

“I’ll try.”

Justin crossed back towards him and dropped a kiss on Zack’s cheek, then left. Zack heard the front door slam behind him and the crunch on the gravel as his feet made their way to his car. Zack flicked through Russell’s book briefly, pushed it deep into his pocket and grabbed his phone, punching a number into speed dial. Unusually, Veronica’s phone continued to ring until it clicked off.