The Alembic Valise (18 page)

“Let me get this straight. You torched the place when you found he wasn’t there.” Jada was in the hallway by the part open door, listening to Baba talking on the phone. “Then you walked up and down a bit, and then gave up.” The way Baba was labouring each point was an indication the party on the other end would be lucky if he ended up cleaning the latrines at the Led Donut as his next assignment.

“So what if there are lots of hotels, it’s a seaside resort, for fuck sake. Check ‘em all, and continue to cover the train station. Ok?” Baba hung up, so it obviously was ‘ok’. Jada went back to the kitchen to make some herbal tea. She was no longer living with Baba; they had agreed to separate shortly after the incident on the riverbank, about which she had told him nothing. She was still head of marketing at Hammerfall Productions and therefore reported directly to him but apart for the professional curtsey required of her in order to do her job, she avoided him.

It was too soon to see if her cage-fighting career would be affected. She and Lorna were still training together and in a few days the autumn schedule would be released and she would see whom she had been slated to fight against. She took her glass of peppermint tea back to her office and closed the door, then called Lorna on her mobile.

“Hi sweetie, yes, look, your friend, have you heard from him?” On receiving an answer in the negative she continued. “I heard something, can’t say now what, but it sounds like they found out where he is.” She paused. “Is it on the coast?” She paused again. “Oh shit! Can I meet you after work, can’t talk now?”

The office complex was situated on the anterior mezzanine level of the Led Donut and was the product of an interior designers nocturnal emission; the walls were cover in laser etched pony skin and the doors laminated with some kind of marine crustacean that produced a texture reminiscent of petrified dog vomit.

She began to write out Lorna’s old address on her message pad, hoping that he would not come around the desk and peer over shoulder. She and Lorna were now living together in a converted warehouse in Battersea and she was not about to disclose that fact. After the obsolete address she added Lorna’s phone number, but changed the last digit from a six to a nine. Baba left seemingly satisfied and she began to sing quietly: If six turned out to be nine, I don’t mind. A minute later he was back.

“That number was chad,” he said. Then proceeded to stand over her while she again brought it up on the screen. “What the fuck’s the matter with you?”

He picked up her phone, dialled nine for an outside line then punched in the correct sequence, staring at her all the time. It went to voice mail and he hung up. Then he glared at her and left the room. Jada exhaled slowly.

Two hours later as she cycled along the towpath she was speculating about how much Baba might know. For instance that she was planning on quitting Hammerfall and starting her own stable of strike girls. That she was helping Lorna hook up her writer friend with one of the digital agencies. More than that really as she was on the development team and had agreed to sit in on the interviews next week with a bunch of visual creatives. She was doing a lot more than just helping, she was completely onboard, and now Baba’s crew of jackals were hunting the writer.

She was meeting Lorna at a restaurant in Putney. Lorna would know what to do. She swerved past an elderly man walking his dog. He shouted for her to
look out
but she did not slow down. Yes, she thought – Lorna will know what to do.

A field of unripe maize; Buster ran between the rows, the trail of the rabbit no longer a concern but the exhilaration persisting as new smells awoke old memories. Once as a puppy he had run himself into blissful exhaustion in identical surroundings, the thick foliage blotting out daylight as he had charged to and fro in sepia tunnels hearing but ignoring the calls of his concerned owner. But that was many years ago and that dog was gone. Then he remembered Joel, and started to move laterally between the rows having decided it was time to return; there was movement above him amongst the entwined stems and he felt a sharp pain in his haunch.

“That is for all the trouble you’ve caused,” hissed the snake, before sliding across the red dusty earth into the shadows, a darkening curve diminishing in the periphery of Buster’s consciousness.

The little dog crashed frantically towards the light, dragging his numbing limb until he emerged beside a spinney of bushes and shrubs. The ground sloped gently away and lying on a plaid blanket by a stream was a sleeping woman, a copy of Hello magazine beside her; Buster could hear traffic whooshing by in the distance, he could smell the woman’s sandalwood perfume, he could see two dragonflies dancing above the sparkle of the stream, he knew the time had come; he was barely able to crawl to her side, he licked her face and she awoke. Then she held him in her arms, his muzzle pressed against her breasts, he began to pant then a tremor passed through his body and he was finally still. She took the blanket, wrapped it around him and began to walk through the meadow towards the road.

Her car was a candy red two-seater with an open top, parked on the grass verge. She placed Buster on the passenger seat then went back to close the five bar gate. She stood for a moment looking around before putting on a white cardigan over her summer dress, starting the car and turning onto the road. She was barely into third gear when around the bend she saw Joel and drew her car up alongside his bench. He woke with a start.

“I always wondered who drove these,” he said in an attempt to appear on the ball. He had been dreaming deeply but the content had evaporated and his mind felt mushy and unfocused. “It’s a Figaro isn’t it?”

“Have you lost a dog?” she replied simply.

“Oh, have you seen him?” Joel replied. “He was chasing a rabbit over there.”

Her eyes did not follow the direction of his gesture. In fact the gravity of her expression was pulling Joel towards a locus of understanding that required no words. He stood up from the bench and his eyes then followed hers to the blanket. She got out and quickly walked around to his side.

“He died in my arms.” She said taking Joel’s hand. “I don’t know what happened.”

They laid Buster on the car’s parcel shelf, put up the hood, got in and drove away. It was early evening by the time they arrived at her home. It was located on a hill that overlooked the confluence of the rivers Trent, Ouse and Humber. Taking a spade from a white wooden shed, she led Joel down her hillside garden, through a gate and then in a place where a spring had once flowed they dug a grave in the soft black earth.

Afterwards as they sat at the kitchen table Joel began to tell his story. When he reached the part about the trail of sorrow Electra’s suicide or disappearance had caused, his host let out a gasp. It was then Joel realised he had not even asked her name.

“It’s not Electra is it?” queried Joel in a slightly hysterical voice.

“No, it’s Sue. But I always wanted to be called Electra; ever since as a child I heard that Eugene O’Neill play on the radio when I was eleven. Mourning Becomes Electra - I was captivated even though I managed to misinterpret every part of the title; I thought mourning was morning and then … oh well, of course I finally figured it out.”

“That’s ok, Sue,” said Joel quietly. “You held Buster as he passed away and that is a massive comfort.” Then he brightened, “so we have a tenuous connection, in that you wanted to be Electra; that must mean something.”

“Yes I always have. Did you ever hear that spot on the morning radio, the top tenuous they call it? Tenuous connections to famous people; my cousins hairdresser went to school with Gary Oldman’s sister… that kind of thing.”

“No I never heard that,” said Joel smiling.”

She showed Joel to a room in the attic, the tiny window looked towards the river or the wet square as Sue had called it. Joel fell asleep in moments.

When Jada had arrived at the wine bar Lorna was already sitting in a booth with Agim, they were both drinking mineral water.

“Look,” said Lorna, “we really need to carry on, it’s what Joel would want us to be doing.” She looked around for support, “isn’t it?” Jada and Agim nodded.

Then Jada spoke, “I asked the digital artists we are interviewing next week to draft out some initial ideas for the Joe Canoe project.” Jada’s eyes were now sparkling with enthusiasm.

“And you should see the material that one guy sent today. It is quite stunning and if the others are of the same standard we will have no problems.”

Agim had been quiet for a while but he had been watching Jada and he asked. “Why are you helping us, putting yourself in danger in this way?”

“I love the story, and Lorna tells me that it can change the world, for the better and I’m all for that kind of change…” She trailed off.

All three of them walked slowly back to the flat through the almost deserted streets, Jada pushing her bicycle and Lorna walking between her and Agim. We are a mobile cabal, thought Lorna, hiding in plain sight. When they were indoors Jada dragged out her laptop and they looked at the artwork that had so excited her, drinking Japanese Kukicha tea and plotting deep into the night.

They finished the running part of their regime and went straight into sit-ups on the slightly damp grass. Then leg lifts. And then press ups, having first hung a rope and stirrup system over a branch of a convenient ash tree to elevate their legs. Lorna went first as Jada watched.

“Listen,” said Jada when they were eating breakfast. “Let’s pull out all the stops on Project Skyline; we have the funding and Agim has office space and hardware sorted. He has been migrating data all night to various cloud servers, we have the storyboard, and we have the augmented reality designers. Let’s take on the best two artists and get them started. I’m going to pull a sickie and work on this today. We have to move quickly for all kinds or reasons; I know how Baba works. Eventually he finds out about everything; so let’s be careful.”

There was a definite oddness to the place, particularly the people that Detective Z encountered on the hidden network of footpaths that crisscrossed Mortlake. At first he was interested to learn that certain of these twisted byways dated from the eleventh century. But now he found no answers, only disquiet, as he walked for the hundredth time past the row of cottages that huddled between the churchyard and Tinderbox Alley. The odour of wood smoke that perfumed the air like incense from another world seemed to confirm that this place was indeed a mire of lost secrets.

He stopped and rubbed the grey stubble on his chin; did not shave today; did not shave yesterday. Suspended from duty for erratic behaviour and carrying within him a hollow ache that seemed never to recede. Guilt, he thought; and loss and self pity too no doubt; all these had proved to be bearable; but not the brightest star in the firmament of pain that he inhabited: Rage.

There was an elderly man in a blue boiler suit, slowly and painstakingly painting the railings that bordered the churchyard and the detective watched him for a short while, lighting a cigarette as he did so.

“How are you today, Colin?”

The man would not answer, Detective Z knew this; he had tried on numerous times to engage him in conversation and now had him classified as a ‘care in the community’ character. But this did not deter the detective; maybe one day he would get a response.

“How many primer coats are you going for; what’s this, the third?”

He could tell the old boy was listening but studiously avoiding showing it as he carried on dabbing at the iron spindles with his brush.

“Still looking, you know; tall fair-haired girl, my daughter.”

Colin continued with his work, head bowed, shoulders hunched, silence maintained. Stubbing out the cigarette under the heel of his shoe the detective turned away. This non-exchange just about summed up his lack of success here as he walked on towards the river. The ancient buttressed walls of the alley were silent too, like a blind witness. And yet even though Detective Z had returned many times to this place since Lorna’s disappearance, he again had the feeling that he was missing something important.

The riverbank was deserted and nothing was passing on the water as he walked down the stone steps on to the strip of shingle that the incoming tide had not yet covered. When his beloved daughter had disappeared he had been on verge of a breakthrough on another case but had immediately dropped everything to search for Lorna. The trouble was the crazy theories that emerged from the previous case seemed to be hatching afresh in his search for Lorna. He though, had believed in honest procedural police work all his working life.

He raised his eyes from the shingle to see a large passenger boat approaching in midstream. The decks were empty and the crew had probably just finished their tourist trips for the day and were now full speed ahead to dock and get home, or to the pub. He could hear that the diesels were at full throttle and as she drew level see that she was ploughing out a substantial wash. Quickly looking down the riverbank he saw a two-foot wave sloshing along the shoreline, approaching at speed.

The scrap of foreshore that he stood on would be swamped in moments and it was thirty yards in the wrong direction to regain the stone steps onto the towpath. To run towards the approaching wave would be futile; he looked up, above him the embankment consisted of stone slabs, fifteen feet high but the angle was steep. He could hear the crashing of the wave, now louder than the boat, which had now passed. A lone figure stood on the deck waving. With an almighty leap he grabbed the branches of an overhanging tree, which was more of a stunted shrub that grew from between the rocks of the embankment. His grip was good and the tree held his weight but his elation immediately turned to panic as the leather soles of his shoes could find no purchase on the gradient and he began to slip down, in slow motion, until he was laying prone; still holding the branches but with the roaring wave soaking him, pretty much up to the waist. He held on; the water was freezing. Soon his grimacing turned to laughter. I wish Lorna could see this, he thought.

Later as he squelched up the path he saw that Colin had left cardboard signs along the fence: Danger - wet paint. As he passed the last notice he saw a word in tiny script in the corner of the card; he needed his glasses to read it. The word was – Forget. He retraced his steps finding a single word on each sign. Never, then - to, and finally - remember.

Remember to never forget! What on earth did the crazy old coot mean? As he stood puzzling this question he became aware of a figure seated in the churchyard; as he looked over the gate and along the path he saw a large man dressed in a blazer and cord trousers sitting on a bench watching him: Although it was difficult to be certain because his watcher was wearing silver wrap around sunglasses, and was immobile, until he called out.

“Been talking to crazy Colin or are you just admiring his work?” the main said then laughed loudly.

“Friend of yours, is he? I must commend him for his workmanship, even if his conversational skills are a little lacking.” replied the detective.

The big man stood up, removed his glasses and although he only seemed to take a couple of steps, he somehow covered the ground to stand before Detective Z offering him a large hand.

“Basil Jenks, how can I help?”

Detective Z had remained cagey throughout his meeting with the avuncular Basil. Said that he was in Mortlake because of its rich history; never alluding to his real reason. He was pretty sure the mute Colin had kept quiet, and he had told no one else during his travels within the search zone. This was because he had had a lifetime of sizing people up and he knew how to leave space for a person to betray their true or inner intent; and he could tell that was what his new acquaintance was doing to him. So he presented if not a blank canvas a taupe one at least. As he had driven back to Chiswick that afternoon his socks, shoes and trousers were still damp but he had the feeling he had achieved something and made an important contact. Not with Basil, but with Colin, who he felt probably saw and heard everything that occurred within that region of shades.

And he was right, because the next day when he passed by the churchyard, there was Colin; now onto applying a slick glossy topcoat of paint to the railings. As Detective Z approached along the alley he saw what seemed like a steady stream of middle-aged men filing into the transom of the church.

“Bell ringers,” muttered Colin as he approached.

“You make it sound like a term of abuse,” replied the detective.

Colin stopped painting. “It is, it is,” he replied. “Have you heard them? Tonight is bell ringing practice night; they really need it. They massacred the peals at a wedding a while ago.”

“I was intrigued by your cryptic message on the ‘wet paint’ signs, the other day.”

“I’m sure you were, but not here. Follow this path and keep bearing to the left and after about a mile there is a pub called the Laughing Pig. Meet me there tomorrow at noon.”

And with that the old man went back to his task. The detective was glad to leave the churchyard, because the gloss paint stank and the apprentice bell ringers were beginning their mangled scales.