The Last Darkness (23 page)

The rational man is the one who survives.

He came to a phone booth. Remains of pizza sauce had dried on the glass in streaky swirls. He opened the door, went inside. It was time, he thought, to make this call. He had to reassure himself, recharge his confidence. He gathered all the change he had in his pockets. He picked up the plastic handset, which was gummy to the touch. He knew the number, he'd memorized it. Why commit something to paper when you can store it in your head? He punched in the digits, and when he heard a voice answer he began to feed coins into the slot.
Ding ding ding
.

In Hebrew, a woman was saying: ‘
Ha mispar she chiyagtem lo be sheroot. Ha mispar she chiyagtem lo be sheroot. Ha mispar she chiyagtem lo be sheroot
–'

Marak replaced the handset.
The number you have called is no longer in service
. Okay, he'd misdialled. Or something had gone wrong with the connection. He pushed the digits again, and waited, and after a moment he heard: ‘
Ha mispar she chiyagtem lo be sheroot –
'

He hung up, ran a hand nervously across his mouth. He'd remembered the sequence of numbers wrongly. Or. Or what. He felt panic.

He tried the number a third time.

‘
Ha mispar she chiyagtem lo be sheroot –
'

Marak stepped out of the booth. He'd forgotten the number, that was it. He was too tense. He needed calm before his memory, usually a well-calibrated instrument, could function again. He walked and walked through unfamiliar neighbourhoods, and felt the temperature around him fall. By dark, ice would form on the pavements, the streets become treacherous.

Remember the number. Relax, let it flow back to you. A set of simple digits. It had to be easy. But he was blocked. He heard Zerouali's voice again:
you are doing a wonderful thing, young man, and may God be with you, and if you need a word of moral support at any time, telephone me here …

Marak listened to a nearby train rattle past in the midday gloaming, and wished he were riding it, travelling out of this city without once looking back. The longer he remained, the more dangerous Glasgow was going to become for him; already it was beginning to feel like an icy prison in which he was being held without trial.

He walked until he came to a rubbish bin and there he ripped into slivers the photograph of Artie Wexler, and the manila envelope, and he dumped them, fisting them deep into the rubbish already inside the container.

33

Mould in the lungs? Spores and spots? Get an X-ray.
Cough me up a sample of lung, if you will, my good man
. Aye, doc, right, doc, anything you say, hack and spit. Lou Perlman pondered dire medical matters as he climbed the stairs of the renovated warehouse in Merchant City where a breed of people, the Loft Dwellers, had come into existence during the last fifteen years or so. Sharp boys in even sharper suits had refurbished the old tobacco warehouses of the nineteenth century, and turned them into comfortable spaces. The city centre, in particular those streets that had formerly been drab no-go areas between George Square and Argyle Street, had become modish. People lived here again. There were bars, shops, restaurants.

Perlman paused halfway up the stairs. Fucking lofts, he thought. Why did anyone want a loft? And why, when you truly needed it to work, was the lift jiggered? The world is in the process of breaking down.

The face in the cab came back to him. You see it once on videotape, and it's flat, half-real; you see it again behind the window of a taxi and suddenly it's flesh, it exists in other dimensions. The hot blast of recognition.

Sandy Scullion had reassured him that copies of That Face had gone out to all the Sub-Divisions of the Force, and that he'd issue a priority follow-up.

The bearded man had serious questions to answer.

Perlman reached the top. He rang the doorbell that faced him. The door, he noticed, was a heavyweight item. Steel, with a peephole, and three keyholes. Keep bogeymen at bay. News flash for the world: bogeymen would always find a way in if they wanted access badly enough.

The door opened.

Miriam, in jeans and an old Levi's shirt, smiled at him. ‘Come in, Lou,' she said, and she kissed him on the cheek. Her lips were chill. It was cold in this place, he thought. He stepped past her into a big space that initially seemed endless. The room went to infinity, and so did the window, which was a great band of grey light. He could see the dome of the City Chambers in George Square over the surrounding rooftops.

‘You've never been in my studio before,' Miriam said. ‘Red-letter day.'

‘It's a hell of a place.' He rubbed his hands together and approached a canvas in the middle of the loft. Thickly applied oil glistened. The painting, half-done, was a collection of tiny squares in gradations of purple. The first word that came to Lou Perlman's mind was
painstaking
. Each little square stood on top of another. ‘This isn't your usual colour explosion, is it?'

‘It's my version of the patchwork quilt, Lou. Work for idle hands. Keeping my mind occupied.'

‘I thought you'd be at the hospital,' he said.

‘Twiddling the thumbs? Flicking magazine pages? Rifkind said he'd phone when the op was done. Up here I can work on my wee squares at least. I hate waiting rooms.' Her hands were purple from paint. Her hair was pinned up. Her neck was graceful and long. She looked slim in jeans. He was touched by the mauve streak of paint on her cheek. She was apparently unaware of it.

‘I was pleased when you phoned,' she said. ‘Serious bone to pick, though. You didn't tell me about Lindsay.'

‘So can I help it if all my life I've hated being the bearer of bad news?'

‘I imagine that's a drawback in your profession. You could've told me he was dead. You had the opportunity.'

‘I know, I know –'

‘Sometimes you go at things in a sideways manner, Lou. Like a crab.'

‘I deny any affinity with crustaceans,' he said. ‘I don't even eat them.'

‘I read it was a suicide. Perhaps quote. The big maybe.'

‘Want the truth? It was no suicide.'

‘Somebody killed him? Do you know who?'

‘Not yet.'

Miriam uttered a tiny sound of surprise. ‘I think I need a drink. You want anything?'

‘Water's fine.'

She opened the door to the kitchen. Perlman saw her take a bottle from the refrigerator. He was conscious of the height of the ceiling, where a skylight the length of the loft permitted a view of the wintry sky. This space diminished him. He felt like a speck. He noticed stacked canvases, squeezed-out tubes of oils, brushes stuck in old coffee tins, rags.

Miriam came back with a shot of vodka and a glass of water. Perlman drank the water in an unbroken gulp.

‘You have any idea of the motive?' Miriam asked.

‘None,' he said. He wanted to back off, leave her be. Maybe what he had to talk to her about could be postponed for a while. He thought of Wexler again, pictures that kept coming at him, blood in chill blue water. ‘This is a rotten time for me to come here, Miriam. Colin's on your mind, you're worried, you don't need …'

‘Let me be the judge of what I don't need, Lou.'

‘Okay. It's Wexler. Artie Wexler.'

‘Something's happened to him? Tell me.'

Perlman walked to the big window. Pigeons on ledges, sparrows on chimneypots. He watched the birds and he told her. A stabbing; he quit there. He left out the decapitation.

She said, ‘No,' and placed a hand flat against her chest, and then she sat on the floor with her back to the wall and her knees drawn up. ‘Christ, Lou, who the
hell
would kill Artie Wexler? I saw him only yesterday. He came with me to the fucking
hospital
. You saw him. You were there. One minute he's driving me to see Colin, the next he's this puff of smoke?'

‘And Lindsay was his bosom buddy. Two puffs of smoke.'

Miriam closed her eyes. Perlman longed to kiss the mounds of her eyelids. He heard a sound of bells and wondered if for a moment he was having an auditory hallucination associated with his flood of feelings.

Choral voices floated above the bells. ‘O Come All Ye Faithful.'

‘The floor below,' Miriam said. ‘Choir practice. Some church group. Every day at this time. Bright little voices and handbells.' She drank her vodka.

‘That would unravel me completely,' Perlman said.

‘I'm so used to it I barely hear it.'

Joyful and triumphant
. ‘I wish I could bring you sunny news,' he said.

‘Two puffs of smoke, you said. The killings are connected, Lou?'

‘I think it's very likely.'

She looked directly into his eyes. There was a sadness in her face he yearned to eliminate. The deaths, had they made her sorrowful? Sure, but it seemed to him that there was another level of unhappiness inside her, one that wasn't related to the killings. He stroked her hand and then, a little surprised by his own boldness, he took a few steps back. ‘How did it happen that Wexler went to the hospital with you?'

‘He phoned to ask for news about Colin. He insisted he wanted to keep me company.'

‘Did Wexler see Colin recently?'

‘Not for years. Four, five, whatever. He never called, never visited. Then Colin has a heart attack and Artie hears it on the grapevine and suddenly he can't stop phoning me. How's Colin? Is he going to be all right? On and on.'

‘Why didn't he keep in touch?'

‘Why do people ever lose touch? Why do they drift away? You'd know better than me.'

I probably would, he thought. He wished the infernal choir would quit. They were at it again. Bells. Angelic young voices.
Come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem
. ‘Were they avoiding one another?'

‘I can't think why.'

‘A falling-out? A fight?'

‘Colin didn't say. Artie just … faded from the scene.'

‘They were best friends from the old days, Miriam. They had a strong common history. Then for no apparent reason they stop seeing each other. They live in the same city, what – two or three miles apart, and they don't meet? Then Wexler just pops back into your life. How did he seem to you?'

‘Gloomy one minute, a kind of forced cheer the next. Maybe a wee bit edgy. Mood-swings. He'd talk fast, then fall into a melancholic silence. I wonder how Ruth is taking this. Don't answer. It's a stupid question.'

‘I don't know how people take grief,' he said. ‘The loss of a spouse. The loss of a kid. I don't know where they find the resources to cope.'

‘They always manage somehow, don't they?'

The Christmas bells again. He felt an affinity for Quasimodo going fucking mad in his belfry. ‘Let's talk about Lindsay for a minute. What did he and Colin discuss when he came to your house?'

Miriam stood up, empty glass in hand. ‘You expect me to remember that far back?'

‘Try for me. Colin said they had a client in common. He'd forgotten who.'

‘What has this got to do with Wexler, Lou?'

‘Let me work that part out, Miriam. I'm only asking for a name.'

‘Colin wouldn't want me to tell tales.'

‘Two men are dead, Miriam. Your loyalty's priceless, and I admire you for it, but it isn't helpful.'

She was quiet for a while. Her face registered indecision. She walked up and down in a troubled manner, twisting her glass in her hand. Then she sighed long, as if she'd resolved some demanding problem. ‘Okay. You're such a smooth talker, I can't resist … A man called Bannerjee.'

‘As in the discredited MP?'

‘Right. Lindsay handled some property transactions for him, I believe. Look, I didn't pay much attention to their business chat. That sort of stuff causes a crust to form over my brain. Colin had an investment fund, and Bannerjee was going to put a very large sum of money into it, and Lindsay was handling the details. That's all I know, Lou. I doze easily.'

‘Lindsay, our nondescript little solicitor handling money matters for the jet-setter MP?'

‘I'd guess Bannerjee trusted Lindsay. Maybe he knew his affairs would be dealt with honestly. The quiet family solicitor might be a better bet than some flash lawyer.'

‘Could be,' Perlman said. Colin had avoided mentioning Bannerjee. Easy to understand. Who wants to be affiliated with disgraced figures? The fallen politician, the tarnished golden boy. Guilt by association. When an MP tumbled, he usually dragged others down, secretaries, hangers-on, advisers. Colin had been responsible for other people's
gelt
, a lot of it, and therefore had to be perceived as trustworthy. An association with Bannerjee might have ruined him. Okay. Fair enough. Business was played that way. Businessmen dined every day on the carcasses of former allies. Yesterday's pals were today's fricassee of beef.

Miriam asked, ‘Does that help?'

‘I don't know yet,' Perlman said. ‘I'm looking for a road map. Colin and Lindsay and Bannerjee, fine. It's money, it's investments. Lindsay and Wexler, they met once a month like clockwork – why? what did they discuss? Why did Wexler persist in seeing Lindsay, when he didn't stay in contact with his boyhood pal Colin? I'm missing the glue, Miriam. I'm not getting these people to stick together the way I want.'

‘You can't force some things,' she said. ‘You can't make everything fit the way you'd like.'

‘In my meshuganey wee world, dear, I'm always jamming square pegs into round holes. Sometimes what you get surprises you.'

‘Maybe Wexler and Lindsay enjoyed one another's company. Not everything in the world is sinister, Lou.'

Perlman watched a pigeon flap in panic across the skylight. Probably the bird had OD'd on Christmas carols. ‘Do you think Wexler knew Bannerjee?'

‘Lindsay had Bannerjee as a client, there's always a chance that Lindsay introduced his pal Wexler to his pal Bannerjee, isn't there?'