Trading Reality (7 page)

The fact that Karen usually bet on the jockeys wearing the prettiest colours, and often came out a winner, I put down to an extended run of beginner’s luck.

The stewardess doled out a small blue plastic tray of unidentifiable food. She pointed to my empty glass. ‘Can I get you another, sir?’

‘Yes, please.’ Why not? I had earned it.

My mind turned to Richard, and what I would find once I arrived in Scotland. I was pretty sure that he would ask me for ideas to bail him out. I only hoped Wagner Phillips’ client’s offer was still good.

It was beginning to look as if it had been a mistake to invest in FairSystems, and in particular to allow Karen to. On the other hand, if we hadn’t stumped up the cash, FairSystems would certainly have gone bust, and Richard’s dreams and achievements would have gone with it.

The worst thing about the whole business was the effect it was having on my relationship with my brother. Despite the five years’ difference, we had always been close, always trusted each other, always helped each other out.

But now, for the first time in my life, I felt I couldn’t depend on Richard, and that feeling was unpleasant.

The plane landed a little late, at nine thirty. Richard wasn’t there to meet me. I wandered through the concourse, the café, the bar and the shops. Not there.

So I telephoned his home. No answer. He must be on his way, then.

At ten I began to worry. At ten fifteen I began to think things through. Perhaps he had had an accident. Or perhaps he had forgotten and was working at the factory. It wouldn’t have been unlike him to work on a Saturday night.

I rang the factory in Glenrothes. Eventually, a woman answered. She said she was sure that Richard was spending the day at his home in Kirkhaven. He had said he might come in to work briefly on Sunday morning.

Well, there was no point hanging round here much longer. Luckily, one of the car-hire desks was still manned. I hired a Ford Fiesta, and set off on the forty-mile drive to Kirkhaven.

I was tired, and it seemed a long way. North over the Forth Bridge to Fife, and then east to what is called the ‘East Neuk’, a peninsula sticking out into the North Sea. It is dotted with attractive little fishing villages, one of which is Kirkhaven.

It was nearly midnight by the time I got there. I drove down the steep narrow streets, which were empty apart from a group of three or four drinkers making their unsteady way home. I reached the quay, and saw the squat lighthouse at the end of the harbour wall, silhouetted against the contrasting greys of sea and sky. I could clearly make out Inch Lodge perched on a small outcrop of rock right at the mouth of the Inch, the burn that ran into the sea at Kirkhaven. It was a whitewashed house looking out over the harbour on one side, and the Presbyterian church on the far bank of the Inch on the other. A small boathouse clung to the side of the building. Richard had converted it into a workshop, and spent many nights in there, tinkering and thinking.

I parked the car outside, and got out. The night air was cold and salty, invigorating after my drive. The house was dark. I pushed the bell. No reply. I pushed several more times before trying the door. It was locked.

I was getting cold. I looked around me. Lights were scattered about the jumble of houses on the hill above, but there was no sign of life along the quay. The sea murmured somewhere out in the darkness. Drunks laughed incoherently farther along the quay, and were gone.

I looked up at the walls of the house, glowing a very pale yellow in the light of the half-moon. I was definitely worried now. It seemed more and more likely that he had had an accident on the way to pick me up. I should just make absolutely sure he wasn’t here. I walked round the back of the house to the boathouse, Richard’s workshop. Ah! The door was open, but it was dark.

As I neared the entrance, I realised that there was in fact a flicker of light inside. It was low and blue. He must be working in the dark.

‘Richard?’ No reply. I pushed open the door, and looked inside. ‘Rich . . .’

He was lying on the floor of the boathouse, the top half of his head split open.

I don’t know how long I stared at him. A second? Ten seconds? His head was a mess of red and grey and jagged white bone. The bottom half of his face was Richard, flickering in the pale blue light of the computer. His mouth was open, I could see his front teeth.

The mixture of champagne and British Airways supper pushed itself up from my stomach, and I turned for the door. I retched, and spilled it on to the path outside. I gulped for air, but kept retching. I stood up to turn back to look at him, but I couldn’t.

I took a couple of deep breaths, and staggered out on to the road. I stopped at the first house, at the end of a stone terrace, and rang the bell. Then I began hammering the big door knocker, and didn’t stop until I heard a gruff voice inside.

‘Who is it? What d’ye want?’

‘I’m Richard Fairfax’s brother,’ I gasped. ‘The man who lives at Inch Lodge. He’s dead. I’ve got to call the police.’

The door opened on a squat, bald-headed man with a pyjama’d stomach sticking firmly out of an ancient dressing-gown. He eyed me suspiciously. He didn’t have his teeth in.

‘Come in, laddie. The phone’s over there.’

I dialled 999 and answered all the operator’s questions. When I turned round, the man had been joined by his wife. No teeth either.

‘Och, you look a mess. Won’t you sit down, now. Let me make you some tea.’

I sat at a kitchen table. ‘No, he needs a wee drop of this,’ said her husband, and a moment later placed a tumbler half full of golden liquid in front of me. I took a gulp. It hurt the back of my throat, and stabbed the lining of my irritated stomach. I downed the rest.

Moments later, the doorbell buzzed, and a policeman came in. He was a small, thin sergeant with a neat little moustache and darting eyes. He took one look at me, and spoke firmly, but gently. ‘Mark Fairfax?’

I nodded.

‘I’m Sergeant Cochrane. You said your brother has been murdered?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where is he?’ the policeman asked softly.

‘Do you want me to show you?’

Cochrane nodded. We went outside where four policemen were waiting. I led them all round the back of the house to the boathouse. I couldn’t go near it. I let them look. Cochrane came out a few moments later. Even in the darkness, I could see that his skin had lost its colour. Beads of moisture were clinging to his moustache.

‘I’m sorry Mr Fairfax. It’s horrible in there. Let’s go back to the MacAllisters’ house.’

He took me by the arm, and led me to the neighbours’ cottage. The man had pulled on a shirt and some trousers. The woman was fussing round the kitchen. They both had their teeth in. They welcomed us, and let us sit at the kitchen table.

The sergeant asked me quickly when and where I had found the body, where I had come from, whether I had seen anyone, whether I had touched anything. Then he told me to wait until the CID arrived.

I sat at the table sipping cups of tea while Mrs MacAllister fussed over me and stuck her head outside to discuss events with neighbours. Mr MacAllister was taking generous doses of the medicine he had offered me. I didn’t touch any more whisky. I wanted to get my whirling brain into some sort of order.

I was numb. I was only dimly aware of what was happening around me, of the bustle in the road outside.

Richard was dead.

It didn’t seem real. It seemed like a late-night television film, watched from the hallway into a darkened room.

I was suddenly aware of a figure sitting at the table opposite me. He was crumpled, wearing a bad brown suit and a brown and yellow tie. He had longish dull hair, and a full moustache, which could have done with a trim. Folds of fat hung over his collar, and thrust out beneath his shirt. His bulbous nose was criss-crossed with an intricate design of veins. ‘Mr Fairfax,’ he said. ‘Can I have a word?’

He asked more questions. The same stuff as the sergeant earlier. The questions were asked softly. I think I answered them. All I can really remember is the pattern on that nose.

Finally, he said, ‘Do you have anywhere to stay tonight?’

‘No. Er, I don’t know. I thought I would stay in Richard’s house.’

‘I’m sorry, son, you can’t do that. We need to look over it. But Sergeant Cochrane has fixed up for you to stay at the Robbers’ Arms. He’ll take you there.’

They found me a room. I shut the door behind me with a sigh. It was on the hill above Inch Lodge. Through the window, I could look down on the house, surrounded by shadows thrown off by the floodlights that had been rigged up around it. There was a jam of cars back along the quayside, many with their blue lights flashing impatiently.

Standing there, alone, looking at Richard’s house, the numbness went. My eyes stung with tears, and the sobs came. I threw myself on the little bed. Someone knocked on the door, opened it, and then shut it again quietly.

I cried for a while, huge great sobs, but eventually they abated. I stood up, took off my clothes, brushed my teeth and crawled into bed. But I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t even shut my eyes – whenever I did, I saw Richard there on the floor of the boathouse.

After a few minutes, I stood up and began pacing up and down, throwing glances towards Inch Lodge below. Things had quietened down now. Fewer people were milling about, spectators had gone home to bed.

Disconnected thoughts exploded in my brain. Painful fragments, spinning wildly, smashing into each other. I paced faster and faster round the little room, getting angrier and more confused. My brain was tiring, but all through my body chemicals were pumping furiously, primed by the shock of what I had just seen.

Eventually, I stopped in front of the window, took several deep breaths and then lay down.

The assault on my mind didn’t stop, but it did slow. After a long while, the window turned from black to grey. I got up, pulled on some clothes and went outside.

The light came in low from the east, lighting up the cream-, yellow-and white-painted houses of Kirkhaven in a watery northern glow. I walked down the narrow streets, past a masonic temple, and a row of brightly painted shops waiting for the summer tourist trade. My Fiesta was still parked outside Richard’s house. Tape flapped in the wind all round it. Two constables stood guard.

‘Morning,’ I said to one.

He must have known who I was. ‘Good morning sir,’ he said, and looked the other way, not wanting to face grief at this hour of a Sunday morning. I couldn’t blame him.

I stared at the house, remembering the many times I had been here. It jutted out into the tiny estuary of the Inch Burn. Black rocks clustered around its foundations, and the ebbing tide had revealed an expanse of dark yellow sand. The window-and door-frames were blue lines, none of which was quite straight. My brother had bought the house several years before, with the money that our mother had left him. It was a peaceful place, a place where my brother had liked to think, where he had come up with some of his best ideas.

I tore myself away and walked along the quay past the small baked potato and fish and chip shops. The town was virtually deserted. There were a few fishing boats tied up in the harbour, but nobody was to be seen at this early hour.

I followed the harbour wall towards the lighthouse perched on the end, pointing out at the North Sea. Picking my way past lobster pots, coils of thick rope, and an old Maestro, I stopped by a red dredger moored twenty yards from the entrance to the harbour, it’s engine chugging gently to itself. The grey sea sparkled in the morning sunshine. Over the Firth of Forth, I could see the low waves of the hills of East Lothian. In front of them were a couple of rocks, one grey, one chalk-white.

I turned back towards Kirkhaven, a crowded little town of pale houses, crammed together on the hillside. The muffled sounds of the sea soon became a lulling, soothing background to the odd cry of seagulls. Every now and then I could hear an old car engine straining to negotiate the narrow winding streets and steep hills of the town. Three church towers rose proudly above the houses; not for nothing was it called Kirkhaven. To the left of the harbour front, I saw the mouth of the Inch, winding its way through rocks and sand between my brother’s house and the graveyard of the church opposite. Daffodils lined the bank.

That’s where I would bury him. Within sight of his beloved workshop, in the peace of this small Scottish village.

I closed my eyes. Immediately, I saw his body, lying sprawled on the boathouse floor. I opened them. Would I never be able to shut my eyes again?

His left hand had lain open, clutching at something, the stubs of his two missing fingers pointing upwards. Those fingers had become by their absence a totem of our friendship, our dependence.

I was six, Richard eleven. My father was laying a terrace in the garden. I was clambering about on the paving stones, piled five feet high. The pile wobbled. Richard dived over, and pushed me out of the way. He slipped, the stones fell on his outstretched hand. There was nothing the hospital could do with what was left of his fingers.

He had saved my life. Could I have saved his?

Grief often brings with it two strong emotions: anger and guilt. This morning, I felt guilty as hell.

I thought about FairSystems. The company was at the forefront of the most exciting new technology in the world. It had stolen a lead over companies much larger and better funded. With half a dozen other geniuses in America and England, Richard had made virtual reality a reality. I had griped at him for the financial shortcomings of his company, but did that really matter?

I thought about the last time we had seen each other, at dinner at my house. We had parted then on bad terms. I couldn’t remember my exact last words to him, but I could remember the tone in which I’d spoken them: anger. Oh God, how I regretted that!