V 02 - Domino Men, The (7 page)

Granddad lived in a small terraced house running to seed — books pressed up against the windows, dying weeds curled around the grate, a handwritten sign at the door which read in emphatic Biro: 
NO HAWKERS
.

I let myself in, kicked aside the hillock of mail which had accumulated on the mat and was immediately overwhelmed by an acute sense of sadness.  The same smell was everywhere.  Fried sausage — fat, greasy and black — the only thing the old man had ever been able to cook.  It was what he had invariably fed me when I went to stay at half-term, what was on the table when I got back from those operations at the hospital as a boy, what he’d made for me on the night my father died.

The smell of the past was in my nostrils and I collapsed as though winded into the big armchair in the lounge.  At that moment I would have given anything to be eight years old again, for Granddad to be OK, for my father to be alive, for everything to seem sweeter and more innocent.

Something small and soft brushed past my legs and I looked down to see a plump gray cat gazing up at me with optimistic eyes.  Tentatively, I reached out a hand.  The animal didn’t shy away so I stroked it again, at which it started up a contented purr.

“You must be hungry,” I said.

There were a couple of tins of cat food in the kitchen cupboard.  I opened one and spooned out its contents, which the creature attacked with relish.  As soon as it was done, he started to pester me for more.

The cat was not the only thing that seemed unfamiliar.  As usual the lounge was filled with books — but they had changed.  I remembered dog-eared scripts (Galton and Simpson,
The Goon Show, ITMA, The Navy Lark
), yards of comedy stacked halfway to the ceiling, but now it seemed quite different.  There were volumes here on the most recondite and esoteric subjects — bulky, valuable-looking hardbacks on divination, telepathy, palmistry, the tarot, Freemasonry, Rasputin, metempsychosis, Madame Blavatsky, astral projection, Nostradamus, Eliphas Levi, the preparation of human sacrifice and the end of the world.  Books with terrible, wonderful titles.  Strange-smelling books, tingly to the touch.

All gone now, of course.

In the past few years I’d not seen Granddad as often as I ought and had barely visited him at home at all.  Only twice really — once when I was looking for a job and we’d spent the afternoon trawling the employment sections of the broadsheets, and once again, a few months ago, when we’d done much the same thing searching for flats and he’d pointed out the place in Tooting Bec.  After that, once I’d met Abbey, my visits dwindled to nothing.

Guiltily, I told myself the usual homiletic lies — that I’d been busy at work and settling into a new flat, that it wasn’t the frequency of my visits but their quality — though none of this made me feel any better about my neglect.

But I still wondered why I hadn’t seen any of those books before.  I suppose he could have bought them recently but, with their cracked spines, makeshift bookmarks and frequent marginalia scribbled in a hand that I recognized at once as his, they had to look about them of a cherished library.

I was distracted by an optimistic yowl and a renewed, determined pressure on my leg.  The cat gave me a disapproving look and padded away to the kitchen.  I followed, intending to open another can of food, only for the animal to turn, trot upstairs and vanish into the bedroom.  Expecting to find a dead mouse or a week’s worth of mess, I followed it inside to discover that here, too, things had changed.

There was a small bed (unmade, strewn with blankets) a table with a coffee-stained copy of the
Mirror
and a wind-up alarm clock which had stopped at 12:14.  What was new was the large framed photograph which hung on the furthest wall.  It was me as a child — an old publicity shot from
Worse Things Happen at Sea
— buck-toothed and freckly, captured in the midst of summoning on demand another fake grin for the cameras.  For a moment, I stood and stared.  Seeing stuff from that time is like witnessing the life of a stranger, as though I’m observing events which overtook someone I’ve never met but only read about in magazines.

I noticed that the picture had been hung slightly askew.  The cat craned its sleek head upward as though he too were staring at it and disapproving of its wonkiness.  He began to yowl.

“All right,” I said.  “I’ll get your food in a minute.”

I walked over to the picture and tried to readjust it, although it seemed oddly weighted and refused to settle.  Irritated, I moved it aside.

It was then that I first started to feel that something was seriously out of kilter here, sensed the first stirrings of the worm at the center of the apple.

Behind the photograph was a sheet of smooth gray metal.  It had no hinges or openings apart from what looked like a small keyhole, its innards filled with pincers of serrated metal.  It resembled a piece of installation art or something from a locksmith’s nightmare.  The thing was an aberration — another mystery in my grandfather’s house.

The doorbell rang.

The cat gave out a startled meow, ran between my legs and stayed there, quaking.  Irrationally, I felt a tremor of fear.  There was a second’s peace before the bell rang again.  I let the photograph swing back into position, padded downstairs and opened the door.

Standing outside was the baby-faced man, Mr. Jasper.

“Hello, Henry.”

The sight of him there of all places was so incongruous that, for a moment, I couldn’t speak.

“We need your help,” he said.  “Invite me in.”

The cat followed me downstairs and now crouched between my legs, shaking in fear.  “What are you doing here?” I asked at last.

“Aren’t you going to ask me in?”  Jasper sounded as though he was making the most reasonable request, as though this wasn’t strange in the slightest, this unwarranted intrusion into an old man’s home.  “Your grandfather put certain safeguards in place.  Here and at the hospital.  We’re going to need your help.”

“My help?  What on earth do you want?”

“Just let me in, Mr. Lamb.”

“No,” I said, suddenly afraid.  “I think you should leave right now.  You’re trespassing.”

Jasper bared his teeth in a humorless approximation of a smile.  As if at the sight of the grimace, the cat wriggled free of my legs and bounded away.

“Have you been following me?”

“You’ll regret it if you don’t let me in.  We’ll huff and we’ll puff and we’ll blow your house down.”

“Go away.”  My voice shook only a little.  “I’ll call the police.”

“Oh, Mr. Lamb.  We’re above the police.”

Then he did something very odd indeed.  His head snapped upwards and he stared fiercely toward the ceiling.  “I agree, sir,” he said, and there was nothing in his manner that suggested he was addressing me.  “I thought he’d be better looking too.”  His eyes flicked over my body.  “Slimmer, frankly.  And
cleaner
.”

“Who are you talking to?” I asked.

Jasper smiled.  “I’ll go,” he said.  “But remember that whatever happens next, you have brought it entirely upon yourself.”

He turned and walked away.  I listened to the click of his expensive shoes upon the pavement but soon even this was swallowed by the sounds of London (the growl of traffic, the howl of sirens, the hectic tattoo of a car stereo) and there was nothing left to prove that Jasper had ever been there at all, nothing to say he wasn’t merely a figment of the city’s imagination.

When I woke the next morning, it took me a while to recollect all that had happened since Tuesday.  For a few merciful seconds, it seemed as substanceless and evanescent as a dream.  Of course, by the time I’d levered myself out of bed, reached for my dressing gown and meandered, bleary eyed and tousle haired, toward the kitchen, everything had come scrambling back and I groaned aloud at the memory.

To my delight, Abbey was already up and sitting on the sofa in her pajamas.  My landlady was the kind of woman who looked sexiest when at her least groomed and at her most irresistible freshly out of bed, unkempt, disheveled and smelling faintly of sleep.

“Morning,” she said.

“Good morning.”  Although I pined for our meetings, when it came to them, I always found myself a little embarrassed, stutteringly short of words.

“Are you OK?”

“I’m fine,” I lied.  “Been a weird few days.”

“I know.”

I swallowed hard.  “I could tell you about it tonight, if you want.”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

I noticed something different about her.  “Where’s your nose stud?”

“Oh, I got rid of it.  Never really me, was it?”

It was probably my imagination but I was sure I saw her blush.

When I got into work, Barbara was standing over my desk, diligently placing all of my possessions into a cardboard box.  Stapler, potted plant, box of tissues, an ancient photo of my dad.

“Morning,” I said.  “What are you doing?”

“Henry.”  The girl’s face turned white.  “Haven’t you heard?”

Before I could ask what she meant, the phone on my desk clamored for my attention.

I picked it up.  “Henry Lamb speaking.”

“It’s Peter.  I want a word.  Pronto.”

I put down the phone and turned curiously to Barbara, who gave me a sympathetic shrug in reply.

“I’d better go, I said, and walked into Hickey-Brown’s office without bothering to knock.

A familiar figure stood next to my manager.

“You remember Mr. Jasper?” Peter asked.

“Good morning, Henry,” said the well-exfoliated man.

“Morning,” I said.

Mr. Jasper smiled.  “I’ll see you outside.”

He left, taking care to close the door behind him.

Hickey-Brown sighed, settled himself down behind his desk and waved a hand to indicate that I should sit opposite.

“Sorry if this seems a bit overwhelming,” he said.  “I realize you’ve had a hell of a week.”

“What on earth’s going on?”

Peter looked at me blankly, whether from discretion or ignorance I couldn’t quite be sure.  “Mr. Jasper will answer all your questions.”

“Oh, really?  Who is this Jasper anyway?”

“I told you.  He’s from a special department.  Don’t look so worried.  It’s part of the Service.”

“He came to my grandfather’s house.  He said he was above the police.”

Hickey-Brown couldn’t meet my eye.  “He must have been joking.”

“Joking?  Why’s Barbara packing up my stuff?  Are you getting rid of me?”

“You’re being transferred.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You’ve made it, Henry.  Your filing days are over.”

“What?”

“Promotion time, Henry.”

“I don’t—”

“Better run along now.  He’s waiting for you.”

Hickey-Brown got to his feet and strode past me to open the door, making it palpably clear that our conversation was at an end.

I walked outside, where Jasper was leaning against what had been my desk, talking animatedly to Barbara.  She was giggling in reply, stroking her hair, placing her fingertip in the side of her mouth and generally playing the coquette.

Jasper grinned at the sight of me.  “There you are!”

Barbara, curiosity emboldened, kissed me on the cheek.  “Good luck, Henry.”

I stood mute and motionless as a shop-window dummy as Jasper thrust the box into my hands.  “There you go.  We’d better get a move on.”

“Now?” I asked.

Jasper nodded.

Barbara squeezed my arm.  “Well done,” she hissed.  “Good luck.”

Nervously, I cleared my throat.  “Well, goodbye everyone,” I announced to the office at large.  “It’s been great working with you all.  I’ve enjoyed myself.  But it looks like I’m moving on.”  My colleagues ignored me, my only answer the tap of keyboards, the drone of telephones, the lazy burr of the photocopier.  Somewhere, inevitably, someone was crunching their way laboriously through a packet of crisps.  Cheese and onion, I think.  I could smell it.

As soon as we were outside, Jasper grabbed my cardboard box and heaved it into the nearest bin.

“What did you do that for?” I asked, trying not to sound too wheedlingly plaintive.

“Where we’re going…”  The man was striding off ahead.  “Take it from me, you’re not going to need  a potted plant.”

I trotted next to him, struggling to keep up.  We walked along the South Bank beside the river, past the National Theatre, the restaurants, bookstalls and pavement caricaturists, past the
Big Issue
sellers and skateboarders and the men in furry coats roasting chestnuts, heading toward the great, gleaming edifice of the Eye.

“Where’s your department?” I asked.

“You’ll know it when you see it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“By the way,” Jasper snapped, “I think you should get a new suit.  You can’t wear that thing anymore.  Wouldn’t be respectful.”

“Oh.”

“That girl in your office…  Barbara, isn’t it?  I don’t suppose you happen to know if she’s attached?”  Jasper’s tone had switched from understated menace to something approaching chumminess.

“What?” I asked.

“I mean does she have a boyfriend?  Someone special in her life?”