Nocturne

by Hurley, Graham

  I lay in bed that night, waiting for the phone to ring. By the time the police broke in, evacuating the street, I’d lost track of how late it was. They took us in buses to the local library. Most of me had ceased to relate to the real world, to the offer of a cup of coffee, to the invitation to help myself to a mattress and a couple of blankets. All I could think about, all that mattered, was Billie.

  Somehow, exhausted, I must have slept for an hour or so because it was Gaynor who woke me up. We left the library, stepping over the rows of sleeping bodies, and she drove me to the police station. I asked her about Billie, what news there’d been, but she said she didn’t know. Once so friendly, she looked wary, guarded, even cold.

  Someone much older was waiting for me at the police station. Judging by his face, he’d had about as much sleep as I had. He and Gaynor took me to an interview room. He said he was a Detective Chief Inspector. He asked me whether I’d had anything to eat.

  ‘You’ve found her,’ I said dully. ‘And she’s dead.’

  His face softened a little. He said he knew about Billie and he said he was sorry. My photos had been circulated. Officers were making inquiries but so far there were no solid leads. He looked at me with some sympathy, then produced a pad, checking his watch.

  ‘This Gilbert Phillips .. .’ he began.

  He wanted to know everything about Gilbert and I heard myself telling him what I knew. I hadn’t a clue why he was interested and I didn’t bother to ask. Whatever had happened overnight was madness, more evidence that the world had finally toppled from its axis. Gilbert had been right all along. The Dark.

  The Chief Inspector was watching me.

  ‘We had a call,’ he said carefully. ‘A tip.’

  ‘About Billie?’ My heart leapt.

  ‘About Phillips. The flat. The call came with a recognised codeword. We had no alternative but to take it seriously.’ He frowned. ‘The caller said there were explosives at number 31 A.’

  ‘Explosive?’

  ‘Specifically Semtex. And timing devices.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘The caller was right.’ He nodded. ‘That’s exactly what we found.’

  I looked helplessly at Gaynor, quite lost. First Billie had gone. Now my mad neighbour was some kind of terrorist. Gilbert? Making bombs? In Napier Road?

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ I said quietly.

  ‘You don’t believe we found the material?’

  ‘I don’t believe he was involved.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I did my best to pull myself together and concentrate. Gilbert was a child, I explained. He was under-developed, a little simple, easily hurt, but there wasn’t an ounce of malice in him. He wouldn’t know one end of a bomb from another.

  ‘We found a target list as well,’ the Chief Inspector pointed out, ‘and supporting material. The search isn’t over, by any means. We may find more.’

  ‘A written list?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘May I see it?’

  The Chief Inspector studied me for a moment. Then he nodded at Gaynor. When she returned, the photocopy was still warm from the machine. I studied the list. Individual names had been blacked out but there was enough scrawl left for me to be sure.

  ‘This isn’t Gilbert’s handwriting,’ I told the Chief Inspector. ‘It’s completely different.’

  ‘That proves nothing. Someone else may have drawn up the list. Possession is what matters. And intent.’

  I was still looking at the list. There were lots of blacked-out names.

  ‘You really think Gilbert would blow these people up?’ For the first time I ventured something close to a smile. The idea was absurd.

  The Chief Inspector’s gaze didn’t waver.

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ he said. ‘One amongst many.’

  ‘There are others?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Like what?’

  There was another silence. The Chief Inspector was still looking at me. Gaynor, too.

  ‘Tell us again about Gilbert,’ he said at length. ‘Start where you did before.’

  I stared at them and began to cry. The Chief Inspector glanced at Gaynor, plainly uncomfortable.

  ‘Would you like a break?’ Gaynor got to her feet.

  I shook my head, then nodded and buried my face in my hands.

  ‘I’d just like my baby back.’ I sobbed. ‘Is that too much to ask?’

  The interview ended soon afterwards. I’d done my best to pull myself together. I’d confirmed various bits of information they seemed to have gathered about Gilbert. I’d even given them Morris Fairweather’s name in the hope that they could get more out of him than I ever had. Then, all of a sudden, I spotted the uniformed policewoman out in the corridor. I could see her through the little square of wired glass. She was signalling to Gaynor. She had important news. I caught Gaynor’s eye. She went to the door. The two women had the briefest conversation, then Gaynor was back again.

  The Chief Inspector glanced up at her but she was looking at me.

  ‘We’ve found Billie.’ She was grinning. ‘She’s safe and well.’

  Gaynor drove me to Billie. Bits of Barnsbury slipped past. Finally, we stopped outside a tall, handsome house, one of a terrace looking onto a square. The house had a red door. I recognised the Mercedes at the kerb.

  Brendan took us down to the basement. Billie was asleep on a big double bed. I gathered her in my arms. I lifted her up, burying my nose in her Babygro, smelling her, like an animal. She began to stir, and I held her tight, tighter than I’ve ever held anything in my life, and the gulping noises I made when I started to cry again woke her up. She rubbed her eyes with the backs of her little hands. Then she reached out for me.

  When I was back in control of myself, I asked what had happened. Brendan said he’d found her on the doorstep. I called him a liar. Gaynor intervened.

  ‘She’s back,’ she pointed out. ‘And she’s intact.’

  True. Gaynor and I left with Billie minutes later. Billie didn’t seem the least bit hungry, and I was already convinced that a search of the house would turn up feeding bottles, Ostermilk, the whole gig. Brendan stole my baby. I’m sure he did. I put the thought to Gaynor, outside on the pavement. Wasn’t the theft of a baby a criminal offence? Wasn’t Brendan guilty of third degree harassment? Couldn’t she march back into the house and arrest him? Gaynor gave me a funny look and held open the car door while Billy and I ducked inside.

  ‘Where to?’ she asked, eyeing me in the rear-view mirror.

  For the next couple of days we were back with Nikki, exactly where I started. She, as ever, was quite brilliant. She promised to help me hunt for a flat and when the time came, she said she’d be there to help with the move as well. Staying at Napier Road, we both agreed, was out of the question. Nikki made a huge fuss of Billie, who seemed quite unharmed by the whole experience, and on the second night we celebrated with champagne and a small mountain of smoked salmon.

  I was still hungover, the following afternoon, when Gaynor phoned. The boys from the Anti-Terrorist Squad had nearly finished at Napier Road. She knew I’d never been upstairs into Gilbert’s flat and she wondered whether I’d like to take a look.

  After some thought, I said yes, and she drove round and picked us up. Since the reunion at Brendan’s house, Billie and I were inseparable. I wouldn’t let her out of my sight.

  At the far end of Napier Road we found a white van that evidently belonged to the forensic people. We got out of the car and crossed the road. The front door to number 31 was still hanging off its hinges from the early morning raid and I stood by the gate for a moment or two, staring at the splintered panels with their broken grin. Had I really lived here for more than a year? Was this the house where - for most of the time — I’d been so happy?

  We moun
ted the stairs, Billie in my arms. I was aware at once of an overwhelming smell, deeply chemical, which Gaynor blamed on the forensic people. They’d spent a day and a half tearing the place apart. Out on the top landing, there was no floorboard unlifted, no pipe unexposed. Even the residues in the kitchen soakaway, Gaynor said, had been carted off for analysis.

  We went into the flat to find more chaos. The main room looked like one of the blitz photographs my father used to show me when I was a child, the ribs of the house plainly visible, and I stepped very carefully from joist to joist, raising dust as I went. The murals caught my eye at once, huge purple planets, hand-painted, cratered, wreathed in cloud. Dominating another wall was a line of colour photos, beautifully framed shots of a girl windsurfing on a choppy grey lagoon. I stared at the photos, one by one, my throat tightening with the dust and the memories. That’s me, I told Billie. That’s Mummy.

  I gazed around at Gilbert’s few sticks of furniture, the handful of items that must have softened this bleak, cold world he’d made his own. The chairs had been torn apart, their stuffing ripped out, and the cheap MFI sofa had been mauled as well. Beside the audio stack, abandoned, was his flute. I asked Gaynor if I could pick it up. She called out to the man we could hear working in the kitchen and he appeared in a dirty blue overall, his hands clad in latex gloves.

  When I asked about trying the flute, he nodded. Gaynor took the baby. I tried to coax out a note or two but nothing happened.

  ‘It’s a real art,’ the man grinned ruefully. ‘We’ve all had a go.’

  He’d been here throughout the search and I asked him what else he’d found. He glanced at Gaynor who said it was OK to show me round. I followed him through into the narrow hall. Wherever we walked, there were empty egg boxes underfoot. At the end of the hall, I found a small lavatory. The door was open. The forensic man gestured inside.

  ‘That’s where the egg boxes came from,’ he explained. ‘And this stuff as well.’

  He stooped in the gloom and picked up a length of felt. It was the same material Gilbert used for his curtains: thick, absorbent, heavy- duty. Gilbert had spread layer after layer of it on the floor.

  ‘And the egg boxes?’

  ‘Glued to the walls.’

  ‘Why?’

  He looked at Gaynor again. Gaynor nodded. With the door closed, he said, the loo would have been virtually soundproof, an acoustic cell, utterly sealed off from reality. He thought the guy must have had a thing about privacy, about shutting himself away. That’s where they’d found the mobile. That’s where he’d taken his phone calls.

  Phone calls? We returned to the wreckage of the main room. Underneath a pile of bedding, the forensic man found the mobile phone he’d been looking for.

  ‘The guy had two phones,’ he said. ‘One on a socket, and this one.’ I stared at it. I’d just noticed the Mothercare catalogue, half-hidden beneath a pile of old newspapers.

  ‘What’s the number?’ I asked him.

  He glanced at Gaynor again and then disappeared towards the kitchen. When he came back he was carrying a clipboard. He began to look for the number, his finger working down a typed inventory. When his finger stopped he looked up.

  ‘0831 ?’ I asked him, ‘306708?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Gaynor was looking surprised.

  ‘You used to phone him? When you lived downstairs?’

  ‘Yes. Sort of.’

  ‘What do you mean, sort of?’ I was still looking at the phone.

  ‘He had a brother,’ I faltered. ‘At least, I thought he did.’

  It was weeks before I saw Brendan again. He called me at the new flat, a sunny conversion in Chiswick two streets away from the Thames. A carpenter was still busy putting up cupboards in the kitchen, hammering and sawing, and I had difficulty making sense of what Brendan was saying. Something about his new company. Something about a project. Something about the need for us to meet.

  ‘Tomorrow morning,’ he said. ‘Ten o’clock. I’m sending a car.’

  The car arrived at the appointed hour. Billie and I settled into the back of a dented Shogun which delivered us to a newish-looking building in a street off the Tottenham Court Road. Brendan had rented a suite of offices on the third floor. The logo of Solo Productions was a lone sail. Sweet.

  We waited for several minutes in the little reception area. The place felt exactly like Doubleact - the framed production stills, the pile of bagged video rushes on the desk - and I was half-tempted to gather Billie up and run. Even the sound of Brendan’s voice on the phone had upset me.

  At length, a rangy American redhead took us to Brendan’s office. He was sitting behind a huge desk, looking pleased with himself. The redhead didn’t leave.

  ‘This is Varenka,’ he said. ‘She’s from LA.’

  Varenka and I exchanged wary smiles. I began to wonder about their relationship but Brendan spared me the trouble.

  ‘I’ve asked Varenka to sit in,’ he grinned. ‘There’s not much we don’t discuss.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  Brendan ignored me. He was looking at the baby. It was the first time he’d seen Billie since I collected her that afternoon from Barnsbury.

  ‘We must fix some kind of schedule,’ he told Varenka. ‘Weekends or something. You’re supposed to be good with babies.’

  I pointed out that Billie was a bit young to lead a life of her own. Did Varenka breastfeed? Brendan and Varenka exchanged looks. He’d obviously warned her about how difficult I could be, and the sight of her trying to rouse a smile from Billie made my blood run cold. These people are beneath contempt, I thought. Brendan owed me some answers, and I wanted an undertaking that he’d leave us both alone, but all of that could wait until Billie and I were out of there. Just being in his office, just looking at him, soiled me.

  ‘Gilbert’s been released,’ I said. ‘Did you hear about that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Seems he wasn’t a terrorist after all. Surprise surprise.’

  Brendan returned my icy smile. ‘You’re saying he’s normal now?’

  ‘No, I’m saying he was framed. Someone dumped all that stuff in his flat. Someone with an interest in getting me out.’

  Varenka butted in, trying to change the subject, but I’d spent nearly a month getting this far and I wasn’t going to stop now. Brendan motioned to Varenka to shut up. He was looking interested.

  ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘My point is that someone wanted Gilbert and me apart. You know about the family, Fairweather, the offer to buy me out?’ Brendan nodded. ‘And you know I didn’t give them the decision they wanted?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Morris told me.’

  ‘OK,’ I shrugged. ‘So there you have it.’

  ‘The family? Gilbert’s family?’ Brendan was grinning now. ‘You think Gilbert’s family planted the explosives?’ He began to laugh.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, trying not to sound defensive. ‘They obviously have money, connections, power. The one thing they couldn’t buy was me.’ I was starting to lose my temper. He still had the knack of getting under my skin and that angered me even more. ‘You think I’ve got it wrong?’

  ‘I know you’ve got it wrong.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘Try looking at motive.’

  ‘I just did.’

  ‘Look harder.’

  I stared at him. What was he telling me here? What had I missed? Who else wanted Gilbert and me apart?

  ‘You?’ I queried softly. ‘You did it?’

  Brendan looked briefly pained, chiefly I think because I hadn’t got there earlier. He always loved taking the credit, even for something as serious and as bizarre as this. I was thinking hard now. Would he really have gone to such lengths? Semtex? Target lists? Code words
?

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ I told him. ‘I think you’re fantasizing again.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it was so elaborate. And so…’ I frowned, hunting for the right word, ‘… crazy.’

  ‘You think I wouldn’t take the risk?’ He was looking at Billie. ‘Given what was at stake?’

  I couldn’t take my eyes off his face. I remembered now. I remembered that last time he came to the house. That chilly afternoon when he spent so long in the garden, looking up at Gilbert’s flat. Was he casing the joint? Looking for ways in?

  ‘You’d need access to explosives,’ I pointed out. ‘And you’d need the code word. To make them take you seriously.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You had all that?’

  He didn’t say anything. He was still looking at Billie. Finally he leaned back in the chair, his feet propped on the desk, the old pose. I might be here for an interview, I thought to myself. We might have never met.

  ‘Who Dares Wins?’ He was grinning now. ‘All that special forces shit? You know how these guys operate, surely?’

  I blinked. Of course I knew. Of course I bloody did. It was Gary. Faithful old Gary. With his SAS contacts, arid his black balaclava, and his empty bank account. Brendan was right. Why hadn’t I got there first?

  ‘So what did it take?’ I asked softly, ‘Money?’

  ‘Interesting question,’ Brendan sighed. ‘What does it ever take?’

  I stared at him, for once robbed of a reply. I was back in the park, that terrible afternoon when I lost Billie. I felt the panic again, and the fear. And then I felt the anger. This man had taken my baby. By bragging about the rest of it - the Semtex, the code word, the target list - he’d given himself away. If he could do that, he could do anything. He was pitiless. He was psychopathic. It was Brendan, not Gilbert, who belonged with the insane. How come I’d ever let him so close to me? How come I’d believed a single word he’d said? How come he wasn’t in a lunatic asylum? Or a prison cell?

  At this point, a secretary intervened with coffee and biscuits. While I crumbled chocolate digestives for Billie, trying to control myself, Brendan treated me to what was obviously his standard pitch for Solo Productions. How many projects he had in the pipeline. The backing he’d raised abroad. The huge potential of the US market. Then, quite suddenly, he was talking about a specific programme idea. It was about power, he said. About love. About insanity. Two brothers, one successful, one not. Brother number one becomes a politician. Brother number two’s half-mad.