Wake Up Happy Every Day

by Stephen May

  She explains that Megan has just walked through the door exactly as he had predicted she would. To his credit the cop doesn’t sound amused or smug. Just says that it is good news.

  ‘Yorkshire. By the way.’

  ‘Sorry, Ma’am?’

  ‘You asked where I was from. It’s West Yorkshire, England. Near Bradford.’

  ‘OK, right. Thank you.’

  ‘So that’s two mysteries sorted. The SFPD clear-up rate is really picking up today, isn’t it?’

  The cop laughs good-naturedly. She carries on, ‘If only everything could be resolved that easily, huh?’

  ‘You got that right, Ma’am. I’m pleased your friend is safe home.’ A pause. He seems to be on the brink of saying something else. But whatever it is, he doesn’t pursue it. Tells her to have a good day now.

  ‘You too.’

  As she replaces the phone in its cradle, Megan hands her a cup of coffee. She sips it. It’s good. Megs is much, much better than Lorna at coffee.

  ‘You called the cops?’

  ‘Yeah, well. I didn’t know what else to do.’

  ‘I should have called you.’

  ‘No. Like you said, you’re a big girl now. None of my beeswax.’

  They sit and drink coffee for a while. Then Lorna tells Megan about seeing Jez. Megan’s nose wrinkles comically. And she tells her about thinking she’d seen her dad or certainly someone who really looked like him. So maybe he’s back from his travels.

  ‘OK, let me get changed and we’ll go to the city and see if he’s home.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You don’t have to go to work?’

  ‘I’m taking some time off.’

  ‘Because of yesterday’s late one.’

  ‘You got it.’

  Lorna thinks Megan looks shifty, but she also knows that her own reaction to her friend staying out was over the top, and she’s embarrassed. She isn’t going to start quizzing her about stuff now. If Megan has things to say she’ll tell her when she’s good and ready.

  Megan picks up their cups and goes back to the kitchen. Lorna calls out over the sound of the taps.

  ‘Megan, my love?’

  ‘Yes, Lorna?’

  ‘Am I still your best girl?’

  Megan reappears in the doorway, broad athletic shoulders filling the whole frame. She is smiling, but a little sadly Lorna thinks. Or maybe she is just being hypersensitive.

  ‘You will always be my best girl, Lorna. You know that.’

  ‘Just checking. It’s good to know.’

  Thirty-eight

  NICKY

  The bobby-dazzler suit is almost ready and I go for my final fitting feeling cheerier than I have in days.

  I’m reconciled to going back to our soggy little island now. Actually I’ve moved a bit beyond reconciled, maybe I’m even quite looking forward to it. When I was last in England I was a balding, greying, pudgy council drone with dodgy teeth. Now I’m a rascal, a rogue, a rapscallion. A master criminal. Rich and fit, my sharp cheekbones set off by my artfully mussed-up hair. My teeth – they gleam, they sparkle. I could be a kind of dandy highwayman myself, tlot-tlotting my gangster glamour through the damp suburban streets in my eye-catching whistle. I’m so different from the anonymous little man who left from Gatwick three months ago that it’s hard to believe that I won’t see the place differently too. Maybe I should make a documentary on my phone. Capture all the oddities and absurdities of the English.

  Another thing that has made me realise it’s time to go. San Francisco is shrinking, the way all places do when you get to know them too well. The other day, for example, glancing into a coffee shop and seeing Lorna Dawson sitting right there holding hands with her boyfriend, that had given me a bit of a turn. Time to go.

  England, my England. It is a bit frustrating that the one place I won’t be able to wander is the place where I lived. Even with the new hair, the new teeth, the new threads, and without the twenty pounds of flab I used to haul around with me everywhere – we’ve decided that there’s still a risk I’ll be recognised. So when we’re in Southwood I’ll be in the Manton Grange Spa and Golf complex – Southwood’s premier hotel – watching sport on Sky. But that won’t be for long. Sarah has promised she’ll see her mum and her sister. Maybe a girls’ night out with her mates, and then we’re off. We’re friends again now, by the way. In the morning, Scarlett wriggling and gurgling between us, our snarkiness seemed pointless and stupid. And Mary and Jesus aren’t coming with us anyway, they tell us. But sssh, don’t tell our kid.

  We’ll do London – I suspect that London might be the best place in the world to be rich – and then who knows? New York, Paris, Istanbul. Check out some of Russell’s other pieds in other terres.

  And even if I’m stuck indoors watching crown-green bowls on a hotel telly, then I may well be wearing this suit. It is truly a thing of rare beauty. A fully hand-sewn summer kid mohair three-piece in the kind of subtle purple the classier kind of Roman emperor might have appreciated. Mother of pearl buttons to add a bit of bling. A bobby dazzler indeed. Jimmy’s not happy though, and even through his mouthful of pins he still manages to articulate the cause of his disapproval.

  ‘I do wish you’d stop losing weight,’ he says, sulkily. ‘There’s another hour’s work here now.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘I have nothing important to do. I’ll just, you know, mooch about a bit. Come back in an hour or so.’

  And now Jimmy manages to convey what he thinks of those of us who have nothing to do in the middle of the day except mooch. A shoulder twitches dismissively. It’s obvious that he thinks we’re all a symptom of something profoundly wrong with the state of things. All of us, his clients, we’re unworthy of him – that’s what that shoulder twitch says. And it’s true too. Jimmy after all is a man made stooped and grey and squinty with work. He’s more or less bald apart from the twin feathery tufts of white hair above each ear. He stares anxiously at the world through thick-lensed glasses held together with Sellotape. He doesn’t even wear a suit himself, preferring to work in a vest and old jeans that look a size too big. He shuffles, sighing, around his workshop, crooked with pronounced scoliosis. He looks like a man expecting to be foreclosed at any minute, though Jesus assures me that he is a man of immense personal wealth.

  Work is maybe not a choice for this man, it is a weird compulsion.

  And so I head off out into the streets around the shop and am startled to come face-to-face with Catherine, the woman who asked me out while running. She looks nervous, agitated. I can’t think what I saw in her.

  ‘We need to talk,’ she says, and she sounds like she means it.

  And so we go to a coffee shop where she has a double expresso and then reveals herself to be completely off her nut.

  One of the jobs I had before the cultural services billet came up was working with the long-term mentally ill. The people who were being moved from asylums into ‘the community’, whatever the hell that is. And among that bunch of elderly schizos we had Walter who, he said, drove buses in the spirit world. And I remember thinking then, if you’re going to have a fantasy life that involves you journeying between here and the astral plane, don’t be a bleeding bus driver. It’s your world and you can be anything, so be a king. Be supreme overlord of the Galaxy. Be God. Be Lord of everything. Aim high. Have some ambition, man.

  And there was another old man – Doug – whose big thing was that he had come up with the idea of Interpol, but that our dear Queen Elizabeth had infringed his intellectual copyright, and then had him locked up to prevent him gaining the vast riches that would obviously accrue from being the inventor of international cooperation between police forces. Apparently, at some point in the 1940s, he’d tried filing his brainwave with the patent office and the very next day he was in Broadmoor.

  Walter and Doug. I’d liked them. As delusional schizos went they were very engaging.

  This Catherine is less enga
ging, her fantasy less compelling and her whole manner less convincing too.

  When we’re sitting down, I can see that she’s close to tears.

  ‘What is it?’ I say. ‘What’s the matter?’ And to be honest I’m expecting a tale of woe involving a lost passport maybe or possibly sudden redundancy. Perhaps a text arriving from England saying that due to the economic situation etc. etc. Or maybe a sick family member. And that seeing me by chance, she’s taken it as a sign that maybe rescue is at hand. Something like that. Maybe not rescue even, but just a supportive shoulder to lean on in a place where she is foreign and alone.

  I’m emphatically not expecting her to tell me that I have days to live, that apparently I have a lethal, incurable virus travelling around my bloodstream. That she herself is actually a kind of James Bond figure, licensed to kill and all that, but has been duped into bumping off Western venture capitalists on behalf of shadowy forces operating out of Asia or Moscow. She does tell me the precise details, but to be honest it’s so convoluted and confused that I struggle to keep up. You know when someone’s trying to explain the plot of a movie to you, one that you have no wish to see. Or when someone is trying to tell you about this really amazing dream they had last night? Well, that basically. Give me the simple clarity of a Walter or a Doug any day.

  Anyway, less than two minutes in I’m thinking of how best I can escape this psycho nutjob and thanking my lucky stars I never ever got myself properly entangled with her. So, what with one thing and another, I’m not really listening.

  ‘Russell. You’re not really listening.’

  ‘I am. You’re a government assassin.’

  ‘I hate that word.’

  ‘A foreign agent then, and you shot me with some kind of poisoned dart when we were out running, because her Britannic Majesty’s enemies want to manipulate the international money markets. You’ve been working, without your knowledge, for an organisation which is dedicated to the eradication of usurers.’

  ‘You think I’m mad.’

  ‘No, no, no. ’Course not.’

  ‘I wouldn’t really blame you. Sometimes I think I’m mad.’ Which is good because it does suggest the possibility of some kind of self-awareness, so perhaps some kind of redemption is also possible. I read somewhere that way more people than you think have psychotic episodes in their life. Mental illness is one of the great hidden epidemics.

  I decide to humour her. Play along. It seems safest given that we’re in a place full of knives and forks. ‘But what can I do, Catherine? You tell me there’s no cure for this poison. Seems to me like I just have to accept things.’

  ‘You do think I’m mad.’ Her eyes fill up again. I wonder what we look like to the other customers in the cafe. Maybe we look like a couple breaking up. A good-looking middle-aged couple who have come to the end of their rainbow. I wonder if they think I’m the chucker or the chuckee.

  ‘You can . . . I don’t know . . .’ She takes a deep breath. ‘Look, I’m telling you so you can get your affairs in order.’ Very kind of her I’m sure. ‘And it’s not really much use, but I know the people responsible. And I will get them for you, Russell. You can be sure about that.’

  My phone breaks into its polyphonic dawn chorus. Its avian aria. Mary. Hurrah. Saved. Whatever she’s calling about it’s going to necessitate my getting a fast exit out of here. It’ll be something that needs dealing with that can’t be put off. It’ll be sorry Catherine, thanks for the warning and then see ya (don’t wanna be ya).

  Mary is hysterical. I can hardly make out a word she’s saying. I make her slow down and start again, take her time. But I can feel my heart start pounding, a sickness rising in my throat. Not Scarlett. Not our gorgeous little girl. Our defenceless angel.

  ‘They’ve taken her.’

  ‘What? Who’s taken her?’

  ‘I don’t know. I only left her for a minute, she was playing with her dolls and I was stacking the dishwasher and I came back in and she was gone.’

  ‘Where has she gone?’

  ‘I don’t freaking know, Russell! But someone has taken her. They’ve left a note.’

  ‘You saying she’s been kidnapped?’

  ‘I don’t know! Yes, I guess. There’s a note.’

  ‘A note?’

  ‘Yes, a freaking note. Jeez. I told you already.’

  ‘What does it say?’ She starts wailing again. ‘Come on, Mary get it together. What does it say?’

  ‘It just says . . .’ I hear her gulping for air. ‘It just says, “The kid will be fine as long as you’re smart. Wait for our call. Don’t call the cops.” That’s all it says.’

  Fuck’s sake. It’s like something from a shit no-budget made-for-TV movie.

  I repeat it back to her. ‘“Kid will be fine as long as you’re smart. Don’t call the cops.” That’s really what it says?’

  ‘Yes, and it says to wait for their call. I’m really sorry, Russell. I was only out of the room a minute—’

  I cut her off. ‘I’m coming back. I’ll get a cab. Where’s Sarah?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve left a message.’

  ‘Keep trying her. And Mary – if something happens to that little girl I’ll . . .’ I’ll what? What will I do? I can’t finish the sentence. I just click off.

  I’m already on my feet and I throw a note on the table. I don’t even see what denomination it is. I look at Catherine, the woman who has been wasting my time with her stupid mad shit. But I’m taken aback by how she’s looking at me. Just for a second I am shaken out of my rising panic. She’s looking shrewd, alert, focused. She looks fucking sharp. Entirely fucking sane is what she looks like.

  ‘I have a car,’ she says. ‘I’ll drive you home.’

  I hesitate. ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Take you ages to get a cab.’ And she’s right. She might be nuts but she’s right there and she’s got a vehicle.

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘But don’t talk please. Just drive me where I say. And don’t say a fucking word.’

  ‘Deal,’ she says. And then she moves from her seat fast so she’s in front of me and she pulls me into a powerful hug.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I say. ‘We’ve got to go.’

  ‘Of course,’ she says meekly, and she shrugs. ‘I was just—’

  ‘Forget it. Let’s go now. Please.’

  Thirty-nine

  CATHERINE

  If her passenger had been taking in anything of his surroundings he might have been impressed with how she handled the car. She certainly doesn’t drive like a mental case. Catherine drives that Toyota Camry – the middle-aged female jogger of cars – as all cars should be driven, with an unhurried deliberation but still with an eye for gaps in the lines, opportunities to bob and weave to shave minutes off the journey time as estimated by the satnav. No over-fussy traffic cop would have found anything to pull her over for, and yet they are in Russian Hill way quicker than your average chump commuter could ever manage it.

  Yes, if Russell Knox was in any state to think clearly about things he would applaud. That’s what Catherine thinks anyway as she watches him swipe his card at the gate of this mansion block and dive inside.

  Catherine puts the Camry into drive and moves off. As soon as she is out of sight of the house, round the corner in Jackson, she stops and pulls Nicky’s phone out from her pocket. It takes her twenty seconds to find Mary’s number and another twenty to scan that number with Ariadne. How, she wonders, had they managed to operate before that neat little app had been developed?

  But anyhoo, less than two minutes after delivering Russell Knox back to his house of tears she has Mary’s address and is heading there. One thing she knows about child abductions – whether by perves or ordinary decent thieves – is that they are usually an inside job. Want to find that paedo child killer? Start with the uncles, the stepbrothers, the neighbours. And the father, of course. Don’t forget him. That ransom note? Usually dictated by a trusted retainer. Except where it is dictated by the uncles, th
e stepbrothers, the neighbours or the father.

  Even driving the way Catherine does, it’s going to take her twenty-five minutes to get to Potrero so she has plenty of time to think.

  She’s confident that if the kid is still alive, then she can get her out, that won’t be too much of a problem. It’s what she’s going to do afterwards that’s the concern. She should, actually, be pretty pissed off with Tough because he’s put her right in the shit.

  As soon as Madam knows that she knows what the firm is really about, then it’ll be goodnight sodding Vienna. So her only option really is to disappear. Drop off the radar, like Tough did himself. Not Abkhazia necessarily, though Tough has offered her his place there, but somewhere like it. Somewhere out of the way, some failed state without much likelihood of rejoining the civilised family of nations any time soon. And somewhere where her skill-set might be valued and rewarded.

  And there’s always Mossad, of course. There’s always them. They take anyone. They’re always hiring.

  Yeah, she should be pissed off with Tough, but she isn’t. Always worth knowing the truth, even if it complicates your life.

  And there is the question of vengeance. Madam, and the others like her and above her, they should answer for what they’ve done somehow.

  Catherine shifts in her seat, the air con is a bit buggered and she feels sticky, clammy. She tries to put her mind into neutral the way she does before any gig, even a small one like this. She flicks on the stereo. Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits. Perfect.

  The drive takes her all the way from ‘Don’t Stop’ to ‘Tusk’. ‘Tusk’ makes her wonder about going back to Africa, even despite that close call in Sierra Leone.

  Then it is time for action.

  The apartment is above a florist. She presses the button. A wary Latin voice answers.

  ‘Yo?’

  ‘I got the money.’