by Stephen May
She ties the feet and hands of the operatives. Tight enough, but not too tight, she isn’t wanting to properly hurt anyone. She isn’t doing real work on these nobodies. Not taking any major action. She’s just napping them. Giving them their own little daytime slumber party.
She does all she needs to and then she has a quick look for some ID. She finds it in the glovebox and she guesses it was actually these plastic oblongs that the woman had been fighting for. Certainly there are no angel-makers in there, no armoury. A notepad, some pens – and these ID cards on their tangled lanyards. She makes a quick mental note of the names and numbers on the cards and then puts them back in the compartment and jogs back to the Knox house.
She has a brief moment of concern when she sees the front door is open, but it’s OK. She walks into the nearest reception room and she can see it’s all happy families. Russell Knox, his partner and his little girl, all smiling, all laughing.
She tells them she thinks they have an hour. Really, she thinks they probably have two but if you want people to do things by a deadline it’s always best if they think they have less time than they do.
And Sarah raises an eyebrow and Russell just says that he’ll explain later. And then Catherine shows them the pictures of the people watching the house and sees them both switch on frowns of wonder and concern.
‘Hey, it’s the honorary consultant, Mr Jones. The computers and fruit guy.’
‘And Dorito woman.’
And they both look a bit lost. Like they paid to come into some kind of hall of mirrors and it stopped being fun a while back. Now they just keep banging their heads as they try and find the exit.
And then Russell says, ‘Hey, is that my phone?’
And Catherine says no, it’s hers and he looks doubtful but he doesn’t challenge her.
And Sarah asks her who she is again exactly, and Catherine looks at Russell and he tells her that she is the woman who found Scarlett, and brought her back to the house, and Sarah hugs her and thanks her and then says, ‘You’re a neighbour?’
And Catherine says, ‘That’s what the man said.’
Which, after all, is not yes and so is not a lie. Catherine hopes she has maybe told her last ever lie.
And there is a silence. Time for her to go. Time for them all to go.
She says, ‘Well, there’s nothing more I can do so this time I really am gone. Take it easy. And sorry again.’
And Sarah’s puzzled frown deepens a little.
And Russell walks her to the door and she tells him who the people watching the house had been working for. And he does something surprising. He laughs. And they shake hands. Funny, people don’t often find it amusing that the IRS and HMRC are both chasing them.
And just before the door closes behind her she hears Scarlett shout, ‘Bang. Bang. Bang.’
And she hears Sarah coo, ‘Oh, my clever darling. My beautiful baby.’
And as she makes her way down the driveway Catherine thinks – not for the first time – that parenthood clearly turns your brains to mush.
Forty-eight
NICKY
There’s no doubt that Sarah likes me being in charge. A bit freaked out naturally, but delighted. I also seem to have got a bit of credit for the fact that Scarlet is speaking now. It’s nothing to do with me, it’s just happened, but I was around when she started and Sarah wasn’t, so I’m getting some extra warmth because of that.
Anyway, it’s me who decides what we’re packing. Me who orders that one of Russell’s RVs be brought round from the garage who are storing it. And me who, when she attempts to ask some questions about all the shit that’s happened while she’s been out, tells her to shut up and drive. Really, I’d like to be doing the driving and it’s a ten-hour trip to Vegas, so I’ll probably have to at some point, but if I really am going to drop dead at any moment, I don’t want to be behind the wheel of a 44 feet long, 380 horse power, 42,000 pound Fleetwood Providence 3000 when it happens.
It’s the perfect machine for me. More my style than Jesus’s limo was. This is like the best appointed mobile library you’ve ever seen. Sarah’s nervous about driving at first, and we crawl out of the city with me shouting directions.
We make a slight detour because I want to pick up my suits from Jimmy. I want to get married, and die if I absolutely have to, in a beautiful bespoke suit. A bobby dazzler.
Jimmy is shutting up shop when we get there. The Providence waits in the road holding up traffic while I sprint in. He seems unsurprised both by my appearance several hours after I’d said I’d be back and by the fact that I’ve arrived in the kind of luxury camper van that is the sort of thing Cirque Du Soleil might travel in.
I was hoping for a surgical strike: In. Pick up suits. Out. Go go go. But Jimmy doesn’t work like that. He’s a real artist. One of the few I’ve known to be honest, despite all my years in cultural services. He insists I try the bobby dazzler on again.
‘You’ve lost two pounds since this morning,’ he huffs. ‘There’s another hour’s work there.’
For all I know I don’t have another hour.
‘You know what Apollinaire said?’ I say.
He just looks at me, his mouth full of pins. I carry on, ‘“A poem is never finished, it’s abandoned.” I think the same is true of all works of art, don’t you?’
Jimmy carefully spits the pins into his hand. ‘A poem is just words,’ he says. ‘Words that anyone can read. One size fits all. This, my friend, this is a suit. A suit just for you. That only you can wear.’
I tell him that I like my suits a little loose. ‘Growing room,’ I say, then feel foolish as he gazes seriously from behind the bottle-thick lenses in his ruined specs. In the end he shrugs. He has little tufts of coarse maran-grass-type hair on his shoulders. His vest is stained. Odd that this tailor cares so little for how he looks himself.
‘If that’s what you want.’
‘The customer is always right,’ I say, and he laughs loudly. Too loudly. Two quick dry mirthless barks. Ha. Ha. And then another two. Ha. Ha. I feel his contempt following me like a foot pushing me out of his shop as I leave wearing the very slightly baggy but absolutely beautiful work of art that is the bobby dazzler.
And speaking of art, the road outside Jimmy’s place is now a modernist symphony for car horns. In California patience is not a virtue. In California patience is a pathology.
‘Nice suit,’ says Sarah as I clamber back aboard. ‘Is that for our wedding? Or are you going into the pimping business?’
‘You know in less than twenty-four hours’ time you’re going to promise to obey me, don’t you? Twice. In front of witnesses.’
She laughs good naturedly as she puts the Providence into drive. Just as we leave the city and hit the freeway, I remember something else that will make her laugh. It’s a good moment to tell her about the file I opened on Russell’s iThing.
‘Hey, Sarah, you want to hear something really funny?’
‘That would be nice,’ she says.
‘You have to promise not to crash the bus.’
‘Just tell me. I’m used to shocks by now.’
‘OK. So I found Russell’s will. All notorised and authorised and legally attested. Guess who he left his money to?’
Her eyes don’t leave the road, but her skin seems to pale and tighten. And then flush. This must be an illusion, but it definitely looks that way.
‘Don’t tell me.’
‘Me. He left everything to me. Ain’t that a kick in the head?’
‘I said, don’t tell me.’
‘And I said don’t crash the bus.’
I say this because we have drifted dangerously and are straddling two lanes of the freeway. We are half over the FARE lane – the more or less empty lane you pay to use – and half over the ordinary plebs lane where we could tailgate a jalopy at any time – Sarah overcompensates and now we wobble into the FARE lane in a way that’s properly frightening. I think about suggesting that I take over for a while,
but can’t of course.
‘I need to think, Nicky.’
‘Yes, that’s a thing – maybe I can return to being Nicky again,’ and I go on to say it’ll make an interesting case if we ever do get to court. We might turn out not to have committed any major crimes at all. And I find myself talking about other people who have faked their deaths. There was that MP. And there was that guy who ran from his creditors and hid out with his wife in Panama until they were photographed proudly accepting the keys to their new house, and then that happy snap ends up on the estate agent’s website.
But the MP was wanted for other crimes. And the Panama twerps cashed in the life insurance fraudulently. And I like to think that they really went to prison for their stupidity rather than their veniality. Of course, we’ve also cashed in the life insurance but it’s different for us, surely? I mean we could pay it back many times over.
Sarah stays quiet and lets me ramble on like this, while the Providence swallows miles like a great whale hoovering up plankton.
Takes me a while to realise that she’s crying.
And there’s me thinking it was all actually kind of funny.
‘I’ll be OK. I won’t crash the bus. I really do need to think, that’s all.’
‘OK. OK.’
I make my way into the back of the bus to watch some sport with Scarlett on the forty-eight-inch plasma screen set into the wall. I don’t need to say anything to her, she’s giggling the moment she sees me. This suit seems to have turned me into a right comedian. As long as I keep away from the beneficiary of the will material, I go down a storm with everyone.
‘What you watching, kid?’ I say.
‘Field hockey,’ she says. And I’m floored again by this talking version of our baby. How would she even know what the game is called? But anyway, I explain that in England, back home, this is just hockey, no field attached, but she doesn’t seem very interested to be honest.
‘You’ll be playing that one day, girl,’ I say, and it makes me smile to think how the sport considered most suitable for schoolgirls is the one where you give the players weapons. Curved wooden clubs that are perfect for stoving in skulls and smashing up teeth and noses. And of course, Scarlett will be waving hers one-handed. I bet she causes havoc. I bet she turns out to be a right Boudicca wielding her stick like a battleaxe. I hope so anyway.
And when Scarlett changes the channel to the one that seems to show twenty-four-hours-a-day Spongebob, possibly the creepiest cartoon hero yet, I get out the iThing and check emails. Which is how I learn that my father is dead.
And my first thought is what great mitigation it’ll be if whatever crime I turn out to have committed does ever come to court.
I can hear my barrister now. I imagine a northern woman. Well groomed, glamorous but down-to-earth, still with a touch of the mills in her voice, seducing the jury with a playful hint of BDSM in the eyes, telling them of the great sorrows of my life. Disabled daughter, dead dad. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, hasn’t this man suffered enough? And when you think how generous he’s been – and with what turns out to have been his own money all along too . . . Who, exactly, is the victim here? Who indeed?
Reading on, I find Polly tells me all the details of the funeral. Apparently they’re cremating him in her village and we can come if we like. Afterwards, they’re all going to fly kites while the ashes are scattered. Turns out that dad has made kites with his own hands for all those who he especially hopes will be there. So there is one for Sarah, one for Scarlett. None for me of course – why would he make one for Russell Knox? She says how fitting it is with Daniel being a master of the Punjabi fighting kites and all that.
The way she tells it my dad was the kite king. The kite guru. The man whose creations ruled the skies like so many trained golden eagles. I remember reading about a golden eagle in Canada that swooped on a four-year-old kid and bashed his head against a cliff to open him up so he could get to the juicy brains inside. My dad would be impressed by that. The single-mindedness, the ambition, the invention. The ruthlessness. Yeah, the complete lack of ruth.
Polly says how she’s hoping for a good turnout from the village. Dad was only there a few days but apparently he had a fan club. The pub quiz team, the darts team, the pool team – they’ll all be there, as will the bar staff and all his friends from Sunny Bank. It will be quite an occasion. I can picture it, dozens of kites dancing in the sky. A weird pre-migration ritual of exotic birds that don’t really belong in the Bedfordshire countryside.
I thank her for telling me. I think for a moment. Then go on to express my regret that I won’t make the event, that pressing commitments over here make it impossible. That I think it all sounds beautiful. It’s what the old man would have wanted and what a shame that his son couldn’t be there to see it either.
And I am impressed with myself for refraining from telling her that the Punjabi fighting-kite guru thing is a crock of shit. Or, even if it isn’t, my dad certainly never made a kite for me before, never flew one either. Of course, I know the dead always have secrets. All of them are conjurers of a kind. There’s always a final ta-dah and a cymbal crash and a big reveal. But kites? Kites? Really?
Forty-nine
LORNA
It’s almost dark when they reach the house in Russian Hill. In the dusk it looks especially daunting, especially grand. And the fact that there are no lights anywhere and yet the imposing front door is obviously open, well, that’s all sinister too.
Lorna and Megan stand on the sidewalk for a while, pretending to ponder their next move. It’s a no-brainer really. They press the buzzer on the door several times, but no salivating dogs appear. Likewise no uni-browed goons with big hairy hands and too-shiny shoes. So they walk in. They pause in the hallway for a moment. It isn’t really a moment of doubt, more a chance to savour the shivery deliciousness of going somewhere forbidden. And even in the dark they can sense the hallway has some grandeur. The ceiling, so high there’s a faint echo.
‘It’s like when I played on building sites as a kid,’ whispers Lorna as they walk the absurd length of the hallway. Jesus, you could play ten-pin bowling in here.
‘You played on construction sites? Why would you do such a thing?’
Lorna shrugs. ‘I was just a naughty girl, I guess. If I was told not to go somewhere, well, that’s where I went.’
They creep forward, still half-expecting sirens and tannoyed voices telling them to remain exactly where they are.
‘I was always a good girl.’ Megan sounds sad.
‘Well you know what they say. Good girls go to heaven . . .’
‘And bad girls go everywhere. Yes, I’ve heard that.’
‘Anyway,’ says Lorna. ‘You’re not a good girl any more. Sleeping with the boss’s husband, breaking and entering . . .’
They are just into the kitchen when they are blinded by all the lighting coming on. Lorna freezes as if the music has stopped in a game of musical statues.
‘What are you doing here?’
The voice behind them is deep but mild enough, and it’s Megan who recovers first and whirls around to face the threat.
‘Linwood!’
‘Hey, Megs.’
The trainer’s hard black shape lounges against the handmade oak kitchen cupboards. A solemn presence, his eyes questioning.
‘Linwood, this is too fucking weird. What the fuck are you doing here?’
‘No need to curse,’ sniffs Linwood. ‘I came to give Russell Knox his workout, you know, Russell – the guy that lives here?’
Lorna gradually turns too. Her eyes are hurting. This sudden light is too much. ‘You’re my father’s personal trainer?’
‘Russell is your dad? Gee. Lucky girl.’
‘That’s woman, Linwood. Lucky woman.’ Then a pause. ‘Why am I lucky exactly?’
Linwood spreads his arms as if to say, just look at this world, and despite herself Lorna looks about and sees the wardrobe-sized SMEG fridge-freezer, the straw-coloured Tu
scan tiles, the gleaming monster range, the hard black marble work surfaces, the languid curves of the S-shaped island in the middle of the room. She could practically see the brochure where the designer claims to have been influenced by the ripples left by the tide on the black sands of the volcanic beaches of Martinique.
Linwood has followed her gaze.
‘And I don’t just mean this house and everything. I mean he’s actually an amazing guy.’
‘How so?’
Linwood thinks for a moment and Lorna has a chance to take in the whole room. From the kitchen part where they are, you can move straight into a huge living space. Three enormous sofas and at the far end an impossibly wide staircase without banisters. The sort of staircase you’d see Fred and Ginger kicking their way down in a romantic movie musical about showgirls. Geometric art on the walls. Real art too, made with real paint, no Rothko prints here.
But mainly what freaks her out is the size of the place. You could hold a college graduation in her. A movie awards ceremony. And there’s the strange acoustics. The fact that walls seem to be rustling with the rumours of voices. She shivers though it’s not cold.
‘He just doesn’t act like a big shot. Always tries hard. Even though he’s actually a klutz. Nerdy and really not that into sports. Zero talent. But even so he’s been making real good progress. I think that’s outstanding. To work hard at things you fail at.’
Lorna feels rebuked somehow.
Linwood continues, ‘And rich guys are normally somewhat cunts you know.’
‘Linwood!’ This is Megan.
The big man smiles now, shows that great wall of teeth. ‘Oh, I can cuss sometimes. When it’s called for.’
‘And it was called for just then?’
But of course it was. He has used this swearing to surprise his audience, to make them laugh, to catch them out, to make them see him in a bit of a new light. It’s a neat bit of emotional theatre. He has in fact used the word cunt flirtatiously, and that is a difficult trick to manage. Nice one, Linwood. Kudos.
The odd tension between them all is fading now and, without anyone suggesting it, they begin to wander around the room, looking in the fridge and the cupboards, moving into the living-room area to sprawl on the huge sofas. It feels a little like being on a stage or movie set which is maybe why the normal rules about privacy seem forgotten for the moment.
