Smoke and Whispers

by Mick Herron

  He seemed to lose focus. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You have children?’

  ‘Never been blessed, old man.’ He picked up the wine bottle and waggled it in the air, indicating its emptiness to the waiter. ‘How about you?’

  ‘A daughter. She lives with her mother.’

  Harper had two children: one of each, both grown. Wright offered no information.

  The waiter delivered another bottle, sparing Sarah’s contribution to the topic.

  ‘Aye, thanks,’ Brian Harper said. His accent was thicker addressing the waiter than it was when talking to her or Gerard.

  But there was nothing unusual about that. Most people adjusted their social face depending on who they were talking to. And she liked the Geordie voice; was collecting specimens of it. How, man, woman, man, she’d heard an exasperated male address a female companion: Sarah hadn’t parsed that yet, but ‘man’ was obviously doing two jobs. She’d also divined that ‘wuh’ meant both ‘us’ and ‘our’, and also ‘me’ and ‘mine’. And possibly other things too.

  Harper asked Gerard, ‘How long are you here?’

  ‘Plan to be back in civilization day after tomorrow at the latest.’

  ‘Well, we’d hate to keep you longer than you’re comfortable.’

  ‘No danger of that, old man.’ He’d finished his first glass from the new bottle already. Sarah, who’d never dream of tallying anyone else’s drinks, wondered if she’d seen him quaffing at this rate before. ‘So if you want me to look at this place of yours, this afternoon might be the time.’

  ‘Works for me.’

  ‘Mind if we tag along?’ Jack Gannon asked.

  The we presumably covered John M. Wright, who’d finished eating, and whose abstracted expression suggested he was remembering something more interesting that happened to him once somewhere else.

  ‘What place is this?’ she asked.

  ‘A property,’ Gerard said abruptly.

  ‘It’s a cinema,’ Harper told her.

  ‘You own a cinema?’

  ‘Not quite. But I have an interest in a concern that owns a building that used to be a cinema. On a pretty prime site, in fact, but legal wrangles have kept it in development limbo for some time.’

  ‘But it’s still a cinema?’

  ‘A fleapit,’ Jack said. ‘One of your actual local picture houses, exactly like you don’t get any more. Only it hasn’t shown a film in, what, ten years?’

  ‘More than,’ Harper said. ‘But if you mean, does it still have an auditorium and all the rest, then yes, it does. Bit dilapidated, mind.’

  ‘I saw The Italian Job there,’ Jack offered. ‘And The Magnificent Seven.’

  ‘Ah, sweet bird of youth,’ Gerard said.

  He’s drunk, Sarah thought. Maybe I am, too. She’d had just one glass, but added to what she’d put away last night, it had probably tipped her back into the ditch.

  She said, ‘Moving into the entertainment biz, Gerard?’

  He looked aghast, as if she’d suggested he was planning a chain of brothels. ‘It’s a property,’ he repeated, slowly. ‘It used to be a cinema.’

  Wright said, ‘It might be just the place I’ve been looking for.’

  ‘For a research lab?’ She couldn’t see it, somehow.

  ‘We’re a long way off that,’ Gerard said. ‘A very long way.’

  This, too, was said slowly.

  Wright’s eyes turned flinty, but he didn’t reply.

  Harper said, ‘Well, like I say, I’m free this afternoon. We could go and have a look now.’

  ‘Let’s finish eating, first.’

  ‘Of course. I didn’t –’

  Gerard grinned evilly.

  Sarah looked at Harper, and decided it was quite an effort for him to swallow a response.

  They ate, and another bottle of wine was drunk. Sarah switched to fizzy water. But whenever the conversation stalled, whenever the ring of cutlery echoed round the restaurant, she was dragged back to her morning’s viewing: a white body, with curly black hair, stretched out on a slab like cold meat.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Jack asked her.

  ‘I’m – yes, I’m fine. Thanks. I’m all right.’

  ‘You look a bit out of it.’

  ‘Probably train lag.’

  Over coffee, Gerard regaled them with tales of business triumph. She suspected there were various hidden messages here, not least of which was that he wanted them to think him the kind of bore who would blather on about his business triumphs; while at the same time letting them know about some of his business triumphs. The suspicion forced her to revise her opinion of how drunk he was.

  When the last refill had been seen off, and Gerard had settled the bill without even pretending there was any chance he wouldn’t, they gathered outside on the pavement. It had grown colder, and the wind had picked up. A lost seagull swam across the sky.

  ‘So how do we get to this place of yours?’

  It seemed Sarah was part of this excursion. That was okay. She wanted to stick to Gerard for the moment.

  ‘We can take the Metro.’

  ‘The Metro?’

  ‘It’s a good service.’

  But Gerald was looking puzzled. ‘Is there a taxi strike?’

  ‘When was the last time you took the tube?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Can’t recall. It was full of Bay City Rollers fans, if that helps.’

  ‘Seriously, Inchon, it’ll take half the time.’

  ‘Oh, well. If we must.’

  Sarah suspected that all he’d wanted was the Lady Bracknell moment.

  The nearest station was round the corner, and Brian Harper took charge: bought tickets, ushered them down the escalator, positioned them at the optimum point on the clean and tidy platform. ‘It’s not so much like the tube, is it?’ he asked.

  ‘More like Barcelona,’ Sarah offered.

  Harper liked that, she could tell. ‘Feels like it, some days,’ he said. ‘Number of foreign students we get.’

  Probably not the way to impress Gerard, Sarah thought but didn’t say. Then an emerging wind from the tunnel heralded the arrival of the train.

  She was delighted to find that you could sit at the front of a Metro and look out of the window. She’d never seen a train tunnel unwind in front of her before; didn’t get much of a chance to do that now, because the train pulled overground all too soon. And then they were in the northern suburbs; the train riding through a small valley whose edges were lined by scrabbly bushes. The next stop was theirs.

  ‘Told you it wouldn’t take long,’ Harper said.

  ‘Probably full of drunks in the evening,’ Gerard said.

  ‘And some lunchtimes too,’ Sarah suggested.

  They crossed the tracks on the pedestrian bridge, and already they could see it. The cinema – it called itself a picture house; the words painted across its upper storey in large letters – sat on a corner diagonally opposite the station entrance, and had evidently been closed for years. Bare brick oblongs on its whitewashed walls indicated where posters for future attractions had hung, but that future seemed used up. No windows were visible, barring a row of blackened, book-sized panes at attic-level. The shelter covering its doorway might once have kept rain off the queues, but now resembled the lowered eyelid of a building just barely conscious.

  ‘You called it a fleapit,’ she said to Jack.

  ‘And I don’t think I can be accused of talking it up.’

  John M. Wright said, as if answering a question, ‘Lack of natural light is actually an advantage when you’re trying to maintain a controlled environment.’

  Harper and Gerard reached the foot of the steps and crossed the road first. There were parked cars, but few people in sight. The shape of the junction suggested that there’d once been a station car park, perhaps occupying the space where a housing development now stood. Undramatic residential streets fed away somewhere more central, that lay out of sight. The whole place seemed to be holding its
breath.

  The cinema, on the other hand, seemed to have breathed its last.

  Flanked by Gannon and Wright, she joined Gerard and Harper on the opposite pavement. Heavy metal security panels were bolted in place across the doors. From one hung a padlock the size of Sarah’s hand. Even as she noticed this Brian Harper was approaching it, taking from his pocket a key twice the size of Sarah’s finger.

  ‘I can’t help feeling there’ll be spiders,’ Sarah said.

  ‘There’ll be no spiders,’ Gerard promised.

  ‘What makes you so sure? There’s bound to be spiders.’ The word spiders had dropped from a web in Sarah’s mind and was scuttling round, enjoying a sticky purchase on her imagination. Spiders.

  ‘Sarah.’ Gerald looked at her, all seriousness. ‘This place has been closed for years. Any spiders will have been eaten by the rats long ago.’

  The creak of the door as Harper pushed it open might have been an escaping sound effect.

  ‘Ladies first?’ Gerard offered.

  Die screaming, she conveyed with a glance.

  Harper said, ‘Allow me,’ and produced a pencil-thin torch.

  Did he always carry that? she wondered. And the keys – had he known they’d be coming here? And then thought: well, he was always going to suggest it. Given which, he’d have been foolish not to bring key and torch.

  Gannon stepped inside on Harper’s heels and said, ‘Careful. There’s steps, and some broken glass.’

  He was talking to her, she thought.

  Gerard waved her ahead, and she went with the flow. Better than being stranded outside with John M. Wright. As she stepped inside, Harper’s torch beam played on the floor in front of her like a spotlight. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the gloom.

  In the centre of the lobby sat what had presumably been the ticket booth and was now half a shell, in whose lee a slew of broken glass and plaster crumbs sheltered. The surrounding walls remained upright, if tatty and peeling, with empty poster frames at intervals – she was imagining Hollywood heyday fare, Gone with the Wind and Road to Morocco, but this place had functioned up until the mid-nineties; had probably sold its last box of popcorn to a Tarantino fan.

  The booth’s remains sat at the top of a flight of shallow steps, beyond which, from one corner, steeper stairs led up to the circle. Access to the stalls was to Sarah’s right. A pair of doors used to hang there, and the empty space now beckoned them into an even darker arena where the air smelt fungally damp. Was this anywhere Sarah wanted to be, after a trip to the morgue?

  Gerard, at her back, was breathing heavily, as if he’d walked here. Wright hung behind, silhouetted in the doorway. The world outside felt years away, as if all the time that had gone to waste in here had swallowed them once they’d entered. Her throat was dry. She tried to swallow, but couldn’t.

  ‘You might want to wait a moment,’ Harper said.

  His torch beam skittered across the wall and located a row of switches. When he threw them, a watery light filtered down; just enough, it seemed to Sarah, to frighten the smaller shadows away.

  Gerard leaned in close. ‘Did you hear that?’ he asked.

  ‘What? Did I hear what?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘It was probably nothing.’

  If I kill him now, and these others don’t tell, his body might never be found, Sarah thought.

  It was on the tip of her tongue to say she’d wait outside – that she really didn’t like this – when something in what Gerard had said struck her. Not the words, but a slight quaver. Was he frightened? It might have been fear; might have been excitement. Excitement at knowing she was afraid? There’d been a time when she’d have believed that of him, but now she was less confident. He’d make jokes about spiders and unseen beasties, sure, but she was pretty sure he’d stamp on either if it came too close to her. But a frightened Gerard was a new thing. She’d have to stay.

  Jack Gannon took her arm as she walked up the steps. ‘There’ve been exterminators here a time or two. Besides, any rats’ll have disappeared under the floorboards the moment we opened the door.’

  She lived in the country. She knew about rats. They’d disappear under the floorboards when it damn well suited them and not a moment sooner. But she didn’t want to worry him, so kept this to herself.

  Besides, it wasn’t rats that bothered her. It was spiders. They had them in the country too, which was the single worst thing about it. Including the hunting lobby.

  Harper threw more switches. ‘The auditorium’s through here. Well, you’d probably guessed that.’ Lights went on in the big arena. ‘It’s a bit musty, but really nothing to worry about.’

  Gerard said, ‘Well, I want to see it. Damn waste of time otherwise.’

  Sarah mentally added a What! to that.

  Sarah mentally added a to that.

  Jack said, ‘Sarah? We can wait outside if you’d rather.’

  ‘I’ve always liked going to the pictures,’ she said.

  Behind them, Wright moved away from the doorway, and closed it.

  Harper led the way into the auditorium.

  The first thing Sarah noticed was the way the floor felt under her feet; then she forgot about that and took in the view. It was a cinema, yes: the floor sloped towards the front, and there was a stage, atop of which a screen used to hang, though there was no screen any more – just a dark space whose depth she couldn’t gauge, on one side of which a red curtain still hung. A dim pile on the other suggested that its partner had collapsed some while ago. But the screen, or its absence, wasn’t what grabbed her attention; it was everything else – it was the rest of the place.

  Again, she tried to swallow. Again, she couldn’t.

  Maybe half of the seats had been ripped out, with no apparent logic dictating which, and over the remaining rows bridal veils had been laid, or that was how it appeared at first – grand thick lacy veils had been dropped over the cinema furniture, forming silvery-grey canopies between the armrests of adjoining seats; making sheiks’ tents in the gaps between rows. And hammocks of it were slung from one broken sconce to the next; there were traces of it hanging from the balcony, drifting in the draught that blew through the missing doors behind her. All of it spider-web. It was as if she’d had a nightmare, and here it was: upholstered. It was everywhere, or everywhere except on this aisle that led towards the stage, like a path through a jungle. To her left, to her right; above her – if there were light enough to penetrate the upper darkness, she knew she’d see more of it up there, hanging over this huge space like a marquee over a crypt, its sticky canvas studded with the raisin-like corpses of spiders, and the well-wrapped parcels of their prey. Hidden in the corners would be nests of shiny eggs, pulsing to an arachnid beat. A high-pitched spider music that crawled through your hair, and made your scalp itch.

  The floor was sticky. That was the first thing she’d noticed, and she noticed it again now.

  Harper said, ‘As you can see, it’s a bit of a mess.’

  Gerard laughed a big booming laugh, which went shivering round the empty space. ‘You have a gift for understatement,’ he said.

  Nothing about his demeanour suggested he’d ever heard the word fear. She wondered what it was she’d noticed thrill through him earlier, then had to suppress a shudder of her own. ‘Are you sure this place is safe?’ Her voice didn’t ring true to her own ears. If it had been a glass, she’d have held it to the light to check for cracks.

  Brian Harper said, ‘The structure’s sound, don’t worry. The furnishings aren’t, though. I wouldn’t sit down.’

  ‘That’s not going to be a problem,’ she assured him tightly.

  Jack Gannon was right behind her. He said again, ‘We can wait outside, if you’d rather.’

  ‘I’m okay. Thanks.’

  ‘It’s not you I’m worried about.’

  She glanced at him, but he smiled: joke. It was okay for men to make such jokes, provided everyone knew it was a joke, and they weren’t actually
afraid of, say, spiders.

  Gerard said, ‘Square footage?’

  Harper started talking numbers; mentioned the graded floor, which levelling off wouldn’t be a problem. The building would take three storeys. Wright had stepped past Sarah to listen to this, or at least to be quite near it while it was being delivered. She wasn’t sure he listened to much, unless it lay precisely within the sphere of his interest. Though perhaps he was hoping this would turn out that way.

  Gerard didn’t look at him, she noticed. Gerard didn’t appear to like him, which was understandable. But if Gerard decided that John M. Wright was a blue-chip investment, he’d probably find a way to get over his dislike.

  Sarah felt something crawl across her cheek.

  She yelped, slapped at herself, and everyone turned to look. Gannon reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Sarah –?’

  ‘It’s nothing, it’s okay.’ The draught had brushed her cheek, that was all. ‘I thought –’

  She didn’t need to tell them what she’d thought. It was screamingly obvious.

  ‘You thought what?’ Wright asked.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Gannon said.

  There were no spiders: not on her cheek, nor anywhere near. That was what she told herself.

  Gerard said, ‘What’s the stage area like? I can’t see it from here.’

  ‘You go on and look,’ Gannon said. ‘Sarah and I’ll wait outside.’

  All of this, she was hearing as if through a bottle held to her ear.

  . . . Once, she’d been prone to panics; wild moments at which reason threatened to escape her, and she’d have to bite down on reality – clench her nails into her palms – to prevent her mind revisiting an appalling episode: the step she’d taken, armed only with gravity, from the roof of a four-storey dwelling. This had happened when she was little more than an adolescent, and she’d had waking visitations for years afterwards, with the capacity to reduce her to a whispering wreck. There were any number of triggers, most of which occurred in public – sudden loud noises; sudden fast movement: these could conjure up those brief moments which had taught her she’d never fly.

  And here was another: in this dim-lit spidery palace, she was having that waking nightmare all over again, in which she skydived from the roof of a high terraced house, city lights cartwheeling in her head as she turned over and over, and never hit the ground.