The Loop

by Anabel Donald

‘When I was little, to take my side at school. You get lots of stick if you’re yellow and slanty-eyed, like me. I wanted a brother who was a kick-boxer. Great, here’s the food.’

  The waitress unloaded her tray until there was no more room on our table, then she pulled another table up to take the overspill. Nick started to eat before the last plate went down.

  ‘Want to know what I found out at the chippy?’ she said when she’d reached the pancakes and slowed up.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Northerners are prejudiced.’

  ‘Against half-Asians?’

  ‘Against southerners. They laughed at my accent. I’m not the one with the accent. They are.’

  I thought she was making a joke. I don’t always know. She helped me out. ‘Joke,’ she said.

  ‘Ha ha,’ I said, waiting for her to come to the point. I knew she had one because she had her cat-smile.

  ‘Guess,’ she said.

  ‘Get on with it.’

  ‘Did you notice the one with the tits? Pleased with herself?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘How old do you reckon she is?’

  ‘Fifteen?’

  ‘Near enough. Fourteen. How old do you reckon Master is?’

  ‘Thirty-five?’

  ‘Me too. Or older.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And last year he went to see her parents. To say she was in spiritual danger, and she needed moral instruction, and they should send her along to the church. And then when she was sixteen, he was prepared to marry her.’

  ‘They said no, I suppose.’

  ‘Of course. Don’t you think it’s funny?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Why not?’ She was so taken aback she put down her spoon. ‘He’s old, and a weirdo. She’s—’

  ‘What is she, exactly?’

  ‘A bossy little scrubber. I see what you mean,’ she said slowly. ‘But nobody would want to marry a Tubby.’

  ‘Some people do.’

  ‘You liked him,’ she said accusingly. ‘You can’t have! All that stuff about names and lists and thrones! He’s a crazy, dirty old man! He follows her about, and stares at her!’

  ‘And she doesn’t like being stared at?’

  ‘Of course not. It’s spooky.’

  ‘Then she shouldn’t dress like that. And if he’s a dirty old man and she’s a bossy little scrubber, what are we?’

  ‘We’re normal.’

  ‘OK, if you say so.’ I took a pull at myself. It wasn’t fair to get at Nick. ‘Anyway, it’s not that I like him, exactly. It’s that I respect him. I trust him.’

  ‘But you said he was hiding something.’

  ‘I trust him to do what he says he’ll do. I think he’s narrow and smug but I also think he’s brave and honest, and not self-indulgent. I think he really believes that what he’s doing is right. He’d have married that girl and looked after her, and never touched her, if that’s what the rules said.’

  ‘You’re losing it,’ said Nick, and went on eating.

  Maybe I was losing it, I thought as I drove the long motorway miles south to London, watching the clouds clot together overhead and the drizzling rain start and the returning holiday traffic build up to a queue. I’ve never liked narrow people who thought they had all the answers. So what was it about Abraham Master?

  I’d envied him, that was it. Just as I envied Jacob Stone without realizing. ‘Clear Directed,’ Carl had said. Abraham and Jacob, and Jams come to that, all people with compass needles pointing north, however daft their north might be.

  I’d thought I had a north. Security and independence. But my north wasn’t far enough away. I’d all but reached it, and what happens to a compass when you’re standing at the North Pole?

  ‘Nick? You’re good at physics. What happens to a compass at the North Pole?’

  She was listening to my tape of the Masters interview. She lifted one headphone clear of her ear and said ‘What?’

  I repeated it.

  ‘It points to the magnetic north,’ she said.

  ‘What if you stand at the magnetic north?’

  ‘Then it points any way you put it. And if you have any sense, you’d point it south. Back to real life where people don’t have accents.’

  Nine-thirty. I parked Polly’s car and we dashed through the wet to my flat. Nick put the coffee on, I went straight for the video, ignoring the flashing light on the answering machine.

  ‘Wait!’ said Nick. ‘Don’t start it till I’m ready. I have to pee.’

  ‘Hurry,’ I said, clicking the remote-controls like castanets. I’d been waiting too long for light in the darkness, for some sense out of the mess this case had been from the start.

  The toilet flushed and Nick was back. She’d come down the stairs in one leap. ‘Right. Go for it,’ she said, and I pressed the buttons.

  The television flickered and spat. A screenful of nothing. I pressed search, and we watched high-speed nothing for as long as I could bear it.

  We were thirty minutes in to a two-hour tape. I passed the remotes to Nick. ‘Go all the way through. Every minute,’ I said, although I knew what we’d find.

  Master had wiped the tape. Or perhaps not Master. But someone had.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ‘Nothing,’ said Nick, and set the tape to rewind. ‘Now what?’

  ‘Fetch the action list. I’ll get the answering machine,’ I said. I could feel the adrenaline surge. I wouldn’t sleep, not for hours.

  The first caller was Sandra Balmer. Would I call her please, dear? She’d be available until midnight.

  Maybe I would.

  The second was Alan Protheroe. Was I sure I was happy with the talking head on the Chicago doco?

  I’d already told him, three times, that the talking head was bomb-proof: bright, articulate, well-prepared, high-ranking, good-looking, controversial and black. I fast-forwarded through Alan’s witter.

  The third caller, Carl Nabokov, sounded miffed. He was real disappointed I’d had to cancel our date. Could I call him?

  A meeting for coffee was a date?

  Number four. ‘Hi, Alex, this is Grace (chuckle). It’s about six now. I think you’ll be pleased . . . Malise has found you a useful man. He’ll be ringing you after seven tonight.’

  And there he was, number five. ‘Alex Tanner? This is Archie Lawson-Smith from Catterstone Almack’s, Monday 7.30. I’ll be in all evening. Give me a call about Jacob Stone.’ Then he gave an inner London number, which I wrote down.

  Number six was Polly. ‘Alex, it’s just after nine, I’m going out but I’ve left a message for you on the hall table, can you pick it up yourself and read it, please?’

  Polly’s message was puzzling – she sounded unusually serious – but she hadn’t said it was urgent.

  Nick, who’d been listening, said, ‘D’you want me to ring the bank man?’

  ‘I will,’ I said, and dialled.

  He answered on the second ring. I identified myself. ‘Hello,’ he said, as if I was a friend. ‘Good of you to call. Malise wants me to give a hand, if I can, and if Malise says jump, I somersault, don’t we all?’

  He had a light nasal tenor voice with an upper-class accent and he talked very quickly. I had to strain to catch the words.

  ‘Do you have a pencil?’ he went on.

  ‘Yes. Go ahead.’

  ‘The man you want is Jimmy Wood. He left the bank last year but he’s the only friend anyone remembers Jacob having. Odd chap, Jacob, do you know him?’

  ‘We’ve never met.’

  ‘Bloody odd. Anyway, Jimmy liked him, and Jacob rented a room in his flat. Wonderful tenant, I believe. Didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, paid on time, cleaned like there was no tomorrow. I’ll give you Jimmy’s address and telephone number.’

  I wrote it down. ‘Thanks very much,’ I said. ‘That’s exactly what I needed.’

  ‘Don’t thank me, tell Malise. Are you really a private detective?’

  ‘Yes.’<
br />
  ‘Bloody odd. What’s the money like?’

  ‘Oblong bits of security-printed paper with the Queen’s head on. Same as yours, I expect.’

  He laughed. ‘Sorry, was I rude?’

  ‘Not very.’

  ‘Good. Anything else?’

  ‘Not for the moment. I’ll get back to you if I can’t reach Jimmy Wood.’

  ‘Do that. Bye, P.I.’

  He rang off.

  I dialled. Ring ring. Wood’s answering machine. Damn.

  I left a ring-back-about-Jacob-Stone message, took the mug of coffee Nick handed me, and sat on the sofa.

  ‘Can I play some music?’ said Nick.

  ‘Sure. What?’

  ‘The piano man – that Barty doesn’t like. I like him.’

  ‘OK,’ I said warily. I hoped Nick wasn’t taking sides. The Barty situation was delicate enough without her mixing in.

  ‘Which one?’ She held up two CDs.

  I didn’t want either, much. ‘The first piano concerto.’

  She put it on and sat down opposite me. ‘Action list,’ she said, passing it over, with a pen. I started to read it. ‘Pun,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Liszt/list, geddit? What’s the matter, Alex?’

  I shook my head. I didn’t know. Something was hovering around the edges of my mind. Taking sides, that was it. The wrong side. I was looking at something from the wrong side. Or I wasn’t looking at something enough, because I didn’t want to.

  I worked down the list, amending it as I went, and then I looked at what was left.

  Abraham Master ?Tubbies’ finances ?the loop ?lying

  ?wiped video

  Ring Vari-Vision Video

  ?Chicago for Eng Lit

  ?the loop

  ?Sandra Balmer ?Motive ?Cot and Nappy

  Maggie Whittaker

  Jimmy Wood

  William Alexander – ring/see

  ring Carl ?letters

  Who or what was I avoiding?

  Then it hit me.

  Carl, of course. I’d been dodging him because I was embarrassed. I’d thought of him as part of the Barty/me situation, and I didn’t want to think of him because of that. And either he or Jams were lying about her letters, and it wasn’t her, so it must be him.

  Besides, he’d claimed to be keeping Jacob’s confidences. Now, with the increasing likelihood of a dead Jacob, I could put pressure on Carl to open up.

  ‘What now?’ said Nick. ‘What can we do?’

  I needed to get rid of her She was looking at me eagerly like a sheepdog waiting for the whistle and her expectancy made my thought processes freeze up.

  The sound of a key in the lock, followed by Barty’s entrance, froze them still further. He’d never before let himself in when I was there, without ringing the street doorbell first to warn me. He couldn’t have thought I was still out. The curtains weren’t drawn and the light from my windows was pouring into the night.

  He didn’t smile when he saw me, so I didn’t either. ‘Hi,’ I said.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Hello, Nick.’

  ‘Hi,’ said Nick. ‘Alex, d’you want me to fetch Polly’s note?’

  I’d forgotten it. ‘Yeah, do. You know where her keys are.’

  Barty stood back to let her pass and then showed me the bottle of wine he was carrying. ‘Mind if I open this?’ he said. ‘It’s rather good. Would you like some?’

  I read the label. I understood the New Zealand part but the rest was meaningless. ‘Should I be impressed?’ I said.

  ‘Amused, perhaps. Intrigued. Perhaps even baffled,’ he said in a tone I’d never heard him use to me before. Upper-class malicious.

  I didn’t answer, partly because he was slightly drunk, unusual for him, partly because I felt snubbed, partly because something was clearly the matter, and I didn’t know what.

  He waited.

  ‘I’d like some, please,’ I said cautiously.

  He went into the kitchen.

  Nick came back and gave me the note. ‘What d’you want me to do?’ she said.

  ‘What do you have in mind?’

  She nodded her head towards the kitchen. ‘He wants me out. I can go back to Grace’s, unless you want me to stay with Jams. Look after her.’

  ‘No,’ I said. Jams had made her own decision about the danger, but I wasn’t going to risk Nick. Tough as she thought she was – tough as she actually was – she was still only a kid. ‘Go to Grace’s. Come over tomorrow morning, eight-thirty.’

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Bye, Barty.’

  ‘Bye,’ said Barty, re-emerging with two glasses of wine and giving me one.

  I sipped. ‘Mmm,’ I said. It was white, dry, and tasted faintly of gooseberries. The taste stuck with you for a while after.

  I was on the sofa. Barty sat on a chair opposite me and looked at his glass. Cascades of piano notes hung awkwardly in the air between us.

  Better not to mention Liszt. He’d stop soon. I read Polly’s note.

  Alex

  Barty came round to pick you up at eight – he seemed to think you and he were having dinner. Were you? He waited in my place. While he was here your Johnny Depp man (it must have been him – tasty American) turned up and rang your doorbell and then mine. Barty wasn’t happy. I told the American you were very busy. I think Barty will be coming back tonight, be warned. I’m out with Magnus, be back latish, leave a message on the answerphone if you want a natter.

  Love Poll

  I couldn’t remember if I said I’d have dinner with Barty, but if he thought I had, he was likely to be right.

  ‘Were we supposed to have dinner?’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I didn’t realize . . . What did I say?’

  ‘After breakfast, I said I’d pick you up at eight unless you cancelled.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Really. I don’t think I heard.’

  ‘You never bloody hear,’ he said.‘That’s because you don’t bloody listen.’

  ‘Not now, Barty, all right?’

  ‘Not all right. All wrong. I’m tired of it.’

  ‘Tired of what?’

  ‘Tired of being ignored. Tired of behaving well. Tired of being considerate, and it never being the right time.’

  ‘Is this about Carl?’ I said.

  ‘Who’s Carl?’ he said flatly, and met my eyes.

  I was nearly flustered. Mistake, mistake, I thought. ‘Carl’s the graduate student I met in Chicago. He’s turned up in London.’

  ‘Oh, bad luck. You expected him to stay safely in Chicago, filed under “location bonk”, I suppose.’

  That was so accurate it didn’t even hurt when it hit. At least I didn’t think it had until I realized my jaw was gaping open. I shut it with an audible click.

  Barty went on. ‘Of course I’d prefer it if you didn’t go to bed with any stray foreigner who asks. But this isn’t about Carl. It’s about me.’

  Silence. We looked at each other.

  ‘You’d better tell me why you’re angry, then,’ I said. ‘Because I honestly don’t know.’ And I didn’t want to hear. Not then and perhaps not ever because it might mean the end of Barty, for me. But it wouldn’t be fair to push him away.

  He cleared his throat. It was a real danger sign. The last time I heard him do that was two weeks into shooting on location in Uganda, and the next picture showed him being unforgivably insulting to a government official, and the whole crew being deported on the next plane out. He’d written off all the seed money and the research and the footage, and he’d never mentioned it again.

  Was I about to be written off?

  After the first few weeks, would I mind?

  ‘I’ve waited for you for years,’ he said. ‘Patiently. I’ve put up with your low sexual self-esteem and your penny-pinching and your smugness and your narrowness and your bloody ignorance which you won’t remedy—’

  ‘My ignorance?’

  ‘Shut up, Alex. Just shut up for once, and lis
ten. I’ve even put up with your bloody music and your bloody food, and your habit of parting your legs for any passing-dick. You’ve had your cake with me, and you’ve eaten it, and you’ve put some of it into your sodding pension plan. You’ve never said you loved me. You’ve known perfectly well that I love you but you never let me say it, and you knew I wanted to many you, and you wouldn’t let me ask.’

  ‘You did ask.’

  ‘Finally. At breakfast, abroad, because I thought you’d feel safer in a public place with a cup of coffee in your hand. Was I wrong?’

  I thought about it. ‘No,’ I said. ‘You were probably right.’

  ‘All the compromises are your way. I’m just your sidekick, good enough to use but not good enough to consider. When have you ever asked me what I felt or thought about anything?’

  ‘I asked you what you thought about love at first sight.’

  ‘Because you need to know for a case you were working on. You won’t meet my family or my friends, you won’t make plans – you won’t interrupt your precious work to go away with me – you must have noticed that I invited myself along on the Chicago trip, but you didn’t ask why—’

  ‘Why?’ I said.

  ‘Because I wanted some time alone with you. Time to talk. But you don’t want to talk. You just want the mixture as before. You want to stay in the safe little world you’ve made for yourself, pretending to be adventurous. You’re actually as adventurous as – as – as a teacake.’

  ‘A teacake?’ I said. For a moment I nearly laughed, then I realized that the unappropriate metaphor was a sign of how upset he was. I was upset too, but I didn’t feel it. I felt as if I’d just stepped into a burning bath and knew it was going to hurt, but not yet.

  I put down my wine glass and went over to him. I took his glass, put it down, and hugged him. He pulled away and I held on tighter. ‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘Barty, don’t, I’m sorry. Really. You’re probably right, I don’t know yet, I’ll have to think about it. I’m not very good at relationships, OK? I don’t want to lose you. I don’t. I don’t.’

  He pushed me away, so firmly I overbalanced, and got up. ‘You can finish the wine,’ he said.

  And left.

  Tuesday, 5 April