Complicity

by Iain Banks

  And it just goes on keeps going on another night another nightmare and then back to the interview room again and the tape machine again and more questions about Stromefirry-nofirry and Jersey and flights and that's when they tell me about the other one that's when they say oh by the way your best friend Andy is dead blown up in the hotel when it burned down; probably beaten to death first head stoved in but of course you probably know all that because you did that too, didn't you?

  I lied about something. Earlier. I told it the way it felt, not as it actually was. Or the way it feels and actually is. Whatever.

  'Andy; Yvonne."

  'Hi," she says, shaking his hand.

  'And that's William out there," I tell Andy. "With the big sword."

  Andy turns and watches William. William; masked, clad in white, grasping his sabre and suddenly lunging forward, one leg darting ahead. His opponent jumps back and tries to fend off the blows with his own sabre but he's off-balance and William presses forward, swinging the sabre in a hacking, sweeping motion, whacking the edge of the heavy curved blade into the side of his opponent's torso.

  "Aw, rats," the other guy says, as William stands back, relaxing. They take off their masks and William conies over to us, mask under his arm, sabre hanging from his hand, his face red and sheened with sweat, glistening in the sports hall's brilliant lights. I introduce him and Andy.

  Andy with his short hair and his blazer and neatly creased jeans, face handsome but a little spotty, expression slightly disdainful and wary. He's twenty-one; two years older than us, but William looks the more confident and assured.

  "Hi," William says, tossing back some blond hair fallen over his forehead. "So you're Cam's soldier boy."

  Andy smiles thinly. "You must be… Willy, is it?"

  I sigh. I'd hoped these two would get on.

  Yvonne taps William on the shoulder with her mask. She's been fencing too, her long black hair tied back from her face, her face bright with sweat. I think she looks like some Italian princess, daughter of an ancient minor house with no real pretensions but still casually opulent; huge faded villas in Rome and on the Grand Canal and in the Tuscan hills. "Shower," she tells him. "We have to get stuff ready for tonight." She smiles at me. "Quick drink in the bar, ten minutes?"

  "Great," I say. Andy is silent; Yvonne turns to him.

  "Coming to the party?"

  "Yes," he says. "If that's all right."

  "Of course." She smiles.

  "Ah! Hot hot hot!"

  "What?"

  "Took the hot chilli… crunched on a whole fucking green chilli… ha…" Yvonne says, fanning her mouth and hanging onto my arm. "Woof; thanks." She reaches into my vodka and lemonade and hoiks out an ice cube. "Here," she says thickly, handing a joint while she rolls the ice cube round in her mouth and tries to breathe through it at the same time. I'm grinning widely at her; she's frowning hurtfully at me. Andy is at my side but then ducks away into the throng. The music is loud, the campus flat packed with people. It's a warm May evening, the exams are over and everybody's partying. The windows are open to the night, spilling the sound of the Pretenders" first album out over the slope of grass towards the small loch and the lights of the library and Admin buildings on the far side.

  "Ah, my mouth!" Yvonne says. She slaps me on the shoulder. "Look more sympathetic, you pig," she tells me. Her eyes are watering

  "Sorry."

  Andy comes back with a glass of milk. "Here," he says, offeri it to Yvonne. She looks at him. He nods at her mouth. "Ice won't work," he tells her. "The… the stuff that causes the heat in chillis" and I smile, because I just know from the way he phrased that that he knows the technical term but doesn't want to appear too smart-alec "isn't soluble in water, but it is soluble in fat. Try it; it'll work."

  Yvonne looks round. I offer my hand and she slips the remains the ice cube delicately into my palm, then sips the milk. I shrug and put the lozenge of ice back into my drink.

  Yvonne finishes the milk. She nods. "That is better. Thanks."

  Andy gives a small smile, takes the empty glass from her and heads back through the crowds to the kitchen.

  "Hoo," Yvonne says, dabbing at her cheeks with a tissue. She glances after Andy. "So boy scouts have their uses after all."

  "Ask him to show you his Swiss Army knife later," I laugh, feeling a little treacherous. Yvonne's wearing a black scoop-necked T-shirt and a simple, black ankle-length wrap skirt. Her hair is tied back from her face and held by a long white lacy ribbon, but tumbles down loose behind. Her arms look firm and muscled and her tanned breasts are full and high, nipples producing little bumps on the black cotton of the T-shirt. The final effect is perversely exotic and I feel my usual pang of jealousy.

  I glance into my glass and hand her back the J; her eyes close as she draws on it and I put my lips to my glass, slipping that sucked-on sliver of ice into my own mouth and rolling it around there, pretending it's her tongue.

  "But it was true, Labour wasn't working."

  "Wasn't producing the profits the capitalists want to see, you mean. The implication of the ad was that Labour had produced mass unemployment and the Tories would cure it. Not only have they made it worse, they knew they would; even if they genuinely thought their policies were somehow better for Britain as a whole, they knew damn well they'd put hundreds of thousands of people out of work, and Saatchi & Saatchi must have known that, too, if they'd bothered to think. It was a lie."

  "It was an election," William says, looking tired.

  "What's that got to do with it?" I exclaim. "It was still a lie!"

  "It doesn't matter, and anyway it's just a short-term thing; they will produce more jobs eventually. They're just getting rid of the dead wood at the moment; there'll be new jobs in new growth industries."

  "Bullshit! Even you don't believe that!"

  William laughs. "You don't know what I believe. But if that ad helped win the election for Maggie, that's fine by me. Ah, come on; all's fair in love and war, Cameron. You should stop whingeing and start trying to make things work."

  "All is not fair in love and war! Haven't you heard of the Geneva Convention? If Yvonne fell in love with somebody else, would you kill both of them?"

  "Fucking right," William says matter-of-factly as Andy appears at our sides holding a can of lager. Somebody passes him a J but he just hands it on to me. William shakes his head. "You get this all the time, too?" he asks Andy.

  "What?"

  "Oh, this continual ear-bending about the Tories and what beastly cheats they are."

  "All the time," Andy smiles.

  "They lied to get in," I say. "They'll lie to try and stay in. How can you trust them?"

  "I trust them to try and sort out the unions," William says.

  "It was time for a change," Andy says.

  "Country needs a kick up the fucking bum," William agrees, defiantly.

  I'm horrified. "I am surrounded by selfish bastards I thought were my friends," I say, slapping my forehead with the hand holding the J and almost setting my hair alight. "This is awful."

  Andy nods. He drinks from his can and looks at me over the top of it. "I voted Tory," he says quietly.

  "Andy!" I say, appalled, almost despairing.

  "Shock therapy." He grins, more at William than me.

  "How could you?" I shake my head and pass the number to William.

  Andy looks exaggeratedly thoughtful. "It was that advert that did it, I think. Don't know if you know the one: "Labour Isn't Working," it said. Great political advert; succinct, memorable, effective, even mildly witty. I've got a poster copy of that in my room back at St Andy's. Did you ever see that advert at all, William?"

  William nods, watching me and grinning. I am trying not to over-react but it's difficult.

  "Very fucking funny, Andy," I say.

  Andy looks at me. "Oh, Cameron, come on." His voice pitched somewhere between sympathy and exasperation. "It happened. Accept it. It might all end up better than you hoped."


  "Tell that to the fucking unemployed," I say, moving away towards the kitchen. I hesitate. "Either of you two Tory bastards need a drink?"

  I'm lying awake in my room in the flat I share a floor down from William and Yvonne's. Took some speed a friend turned up with so I can't get to sleep. Stomach a bit churny too; too many voddies and lemonades probably, and the punch at the party was evil. The flat I share looks in the opposite direction to theirs, across the access road and the lawns to the old estate wall and the tall old trees rising on the ridge beyond. The window is open and I can hear the sound of the wind in the branches. It will be dawn soon. I hear the front door of the flat open and close, then a few seconds later the door to my room opens. My heart beats hard. A dark figure kneels at my bedside and I can smell perfume.

  "Cameron?" she says quietly.

  "Yvonne?" I whisper.

  She puts her hand behind my head, then her lips to mine. I'm in the middle of the kiss before it occurs to me I might be dreaming, but I know immediately I'm not. I put one hand to the back of her neck, then to her shoulder. She shrugs off her dressing-gown and slips into the little single bed beside me, warm and naked and already wet.

  She makes love quickly, strongly, almost silently. I try to keep quiet too, and — because I had a quick, quiet wank earlier-don't come too quickly. She gives a brief, cut-off little cry like a chirp as she comes, and sinks her teeth into my shoulder. It is quite sore. She lies on top of me, breathing hard, head on my shoulder for a few minutes, then she stirs, pulls herself up so that I flop out of her and her hard little nipples stroke my chest. She puts her lips to my ear.

  "Taking advantage of you, Cameron," she purrs, barely audible.

  "Hey," I whisper, "I'm a man of easy virtue."

  "William drank too much; fell asleep at a really frustrating point."

  "Ah-hah, Well; any time."

  "Mm-hmm. This never happened, all right?"

  "Between these four walls."

  She kisses me, then she's out, slipping on the dressing-gown and padding away and clicking the door closed behind her.

  I can hear gentle snoring coming from the room next to mine; one of my flat-mates. The only extra sound-proofing on the breeze blocks between his room and mine is a couple of layers of paint, which is probably why Yvonne was being quiet.

  I lift my head up and look down to the floor at the foot of the bed, where Andy is lying curled up in his sleeping bag, unseen in the shadows, which is why I was being quiet.

  "Andy?" I whisper very quietly, thinking that maybe he slept through it all.

  "Lucky fucking bastard," he says in a normal voice.

  I lie back, laughing silently.

  I can feel blood on my shoulder, where her teeth broke the skin.

  Another morning, another interview, interrogation, little chat…

  I sit down in the grey plastic chair in the featureless room with McDunn and a man from the Welsh squad; a big blond brindle guy in a tight grey suit; he has a rugby player's neck and steely eyes and huge hands that are clasped on the table, lying there like a mace of flesh and bone.

  McDunn's eyes narrow. He makes that sucking noise through his teeth. "What you been doing to your eyes, Cameron?"

  I swallow, take a long sigh and look at him. "Crying," I tell him. He looks surprised. The Welsh boyo looks to one side.

  "Crying, Cameron?" McDunn says, his dark, heavy-looking face creasing into a frown. I take a deep breath, trying to control things. "You said Andy was dead. Andy Gould. He was my best friend. He was my best friend and I didn't… fucking… kill him, all right?"

  McDunn looks at me, as though slightly puzzled. The Welsh lad's got this steady gaze on me like he wants to use my head as a rugby ball.

  Another deep breath. "So I've been grieving for him." And another. "Is that all right?"

  McDunn nods slowly, slightly, a distant look in his eyes like he's not really nodding at what I've just told him; hasn't been listening to a word I've said, in fact.

  The Welsh guy clears his throat and picks up his briefcase. He takes out some papers and another tape recorder. He passes an A4 sheet over to me. "Just read out the words on this sheet of paper, all right, Colley?"

  I read the words through first; looks like it's the statement our man phoned in after Sir Rufus was flame-grilled; Welsh Nationalist extremists apparently claiming responsibility.

  "Any particular voice?" I ask. "Michael Caine, John Wayne, Tom Jones?"

  "Let's try your own voice first, eh?" steely-eyes says. "Then we'll try you with a Welsh accent." He smiles, the way I imagine a prop forward smiles just before he bites your ear off.

  "Cigarette?"

  Ta."

  Afternoon session. McDunn again; McDunn seems to be settling out as the Colley specialist. He lights a cigarette for me, holding it in his mouth. My hands aren't shaking so bad right now so maybe this isn't strictly necessary but I don't care. He hands the fag to me. I take it and it tastes good. I cough a bit but it still tastes good. McDunn looks on sympathetically. I actually find that I appreciate this. I know how they're supposed to work, I know all about the importance attached to establishing a rapport and initiating trust and building confidence and all that shit (and I'm almost flattered they haven't done the old good-cop bad-cop routine, though maybe they just don't do that at all any more because everybody knows about it from the TV), but I really do feel something for McDunn: he's like my lifeline back to reality, my ray of sanity in the nightmare. I'm trying not to get too dependent on him but it's hard not to.

  "So?" I say, sitting back in the grey plastic seat. I'm wearing a blue prison-issue shirt — open-neck, of course — and the jeans I was wearing when they arrested me. They don't hug so well without the belt; bum's a little saggy, to tell the truth, but fashion isn't my top priority these days.

  "Well," McDunn says, looking at his notebook, "we've found people who think they remember seeing you in the Broughton Arms Hotel on the night of Sunday the twenty-fifth of October, when Sir Rufus was murdered."

  "Good, good," I nod.

  "And the times for you getting down to London for the attack on Oliver, if you include the times you — or whoever — were seen in the toilets at Tottenham Court Road, are looking very tight; there was a delay on all the flights from Edinburgh into Heathrow that day… makes it impossible, really."

  "Great," I say, rocking back and forward in my seat. "Brilliant."

  "Unless," he says, "you had a double in Edinburgh or a lot of people are lying, it means you'd have to have an accomplice in London; somebody you'd hired to… ah, make the collection." McDunn looks at me levelly. I still can't read him; I'm not able to tell whether he thinks this is likely or not, whether he thinks this is evidence I'm not his man or he still thinks I am but I had help.

  "Well, look," I say, "put me on an identity parade —»

  "Now, now, Cameron," McDunn says tolerantly. This is something I've suggested before, something I keep on suggesting because it's all I can think of. Will the limbless Mr Azul think I'm the guy he saw at the front door? What about rent boys from the toilets at TCR? The cops think I'm the right build and they suspect gorilla man wears a wig and false moustache sometimes and maybe false teeth too. They've taken some very carefully set-up photographs with a big fucking camera and I suspect — from an aside or two they probably didn't expect me to understand — that these snaps will be the basis for some computer manipulation to see how well I fit the bill. Anyway, the upshot is McDunn doesn't think it's time for a parade yet. He looks wise and fatherly and says, "I don't think we want to be bothered with that, do you?"

  "Come on, McDunn, give me a shot; I'll try anything. I want out of here."

  McDunn taps the fag packet round and round on the table a couple of times. "Well, that's up to you, isn't it, Cameron?"

  "Eh? What do you mean?"

  Oh, he's got me now; I'm interested, I'm leaning forward, elbows on table, face forward. Hooked, in other words. Whatever he's going to try
and sell me, I'm buying.

  "Cameron," he says, like he's just come to some big decision, and sucks air through his teeth, "you know I don't think it's you."

  "Oh, great!" I say, and laugh, sitting back and looking round the room at the bare paint walls and the constable sitting by the door. "Then what the fuck am I —?"

  "It's not just me, Cameron," he says tolerantly. "You know that."

  "Then what —?"

  "Let me be frank with you, Cameron."

  "Oh, be as frank as you like, Detective Inspector."

  "I don't think it's you, Cameron, but I think you know who it is."