“I think it’s called ‘having free will,’” Connor reminds me, chuckling.
Junior has never flown a kite before, but has seen them on TV, and in the distance on the beach occasionally. She demonstrates her verbatim memory by reciting the Health & Safety kite-flying riot act, regarding cliff-tops, power-lines and lightning storms, while Connor watches her put it together.
“We’ll be all right here,” he reassures her. “Even if you rolled down this hill, the worst you’d get is a few grass stains.”
“What if I take off, like a parachute?” she asks.
“That’s a different sort of stunt kite. This one just does loop-the-loop.”
We’re a long way outside of town, not far from the cemetery, overlooking the broad flat reclaimed plains between the original Tudor-era coastline, forming a range of steep hills overlooking more recently established farmland, and the outer new coastline, bordering the drained marshes, originally designated as Naval defences. It’s still military land mostly, along the reshaped coast, with most of the smaller historic Tudor ports in a chain of geographical outcrops positioned a long way inland now, leading away from the city, like giant cobbled stone-walled stepping-stones.
“Will they be able to see it from space?” Junior asks, untangling strings.
“Guaranteed,” Connor mutters.
We’ve parked on a lane off the B-road, just past the only house on our right, which is almost hidden from eye-level view, built into the landscaped hillside. I had originally thought it was a bungalow from the road, but can now see its split-level design stretching down into the terraced garden, making it much larger than I thought. To our left, the lane ends in a landowner’s gate onto woodland, next to a stile and footpath, with a tiny green sign denoting public rambling access, barely visible.
“This isn’t a private road, then,” I remark. “I was worried the folks in that house would be annoyed, if a kite dumped out of the sky in their garden.”
“Nah, he’s away,” Connor remarks, checking the knots fastening the strings, before nodding to Junior that she can try it out. She heads away from us onto the open hillside, away from the trees nearby. She squeaks happily as the updraft catches the kite right between her hands, starting to unwind the lines in either hand. She’s even rolled up her balaclava for a better view. “Permanently away. Head office cleaned it out yesterday and changed the locks.”
“Whose is it?” I ask, giving it a longer and more curious glance.
“One of yours,” he says simply.
“Don’t know any doormen who could afford to live here,” I admit. “Not one of my targets. Thought they were all Mummy’s boys. Still in their first dodgy bed-sits, rented in the red-light district, I assumed.”
“This one was a Mummy’s boy all right. He inherited it from his.”
I try to dredge my memory, which doesn’t take long - the only work colleagues whose home addresses I know are Elaine, and Lynette, because I’ve had to take her home on occasion - after she’s been refused a taxi for being too drunk.
“Don’t know where any of them live, to be honest.”
“Any of them know where you live?” he queries, sharply.
“No, it’s too far out of town for them to find in passing, thank God,” I smirk.
“So would this be,” he suggests. “He kept it quiet.”
“Are you trying to get me to look at a retired hit-man’s old house?” I ask.
“You said you’d look,” he reminds me.
A dark blue BMW 4x4 rolls into the lane behind us almost silently, and pulls up behind the Audi. It’s bigger than an old VW camper. I didn’t know they made urban crossover vehicles so big. I wonder how big the dogs are that must need walking.
“It’s all right.” Connor pushes his sunglasses up on top of his head. “He’s with us.”
The driver’s door opens, and a Chinese man in an Aran sweater, jeans and a tan suede jacket gets out, dwarfed by the gigantic car. I make a private bet with myself that Warren’s got one as well, his next choice of vehicle after the refrigerated truck, and custom Mitsubishi Warrior.
“Mr. J.D,” he greets Connor, sticking out a hand. Connor shakes it. “Good to see you here.”
“Lara, this is Fucheng,” Connor introduces us, and I shake hands also. “He’s in Requisitions.”
“Nice to meet you too,” Fucheng grins. “This is my colleague, Miss Dee Jai. She’s with Aftercare. Widows and Orphans, the usual. A lot of them in Thailand, as you can imagine.”
The Thai woman is older, perhaps in her fifties, looking like she doesn’t enjoy the descent to the ground from the height of the BMW passenger seat.
“I always need a ladder,” she grumbles, before joining us and shaking hands also, switching to a cheerful smile once the beast of a car is behind her. “But I’m in a good mood today, finally I fit into my Chanel suit. Bargain on iBay.”
“Very nice,” I approve, as she does a twirl. “Congratulations.”
“Not exactly right for countryside, but if you got it, flaunt it,” she nods. “Is that your daughter? Wow. She’s amazing. I love her trousers.”
“Thank you,” I reply, feeling a little twist of mixed feelings, guilt and pride both at once. “I’ll tell her.”
“Dee is here to check there’s nothing material or solvent left from the inventory to claim for the family abroad, after we cleared out the property yesterday,” Fucheng tells us. “It all goes, from bedding to curtains to photographs. Then we rent the property out and pay the bereaved the income, in lieu of child support.”
“Makes sense,” I agree. I still feel strangely detached from the concept of The Bereaved. Like it’s all red tape still, dealt with elsewhere by other people. All my job is meant to involve afterwards, is running away effectively. That’s the reason we’re called Deathrunners.
“Connor said you might be interested, in which case you get first look,” he continues. “Far as Dee is concerned, the sooner it gets rented the better. So if you want a peep now, come on in.”
I nod, resignedly. Connor’s obviously not going to give me much peace on the matter about my tiny dwelling, until I at least show willing to look at the alternatives. I am glad it’s not a skyscraper apartment or a houseboat, though. I might as well get myself a t-shirt saying ‘Hollywood Hit-Man’ in that case.
“I thought you said we were going to do something regular?” I mutter to him, as the other two lead the way to the property, gesturing to Junior to follow us, with her kite now fully airborne.
“Looking at houses is regular,” Connor points out. “For normal people. You probably haven’t done enough of it in your life so far.”
“Okay, I get the picture. Stop, before you expand on anything else you think I haven’t done enough of.”
“Goes without saying.” He tickles my spine briefly, and we pause while Fucheng opens the side gate into the garden, leading the way down some steps.
I step back to let him go first, waiting for Junior to catch up, and pull it closed behind us, warning her to look where she’s going, not up at the sky. The steps lead down to join a flagstone patio, then onto a terraced lawn. Rhododendrons and azaleas flank either side of the garden, and mature trees are at the bottom. Somebody liked their privacy.
“You could cut a few of those down to improve the view from here,” Dee suggests, and I feel a sudden stab.
“I’m okay with trees,” I say, a little defensively. Like a comfort blanket. I turn around on the patio and look up at the house. On this side, it boasts about three levels with a full-height square double bay window profile, stretching up to two dormer windows in the roof, and I feel a bit overawed. Through the two sets of doors opening onto the patio from the jutting-out glass surrounds of the bay design, I can see an open-plan kitchen and diner, and a living-room bigger than the overall footprint of my current house, probably including the garden. I look back at the hillside reaching out below the property, and wonder how many farmer’s fields and rabbit warrens are between this house,
and the next road down at the bottom, where the plains stretch out until they meet the sea’s faint blue ribbon in the distance. “I’d never see the cat again.”
Junior immediately tunes back in also, at the word Cat.
“Are we moving here?” she says, suddenly all ears.
“We’re just looking,” I tell her.
She starts winding the kite in quickly, and Connor steps in to help.
“I’ll play with it later, I just want to look around too.”
“That’s fine, you go ahead,” he says, taking the reels from her.
“Is this all one house?” she asks, running up and down the patio, looking in the windows. “It’s massive. Like the Tomb Raider house!”
“Not that big,” I say, realistically. Although compared to our shoebox, it might as well be. She points to the far end of the patio.
“Is that a hot tub under there?”
“Don’t think I’ll need that,” I remark, retracting any thoughts I was having about the place not being very Hollywood. Suddenly the presence of an outdoor Jacuzzi means it’s got ‘Hollywood Hit-Man’ written in neon lights in the sky above it.
But Connor just smirks, still winding up the kite strings.
“Spoilsport,” he mutters, deliberately loud enough for me to hear.
Fucheng unlocks the patio door leading into the kitchen, not quick enough for Junior, who is at his elbow at the first jingle of keys.
“Whoa, slow down.” I put my hands out around her shoulders, not sure I want her to be first through the door of a hit-man’s house, deceased as he may be. “Let’s walk round it together, like grown-ups.”
“Like on the TV,” she says, approvingly. “Ooh. Nice kitchen…”
It’s Ooh, nice everything as we walk round. Everything smells of carpet shampoo and lemon pine cleanser, as if the effort had really gone in to erasing all sense of a previous occupier. On the ground floor is the kitchen diner and large living-room, a utility room, a small WC, and an under-stairs door leading to a narrow cellar which had been used as a wine store - because that’s the only place I could smell anything additional to cleaning products - and contains a gun safe, which happily smells of nothing at all. Up one flight on the middle floor, are three bedrooms, two large overlooking the rear garden with a bay window each, and one small overlooking the view to the side where we came down the steps, and a bathroom opposite, across the landing. Meanwhile, the top floor, at nearly ‘street level’ with the lane outside, has the entrance hall leading into the house from the front doors in the enclosed porch, a room at the front to one side which may have been a study or office, then another WC with a shower, and then one large room at the back overlooking the garden, with the most spectacular views of the coast, which had probably been either an upstairs sitting-room, games-room or gym. The twin dormer bay windows go from nearly floor to apex, giving the room a churchlike identity, and sky-lights and further windows either side make it feel more like an upstairs conservatory, with panoramic three-quarter circle views. I can visualize houseplants and comfy sofas and my library in it. Which is dangerous, because that means I can imagine living there. Whoever had it before, had similar neutral taste to me in background décor, so there is no offensive wallpaper, or scary jazzed-up carpet, or crazy community-centre tiles to catch me out with, mentally. It’s a space I can imagine spending some actual quality time in.
A telescope is on a stand in one of the bay windows in the top floor room. Aside from the carpets where fitted, and kitchen fixtures, it’s the only thing left in the house.
“That’s not on the inventory,” Dee frowns, checking a list on her Blueberry.
“That’s because it’s mine,” Connor puts in mildly. “Got a good view of the land around the safari park from here. I was checking it out last night while the locksmith guys were busy. I’ll pack it up now.”
“No rush,” I interrupt. Some part of me is starting to see through the shell of the house. That it’s a lifeline for a family somewhere, a family who weren’t aware of what the man in their lives was doing to supplement his lifestyle. Or that I would get in his way. And regardless of knowing whether or not I have any feelings or conscience about that in my mind, I’m becoming aware that there is a practical way to take on the responsibility. “What are the neighbours like?”
“Your nearest neighbours are at the top of the lane,” says Fucheng. “Mr. and Mrs. Drury.”
“That’s W.P.C. Drury’s parents,” Connor confirms for me. “One of the reasons I thought this’d be worth a look for you.”
“I thought it was because it was closer to your place than mine currently is,” I tease wryly.
“Yeah - that too.”
“I’ve got two cars and a bike,” I say thoughtfully. “I’m not parking everything out on the lane, no matter how much of them is built out of scrap.”
“This way.” Fucheng leads the way back to the front entrance hall, opening a door opposite the ‘office or study’ room. I’d thought it might be a cupboard for the hot water tank. Instead it’s an integral double garage, accessed from a concealed slip-road at the side. Fucheng opens the roll-up door to show me the access route. It’s clean and modern, and the gradient is smooth enough to satisfy any sports car driver, that no bodywork would be at risk of scraping, jarring or bottoming out. Especially with War In A Box in the boot. I wonder how much premium increase that would put on my contents insurance by parking it inside an integral garage. Luckily, there isn’t a button for that on the insurance website, regarding modifications to your vehicle. Probably a good thing to have it parked on the top floor, I think. Or I could always park it on the access driveway, up against the garage doors.
There’s almost no downside to the idea. Except I hate moving. So much stress. I’m so stressed by it I have boxes I never unpack, just at the fear of re-packing them, at some unknown future date, to move again. I keep the empty boxes that things I buy arrive in, so that I can reduce my stress of packing them up again should I move. I’m afraid of being caught out by a move, and maybe my storage at home is disorganised because I’m afraid of being fully settled in and established, with everything in a place of its own and happy.
“Ooh, this is nice,” Junior says again, running around so that her Johnny Bones loafers squeak on the garage floor. I notice even that has been scrubbed, so there isn’t even a visible tyre-tread mark or oil-stain visible. “I could keep my bike in here, too.”
Maybe it’s time I just grew up, I think. He’s right. We both need more room.
“Let’s go back downstairs and look at the garden properly,” I suggest. “See if there’s a shed as well for the lawnmower, and for the cat to sleep in. If he decides to come back ever…”
Our old house feels absolutely microscopic when we get home. There’s barely room in Junior’s bedroom for her kite - it has to go inside the wardrobe. I make us both a pizza before getting ready for work, and we watch CSI, and the day starts to feel like a dream, that we didn’t do any of it - that instead I woke up late, picked her up from my mum’s, and just had time to grab something for dinner before going back to work again like most weekends generally were before… well, before Connor, to be honest.
We get into our usual debate over who did what to who on CSI, and during one of the commercial breaks, reluctantly I get up to take the plates out, to wash up.
“Can I look at the keys again?” Junior asks hopefully, for once not thinking about her Zombie kingdom.
“Sure,” I say, and pass her my bag to rummage in herself. From the kitchen door by the sink, I watch her take out the new keys to the other house and examine them in great detail, test their jingle powers, and try them out thoughtfully between her toes.
If I change my mind, after Vegas, head office get the keys back with no obligation or fees due. If I choose to go ahead with moving there, I’ll still have to give my notice on this place - so it’d be a slow overlap, meaning an easier, more gradual move. But I’m surprised at how reluctant I am to face
change, even when it’s a change for the better.
But then thinking again about Connor, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised at that.
Chapter 39: Capital City Of Moonlighters
It’s really weird back on shift at The Plaza. Compared to newly refurbished town centre venue The Zone with its shiny cover-girl manager Stacie Starkey, and supermodel bar staff, it’s like going back to the tabloids after reading Cosmo. Watching ‘Enders after The Hills. Eating a kebab, after pâté de foie gras.
Or as head doorman Cooper Knightwood puts it, going back to web-cam jacking, after watching a bit of classic French old-school art-house porn.
“It’s because The Zone hasn’t been open long enough for the rot to set in,” he tells me, looking a bit tired and pasty when he stops on his route by me, on the stairs of The Gods, heading up to V.I.P. in Cyberia Club. “None of the toilets are out of order yet, the bar staff haven’t had the chance to get drunk together and show themselves up, and the managers haven’t started bitching properly between themselves. But they will, mark my words - they will.”
“Are you feeling okay?” I ask him. I’ve never seen him so pale. A girl stumbles on the stairs on her way down between us and he misses the grab, shrugging in resignation, but luckily I catch the brunt of her weight on my side. She giggles, blames her footwear, and totters onwards. “You look like you haven’t slept for days.”
Cooper shakes his head.
“Got man-flu,” he says. “I’d kill for a Codydramol.”
“Careful,” I warn him. “You never know who’s listening.”
“Yeah, Doorman Harry got a written warning for calling a customer ‘love’ in front of the area manager when asking for her I.D, can you believe it?” he grumbles, turning and continuing his trudge up the stairs.
“Sounds like Harry on a good day to me,” I call after him, with a smirk.
Everyone in The Plaza seems to be having an off night tonight. Perhaps they lost a lot of custom to The Zone since it opened. Or the area manager has also put his foot down about abuse of staff lock-in privileges, since Mgr Diane arrived from Sin Street, with her bottomless cast-iron alcohol-guzzling pit of an intestine. I’d had a text from Mgr Elaine at Crypto about Sin Street before starting work tonight, gleefully telling me that the venue’s new re-launch name is going to be… Bordello’s. They might as well just call it Slags, she said with at least three LOLs at the end of her SMS. I wonder if the new, young, hip company which has bought the Sin Street brand to make over, even know the definition of the word Bordello. Sounds like a made-up surname you’d find on a foreign national’s dodgy passport and work permit, like Ben Trovato, Lord Lucan, or Igor Klamydia. Or Kaavey Canem, I muse to myself. And how’s that particular investigation going now?
Death & the City Book Two Page 35
