by Sam Millar
“I haven’t a clue what you’re blabbering about.”
“And then there was the lovely invitation from your good self to look at what was left of Chris Brown’s face.”
“A simple identification. That’s all.”
“That’s what I thought, initially. Then it hit me. That was your way of warning me to keep my nose out of things; otherwise it could well be me the next time. Perhaps I should thank you?”
Wilson’s face became troubled. “You’ve lost the plot, Kane. Must be all those failed stories you’ve written. They’ve gone to your head, making you live out some weird fantasy.”
Easing his face into Wilson’s, Karl hissed, “It wasn’t a fantasy when some scumbag placed a gun behind Naomi’s head, threatening to blow it off, all for the sake of a manuscript. Was it?”
“You’re stressed out. Just put the gun –”
Karl parked the muzzle of the gun against Wilson’s forehead, pushing the metal tight against the skin. “Was it?”
“No … no, of course not …” stuttered Wilson.
“Someone sticking a gun to your head concentrates the mind wonderfully. Doesn’t it?” Karl removed the gun. A welt the size of a Polo Mint was left on Wilson’s forehead.
Wilson glanced over his shoulder, as if expecting someone to tap it.
“You better hope that no one comes through that door, Mark. If they do, I’ll shoot you first.” Karl’s eyes became stone. “The next day, after the gunmen had visited us, the first thing you asked me was had I read the manuscript. Remember?”
“Yes. And?”
“You said you were hoping I had read the manuscript so that I would know the names mentioned in it. You also wanted to know had I made a copy. Remember?”
“Yes,” said Wilson, nodding. “What of it?”
“I’ve been doing some thinking since then. I wonder what would have happened if I had said I read the manuscript, or kept a copy of it? Perhaps you would have passed this information on to your friends, and I would have had another visit from them again. Fuck, can you imagine your face had I said I recognised Sooty and Sweep?”
“I know how this must all look to you, but … it’s just not true. How can you even think I would see harm come to you or Naomi?”
“I know, you being such a moralistic person, and all? Now, just between two ex-brother-in-laws, let me bring you into my latest story. Scumbags arrive. Threaten to kill if they can’t find manuscript. Leave with it. Unbeknown to them, daft private investigator has another copy, on his hard disc; makes a bucket load of copies of said missing manuscript. Sends them to well-known solicitors in Dublin and London with the instruction that if anything should happen to either daft investigator or the love of his life, copies of manuscript are to be forwarded to prominent journalists and newspaper editors, immediately.”
When the punch to Wilson’s face connected, it knocked him clean from the chair and onto his arse, curling him into a knot in the corner.
“Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do that?” said Karl, standing over Wilson.
The blood flowing from Wilson’s mouth looked vulgar, like cheap lipstick. He wiped it away, smearing his chin in the process.
“You hit like one of your queer friends. Can’t you put some beef into it?” taunted Wilson, his face lining with anger. “No wonder my sister couldn’t stand the sight of you. Just between us? She never regarded you as a man. She always had bigger balls than you.”
“Possibly,” acknowledged Karl, backing slowly out of the room. “More likely a bigger dick.”
Removing a handkerchief from his pocket, Karl wiped Wilson’s blood from his hand, before quickly snowballing the bloody cloth, shoving it in his pocket.
He took the back stairs two at a time, never breaking stride, genuinely believing he could hear pursuers not too far behind. Near the exit, he stumbled on the bottom step like a drunk but recovered quickly despite feeling the loss of all senses in his body.
Outside in the pissing rain, he ran for the car. It waited for him in the shadows. The best friend in the world …
CHAPTER THIRTY
Tuesday, 6 March (Early morning)
‘And the best plan is, as the popular saying was, to profit by the folly of others.’
Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis
“YOU GO OUT in the middle of the night, return with a swollen hand, and I’m expected to say nothing?” stated Naomi, pouring steaming coffee into a cup. The television hummed silently in the background, showing a DVD movie.
Karl’s knuckles were already turning purplish. He moved the fingers gingerly. Thankfully, nothing seemed to be broken.
“It’s nothing. I punched a scumbag in the gob. He had it coming – a long time ago. I needed to get it out of my system; he needed to get it into his.”
“Karl! You’re out beating people up?” Naomi shook her head in disbelief. “Is this some midlife crisis I should be aware of? If so, what’s next on the agenda?”
“There’s nothing next,” said Karl blowing loudly on his knuckles. “There’s no agenda. Some ice would be nice, though.”
“Can’t you exercise caution, just for once?”
“You’ve reached middle age when all you exercise is caution.”
Naomi handed Karl the cup of coffee. Upon touching it, he grimaced.
“Sore?” asked Naomi.
“Very.”
“Good.”
“You’re evil.”
“When I need to be. Now, who was the so-called scumbag, and what was all that nonsense about seeing a man about a dog?”
Karl allowed the television screen to distract him from Naomi’s persistent questioning. The DVD played out silently before his eyes. Some sort of period piece. A girl posing for an artist in what looked like a large medieval farmhouse.
“Freeze the picture, Naomi.”
“What?”
“The movie. Freeze it.”
“Girl with a Pearl Earring?”
“Just freeze the picture, Naomi … please.”
Reluctantly, Naomi obliged. The movie came to a halt.
“Can you back it up, just a little, to a few seconds ago?”
Naomi clicked the remote, and the movie went into slow mo, backwards.
“Stop! There. That’s perfect!”
Karl brought his face closer to the television, to the large close-up of a young girl staring directly at him, smiling almost defiantly through the glass screen.
“That girl. Who … who is she?” asked Karl in a low tone, a slight quiver in his voice.
“What?” Naomi looked puzzled.
“The girl, Naomi,” said Karl, annoyance replacing the quiver. “Who the hell is she?”
“Scarlett Johansson. Why? Don’t tell me you have a thing for … Karl? What’s wrong …?
Karl’s mind suddenly was startlingly clear. Everything began hitting him at once. The face. The name given to him by Paul the barman.
She’s changed, my phantom, changed from a mist to a solid object …
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Saturday, 10 March
‘Life is bare, gloom and misry everywhere, Stormy weather, Just cant get my poorself together, Im weary all the time, So weary all the time, Dont know why theres no sun up in the sky, Stormy weather, Keeps rainin all the time …’
Billie Holiday, Stormy Weather
THE ANTRIM ROAD was dark and dangerous, made all the more so by the felled trees lining the route. A few street lamps concentrated light on lonely patches of dark earth, revealing flickering shapes not attached to anything in particular.
The harsh rain battering Karl’s car was quickly becoming a deluge, as if he were trapped inside a suffocating plastic bag. The slick road felt frisky, with very little traction for safe driving. In a month of torrential rain, the weather forecast predicted that tonight’s storm would be the most violent.
“Trust you to pick the king of shitty nights …” whispered Karl, trying to take comfort from his own voice,
but finding very little. He hated driving in the rain. It made him feel susceptible to chance and the elements. The tattered wipers weren’t helping his unease, smearing the windshield with grey, smudgy skid marks, making it extremely difficult to see clearly.
Thankfully, the swelling in his hand had flattened over the last few days. He wondered how Wilson’s face looked? He smiled at the thought.
Quickly clicking on the radio, Karl negotiated the many stations before finding the flawless voice of Billie Holiday singing Stormy Weather. It calmed him, slightly. He whispered the words, a duet with Billie.
“Just cant get my poorself together, Im weary all the time …”
Looking in the rear-view mirror for the umpteenth time, Karl glanced at the two bulbous headlights following behind too close for comfort, seemingly using his car as a guiding marker.
“Must be a magnet you’re driving, arsehole …” he said, wishing he could pull over in this narrow stretch of road, allow the offending driver time to overtake.
He endured the magnet for another ten torturous minutes, before the car suddenly disappeared from view at Bellevue Zoo.
“Away to visit your relatives?”
He continued his journey until he was just outside the city limits, to a forested area of Victorian-style houses, each separated by acres of freedom and privacy.
Easing the car to a halt, he rummaged in the glove compartment, fumbling for a road map he was sure existed. He found it – parts of it. Oil and time made what remained of the map vague.
He shook his head, disgusted at the state of the map, promising that as soon as he made some money, he would invest in one of those satellite things that brought you right to the door of your destination by a simple push of the button. Cleaned your arse and wiped your face, as well, if all the hype were to be believed. Or he might just get the shitty wipers fixed, instead.
The rain pounded the car. He couldn’t hear himself think, let alone make sense of the map. He started the car, and drove on.
Cutting further up a narrow, man-made dirt laneway, he could feel car and stomach sink as the thick muck took hold. The wheels spun, spewing up filth and grime all over the windscreen. He quickly turned off the wipers.
“Come on, old pal. Don’t let me down now … please.”
The car shuddered with determination, black smoke belching from behind.
“Come on …”
Without warning, the car jerked forward, catching Karl off-guard. He couldn’t see a thing, his instincts and frayed nerves competing with each other. He steered left, then right, then quickly left again, afraid to take his foot off the accelerator in case of being cemented into the muck. A tree suddenly jumped into view. He hit the brakes. It was two seconds too late …
* * *
How long had he been unconscious? A few seconds? Minutes? He checked his watch. Smashed. Gingerly, he touched his forehead. “Oh …” The wide gash felt deep. Blood trickled, staining the side of his face, eventually drying in patterns pre-defined by the wrinkles in his skin. A used Kleenex helped to soak some of the blood up. “Stupid bastard …” He was winded. Shook up. Other than that, he knew it could have been worse. A hell of a lot worse.
Opening the door, he went staggering out into the muck and filthy rain, desperate to inspect the damage to his beloved car. “Ah fuck no …” A dent the size of a microwave oven greeted his bleary eyes. He ran his hand over the bonnet, tenderly, as if it were human skin. “What a disaster.” The only solace he could find was that the engine appeared to be unscathed.
He dabbed the forehead wound again, then threw the ineffective tissue away. The blood began streaming down his face.
Thankfully, the rain helped dilute it.
Stepping away from the car, he made his way up the dicey hillside, pushing through thorn bushes and overgrown hedges, slip-sliding his way to the top of the steep climb, breathless and disorientated, mucked from the waist down.
“There has to be an easier way to make a living in this godawful …”
The house, sprawling in size and eerily alone, sat resting in the clearance, bloated and proud. A plenitude of peeling paint, missing slates and gaping windows gave the appearance of neglect. It was hard to tell. Nowadays, people were doing their houses up just like this to give them that ‘listed’, antique look.
Seeing at least three No Trespassing signs nailed between broken fencing and trees, he proceeded cautiously. Other signs warned of guard dogs and nightly patrols.
He was less certain of his actions now, the storm and crash bringing great sobriety. He waited a long time before moving towards the front door, its enormity almost vulgar.
Pressing the button stationed near the middle of the door, Karl listened for any movement from inside. The doorbell’s chime became too loud for his ears. It seemed to last an eternity. He pictured it echoing in the hall, up the stairs, in every nook and cranny, screaming.
A curtain moved, he was sure, from the east window. The wind? Leaning his face up against the window, he could feel its coldness pooling in his gums. A light came on, flooding him, catching his peeping Tom act. Startled, he stood back quickly, almost stumbling backwards.
The door opened.
He wasn’t in the least surprised to see Jenny Lewis standing there. The ugly beast of a shotgun in her hand, though, was a bit of a shock. It made her look tiny. It made her look quite dangerous …
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Saturday, 10 March (Later in the night)
‘It is so difficult to make a neat job of killing people with whom one is not on friendly terms.’
Roy Horniman, Kind Hearts and Coronets
“THIS IS GOING to hurt you more than me,” said Jenny Lewis, calmly.
“Do your worst,” mumbled Karl, bravely, feeling quite cowardly sitting on the chair.
Jenny leaned against him, her bosom level with his eyes. Karl gritted his teeth, waiting for the inevitable pain.
“Fuckkkkkk!”
“Oops … sorry, that slipped a bit. You must remain still, Mister Kane. These temporary stitches will do until you get to a hospital. The wound looks a lot worse than what it actually is,” encouraged Jenny.
Karl’s face began screwing with pain as the needle went to work on his skin.
“You’re a book of surprises, Jenny,” said Karl through clenched teeth. “Where did you learn a neat little trick like this? And don’t say watching Blue Peter.”
She smiled, but did not answer his question fully. “I’m afraid I had what most people would call a sheltered childhood. I never watched Blue Peter.”
“That’s okay. Never watched it much myself. Always making things out of Fairy Liquid bottles. To be honest with you, I think they bought most of the stuff they claimed to have made. I was always suspicious of them, their shiftiness.”
A soft laugh escaped Jenny’s mouth. “Even as a child, you were suspicious by nature, Mister Kane?”
“It was a gift.”
“And now? Are you still suspicious of everyone?”
“Depends. Now, say someone was to stick a shotgun close to my face, I think you’d agree that would give me just cause for suspicion?”
“I apologise for that. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Scare? I’m afraid to check my underwear at the moment. Do you always greet guests with a shotgun in your hand?”
“We don’t get too many visitors out in this neck of the woods, especially this late at night and certainly not in weather like this. I’d be very wary of anyone out on a night like this.”
“So would I, to be honest,” conceded Karl.
“Are you sure I can’t take that overcoat? It looks soaked right through.”
“It’s fine, thanks. If I take it off, I would get too cosy. Probably fall asleep at that terrific fire burning in your living room.”
Jenny dabbed at Karl’s wound with a cotton ball. “Almost finished. Take a deep breath.”
“Shouldn’t you offer me alcohol now, like they do i
n the cowboy movies?”
“That’s a myth. Actually, alcohol is the last thing you would want in your bloodstream at a time like this. It makes the heart pump faster, and that in turn spews out the blood uncontrollably. Very messy,” replied Jenny, reaching for a tiny pair of scissors to trim the stitches’ tails. “There! Not too bad, if I say so myself. Would you like a mirror to see the results?”
“No thanks. I’ll take your word for it. I’ve had enough shocks for one night.”
“Coffee?”
“Only if the milk is amber in colour and made of 100 per cent alcohol.”
“I’ll see what I can come up with, even though I’ve warned you of its capabilities,” smiled Jenny. “Then you can tell me all about your journey, and what you’re doing here at this time of night. I’m sure it’ll be interesting.”
Karl tried smiling also, but his facial muscles didn’t seem to be working right, as if the stitches had been pulled too tightly.
While Jenny readied the coffee, he glanced about the large kitchen, trying to distract himself from the list of questions on his tongue. He stared at the shotgun resting on the far table. Its two hollow eyes stared right back, defiantly.
“Nice place you have here, Jenny. Yours?”
Jenny looked at him for all of two seconds before answering. “I doubt if I could afford a place like this on my salary. This is my mother’s. She is upstairs, in bed, unwell at the moment.”
“Sorry to hear that,” says Karl, slightly mortified. “I hope I didn’t disturb her?”
“I don’t think you did. She’s heavily medicated, at the moment.”
“It’s nothing serious?”
“A long-term illness.” Producing two miniature bottles of Drambuie, she placed them on the table. “Sorry, but this is about all I have. Airline freebies.”
