by Tom Trott
‘And yet you called hoping to find me. You must be overjoyed.’ This was the new me. The calm me.
‘Ja, I’m very pleased. Have you got my package?’
I left a pause. ‘Oh that, I believe we have it somewhere. I haven’t had the chance to look at it yet.’
‘I’m sure you’ll find the time.’
‘There’s this missing girl at the moment, you must have seen it in the papers. Big case, lots of people involved. I can’t say when I’ll get around to it.’
‘It is quite urgent.’
‘What isn’t?’
There was a little trickle of a laugh. ‘Yes, yes. That’s right.’
The conversation went silent. So silent I believed I could hear the static bouncing up and down the line, stretching from my office to the lane, to the street, and all the way to wherever the hell he was. I hate telephones. There’s nothing more intimate than having someone’s mouth pressed up to your ear, blindfolded, no eyes to read.
‘When I delivered it,’ he finally returned, ‘I gave it to your secretary. I must say, she is quite a woman.’
I gripped the phone tighter.
‘She reminds me of a whore I fucked in Hamburg once, Johanna, she was quite a woman too. Chunky. What is her name?’
By this point I was gripping the phone so tightly I thought it might shatter. I wanted to bite into it. I kept silent.
‘Thalia, I remember now. Thalia Sweet. What a beautiful name.’
Static came back. Or was it the meshing of cogs?
‘Do get back to me as soon as you can, Mr Grabarz. Auf wiedersehen.’
I was knocking so hard I had split my knuckles. And she was fucking angry when she answered in nothing but a slip.
‘Jesus Christ, Joe!’
‘Do you always answer the door dressed like that?’ I asked.
If she could look any angrier, she did then. But she had no idea how I felt, I had almost punched a hole in the desk when I put the phone down.
‘It’s gone midnight, what the hell do you want?’
‘When that letter was delivered, from Mr Vogeli, did you speak to him?’
‘You came over here and woke up all my neighbours, who by the way already hate me, to ask me that?’
‘Yes. And I’d like an answer.’
She took a few moments to exhale all her anger. I was serious, and she knew it.
‘Yes, why?’
‘If you see him again, call me straight away. Don’t speak to him, don’t let him get near you, just go somewhere public and call me. Are you alone?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Is there a man in your bed?’
‘Yes there is. What is it to you?’
‘Who is he?’
‘No one you know.’
‘How much do you know about him?’
‘Not much. We haven’t been doing much talking.’
‘Fine. Where did you meet him?’
‘Tinder.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘It’s an app.’ She stopped short of adding ‘you moron!’
She was breathing enough air to flush the corridor. I quite liked her angry. Her breasts were heaving under thin lace. I tried not to notice them.
‘I want you to sleep at mine,’ I told her.
‘I know that.’
‘For your safety.’
‘I can take care of myself.’
I paused to emphasise my point: ‘If you see him, call me, ok? I’m sorry to have interrupted.’
I disappeared from the doorway.
‘Joe, wait.’
‘What?’ I was already halfway down the corridor.
‘I might as well tell you this now. Maria Tothova’s brother showed up on my Tinder tonight. I can’t remember his name.’
‘Spencer Redburn.’
‘No, that’s not it.’
‘That’s the name you put in the file.’
‘Yes, but that’s not the name he has on his profile.’
I stepped steadily back toward her door. ‘I thought he was in South Africa?’
‘According to the most recent thing I could find.’
‘How can you be sure it’s him?’
‘I saw his photo enough times when I was sorting out the file. It’s him.’
My mind fizzed with possibilities. Was this something? Maria Tothova’s brother. Not in South Africa. Here, nearby. A different name. Hiding.
‘It said he was seven miles away.’
This was not nothing.
12
Q&A
peter kalogiannis was the most unusual kind of taxi operator. She was Greek, transgender, but hadn’t changed her name. In fact she did nothing more than wear makeup. She was a one-woman gender convention-busting tour de force. But in one way she was disappointingly conventional: she wouldn’t talk without a picture of John Houblon.
‘He owns his Hack and as a result he gets to work the evening shift,’ she explained. ‘Journeyman does the day and another does overnight. That’s unless they can get a better shift on someone else’s ride.’
I was sitting in what I was sure was garden furniture, in a cramped office, two storeys up, built into the corner of some Victorian building not far from the Seven Dials. She was wearing tight unisex jeans and a thick turtleneck jumper. Her silver glitter eyeshadow was shimmering in the white glow of a square, beige computer monitor that looked like it was running Windows 95. I recognised it from the last time I used a computer. The rest of the office was full of street maps and filing cabinets, dirty mugs and cigarette butts. I was working on one of my own.
‘Is that the best shift?’ I asked.
‘Depends,’ she shrugged, pausing to take a drag of her own. ‘Some drivers do well overnight. Some like the airport run. Some have regulars for the school run, so they do well during the day. Sunday morning the rates change so you can do well if you catch the church crowd. But conventional wisdom says Saturday night is the best, and Tariq likes the evenings. He’s a conventional kind of guy.’
‘What are his hours?’ I asked.
‘He does six till two mostly. Journeymen do two till ten, ten till six,’ she shrugged.
‘But he hasn’t always liked the evenings: he used to work the day shift, am I right?’
‘Yeah, for a few months.’
‘Let me guess, he stopped around August?’
‘Something like that,’ she said with an impressed smile.
‘When did that start?’
‘I don’t remember exactly, but it was around Christmas. I figured he wanted to spend the winter evenings with his family. He’s got a daughter, don’t he?’
‘I need the exact date.’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘You’ve got records, haven’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Check them.’
There was silence. She didn’t move.
‘I’ve just paid you, haven’t I? Work for it.’
She didn’t appreciate being treated like a prostitute, and got up with exaggerated sophistication to begin checking through the drawer of a filing cabinet. I hadn’t learnt yet that when you pay someone, they always like to pretend you haven’t.
‘Twelfth of December, two-thousand-and-four. Good enough?’
‘You mean you can’t give me the hour?’ I said with a smile. It was returned, and with a look that went much lower than my eyes.
‘Whilst you’re there, who drove the evening shift when he was on days.’
‘I can tell you that one without looking,’ she said. ‘Nobody.’
‘No one?’
‘Nobody. Even when I needed a bigger fleet around Christmas he wouldn’t let any of them use it.’
‘Is that unusual?’
‘For him, absolutely.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he would get paid. I even offered to pay him extra. But don’t tell the others that, darling,’ she added, striding back to her desk. ‘Of course, I’m in the same position now,’ s
he sighed, ‘It’s November. He better have a new car by Christmas week, let alone New Year’s Eve.’
‘Well, hopefully we can clear this up quickly and pay out his claim.’
She gave another smile, and her pencilled eyebrows disappeared into her hairline. ‘Save it, honey. Insurance investigators don’t pay for information.’
I bit my cheek and nodded. I was twenty-two, and looked it. Who could I possible impersonate? A student? I didn’t look clever enough.
‘And he wouldn’t let anyone else drive it until he went back on the evening shift?’ I asked. ‘The whole time?’
‘That’s right.’
I had been through all the messages, plotted them on a map you couldn’t fold out fully without hitting the caravan walls, and they were all intersections. Street corners to you and me. He started getting them less than a week after he changed to the day shift. Less than a week after he stopped anyone else from using his car. There was only one explanation. I don’t even have to tell you.
I got up out of the chair. ‘Thank you, Peter.’
‘You’re welcome, honey.’
I stopped with my hand on the knob. ‘Why did you never change your name? If it’s not too rude to ask.’
‘I don’t mind, people ask me all the time. They don’t get to choose their name, but I can, and they don’t understand why I don’t.’
‘And what’s the answer?’
‘My parents gave it to me.’
It wasn’t until I was five minutes from Debra’s caravan that I realised I was being followed. It was a beat-up Volvo estate, no wonder I hadn’t noticed.
I took a sharp turn here, a sharp turn there, indicated one way, went the other. I even went into a left turn only lane and turned right if you can imagine such a thing. But the bastard still followed me. I parked up by London Road station, back when you could park around there, and wandered into The Signalman. The Volvo was pulling up as the doors swang shut. I stood just round the corner by the quiz machine and waited for the next person to enter.
The next person was a forty-something man with already white hair and a baseball cap to try and hide it. He wore a fleece, and trousers with loads of pockets. He was the least threatening person in the world.
‘Who the fuck are you!?’ I shouted as I pushed him against the bar.
People froze. The landlord was close, ready to intervene, but the man gave him a wave with his fingers.
‘It’s ok,’ he said. Then he smiled yellow teeth at me. ‘I’m your best friend.’
‘Really,’ I mocked.
‘Oh yes.’ He looked at the landlord, ‘get this man whatever he wants,’ then he looked back at me, trying to reach for his pocket, ‘do you mind?’
I let go and he held a twenty pound note ready.
‘A pint,’ I barked. ‘And a double whisky.’
‘That’s the spirit, make that two.’
The Signalman is quite a nice place. Not too posh, but nowhere near a dive. It’s rival is the The Open House, on the other side of the bridge that crosses the train line. But that’s posher, just like the neighbourhood. I’ve always been more comfortable on the rougher side of the tracks.
‘Cheers,’ he said, when the landlord carried our drinks to a table.
‘So, who are you?’ I growled.
‘I told you: I’m your best friend.’
I stood up.
‘Who else would know you stole Tariq Jilani’s taxi and torched it in the grounds of the caravan club?’
I sat back down.
Yellow teeth smiled again.
‘And who are you going to tell?’
‘No one.’
‘I’m so lucky to have a great friend like you.’
He nodded. ‘And since we’re such good friends, why don’t you tell me what you were up to just now at the taxi office.’
I took some time drinking my pint. It gave me a chance to interrogate myself first. There was nothing this man could possibly tell the police that Daye didn’t know already. I go talk to him about the Jilani case and three days later the man’s car is stolen. You didn’t have to be a detective to work that one out. He might not be happy about it. He might even try and get me on it. But then I didn’t steal the thing, Ryan did. When I had finished drinking I realised I’d wasted my time thinking about that, and not about this arsehole.
I reached over and held the man down.
‘Here, what are you—’ he struggled as I pulled out his wallet. He gave up once I started going through it.
‘I always think it’s good for friends to be on first name terms, Bill.’ I found his business cards: ‘You’re a hack.’ I threw the wallet back onto the table. ‘How the hell did you find me?’
He grinned, then shrugged. He couldn’t possibly tell me that.
‘You found out about the car obviously. So you went to talk to the taxi company and you saw me coming out, and what, you didn’t like the look of me?’
‘I was right, though, wasn’t I?’
He was right. He had walked into The Signalman with nothing.
‘But what makes a big shot Chief Crime Reporter like you interested in a burnt-out taxi?’ I asked. ‘Unless you knew who’s taxi it was, and knew someone was looking into things.’
He didn’t respond, just sipped his beer. I was near the end of mine already.
‘Or knew that there was something to be looked into,’ I offered.
‘There’s not a crime committed in the city that doesn’t cross my desk. Sure, a burnt out taxi isn’t particularly interesting, maybe a drug angle though, maybe reckless kids, that sells. Then I see the name. I remember it, the guy certainly has bad luck!’
He laughed a foul little laugh. One that didn’t inspire a shred of warmth.
‘So,’ he continued, ‘I decide to call my friend at the police station, find out if anyone has been looking into his daughter’s case. And what do you know, a DC pulled the file on it just this week. Someone’s been slipping him notes under the table, and I don’t mean ones that say “I love you”.’
His teeth were more than yellow. They were brown at the roots.
‘I went to the taxi office to find out who was asking questions. But I didn’t need to. You saved me twenty quid. Now,’ he spat into his glass, ‘If one of my own was kicking around an old case I’d like to think I’d know about it. Who are you working for, kid?’
‘Myself,’ I answered.
‘Freelance, huh? I started out freelance. Then again, I never torched any cars in the pursuit of a good story.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I wrote the original article on the girl. I’m the only person in the whole world who reported on it. Share what you’ve got with me and I can take it to the nationals for you, I’ve got friends. Fifty-fifty, joint byline.’
Like that he came into focus: he was the same as everyone else. He’d eat his own shit if you paid him.
‘I don’t remember seeing your article,’ I told him.
‘It was pushed to the centre. Was always going to be that way.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because no one gives a damn about a little Muslim girl less than a month after 7/7.’
At least now I knew why I hadn’t heard about it. It was up to this guy and his editor, his editor and the shareholders, the shareholders and the readers; and none of them wanted to see this girl’s face on the front page. It would confuse people. It didn’t fit the narrative.
‘And what’s different now?’ I asked.
‘Nothing, but I’m hoping you’ve got something juicy involving the father. You know he’s got a record back in Pakistan. Criminal, that is.’
‘What for?’
‘Beating a man half to death.’
‘You’ve got proof?’
‘Well I can’t exactly slip a DC twenty quid for that file, can I? It comes from a reliable source. Give us a few days, I can have three, maybe four, prozzies swear to him picking them up in that taxi.’
‘B
ut that isn’t true.’
He almost spat out his pint. The treacle-dark laugh bubbled and subsided, I was serious, he couldn’t believe it.
‘People don’t read newspapers to get news,’ he explained.
‘Is that so?’
‘Unlike you I’m old enough to remember when they did.’
‘I wasn’t aware they read them at all.’
‘Well, some do. They read us to make sense of everything that’s happening. That’s our job; to take the facts, the right facts, and show people how the world works. That’s more honest than just straight reporting. And if the facts don’t quite fit how we know the world really is? Then maybe they need a little massaging. If you can read the facts and get the wrong impression, or read my story and get the right idea, which contains more truth?’
I could see now that his teeth were least rotten part of him. ‘That’s our job, is it?’ I asked, ‘As journalists.’
‘We’re not journalists, my friend. We’re storytellers.’
I stood up. Then I downed my double whisky.
‘Thanks, Bill. But no thanks.’
He didn’t even look that disappointed.
I left and managed to get back to the caravan before the whisky hit me. I’ll never forget that conversation; I didn’t meet him again for a few years, although I started to notice his name in the paper more. The funny thing is, when I did meet him again, he didn’t remember it at all.
13
Entropy
the bull in ditchling is a great village pub, full of low beams, dark corners, and local ales. I’m not an ale drinker myself, the stuff tastes like dirty bathwater to me, but I enjoy the relaxed atmosphere that comes with it. Real ale is not sophisticated, the food served with it isn’t sophisticated, the setting isn’t sophisticated, and all that takes the pressure off you. The Bull offers this with all the walked-in mud and grass, creaking wood, and other things that make a village so charming; but with Wi-Fi, and a car park, and only seven miles from Brighton.
I was sitting at the bar clean-shaven, fingering a glass of white wine, wearing a thick pale blue shirt, turned-up cream chinos, and slip on shoes with silly tassels. Everything about me said I was a delicate little flower, allergic to mud, unequipped for the country life, who would have a meltdown if he stepped in a puddle. I was so deep in character even Daniel Day-Lewis would be impressed.
