End of the World Blues

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  “Canterville Gallery.”

  “Already been,” said Neku. “I went with Charlie.”

  “You what?” demanded Kit.

  “Yesterday afternoon. You asked me. Charlie and I had coffee with the manager, remember?”

  Kit shook his head.

  Neku sighed. “Are you sure?”

  By the time Kit left, they’d established three things. Kit seriously needed to get more sleep, Neku would remain at the flat while he visited the gallery, and if she wanted to help while he was away, she could keep translating the police files or start making a list of Mary’s possessions. Actually, they established four things, because they also established that Charlie could come round.

  “How do you know he’s free?”

  “It’s the twenty-fifth,” said Neku. “His term ended on Friday…he texted me,” she added, when Kit looked blank.

  “Where’s Charlie now?” asked Kit.

  Neku rolled her eyes. “Outside,” she said, as if that was obvious.

  “I’ve got a question,” said Neku, putting a can of Coke in front of Charlie and placing a bowl of seaweed crackers beside the can. When he put his hands together, in quick thanks for the food, Neku smiled.

  “A question?”

  “Well, more of a logic puzzle really.”

  “Oh, right.” Neku could practically see Charlie relax. “What is it…?”

  They sat on Mary’s bed, surrounded by clothes pulled from one of the built-in cupboards. At least a third of these were male. A blue suit with a thick chalk stripe, a blazer with five gold buttons on each sleeve, something that might be a rugby shirt if not made from raw silk. Now that Neku came to think of it, she’d thought the suit Kit had been wearing looked a little flashy for his taste.

  “Suppose the police found a gun,” said Neku.

  “This has to do with that woman’s suicide?”

  “No,” said Neku. “This has to do with something else. Suppose they found a gun and it had been loaded with…” She looked at him. “You might want to write this down,” she said, offering him a note pad. “Five blanks, two live rounds, and one blank…”

  Charlie looked up from his pad. “Which order?” he asked. “Five blanks first, or one blank first?”

  “Five,” said Neku. “Definitely five.”

  “Okay,” he said. “What’s your question?”

  “Why?” said Neku.

  After watching Neku for a couple of minutes, while she sorted through the clothes and carefully rehung them by colour, beginning at one end of the visible spectrum and ending at the other, Charlie took his can of Coke, bowl of crackers, and logic question out to the roof garden, leaving Neku to draw up her list of Mary’s possessions in peace. By then, of course, Neku had moved on to Mary’s bedside bureau.

  Top drawer.

  Seven pairs of panties, size 10, all Marks & Spencer, three nylon slips, five bras (34D, but Europeans were large), an old diary, written in something that wasn’t English, Japanese, or any other script Neku recognised, a key ring vibrator, and a pink plastic egg.

  Easy reach, thought Neku, looking from the open drawer to the bed.

  Middle drawer.

  A dozen black tee-shirts from Topshop. Armani jeans, black, size 10, and well worn. A black jersey, frayed at the cuffs. And, beneath this a torn copy of Sandra Horley’s The Charm Syndrome. Someone had taped it back together.

  Bottom drawer.

  A collection of art magazines. A catalogue from Christie’s New York, dated 2007. Three copies of Time Out, all the same issue and containing a glowing review for a Tessa Markham exhibition at the Canterville Gallery. Removing the bottom drawer only revealed smooth wood beneath, so Neku tipped the whole unit forward to see if the base was hollow. It was, but it was also empty.

  Although a Victorian metal fireplace had been removed and the damage plastered over, the gap between the built-in wardrobe’s middle door and underlying chimney breast was only deep enough to take shallow shelves.

  On the shelves were three black, two pink, and one green tee-shirt that looked as if it had never been worn, more panties, a bundle of socks, and rolled jeans. Nothing else, and certainly nothing interesting. The jeans were size 8. So either Mary used these and kept the Armani jeans in her bedside dresser because she couldn’t bear to throw them away, or it was the other way round.

  A collection of black jackets hung from wooden hangers in the next wardrobe along. All of the jackets where short and most were nipped at the waist. Some had pockets with flaps, others didn’t. One of them had a tiny pocket in the lining, low down on the left-hand side. It was here Neku found the key.

  It was the thirty-eighth pocket she’d searched since Charlie took his logic problem outside and the fifth key she’d found. Although the others had been found in drawers or hanging from nails on the wall. Neku tried to open the obvious items first. A battered suitcase under the bed, which was already unlocked…a metal box file, contents missing…both pointless, since the key was evidently meant for a different kind of lock.

  So Neku took the key downstairs and knocked at Sophie’s door. She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about Sophie and suspected the woman felt the same about her, but Neku needed to talk to someone who understood English things.

  “What things?” Sophie asked.

  Neku held up the key.

  Taking it, Sophie stepped back and waved Neku into her studio, which was in chaos. “Sorry about the mess,” she said.

  “I’ve seen worse,” said Neku, then wondered if she should have been more impressed.

  “Right,” said Sophie, “grab a stool while I make coffee.” And with that the woman disappeared inside, leaving her guest alone in the glassed-over yard that, quite obviously, made up Sophie’s life. Would it be rude to say she’d already had enough coffee to last one lifetime? Would it be rude to open a louvre window? Neku wondered. Or would this ruin the portraits now drying in a row along one wall…

  “How do you stand the smell?”

  Sophie looked surprised.

  “I’m sorry,” said Neku. “I didn’t mean to be rude, it’s just…”

  Once an overhead window had been opened and Sophie had checked twice that Neku really did like her coffee black and unsweetened, Sophie turned her attention to the little brass key.

  “School trunk,” said Sophie finally. “Maybe a tuck box.”

  After she’d explained that one was for the uniform and the other for personal possessions, and both were required by children going to boarding school, Sophie remembered to ask where Neku found the key.

  “Upstairs.”

  And after a few questions, mostly about how she liked London, Neku realised she was meant to go now. So she thanked Sophie for the coffee, trying not to mind the woman’s obvious relief when she showed Neku to the door. By the time Neku had climbed the stairs and was letting herself into the flat, she’d reached a conclusion. The first completely firm conclusion she’d reached since leaving home…pretty much everybody on this planet was weird.

  CHAPTER 37 — Nawa-no-ukiyo

  “Lady Neku…”

  So many people, almost all of them strangers. Yellow cloaks, red tunics, faded blue hats, and belts in a dozen other colours her mother would undoubtedly regard as vulgar. The d’Alambert retainers might look like clowns but they kept their gaze steady and held their ground.

  She was being called.

  Petro pushed her forward and Lady Neku stumbled to a halt in front of Luc d’Alambert, who bowed. “My father would like to meet you.”

  Lady Neku glanced at her mother.

  “Apparently Lord d’Alambert wishes you to board his yacht.” The contempt with which Lady Katchatka said that final word revealed what she really thought of the gaudily painted vessel.

  Luc blushed. “It’s protocol,” he insisted.

  Well, Lady Neku thought, that’s an end to that. From introduction to intractable argument inside a single minute. That was quick, even for the Katchatka family.
>
  “Please,” said Luc, the first time Lady Neku could remember anyone saying this. Well, certainly in her lifetime.

  “He insists?” she asked.

  Luc d’Alambert nodded.

  “Well,” said Lady Neku. “We’d better go.” She watched Luc try to work out if she was mocking him and wondered if she was—maybe a little. Neku mocked everyone while pretending to do the opposite. It made for a shell most people found hard to crack.

  “After you,” he said.

  If he could descend that ramp to meet the Katchatka family then she could climb it to meet Lord d’Alambert. I mean, Lady Neku asked herself, how hard could it be?

  As she neared the top, Lady Neku reminded herself not to ask idiot questions. The answer was very difficult indeed. And not just because the d’Alamberts used a slightly tighter logarithm for gravity.

  “You all right?”

  “Of course I’m…” Glaring at the boy beside her, Lady Neku got ready to insist she was fine and then shrugged, making do with a small nod.

  “He’s made it hard,” said Luc. “On purpose. Even we don’t use gravity this dense.”

  “Why are you telling me that?”

  The boy looked puzzled. “So you know things will get easier.” Putting his hand under Neku’s elbow, Luc d’Alambert helped her climb the last few steps. They could have been any couple, thought Lady Neku, apart from the fact their families hated each other, she was half a head taller, and Luc was so pale he might as well have been a ghost. He was right though. Lady Neku felt her steps get less sticky and her body lighter as she neared the top of the ramp.

  “Brace yourself,” said Luc.

  A wave of nausea washed over Lady Neku. A churning sickness that abandoned her almost as soon as it began. When she came to, Luc was still supporting her elbow, only now he held it tight.

  “Shit,” Lady Neku said.

  Luc nodded, although he also glanced towards his father to see whether the thin man standing just inside the doorway had heard. Lord d’Alambert gave little sign of hearing; if he had, he was too busy examining a wall.

  It showed a naked…

  Me, Lady Neku realised. As she looked, the scan sank beneath the surface of her breasts, nose, knees, and abdomen, sectioning her into wafer-thin silhouettes that flickered and vanished. She saw her beating heart, brain, lungs, and spine appear and disappear just as quickly. Until the leading edge of the scan passed through her body, leaving only a faint echo of dissolving buttock, seen from the inside out.

  “Come in,” said a voice, and Lady Neku realised she still had a few paces to take. Closing the gap between herself and the old man, Lady Neku made a point of glancing at the darkening wall and then bowed.

  Should she have curtsied? Seeing the amusement in the old man’s eyes, Lady Neku decided perhaps not. Amusement was good. Certainly better than anger.

  “My Lord.”

  Luc’s father was rumoured to be as old as Neku’s mother, though the years had treated him less kindly. His eyes were watery and scales disfigured one side of his face and showed in armour-like rows from beneath his cuffs. She could smell the reptile stink of corruption from where she stood.

  “Pretty,” he said. “Isn’t it?”

  Harsh eyes warned Luc not to answer. Lord d’Alambert was waiting to see how Neku would reply.

  “You’re starting to look like a lizard,” she said.

  “Very true.” Lord d’Alambert’s smile was sour. “Pretty soon I’ll be as cold blooded as your mother.”

  “If it doesn’t kill you first,” said Lady Neku, and Lord d’Alambert actually laughed. Although, from the scowls on the faces of his retainers it looked as if most of them had trouble seeing the joke.

  “How much longer before you turn?”

  “A century,” he said. “God willing.”

  Never show surprise, never show fear, never even pretend to take anything seriously, these rules had been instilled in Lady Neku by her brothers, with slaps and threats and the occasional treat. All the same, she still found it hard to keep the shock from her face. She asked how old Lord d’Alambert was without thinking.

  Lady Neku had no idea whether or not he was lying when he told her his age. No way was her mother that old, unless the Katchatkas and d’Alamberts counted their years differently.

  “You know why we’re here?”

  “A marriage,” said Lady Neku.

  “Your marriage,” Lord d’Alambert said. He stared at the girl. “How do you feel about that?”

  Lady Neku’s shrug was not the most elegant of responses.

  Stepping forward, Lord d’Alambert wrapped one arm around the girl’s shoulders and steered her away from Luc and the yellow-clad retainers who hovered at the edges of their conversation. Maybe this was planned, thought Lady Neku, maybe all those men in their strange suits and yellow cloaks knew to stand back. These were the d’Alamberts, the oldest of all families. According to her mother, they worked at levels of subtlety so deep even she had trouble extracting the real meaning from their words.

  “Tell me honestly,” said Lord d’Alambert. “How do you feel about this marriage?”

  She would have shrugged again, but something in those eyes told Lady Neku he would return to the question and keep returning to it until she answered.

  “Does it matter?” asked Lady Neku.

  “Yes,” said the old man. “Your genes will be mixed with those of my son. Has that been explained to you?”

  “Yes,” said Lady Neku.

  “We’re old-fashioned,” he added, almost sadly. “Hog-tied by tradition. You will be required to live with us. We will also expect you to birth your own children.”

  “I’m not sure I can,” said Lady Neku. “Our record in that area is not very good…” She hesitated, wondering whether she dare say what was in her mind. “You’ve heard the rumours?”

  Three generations made by splitting cells.

  The old man smiled. His breath was sour and he leaned on her arm more heavily than Lady Neku liked. All the same she was shocked to realise she was starting to respect Lord d’Alambert, something so unlikely it made her wonder if he worked at levels more subtle than even her mother realised.

  “I’ve heard the rumours,” said the man. “And you’ll be fine. I had you scanned as you came aboard. There’s nothing amiss that can’t be cured by inducing the menarche.” He smiled at Lady Neku’s expression. “You carry an ancient Bayer Rochelle modification for elective sterility…no breeding,” he added, when she looked puzzled. “Until we splice in a key.”

  CHAPTER 38 — Thursday, 28 June

  There were three likely answers according to Charlie, another seven possible and thirty-eight more that ranged from technically possible to unlikely, each with its own factor of probability. And though every one could be examined in isolation, it was unrealistic to consider why a handgun clip might hold a mix of live and blank ammunition without tightening the parameters.

  “Could the difference between types be seen?”

  “Unlikely,” said Neku. “Most clips are closed.”

  “Would the man unload the clip?”

  “Doubt it,” she said.

  “And the blanks?”

  “Crimped,” said Neku, adding, “No wax plug or fake bullet, just powder, minimal wadding, and crimped metal around the top.”

  She grinned at the memory, clung tighter to Kit’s bike jacket, and leaned into a bend. Charlie had taken her problem away last Monday, called her Tuesday with his request for more information, and being refused, disappeared for another day, finally texting this morning to ask how many answers she’d like.

  “Okay,” said Charlie, when she called. “I can give you probabilities or divide my solutions into unlikely, possible, and…”

  “Give me the most obvious answer,” said Neku, ruining his carefully considered presentation. She knew she’d ruined it, because Charlie’s voice stumbled to a halt, leaving her alone on the roof with a silent phone and a distant pol
ice siren for company.

  “Is this real?” he asked finally. “I mean, does it have something to do with the dead woman?”

  “Mary,” said Neku.

  “Yes,” Charlie said. “Mary.”

  “No,” said Neku, flicking her Nokia to visual. She caught Charlie’s blink as the streaming video came on line, and then the widening of his eyes.

  “Neku, you’re…”

  I’m what? she wondered, before realising he meant shirtless. “It’s hot,” she told him. “Tokyo has more wind.” He was about to say something else, but just nodded.

  “So it’s not about Mary?”

  “No,” said Neku. “Definitely not.”

  “But it is for real?” Charlie said, carefully not facing his screen. “I mean,” he added, “you don’t strike me as interested in the hypothetical.”

  Neku smiled, then realised it might have been an insult. “It’s real,” she said. “I’ve been trying to work out what it means ever since.” This wasn’t strictly true, she’d simply found the fact in a report amid the mess of papers from Major Yamota’s office and passed the problem straight to Charlie.

  “Okay,” he said, “first thought, it’s obviously intentional.” Charlie must have been glancing at his screen because he responded to Neku’s frown. “If the clip had five blanks and three live shells…well, that could have been someone not bothering to empty the clip properly, but five blanks, two live, one blank.”

  “Suggests what?”

  Charlie took a deep breath. “Taking the five/two combination first,” he said. “Someone wants to frighten someone, while reserving the means to kill them. Second option, someone wants to frighten someone, then kill them. Third option, someone wants to frighten someone, then kill someone else…”

  “Go on,” said Neku.

  “There are other possibilities,” said Charlie. “But I’d need more background. The clip is logical until you consider that last blank. Why load a final blank having loaded two live shells above it?”

  “I imagine,” said Neku, “it all depends on who loaded the clip.”