Then she started over.
Soon she ran out of bags and surfaces (the disinfectant was making her fingers tingle, her nose run), so she pulled her throw off the armchair and began piling things onto that instead: dried flowers, an old tape recorder, a framed photo of herself, at school, straight-backed, smiling – middle-toothless – into the camera.
She gazed around, her chest heaving.
The nets.
She went to the window, grabbed them from the bottom and yanked. They fell – with a twanging-snap – like a fire-curtain during an intermission.
Dewi stood there –
Huge
– staring through the glass at her.
‘Tell me it isn’t true,’ he said.
His voice sounded like he was speaking underwater. He looked like an indignant hero on an American soap opera, helplessly trapped inside the unmanly bubble of TV forever –
His destiny
She shook her head.
‘Tell me it isn’t true,’ he repeated.
‘I can’t hear you,’ she murmured, applying her disinfected cloth to the window and rubbing at it; not intending to provoke, but provoking, nonetheless.
‘Lie to me, at least,’ he said, ‘to spare my feelings.’
‘No.’
She shook her head again, speaking calmly through the frenzied squeak of her wrist action.
‘Step back,’ he said.
She frowned.
He lifted both his arms, his fists – as if about to play a major solo on the bass drum with a touring orchestra – and then held them there, mid-air. She visualised a series of notices slung neatly between them (Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues style) –
You
Are
Killing
Me
Katherine
He bent his elbows in slightly – as if pulling the handbrake on an old-fashioned freight lorry – and then smashed them forward, forcefully, into the centre of the largest glass pane.
She stepped back –
Quick
The glass collapsed in about five large segments. Some of the smaller pieces made contact with her legs, her feet. But she wasn’t hurt. The thick denim protected her.
A moment later – and almost more of a shock – her warm and smeary face was blasted by an unwelcome gust of ice-cold winter air.
‘You bitch,’ he said, once all the commotion was over. His voice was very clear. Then he bent down, and with both strong hands – like Samson, blind with rage and righteousness – he ripped up her hydrangea.
The dog didn’t want to walk, but she yanked him on, sternly. He responded by stiffening, rocking back onto his hindquarters, glancing yearningly –
The minx kidnapped me –
Do something!
– over his shoulder.
She was struggling up the Furtherwick. The young guide and his associate were trailing five paces behind her. She couldn’t shake them. She didn’t really know if she was afraid or not – Should I be?
They seemed…
She glanced back –
They seemed…
Shell-shocked
‘Looks like that fool journalist finally got his story,’ the young guide said, trying valiantly to engage her.
She ignored him, lifting her haughty chin, cussing the dog.
‘D’you really think the Old Man will be alright?’ he persisted, his tone penitent, almost wheedling.
She drew a deep breath. She stopped. She turned around. ‘Stop Following me,’ she blasted, ‘I’m not him. I’m not Wesley. And I’m not Doc, either – you hospitalised him already, remember?’
His face was swathed in a look of pure astonishment. She blinked.
‘Of course he’ll be fine… ’ she backtracked, sullenly –
Mollified
‘We thought we were doing him a favour,’ the older man interjected – he had a strong Northern accent, ‘he must’ve just misconstrued it…’
‘Sure,’ she yanked the dog on again. But the dog –
Typical
– was uncooperative. He appeared to hold the older man in inexplicably high esteem. She glanced over at him, irritably, observing his hand in his pocket, detecting –
Huh?
– the subterranean crackle of a crisp packet.
‘We’re meant to be keeping an eye on him,’ the older man continued, taking her attention as a sign of encouragement, ‘this really is the last thing we wanted.’
She stopped in her tracks.
‘Pardon?’
The young guide shot the older man a warning look.
‘Let me get this straight,’ Josephine turned to face him properly, ‘you’re saying you’ve been hired to protect Doc?’
The older man looked to the younger for direction. The young guide merely shrugged.
‘Who by?’ she persisted.
He looked a little shifty.
‘More to the point,’ she continued, ‘who against?’
‘Hippie. Seven o’clock,’ the older man murmured.
The young guide glanced around. ‘Head him off, quickly.’
The older man did as he was instructed, striding rapidly towards the Hippie, raising his hands dramatically and embroiling him in a noisy discussion about what’d just befallen the Old Man (his own questionable involvement duly eradicated from the narrative).
Doc turned and then he just ran, he just ran into the roadway…
The young guide grabbed Jo’s arm and walked on with her. ‘The sugar people are determined,’ he said, ‘that the Loiter should progress without any further complications. Especially where Doc’s concerned. We’ve simply been hired to keep an eye…’ he faltered, ‘to keep a lid on things…’
‘Call me slow,’ Jo interrupted, ‘but from where I’m standing, all you seem to’ve done so far is undermine him. The poor devil thinks everyone’s turned against him – he thinks he’s going insane – and now, to top it all off…’
‘Okay,’ the young guide stopped walking, was suddenly businesslike, ‘you’ve worked out the L’Amour connection already, and I’m presuming the kid unwittingly helped you with some of the other stuff in the Wimpy yesterday…’
Jo stared at him, frowning.
Were they Following me, yesterday?
Couldn’t I tell?
Didn’t I see?
‘You’re a local girl,’ he smiled at her, encouragingly, ‘an environmentalist, no less. You’re germed up on the geography of the whole south-eastern coastal region. You have an advantage…’
‘Why?’ she stared at him, bemusedly.
‘Think about it.’
He pointed behind her and then placed his hand onto his belly. She glanced over her shoulder, back towards Shoes, not really focussing. She was quiet for a second, then her eyes widened. Her heart nearly missed a beat. ‘The Sands…’
She rapidly counted the letters off onto her fingers. ‘Shit. That’s it. Goodwin Sands. Past Deal, near Sandwich…’
He watched her, smiling benevolently.
‘The prize is on the Sands?’ she reiterated breathlessly, trying frantically to work things back…
‘Oh God… ’ she suddenly made the connection. ‘Clue 2. That’s the giveaway…’
He nodded.
‘Barflies –’ she recited from memory, ‘This is just a stop-over, 105, maximum…’
‘The rest is all just filler, basically…’
She frowned. She was quiet for a minute.
‘But hang on…’
‘It’s clever, though, isn’t it?’ he said, trying to stall her train of thought. ‘Barflies. Because it’s a sand bar, and people can only visit it…’
‘In June,’ she interrupted, taking his bait, ‘during the equinox – the low spring tides – when it’s finally revealed, but for only a few hours… so there were astronomical directions…’
He nodded. ‘Clue 4…’
She ran ahead of him. ‘There’s lamb and lynx and lion, Yet no fish and no fowl either�
�� they’re all astrological signs?’
‘Yup. The first three are all visible in the Northern Hemisphere during early June.’
She paused for a second, visibly astonished. ‘That’s actually very…’ she was awed, ‘… clever.’
‘Kew-wee-we-wu,’ he continued, ‘the distinctive song of the Godwit. A wading bird. It’s rumoured that the Godwit sometimes visits the area at that particular time of year…’
She was nodding again, thoughtfully.
‘Good-win,’ she said. ‘That’s perfect. What a…’ she unconsciously rolled Dennis’s lead tight around her fingers, until his front feet were almost pulled from the ground, ‘what an amazing wind-up.’
‘But nobody can go onto the sands and find the prize, obviously,’ the guide continued smartly, ‘until the right time of year.’
Jo smiled at this. ‘Oh no,’ she said, noticing Dennis’s predicament, and unwinding him fractionally.
His eyes tightened.
‘Oh no,’ she repeated, ‘it’s not quite that simple, though, is it?’
The guide began walking again. Very quickly. Josephine turned and followed, dragging the dog behind her.
‘It doesn’t add up. L’Amour has to fit into this puzzle somewhere. And Doc.’
‘What you need to bear in mind,’ the guide explained, curtly, ‘is that Doc’s son…’
‘Colin,’ Jo reminded him, pointedly.
‘It wasn’t our responsibility that he saw fit to wander around in that Welsh estuary. There were plenty of warnings about the tides there…’
‘It did look rather bad for your people, though,’ she smiled, tightly, ‘didn’t it?’
He ignored her. ‘The Loiter was only intended as a bit of fun…’
‘Get to the point.’
‘The prize isn’t on Goodwin, as such.’
He was squirming. She noticed, stopped walking. She shook her head, ‘I’m not…’
He scowled, turned, ‘The prize is Goodwin.’
‘What?’ She stared at him, open-mouthed, ‘You bought The Sands?’
He nodded, ‘That was the… the twist… the irony. To give a prize which cost so much – financially – which meant so much, historically, geographically, culturally – as a navigational landmark and all the rest of it – but which was – and is, actually – to all intents and purposes – worth absolutely nothing.’
She was loving this. Couldn’t resist it.
‘And L’Amour?’
‘There are references to L’Amour throughout the clues. Wesley’s father was a sailor. L’Amour was a sailor and an adventurer and a writer. He had two children, Angelo and Beauty…’
‘Sweet Beauty and her Angel…’ Jo interrupted.
‘Precisely. L’Amour’s family published new novels by him, even after his death. Books that were written just before he died, for that very purpose. He was a man who became – in effect, and perfectly voluntarily – almost an industry. Those kinds of ideas – those ramifications – have a particular significance to Wesley. The numbers 42 and 8 refer to the number of fights L’Amour won and lost in his career as a professional boxer…’
‘So the gone might gander,’ Jo suddenly filled in, slowly catching up.
He nodded, ‘Utah Blaine – Wesley makes a reference to Hondo, L’Amour’s most famous book, with Sirius, God of Dogs – but Utah Blaine is the important one. He signposts Utah geographically in Clue One with references to a series of rivers – the Beaver… Antelope… Bear. In Utah Blaine the hero risks his life for something that is not actually his. An abstract principle. For honour. A ranch that belongs to a dead man so is effectively worthless… I presume you’re starting to see the parallels…?’
Jo nodded, ‘Of course. But I still don’t understand Doc’s connection to all of this.’
The young guide drew a deep breath, ‘It was felt – in light of his son’s drowning, and the universal upset this tragedy generated in the media – that it might seem…’ he paused, searching for the right word, ‘inappropriate if the prize were to be an island whose entire history is a torrid patchwork of drownings and shipwrecks and misery. These sands are held to be one of the most treacherous offshore strands in the world. When Colin’ the guide used his name with especial emphasis, ‘died, it was then felt that some adjustments should be made to the whole Goodwin arrangement. As it currently stands, the Loiter is a PR disaster. And a very personal one, too, for Murdoch, for Murdoch’s family…’
‘So Wesley happily went along with the idea of a cover-up?’ Jo was suspicious.
The guide paused, then nodded, ‘Of course. Whatever impression he likes to give, he’s as concerned for Doc’s feelings as the rest of us. Doc is a key figure in the whole Following diaspora. He’s central. It’d be a tragedy if the…’
‘So when Colin died,’ Jo interrupted him, ‘and Wesley said he’d won, that he was a winner, he wasn’t being quite as perverse as it might’ve appeared. Because the prize is actually a celebration of a certain kind of… of treachery…’
The young guide shrugged. He plainly didn’t really relish this way of thinking.
‘And the subsidiary prize will have to be planted presumably,’ she continued, ‘as soon as the tide’s finally low enough.’
‘That’s pretty much the sum of it…’ he turned and gazed back toward his older accomplice, ‘and you’re obviously now in a prime position,’ he turned and grinned, hollowly, ‘to join in the search.’
Jo was quiet for a while. She tried to straighten out Hooch’s involvement in her mind.
‘Gumble,’ she suddenly said.
He gazed at her, blankly, ‘Sorry?’
She gauged the minutiae of his reactions –
Fists tightening
Nostrils flaring slightly
– then let it pass.
‘You’ve told Hooch all of this, then, presumably,’ she continued.
He nodded, ‘Hooch was central to our strategy. He’s close to Doc, and yet there’s that interesting competitive edge between the two of them. Hooch – in turn – told Shoes. He needed Shoes on board to shore things up. But they’re the only two who currently know anything… so far as we’re aware, obviously.’
‘Does the Blind Man know?’
The young guide shook his head, ‘No. And nor shall he, if I have anything to do with it.’
‘Because the fewer people who find out…’
He smiled, ‘Of course. The more chances the few who do know have of winning.’
‘And the more chances the company have of keeping the whole original hoax under wraps.’
He passed over this, ‘If Shoes or Hooch win, the Behindlings as a whole will benefit. The Following culture will benefit. Most importantly, Doc will benefit, if only indirectly…’
He paused. ‘Today has obviously been…’ he grimaced.
‘A monumental cock-up,’ she finished off for him.
He inclined his head, graciously.
In the distance a car horn sounded. Jo’s eyes instinctively moved towards it.
‘So how many of you are there?’ she asked.
‘Not many. A few.’
‘Does Wesley know who you are?’
‘Probably.’
Her eyes focussed in on something, further up the road; Dewi, in the middle distance, piling clothing and furniture – willy-nilly – into the back of his pick-up. And Katherine, also on the road, stopping the traffic, holding up some kind of… of… tree and berating him violently.
‘I must go,’ she said, and started walking.
‘Can we depend upon your cooperation?’ the guide called after her, perhaps a mite apprehensively.
She turned and bent down to pick up the dog (grunting at the unexpected weight of him). ‘Of course you can,’ she adjusted him in her arms, ‘I mean…’ she paused, speculatively, her brown eyes glinting, ‘insofar as you can depend upon anybody’s.’
Forty-seven
He parked the car on the dainty hard shoulder, riding up
– with a jolt (Eileen made a sudden lunge for her seat-belt) – onto the muddy grass siding, braking gently and stopping. They’d barely spoken during the journey. Eileen had fiddled nervously with her bag; accidentally twisting a plastic daisy-head from its mesh and then compulsively struggling – without success – to work it back into place again.
Ted had turned the radio on, was listening – with an unbelievable intensity – to an angry man complaining about the lack of adequate public toilet facilities in the Tilbury/Thameshaven vicinity.
Once the engine was off – and the whining was halted – Ted bent forward to pick up Eileen’s bag, which had fallen from her lap in the brief commotion. She pulled her legs up, instinctively, at his unexpected proximity. He grabbed both the bag and its loose daisy, then in a series of deft hand movements, re-established the whole to its former glory.
‘There.’
He passed it back to her.
Eileen snatched the bag from him, staring querulously at the reinstated plastic flower (as if it was some kind of errant tick, sucking the life out of the surrounding fabric), then she carefully removed the knife (Ted frowned), the heron’s head, and shoved the bag – as if now repelled by it – down under the dashboard, kicking it from sight with her neatly-shod feet.
‘I hope he’ll be alright,’ she said, with a shudder.
‘Pardon?’
‘The Old Man.’
Ted frowned, ‘I’m sure he’ll be…’
‘I mean the way he just…’ she interrupted, flapping her hand, helplessly.
‘I know,’ he nodded sagely, ‘tragic.’
‘Perhaps we should’ve…’
‘No,’ Ted focussed on the condensation at the corners of the windscreen, ‘stopping would’ve been dangerous – the lights were changing. And there were plenty of witnesses. The Bean girl, for one. She’s a qualified nurse. She’ll’ve known what to do for the best.’
‘Good,’ Eileen said, and climbed out of the car.
He loved that.
He loved the way she dealt with things: careful yet carefree, caring but careless.
He loved that.
Outside, the weather was like a truculent two-year-old with a brand new birthday football; sulking and blubbering one minute, whooping and blustering the next. Eileen hunched up her shoulders and put her hand to her hair. It blew sideways – en masse – like a compacted serving of organic alfalfa.
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