by Mick Herron
‘You really are disgusting, aren’t you?’
‘So these jobs are oversubscribed. The interesting ones, anyway. What was it, you didn’t have the experience?’
She’d failed the screening.
‘Which leaves the dull end of the market. The retail bit. I can’t see you sticking that, though.’
The Oxfam shop had let her go.
Gerard Inchon leaned back into the armchair. ‘What I like to call it, I call it BHS.’
Nobody ask him, Sarah prayed.
‘Bored Housewife Syndrome. Most women enjoy being bored, of course, but you still get some who –’
‘You insufferable bastard.’
‘– end up throwing wobblies at dinner parties. You’re enjoying it now though, aren’t you?’
‘What?’
‘Little bit of aggro, little bit of rough.’ He made his cigar pass from one hand to the other, like an amateur conjuror. ‘I bet you haven’t had a scrap in ages. What you need is more excitement.’
That was when the house blew up.
The evening had started badly too. The Trophy Wife arrived first, ten unfashionable minutes early: overdressed and faintly disappointed, she must have been expecting a different party altogether. Sarah was having a kitchen crisis and did not retain her name; it was Mark who poured drinks, extracted information. Gerard was parking the car; Gerard would be along in a minute. Gerard was forty-five minutes, in fact: something of a record even for South Oxford. Meanwhile Wigwam turned up without Rufus, who was doing something vague and would be along soon. Most things involving Rufus became vague, even those that were fairly concrete to start with. Wigwam was Sarah’s oldest, most annoying friend; Rufus her startling new acquisition, but startling only because younger, and prepared to take on her children. In all other respects he was distinctly run-of-the-mill, and given half the chance Sarah would have forgotten his name too.
‘How lovely to see you,’ lied Mark, who thought Wigwam an historical curiosity, and usually developed an interest in being elsewhere when she was about. ‘Glass of wine? Red? White?’
But Wigwam refused a drink, citing an article she’d read outlining various urinary complications attendant upon alcohol consumption, while the Trophy Wife regarded her as if Wigwam were an exhibit lately wandered from the zoo.
There was a whole world between them; a gap that merely started with their clothes. The Trophy Wife wore a red dress four measured inches above the knee, and lipstick in a shade to match; this plus the kind of face that usually came with a slogan slapped above it, and a figure men would pay money to see with staples through the middle. Mark, damn him, looked like somebody had hit him on the head with a broom handle. His New Man credentials kept his tongue from hanging out, but the Thought Police probably held a warrant for his arrest.
Standing next to her Wigwam looked like a hippie, though Wigwam would have looked like a hippie standing next to Bob Dylan. What she was wearing tonight defied description unless you were a qualified 1970s anthropologist, but was possibly what Abba rejected when they settled for the white trouser suits; it was purple, all of one piece, and had probably covered a sofa in its previous life. The rest of the image assembled various influences: jewellery by Friends of the Earth; hair by Worzel Gummidge. She had a beautiful smile, which was turned on most of the time, but in repose Sarah had seen in her face an almost heartbreaking sadness, as if her natural optimism were based on the knowledge that life couldn’t treat her worse than it had done already. She had taken up with Rufus six months ago. The smile hadn’t wavered since.
‘Can I help in the kitchen?’ she asked Sarah.
‘Nothing can help in the kitchen. It’s past saving.’
‘Are you cooking it yourself?’ asked the Trophy Wife, her tone suggesting Sarah had a live elephant through there rather than a dead salmon.
‘I plan to.’
‘Sarah’s a wonderful cook,’ said Mark, in what was probably intended to be a show of loyalty. ‘Aren’t you, darling?’
‘Yes.’
‘Except, remember those scrambled eggs,’ Wigwam said, disappearing behind a fit of giggles.
‘The eggs were fine. It was the pan got ruined.’
The Trophy Wife looked puzzled while Mark poured further drinks. He was nervous; it was a big night for him. This Inchon character was a prospective client of The Bank With No Name; having him for dinner was tantamount to the Queen turning up at your garden party. Mark had announced the invitation as a fait accompli two nights ago; had insisted on a second couple – he’d told Inchon they were expecting friends; that this wasn’t, far from it, a schmooze-the-money do – and he’d wanted, of course, Tom and Annie, or Stephen and Rebecca. Who would behave, even if they might mock afterwards. So Sarah had retaliated by asking Wigwam and Rufus instead. Briefly, she wondered now how fair that had been. Fair on Mark, she meant. Later she revised that, when it became clear it wasn’t fair on Wigwam and Rufus.
‘Have you lived in Oxford all your life?’ the Trophy Wife asked.
‘Not yet,’ said Sarah.
‘We moved here from Birmingham,’ Mark cut in. ‘A good ten years ago, wasn’t it, darling?’
Her role tonight was to say Yes, No, Three Bags Full.
‘I’ve lived here all my life,’ Wigwam offered. Then Sarah’s comment penetrated, and the giggles came again.
Sarah excused herself, pleading business in the kitchen, and stretched making a salad dressing so it filled ten minutes. Meanwhile Rufus arrived without noticeably adding to the party atmosphere, though at least he had bothered to wash his hair. This was grubby-blond and crawled over his collar in untidy clumps that suggested he cut it himself. He had not shaved in several days, though, and wore the stubble like a badge of proletarian valour in a middle-class world, his one apparent attempt at making an impression. A less intentional one was signalled by the little scraps of tissue paper clinging to the front of his sweatshirt, indicating how many times he’d sneezed into toilet roll. A martyr to hay fever, he bore his cross bravely.
So it was to the Trophy Wife’s undisguised relief that the doorbell rang at last, announcing her warrior hero’s arrival. Alone, unarmed, he had parked the Porsche. Sarah emerged from the kitchen to catch their pantomimed kisses:
‘You’ve been ages.’
‘It’s all residents’ parking. I left it the other side of the park, and had to walk round.’
‘Where’s your briefcase?’
‘Left it in the car.’
‘But I thought –’
‘In the boot, darling. It’ll be safe enough.’ He turned to Sarah. ‘She thinks the local yobs’ll be attracted by the shiny bits. You must be Sarah. A very great pleasure.’
And this was her first sighting of Gerard Inchon, a man she’d heard much about; even read about occasionally, in heavily vetted stories in the business section of the paper. He wasn’t more than mid-thirties, but appearances placed him at forty or higher: paunchy, heavy-featured, he was coming into middle age like a man entering his kingdom. What remained of his hair was dark brown, oily and scraped back over his head, leaving a widow’s peak that added years, to which his double chin was a multiplying factor. Maybe that’s what Mark had meant when he’d called Inchon a big catch. But no, because he’d gone on about it: Inchon was expanding into the East when everybody else was running for cover, whatever that meant. ‘He’s a player, he’s a mover and shaker,’ Mark had said. Once he’d have said wanker and meant the same thing. And for Sarah that first look was enough: here was a man with a fine veneer of civilization, under which he was living in a cave. The civilized version played Beggar My Neighbour. The real Gerard Inchon ate his.
And made no bones, now, about establishing the fact. ‘Nice place you’ve got here, Mark. Godawful city, though. When are you moving to London?’
‘Well, we’ve no plans –’
‘God, man, you can’t stay out here in the sticks. Your fax machine’ll rust in the damp. Hello, you’re –?’
‘Bloody hell!’
‘Sorry,’ said Mark, ‘I should have made the intro –’
‘No, no, they’re just damn strange names, that’s all. Damn strange names. Call me Gerard. That’s a Christian name, in case you’ve not heard it before. Wigwam and Rufus, eh? Sound like a pair of goldfish.’
‘Can I get you a drink?’ Sarah asked. Arsenic? she added. Liquid mercury?
‘Vodka mart, if you’ve such a thing. I’ll trundle straight on to the wine otherwise. White.’
Lacking the mart part, whatever it was, she poured a glass of Chardonnay which at least he didn’t try to identify. He was interrogating Wigwam by then. ‘You have four children?’
Like he was from Population Control, sorting out a persistent offender.
‘By my previous.’
‘Oh. So they’re not, er, Rufus’s, then.’
‘Oh no. But he married me anyway.’
‘Damn brave of him,’ said Gerard. Presumably in reference to the children.
‘Rufey was an orphan,’ Wigwam said. ‘A ready-made family, it’s just what he wanted.’
Rufey didn’t deny it. He irritated Sarah. He let talk wash over him, a small rock in a large stream, never poking out no matter how shallow the conversation. How had he come to charm Wigwam? Perhaps by being available.
Which was an evil thought, but Gerard Inchon had her in an evil mood. He turned to her now. ‘And what about Sarah?’ She hated that: being addressed in the third person. ‘Any plans for children?’
‘None that aren’t private,’ she said sweetly.
‘Oh, we want kids,’ said Mark. ‘Soon as possible, in fact.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Well, not entirely,’ said Sarah. ‘Mark wants kids. Soon as possible, in fact. That part’s right.’
Mark glared at her. Wigwam said, ‘Oh, you’ll feel differently when –’
‘Everybody says that. But what if they’re wrong?’
‘Treat it as an investment,’ Gerard said. ‘You can get a good price for children some parts of the world.’
Which seemed the right moment to regroup, as it was unlikely that anything more tactless would be said in front of an orphan and an earth mother for the next little while. Because they were eating in the sitting room – a large, knocked-through area, taking up most of the ground floor – shepherding everybody from one side to the other didn’t take more than about five minutes, with Wigwam and Rufus being hardest to organize. Perpetually eager to please, Wigwam tried to sit everywhere at once, while Rufus looked like he’d be happiest with a bowl in the kitchen. It was her Imp of the Perverse, Sarah decided – her own personal demon – which had made her invite these two.
The food, she’d kept simple, partly from common sense but also out of the desire to show Mark she wasn’t spending thirty-six hours in the kitchen making him look good. So: stuffed peppers to kick off, then salmon with lime juice and apple. Avocado salad. Fruit salad. Some of the snobbier cheeses from the market. Nothing desperately exciting, but nothing to generate complaint either, unless Gerard was expecting raw meat, though in that case he’d probably just bite whoever he was put next to.
In the event Gerard proved easy to feed, eating everything put in front of him as if eager to watch Miss Manners starve to death. Shutting him up was trickier. Practised guests, Sarah thought – and Inchon looked like a man accustomed to eating other people’s food – should be used to sounding out strangers; to defining common ground on which to meet their fellow guests. But Inchon explored new territory merely to lay mines and retire; he sized people up, then chose what would bring them down. To Mark he was perfectly affable, chatting with him in terms incomprehensible to the rest of the company, who knew little about finance and cared less; to Sarah he was slyly polite. But to Wigwam and Rufus he was positively dangerous.
The war, for instance. Or the nearly war. For the Middle East was hotting up again; Iraqi intransigence over UN inspections prompting sabre-rattling across the Western world. Politicians threw solemn press conferences while secretly creaming in delight; the tabloids squeaked, the broadsheets thundered. Foreign correspondents checked out their designer khakis. And the Wigwams of the world threw up their hands in shame and horror, while the Inchons tuned into cable TV, their remotes in one hand and a copy of the stock market listings in the other.
‘Nothing boosts the economy like a good war.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Of course. I’m not talking about the price of a tin of beans, my dear. I mean sums of money. Contracts for helicopters, jobs for whole towns. All the media hustle gets people excited.’
‘What if we lost?’
‘That’s not an option.’ He gave a condescending smile. ‘We’re talking about ragamuffin conscripts with second-hand weaponry. The Western armies have toys they haven’t tested yet. And these people are more or less in the Stone Age anyway. They just got lucky with the oil.’
‘Nobody would win a nuclear war,’ said Wigwam.
‘That’s a naive and foolish thing to say. Anybody who has nuclear capability when the other side doesn’t can win a nuclear war. It’s simply a question of public relations.’
‘That’s despicable,’ Sarah said.
He gave a smug smile. ‘That’s realism. Not that it would come to that. There are quicker, cleaner ways. No point winning a war if you’re landed with a huge bill for compensation afterwards. What do you reckon?’ This last to Rufus.
‘I – I don’t –’
‘Maybe you should ask your wife what you think. She’ll probably know. Do you think I could have a refill, Mark? Thanks so much.’
Rufus had turned pink. ‘There won’t be a war,’ he said.
‘Won’t there? Why not?’
‘People’ll see sense,’ Rufus said. ‘Nobody wants to go through that again. All those charred bodies, and . . .’
Gerard threw back his head and laughed. ‘Priceless,’ he said. ‘Priceless.’ Then he drained half a glass of wine. ‘People will see sense,’ he repeated, his voice thicker now. ‘Thank God for a bit of serious analysis.’
Rufus turned two shades darker. ‘So what do you think, then? You think they’ll just do it?’
‘Just do it. There could be a slogan in that. I don’t know. Maybe they will and maybe they won’t. I can think of half a dozen scenarios to back up either. But none involve people seeing sense. We’re talking geopolitics here, not some playground squabble.’
‘These are human lives,’ Wigwam said. ‘You can’t talk about it as if it didn’t involve people.’
Gerard looked at Mark. ‘The trouble with discussions like this,’ he said, ‘is that the women always have to drag sentimentality into it. You can’t discuss war or sport with women because they never understand how crucial the result is. They always feel sorry for the losers.’
Mark said, ‘Yes, well, obviously . . .’
‘Obviously what?’ Sarah asked.
‘Obviously there’s a lot to be said for looking at the human element. But in the long run . . .’
‘In the long run what?’
‘In the long run it’s not the people on the ground making the big decisions. Can I get anybody more wine?’
‘So you’re coming down pretty firmly on the fence, then?’
The Trophy Wife spoke for the first time in a while. ‘I’d like some more wine.’ Mark tried hard not to beam in gratitude, and disappeared to the kitchen to find another bottle.
Sarah turned to Gerard. ‘What’s your stake in it, anyway?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I don’t know what you do, other than it involves supplying commodities to a variety of customers. I mean, you don’t actually make anything, do you?’
‘I make money, my dear. A great deal, actually.’
She’d walked into that one. ‘And that’s what you’ll be doing if there’s a war, is it? Making profits out of the dead?’
‘You make it sound as if I go grubbing round battlefields picking the pockets of corpses.’
‘Well, you might as well, mightn’t you?’
He looked at her. ‘No, in fact. My “stake” in it is the same as yours, actually. In that I’ll be a member of an involved nation. Other than that, I’ve no direct interest. But unlike you, I gather, I’ll actually be supporting the troops sent out in my name. Because the fewer of them die, the happier I’ll be. Is that what you were getting at?’
Sarah bit her tongue. Slippery bastard.
Gerard looked at Rufus. ‘So much for world events. What is it you do?’ He put a slight stress on do, as if the notion of Rufus in action, hard as it was to swallow, had to be faced up to sometime.
‘I, er, freelance.’
‘Freebase? That’s some kind of drugs thing, isn’t it?’
Rufus coughed. ‘Freelance.’
‘Oh, freelance. At what? Quantity surveying? Window cleaning?’
Mark came back with an open bottle and began waving it vaguely, as if expecting a queue to form in front of him.
‘I teach,’ Rufus said. ‘Adult literacy,’ he added.
‘How fascinating,’ Gerard breathed.
Sarah had had enough. Much more of this, and Gerard Inchon would be wearing her cutlery in his back.
‘Wine, er, anyone?’ Mark said at last.
‘I’ll go and make the coffee,’ Sarah said.
But the explosion, when it happened, drew a line under the conversation. It seemed to come in two distinct stages, though afterwards Sarah could never recall in which order they occurred. The room shook, not violently, but more than was usual during the average dinner party; the prints on the walls rattled in their frames, and the light-fitting spiralled, sending shadows swinging from their corners. And then, or possibly slightly beforehand, there was a dull thump followed by a sliding noise, as if a geological event were taking place at an unexpected venue. Wigwam dropped her empty wineglass; the Trophy Wife’s eyes grew round in alarm. Mark rose to his feet, looking automatically to Gerard for enlightenment, as if having more money than anybody else made Gerard the expert on everything. To her fury Sarah found she’d done the same herself. Gerard put his glass down very carefully and turned to look at the curtained window, then nodded to himself, as if an earlier suspicion had been confirmed, and turned back to Sarah. ‘That was a bomb,’ he said.
