‘I’m on my break now, mate,’ Brian smirked, ‘so they can tell me what the hell they like…’
‘But I’m serious,’ Beede maintained, ‘your so-called “crappy” job is absolutely critical to the smooth running of this supermarket. You’re a fundamental cog, a facilitator, a lubricant…’
The kid scowled.
‘You’re an essential component,’ Beede persisted. ‘If this store were a car you’d be something small but powerful: the spark plug, say. And you know as well as I do that without a spark plug this huge capitalist enterprise – this vast and impressive machine – simply couldn’t start up.’
The kid continued scowling. He was still struggling to get past Beede’s casual use of the word ‘lubricant’.
‘I mean look at it this way,’ Beede continued, ‘if an actress or a pop star or a footballer doesn’t turn up for work one day, then what d’you imagine the consequences are?’
The kid shrugged.
‘In real terms? There aren’t any. The bottom line is that they don’t facilitate. They simply entertain. If Capitalism was the ocean, all they’d be is the scum, riding on the crest of a wave.’
‘Rich scum,’ the kid muttered.
‘That’s a good point,’ Beede allowed, ‘and a fine pun. But the plain fact is that if you don’t turn up for work then people can’t shop. And if they can’t shop, they can’t eat.’
‘If I don’t turn up for work,’ Brian observed dourly, ‘then they get some other sucker in. Or they don’t get someone in and the customers just have to shift their fat arses over to one of the other collection points to pick their trolley up.’
‘But what if they’re disabled?’ Beede challenged him.
‘Then they can get their shoppin’ delivered on the internet.’
‘And how many people are needed to facilitate that?’
Brian shrugged.
‘Well let’s count them off, shall we? There’s the person at the computer – for starters – who receives the order, the person who goes out into the shop and collects the order, the person who stores it until delivery, the person whose job it is to coordinate the transport…’
‘Excuse me,’ a woman’s voice suddenly piped up from behind him, ‘but I can’t find a trolley. One of the little trolleys. The ones with the metal thingy on the front which has a clip that you can pin your shopping list on…’
Beede glanced over his shoulder, irritably. He started. It was Laura. Laura Monkeith.
‘Beede?’ she looked equivalently stunned.
‘Laura…’ Beede stuttered. ‘Good Lord.’
‘Are you waiting for a trolley too?’ she asked.
‘Waiting…?’
The kid took this as his cue to quietly slope off.
‘…Uh no…we were just…’
Beede winced. He put his hand to his neck.
‘They never have enough trolleys here,’ she grumbled (the kid still within earshot), ‘at least not the sort I’m always after…’
‘Life invariably gets more complicated,’ Beede promptly informed her, ‘if your needs grow too particular.’
‘I know,’ she nodded, ‘and they hire Moguls, too. It’s store policy. I mean don’t get me wrong…’
‘I think you’ll probably find,’ Beede interrupted her, with a small smile, ‘that the word you’re searching for here is “Mongol”. Although – strictly speaking – a Mongol is someone from Mongolia, which is a country in the remote, mountainous regions of the USSR…’
She gazed at him, blankly.
‘The real irony is that you’re not as far off-track as you might suppose,’ he continued, ‘because a Mogul – used in its original form – was actually a person of the Mongolian race – for example the Mongolian conquerors of India became known as “Moguls” because of their extraordinary wealth and power…’
Laura opened her mouth and then closed it again.
‘I believe the word Mogul,’ he doggedly persisted, ‘is originally derived from the Persian, Mughul…’
‘Can I just say,’ she took a small step closer (rapidly putting their linguistic differences behind her), ‘while I have this little opportunity, that I was sorry not to seem more positive when Pat mentioned your appointment to the Road Crossing Committee yesterday. The trouble is that Charlie isn’t very keen on the whole thing, but Pat’s got this bee in her bonnet…’
Now it was Beede’s turn to stare at her, blankly.
‘I mean it’s not that he doesn’t like the idea – he does – it’s just the way he sees it, it doesn’t really matter how many road crossings we build, or where they are, because they’ll never bring Ryan back. And when Pat keeps harping on about it, it just makes him feel…’
‘Beede!’
It was Gaffar (red-cheeked, slightly out of breath, wearing Kane’s Dennis the Menace scarf). Beede turned, frowning, ‘Uh… Oh. Gaffar…’ he blinked.
‘Hello, Laura…’ Gaffar grabbed Laura’s hand and squeezed it, smiling, then he turned to Beede. ‘What’s up, old man? You look all cross, all red, all stiff…’
Laura snatched her hand back. ‘Gaffar. What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Huh?’
‘Do you two know each other?’ Beede asked, clutching at his shoulder. Laura turned to Beede, startled. ‘No. Not at all.’
She glanced around her, slightly panicked. The kid was returning, pushing a long, silver worm of trolleys ahead of him. ‘There’s my trolley…’
She moved forward. ‘That’s fantastic. Well done…uh…’ she squinted at his name tag, ‘well done, Brian.’ She unlatched her trolley from the front.
‘Oh…’ She frowned, inspecting it, ‘…but there’s no…’ she pointed, ‘you know…the little metal thingy with the…’ she paused for a moment, uneasily, weighing up her priorities ‘…Although…Forget it. It doesn’t…I mean really must…’
She waved blithely at the assembled company and charged off.
Pause
‘So that went very well, I think,’ Beede deadpanned.
‘She’s trapped in this suffocating marriage,’ Gaffar sighed, gazing poignantly after her. ‘Separate bedrooms. Her son died last year. She blames herself for the whole thing because she was having an affair. Her husband’s an insensitive pig who has no understanding of her needs. He’s obsessed by this five-year-old African macaw which he got from an Exotic Bird Rescue Centre in Canterbury. He’s taught it all the catchphrases from Top Gear. Sleeps with it. Takes it to work. Rings it – whenever he goes out – and leaves these idiotic messages on the answerphone…’
‘Laura Monkeith?’ Beede asked.
‘Always wants a bloody trolley with a clip-board,’ Brian interjected.
‘But I’ve seen her here loads and she never has no bloody list to pin on it.’
‘Yes…’ Beede frowned and checked his watch. It was late. He was late. ‘…Although I suppose your function in fetching the trolley for her,’ he mused (almost to himself), ‘is principally a palliative one.’
Brian stared at him, doubtfully.
‘In other words,’ Beede expanded, ‘not only are you providing an essential service here, but you’re also – at a more general level – caring for the very particular emotional needs of the community…’
As he was speaking, an especially large, high branch came crashing down on to the tarmac, followed by a loud, almost Bacchanalian roar from the small team of contractors.
‘…Which is precisely why,’ Beede concluded, with an angry flourish (not really even convincing himself with this tenuous piece of logic), ‘if only for your sake, Brian, they should leave those blasted trees alone.’
NINE
Kane dialled the number. It rang for what seemed like an age, and then, just as he was finally abandoning all hope –
‘Hello?’
A woman answered. An older woman, with a pleasantly mischievous voice. An engagingly English voice. A voice of the linnet and the sparrow. A voice of the bramble and the hedg
erow.
‘Hi,’ Kane responded, ‘is this the right number for Peter?’
‘Why?’ she asked, curtly. ‘Who wants to know?’
‘I just need quick word with him,’ Kane said. ‘Is he around?’
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
‘A friend,’ he said, ‘well – a friend of a friend.’
‘Stuff and nonsense,’ she said, ‘Peter doesn’t have any friends.’
‘Oh.’
Kane was taken aback.
‘He’s utterly friendless,’ she said, with evident delight.
Pause
‘Well how dreadful for him,’ Kane drawled, finally catching up.
‘Isn’t it, though?’
‘And how about you?’ Kane wondered.
‘How about me?’
‘Aren’t you his friend?’
‘Good God, no.’
‘His wife?’ Kane guessed.
‘Peter? Married?! Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘His secretary, then?’
‘Absolutely not,’ she hotly denied in one breath, ‘but in the loosest possible sense, yes,’ she confirmed – somewhat quixotically – with the next.
‘His mistress?’
‘We do share a bed…’ she mused, ‘and blankets and pillows, if that counts for anything…’ she paused, ‘although the most genuine description of my overall role here would probably be…’ she paused again, ‘…that of maid.’
‘“A man needs a maid.”’
Kane automatically quoted Neil Young.
‘“Just someone to keep his house clean, fix his meals and go away,”’ she quoted back.
‘Marry me!’ Kane exclaimed.
‘So who exactly,’ she staunchly ignored his flirting, ‘is this deluded friend of yours?’
Kane quickly grabbed a hold of the business card and flipped it over. ‘J.P.,’ he said.
‘J.P.?’
‘Yes. Peter worked with him on…’ Kane inspected the card again ‘…on Longport, for the Weald and Downland…’
‘Are you in a car right now?’ she interrupted him. ‘Are you driving?’
Kane was speeding up Silver Hill on his way home from visiting a client in the outer reaches of St Michaels.
‘No. Not driving as such,’ he lied, ‘I’m just idling at a light, actually.’
‘Ssssh for a second,’ she hushed him.
He was quiet.
‘You’re driving a Mercedes, C220,’ she said, ‘and you’re a liar. You’re speeding up Silver Hill in completely the wrong gear.’ Kane double-blinked. He glanced into his rearview mirror and flipped down his indicator.
‘Bear with me for one second,’ he said, braking, changing gear and promptly pulling his car off the road.
‘So how the hell’d you figure that out?’ he demanded, brutally yanking his handbrake up.
‘Urgh. Sticky handbrake,’ she said. ‘It’s that particular model, I’m sure of it. I had one myself but I wrote it off – three-car pile-up, on my way home from a house sale in Cheam. It had the sticky handbrake and this tiny, maddening little knock when I drove uphill in fourth.’
Kane frowned. ‘Were you hurt?’
‘Excuse me?’ she sounded briefly distracted. Her voice was a little further away from the receiver than before.
‘When you wrote it off. Were you hurt?’
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ she said, drawing closer again, ‘it was a bloody Merc.’
‘Good point,’ he said.
‘What colour’s yours?’
‘She’s a blonde.’
‘Mine too! Although mine was a mink. I called her The Mink…’
She sighed, ‘I do miss her dreadfully.’
‘So what do you drive now?’
‘A customised Lada.’
‘What?’
‘And a van. I have a small van…’
‘A Lada?’
‘Yes. A Lada. Why? Do you have a problem with that?’
‘It’s just an odd…an unusual…uh…progresssion. In terms of style.’
‘Not at all. Where’s your imagination? It’s an absolute gem. I had it shipped over from Jamaica.’
‘Jamaica? A Lada? Are you serious?’
‘Of course I am,’ she sounded vaguely insulted, ‘they import them to use as taxis over there. They love them. Give a Lada a spray job, darken the windows, and hey-presto: you’re transformed into some seedy, low-ranking apparatchik in a fabulous, Eastern Bloc spy drama.’
‘Wonderful,’ Kane said, flatly.
‘It is,’ she insisted.
‘And you shipped it over from Jamaica?’
‘Yes. Although they actually customise them in Hackney so it was a ridiculous way to go about things. But it felt right. It felt good. The car has a certain…swagger which you simply couldn’t get any other way. A certain, indefinable je ne sais quoi. But enough of my Lada,’ she said, ‘when exactly did you speak to J.P. about Peter?’
‘Yesterday,’ Kane lied.
‘Yesterday?’
She sounded surprised.
‘So how’d you go about guessing I was on Silver Hill?’ he tried to distract her.
‘Pure conjecture.’
‘Seriously?’
‘No. Pure deduction, Watson. The engine was knocking – so I reasoned that you were on a hill. Your phone reception is good, so I reasoned that you were nearby. I heard a fire engine siren sounding – in fact I can still hear it. I’m very familiar with the sirens from that particular station. We only live just around the corner…’
‘You and Peter,’ Kane said.
‘We two,’ she sighed.
A short silence followed in which Kane could’ve sworn he heard the distant pumping of a pair of old bellows.
‘Is that a cigar?’
He took a wild guess.
‘Yup. Just went out,’ she said. ‘Clever little you.’
Kane smirked.
‘So how’s J.P. bearing up?’ she wondered.
He heard a match being struck.
‘Pardon?’
She inhaled.
‘J.P.’s health?’
‘Uh…It’s good. Pretty good. Fairly good. I mean…’ Kane carefully hedged his bets, ‘under the circumstances…’
‘Yes…’ as she spoke he could hear her pulling a tiny fleck of loose tobacco from her lip, ‘although the “circumstances” – as you so aptly put it – aren’t really what you might call conducive to good health, are they?’
‘Uh…no,’ Kane said.
‘Quite the opposite, in fact.’
Kane cleared his throat. He sensed a problem. He grimaced. He took the bull by the horns.
‘Am I missing something?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ She sounded perfectly cheerful. ‘What you are missing is the small but necessary detail of J.P.’s tragic demise.’
‘Oh.’
‘J.P.’s dead. Ka-put. He died late last year.’
‘God.’
‘Bowel cancer,’ she added, just for good measure.
‘I see…’ Kane bit his lip. ‘Right. So now I guess – from where you’re standing – I must be looking a little…uh…?’
‘Stupid? Yes.’ She paused. ‘And I’m sitting, actually. Or perching. On the edge of a counter.’
‘Did you know J.P. well?’
‘Well?’
Kane winced. ‘I mean were you close?’
‘Close? Hmmn. I don’t know. Certainly not as close as you and he appear to be.’
‘Okay,’ he drew a deep breath. ‘Just tell me straight…’
‘J.P. was my brother.’
‘Shit.’ Kane was mortified. ‘Seriously?’
‘Yes, seriously. It was all very serious. J.P. was very serious. His illness was very serious. His death was very serious. Death – in general – I find, can be like that…’
‘I’m a dick,’ Kane said.
‘Truly,’ she chuckled, ‘I can’t wait to tell Peter this story. Peter will think this all terribly dro
ll.’
‘Droll,’ Kane parroted. ‘That’s one way of looking at it.’
As he spoke Kane heard what he presumed to be a small alarm of some kind sounding in the background.
‘I’m all out of time,’ she said, ‘so let’s cut to the chase, shall we?
What’s the real reason for your call?’
‘I found Peter’s number in an old book.’
‘What?’ she scoffed. ‘Scribbled into the margins of some dusty tome?’
‘No. On a card inside a book. A business card. And I was just interested…’
‘Which book?’ she scoffed. ‘The Reader’s Digest Compendium of Tall Stories?’
‘A history book,’ Kane scowled, humiliated. ‘I don’t remember the title. A book about the criminal underclass of the sixteenth century…’
‘Whose book?’
‘My book.’
‘Whose book?’
There was no escaping it.
‘The book originally belonged to Daniel Beede.’
‘No it didn’t,’ she demurred, ‘the book originally belonged to me. It’s that fabulous Penguin anthology edited by Gamini Salgado. I actually lent it to him.’
Silence
‘Which I suppose would make you…’ she cheerfully continued, ‘his charming yet horribly degenerate son, Kane.’
‘Yes. I suppose it would.’
‘In truth I’d already guessed,’ she confessed, ‘I was just playing you along. I was on to you from the start. You have identical voices. Not the accent, obviously, because his is so beautiful and yours is quite appalling, but the timbre, the tone.’
‘I’ll have to take your word on that,’ he said, hurt.
‘Before I go,’ she said, brusquely, ‘because I really must… Have you considered selling your car?’
‘Pardon?’
‘The Blonde. Might you sell?’
He gave this a moment’s consideration. ‘Well it wasn’t the foremost thought in my mind when I rang you…’
Then he paused and quickly reassessed, ‘How much for?’
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