Darkmans

by Nicola Barker

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No.’

  She removed the cigar from behind her ear and rolled it, dreamily, between her fingers. ‘It just seems so…I don’t know…so coarse; so limited in its application, so naive, somehow…’

  ‘And what about Peter?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Does he feel the same way you do?’

  ‘Peter?’

  She considered this question for a second and then nodded, emphatically. ‘Exactly the same, I’d say.’

  ‘Ah…’

  Kane beamed at her. She smiled straight back at him. They were flirting with each other.

  ‘…It’s all finally coming together,’ he said.

  ‘Is it really?’

  She was searching the pockets of her overalls for a lighter.

  ‘Yes it is. Would you like to hear my little theory?’

  ‘Your little theory? Sure…’ She found her lighter. ‘Although…’ she held it, poised in her hand, thoughtfully ‘…perhaps it’d be more fun if we waited for Peter? I’m sure he’d be just fascinated in what you have to say…’

  ‘That’s a fine idea in principle,’ Kane conceded, ‘but it could be rather a long wait…’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Or no wait at all,’ he countered.

  She appraised him, steadily.

  ‘Just call it a gut instinct,’ he smiled.

  She appraised his gut, at her leisure. ‘It’s a charming gut,’ she said finally, ‘if just a fraction soft.’

  ‘An infallible gut,’ Kane insisted, tightening it up.

  ‘So what’s this infallible gut of yours telling you?’

  ‘It’s telling me,’ he told her, ‘that there is no Peter.’

  She gazed at him, blankly.

  ‘Peter’s just another forgery.’

  ‘Urgh…’ she shuddered. ‘That awful word again.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he apologised.

  She popped the cigar between her lips, struck her lighter, leaned into the flame and puffed.

  ‘In actual fact,’ he continued, ‘the spelling’s a bit of a giveaway…Petaborough Reproductions. Peta, I believe, is the feminine form of the name…’

  ‘I’ve often found that my most successful lies,’ she finally stopped puffing, removed the cigar from her mouth and inspected the burning tip, ‘you know…those outrageous untruths, those real hum-dingers…generally benefit from the addition of the odd loose screw. If all the facts add up, if everything feels too neat and pat, if all the elements fall too readily into place, then you automatically arouse suspicion, because life simply isn’t like that.’ Kane was frowning.

  ‘Put it this way,’ she continued, ‘if the truth was a woman she’d be a whore. She’d be an extremely supple, highly sinuous, ridiculously wanton slut.’

  ‘Let me get this straight…’ Kane suddenly found himself panting slightly as he spoke (the former strain in his back was now a burning ache, his arms were cramping, his neck felt like a blade of grass endeavouring to support a bowling ball) ‘…Peta Borough? Does that make Borough your maiden name?’

  She nodded, inhaling on the cigar, holding the smoke in her lungs, then exhaling, with a small cough.

  ‘And you don’t mind at all?’ he wondered.

  ‘Mind? Mind what?’

  ‘Being named after one of Britain’s most pedestrian towns.’

  ‘Peterborough’s a city,’ she corrected him, pedantically.

  ‘Never cared enough to find out,’ he admitted.

  ‘Well shame on you. It’s a wonderful place. Its transport links are incomparable.’

  ‘But why, I wonder,’ he demanded, heading off on a complete tangent, ‘did J.P. – your own brother – misspell your name on the business card Beede had?’

  ‘And it has a fascinating history…’ she maintained.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ he snorted, ‘J.P. isn’t your brother…’

  She gazed up at the glass ceiling, piously. ‘And then there’s the cathedral,’ she sighed. ‘If ever you get the opportunity…’

  ‘Is J.P. dead? Do you even have a brother?’

  She just smirked. ‘A lovely market. Several really wonderful restaurants…’

  Kane was silent for a while. His phone vibrated. He tried to ignore it. A million tiny beads of sweat were forming on his forehead. She inspected the cigar again, fondly. ‘Don’t you think it sweet, though,’ she enquired, ‘the two of you – father and son, purportedly so very different – being immediately attracted to the exact-same object?’

  ‘I was attracted to the table first,’ he insisted.

  ‘The hot bench,’ she corrected him.

  He paused, speculatively. ‘Actually, no. That’s not entirely true. I was attracted to you first.’

  She snorted, jovially.

  ‘You don’t believe me?’

  He peered up at her again, with an intense amount of effort.

  ‘I think you believe you,’ she smiled, ‘and that’s what really counts.’

  ‘You think I’m full of shit?’

  ‘Full to capacity.’

  ‘And how about Beede?’

  His head sank down again.

  ‘Beede? Good God, no. The most straightforward man I ever met.’

  ‘Oh come on…’ he scoffed.

  ‘His life, on the other hand,’ she freely conceded, ‘is extremely complicated.’

  ‘Do you know Beede at all?’ he wondered.

  ‘I know him well enough.’

  ‘Do you like him?’

  ‘Like him? Like Beede?’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m utterly besotted.’

  Kane’s head jerked up –

  Ow

  He winced.

  ‘You seem shocked,’ she said.

  ‘Not shocked, no…’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Perhaps just a touch disappointed,’ he conceded.

  ‘Why?’ she demanded.

  ‘Because you’re gorgeous.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And he’s such a fool.’

  ‘But such a genuine fool, don’t you think?’

  Silence

  ‘So does Beede know?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘How you feel.’

  She deliberated over this question for a second. ‘Probably.’

  ‘But you haven’t actually told him?’

  She glanced up, frowning. ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t you?’

  ‘Because there wouldn’t be any point. My feelings aren’t reciprocated.’

  ‘How can you be sure? Beede can be pretty hard to read…’

  ‘Beede’s easy to read.’

  Kane was quiet for a while.

  ‘I was attracted to you,’ he murmured, almost sullen, now.

  ‘So what do you do?’ she cheerfully ignored him.

  ‘For a living? Didn’t Beede already fill you in?’

  ‘Why would he?’ she snorted. ‘Beede never tells me anything…’

  She looked around for an ashtray but couldn’t find one, so she walked over to Kane, pulled open his jacket pocket and tapped her ash into it. ‘Not so much as a peep. In fact he was so evasive at first, so secretive, that I was actually obliged to go to ridiculous lengths to satisfy my curiosity.’

  ‘But I thought you just said…’

  Kane frowned, confused.

  ‘I said that Beede was straightforward, not that he was willing to wear his heart on his sleeve.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ Kane wondered.

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘To satisfy your curiosity?’

  ‘I hired a detective.’

  ‘You did what?’

  Kane’s head jerked up again.

  ‘I hired a private detective. But he wasn’t terribly good. And everything got ridiculously complicated. But – please God – let’s not get dragged into all of that…’

  She idly pushed his hair aside and stared into his face with her green eyes.

&nbs
p; ‘So what did you find out?’ he asked, struggling to meet her gaze. She dropped his fringe, with a sigh, and returned to the hot bench. ‘Nothing, really. Only as much as I’ve told you. That he was married, then divorced. That his ex-wife was ill. That he had a son who made his living from selling drugs…’

  ‘I manage pain,’ Kane interrupted her, haughtily, ‘if you must know.’

  She lounged against the bench, grinning. ‘You consider it a calling?’

  ‘Yes. I eliminate pain. I bring people relief when they can’t find it elsewhere.’

  Peta stopped smiling. ‘Is this because of what happened to your mother?’

  ‘No,’ he snapped, ‘it’s because of what happened to me. My experience.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And my experience is that there’s simply no need for it.’

  ‘No need for what? Pain? You really believe that?’

  ‘Of course. Why celebrate pain when you can celebrate pleasure?’

  ‘Because of J.C., I suppose,’ she answered, boredly.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Jesus Christ. The crucifixion. We strive to be better people because we believe – or we’re taught to believe, at least – that Christ suffered to deliver us from sin. And when we suffer – like Christ – we are brought closer to God, or if not God, then beauty. Without pain – the theory goes – we lose the ability to experience true ecstasy…’

  ‘Sin? Suffering?’

  Kane was having none of it.

  ‘Too old-fashioned for you, eh?’

  Kane gave this question some consideration. ‘I mean it’s not that I don’t like antiques…’

  ‘You like me,’ she smiled, ‘and I’m antique.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So what’s your moral vocabulary consist of, then?’ she wondered. ‘I mean what are its parameters?’

  ‘Is that a good cigar?’ He ignored her question. He couldn’t answer her question. And it seemed pointless, anyway.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It smells good,’ he grunted.

  ‘It’s very pleasurable, certainly,’ she teased him. ‘Would you like a puff?’

  ‘I’d love one.’

  Peta pulled off a glove and strolled over to him again. Kane tried to lift his head at her approach, but he could not.

  ‘Poor boy,’ she said, carefully sweeping his fringe from his eyes, then tightening her fingers around it and yanking his head up by his hair.

  He grimaced. His face was glowing. His vision was bleary. He blinked, repeatedly. She made as if to proffer him the cigar, but kept it too far away from his lips for actual contact.

  ‘Know about cigars, do we?’ she teased him as his lips kissed thin air.

  ‘A little,’ he demurred, humiliated.

  And then, before he’d even finished speaking, she suddenly pushed the cigar into his mouth. It hit his teeth. He tightened them around it. He bit into it. He took a deep puff. It tasted wonderful.

  ‘Is that good?’ she whispered softly, touching her nose to his ear. ‘Fantastic,’ he said, still holding on to it, still inhaling, his head spinning (five hours? How the hell’d he do it?).

  ‘Really?’

  A droplet of sweat trickled down from his hairline. She stopped it with her finger.

  ‘Yes. Really,’ he croaked. ‘Is it Cuban?’

  He was mortified to discover himself developing an erection.

  ‘Nope,’ she dried her finger, off-handedly, on the front of his t-shirt, then snatched the cigar back and released his hair. His head dropped, sharply. ‘It’s from the local Spar, you ignorant goon,’ she snorted, shoving it back into her mouth and turning away from him, contemptuously, ‘£1.99, for a pack of four.’

  She stalked – quietly, like a cat – across the oak floor and back over to the hot bench where she grabbed a hold of her glove. She gazed at him, ruminatively, as she pulled it back on. ‘You do know you’re not locked in there?’ she said.

  Kane didn’t respond. He remained exactly as he was.

  ‘You’re not locked in there,’ she repeated. ‘You do know that?’

  Still nothing. No reaction.

  She shrugged, removed the cigar from her mouth, and wandered off in search of an ashtray. She found a blue and white striped saucer propped up on the draining-board in the kitchen area. She extinguished the cigar on it and then tipped the stub into the rubbish bin.

  ‘I only smoke the damn things,’ she confided, ‘to spur myself into giving up.’

  She sighed. ‘Although it’s disturbing how the mind – the taste – will so readily adapt itself, if needs must, from something extremely good to something so much worse…’

  As she spoke Kane lifted his arms, tentatively. He felt the top half of the pillory shift. He raised them again, this time more determinedly. The pillory slowly creaked open, like a nutcracker.

  And then, just as he thought he might’ve actually got away with it…‘Impressive hard-on, coincidentally,’ she muttered.

  ELEVEN

  Gaffar took five sugars with his tea.

  ‘Will you be taking any tea with your sugar?’ Beede asked, looking on, appalled, as he tipped the sachets in, one after the other.

  ‘I think this…uh…this pretty manager is hot for you,’ Gaffar crooned, delightedly.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Like father like son, eh?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  Beede seemed affronted.

  ‘You like to play the angry, old bull, but there’s definitely a touch of the randy, old goat in there somewhere…’

  ‘So we definitely need to get to the bottom of this,’ Beede interrupted him, carefully stirring his mug of oxtail soup.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘This problem you seem to have with salad.’

  ‘Urgh…’ Gaffar waved his hand, dismissively.

  ‘How long’s it been going on?’

  Gaffar took a small sip of his tea, then smiled, vacuously.

  ‘And don’t think for one moment that I’m falling for that ludicrous “simple Turk” act,’ Beede snapped.

  ‘Is no big deal,’ Gaffar waved his hand again.

  ‘You don’t have any idea as to what’s at the root of it?’

  Gaffar shook his head.

  ‘No clues at all?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Well when did it all start? Do you remember?’

  Gaffar frowned. ‘Always,’ he said, ‘since boy. But not so…’

  He grimaced.

  ‘Not so severe? Not so bad? It’s grown worse? Is that it?’

  Gaffar nodded. ‘Before it was simply…uh…a slight aversion…’

  ‘Before what?’

  A woman with a pram hurried past them and inadvertently swept Gaffar’s collection of sugar wrappers on to the floor. He reached down to retrieve them.

  ‘So what did your parents make of it?’ Beede asked, once the Kurd had straightened back up again.

  Gaffar stared at him, blankly.

  ‘Your mother? Your father?’

  As he uttered the word ‘father’, Beede observed Gaffar flinching slightly.

  ‘Your father?’ he persisted. ‘Does he get leaf afraid sometimes same like what you do?’

  ‘Susa Pope…’ Gaffar mused, gazing distractedly over Beede’s shoulder.

  ‘You get this lady number?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘For phone?’

  He mimed ‘phone’.

  ‘Susan Pope?’

  ‘Sexy lady manager.’

  Gaffar made a suggestive clicking sound with his tongue.

  ‘Don’t you like talking about your father, Gaffar?’

  Beede went straight for the jugular.

  Gaffar shrugged. ‘My father he is long time…uh…’ he pondered over the right word ‘…dead.’

  ‘Oh. Right. I see. And your mother?’

  ‘Tough as a pair of old boots,’ he smiled fondly, ‘God preserve her.’

  ‘So what age were you when
he died?’

  Gaffar shifted in his chair and peered under the table again, as if one of the wrappers might’ve secretly eluded him.

  ‘Were you very young?’

  ‘Sure. Young. He was hero,’ Gaffar informed him haughtily. ‘He died in the service of his country.’

  ‘Ah, now I get you…’ Beede finally caught on. ‘He was a soldier with the PKK?’

  Gaffar looked horrified. ‘A terrorist? Never! He was a proud Turkish citizen. He died on guard service in Silopi. He worked for the local Kurdish lord. He stepped on a landmine. I was three years old. My mother was pregnant with my brother. When I saw the body there were no legs left, no groin. They’d stuffed a spare pair of trousers with straw to protect our feelings. I saw it poking out at the ankles and at the waist…’ he shrugged. ‘That’s all I really remember.’

  ‘This was in Silopi?’ Beede asked. ‘Is that where your family hail from, originally?’

  ‘No. I was bor Silopi. My mother family from Marlin. My father…’

  He shrugged, uneasily.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Sinjar.’

  ‘Sinjar? That sounds familiar…Sinjar…’

  Beede considered it for a moment. ‘Is Sinjar actually in Turkey?’

  ‘Sure…’ Gaffar nodded, unconvincingly.

  Beede frowned. Gaffar took off his jacket. He hung it over the back of his chair. He seemed ill at ease.

  ‘Nice jacket,’ Beede said.

  ‘New leather,’ Gaffar grinned, half-turning and stroking the hide, patently relieved at the change of subject.

  ‘Did Kane buy it for you?’

  ‘Kane? No. Is Mrs Broad.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Kelly mother. Dina. Mrs Dina Broad.’

  Beede looked confused. ‘Dina? Dina Broad? She bought you a jacket?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Gaffar seemed completely unfazed by the idea.

  ‘Dina Broad? But why on earth would she do that?’

  ‘We go for shop. We two. She buy.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘She took you out shopping? Dina Broad?’

  ‘Sure. Whas problem? We go. Taxi. Shop-shop. Is my idea. Shop for Dina. Shop for Gaffar.’

  ‘And this is in exchange for…?’

  ‘Pard me?’

  ‘For drugs, perchance?’

  ‘Drugs?!’

  Gaffar leaned back in his chair, surprised. ‘For what is this?’ he asked, almost indignant. ‘For what is all this drugs-drugs? You’re a man obsessed! You…Kelly Broad…You’re worse than each other!’