We Are The Hanged Man

by Douglas Lindsay

  'No coincidences,' said Haynes.

  'No, there aren't,' said Jericho. 'Except when there are,' he added. He sounded tired.

  Haynes drained his coffee and looked at his watch. He had a few minutes left on his parking ticket.

  'I'll get on with checking these and try to see if I can find who's next in the line.'

  'Which way?' asked Jericho.

  'How d'you mean?'

  'Is there someone whose estate will be passed on to Oliver Davis, or is there someone who's in line to get my estate?'

  Haynes raised his eyebrows, curled his lip.

  'You're not next for the chop, Sir. You're the end of the line. That's why you've been getting the cards.'

  *

  Jericho did not return to the television studio. Put a call through to Light, told her to make excuses for him. She said that television had done what it does, and was filling in for his absence. Cher had taken to her new responsibilities, and Light suspected that the company would put out the line that she had more or less taken over the running of the investigation at Jericho's insistence. They would just have to wait to see the morning's headlines to find out just what spurious rubbish the newspapers were going to give for Jericho's seeming demotion behind a rookie television contestant.

  At the end of the conversation, Jericho surprised Light by asking if she'd like to have dinner that evening. She said yes, and they arranged to meet in the hotel restaurant at eight.

  Eight o'clock was also the time the evening's show was due to air. It was billed as the day's highlights edited down into two hours. Naturally, the day's highlights were going to have to be extensively stretched, but it was all part of the process and those editors had plenty of practice.

  *

  Having bought his sandwich and cup of coffee, Durrant returned to his small room to eat. He sat on the edge of the bed and took his food with not a trace of pleasure or enjoyment. Thirty years in prison had determined that food was something you ate to survive, not something that would be particularly enjoyed.

  When he finished, he placed the wrapping and the cup in the bin, went into the small bathroom and urinated, then retuned to the bed and lay down in exactly the same position as before, waiting for his phone to ring.

  *

  'You really think the TV people have engineered all this?' she asked.

  Despite having extended the invitation, Jericho wasn't saying much, and Light was being forced to drag out one-sided conversations. They were now somewhat uncomfortably nearing the end of the main course.

  Jericho shrugged, something that as ever he managed to do without really moving his shoulders.

  'They…' he started and then made the same unmoving shrug. 'I have no idea the lengths these people would go to, the things they'd do. Really, would anything surprise us?'

  'Just don't say it again in front of the cameras,' said Light, and she smiled. Jericho looked like he might have tried to smile in sympathy, but it never really showed. Not so that Sergeant Light noticed.

  'Even that doesn't matter, does it, Sergeant?' he said. 'Shackleton lured me into saying it yesterday, pretty damned blatantly, they all get their pants in a fankle, but really? Does anyone care today? It's been…' and he looked at his watch, 'twelve to fifteen hours since people would have started seeing the headlines. How many headlines have they seen since then? How many people are still talking about it? No one cares, and if I said it again, no one would really care about that either, not after the first few minutes, hours, whatever.'

  'Still,' she said, 'you don't want to give them anything. That Claudia woman sees every second with you as some sort of battle. You don't want to… you know, I know you probably don't care, but you don't want to give her any further triumphs at your expense.'

  Finally Jericho smiled.

  'I'll try to avoid that.'

  'What did you do today before you went out? She was fizzing.'

  Jericho nodded. The smile changed but did not completely leave his face.

  'You'll have to watch the show.' He made a thing of glancing at his watch and then made a helpless gesture with his hand. 'Ah, you're missing it.'

  *

  The good beavers of the production company were behind the curve and frantic when it came to putting the show together. Despite all their previous experience and professionalism, it was, as Claudia had cause to remark, the most desperate they'd ever been in tying a show together at the last moment.

  The final set piece, wherein Cher was interviewed on camera regarding the responsibility that Jericho had thrust upon her so unexpectedly – did she consider it selfish of him to do so, did she think she was up to the job, was it a poisoned chalice, would it help her in the final voting for Britain's Got Justice? – wherein Cher wept repeatedly for her dear friend Lol and for the weight of burden that had now been placed on her shoulders, a weight she promised in the name of the Lord to carry to the best of her abilities, was filmed after the show had already gone to air, and then slotted in neatly either side of the final set of adverts.

  The ratings were never that great on the digital channels, but thanks to that morning's press and to some frantic Facebook and Twitter action late in the afternoon detailing Jericho's latest wacko move, the final half hour of the show brought in the channel's highest rating that month.

  Everything was set up nicely for the final three nights.

  *

  At around about the same time that Cher was breaking down on television, taking an adoring and concerned audience with her, Jericho invited himself to Light's room. They both understood that by going to her room it gave him control over when the sleepover part of the sex would end.

  They had been quiet; they had made no fuss; they had spoken softly throughout dinner – or not at all in the case of Jericho – yet ultimately their discretion went unrewarded when the photographer who had been waiting all evening in the corner of the bar got a shot from such a perfect angle that it looked like they'd been holding hands as they walked to the elevator. The fact that they were at least four feet apart at the time was of little consequence.

  Light found the sex more intense, yet, somehow, Jericho more maudlin than when they'd made love previously.

  She lay in his arms for a while afterwards, but at no time was he completely settled. She sensed his restlessness, so eventually she slightly released the pressure on him, and he took the opportunity to move.

  Leaving her room with his shirt undone, and not tucked properly into his trousers, his jacket and tie held in his arms, he could not miss the photographer waiting at the end of the corridor. The snap was taken, and then the photographer turned and ran, his escape route well marked down the stairwell.

  Jericho did not even think about going after him, and the photographer need not even have run. Jericho padded along to the lift, stood still while he was carried up one floor, and then walked slowly along to his own room. He was booked through until Sunday morning, but he was already sure that he would be heading home as soon as the show finished on Saturday evening, no matter how late he'd get home.

  As he got back to his own room he had a sudden thought that perhaps he should warn Light that there was liable to be something disadvantageous to them both in the following morning's newspapers. He was more concerned about how it would look for her.

  He considered walking back down, but instead lifted the phone and dialled her room.

  He waited a few rings but there was no answer. Assuming she had run herself a bath and was already washing off the taste and the smell of him, he hung up, lay down on the bed and was fast asleep in less than a minute.

  *

  By 2230hrs UK time that evening, Gerard Larrousse was already back in his chateau in the Loire valley. Seven o'clock flight from Heathrow, getting him into Paris Charles De Gaulle a little after 2100hrs CET. A two-hour drive home.

  He had telephoned ahead so that the staff knew of his return, but they had been told not to wait up for him. He would not feel like eating on h
is return, so no food need be prepared.

  On entering the chateau, he immediately retired to the library at the front of the house, although not with the intention of reading any of the many books which lined the shelves. He poured himself a large shot of Laphroaig single malt, no ice required, no mixer, then sat in the seat by the window which looked south over the estate towards the river.

  A cold clear still night. The computer in his car had repeatedly warned him of the risk of ice on the drive down from Paris. There was a bright half moon quite high in the sky, and the straight lines of the dormant winter vines were evident in the darkness.

  He sat and watched over them for the last time. He had brought the vineyard up by sheer force of will. That's how he thought of it. He had made it happen through sheer determination. All his own work, no one to lean on, no one to help him through the endless rough patches when it seemed they might never break through.

  That's what he had thought until that afternoon, until he had been summoned to London and the strange committee of men had gathered around him and told him things about Larrousse wine. They knew much about the history of the vineyard. They knew stories and events from decades previously that Larrousse himself had forgotten. They knew facts about the operation that Larrousse had thought no one else could possibly know. They knew exactly why the company had succeeded and had been dragged up from nothing. They showed Larrousse bank statements and minutes from meetings where the vineyard had been discussed. Meetings which Larrousse had not even known were taking place.

  Larrousse saw his life laid out before him. The hard work, the diligence, the marketing, the design, the triumph. And the honour for none of it belonged to him. He had been a cipher. It could have been anyone in charge of the company, and the people who wanted it to succeed would still have made sure that it did. His flamboyant, energetic son, his drug-dependant daughter, any man or woman off the street... It wouldn't have mattered.

  This company of men, men who had not even allowed him the honour of knowing who was behind the rise of the Larrousse estate, and who did not explain why it had been allowed to happen, had then sent him on his way.

  It had been made clear to Larrousse what they expected of him once he arrived back in France.

  At some time after midnight, he went outside to the closest of the several gardener's huts that surround the chateau. This hut was large and solid, kept completely dry inside and therefore fine for storing electrical equipment. He used a pair of sheers to cut flex from an extension cable, then took the cable back inside.

  He walked upstairs in the dark to the top floor of the chateau, and then to one of the bedrooms at the front of the house. He opened the window and breathed in the crisp fresh midnight air. He was not wearing a coat, yet, as when he'd gone outside, he did not feel the cold.

  He looked around for the most solid item in the vicinity and immediately settled on the radiator beneath the window. The heating was not turned on in this part of the chateau unless there were people staying. He firmly tied the cable around the base of the radiator, then took the other end and tied a rough knot around his neck. It was no hangman's noose, as his knot-tying ability did not stretch that far, but it was firm and tight enough that even standing at the window it felt uncomfortable.

  If the knot did not hold, then he had over a hundred feet to fall, something which might well be enough in itself to do the job requested of him.

  He climbed slowly up onto the ledge and took one last look out over the vineyard. He felt nothing. It wasn't his. None of it had ever been his. And now that he would die, there was no one with the Larrousse family name to carry it forward.

  But what was there to carry forward in any case? A great lie.

  He jumped. The flex snapped and held. His body jerked and slammed against the wall.

  45

  When Jericho awoke he found a small envelope had been pushed beneath the door of his room. His first thought, before he opened it, was that it would be a copy of the photograph taken as he'd left Light's room. However, as he ran his fingers along the edge, he realised that it was too small. Pictures being slipped into envelopes seemed very old-fashioned, but also something that would be done blown up, to emphasise the awfulness of the subject matter.

  This was something else that seemed old-fashioned: a Tarot card.

  The skeleton hung limply from the window of the chateau. The castle was now in the foreground, as much part of the picture as the Hanged Man. And now there was no dubiety about it; it no longer worked when turned the other way around. This Hanged Man was a man who had been hung by the neck, not suspended by his feet in order to see the world from a different angle, in order to let go of that which was holding him back.

  When Jericho went out he slipped the card into his pocket. Downstairs, in the lobby of the hotel, there were several journalists waiting and cameras flashed as he passed through; questions were fired at him out of the air-conditioned comfort of the hotel. He walked on.

  *

  'You have a good night last night?'

  Jericho hesitated as he passed the security guard. There was a smile on his face. Jericho had seen this particular guard numerous times on his way in and out of the television studio and they had not yet so much as acknowledged each other.

  He recognised the look on the guard's face as one of mockery so did not hesitate for long. He walked to the lift, pressed the button for the fourth floor, stood alone in the confined stillness.

  Someone he didn't know was laughing at him. He had seen heads turn as he'd walked here from the hotel. He thought about the photographer outside Sergeant Light's bedroom, and he knew why someone he didn't know was smiling.

  When the door to the lift opened he was therefore not surprised to see the front page of the Sun stuck to the wall opposite. It showed the picture of Jericho and Light together, in which it appeared they were holding hands, under the headline LOL COPS MIDNIGHT BONKING SESH.

  Jericho stared at it for a moment. Washington appeared beside him and immediately placed a hand on his shoulder.

  'I know what you're thinking,' he said.

  Jericho didn't look at him, although he did cast a glance the way of his shoulder. The words I doubt it were in his head, but if he could go through his life never speaking to Washington again he would have been quite happy.

  'You're thinking, should there be an apostrophe? We've been talking about that. Obviously if you're implying that the midnight bonking session is owned by the cops, then there should. But if they meant that the midnight bonking session is something that the cops did, and let's say for the sake of space they missed out the 'in' from Lol Cops In Midnight Bonking Sesh, then you know...'

  He glanced at Jericho, the dead eyes. Smiled.

  'Or, of course, it could be that Lol herself has copped the midnight bonking session. You see? Someone might see that and think, ah, Lol's back and she's already done a bit of shagging.'

  The two men stood and looked at the front page for another few seconds and then Jericho turned away, just as Washington gave him another shoulder squeeze.

  'Every little helps,' said Washington mundanely.

  Jericho walked off down the short corridor, deciding that he would go to the canteen for a coffee before submitting himself to the ridicule of the situation room, and all the time he was thinking that Washington had at least been right about one thing: he had been wondering whether or not the headline ought to have had an apostrophe.

  *

  Superintendent Dylan had four newspapers laid out in front of her, a two-way split between the photo of the police lovers hand in hand, and the photo of Jericho emerging guiltily, half-dressed from Light's bedroom.

  The Star joined the Sun with the hand in hand picture, above the headline NOW LOL'S NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO'S F**KED! They had initially gone to press with whose instead of who's, an error which had been spotted before too much damage had been done. Washington had been particularly pleased with this one, since as far as he knew no mainstre
am British newspaper had ever led with the word fuck before and was therefore guaranteed to cause a bit of a stir. Even if they hadn't had the courage of their convictions, and had asterisked the expletive.

  The Mirror, under the picture of Jericho outside Light's room, led with OUTRAGE AT COPPER'S SEX ANTICS, one of those headlines that implied that a large section of society were actually annoyed at the thought that police officers might have sex, when in fact no one was annoyed, not even the newspaper, until that certain section of society read the newspaper, discovered that they were annoyed, and so consequently got angry about it, and tutted loudly while reading the front of the paper in queues and in supermarkets.

  Surprisingly the Independent also led with the story. It had, naturally, taken a more highbrow approach, and was attempting to view the show from an intellectual standpoint, discussing what it said about Britain and the relationship between the media, journalism and crime. Nevertheless they had illustrated the article with the picture of Jericho outside Light's room, under the headline ANOTHER FINE BRITISH MESS.

  'A source close to the show,' read Dylan, 'reports that Jericho and Light have been seen canoodling around the TV studio. "It's disgusting," said the source, who did not wish to be named. "They're supposed to be searching for Lol, and all they're interested in is each other. His hands are all over her."'

  She threw the paper down on the desk and stared across at Sergeant Haynes.

  'Fucking hell,' she said. 'Did you know about this?'

  'You know it's not true,' said Haynes.

  'Look at them,' she said. 'There are pictures.'

  'Of what? A photo of him coming out a hotel room? That could be any hotel room, ma'am. The picture could be three years old.'

  'Holding hands?'

  Haynes shrugged. 'Photoshop,' he said.

  'And all this stuff about them acting up in front of everyone. For God's sake, they're supposed to be undertaking a police investigation.'

  'It's made up.'

  'What?'