Turquoiselle (4 page)

The
meal came, the steaks – Latham’s double – with fries, salads and various dips.

Carver
had considered if Latham would ask him anything about Dusa’s outburst in the
park. Did they know? You assumed they always must, to some extent. Particularly
if she had done what Carver warned her she must, and gone to Jack Stuart to confess.
But Latham’s main concern seemed to be to eat.

“Know
what there’s a whole lot of round here?” Latham asked as he studied the dessert
menu. “Full of lamas.”

It had been
autumn then too, but the leaves had turned and many were down, coating the
pavements of the side streets in crisply rustling tides that the wind blew high
or low.

He
was walking home from school, one of the first schools, when he was about eight
and still bothered with lessons. He was alone, as he usually was. A solitary
child, for his own assorted and unanalysed reasons.

He
paused outside the shop that had one window all sweets, to look in. Everything
was in glamorous reds and purples tinselled gold and silver. The wrappers
alone looked eatable. And some had free gifts with them – model figures that moved.

The
door flew wide and someone stamped out in a hurry, some oldishly grown-up
woman, who knocked against him and snapped “Watch out, can’t you?” as though
he, not she, had done the barging.

His
face did not alter. He was used generally to a bad press. It never occurred to
him that in ten years time he would be taller and stronger than she, and she
ten years older. It would take Heavy, who he would meet when he, Carver, was
eleven, to come out with funny speculations like that.

Carver,
once the angry woman was gone, walked on slowly up the road, passing the Co-Op
and the greengrocers, and the ‘Lovely’ Laundrette. He was in no hurry. It was
getting on towards five o’clock, but that would make no difference. No one
would be home, unless his father was, but he as a rule would be out again by
this time of day.

The
sun was dipping, going west, smoky and golden as if chocolate foil had been
pinned up there then fumed with smoke.

Carver
turned the corner and walked up the hill where the bigger houses stood, with
proper gardens, and you had enough spilled leaves to scuff.

He
was passing one of the low long brick walls that guarded the posh front patches
of trees, lawns and paving, when a man pulled up at the curb in a dark blue
shiny car that Carver knew was a BMW. The man immediately threw open the car
door, sprang out, slammed the door shut, rushed across Carver’s path and up the
gravel to the front door of the house. This too opened before him, as if
anticipating his wishes. Nor did it close at his back.

Such
an extreme example of irrationally adult bossy speed and urgency had arrested
Carver. He stood idling on the pavement, possibly waiting, with unconscious
prudence, for the crazy man to express-train out again and dive back in the
car.

But
minutes passed, or Carver reckoned they were minutes, ticking off there in his
mind, and nothing happened. Natural boredom then perhaps next made him both
remain where he was – but also glance in at the car window. On the front
passenger seat was a large cardboard carton, undone at the top. Inside smouldered
the smoky gold of late afternoon sky, and cutting-edges of deep dark red and
indigo.

Chocolate
bars. The box – he peered closer – was filled with them, some of popular well-known
makes, and others more
exotic,
at least to
Carver. Yet all of them beaming there, radiant with sweetness and joy.

The
car door had been left unlocked. The man, all hysterical adult hurry, nearly
knocking the boy over in a blind rush to get into the house, had not stopped to
secure anything.

Maybe
Carver thought he only opened the car door in order to smell the honey of the
chocolate, which, the door once opened, he could. He leaned into the car, maybe
also simply further to take pleasure in the smell. Did he even reach out and
snatch up two of the topmost bars solely to gaze at them, inhale them, for a
few precious seconds longer?

When
the human express returned to his vehicle, about nine minutes after desertion,
it was apparently just as he had left it, door unlocked but closed, the
cardboard box bulging with its goodies, (most of them) and seeming, to a
careless eye, untouched.

A
woman waved the man and the car off as they shot away up the steep road.

Carver
had already been climbing up it, and he did not bother to look round. He kept
the chocolate close in his two jacket pockets, only occasionally reaching in to
skim its metallically slippery papered surfaces.

He
hid the prize in ‘his’ corner of the box room, where his mother slept on the
narrow bed, and he on the narrower put-you-up under the window.

After
two more days he secretly ate one of the bars. But then, not the second bar. He
never ate that. Only
kept
it.

The
excitement and contained exultation of the theft he would, when he was in his
teens, and had undergone his first full sexual experience, technically equate
with the sexual act.

Not
in type, or extent of pleasure, that was, but in the straightforward
subterfuge, the ultimate extraordinary meant-to-be ease, this epilogue of
slight embarrassment – potential danger – diluted almost shame. (The sense of
achievement too, of
finding out
.)

As
if – though in each case a different one – he had fallen through a loose
floorboard into a treasure cave. It was all
there
. All available. Not just accessible
cars then, or chaste denial. The world too had magic doorways. And you had to,
of course you did, undo them, and then undo them again.

“I’m not
kidding,” Latham resumed, as he tucked into the Choc-O-Four with raspberry
sauce. “I saw an entire herd of white ones. And later two or three brown and
white.”

Carver
said, “Yes, I think I have, once or twice.”

“What
do they breed them for? Milk?”

“I
don’t know.”

“Kids’
rides, probably. Or pulling a carriage in someone’s stately grounds.”

Lamas.
Latham seemed to have more to say about lamas than Scar. Was Latham trying
something out on Carver, because of Silvia Dusa, trying to see if Carver would
mention her, or debate aloud if he himself should inform Stuart? On the other
hand one deduced they were always testing,
trying
you. Even Latham’s even more than usual
greed tonight might be some sort of test of Carver’s reactions.

Latham
had cleared his plate – his second dessert – drained his glass, and now
squinted at his Rolex. “Getting on for ten. My car’ll be along in a minute. Got
to make Canterbury before lights out. God, bloody bore, can’t stand Chaucer,
can you? But better than the Bard, I suppose. Probably sleep this off on the
way. Well...” He rose, reached across and patted Carver on the shoulder, like
an amiable uncle with a nephew several times removed. “Give that file another
check, Carver, by the way The old method, yeah? Might yield results.”

“Yes,
of course. Good night, Mr Latham. Good journey.”

“Oh,
I always look on the sunny side. Like that old fart in the poem, what is it?
Lying in the gutter but wiping his arse on the stars. That’s the one.”

He
did not look, or enunciate, as if the two bottles of red wine, the bulk of
which he had consumed, had affected him, but sometimes he came out with
oddities after a few drinks. The bill had already been paid, and he sauntered
to the glass doors, observing the night outside in an amused, innocuous way.
The chauffeured car was already swimming on to the forecourt.

Carver
had another fifteen minutes to wait for his, which would appear like an
ordinary cab, the driver dressed in denim and ponytail.

Had
she done it? Carver thought. Told Stuart?

Sometimes
these rogue events took place; it never really worked, to re-examine them too
much. Instead he thought of Donna, what emotion she would be dressed in tonight,
and where, sleeping or awake, she would be lying in wait for him.

When he reached
and entered the house, the lower hall and kitchen were lit up, and above, the
hall lamps were on, but dimmed down.

The
main bedroom he had seen from outside was in darkness, and he guessed, and
would later note, the door was shut.

Carver
made himself another coffee. It never kept him awake, though other things might
do that.

In
the kitchen, having put out the lights, he sat, staring down through the
garden. They were quite high, those walls, six and a half feet. Who would have
thought it, that skinny dark-haired kid who stole the chocolate bars by the
posh house with the low outer wall. Now, his own walls, all his. And enough
chocolate in the fridge – even if it was for Donna – to
coat
those walls
with. The night was overcast by huge troop-movements of cloud, that were slowly
rolling their tanks in from the southeast. From in here you could not see the
lights of the village, the flutter of late TV and computer screens. The woods
took over out there, at the garden’s end, and after that swallowed up the lane,
just Robby Johnston’s cottage netted in them, and tied to them by ropes of ivy
and chains of unlopped briar. (“Only things that keep the old place standing,”
said Johnston.) Carver’s garden – he supposed he must call it ‘his’ – had no
substance to it in the dark. Or it was
all
substance, the three smaller trees and
the huge old pear, the weedy lawn, and the benches Donna had bought in a fit of
gardenicity, everything amalgamated and amorphous. But at the garden’s far
end, almost invisible, and then more visible, and more, the faint shimmer of
greenish-bluish illumination, trapped there, or
poised
there, like a living entity. And
casting out from itself those slender streaks, to paint the trunks of the birch
trees beyond the wall.

The
shed.

Having
crossed the cloud-blackened nocturnal garden, passed between the fruit trees,
stepped by or over the bushes, he reached the rectangular concreted space left
for a shed, where the shed, ready-constructed, had, a while back, been set.
Parked and anchored, it was taller, longer and more wide than most such
outbuildings; reinforced and fully weather-proofed. Two stone steps elevated
before the middle door, which, once unlocked, opened inward.

There
were three doors, each with a window, and four other windows between and to
either side. In the strange glow of these seven front-facing panes, one could
make out easily the flat black roof, the wooden walls that, by night and by
glow were a greenish, bluish, greyish brown. The window-glass imperviously
shone. Inside the shed, a sort of snow seemed to have fallen, and then formed
into slopes, mounds,
things
which resembled other things, but were not such other things.

Carver
mounted the steps and undid the shed’s central door. It required three keys.

He
went inside and the door was shut, and locked three times.

The
interior of the shed, seen still from outside, did not exactly darken then –
yet a kind of obscuration fell there. Carver’s shadow, perhaps.

Or
only one more vagary of the advancing enemy cloud.

Three

During the last
three days of that schedule Carver left his car at the office, and took the
train into London either from Lynchoak or Maidstone, reaching the stations and
coming back by cab.

On
Thursday evening he drove himself back in the repaired car, but using another,
more time-consuming route, which sent him via Croydon.

It
did not matter in the least about Donna’s opinion of return times, since she
was no longer at the house.

She
had said, quietly, the morning after his dinner with Latham, that she thought
she would go over and see her mother for a week. She had done this now and then
in the past. There was no reason she should not, and the journey was hardly
taxing, taking only about three quarters of an hour. Donna did not drive of
course, but Maggie did, and came to pick her up on the arranged evening.

Carver
had got home early enough to see the departure. Donna seemed fine, and Maggie,
as ever, glamorous and optimistic, in her sensibly-dieted and reasonably self-indulgent
fifty-year-old way. Not cabbing, she had brought her car. He had wondered if
Maggie would, once Donna was safely installed in the bold red vessel, whisk
back to have a last word with him. Something friendly and casual, but also some
version of a last minute attentive scrutiny of his reactions, his mood. Maggie
was always very civil to Carver, somewhat over-appreciative, and slightly
flirtatious in a carefully non-predatory way. It was her set method of dealing
with men, he thought; it had paid off in her own personal relationships.
However, Maggie simply waved, and then drove away.

No
mention had been made by Maggie, nor by Donna, of a mooted pregnancy. He had
been aware that Donna, since the prior dramatic demonstration, had stopped
vomiting. Or at least, she had stopped doing so audibly when he was in the
house. The magazine on kid-suitable room-changing had also gone.

After
the departure, and the dark having fully settled on the lane, a film of silence
formed. It was only the silence of the modern English countryside and imbued by
distant blurs of sound – traffic far off, the passage of planes, unspecified
electronic, or other, outlying mechanisms. Nevertheless.

Nevertheless.

Next morning,
routinely, he tried the games key Icon on his iPhone. It said:
Clue up: One down
. Carver had
seen this message a handful of times, and in many forms, during his service
with Mantik. Seldom without a twist of the gut. He waited a moment before
touching the screen for the
2nd Clue
. Which read:
Always Justified Marketable Value
.

Carver
struck the clue back into nothingness.

Working
from the current code-series,
Always Justified
Marketable Value
gave him the
initials S.D.

He
switched on all the house radios, and the kitchen TV and the enormous TV in the
front room, and caught the various news bulletins through the morning, across
different channels. Nothing relevant was mentioned. Almost certainly it would
not be or at least not yet.

Carver
was more than glad now Donna was not in the house. He paced about, not properly
thinking, trying to remember, mentally to order things.

At
last he went up to what Donna called his ‘playroom’, across the landing from
the spare bedroom. There was only one lock, but this was ‘faulty’. It would
only ever let Carver in.

His
second phone was where he always left it, ready-charged .

“Yes,
Carver,” said Latham’s voice, in a rich, mournfully appropriate tone. Carver
had not needed to speak. “Better come in. We all need to look at the new deal,
don’t we? About six, OK?”

She had been
missing, or at least not visible to him, since they separated in the park. He
had noted her absence, inevitably, from the day after his dinner of misquotes,
steak and lamas with Latham. But people were not always at the building in
Whitehall. There were three other Mantik venues alone, subsidiaries, to which
you might get sent at twenty minutes notice, or less. He had been
aware
, therefore,
alert
, but concluded
that doubtless his was an overreaction, and as such he had mostly quashed it.

As
he drove into London against the outrush of early escapee evening traffic, he
kept feeling again the burning warmth of her tawny hands against his chest, and
the pallor of the cold patches that seemed, each time, to replace them.

Silvia
Dusa, (S.D.). Had he even taken her seriously?

No?
Decidedly no.
If
yes,
then undeniably he should and would have gone to Stuart – not, obviously, in
her company, or on her behalf, but in order to protect whatever project she
might, however slightly and inadvertently, have jeopardised. And partly to
protect and cover himself, it went without saying, since she had hinted at her
mistake to him. To stay dumb was to be complicitous with the adversary,
whatever was out there that must be worked against.

What
had she said? He had been trying all morning, after seeing that One Down clue,
to recall precisely.

“
I have done something stupid... I have
given something
to someone.”

Was
that what she
had said? Her actual words? He had not, as she had accused him of doing, recorded
their dialogue. He had had no grounds, surely, to feel that might be necessary.

The
weather had stayed stormy and overcast. London began to loom up, a mass of
thickly dark, and yet already luridly lighted shapes. The river lay like
polished lead under its welter of neons and lasers. Ten or so years ago it had
resembled a Science Fiction city, as New York had done years before that. But
terror and catastrophe had fractured New York’s architectural mountains, while
the exhaustion of financial downfall was putting out London’s inner fires.

Ken
Lesley was tonight’s Reception. His office nickname was, predictably,
Kill
, but several,
Carver included, knew him as “Ken”.

He
checked Carver’s ID fleetly, they exchanged a taciturn acknowledgement, and
Carver took the lift to the fifth floor.

“Death
occurred between approximately 11 and 12 p.m. on the date given. The body was
found about 6 a.m. the following morning, when a cleaner went into the
lavatory. The pub is a quiet one, with a steady inflow of generally regular
customers. Dusa was noticed on the previous evening, being a stranger, and also
attractive. No one saw her leave since she did
not
leave, at least in any physical way.
Usually, they say, the facilities are checked just before, and again just after
the pub doors are shut for the night. But were not on this particular occasion.
One senses that happens quite often. The means was a man’s razor blade stuck
into a cork – the old-fashioned sort of cork that isn’t plastic. Dusa appears
to have cut the veins of her left wrist lengthways, rather than across or
diagonally. It’s the most efficient method, and it worked, but not many people
can manage it; it takes a steady hand. Nor were there any preliminary ‘practice’
cuts. She had drunk, according to the bar staff, only two glasses of red wine,
house variety, nothing special, which she bought directly from the bar. She was
on her own. If she was waiting for anyone, no one showed up. The bar people
thought, in fact, she had left by the garden exit – the garden is kept open
for smokers even if the weather is unsettled. The cleaner who found the body
has been unwell since then, and her questioning has been minimal. No helpful
DNA or other identification seems to be in the picture. No alien substances were
found in Dusa’s stomach. No other significant marks were on her body. The cork
carries evidence only of Dusa’s own handling. She did not find the cork at the
pub, and seems to have brought the weapon with her, ready-assembled. At
present, there we have all the information ceded to us.”

Latham’s
voice stopped. (It had been his bleak voice, the one he used for such, and
similar, announcements.)

Herons
spoke: “Who did it?”

Latham
shrugged, “We have no idea. Unless just possibly it
was
Dusa herself.”

“Why?”
That came from Ireland, smoking his fifth cigarette in the corner. Unlike
every pub and office in England, this room had no smoking ban.

“
Why
is the thing we
want to learn, of course,” said Latham flatly. “Why, and if not,
who
. But there’s
very little about her on record, beyond the obvious profile-monitoring we all
undergo. Read her file. It is now available to everybody present here.”

“What’s
next, then?” asked Herons.

“Nothing
yet. We do our homework. We keep our heads down and antennae up. Be ready. This
is a Level Blue.”

“So
low
?” Herons seemed
affronted.

“So
far. But it might go up to a Green tomorrow.”

They
murmured.

Carver
had risen to leave the room with the rest, but Latham directed at him a smile
and the smallest shake of his head. Carver therefore turned back, pretending to
select a pen from the cluster on the table.

Latham,
as he walked past, muttered, “Give it a couple of minutes, then drop by my
room, will you?”

Carver
did as Latham said. There were frequently clandestine signals it was necessary
to follow. He wondered what Latham would want him to do, and was glad again
that Donna was away from the house. Under the circumstances the task might be
complex and mean more hours to put in, and though she was used to what she
called his extra-curricular outings, if she was still unsettled it might have
caused problems. He wondered if Dusa had had relatives, apart from the mother,
who must now be informed of her death, and if so who would see to it, the
normal authorities, or Mantik. This job would not fall to him at least.

When
he reached Latham’s room, (a miniature of Stuart’s on the floor above), the
lights were lowered to a sociable level, and the vodka and glasses had broken
free of the cupboard. Outside, beyond the blinds and the drawn curtains, an innovation
Latham preferred, tarpaulins flapped and scaffolding rattled in a thickly
rising wind.

“Sorry
to drag you in on your R and R, Carver, but it seemed best.”

“That’s
fine, Mr Latham.”

“Good,
good. Take a drink, yes, go on, we can sort out your travel arrangements in a
minute, no worries. I think we owe you a cab home.”

Carver
poured the vodka, and drank a meagre sip. What did Latham want? Something,
plainly, that he meant to build up to.

“Take
a seat. Yes, that’s it. Just something I want to play over with you. I suppose
you knew Silvia a little, did you?”

Carver
said, “Not really.”

“Just
used to meet her in the corridor, yes? Yes. But the odd exchange of chat, I
expect?”

“No,
Mr Latham.”

“That’s
the trouble, you see. That’s just what everyone says. Kept to herself. And a
bad temper. Typical sulky Latin, that’s Herons’ version. But I think he tried
to get under her duvet.”

Carver
said nothing. Herons liked to imply he could get under most female duvets,
Latham should be well-enough educated in such facts not to mention their
veracity or falseness.

“So
she was a social mystery, then,” said Latham, and his voice, which had become
the plum-jam version, was sticky now with regret. “Bloody shit of a way for a
girl like that to go. Not even thirty yet. Clearly something weighing on her
mind, wouldn’t you think? Some deep problem. And never spoke to anyone. Felt
she couldn’t trust them.”

He
knows
.
Carver took another nearly non-existent nip of the vodka, scarcely more than a
taste of its fumes.
He knows
she approached me
.

“Well
any way, Carver,” said Latham, downing his own generous glass with a
deliberately finalising flourish, “before I let you go, just one last thing. I’d
just like you to listen to something for me.”

As
Latham touched the sound control button, and the yellow light winked on,
Carver, if quite incoherently, somehow knew also what was coming. Not the
perhaps predictable thing, but the nonsensical one; it was surreal and absurd,
unbelievable, and could not happen.

Then
out of the 3P disc-player he heard Silvia Dusa’s voice, not yet thirty, let
alone forty. “You see, Car,” she said as she had on the bench under the trees, “I
have – I’ve done something stupid.” And behind her voice, if more muffled now,
the intermittent rumbling of the council contraption relining the paths .