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  Which would put her in a position of risk from me. Which doesn’t seem to worry her one little bit.

  Because I don’t know where she lives.

  Because she’ll now have the unlisted telephone number of this place.

  And the next thing I will get is the phone call and the proposition and I will probably never see her again.

  Certainly never see her again.

  Only hear from her, if she’s greedy.

  No wonder she didn’t mind signing with Eddie and his Barren Knights.

  Eddie?

  The How.

  Eddie.

  Think about that.

  Probable. The probability here being that he’s not as pig-thick as he appears.

  The probability being that they were closer than they appeared to be.

  Much closer.

  Eddie had mentioned, hadn’t he, that he believed she’d been down the coast last season, at Skegness.

  Believed.

  Met her.

  Met her and got together with her. No secrets. She’d tell him about the Blues.

  Then what happened in London happened. The press. After a while I reappeared here.

  Eddie had known me from before. When I’d been up here, other times.

  This time, when I’d reappeared, he’d clocked.

  And they’d talked.

  And the result, this.

  Eddie?

  The How?

  Probable?

  Probable.

  Proof positive lay beneath me, on racks, in the basement.

  Where I never went.

  Where I’d never been, since Jean. Because the temptation was too great.

  Because she was down there, waiting for me to give her life.

  THE SMOKE

  “DID THEY BELIEVE YOUR story?” Jean said. “About Mickey killing Johnny and you killing him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Will it make any difference? If they believe it?”

  “It might. They know it was all their own fault in the first place. It might cool them off for a bit.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  “They won’t do anything yet anyway. Because of Johnny, Parsons’ll be looking in their direction as well. In time, they will, sure. But it was for now I wanted to calm them down, while Parsons is sniffing about. And later on, we’ll have had a bit more time to review the position. Entrench, as they say.”

  “With Collins gone? And no Mickey?”

  I poured myself a drink.

  “We’re well rid of them.”

  “We’ve got to replace them.”

  “Of course; that’s why I wanted a little time before the Sheps figure out what stroke they’re going to pull next. We’ve got to have a look at the available material.”

  I sat down and Jean came and sat next to me.

  “Whatever we do,” she said, “you’ll have to be careful. They’ll never let up because of Johnny. I know it.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I know it, too.”

  We were silent for a while.

  “Incidentally,” I said.

  “What?”

  I slid my arm round her shoulders.

  “How did it feel?”

  “How did what feel?”

  She slid towards me, very close.

  “You know what I mean,” I said.

  She was quiet. Her hand began to stroke my thigh.

  “You know,” I said. “When you shot Mickey.”

  THE SEA

  I WAIT TILL DAYLIGHT.

  There’s no way I’m going down there in the dark. So I think my way through to the Sunday dawn. Eddie. And the girl. With her, he could be the star he felt he ought to be. With her, and with my money. Some of which I’d already donated to him, to keep him on the road. Nice one, Eddie.

  But watch the girl, Eddie. Stardom for you may not tie in with her astrological chart. Keep the ejector seat on safety, Eddie. In this particular case, you can’t use breach of contract, can you?

  If I’m right.

  The dawn comes, and with it the cold, and the sky slowly lightens.

  I put another log on the fire and get out of my chair and pour myself another drink.

  Irony, I think to myself. Everything is irony.

  I mean, I was going to spring this place on Jean. Before everything had gone wrong. As a present, as a surprise.

  That was why everything was down there on racks. Everything we’d ever made together, every video, every movie, plus prints of almost every Blue I’d ever had in circulation. For our entertainment, for her surprise. Cross-referenced and neatly stacked. It made the equivalent layout at The Yard look a little bit thin.

  And of course there was stuff down there that was not strictly for pleasure. The stuff I’d had to grab and run with when I’d left London. Most of the administrative stuff, the records. Just leaving enough essential copies with James to continue with the aspects of the business he was capable of running. As well as the money. A lot of the money was down there, too. Enough to last me until I became of pensionable age, at least.

  And that was the last time I’d been down there, to deposit the stuff. After that I’d shot the bolts and locked the padlock and put the key in my pocket and never taken it out again.

  I feel in my pocket. The key feels as cold as the sky beyond the plate glass.

  THE SMOKE

  “FIRST OF ALL YOU’D have to prove he worked for me,” I said to Parsons. “If you like you can look at the files. I don’t think you’ll find a P45, do you?”

  Parsons didn’t say anything.

  “Second,” I said, “if you could prove he worked for me, you’d have to come up with a reason for me having him topped.”

  “I think the Shepherdsons could furnish a motive, don’t you? The collaboration, or whatever it was.”

  “Oh, sure. They’re dying to get on to the centre court, aren’t they? Perhaps they’ll tell you what happened to Ray Warren’s Glenda while they’re at it.”

  “And maybe even Ray Warren.”

  “No,” I said. “They’d only be guessing there.”

  Parsons looked at the inside of his hat.

  “Anyway,” he said, “I’m not too bothered at the moment. I’ve got plenty of time. I’ll have you, no danger.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “No,” he said. “I’m more interested in what’s going on at the office at present. Collins’s retirement has created a vacuum.”

  “How can a vacuum create a vacuum?” I said.

  “Well put,” he said.

  “Are they taking bets yet?” I said.

  “On what?”

  “On who’s going to be promoted. On to my firm.”

  “Well,” he said, “that’s very interesting, because at the moment the field seems a little bit thin. In fact, it seems as though there’s really only a couple of front runners in it.”

  “Being?”

  “Now, that’s not fair, is it?” he said. “Why should I tell you that, give you that kind of advantage? Why shouldn’t you find out the hard way?”

  “It makes no difference,” I said. “I’ll find out.”

  “I know,” he said. “So I may as well tell you. It’s between me and Farlow.”

  I looked at him.

  “Now what do you think about that?” he said.

  “I think it’s as different as over the sticks is from the flat,” I said.

  “Quite,” he said, “and from what I gather, it appears that Farlow’s not entirely in favour. Oh, the rank’s there, but I don’t think they want another Collins in there, not at the moment.”

  “Why should Farlow want it, anyway? He’s well set up where he is.”

  “One would have thought so,” Parsons said. “Although perhaps he thinks he won’t be so very well set up if the Sheps happen to go down.”

  “And why should they happen to do that?” I said.

  “I can’t imagine,” he said. “Can you?”

  THE SEA<
br />
  I STAND ON THE trapdoor.

  The trick will be not to be drawn to the section where Jean is. Not to be like when I’d been standing on a pier, pulled towards the current beneath.

  I unlock the padlock and slide back the bolts and lift the trapdoor.

  I go back to the panel by the door and flick a switch and light shines up through the gaping square in the floor.

  Then I go back to the trapdoor and walk down the steps and go past the section where Jean is without looking at it.

  The section, in the cross-referenced scheme of things, wherein the evidence of the hint Lesley planted lies, contains around a hundred boxed movies, eight-millimetre stuff. The sixteen millimetre has a section to itself. So, in the eight-millimetre section, the lesbian stretch, there are a hundred movies. Twenty minutes each. Two thousand minutes altogether. But that can be halved, because half the boxes are illustrated on the outside by frame blow-ups from the prints inside, accompanied by a title. So if she’s on the inside of one of the illustrated boxes, she’ll be identified by the still on the outside. It won’t take me long to eliminate the illustrated boxes. Which will still leave me around a thousand minutes to run through the eight-millimetre projector. Assuming she’s not in any of the quality stuff. Around fifteen hours of celluloid. Two or three days’ viewing, depending how much I can take.

  But what else can I do, and what else have I got to occupy my time?

  So, in the coldness of the basement, I eliminate the illustrated boxes, because she’s not in one of them. Those that remain, I put in a big cardboard box, and carry the box to the top of the steps, and put it on the garage floor, and close the trapdoor behind me, without looking back.

  It’s a relief to slide back the bolts and re-lock the padlock, so much so that I kneel on the dusty floor for a few moments, letting the sweat fall like raindrops on the dryness of the concrete floor.

  As I stand up, I look at my watch. It is a quarter to seven.

  THE SMOKE

  “THAT WOULD BE ALL we need,” said Jean, “Parsons sitting behind Colins’s desk. Christ, from there, he could practically wave to us from the window.”

  “I know,” I said. “Anyway, he’ll never get it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’d turn over too much stuff that wouldn’t be good for the office, that’s why. You know that.”

  “And what about Farlow?”

  “He won’t either. For the opposite reason.”

  “Makes it difficult for us to set up anybody at the moment, though. Till it’s settled.”

  “Yes,” I said. “It does.”

  “Anyway,” Jean said. “All we can do is wait and see.”

  “Which I don’t very much like doing,” I said.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “You waited for me, didn’t you?”

  “Bollocks.”

  She put on her sealskin coat.

  “Where are you going?” I said.

  “Hairdresser’s,” she said. “It’s Tuesday.”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  “Gerry’s bringing the motor round.”

  “Good.”

  “I won’t be any later than two,” she said.

  The phone went. It was Gerry with the motor. Jean put the phone down and said, “See you later, then.”

  “Fine,” I said. “See you later.”

  THE SEA

  AT ELEVEN, I SHUT the projector off. Four hours of celluloid and no appearance.

  And no phone call.

  I pour myself a drink and walk over to the picture window and look out over the different perspectives of the dunes and the gorse.

  Four hours of it. Four hours of it, without Jean. For whom it was meant. Together, the two of us; without her, it almost makes me sick.

  And all I have to do is to go down there and choose from a particular group of movies or videos, and bring Jean back to life, in some cases, along with myself.

  I wait another half-hour.

  No phone call.

  Why? I could have been gone a long time by now.

  Maybe they don’t give me enough credit. Maybe they don’t think it’ll get through to me this early. Perhaps they’re waiting, luxuriating in their smartness.

  Quarter to twelve.

  All right. I’ll play it their way, if they think I’m that thick. I go down into the garage and get into the Marina and drive into Mablethorpe.

  By the time I get there it’s opening time.

  Sunday lunchtime seems to bring them out; the South is almost a tenth full. But after my third drink, there’s still no sign of Eddie.

  Jackie says, “You missed a right old session last night.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t get cleared up till half-past two, did I?”

  “That must have been handy.”

  “Well. I took a few bob, didn’t I? Didn’t do any harm.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “The bird came in later on. Round the back.”

  “Lesley?”

  “Lesley. About half an hour after you left.”

  “You’re joking,” I tell him.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Half an hour after I left? You must have been well pissed.”

  “I was. Anyway, whatever time it was, she came in and was it worth it! What a bird.”

  “Eddie here, was he? When she came.”

  “Of course. Oh, I see what you mean. It’s not like that. It’s more a business arrangement. I mean, can you imagine, her and Eddie?”

  I make no comment. Instead, I say, “Where is the superstar this morning?”

  “I should think he’s sitting trying to outstare a fried egg. Was he bottled last night! Mind you, we all were, like I say.”

  “Did Eddie and the bird leave together?”

  “Hang about. Yes. Yes, they left at the same time. But not together, know what I mean? I mean, Eddie made a big deal about going at the same time as her, but, you know.”

  “They playing anywhere tonight?”

  “No. He was saying tonight was a dead night. It’ll be a dead day today as well, as far as he’s concerned. Christ, was he bottled.”

  “So you say,” I say, and order two more drinks.

  THE SMOKE

  AT FIVE O’CLOCK, I phoned the hairdresser’s. Yes, Mrs. Fowler had been, naturally. She’d left at one-thirty.

  I broke the connection and rang downstairs.

  “Did the car come back yet?” I said.

  “NO, not yet, Mr. Fowler.”

  I put the receiver down and looked at it. There was nobody else other than James for me to phone.

  “She couldn’t have gone anywhere else?” he said.

  “Sure,” I said. “There’s a thousand places she could have gone. She could have gone to the pictures, anywhere. The point is, she didn’t say she was going anywhere else.”

  “What about the driver?”

  “If he’d been in on it she wouldn’t have made the hairdresser’s, would she?”

  “Probably not.”

  There was a silence.

  “DO you really think it’s down to them?” James said.

  “In an hour’s time I will do,” I said.

  “And then what?”

  “I’ll go looking for her, won’t I?”

  “You think if they’ve got her you’re going to be able to find her?”

  “What else can I do?”

  “I think I’d better come round,” James said.

  He was round inside of half an hour. In that time there’d been no news of Jean.

  “They won’t dare touch her,” he said, taking the brandy glass from me.

  “Won’t they?”

  “They’d have to be insane, at the moment.”

  “Then why take her? If they don’t intend doing anything to her?”

  “We can’t be certain they have, yet,” said James.

  “No,” I said. “Yet.”

  The phone rang at six o’clock.<
br />
  “Sweating, Fowler?” the voice said.

  I didn’t say anything. There was soft laughter at the other end of the phone.

  “Want to talk to her?” said the voice. “To make sure she can still talk back.”

  “Yes.”

  There was a short silence and then Jean came on the line.

  “George,” she said, “I’m all right.”

  “Where are you?”

  The other voice came back on the line.

  “You move out of your place and she’s dead. Even to get the night paper. We’ll phone you back at nine. They tell me Scrabble’s good for passing the time.”

  Then the line went dead.

  THE SEA

  EDDIE DOESN’T APPEAR ALL lunchtime. Nor the girl. But then I hadn’t expected her to appear.

  When the South closes, I drive out of Mablethorpe and past the bungalow and on to the track that leads to the beach.

  The beach is totally empty.

  I walk to my tank and sit on the top and take out my flask and review the flatness.

  My different lines of footprints stretch away into infinity which, in that case, is the mouth of the track.

  Then it occurs to me.

  There’d been no footprints for her at the mouth of the track. No footsteps stretching away towards Mablethorpe, in the opposite direction to mine.

  If she’d walked home along the beach, there would have been footprints. Mine are still there, from the day before and from the day before that.

  She’d walked home by the beach, all right.

  I smile to myself. I expect the bastard thinks it’s very funny, picking her up in the van which is only on the road through my money.

  It would only have taken him ten minutes. Nipped out the back of the South, over here, back with her, so it looks as though he’s been chucking up in the bog and she’s just walked in.

  Nice one, Eddie.

  But what is even nicer is that as yet you don’t know I’ve connected you up. When you see me next you’ll still think I haven’t clocked it, won’t you? And that’ll be good fun. Whether I get her phone call before or after I see you next, you’ll still be playing the game, won’t you, Eddie?