The Long and Spectacular Life of Agnes Magnusdottir 23

The human body holds on average ten pints of blood. The blood is pumped around the veins by the heart. The heart is the repository of love. And if the heart should have nothing to pump?

    McPhearson’s office wasn't even locked. That was the arrogance of the powerful. And the reason why I, small fry, would overcome.

    It was in the third drawer that I found it. Magnusdottir’s file was larger than any of the others and in this way easy to spot. 

    "If you would like to attend our offices at 9 a.m. in company with your agent then I would be happy to discuss terms." 

    The address was now famous, a bedsit behind the capital’s most grandiose station. The Ministry of Complaints had been written there, Magnusdottir unaware of the fate that awaited her.

    I flicked manically through the pages, blood dripping from my arm onto them. 

    There were requests for interviews, information about foreign language rights, hundreds and hundreds of very dry epistles about the forthcoming movie. 

    I spilled the pages down onto the floor until finally after quite an ecstatic note advising of a Chinese edition they stopped abruptly. 

    I looked for another folder. But there wasn't one. I breathed deeply. They give sweet tea to drunks. But I had no sweet tea. I fisted my eyes and my fists came away with tears. 

    It couldn't be. I was Batman. He always finds the answers and beats the bad guys.

    Overcome with despair I fell to the floor, beat at it with both my balled up hands and that was when I spotted it.  

    It was right by my nose. 

    Who'd have thought it?

Extract from The Ministry of Complaints 

Hans rose slowly, his old knees stiff and clicking, and walked into his tiny bathroom where he peered at himself closely in the square mirror above his sink.

    "Who am I?" he asked. And then, "How did I get myself into this mess?"

    He pulled back his lips and imagined himself a general with a thousand troops at his disposal. "Charge!" he mouthed and believed he could hear two thousand feet but there was nothing, nothing except his stomach rumbling. 

    At work Meyer complained that he had a pain in his bum and Becker went off with him to look at it. When he came back Becker said, "piles. As big and red as the heads of tulips."

    "Tulips," said Schmidt. "I remember them. I can't think how long it is since I've seen a good tulip."

    "Are you taking the piss?” Meyer, cloud-faced, stomped off. 

    "Honestly," said Becker, "you should have seen them." Then he said, "A man in his condition shouldn’t stomp. One of those babies bursts and he'd bleed out. And who would it be who’s cleaning up the mess?"

    The hours followed each other like very slow trains. At every opening of the door Hans expected to see police come to arrest him. Things were coming to an end. Amelia and her mother and been arrested and he himself was on the cusp of finding out the truth behind Wolf’s assassination. He had only a few pages of Zelig’s code still to translate. The answer, he was sure, would be in there. 

    And what then? 

    After work he made his way to Amelia’s apartment. He was hoping for a miracle, that she and her mother might be there.

    "Hello," he called out. "Hello."

    As he tapped on the door it swung open. 

    "Hello," he said again but already he could see the rooms were empty. On the table were two half full coffee cups, two plates sat in the sink, unwashed. On the bed was a crude teddy, hand-fashioned, its button eyes staring accusingly at Hans. 

    "I'm sorry," he said and then, because he might as well finish in this place as well as anywhere, and indeed there was a certain symmetry to it, he pulled out Amelia’s father’s pages from where he had secreted them in his underpants and set about his final translation. 

Chapter 17.

I was woken by a loud knocking. I opened my eyes to find I was on the balcony of my apartment. More precisely, on the floor of it, naked except for some bloody material wrapped around my arm and a manila folder balanced precariously on my nether regions. 

    When the knocking came again, loud indeed if it could penetrate to where I was lying, I twisted around and saw through the glass of the door Russell appear in the corridor with Zara’s skimpiest dressing gown wrapped around him, his legs descending from its lacy hem as muscular as a racehorse’s.

    Five minutes after that Zara was standing over me. 

    "Put some bloody clothes on for Christ’s sake.” 

    Her voice was both angry and worried. I recalled the time when she had woken from her first operation. I had waited the whole time by the side of the bed. So much water had flowed under the bridge since then. 

     “That was the police. They were looking for you. I told them you don't live here anymore. Russell had to show him his driver’s licence just to prove he wasn't you." She nudged me in the ribs with a bare toe. "I want you gone. If you don't go I'll call those officers back and this time I'll let them take you. You should thank me for giving you this chance. Are you listening?"

    I was listening but what could I say? Both literally and physically.   

    "Just tell me one thing." 

    She hovered by the door, one hand on it clutching tightly like she feared if she let go she would be blown away.

    "Did you break into Gartree McPhearson’s office and steal a manuscript?"