H= They Ate the Truth 8

Another thing you don't know about bodies till you get near one is
that the sweeping thing doctors do with the flat of their palm to close
the corpse's eyes doesn't actually work when you try it for
yourself.

I'm still thinking about how Alastair's eyes looked when I get back to
the house. Lorrie is chatting with Matthew and she is treating the gun
very casually, she has the side of it against her cheek while she
talks, as though it were no more dangerous than a telephone.

Come here Watson, I want you.

The first, and quite possibly the last completely innocuous words ever
to be said on the telephone.

"Where's Alastair ? " asks Matthew.

I think about shoving the gun in his face, do the tough guy bit, but
instead I cross over to the sink and wash my hands, the water is warm
and the tap squeals a little. The butt of the gun is greasy as I take
it out of my waistband, so I wash that too and give it a brisk dry with
a tea-towel.

I open a cupboard and take out a bottle of Scotch and a tumbler. I pour
myself a generous hit of whiskey.

"That's not a good idea, " says Lorrie, concerned.

It's all I can think of, I tell her. I stand for a few seconds, looking
at the liquid in the glass, more amber than brown, I see the faint
upward curl where the miniscus comes to meet the edge of the glass.
Then I tip the liquid into the sink.

"Where's Alastair ? " asks Matthew.

"Dead, " I say, blankly, "But so is the shooter. "

I turn to see that Lorrie is pointing the gun at me, my gun is still
wrapped in a tea towel.

She asks me, bluntly, what is going on and I have to tell her that I
don't really know, but that she is pointing the gun at the one person
in the room who isn't trying to keep her quiet or make her dead. She
buys this, we have got to know each other a bit in the short but
intense relationship we've had.

It's not worth questioning Matthew, I can see that. Nobody would trust
him with anything important.

"Keys, " I say to him.

He tries to act dumb, or maybe not, "What keys?"

Lorrie catches on fast, "Your car keys. Alastair said you were waiting
in a car. "

She's got over the news fast, I notice. Maybe, although she doesn't
remember it, she's more familiar with death than most people. Does that
remain ? If you don't remember nearly choking on a fish cake as a
child, you might not know why you won't eat fish, but you still have
the aversion. So people tell me - people who don't like fish and have
mother's who tell them why.

"This is a major incident, " protests Matthew, "Agent down,
unidentified shooter down. Neither of you are going anywhere. "

I can see now why Alastair didn't bring this chump in to do the two-man
questioning of me. There's nothing to work with. He may as well be a
Trainee Assistant Manager at Homebase - all he knows is a set of rules
and has no idea where to go when they let him down.

I waggle the gun at him, Lorrie does likewise. This jogs his memory a
little.

"Right, " I say to him, "You can either give us the keys and then let
us tie you up, or I can shoot you through the shin. I'm thinking that'd
be quite painful. Yes, quite?quite painful. "

He puts the keys on the worktop and slides them over to Lorrie. I'm
about to tell her to take them with her free hand and not to look, keep
eye contact on Matthew, but she doesn't need telling.

We find stuff to tie him up with, not as easy as you might think.
There's little rope in the house and very little of anything like ties,
nothing masculine left in the house at all. Spaces in wardrobes, empty
hangers to show where they were. Eventually we settle for spare
bed-linen, which we tear into strips. We're about to put him in a chair
and bind him when I think of something much cleverer.

"Wait, " I say, "Lorrie, you get the car and bring it over to the
building site, close as you can. Matthew, come with me and don't try
anything. "

After he's helped me and we've loaded the car, I take him back to the
house and tie him to the chair. I don't gag him, I hate the feeling of
not being able to breathe freely - I've been known to lash out at a
dentist who put his metal mirror into my mouth because it make me feel
like I was choking. Besides, who is he going to shout for ?

Lorrie waits in the car. I check the boot to make sure it is shut tight
and get in. I put my gun in the glove compartment and leave it open
just a little longer to see if she does the same. She doesn't. I can't
see the gun, but it is probably in that skirt that runs across the
inside of the door that you can use to put Polos or map books in.

"Where to ? " she asks. This is a nice car. I know nothing at all about
cars, but this one is silver, roomy and smells of real leather.
Something expensive, maybe that one Steve McQueen drives in the advert,
maybe the one that the two yuppies admire that ends with one pretending
to drive a squash backstroke to draw attention away from his stupidity.
Cool car, anyway.

I have somewhere in mind, but I realise just how bloody hungry I am. We
didn't get to eat and I've had some heavy work to do. I give Lorrie the
choice, she might be sickened by the very idea of food.

"Curry, " she says, "I'd love a curry. "

I've never eaten a curry in a car before, and I've spent a lot of time
in cars, watching houses, waiting for people - I've eaten plenty of
pizza, chips, Kentucky, but never a balti. It's a liberating experience
- the stink rises like in a sauna, but it is wonderful, we can feel the
hunger sweat out of us. We spill pilau rice on the floor, little red
and yellow scatterings. We rip up warm naan and eat straight from the
foil containers, the brown bags on our laps to soak up the grease. As
Lorrie says to me, it isn't our car, so it hardly matters. She has
chicken tikka masala and the red of the chicken is fierce.

After we're done, she asks me where to, and I ask her to drive back to
my offices.

We get out of the car and I open the boot with Alastair's little
singing keyfob.

I say to her, "You might not want to see this. "

She says, "I want to. I want to know if I'm shocked, but I don't think
I will be. "

I move out of her way. We both know she won't be shocked, but she
doesn't know why.

She says, "I was planning to become a school teacher. That was what I
was going to do next, after I'd been to see you. Primary school. I can
play the piano, I know that. Something simple and ordinary. "

"I knew a primary schoolteacher once, " I say, by way of comfort, "She
kidnapped a little girl, raised her as her own. For twenty years.
"

I don't think it helped too much.

"Hello Alastair, " I say to the body in the trunk, not so elegant now
with red thin marks running down his cream jacket and a hole in his
chest, "I know you thought I didn't have the guts to let my bugs take a
look at you, but things are different now. I need to know what you
knew. "

I take a deep breath, I'm crossing so many lines at the moment. The
bugs will strip all his secrets out of him. Dead men don't tell tales ?
Oh, but they do. The bugs will find it, those memories aren't yet gone.
I'll find out a lot from this guy, plenty of stuff I don't need, but
maybe something that will tell me why Lorrie's in danger, or even
something I can use as a lever to get someone else to tell me.

"Watch the car, " I say to Lorrie, "I'm just going to get the bugs.
"

She looks at me, I can tell she's frightened, maybe for the first time
that day.

"He knew about me, " she says, moving her watch around on her left
wrist, "He knew me before, when I knew stuff. "

"That's right, " I say, "And whatever it is you knew, it's getting you
in a heap of trouble. I can't tell what kind of trouble unless I get
some answers from him. "

She moves her feet around nervously and says, "But suppose. What if you
find out that I was awful, that I did evil things ?"

I move over to her, take her in my arms, something I ought to have done
about an hour ago. I hold her there and smell her hair.

"I'm no philosopher, " I say, "But if you did bad things, the bit of
you that was bad is gone too. Finding out what they were doesn't bring
that bad girl back. "

Am I convinced by this ? If you kill someone and then every trace of
that experience, everything that led up to it and followed it, is taken
away, are you still a killer or not ? Could you do it again, if the
right circumstances were put there ?

I go into the office. My very expensive computers are now sharp icicles
of glass and fractured keyboards bent and snapped like X-rays doctors
would wince at. My bug cases are opened and the bugs have been trodden
underfoot. Their sticky innards are visible where their shells have
snapped. They are so clean, a white that has just a hint of
yellow,
like conkers I opened up before their time.

What now ?

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