Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries 6

“They’re lucky to have you,” Iles said. “Everyone realises that. But don’t muck Col and me about, Ralph, there’s a chum. Just give us what Max said, what you said, what the women said, would you? Something agreed at the afternoon meeting and then Articulate comes in late to confirm? Or cancel?”

“Casual conviviality, that’s all. You make it all sound very purposeful and businesslike, Mr. Iles,” Ralph said, “whereas-”

“Yes, purposeful and businesslike,” Iles said. “That’s our impression.”

“Your impression via a fink,” Ember said-”as through a grass darkly.”

“Wow, Ralph!” Iles said.

“It’s the later conversation that really interests us,” Harpur said.

“Generalities, I should think,” Ember said. He did a frown to indicate he meant to try to help them and recollect. “Weather. Holidays. Cricket. The usual small talk. We try to avoid politics-too controversial. I bump into so many people in the club and have a few unimportant yet, I trust, comradely words. These little pow-wows seem to merge into one pleasant and not very significant encounter. I don’t know whether Max would recall things better than I. It might be in your interests to talk to him, if you feel something significant might have come up.”

“The thing about Articulate is, he’s dead,” Iles replied.

“My God,” Ralph said. The shock was real.

“Which is why what he talked about with you might be to the point,” Harpur said.

“Generalities,” Ralph said.

“Shot,” Harpur replied.

“My God,” Ralph said.

“Our impression is that he meant to bop Luke Apsley Beynon, but got bopped himself,” Harpur said.

“As most of us would have forecast,” Iles said. “I mean, was Articulate Max anywhere near capable as executioner?”

“The whisper’s around, isn’t it, that he was in on the I.C.D.S. robbery with some sort of stooge function?” Harpur said. “Did that make him feel suddenly big and mature and competent-and free up his voice box?”

“Poor deluded prat,” Iles said. “He gave himself a mission on your behalf? Luke Apsley Beynon’s been breathing untender words to you, hasn’t he, Ralph? This is our information.”

“Luke Beynon?” Ember replied.

“Did Articulate, with his new gloss, offer to knock him over for you?” Iles said. “Suddenly he thinks he’s one of Nature’s hit men? Were you and he talking some kind of deal? You’ll see why we’re concerned about his appearances here, especially the second one, without his minders, the women. Did he need to say something they shouldn’t hear?”

“Deal?” Ember said.

“Quid pro quo ism of some sort,” Iles said.

“Generalities,” Ralph replied.

“We’re charging Luke,” Harpur said. “He’ll go down. His firm will break up without him.”

“So you don’t come out of this at all too badly, Ralph, do you?” Iles said. “You won’t have to cower behind the collage anymore.”

Ember replenished their drinks and took more armagnac himself. “I think about his mother and great-aunt Edna,” he said.

“Those two are provided for, we believe,” Iles said.

“I mean their grief,” Ralph said.

“You were always one for tenderness to prized Monty members, Ralphy,” Iles replied.

Alex, I never said it was you. I never said the man on the Tube was you. I said he looked like you. So much like you it was like we were back together again. And since I couldn’t be with you any more, I could be with this version of you. That’s what I was saying. That’s what I said.

I never said he was you. I made it perfectly clear that he couldn’t be you and that I understood that. His head was shaved. You would never do that. You’re too proud of your hair. You wouldn’t deny yourself the pleasure of wearing it long. He was also younger, ten, maybe fifteen years younger. But his bone structure was the same, his eyes were identical. You know what, I’m coming round to the idea that he was you, after all. Nor was it on the Central line that I saw him. It was the Hammersmith & City line. That’s what I said and that’s what it was. I got on at Shepherd’s Bush, you got that bit right. I got on at Shepherd’s Bush and he was already on, having boarded at Hammersmith or Goldhawk Road. There he was, in my carriage, and there was a seat right opposite him, so I took it. Because it was the Hammersmith & City line, I saw him in natural light, and natural light leaves no room for doubt. The Central line is underground at Shepherd’s Bush and while I’ll admit the Central line does have a peculiarly attractive light, it’s not the same. I might not have been so certain. Plus, if it had been the Central line, how would I have followed him off the train at King’s Cross?

I didn’t say I followed him into an abandoned building either. I followed him into an art gallery, that place on Wharf Road, that big one with the exposed brick walls. I said it looked like an abandoned building. Just as the man on the train looked like you. Geddit?

Anyway, I found out who he is. OK? Maybe this will make you happy, because it should demonstrate to you once and for all that I don’t think he’s you. I know he’s someone else. He’s an actor. I know because I saw him in something on TV. I was watching this crime drama, alone in the flat, because, you know – I live alone these days, with my unwashed towels and chipped cereal bowls dusted white with crushed paracetamol. That’s another thing about your email. You contradict yourself. One minute you say I walked out on you, then you’re saying you left me. Make your mind up. You can’t have it both ways. So I’m watching this thing. It was ITV but it was quite good. You wouldn’t have given it a chance, of course. That was how I knew you wouldn’t be watching it, because it was on ITV. I presume you don’t watch ITV with Fareda, either. I presume you’re as judgmental as you ever were. See, I don’t mind writing her name, now I know what it is. I don’t bear her any ill will. As a matter of fact I feel sorry for her. Are you going to do to her what you did to me? Poor girl.

There he was, in the background in one scene. Little more than an extra but he did have a line of dialogue. It was him, I was certain of it, and he looked as much like you on TV as he had on the train. His name was in the credits. Let’s call him Anthony.

I discovered something else. That film you showed me shortly after we first started seeing each other - Un soir, un train - that black and white Belgian film from the 1960s. You said I looked like Anouk Aimee. Looking back, maybe you wanted me to infer that you looked like Yves Montand. I watched it again the other day. As you know, when I say the other day, I generally mean the other week. You used to find this charming. The way the film pans out is a bit like what happened to us. That village where Mathias and his two companions end up, where they can’t understand a word the villagers are saying, that’s a bit like us at the end. It was like we were speaking different languages, and not just different languages from the same group, like two romance languages, but two completely different languages from different origins entirely. Arabic and Hungarian, Inuit and Welsh. Although, of course, only one of us had changed the language they were speaking.

It’s scary, a bit creepy, that film. Maybe you shouldn’t give a copy to Fareda. Maybe you shouldn’t take her dancing, either. That’s when I fell in love with you, you know. When we were dancing at that party in Shepherd’s Bush and every five minutes a train went by on the elevated line above the market. You grabbed me and made me watch as one went past.