Nicola Griffith - The Blue Place

I sat on the deck sipping a Corona, watching the last bloody footprint of the sun fading from the sky, listening to the tree frogs and crickets, thinking idly that I really should cut some flower borders at the back one of these days.

A murder, some cocaine, a fake painting. Sweeting and Honeycutt.

Sweeting was ruthless, no doubt about it, but I agreed with Eddie: faking a painting did not fit his profile, nor did an anonymous murder. Which left Michael Honeycutt, as I’d known it would.

Roman coins. Unmarried. Jade carvings. No parking tickets. Fabergé eggs. The Seychelles. Democratic Party. Cocaine. I could not see a connection.

A huge barred owl ghosted silently across the garden to land in the pecan tree overlooking the deck. It turned its head this way and that, intent. Somewhere on the lawn a shrew crept through the grass in a desperate search for juicy insects to stoke its ever-needy metabolism. The owl focused for an instant, dropped into a shallow glide. It dipped once and I heard the tiniest squeak, then the soft wingspan and full talons were lifting over the hedge, blending with the darkness to the east.

That night I dreamt of a man in a bathtub. He looked dead but he wasn’t, he kept sitting up. Every time he sat up, I hit him: palm strike to the nose, thud and splinter of bone slamming into his already dead brain; knife hand to the larynx, crushing it like cardboard; double fist to the temple, fingers sinking in to the second knuckle. But he kept sitting up. And then he smiled and opened his mouth, and out flew an owl, clutching a small jade statue in its taloned fist.

I woke at six with my muscles pulled tight as guy ropes and my mind flapping like a split sail in a high wind. My hands kept flexing of their own accord, remembering hitting his face. I pulled on shorts, boots and muscle-tee, took a bottle of water from the fridge, and went out into the back. The air was still and quiet, heavy with morning damp and the scent of jasmine. The shed I had built under the deck was dark. The spade hung from the opposite wall. I took it down and unwrapped it. It took a while to locate the tarpaulins.

Cutting flower borders through healthy sod is hard work but my body needed to sweat for a while, and I have never understood the wasteful American pastime of running. Why not direct your muscles towards something useful? After I had laid out four overlapping tarps, I set the gleaming edge of the spade against the damp turf, put my boot on the rim and pumped, taking great satisfaction from the slide and grit of steel through dirt. I turned the sod onto the tarp. Set and pumped and turned, set and pumped and turned. After half an hour, I switched feet.

An hour later the muscles of thigh, calf and lower back were warm and supple and the tarps full. I switched to the fork, bending my knees, letting my triceps and shoulders power the tines through the topsoil. Birds were singing now, and in the distance I heard the chunk of a car door and an engine turning over. At some point the background had filled with the hum of traffic streaming down McLendon three blocks away. I worked on.

By the time I had all the borders cut and the dirt turned, had cleaned and oiled the garden tools and put everything away, it was nine-thirty, and though my skin was slick with sweat and muscles burning, I felt calm and refreshed. I had a leisurely shower, an enjoyable breakfast of cold rice and smoked fish with hot, fragrant tea, then called my banker.

“Laurence, it’s Aud Torvingen. Very well, thank you. And you? Catherine and the children? Good. Laurence, I wonder if I might impose upon your goodwill for a few minutes this afternoon. I find myself floundering for information on a subject far outside my area of expertise. I hoped I could persuade you to share some of your experience on these matters.”

It was a very small branch, and my deposits were substantial. He said yes, of course, and how did one o’clock suit?

From the Spanish consulate downtown, the drive to my Decatur bank along Piedmont and then North Avenue is about twenty minutes if you ignore the speed limit. I whipped along, letting the slipstream take care of the pollen on the Saab’s paintwork, enjoying the power under my hands, the smooth glide of the stick as I shifted into fourth. Traffic was surprisingly light and I cut through it like an otter knifing playfully through the water. I opened the windows. Nina Simone sang “Feeling Good” in her chocolate and cream voice. A wonderful morning to be alive.

I had Beatriz del Gato’s proposed itinerary weighted open on the seat next to me. She wanted to visit a Spanish-speaking school in Duluth then go on to a community centre in Buford. Just as Philippe said: boring. Other places on her list—apart from the half dozen ad agencies downtown—included Underground Atlanta and a Catholic church. She was twenty-three, reasonably good looking if the photo was anything to go by, well educated, and all she wanted to do in the historic South was visit a mediocre mall, go to Mass, and try to get a job.

I made it to the bank in fifteen minutes.

Laurence is about fifty, one of those African-Americans from the North who heard that Atlanta, the City Too Busy to Hate, was a paradise of opportunity. He applied for a corporate transfer and moved his whole family, hoping for big things. He had been here nine years now, long enough to realize that the good old boy network was even stronger here than in Pittsburgh. He had managed this bank for all of those nine years. He no longer expected to be promoted out of there. Once a year I met his wife and children at the stiff Christmas function the bank held for its more important customers. We treated each other with unfailing politeness.

Today he looked a little more formal than usual as he ushered me into his office. We sat in two comfortable easy chairs near the silk rubber plant whose leaves shivered in the hissing air-conditioning. “Perhaps you would like to tell us how we can help you.”

He almost always said we . I don’t think I had ever heard him say anything personal, ever use I . “The matter I wish to discuss is rather confidential.” He simply nodded. “I need to know what kind of responsibilities and authority would be expected of and given to a particular banking position. The position I am talking about is as a vice president with a very well established investment bank in this city.”

“Do you have any additional information? It could…” He pushed his glasses up. “Well, it’s a little like you being asked by someone: What does a police lieutenant do?”

“I take your point.” A lieutenant could be on a SWAT team, could be a PR person, in Internal Affairs, homicide…. “The banker in question may or may not have been involved in the effort to persuade a foreign automaker to build a plant in North Carolina; he flies to the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Seychelles. I could tell you what sort of authority and accountability a lieutenant in the APD would have, but I have no idea about bank VPs.”

“Given that he is a vice president, he is to some extent legally responsible for the affairs of that company and can be held liable. To the same extent, he—depending on the decision-making policy of the company—would be able to commit the company to a certain amount on his own recognizance.”

He wasn’t giving me anything I didn’t already know. I wondered what he would do if I leaned forward and said: Larry, I don’t belong here, either. It’s a beautiful day outside. Let’s go get a six-pack and watch the ducks on the pond . It would never happen. He had so many defenses because he needed them. No doubt he saw armour glinting around me that I was not even aware of. He probably hated being called Larry. “So he wouldn’t necessarily be checked up on a great deal?”