Nicola Griffith - The Blue Place

I unscrewed the cap and laid it carefully on the grass verge. I sloshed gas inside the car, over his body. Judging by the way he squealed and thrashed, it stung on that wound.

“I was stupid, Denneny. Who warned me off this case in the first place? Why would someone leave all that coke at the scene of a crime unless they could get it back from the evidence locker whenever they wanted? I should have known, but I trusted you. Trusted your rules. But you broke all those rules, for money. When did you stop caring, Denneny?”

The can was heavy; my shoulder burned.

“Who could have called Lyon Art to get the information about Olsen Glass? Who took his holidays in California, where Michael Honeycutt used to work? Who knew where to find three men who would kill for money?” He choked on the gas. “Who might be expected to find out Honeycutt was laundering cartel drug money? So simple. All I had to do was put it all together, Denneny, but I didn’t. I didn’t ask that last question: who was the only person—the only one, Denneny—that I trusted to help me with this?”

I should have remembered: the Viking never plays by the rules.

“Did you laugh when you pulled the strings? Did you think I was funny, running around like a dumb but faithful dog, bringing you bones? No, because nothing amuses you anymore, does it? And nothing annoys you. Nothing fills you with joy. It’s all gone. You’re dead inside. Empty.”

I stepped back and looked at him. Drenched to his skin. I tore off his shirt and twisted it, then knotted it into something I could throw. My head pounded, and when I bent down for the gas can the grass verge swooped. The cap got cross-threaded when I tried to screw it back on. I had to take it off and start again. I carried it back to the Volvo and returned with matches.

I tossed his gun into the backseat, then pulled a penny from my pocket. It was warm in my hand; bright and sharp. I held it up between finger and thumb. In the headlights it could have been gold. “All for this, Denneny. All for money.” I put it back in my pocket. My fare for the ferryman, not his.

I stepped back and struck a match. It burned electric blue at the centre but its wavering tip was the yellow of every torch ever used to light a pyre, that most human of fires that roars against the night to keep the ice from our hearts. I touched the match to the shirt, which I whirled over my head until it was a great orange wheel. I threw it into the car.

At Little Five Points, the night was full of the noise and laughter of people who don’t know that the trolls always get you in the end, who when they look up at the night do not understand that the beauty of the bright stars turning overhead, though vast, was created by a universe utterly indifferent to their fate. These young, healthy innocents understand only enough to be a little afraid, so they fill themselves with pot and beer and in the light of a myriad cafés listen to inept street players trying to drive back the dark.

I walked into Borealis. The tables seemed to get in my way, and the chairs were not where they should have been. Don’t let machines keep me alive , she had said. Don’t let them . And I had promised.

“Aud! What in the world is the matter?” Over his shoulder, he called, “Two lattés over here, Jonie, please. Sit, Aud. Sit, for the love of god.” He led me to a corner table. “What is that terrible smell? Gas, is it? You’ve been in some accident? No? Well, never mind. You’ll live. How’s Julia?”

Julia, with the indigo eyes and the laugh like Armagnac. Julia, who had thought she was ready. I took the penny from my pocket. Fare for the ferryman. But Stay in the world , she had said. I spun the penny on the table and, while it turned, stared past him, past the innocents with their light and their noise, and out into the night.

“She died.”

She died, but Stay in the world, Aud , she’d said. Stay alive inside. Promise me . I closed my fist around the spinning penny. Just a coin. The world fractured; meltwater ran down my face.

NICOLA GRIFFITH is a native of Leeds, England. At eighteen she moved to Hull, where she taught women’s self-defense—to groups as diverse as the Equal Opportunities Training Unit and the Union of Catholic Mothers. She was also the lead singer/songwriter for the all-woman band, Jane’s Plane. She is the author of Ammonite and Slow River , and the editor of the Bending the Landscape series. Ms Griffith currently lives in Seattle with her partner, writer Kelley Eskridge. Her homepage may be found at http://www.nicolagriffith.com .

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THE BLUE PLACE.

Copyright © 1998

by Nicola Griffith.

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ISBN: 9780061856181

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