Peter Temple - Shooting Star

‘Mr Carson,’ I said. ‘My fear is that the police won’t even get a ten-minute media blackout now. It’s too long after the event. And the force leaks. Too many people are involved. You can’t keep it secret. That’s why they have to go to the media and beg them not to print stories like this.’

‘Yes? That means?’

‘It means the kidnappers will assume that you went to the police straight away and the police arranged a media blackout. On Thursday. That you disobeyed instructions from the start. Like Alice again, Mr Carson.’

Noyce held up a hand, like a schoolboy in class. ‘Mr Carson,’ he said, a pressing tone of voice, ‘I think we need to talk to Tom about this.’

Pat looked up, looking at me not at Noyce. He blew out breath, a sad sound, half sigh, half whistle. He leaned forward, put his forehead on his clasped hands, closed his eyes.

We sat there, not looking at one another, for a long time. Finally, Pat spoke, voice barely audible.

‘In your hands, Frank. We’re in your hands.’

Hands.

Without thought, dread making a ball rise in my stomach, press against the solar plexus, I looked at my hands lying between my thighs, palms upward. My mother’s voice was in my head, the sharp intonation, the pauses:

We will fall into the hands of the Lord, and not into the hands of men. For as his majesty is, so is his mercy.

I didn’t have the hands for this kind of thing anymore, not the hands, not the heart. The ability to take responsibility for the lives of others had gone from me in a few horrible moments, left my being and floated away. I hadn’t known that then. Learning it took time. Much too much time.

Weak at heart, I said, ‘I want to talk to the girl’s mother. And to take the calls from now on. I want them diverted to me.’

That done, that leaden step taken, Orlovsky and I walked back to the Garden House in silence. Inside, hands in pockets, he stood looking out at the garden, patches of sunlight falling on it, drifting like memories, not warming anything.

‘I know the money’s nice,’ he said, ‘but are you out of your fucking skull?’

I was sitting in an armchair, an armchair stuffed with horsehair, firm. ‘I didn’t walk when I should have,’ I said. ‘I wanted the money. They call the cops now, it’s on the radio this afternoon, TV tonight. She’s dead. Dead today. I had to tell them that.’

Silence. He didn’t look at me. The phone beside me rang.

‘Calder.’

‘What’s this crap about talking to Christine? Whose idea is this?’

Tom Carson, gruff voice.

I waited a few seconds. ‘You don’t want me to? That’s fine with me. I’m happy to take leave of the Carsons now. This second.’

Tom’s turn to pause. Then he said, no change in tone, ‘What I’m saying is, isn’t there anything more useful you could be doing?’

Orlovsky was looking at me, a little cock of the stubbled head.

‘In these matters,’ I said, ‘what’s useful is pretty much a matter of judgment, usually retrospective judgment. I’d be pleased to leave the judgment to you. And to give you a partial refund.’

Another pause, just a second, then Tom said, ‘You sound like a lawyer. Except for the refund. Tell Noyce to arrange the chopper.’

The helicopter landed on an expanse of mown grass a hundred metres from the complex of modern buildings. Its rotors blew away grass cuttings in all directions, a violent cuttings storm that caused the two people waiting to turn their backs and put their hands to their faces.

I waited until the noise stopped and the blades stopped before I got out, walked out from under the drooping swords and shook hands with the tall middle-aged woman and the younger and shorter man. She was wearing a white polo-neck shirt and black pants. He was in a dark suit, white shirt, striped tie.

‘We haven’t seen anyone from the family for quite a while,’ the woman said. She was English, could talk while exposing horse teeth and pink gums.

The man looked at her, their eyes met. ‘No criticism intended, of course,’ she said. ‘We understand how busy people are these days.’

I didn’t say anything, nodded at them.

The man smiled at me like a doorman at a five-star hotel. ‘We absolutely do,’ he said. ‘Do understand. Now Mrs Carson’s not in a terribly receptive mood, Mr Calder. Her doctor will give you a full briefing.’

‘Is she violent?’

The man was taken aback, tilted his head, raised his eyebrows, little downturning of the mouth. ‘Well, she can be that way inclined. It’s the price one pays. A trade-off. The alternative…’ He let the alternative hang, float off.

‘Forget about the briefing,’ I said.

‘It would be advisable, Mr Calder.’ A serious tone.

‘No. I don’t have the time.’ There wasn’t any pleasure in working for the Carsons unless you could behave like one.

They looked at each other, assigning responsibility.

‘You’ll have someone with you,’ the man said. ‘That is our policy.’

We walked across to the building, down a wide verandah with groups of plastic outdoor furniture, through a glass door into a reception area done in pastel colours with chrome and grey commercial chairs. It was empty, no one behind the counter.

‘Quiet around here,’ I said.

‘Generally, visits are by appointment,’ the woman said. I wasn’t looking at her but, at the edge of my vision, I saw the wet teeth and gums. She went to the counter and picked up a handset, said a few words.

We went down corridors lit by slit windows, passed doors with numbers, went through a gravelled courtyard with a square of grass and a drought-stricken birdbath, and came to a door at a dead end.

A woman in her twenties was waiting for us in front of the door, facing us, another short woman wearing the same white polo-neck and black jacket and pants uniform. Jaggedly cut hair, a home job, dyed blonde, dark roots, no neck to speak of. Martial arts said the balanced stance, the level shoulders, the loose arms. The cockiness.

‘This is Jude,’ the man said. ‘She’ll be with you while you talk to Mrs Carson.’

Jude moved her lips, some attempt at communication.

The man opened the door with a key. Jude went in first. Then her handler. I followed him in. It was a small square room, lit from a skylight. There was a door in the far wall and beside it a low window, one pane of thick security glass. In the wall beneath the window was a stainless-steel drawer front. A chrome and grey chair stood in front of it.

‘With other patients, we would ask you to visit from this room,’ the man said. ‘However, Mrs Carson won’t come near the window.’ He flicked a switch beside the window and a monitor above the door lit up.

It showed a grey view of a room, rectangular items of furniture, a figure slumped on one of them.

‘Your visitor’s here, Mrs Carson,’ the man said.

The woman didn’t respond. He unlocked the door and opened it. Jude went in first. The man ushered me in after her, closed the door behind us.

‘A visitor, Christine,’ said Jude.

Christine Carson was lolling on her spine in a chair carved from a cube of dense grey foam rubber, no cover on it. There were three more foam chairs in the room. That was it. No other furnishings, no pictures. A television set was behind security glass in the wall to my right, controlled by big soft rubber buttons below it. To my left was another room reached through an archway. I could see the end of a low grey foam rectangle, presumably a bed. Light came through slit windows, panes of security glass set in the masonry, behind Christine.

‘Don’t call me Christine,’ said Christine. ‘You’ve never been asked to, never will be.’ She looked at me. ‘I don’t know you. Have you been sent to kill me?’