Iain Banks - Dead Air

‘Oh. Yeah. Of course.’

‘Yeah, you try findin a ho wot can speak English round ere.’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Yeah; they’re all from Eastern Europe or somewhere now, aren’t they?’

‘Slaves,’ Craig repeated. ‘Take their passports, tell them they’ve got to work off some ludicrous amount of debt. The girls think once they’ve done that they can start earning some for themselves and sending money back home but of course they never do.’ He nodded. ‘Read about it. Observer, I think.’

‘And the police are out, I suppose,’ I said, ‘because then they’ll just get deported, or slung into a detention centre or something.’

‘Not to mention what’ll appen to their family back ome.’ Ed clicked his fingers. ‘Nuvvir fing your Mr Merrial’s involved in, come to fink of it. Im an is Albanian chums.’

‘Who?’ Craig said, looking mystified.

I had a sudden fit of hull-breach-category paranoia, and waved one hand with what I hoped looked like airily casual dismissiveness.

‘Woops!’ Ed said, catching the glass before it fell all the way to the floor. ‘Nuffing in it anyway.’

‘Sorry, sorry,’ I said. ‘Um, ah, yeah; too complicated,’ I told the still mystified-looking Craig. I turned to Ed.

‘Ed,’ I said. ‘What do you believe in?’

‘I believe it’s time for anuvver drink, mate.’

‘I wasn’t. I didn’t. I didn’t say half the things I was supposed to have said.’

‘Ya. So, like, what did you say?’

‘Three things. Two of them simple, unarguable road safety points. One: estimable and thoroughly civilised city though it is, it was something close to criminal neglect on the part of the Parisian authorities that a piece of road like that had massive, square concrete pillars unprotected by crash barriers. It couldn’t have been much more intrinsically dangerous if they’d attached giant iron spikes angled to face into the traffic stream. Two: this is supposed to be a mature, responsible adult, mother of two, beloved by millions, so she might have done the first thing that any rational human being does when they get into a car, especially one that might be going to travel quickly and even if you haven’t guessed the driver is quietly pissed, and put on a fucking seat belt. Three, and this is the one that really caused the trouble: my conscience was clear. But a lot of the people who turned up to watch the procession and throw flowers onto the hearse, if they blamed the photographers chasing the Merc on their motorbikes – which a lot of people did – then they were hypocrites, because by their own logic they’d helped kill her.’

‘Ya. Right. Ya. How?’

‘Because why were the snappers bothering to stay up late outside a flash Parisian hotel in the first place? Because the photographs they might get could be worth something. Why might the photographs be worth something? Because the papers would pay good money for them. Why would the papers pay good money for them? Because those photos sold newspapers and magazines.

‘My point was that if any of the people that blamed the photographers – a profession I have no great love for, believe me – ever bought newspapers that regularly featured the royals in general and Princess Di in particular, and especially if they had ever changed from whichever newspaper they usually bought, or bought an extra one, because it contained or might contain a photograph of Diana, then they should blame themselves for her death, too, because their interest, their worship, their need for celebrity gossip, their money, had put those snappers at the door of the Ritz that night and set them off on the chase that ended with a black Merc totalled round an underground chunk of reinforced concrete and three people dead.

‘Me, I’m a republican; nothing-’

‘What, like the IRA? Right.’

‘No, not the fucking IRA. I mean I’m a republican rather than a monarchist. Nothing against her madge or the rest personally… well, anyway… but as an institution I want the monarchy dumped. I wouldn’t buy a piece of shit like the Sun or the Mail or the Express in the first place, but even if for some bizarre reason I’d ever been tempted, I’d have been less, not more likely to do so if there had been a photo of Princess Di on the cover. So I hadn’t helped kill her. My question to whoever might have been listening was, How about you?’

‘Right, I see.’

‘Right. Do you?’

‘So they sacked you. Bummer.’

I shrugged. ‘The papers got a little upset. Personally I think the Express and the Mail just didn’t like being called tabloids.’

‘But you found something else, right, ya?’

‘Oh, ya.’

‘Oh, you’re making fun of me. You’re terrible.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes, I’m a big fan. You shouldn’t insult me. I thought I was doing quite well.’

‘What? You thought you were doing quite well?’

‘Amn’t I?’

I looked her down and up. ‘You’re funny.’

‘You think?’

‘Definitely. Another drink?’

‘Okay. No; you sit. I’ll get them. You haven’t let me buy anything yet. Please.’

‘If you insist, Raine.’

‘I do. Same again?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Don’t go away,’ Raine said, touching me on the arm again. She’d done this a lot over the last hour or so. I liked it.

‘Oh, okay then,’ I said.

Raine slid out from behind our table and insinuated her lithe, size six body into the crowd, towards the bar. Phil leaned over. ‘I think you’re in there, mate.’

‘Yeah, I think I might be, too,’ I agreed. ‘Who’d a thunk it?’ Shit, I was a bit drunk. I’d actually knocked back that last whisky. Mistake. I turned to Phil. ‘Can I have some of your water?’

‘Yep. There you go.’

I drank from his bottle of Evian.

We were in Clout on Shaftesbury Avenue, a big, coolly swish, third-generation pleasure complex designed for the discerning older clubber who might equally favour Home or be found in FOBAR (Fucking Old Beyond All Recognition, age-profile successor to FUBAR: Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition).

Phil and I were sitting in a booth in the Retox Bar, on Level Tepid. If you listened carefully you could just make out the thud-thud-thud from the main dance area on the floor above. From downstairs, where the main chill spaces were and quiet, relaxing sounds were the ambient noisescape, there was what sounded like silence. Well, maybe just the occasional quiet pop of yet another fried brain cell departing this world.

Above, you could hardly hear the person next to you if you hollered in their ear. Below, it felt wrong to do much more than whisper. Here, music played but normal conversation was perfectly possible. I must be getting old, because I preferred it here. Fucking right I did! Here was where you obviously got to meet pieces of class ass like Raine! Fucking yee-ha!

Calm down, calm down, I told myself. I tried breathing deeply. ‘I’ve been on a real fucking roll recently,’ I told Phil, shaking my head. Jo, Ceel – ah, Ceel, who was really in another category altogether, who was a whole world in herself, but who I saw so horribly seldom -… I’d lost track. Start again: Jo, Ceel… that Argentinian girl in Brighton, one or two others, Tanya – well, not Tanya, who’d baled out on me – but I still reckoned I was green-light with Amy if I wanted to take things further down that next-on-personal-playlist route, and… and now this Raine girl. A total fucking stunner with a Sloane accent and she seemed to be after my body! I loved London. I loved even the modest morsel of fame that I had. ‘I have, haven’t I?’

‘Yeah,’ Phil said, nodding wisely. ‘Don’t know what they see in you, myself.’

‘Me either,’ I agreed. I drank some more water and studied the floor at my feet. The floor of the Retox was some blond Scandinavian-looking wood. Pouring a whisky away straight onto it might cause unseemly dribbling, splashing noises, like you’d pissed yourself or something. Ah-hah; Phil had put his jacket down on the floor when Raine had slipped in beside us. Perfect. I hooked his jacket closer underneath me with one foot while he wasn’t looking.