Iain Banks - Dead Air

‘Yes. But it’s usually quiet; it’s a dead-end off the mews further down.’

‘This artificial stone; how do I find it?’

‘Counting from the rear wall of the garage there are two lanterns on the west garden wall, then the third one. The stone with the key inside is directly under the third lantern and two stones out from the wall. Once you see it it looks almost obvious.’

‘West wall, garage rear wall, third lantern, two stones out.’ I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck. All this was just what I needed in the condition I was in. ‘What about the alarm? Is it linked to a security firm HQ or anything?’

‘Yes, and to the local police station.’

‘The local police station? Really?’

‘You might be surprised at the arrangements John has with the Metropolitan Police, Kenneth.’

‘Yeah, I dare say I might,’ I agreed. ‘What about surveillance cameras?’

‘No. Well, none that I know of.’

‘Right.’

‘Here’s the alarm code.’

‘Shoot.’

‘Write it down, will you?’

‘Okay.’ I lifted Merrial’s card. ‘Go.’ I wrote the code down on the back of Merrial’s card, then repeated it. ‘And where is the answering machine?’

‘It’s in John’s study. On the first floor. Oh.’

‘Now what?’

‘The study might be locked.’

‘Locked? But-’

‘It’s a gun room, too; it’s supposed to be locked.’

‘A gun…? Jeez. Right. So if it is, then what?’

‘I have a key in my bedroom. That’s on the second floor. John doesn’t know about it. You’ll have to go there first if the study door is locked.’

You couldn’t just have the damn thing where people usually have answering machines, by the front door, could you? I thought. And, Ceel’s bedroom; I’d fantasised about something like this for months, but not exactly in these circumstances.

‘Okay. Where’s the key?’

‘In my bathroom. There is a cabinet above the sink. Inside the box of tampons.’

Smart thinking, I guessed. ‘Right.’

‘When you get to the answering machine, you wipe the tape by pressing Function and then Clear. Got that?’

‘Function and Clear. I’d rather tear the whole tape out or take a big magnet and wipe it of everything, but that’ll have to do. Maybe I’ll do it twice.’

‘Function and Clear should do it.’

‘Okay.’

‘Keep in touch.’

‘Will do.’

‘Please be careful, Kenneth.’

‘Oh, I will. Best of luck getting a flight.’

‘Thank you. Goodbye.’

‘Bye.’

I put the phone down. I wasn’t shaking so much now. I drank some more water. At least we had a plan of campaign. At least I had something I could do, rather than just wait for Celia to come and fix things. God, what sort of man was I? Of course I should be doing something. I’d got us both into this grisly mess; it should be me that got both of us out of it. Or even only her. If I could just save Ceel I’d have done something good, something to make up for my gross incompetence. My own miserable behind was patently not worth the saving, attached as it so obviously was to a spine with a lump of barely solidified porridge at the other end where a normal person would have a functioning brain, but hers… her glorious ass was entirely and utterly worth saving, even at the expense of my own.

Think. I’d have to park the Landy in the lane. What if people saw me going over the wall? They’d call the cops, or at the very least they might take the Land Rover’s registration number.

How could I get new numbers for it? You could get rear number plates from any Halfords; people did all the time for trailers and there was no check on whether you really had a vehicle with that number, but you couldn’t get white, front number plates that easily. Maybe I could make false ones using the computer. Print out a couple of sheets of A4 with the relevant sized numerals and then wrap them in cling-film or something and tape them over the real ones. Should fool the casual observer. Wouldn’t even need exactly the right font because people had weird fonts on their plates sometimes; I’d seen them.

Better, I could phone the garage that had repaired the Landy and get some old plates off them. They were bound to have some; it would just be a short-term loan anyway. I had about three hundred quid in an emergency stash at the back of my sock drawer and I could pick up another two-fifty from a cash machine. That should hire a set of plates for an hour. Wouldn’t it? How likely was I to find the only small London garage that would shake their heads at my proposed criminality and promptly phone the cops? Surely not.

On the other hand, it would take time, delay things. Supposing Merrial came back early? Detouring via the garage might make all the difference. And it would introduce another variable into the equation, one more source of potential leaking. Supposing the garage people knew people who knew Merrial? If the Landy was spotted and the false numbers were traced to them, who knew what might happen, what they’d do, what they’d be persuaded to say, how they’d jump?

So I couldn’t risk it. But meanwhile I’d sat here slugging water and thinking about it and wasted a few minutes. Well done, Kenneth. Ten past eleven. Get going.

Traffic was relatively light. It was a pleasantly mild winter morning; high cloud and a watery sun. Breezy. Why the fuck couldn’t it be breezy in fucking Inverness? And dry in the Peak fucking District? I could have gone faster, but I stuck to between thirty and thirty-five. This would be no time to be caught speeding, especially with God knew how much alcohol still sloshing about in my system.

Ascot Square was quiet. Bunches of silver balloons tied to railings indicated there’d been a party in one of the grand town-houses on the other side of the square from the Merrials’. Maybe a twenty-fifth anniversary or something. Lots of Mercs, Jags and BMWs, plus Range Rovers and a brace of Rollers or Bentleys; Audi A2s and a couple of Smarts, too. The Merrials lived in number eleven, near the centre of the imposing, four-storeys-plus-basement terrace. No obvious signs of life at number eleven.

Tall limes and beeches in the private gardens in the centre of the square. I drove on through into Eccleston Street then into Chester Square. I parked in a residents only space for a couple of minutes, climbing into the back of the Landy and pulling on my overalls. Brand new, basically; I’d got them when I bought the Landy, thinking I’d do my own repairs. And a size too small; my shirt sleeves and the bottom of my 501s protruded from the green overalls by a good two or three centimetres. Great; so now I looked stupid as well as villainous. I had an old Sony Music Awards baseball cap; I put that on too. Bit of a giveaway industry-wise, but what else was I supposed to do? Sunglasses from the cubby box between the front seats.

Gloves! Of course I needed gloves. I was going to break into a house, or make an illegal entry or whatever the legally nice definition was. I didn’t want to go leaving fingerprints all over the fucking place. Gloves. I had some somewhere. I rummaged behind the bench seats on either side, feeling down between the seat cushions and the back rests. Blimey, you could hide a complete fucking tool kit along here… gloves. Got them. They were thick, padded things for pulling out bramble bushes or hauling on winch wires or some such manly shit as that, not at all the sort of fine, thin things you’d want for the delicate business of letting yourself into somebody else’s house, but, shit, they’d just have to do.

I jumped back into the front and set off again, back past Ascot Square proper and round into the mews behind it on the south side. Lots of close-packed but very expensive mews properties with differing treatments of the old architecture; a jumbled variety of windows large and small, balconies, awnings and outside steps. Lots of plants, too; hanging baskets, big pot plants and trailing vines. Oh shit; and a family loading up their Landy Discovery. Young couple and three kids getting their cool boxes and child seats sorted for a day out. Shit! What sort of time was this to be setting out for the day? It was practically noon! Best bit of the day gone, dammit! Couldn’t the miserable fucking curs have got their shit together a bit closer to breakfast?