Ian Rankin - Beggars Banquet

‘Close the door,’ she instructed. He saw that the twine holding it open was looped over a bent nail. He loosed it and closed the door. The curtains were shut – which was ideal for his purpose – and, lacking any light from outside, the interior glowed from the half-dozen candles spaced around it. The surfaces had been draped with lengths of cheap black cloth. There was a black cloth over the table, too, with patterns of sun and moon embroidered into it. And there she sat, gesturing for him to squeeze his large frame into the banquette opposite. He nodded. He smiled. He looked at her.

She was middle-aged, her face lined and rouged. She’d been a looker in younger days, he could see that, but scarlet lipstick now made her mouth look too large and moist. She wore black muslin over her head, a gold band holding it in place. Her costume looked authentic enough: black lace, red silk, with astrological signs sewn into the arms. On the table sat a crystal ball, covered for now with a white handkerchief. The red fingernails of one hand tapped against a tarot deck. She asked him his name.

‘Is that necessary?’ he asked.

She shrugged. ‘It helps sometimes.’ They were like blind dates alone in a restaurant, the world outside ceasing to matter. Her eyes twinkled in the candlelight.

‘My name’s Mort,’ he told her.

She repeated the name, seeming amused by it.

‘Short for Morton. My father was born there.’

‘It’s also the French for death,’ she added.

‘I didn’t know,’ he lied.

She was smiling. ‘There’s a lot you don’t know, Mort. That’s why you’re here. A palm-reading, is it?’

‘What else do you offer?’

‘The ball.’ She nodded towards it. ‘The cards.’

He asked which she would recommend. In turn, she asked if this was his first visit to a psychic healer – that was what she called herself, ‘a psychic healer’: ‘because I heal souls’, she added by way of explanation.

‘I’m not sure I need healing,’ he argued.

‘Oh, my dear, we all need some kind of healing. We’re none of us whole. Look at you, for example.’

He straightened in his chair, becoming aware for the first time that she was holding his right hand, palm upwards, her fingers stroking his knuckles. She looked down at the palm, frowned a little in concentration.

‘You’re a visitor, aren’t you, dear?’

‘Yes.’

‘Here on business, I’d say.’

‘Yes.’ He was studying the palm with her, as though trying to read its foreign words.

‘Mmm.’ She began running the tip of one finger down the well-defined lines which criss-crossed his palm. ‘Not ticklish? ’ she chuckled. He allowed her the briefest of smiles. Looking at her face, he noticed it seemed softer than it had when he’d first entered the caravan. He revised her age downwards, felt slight pressure as she seemed to squeeze his hand, as if acknowledging the compliment.

‘Doing all right for yourself though,’ she informed him. ‘I mean moneywise; no problems there. No, dear, your problems all stem from your particular line of work.’

‘My work?’

‘You’re not as relaxed about it as you used to be. Time was, you wouldn’t have considered doing anything else. Easy money. But it doesn’t feel like that any more, does it?’

It felt warm in the caravan, stuffy, with no air getting in and all those candles burning. There was the metal weight pressed to his groin, the weight he’d always found so reassuring in times past. He told himself she was using cheap psychology. His accent wasn’t local; he wore no wedding ring; his hands were clean and manicured. You could tell a lot about someone from such details.

‘Shouldn’t we agree a price first?’ he asked.

‘Why should we do that, dear? I’m not a prostitute, am I?’ He felt his ears reddening. ‘And besides, you can afford it, we both know you can. What’s the point of letting money get in the way?’ She was holding his hand in an ever tighter grip. She had strength, this one; he’d bear that in mind when the time came. He wouldn’t play around, wouldn’t string out her suffering. A quick squeeze of the trigger.

‘I get the feeling,’ she said, ‘you’re wondering why you’re here. Would that be right?’

‘I know exactly why I’m here.’

‘What? Here with me? Or here on this planet, living the life you’ve chosen?’

‘Either… both.’ He spoke a little too quickly, could feel his pulse-rate rising. He had to get it down again, had to be calm when the time came. Part of him said Do it now. But another part said Hear her out. He wriggled, trying to get comfortable.

‘What I meant though,’ she went on, ‘is you’re not sure any more why you do what you do. You’ve started to ask questions.’ She looked up at him. ‘The line of business you’re in, I get the feeling you’re just supposed to do what you’re told. Is that right?’ He nodded. ‘No talking back, no questions asked. You just do your work and wait for payday.’

‘I get paid upfront.’

‘Aren’t you the lucky one?’ She chuckled again. ‘But the money’s not enough, is it? It can never recompense for not being happy or fulfilled.’

‘I could have got that from my girlfriend’s Cosmopolitan.’

She smiled, then clapped her hands. ‘I’d like to try you with the cards. Are you game?’

‘Is that what that is – a game?’

‘You have your fun with words, dear. Euphemisms, that’s all words are.’

He tried not to gasp: it was as if she’d read his mind from earlier – all those euphemisms for ‘killer’. She wasn’t paying him any heed, was busy shuffling the outsized Tarot deck. She asked him to touch the deck three times. Then she laid out the top three cards.

‘Ah,’ she said, her fingers caressing the first one. ‘ Le soleil. It means the sun.’

‘I know what it means,’ he snapped.

She made a pout with her lips. ‘I thought you didn’t know any French.’

He was stuck for a moment. ‘There’s a picture of the sun right there on the card,’ he said finally.

She nodded slowly. His breathing had quickened again.

‘Second card,’ she said. ‘Death himself. La mort. Interesting that the French give it the feminine gender.’

He looked at the picture of the skeleton. It was grinning, doing a little jig. On the ground beside it sat a lantern and an hourglass. The candle in the lantern had been snuffed out; the sand in the hourglass had all fallen through.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘it doesn’t always portend a death.’

‘That’s a relief,’ he said with a smile.

‘The final card is intriguing – the hanged man. It can signify many things.’ She lifted it up so he could see it.

‘And the three together?’ he asked, curious now.

She held her hands as if in prayer. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said at last. ‘An unusual conjunction, to be sure.’

‘Death and the hanged man: a suicide maybe?’

She shrugged.

‘Is the sex important? I mean, the fact that it is a man?’

She shook her head.

He licked his lips. ‘Maybe the ball would help,’ he suggested.

She looked at him, her eyes reflecting light from the candles. ‘You might be right.’ And she smiled. ‘Shall we?’ As if they were not prospective lovers now but children, and the crystal ball little more than an illicit dare.

As she pulled the small glass globe towards them, he shifted again. The pistol barrel was chafing his thigh. He rubbed his jacket pocket, the one containing the silencer. He would have to hit her first, just to quiet her while he fitted the silencer to the gun.

Slowly, she lifted the handkerchief from the ball, as if raising the curtain on some miniaturised stage-show. She leaned forward, peering into the glass, giving him a view of crêped cleavage. Her hands flitted over the ball, not quite touching it. Had he been a gerontophile, there would have been a hint of the erotic to the act.