Peter James - Dead Man’s Footsteps

‘I’m looking for a room,’ Ronnie said. ‘I was told you have a room.’

He noticed a payphone on the wall beside her and a strong smell of damp and old carpet. Somewhere in the building he could hear the news on television. Today’s events.

She said something that he did not understand. It sounded like Russian but he wasn’t sure.

‘Do you speak English?’

She raised a hand, indicating that he should wait, then disappeared back into the house. After a little while a huge shaven-headed man of about fifty appeared. He was wearing a collarless white shirt, grubby black chinos held up with braces, and trainers, and he stared at Ronnie as if he was a turd blocking a lavatory.

‘Room?’ he said in a guttural accent.

‘Boris,’ Ronnie said, suddenly remembering his new best friend’s name. ‘He told me to come here.’

‘How long?’

Ronnie shrugged. ‘A few days.’

The man stared at him. Assessing him. Maybe checking out that he wasn’t some kind of terrorist.

‘Thirty dollars a day. OK?’

‘Fine. Grim day, today.’

‘Bad day. Most bad day. Whole world crazy. From 12 o’clock to 12 o’clock. OK? Understood. You pay each day in advance. You stay after midday, you pay another day.’

‘Understood.’

‘Cash?’

‘Yep, fine.’

The house was bigger than it had looked from the outside. Ronnie followed the man through the hall and along a corridor, past walls the colour of nicotine with a couple of cheap, framed prints of stark landscapes. The man stopped, disappeared into a room for a moment, then emerged with a key with a wooden tag. He unlocked the door opposite.

Ronnie followed him into a gloomy room which stank of stale cigarette smoke. It had a window looking on to the wall of the next house along. There was a small double bed with a pink candlewick spread that had several stains on it and two cigarette burn holes. In one corner there was a washbasin, next to a shower with a cracked plastic yellow curtain. A beat-up armchair, a chest of drawers, a couple of cheap-looking wooden tables, an old television set with an even older-looking remote and a carpet the colour of pea soup completed the furnishing.

‘Perfect,’ Ronnie said. And at this moment, for him, it was.

The man folded his arms and looked at him expectantly. Ronnie pulled out his wallet and paid for three days in advance. He was handed the key, then the man departed, closing the door behind him.

Ronnie checked the room out. There was a half-used bar of soap in the shower with what looked suspiciously like a brown pubic hair nestling on it. The image on the television was fuzzy. He switched on all the lights, drew the curtain and sat down on the bed, which sagged and clanked. Then he mustered a smile. He could put up with this for a few days. No worries.

Hell, this was the first day of the rest of his life!

Leaning forward, he lifted his briefcase off the top of his overnight bag. He removed all the folders containing the proposal and supporting data he had spent weeks preparing for Donald Hatcook. Finally, he reached the clear plastic wallet, closed with a pop stud, at the very bottom. He extricated the red folder that he had not risked leaving in his room at the W, not even in the safe. And opened it.

His eyes lit up.

‘Hello, my beauties,’ he said.

‘What’s wrong with liking Guinness?’ Glenn Branson asked.

‘Did I say there was anything wrong?’

Roy Grace set Glenn’s pint and his own large Glenfiddich on the rocks down on the table, along with two packets of bacon-flavoured crisps, then sat facing his friend. Monday night at 8 o’clock and the Black Lion was almost empty. Even so they had chosen to sit in the far corner, far enough from the bar not to be overheard by anyone. The piped music also helped to mask their voices and give them privacy.

‘It’s the way you look at me every time I order Guinness,’ Branson said. ‘Like it’s the wrong kind of drink or something.’

Your wife is turning you from a confident man into a paranoid one, Grace thought but didn’t say. Instead he quoted, ‘To the man who is afraid, everything rustles.’

Branson frowned. ‘Who said that?’

‘Sophocles.’

‘What movie was that in?’

Grace shook his head, grinning. ‘God, you’re an ignoramus sometimes! Don’t you know anything that isn’t in a movie?’

‘Thanks, Einstein. You really know where to hit a man when he’s down.’

Grace raised his glass. ‘Cheer up.’

Branson raised his, with no enthusiasm, and clinked it against Grace’s.

They both took a sip, then Grace said, ‘Sophocles was a philosopher.’

‘Dead?’

‘He died in 406 BC.’

‘Before I was born, old-timer. I suppose you went to his funeral?’

‘Very witty.’

‘I remember, when I stayed with you, all those philosophy books you had lying around.’

Grace took another pull of his whisky and smiled at him. ‘You have a problem with someone trying to educate themselves?’

‘Trying to keep up with their bird, you mean?’

Grace blushed. Branson was quite right, of course. Cleo was doing an Open University course in philosophy and he was trying hard in his free time to get his head around the subject.

‘Hit a nerve, did I?’ Branson gave him a wan smile.

Grace said nothing.

‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ was playing. They both listened to it for a while. Grace mouthed the words and swayed his head to the music.

‘Jesus, man! Don’t tell me you like Glen Campbell?’

‘I do, actually, yes.’

‘The more I get to know you, the more sad I realize you are!’

‘He’s a real musician. Better than that rap crap you like.’

Branson tapped his chest. ‘That’s my music, man. That’s my people speaking to me.’

‘Does Ari like it?’

Branson suddenly looked deflated. He peered into his beer. ‘She used to. Dunno what she likes any more.’

Grace took another sip. The whisky felt good, giving him a warm buzz. ‘So tell me? You wanted to talk about her?’ He tore open his packet of crisps and dug his fingers in, pulled out several crisps in one go and crammed them into his mouth. He crunched as he spoke. ‘You look like shit, you know that. You’ve looked terrible for the last two months, since you went back to her. I thought everything was better, that you bought her the horse and she was fine. No?’ He ate another fistful of crisps hungrily.

Branson drank some more of his Guinness.

The pub had a pristine smell of carpet cleaner and polish. Grace missed the smell of cigarettes, the fug of cigar and pipe smoke. For him, pubs didn’t have any atmosphere any more now the smoking ban had come into force. And he could have done with a cigarette right now.

Cleo hadn’t invited him over later because she had a paper to write for her course. He was going to have to grab something to eat, either here or from the freezer at home.

Cookery had never been his strong point and he was getting dependent on her, he realized. These last couple of months she had cooked for him most nights, healthy food mostly, steamed or stir-fried fish and vegetables. She was appalled at the junk-food diet most police officers existed on much of the time.

‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ finished and they sat in silence for a while.

Glenn broke it. ‘You know we haven’t had sex, right?’

‘Not since you went back to her?’

‘Nope.’

‘Not once?’

‘Not once. It’s like she’s trying to punish me.’

‘For what?’

Branson drained his pint, blinked at the empty glass and stood up. ‘N’other?’

‘Just a single,’ he said, mindful that he had to drive.