Philip Kerr - A Philosophical Investigation

‘Bastard,’ he yelled after me but, to my relief, he did not give chase. Even so, running out into Jermyn Street and down the hill to St James’s Square, I did not stop until I reached Pall Mall.

When finally I recovered my breath and then my nerve I found myself laughing once again. That was always what was so interesting about Shakespeare, I said to myself. Right until the very last minute you never knew if it was going to end in comedy or tragedy.

Still keeping an eye out for him, I walked across Trafalgar Square and into the bar on the corner of Charing Cross Road where I ordered a beer and tried to think how best I could salvage something of the day.

While tailing Shakespeare I had been giving some thought to Policewoman and the promise I had made to contact her. Perhaps if I had been concentrating more on following Shakespeare... Now seemed to be as good a time as any to buy the equipment I needed to fulfil this undertaking. I already knew exactly what I wanted and where was the best place to get it. So I finished my beer and, via the nearest twenty-four-hour bank where I picked up some cash, I caught a bus up Tottenham Court Road.

TCR was much the same as always: dirty and disgusting, with rubbish strewn along the pavements from the piles of fastfood refuse sacks torn apart by the city’s many rats. Some of these, bigger than cats, lay dead in the gutters, poisoned with their warfarin takeaways, their bodies flattened by the passing traffic and dried like biltong in the early spring sun. About the only thing that swept TCR was the wind blowing south from the Euston Road to Oxford Street.

Stepping smartly into the shop I was met with the usual sea of brown faces. What is it about Indians and Pakistanis that so attracts them to the retailing of electrical goods? It’s the same the world over, from New York to Vienna. The Japs may have manufactured the equipment that now runs the world, but it’s the Asians who sell it. Is it that the profit margins are just so good? Or is it that they find something sexy in the obvious consumerism of all those switches, knobs, dials, and flashing lights? Or perhaps it is electricity itself that they so admire: Islam has always had a fascination for power.

‘Can I help you?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for a portable phone.’

‘Standard or video?’

‘Neither,’ I said, flatly. ‘I want a sat-phone.’

The man rippled his sovereign-ringed fingers nervously and then smiled a combination of apology and amusement. ‘These are illegal, sir,’ he announced. ‘We are not allowed to sell them.’

It was my turn to smile. I followed it with a hundred-dollar note.

‘Cash,’ I said. ‘And you can swear you never saw me before.’

He told me to wait and went to fetch the shop manager, a tubby, bumptious little man with thick glasses and as many gold necklaces around his fat, bhaji-coloured neck as his minion had rings.

‘The sort of phone you are requiring, sir, is not permitted,’ he said, still holding my C-note. ‘Please, what would happen to me if you were some fellow from the Home Office who was to catch me selling such a thing? I would be in court pretty damn quick and no mistake.’ He glanced around the shop, which was empty of any other customers, and moved closer to me.

‘What the hell are you wanting this kind of phone for anyway?’ he asked in lower tones. ‘If it’s the avoidance of a telephone bill you are requiring then I can sell you a black box dialer. You can use this anywhere and pay nothing for your call whether it is Bombay you are telephoning or merely Birmingham. And much cheaper than a satellite phone too.’

‘I’m going abroad,’ I said. ‘South America. Up the jungle, or what’s left of it. I want to be able to phone home.’

The Indian shook his head ruefully. ‘If this was me the last thing I should want to take would be a phone. What an opportunity you are having, to get away from the wife for a few weeks.’ He laughed.

‘Look,’ I said calmly. ‘I’m not Home Office. You can search me if you like. There’s no need to worry. I’ll give you a fair price, in cash.’ I retrieved my C-note from his podgy fingers. ‘Otherwise I can try somewhere else.’ I shrugged and started towards the open door.

‘Patience, sir,’ he said. ‘It is a virtue. I have just the equipment that you require. Only I must be careful. Come this way.’

He led me into the back of the shop which was stacked high with boxes of Nicam stereo televisions, discrecorders, portable karaoke players, and Reality Approximation equipment. Shifting several boxes out of the way, he said, ‘We don’t keep sat-phones in the front of the shop, for obvious reasons. You want a digital unit?’

I said that I thought I did.

He nodded and pulled out another box. ‘Digital is best. I show you a good one. Only four thousand dollars.’ He ripped open the box and tugged away at the ozone-friendly polystyrene packaging to reveal what looked like a small attaché case. For a moment he caressed it with his hand, before springing open the locks and folding the case open.

‘Just like James Bond, eh?’ He giggled, folding up a satellite dish that was about the size of a dinner plate. ‘It works off the Injupitersat. One dedicated channel with a band-width that’s five times the size of a normal portable phone. That gives you an extra-high-quality line. Focusing on the satellite is done automatically with the computer’s own built-in compass, so you don’t have to fuck about with books of astronomical tables or any shit like that. All you have to do is key the satellite’s number, which you see on the handset, and then the normal international code plus whatever number it is that you want to call. Its one and only limitation is that you can’t use it below ground level. In a house is fine, but don’t expect to get through if you’re sitting in some kind of basement.’

‘I’ll take it,’ I said, and counted out forty-odd bills.

‘You won’t regret it,’ he said. ‘The CIA use this model, so it must be good.’

I looked at the country of origin. It had been made in Japan.

‘Well that figures,’ I said.

He folded the dish away, closed the case and held it out to me.

‘Real pigskin too,’ he said, stroking the case with his hand again. ‘And it weighs less than two kilos. Anything else you would like?’

I handed him another couple of bills.

‘Just your silence.’

Jake had not slept very well. Her T-shirt was wet with perspiration and her neck ached as if she had been standing on her head. She used the bathroom and then did a few gentle yoga exercises to try and move some blood up to her cortex. Ten minutes later, feeling slightly better, she put on her dressing gown and took the lift down to the ground floor where she collected the morning’s post from her mailbox and carried it back upstairs to the top flat. She examined it without much interest: a couple of utility bills; and several pieces of junk mail trying to interest her in everything from a special mortgage so that she could live in Docklands, to sponsoring a Russian child. But as well as these other items, there was also a Jiffy bag which looked as though it might be interesting.

Back inside her flat Jake placed the parcel under the spectroscope on the hall table and while she waited for the electronic signal to tell her that it contained no explosives she searched the kitchen for something that might constitute breakfast. Finally she found just enough coffee to make a small espresso and a few bran biscuits on which she spread the remains of a jar of chocolate spread.