Mike Carey - The Naming of the Beasts

‘They will not empty the bucket,’ the lawyer said to me apologetically. ‘I reminded them that this is Jovan Ditko’s last night on Earth, but they say the buckets are only emptied on the morning shift.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, although the stench in the room was close to stomach-churning. I tuned it out with an effort of will. My preferred sense is hearing, so I focused on the sounds of the place: the sounds and the meta-sounds – the spirit music that plays in the background for me wherever I happen to be. Irdrizovo was a symphony in a minor key, bleak and formless and unresolved.

‘Jovan,’ I said gently.

He looked up at me and nodded, then ducked over the bucket again. It wasn’t really a greeting, just an acknowledgement that I was there. He had Rafi’s face but harder and heavier, a lot less handsome. A three-day growth of stubble darkened his chin, and his face glistened with sweat.

‘Do you speak English?’ I asked him.

He muttered something that I didn’t catch. Mister Anastasiadis translated at once. ‘He understands English, but he doesn’t speak it very well. He’ll answer you in Macedonian.’

‘Okay.’ I turned back to Jovan. ‘Thank you for seeing me. I know it’s the worst possible time, in a lot of ways, but I thought you might like some news of your brother, Rafael.’ I thought of my cover story and decided it might be useful to have something to show for this trip besides one less notch on my conscience. ‘And I’d like to talk to you about your memories of him,’ I added.

This time Jovan didn’t even look up. He just rattled off a quick response to Anastasiadis, who replied to him rather than to me. For a while they batted something around between the two of them. I suspected the three-way communication system was going to be a real pain in the arse.

‘He says it’s been years since he even saw Rafael,’ Anastasiadis said to me at last. ‘They argued, a long time ago. When their father died, Rafael did not even come to the funeral. There is nothing between them now.’

‘How long ago was that?’ I asked. ‘When their father died?’

Another quick exchange yielded the answer. ‘Three years ago.’

That was after Rafi’s botched necromancy and my botched exorcism had landed him with his demonic passenger. He was already locked up in the Stanger by then.

‘He didn’t know,’ I explained. ‘He was in a hospital and . . . not really in touch with the outside world.’ Not in touch with anything, I thought. Rafi’s life had become pretty surreal at that point. His time perception, his awareness of self, his ability to lay down new memories and to make sense of the world, all had to be compromised.

I tried to explain this to Jovan, but it was a tricky concept to get across and I hit the rocks almost immediately. ‘Rafi has a demon inside him,’ I said, and Jovan was off on a tirade, glaring up at me from the floor.

‘Yes,’ Anastasiadis said. ‘He has a demon. I have a demon. Everybody has a demon. It doesn’t change who you are. It doesn’t change your obligations. You have to be a man, don’t you? Whatever else you are.’

‘Yeah, but I’m not trying to be poetic,’ I said. ‘Rafi tried to do some magic, and he messed it up. There’s a demon stuck inside him like a . . .’ Having no clue what sort of referents Jovan would feel comfortable with, I groped for a non-technical simile. ‘. . . like a toad in a well. He’s been like that for years now. And for most of that time, he’s been locked up in a lunatic asylum. The demon controls his body, his actions. He’s not free to do what he wants to do.’

The lawyer was staring at me with an almost comically surprised expression, but Jovan emitted a snort that needed no translation. Clearly he didn’t think demonic possession was a good enough reason to miss your dad’s funeral.

‘Rafi wanted to tell you that he was sorry,’ I persisted. ‘Not specifically for that. For losing touch with you, I guess, and for any other bad blood there was between you. That’s why I came. To deliver that message. It seemed to be very important to him.’

In Jovan’s terse reply, Rafi’s name appeared twice.

‘The only thing that was ever important to Rafael,’ Anastasiadis translated, ‘was Rafael.’ Jovan was speaking again, with more animation, and the lawyer slipped into simultaneous translation. ‘He was always selfish. He cared nothing about the family, or anyone else besides himself. He always wanted to get out of here, and when he did he never looked back. Once or twice he’s written to me, but only to ask me to send his things on to him. His photos and his journals especially. I didn’t reply. If he wants those things so badly, he can come back – pardon me, he can fucking come back – and get them himself. Now, no more, please. No more of this. I have too little time left to make myself angry by thinking about Rafael.’

A silence followed this speech. Jovan seemed drained by it. His head lolled lower than ever over the foul, stinking bucket.

‘Is there anything I can get you while I’m here?’ I asked lamely. If nothing else it would be a way of keeping the dialogue open, but Jovan made a slashing gesture with his right hand.

‘Nothing,’ he muttered in English. ‘Give me nothing. And give him nothing, from me. No word.’

He lapsed into Macedonian again, and Anastasiadis laid a hand on my arm. ‘He wants us to leave,’ he said apologetically. ‘He says he won’t answer any more of your questions.’

‘The journals,’ I persisted. ‘Rafi’s journals. Do they still exist?’ I felt ashamed to ask, but I was thinking again about having something to show Jenna-Jane. More than that though, there was an outside chance – a tenuous thread of possibility – that the journals might throw up something we could actually use. I was a good salesman, obviously. I’d talked myself into believing there was some point in having come here.

‘ Sepidye ,’ Jovan growled. ‘They were burnt,’ Anastasiadis said. ‘Please, Mr Castor. We have to respect my client’s wishes.’

I offered my hand, but Jovan didn’t take it. No exchange of hostages, no using the last few hours of the present to ransom back some little piece of time past. Jovan Ditko was beyond that now. He was preparing himself for a drop much longer than the precisely measured fall from the gibbet.

I left him to it.

Back in the city I found a café – walking past three bars with increasing difficulty – and knocked back three tiny, deadly espressos. They were way too sweet, but so stiff with caffeine they made my nerves vibrate like a million tiny tuning forks. Then I trudged back to the hotel to collect my things.

But as I was packing – which consisted of throwing my washbag and my phone back into the rucksack I’d brought – there was a knock on the open door of my hotel room. I turned to see Anastasiadis standing on the threshold, looking slightly awkward and apologetic.

We’d parted company at the prison, after I’d thanked him for his help and offered him a translator’s fee (from the bountiful coffers of the MOU), which he’d refused. My first thought was that he’d changed his mind, and I reached into my pocket. He reached into his at the same time and produced a Yale key.

‘There is a house,’ he said without preamble. ‘It belonged to the parents, then to Jovan. Now, presumably, it belongs to Rafael. But I have no address for Rafael, and I understand that he is not to be found. Perhaps, Mr Castor, you will take the key and give it to Rafael the next time your paths cross.’

I hesitated. It seemed unlikely that anything of Rafi’s would still be in the house after all this time, or that it could be of any use to me if I found it. It might be worth the trip if his journals had survived, but Jovan had closed that avenue.