Daniel Blake - White Death

If I don’t believe in all this, Patrese thought, then why do I suddenly feel so nervous?

He swallowed hard. ‘Sure.’

She smiled. ‘OK. This first card is the past.’

She turned it over. Card number VII, the Chariot. A prince in armor sitting in a chariot pulled by two sphinxes, one black and one white.

‘The chariot symbolizes conquest: a battle that can be won if you have the willpower. The battle is usually external, with a clear goal and plan of action. The charioteer fights alone. He succeeds by attacking from the side rather than straight on. To win the battle, you need self-reliance, hard work, and the conviction that you’re right and that you’ll achieve victory no matter the odds. But, but … this can easily tip over into a ruthless desire to win at any cost.’

Patrese thought of the cases he’d pursued in the past. Some of them had gone on for months, and in each one he had at times felt frustrated, depressed, ready to jack it all in; but in the end he’d always kept going, and he’d always gotten a result. He was here now because he’d solved those crimes; he’d solved those crimes because he was good at what he did; and he was good at what he did because he kept plugging away and because he’d try anything to get a breakthrough.

Yes, Patrese thought: he could see how the Chariot card applied to him.

‘Next card,’ Anna said. ‘The immediate present.’

A young man standing blithely on the edge of a cliff. He carried a rose in his left hand and had a hobo’s bindle over his right shoulder. The sun shone; a small white dog played next to him.

Card zero. The Fool.

Patrese clenched the muscles in his jaw. Anna leaned forward and put her hand on his. ‘No, don’t be insulted. The Fool doesn’t mean “idiot”. In Tarot, the Fool is the spirit seeking experience. He represents the mystical intuition within each of us, the childlike ability to tune into the inner workings of the world. Each card in the major arcana can be seen as a point on the Fool’s journey through life. It’s that journey you’re on now. Where it’ll take you – well, who knows, but almost certainly not the place you think.’

Idiot or not, Patrese didn’t like being the Fool. He gestured to the next card.

‘The immediate future,’ Anna said, as she picked up.

Card XVIII. The Moon. The moon itself with a frowning face at the top of the card; great drops of dew falling from the moon to land; two tombstones; a dog and a wolf howling at the moon; a crayfish crawling from the water on to the land; and a path that disappeared into the distant unknown. Despite himself, Patrese shuddered.

‘The moon is tension, doubt, deception, confusion and fear,’ Anna said. ‘It’s sleepless nights and unsettling dreams. The dog and the wolf are our deepest fears: the crayfish hauling itself up from the deep is the base animal nature we try so hard to hide. You must make like the moon itself, Franco. Look at the frown on the face of the moon. Look at the drops of moisture. Look how hard it strives to keep those instincts down.’

Patrese wanted to get up and leave, but he couldn’t: how would it look, a Bureau agent walking out of a tarot reading? If it ever came out, he’d never live it down.

He reminded himself that it was all mumbo jumbo: cards chosen at random, images so old that no one knew any more why they’d been chosen in the first place. It might mean something to Anna, or to the wacko who’d killed Regina and Darrell, but to Patrese – determined, rational, secular Franco Patrese – it meant nothing. Nothing. Didn’t it?

Anna’s hand moved on to the fourth card, the middle one. ‘This is what’s occupying your mind right now,’ she said.

An old man standing in a wasteland. He wore a long hooded robe and a white beard. A lantern in his right hand, a staff in his left. Card IX. The Hermit.

Kwasi, Patrese thought instantly; a man always a step out of sync with the rest of us.

‘This card is introspection, solitude, the search for understanding,’ Anna said. ‘The hermit must withdraw from society to become comfortable with himself; but he must also return from isolation to share his knowledge with others. The hermit can give the insight we need to open a sealed door or conquer the forest beasts. Some say the hermit is the time we learn our true names, when we see who we really are.’

‘Fifth card,’ she said. ‘The attitudes of others.’

A young man in a red robe with a wand held high in his right hand. Above his head was the sign of infinity, a sideways figure of eight looping back endlessly on to itself. On the table in front of him was another wand, a sword, a cup and a pentacle: the four suits of the minor arcana. Flowers bloomed on the ground.

Card I: the Magician. Reversed, inverted. Anna blew through her teeth.

‘An inverted magician … that means there’s a manipulator around. He may appear helpful, but he doesn’t necessarily have your best interests at heart. He may not even be a real person: he may just be your ego, or the intoxication of power.’

Patrese looked at his watch. ‘Can we hurry this up? I have things to do.’

‘Don’t shy from this, Franco. It could be very important for you.’

‘So’s getting back to the incident room. Come on. Sixth card.’

Anna looked at him for a long moment. ‘The obstacle,’ she said eventually, reaching for the penultimate card in line. ‘Something you must overcome to resolve the situation.’

Card IV; the Emperor. An armored king on his throne, with a scepter in his right hand and a ram’s head at the end of each armrest.

‘Absolute power,’ Anna said. ‘Control, discipline, command, order, structure, tradition; also inflexibility. The Emperor symbolizes your desire to rule over your surroundings. You need to accept that some things aren’t controllable, and others may not benefit from being controlled. The emperor’s strength is stability, which brings comfort and self-worth. But his weakness is the risk of stagnation, and the sense of personal entitlement beyond your rights. You must separate one from the other.’

She looked up at Patrese. ‘Tell me. Are you impatient, or are you uncomfortable?’

He started to push his chair back. ‘I have to go.’

‘Sit.’ A sudden flash of steel in her voice. ‘Last one. The final outcome. Surely you want to know how this is going to end?’

He stayed seated. He had a feeling she’d known he would.

‘Last card.’ She rested her fingers on top of it. ‘This is how the situation will end.’

Card XVI. The Tower. Lightning striking a tower and knocking an outsize crown from off its top. Fire at the windows and two men in the foreground, falling head first towards the ground.

If Patrese had thought the Moon card was disturbing, this was another level entirely. There was nothing comforting about the image, nothing whatsoever: just violence and anguish. Even Anna looked a little taken aback.

‘What’s wrong?’ Patrese said.

‘This is … this is the card I fear the most.’

‘Now you tell me.’

‘In order, it comes right after the Devil card. It’s a bad omen. When they play tarot games in Europe, they often leave this one out. The deck we’ve got here, the original one from the fifteenth century, that doesn’t have it either. The Tower is bad, Franco. Bad . Chaos. Impact. Downfall. Failure. Ruin. Catastrophe. You want to know how bad it is? It’s the only card that’s better inverted. That way, you land on your feet.’

Anna took Patrese’s hand again, and this time the fear was in her eyes rather than his.

‘Be careful out there, Franco.’