Daniel Blake - White Death

Patrese knew the rules of death notification. Talk directly. Don’t be afraid of the d-words – dead, died, death. Don’t use euphemisms. Driver’s licenses expired, parcels were passed on, keys were lost. Not people. People died.

Patrese gestured for Kwasi to take a seat, and sat down opposite him.

‘Mr King, your mother is dead.’

Kwasi stared at him. Patrese held his gaze, rock-solid neutral. He didn’t try to take Kwasi’s arm or touch him in any way. Everyone reacts to news like this differently. Some people clap their hands to their chest and catch their breath; some fall sobbing to the floor; some even attack the messenger.

Kwasi did none of these things. He stared at Patrese for fully half a minute, totally blank, as though his brain – this vast, amazing brain that could see fifteen moves ahead through a forest of pieces on a chessboard – was struggling to comprehend the very short, very simple, very brutal sentence he’d just heard.

‘You sure?’ he said at last.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘How?’ He blinked twice. ‘How? Where? When?’

‘Her body was found this morning on New Haven Green.’

‘Where?’

‘New Haven, sir. Connecticut.’

‘What the hell she doing there?’

‘I was hoping you could tell me that, sir.’

Kwasi looked around, as though seeing the room for the first time. ‘Can you take me home, officer?’

‘Sure.’

Manhattan slid past the windows of Patrese’s car. A church on Lexington spat worshippers out on to the sidewalk. In a Union Square café, a man jabbed his fork in the air to make a point amidst pealing laughter from his friends.

The journey passed in silence. Kwasi said nothing, and Patrese didn’t try to make him talk. Some people gush an endless torrent of questions, wanting to know everything about how their loved one has died: others are silent, perhaps in the hope that if they don’t ask, don’t know, don’t listen, then it won’t have happened.

Kwasi didn’t move the entire journey. He sat bolt upright and stared straight ahead. Only once, when they turned past Washington Square Park, did he so much as glance out of the window.

Kwasi’s apartment was on Bleecker Street. Patrese pulled up outside. A little further on, at the junction with Sixth Avenue, police barriers were being erected on the sidewalk.

‘Do you have anyone you can call?’

Kwasi shook his head.

‘No one at all?’

‘No.’ Kwasi made no move to get out of the car.

‘Would you like me to come up with you?’

‘Yes. Thank you.’ Kwasi looked at Patrese for the first time since leaving the Waldorf-Astoria. ‘That would be’ – he searched for the right word – ‘helpful.’

There was a doorman in the lobby; a young guy with tight curly hair and teeth white enough to be visible from space. He got to his feet as they came in.

‘Hey, Mr King. Looking forward to the parade tonight?’

Kwasi didn’t hear; or if he did, he didn’t acknowledge it. Patrese nodded at the man. ‘Parade?’ he asked.

‘Hallowe’en parade. Expecting a million folks, they say.’

The apartment was typical Bleecker: gentrification writ large over smatterings of old-school authenticity. Exposed brickwork and windows framed with industrial steel: wooden floorboards and subtle uplighting. Poliform kitchen with corian countertops and Miele appliances: pre-wired Bose sound system and fifty-inch plasma TV.

And on pretty much every surface was a chess set. There must have been hundreds, jostling on shelves and squatting on tables. Standard sets were very much the minority. Think of a theme, and it was there somewhere. Cowboys faced off against Indians, Crusaders against Saracens, Red Sox against Yankees, Spartans against Athenians, angels against demons. There were Egyptian gods, Norse gods, Greek gods. Terracotta warriors peered sideways towards Harry Potter characters. Star Wars figurines backed on to samurai. One set was made of automobile parts; another had skeleton keys as pieces, fitting into a hole in each square; a third had squares of all different heights. Blue pieces eyeballed green ones, pink played yellow, red played orange. A hexagonal board was designed for three players; a multi-dimensional set stacked four boards atop each other.

Kwasi looked at Patrese, saw his interest.

‘Can never have too many sets,’ he said.

This was Kwasi’s refuge, Patrese sensed. When the world got too big and complex and nasty – and it must have been all those things right now for him, and more – here’s where he came, back to the chessboard, where everything had order and rules and where he was the master.

‘Which one’s your favorite?’

‘Don’t have one. If I did, the others would get upset.’

‘The others? The other sets? The pieces?’

‘That’s right. Tell you one I haven’t got, though. It’s this one from Wales; you know, part of England. The chessboard of Gwenddoleu. The board’s made of gold, the men are made of silver, and when the pieces are set up, they play by themselves.’

‘That’s a nice story.’

‘It’s not a story. It’s true. It really exists.’

Patrese decided to change tack. ‘Mr King, I’m sorry to do this, but I have to ask you some questions about your mother. Help us find the person who killed her.’

‘She was killed?’

‘I told you that.’

‘You told me her body was found on New Haven Green.’

‘Well, I’m sorry, but yes. She was killed.’

‘How?’

Patrese had thought about this one already. ‘A knife was used.’ Not a lie. Not the whole truth either, of course, but not a lie. ‘Now, you said you don’t know why she might have been there. In New Haven.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You did, sir.’

‘I said, “What the hell she doing there?”’

‘I took that as you not knowing why she was there.’

‘I don’t.’

Patrese wondered briefly whether Kwasi was being deliberately obstructive. No, he thought, I’ve just told the man that his mother’s dead. Cut him some slack.

‘When did you last see her?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘You remember what time?’

‘A quarter of ten exactly.’

‘That’s very precise.’

‘I know the time of everything that happens.’

‘What was she doing?’

‘Leaving for Baltimore.’

‘What was she planning to do when she got there?’

‘She was attending a symposium run by the National Council of Black Women.’

‘You know where this symposium was?’

‘The Hyatt Regency in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor: 300 Light Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21202. Phone number 410-528-1234.’

Hell, Patrese thought, was this what you needed to be world chess champion? Rain Man with dreads?

‘How did she get there?’

‘By train. Amtrak. Depart Penn Station, New York, yesterday at 10 a.m., arrive Penn Station, Baltimore 12.13 p.m. Return journey, depart Baltimore 9.34 a.m., arrive New York 11.52 a.m.’

Patrese did a quick calculation. ‘You last saw her at quarter of ten when she had to get a train at ten?’

‘I drove her to Penn Station.’

‘And dropped her outside?’

‘There was nowhere to park.’

‘And then you came back here?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you didn’t see her get on the train?’

‘No. I saw her go into the station.’

‘And what did you do after that?’

‘I came back here.’

‘You were here all weekend?’

‘Yes.’

‘What were you doing?’

‘Playing chess.’

‘With who?’

‘Myself.’

‘You play against yourself?’

‘Sure. Against computer programs, and against myself. I have a world title match in two weeks. I’m preparing. Practicing. Training.’