Jonathan Coe - The Dwarves of Death

‘Piss off, can’t you? I’ll come and find you later.’

‘Look, you don’t understand. I don’t just want a word. I need a word. I need, Chester, I need.’

He was looking into his eyes by now; but still his gaze was unsteady, darting uncontrollably.

Chester paused for a moment, tight-lipped, and then said, ‘Christ, you’re a pin-head, Paisley. You’re a real fucking Christmas turkey. Come on, and make it quick. Excuse us a minute, Bill.’

They disappeared in the direction of the exit; or it could have been the Gents, I’m not sure. I was left standing alone at the bar. Just me, and Karla, drying glasses.

‘Who was that?’ I asked her.

‘I don’t know. I’ve seen him here before once or twice. I told you Chester knew a fairly strange crowd.’ She smiled. ‘I don’t think you really know him very well, do you?’

‘I don’t know him at all.’

‘You find out quite a lot about your customers, working behind a bar. In bits and pieces. I know all the regulars, now. Sometimes even when I’m not working I just stand at the window and watch them coming and going.’

‘What window?’

‘I live right opposite here, above the video shop. I can see everything that goes on at this place.’

‘What is there to see?’

‘You never know, do you?’ She smiled again, and it was almost as if she was talking to herself. ‘You never know who you’re going to see.’

I could make no sense of this remark, so I used it as an excuse to change the subject.

‘I’d love to hear you sing. Seriously. Maybe we could come in here one morning before opening time, and use the piano.’

She shook her head, laughing. ‘That’s the worst chat-up line I’ve ever heard in my life.’

I was indignant.

‘It wasn’t a chat-up line. Listen, I’ve got a girlfriend, you know. I’m not trying to chat you up.’

She took me more seriously once I’d told her that, but still all she’d say was, ‘I said I used to sing, that’s all. And I don’t think you’d like my voice very much.’

Chester reappeared, looking breathless and apologetic.

‘Sorry about that, Bill. Did you get your drink?’

‘Yes, thanks.’ I gestured at the other members of the band, who seemed to be in various stages of clinical depression. ‘Do you think it’s worth carrying on with this?’

He looked at his watch. ‘No, we’re wasting our time. See how the recording goes on Tuesday, eh? Maybe things’ll look up when you’ve got a decent demo under your belts.’

‘I’d better get back. The buses are completely fucked today, it’ll probably take me hours.’

‘You live over Rotherhithe way, don’t you? I can give you a lift.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, I’ve got to see someone over there, about four o’clock. No problem.’

So it was that I found myself sitting for the first time in Chester’s little orange Marina, speeding past the Angel and down through the City and out across London Bridge. And it was then, also for the first time, that he raised the subject of Paisley, and Paisley’s band The Unfortunates — the band of which Chester was also the manager.

‘I’ve been thinking about them, you see. Listening to their tapes, that sort of thing. The thing is, they need a keyboard player.’

‘Oh?’

‘You know, a real musician. To fill out the sound a bit. They’ve got real style, this band, they could really go somewhere, but musically they… well, they need a bit of help.’

I paused long enough for him to perform a particularly agonizing gear change.

‘Is this in the nature of a… proposition?’ I asked.

‘Yes, you could say that. That’s very well put, William. A proposition. Exactly.’

‘Well, I…’

‘You probably want to think about it.’

‘Yes. Yes, I would.’

‘Fine.’

He took me to within half a mile of the flat and then pulled up at a junction. He seemed worried that he was going to be late for his appointment.

‘I’ll drop you here, if you don’t mind. This bloke, he gets a bit mad if you keep him waiting.’

‘A bit mad?’

‘Yes, you know. A little bit nasty.’ And before I had time to wonder what he might have meant, he had straightened his cap and was driving off. The last thing he said to me, as he wound up the window, was: ‘Think about it.’

So I thought about it. That is, I thought a lot about Chester, and about Paisley, and the strange encounter I had half-witnessed in the pub that afternoon. I thought about it over the next week, and I thought about it on that dreadful Saturday night, as I ran through the back streets of Islington, each step taking me further and further away from Paisley’s smashed and lifeless body.

I must have run for about ten minutes without stopping. Perhaps that doesn’t sound like very much, but for someone like me, who hasn’t taken any proper exercise for years — not since I was at school — believe me, it was quite an achievement. I tried to keep some sort of sense of direction at first, but soon I found myself in totally unfamiliar territory. Looking now at the A — Z, I think I must have started off by heading west, towards Camden, but then a series of leftish turns must have taken me in the King’s Cross direction. The first place I can remember stopping was a bus-shelter, and the first thing I can remember doing was forcing myself to think: forcing myself to look at the situation I was in and imagine how it would seem to an outsider.

I had been spotted at the scene of the crime. I had been seen by two policemen, emerging from the house where Paisley had been murdered. And instead of trying to explain myself, I had turned around and run, thereby immediately drawing suspicion on to myself. Well, perhaps when they caught up with me — which I was convinced they would — I could account for that, saying that I was in a state of shock and I didn’t stop to think about what I was doing or how it would look. One or two other circumstances were in my favour: at least there wasn’t a murder weapon with my fingerprints on it, for instance.

As for the killing itself, I was just about in a fit state to realize that there were two possible explanations. Either somebody, for some reason, had wanted to get rid of Paisley, or, more likely, they had mistaken him for someone else — the mysterious ‘landlord’ of the house where they all lived. Who was he, though? The only person who knew him, it seemed, was Chester himself, and he had been very unforthcoming about his identity. Deliberately unforthcoming, perhaps? Karla had told me that Chester had some strange friends. She had also pointed out to me that I didn’t really know him very well. Had I been a little too trusting with our friendly, resourceful, enigmatic manager? What sort of hold did he have over Paisley that could give rise to a scene like the one I had witnessed in the pub that Sunday afternoon? Maybe Chester himself was the owner of their house — maybe he was the one the telephone callers kept asking for, under a succession of different names. Or perhaps I was on completely the wrong track: was Paisley the real target of the attack, and if so, could it have been Chester himself who was behind it?

As I sat in the shelter I saw that there was a bus approaching, and suddenly I decided to get on to it. There was no way the police could have issued a description of me yet, so it wasn’t as if any of the passengers would recognize me. All the same, I paid my fare in cash, rather than showing the driver my travelcard with the passport photo on it. I jumped on without even looking at the front of the bus and without any idea of where it was going to take me. The important thing was that it took me away from here as soon as possible. I sat on the bottom deck, near the back, and willed the bus to move.