Nicola Barker - Darkmans

‘Oh really?’ Peta delivered him a droll look. ‘And what did I know , exactly?’

‘That it was all part of some kind of crazy vendetta against Tom Higson.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Higson was behind the theft of those tiles from the old mill, and to pay him back Beede resolved to duplicate his life. To turn everything he touched — everything he cared about — into a lie…’

‘But it wasn’t just a straightforward duplication,’ Peta expanded, helpfully, ‘I was instructed to build a tiny fault into each piece. Something to help generate this indefinable sense of unease…’

‘Did he say that was why?’

Kane was shocked.

‘He didn’t need to. It was obvious.’

‘Okay,’ Kane scowled, ‘so here’s the part I don’t get…’

He reached out and took Peta’s cigar from her, then inhaled on it, deeply. ‘What I can’t understand,’ he exhaled, then passed the cigar back, ‘is why he came to you, when you were the very person Higson had stolen the tiles for.’

Peta inhaled on the cigar herself. She didn’t speak.

‘I guess you must’ve wanted me to know…’ Kane reasoned.

‘The photo in the barn,’ Peta interrupted wistfully, ‘a bit of a giveaway, huh?’

Kane nodded.

‘What can I say?’ she smirked. ‘I just love to dance on the razor’s edge.’

‘But what you still haven’t explained,’ Kane persisted, ‘is why Beede came to you …’

‘That’s simple,’ she shrugged, ‘because I’m the best.’

‘But didn’t he know about your involvement? Didn’t he have the slightest inkling?’

‘ Ah . The million dollar question,’ Peta sighed. ‘Did he or didn’t he?’ Kane was quiet for a while, and then, ‘Beede’s hardly famed for his great sense of humour,’ he mused, ‘but is it remotely possible that he might’ve commissioned you as…I dunno…almost as some weird kind of joke ?’

‘Don’t think it hasn’t dawned on me,’ Peta grimaced. ‘My passion — my reason —is to celebrate beauty…’

‘But Beede transformed you into the queen of the ceramic donkey, the chipped coffee pot, the mug -tree…’

Kane sniggered. ‘Perhaps the real mug here…’

‘Was me. Yeah,’ Peta growled. ‘ Hilarious .’

‘But if you suspected as much up front,’ Kane frowned, ‘then why didn’t you simply turn him down — refuse the job?’

Peta gave this question some serious consideration.

‘I suppose because I was intrigued — at least to begin with…amused, tantalised, seduced . And maybe there was a small element of guilt…’ ‘Guilty? ’ Kane chortled. ‘ You?! ’

‘And I wanted to keep an eye on him,’ Peta persisted, ‘I wanted to see how it might play out. I wanted to…’

‘Collect him?’

‘No. Protect him, if you must know. From himself, in the main.’

‘Wow ,’ Kane slowly shook his head. ‘Well you’ve certainly done one helluva job.’

Peta shot him a sour look. Kane glanced over at the traffic. There was now a space in front of the Lada of about 10 or 12 feet.

‘So what did you make of the scheme?’ he wondered, turning back.

‘Beede’s scheme?’ Peta rolled her eyes. ‘What do you think I thought? It was ludicrous. It was idiotic. I couldn’t make head or tail of it…I mean Tom’s a law unto himself. He’s brash. He’s totally unsentimental. He lacks integrity. He lacks empathy . What could Tom be expected to understand about the essence of a thing? The heart of a thing?’

She paused. ‘Although Pat — Tom’s poor wife …’

‘But you went ahead with it, just the same…’

‘Uh… ’ Peta inspected the glowing tip of her cigar, ‘well, yes and no…’

She tried to repress a smirk.

Kane frowned. ‘You duplicated the objects…’

‘Absolutely,’ she nodded, ‘I did a grand job. In fact I did such a grand job…’

Peta pondered something for a while. ‘Are you much of a poker player, Kane?’ she wondered.

‘Sure. I play the odd hand…’

‘Then you’ll be familiar with the concept of a double-bluff?’

Kane nodded, slowly.

‘Well let’s just say,’ Peta grinned, ‘that if there was a joke played, then I wasn’t the only victim of it.’

Kane stared at her, bemused. Then the coin dropped. ‘You swapped the things back ?’

She shrugged, coyly.

‘But…’ Kane scratched his head, confused. ‘When? How? ’

‘ Urgh ,’ she waved her hand, airily. ‘Let’s not get into all of that. It wasn’t difficult , trust me…’

‘But he paid you forty grand,’ Kane was horrified. ‘Money he obviously didn’t have. He paid you in good faith…’

‘Good faith ?’ Peta chuckled. ‘Just listen to yourself! What’s happening to you, Kane?’ She reached out and tousled his hair. ‘How sweet you suddenly sound…’

Kane glowered at her.

‘Anyway,’ she confided (in the kind of voice you might use when counselling an idealistic child about why it was fine for his parents to lie about the existence of Father Christmas), ‘I think you’ll find that these things generally have a strange way of working themselves out.’

‘Do they?’ Kane wasn’t buying it. ‘How, exactly?’

‘The way I’m seeing it,’ Peta shrugged, ‘forty grand is a small price to pay to get your only son back.’

Kane scowled.

‘So what about Dory?’ he demanded, keen to move on. ‘How did he fit into the whole thing? Did he help Dad? Did he betray him?’

‘Oh please don’t make me trawl through all this, Kane,’ Peta groaned, ‘I’ve got a train to catch. And life’s too short. Just enjoy the mystery. Take from the situation what you need. Be selective. Pick and mix. You’re usually so talented at that.’

‘But I saw Dory in your cottage,’ Kane wouldn’t let it drop, ‘and I know you said you’d hired a private detective. That’s what Dory does, isn’t it? I also know that he’s cunning, that he’s fucked up. That he hung a bell on Beede’s cat. Or Higson’s cat. Or whoever the hell’s cat it actually was…’

‘A bell?’ Peta seemed astonished.

‘I know that Dory was actually there when the tiles were stolen, that he was on the scene during the burning down of Higson’s warehouses, that he had some kind of a grudge against Harvey, something that possibly even went back way beyond…’

‘Are you sure you shouldn’t turn the engine off?’ Peta was peering over towards The Commissar again. ‘In my experience…’

‘Screw the car,’ Kane interrupted her. ‘Stop evading the issue. Just tell me the truth, for once…’

Peta suddenly burst out laughing. ‘The truth? Are you serious?’

‘Yes.’

Kane was indignant.

‘The truth ,’ Peta informed him, baldly, ‘is just a series of disparate ideas which briefly congeal and then slowly fall apart again…’ ‘No,’ Kane shook his head, ‘I’m not buying that. What’s been going on feels really…really coherent , as if…as if everything’s secretly hooking up into this extraordinary…I dunno…this extraordinary jigsaw , like there’s a superior, guiding logic of some kind…’

‘The truth,’ Peta smiled, ‘is that there is no truth. Life is just a series of coincidences, accidents and random urges which we carefully forge — for our own, sick reasons — into a convenient design. Everything is arbitrary. Only art exists to make the arbitrary congeal. Not memory or God or love, even. Only art . The truth is simply an idea, a structure which we employ — in very small doses — to render life bearable. It’s just a convenient mechanism, Kane, that’s all.’