Nicola Barker - Darkmans

‘Yes. So what I need… uh …I need for you , Beede, old man… uh …’

Gaffar swore under his breath.

‘Just relax,’ Beede counselled him, ‘there’s no rush. Take your time…’

‘Is so. Yes. Is good ,’ Gaffar nodded, ‘for because…uh… What I need is a favour, okay? Do you get me? Just a small favour. But I don’t want Kane to find out about it. I don’t want anyone to know about it… ’

‘A favour? From me?’

Gaffar nodded.

‘Is it money?’

Gaffar blinked. Money?!

He glared at Beede, insulted. ’What kind of opportunist skank do you take me for?’

‘Oh. Right. Sorry. So not money…’

’No. Absolutely not. It’s just a small demand on your time…’

‘When?’

‘In tomorrow morning…’

‘Okay.’

Gaffar blinked ( Wow . That was considerably easier than it might’ve been). ‘ Really okay?’

Beede shrugged. ‘Sure. As long as whatever you want me to do isn’t illegal and doesn’t take too long…’

‘Not long,’ Gaffar butted in, ‘just few minute. Five minute. Is all.’ ‘Then that’s fine. It’s a deal.’

Beede reached out his hand and Gaffar took it. They shook.

‘So what do you want me to do , exactly?’ Beede couldn’t resist asking. Gaffar grimaced, he dropped Beede’s hand. ‘I need for you to go shop . I need for you to get for me, I, Gaffar …’

He pointed to his chest.

‘Yes?’

‘I need…’ He drew a deep breath. ‘ Salad. ’

Beede stared at him, blankly. ‘Pardon?’

‘Salad,’ Gaffar repeated (with an involuntary shudder).

‘Salad?’

Gaffar nodded.

‘Sorry…Did you just say “salad”?’

‘Yes. Salad. Salad .’

‘Salad? Like lettuce? Or tomatoes? That kind of salad?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right. And you need me to do that? You need salad but you have…you have no money , perhaps…?’

‘Oh no. I have money,’ Gaffar insisted, ‘I say before…I say I have money. Money is no problem. Kane give money — money for salad.’

As Gaffar spoke, Beede was staring down at the rug, with a frown. He was trying to think of the Turkish word for salad.

’Leaf!’ he finally exclaimed.

’Not “leaf!”’ Gaffar snapped. ‘ Salad , you fool. Salad. Salad. Salad. Salad. Salad .’

‘You want me to go shopping for you?’

‘No,’ Gaffar shook his head, ‘I shop. I buy shop. But you— you— you shop salad.’

‘So who’s the salad for?’

Beede glanced down at the rug again. ‘Kelly. Kane’s whore .’

‘And you want me to take the salad to her?’

‘No. I take. So long…’ Gaffar made a complex motion with his hands. ’So long as it’s completely covered up. Packaged up. In a bundle. Wrapped up. And I don’t have to look at it. ’

‘How odd,’ Beede murmured.

‘What?’ Gaffar straightened his back, defensively.

‘My rug.’

‘Rug?’

‘Yes. My rug.’ Beede pointed. ‘I thought there was something wrong with it, and now I realise…There’s nothing wrong , as such, but it’s been…it’s been turned around…’

Gaffar glanced down.

‘Ah, yes,’ he grinned, ‘I do that.’

‘What?’ Beede seemed confused. ‘ You turned my rug around?’

‘Yes.’

‘But why?’

‘Kane.’

‘Kane?’

‘Yes. Kane dropped his cigarette on it — or, to be completely accurate — that stinking cat knocked it off the little table with its pesky tail while he was searching through your books. Burned a small hole in it. Kane went nuts. So I told him I could fix it — told him my mother and my grandmother worked on the carpet looms of Diyarbakir…you know, blah blah… ’ Gaffar scoffed, jovially ’…and — blow me — if he wasn’t completely taken in by it! Swallowed it whole! So I sent him off to your bedroom — to seek vengeance on that filthy puss — then, quick as a flash, I’d moved out all the furniture, turned the carpet around, and placed it back…’

Gaffar jumped up, to demonstrate. ’Oh my God! When he returned he fell to his knees, looking for the place where the burn had been…’ Gaffar fell to his knees, with a theatrical gasp. ’You should’ve seen it! It was hilarious! His face was a picture!’

He glanced over at Beede. Beede did not appear to be overwhelmed by hilarity.

‘Don’t worry…’ Gaffar tried to pacify him, ’it’s only a tiny mark. You can barely even tell from this angle. And — let’s face it — this carpet’s hardly a priceless work of craftsmanship, is it? Just some cheap reproduction…’ Gaffar sniggered, ’I mean the Minaret of I am? Afghanistan?!’

‘I appreciate your candour,’ Beede smouldered. ‘ Natch ,’ Gaffar swiped a hand through the air.

‘So Kane was going through my books, you say?’ Beede murmured, tightly. ‘Do you have any idea why?’

Gaffar shrugged.

‘Because that just seems very…’ Beede scowled, ‘ strange . Strange behaviour. For Kane.’

’First he looked into the envelope,’ Gaffar tried to remember the exact order of things, ’the brown envelope with the papers inside which Kelly — his whore — brought with her. He read them for a while and his face was like…’

Gaffar pulled an expression of condensed fury.

‘ This envelope?’

Beede grabbed the aforementioned brown envelope from underneath an old newspaper.

‘Uh…Yes.’

‘But why would he look in this envelope?’

Beede pulled the papers out of it and inspected them, his eye settling, just briefly, on Winifred’s handwritten note.

Gaffar shrugged again. ‘I no idea. All I care for is salad .’

Beede gazed up at him, distractedly.

‘Of course,’ he eventually murmured, ‘the salad.’

‘In morning. We go Tesco Supermarket — Crooksfoot— big Tesco. Near hospital.’

‘Right. Yes …’ Beede struggled to refocus. ‘My shift starts at ten. So…uh…nine-thirty, say? Would you like a lift down there? On the bike?’

‘ No! ’ Gaffar widened his eyes, warningly. ‘We meet in front.

Secret , yes? By…uh…’

He made a pushing motion.

‘The trolleys?’

‘Bingo.’

‘Okay. Out front, by the trolleys,’ Beede confirmed, ‘I’ll be there.’ ’God bless you.’

Gaffar took a small step back — bending his knee, dipping his head, graciously, his hands clasping together — as if offering his humble obeisance to the old man. But then he paused, mid-genuflection, peeking up through the deep pile of his luxuriant brows and indicating towards the rug, with a sly grin.

‘So this was damn good joke, huh?’

He kept telling himself that it was the foot — the verruca — which was encouraging his thoughts to dwell on her. A small and previously dormant wart (hardly the world’s most alluring thing) which was suddenly throbbing and smarting and twingeing him–