Nicola Barker - Darkmans

‘Yes. Although they actually customise them in Hackney so it was a ridiculous way to go about things. But it felt right. It felt good. The car has a certain… swagger which you simply couldn’t get any other way. A certain, indefinable je ne sais quoi . But enough of my Lada,’ she said, ‘when exactly did you speak to J.P. about Peter?’

‘Yesterday,’ Kane lied.

‘Yesterday?’

She sounded surprised.

‘So how’d you go about guessing I was on Silver Hill?’ he tried to distract her.

‘Pure conjecture.’

‘Seriously?’

‘No. Pure deduction, Watson. The engine was knocking — so I reasoned that you were on a hill. Your phone reception is good, so I reasoned that you were nearby. I heard a fire engine siren sounding — in fact I can still hear it. I’m very familiar with the sirens from that particular station. We only live just around the corner…’

‘You and Peter,’ Kane said.

‘We two,’ she sighed.

A short silence followed in which Kane could’ve sworn he heard the distant pumping of a pair of old bellows.

‘Is that a cigar?’

He took a wild guess.

‘Yup. Just went out,’ she said. ‘Clever little you .’

Kane smirked.

‘So how’s J.P. bearing up?’ she wondered.

He heard a match being struck.

‘Pardon?’

She inhaled.

‘J.P.’s health?’

‘Uh…It’s good. Pretty good. Fairly good. I mean…’ Kane carefully hedged his bets, ‘under the circumstances…’

‘Yes…’ as she spoke he could hear her pulling a tiny fleck of loose tobacco from her lip, ‘although the “circumstances”—as you so aptly put it — aren’t really what you might call conducive to good health, are they?’

‘Uh…no,’ Kane said.

‘Quite the opposite , in fact.’

Kane cleared his throat. He sensed a problem. He grimaced. He took the bull by the horns.

‘Am I missing something?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’ She sounded perfectly cheerful. ‘What you are missing is the small but necessary detail of J.P.’s tragic demise.’

‘Oh.’

‘J.P.’s dead. Kaput. He died late last year.’

‘God.’

‘Bowel cancer,’ she added, just for good measure.

‘I see…’ Kane bit his lip. ‘Right. So now I guess — from where you’re standing — I must be looking a little… uh …?’

‘Stupid? Yes.’ She paused. ‘And I’m sitting , actually. Or perching. On the edge of a counter.’

‘Did you know J.P. well?’

‘Well?’

Kane winced. ‘I mean were you close?’

‘Close? Hmmn . I don’t know. Certainly not as close as you and he appear to be.’

‘Okay,’ he drew a deep breath. ‘Just tell me straight…’

‘J.P. was my brother.’

‘ Shit .’ Kane was mortified. ‘ Seriously? ’

‘Yes, seriously . It was all very serious. J.P. was very serious. His illness was very serious. His death was very serious. Death — in general — I find, can be like that…’

‘I’m a dick,’ Kane said.

‘Truly,’ she chuckled, ‘I can’t wait to tell Peter this story. Peter will think this all terribly droll.’

‘Droll,’ Kane parroted. ‘That’s one way of looking at it.’

As he spoke Kane heard what he presumed to be a small alarm of some kind sounding in the background.

‘I’m all out of time,’ she said, ‘so let’s cut to the chase, shall we? What’s the real reason for your call?’

‘I found Peter’s number in an old book.’

‘What?’ she scoffed. ‘Scribbled into the margins of some dusty tome?’ ‘No. On a card inside a book. A business card. And I was just interested…’

‘Which book?’ she scoffed. ‘ The Reader’s Digest Compendium of Tall Stories ?’

‘A history book,’ Kane scowled, humiliated. ‘I don’t remember the title. A book about the criminal underclass of the sixteenth century…’

‘Whose book?’

‘My book.’

‘ Whose book?’

There was no escaping it.

‘The book originally belonged to Daniel Beede.’

‘No it didn’t,’ she demurred, ‘the book originally belonged to me. It’s that fabulous Penguin anthology edited by Gamini Salgado. I actually lent it to him.’

Silence

‘Which I suppose would make you …’ she cheerfully continued, ‘his charming yet horribly degenerate son, Kane.’

‘Yes. I suppose it would.’

‘In truth I’d already guessed,’ she confessed, ‘I was just playing you along. I was on to you from the start. You have identical voices. Not the accent, obviously, because his is so beautiful and yours is quite appalling, but the timbre, the tone .’

‘I’ll have to take your word on that,’ he said, hurt.

‘Before I go,’ she said, brusquely, ‘because I really must …Have you considered selling your car?’

‘Pardon?’

‘The Blonde. Might you sell?’

He gave this a moment’s consideration. ‘Well it wasn’t the foremost thought in my mind when I rang you…’

Then he paused and quickly reassessed, ‘How much for?’

‘Whatever you want. Whatever it takes. Just ask Beede — I’m old and rich and incredibly spoiled.’

‘But what about the Lada?’ he wondered. ‘I thought the Lada had a certain…uh… swagger …’

‘We’ll do a deal,’ she sounded delighted by the idea, ‘we’ll do a Part Exchange.’

‘I’d need to see her first, obviously…’

‘She’s a he. I call him The Commissar.’

‘I’ll have to see him , then.’

‘Fine. Come on over.’

Kane turned the key in his ignition. The Blonde coughed then started to hum.

‘So how’d I reach you?’ he asked.

‘Reach me?’ he could almost hear her smirking. ‘But you already reached me, dear,’ she said.

Gaffar was — much to Beede’s intense exasperation — every inch ‘the showman’ on the fruit aisle (all he lacked was a spot-light, a costume and a drumroll): he serenaded the bananas; he juggled the apples; he plucked a black grape from a large bunch, balanced it on his chin, then flipped it up into his mouth and swallowed it, whole.

His jaunty mood was sustained — quite convincingly — as they journeyed through the vegetables: he was perky by the broccoli, tranquil by the onions, sanguine by the potatoes…

The first clue that anything was even remotely amiss manifested itself as they drew abreast of the avocados (a certain stiffness of gait, a sudden quietness). By the time they’d reached the tomatoes (a distance of 2 feet on, at best) his good mood had taken a serious nose-dive (nervous yawning, uncontrolled scratching, a thin line of sweat on his upper lip).

At the beetroots— ’God have mercy!’ —he seemed merely a shadow of his former, extrovert self: his complexion looked pallid, waxy, almost ashen ; his lips were moist and quivering; his eyes started slightly from their sockets as they ransacked the shelves…

But the radishes, it seemed, were to be the final straw.

‘No.’

He ground to a shuddering halt in front of them, gesticulating weakly. ‘Is enough .’

He passed Beede the shopping list and the basket. Beede handed him back his knapsack and his helmet.

‘Okay,’ Beede sighed, ‘let’s just get this over with, shall we?’

And off he went.

He followed the list as best he could–

Cucumber, spring onions, celery…

— but there was some confusion around the issue of the type of mixed salad required, so he grabbed both — the bag and the sealed plastic bowl — and went off in search of confirmation.