Nicola Barker - Behindlings

‘ No, ’ Jo jumped in. ‘No I don’t know anything. I was only in town this morning and I came across… uh… ’

Patty

‘… This… This boy asked me for a handout for his train fare home. I took him for something to eat… the Wimpy. That was…’

‘Oh the boy, ’ Anna nodded. ‘Yeah. Eddie said everybody kept going on about some boy…’

‘He Follows. He lives in Derby. I think he has an outstanding care order, so…’

‘Eddie said he thought you might be involved from some kind of weird, environmental standpoint. Wesley likes to project that whole… you know. The Green thing. But we couldn’t figure out…’

‘Oh God no,’ Jo demurred, ‘I…’

‘Well that’s something at least. Because he’s honestly — and I have first-hand experience of this — he’s a total bastard. Very messed up. Very nasty.’

Jo was staring at Anna with a kind of wild unfocussedness. Anna frowned at her, impatiently, ‘Are you…?’

Jo blinked, ‘So how come… what was… why did you have to speak to him this evening, then?’

Anna shrugged, coldly. ‘Just police business,’ she drained her glass, ‘but he’d better watch his back. He steps out of line and we’re gonna take real delight in nabbing him. I’m not kidding…’

Jo nodded, mutely. Not approving. Not disapproving.

‘He was down in Camber before coming here. Did you know that?’

Jo shook her head, ‘No I…’

‘The hypocrisy of the man. He went to Rye. The town. They have a port there. And they know for a fact that he changed the signs on the river. They have signs near the port stating that members of the public shouldn’t feed the gulls — the gulls mess on the boats and some of them are feral. This gull apparently attacked a child and nearly severed its finger…’

Jo frowned, gently, ‘I hardly think that a gull would…’

‘Oh yeah. I forgot,’ Anna laughed, ‘you’re into all that natural history crap. Well anyhow, he changed the signs. Replaced them. And nobody could tell for a while because he’d done them exactly the same, and everyone who used the port regularly was taken in. You know?’

‘So what did they…?’

‘Oh stuff about how tourists were at liberty to feed the birds if they wanted and that the people who thought they could dictate on this matter because they owned a boat or sat on a council were deluded. That animals possessed universal rights. The sky is free. You know… Just the same bollocks as always. Really petty. He’s such an unreservedly small-minded little fucker. I think that’s actually what I hate most about him.’

Josephine nodded. She sipped on her beer again.

‘He’s mentally deranged. And that hand of his. When I spoke to him earlier he lifted that hand and put it on his cheek…’ Anna re-enacted this gesture, her nose wrinkling up in distaste, ‘I know it doesn’t sound like much but it was actually really… It was disgusting. He fed that hand to a bird apparently. I don’t believe a word of it. It’s just part of the myth.’

Jo shrugged.

‘I mean, sure, he stole that woman’s pond in 1989. Some deluded little tart he was shagging. That was true.’

‘ Shit. ’

They both turned around. The thin man had spilled his drink. A glutinous, bloody-coloured mess was rapidly spreading over the counter. The barman was scowling. Jo blinked. Anna paused for just a second and then continued talking, ‘She was a recruitment officer for a major bank. He applied for a job there but didn’t get it because of his…’

She lifted her hand.

‘So then he tracked her down and had sex with her. She asked him if he’d help her fix her pond — install a new water purifier. But he objected — for some fucked-up reason — and the next thing she knew, he’d stolen the damn thing. An antique pond. No trace of it left. All the fish just left on the verandah swimming around in glass bowls. A lawn laid over where the hole had been. Really, really psycho stuff. I read the police notes. Scary. ’

‘I think the theft was intended to be… to be symbolic, ’ Jo muttered.

Anna gave Jo a warning look. ‘Afterwards he released some eels — can you believe it? From a pie and mash shop in the East End. Bow… In actual fact that might’ve been before. I forget the proper order of things… But they tried to prosecute. Couldn’t find him for about eighteen months after. He was walking to the coast, alongside the river. There was much less access then. He’s obsessed by the Estuary, although he hails from Gloucester, originally.’

Jo nodded.

‘All tiny misdemeanours,’ Anna persisted, ‘petty felonies. But — and now get this, Josie — he won’t pay child support for his own kid. Has to be hauled up in front of a court. Claims he’s penniless. Even after the book and all that other stuff. Cash off the internet. Sponsors and what-not. And let’s not forget the deal he must’ve struck with those confectionery people. No money, he says. He is warped. He is seriously messed up.’

Anna paused for a long drag on her fag. Jo tried to fill in the gap, ‘Yes. But I don’t suppose it’s…’

‘They know for a fact, for example,’ Anna continued, ‘that he broke into the Soane’s Museum in London, repeatedly. I was reading this today on my print-out, just before the machine went down… And that’s another thing. Apparently there’s some kind of…’

‘The… Sorry… The Soames Museum?’ Jo interrupted.

‘Oh God, yes. It’s in High Holborn. London. Some strange architectural Museum. They had a real problem with pigeons soiling the sandstone building so they got a trap set up inside this atrium thingy — I dunno. It’s complicated. All totally above board, though. They had one bird as bait, to lure the others. It was nothing… ’

Anna waved her hand around in the air to dissipate the cloud of smoke hanging in front of Josephine’s face, ‘But Wesley decided to break in and set the birds free. Literally three bloody birds maximum. Pigeons. And he really messed the joint up. Not just the once, either. He did it several times. And this place was virtually impossible to access, which I suppose he deserves credit for — oh Christ, just listen to me. They had to hire a full-time guard. And he still broke in again. He definitely wasn’t working alone in that instance. They don’t think he was working alone…’

Anna threw her cigarette onto the floor, stubbed it out with her heel and glanced around the bar, catching the eye of the tall, dark-haired man Jo had part-recognised earlier. The man with the ponytail. Slick-looking. Big. Raincoated.

‘Fucking Bo, ’ Anna muttered. ‘Tennis Ace. Dyslexic. Premature ejaculator. Oh bollocks. He’s coming over. Don’t mention a word of what we’ve been discussing. He’s become a journalist since we were all at…’

‘Anna, Anna, Anna. ’

The ponytailed man kissed Anna on her neck, pushing his hands around her waist, from the back. But even as he was caressing her he was staring — tight-eyed — at Josephine across her shoulder. He had an agenda. It was manifest.

‘Fuck off, Bo,’ Anna chided, elbowing him in the chest when he didn’t instantly relinquish his grip on her.

Bo took this in his stride, letting go, crouching down and sliding his broad hand across her leg instead. He unleashed a flirtatious part-smile part-sneer in Jo’s direction (he thought he was Gary Numan with bigger muscles and a little more hair — or Brian Ferry circa Love Is The Drug), ‘I don’t know if you realise this,’ he stage-whispered, ‘but anything you say to Anna here, even in casual conversation, may well be taken down as evidence and used against you, later.’