John Lanchester - Capital

There were four names outstanding on the list. One of the names was an -ic, which presumably meant another Kosovan. All of the other names were African. By about two o’clock, Mill had convinced himself that the idea of talking to traffic wardens was a dud; but he couldn’t stop, since he couldn’t write up the report in a convincingly arse-covering way until he’d spoken to every relevant warden. Then he could stick it in the file and forget about it. That, in this context, would be a result. Mill went into a sandwich bar on the high street, realised that it was more expensive and pretentious than he was in the mood for, but couldn’t be bothered to abandon his place in the queue and go and find another one. He ended up with gouda and prosciutto and rocket on ciabatta, and a two-quid bottle of sparkling mineral water, which would make him burp during his afternoon’s legwork, but the bubbles at least gave the illusion that you were drinking something more interesting. Sitting at a window seat with his five-quid sandwich, leaning carefully forward as he ate so as not to get food on his suit, Mill got out his notebook and checked the names and addresses. Three of them were local, the fourth, incredibly boringly, was in Croydon. He’d start with the nearest, a twenty-minute walk or so. Take advantage of the fact that it was one of the summer’s few rainless days.

Actually it was a good sandwich. Mill didn’t mind paying for things as long as he felt he was getting what he paid for. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and set out down the high street, along the stretch by the side of the Common where a crew of street robbers on bicycles were currently targeting anyone on a mobile phone. Mill had been working on that project until he was pulled off it to do this. The street robbers came from the estate a few streets away, and had all the rat-runs and pavements down pat, so they weren’t an easy target, but the crew had slowed down in the long summer evenings.

A small cluster of school-age teenagers were hanging about by the fishing pond. Term hadn’t finished yet, so they shouldn’t be there. Mill clocked them but his day was already sufficiently pointless without wasting time hassling chav truants – anyway that was a job for uniform. Ah, the uniform. How he didn’t miss it.

He had underestimated the length of the walk – by the time he got to Balham it had been about half an hour and his feet were starting to hurt. Well, at least he’d feel virtuously exercised after his wasted day. He checked the notebook, found the house, rang the buzzer for the second floor. A thick, wary male African accent came over the intercom:

‘Yes.’

‘Kwama Lyons?’

The pause was longer than it should have been and Mill immediately felt more alert.

‘Yes?’

People who can immediately recognise a policeman are usually people who have reasons for immediately recognising a policeman. From its tone, the voice at the other end of the intercom had reasons for not wanting to talk to him.

‘I’m Detective Inspector Mill. I’m looking for a Kwama Lyons, for a routine inquiry.’

‘She is not here.’

‘But this is her home address?’

‘Her home address.’

‘Would you like to check my identification before we go on?’

Legally, the man at the other end of the intercom was not obliged to let Mill into the house – a fact he perhaps knew. He must also know that acting odd would only make Mill more interested. So there was a pause now, during which Mill could hear the man weighing the choice. After about ten seconds he said,

‘I will come down.’

Weighty footsteps approached down the stairs. A heavy-set African man in his thirties, his eyes rimmed with red, opened the door wearing, of all things, a grey cardigan. Mill put his foot over the threshold, good copper’s trick, and stepped into the house while flipping open his warrant card. The man leaned closer to look at it, squinting slightly, and Mill raised the estimate of his age upwards: forty, say.

‘How may I help you?’ the man now formally asked.

‘I’m looking for Kwama Lyons. She wasn’t at her work so I came here. It’s a routine inquiry.’

‘She’s out.’

‘Might I ask who you are?’

‘I am Kwame Lyons.’

‘Are you related?’

A flicker before the man said, ‘Yes.’ Whatever he was lying about, he was certainly lying about something; hard to imagine that it was We Want What You Have, but something smelled wrong. Mill liked, indeed loved, this part of his job – the part when you could tell things were not as they seemed, and there was more to find out. For the first time he felt his full energies gather around this inquiry.

‘What would be a good time to find Ms Lyons?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Does she have a mobile?’

‘I’ll tell her,’ said the man, now moving to close the door, with Mill still half-inside the house hallway. House divided into flats, he noticed. This man not the owner.

‘I’ll be back,’ said Mill, stepping backwards over the threshold.

He meant it, too, but the next day, when he did come back, another man, an Italian man in late middle age who identified himself as the landlord, opened the door. He told Mill that the man calling himself Lyons had moved out the previous night, leaving no forwarding address; that he always paid the rent a month in advance, in cash; that he had lived there for two years; that he was quiet; and that he knew nothing else about him, except that he had frequent brief visitors but lived alone – no wife, no female relation, therefore no Kwama Lyons at that address.

One of the things Quentina found strange about being a traffic warden was that despite being on her feet all day and walking what must surely be many miles, she didn’t seem to lose any weight. She brought this up with Mashinko one evening, after they had had a drink at the African bar in Stockwell and were walking homewards. (She made Mashinko leave her at the end of her street; she wasn’t letting him see the hostel, not yet. He lived with his mother, so they couldn’t go there easily. The trials and troubles of young love.) It verged on flirting, this subject, and Mashinko was a very very correct Christian boy, yes with a cheeky side, but he didn’t like anything too sexually joshing – and Quentina, to her surprise, found that she liked that about him, his touch of uptightness which suggested such strong feelings lurking beneath.

‘Anyway, I walk ten miles a day, and don’t lose an ounce.’ Risking it: ‘This is where you say I don’t need to lose an ounce.’

Luckily, he laughed.

‘Of course, of course. Not half an ounce! It is a mystery. We must seek an explanation. But tell me – tell me how fast you walk, when you are at work.’

They were strolling, a nice evening pace. The pavements were busy.

‘About like this.’

‘Like this!’

‘Like this.’

Mashinko shook his head.

‘Too slow. No aerobic effect. Not working hard enough!’ Seeing Quentina’s expression, he hurried to add, ‘I don’t mean, not working hard enough at your work. I mean, not working hard enough to burn fat and lose weight. Science! You must burn calories to lose weight. Like this -’

and he started walking at about twice the speed, swerving around a group of single women who had come out of a bar and were leaning on each other, screaming, laughing, smoking, and coughing. Quentina let him get away for a few yards, then realised that he wasn’t going to slow down, and set off after him. He was fit, he did exercise – football, and although she hadn’t asked, he must do some gym things or press-ups or something too, because he had the upper body to show for it. Hard muscles, tight skin… She had to break into a trot to catch up and was annoyed by the time she did, but he stopped and his smile was so wide and so affectionate she felt her irritation fade.