Claire Kilroy - The Devil I Know

‘Here he is,’ said Hickey. ‘Told you he wasn’t dead.’

‘Sit down,’ said the Viking. ‘We ordered you a fresh fizzy water.’ They cracked up at that.

‘It’s on the house,’ Hickey added and they laughed harder still. The Viking wiped a crocodile tear from the corner of his eye. He was sober. The other clown was a different story. Brandy didn’t suit him. I sniffed the new glass of water. My nose detected nothing suspicious but I pushed it away to be on the safe side. That’s when I spotted the nickel tray. It was the tray for delivering the bill, except there was no bill on this tray but instead a ridge of white powder to which the Viking was adding more. Hickey shoved a rolled fifty into his hairy nostril and hoovered the powder up.

‘It’s getting late,’ I began, but the Viking cut me off.

‘What have we here?’ he wanted to know, looking over Hickey’s shoulder. Hickey turned around and the Viking pointed at the back of his head. Svetlana duly approached. ‘Show us your lovely dress, hon,’ he instructed her. ‘That’s it. Give us a twirl.’ She had by then slipped into something more uncomfortable. No more black and white. Just black, and not a whole lot of it. The Viking turned to Hickey. ‘Isn’t that a lovely dress?’

‘Gorgeous,’ said Hickey. ‘Knockout.’

The Viking put a hand on the builder’s shoulder. ‘This is my good friend, Dessie,’ he explained to Svetlana. ‘My very good friend,’ he added meaningfully. ‘Why don’t you sit down and join us, babe?’

Svelte Lana smiled at Hickey. ‘Hi Dessie,’ she said, and the way she pronounced his name lent it an almost sophisticated ring, as if there were an accent on the i. Desì . Hickey beamed up at her, his tusks of nasal hair frosted white. ‘Howaya love!’ She sat down and slid along the banquette until they were side by side. Her gold heels were five inches high and fastened around her ankles with little chains. The Viking threw me a knowing smirk. I couldn’t watch. And yet I did.

Svetlana whispered something into Hickey’s ear. ‘Ya are not!’ he exclaimed and she nodded, then leaned forward to whisper into his ear again. She sat back to see his reaction, then covered her mouth and giggled. I missed the signal whereby it was settled that he had pulled. Svetlana stood up, took Hickey’s hairy hand in hers and tugged it. ‘Ah no,’ he objected, leaping to his feet fairly lively all the same. With the additional height of her stilettos, the girl’s hips were level with Hickey’s belly. Her breasts jutted out at his chin. He gazed into them and told her that she had beautiful eyes.

I checked my watch. ‘That’s it. I’m done.’

The Viking’s hand shot out to detain me. ‘Stay. I want a word.’ Svetlana was leading Hickey away by the hand. ‘Don’t worry,’ he assured me as we watched them depart, ‘she’s well looked after.’ I stared at him. He stroked his smig as he contemplated their mismatched silhouettes disappearing through a door marked Staff Only. ‘And he’ll be well looked after too,’ he added with the air of one who knew what lay in store for Hickey beyond that door. ‘Now,’ he said when Hickey was safely tucked into bed and it was just the adults, ‘let’s get down to business. I believe we have a mutual friend.’

‘That strikes me as highly unlikely.’

‘Mr Deauville?’ the Viking prompted me.

‘Monsieur Deauville is not your friend.’

The Viking frowned. ‘Hasn’t he briefed you about me yet?’ The shadow of the crane swung across my grave again, though it was night and there weren’t supposed to be shadows.

When I didn’t answer, the Viking sat back and laughed. ‘I’m running your bloody hotel. You’re looking at your new business partner. And Deauville’s too, and of course Hickey’s. We’ve formed a consortium.’

‘But you’re a pimp. Monsieur Deauville wouldn’t do business with a pimp.’

The Viking lowered his head and shook it. He shook it for a long time before picking up his mobile phone and rising from the table. ‘Fuck you, St Lawrence. I amn’t charging Hickey for the girl.’

*

Dark thoughts, black thoughts, dark thoughts, black thoughts, fuelling the headlong charge home, dictating the rhythm of my feet. I stumbled like a drunk in my haste to escape from him, from them, from that place, that door, Staff Only. I didn’t trust the whoremonger not to spike my drink and M. Deauville had accepted him into a consortium.

I told myself over and over again that I accepted the things that I could not change, but I didn’t, and I couldn’t, and I wouldn’t, but I had to. ‘Ring,’ I urged my phone, holding it out like a compass to guide me, clenching it so hard that the casing creaked. My mind howled with the need to speak to M. Deauville. Perhaps it was a test. If so, I was failing.

*

Larney didn’t care or dare to show his face when I passed between the stone pillars that should have been crowned by winged dragons or hooded crows, something clawed that feasted on carrion. Instead, he chose to call out his riddle from the safety of the bushes. There is no safety, I wanted to tell him. You may as well come out of there.

‘The more you have of it, the less you see,’ came his voice, which was trembling with anticipation. ‘What is it?’

I didn’t have to give it a second’s thought. It was so obvious that I almost cheered up. I had a heart and a mind and a soul that was full of it. ‘That’s easy, Larney. Darkness.’

‘Well done,’ came the response in a dry, cultivated voice that did not belong to the gatekeeper. I stopped dead, turned to the trees.

‘Who’s there?’

Silence.

I took a step towards the verge. A swarm of teeming shadows. I strained my eyes to discern a human form but detected only leaves. ‘Show yourself,’ I commanded him, but he did not. I clenched my fists. ‘Show yourself!’ I bellowed as loudly as I was able, and the whole demesne quaked in the night because a man’s roar is amplified by darkness. Everything is amplified by darkness, particularly fear.

After an extraordinarily fraught pause, the leaves rustled and a twig snapped. Larney emerged slowly, wrists and elbows first, for his arms were raised to shield his head.

‘Come here, Larney. I’m not going to hurt you.’

He inched forward in the undulating, weaving manner of a snake and came to a halt a few feet shy of me, his body crouched and averted from mine like a blackthorn growing on a cliff. Tears, snot and spittle were trickling down his face, and his eyes rolled from side to side in his head, looking up and down the avenue in search of an escape.

‘Was that your idea of a joke?’

‘He made me.’

‘Who made you?’

‘He made me,’ Larney repeated, gulping air like a sobbing child.

‘Who made you?’

‘The man.’ Larney glanced up the avenue and shuddered. I turned around. Nobody was there. ‘The man,’ he said again. ‘He made me.’

‘What man? What was his name?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What did he look like?’ Somehow I had him by the collar of his shirt. He weighed nothing at all. When he recoiled to avoid my eye I gave his bones a shake. ‘Answer me, Larney: what did the man look like?’

Larney braced in anticipation of a blow. ‘He looked like you.’

I released his collar and he slunk back into the shrubbery. I wheeled around. The avenue was still empty. There was just the darkness. It was everywhere.

‘To return to this barbeque at his house that Mr Hickey invited you to following the success of the Claremont launch. Other members of the Golden Circle have specified that it was at this event that the decision to bid on the Pudong site was reached. Is that your recollection?’