Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

‘You walk into that building,’ Sir Charles said, ‘and you know you’re in capable hands.’ Clouds of smoke trailed over his shoulder as he paced. ‘You’ve got to win people’s trust. Trust is very important. Without trust,’ and he came to a standstill and tipped his chin into the air, the thought still forming.

‘Without trust,’ Jed said, ‘we wouldn’t be standing here now.’

Sir Charles swung round. ‘Precisely.’ For a moment he was rendered motionless by surprise, a kind of respect. But only for a moment. ‘What I’m trying to say to you is, this is a hard business. A cutthroat business at times. But you should always remember one thing. It’s people that you’re dealing with. People.’ He thrust both hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. ‘I’m sixty-nine and I’m still working. Nobody really retires from this business. It’s a way of life.’

He showed Jed to the door of the library. ‘Is there anything I can do for you, my boy?’

‘Not that I can think of.’

Then his face moved close to Jed’s, and he said, ‘Are you interested in my daughter?’

‘I’ll let you into a secret, Sir Charles,’ Jed said. ‘I’m not interested in your daughter at all. I’m just pretending to be. It’s your money I’m really after.’

Sir Charles stared at Jed, and Jed stared back; he wasn’t going to help Dobson out with this one. At last a smile began to pull at the folds in Sir Charles’s face, as if his cheeks really were wallets and his smile was going through them, looking for cash, then the smile turned to laughter, it pushed between his teeth, it was dry and rhythmic, it sounded uncannily like someone counting a stack of dollar bills. Jed saw Carol at the end of the corridor and began to walk towards her.

‘You remember what I said,’ Sir Charles called after him.

The next day Creed asked Jed to drive him out to the Crumbles. The Crumbles lay to the east of the city. All the land out there had been under water once. It was flat for miles. There were a few wooden beach huts down by the shoreline. Some old mine buildings in the distance, some gravel pits. Otherwise just shingle, grey and orange, and a soft wind tugging at the heads of weeds.

He followed Creed’s directions, leaving the road for an unpaved track that seemed to lead towards the ocean. The track widened and then vanished. Then they were driving over rough ground, loose stones popping under the tyres. He parked close to where the land sloped downwards to a narrow pebble beach, and switched the engine off.

Creed stared out of the window, his chin cushioned on one hand, his eyes doubly concealed, first by the tinted windows of the car, then by his sunglasses. Jed thought he understood. It was like Vasco and the mudbanks of the river. It was where Creed came to do his thinking. Where was Vasco? Jed wondered. He’d scarcely set eyes on him since the night they’d had dinner together at the house in Westwood. Nobody had mentioned him either, and Jed didn’t feel he should ask. He poured himself a cup of coffee from his private flask and watched the white gulls lift and scatter against the dull grey sky.

The glass panel slid open behind him.

‘I heard you were out at Dobson’s place last night.’

‘That’s right, sir. I was.’

He’d known Creed would find out. He’d even wanted him to. He wanted Creed to be amused, impressed even. A chauffeur at the chairman’s dinner table!

‘Any particular reason?’

‘Carol asked me.’

‘Carol?’

‘His daughter. The receptionist.’

Creed said nothing.

‘The one with the limp,’ Jed said.

‘I know the one.’

Another silence. Wind pushed at the car.

Then Creed said, ‘Dobson’s on his way out.’ The chairman? On his way out?

But Creed didn’t give Jed time to think. ‘When a ship sinks,’ he said, ‘that’s when you see who the rats are. What interests me is, which rats leave which ship.’

The glass panel slid shut.

One week later Sir Charles Dobson resigned as chairman of the Paradise Corporation. The decision had been taken, the statement said, ‘for personal reasons’. The new chairman, elected unanimously by the members of the board, was Mr Neville Creed. Jed read the statement three times while he was eating breakfast that morning. It sounded calm and measured, utterly reasonable. But he couldn’t make any sense of it. He saw Dobson standing in the library. Nobody really retires from this business. It’s a way of life. He couldn’t make any sense of it at all. And then he saw Creed sitting in the back of a black car parked on the Crumbles. Dobson’s on his way out.

From then on everything that happened seemed to jar. There were minor changes, subtle departures from routine. Creed called at seven. ‘Meet me in the parking-lot.’ Jed usually waited in the car outside the front of the hotel. Now it was the parking-lot. Underground. When Creed stepped out of the service elevator he wasn’t alone. Flack was with him. Flack was one of the corporation lawyers. It looked as if both men had been up all night. Except Flack didn’t have a technique. Flack’s skin glistened in the white, gritty light, his thin face tight with fatigue.

Jed held out a hand as Creed approached. ‘I’d like to congratulate you, sir.’

At close range Creed looked bright, jagged round the edges. As if he’d been cut out of tin. He was staring at Jed. He didn’t seem to know what Jed was talking about.

‘Your new appointment.’

Oh that. A nod, a quick smile. And then Creed ushered Flack into the car. It was as if Creed had something more important on his mind. But what could be more important than his appointment as chairman of the largest and most prestigious funeral parlour in the city?

Up the ramp and out into the light. That white winter sun, a magnesium flash. At the first intersection Jed snapped his dark lenses over his eyes. A calming green. He glanced at the two men in the back. Flack was crushed into a corner, gesticulating, a beetle turned on to its back. Creed leaned towards him, his hand palm-upwards in the air, the fingers curved and stiff like the setting for a precious stone, but no stone there. They were arguing — but what about? It was a question Jed had never allowed himself before. He saw old Garbett’s tape recorder, he saw the wheels turning. If only he could record what they were saying. He began to imagine how he would run the wires under the carpet, and had to stop before it became too real.

Flack was dropped in the city at ten. McGowan and Maxie Carlo took his place. Carlo pared his thumbnails with his knife. McGowan spat bits of words through pointed teeth. Creed stared out of the window, as if it was the Crumbles he could see. The mood was wrong, all wrong. Creed had been appointed chairman, yet there was no sense of celebration. The day was filled with whispers, echoes, nerves.

Towards midday they drove out to Dobson’s house on Pacific Drive. Carlo and McGowan waited on the steps while Creed went in. Creed was inside the house for almost an hour and when he emerged on the steps it wasn’t Sir Charles who was with him, but Sir Charles’s wife. At first Jed thought she was laughing. Maxie Carlo must’ve cracked a joke. But he saw her hand fly up and hold her mouth, he saw Creed slide an arm round her shoulder. It wasn’t laughter. She was crying.

The next stop was Butterfield, where they picked up Morton the embalmer. This, too, was curious: Creed never had anything to do with embalmers. In fact, Jed had only seen Morton once before. He’d spent an afternoon with Morton when he first joined the company, as part of his induction. He remembered the white room. The tinkle of calipers and hacksaws in the sterilising bowl, the naughty smack of rubber gloves. And Morton talking, talking. ‘I lie beautifully, that’s my job. Or not lie, maybe. Turn the clock back. Tell an old truth.’ A hole had opened in the floor and the naked corpse of a white woman rose into view. Later Jed had lost all sense of time as the external heart slowly pumped a solution of formaldehyde into the dead woman’s body, as the dead woman’s body began to blush. He couldn’t help thinking of his radios, the way they warmed up, that slow suffusion of light behind the names. Turn the clock back. Tell an old truth.