Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

It took a while. But then he saw one arm reach up, pale against the charcoal waves, pale against the sky, like a child asking a question in class.

When he brought her out of the water, she wouldn’t look at him. ‘I was wrong,’ she said. And then she said, ‘Thank you.’

He gave her a smile. ‘It’s my job.’

Almost every day after that she’d arrive with offerings at lunchtime, sandwiches or fruit or cold drinks, but that wasn’t the point of the story. The point was, he’d seen through something, and he’d been ready. He had the same feeling now. The feeling that he couldn’t go to lunch. Except there were too many people on the beach and he didn’t know which way to look.

‘What’s wrong?’ Reid said. ‘Don’t you remember?’

Nathan lay back on the bed. ‘I remember.’

He drifted off to sleep. He woke suddenly and his mind had jumped tracks. Georgia. It was a whole day later and he still hadn’t got through to her. He glanced at his watch. 5.45 a.m.

He reached out, picked up the phone. He dialled her apartment first. No reply. He dialled the house. He let it ring and ring. He was about to hang up when somebody answered.

‘Who’s that?’ he said.

‘It’s Georgia.’

‘You sound strange, George. Did I wake you up?’

‘Nathan?’

‘George, what’s wrong?’

‘I took some pills.’ Her words were slurred. It was hard to understand her.

‘What pills?’

‘Dad’s pills,’ she said. ‘You know. He’s got lots. I took some green ones, then I took some red ones, then I think I had a blue one —’

‘Where are you, George?’

‘I’m in Dad’s bedroom. On the bed. There’s bottles everywhere. Tiny little bottles —’

‘How many did you take?’

‘Don’t know. Didn’t count.’

‘George, listen. Don’t go to sleep, all right?’

‘Yeah. OK.’

‘I mean it. Don’t go to sleep.’

‘OK.’

He stood still for a few seconds, then he put the phone down and turned the light on. Reid’s eyes opened wide, as if he’d only been pretending to be asleep.

‘What are you doing?’

Nathan was already dressing. ‘I’ve got to leave.’

‘Is there a problem?’

‘It’s my sister. She’s taken some pills.’

In five minutes they were walking out of the motel, the rising sun driving a thin wedge of orange light into the bank of dark cloud on the horizon.

That awful smell, it was his eyebrows. He touched one. It crumbled on the tips of his fingers like a kind of wiry dust. He could smell his own eyebrows, for Christ’s sake.

He couldn’t think about it, what was in that car. The sheet, his back-up copy of the tape. The numberplate. He just couldn’t think about it. His top hat was on the thirteenth floor. His wallet too. But he wasn’t going back, not now. Not with those flames crackling in his ears like rain, not to that mass grave. Even now, maybe, he was being watched. That kid with the puffy eyes and the crewcut, he was everywhere you looked. Maybe he even worked for Creed. Creed had kids all over the city. A line of speed, a limo ride, a smile, and they were his. Sometimes he used them for sex, sometimes for information. Sometimes for both. Jed looked round. The kid was still standing on the balcony, his face turned in Jed’s direction. A pale blotch, no features. The kid was still watching. Where’s your hat, mister?

He walked to the bus station in Mangrove East. He bought half a pound of Peanut Brittle on the way. It was how he felt. The wind moved past his ears and he thought of nothing. Rage filled him full, his skin felt tight with it. Instead of standing in line, he eased back against the wall, next to a fruit machine. Nobody came near him. Half a pound of Peanut Brittle and a head tight with rage. People know a force-field when they see one. He felt in all his pockets, pooled what money he had in the palm of one hand. Four dollar bills and some loose change. It would do. He waited till the Rialto bus pulled in, then he pushed through the crowd and climbed on board.

In ten minutes he was walking into TATTOO CITY. The walls were papered with the usual designs: anchors, roses, skulls. Nobody had numbers like he had. He could hear the buzzing of Mitch’s needle-gun. He stamped down to the workshop at the back. Mitch was working on a boy’s left shoulder. Jed waited for silence, then he bit off a piece of Brittle. Crisp as a bone snapping. It almost took his front teeth out. Then he said, ‘You set me up, Mitch.’

Mitch looked round. ‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’

‘You fucking set me up. Admit it.’

The boy peered at Jed, mouth hanging open. Jed wanted to fill it with something. Liquid concrete. Manure. Glue.

Mitch spoke to the boy. ‘Give me ten minutes.’

The boy nodded.

Mitch put his needle-gun down and crossed the room. He stood in front of the door to his house, hands dangling against his thighs. ‘You want to talk or don’t you?’

Jed led the way into the house. One dark corridor, all the rooms on the left. He passed the kitchen. Mitch’s old lady was sitting at the table, hands clasped together as if in prayer. Wisps of black hair veiled her eyes. Jed paused, but Mitch pushed him between the shoulderblades.

‘In the study.’

The study was in the back. One small window looked on to the verandah where they’d drunk beer the week before. One wall was lined with shelves. Books, model boats, clocks.

Mitch took a pipe out of the rack on the mantelpiece and began to pack it with tobacco. Jed counted the clocks, trying to keep his anger down. There were eleven. Mitch sank into a leather armchair. Jed counted the clocks again, just to make sure he hadn’t missed any. He hadn’t.

‘You look pretty strange,’ Mitch said. ‘You look so strange, I didn’t hardly recognise you.’

‘I could be looking even stranger,’ Jed said. ‘I could be fucking looking dead.’

Mitch lit his pipe. He leaned forwards, tossed the match into the fireplace, leaned back again. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you can’t say I didn’t warn you.’

‘Why did you do it, Mitch? Why did you set me up like that?’

Mitch moved his eyes on to Jed’s face and left them there. ‘How do you know it was me?’

‘It must’ve been you. You were the only one who knew.’

‘You might’ve been followed.’

‘I wasn’t followed. I know enough about driving to know that.’ Jed looked into the fireplace. All Mitch’s dead matches. All at different angles. Celia would’ve found some kind of omen in those matches.

Celia.

And his voice became patient, as if he had time, plenty of it. ‘When I called them this morning, they knew where I was. They knew exactly where I was.’

‘How do you know they knew?’ Mitch said. ‘What makes you so sure?’

Jed’s temper flared. ‘Because they fucking blew my car up, that’s how.’ He catapulted out of his chair and kicked the wall. A black half-moon appeared on the faded paint.

‘Sit down, Jed.’

He did as he was told. All the air drained out of him. Suddenly he could’ve cried.

Mitch sucked on his pipe. Smoke moved through the room. It seemed to be constantly on the point of turning into something, of assuming some recognisable shape, but it would never quite commit itself.

‘You’re right,’ Mitch said finally. ‘I told them. But you know what? They already knew.’

Jed stared at him. ‘They already knew? How?’

‘Beats me. But they did.’

‘But you still told them, Mitch. How could you do that? How come you even talked to them?’

Mitch sighed. He put his pipe down on the hearth and rose to his feet. He unlocked the top drawer of his desk and took out a polaroid. He handed the polaroid to Jed and returned to his chair.