‘He wouldn’t grass nobody, you know that. Nah, this was a sweet way to go. And if we coulda told him he was coming back, we would’ve.’
‘The flat,’ Bobby said. ‘The one you later passed off as Barber’s. Why did you kill Clarence there?’
‘Well, we had all them flats, didn’t we? Used for this and that. How it happened, Clarence’s chest was bad when he come out, wiv all them years of bad snout. So he wants to give up the weed. I says, “’Ere, I know just the geezer.” We takes him up the flat, sits him down all comfy, then Kurt puts him under. A jewel of a subject. Like that!’ Seward snapped his fingers.
‘A faithful servant,’ Bobby said. ‘Foot soldier.’
‘Yeah.’
Grayle was blown away by the bizarre glint of tears in Seward’s hard eyes. No remorse — just nostalgia, sentiment, warm affection. If there was anything left down there in her shrunken gut she could’ve thrown up all over again.
‘And you played him the tape,’ Bobby said. ‘“The lines are open.” Seffi’s voice. And you told him that when he heard it, he would come back. And then …’
‘One shot. Pffft! Clean as a whistle. I cried afterwards, it was so swift and clean. Moving, know wha’ mean?’
‘And then you packaged him up and loaded him in a van and drove him down to the Thames Valley, left him in a skip.’
‘He’d’ve understood. A memorial service wouldn’t’ve been appropriate, would it, seeing none of us reckoned much to the All bleedin’ mighty? But we had a few beers down Clarence’s old boozer in Saxton Gate, and that was very nice.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘A very pleasant night.’
He stood up. He went and stood with his back to the oak door.
‘You never saw him, did you? You never saw a bleedin’ thing, you bitch. You was pissing right up my leg.’
‘You can believe what you want,’ Grayle said.
‘And that black slapper, she conned me too.’
‘They don’t realize all the trouble you went to,’ Bobby said. ‘I don’t know how you tolerate it.’
Seward hefted the sawn-off, turned on Bobby.
‘I warned you.’
‘So you did, Gary,’ Bobby said wearily. He put his head back, closed his eyes. ‘So you did.’
Grayle thought,
‘Open your eyes, cock. I want you to see. I want you staring down the little black tunnels.’
‘Piss off, Gary. Ron was right. You’re just a toerag in a fantasy world.’
‘What if I’m doing it now, Bobby? What if I’m aiming for just over your belt, so you die wiv your guts in your hands? What if I’m coming in close? What if I’m giving you the countdown. Three. Two …’
‘Look!’ Grayle screamed. ‘Can’t you see him? Can’t you see Clarence? He’s staring right at you, Gary! And you know the reason you can’t see him?’
Seward breathed out roughly. ‘You know I’m tired of you and your games. How about, if I turn around, and if I don’t see Clarence, I do
‘The … the reason you don’t see him … is you’d just be looking at yourself. You and Kurt. What you made. That’s not Clarence, it never was. All you’d see is what you made.’
‘I turn round and if I don’t see him, I blow you through the wall. Is that a deal, darlin’?’
Grayle said steadily, ‘That’s perfectly fine.’
Seward began slowly to turn.
Bobby threw himself at Seward, dragging the corpse and Grayle and Seffi Callard, pulled the whole damn table over but Seward moved easily away and stood with his back to the door and his shotgun at his hip, fully turned and cold and relaxed. In the dimness Grayle saw the fire from both barrels.
LV
The spiritualists said that when you died, friends and relatives who’d gone before would be waiting for you, to welcome you, show you the way to wherever it was — the endless garden with bird-song and angelsong, fountains of sound.
Bobby Maiden arose from blood and looked up into whiteness and psychotic eyes.
It was not inappropriate that he should be met by the amiable cross-bred bull terrier called Malcolm. It was not unlikely that Malcolm had gone before, shot by one of the Forcefield men.
Moments passed.
The strip light zizzed and flickered.
He could not feel his hands.
He saw a face on the flagstones.
Spirit-voices chattered all around him. The room shimmered blue-white, in all its horror, like the deep-freeze in a meat-packing plant.
‘Bobby?’ A small voice.
‘Grayle. Are you-?’
‘Yeah. You?’
‘Sure.’
At some point he became aware that the face on the flagstones was Gary Seward’s. Maiden raised himself and peered over it.
In the back of Gary’s skull was a bullet hole. The most beautiful bullet hole he’d ever seen. He kept looking at it and looking away and looking back. He wanted to frame the memory of it.
Malcolm sniffed at Gary’s head and then turned away.
‘Vera?’ Grayle’s voice again.
The figure in the doorway was big and still and black and white, except for …
‘Vera!’ Grayle shouted. ‘Vera, hold on …!’
The woman looked once over the room and then turned away. She was all in black and white, except for the yellow rubber gloves. A black pistol, a revolver, pointing down from one of them.
Bobby Maiden said, in disbelief, ‘Connie …?’
As the woman quietly went out, Grayle said, ‘Oh, Jesus, no …’
Cindy stumbled into the kitchen. It stretched away before him like an old-fashioned hospital ward.
He saw Vera before she saw him.
She was at the bottom end, near the fridges. She was tearing off her Victorian waitress’s costume. When Cindy came in, she snatched up something wrapped in brown paper. Instinctively, Cindy didn’t ask her if she’d heard the shot. He asked her how he might get into the cellars.
‘Those outbuildings at the back?’ Vera’s voice had toughened, was like whipcord. ‘The middle one, the stable. Third stall. Where the manger’s been moved.’
‘Thank you.’ He turned, saw Maurice enter the kitchen.
‘From what I gather,’ Vera said, ‘they needed to be able to get in and out from the grounds. That was those …’
‘Crole and Abblow.’
‘Yeah, them. Needed access separate from the house. You go down a bit careful, Cindy, but there won’t be a problem. Don’t worry about them security men, they’re staying well out of it. Nobody to tell them otherwise. They ain’t stupid.’
Cindy nodded. Beckoned Maurice.
‘You never saw me,’ Vera said.
‘No.’
‘Him neither.’
‘Him neither. Count on it.’
