'Perhaps you can tell us whose,' the man with the document said.
'At a fair. A memorabilia fair, that's to say. What's supposed to be sinister about it? It's just a stamp everyone got when they went in. It must have got under my skin, that's all.'
'We've seen something very similar on drugs.'
For an insane second I was tempted to enquire which drugs the two of them were on. 'You can see clown faces all over the show. I don't mean you,' I probably shouldn't have added, and then there seemed to be nothing more to say.
Despite the hardness of the chair, I must have nodded off. No doubt that increased my resemblance to a drug fiend. I flee the company of Tubby's face, which shines as white as his teeth, to find myself once again in a windowless boxy place. Beyond it amplified voices continue to announce delays, though not mine. I feel as if I'm imprisoned behind the scenes. There are three unformed men in the room now – no, uniformed – and I have to blink hard to establish that they don't have Tubby's face. The third is the officer who took away my belongings, and he's murmuring to his colleague who wrote my details down. 'Just traces of activity on the clothing. No evidence of importation.'
His associate notices I'm awake. His expression grows officially neutral as he turns to say 'You can leave whenever you're ready.'
'I've been that for hours.'
The three men stare at me but don't otherwise respond. The one with the document adds some lines to it while I dress. I've grabbed my suitcase and am lugging it towards the door when he says 'You'll need to sign this.'
The sheet states I was detained on suspicion of possessing a controlled substance, but it's the last phrase that makes my eyes feel even rawer with fury than with jet lag: 'insufficient reason for action'. By Christ there wasn't, and only my unwillingness to linger prevents me from saying as much if not more. I take hold of the ballpoint, though the weight of the suitcase has left my fingers clumsy, and scrawl my name. Before I can retrieve the case the man responsible for the document says 'May I see your passport again, sir?'
'Good God, what's the problem now?' While it seems advisable to hand over the passport without uttering the question, I barely succeed. His colleagues gather round to help him gaze at it and at the incident report. Eventually the bulkiest man says 'These aren't the same signature.'
'You try signing after you've had to drag a heavy case about after some bloody useless incompetent buggered it up,' I snarl and grab the ballpoint, which my crippled fingers almost fling at him. I rest my other hand on top of them in case this steadies them while I cross out my signature and rewrite it at half the speed. 'There, that's the real thing,' I say with only some of my anger. 'Anyway, that's my picture, isn't it? You can see it's me.'
The three of them scrutinise the photograph until I have the deranged notion that they're preparing to deny that too. After a pause long enough for yet another delay to be announced, the keeper of the documents hands my passport back. 'Please follow me, sir.'
'Where? For Christ's sake, what's the nonsense now?'
The three adopt pained frowns that look unsettlingly identical. 'I'll walk you through Customs so you aren't held up any further,' he says.
'I'm sorry.' Mortifyingly, I am.
As I follow him out of the interrogation room and through the green exit at Customs I struggle to steer the case ahead of me, almost catching his heels more than once. Beyond a barrier in the arrivals hall, people brandish placards with the names of passengers. I glance along the line, but of course I can't see my name. Above them a clock magnifies my realisation that Mark's play starts in less than an hour, and I turn my frustration on my escort. 'Did it really have to take that long when I'd done absolutely nothing at all?'
'I wouldn't quite say that, sir.'
'I'd done nothing illegal. Nothing that's against the law where I was, at any rate.'
'Behaviour we'd call paedophilia is tolerated in some countries. That doesn't mean you can avoid prosecution when you return to ours. Now if you'll excuse me...'
I will. I wish I had sooner. Bystanders are staring at me over the barrier as if they've overheard the comments I would least have liked anyone to hear. I'm trundling the case ahead of me – I feel capable of using it to ram anyone who looks at me wrong – when I see that my humiliation hasn't been observed just by strangers. Pacing me behind the silent chorus line, their faces set for a confrontation, are Warren and Bebe Halloran.
THIRTY-FOUR - NO ROOM
As the Shogun leaves the car park I begin to think the Hallorans have taken a vow of silence until Warren thanks the attendant for his change. The word is enough to release some of mine. 'Would somebody have a phone I could borrow?'
Bebe turns with a slowness that I could take for reluctance to look at me. 'We thought you were meant to be sufficient now.'
'I've left mine at home.'
'Home.'
'Natalie's.'
I can see that her response is going to be pointed, but I don't expect 'Let me guess. You need to call a lawyer.'
'No, the bank.'
'I won't ask why,' Bebe says, but might as well. 'Don't tell us you're in money trouble.'
'Not for any longer than it takes me to talk to them.'
'What are you figuring on fixing?' says Warren.
'Some fool has put me in the red.'
'Maybe you want to check your account before you throw a fit,' he says and hands Bebe his mobile, presumably to pass to me. 'If it's online it's on here.'
I have to thrust my hand between the front seats before she yields up the phone. By now the Shogun is racing past Heathrow. Its speed is subtracted from a take-off, so that the airliner appears to hang motionless in the black air as if a film has been paused while I wait for the Internet to load. The vehicle feels cramped and dark with hostility, and chilled as much by it as by the night, in which the edges of the pavements are fat with cleared snow. We've reached the motorway stretch of the Great West Road by the time I type my identification. My tiny portfolio page appears, and I bring up the details of the deposit account. I peer at the shrunken transactions in one kind of disbelief and then another. 'Idiots,' I hiss.
'Gee, there seem to be a lot of those around,' Bebe says. 'Which ones now?'
'The bank. They've gone and paid my publisher twice as much as the publisher paid me.'
'Isn't that called vanity publishing?'
This reminds me so much of Smilemime that for a crazed instant I'm tempted to discover what he has been saying about me since I was in the Pot of Gold. 'No,' I say and take the phone offline. 'It's mismanagement. Bungling. Ineptitude. Incompetence. Cack-handedness. That's what you're suffering from if your hands are full of cack.'
Bebe emits a small prim gasp, and Warren advises 'I wouldn't say all that to your bank.'
I wait for the message to finish exhorting me to select keys. At last I'm connected with an agent, or at least with an assurance that the bank values my call even though every one of its operatives is busy elsewhere. This is repeated so often that it's begun to sound like a lullaby, however little it alleviates my tension, when a slightly less automatic voice says 'Tess speaking. May I take your name?'
'You've already taken a lot more than that.' I don't know if she hears this, but I ensure she hears 'Simon Lester.' I tell her my account number and the sort code and my date of birth and my mother's maiden name and the recipient of a standing order from my current account, but when she asks for the amount I've had enough. 'I couldn't tell you. There's a limit to the stuff I keep in my head. Believe me, if I wasn't who I say I am I wouldn't be this pissed.'
Bebe tuts and Warren shakes his head as Tess says 'How may I help you, Mr Lister?'
