Actually, Robert can’t remember if the government ever actually introduced those high-pitch hummy things or whether it was just a policy that was mooted to curb the rise of the hoodies, such as ASBOs or hugs, and he had just assumed it had happened and got one possible future that existed in the past confused with the actual future that actually happened in the past.
Anyway, the kinds of sounds that come out of a distorted guitar amp are—sonically speaking—a lot more complex than the sounds that come out of a piano. So—sonically speaking—punk music and heavy-metal music are actually lots more complicated than classical music.
Robert pulls himself into a sitting position and finishes the beer. It has become warm and tastes indistinct. Cold beer has all sorts of flavors, even cheap cold lager, but warm beer just tastes warm.
He crushes the can in his right hand and gets up from the sofa. He walks to the other side of the room and throws the can into the bin, then picks up his electric guitar which is sitting on a stand in the corner. It’s a 1962 Fender Telecaster in traditional butterscotch, though the nitro is now worn thin. It is probably worth a mint these days. He plugs it into his amp and starts to hash out some chords. He turns up the volume. He looks over to the clock on the wall to reassure himself that his neighbors are at work, then laughs at himself for being so un-punk these days that he gives a fuck.
He is trying to distract himself from thinking about Cheryl. Even he has enough self-awareness to recognize that.
“We think she’s been trafficked, forced into prostitution.” That’s what the policeman said. The top policeman who came in to question him in the interrogation room, the man he sees on the telly and on campaign posters all over the city. They thought Robert was involved. He wasn’t. But when they let him out, he got to thinking: the Archbishop’s cellar is beneath the brothel, and that’s where Cheryl lived. Robert tries to imagine the women he knows there mixed up in that kind of thing. He can’t. It doesn’t seem like them at all. That Karl, and his new associates, on the other hand …
There’s a knock at the door. He opens the door and sees a woman he hasn’t seen for nearly thirty years.
“Can I come in?” Anastasia asks.
Robert steps back to allow Don’s girl inside, only she is not a girl anymore and Don is dead.
Anastasia looks around Robert’s flat. It has hardly changed at all in nearly thirty years. She sees the same brown sofa, the same table and chairs in the corner, probably been used twice since she was last here, and only twice before that.
A new-looking television with an enormous screen has been placed on the sideboard. The picture is of footballers warming up before a match, but the sound has been muted.
There are unopened letters on the sideboard too, and a stack of takeaway menus.
“I don’t have visitors very often,” says Robert. “Never. And of all the people I thought it might be when I heard the knock, I think you might have been at the bottom of the list. You or your late husband, back from the dead.”
“It’s been a long time,” Anastasia agrees.
The weekend bag Anastasia was taking with her to Bythwaite Hall is slung over her shoulder. She lets it drop to the floor, and she places her small handbag on the table.
“I remember decorating it,” she says. “Well, I remember choosing colors and materials. It was very fashionable in here when it was first fitted out.”
“Oh aye,” says Robert. “It was always wasted on me. I’ve never had an eye for that sort of thing.”
“I never did ask Donski why he gave you the flat. Loyal service?”
“Something like that.”
Anastasia guessed at the time that Robert Kerr was one of her husband’s heavies; one of the men who sorted out problems that required a particular kind of sorting.
He offers Anastasia a drink. He hesitates at first. It has been so long since he has had guests, he has forgotten how these things are done, but he sees her eyes move around the flat and eventually to the kitchen and he asks her if she fancies a cup of tea. He has some old teabags in a cupboard, but no milk.
She accepts, more because it’s an automatic response than out of any desire for refreshment.
Robert fumbles with the kettle. He maintains a basic level of cleanliness in the flat. He wipes surfaces and occasionally hoovers, but it is only him living here and there seems little point going above and beyond. The kettle is covered in fingerprints and is full of lime-scale. He fills it with water and switches it on, and a couple of minutes later he hands Anastasia a mug of just-boiled water poured over a teabag, which floats on the gently steaming surface.
“My daughter pays you a monthly allowance, yes?”
“If it’s your daughter who is in charge of your late husband’s estate, then yes, your daughter pays me a monthly stipend.”
Anastasia takes this in. The evasion, then the admission. He is sensitive about receiving this money, she can tell. It is natural for him to be sensitive about it. He needs the money but, equally, it connects him to a past which he would, perhaps, rather not be connected to. They all share this same heritage; the funds its legacy produces. With interest.
Up at the Big House
An old-time rails bookie stands between Agatha and the object of her desire. She is in the members’ enclosure with the other owners, trainers, and well-to-do people. The racecourse is stratified according to price but not only according to price. There are cheap sections and expensive sections, but to enter the members’ enclosure you have
