a bag of other essentials from a mini-mart on the way back.
Carla perked up over gosht kata marsala and a keema naan, washed down by a glass of high-proof Belgian blond. We were eating in the kitchen, where it was possible to forget the looming presence of the coffin for whole minutes at a time. Theoretically possible, anyway: but somehow the talk never seemed to stray very far from John.
I told Carla about the letter inside the watch case, but not about the lift. She nodded, looking resigned. ‘That’s what I was talking about,’ she said. ‘He’d hide things, and then lose them, and then find them and hide them all over again. I had it for months, Fix. I thought I’d got to know most of his hiding places, by the end, but that’s a new one.’
I hesitated. All I knew about John’s death was what Bourbon Bryant had told me, and that was the bare fact that John had stood up one Sunday night while Carla was watching the omnibus edition of
‘Did any of those other notes survive?’ I asked. ‘The messages he wrote to himself?’
She thought about that. ‘No,’ she said, after a few moments. ‘I’m pretty sure they didn’t. Like I said, he was always changing his mind. Spending most of a day scribbling on bits of paper and envelopes, then burning it all or tearing it up, and then the next day starting all over again.’
‘Those hiding places you mentioned – have you checked them at all, since he died?’
Carla looked at me a little blankly. ‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘I don’t know. Because there might be something there that would tell us what he was up to. “One for the history books” – remember? Maybe it was as big as he thought it was. Maybe there’s a reason why it turned out to be too much for him to take.’
Carla put down her fork and pushed her plate away. She blinked a few times, quickly, as if there were tears in her eyes that she wanted to keep inside.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, lifting up my hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘Forget I asked, Carla. You’ve got enough on your plate without this.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s all right, Fix. It just brought it all back, that’s all.’
‘Exactly. I’ll shut up.’
‘You don’t have to.’ She stood up. ‘It’s not like there’s any getting away from it, is there? There are a few places we can look, if you want to.’
Carla walked through into the living room, then off down a short hallway that led to the bedroom. I followed, a little uneasily, sending up a silent apology to John’s slumbering shade.
The bed had red satin sheets and a coverlet with the Playboy-bunny logo on it: matching his-and-hers pillows, with a halo for her and horns for him. You think you know people, but you never really do. Carla hauled a shoebox out from under the bed on the ‘his’ side, rummaged inside it and turned up nothing more interesting than a venerable set of cheque stubs.
Her next target was a safe on the wall behind a picture of a unicorn with a naked woman riding on its back. The safe had a digital lock which Carla opened by pressing the ‘1’ key six times. ‘Factory default,’ she explained, glancing at me and rolling her eyes. ‘He never bothered to change it.’ Drawing another blank, she crossed to a roll- top desk next to the window. It had a single drawer, which was empty, but Carla didn’t even bother to look inside it: she just pulled it out and put it on the bed, then knelt down and put her arm into the space where it had been.
Faint bumps and thunks told me that she was feeling to right and left in the hollow at the back of the desk. Then she stopped, and her eyebrows rose.
‘Bingo,’ she murmured.
With some difficulty, she pulled out a Sainsbury’s bag wrapped around and around with brown duct tape. She held it out to me, and I took it. I hefted it in my hand, felt the weight. It didn’t feel like there could be a whole hell of a lot in there.
I started to undo the tape, and Carla put her hand on mine to stop me. Then, as if conscious of where we were, and how loaded even a momentary touch like that had to be at the foot of a double bed with Hugh Hefner’s bow-tie-sporting were-rabbit giving us its one-eyed stare, she took her hand away again hastily.
‘Open it somewhere else,’ she said. ‘Or – tomorrow. Not now. It would probably be too much for me right now.’
I nodded and lowered the small package to my side. We were still standing too close to each other: it seemed to need another gesture on my part to defuse the tension.
‘You want another beer?’ I asked her. ‘It’s about eight per cent proof – like Tennant’s Extra, but with taste. Guarantees a good night’s sleep.’
‘I don’t think I’ll sleep much tonight whatever I do,’ Carla said, turning away and taking a step towards the bed. She hauled the sheets and covers off in a single practised movement. ‘Fix, I’m going to sleep in the living room, next to – I mean, with John. So you can have the bed. There’s more sheets and pillow cases in the top of the wardrobe, and a spare duvet in the divan drawer on that side.’ She pointed.
‘I brought a sleeping bag,’ I said. ‘I’ll just spread that on top of the mattress. Unless you want me to bring the mattress through for you.’
She shook her head, looking at me with an expression that was only a couple of hard knocks away from beaten flat. ‘I’m fine with the duvet,’ she said. ‘I’ll fold it like a sandwich and sleep in the middle.’
Seeming to reach a decision, she let the sheets fall to the floor and came back over to me. ‘Thanks for staying with me tonight,’ she said. ‘And for arranging everything. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’
She kissed me on the cheek, and there was no tension or awkwardness in it. Not on Carla’s side, anyway: I have to admit, her thanks sat heavily in my stomach right then, given that the main reason I was there was because I thought I might be able to get a clue about who was trying to kill me.
‘It’s part of the basic service,’ I assured her, deadpan. ‘The de luxe includes lawn care.’
‘I haven’t got a lawn.’
‘Then the basic should suit you just fine.’
I helped her take the bedding through, then went back down the steps to collect the rest of the kit I’d brought with me. It was already dark – but then, the slate-grey mountains of cumulonimbus had made it dark for most of the day. The wind had blown most of that mass away to the west now, though, and a sliver of moon as thin as a sickle blade was cutting what was left into grubby-looking tatters. Tomorrow was going to be fine, and as cold as charity.
I lingered out there, because there was something about the east wind heavy with unborn frost that felt clean and even refreshing. I called Juliet and got Susan Book. I asked her if she could pass a message on: I just needed to talk to Juliet about some work she’d done for the Met. She said she’d tell Juliet as soon as she came in.
‘We never seem to see you any more, Fix,’ she chided me. ‘Where are you working these days? In some terrible wilderness on the edge of civilisation?’
‘Southgate,’ I said. ‘I think the nearest civilisation is Wood Green Shopping City.’
‘Good grief, you’re only twenty minutes’ drive from here! You’ve got to come over for dinner. Jules would love to see you.’
‘Well, I will.’
‘Tomorrow.’
Cornered. ‘Okay, tomorrow,’ I said.
‘Actually, could you make it Thursday? I’ve got the prayer circle tomorrow night.’
‘Thursday it is, then. Thanks, Sue. See you then.’
I hung up, pondering on the mysteries of the human spirit. It was inexplicable on the face of it how someone who lived in sin with a succubus – a consenting adult demon of the same sex – could still be so active in the Church and see no inherent contradictions in her lifestyle. Susan Book was one of a kind. I was getting to like her, even if she had stolen my woman.
I took my time stowing the phone away, collecting my things and climbing the stairs again.
