Down Cemetery Road (31 page)

. . . That was what was waiting for him when Amos Crane broke cover. Meantime, he’d go home, have a rest, do some thinking.

Another trip by tube, then, which more and more resembled, these days, a visit to the underworld. Crowds of ill-smelling, nervous passengers, all crushed up too close together; many of them, he suspected, secretly enjoying the fact. On hot days, the blasts of air through the tunnels were pure sulphur. There weren’t as many rats on the line as there used to be, though. Howard assumed poison was set for them, and wondered if that too tainted the air; another invisible addition to the perils of capital life.

Disembarked, relieved, back in the world, he stopped at his local deli and treated himself to houmus, ciabatta, olives, then bought an evening paper at the corner. A world-famous rock star had just joined the choir eternal in dubious circumstances: it was impossible for Howard not to take a professional interest, however much he tried to view it as simple entertainment. Amos Crane, inevitably, came back to mind. Amateurs, he’d told Howard once, assumed that if you left targets with their pants down, an orange in their mouth and a pair of tights wrapped round their neck, nobody asked questions. Forensics, in fact, were a real sod in such cases. You were better off tipping them out a window . . .

Thank you, Amos, he’d said. I’ll keep that in mind.

He let himself in the front door; checked the mail out of habit. Nothing. His flat was ground floor, and getting in was a major security operation, calling on three keys. Inside, he dumped his shopping on the floor while he shut the alarm down, then put the shopping in the fridge, opened the Chardonnay, poured a borderline-insensible measure into a very large glass and drank most of it standing there, fridge door open, staring unfocused out of his flat’s back window, and its view of not very much. Sometimes the view through the window was the same as the view in his head, he decided: just a blank, formless space, as if somebody important forgot to fill in the details. Christ, and this was his first glass of wine. Much more, and he’d be speaking in French. He refilled the glass, shut the fridge door, and took his wine into the drawing room: a large, excellent place which always made him feel calm and comfortable, where, sadly, the first thing he saw was the sheet of writing paper on the glass-topped coffee table, and calm and comfortable left the agenda.

Howard,

I’ll take the events of this afternoon as constructive dismissal, shall I? I won’t go into how very upset this leaves me. Perhaps it’s as well you’re not in, or I might have acted in a way you’d regret.

I shall expect emoluments, pay in lieu (notice, holiday, etc.) to be arranged with your customary attention to detail. Meanwhile, I’m off to Scotland. Funny how some jobs you just can’t let go, isn’t it?

Downey is mine. Remember that. I’ll attend to you when I get back.

Sorry about the mess in the bathroom.

Believe me, Amos

He finished his wine first, because there was no longer any particular hurry. But having done that, the need to use the bathroom overcame him.

The mess wasn’t as bad as he’d expected, actually. At least Amos had left all three in the bath.

III

These were the missing days. Sarah spent them living a road movie: not the American variety, all sand-strewn horizons and miles of cattle wagons trundling over a prairie, but a homegrown version in which damp hedgerows featured largely, and the scenery lacked visible rhyme or reason. Dry stone walls appeared out of nowhere, ran humbly along lanesides for a mile or two, then vanished into the ground. Who decided that’s where they should be? Fairytale trees, tough and withered as witches, jutted at dangerous angles from hillsides. She remembered Mark saying once that all the best road-books and films – he was an infallible source of opinion – were the product of foreign eyes celebrating things the natives never noticed: Nabokov setting American geography in motion; Wim Wenders discovering Texas to the sound of a steel guitar. Okay then: maybe she should have packed a pen or a camera. She had the refugee’s eye all right; she was an alien in this landscape. A visitor from outer space.

They had chosen to drive the back roads –
Michael
had chosen to drive the back roads – because, well, because that’s what he’d chosen to do. She did not argue; if anything, they needed space in which to conduct a reality check. It was not a reality she had ever expected to find herself in – a hire-car with guns in the boot: you read about this happening in the States. It was always described as a spree, and there were always bodies left by the roadside. It ended with somebody strapped to a chair, waiting for the punishment to start.

She had to jerk herself out of these reveries. Remind herself whose side they were on.

The first night, they stopped at a farmhouse some miles from anywhere: if it had been possible to drive clear of Britain without noticing, they’d have managed it that day. The B&B sign by the verge also offered eggs, tomatoes, and, peculiarly, reconditioned fridges. The depredations on the farming industry had obviously been farther-reaching than she’d imagined. They took two rooms, the only two rooms, and in response to the landlady’s raised eyebrow Sarah managed something about just being friends. They were not just friends. There was no word available to describe their relationship. That night she fell straight into heavy sleep, to be woken in the small hours by a barking dog, followed by the muttered cursing of, presumably, the farmer. The dog fell silent. So did everything else. Sarah got out of bed and went to look from the window; the surrounding countryside was dark as the far side of the moon. But as she gazed out, a car crested a hill in the distance, its sudden headlit appearance throwing everything into relief. She could make out the hillsides then; the occasional raggedy outbreak of hedge. Three trees in the near distance, their configuration an echo of a Station of the Cross. When the car passed she returned to bed and slept once more, though this time there were dreams: savage, confused things over which hovered, somehow, the horror of crucifixion. The next morning, when they passed those trees, they were innocent in the early light; neither young nor ancient; merely trees. She could as easily have had nightmares about the car she’d seen; a black demon chewing the darkness with its twin electric swords.

Michael never referred to his coughing fit. When she asked him directly he shrugged, and changed the subject.

That second day, still early, they parked on the edge of a wood. While Sarah watched for traffic, Michael fetched the guns from the boot and carried them into the trees. There she followed him, picking carefully over roots and fallen branches; skirting mud puddles and suspicious piles of leaves Michael didn’t seem to notice, though he didn’t stumble either. He stopped in a clearing and laid the shotgun on the ground. He had not broken it the way you were supposed to: the code of the countryside. Presumably he followed a different set of rules.

Out on the road, a car drove past. Its engine noise tugged at her heart; the ease with which it left the area, disappeared into somebody else’s future.

He found a tin can lying under a tree – there wasn’t an empty space in the country you couldn’t find a rusting can – and lodged it in a branch before pacing the clearing, measuring ten steps. ‘Any further than this,’ he said, ‘you’re definitely going to miss.’

‘I’m not going to shoot anybody.’

‘Are you going to let them shoot you?’

‘I don’t suppose it’ll be a straight choice,’ she said.

He loaded the handgun. ‘Use both hands. Use your left to steady your right. On the wrist, like this.’ He demonstrated. ‘It’ll kick back. Not a lot, but you need to expect it.’

‘I don’t want to fire your gun, Michael.’

He ignored her. ‘Don’t aim dead centre. Take your bearing and fire a little low. That way, when it pulls up, you’re already compensating. When you’re new to it, it almost always pulls up.’

‘Fascinating. But no.’

‘You know your problem, Tucker? You haven’t sorted out yet which part’s real and which part isn’t.’

He turned, apparently casual, and shot the tin can from the tree. It made a lot of noise: not just the gun itself, whose low crack sounded like the splintering of last year’s wood, but a racket all around as birds and unseen beasts took fright and fled. And then there was just a settling down, with, somewhere in the distance, a bass pulse, as if the gunshot were still out there, heading like hell for the hills.

Michael retrieved the can and showed her its jaggy, bone-dry wound. ‘See? It’s made of tin. You can shoot it all you like, you’ll never hurt it.’

‘So what’s the point?’

‘We’re not in Oz. Whoever’s got Dinah, it’s not the Tin Man.’ He held the gun out for her. ‘You might never have to use it. But if the time comes you do, you can’t say Stop, I haven’t practised.’

It was heavier than she’d have imagined. This was appropriate: machines that were made for taking life should have heft to them. You wouldn’t want to take them lightly. This one, he’d already told her, was a German gun. A Luger. Not as old as the gun he’d broken back at Gerard’s, but a wartime piece just the same. ‘A collector’s item.’

‘But still illegal.’

When she looked at the can, it was miles away.

‘Just imagine it’s Rufus.’

This was crude, unnecessary, and did not work. Her first three shots went wide; only with the fourth could they measure how wide, because that time her bullet wound up buried in the tree itself. About a foot from the can.

‘You’re pulling to the right. Aim to the left.’

He showed her how to load, but didn’t make her do it. He did make her try again. This time she emptied the gun, and came within a few inches of the can with her last shot: he said. She wasn’t sure how he could tell.

After that, he picked up the shotgun.

(Back at Gerard’s, while Michael smuggled the guns out, Gerard told her about the shotgun. ‘Don’t let him fire it without taking the plugs out,’ he’d said.

‘Plugs?’

‘The barrels are plugged. Keeps dirt out. That’s a bloody expensive gun, Sarah.’

‘What would happen if he fired with them in?’

‘He’d ruin it.’ After a moment or two he added, ‘Blow his hands off too, mind. Serve the bugger right.’

And she knew it was her he was thinking about. That he didn’t want Michael handing her the gun; saying,
Here. Have a go with this
, and Sarah blowing her hands off.)

She didn’t need to bring it up. He broke the gun open, peered down the barrels, then upended the gun and pulled a cork from each with his little finger. They looked like corks: red ones, each with a loop in the end for easy removal. He dropped them into a pocket of his denim jacket, then scooped a handful of shells from a box liberated from Gerard’s cellar, and shovelled them into another.

‘Watch.’

He loaded it, his eyes watching her rather than his hands; making sure she was following. Then cracked the gun back into a piece, pulled the hammers back, and with an action so smooth he might have been dancing brought the stock to his shoulder, levelled the barrels and fired.

The can disappeared. A good part of the branch went with it. This time there was no follow-up noise; no local creatures left to go batshit with shock. Anything left in the area was already stone deaf or dead, themselves excepted. And she wasn’t sure about her own hearing, once the roar of the gun had died away.

‘You okay?’

‘You hit it, then.’ Her voice sounded funny in her head. As if it were echoing in a large, empty room.

‘Missing it would have been a better trick. If it comes to a straight choice, use this.’ His voice was level, serious. It always was, but holding a gun lent him gravitas. ‘You point a handgun at a soldier, he’ll take it off you. But if you’re carrying one of these, he’ll keep his distance. Here.’

This, too, was heavy. But in those first moments, she had nothing to compare it to: couldn’t remember picking other things up. It was a tool for a job outside her scope, and only a sudden heavy scent of woodland carried on a draught through the clearing gave her the bearing: it was like work for an autumn day, work you did with the house behind you, and woodsmoke drifting on a steady wind. Like shouldering a rake once you’re sure the job’s done; or wielding a yard broom, clearing rubble from the foot of a tumbling wall.

It was not like housework.

‘It’ll kick,’ Michael said. ‘The thing is, don’t drop it.’

She raised it to her shoulder, the way he had.

‘Uh-uh. You’ll end up with a bruise the size of Ireland. Fire from the hip. Just let your eyes point the way. We’re not going for long-distance marksmanship here. All you need do is prove you’re not afraid to fire it. Most situations, that’ll get you the benefit of the doubt.’

When he was satisfied she was holding it correctly, she fired.

It kicked, yes: she felt the tug on her arms as if she were about to take off backwards. What she had been aiming at, she wasn’t sure, but the shells tore a hole in a bush she could have put her arm clean through. This was something she did not notice until regaining her balance: but she did not fall, did not drop the gun. For a short moment her vision pixelated, but that was all. The dead bush, the trees around her, were a vast confusion of blurred dots, as if she were standing too close to the screen they projected on to. And then it cleared, and the bush had a hole in it, and Michael was taking the gun away, showing her again how to break it open, feed it, lock it.

‘One more time,’ he said.

‘No.’

‘Don’t think that’s it. Shooting at people, it’s a lot different.’

‘I imagine,’ she said, on her way back to the car.

‘Bushes don’t shoot back,’ she thought he said. But by then she was deep among the green, tracking her way out of this narrow world of leaf and mud, and couldn’t be sure of his words, or whether he meant that made it easier or harder.

That second night she had curled up on the car’s back seat in a search for comfort calling on resources she didn’t know she possessed. When she closed her eyes, her dream landscape rolled by at an unwavering forty miles an hour, with, every so often, the same barn, the same clutch of houses drifting past. Like a pointless ring road, her dream circled nowhere, endlessly, and trying to break free of it, she could only spin into the void. The trick was to keep going. Even a ring road had to lead somewhere.