The Last Revelation Of Gla'aki (8 page)

"I give you my word I don't mean to, Ms Bickerstaff, but I would ask you to appreciate that I've come quite a long way on the understanding that these books will be made available to me."

"That isn't what Frank said, is it? He just wrote to you about his one."

"It's what I've been led to believe by everybody else." Fairman felt as if the argument had grown as slow as trying to run in a dream. "The sooner I take charge of the book," he said, "the sooner it'll be one less responsibility for you."

"I don't shirk any of my responsibilities, Mr Fairman."

"I'm sure I didn't say otherwise. I'm simply trying—"

"I haven't got time for this. As you say, I have responsibilities," Rhoda Bickerstaff said and immediately rang off.

As Fairman listened to the hiss of static, which he could have mistaken for the long breaths of the sea, Janine Berry came into the room. "Have you gone past your appetite?" she said like a reproving mother, and when he frowned at her "Don't keep it to yourself. We don't do that in Gulshaw."

"I'm finding someone isn't as forthcoming as everybody else has been."

"That won't do at all. We mustn't have anyone giving you trouble."

"It's Rhoda Bickerstaff. She's in charge of your Leafy Shade Home."

"I know that." With a look so distant it made her face resemble a mask, Mrs Berry said "Don't let her use that as an excuse. You go up there and don't take no for an answer."

"She does have plenty to deal with as it is, I suppose."

"Then like you said, she'll have less when you take what's yours." Before Fairman could object to having been overheard, Mrs Berry turned maternal again. "Just you eat up," she said, "and then I'll show you where to go."

Fairman gazed out at the fog while he ate, and had the fanciful notion that he was tasting it. A watery hint seemed to underlie every mouthful, though the textures were firm enough. The taste grew more indefinite as he fetched his coat and took the town map to the reception counter. "You go straight there now," Mrs Berry urged, but called him back as he headed for the car park. "You'll be thinking we don't trust you," she said and twisted the key off the ring on the metal club, so vigorously that her fingernails became indistinguishable from the flesh around them. "Now you can come and go like all of us."

Fairman pocketed the key on his way to the car. He was glad to leave the promenade where the stagnant greyish light appeared to seep into every face, not that the pavements were anything like crowded. He drove up a lane between the Kumbak and the Seesea, across the shopping streets to Edgewood Row, where several large houses had apparently lost their boundaries to form the Leafy Shade. While the single garden wall they shared beside the pavement had been cared for, the wall that backed onto the hazy colonnades of the woods was in some disrepair; more than one gap was wide enough for residents to wander through. As Fairman parked on the road, he saw that one of the vehicles in the grounds was a police car.

Presumably the crisis was at least as serious as Rhoda Bickerstaff had made it sound. He couldn't justify adding to her problems, however frustrated he might feel; surely even Nathan Brighouse wouldn't expect it of him. He was restarting the engine when a woman hurried out of the central building of the Leafy Shade complex. "Mr Fairman," she shouted. "Leonard Fairman."

Her gangling run emphasised how tall she was. Her head was disproportionately large, though with a small mouth and miniature chin. She wore a padded coat over a billowing black dress that exposed ankles thicker than he would have thought to see and black shoes too big for the elegance they aimed for. As Fairman left the car she unlocked the tall iron gate. "Mrs Bickerstaff," he said. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise—"

"No call for an apology. I'm not Rhoda Bickerstaff."

"Even so, I'm sorry if I'm adding to your difficulties."

"You're doing nothing of the kind." This sounded closer to an accusation than a reassurance, and her tone didn't change as she said "I'm Eunice Spriggs."

Her gaze went with the tone, but in a moment it relented—receded, at any rate. "I'm the mayoress," she said.

Did a wig come with the title? The hairline above the chubby brows that overshadowed her sizeable eyes seemed unusually regular, while the black hair that hung straight down beside her cheeks looked as inert as the grey light through the ceiling of fog. As she offered Fairman her disconcertingly small hand she said "Thank you for everything you're doing for us."

"I'm just doing what's expected of me."

"I wish some others of us would. Please accept my apologies on behalf of the town for the hindrance." Before he could tell her they weren't necessary the mayoress said "Do come and take over."

Fairman refrained from wiping his hand until she turned along the gravel drive. "Are you visiting someone?"

"Regrettably I had to," she said and stalked loosely although purposefully towards the central building. "Rhoda Bickerstaff."

Beyond a wide hall a pair of broad staircases not unlike pincers framed the entrance to a room full of old folk in armchairs. French windows let in the murky daylight, which seemed to tint all the ageing flesh. One old man was opening his mouth wide and circular to expose his greyish gums, and several of his companions joined in, as thought they were competing to produce the roundest mouth. An old woman was dangling her arms on either side of her chair to touch the carpet, and Fairman might have thought her hands were too long for the arms. Outside the windows a number of apparently unsupervised residents were shuffling and wobbling about the grounds; several had gathered to stare through a gap in the wall into the ill-defined depths of the woods. Fairman didn't want to distract anyone from keeping an eye on the residents, but Eunice Spriggs was gesturing him towards a room to the left of the stairs. She didn't bother knocking on the door.

A dumpy woman stuffed into a suit not much greyer than her face and hair sat behind a desk on the far side of the office. If she wasn't grimacing, a good deal was wrong with the left side of her face. Her lips were drawn towards it, and that eye was half shut, while the cheek harboured a purplish tinge. She was flanked at a distance by a policeman and a woman in the identical uniform. Fairman could almost have taken them for twins, not least because their rounded faces bore the same blank determined look. "Here he is at last," Eunice Spriggs said. "I believe someone owes you something, Leonard."

She gazed at the woman behind the desk, and then the police did. Since none of this broke the silence, Fairman felt he should. "Thank you for making time for me, Mrs Bickerstaff."

The woman sat forward and folded her arms with a thump on the desk. The sound seemed to echo, but the repetitions grew louder as they continued to reverberate. Fairman felt as if the floor were growing unstable, even when he realised that she was drumming a heel beneath the desk. "Rhoda," the mayoress said.

Rhoda Bickerstaff dug her fingers into her upper arms as she raised her head. "I've got to say I'm sorry, Mr Fairman."

"I'm sure I understand." When her eyes denied it Fairman said "Why should you?"

"For not scurrying to let you have your book like everybody else."

"I don't think anybody's quite done that."

"Then you don't know much about our town."

Fairman almost retorted that he knew there was so much more to see; it was like hearing a chorus in his head of all the voices that had told him. This time the mayoress brought a silence to an end. "Safe, Rhoda," she said. "Safe." Though it could have been a reassurance, Fairman thought it was an order. Rhoda Bickerstaff's eyes remained defiant while the drumming of her heel seemed to dissipate through the floorboards, and her gaze seemed to retreat without leaving him. She lurched to her feet so abruptly that her suit bunched up around her midriff, and Fairman could have thought her flesh had. The floor shook again as she paced to the safe behind the desk. She spun the combination wheel and hauled the door wide, leaving the interior in darkness, so that Fairman couldn't see the book until she clutched it to her breast. As she swung around her face twisted further to the left, and she seemed to find it hard to work her mouth. "I hope you're ready, Leonard," she said indistinctly. "There's your next step."

He had to extend both hands—he might almost have been reaching to take charge of an infant—before she relinquished the volume. As he took it she let out a breath that sounded capable of leaving her entire self hollow, and he saw the mayoress relax. It was the sixth volume,
Of Things Seen by the Moon,
with a colophon depicting a full moon where a lunar sea resembled the pupil of an eye. "Thank you," Fairman said, which seemed inadequate. "I hope your crisis will be resolved soon."

Rhoda Bickerstaff's face twisted leftward so convulsively that it seemed to drag the hairline of her greying curls askew. "Don't you really know what's going on here, Leonard?"

"The book was the only crisis," Eunice Spriggs told him. "Rhoda got a bit too used to looking after it, that's all."

"Is all this necessary?" Fairman said and stared at the police. "You mustn't think I'm being unprofessional, but when it comes right down to it, it's just a book."

"You're the last one I'd hope to hear saying that, Leonard."

He was disconcerted not just because it was Rhoda Bickerstaff who told him so but by a sense that at least one other person in the room might have. "I assure you I'll take care of it," he said, not without resentment. "Who's next on my list?"

"Eric Headon. He's our local historian."

This time it was the mayoress who spoke, but Fairman kept his eyes on Rhoda Bickerstaff. "You couldn't have told me that yesterday."

"That's not how things are done here, Leonard," Eunice Spriggs said.

"Why not?" Fairman demanded and turned on her. "How much do you know about all this?"

"All I need to," she said with an odd faraway look. "You will when it's time."

He oughtn't to be loitering, not least since the police had brought blank looks to bear on him. "Can someone give me Mr Headon's number?"

He had no idea who might respond until Rhoda Bickerstaff scrawled the information on the back of a Leafy Shade card that bore the slogan REST IS BEST. He was hurrying along the drive, and acutely relieved to have left the episode behind, when he glimpsed movement out of the corner of his eye. Had one of the residents fallen out of bed? Beyond a ground-floor window to his left a quilt was sprawling towards the floor. The pale shapeless object floundered out of sight beneath the low sill before he could distinguish it more clearly, but he couldn't have seen arms and legs protruding from it; nobody's limbs could be so unequal, in length as well as thickness. All the same, the bed was empty, and an occupant might have been entangled in the quilt. As Fairman thought of alerting someone, a uniformed nurse came into the room. His face grew blank as he saw what was there, and Fairman headed for his car.

He boxed up his prize and locked the boot, and then he hesitated. However uncomfortable the intervention of the mayoress and the police had made him, they'd helped him secure the book. Suppose the historian was as unforthcoming as Rhoda Bickerstaff had tried to be? Fairman might appreciate some official help, and so he phoned from outside the Leafy Shade. A somnolent hiss gave way to the simulation of a bell before a man mumbled "Yes."

There were fewer consonants to it than there might have been—perhaps none. "Mr Headon," Fairman said.

"Miss a fair un."

Was Headon drunk? He seemed to find it hard to shape his words. "That's who I am," Fairman nevertheless said.

"Goo to he fum you. Reach me alas."

"Good to speak to you. I'm sorry that I couldn't reach you sooner. Is it convenient to see you now?"

"Seem eel layer. Attach oh."

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that."

"Lair. Lair." With a distinctly peevish effort Headon succeeded in pronouncing "Later. You'll be at the show."

"I may be, but couldn't you possibly—"

"I have Tourette's." As Fairman wondered how much this might explain, Headon added a resentful translation. "Have to rest before the show."

"You're involved in it, you mean."

"I'm image all wry." Headon's words were growing worse than blurred again. "Arrest him," he muttered, "when you caw."

"Forgive me, I didn't catch that either."

"I said," Headon complained, "I was resting when you called."

"I'm sorry, I didn't realise." Fairman had a distinct impression that Headon thought he should have. "I don't suppose," he said, "before I go you could tell me who else—"

"Seethe am altar night. See you deny," Headon said so indistinctly that his voice seemed to merge with the static as he rang off.

Had he really believed Fairman was asking who else would be onstage tonight? At least Fairman had done all he reasonably could, and he had a book to examine. As he drove downhill he saw that the haze had advanced to the near edge of the sea and blocked off both ends of the promenade, which the grey light helped to resemble an old faded image of itself. Near the Wyleave the people on the seafront reminded him of the posters in the tourist office, since they appeared to be moving hardly at all.

Not to be met by Mrs Berry felt like a form of acceptance, though not one he needed to welcome. He unpacked the carton once he'd checked the contents of the safe. From the window he saw that despite the fog on the beach, people were sitting at the water's edge. They were so blurred that he couldn't be sure how scantily dressed they might be. Were those the same old folk as yesterday in the shelter? It was impossible to tell, given the scarves they'd wrapped around the lower sections of their faces, presumably to keep out the fog. Fairman ought to be making a call, and he took out his phone. "Leonard," Brighouse said. "Surprise me.

"I'm past the halfway mark."

"You mean you've nearly as far to go? What's the obstacle this time?"

"Some of the people with the books have been keeping me waiting."

"Perhaps you shouldn't let them. Do you think they're sufficiently aware of the importance of our acquisition?"