‘Like fuck it is,’ I said.
They looked at me as if I had given them a present.
‘England starts a hundred miles south of here,’ I said lamely.
‘You’re a bit of a fanatic, aren’t you?’ the dark one said.
‘Because I don’t think this is England? That’s not fanaticism, it’s geography.’
‘He’s full of chat, isn’t he?’ the fair one said.
‘Full of piss.’
The singer in the kitchen beyond the lowered window had his repertory of pop songs interrupted. Something had gone wrong and an immediate uproar of angry voices flared until it subsided under the dominance of a single spate of heavily accented cursing.
‘Another piss artist,’ the fair one said. ‘Bleeding wogs.’
I wanted to smash them down. That night in the Union when I had bumped the elbow of the guy who turned out to be a medical student. Sorry, I’d said. Some of the beer splashed on his trousers. Just spots. It was nothing. Beer from his glass poured down the front of my jacket. I remembered that and his fat fee-paying-school face mouthing at me, but I didn’t remember hitting him. Although his jaw had been broken, they had smoothed things over. No penalty: mostly because I had been ill that night. Nobody knew how much it frightened me that I couldn’t remember.
The Homicidal Pacifist, Donald Baxter had named me after that.
‘You’re wasting time with me,’ I said. ‘Can’t you get that through your head? I’m not stupid – I don’t know anything about – this.’ I jerked my arm free and pointed to the windows above us. ‘Somebody broke in from the corridor – somebody climbed up there. I don’t know why anybody would want to do that. But I couldn’t. Do you understand that? I hate heights. I don’t know what happened up there. I don’t know why— why you should blame me.’
They looked at me seriously. For a moment, I thought I had got through to them.
‘Like a handkerchief, flower?’ the fair one said.
‘You didn’t know who, did you? Not at Christmas,’ the dark one said. ‘Not when you were planning it. But somebody, sooner or later. Place like this, stood to reason, sooner or later there’d be somebody your lot wanted. Only as usual with amateurs you got caught.’
‘We can fit you up for this one. You’re in the shit.’ The fair one mouthed the word like a soft fruit. ‘We’re the only friends you’ve got left.’
‘He’s right, you know,’ the dark one said in a kindly way. ‘He’s a bit rough, but he’s not wrong. Take the rest of your lot. Suppose they stay in the clear. Who’s left? It’s all down to you. They’ll put you inside and post the key to Robert the fucking Bruce. Since he’s dead – it’ll get lost. Your old mum’ll be dead before you get out.’
‘Your kid bloody sister’ll be dead.’
‘How did you—’
I shut up again. It was stupid to show I was upset by anything they said. It was just that I hadn’t expected them to mention Jess, who was only eight years old.
‘We know everything worth knowing about you,’ the dark one said. ‘You’d be surprised how much we know about anybody – if he gets important enough.’
‘Important!’ the fair one spat between my feet. ‘Bloody amateur! His lips are sealed. He’s in a dream world. Honour among thieves.’
‘Not thieves,’ the dark one said. ‘Idealists. That’s the word, isn’t it, son? Idealists . . . Patriots.’
I was like a ball they passed back and foward. We looked at one another. Their game was one I didn’t know. The rules changed. I lost.
‘Patriots.’
Going up in the lift, the dark one said, not maliciously, but in a quiet way, like advice, ‘You don’t want to mind your head about geography, son. We’ll decide the geography. That’s our job.’
‘We’re geography teachers,’ the fair one said.
In the suite on the fourth floor, there were two men I recognised. They had been two of the quiet faces, elderly watchful men who had not intervened in the questioning but had gathered glances during the hours of the night. I had known they were the ones who mattered.
My Cockney cross-talk act gave them scant respect. The ‘sirs’ were perfunctory.
‘The bedroom? Through here would it be, sir?’
I had no choice but to join the procession. It was a bedroom, but with a television and all the required bits and pieces to remind you the riffraff were kept outside. The food was good too – I had scraped enough of it off cold plates to remember that. The bed hadn’t been made.
In luxury hotels beds don’t get left unmade – unless something has happened.
Even then I didn’t realise. I thought of a robbery – or someone caught in bed with the King of Spain. The Cockneys carried that shade with them – of diplomats blackmailed, refugee scientists; people like them had been around since the Medes invented laws and a state to justify them.
‘His own detective heard nothing?’
‘No. He became suspicious, though, and it was he who found—’
‘Yes.’ The dark one interrupted him. ‘But since no one’s told chummy here anything about that he doesn’t know what was found. That’s right, isn’t it, son?’
I hated him more than anyone I had ever met – except his fair partner.
‘You’re satisfied things were tight at your end?’
‘Of course,’ one of the older men said frowning. ‘We’re not unused to this kind of thing. Car park had been checked out – no access in case of any bomb nonsense. Surveillance – discreetly – in the corridors and the rooms gone over with a toothcomb before . . .’
‘Maybe you were too discreet,’ the dark one said.
The man who had described the security arrangements went a strange purple colour. Before he could say anything, the other senior officer crossed to the window.
‘Who could have anticipated this?’ He twitched aside the curtain. ‘A quite exceptional affair. I still find it difficult to—’ His voice faded as he leaned out. He re-emerged looking persuasively startled. ‘And that door downstairs – incredible.’
‘Incredible like in fake?’ the dark man asked.
‘Fake? What fake?’ For a distinguished senior officer, he sounded inappropriately tentative.
‘You said “incredible.” I wondered if that’s what you meant . . . sir. Unbelievable – that’s what I wondered. If you don’t believe all that – the door downstairs, the window.’ He too went over and peered out. ‘It’s a hell of a climb, and then doing a window like this from outside . . . I can see anybody might wonder if it was a put up job.’
The senior officer gave him a look that seemed to me full of dislike. I have unusually sharp hearing, not always a comfortable gift. I can eavesdrop on a conversation three tables away in a restaurant. People don’t realise. Now I could hear them as they murmured at the window.
‘Don’t like your attitude. The detectives immediately involved – as usual – weren’t our people. If you want to suggest an inside job, you’d better start looking nearer home.’
‘Don’t misunderstand me, sir. I wasn’t suggesting—’
‘That’s all right then, isn’t it?’
‘Certainly. But you understand we’re here to get results—’
‘Well, what about this fellow? Do you prefer to have them standing around while you discuss possibilities? Is that how you people handle suspects? Or am I missing something – new technique, is it?’
‘Not a technique, no. We don’t need technique for this fellow. Seems to me he’s a dead duck.’
I missed the rest of the conversation. I was thinking so hard about what he meant that I lost my sense of the place and sat down on the bed.
‘Get up out of that!’ the second of the local men screamed in rage.
I fell off the bed – shot up like a cat that has had its tail pulled.
‘He’s a cool one,’ the dark man said. He and the older man came forward from the window. The four of them made a half circle hemming me in against the bed.