He didn’t understand how these maps, if maps they were, could be of any help to him. After a few moments’ consideration, he repackaged them and stacked them behind the counter in their original position. He left the way he had come, after a cursory search for clues had yielded nothing else. All the way home, he thought of nothing but the alien charts that he had seen. And he carried them into his dreams too, the lines given substance, and he realised the places he had seen on the paper were places he knew in his own mind. Areas of his brain that had not been walked for many years.
He woke in a sweat, his hands shaking, but the dream was dead in his mind. As much as he paced, drinking coffee, he could not remember what it was that had filled his thoughts during sleep. Frustration had him on the verge of tears. He knew there was knowledge to help him. He just didn’t know how to access it. What lingered too, more than the maps, was the vision of the rope on Salt’s shoulder and the noose tied into one end.
EMMA LED A rogue stream of sunshine into the pub as she entered. Her fringe was flattened by her hood, and as she released it she gave it a scrub with her hand and made a beeline for the bar, smiling and pointing to Sean’s glass to see if he wanted another.
“What’s that?” Sean asked, when she returned with another pint for him and a small tumbler for herself.
“Malt whisky,” she said, luxuriously. Her green eyes filtered the light and spat it back at Sean, glittering with colour. Light fed her face, made her look impossibly attractive. She took a sip and her meaty lips disappeared as she savoured it. When they reappeared, they were red and wet and smiling.
“What?” she laughed.
“I’ll tell you, before too long,” Sean said, leaning across the bar to kiss her. He felt empowered whenever she was near. Unassailable.
“So what’s happening?” she asked. “You buying me lunch?”
“Of course.”
“What is it brings you up this way?”
Sean told her about the architect. “The place where I’ve been working is one of his,” he explained. “I’m pretty certain that the guys I’ve been working with were looking for something there. But they won’t find it now.”
“Why not?”
“Someone burned it down today, this morning.”
Emma said, “My God.” She reached for his arm. “You could have been working there.”
Sean shook his head. “I think one of the boys I work with did it. I think they just wanted to be sure that this something was there. I don’t think it was something you could put in your pocket and take away with you.”
“How do you know?”
“Just a feeling,” Sean said. “I think it was a search and destroy job.”
“What king of thing?”
He smiled. “I don’t know.”
Sean showed her the notes he had made. “There’s a house around here. This architect chap used to live there, or at least keep his fancy women there. I think these guys I work with would like to know about this place too. I think this place has something else in it that they don’t want others to know about.”
“Where is it then?”
“I don’t know,” he said again. “But neither do they.”
“Do you want me to help you find it?”
Sean drained his glass and nodded. “I think your intuitive skills might be of use. But no rush, hey?”
“Table twenty-six?” the waitress called out. They ate sandwiches and pinched chips off each other’s plates. Sean watched a customer punch buttons on the jukebox: Bowie, “Modern Love”. “This was the first single I bought,” they both said at the same time.
Emma told him that she was thinking of applying for a teaching course to get her out of the town. To start afresh. Sean spoke of his friendship with Naeem. Talking about him seemed to authenticate the memories, make them even more fresh and real in his mind.
“What’s he doing now?” Emma asked.
Sean shook his head. “I have absolutely no idea. Isn’t that the saddest thing? You grow up with these people and you think it’ll be you and them for ever. It should be you and them for ever, you get on so well. But something drives you apart. You lose touch. It’s criminal.”
Emma rubbed his hand. “It would be easy enough to find him, you know? Do an Internet search. Or he’s probably still in the book.”
“Maybe,” Sean said. “Come on.”
Outside, Emma ribbed him about the deliberate way in which he was walking. A huge articulated lorry thundered past, its logo in bright orange against a green background, a phone number two feet tall imploring customers to call now.
“I don’t seem to have a hangover any more,” he said, “but my legs are shot.”
Emma laughed. “They’ll be worse tomorrow. That’s what happens when you get older.”
Sean mock-chased her up Myddleton Lane, breaking off his pursuit when the uniformity of the buildings impinged upon him.
“He lived along here somewhere,” he said.
“Did he build the house himself?”
“I thought he would have done, but look, they’re all the same.”
Semi-detached blocks stretched away on either side of the street. Occasionally there were differences in taste represented by cladding or pebbledash or adornments, such as the metal butterflies stuck to the roof of one house, or the garish green used to paint the windowframes of another. Not one stood out. Nothing that said de Fleche.
“Have a nosey inside, then,” Emma suggested. “Maybe that’s what’s different.”
“It’ll take for ever,” Sean complained. “Do you know how many houses are on this street?”
“Ooh, I don’t know,” Emma said. “Twenty-six thousand?”
Sean stopped walking and stared at her. “What made you come out with that number?”
Emma shrugged. “I was kidding. Hyperbole, dear boy.”
“Something’s not quite right here,” Sean said.
“It’s raining, if that’s what you mean.”
“No, it’s numbers is what it is.” Sean grabbed Emma’s hand and led her across the road. “In the pub, what table were we on?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Then I’ll remind you. Twenty-six. It was table twenty-six.”
“So?”
“So you just said twenty-six thousand.”
“So?”
“So. The wagon that just went by. The phone number was two-six-two-six-two-six.”
“Sean. Don’t be so—”
“I’m not being so. The Bowie song in the pub. The guy keyed in A-twenty-six.”
“Ah. Well then, if you mention that, then it must—”
They came to a halt outside a house that looked much like any other they had scrutinised.
“Number twenty-six,” Emma said. “I didn’t know you were superstitious.”
“I’ve got nothing else to rely on,” Sean answered.
The garden was a riot of weeds. The bones of an ancient BSA motorbike leaned against the front wall, beneath the windows. There were no curtains in the windows at the front of the house but the view inside was hampered by a series of screens that reached from floor to ceiling. Two off-white buckets filled with cleaning rags and rusting screws, bolts and washers stood sentinel at the front door, comprised of a badly painted black frame that encased a single opaque pane, the view through which was further confused by an elaborate dimpling of the glass.