As the nurse leaves a portly man with a bald, meaty head enters. He has one eye that moves and one that is dead. An eager, younger looking man, likely to be an aide, stands with him.
Where is John?
The older man offers his hand to Landon, grinning very broadly and genially and revealing a gap between his central incisors. “I believe we’ve met.” He lifts his police pass clipped to the end of a lanyard. “Marco, from Police Intel.”
They shake hands and Landon finds something familiar in Marco’s deadened eye.
“Live birth notification and your missing IC?” Marco, still grasping Landon’s hand, tilts his meaty head. “Ring any bells?”
“Ah, yes.”
“Any luck with your missing IC?” Marco pulls up a chair and sits by the bed. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do much. It’s handled by another department.”
“Can’t help that.”
“It’s amazing how we keep bumping into each other.” Marco’s tone is affable, his mannerism pleasant, almost debonair. “One of my men, off-duty, happened to be around the café when it blew up. It was he who got you out.”
“Really?” Landon wonders if it’d been John. “I must thank him in person.”
“He refused accolade.” Marco’s smiling face glows. “A fine example of the corps. We saw to it that he receives due credit.”
“Did he get my stuff?” Landon blurts in haste, thinking of his bag, which he had left hanging on a hook at FourBees. “I meant— was I carrying anything when he got me out?”
“Well, I wasn’t informed of it.”
“Did you salvage anything from the café?”
Marco draws a look of sympathy. “I’m afraid there’s nothing left.”
Oh hell, my journal. Landon draws a long, slow breath. When did he begin that one? That’s it. Another chunk of my life obliterated, never to return.
“Your employer didn’t make it,” Marco adds.
“R… Raymond?” Landon manages to catch the name before it slips into the precipitous gorges of his ruptured memories.
Marco nods, his hairless head gleaming under the fluorescent lights. “The gas or smoke probably killed him before the flames got to him. In fact, for this reason we hope to obtain a statement from you, if you don’t mind.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Thank you,” says Marco graciously. His aide takes a step forward and pulls out the stylus from the tablet he is holding.
In the course of the exchange Landon learns that the police suspect someone tapped illegally into the gas mains and tampered with the meters. He admits that from time to time Raymond tended to doze off at his desk. In such situations gas poisoning is at its deadliest.
“I’m quite certain I didn’t smell anything,” says Landon.
Marco nods as his aide scribbles on. “So how did you end up working in FourBees?”
“I kicked up a fuss at the Kinos Café once, about the quality of its Arabica, the grind, that sort of stuff.” Landon pauses to think before he continues. “I insisted they didn’t blanch the filter paper because I could taste it in my cup. I wanted them to replace my coffee and they almost threw me out. Then someone came over, dropped his own cup on my table and told the manager if he hasn’t got a qualified barista at the back to challenge my claims he’d better change my cup and his as well.”
Marco laughs briskly at the story.
Landon continues, “Then this person sat down in front of me and told me how annoyingly anal I was with that coffee, and that he would like to offer me a job if I truly was a qualified barista. I offered him a taste test and that was it.”
“It’s one account you’ve remembered very well,” says Marco.
“Staying on the job helps. But now that I’ve lost it I don’t think I’ll remember it for long. Besides,” Landon takes a sip of water and grimaces as he swallows, “that person who offered me the job was Raymond.”
“I’m sorry to hear. How did you find Raymond, as a person?”
“Honest man. A hard worker. Drives you up like cattle over the manic weekends, but then who doesn’t? Seriously I don’t see him as someone who would tap illegally on anything.”
“You liked working with him?”
Landon shrugs. “He takes care of us.”
The aide is scribbling on his tablet. Marco takes a perfunctory glance at him and turns back to Landon. “You sound educated, but we didn’t find any school records to your name.”
“I was in school since I was five.” Landon dictates the account which he has rehearsed many times over. “I was born in 1972. School was made compulsory only in the year 2003. The administration must’ve missed it.”
“How far did you go?”
“I dropped out of secondary school.”
“And where did you learn that barrister thing?”
Landon knows he means barista, and considers it prudent to omit the part about his stint at the Ace Café in London. “Got trained on the job, a little bit self-taught. It’s a passion thing.”
Marco chuckles and nods. “I might have made the comment before but I must say you look extremely youthful for someone over forty.”
“Good genes.” Landon smiles.
“Well, I shouldn’t be bothering you any longer.” Marco rises from the chair and bids farewell with a shallow bow. “I must thank you for putting up with us for the second time. It is such coincidence, Mr Lock.”
He shakes Landon’s hand again and turns to depart when Landon suddenly calls out to him. “I was hoping you could help me with something.”
Marco steps away from the door. “At your service.”
“There’s someone who follows me around and says he’s supposed to protect me from some danger.” Landon lapses briefly into silence as he considers his words. “I was wondering if it’s an official police thing.”
Marco’s good eye appears to sparkle with interest. “To my knowledge no such operation exists. I’d be wary of him if I were you. Did you see his pass?”
“No,” says Landon. “That guy said he’s some… pseudo-policeman or detective.”
“Sounds like a fraud,” Marco concludes. “Even twelve-year olds are trained to spot them. If he sticks to you I’d advise you to call the police right away.”
“I’m not in any danger, am I?”
“Your case smells of foul play, Mr Lock.” Marco looks across his thick shoulder at him. “But there’s certainly no urgency to send you a bodyguard, yet. If any, I think the immediate danger lies with whoever’s tailing you.”
“I understand.”
Marco backtracks just as he is stepping out. “Before I forget,” he says. “Leave the press to the police. Don’t speak to them even if they approach you. They’ll distort the facts right from the tip of your hair to the head of your dick.”
22
AUGUST 1963
ALONG THE FIVE-FOOT ways of conjoined shophouses Poppy bungled his way past rows of itinerant hawkers peddling trinkets, and the crate-tables of letter writers. Scraggy fortune-tellers, themselves denied of fortune, lobbied for business behind their wicker baskets of ink, coloured paper and hollowed tortoise shells.
Arthur grabbed Poppy from the five-foot way just as he hobbled past Prosperous Hong. For the audacious escapade the child received a stinging slap to his bottom. Then, to coax him back to his rightful play space at the back of the eatery, Arthur gave him sips of orange soda.
A row of bell jars containing sweet confections lined the front of Arthur’s coffee stall. Water boiled inside steel pots. Coffee-tainted filter socks hung flaccid by the tiled wall. There weren’t any labels or brands whatsoever. The aroma of Arthur’s brew alone was sufficient marketing.