V 02 - Domino Men, The (10 page)

“It always shows,” she murmured.  For a moment, there was a chink of humanity, a dappling of sadness in her face before chilly and professional again, she walked away.

Heavy with half-formed fears and worries, I kissed the old man on the forehead and took my leave at last of that awful mausoleum.

In the long gray corridor which led to the exit, a red-headed man on crutches was clip-clopping ahead of me.  I recognized his swaying frond of ginger hair.

“Hello there!”

He craned around to glare at me, his face puce and sweaty from his exertions.  “Oh, it’s you.”

“Let you out quickly, haven’t they?”

“Turns out I’m fine.”

“You fell five stories.”

“Then I’m a bleeding miracle.”  He grimaced down toward his crutches.  “A limping one, anyway.”

“I’m just glad you’re OK.”

The ginger-haired man looked belligerently at me.  “You still don’t get it, do you?”

I stared back, nonplussed.  “I’m sorry?”

“The answer is yes.”

“What?”

“The answer is yes.  For God’s sake.  Have you got that? 
The answer is yes.
”  The window cleaner took a deep, rattling breath and pivoted himself away.

“What was that about?” I asked, as much to myself as to him.

Taking no notice of me and mumbling a grab-bag of expletives, he made his way unsteadily over to a beaten-up Rover on the other side of the parking lot in which his unfortunate family was waiting and probably wondering why he couldn’t have fallen just that little bit harder.

When I got home to Tooting Bec and walked through to the sitting room, Abbey was there, wearing a little black dress, surrounded by balloons and smiling sheepishly.  An unsuccessful-looking chocolate cake sat on the table, decorated by a single unlit candle.

“Happy birthday!” she said.

“This is unexpected.  I don’t know what to say.”

“Sit down.  I’ll get you a drink.”

She sashayed through to the kitchen, from where I could hear clinking glasses, the jingle of ice, the glug of juice and liquor.  She called through:  “How was your day?”

“Slightly strange.  You?”

“Mostly dull.  Till now.”

“Thanks for all this.  You really needn’t have bothered…”

She came back into the lounge, carrying two glasses of something fizzy, ice cubes bobbing on the surface.

“What’s this?” I asked as I took mine.

“Cocktail,” she beamed.  “Home-made.  Try it.”

I took a tentative sip — tingly, sweet, pleasantly numbing.  Emboldened, I took another mouthful.  Then another.  It was only the presence of my landlady that prevented me from downing the thing in one.

“Wonderful.  What’s in it?”

Abbey arched an eyebrow.  “Trade secret.”  She produced a box of matches and lit the candle on my cake.  “Make a wish.”

I closed my eyes, blew out the candle and made a wish which, for a short time, came true.

“There’s more.”  Abbey scampered into her bedroom and returned with a soft parcel which she thrust excitedly into my hands.  “Here you are.”

“This is too much,” I protested, feeling a blush start somewhere at the bottom of my neck and gradually stain my whole face.

“I wasn’t sure of your size.  I’ve kept the receipt if it’s not right.”

I tore open the paper to reveal an irredeemably hideous V-neck sweater, precisely the shade of lemon curd.

“It’s fantastic,” I lied, then lied again:  “I’ve always wanted one of these.”  Frankly, at that moment, Abbey looked so rapturously beautiful that she could have wrapped me a dead weasel for my birthday and I’d have thanked her for it.

She beamed, I thanked her for a second and third time and there followed a bungling couple of seconds in which I tried to kiss her on the cheek only to chicken out and offer her my hand instead.

“Aren’t you going to try it on?” she asked.

I flinched.  A lurch of panic in my stomach.  “What?”

A smile, almost sly.  “The sweater…”

As I struggled into my birthday present, Abbey cut us both a generous slice of cake.

“Made this myself,” she said.  “Could be interesting.”

“What do you think?” I asked once I had squirmed inside the pullover.

“Very nice,” Abbey said.  “Very tasty.”

I think I must have blushed again.  Certainly I didn’t say anything further, and as we sat in silence on the sofa eating cake, Abbey wriggled a bit closer.

“Thanks for the cake,” I said.  “Thank you for my present.”

She sighed with what seemed like frustration.  “Henry?”

“What?”

“You can kiss me now.”

Like an idiot, I just stared, crumbs of cake cascading from my mouth.

My mobile began to buzz.  Abbey said later that she wished I’d turned it off and just leapt on her but I think some pusillanimous part of me was grateful for the distraction.

“Hello?” I said, a little wearily.

“Darling!  Happy birthday!”

“Thanks,” I said.  “Thanks very much.”

“Sorry I’ve not got you anything this year.  I’ll give you some money when I get back.  I know you used to like something to open but you’re a big boy now.  You’d prefer the cash, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course.  Sounds nice.”

“Are you having a good evening?  Doing anything special?”  She stopped, suddenly suspicious.  “You’re not at the hospital, are you?  Not with the old bastard?”

“Actually, I’m in the flat.  With a…  friend.”  I turned to Abbey to check that the description was OK and she smiled impatiently back.

“I’d better go, Mum.”

“Many happy returns, darling.”  At the other end of the line I heard the bass rumble of male laughter.

“Bye then,” I said softly.

“Bye-bye, sweetheart.”

I switched off the phone and flung it into the corner of the room.  Abbey was watching with an amused look.  “Your mum?”

“Yes.”

“She OK?”

“Sounded fine.”

“Good.”  Abbey stretched herself out and leaned back into the sofa.

“Listen,” I said, as calmly as I could.  “Before the phone rang…  Does that offer still stand?  Would it be possible—”

Abbey lunged.  In a glorious moment, I felt her mouth pressed hard against mine, the honeyed warmth of her breath, the moist intrusion of her tongue.  We came up for air and sat gazing at one another, stupid sloppy grins on both our faces.  No one spoke.

Then the phone rang, the landline this time.

Abbey shook her head in silent, irritated warning.

I’m afraid I’m the kind of person who gets superstitious about ignoring the telephone.  I can’t walk past a ringing phone booth without feeling an irrational stab of guilt.  So of course I got up, walked across the room and tried not to sound too out of breath.

“Hello?”

“Henry Lamb?”  The voice sounded aggravatingly familiar.

“Speaking.”

“I’m calling on behalf of Gadarene Glass.”

I felt myself begin to simmer.  “I thought I’d told you to stop bothering me.”

“So you did.  But I felt I really owed it to you to try one last time.  Might I interest you in a new window?”

“No,” I said flatly.  “You might not.”

“And that’s your final answer?  Your answer is no?”

“Absolutely.”

The caller said nothing.  There followed a long silence as the truth of it smacked me in the face and slapped me viciously around the chops.

“On second thought…”

“What?”  She sounded utterly exasperated, like a teacher hand-holding a spectacularly dim-witted child through their ABCs.  “What’s your answer now?”

“The answer is yes,” I said, cautiously at first, then growing in confidence.  “The answer is yes!”

The line went dead.

Abbey was looking at me as though I was mad.  “Who on earth was that?”

The doorbell began to jangle, hectically, insistently, without pause — the kind of ring you’d expect if someone was being murdered on your doorstep.

“Stay there,” I said, fueled by cocktail, birthday cake and the best kiss of my life, I strode to the front door and wrenched it open.

A little old lady stood outside.  With her prim demeanor, outsized glasses and neatly curled hair, she looked as though she ought to be running the jam stall at the church fête instead of standing on my doorstep in Tooting after dark.

Her right hand was pressed hard against the bell.  Mercifully, when she saw me, she let go.  “Your grandfather said you were intelligent.  Evidently, he was blinded by sentiment.”

“Who on earth are you?”

“You’re in the most terrible danger, Mr. Lamb.”

“Didn’t I ask who you were?”

“I’m an ally.  That’s all you need to know for now.  I assume your grandfather never told you about the password?”

“My granddad’s in the hospital,” I said.  “He’s in a coma.”

“But he laid plans, Henry.  I’m merely playing my part in the process.”  She peered past me into the house.  “Extraordinary.  It hasn’t changed one bit.”

“What?”

“You know by now, I suppose, who your grandfather was?  What he was?”

“Chief field officer in the Directorate.  Mr. Dedlock’s number one.  The leading light in the secret war against the House of Windsor.”  She lowered her voice.  “More kills to his name than any other soldier.”

“It’s all true, then?” I said softly.

“All true, Mr. Lamb.  With a good deal of the really unpleasant detail still to come.”  She seemed to be surveying the street.  A battered car, effluent brown, grumbled past and she stared interrogatively at its driver.  “I mustn’t stay long tonight.  They’ll have put watchers on you.”

“Watchers?”

“Tell no one you’ve seen me.  Not even Dedlock.”

“You know Dedlock?”

“I know them all.  Knew them all, at any rate.”  She gave me a disgusted look, as though I’d just broken wind and laughed about it.  “What a hideous sweater.”

“It was a present,” I said defensively.  Then, remembering the gravity of the situation:  “I think you’d better come inside.”

“Not tonight.  The enemy is very close.  We’ll meet again soon,  Until then — tread carefully.”

Before I could stop her, she was gone, trotting spryly into the dark.  I peered out at the street and could see no sign of those “watchers” she’d spoken about.  But I was careful to double-lock the door all the same before I went back into the sitting room, where Abbey, still aflutter from our kiss, was polishing off another slice of cake.

“I was thinking,” she said, “how about we go to the cinema tomorrow?  I’m not sure what’s on—”  She saw my face.  “What’s happened?  Who was that?”

“A ghost from the past,” I said, before, in a sudden surge of pessimism, adding:  “Or the shape of things to come.”

Somehow another night had passed, another cheerless journey had been endured with Barnaby and I had come again to the Directorate, back to that glass bubble and its impossible occupant.

“You look tired, Henry Lamb.  I do hope that landlady of yours isn’t keeping you up nights.”

“I beg your pardon?” I asked, starchily affronted that this half-naked ghoul should even know of Abbey’s existence, let alone be talking about her in such a way.

Dedlock laughed and a thin trail of bubbles left his mouth, popping as they reached the surface.  “An old man’s joke,” he said, as a second stream drifted after the first.  “God knows we need something to laugh about now.”  In his arthritic doggy paddle, he swam close to the pane and grimaced.  “How’s your granddad?”

I felt a trickle of sweat creep down my back.  “No change.  No change at all.”

Jasper spoke up, all business.  “There is still a sliver of hope.  It is just possible that your grandfather left us a clue.  We need to see his home.”

“You want to go to my granddad’s house?”

“It’s what he would have wanted,” Dedlock said.  “Trust me, it’s really important that you give us your full cooperation.”

I thought for a moment.  “There is a condition.”

A spasm of irritation disrupted Dedlock’s face.  “What?”

“I want you to tell me exactly what it was that Granddad did for you.”

“Ignorance is a virtue in our business.  Relish it.  Believe me, you would not wish to know the truth.”

“You owe me an explanation.”

The old man banged the side of his tank, fury bulging in his ancient eyes.  “Just do your duty!  Time is running out.”

Barnaby drove Jasper and me to 17 Temple Drive, where my grandfather had lived out a life far richer and more strange than I could ever have guessed.

On the journey, I made myself unpopular by insisting we pull over at a corner shop to buy a couple of tins of cat food.  I’d been feeling profoundly guilty about the old man’s pet, terrified that we would arrive to find the poor animal with its ribcage poking through its fur, mewling at me in piteous accusation.

At last, Barnaby pulled up outside the old bastard’s house.  “Doesn’t look like much,” he said.  “Not for him.”

“You knew him?” I asked.

Barnaby summoned up a look of astonishingly undiluted bellicosity.  “Thought you had a job to do.”

We stepped out of the car, slammed the doors, and Barnaby sped into the distance.