Bloody London (37 page)

“I was out there on the edge of the world, literally, and I thought I'd never make it, I'd never get through two years. I lay awake all night listening to wild dogs and seeing my mother's face all pursed up and sour with disappointment in me, my father so smug and knowing. He said I'd never cut the mustard when it mattered.

“And Phillip shows up. Literally. A big mud-spattered Land Rover comes bouncing over the hill, like a tank, down the embankment, we're in these
tukuls
, these mud huts, me and two other hopeless kids, and we're reading instructions in a book on how to build a well, getting ready to screw up these poor villagers, doing more harm than good, and there he is. I swear to God, the whole works right down to the khaki bush jacket. Tall, handsome, ruddy face, like something out of a history book, an old-fashioned face, with a great accent, he's a documentary film-maker, or was back then, but with private money, so he does what he wants. Also, he wore a hat.”

“A hat.”

“Yeah, a hat. Like Bogart. Like Indiana Jones, only there wasn't any Indiana Jones yet, so he was an original.”

“You fell for his hat?”

“Yeah, I did.” Lily was rueful and ironic, but also wistful, caught up in the romance of her own story. She went on. “And he says, come back to my camp, and we
go and he's got a generator hooked up and a canvas shower and camp chairs and a fridge, very
Out of Africa
. I'd been reading Isaak Dinesen, I'm full of, you know, me woman, this Africa. Except I didn't have the guy. Then he opens the refrigerator and it's completely jammed with Veuve Clicquot. I swear to God. In the middle of the bush.”

“So you took up with him.”

“And the Champagne and the camp, and the fact that he rescued me and showed me how to dig a well and how to survive in Africa. By the time I left I could do it, I could manage. I did my whole stint in the Peace Corps and came off looking great. You know what, Artie? Even my father was impressed. Stringy, self-righteous son-of-a-bitch that he was.”

“You never talk about your father.”

“He was a lapsed Catholic who replaced the church with left-wing causes. The worst kind of zealous bastard, and even he was impressed by Phillip. He used to think I was a spoiled brat without any politics, he figured every guy I dated was an imperialist running dog. Phil Frye won him over. I didn't mention the Champagne to Daddy, of course. So I fell for Phil, and eventually I came to London with him.” She pushed her hair off her face. “We got married.”

“You stayed with him a long time?”

“Even after we split up, yes. He had a way.”

“What kind of way?”

Lily's face was slick with pale sweat now, and she said, “Whenever I shook free of him, he got to me. He was good at it.”

“How did he get to you?”

“He said he needed me. I told you once. You don't remember.” She flushed, turned away again and pressed her face to the window as if to cool it down.

I reached over and took Lily's hand. My pulse was racing. “It doesn't matter. It's over. I love you. It's OK.”

“It isn't over. We started this, we might as well finish,” she said and tried to laugh. “I think Phillip's whole set-up here is shitty.”

“How?”

“I'm not sure, I just know.”

“You knew this when you came to London?”

“I suspected as soon as I got here. He called and offered me a job doing a documentary on his new project. Tommy had just died. Frankie got your name out of me, you were on the case, I hated the way everything was getting dragged down in this. I figured I'd get out of town for a few days. As soon as I got here, I knew it was fishy. I started poking around. Artie?”

“What, sweetheart?”

“I wasn't suckered by Phillip, you know. I had to find out for myself, but I knew. He's been using cheesy building materials, putting shelters on bad land by the river. That's why the men died out there. He takes money from crooks. I couldn't even tell Isobel.” She saw me pick up the phone.

“Who are you calling?”

“Jack Cotton. I want to leave a message where we are.”

She smiled. “Jack's a nice man. He tried to cheer me
up. I met Jack, you know, but nothing happened. Between us, I mean.”

I hung up the phone. “I don't care. I love you.”

“Can you stay with me?”

I kissed her. “Let's go to bed.”

“Can you lock the windows, please? Are they locked? And check the back door, will you? The decks too, OK? This place makes me nuts. Warren Pascoe's dead, they killed Pru. Am I next, Artie? Am I on the list?”

I held on to her. “You knew Warren?”

“I met him once.”

“It looked like a simple hit.”

“You think it was simple, first Tommy, then Warren and Pru? They wanted Warren's warehouse. He wouldn't budge. I'm guessing Phillip threatened to expose him. There were more dead bodies than anyone knew. Warren was a collector! He was a contentious old bastard, and talented. I thought the sculptures were beautiful. Warren was a freakshow but he didn't deserve to die. I think Phillip knows I'm on to him. I think Pru opened her big mouth and someone shut it up for her. Sometimes I think someone's watching me and this bloody houseboat makes me crazy.”

“Let's go back to my place, or a hotel if you want.”

“I can't. I gave the Clearys this number, this address. I have to be here in case someone wants me for Beth. She's due back tomorrow.” Lily glanced at her watch. “Today. It's today. In a few hours, Keir will have the kids back from the country. Please. It's OK. You're here. It's always OK when you're here.” Lily shivered and fooled with her hair.

“I found a picture of Thomas Pascoe in your drawer.”

“You went in my stuff ?”

I touched her hair. “You asked me to.”

“Yes, I did.”

“The best thing about marrying Phillip was the two of them, the Pascoes. I was still only a kid. They spoiled me. My own parents never had any time for comfort or good food or nice clothes. After Stalin died, my mother got really messed up. I was a baby, but I remember she ran around wild. She never believed the bad stuff. Later on, she actually used to say, ‘If only Stalin had known, if only someone had told him.' Eventually she killed herself. I didn't tell you that part, did I?”

“You didn't tell me.”

“Yeah, well, she couldn't take it. She could take it OK that I was miserable. She could take it that I got left with my grandma most of the time, and that I – Christ, you know why I hate this time of year?” Lily's voice was dry. “After Thanksgiving, this real dread would come over me, you know? Because it was December. And in December, all the other kids were getting ready for Christmas. Or Hanukkah. But not me. We didn't celebrate. We were atheists. The holidays came and went and there was nothing, and you know what?” She looked at me.

“Tell me.”

“I wasn't all that sad when my mother topped herself, OK?”

“Cold War scrap?”

Lily looked up, startled. “Who said that?”

“I'll tell you later.”

“They loved me, Tommy and Frances, they really did. But we drifted apart after a while. Somewhere along the line, she started drinking. He got old. Then Frankie decided I was having an affair with Tommy, and I didn't see them anymore.”

“Were you?”

“Was I what?”

“I take it back,” I said.

She said, “Thank you. I told Frankie to leave you be. You heard on the tape.”

“It's OK now.”

“I'm frightened.”

“What of ?”

“Fucking storm. Listen to it.” Lily's hands were ice-cold.

“Get into bed.”

She looked at me. “I know it was some homeless guy who whacked Tommy. But it was Phillip who killed him.”

We lay in bed. Lily said, “Hold me, will you? If I could get a little bit of sleep I could make it more coherent for you. I don't think I've slept for a week.”

“Then sleep. We'll talk some more later.” I put my arms around her and she turned away, her face to the wall, and I knew she was crying. I wondered if I should have told her about Frankie and me, but Frankie was dead and I'm a coward. I couldn't lose Lily again.

In the middle of the night, I sat up. The wind was ferocious. Lily was restless. She got up and pulled on a
ratty pink bathrobe, sat on the bed, fumbled for my cigarettes and lit one. I reached for the radio. A voice droned shipping information. I thought of the poor bastards out in boats tonight.

I looked at my watch. It was five past four. Lily had left the lights on in the bathroom and in the hall. At ten past, they flickered and went out. Lily fumbled for my hand. “What is it?”

“Must be the power's out. It's nothing, sweetheart, it's the storm. You have a flashlight? Some candles?”

“In the kitchen.”

It was pitch black in the living room. I scrambled for the flashlight in a drawer and switched it on. In the beam, I saw the room was a mess. Papers flying, pillows on the floor. The door to the deck was open. I yanked it shut and pushed a chair against it. The wind rocked the boat harder. There was the cracking of glass and after it, a shower of shattered splinters. I peered through the window; the window on the houseboat next door was bust.

I skidded on the kitchen floor and felt the water come over the tops of my shoes. The floor was flooded. The windows had blown open here too, and rain poured in. I stumbled around, scrambling in drawers, found some candles. I got the door shut. I locked the window and retreated to the bedroom.

“Lily?”

There was no answer.

“Lily?”

But she was in the bathroom. I yelled, “You all right?”

Somehow we got the candles lit, turned the radio up and sat in the bed, wide awake now, smoking, listening to news of the worst storm since the fall of 1987. Worse. Britain was more vulnerable now, said the radio voice. It was shaping up as the worst storm since '53, by some accounts. Global warming. Britain sinking. Over-building along the Thames. Carbons. Polar ice cap melting. A pumping system that failed in Thamesmead. Hangover from El Nino.

I said, “Let's get out of here.”

“I have to wait for Beth.”

“I'll call Isobel.” I picked up the phone. It was dead.

The rest of the night, the voices from the shortwave played in the dark. I reached over and touched Lily's face. She was soaked in cold sweat. She gripped my hand. “Artie?”

“I'm here.”

“I love you, you know.”

“I know you do.”

“I love you as much as I can love anyone,” she said quietly. “Sometimes I'm so disengaged from everybody it scares me. I go into a room, a party, I think, oh these are perfectly nice people, really nice, good, interesting people, and then I start thinking, how soon can I get out of here? You're the only person who makes me feel. I mean it. That's the best I can do, Artie. I don't think I have anymore to give you.”

Before it was light, we were up and dressed, trying to put the place back together, me working phones which were dead. Lily's, mine, the landline to the houseboat, dead. The weather, I kept thinking. Gilchrist said it was the weather, but he was a man who ate paranoia for breakfast.

The houseboat was a mess. I went out on the deck. The rain and wind slammed into the sides of the boat, which sat high on the steel sledge. But the river was rising and water slapped the deck and sloshed over it. The river, in front of me, what I could see through curtains of rain and fog, was an angry purple-gray swell, sloshing the Embankment, still rising. Somewhere near by were sirens, and the honking, cars, trucks, insistent, relentless. It wasn't a noise you heard a lot in London – I had noticed the quiet hum of the place my first night – but now the horns screamed.

I switched on the flashlight. The thin beam of light showed the wreckage on the boat next door. The windows were smashed. Part of the roof had caved in.
The man I'd seen the night I came looking for Lily – he had on the same red sweater – came out on his deck, lifted his shoulders in despair and tried to smile.

On the Embankment, the ghosts of emergency crews appeared. Trucks. Soldiers climbing down, unpacking inflatable boats. From the roof of a building across the street, someone waved a flashlight.

Wearing a yellow slicker, Lily came outside. She held the radio. “Listen,” she said. It had rained for months on and off, the weather geek said. The Thames tributaries were full. The rain the week before pushed them over the top and there had been minor flooding – I thought of the dead men near Frye's shelter on the river. During the night there were freak gales, and if the winds shifted and a surge tide occurred, it meant trouble.

Four hours, a reporter noted. Four hours was the minimum warning needed to close the Barrier, to shut off London from the river.

Even the weather geek was anxious. You could hear it in his voice. There was news of hoarding. The stock market computer system had shorted out before trading opened; for half an hour there was pandemonium while a back-up system booted up. Incoming flights were diverted to Paris. Everything else was canceled.

In the middle of the night, when the winds were blowing a hundred miles an hour, a train carrying nuclear material derailed outside a place named Stratford East. Canisters of hot stuff tumbled along the railway tracks and down to the river. A guard tried to get hold of one of the barrels and it killed him. They found him soaked, his skin peeling, his face half flayed by the
contact with the radioactive spill. Then one of the containers burst; some of the contents were soaked up by the soil, some of it spilled into puddles and was carried into the river.

There was no let-up in sight: more rain was predicted. The worst weather in fifty years. The weather. I thought of Gilchrist. Christ, I thought. Maybe he knew. I said to Lily, “I have to go. I have to. Call Isobel and tell her and come with me.”