The Carrier (8 page)

‘He doesn’t understand why you’re so ungrateful,’ Regan said. ‘He thinks he couldn’t possibly have been a more nurturing, fairer boss.’

‘He’s lying.’

‘No,’ Regan said vehemently. ‘It’s what he believes. He also believes he couldn’t have been a better father to me. Want to hear what his idea of good fathering involved?’

‘No.’ Simon’s voice was uneven. ‘I want you to leave and not come back.’

Charlie watched the colour drain from Regan’s face. ‘Simon, don’t be a twat,’ she said.

‘Don’t worry, Charlie. I’m not going to fall to pieces. One good thing about being Giles Proust’s daughter is that, when someone
else
savages me, it has next to no effect. It seems so . . . watered down.’

‘He doesn’t mean to be so . . .’ Nasty wasn’t the right word, not when Simon was frozen solid with shock and embarrassment. There was no right word.

‘I meant what I said before,’ Charlie told Regan. ‘I’d be suspicious of any shrink who thinks that changing your name every time you reach a psychological milestone is a good idea. If you call yourself something stupid for no other reason than to spite your dad, he’s winning.’

Looking at Simon but speaking mainly to her own ego, she added, ‘I
do
know a bit about this kind of thing. I’m part of a regional suicide prevention forum. I talk to a lot of counsellors and therapists.’ Charlie remembered too late that many of these people had, at one time or another, stressed the importance of never uttering the word ‘suicide’, not unless an at-risk nominal said it first. The word ‘nominal’ was overused in the suicide prevention literature that Charlie frequently had to plough through. It meant ‘person’.

To Regan she said, ‘I understand that you admire Simon because he stands up to Proust, but what do you want from him, other than to tell him that?’

‘Only to talk. About what we’ve both been through, if that doesn’t sound too dramatic.’ She made it sound like the humblest request in the world. Poor woman. She wasn’t to know that Simon would rather hand over all of his vital organs and his much-loved and much-Sellotaped copy of
Moby-Dick
than admit to a stranger that he had ‘been through’ anything.

‘I’m still at the stage where I need to prove to myself every day that I’m not an evil defector,’ Regan said. ‘It would really help me to hear you describe what working with my dad is like – both of you. Maybe it would help you too. We’ve all been bullied by the same bully, right? For years.’

‘I don’t mind swapping Proust horror stories,’ said Charlie, wondering if her willingness would make any difference to Simon. It might be fun, she thought, though she knew Regan was seeking a far less frivolous commodity: confirmation of the most important truth in her universe.

‘It’s not happening,’ Simon said. ‘You’ve got twenty seconds to get out.’

To Charlie’s surprise, Regan nodded. ‘That’s the reaction I was expecting,’ she said. ‘If you change your mind, you can contact me at work: Focus Reprographics in Rawndesley.’

‘He won’t change his mind,’ Charlie told her.

‘He might once he understands I’m on his side,’ Regan said, talking to Simon about himself in the third person. ‘You’ve got a case at the moment: Tim Breary. Wife Francine, had a stroke that left her bedridden? And he’s confessed to murdering her, and claims he doesn’t know why he did it?’

Fuck, did this woman have a death wish? Simon’s face had turned dark and stiff with fury. And Charlie knew the name of the Don’t Know Why Killer: Tim Breary.

‘There’s something you should know that you don’t,’ said Regan. ‘When Breary was first interviewed, you weren’t there, were you? Sam Kombothekra and Colin Sellers interviewed him. Dad said it wasn’t complicated enough for you: no mystery, an immediate confession.’

Interesting, Charlie thought, that Proust, like Simon and Gibbs when it suited them, shared confidential details of cases with non-colleagues: his wife and daughter, and God only knew who else. Funny that he’d neglected to mention this, on the many occasions that he’d threatened Simon with disciplinary action for telling Charlie too much.

‘You only started to take an interest when you found out the motive had gone missing,’ Regan went on. ‘Dad’s not happy about your newfound enthusiasm for the case. He’s got his confession and he wants it off his desk, so he told Kombothekra and Sellers to leave you and Gibbs out of the loop. He had them alter the evidence. And here I am: telling you something that could land him in prison.’ Regan exhaled slowly.

‘Your shrink would be proud of you,’ said Charlie. There was something wrong with the story, in spite of the convincing detail about Gibbs also being excluded. Yes, Proust would know that Gibbs would go straight to Simon with the truth. But Sam would too, Charlie was sure. Sam Kombothekra tampering with the evidence in a murder case? No way. And Proust was far too canny to give Sam and Sellers that kind of power over him – the power to end his career. Was Simon thinking all this as well?

‘That first interview with Tim Breary – the transcript in the file isn’t the one that was there originally,’ Regan said. ‘Less than two hours ago, I heard Dad boasting to Mum about knowing when to have the guts to bend the rules. It was pretty sickening, though no more so than all the other conversations my parents have. They’re all about her reflecting him back to himself in the most flattering way possible.’ Regan put her mug down on the worktop. ‘I’m no detective, but if Dad cares that much about you not finding out, it must be important, right?’ She turned and left the room: the woman who was so terrified of her father that she would give two people who hated him the chance to destroy him and explain that it was all his daughter’s idea. Charlie wasn’t sure she believed it.

The front door slammed shut.

‘She’s lying, Simon. She wants you to go after her so that she can lie a bit more.’

Simon picked up the cup Regan had been drinking from and hurled it at the wall. He was out of the house in seconds, leaving the front door swinging open and cold air and rain blowing in. Leaving Charlie covered in cold coffee, surrounded by pieces of broken mug. Not that she cared about that. She tried not to care also, as she heard him yelling hoarsely into the night, that he had never once chased after her while calling out her name as if his life depended on finding her again.

There is only one bed in this airless attic room. It’s a small double, the size of a sofabed, and partly covered with a single duvet. Only one pillow. No cupboards or drawers, just open shelves, on which I see no spare blankets, no cushions, nothing useful. I conduct an anti-inventory: no minibar, no kettle, no sachets of tea or coffee, no telephone, no bedside tables, no reading lamps, no television, no room service menu. In the far wall, there’s a door that has had one of its corners shaved off and been squashed in under the eaves. I assume and hope this means we at least have an en-suite shower room. I know without looking that if we do, it will be roughly the same size as Lauren’s brain.

‘What the fuck is this?’ she says, looking around. ‘Oh, someone’s taking the piss now! There’s only one bed. What are we going to do?’

‘We’re going to make the best of it, because we have no choice,’ I tell her. At home, Sean and I sleep in a bed that’s seven feet wide, a super-king. When we were buying it, Sean said he thought a king-size would do. I overruled him.

I consider telling Lauren she can have the bed and I’ll have the floor, then change my mind. I wouldn’t be able to get to sleep, and I need to; even three or four hours would be something. I have no idea what tomorrow has in store. I need to look after myself so that, whatever happens, I’ll be able to deal with it.

I am having the thoughts of a disaster survivor, trying to think no further ahead than the next small chunk of time and what actions and decisions it requires.

‘I’m not sleeping in a bed with a woman.’ Lauren folds her arms in protest. ‘Or with a man, unless it’s my Jason. He’d go apeshit.’

‘Sleep on the floor, then,’ I say, praying she’ll agree.

‘Fuck off! Look at the state of that carpet. There’s chewing gum been stamped into it over there. It’s filthy. What about finding another hotel, like you said?’

‘That was a good idea two hours ago.’ In the time it took the receptionist to arrange for all the rooms to be made up and to allocate keys, we could have driven back to Dusseldorf airport. Not that there’d have been any point. Somehow, it feels as if there’s no point being here either, in the vicinity of Cologne airport. Getting home, at any time, by any means, feels very unlikely, though logically I know it will happen. ‘I’m too tired now,’ I tell Lauren. ‘I’m not willing to lose any more sleep time. The coach is collecting us at seven.’
Allegedly.

Lauren’s lower jaw starts to twitch. ‘You can have the duvet and the pillow,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll use my coat as a blanket.’

‘No! I’m not having this! They’re bastards, doing this to us.’ She tries to push past me. ‘I’m going down to the lobby to tell that woman . . .’

‘She’s not there any more. Once we were all sorted with rooms, she left.’

‘How do you know?’

‘How do you
not
know?’ I snap. ‘She told us that was what was going to happen . . .’

‘I didn’t hear her.’

‘. . . and then we saw her leave. Until 6 a.m., this is an unstaffed hotel.’ One of my favourite details of our situation that I intend to include in all future tellings of this horror story is that breakfast is scheduled to start at seven on the dot: exactly the time that our coach will be departing for Cologne airport. The receptionist smiled as she presented us with this news, knowing that it didn’t affect her; she would be able to have breakfast.

‘All right, prove it!’ Lauren’s eyes light up suddenly. ‘If there’s no staff here now, let’s smash the place up,’ she says in a rush of excitement. ‘Smash down doors until we find another bed!’

I cover my face with my hand and rub my forehead hard with my index finger. ‘Lauren, I want you to listen carefully. You have a choice now. I’m going to get into that bed . . .’ – I point to it – ‘. . . and go to sleep. You can either do the same, or you can fuck off and do whatever you want, on your own. What you can’t do is anything that prevents me from sleeping, because if you do that, I promise you, I will make you sorry you ever met me.’ That would have sounded more threatening if I hadn’t yawned while saying it. Oh well.

I brace myself for the inevitable flood of tears. Instead Lauren says, ‘If we’re going to share a bed, you have to swear you won’t lay a finger on me. And I’m not taking my clothes off.’

I hold up my hands. ‘I promise to make no romantic advances. Really, you couldn’t be safer. Even if lesbianism overpowers me in my sleep, my good taste will hold firm and protect us both.’

Lauren’s eyes widen. She backs away from me.

‘What? You’re shocked to hear the word “lesbianism” spoken aloud in polite society? Sorry, I forgot to brush up on my bigotry before I set off this morning. If I’d known I’d be meeting you, I’d have given it my all.’

‘Can’t you talk in a way I’ll understand?’ Lauren says quietly.

‘Yes. Night night – do you understand that?’ I kick off my shoes. Fully clothed, I lie down on the far side of the bed, cover myself with my coat and close my eyes. I’d have liked to brush my teeth, but the receptionist ran out of toothbrush-and-paste packs before Lauren and I reached the front of the queue.

‘Gaby?’

‘What?’

‘I’m starving. I feel sick and dizzy. I need something to eat.’

I wonder if I can get away with pretending to have fallen asleep after I said, ‘What?’ It’s worth a try.

‘Gaby? Gaby! Wake up!’

Fooling a fool is no fun. It’s too easy. I open my eyes. ‘There’s a petrol station across the road from the hotel,’ I say. ‘Why don’t you go and buy something there? Take the room key.’

‘I’m not going on my own!’

‘Why not?’

My callous suggestion that she should plunge herself into solitude for the next five to ten minutes has activated Lauren’s inner sprinkler system: she’s crying again. ‘They might not speak English. I’ve never been to a foreign shop on my own.’

If I had the energy, I would kick myself. I knew she was hungry – she mentioned it earlier. I should have sent her to buy food while I waited in the queue.

‘Please, Gaby. Come with me. Then I swear I’ll let you sleep.’

I sit up. Dizziness makes my head spin. I clutch at what might be the corner of a silver lining: I can eat something too. I haven’t noticed my hunger until now. I’ve been trying to lull myself into an insensate trance state in order not to notice how I feel about what’s happening to me.

‘Okay. Let’s go,’ I say, pulling my shoes back on. ‘What are you going to get? I hope they’ve got hot fattening things and a microwave. I fancy a burger, and a Yorkie bar for pudding.’

Lauren screws up her face in distaste. ‘They’ll have something English, do you reckon? Foreign food turns my stomach.’

‘That’s ridiculous. Cheeseburgers don’t have passports.’

‘What, so liking the food in your own country’s ridiculous, is it?’ She turns on me. ‘It’s the Germans that are ridiculous! The only music I’ve heard all day since I got here is English music – every car stereo that drives past. They’ve got their own language, but they listen to our music. How daft is that?’

Well, you know the Germans – no nationalistic pride, that’s their problem.
That’s what I say in my head. To Lauren, I say, ‘I think I’m going to get a can of Coke as well.’ I am learning the rules of moronic dialogue: when answering feels impossible, present an unconnected random statement as if it’s relevant to the topic at hand.

Inside the petrol station, soaking wet from the rain, Lauren and I are reunited with the three football shirts from boarding gate B56 at Dusseldorf, the ones who were hoping to get drunk at Fly4You’s expense. This is what I like to see: ambition steadily maintained until the goal is reached. These men have not allowed exhaustion, depression or a better idea to divert them from their course. They are at the till, euros out, sixteen cans of beer stacked up on the counter in front of them, still joking about how legless they will soon be. I wonder if this is the way it works for most heavy drinkers: that it’s not so much the alcohol itself that’s the attraction, but rather the comedy goldmine it represents, the opportunity to say a dozen times, ‘How shit-faced are we going to be after all these?’