The meanest Flood (22 page)

Danny would have liked to be alive then, when the profession of magic was held in high esteem. The time when his own knowledge would have led to respect and acceptance. He had never reconciled himself to the fact that his destiny had borne him into a time when respect and adulation were only awarded to pop stars and footballers and computer geeks.

When he thought about it he would rather have been alive at any time in the past. Not only because magic and the profession of magic were better understood and appreciated but because it seemed to Danny that earlier incarnations of society were better regulated. The Ten Commandments were an absolute code which left no room for error or misinterpretation. They were a yardstick by which people could measure their contribution to the community. Well into the Middle Ages the Church continued to offer a stern but just moral landscape in which the battle between good and evil was clearly delineated.

But wherever one looked now there was only a confusing array of data. Everything of value in the world had been deconstructed. There was no narrative any more, only a series of meaningless snap-shots. Marilyn Eccles was everywhere you looked.

The in-flight magazine had a photograph of a one-legged black toddler and explained that the amputation had been inflicted as a punishment by a teenage commander in one of Sierra Leone’s rebel armies. The crippled child stared at the camera with huge round eyes and it was as if the curtain of Maya was lifted at the exact instant that the photojournalist depressed the shutter on his camera. The child becomes an actor in his own drama. Another crippled and starving African child who will do nothing except harden the hearts of his Western audience. To reach them he has to offer more and in that instant he is filled with the consciousness to provide what is needed.

A magic moment occurs.

It is not enough that the child is maimed and hungry. He also has to be pretty and brave. And the child not only knows this but he knows how to accomplish it.

Magic.

He turns his head slightly while keeping his eyes on the camera, and although he doesn’t smile he contrives to suggest with his lips and the set of his jaw that a smile is not beyond him. I am not only a helpless amputee, he says. I am also attractive, quaint, fascinating, clever and keen-witted.

He’s three years old and he’s a master of public relations.

He’s three years old and he reaches out of his poverty to enchant millions of people in the richest nations of the earth.

The woman sitting next to Danny on the plane looked across at the photograph on his lap and shook her head. ‘Terrible,’ she said.

‘Wonderful,’ he told her. He didn’t bother to explain.

He booked into a non-smoking room in the Scandinavian Hotel in Kongensgate, a couple of minutes from the centre of Oslo. There was a satellite TV and a direct-dial telephone in his room. He could press his trousers while watching an in-house movie, iron his shirt while listening to the radio and drink an old malt from the mini-bar. He was provided with a full-size mirror, an alarm clock, a hairdryer, a bathrobe and an assortment of soaps and shampoos. A corner of the room was given over to a kitchenette and on closer inspection he found he had fax and voicemail facilities and access to in-house shops with newspapers, tobacco, souvenirs and books. In addition to all of this he would be welcome at the hotel swimming pool and fitness centre and there were facilities to ensure that he enjoyed himself riding horseback, crosscountry or downhill skiing, biking and ice-skating.

For his valuables the Scandinavian Hotel had a safety deposit box and could offer him a dry cleaning and laundry service as well as the usual room service between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. After that the heartless management of the place would throw him on to his own resources.

With the aid of an Oslo shopping-map which he had picked up at the station, Danny found his way to Calmeyers gate. He took up a position from which he could see the entrance to the block of upmarket flats which were home to Holly Andersen, another exgirlfriend of Sam Turner, another whore.

Not that the magician had anything against whores. On the contrary, he had one of his own in Jody who had become his life companion since his mother passed away. Danny’s mother had not been a whore, she had been a lady. He remembered her with her hair parted in the centre and arranged smoothly on either side of her face in a Madonna braid. He remembered the bow of her lightly painted lips and her starched apron and the great sadness she bore in silence for the last years of her life. She was an Anglican who had no secret longings for Catholicism. Her relatives and some of Danny’s school-friends thought she was stern and dry and austere but they didn’t understand. She was a good woman. She was pure.

Jody was a slut and a harlot. He shouldn’t have left her with J. C. Nott while he was out of the country. They’d be rutting day and night, the artist and the tart.

And there was Marilyn Eccles, a woman who could prove to be a great nuisance. Danny was aware of his charisma, that it attracted women to him. And he was aware also that he couldn’t control it. This woman, for example, he could live without. But it wasn’t an immediate problem. Marilyn Eccles was back in England. She couldn’t get under his feet for the time being. In Oslo he was safe from her.

Two women passed the magician and went into an exotic seafood shop with crayfish and lobsters in the window. When they left the shop they entered the flats. They were wearing gloves and holding hands. One of them was Holly Andersen. She had aged since the photograph that Danny had of her. The time-span between the photograph and now was twenty years but the lines on her face spoke of at least thirty. Blue jeans and boots and a quilted jacket. She wore a woollen hat with ear-flaps and traditional Lapp patterning. Her hair was shorter than in the photograph but still blonde.

Danny waited until his toes turned numb. He walked the length of Calmeyers gate and back again. A large Norwegian man went into the flats. Later two teenagers arrived on bicycles. An old couple came down the street, she walking with the aid of a stick, and they entered the building. But there was no sign of Sam Turner.

For long after it got dark Danny watched the flats. It might be that Turner wasn’t as bright as the magician had anticipated. That Sam Turner hadn’t come to Oslo at all. It was possible. The man may not have believed that Holly Andersen was next on the list. Or he may have seen that she was next and simply not cared. He could have run in the opposite direction or even holed up in York in the house of one of his friends.

The magician had not contemplated failure. He had divined that the man would react according to his character, that he would walk into the jaws of the lion because that was what he always did and because that was the only way to save the woman’s life.

But if he’d miscalculated and Turner wasn’t here at all, not even in the country, then the woman was reprieved, at least for the time being.

Back at the Scandinavian Hotel, Danny sat on his bed and calmed himself with a cognac from the mini-bar. Sam Turner would be here, or he would be on his way. Just because he hadn’t shown today didn’t mean he wasn’t around. Danny hated Sam Turner more than any other man in the world, and you can’t hate someone that much and not know what their next move will be. Tomorrow was another day.

19

When Marie Dickens saw that she had an e-mail from someone calling themselves Alcopop her impulse was to delete it. But the first sentence of the message caught her attention.

Marie, Geordie arrived today. No problems. Will you check marriage records, Katherine and Nicole, Nottingham and Leeds, enquire if anyone else has done the same? Also ask their relatives, friends, if anyone making enquiries. The guy must have done some research. Need to know who he is.
Alcopop.

Sam in cloak-and-dagger mode. Marie scanned the rest of her Inbox and grabbed a coat. No point wasting time. She’d become a good investigator and she knew it. She had the knack, which was the best starting point. But over and above that she’d learned quickly from Sam, and from Gus, her long-dead husband. She’d been taught to read clues when she was a nurse. No one in the medical business knew how to speak plainly, you had to guess what was expected of you at every twist and turn. Doctors spoke in riddles and consultants often didn’t speak at all. The hospital hierarchy and administration didn’t know what they wanted themselves and were incapable of giving simple guidelines.

In her work at the women’s refuge in town she likewise required an ability to read between the lines. Abused women often had difficulty expressing their emotions and their needs. They lived in fear of their men, but often the fear of loneliness and abandonment was greater. A
woman might say that it was over, she never wanted to see him again, but if you looked deep into her eyes you could see she’d be on her way back to him within a few days.

Not always, though. There were women who came to the refuge who were capable of putting their own interests and the interests of their children first. Women who had found a grain of strength and who were keen to build on it.

So why are you working for a serial philanderer? she asked herself as she headed across town towards the library. Checking the marriage records of a couple of his conquests, both freshly departed?

Marie had known Sam Turner for as long as she could remember. She reckoned that she and Celia were the only women Sam had ever known he hadn’t considered sleeping with. Maybe Janet as well, Geordie’s wife. Yeah, Janet was in the clear. And his mother.

But everything else in a skirt he’d either had a go at it or thought about it. And the women were nearly all of a type. Usually younger than him and vulnerable in some way. Dependent. They’d been pushed around too much and couldn’t see straight. They thought Sam was someone to lean on even during those long alcoholic years when he couldn’t stand on his own feet.

There were exceptions, of course. You go through so many women and the law of averages is going to ensure that one or two of them are different. So there were independent women on the list, as there were freeloaders and opportunists. There was a smattering of intelligent women, the odd one or two who were older, but these were outnumbered by the majority who were plain unsuitable.

The other thing about Sam’s partners was that they didn’t stay. Angeles, his current flame, had already lasted longer than most. She was blind, of course, which must be part of the answer as to why she was still around. She was another one who was far too young for him and yet they seemed happy together. She was vulnerable because of her lack of sight but she was also strong. And she was emotionally and financially independent. So all in all there were more pluses than minuses.

Marie liked Angeles. You could talk to her and it didn’t have to be about drinking or TV soaps or about how men were from Mars.

She asked for St Catherine’s Index in the Central Library and when the librarian found it Marie asked her if it was popular.

‘It’s used a couple of times a week. Sometimes more.’

‘All the marriage records are in here, right?’

‘It’s fairly comprehensive.’

‘So if I wanted to find a marriage record and I didn’t know how to do it, would you do it for me?’

‘Of course, but it’s easy to use.’

‘I’m a private detective,’ Marie told her. ‘I’m trying to find out if anyone has been making enquiries about Sam Turner.’

‘Is he the one who’s gone missing? The one who killed those women?’

‘Yes, he’s a suspect. The police want to talk to him.’ The librarian took a deep breath. ‘How exciting,’ she said. ‘What’s your question?’

‘Has anyone asked about marriage records for Sam Turner in the last few weeks? Or do you recall the name or description of anyone who has recently used the St Catherine’s Index?’

‘Is this what you call a long-shot?’ the librarian asked.

Marie smiled. ‘Yeah. We’re scraping the barrel.’

‘I don’t recall anyone asking about that particular name but I’m not the only one who works here. I’ll ask my colleagues and get back to you. Do you want to leave a phone number?’

Marie gave her her card. ‘You can get me at either of those numbers.’

‘We know most of the people who use St Catherine’s,’ the librarian said. ‘Many of them use it frequently. They’re interested in family history, ancestry, genealogy. People are fascinated by it.’

‘So if someone new came in you’d probably remember?’

‘It’s not out of the question. If it’s been a busy day I can’t remember anything that happened when I get back home. But if it’s slower I remember the interesting ones. I’ll remember you.’

Marie let her have a faint smile, but she didn’t say anything.

‘All right,’ the woman said. ‘I’ll ask around and come back to you.’ She waved Marie’s visiting card in the air like a miniature fan.

Back at the office Marie got the keys for the Montego and asked Celia for some cash.

‘As in wages?’ Celia asked. She was wearing an ancient black dress with slits at both sides. Tango shoes with a chain around her ankle. She’d been quieter than usual since the death of Nicole Day in Leeds and Sam’s disappearance. Although she was over seventy, Marie usually thought of her as much younger. But today Celia looked her age. The extravagant clothes and jewellery that she normally carried with aplomb seemed excessive and overindulgent. She could have been an ageing transvestite.