White Rage (25 page)

I'm late,' he said. He sat facing her.

‘Ten minutes. Pardonable. I half-expected you to cancel.'

‘This is my private time. I'm out of commission. I'm at liberty. For a while anyway.'

She wore a thin blue necklace and a matching bracelet. He couldn't name the stone, which sparkled slightly in the dim light.

‘Drink?' he asked.

‘I'd like some white wine.'

He summoned Max, who brought menus and took the drinks order. Perlman asked for ice-cold lager. He needed something to take the
drouth
of nervousness out of his throat. He studied the menu quickly. He wasn't in a fussy frame of mind. When Max brought the drinks, Miriam asked for lemon sole and Perlman spaghetti with meat sauce.

‘Cheers.' He clinked his glass against hers.

‘I'm not going to ask you about your day.'

‘A mercy, believe me.'

‘What the hell is
happening
to the world?' she said.

It was, he knew, a rhetorical question. She leaned a little across the table. She sipped her wine. Her white blouse was silk with small pearl buttons.

‘Maybe people hate too much,' he said. ‘Or maybe God died and left us this planet as his legacy, and we haven't got a clue how to care for it.'

She toyed with her napkin, unfolding, refolding. ‘While you were talking, I was remembering when we first met. Colin introduced us.'

‘I remember. He told me he wanted to meet me at Ferrari's. I was expecting him on his own. And there you were, hanging on his arm.'

‘I did a lot of hanging in those days,' she said. ‘I used to feel like a fashion accessory he wore.'

‘I remember his exact words. This is the girl I'm marrying.'

‘He hadn't even
asked
me when he made that announcement. Give him points for self-confidence.'

‘He was always sure of himself,' Perlman said.

‘He was a lot of things.'

Perlman closed his eyes briefly. ‘You were wearing a black velvet miniskirt and white boots. Your hair was down to your shoulders. You had big bangles on your wrists and hooped earrings.'
And I lusted after you like a beast freed from a cage after years of imposed abstinence
, he thought.

‘I remember those boots,' she said. ‘Squeezed like hell. The way we looked back then. All that hair and those flash colours and microskirts. You've got a good memory.'

‘For some things. Others just vanish completely.' He sipped his lager, and realized he was about to mention the message he'd received on his answering machine about the night of Colin's murder; no, don't steer the conversation in that direction, keep away from crime and murder and mutilation. It's just you and her on this oasis of wine and cold beer. And then he had another urge, this time to mention his encounter with Celia Liddell, and how easily he'd been fooled. Or maybe he could talk about his meeting with Madhur Gupta, or the tortuous half an hour spent describing Celia Liddell's features to the computer wizard who seemed affronted that anyone would question his efforts, and how, after some argument, a revised copy had gone into circulation, and Terry Bogan was taking it back to the Corinthian in the chance of shaking a barman's memory, the links between things, the little details, the broad ones, the
stramash
, the
ravel
of it all –

Why the fuck couldn't he drop work completely? Was it the only definition he had of himself? Was this all he amounted to?

She said, ‘Let me see … you were wearing one of those really wide ties … Come to think of it, your taste in ties hasn't changed all that much in thirty years, Lou.'

‘Ties. Who cares about ties?' But he was suddenly conscious of the gold-tinted kipper-shaped job hanging from his throat, and he fingered it with annoyance.

She reached out and caught his hand. ‘I was
kidding
,' she said. ‘You're right. Who gives a damn about ties? You're no fop. If you were, you wouldn't be you.' She held his hand a moment longer, then she drew her arm back and raised her wine glass and smiled at him.

That
touch
, he thought. He had an intense buzz of pleasure that rushed from head to groin. The stirring, the fabulous fire in the bloodstream.
There are no criminals in Glasgow, every evildoer is behind bars, tranquillity and sanity prevail over the entire city
, he thought. Even his lager tasted richer all at once, as if embellished with an exotic spice.
A love drug
, he thought.

Max arrived with the food. ‘Made with passion,' he said. ‘The chef sends you his good wishes.'

‘Tell him the same,' Perlman said. ‘Could we have refills?'

Max sprinkled flecks of Parmesan cheese on Lou's pasta, then he went to fetch fresh drinks. Perlman watched Miriam cut her lemon sole, which lay in butter. She carved with a delicate touch. He wound some spaghetti round his fork with as much care as he could gather, and raised it to his mouth. Spaghetti with red sauce was a potential disaster. He wished he'd ordered something less
menacing
, less likely to drip and stain, a chop, say, or a piece of steak.

Miriam said, ‘I like it here.'

‘It's a constant,' he said. ‘Unusual in these days when everything changes. Things come and go overnight. Today's hot spot is tomorrow's empty shop. It's the speed of life.'

‘Are you going to give me a life-was-slower-and-better-when-you-were-a-kid-speech?'

‘It was slower anyway,' he said. ‘I don't know about better.'

She smiled at him. ‘Don't take this the wrong way. But sometimes you just look so serious, Lou, I feel like laughing.'

‘At me?'

‘No, not like that. Not
at
you.'

‘Like how then?'

‘I don't know. I get down-hearted and sort of disjointed sometimes, and you brighten things up, and you don't know you're doing it.'

‘So this is a good thing, this ability to make you laugh?'

‘Of course it is.'

‘I'm not, God forbid, some court jester?'

‘Not remotely.'

Perlman started on his second beer. I brighten her world, he thought. I make a contribution to her life. It's something. A step forward definitely. He hesitated, then took the risk – and why not, why not after the passage of so many restrained years? – moving one hand boldly across the table and allowing the palm to fall on her wrist, and she didn't react, didn't pull away, she just gazed at him with an expression he wasn't sure he could analyse. It wasn't cold and at the same time it wasn't inviting; there was a quality of assessment in her eyes, as if she were trying to work something out, perform complex mental arithmetic or spell an impossibly tricky word.

‘Lou, listen, I need to tell you … I know how it is, how you feel,' she said.

His scalp burned. She knew, after all. She
knew
. And he'd never been entirely sure if she did. And now she'd told him. ‘Oh, it's, well, I suppose it's, it's, ah …'

‘Obvious? Is that the word you're stumbling for?'

He cleared his throat quietly. His earlobes were hot. ‘Close to that. Yes.'

‘I know you tried to hide it, Lou. I know how long. I'm not blind.'

He had a weird little pulse in his throat. He rambled. ‘A man can get, uh, expert over the years at concealing things that are important to him. He isn't sure if he can say them out loud, or if he's going to make some bad blunder and come off like a total arse. At the same time he doesn't want to be dishonest, he hates concealment, em, he'd like to get it out in the open –'

‘You're babbling, Lou.'

‘Right, I am. So excuse me. I didn't mean to.'

She set her fork down on her plate. ‘Also you're hurting my wrist.'

‘I'm sorry.' He lifted his hand from her.

‘Gentle, Lou. Go gentle. Can we take a walk?'

‘Anything you want,' he said, and he was out of his seat at once, rushing to ease her chair back from the table and help her rise. He was a gormless boy offered a waltz with his sweetheart at a school dance. And yet even as he assisted her he wasn't sure what had just passed between them, whether she'd really told him she'd readily dance with him, or if she was simply saying that she was aware of the music.

He dropped a bunch of money on the table. He helped her into her coat. He slipped Max a few pounds as he headed to the front door; the waiter understood the impulses of romance, and nodded discreetly. And then Perlman and Miriam were outside, where the night air was cold and the lamplights were hazy. Hesitantly, he held her hand and they walked a few yards from the restaurant in silence.

‘I don't know where any of this goes,' she said eventually. ‘I don't have a bloody clue.'

‘I could say the same.'

‘I've been living day to day. I don't have any plans. I never saw any space in my life for any kind of … involvement, anything like that. I don't know.'

Involvement:
the word was encouraging. He saw her shiver. ‘You're cold.'

‘Just a little.'

This wasn't the greatest neighbourhood in the city; it was alleged to be ‘up & coming', but that could mean anything in Estate Agent Speak. He saw the lights of the Old Toll Bar across the street, and led her in that direction.

‘Let's have a drink,' he said.

The bar, which had once belonged to a famous but doomed footballer, had been refurbished recently. It bore no resemblance to Perlman's memory of the place. It was all polished dark wood, artfully carved, and old wooden casks, and early twentieth-century mirrors. A poster from a long-demolished cinema in Hillhead announced a film called
Annie Laurie
, starring Lillian Gish; May 1928. Miriam sat down at a table under the poster and asked for a small Scotch.

Perlman fetched two glasses of Johnnie Walker and carried them to the table. He felt – uncomfortable? Apprehensive? Something had changed between himself and Miriam. A frozen pool had suddenly cracked, but there was no way of knowing how deep the water might be underneath.

‘You've been so very patient,' she said.

‘Years of police work helped.'

‘Years of silence too, Lou.'

‘My brother's wife,' he said. ‘What was I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do now?'

Miriam drank half her Scotch. ‘I don't know, Lou. I don't know what happens next.'

He wanted to ask her if she could define her feelings; then decided it was a step too far too soon. Take it slow. Besides, did he want an answer just yet? She might tell him how ‘fond' she was of him, and how this ‘thing' between them could never go anywhere. She might bandy around words like ‘regret' and ‘sadness' and he didn't want to hear her prepare an escape route from the possibility of a relationship.
I'm flattered, but
…

He lived in hope. Hope was frail. You couldn't trust hope to carry your weight. Sometimes it was all you had. Perlman: suitor, lover.

He leaned towards her and kissed her on the mouth. Pure be-damned impulse. He'd imagined kissing her so many times before, but hadn't really dreamed how sweet the connection would be. She tasted of Scotch and lipstick. Her lips were warm and a little dry. He saw her shut her eyes and observed the pale veins in her eyelids. He imagined her breasts under his hands. He imagined running a fingertip round the rim of her navel, and down, and down. He closed his own eyes. The pub ceased to exist. It became a spaceship floating across the city. It was a starry ride and his heart provided the fuel. And it didn't matter if his specs got in the way, or that this was a very public place for such intimate contact.

‘Aw, my my. This is a lovely sight, lovely.'

Perlman knew the voice, and realized at some level of awareness he'd been expecting to hear it, but not precisely now. He drew his face back from Miriam and stared at the behatted Latta, and the anger he felt was like a snake hissing in his head.

‘Very touching,' Latta said.

‘Piss off,' Perlman said.

‘That's not nice, Lou.' Latta propped his hands on the table and inclined his body towards Perlman. His hat was soft brown felt, pulled forward a little way. He had hairy hands, Perlman noticed. A fucking werewolf.

‘You call spying nice?' Miriam said.

‘Duty, my dear lady. I go where duty takes me. Nice doesn't come into it. Nice is when you're all snuggled up in a woman's arms. Right, Lou?' Latta smiled.

Perlman stood up. Miriam tugged at his sleeve. ‘Let it go, Lou. It's not worth the bother.'

‘Smart lady you've got there,' Latta said. ‘Very smart.'

Perlman fumed. He felt violated. He groped for an insult, couldn't find anything suitably cutting. He knew that news of this kissing scene would go through HQ like a gale. So what? Did it matter? He could take it.

‘Is this how you catch killers? Snogging your sister-in-law in a pub?'

‘This is time off, time out, call it what you like.'

‘Charming. Perlman and his squeeze. While the city smells like a butcher's shop.'

Miriam stood up. ‘I'd like to go, Lou.'

‘Stay just a moment, my dear,' Latta said. He took a folded sheet of paper from an inside pocket of his grey overcoat and waved it in front of her face. ‘Care to explain to me how you managed to transfer eight hundred and ninety-three thousand pounds into a savings account at the Manx Bank on the Isle of Man from the Allied Irish Bank in Dublin the day before yesterday?'

‘What's to explain?' Miriam asked.

‘The origins of this tidy wee sum, for one thing.'

‘I don't have to answer your question.'

Perlman asked, ‘How did you acquire that information, Latta?'

Latta said, ‘I can't disclose sources, Lou. You know better.'

‘You got it under the counter, is that what you're saying?'