Eleanor still hadn’t returned home. Beanie couldn’t sleep and negotiations had led him back to bed in return for some patting and a ‘pretend’ story, by which Beanie meant an impromptu story created live by the storyteller as opposed to one read from a book. It could be told in total darkness which promoted sleep but it also required greater effort than mere narration from his father. That was the deal. Beanie was lying on his side in the dark while his father patted him though his blanket.
‘What about the story?’
‘Okay, once there was a little boy who had a bear and —’
‘No, not that one, the one about the jester, the king’s court jester.’
Maserov’s phone lit up. It was a text from Jessica that read, ‘That’s awful about Mr Torrent! Can you talk now?’
‘Not really,’ Maserov texted back. He didn’t want his son to see the text but he wasn’t quite sure why.
‘I don’t know one about a king and a jester.’
‘Yes, you do. The king was going to get rid of the jester but the jester said if he was given a year he would be able to make the king’s horse talk. Remember?’
‘Able to make the king’s horse talk?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Talk later?’ came another text from Jessica.
‘Yes. Will talk later,’ Maserov texted back as fast as he could. He tried to imagine how she would feel on reading his reply and winced at the apparent lack of priority he was according her but he really wasn’t sure he was going to be able to call her later. Nothing at all was within his control as far as he could see. He couldn’t remember the last time anything was. He wasn’t sure where he would be sleeping that night. He wasn’t sure where he wanted to be sleeping that night.
‘Oh yeah, that one. Once upon a time,’ Maserov began in a quiet soothing voice, ‘in the thirteenth century in a far-off land now called Turkey there lived a jester whose job it was to entertain the king. He’d gone to court jester school years earlier to learn how to be the best court jester he could be. He never wanted to be a partner and certainly not the partner responsible for all the Torrent Industries files. All he ever wanted was to be safe, a safe jester.’
Beanie was breathing heavily now in a rhythmic pattern that suggested he was close to sleep. He crept out of his son’s room as quietly as he could. Soon Eleanor would be home. Soon he would have to call Jessica or be ready to explain why he hadn’t. Which was it going to be? He didn’t know. Was that Eleanor’s car?
Now Maserov’s phone was ringing. It was Betga. But when Maserov answered there was no reply, as though Betga couldn’t hear him or simply wasn’t listening, and Maserov quickly surmised that Betga must have called him by mistake, a pocket-dial, the world’s fastest growing form of interpersonal non-communication. Maserov was about to hang up when he realised he could hear Betga talking to what must have been Malcolm Torrent’s nurse.
‘Can I tempt you, perhaps . . .?’
‘What do you have in mind?’ she asked. Maserov heard a loud but muffled whooshing sound as though rapid excited movement was taking place through material of some kind.
‘Oh, Jila mints! Thank you!’ came the woman’s voice, genuinely delighted.
It sounded as though Betga had poured at least two mints into the palm of the woman’s hand. Then nothing but breathing, Betga’s breathing, footsteps on a linoleum floor and the sound of a door squeaking, just slightly. The breathing got louder. Then Maserov heard Betga’s voice, a muffled whisper, but the words were clear and unambiguous.
‘Maserov? We’re going in!’