Contempt. I thought about the word as I made my way back towards the office. It sounded exactly like it should. Contemptuous. I should have had contempt for him, but I would have had to hate her to do that. I tried to muster it as I entered and saw him turn towards me from his computer. But I couldn’t quite manage it.
You want to see? he asked. Our morning’s work? Vulcanizace?
He had the file of pictures on his laptop. I leaned over his athletic, slightly bent shoulders and couldn’t avoid the odour of Lynx and aftershave.
He clicked through the images. The dark shapes of the ministerial jeeps framing the lady in the oily jumpsuit, her arms around the tyre. The stooped figure of the minister, the burly minders around him. His reflective sunglasses, gleaming from the shadows as she pulled down the metal door above them.
And then? I asked him.
Then they go upstairs, he said, as he flicked on through the file.
I saw the upstairs window, the flashing red of her hair as she pulled the curtains.
We are denied the shots that could bring this shitty government down.
What shots are they?
The minister, vulcanised. Covered in rubber. A chain around his neck.
You think he’s that adventurous?
You call that adventurous?
I had no answer to that one. So I returned to the safer shore of politics.
You want to do that? I asked. Bring the government down?
Somebody should, he said. Somebody will.
And I felt sorry for all three of them. Him, his vulcanising lover and his fragrant wife. They seemed players in a bad West End farce. I wished I could have felt as sorry for all three of us.
So what do we do with these? he asked.
Print them up, I said.
Istvan is already at the photo shop.
Then, send them to the client.
The wife? he asked.
She was the one who hired us.
Along with bill of charge, he said.
Of course, I said.
So I can’t post them on the internet, he sighed, with a feigned kind of weariness.
No, I said. But you could open Google Maps. The east city.
He turned to me from his computer and I saw a bead of sweat on his upper lip. Which was odd, because the heat never seemed to affect him. And it was still hot, even as it grew dark outside.
Do we need to talk? he asked.
Before you open Google Maps? No.
I had contempt then. For myself. For the mundane, English bile of that statement.
He shrugged, and I had to admire the forbearance with which he did so. I unrolled the map from my pocket.
This, from Gertrude.
The psychic? You actually went to her?
Why not?
Because, it is, quite simply, insane.
Maybe I’m insane then.
No, Jonathan. You are not yet insane.
Well then. I’m getting there.
And as the same grid of streets emerged on his computer screen, I had him gradually enlarge it until it matched the exact dimensions of what Gertrude so elegantly called the analogue one.
Print it.
He stuck a cable in his laptop and pressed Print.
I placed the burnt map over the fresh one, and drew a circle round the small burnt hole.
Somewhere among those streets, there is a brothel. How do you say it?
Bordel. How do you know?
I can only assume.
And can we now talk?
About cufflinks, he said.
No, I told him.
And I looked at the loose button on his shirt. His chest, as I noticed for the umpteenth time, was shaved.
Some other time.