Whatever the mood of his gaolers, Blake had passed a miserable night. His shoulder blades dug into the uncomfortable bench, and the silence of the station after dark made him claustrophobic, as if he were stuck in a lift.
Or an empty German youth hostel, he thought ironically. Blake had experienced both situations in his time, and he was easily unnerved by memories of loneliness and the dread of death. This was the reason he slept on the gravestone. It was like the time he had sat on the edge of a cliff face at Moher in Ireland, with a six hundred foot drop below his dangling feet to exorcise his fears, something that proved less than effective. After the event, he kept imagining scenarios where he fell to his death, and his fear of heights was now considerably worse.
In his half-sleep, Blake had confused this night in the police cell with the previous night’s vigil and he dreamt of himself underground in one of the mausoleums facing out towards River Ouvèze. He could hear the swish of the trees outside in the wind, but he sensed the bars and knew he was trapped with the dead. He had one of those dreadful dreams where he was attempting to lift his arms but was unable to do so at all. Perhaps in continuation of this gothic theme, his mind turned to another night with Birna.
She had called him on his mobile from Genet’s house one Friday afternoon to ask if he would like to see a band with her in Aix-en-Provence. He suspected he was invited only because he owned a car but had nevertheless agreed to pick her up from Michel’s and drive them, after a stop at her place for her to get changed.
‘It’s not too far for you?’ asked Birna.
‘Where I’m from, farmers drive an hour and a half just to get to their letter boxes.’ Not in Copacabana of course, but she didn’t need to know that.
At Genet’s house, Birna opened the door with a smile, and not for the first time Blake felt rather hopelessly entranced. She told him she would be a few more minutes. ‘Say hello to Michel while you are waiting. He’s in his studio.’
The artist was at work on a canvas and did not look happy to be interrupted. Blake had caught just a glimpse of the work on the easel before Michel repositioned it.
Blake said, ‘Sorry, I can see you are working…’
‘I’ll be up in a minute,’ Genet replied.
Blake was sitting on the rusty bonnet of his Citroën when the artist emerged, wiping his hands on a cloth. ‘So, we meet again. I hear that you’re going to Aix?’
‘Yes, to see an Icelandic heavy metal band.’
‘I can’t imagine anything worse.’
‘Thanks for the dinner the other night,’ Blake said. He had the feeling that he was letting the maestro down, taking his cleaner out instead of forming a more gentlemanly relationship with Genet himself.
When Birna emerged, Blake had a chance to see Birna and Genet together. He couldn’t help but notice the odd way they treated each other, with an awkward mix of formality and familiarity, like a teacher with one of his ex-students rather than an employer and employee. Interesting, he noted. They know each other.
At Andrew Ross’s house, Birna invited him in and showed him around. Andrew was out somewhere, so Blake sat in the kitchen while Birna showered and changed. He observed how tidy the house was and how the surfaces of the modern kitchen shone. Whatever bohemian tendencies Birna had (she had just walked past him with a towel only very loosely wrapped around her, slipping where his eyes shouldn’t have looked), she was obviously a conscientious worker.
The gig was at a small venue in the middle of Aix. Bodies pressed in on Blake from all sides of the tiny room. It was full of denim and leather, long hair and smelly armpits.
‘Drink?’ Blake shouted.
‘Vodka!’ Birna yelled back.
The support band was playing French speed metal, which sounded curiously like a distorted accordion. From the bar, Blake looked back at Birna. She was wearing tight blue jeans and a black singlet with the band’s logo painted on the front. Her face was made up and she looked remarkable, like a model dressed for a film clip rather than a genuine fan. She had made her way down to the front, which wasn’t difficult for her but proved trickier for Blake. The young men on either side of her seemed particularly reluctant to let him have a place.
Death Avenger didn’t so much arrive on stage as invade. They had a way of holding their axes as though they could be wielded as well as played. The music itself was a physical assault – a wave of solid sound that hit Blake in the face; a kind of grinding, crunching, splitting blend of high notes and overpowering bass vibrations. The band members had long hair, goatee beards, muscular arms, tattoos covering their bodies. The only exception was the drummer, who was thinner than his band mates and free of ink. For a moment Blake thought he might be a woman, so fine were his features. More disturbingly, Birna waved at him and the pretty-boy drummer smiled back, pointed his drumstick at her.
When Birna swung her hips and waved her hands in the air, it was clear to Blake that she wasn’t dancing like this for him. Between songs, the singer spoke to Birna in Icelandic. He couldn’t be sure, but Blake had the distinct feeling that several of the band members were laughing at him, an impression reinforced when the guitarist pointed his axe at him and gave a sharp nudge in his direction, so that Blake had to take a step backwards. He felt ten years too old in the venue and naked without the muscles and tattoos of the men on stage in front of him.
It was nearly one in the morning when the band finished their set, promising to come back to sign T-shirts and CDs, to drink some more and ‘have a great fucking party!’
Terrific, thought Blake.
Birna asked if he minded staying a while longer. ‘Of course not,’ he replied, ‘though, I do have to do some work in the morning.’
She’d kissed him on the cheek then and said, ‘You’re cute.’ He was reminded of Carmen at the start of The Big Sleep, only she didn’t fall back into his arms and he was no cocky detective.
He’d hung back when the band came out into the crowd and Birna hugged the drummer. The evening hadn’t quite turned out as Blake had imagined. He had gone out with Birna, but now he was feeling alone. He drank another beer and watched the hard-core fans circling their heroes. Eventually, Birna seemed to remember him. ‘Blake, I’m going to hang out with the band. Do you want to come along? We’re going to a club.’
When he declined, Birna must have seen the sulky look on his face because she offered an explanation. ‘The drummer, Jonas – he’s my step-brother. I haven’t seen him in five months. You understand?’
‘Of course,’ Blake had replied, smiling uncertainly. ‘Are you okay to get home by yourself? Do you want me to wait for you?’
‘You’re so sweet,’ she said, kissing him lightly on the lips, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be okay.’
He left the pub feeling quite light-headed. Death Avenger wasn’t exactly his thing, but their songs were actually quite melodic. He had even found himself singing along to a chorus of ‘The Darkness Goes with Me’ during one of the encores. But on the highway, doubts began to emerge and the temporary happiness soon ebbed. The more he thought about it, the less convinced he was that Birna was telling the truth about her “step-brother”. There had been a smirk on the drummer’s face as he nodded at Blake, which Blake hadn’t liked. Then there was the fact that she hadn’t mentioned it to him before they left, while they had journeyed down, or during the fast-food meal that they had shared in the city earlier in the evening. He balanced all this out in his head with the fact that he had no right to feel jealous of her, being engaged himself and too old by half anyway. A shallow guilt crept in as he thought about his evening out and the parts of it he would and wouldn’t tell Elizabeth.
It was no wonder Blake had looked wary when Agent Flague took him to be photographed. Part of him was still sizing up tattooed Icelanders.