35

They were three hours into sunset, looking over their notes and getting nowhere, and it was making them hungry. Teddy suggested takeaway, and Alice said, ‘Let’s try one more place Art went.’

‘Why? You want to take up another job shifting coke or whatever the fuck it is?’

‘One illegal job is enough, thank you,’ Alice said. ‘But we have to put ourselves where the information is, right?’

Teddy grouched and conceded Alice was right. ‘I know a place,’ she said. ‘It was in Kew. Art said he was going to go thank the chef in person, and he vanished into the kitchen for ten minutes. I thought he was just being Art, but now, well, you know.’

‘All right,’ Alice said. ‘Whereabouts in Kew?’

Teddy looked at Alice beseechingly.

‘You don’t remember?’ Alice asked.

‘I’ll remember when we get there. All these restaurants,’ Teddy said. ‘Art was – what – selling for them?’ She paused and closed her eyes. ‘He wasn’t a gourmand at all. He was just a dealer taking us to his workplaces.’

‘But the food was so good,’ Alice said, in pain. ‘We liked it.’

Because of Art, Teddy thought, because he told us we would like it. ‘So maybe Cole was selling too?’ Teddy said. ‘And … that bothered Darwin enough, somehow, to use him in his place? But he didn’t die from anything drug-related, like an overdose. It was something more physically traumatic. Did Darwin push him off a building?’

Alice thought about him lying in the coffin. ‘I don’t know. But he did die somehow, and there’s fucking nothing that tells us how.’

‘A fake body,’ Teddy said. ‘A fake goddamn disappearance and probably a faked death. But why couldn’t Art’s be fake? I had to watch him die.’

‘I know,’ Alice said. ‘And you nearly did too.’

‘And someone tried to shoot you as well,’ Teddy said. ‘With a rifle. Why a rifle?’

‘Country people always have rifles.’

‘So you think it was a country person who tried to shoot you?’

‘Actually,’ Alice said, ‘no, I don’t. So, no. I don’t know where the rifle came from.’

‘Do we know anything?’

‘We know we’re hungry,’ Alice said, ‘so let’s go find this place.’

~

They could not find the restaurant. They got a little lost, ended up on a few wrong roads, on a bridge, by the river, down dark streets in front of rich houses. Alice didn’t like being lost, but kept her temper until Teddy hollered, ‘Right!’ and they found the place, nestled between two townhouses. It was an art deco restaurant, all brass and deep reds, and it was closed.

Teddy slapped her hand on the door and let out a growl of frustration.

Alice peered in, and said, ‘The lights are still on. Maybe they’ve only just closed.’

‘Who closes this early on a Saturday?’ Teddy asked.

‘I think it might be less early than you think,’ Alice said.

She went to walk back to her car, but Teddy was scouting the place, heading around the back.

Alice followed. Beside a skip, one of the waitstaff was smoking. He was handsome, with wild curly hair and a streak of sauce on his cheek.

‘Can I help you?’ he asked.

‘We’re a bit late,’ Teddy said. ‘We were hoping for a drink.’

‘There are a few places around here a bit nicer than sitting next to a skip,’ he said. ‘I can show you, if you want.’

Teddy gave a little sigh.

Alice said, ‘We really only had time for this one drink.’

‘All right,’ he said, then pointed his cigarette at Teddy. ‘I remember you. You’ve been here before, with my friend Arthur. I’m Fraser.’

‘Have you heard what happened to him?’ Teddy asked, keeping her voice steady.

‘I have,’ Fraser said. ‘I didn’t like it.’

Teddy said she didn’t like it either. Alice was unmoving, trying not to distract him from his laser focus on Teddy’s face.

‘I don’t suppose you have a sarsaparilla back here, do you?’ Teddy asked.

‘Ah, you’re looking for a job,’ he said. ‘I’d have to get back to you. Art’s not here to vouch for you.’

‘I’m not sure if I want the job,’ Teddy said. ‘I’m just kind of grieving, still. So there’s no hurry.’

‘I finish in half an hour,’ he said, ‘in case you would like to talk more?’

Teddy conceded that she did, and that maybe he would like to come back to hers for a drink afterwards. He thought that sounded pretty great.

Teddy and Alice drove back to Teddy’s apartment, put all the notes they’d left out into Alice’s room, and Teddy changed her bedsheets while Alice washed the dishes and said, ‘I can’t believe I’m cleaning up for you to have a goddamn date.’

‘It’s not a date,’ Teddy said. ‘It’s intel.’

‘Then why did you brush your hair?’

‘Well,’ Teddy said, ‘it’s because I want to have sex with that man from the restaurant.’

At eleven o’clock, when her doorbell rang, Teddy gave Alice her noise-cancelling headphones and a book and told Alice not to wait up. The headphones worked, but the request did not. Alice waited until both of them were snoring through the thin walls of the apartment, just before two in the morning, before she could relax enough to finally go to sleep.