The next day I wasn’t functioning properly. It was as though I was missing a vital organ. I kept getting things wrong; forgetting the standard procedures of daily life. I found my wallet in the fridge. I turned on the electric jug to make a cup of coffee and ran a bath. The jug boiled dry and the bath overflowed. I tried to dismiss the spectre of Sykes, charred and wizened, his black skin fried onto his skull like an ancient mummy fished out of a tar pit. I refused to accept the possibility that he could be dead. We hadn’t finished. I hadn’t finished with him and he hadn’t finished with me. I could still taste the sound of his voice; I could clearly see the symmetry of his neck; his loping walk; his hand dappled in a pool of light under the tree-ferns on the island. I could see his breath suspended in the air as he stood naked on the jetty, glittering with phosphorescence. Brushstrokes that were so vivid that his image rose up before me in the empty air. It was too alive for him to be dead.
I kept going to the phone and picking it up, but there was no-one to call. And if I did call, what would I say? It was too big to say. I would never be able to get it out.
I started again. I switched on the electric jug, waited for it to boil. I sipped the coffee sitting on the edge of the bath, waited for it to fill. I lay in the bath, cleared my head and waited.
This is how it was: Fabulina’s house was vac-ant. It was ramshackle. It would be a prime target for street-kids or the homeless drunks who still haunted those streets. Street-kids sniff solvents. Drunks drink meths. A stray cigarette. A dropped match. That old house would ignite like kindling. There would be no hope of escape. But then again, I thought of the times that I had seen Sykes staggering drunk; the times he had been so drugged that his eyes rolled back in his head. And then I thought about luck and I couldn’t figure out if his was good or bad.
I got dressed, poured myself a drink and phoned Grace.
‘Look, It could have been a squatter, you know some old drunk or a street-kid off his face on glue or something. It would have been easy to break in. Maybe the place wasn’t even locked up.’
‘You’re right,’ said Grace. ‘It could have been any-one. Anything’s possible. The story of my life, doll. Of course, there’s only one way to find out.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Go straight to the horse’s mouth. Call the cops.’
‘But didn’t they say the body was unidentifiable?’
‘Sure, but they’re not going to spill all the beans on TV are they? Look, if you get on the phone and give the impression, in the subtlest possible way, of course, that you may be able to assist them in their investigation. I think they might cough up.’ I thought about the way that constable had looked at me outside Fabulina’s place. I didn’t trust the police and I didn’t want to be drawn in. They would know the degenerate history of the house. Surely they would have kept tabs on the junkies and hookers that had lived there.
‘You don’t even have to give your name,’ Grace was saying. ‘Use a public phone if you’re worried about them tracing the call. Listen, doll, pour yourself another and just do it. You’ve got nothing to lose. Ring me back.’
After two more stiff drinks, I picked up the phone and dialled. I asked to speak to whoever was in charge of the investigation. It was a woman. She had a soft smoky voice. I could hear the minor ignitions as she dragged on a cigarette. I explained that I had known the late owner of the house.
‘Ah, yes,’ she said. ‘ Mr Garland. I remember him well. Charming man. Somewhat theatrical, but charming.’
I said I had once met some of Mr Garland’s tenants. She asked for names. I said that it had been some time ago and I couldn’t really remember. I invented a party and said that I may have been a bit under the weather at the time. But I remembered what they looked like. There was a pause, I heard the flick of a lighter.
‘And your name is?’ I was tempted to hang up.
‘It’s not really relevant,’ my voice was giving way. ‘I just thought... I just thought I might be able to help.’ There was another pause.
‘As you probably know the body was badly burnt. But from what we have been able to establish, it is likely that the victim is a male in his early to mid thirties. He had long hair and was wearing what would appear to be a silver ring pierced through his right nipple.’