Inspector Evans damaged his shoulder on Sergeant Davis’s door, and the injury was compounded by the fact that he failed to break it down. As he waited in out-patients, he tried to calculate how many doors he had shouldered in his life, and came up with a figure that loitered in the mid five hundreds. Then he decided to work out the accumulated poundage per square inch that his shoulder had had to put up with, but that figure eluded him. He thought about applying for compensation, but then dismissed the idea. Shouldering doors was part of the job; if he couldn’t accept the risks then he was in the wrong game. He turned his thoughts to his sergeant, but when those thoughts led nowhere, he began to think about Christmas-tree lights. There was a Christmas tree in the hospital out-patients; it was decorated with ragged decorations and poorly wrapped dummy presents. A voice called his name but he didn’t respond. It called again. ‘Evans?’ He looked up and this time he noticed. ‘Me?’ he said to a nurse, and she scratched her face and said, ‘If your name is Evans.’
‘It is,’ he said.
‘Come along then,’ said the nurse.
Two floors above out-patients, Frank put the glossy-leaved pot-plant on a table beside Lisa’s bed, and sat down. He stared at her sleeping face, listened to the steady beep of her monitor and allowed himself to be seduced. She was too vulnerable to leave, too close to forget, and the way her hair lay on the pillow broke his heart. Normally, she took such care of it, teasing it into good shape, worrying about its body and fretting about its colour; now it was lank and damp, and clotted on the linen like smoke. She was the daughter he would never have, and if she wanted, he would be the father she deserved. He would follow Bob’s example and give up the agency. He would buy a shop and open a sandwich bar. He would do good in the world, and the world would smile on his cottage cheese, mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato on wholemeal. Lisa would have her baby and they could live above the shop. If she wanted, she could help with the spreading, cutting and serving, but he wouldn’t put her under any obligation.
As she slept, she opened her mouth and her tongue poked out. It ran around the edges of her lips, and as it did, her eyes creased in pain. Frank got out of his chair, picked up a flannel, dipped it in a glass of water and dabbed her mouth. Her eyeballs rolled beneath their lids, she moaned a little, her head lolled and her monitor glitched. A moment later, a nurse appeared, checked the reading and forced a smile. Frank put the flannel down and said, ‘How’s she been?’
‘No change,’ she said.
‘And the baby?’
The nurse shrugged. Her shoulders went up and her shoulders went down, and though she didn’t say anything, Frank listened to her eyes, and they explained everything. He wished he could take them from their sockets and bowl them down narrow alleys to a week before, when everything in the world had made sense. Two weeks ago, war had had logic, and robbery had been understood. Murder and mayhem, arson and bestiality; Frank had skirted these things, he had seen them and they’d made him cringe, but he hadn’t lost sleep. Now, touched by the trouble Brighton could conjure, he rushed from intensive care, down two floors, through out-patients, past the bandaged figure of Inspector Evans, out of the hospital and into the night. He only stopped when he reached the street and had found a lamppost to lean against, and as his breath plumed into the air he kicked at a pile of snow and swore at the sky. There was a strange taste in his mouth, and his fingers tingled.
Sergeant Davis took his warrant card to the beach and tore it into tiny pieces; then he tossed it into the sky and let it fall with the snow that drifted around him. He had worked his last day as a policeman. Now he was going to murder. He was going to find a bus-driver and kill him.
Davis saw Chips in the sea and in the sky, and heard his bark in the wind that played and whistled around the girders of the pier. He felt the dog’s hair in the air and remembered the longing in the dog’s eyes; revenge was going to become the man’s life, and would fill his days. He had not made many important decisions in his life, but this was the big one. It barked and it growled, and it grew to the size of a wolf-hound. It nuzzled his face and slobbered in his ear. ‘Okay,’ said the ex-policeman, and then he left the beach and walked back into town.
No one met Mrs Austin; she stood on Brighton station for ten minutes, then dragged her suitcase to the taxi-rank, and asked to be taken to a decent hotel.
‘What you mean, decent?’ said the driver.
‘Clean,’ said Mrs Austin. ‘Hot and cold in all rooms.’
‘Okay.’
She sat back for the drive, and as she stared at the busy streets, the panic and pain the news had provoked was displaced by regret. God’s will was overwhelming, but she could not stop herself thinking that she should have been with her children, that she could have prevented the tragedy. It should never have happened. It doesn’t matter how old your children are, they will always be your children, and carry an echo of your nursing arms. She mumbled incoherently; the driver looked at her in his mirror, and shrugged. She put the tips of her fingers together and closed her eyes… The eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon him that hope in his mercy; to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine…
‘This’ll do you,’ said the driver. He had stopped outside the Atlas Hotel.
Mrs Austin blinked and looked up at it. ‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘It looks fine.’ She smiled, and reached for her handbag. ‘Thank you.’
Mrs Platt had learnt that revenge compounds tragedy, it cannot relieve it. Now, as her kitchen clock crept towards midnight, she set the jam-jarred Joey in the middle of the table and lit four candles. She was going to contact the spirits of her dead bird and the dead vet, and she was going to ask for forgiveness. She was going to ask them how she could redeem herself. She was willing to do anything to assuage the guilt she felt. Her mind was full and her body craved some nostrum; she sat down and laid her hands palms down on the table, closed her eyes and began to whisper a solemn invocation. These were words that could be destroyed by copying, rendered useless by writing, words that had been passed from mother to daughter and from daughter to child. ‘Spirits of the night, protectors of the spirits and ghosts of all sentient beings, remind me, be with me and give me the keys to your orbit. I am here and you are there, and our realms meet at this table.’ She took a deep breath, opened her eyes a tad, drummed her fingers and waited.
Joey sat in his jar, and his fading feathers teemed with a million microscopic mites. The candles guttered and a breeze rattled the kitchen window; Mrs Platt closed her eyes, and began to whisper again.
‘Spirits of the night, protectors of the spirits and ghosts of all sentient beings, remind me, be with me and give me the keys to your orbit. Clatter your keys and display yourselves. Show me the strength of your purpose, and explain yourselves. Give me a taste of your power, justify yourselves and let me hear your voices.’ Her voice wavered, a ball of phlegm popped in her throat and the candles guttered again, but this time no breeze could be felt in the room. Now, the atmosphere was warm and heavy, and scented with roses. Roses in borders and roses on graves, roses in bouquets and roses in a virgin’s hair; the spirits smell of roses, and as they began to gather around Mrs Platt, they smelt themselves, and they smelt her. They prided themselves on their compassion, and when they looked at the woman, her bird in a jar and the four candles, and when they heard the incantation, they began to take form in the air above her, and to suspend time.
Bob’s sauna almost filled his living-room; as he waited for it to reach optimum temperature, he smiled and congratulated himself. The showroom had distorted its size, but as he undressed, he didn’t care. He wanted the deep cleaning experience, and a skin of open pores bleeding the taste of the last meal he’d eaten. A big box of heat; it was fitted with a light that went off when it was ready for use. Bob was a patient man; he lay naked on his sofa and traced patterns on his chest.
Mrs Austin booked into the Atlas. She sat on her bed, stared at the wallpaper, and then phoned the police. A desk sergeant tried to connnect her with Evans, but the man had gone off duty. ‘Then you’ll take a message,’ said Mrs Austin.
‘Madam?’
‘I’m Cyril and Diana Austin’s mother.’
‘Austin?’
‘Yes.’
‘The murder?’
Mrs Austin’s throat cramped, then relaxed, then cramped again, then relaxed again. ‘The inspector phoned me in Canterbury; I was asked to come down to —’ she took a deep breath ‘to identify their bodies. I’m staying at the Atlas. Would you ask him to phone me in the morning.’
‘The Atlas.’
‘Yes.’
‘Mrs Austin?’
‘Correct.’
The desk sergeant’s pen ran out. He looked at it, shook it, breathed on it, then tossed it into a wastepaper-basket. He picked up another and scribbled on the corner of a sheet of paper. ‘The Atlas…’ he repeated. ‘Number?’
Mrs Austin boiled. ‘Don’t you have a telephone directory?’ she snapped, and she put the phone down. She stood up and walked to the window. She looked down at the street, and watched a slow fall of snow drift across the sky. When Cyril was a boy, snow had been his delight, and his sister had helped him build snowmen in the garden. That old garden in Canterbury, with the shade of apple and pear trees, and old shrubberies. She felt in her pocket and pulled out the handkerchief the man on the train had given her. She put it to her nose and blew hard. ‘Children,’ she whispered at the window, and it rattled back, from the joy of another town to the numbing of Brighton.
Mrs Platt felt the spirits as they gathered above her, but she did not open her eyes. She focused on the backs of her eyelids and repeated her incantation. She saw spots of light and sheets of dark against the spots; she kept her hands on the table and took deep, steady breaths. The spirits concentrated their strength, they directed their power at Joey’s jam jar and then they began to move it.
It began by moving slowly and steadily from side to side, rucking the table-cloth as it did, and a low whistle came from its lid. As soon as Mrs Platt heard this, she opened her eyes and her body filled with heat. The spirits descended and surrounded her, swirling like water around a stranded rock. The jam jar was shivering, the whistling raised its pitch, the crockery on the kitchen shelves began to rattle, and an egg-cup fell and smashed on the floor. The smell of roses rose and fell like a ship at sea, and began to clog her nostrils. One spirit touched her skin, and then another, and then another, and then they were forcing themselves beneath her clothes, rubbing her stomach and pinching the loose skin on her arms. One nestled in her armpits, and others found homes in the creases of her stomach. When they came into contact with her skin they began to multiply, and they encouraged each other by whispering and singing. Their phantom lips tickled Mrs Platt, but she didn’t mind. She didn’t mind at all, she didn’t want them to leave her. She was reminded of Mr Platt, and she remembered long summer days, plump fruit and long grass. A sweet and musical brook, the smell of his hair and his fingers’ touch. She felt his revenant fold its arms around her waist, and it murmured in her ear. She could see his eyes and they watched her, and she said his name. The word smashed the air, and it shattered the mood; the spirits released their grip, and began to dissolve. They were not afraid but they were unsettled; they gathered together by the window, and they looked out at the night. Snow washed the sky, covered the garden and weighed the branches of an old apple tree; Mrs Platt said her husband’s name again and the spirits popped, and then disappeared. She felt refreshed, as if she’d just stepped out of the bath. She ran her hands through her hair and felt like a girl getting ready for an exciting date. She looked at Joey in the jar. His feathers were bright and shiny. She believed in other worlds, in the mysteries of reincarnation and the riddles in a spirit’s gift. She smelt roses and she felt warm. ‘Fred,’ she said, and then she stood up and went to make a cup of tea.