CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I could smell something delicious drifting up the gravel. We’d just seen the last of the followers off, and Rob had driven away in his beetle-black car, and Marnie was in the stockroom sealing the toy Tamas into their mailer bags, and I was dozing in a sun-trance in the front paddock. The aroma crept up on me, rich and bloody, and I stood and shook my feathers. Returned to the gate.

On a fencepost, a bowl of meat.

Rich, bloody.

I edged my way towards it.

My sister was calling from the orchard: I remember that. And I remember sniffing the food, and it was diced heart, and when I plunged in my beak the meat was not cold from the fridge but warm as fresh flesh, warm as something just killed. I began to eat. Delicious, delicious, and I kept wolfing it down as my sister called from the orchard. Then, from behind a parked car, a woman’s voice: ‘Are you ready?’

‘Ready,’ said a man’s voice.

Slowly they approached me with their soft words, little coos and warbles. Balaclavas covering their faces, though they sounded nothing like perps, and perhaps they were going to shoot pests. Then she was stroking me, good boy, sweet boy, and then she was holding me down, and my right eye saw the bowl of food and my left eye saw his hand coming straight for me, the thin silver needle coming straight for me. A sting in my breast, and I let out a cry because I had never felt such a sting and I did not know what it meant.

‘All done now,’ she murmured. ‘All over.’ But she did not take her hands away.

My sister called and called. What was she saying? I was so tired. So very sleepy.

‘Almost … almost …’ said the man’s voice.

My right eye saw the blurry bowl of food and my left eye saw the blurry box. The woman’s voice said, ‘Gently now,’ and I felt both eyes droop and droop and close.

When I woke the world had turned to black and I did not know where I was, but I knew it was far from Wilderness Road. I could not hear the wind in the shelterbelts. I could not hear Rob shouting to the dogs: Smoke, hold ’em! Night, come away! I could not hear the groaning sheep and I could not hear the groaning house. I could not hear the clothesline turning, scree, scree, scree. I could not hear my sister’s silvery calls, summoning magpies to the open-mouthed trap. And I could not hear Marnie, my Marnie, singing as she packed the orders: I love you, a bushel and a peck …

I blinked. Black-black. As black as inside the egg. As black as the blind days when my eyes were unsprouted seeds, dots of gravel stuck under skin. I tried out my voice: a nonsense warble, a wobble. My whole body heavy and slow.

A door opened. A bright wedge.

‘He’s awake,’ said the man’s voice.

‘Oh thank God,’ said the woman’s voice.

‘Put it on. They remember faces.’

‘I still don’t think we need—’

‘Put it on. And don’t stare at him – they interpret it as a threat.’

The click of a light switch, the low whirr of a fan. I blinked again and saw right next to me a mirror the width of a wall. A shower. A toilet. And closer than all of those, and on every side, the bars of a cage.

Looking in at me, two giant magpies.

Was I a chick once more? Were they my parents?

‘Thank God, thank you God,’ one of the magpies said in the woman’s voice.

‘I did know what I was doing. I did research it,’ said the other one in the man’s voice.

‘Can you imagine, though? We don’t need that kind of bad press.’

‘He’s fine. Nothing wrong with him.’

Through holes in the heads of the giant magpies I could make out human eyes. Human mouths.

Magpie masks. Make-believe.

‘Tama, my darling,’ said the woman, ‘are you hungry? You must be starving. And you must be scared. Are you scared? We’re your friends, Tama. God has sent us to save you.’

She poked a piece of carrot through the bars, and it plopped to the floor of the cage. I was not her darling. I just looked at the carrot. Lifted my foot. Put it down again. Too heavy, too slow. I closed my eyes and tried to call up the ghost of my mother, the ghosts of my brothers, but they would not come.

‘I think he’s still a bit dopey,’ said the woman.

‘He’ll be fine,’ said the man. ‘I researched it.’

The woman poked through another piece of carrot. ‘Look at you,’ she said. ‘You’re glorious. God’s glorious creation. Good boy. Good boy.’

They turned the light off, which turned the fan off, but they left the door open. On the vanity next to me, a row of miniature cakes of soap, a row of miniature bottles of shampoo. Bird-sized. I thought of the shower cap Marnie had made me from a plastic shopping bag. One of our first photos.

‘No mention on the Twitter feed yet,’ the woman said from the next room.

‘Give it time,’ said the man. ‘It’s been, what, all of an hour?’

‘Closer to two.’

‘You never could wait. Always tearing little holes in the Christmas presents. Flicking to the last page of a book. Remember that time we made fudge for the school fair, and Mum said we had to leave it to set, only you sneaked off to cut it up after about five minutes? And it looked like big splats of shit, and Mum made us take it to school anyway?’

‘Mmm. Still nothing on Twitter.’

‘Jesus, put down the phone and help me with the sheet. Here, do you reckon? Or here?’

‘Over by the curtains. Otherwise you’ll get the minibar in shot.’

I shook my feathers. Stretched my wings, one at a time. I could hardly turn around, and when I did I kept hitting my head on a little perch and a little bell that dangled from the roof of the cage. The orchard trap was roomier. I let out another warble, as if it were morning, though the bathroom had no windows and I couldn’t tell the time of day. It had no mould on the walls, either, as far as I could make out. No mould on the shower curtain or on the ceiling. No borer-beetle dust, no mushroomy smell of rot.

I said, ‘There’ll be very few dead spots.’

I said, ‘Didn’t your parents worry?’

I said, ‘Don’t be a prick about it.’

The man and woman appeared at the bathroom door, pulling their rubber masks back into place.

‘That’s my boy!’ said the woman, but I was not her boy.

‘Stop encouraging him,’ said the man.

‘Get yourself some alpacas,’ I said.

‘You’re quite extraordinary, aren’t you?’ said the woman.

‘Don’t offer him positive reinforcement for speaking the language of his oppressors,’ said the man.

‘I know, I know,’ said the woman, ‘but it’s pretty astonishing.’

‘He has been colonised,’ said the man. ‘No two ways about it.’

‘Right. Yes,’ said the woman. She poked another piece of carrot through the bars, though I hadn’t touched the last one. ‘Num num?’ she said. ‘Good boy num num?’

The man sighed through his mask. ‘At any rate, clearly he’s recovered from the injection.’

‘Toe-paw,’ I said. ‘Toe-paw.’

‘Did he just say Taupō?’

‘I think so. And like, the proper way.’

‘Tēnā koe,’ I said. ‘Toe-paw. Kia pai tō rā.’

‘Holy shit,’ said the man. ‘He knows Māori. That’s amazing. Tama, you’re amazing.’

‘I thought we weren’t meant to offer him positive reinforcement for speaking the language of his oppressors.’

‘Is he, though?’

‘Hvem er en flink gutt?’

‘Holy shit! What was that?’

‘Danish?’

‘Yeah, it sounded like Danish.’

‘How would he know Danish?’

‘Netflix, maybe?’

‘What, like The Killing?’

‘Why not?’

‘The killing?’ I said. ‘The killing?’

‘That final episode was a total betrayal. She never would have shot a man in cold blood, then disappeared into the wilds of Iceland.’

‘But that was the sacrifice she made. Shooting him was a moral act, for the greater good.’

‘We don’t even have Sky here. You realise that, don’t you.’

I thought if I used my human voice they would let me out of the cage. They would let me go. I started to talk my head off, summoning all the words I could remember, and I kept talking even when they had returned to the next room. I said, ‘You know I’d never hurt you, not on purpose. I’m worried that you think it’s a baby. It digs in my head and I can’t think straight. I’m under a lot of pressure. Something dumb. Something terrible. I’m at the end of my rope. Tastes like wood. Well, it’s none of my business. You’re being very naughty. Out of bounds. No go. I’m kidding about the spa pool. Right rabbit in the right hole. They carry parasites, I think. I’m a bit fucking fed up to the back teeth. Wilderness Road – you can’t miss it. How much is that costing us? How’s NYC today, Ramon? It’s like I turn into someone else. Where’s Mummy hiding? Blue makes our eyes pop. He’ll chop off his foot. Do you want me to break my neck? Goodness but you were a whopping one. Little goblins, little monsters. You’re dumber than I thought. The horse has already bolted. Meow.’

After a while I heard the man say, ‘Go get him,’ and the woman came and picked up the cage and carried me out to the next room. There was a fish-pink double bed and a soundless TV tuned to a news channel and a half-size fridge like the one Marnie had shown me in the house on wheels. On a shelf above it, a kettle and a basket of snacks: biscuits, muesli bars, chocolate bars, crumpled bags of chips and nuts. A picture of a stag in a clearing hung on one wall, and a picture of a frothy waterfall on another. The man was balancing on a chair, tucking a bedsheet over the curtain rail and trying to smooth it flat against the drawn curtains. I still couldn’t tell the time of day.

The woman put me down on a table just in front of him and checked her phone.

‘Nothing yet,’ she said.

‘They won’t even have noticed he’s gone. They’ll be too busy selling their sweatshop merchandise.’

‘Bastards.’

‘Pass me the selfie stick. And the phone. The phone, Rena.’

‘No names.’

‘Just give me the phone.’

‘Maybe you could use yours? Oh wait, that’s right, you dropped it in the bath.’

‘Don’t start.’

‘Watching Japanese girls again – was that it?’

‘I said don’t start.’

They sat either side of me at the table and the man extended the stick. I’d seen my followers use them at the gate plenty of times, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when the three of us appeared on the screen, but at the sight of my abductors in their magpie masks, flanking me like parents, I found myself saying, ‘We do not tolerate this sort of behaviour. We do not reward it with attention.’

Where was my mother, the ghost of my mother? Where was Marnie?

Nowhere, nowhere.

‘Quiet now, Tama,’ said the woman in the mother mask.

The man looked into the screen and pressed a button on the stick. Then he said, ‘We are free as a bird. We come to you today—’

‘Wait,’ said the woman. ‘You can see a bit of curtain.’ She pulled at the edge of the bedsheet behind us, and the man started again.

‘We are free as a bird,’ he said. ‘We come—’

‘Hold on. Hair.’ The woman tucked a light-brown strand back up underneath her mask.

‘Okay now?’ said the man.

She nodded.

‘Sure?’

‘Just start talking.’

‘We are free as a bird. We come to you today from a secret location—’

‘We agreed on undisclosed, not secret,’ said the woman.

‘Does it matter?’ said the man.

‘Of course it matters. Undisclosed is more authoritative. We agreed on that. We’re not the Famous Five.’

‘We need to have the clip ready to go, Rena.’

‘No names!’

‘We need to have the clip ready to go, Comrade. If you keep interrupting—’

‘To be fair, the curtain wasn’t my fault.’

The man took a deep breath in and out, the rubber making a plap plap plap sound as the air left his mouth. ‘We are free as a bird,’ he said again. ‘We come to you today from an undisclosed location—’

‘We’re not the Famous Five,’ I said.

‘Tama! Naughty little sausage!’ said the woman, but she laughed.

‘It’s not funny,’ said the man. ‘And don’t infantilise him.’

‘It’s not funny,’ I said.

‘Shh, Tama,’ she said. When she tried to hold a finger to her lips she squashed her rubber beak first to one side and then the other, pulling her face into terrible shapes.

The man said, ‘We are free—’

‘We’re live fucking feed,’ I said.

‘Shall we just do it without him?’ said the woman.

‘Why would we do it without him?’ shouted the man. ‘He is the whole fucking point!’

‘We could just show him at the end. You know, as proof.’

The man’s eyes stared at her from the holes in his mask. ‘Comrade,’ he said, ‘I’m beginning to question your commitment to the cause.’

‘My commitment?’ she said. ‘Who found out the address? Who went all the way to Timaru – Timaru – to buy the budgie cage? Who sourced the drugs and the masks? Who wrote ninety percent of the script? And yet you get to be the voice of the whole operation!’

‘Naughty little sausage,’ I said.

‘You’re welcome to be the voice,’ said the man. ‘Be my fucking guest. If you can get a word in edgewise.’

‘I haven’t learned it,’ she muttered.

‘What’s that?’

‘I haven’t learned the script.’

‘I guess that means I’m the voice, then,’ he said.

They sat there in silence.

I said, ‘Pass me the selfie stick.’

‘Could we wait till he goes to sleep?’ said the woman.

‘We should have done the pet shop in Hamilton,’ said the man. ‘Smashed a window, opened the cages, taken some pictures, the end.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I want global attention.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘The cause. The cause wants it.’

‘Right,’ he said, eyeing her through his mask. ‘The cause.’

‘We could give him something to eat,’ she said. ‘To keep him quiet.’

‘He hasn’t touched a bite. I don’t think he’s hungry.’

‘He loves cashews. They’ve posted pictures of him eating them.’ She went to the basket above the fridge and found a little bag. ‘Here we are.’

‘Jesus, do you know how much they cost?’

She leafed through a plastic folder next to the basket. ‘Twelve dollars.’

‘So that’s, what, two dollars a nut.’

‘Brian, now’s—’

‘Names!’

‘Comrade, now’s not the time to be penny-pinching.’ She ripped open the bag.

‘I didn’t say you could do that!’

‘Who made you the boss?’

‘I’m the voice, which means I’m the boss!’

‘Calm your tits,’ she said, and poked some cashews through the bars.

Delicious, delicious.

‘See?’ she said.

I whistled Wrecking Ball.

‘I’m the voice,’ he said. ‘I’m the boss.’ He held up the selfie stick again and placed his other hand on my cage. He said, ‘We are free as a bird. We come to you today from an undisclosed location following our liberation of the magpie many of you know as Tamagotchi or Tama. Tama has been exploited by his captors for well over a year. He has been removed from his natural habitat and forced to sleep in an infant’s cot. Forced to wear degrading costumes in photo and video shoots for the titillation of an international audience. Perhaps most damaging to his core sense of birdness has been the erosion of his mother tongue. His captors have trained him to speak for their amusement, and this deviant vocabulary includes a range of obscenities. It is clear that Tama does not know what these vile expressions mean, nor how they demean him when he uses them in place of his melodious and God-given voice. Free as a bird opposes all forms of avian domestication. We believe that Tama should be allowed to live as a magpie and not someone’s pet, someone’s plaything. We urge you to unfollow his captors’ social-media posts, and to stop sharing the abusive images of Tama that revictimise him with every click of the mouse. Most of all we urge you to stop funding his captors by buying their exploitative merchandise. At a time and place of our choosing, we will release Tama back into the wild so that he can fly free as a bird. Hashtag free as a bird.’

He stopped recording and punched the air. ‘Yes!’ he shouted. ‘Fucking yes!’

The woman shrugged. ‘I could have done that.’

‘But I fucking nailed it, right?’

She shrugged again.

‘Did you hear the bit I added? About the obscenities?’

‘Of course I heard it. I was sitting right here. Wordless.’

‘Fucking ad fucking lib. Fucking theatresports.’ Another air punch.

‘Let’s check the Twitter feed,’ she said, but he was already tapping away on the phone, playing the clip of himself. I could see his lips moving through the hole in the mask, mouthing every word.

*

They weren’t going to kill me, then. They weren’t going to shoot me or poison me or run me down. They weren’t going to wring my neck.

The woman carried me back to the bathroom and gave me the rest of the cashews and a few strips of ham. I suppose the day must have turned to dusk, because I began to sing some old song in my old voice: Now it is time to return … come home, come home to your flock … I couldn’t remember the rest. I pecked at the ham. Too watery. The cheap stuff.

Some time later I heard the woman: ‘Finally! They’ve finally noticed he’s gone!’

‘Let’s get this party started,’ said the man.

‘Oh my God, listen to yourself.’

‘Is this the way it’s going to be? Pick pick pick till you make me do something I’ll regret?’

‘What does that mean?’

No response.

‘Brian?’

‘Names!’

‘What does that mean, Comrade?’

‘Nothing. Nothing. Just tell me what they said.’

‘Has anyone local seen Tama? He’s been gone all day and we’re starting to worry.’

‘That’s it?’

‘That’s it. But the followers are chiming in: OMG, Tama’s missing? I hope nothing horrible has happened. I’m praying for you Tama. Have you checked under the beds? My daughter hid under our bed for two hours when we said she couldn’t watch Spongebob. Please Lord Jesus shine your light to show him the way home. I hope he hasn’t been hit by a car. Maybe a dog attack? What about lightning. Is it mating season? I wonder if he has a corkscrew penis. Ducks have corkscrew penises. Go get ’em, Tama! Wait, birds have dicks? I’ve never seen a bird dick. Sometimes they have barbs on them too. I don’t think it’s mating season, it’s snowing? Tama lives in New Zealand you moron. OMG I was there this morning and I saw him eat a blueberry! They don’t mate till they’re older. My kids aren’t allowed Spongebob either. Hashtag find Tama. Hashtag bring Tama home.’

‘Okay, let’s post the clip,’ said the man.

‘Hmm,’ said the woman.

‘Hmm what, Rena?’

‘Jesus, names! Anyway, I think we should wait. Create more of a buzz.’

‘The clip is the buzz, Renatard.’

‘Don’t call me that.’

‘Renatard. Renatard.’

‘He’ll hear you.’

‘He’s asleep, Renatard.’

‘Let’s try to be grown-ups, shall we?’

‘Maybe you could start by posting the clip, as we agreed.’

‘Hmm,’ she said again. ‘I think God will tell us when to post it.’

‘What the fuck, Comrade?’ he said. ‘Is this a jealousy thing?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Like when Mum let me drive the Honda Prelude?’

‘I didn’t give a shit about the Honda Prelude then and I don’t give a shit about the Honda Prelude now.’

‘That’s not what you wrote in your diary.’

‘Cunt.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘The shower. I assume I don’t need your permission.’

‘Leave me the phone.’

‘Sure. Put your mask on.’

‘What for?’

‘I need to bring him out here. I’m not showering in a mask, am I.’

Renatard carried me to the main room and set me down on the table, then headed back to the bathroom. The man was lying on the fish-pink bed, jabbing at the phone.

‘Hey,’ he called. ‘Hey, it’s locked. What’s the code?’

‘Sorry. Can’t hear you.’

The bathroom door clicked shut.

‘Bitch,’ he said. He jabbed at the phone a few more times before dropping it on the bed. Scratching his neck underneath his mask, he browsed the channels on the soundless TV until he found one with a naked woman sliced straight down her dead belly and stitched back together again. He turned up the sound.

A different woman – alive and clothed – said What I can tell you, Detective, is that she was around eight weeks pregnant.

The man from Rob’s crime show, gun strapped to his side, leaned in close to the body. You see these marks, Trent? Same as on our Jane Doe.

Typical defensive wounds, Detective, said the clothed woman.

With all due respect, Doctor, said the man with the gun, there’s nothing typical about this homicide.

The brother was devastated. You saw how he wept when he IDed the remains.

Crocodile tears, said the man with the gun. You learn to recognise them, Trent.

‘Snappity snap,’ I said.

When the ads came on, the man climbed off the bed and flicked through the plastic folder on top of the fridge. He picked up the locked phone, discarded it again and picked up the big one that sat on the bedside table. ‘Brian Holmes here,’ he said. ‘Room 33. Can I get two orders of spicy wings and a tiramisu?’

Then he hung up.

Then he realised.

Not the wings.

The name.

‘Shit,’ he muttered, looking over at me. ‘Shit shit shit shit shit.’

In two steps he was at the cage. ‘It’s just an alias,’ he said. ‘Not my real name. Okay? Okay?’

I began to preen my tail.

‘We won’t mention it to her, right?’ Sneaky sneaky.

A trickle of sweat ran out the bottom of his mask and disappeared under his T-shirt. I kept preening my tail.

‘Do you want more cashews? Eh? Yummy cashews?’

‘You’ve changed your tune,’ said Renatard.

‘Oh – yeah,’ said Brian Holmes. ‘Yeah, well, he’s been such a good boy, hasn’t he.’ He poked a finger through the cage and stroked me. ‘Such a good, good boy.’

I wanted to see the man with the gun catch the perp – tackle him at a charity dinner, corner him in an abandoned factory, hands where I can see them, asshole – but Renatard returned me to the bathroom, switched off the light and closed the door. In the black-black I imagined away my cage, imagined away the perch and bell that hit me in the head whenever I moved, and the cheap ham that smelled like soap, and the people pretending to be magpies. I thought of the Sun-Woman passing through her underground passage on her way back to the east, her bark torch snuffed out, and the magpies – the real magpies – waiting to greet her when she lit her fire to make the dawn. I was in my own room, my own bed, pushing all the insides back into my bear, its rattling heart restored. I was dozing beneath the puffy sun moon stars clouds while the ferris wheel sang its broken-glass song and turned and turned, head head head head head, no head, and the Eye watched over me, catching my every shudder and stretch, even in the dark. Just through the wall Rob and Marnie slept, and if I walked down the hall to their room and hopped up onto their bed they would roll apart and let me lie in the warm space between them.

The electric light woke me, bright as noon, and the fan began to hum. I squinted and blinked – and then I saw Renatard, pale in her pyjamas, stumbling to the toilet. Wispy light-brown hair, a high forehead, a sharp little chin. No mask. She sat down, stared at the unfamiliar floor for a moment, looked around at the unfamiliar walls. Noticed the cage. Noticed me inside the cage.

‘Ducks have corkscrew penises,’ I said.

She opened her mouth, closed it again.

‘Is this a jealousy thing?’ I said.

‘Tama, my darling,’ she whispered all in a rush, flushing the toilet and washing her hands with one of the tiny soaps, ‘this didn’t happen, okay? You never saw me.’

‘You never saw me,’ I said.

‘Right, right,’ she whispered. ‘Our little secret, okay? Just between you, me and God. Good boy. Good boy.’

And she turned out the light.

In the morning – I suppose it was in the morning – Brian Holmes came and unlatched the cage door so he could reach in with a bit of raw mince on a plastic lid. Lamb. Reasonable quality. He started to clean his teeth with his mask on, then sighed, plap plap plap plap. He looked at me, hesitated, then folded the rubber up above his thin mouth and started brushing again. His face neither human nor bird.

‘What are they saying?’ he called. He wiped his mouth, folded his mask back down and left the room.

‘Worried sick … missing for twenty-four hours … not like him at all … reward for safe return …’

‘How much?’

‘Ten thousand dollars.’

‘Wow. They really want him back.’

‘That’s nothing compared to what he’s earning them.’

‘Okay, so now we post the clip.’

‘No, now we let them stew. Let them think he’s dead.’

‘How long are you going to delay posting it? Are you enjoying yourself? Your tragic little power play?’

‘God will tell us when it’s time,’ said Renatard.

I fiddled with the latch on the cage door. Lifted it, let it go. Lifted it, let it go. Lifted it, pushed, let it go. Out I hopped.

In the main room the two of them were still bickering about the clip, so I fluttered up to the snack basket above the fridge and helped myself to a fresh bag of cashews. Brian Holmes wore his mask but Renatard’s lay deflated and empty-eyed on the bed.

‘I’m taking the greater risk,’ said Brian Holmes. ‘It’s me they’ll identify. My voice they’ll recognise.’

She laughed. ‘Who’s going to recognise your voice? Your dole caseworker? Aunty Pam? Because we both know those are your options.’

Someone knocked on the door. They froze – and then they saw me.

‘Housekeeping!’ called the person just outside.

‘Calm your tits,’ I said.

In silence they pointed at me, at the door, at the bathroom, at each other.

‘Housekeeping!’ called the person again, and the door opened, and she began to step inside.

Brian Holmes leapt across the room. ‘No thank you,’ he said, blocking me from her sight. ‘We’re fine, thank you.’

She smelled something like the pines, and she had a trolley full of bottles and cloths that smelled something like the pines.

‘Can I get two orders of spicy wings and a tiramisu?’ I said.

‘You want room service?’ she said.

‘No thanks,’ said Brian Holmes.

‘You need more minibar?’

‘No, we’re fine. Thanks. Thank you.’ He shut the door.

‘Mask,’ said Renatard, and his hands flew to his face.

‘Shit! Do you think she noticed I was wearing it?’

‘Um, yes.’

‘Shit! Shit!’

‘They see all sorts,’ said Renatard, waving an airy hand.

‘You were meant to put out the do not disturb sign!’

‘No, I asked you to.’

‘I clearly remember you saying you would.’

‘And I clearly remember you saying you’d reserved a twin room, yet here we are.’ She gestured at the fish-pink bed. ‘Anyway, she’ll just assume it’s some sex thing.’

‘I am not having bird sex! With my sister!’

‘You never saw me,’ I said, pushing another cashew from the bag.

‘And what the hell is Tama doing out?’

‘You fed him,’ said Renatard. ‘You must have left the cage open.’

‘Well, now he’s seen you.’

‘Mmm.’

‘He’ll be able to identify you.’

‘He’s a bird, Brian.’

‘Names!’

‘He’s a bird, fuckwit.’

‘You know they remember faces.’

‘When will he ever see us again, though?’

‘Brian Holmes here,’ I said. ‘Room 33.’

‘Shit,’ he said.

‘So to recap,’ said Renatard, ‘you’re getting all bent out of shape because he’s seen my face, but in fact he knows your full name, and it appears you booked the room under that name.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Brian Holmes. ‘I booked it under my alias.’

‘So he’s just guessed your full name?’

He looked at the ceiling. ‘I might have let it slip when I rang room service.’

‘Cunt,’ I said.