Sat back on the end of his bed.
Fell asleep in his clothes.
In the morning the phone was still there, and Dani was still dead, and he still had to audit the value of her life and death.
Theo cycled to work, looked at the route as if for the first time, seeing now the phone repair shops, the laundrettes offering patch jobs on torn trousers, the chippy with a sign in the window explaining how fish was so much better than pizza
children, going to school
lunchboxes
brushed hair
uniforms
texting
shuffling
running
he
nearly cycled into the back of a bus, slammed on the brakes, heard someone shout from an open window, “You’re a vegetable!”
Laugh.
Cycled a little more carefully to work.
And work was…
She killed her because she was looking at her. She knew just knew that if she didn’t move now it was going to be…
He said I did it. Sure I did it I did it. Because it needed to be done.
Look it’s not even theft, the system let me get away with it so I did.
I dunno. I dunno. It was just. There was just this. I just got so mad.
Edward Witt said, “Why do you want to do pathology on the Cumali woman? No one will pay for it; she was a patty living in an enclave, we’ll be lucky if we can squeeze seventy grand out of it, and time-wasting stuff like autopsies are the kind of thing a good defence lawyer will laugh out of court…”
In the too-hot or too-cold or too-wet or too-dry never enough of anything that was ever good enough walls of the Criminal Audit Office, Edward pushed one pink finger down point first in the middle of his desk, driving hard enough to tilt the tip almost to ninety degrees against the knuckle, and declared:
“Justice is doing the right thing for society. This Cumali case—now I know this sounds harsh—but seventy thousand is a fair sum for her life, the woman was a leech! A patty who was never going to contribute anything meaningful to society, she didn’t even have a pension I mean she was just going to be… and it’s very sad that she died but compared to someone useful, I mean someone who mattered, I think seventy is a good figure to aim for. So get over to Seph Atkins’ lawyer and get this settled so we can move on to cases with greater profit margins.”
Theo nodded and said not a word, and left the office and walked back to his corner where the orange mushrooms grew, and sat at his desk, and realised that he hadn’t raised his voice at work for nearly twelve years, and had not fought or kicked or raged or wept or experienced anything of much at all to suggest that he was unhappy in his life. Nor could he remember the last time he smiled.
Chapter 24
On the canal Theo sat at the back of the boat, steering the Hector towards Cosgrove.
Neila drew the cards.
Four of cups, the Magician, the Lovers (inverted), ace of staves, two of swords, four of swords, the Sun (inverted), knave of cups, the Hanged Man (inverted).
Theo wound the engine down, stuck his head inside, careful to keep the door barely open lest the heat from the stove escape. “We’re nearing the lock. Do you want to stop?”
There was another boat moored a hundred yards away.
Neila went to say hi. It was the right thing to do, especially in winter. She liked the simplicity of such things. They had a cup of tea.
In the night someone started a fire in the distance, the smell of smoke as it blew across the water strong enough to wake Neila, heart racing, fumbling for the light, terror, terror, the worst thing in the world but…
…the flames were elsewhere, a fist punching the clouds, a blistering smear that made the sky a bowl instead of a roof.
For a while she watched it from the back of the boat, and Theo came out too, shrouded in a coat, and they stood and watched the blaze, and the sirens did not sing, and no one came.
In the morning the fire was still burning, lower, and the magnificence of the night was faded to a black scar, soot blown across the water.
The boat that had moored up from theirs was already gone. The cupboard was growing bare, and they did not head into town.
Chapter 25
Theo Miller went to see Seph Atkins and her lawyer.
She wasn’t being held in the police station. It wasn’t cost- effective.
They met in an office just south of Holborn. Marble floors, fishbowls on low glass tables holding green branches without leaves that coiled and looped into themselves like angry snakes, something Theo struggled to imagine had ever lived in nature. A waterfall within a glass wall behind the receptionists, a security gate guarded by Company Police, Tasers on the left hip, guns on the right. Vagrants could be Tasered on sight in this part of the city—they caused emotional distress, and emotional distress was basically assault.
Theo tried not to stare, to imagine what it must be like to wear silk and have a resident’s permit for Zone 1. He stood quietly in front of the reception desk, hands clasped, satchel over his shoulder, and the receptionists ignored him. He coughed. No response. He said, “Excuse me?” and the receptionists looked up, all three of them, simultaneous, outraged at his audacity. Then the nearest fixed her face in a radiant smile, daring him to think he’d ever seen any other expression on her softly toned features. The transformation was so sudden and complete that Theo nearly jumped, flinching from the brightness of her polished white teeth. She took his fingerprints, a credit rating, gave him a free chocolate in the shape of a heart, a leaflet about civic–corporate partnership and told him to wait.
Theo ignored the leaflet, listened to the words around him, eyes half-closed, satchel in his lap.
“When people say monopoly they don’t understand the way our economy works. No one has a monopoly on supply and demand—but the money to fuel growth must come from a dynamic, central source which carries not just a responsibility for economic, but also for cultural growth within the…”
“I do the law to make a difference. I really do. We’re giving so much back to the nation…”
“No. Downstairs. In the lobby. Yes, in the lobby! We need to talk now. Now.”
“Government raises taxes to subsidise business. That’s what economic planning means.”
The lawyer sent her secretary down to Theo after keeping him waiting barely twenty-five minutes. They did not speak in the elevator up to the twelfth floor, and the secretary did not meet Theo’s eyes.
An office, larger than any at the Audit Office and smaller than any other in the building, a painting on one wall of great bands of red and orange colour, perhaps a sunset, inverted, or a spilt drink seeping into canvas or the colour of the artist’s anger and conflicted love, it was all very…
“Mr. Miller. Thank you for coming down so quickly.” A woman, five foot five, sepia-brown skin, rich and warm, doe eyes and a bun of woven silken black hair, dressed in charcoal skirt-suit, sheer tights and black pumps, a chunky black watch on her left wrist, a gold bracelet on her right.
By night Mala Choudhary practised Muay Thai. She won most of her fights but found those she lost more exciting. She used to do MMA, but it had too many rules and the wrong kind of machismo—the kind that never learned. Her mother calls her a chubby pumpkin, because her legs are muscled and her hips are broad. She secretly didn’t do very well at university, but what does that matter when you excel in the real world?
She’s going to be a partner soon. She smiles, and Theo Miller tastes something liquid and hot in the roof of his mouth, like car sickness, while standing still.