This was it. No going back now.
She placed the sheet of paper with the suspects’ names on it in front of her, propping it up against a cushion. She ran her gaze over the list countless times until she had memorised them all. Then she closed her eyes.
The sickly-sweet taste of the tincture clogged the back of her throat. She listened to the sounds in the flat — the whir of the air conditioning in the bedroom, the churn of the refrigerator in the kitchen, the occasional moth’s wingbeat of the candle as it guttered. She listened to the city noises outside too, and the floorboard-creaking footfalls of the young couple in the flat above as they prepared for bed. She hoped they weren’t about to indulge in one of their marathon sex sessions. That could definitely mess with her trip, hearing the accelerating thudding of bedstead against wall and the rising moans and groans that seemed to last forever.
The names, Mal told herself. Fix your focus on the names, nothing else.
She felt odd. She felt light-headed. It passed. Then it returned, and her consciousness seemed to narrow inside her brain, becoming attenuated, like a wisp of smoke. There was herself and another self. She was Mal Vaughn, the physical entity, and a separate Mal Vaughn, a traveller in her body, a driver, a woman at the wheel who was gradually taking her hands off the controls. The car was coasting to a halt. It was on a night road somewhere, at a clifftop, far above a crashing sea. The cliff was extraordinarily tall, so high she couldn’t hear the sea any more. There were only stars. She was up among constellations, where the gods flew. The stars were points of ice, not suns. They had no heat. If you touched them they could cut like diamonds. You could pluck them out of the earth, if you wished to, like a miner in a mine. With your rock hammer and chisel you could dig pure raw starstuff out of the ground, the elements of creation, brilliant glints in the darkness. Mal was down below and up above at once, at the same time, in a confined space and surrounded by infinite space. Two things simultaneously. Opposites. Oneness in duality.
Almost as if on instinct, she latched on to that. Oneness in duality. A basic tenet of faith. One of the fundamentals of the Aztec religion. But also the Conquistador. What was he but two people in one, one person acting as two? He was contradiction. He had his real face and his public face. He had the face he saw in the mirror every day and his other face, his masked face, his not-face, the one he was famed for. He was a known unknown. He was a presence who was an absence. He was a celebrity whose identity was a secret. His truth was a falsehood. His pretence was a fact. His existence was nonexistent.
Who are you?
The names cycled through Mal’s mind. The names had colours. No, the names were colours. Each came with its own particular shade, its own suite of emotions and resonances. Some were brighter, brasher than others. They flared and swirled. Some came to the fore, others retreated into the background. They were like a painting she could walk through. Some were hot to the touch, others cool. They formed arches, corridors, labyrinthine crystalline structures.
Who are you? Tell me.
The names blurred and sharpened as though a camera was pulling focus, trying to zoom in on distant objects, fathoming depth of field. They echoed, speaking themselves. They became a jumble of syllables, overlapping, fusing together in new and unintelligible amalgamations. She was losing hold. Her grip on the vision was slipping. The names were melting, growing meaningless, the blabbering idiolect of a pre-speech infant.
Come on!
One of them must be her man. One of them, she was sure, had to be the key to the Conquistador.
Remember them. Remember the names.
There was Charles Wooding. There was Christopher Martin. There was Christopher Wooding. No. Martin Christopher. Christin Martopher. Inopher Chrismart.
No. Try again. Try harder.
Will Wood. No. Will Wilson. No. Wilson Willing.
Concentrate.
There was Mick Land. No, no such person. She was thinking of Mictlan. There was Stuart Land. No, not Land. But Stuart someone, definitely. There was Chal Wooding. Yes. Chal. Full forename Chalchiuhtotolin, after an aspect of Quetzalcoatl.
Him?
No. Cold blue. Hazy. Like a far-off view of mountains. Not him.
Keep trying. Go on.
She fought to keep the names orderly, in shape. She forced herself to pay attention only to the hot ones, the clear ones, that ones that proclaimed themselves more loudly than the rest. She beckoned them towards her like cats, charmed them like snakes, banana-bribed them like monkeys.
One of you. It’s one of you.
And now she could feel the honeyed psilocybin wearing off. The magic mushrooms were losing their abracadabra. Gross physicality was setting in, the blood rush and lung heave and wet digestiveness of the body. Her kimono’s cotton grated coarsely on her skin. The sounds around her — and yes, the couple upstairs were in the throes of full-throttle nookie — were deafening. Could a humble candle really shine as brilliantly as the sun?
One of you.
It hovered close. The name. Oh, that name. She must make a grab for it, snatch it now, otherwise it would recede, fade, be gone for good.
One of…
A desperate mental lunge. A clawing at a thing that was almost vanished. A grasping at vapour.
…you.
She had it. She had it!
The name in her mind’s hand.
Mal snapped back into the world, fully awake.
Gotcha.
SEVEN
9 Rain 1 Monkey 1 House
(Friday 30th November 2012)
“Mr Reston? There’s someone in the lobby for you. A Miss Malinalli Vaughn.”
“I don’t know any Malinalli Vaughn. Does she have an appointment?”
“Nothing down in the diary, sir, but she says you’ll want to see her. A matter of some urgency, she says.”
“I’ve a lot on my plate. Book her in for another time, Helen, whoever she is.”
“Of course, sir.”
Stuart resumed his perusal of the papers relating to the CCMM buyout. The owners of the Mount Etna lode were pushing for some kind of share swap deal with Reston Rhyolitic. This would materially advantage them but not him, and he was loath to accept it. He was already offering a decent price, well above market value, and what with that and the bribes for local officials he didn’t feel obliged to throw in any more sweeteners. If Signor Addario’s employers weren’t happy with the terms of the contract as it stood, all Stuart had to do was tear it up and walk away. Let them find another buyer with the financial leverage and pre-existing infrastructure he had. Good luck with that.
The intercom on his desk buzzed again.
“Sir. Sorry to trouble you.”
“What, Helen?”
The receptionist coughed and lowered her voice. “This Miss Vaughn. She’s very insistent. She’s, erm, she’s a Jaguar Warrior. Plainclothes. Says she’ll make a fuss, rather loudly, if she doesn’t see you immediately.”
“Jaguar? You’re sure?”
“She has a badge.”
“Did she mention what this is in connection with?”
“No, sir. Should I ask?”
“No. No, don’t. Just send her up.”
“Very good, sir.”
Stuart shunted the CCMM papers aside. He straightened his tie and smoothed down the lapels of his jacket. He clenched and unclenched his fists, then flexed all his fingers, like a concert pianist warming up to play some complex etude.
It could be nothing. Routine Jaguar business. They liked to poke their noses into other people’s affairs every now and then, just because they could. Rummage about. Throw their weight around. Remind everyone who was boss.
But if it wasn’t that…
He could front it out. Easily. They had nothing on him. He’d left no tracks.
At worst, this was a fishing expedition. And the Vaughn woman could dangle her line all she liked, she wouldn’t be getting so much as a nibble.