It felt warm in the caravan, stuffy, with no air getting in and all those candles burning. There was the metal weight pressed to his groin, the weight he’d always found so reassuring in times past. He told himself she was using cheap psychology. His accent wasn’t local; he wore no wedding ring; his hands were clean and manicured. You could tell a lot about someone from such details.
‘Shouldn’t we agree a price first?’ he asked.
‘Why should we do that, dear? I’m not a prostitute, am I?’ He felt his ears reddening. ‘And besides, you can afford it, we both know you can. What’s the point of letting money get in the way?’ She was holding his hand in an ever tighter grip. She had strength, this one; he’d bear that in mind when the time came. He wouldn’t play around, wouldn’t string out her suffering. A quick squeeze of the trigger.
‘I get the feeling,’ she said, ‘you’re wondering why you’re here. Would that be right?’
‘I know exactly why I’m here.’
‘What? Here with me? Or here on this planet, living the life you’ve chosen?’
‘Either… both.’ He spoke a little too quickly, could feel his pulse-rate rising. He had to get it down again, had to be calm when the time came. Part of him said Do it now. But another part said Hear her out. He wriggled, trying to get comfortable.
‘What I meant though,’ she went on, ‘is you’re not sure any more why you do what you do. You’ve started to ask questions.’ She looked up at him. ‘The line of business you’re in, I get the feeling you’re just supposed to do what you’re told. Is that right?’ He nodded. ‘No talking back, no questions asked. You just do your work and wait for payday.’
‘I get paid upfront.’
‘Aren’t you the lucky one?’ She chuckled again. ‘But the money’s not enough, is it? It can never recompense for not being happy or fulfilled.’
‘I could have got that from my girlfriend’s Cosmopolitan.’
She smiled, then clapped her hands. ‘I’d like to try you with the cards. Are you game?’
‘Is that what that is – a game?’
‘You have your fun with words, dear. Euphemisms, that’s all words are.’
He tried not to gasp: it was as if she’d read his mind from earlier – all those euphemisms for ‘killer’. She wasn’t paying him any heed, was busy shuffling the outsized Tarot deck. She asked him to touch the deck three times. Then she laid out the top three cards.
‘Ah,’ she said, her fingers caressing the first one. ‘ Le soleil. It means the sun.’
‘I know what it means,’ he snapped.
She made a pout with her lips. ‘I thought you didn’t know any French.’
He was stuck for a moment. ‘There’s a picture of the sun right there on the card,’ he said finally.
She nodded slowly. His breathing had quickened again.
‘Second card,’ she said. ‘Death himself. La mort. Interesting that the French give it the feminine gender.’
He looked at the picture of the skeleton. It was grinning, doing a little jig. On the ground beside it sat a lantern and an hourglass. The candle in the lantern had been snuffed out; the sand in the hourglass had all fallen through.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘it doesn’t always portend a death.’
‘That’s a relief,’ he said with a smile.
‘The final card is intriguing – the hanged man. It can signify many things.’ She lifted it up so he could see it.
‘And the three together?’ he asked, curious now.
She held her hands as if in prayer. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said at last. ‘An unusual conjunction, to be sure.’
‘Death and the hanged man: a suicide maybe?’
She shrugged.
‘Is the sex important? I mean, the fact that it is a man?’
She shook her head.
He licked his lips. ‘Maybe the ball would help,’ he suggested.
She looked at him, her eyes reflecting light from the candles. ‘You might be right.’ And she smiled. ‘Shall we?’ As if they were not prospective lovers now but children, and the crystal ball little more than an illicit dare.
As she pulled the small glass globe towards them, he shifted again. The pistol barrel was chafing his thigh. He rubbed his jacket pocket, the one containing the silencer. He would have to hit her first, just to quiet her while he fitted the silencer to the gun.
Slowly, she lifted the handkerchief from the ball, as if raising the curtain on some miniaturised stage-show. She leaned forward, peering into the glass, giving him a view of crêped cleavage. Her hands flitted over the ball, not quite touching it. Had he been a gerontophile, there would have been a hint of the erotic to the act.
‘Don’t you go thinking that!’ she snapped. Then, seeing the startled look on his face, she winked. ‘The ball often makes things clearer.’
‘What was I thinking?’ he blurted out.
‘You want me to say it out loud?’
He shook his head, looked into the ball, saw her face reflected there, stretched and distorted. And floating somewhere within was his own face, too, surrounded by licking flames.
‘What do you see?’ he asked, needing to know now.
‘I see a man who is asking why he is here. One person has the answer, but he has yet to ask this person. He is worried about the thing he must do – rightly worried, in my opinion.’
She looked up at him again. Her eyes were the colour of polished oak. Tiny veins of blood seemed to pulse in the whites. He jerked back in his seat.
‘You know, don’t you?’
‘Of course I know, Mort.’
He nearly overturned the table as he got to his feet, pulling the gun from his waistband. ‘How?’ he asked. ‘Who told you?’
She shook her head, not looking at the gun, apparently not interested in it. ‘It would happen one day. The moment you walked in, I felt it was you.’
‘You’re not afraid.’ It was a statement rather than a question.
‘Of course I’m afraid.’ But she didn’t look it. ‘And a little sad, too.’
He had the silencer out of his pocket, but was having trouble coordinating his hands. He’d practised a hundred times in the dark, and had never had this trouble before. He’d had victims like her, though: the ones who accepted, who were maybe even a little grateful.
‘You know who wants you dead?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘I think so. I may have gotten the odd fortune wrong, but I’ve made precious few enemies in my life.’
‘He’s a rich man.’
‘Very rich,’ she conceded. ‘Not all of it honest money. And I’m sure he’s well used to getting what he wants.’ She slid the ball away, brought out the cards again and began shuffling them. ‘So ask me your question.’
He was screwing the silencer on to the end of the barrel. The pistol was loaded, he only had to slide the safety off. He licked his lips again. So hot in here, so dry…
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why does he want a fortune-teller dead?’
She got up, made to open the curtains.
‘No,’ he commanded, pointing the gun at her, sliding off the safety. ‘Keep them closed.’
‘Afraid to shoot me in daylight?’ When he didn’t answer, she pulled open one curtain, then blew out the candles. He kept the pistol trained on her: a head shot, quick and always fatal. ‘I’ll tell you,’ she said, sliding into her seat again. She motioned for him to sit. After a moment’s hesitation, he did so, the pistol steady in his right hand. Wisps of smoke from the extinguished candles rose either side of her.
‘We were young when we met,’ she began. ‘I was already working in a fairground – not this one. One night, he decided there had been enough of a courtship.’ She looked deep into his eyes, his own oak-coloured eyes. ‘Oh yes, he’s used to getting what he wants. You know what I’m saying?’ she went on quietly. ‘There was no question of consent. I tried to have the baby in secret, but it’s hard to keep secrets from a man like him, a man with money, someone people fear. My baby was stolen from me. I began travelling then, and I’ve been travelling ever since. But always with my ear to the ground, always hearing things.’ Her eyes were liquid now. ‘You see, I knew a time would come when my baby would grow old enough to begin asking questions. And I knew the baby’s father would not want the truth to come out.’ She reached out a shaking hand, reached past the gun to touch his cheek. ‘I just didn’t think he’d be so cruel.’