I smile, the decision made. I flick the lighter, hold the flame under the envelope.
“NOOOO.” She lunges toward the fire.
I kick her away, hold the envelope up high until the flames singe my fingers and the precious slip of paper is consumed.
“See you around, Chrissie.” I let the ashes flutter to the dirty carpet.
Two blocks down is the car I’ve left parked by the seawall. I leave and walk there, the permanent darkness in my mind lessening just a fraction.
The ocean is cold and gray, a line of storms visible on the southern horizon. The beach is empty except for a couple of people surf-fishing and an old guy with a metal detector. The air smells like sea water. Gulls trill overhead.
Danny the Dumb-ass sits on the hood of the car, watching a tanker steam by in the distance. I sit next to him.
“Did you find her?” he says.
I nod.
“What do we do now?”
“I don’t know.” I sigh. “Maybe we should go to California.”
They say every dog has its day, so I guess every uppity piece of Czech trash has a chance to break free from the burden of lowered expectations.
Sinclair, of course, is dead. Every night in my dreams I picture the surprise on his face as I shot both him and the guard right before they went to work on Danny with the blowtorch.
“Yeah, that’s a good idea.” Danny smiles. He slides off the hood and gets in the car.
I look at the Texas coast one last time and do the same.
An hour later, we’re on the highway by the cutoff.
I ignore the road west and point the car toward our place in this world, the little corner of Central Texas where we’d both been born and would die.
Danny doesn’t say anything. Neither do I.
The Killing at Holyroodhouse
by Robert Barnard
In its starred review of Robert Barnard’s new novel A Stranger in the Family (Scribner, June 2010), Booklist raved: “Each new whodunit from this highly regarded British master is both predictable and innovative. Barnard is comfortably predictable in that his plotlines are always tightly composed, his characters are created ‘in the round’ and are not just types, and his writing style is precise. He is innovative because his novels always feature fresh situations for him to explore.”
“Oh-ho,” said the palace assistant who stood in the doorway of Holyroodhouse looking across the forecourt with its elaborate fountain to the guardhouse, where the tickets were inspected. “She’s here again.”
The woman assistant, standing at the foot of the Grand Staircase, came to the door to have a look.
“Oh dear,” she said. “Poor Gavin. Who’s she got with her this time?” The male assistant shook his head.
“Someone to embarrass Gavin with, that we can be sure of. Skip up to the dining room and warn him, will you? Tell him he really should consider bringing the director in on this, get him to deny her entrance. She makes for a horrendous atmosphere in the palace, and it gives visitors a terrible impression of the place.”
The woman nodded and dashed away. Meanwhile, and taking their time, the pair approached. The woman, probably in her early forties, had bronze dyed hair, a thick stucco of makeup, and a red skirt halfway up between her knee and groin. Her companion was shorter than she was, a roly-poly figure who was trying to follow her babble of talk while taking in the impressive turreted towers at either end of the facade.
“And when was it builded?” the assistant heard him ask.
“Gawd only knows,” said the woman. “A bit here and there, I should think. I do know Mary, Queen of Scots, lived in the left-hand tower, but that is about the sum total of my knowledge. You should have bought a guidebook if you’re interested.”
“Why are w—?” began the plump young man, clearly wanting to know why they had come if she had no interest in the place’s history. He wisely thought better of it.
“You should see the place when the queen comes here in June,” said the woman in full, rehearsed flood. “There’s inspections of troops, investitures, garden parties in the rain—”
“Pardon, Marge — what is investitures?”
“Like giving away titles and things,” said Marge. “‘Arise, Sir Gavin’ — that sort of thing.”
“Does the queen always come here in June?”
“Always.”
“Why?”
“Buggered if I know. Probably hoping for a day without rain. Not that she gets it. It pours, always does. Mind you, the whole thing is arranged like clockwork, and things go ahead, rain or no rain. Brilliant, like a pantomime.”
“Have you been part of these festivities?”
“Not me. They’d never have given me a job — I’m too common. My accent isn’t Scottish, which is okay: It’s Cockney, which isn’t. It’s my ex who was involved — Gavin. Still is. It’s right up his street. Anything involving lots of niminy-piminy detail is Gavin’s sort of thing. He even screwed like he was a clockwork toy.”
The young Bulgarian, who had been nicely brought up in Varna, looked a little shocked, but his companion did not notice and marched through the door that was held open for them.
“Hello, James, hello, Linda.” This was to the woman coming down the stairway. “Been to warn Gavin, have you? You know, it should be a pleasure to him, having the woman he once loved paying him a visit at his workplace, but the truth is he never looks pleased to see me. Sad, isn’t it? Oh, this is Simon, by the way. He’s Bulgarian and a history-vulture, so you can do your spiels on Scotland’s bloody history — I’m not swearing, just telling the truth — to your heart’s content. Simon is an ice-cream seller.”
“Simeon, I’m called Simeon. And in Bulgaria I am a teacher of English, but here I drive a van and sell ice cream,” said the young man sadly.
“Well, that’s progress for you — getting ahead in the world. And it still involves children, doesn’t it?” She turned to James. “He loves children. Beats me why he would. It’s not as though they’re nice to him. Just shout their orders, try to cheat him on the money, and abuse him for his accent. I always stood out against having children. Not that Gavin was all that keen. He was a teacher then. Puts you off kids, does teaching.”
She marched towards the Great Stair and mounted it fearlessly. Simeon puffed some way behind, called out, “Wait, Marge,” but was not listened to. Marge steamed into the dining room as if she had a coach party with her and could not fall behind in her schedule.
“Just a lot of old crocks,” she said disparagingly. “I’ve had too many old crocks in my life.”
“What do all these cutleries mean?” asked Simeon. “Why are they in that order and which cutlery is for what?”
“Search me,” said Marge. “Those bloody great banquets give me the willies. After ten or twelve courses they’re good for nothing — just bundles of lard, fit only for groping and farting. As long as you’re with me it’s pizza, hamburger, or chili con carne. Like Mae West said, it’s the life in my man that’s the important thing.”
At the far door there was a scuffling sound, and Marge’s face lit up.
“Hello! Are you there, Gavin? Still spying and peeping through keyholes, then? They should make a film about you. Get Daniel Craig to play you. He’s got what it takes, but I wouldn’t tell on you.”
She laughed a parakeet laugh and turned to go into the next room. It was quite large by Holyroodhouse standards, but Marge had to emphasize that she was not impressed.
“The throne room. You’d think it was the largest bog in the Western Hemisphere, but it’s not. These two unimpressive chairs are, in fact, thrones. You can tell the Royals have never taken much trouble when it comes to their Scottish subjects, can’t you? Some moth-eaten black velvet, a bit of embroidery, a back that doesn’t come up to the shoulder blades and that’s what they call a throne.”