‘Buddhism is essentially mathematical,’ she said once, trying to explain.
‘Is it?’
‘Yes. Come on, Xander: the Golden Ratio. You were the one who told me about it.’
I probably had, but as I’d tried to explain to her, the spiral of a conch, or the curl of a fern, was just a function of the coding in the cells. ‘It looks mathematical because it uses mathematical code,’ I said.
‘But all that proves is that God or the Universe is a mathematician,’ she said. ‘You really should come and speak to Ariel about this. You’d like him, Xander.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because you’re the cleverest man I know and he’s – he’s the most spiritual.’
The yoga teacher was another thing. He was always buying her trinkets or giving her ‘amazing’ head massages. She couldn’t see the jealousy ponding in me so she kept trying to make me meet him. Once, it must have been when we were on our way to work, I tried to tell her.
‘What?’ she said, skipping a little to catch up. Her perfume tugged at me.
‘I don’t know. Just. Does he have to keep giving you massages?’ I said and then regretted it.
She tucked her spare arm into mine. ‘Head and neck massage. It’s for pressure points. So I can put up with you!?’
What had she meant by that, I wonder now. She said I could become fixated on things and that made her tense. And now I catch myself in remembrance of that scene, but I’m interrupted when at the edge of my vision, I see the door open. I stand to get a better look as the back of a man pulls the door shut, locking it. I sieve my memory. Could it be him, the man I saw that night? He seems the same build, has the same dark hair. He turns and heads down the steps and I see his face properly for the first time. I’m expecting a jolt of recognition but it doesn’t come. Rather it is a dawning – a gentle light spreading. It must be him: same hair, same shape face. He’s too far away to make out his features clearly but there’s something in his gait and the way that he navigates the pavement that gives him away. And the jacket is the same one, or could be.
Who is he? There is someone there behind the killing, hiding inside him. How is he feeling about what he has just done? I search his faraway features without luck. But there must be misery and regret and shame and guilt somewhere under that face.
And then, just as he walks around the corner and out of sight, I realise: the police haven’t arrested him. Is it possible that they haven’t seen him yet? I don’t know how a murder – even an allegation of murder – wouldn’t have had them round here straight away.
But I am here and he’s here, or was moments ago, free. And she, the woman, was in there not two days ago. So where is she now? Has he disposed of her? Concealed or covered what evidence there might have been? She is after all somewhere, right now, hidden, occupying a place in time and space. But she won’t be for long. She is slowly disintegrating cell by cell and becoming less her and more something else. I know this. I know it.
When I buried Rory, he was just five days dead. But for the intervention of the funeral parlour, he would have been black from decay. Putrefaction. His organs would have begun to liquefy. Bacteria would have bloated him around the eyes and to see him like that would have convinced you that he was destroyed, gone. But the undertaker gave him a whiff of life. He looked good enough to breathe.
So now, in that house somewhere, or in the garden or a basement or somewhere, definitely somewhere, she is quietly merging with the earth. Whoever she loved would be frantic. And I – I, who might have changed history – am standing here mute once again. For a second time I have let him slip away unchallenged and I hate how passive I have become.
If I can’t chase him then I need to find out who he is.
13
Thursday
When I cross the park, I find myself in a small road, South Audley Street. I see Mayfair Library and that shakes something loose in my head. I’ve been here before. I push open the door but hesitate, and then I remember I’m clean. The staff blink calmly at me as I pass through and turn a corner. There is a bank of computers to the left and I aim straight for them and sit down. How to begin a search on a man I know nothing about? My eyes lid over and again the pain in my head strikes up a beat.
The sensation of someone before me makes me open my eyes. There’s a lad standing in front of me, late teens, in school uniform.
‘Here,’ he says and holds out a magazine to me. I take it, puzzled, from his hands and see that it’s the New Scientist.
I sit up and look into his eyes, questioning.
‘She told me to give it to you,’ he says, indicating the librarian in the next aisle, wheeling a book trolley.
I stand up to get a better look at the woman. She has long blonde hair and a small serious face. She catches my eye and waves at me before walking over.
‘Xander!’ she says. ‘Is that really you? You look so different!’
I stare at my clothes and then at my hands. I am different.
‘Thank you,’ I say, confused for a moment, and then I remember all at once. This is my library. I come here every week, for this magazine and for warmth and ordinary sanctuary. And she, Hazel?, has always been nice to me. My heart starts to thump suddenly. How have I forgotten this, even for a second? Is something happening to my brain? I rub my head as if I can massage my brain back to normal. That kick in the head from Squire. What did he do to me?
I stare at the magazine in my hands. ‘The Galaxy That is Missing All Its Dark Matter’.
‘It’s a good one this week.’
Looking up, I see that the boy is still there.
‘Thanks,’ I say, and fumble for more to say. ‘You a scientist?’
‘What?’ he says and he looks more confused than me.
‘Science. Do you like it?’
‘Not really. I prefer the arts,’ he says. He’s confident with me. He should be wary of me, an adult stranger. Don’t they teach kids that any more?
‘You knew that, Xander,’ he says, a little uncertain. I feel like a feral cat that he’s trying to stroke.
‘Have we met?’ I say, alarmed.
He looks at me with a frown, laughing a little. ‘Yes, Xander! It’s me, Amit. Are you okay?’
I look again at the computer and the blinking cursor. I am a computer expert and I have written hundreds of programs for mining and predicting data streams, but I can’t use this thing in front of me. I stand.
‘Sorry. I have to go,’ I say to the boy. When he turns his head and his hair flicks in his eyes, I suddenly remember him. Amit. I saw him at the gallery – he gave me oranges, and suddenly I feel a pressing need to remember what happened to them. As I ran from Squire, I left them behind. The thought that they are rotting under mulch makes me unaccountably sad.
‘Have you, erm, tightened the loose screws now?’ he says, pointing at his head and smiling. ‘Remember me?’
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘Thanks for the oranges,’ I add as a convincer, and he smiles again.
I make for the exit. The librarian is there at the desk and opens her mouth to say something but whatever it was, I wave it back into her head. I have to go and get this straightened out in person. There should be police there. The man might be disposing of evidence this second. That could even be where he has gone.
Once off the bus I make quickly for Paddington Green Police Station. I walk in and the smell, a cloying tangle of disinfectant and boiled potatoes meets me.