‘I know,’ I replied. Inner Irv says words that are meaningless but I usually know what he means.
When the phone rang I picked it up and said, ‘At the third stroke, the time will be exactly Sunday evening.’
‘Irv?’ said Grace Kowalski.
‘Hi, Grace,’ I said. ‘What’s new?’
‘It’s Wednesday, Irv.’
‘Maybe it is where you are but here it’s Sunday evening.’
‘Are you drunk?’
‘Yes. Would you like to take advantage of me?’
‘Of course, but we have serious things to talk about as well. Can you come over or shall I come to you?’
‘I’ll come to you — your place smells strange and beautiful like the things you make and like you.’
‘Irv!’ she said. ‘Think serious.’
‘I’ll be very serious,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you shortly.’ Feeling almost middle-aged again, I went forth to Fulham Broadway, where millions have been spent to convert the old tube station into a Nowheresville shopping mall with Books Etc., Boots, a Virgin Megastore, Starbucks, Orange and other commercial enterprises set in a brilliantly illuminated desolation that is part of the greater programme to turn London into Noplace. Shaking my head as I do each time, I took the lift down to the District Line platform and got an Edgware Road train to Notting Hill Gate where I took the Central Line to Oxford Circus. The trains were not crowded and none of the passengers were talking into little telephones or smiling as they tapped out text messages. Some were reading books or newspapers. All of the faces, young, old, male, female, white and brown and black, were part of the many faces of the great sad thing that moves itself from here to there and back again in all forms of transport.
At Oxford Circus I came up to the surface and the squalor of Argyll Street and people buying things they’d be better off not eating. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was playing at the Palladium, starring Michael Ball. Well, I thought, it’s nice that he has the work. Long ago I read somewhere that all of the visible world is maya, illusion, but whatever you call it, it’s what you have to deal with. I carried on to Great Marlborough Street, then over to Berwick where I went well past Grace’s place to buy a bottle of Stolichnaya at Nicolas, then back to All That Glisters.
‘Yo, Grace,’ I said as I pressed the intercom button.
‘Yo, Irv,’ she said, and came down to let me in. A hug and a kiss and I gave her the latest Justine news as we went up to the studio and its professional smells. The unfinished piece on her workbench was a three-legged toad in green and orange stones with an I Ching coin in its mouth.
‘I got the idea for the I Ching coin from A2 Feng Shui on the internet. I don’t know what’s on theirs.’
‘What’s the hexagram on yours?’
‘Number forty-two, I, Increase, SUN CHEN, with nine at the beginning, so it changes to number twenty, Kuan, Contemplation, SUN K’UN.’
‘That’s a very hopful toad, Grace.’
‘Where there’s life, there’s hop,’ she said, and we drank to that and sighed a little. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Talk seriously to me.’
‘Form is emptiness and emptiness is form,’ she said. ‘You know what I’m saying?’
‘Of course, ça va sans dire, ’I said. ‘It walks without talking.’
‘That’s what I like about you, Irv, everything doesn’t have to be spelt out.’
‘So tell me, I’m all ears. Tell me while we’re still coherent.’
‘I think,’ she said, ‘it’s time for me to stop getting mad and start getting even.’
‘Every woman’s right,’ I said.
‘Justine,’ she said, ‘was put together from an image on videotape, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Got any more Justine on tape?’
‘Oho!’
‘Righty-oh,’ said Grace, and we drank to that.
‘But from the video to a walking-around Justine is a whole big project,’ I said, ‘and I have no idea where to start. Do you?’
‘No, but I know a man who does and I’ve got keys to his place. All I need is a little time alone in Hermes Soundways and I’ll find his notes. Now that Justine’s up in Golders Green he’ll probably drop in on her and that’s when I’ll do it.’
‘OK, say we get the whole thing figured out and we end up with Justine Number Two, have you any idea what to do next?’
‘If we build her it will come. When we’ve got her standing in front of us the next thing will make itself known. Do you think you’ll fall in love with this one too?’
‘I’ve done that particular folly once already; I’m not likely to do it again. Besides, she’s not as amazing as you are, Grace.’
‘You silver-tongued seducer,’ she said, and we retired to the bedroom with the Stolichnaya.
‘Don’t ever say you’re not a player,’ said Grace as we freshened our drinks. She’s very gracious.
‘Well, I don’t do the full orchestra,’ I said, ‘but if you like chamber music, I’m your man.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Grace.
Mutiny on the Bounty, the one with Clark Gable and Charles Laughton, was on TV that evening and we both enjoyed seeing it yet again. ‘Every now and then,’ I said, ‘I come across some mention of Bligh in the papers where they say he wasn’t all that bad.’
‘He was a hell of a navigator,’ said Grace. ‘Thirty-six hundred miles in an overloaded open boat!’
‘And he had no charts and there were only about a week’s rations,’ I said, ‘but he got them all to Timor safely.’
‘Well,’ said Grace, ‘he suspended his disbelief and all that remained was the belief that he could do it.’
‘Plus his practical knowledge and his seamanship,’ I said. ‘If I had to be cast adrift in that longboat I’d rather have Bligh at the tiller than Fletcher Christian.’
‘He was the man,’ said Grace. ‘No doubt about it.’
All in all, a very pleasant evening and we fell asleep talking about DIY Justines.
22 Detective Inspector Hunter
18 January 2004. Harry Burke and I were drinking London Pride at The Anchor & Hope by the River Lea. A cold winter evening but we took our pints outside and sat down on a bench under the street lamp to enjoy the peacefulness of it. Across the river a train clattered with its windows all lit. It went over the bridge and the Sunday quiet moved in again behind it. Four murders, two suicides, three rapes and assorted burglaries this past week. Life goes on.
We didn’t say much for a while, drinking in the quiet with the London Pride. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘we’ve had nothing new in the vampire line.’
‘Early days,’ said Burke.
‘You’re still expecting another one?’
‘You’re the detective, not me. What do you think?’
‘I think I’d feel a lot better if we could catch whoever killed Rose Harland.’
‘Have you made any progress with your suspects?’ He was looking at me the way he looks when he’s waiting for me to catch up with his mental processes.
‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘I’m pretty sure Istvan Fallok didn’t kill her.’