‘How do you explain his saliva on her jacket?’
‘I think you know what’s in my mind about that, don’t you?’
‘Maybe,’ said Burke.
‘Go on,’ I said, ‘say it.’
‘You’re wondering if someone else left Fallok’s saliva on Rose Harland’s jacket?’
‘That’s right. How could that have happened?’
‘And you’re wondering why Justine Trimble’s saliva on the 10th of January was a match with Chauncey Lim’s?’
‘OK, why was it?’
‘This is as new to me as it is to you, but what if Justine has no cellular identity of her own?’
‘Go on.’
‘What if she needs blood in order to survive, and Istvan Fallok gave her some before she killed Rose Harland? And Chauncey Lim topped her up before we took her saliva on the 10th of January? Tell me, am I talking nonsense?’
One of the locals came out of the pub and nodded to Burke. ‘All right, Harry?’ he said.
‘All right, Mick?’ said Burke.
‘Inspector,’ said Mick. I’m known there because Burke is local and we always go to The Anchor & Hope when I visit.
‘Good evening to you,’ I said.
‘Terrible, that vampire case,’ said Mick.
‘What are you talking about?’ I said.
‘That woman as didn’t have no blood left in her,’ said Mick.
‘Don’t believe everything you read in the tabloids,’ I said.
‘Didn’t read it,’ said Mick. ‘My wife works at the mortuary and she saw the body when they brought it in. Proper drained, it was. Have you got any leads?’
‘I’m not able to say anything at this time,’ I said.
‘Right you are, guv,’ said Mick. ‘Mum’s the word.’ He nodded again and left.
‘What can I say?’ said Burke. ‘His wife does work in the mortuary.’
‘Small fucking world,’ I said.
‘To get back to Justine, what do you think you’ll do?’
‘I think I’ll have to talk to her and Fallok and Lim again and this time I’ll ask better questions.’
‘I’m looking forward to the answers,’ said Burke. And on that note we finished our last pints and went home.
23 Grace Kowalski
29 January 2004. When Irv went home I felt kind of low. I dragged myself into the morning with black coffee and a stale bagel, then I sat looking at the three-legged toad on my workbench. It was commissioned by a man in his thirties who’s an investment broker in the City. He makes a lot of money and wants to make a lot more. His eyes are like rivets that keep his brain in place but the rivets are a little loose by now. He showed me a drawing of Liu Hai and the toad in a book, Chinese Symbolism and Art Motifs. Liu Hai was a tenth-century Minister of State who hung out with this toad. Sometimes it would hide from him in a well and he’d tempt it out by lowering a string loaded with gold coins. ‘This toad attracts wealth,’ said Mr Rivet-Eyes, ‘and I’m going to put it in a corner diagonally opposite my front door for the best Feng Shui effect.’
‘Do you need more money than you have now?’ I asked him.
‘You always need more money,’ he said.
I said, ‘I think in cases of greed the toad might work against the one who asks for its help.’
‘Greed? What are you talking about? I’m not greedy — all I want is a fair share of the action.’
‘OK,’ I said. I went to the V & A to check it out and there they were on the fourth floor, Liu Hai about seven inches high in brown clay and the toad buff with brown spots. Liu Hai trying to catch the toad which was looking very sly and sneaking away with a coin in its mouth. I copied down everything on the card because you never know. It said:
Liu Hai with the three-legged toad. Mark: Made by Xu Xiutang, Autumn of Chengshen Year [Yixingy] 1980 FL32-1984
I liked that toad, it looked as if it had seen wealth-seekers come and go over the centuries and was not much impressed by them.
Another version of the three-legged toad story is that it exists ‘only in the moon, which it swallows during the eclipse. It has therefore come to be a symbol of the unattainable.’ That version made more sense to me than the wealth one, and I wondered if I wasn’t helping my client to delude himself with fantasies of wealth that he would never possess. The look on the toad’s face suggested that Mr Rivet-Eyes might well end up with a wealth of unattainable.
But there was the matter of Justine to be considered. Irv was waiting for me to get Istvan’s notes and I was waiting for Istvan to leave his place. On Friday the 23rd I kept a close watch and I saw him go out. I waited a while to make sure it wasn’t only a local errand, then I read my bit of The Heart Sutra, which I always do at the start of any serious enterprise:
Here, O Sariputra. Form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.
I’ve never read the whole Heart Sutra but if form is emptiness, then not reading it is the same as reading it, so I’m all right with that one bit. It always seems to do me good, and as soon as I say, ‘Here, O Sariputra,’ I’m up for whatever I need to do.
I let myself into Hermes Soundways and stood there listening for a few moments. Then I got to work. Istvan’s filing system was simple: he just piled the most recent thing on top of the one before it. That was the main system which included invoices, receipts, and newspaper cuttings as well as notes. There were several lesser ones consisting of backs of envelopes, various scraps of paper with writing on them and the odd matchbook cover. I separated what seemed to be Justine material from everything else, put it into what I thought might be chronological order and bundled it into the bag I’d brought with me.
Hoping not to run into Istvan I went down Dufour’s to Broadwick and over to Berwick. When The Blue Posts pub and red-and-yellow Nicolas and the Fine Crêpes wagon with its yellow scallop-edged canopy came into view I was on my home turf and I breathed easier. GOOD NEWS, said the sign above the red Newsweek awning at the start of my stretch of Berwick. At Nicolas I bought a bottle of Stolichnaya, then paused at the blue canvas-roofed flower stand diagonally opposite for some yellow and mauve crysanthemums. For a moment the smell of roast chestnuts came back to me from long-gone Decembers. Careful not to step on the cracks in the pavement I made my way back to All That Glisters past my many competitors in the jewellery line and my various landmarks: Reckless Records; then Badge Sales which looks like a message drop in a thriller; above it is a tailor with a blue plaque on his window:
TOM BAKER
1966–2041
BESPOKE TAILOR
Works here but lives
around the corner
How did he calculate his life span? Will he top himself at seventy-five or what? One day I’ll ask him but I keep putting it off. The Cotton Café, The Maharani Indian Tandoori Restaurant with its splendid yellow sign (Maharani in red), followed after a decent interval by the Raj Tandoori Restaurant, also with a yellow sign like a beacon of Eastern heat in the English winter. Then I was home.
Up in the studio I poured myself a drink and sat down on the floor with my load of whatever it was. As I held the papers in my hand an invoice fell out. I took that as a sign that something was trying to tell me something. The invoice was from Thierson & Bates Biologicals in Surrey for Rana temporaria (3), £33. I rang up Thierson & Bates and said I was Mr Fallok’s secretary. ‘I’m going through invoices for his VAT return,’ I said, ‘and I’m not sure about this one from you. What are three Rana temporaria?’