Chloe had met a lot of people like Jack Baines. They had all kinds of stories, plenty of inside information they’d disclose if the price was right. She saw him spinning tall tales to wide-eyed tourists, and was pretty sure why he’d glommed onto Henry Harris. She wondered why Henry thought him worth even two minutes of their time.
‘Jack knows of a couple of women who were visited by devils,’ Henry said.
‘Sea devils,’ Jack Baines said. ‘Thing is, like I told Henry, the women who saw them are friends of Sahar Chauhan. Took in his kids after he left, as a matter of fact.’
Chloe looked at Henry, who gave a little shrug. She said, ‘Do you know why the kids ran off?’
‘From what I heard, Fahad got it into his head to follow his father,’ Baines said. According to him, Fahad and Rana had stayed in Martham, living with two unmarried sisters, after their father had gone off to work on one of the Jackaroo worlds. ‘Fahad always was a bit of a loner. Given to bunking off school and such. And then one day he took his little sister out of school and stole a boat that later turned up at Acle. No sign of the two kids then or since, until you come here, saying they’re in trouble in London.’
‘They’re not exactly in trouble,’ Chloe said, and gave her explanation, well-honed by now, about Disruption Theory and its work, and why it was interested in Fahad’s pictures. ‘I’m here to do some background research. I’d very much like to talk to the women who took in Fahad and Rana after their father left.’
‘It’s interesting, you mentioning the boy’s pictures,’ Baines said. ‘One of them was young Fahad’s art teacher, in the Catholic school over in Acle.’
Chloe said, ‘And she sees ghosts.’
‘Her and her sister. I’ll be happy to take you over to talk to them.’
‘It’s a good lead,’ Henry said, smiling at Chloe, daring her to contradict him.
Chloe said, going along with it, ‘Do they live here, these two women?’
‘Not in town as such,’ Baines said. ‘Not far away, though.’
‘Jack has an airboat,’ Henry said. ‘He’ll take us tomorrow, for a small fee.’
‘Just my usual guiding rates,’ Baines said. ‘I take visitors out into the marsh. We get a lot of birders.’
After the man had left, Chloe said, ‘You realise he’s a total fraud.’
‘But it’s a good story, isn’t it?’ Henry was studying the menu chalked on the blackboard over the open fireplace. ‘I reckon the fish must be fresh.’
‘I’ll have a salad. And you can tell me what this is really about.’
‘They don’t grow much in the way of vegetables out here. The rise in sea level has poisoned the water table. Everything has to be brought over from the mainland. But fish, that has to be fresh caught. Although fish have faces, and you can’t eat anything with a face, can you? How about shrimp? Do they have faces? I don’t think so. Not what we’d call faces, anyway. Or scallops, or mussels. Is it true that the Jackaroo are like giant walking shrimp?’
Chloe said, ‘You’re thinking of the!Cha. Although whatever’s in their tanks probably isn’t especially shrimp-like. We’re being set up for something, aren’t we?’
‘The art teacher — that was a nice touch. We’ve definitely attracted someone’s attention. They know we’re interested in Sahar Chauhan’s kids. They know we’re not police, and they want to find out exactly who we are, and what we want. Hence Mr Baines.’
‘Who is going to take us out of town tomorrow, but not to a couple of women troubled by sea devils.’
‘There you go.’ Henry raised his hand to get the barmaid’s attention.
Chloe said, ‘What have you got us into?’
‘I intend to find out.’
18. Blue Fairy
Mangala | 25 July
Vic cruised the irregular blocks and alleys of Junktown, eventually spotting the guy he was looking for and pulling over and honking the horn. Rolling down his window as the man ambled up, saying, ‘Hey, Dodger. What do you know, what do you say?’
‘Let me sit in the back, Mr Gayle. I can’t be seen talking to you here.’
Roger ‘Dodger’ Day was one of Vic’s confidential informants, a long-term meq addict with a shock of grey dreadlocks and the gentle shambling manner of an absent-minded academic. He sprawled low in the back seat while Vic drove to a nearby industrial estate. Although Vic kept the window rolled down, Dodger’s funky odour of sweat and woodsmoke and the tang of burnt metal filled the car.
Vic bought him a cup of coffee and two doughnuts at a cart, and they sat in the car and talked about Cal McBride and Danny Drury and the ray-gun murders. Roger said that the McBride crew were up and working again, although they were buying their shit from another crew.
‘They cut it down to almost nothing,’ Dodger said. ‘But they work late at night, when most other crews are off the streets. If someone needs a hit, and that’s all there is…’
‘So they still don’t have a cook.’
Dodger shrugged. He had eaten the first doughnut in two big bites and was licking powdered sugar from his fingers. His nails were crested with black; his palms were like tanned leather.
‘After what happened to the last one I suppose it’s been tough, finding a willing replacement,’ Vic said. ‘You heard how he was killed?’
Dodger shrugged again, took a bite from his second doughnut.
‘He was nailed to a wall, and then he was shot in the head,’ Vic said. ‘Maybe you could ask around, find out if anyone on the street has been talking about it. Was he killed by Drury because he wanted to quit? Or was he killed by McBride, to fuck up Drury’s meq business?’
The idea had come to him while he’d been talking to Skip: the man who’d killed the cook probably didn’t have the ray gun that killed Redway. McBride would have used it on the cook to send a message to Drury; Drury would have used it to put the murder on McBride. Find who’d done the one murder, you’d know who was up for the other.
He said, ‘I’m also wondering how this new man, Drury, has been enforcing his crews. Has he been dumping bodies we don’t know about?’
Dodger thumbed the last of the second doughnut into his mouth. A rime of powdered sugar clung to his beard. ‘Are you short of work, Mr Gayle?’
‘Is that supposed to be a joke, Dodger?’
Dodger shrugged.
Vic said, ‘How much is his crew charging for a bag of their weak shit?’
Dodger hesitated. ‘Twenty. Around that.’
Vic stared at him.
Dodger looked away, looked back. ‘Sometimes they go as low as ten.’
Vic held out a twenty-euro note. ‘Hang out on one of their corners, pick up any chatter. Anything about the way Drury runs his crews. Does he show up at the corners himself or does he have someone else do it? Who did he get rid of when he took over from McBride, and where were the bodies dumped? Does he have a beef with any drug crews, and especially, does he have a beef with McBride? And see what you can find out about that poor dead cook, too. It’s a sorry day when we can’t make someone answer for something like that.’
‘That’s a lot of work for twenty, Mr Gayle. Especially if I’m supposed to use it to buy their weak shit.’
‘I’ll come find you in a day or so. If you have something new and interesting to tell me, you’ll be handsomely rewarded. You need a lift back?’
‘I’ll walk.’ Dodger paused, then added, ‘Can I show you something?’
‘I didn’t have you down as a weenie wagger, Dodger.’
‘This is serious shit, Mr Gayle,’ Dodger said. He cupped his hands together, studied them with a frown of concentration. After a moment something flickered there. A blue flame, elongating into a spiral that turned on its axis.