With mud sucking at my feet and my trousers soaked up to the knee, I was trudging across a waterlogged allotment in the dark, hauling a masterpiece and some poems in a Tesco carrier. It was also the night Henry was accompanying Bushy to his second gig, a private party. A rich man was entertaining some business associates with a bunch of hookers. Henry had been afraid Bushy would play too much of the “mad stuff,” which he had been sure to warn him against.
Bushy wanted to do the gig without my help, but they’d suggested I join them. Earlier, I’d considered getting a cab and going over for a drink, but I would resemble a drowned jackass. By the time I’d walked home, I was exhausted.
I woke up at two. At three I unwrapped the Hand and looked at it, placing it here and there in the room. It wasn’t large, about 14 by 16 inches, and on grey paper, luminous with intelligence, tenderness and beauty. Ingres, for one, hadn’t been wasting his time. I placed it on the mantelpiece next to the whore’s Christmas card.
Just before I went to bed, I checked my phone. There was a peculiar message from Bushy, who should have had better things to do that night. “Info arrived,” it said.
Next morning Wolf came to collect his washing, which he’d put in my machine. He came in and out of my place as though we were close friends. I should have stopped it; but I’d thought he wouldn’t return. He had said he didn’t like to visit me, since the first thing you saw, on entering the hall, was yourself, in the coffin of a full-length mirror.
It wasn’t until almost lunchtime, when I was in the middle of a particularly troublesome case-a woman had taken to punching herself, like the guy in Fight Club-that I realised the Hand had gone.
Wolf, of course, had some instinct for these things. He’d have known it was a good picture; how good, I’m not sure. I rang him and wondered whether he might be intending to return it anytime soon.
Even as I put the phone down, he was cackling.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
I had been intending to ring Henry to say I’d got the Hand for him. He would be relieved, and we would continue with our friendship as normal. Now it was my duty to explain that I had indeed retrieved the picture-and had spent some time helping his daughter, at Valerie’s request. Except that there had been a glitch.
I explained, “The Hand has been taken from my flat by a psychotic patient.”
“Taken? You say taken?”
“Yes, taken. Sorry about that, pal.”
“Taken for good?”
“Maybe. How would I know? Do the mad explain their long-term intentions?”
“Taken by which madman, for God’s sake?” He began to yell. “Who was it?”
“That’s confidential.”
“Are you serious? You are telling me there is a lunatic running about London with my wife’s best Ingres stuffed in his backpack?”
“Exactly.”
“And you let them? Is this your rebellion-your hatred-of me? You’ve finally turned, have you?”
“Certainly the Hand has been severed.”
“Is it coming back?”
“Who knows? As Lenin might have said,” I added, “one step forward, two steps back.”
The noises on the other end of the line were extraordinary. I turned off the phone.
After I’d finished for the day, Henry came by. We had argued often, and sulked and disputed vigorously, enjoying much of it, but not all. Both of us relished a good rumble, though we had never fallen out. Now I didn’t want to hear another word about the Hand.
I must have come to the door with some leery belligerence, because he laid his hand on my shoulder and said quickly, “Don’t worry, cool it, I’m not going to bring it up. There are more important things than pencil marks on a piece of paper.”
We strolled past the line of busy pubs, with drinkers sitting outside in the sun, towards the bridge at Barnes and then back along the towpath towards Hammersmith Bridge. On the opposite side of the river path was a deserted bird sanctuary with a bench on a bank high above it. We sat there for a while.
“I wanted to see you. I’d have joined you last night,” I said, “if I hadn’t been dealing with your family.”
“I’m grateful for that,” he said. “It was fun. There was a panic early on because the man holding the party phoned to call it off. As always in life, there weren’t enough girls. But being in the agent business, I could be of assistance.”
“You?”
“Bushy called in at the Cross Keys, and he came along to the party with three Eastern European grinders who were more than willing to have money put their way. But what do you know, they were accompanied by their manager-a Mr. Wolf.”
“Big Bad?”
“You know him. Mr. Wolf stayed for the evening, feeling his charges needed security. He was extremely pleased by the way it went.”
“In what way?”
“He had a briefcase full of charlie, and there were plenty of takers. Soon the girls and the guys were lost in a blizzard of it. If I hadn’t called a halt to the whole thing around three, I think we’d still be there.”
“How was Bushy?”
“He wasn’t convinced he could play without you on hand. I had to tell him he was helping me out, that he was a staff member rather than a star. That seemed to do it.
“But he was-for reasons he wouldn’t elaborate-wearing a white plaster on his nose, which made him resemble Jack Nicholson in Chinatown. At one point, his face turned red and his eyes started to pulsate. I don’t think anyone noticed until he started shutting one eye and letting the other pop and bulge. One of the girls went into a hyperventilation and had to be taken out and slapped, but she was a write-off for the rest of the night.” Henry went on, “Wolf’s one of your oldest friends, if not the oldest, and I’d never met him before.”
“What did he say?”
“As the evening went on, he told me about Valentin and Ajita and her father’s factory. I’d forgotten that you’d been involved in that. I remember reading about it at the time. I’d say that Wolf’s rather obsessed with you, isn’t he? He wants to meet up with me to talk more. Would that be okay?”
“No.”
“I did hear about the unsolved murder and the whole three-years-in-a-Syrian-jail thing. Don’t look so worried, none of us is clean.”
Henry finished his drink. He was going to Miriam’s. One of the dogs was sick; she needed him there. Miriam was on her own more than she liked to admit. The children, teenagers now, stayed where they could, often with friends. One of the sweeter boys, needing to escape, had even gone to stay with Mum and Billie in the suburbs.
I saw a lot of Miriam, particularly as she had the Sky football package I hadn’t got round to renting, but I would never sleep under her roof. She was still more than capable of “insane” behaviour: screaming, rolling around on the floor, punching the wall. At times, in her house, I could feel as though I’d been lobbed through the looking-glass and whirled back into my childhood.
I did think of accompanying Henry, but Bushy had called me earlier. “I got the information,” he repeated. “I’m waiting for you.”
I wondered whether it was a good idea for us to discuss this in Wolf’s workplace. But Bushy wasn’t concerned. He had other business on at the same time.
Henry and I parted, and I walked along to Hammersmith bus station and caught a bus inside the shopping centre. It was slow progress, particularly along the Uxbridge Road. The bus, low and long, was noisy with kids playing music on their phones. It stank, with every nation seemingly represented, and I wondered if anyone would have been able to identify the city just from the inhabitants of the bus.
Bushy, without a wrap on his nose, was at a table in the corner. Wolf, working tonight, was at the other end of the bar. The Harridan brought me over a vodka. She wanted to sit down, but I told her Bushy and I were in a meeting.