'You can ask.'
'My client has a right to know of any developments.'
'At the moment my guess is your client knows more than the rest of us.'
He rose wearily and shut the door behind him. The policemen’s departure left me with a strange mingling of hope and unease.
'What do you think it is?'
Eilidh’s tone was professional. 'It might be nothing to do with your case. Or it might be new evidence of some sort.'
'Would that be good or bad?'
She gave me a thin look.
'It’d depend on what the evidence was.'
We sat in silence for a while. Movie lawyers always passed their clients a packet of cigarettes as soon as they sat at the interview table but my guess was that Eilidh probably didn’t even smoke. The headache was back, pressing at the usual spot above my temples. I wondered if I could ask Eilidh for a painkiller. I glanced at her profile; it was set in a grim expression that made me wonder how this would affect my mother if it went wrong.
'How’s Johnny?'
'John is fine, but it’s best if we concentrate on what’s happening here.'
The realisation that she couldn’t tolerate Johnny’s name on my lips stung and my voice came out high and querulous.
'I’ve done nothing.'
'You were found sleeping next to the body of an old man who’d just been battered to death. The cut on his neck was deep enough to almost decapitate him. Your fingerprints were on a beer can in his possession and you have his blood on your clothes. The police are within their rights to question you. Indeed they’d be remiss not to.'
'I didn’t do it, Eilidh, I was drunk and stupid, but I didn’t touch the old man. I wouldn’t do a thing like that.'
She shook her head and glanced at her watch. Then an officer came to accompany me back to the cells.
I sat in the cell for a long time. My waiting was punctuated by deliveries of tea that I drank and food that I felt too sick to eat. From time to time the sound of footsteps would raise the faint hope that I was about to be released, and a more definite dread that some drunken hard man was about to join me in my cell. But perhaps it was a quiet night in the world of crime, or maybe the stripy-jumper team were on a win that evening, because I was left alone to work through what had got me there.
The policeman who eventually came to collect me kept his face blank. I didn’t bother questioning him. I would find my fate out soon enough.
Eilidh was waiting for me in the same interview room where we’d sat earlier. I wondered if she’d been on duty for the whole time that I’d been locked up and how she managed to look so fresh in the middle of the night.
'They think they have the boys who did it.' Relief made me drop my head into my hands. Eilidh squeezed my shoulder for a brief second and I felt her warmth through my police-issue jumpsuit. 'They’re setting up an ID parade and want to see if you recognise them.'
I lifted my head from the cradle of my hands, feeling the blood rise to my face.
'So I’ve been promoted from arch murderer to star witness?'
'Be thankful.'
'Oh aye, I feel like I’ve won the bloody lottery.'
It was early the next morning when I eventually left the station. They’d left me to sweat it out for a few more hours in the cells but the policemen’s demeanour towards me had subtly changed. They still thought me a nasty, smelly alcoholic fuck-up, but they didn’t think I’d killed the old man. Eventually my clothes were returned. They were caked in grit from under the bridge and there was a streak of blood on the front of my jumper where the old man’s broken head had slumped against it. I threw the jumper into the corner of the cell, then lifted it and bundled it beneath my arm. I would dispose of it myself; I didn’t want to leave anything that could be stored up for future convictions.
The boys had looked diminished in the harsh light of the identity parade. A couple of them looked like they’d been crying, another like he had drifted into a trance. One of them was full-on cocky. I wondered if he really didn’t feel any fear or if he was psycho or maybe just a consummate actor. I stood behind the viewing mirror and indicated each of them by number. The boys looked young now that the energy of the assault had left them, and I remembered the way they had careered after the boat. Even if I hadn’t recognised them I would have been able to spot the accused. They were the youths who had spent a night coming down in a police cell, the ones who had sat with their social worker or mother and answered questions about the killing of an old man. If I hadn’t recognised them the parade would have been a travesty, but I knew their faces as well as I knew my own. After all, I’m expert in the art of recall.
I collected my personal belongings at the front desk, expecting a hand to reach out and a firm voice to tell me another matter that had come to light that they needed to talk to me about. I’d signed for my watch, wallet, keys and the little bit of cash I had left, when the officer at the desk produced a white envelope with my name written on it in a plain modern hand.
'Miss Hunter asked me to pass this on to you.'
'Miss Hunter?'
His voice was brisk.
'Your solicitor.'
I waited until I was outside before I opened it. I’m not sure what I expected; an apology for not being convinced of my innocence? Inside were five brown notes, fifty pounds in cash. I slid the money back into the envelope and looked at the note that had been tucked beside it. Johnny asked me to give you this. I shook my head then stuffed it in my pocket and went to look for a quiet bar.
Berlin
IT’S WORTH REPEATING — tricks don’t make a conjurer. Anyone with time to spare and a mind to it can cobble together a stock of sleights. You meet them in bars: men that can fold a napkin into nothing, or rip a ten-pound note to shreds and restore it just before its owner hits him between the eyes. These are the guys who get you to pick a card any card and reveal with their back turned and their eyes closed which one you chose. There are granddads and Lotharios across the globe can pinch a coin out their baby’s ear, science bofs and businessmen who try to milk charisma from a loaded deck. But without an act these men are as much diversion as a karaoke amateur.
The key lies in performance. A true conjurer is as hungry for applause as he is to master any deception. He schemes and worries, composing new ruses to thrill the crowd, working variations on his theme — smashing, breaking, vanishing; elephants, Mercedes, aeroplanes, whole buildings — until it becomes a trial to find anything worthy of being at the centre of his illusion. He guides the audience’s eyes, forcing them to glance away from the stage at exactly the right moment. They follow the hand he wants them to follow, see what he wants them to see. The hours spent perfecting a sleight mean nothing if the trick isn’t done with style.
The master conjurer is a psychologist deserving of a professorship. He can anticipate greed and tell when sex will give things a twist. He knows from the angle of your head, the hunch of your shoulders, the set of your eyes whether you are a liar. He can spot the easy touch as well as any conman can. He can chase the lady and cut the cards, he can summon up ghosts and put genies back in bottles, he can throw the dice and roll out sixes every time.
He can rap tables, vanish loons, hang himself and come back for more. He can saw a lady in half, stick her together, then run her through with knives; and if he spills a drop of blood nae matter, he can zap it into one of God’s white doves. A successful conjurer can challenge gravity, defy nature, escape any restraint and sidestep death — as long as he’s on stage.
I’d long given up the illusion that I’d ever near the top of my profession, but for some reason in Berlin in the face of trouble I got an urge for that to change. Maybe it was a secret wish to impress Sylvie and Ulla, maybe it was an urge to make something of myself before I ended up like Sam, or maybe it was just anger at being pulled into something that had nothing to do with me. Whatever the reason, the confusion around me seemed to concentrate my thoughts and sharpen my wits into ambition until I became determined to produce an act that would stun the city.