‘Where’s Nina?’ he said.
‘I forgot to tell you. She can’t come.’
There was a sudden switch in the expression on his face: eagerness to disappointment. ‘What’s wrong? Is she sick?’
‘No, she’s not sick.’ We passed reception. ‘Well, Happy Christmas, Arnold.’
‘It’s Victor, actually. But thanks, anyway.’
I shook my head. I could’ve sworn it was Arnold I was looking at. Maybe it was just that Victor had taken up smoking.
‘If she’s not sick,’ Loots said, ‘what is it?’
‘I’ll tell you later.’
I followed him out of the hotel and down the steps, and climbed into the back of the car. He introduced me to his girlfriend, Helga. We shook hands. Loots pulled out into the evening traffic.
As we turned right at a set of lights, I thought I saw Dr Visser on the pavement. If it wasn’t Visser, it was a man of the same height and build, with a similar moustache. I sank down in my seat, below the level of the window. Probably he was just doing last-minute Christmas shopping. In fact, I was sure I’d seen some packages under his arm. Or maybe it wasn’t even him. A narrow escape if it was, though. Very narrow.
‘Martin?’ Loots said. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. Yes, I’m fine.’ I sat up straight again. ‘I just dropped something, that’s all.’
I settled back. It felt good to be getting out of the city for a few days. I’d been thinking of staying behind, in the hope that Nina might call, but then I’d decided against it. I’d done the right thing. If she called now, I wouldn’t be there. She wouldn’t know where I was either, and she’d have no way of finding out. I drew some comfort from this small, imagined revenge. More to the point, if she didn’t call, I wouldn’t be sitting there, depressed.
Besides, it was Christmas. Most people left the city. I thought back to a holiday weekend one summer when I was twenty-two or — three. I had stayed in my apartment, thinking that I would learn the city’s secrets, thinking that, if it was empty, it would be more likely to reveal something of itself to me. I could still remember the streets — sunlit, yet grey, somehow, and utterly deserted. And that dusty colour, that emptiness, had crept into my blood. I could remember lying on a single bed under an open window. Sometimes a car drove by. There were smells of rotten fruit and chip-fat; there was the smell of the canal. The phone didn’t ring at all. One night I slept for more than thirteen hours. And then, at last, the people returned. They were tanned and easy in themselves, full of entertaining stories. I found that I had nothing to say. I couldn’t even seem to make my loneliness sound funny; every time I cracked a joke about it, I felt as if I was about to cry. An eternity had passed. What had I done?
‘Are you warm enough?’ Loots called out.
I told him I was fine. Just fine.
I listened to Loots and Helga discussing junctions, exits, distances — which route would be the best to take. Though much of what they said was practical, desultory even, I couldn’t help but feel envious. Their voices were like the gentlest kind of acid: all thoughts of revenge on Nina quietly dissolved in it. I just wished that she was sitting next to me, her head against my shoulder, as we travelled towards the cabin by the lake. Her face as the motorway lights washed over it. Her voice dreamily describing clouds, the sky …
‘Martin?’
‘Yes.’
‘The police are here. They’d like to speak to you.’
The police? Heat rushed to my titanium plate and coalesced. I had to sit down on the edge of my bed. I could feel cold air reaching through a gap in the window, but I was sweating.
They’re on to me.
‘Martin? Are you there?’
I asked Victor what it was about. He couldn’t tell me. They wanted to come up to my room, though. They wanted to speak to me. That wasn’t convenient at all, I said. I’d been sleeping; I’d have to put some clothes on.
‘How long will you be?’ Victor asked.
‘Ten minutes. No, wait. Fifteen.’
As soon as I put the phone down, I cursed myself. Fifteen minutes? It wasn’t enough. I had to think. They were on to me. Had my parents reported me missing — or was it Visser, acting out of some notion of responsibility? That TV appearance, I really regretted it now. I’d reminded people of my existence when all I wanted was to be overlooked, ignored, forgotten. I’d reminded people that they were worried about me.
There was no time to pack a case. I took the plastic bin-liner out of the waste-paper basket and emptied it on to the floor. I tipped a drawerful of socks and underwear into the bag, together with my suit, my medical supplies and my tactile clock, then I put on my dark glasses and picked up my white cane. I opened the door and peered out. No one in the corridor. I locked my room. I was hurrying towards the fire stairs when somebody called my name. Too slow, too slow. My father’s snail blood. If only I had one side to me, like The Invisible Man. If only I could’ve vanished, just by turning round. The voice was a policeman’s voice. There were two of them. I could hear them walking down the corridor towards me.
‘Well, well. This is a coincidence.’
I wasn’t sure what the policeman meant by that. His voice did sound familiar, though. It was a soft voice. A softness that was comfortable, almost soporific.
‘It’s Detective Munck. I came to see you at the clinic.’
‘Of course,’ I said, turning round. ‘The pears.’ I shook hands with him and we exchanged a smile.
‘You remember my partner, Slatnick?’
‘Yes, I do.’
This was the first time I’d set eyes on Slatnick. He was chewing gum again (he had knots of muscle in his cheeks, he’d chewed so much of it). His forehead sloped backwards, the same angle as a snow plough. He seemed older than Munck, and less intelligent.
He stepped forwards. ‘You were going the wrong way.’ His nostrils were unusually wide and round, and they were aimed at me, like a shot-gun. ‘The wrong way,’ he said, ‘for the lift.’
‘Was I?’
‘You were heading for the fire exit.’
‘I’m always getting lost in here,’ I said. ‘It’s a big hotel. Confusing.’
‘What’s in the bag?’
‘The bag? Nothing. Laundry.’
‘You weren’t trying to make a run for it, then?’
‘A blind man? Making a run for it?’
Munck seemed to enjoy my last remark, though he faced away from Slatnick, sending his smile back down the corridor.
‘And anyway,’ I went on, ‘what would I be running from?’
Munck took me gently by the upper arm. ‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’
I suggested the cocktail bar on the first floor.
As we descended in the lift Munck asked after my health. My responses were polite, but distracted. I still didn’t know what they wanted. And Slatnick was standing right behind me; I could feel the air being fired from the twin barrels of his nose into the back of my neck, into my hair.
The bar was empty, as usual. A dark, cramped room with mustard-yellow curtains, it smelled of stale cigarette smoke and the liquid soap they use for washing glasses. Munck showed the bartender his police ID and asked him not to disturb us. We sat in a corner booth. Munck put a folder on the table, opened it and leaned forwards, one hand placed on top of the other.
‘You know, I’ve got this theory,’ he said.
I waited.
‘It’s to do with free-floating anxiety,’ he said. ‘Nervous breakdowns, too. Paranoia. It’s why they happen.’
‘Not the aliens again,’ Slatnick grumbled.
Munck silenced his colleague with a look. ‘It’s my belief,’ he said, ‘that there are intelligent life-forms living on the moon.’