Poor old Sprankel. It was embarrassing, really.
‘I need two pairs of gardening gloves,’ I said, ‘a torch, and something to cut glass with.’
Sprankel’s eyes began to twitch and hop behind his glasses. I knew he was curious — a glasscutter? gloves? a torch? — but probably he remembered how stern I’d been with him the last time.
‘Before you start guessing, Sprankel,’ I said, ‘I’ll tell you. I’ve got a job.’ I tapped the side of my nose. ‘A job. Know what I mean?’
‘No, sir. I —’
I threw my head back and laughed. The tips of a thousand TV aerials reached towards me, glittering and complicated.
‘I’m going to be doing a spot of burglary, Sprankel. Yes,’ I said, ‘there’s something very important that I’ve got to steal.’
Sprankel was chuckling almost before I’d finished the sentence and he went on chuckling much longer than I expected him to, much longer, in fact, than I considered necessary. Surprised at his sense of humour, a little puzzled, too, I stared at him. I’d never realised how small his teeth were.
‘If you don’t give me a good price,’ I said, ‘I might have to make you an accessory.’
He was still chuckling.
‘And will you be needing any black paint today?’ he asked me.
‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘Those days are over.’
‘Those days are over,’ he repeated, half to himself.
He wrapped my purchases and I paid for them and put them in my bag. On the way to the door I paused, turned back.
‘By the way, Sprankel, I like your display,’ I said, pointing at the ceiling. ‘Very imaginative.’
The following afternoon I was woken by what I thought was someone knocking on the door. I lay quite still, my body heating with anxiety. Sweat collected on my chest, behind my knees. Surely it couldn’t be Gregory again? But after listening carefully, I realised the knocking sounds were coming from inside the apartment. Also they were grouped in sixes. It wasn’t someone at the door at all. It was Loots, throwing knives at Juliet.
I wrapped myself in a blanket and moved towards the corridor.
‘I’m sorry,’ Loots said. ‘Did I wake you?’
‘No, no. I was just dozing.’ I watched his knives fit snugly to the curves of Juliet’s hips and thighs. ‘Gregory called round the other night.’
‘Yeah? How was he?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t let him in.’
Loots lowered the knife that was in his hand and stared at me, his eyebrows high on his forehead, like they were when he was dancing.
‘I asked you not to tell anyone where I was,’ I said.
‘But Gregory’s a friend —’
I stepped closer to Loots. ‘I trust you, Loots. That’s why I’m here. But there isn’t anyone else I trust. I certainly don’t trust Gregory.’
Loots didn’t speak for a while. Then, finally, he said, ‘You’d better tell me what all this is about.’
‘I’m hiding from someone.’ I saw his eyebrows lift again. ‘Don’t worry. It’s not the police.’ I turned back into the living-room. ‘If you get me a drink, I’ll tell you everything.’
I had no intention of telling him everything. That was the mistake I’d made with Nina. I was in possession of secret knowledge, but unlike most secrets, mine had a foolproof quality. Each time I tried to tell it to someone, it became unbelievable, untrue; it was like a command built into the substance of the secret itself, that it could not be shared. I would tell him as much as I could make him believe, and no more. I sat down on the sofa. He handed me a small glass of his uncle’s peach brandy. I thanked him and swallowed it in one. I felt its quiet fire rise through me. I wondered how to begin. I thought I’d use words that had worked with him before — the words of Anton the clown.
‘This is going to sound strange,’ I said.
I started with the missing bone, the part of my skull that had been shattered by the bullet. I described the operation to replace it with a specially measured piece of titanium. I saw Loots wince and look away. I waited a moment, then asked if he’d ever heard of people who had so many fillings they could pick up radio stations on their teeth. Yes, he thought he’d heard of that. I told him that was what was happening to me, only it was more sophisticated. The titanium plate, I said. They were using it to experiment on me. It was a device that allowed them to transmit images directly into my brain. I looked at Loots. His eyes had filled with water. I had frightened him.
‘Images?’ he said.
I spoke more softly now. ‘Pictures,’ I said. ‘Like on TV.’
The man responsible for the experiment, I went on, the man in charge, was my neuro-surgeon, a certain Dr Visser. I described Visser’s unhealthy interest in my case. He had a file on me, for instance, which was marked HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL. He’d been following me, too.
‘He even appeared at the Kosminsky.’ I shook my head; I still couldn’t believe it. ‘That’s why I had to leave so suddenly. That’s why I was sitting on your doorstep the other morning.’
Loots poured us both another drink.
‘I never heard of anything like this before,’ he said.
We both drank.
He asked me what I was going to do. I reached down into my travelling bag. I took out two pairs of gardening gloves, a torch, and a tool for cutting glass, and I laid them on the table in front of him.
‘You’re not a thief, Loots. You told me that.’
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘I’m not.’
I left another silence, then I spoke: ‘How do you feel about breaking and entering?’
As Loots drove through the city, I felt a pleasant tension, a kind of burning, in the pit of my stomach. I pictured Visser in his swivel chair. He looked tired, dispirited. I thought I detected a trace of grey in his moustache. I’d spent weeks trying to fathom his motives and his strategy, weeks attempting to evade him, out-manoeuvre him. Now I could sense the tables turning. Now, for the first time, I was taking the initiative. And it was the perfect night for it. There was no moon. The sky was cloudy, almost brown. When we stopped at traffic-lights, I felt the car rock on its suspension. It was the wind, gusting out of the east. That would help us, too. Any sound we made, the wind would cover it.
I talked for most of the journey. Partly it was to reassure Loots, to drive away any remaining doubts he might have. Partly it was my own adrenalin. Visser had a secret file on me. I wanted it. That was all. We had to break into the clinic in order to steal the file, but we would do as little damage as possible. It wasn’t revenge I was interested in, but proof. Proof of the way I’d been exploited. Proof of the crimes that had been committed against me. We weren’t the criminals. They were.
‘Do you see, Loots?’ I said. ‘Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, Martin. I do.’
We drove north, through the wide, grey streets. The puddles on the pavements had iced over. It was almost three o’clock in the morning.
The clinic was on a main road. We parked in a quiet, residential street directly opposite. I could just make out the building, with its towers and chimneys, black against the dull brown of the sky. We walked towards it through the shadows. I turned to Loots, saw the tightness in his shoulders and in the muscles near his mouth.
‘We’re not the criminals,’ I told him again. ‘Remember that.’
We found a section of the clinic wall that wasn’t overlooked, then we pulled on our gardening gloves. Loots made a step out of his hands and I clambered over. He clambered after me. On the other side, we crouched in the bushes. Listened. The only sound was the trees dreaming above our heads.
We crossed a wide expanse of grass. The wind dropped and I thought I could hear crows in the distance like old doors opening on rusty hinges, doors in horror films. Then only the keys in Loots’ pocket and our breathing. A sudden whiteness sizzled through the air in front of me. I had to stop and hold my head.