Turquoiselle (3 page)

Heavy said, in
Carver’s dream, “What’s it mean, your name? Is it means to be you’re a
sculptoror, you know,
carving
things – or you carve stuff in stones for dead bodies. Or you’re a butcher? You
carve up meat?”
Shut
up
Carver answered. Heavy screamed at him on a high metallic note. Carver undid
his eyes, and the alarm clock said 9 a.m. He killed its siren, and went to the
second bathroom along the corridor. It was untouched, it seemed, by anything –
even the towels were dry when he used them after the shower.

Two

Silvia Dusa was
standing by the fourth floor annex coffee machine, weeping. In the half-light
through the blind and the tarpaulin that covered the window-glass also on the
outside, her tears shone spectacularly, like mercury.

Carver
halted. He said and did nothing for a moment.

But
this was, in the most bizarre way, like a direct piece of continuity, following
somehow instantly, (despite the interval of domestic attendance, sleep, waking,
and the drive back to London) on that other sobbing outcry of Donna’s last
night. They resembled two takes in a movie. Only the actress had changed.

After
a minute, “Can I help,” he said. A neutral tone.

No
condemnation, no kindness, no pulsing rush to know or assist.

“Go
to hell,” she hissed, and turned away.

He
too turned instantly, but as he did so she said, in a low, crushed voice, “No –
wait. Wait–”

Dusa
was perhaps, ethnically, if only partly, of Italian origin. But she had a
Spanish glaze to her, her hair thick and coal-black, eyes dark, and everything
clad in a fawn, honeyed skin. Her hot temper was a by-word in the office. Now
she cried mercury tears in a breath-lisping near noiselessness, but with the
passion of a drama by Lorca.

Carver
stood at the wall, and waited. Obviously, coffee right now was out of the
question. He had not really wanted coffee anyway. He did not either want this.

“I
must talk to someone,” Dusa muttered, angrily.

“Yes?”
He spoke warily. One had to remember, almost all the social spaces were open
to Security. You should be careful what, even innocently, you said, did, unless
being careful might itself seem suspicious.

“It’s
my mother,” said Dusa, now in a strangled tone. “She’s ill.”

“I’m
sorry.”

“No
you’re not. Only
I
am sorry. She is
my
mother, not yours.” She
shot him one of her laval glances, full of hate, loathing and despair. Some of
them found this sexy. Carver wondered why. She pushed past him, her body
brushing over his. (Neither was this at all arousing.) Her scent remained, it
had a strange theme of musk and oranges; something smoky, another element
acidulous and sharp.

He
found she had put a piece of paper, half a page torn from a corner-shop
notebook, into his hand. He made himself the unwanted coffee, still holding the
paper, then walked off again, not looking at the note, neither concealing nor
making anything of it, as if forgetting.

Back
in his room he dropped the note on the table, left it there and sat before the
screen, next activating and running through the current disc-file on Scar.

The Third Scar
: Remember, the
curse always has to do with the third one. Take the plot from this point to the
other two possibilities: 1) A mark on the left hand, present since childhood,
or the left arm, perhaps more recent. And 2) The terrain allocated for any
relevant meeting.

Carver cleared
the screen. The second plot point was new. He would need to contact Latham, who
today was on leave. As if catching sight of it and recollecting, he reached out
and idly took up the paper note. Dusa’s pencilled scribble was eccentric but
readable.
Long’s
12
.
She had hardly chosen a secluded or private place then, which might indicate
either extreme caution or the genuinely mundane. Carver was inclined in any
case not to go, he had other things to do, and for all Dusa knew could have
another unavoidable date, like the dinner the previous evening. In that event,
however, he might as well visit Long’s and lyingly explain to her before
escaping.

He
switched off the computer, got his jacket, and went along the corridor to the
lift. Downstairs, BBS was back on duty. “Can I just check you, Mr Carver?”

Bugger
Back-Scratcher made a thorough job of this, he always did with the male
contingent. (“Gay as the Gordons,” Latham said.) Last night though Bugger had
not wanted to feel Carver over, which in a way had been lucky, as last night
Carver had had the stolen object in his pocket. Then again, one could always
make an excuse. The kind of things that would cause a problem – unauthorised
cash, cards, files or weaponry – were not involved.

The
sun was fully out again, shining down on Holland Row and its garlanded trees. A
slender creeping stain of orange was after all just burning through the leaves,
fairly subtle as yet, as in Silvia Dusa’s perfume, and, just as Silvia Dusa
maybe was, gathering speed and strength to pounce.

She
was not inside the pub, a cramped and old-fashioned venue with nooks and
crannies, so Carver walked round it once, to be sure, then out again. And
there
she was, by the
doorway with her head arrogantly lifted.

“The
park,” she said.

“All
right.”

He
wondered why he had acquiesced so quickly and pliantly. No doubt because of the
traces of tears still under her eyes. You learnt, he thought, to behave in this
way, or sometimes you did, less empathy and human decency than some type of
social conditioning. Or was he only curious?

They
– Westminster Council, ostensibly – were having something done along the paths,
blocking them. Boards were laid out in order pedestrians could, after all,
trample over the grass. Birds poured across in clutches, protesting yet, from
force of habit, indifferent to the always-disturbing interference of mankind.

She
did not speak for a while. At last she said, “We will sit here.” A decree? But
then, a hesitation: “Yes?”

“Yes.
Why not.”

They
sat on a bench under the trees; a few leaves lay on the ground, for the path,
just here, was unimpeded. A dull working rumble from some mechanical device
came at measured, aggravating intervals.

“You
see, Car,” she used his office nickname, “I have – I’ve done something stupid.”

A
long, long gap, with three choruses of the rumbling machine.

He
said, “You mean about your mother.”

“No.
This is
not
about my
mother. Oh, she’s ill. Who cares, the old bitch. I hate her, always I have,
from seven years of age. This is something stupid I did, when not thinking
clearly. I have –
given
something to...
to someone.”

What
? was what most
people would say, Carver thought. Instead he replied calmly, “You need to talk
to Jack Stuart.”

“No.”

“Yes,
Dusa. As quickly as you can.” (He could not use her own circulating office
nickname – it was the obvious one, with the letters ME attached at the front.) “You
need to talk to him before four this afternoon.”

She
shook her head; or it was more that she shivered violently all over. “Then I’m
dead. Aren’t I?
Aren’t
I, Car?”

“I
don’t know what you’ve done.
No
–” He looked directly at her, with a
face of stone. “You don’t tell
me
. You tell Jack Stuart.”

“You’ve
brought a Third Person,” she said, staring at him, “you have recorded what I’ve–”

“No.
I didn’t think to bring one, Dusa. You said you were upset over your mother. I
believed you.”

“Shittalk.
You believe
nobody
.
I
believe
nobody
.”

“Believe
me
.
Stuart
. Before 4 p.m.”

Carver
stood up, and at once she had risen too and caught his arm. “You
bastard
– you
bastard
!” Her voice
flared strongly now and piercing.

Along
the board-path a couple of heads turned. He and she would look like two
quarrelling lovers.

“Let
go, Dusa,” he said, his own voice deliberately dropping, and icy. But this did
not work on her, as he had guessed it might not.

She
leaned close, staring at him, her eyes grown huge, so he could see they were
not black, but a sort of dark mulled bronze. “Carver –
help
me.” It was not
a plea, it was a demand.

They
were struggling over some obscure mental abyss – was it fear? Anger? Or an
irrational plan of hers, a kind of madness that, to her, seemed essential of
execution, and that she must have dealt with by someone else. “Will you speak
to Stuart
for
me, Carver?”
Both her hands were on him now, flat on his chest, burning through the jacket
and his shirt, immediate and familiar, unwanted.

“Stop
this, Silvia,” he said quite briskly. “
I
can’t do anything. I’m not
important in the office, you know. I’m no one. An errand boy. Speak to Latham
if you’re too scared to go straight to Stuart.”

She
dropped her hands, the way a cat would put down its paws, seeing no advantage
and losing interest. Where their heat had been he felt the warmish day strike
two cold blows.

Silvia
Dusa lowered her eyes. She was not crying any more, not breathing fast, perhaps
not really breathing.

“I
shouldn’t have come to you.”

“No.”

“I’ll
do what you say.”

“It’s
the only way for you to sort this out, Silvia.”

He
thought, stop using her first name. It set up a fake intimacy that was useless
and had no part here. It had served its purpose.

He
turned and began to walk, without hurry or delay, away from her over the
pathway, then the wobbly boards. He had an urge to look back once, hearing
behind him a woman’s running steps on the open grass. But it was not Dusa, too
heavy for her, and the shoes were trainers. He saw he was quite correct when a
big young woman presently passed him, and went thumping off through the park
towards Horse Guards Road.

What
had she done? Pointless to wonder even. Probably nothing much. Or else
something vast and irredemable. Did he care? He was unsure. His own reaction
any way by now would be tangled up in her attempted involvement of him, and the
general repercussions any inane or insane mistake could always throw up for
everyone, whether let in on the error or not.

That
evening he left the car stabled at the office – there had indeed been a slight
fault with the engine – he should no doubt not have risked coming back into
London with it that morning, but it would often allow you a couple of hours
grace before at last giving out. He took the train down as far as Lynchoak. He
was meeting Latham in a steakhouse off the Maidstone Road.

“Weird
bloody names these villages have round here,” said Latham, as they sat drinking
red wine, the meal ordered; it was not yet 8 p.m. “
Lynch
oak – a hanging
tree, one assumes. Christ. And that by-way back there near the motorway. Tokyo
Lane?
Tokyo
– I ask you.”

“Yes,”
said Carver.

His
mind had skewed abruptly over, as it kept on doing, to the tussle with Dusa
earlier. He could still, now and then, feel the heat of her two hands on his
chest, and the later cold patches that followed, as if she had leeched
something out of him to keep her warm for the winter to come.

“You’ve
got some bloody weird places near
you
, haven’t you, Car. What is it – Bee
Church.”

“Beechurst.”

“Oh,
I see. God knows,” said Latham, chomping his way along a piece of garlic bread
with cheese and evident enjoyment.

He
liked, Latham, what he called “Plebfood” – pizza, steak, chips ice-cream. “
Bee
–churst,” he
repeated, reflectively. “Be cursed.”

The
waiter came to refill their glasses. The first bottle was done and Latham
ordered a second. Driving would not be a hurdle, for either of them. “What did
you think of the new script?” Latham asked. His face, a minute before sanguine
and relaxed, had put on a lizard-like,
snake
-like concentration, emotionless but
entirely focussed.

“It
doesn’t make much sense,” said Carver.

“No,”
mused Latham. “What I thought too. But with that set of directors – what can
you expect.” And the greedy mask popped back.

Their
speech followed its formulas, but no one could overhear. Not only obscured by
the canned music but the turgid scrambled egg of other voices and cutlery.
Besides that, the two recording/listening devices (Third Persons), Carver’s and
Latham’s, were both on reverse, creating a mostly inaudible but interfering
flit and flux of white noise. Enough to muddle most eavesdroppers whether human
or electronic.