Part 3 (2/2)

'And that was a joint joint decision?' decision?'

'It was an executive decision. Mine. I wasn't about to march up to Gail and say, ”Vanya's got a gun stuck in his belt, d'you think we should tell the police?” least of all in front of the girls. Once we were alone and I'd got my bearings, I told her what I'd seen. We talked it through rationally, and that was the decision we came up with: no action.'

Overtaken by an involuntary rush of loving support, Gail backs him up with her Counsel's Opinion: 'Maybe Vanya had a perfectly good local permit to carry the gun. What did Perry know? Maybe Vanya didn't need need a permit. Maybe the police had given him the gun in the first place. We weren't exactly up in Antiguan gun law, were we, Perry, either of us?' a permit. Maybe the police had given him the gun in the first place. We weren't exactly up in Antiguan gun law, were we, Perry, either of us?'

She half expects Yvonne to raise a contrary point of law, but Yvonne's too busy consulting her copy of the offending doc.u.ment in its buff folder: 'Could I trouble the two of you for a description of this Uncle Vanya Uncle Vanya, please?' she asks in an aggression-free voice.

'Pockmarked,' says Gail promptly, again dazzled by how it was all there before her in her memory. Fifty-odd. Pumice-stone cheeks. A drinker's paunch. She thought she'd seen him drinking surrept.i.tiously from a flask at the tennis, but couldn't be sure.

'Rings on each finger of his right hand,' says Perry when it's his turn. 'Seen collectively, a knuckleduster. Black, scarecrow hair, jutting out from the back of his hat, but I suspect he was bald on top and that was why he wore the tam-o'-shanter. Lot of blubber on him.'

And yes, Yvonne, that's him, they agree in a shared murmur, their heads touching and the electricity flying between them as they gaze at the full-plate photograph she has slipped under their noses. Yes, that's Vanya from Perm, second from left of four merry, overweight white men sitting in a nightclub surrounded by hookers and paper streamers and bottles of champagne on New Year's Eve 2008 in G.o.d-knows-where.

Gail needs the loo. Yvonne leads her up the narrow bas.e.m.e.nt stairs to the mysteriously plush ground floor. Genial Ollie without his beret is stretched out in a winged armchair, deep in a newspaper. It's not your ordinary sort of paper, being printed in Cyrillic. Gail thinks she deciphers Novaya Gazeta Novaya Gazeta but can't be certain and doesn't want to do him the favour of asking. Yvonne waits while Gail pees. The loo is fancy, with pretty hand towels, scented soap and hunting prints of Jorrocks on expensive wallpaper. They return downstairs. Perry remains stooped over his hands, but this time the palms are upward so he looks as though he's reading two fortunes at once. but can't be certain and doesn't want to do him the favour of asking. Yvonne waits while Gail pees. The loo is fancy, with pretty hand towels, scented soap and hunting prints of Jorrocks on expensive wallpaper. They return downstairs. Perry remains stooped over his hands, but this time the palms are upward so he looks as though he's reading two fortunes at once.

'So, Gail,' says little Luke smartly. 'Your shout again, I think.'

Not a shout, actually, Luke. A f.u.c.king scream, one that's been banking up in me for some while now, as I think you may have noticed in the course of resting your eyes on me a little more frequently than the spies' Handbook of Inter-Gender Etiquette Handbook of Inter-Gender Etiquette considers strictly necessary. considers strictly necessary.

'I simply had no idea,' she begins, talking straight ahead of her, but favouring Yvonne over Luke. 'I just blundered in. I should have realized. I didn't.'

'You've absolutely nothing to reproach yourself with,' Perry retorts hotly from her side. 'n.o.body told you, n.o.body gave you the slightest warning. If anyone was to blame, Dima's lot were.'

Gail is not to be consoled. She is a lawyer in a brick-lined wine cellar at dead of night, a.s.sembling the case against the accused, and the accused is herself. She is lying face down on a beach in Antigua under a sunshade in mid-afternoon with her top undone and two small girls squatting beside her and Perry is stretched out on her other side wearing his schoolboy shorts and a pair of his late father's National Health spectacles fitted with his own prescription sungla.s.s lenses.

The girls have eaten their free ice creams and drunk their free fruit juice. Uncle Vanya from Perm is up his ladder with the family-sized pistol in his belt and Natasha whose name is a challenge to Gail every time she approaches it; she has to gather herself together and make a clean jump of it like horse-riding at school Natasha Natasha is lying the other end of the beach in splendid isolation. Elspeth meanwhile has withdrawn to a safe distance. Perhaps she knows what's about to happen. With the hindsight she is not allowed to indulge, Gail thinks so. is lying the other end of the beach in splendid isolation. Elspeth meanwhile has withdrawn to a safe distance. Perhaps she knows what's about to happen. With the hindsight she is not allowed to indulge, Gail thinks so.

The shadows are back in the girls' faces, she notices. The professional in her fears they may share a bad secret. With the stuff she has to listen to in court most days of the week, that's what bothers her, that's what drives her curiosity: children who don't chatter and aren't naughty. Children who don't realize they're victims. Children who can't look you in the eye. Children who blame themselves for the things adults do to them.

'I ask questions for a living living,' she protests. She is saying everything to Yvonne now. Luke is a blur and Perry is outside her frame, relegated there deliberately. 'I've done family courts, I've had children in the witness box. What we do in in our work, we do our work, we do out of out of our work. We're not two people. We're just us.' our work. We're not two people. We're just us.'

In a gesture intended to ease her stress rather than his own, Perry cranes his body upwards and gives a swimmer's stretch of his long arms, but Gail's stress isn't eased.

'So the first thing I said to them was: tell me some more about Uncle Vanya. They'd been so cryptic about him I thought he might be a bad uncle. ”Uncle Vanya plays the balalaika with us, we love him very much, and he's funny when he gets drunk.” That's Irina speaking. She's decided to be more forthcoming than her big sister. But I'm thinking: a drunken uncle who plays music to them, what else does he play?'

'And the language spoken still English English, we take it,' Yvonne asks, in her pursuit of every last detail. But gently now, woman to woman. 'We're not into basic French or anything?'

'English was virtually their first language. Internat Internat American English with a slight American English with a slight Italian Italian accent. So then I asked, is Vanya a real uncle or just an honorary one? Answer: Vanya is our mother's brother and he used to be married to Aunt Raisa who lives in Sochi with another husband n.o.body likes. We're doing family tree now, which is great by me. Tamara is Dima's wife, and she's very strict, and she prays a lot because she's holy and she is kind to have us. accent. So then I asked, is Vanya a real uncle or just an honorary one? Answer: Vanya is our mother's brother and he used to be married to Aunt Raisa who lives in Sochi with another husband n.o.body likes. We're doing family tree now, which is great by me. Tamara is Dima's wife, and she's very strict, and she prays a lot because she's holy and she is kind to have us. Kind? Kind? Have us how? Have us how? And then I say I'm being a really clever lawyer now, asking the tangential questions, not the in-your-face ones is Dima And then I say I'm being a really clever lawyer now, asking the tangential questions, not the in-your-face ones is Dima kind kind to Tamara? Is Dima to Tamara? Is Dima kind kind to his boys? Meaning: is Dima a bit too kind to you? And Katya says, yes, Dima is kind to Tamara because he is her husband and her sister's dead, and Dima is kind to Natasha because he's her father and her mother's dead, and to his sons because he's their father. Which opens the door to the question I to his boys? Meaning: is Dima a bit too kind to you? And Katya says, yes, Dima is kind to Tamara because he is her husband and her sister's dead, and Dima is kind to Natasha because he's her father and her mother's dead, and to his sons because he's their father. Which opens the door to the question I really really want to ask, and I put it to Katya because she's older: So who's want to ask, and I put it to Katya because she's older: So who's your your father, Katya? And Katya says, he's dead. And Irina joins in and says, so's our mother. They're both dead. I do a kind of ”oh really?” and when they just look at me, I say, I'm very sad for you. How long have they been dead? I wasn't even sure I believed them. There was a bit of me that was still hoping they were pulling some gruesome children's trick. By now it's Irina doing the talking and Katya who's gone into a kind of trance. So have I, but that's beside the point. They died on father, Katya? And Katya says, he's dead. And Irina joins in and says, so's our mother. They're both dead. I do a kind of ”oh really?” and when they just look at me, I say, I'm very sad for you. How long have they been dead? I wasn't even sure I believed them. There was a bit of me that was still hoping they were pulling some gruesome children's trick. By now it's Irina doing the talking and Katya who's gone into a kind of trance. So have I, but that's beside the point. They died on Wednesday Wednesday, Irina says. A lot of emphasis on the day. As if the day's to blame. Wednesday Wednesday was when they died, whenever was when they died, whenever Wednesday Wednesday was. So I say it just gets worse and worse you mean was. So I say it just gets worse and worse you mean last last Wednesday? And Irina says, yes, Wednesday a week ago, the 29th of April: very precisely, making sure I get it right. So Wednesday last week and something about a car smash, and I just sit there staring at them, and Irina takes my hand and pats it and Katya puts her head in my lap, and Perry who I've completely forgotten about wraps his arm round me, and I'm the only person crying.' Wednesday? And Irina says, yes, Wednesday a week ago, the 29th of April: very precisely, making sure I get it right. So Wednesday last week and something about a car smash, and I just sit there staring at them, and Irina takes my hand and pats it and Katya puts her head in my lap, and Perry who I've completely forgotten about wraps his arm round me, and I'm the only person crying.'

Gail has wedged the knuckle of her forefinger between her teeth, which is another thing she does in court to protect herself against unprofessional emotions.

'Talking it over with Perry in the cabin afterwards, everything fell more or less into place,' she says, raising her voice to give it an even more detached ring, but still keeping Perry out of her eye-line, and meanwhile trying to make it sound natural that two little girls should be having a jolly time beside the seaside a few days after their parents have been slaughtered in a car accident.

'Their parents died on the Wednesday Wednesday. The tennis match took place on the following following Wednesday. Ergo, the household had mourned for a week and Dima had reckoned it was time to get them out into the fresh air: so all snap out of it and who's for tennis? If they were Jewish, which for all we knew they may have been, or some of them were, or the dead parents were, then maybe they'd been sitting s.h.i.+va, and by the Wednesday they're supposed to be getting back into life. It hardly meshed with Tamara being Christian-holy and wearing a cross, but we weren't talking religious consistency, not with that crowd, and Tamara was widely held to be weird.' Wednesday. Ergo, the household had mourned for a week and Dima had reckoned it was time to get them out into the fresh air: so all snap out of it and who's for tennis? If they were Jewish, which for all we knew they may have been, or some of them were, or the dead parents were, then maybe they'd been sitting s.h.i.+va, and by the Wednesday they're supposed to be getting back into life. It hardly meshed with Tamara being Christian-holy and wearing a cross, but we weren't talking religious consistency, not with that crowd, and Tamara was widely held to be weird.'

Yvonne again, respectful but firm: 'I hate to press, Gail, but Irina said it was a car smash car smash. Now is that all all she said? Did she say, for instance, where the smash had happened?' she said? Did she say, for instance, where the smash had happened?'

'Outside Moscow somewhere. Vague. She blamed the roads. The roads had too many holes in them. Everyone drove in the middle of the road to avoid the holes, so naturally the cars. .h.i.t each other.'

'Was there any talk of hospitalization? Or did Mummy and Daddy die instantly? Was that the story?'

'Dead on impact. ”A great big lorry came rus.h.i.+ng down the middle of the road and killed them dead.”'

'Any other casualties at all, apart from the two parents?'

'I wasn't being awfully good at the follow-up questions, I'm afraid' feeling herself start to waver.

'But was there a driver, for instance? If the driver was killed too, that would be part of the story, surely?'

Yvonne has reckoned without Perry: 'Neither Katya nor Irina made any reference to a driver, dead or alive, direct or indirect, Yvonne,' he says, in the slow, corrective tone he reserves for lazy students and predatory bodyguards. 'There was no no discussion of other casualties, hospitals, or what particular car anyone was driving.' His voice is mounting. 'Or whether there was third-party insurance cover, or ' discussion of other casualties, hospitals, or what particular car anyone was driving.' His voice is mounting. 'Or whether there was third-party insurance cover, or '

'Cut,' says Luke.

Gail had gone upstairs again, this time unescorted. Perry had stayed where he was, head caged in the fingers of one hand, the other tapping restively at the table. Gail returned and sat down. Perry appeared not to notice.

'So, Perry,' said Luke, all brisk and businesslike.

'So what?'

'Cricket.'

'That wasn't till next day.'

'We're aware of that. It's in your doc.u.ment.'

'Then why not read it?'

'I think we've been through that, haven't we?'

All right, it was next day, same time, same beach, different part, Perry grudgingly conceded. The same black-windowed people carrier pulled up in the NO PARKING NO PARKING bay, and out poured not just Elspeth, the two girls and Natasha, but the boys. bay, and out poured not just Elspeth, the two girls and Natasha, but the boys.

All the same, on the word 'cricket' Perry had begun to brighten: 'Looking like a couple of teenaged colts who'd been locked up in the stable for too long and were finally being allowed a gallop,' he said with sudden relish as the memory took him over.

For today's visit to the beach, he and Gail had picked themselves a spot as far from the house called Three Chimneys as it was possible to get. They weren't hiding from Dima and company but they'd had a rocky night of it and woken late with splitting headaches, after making the elementary mistake of drinking their complimentary rum.

'And of course there was was no escape from them,' Gail cut in, deciding it was her turn again. 'Not anywhere on the no escape from them,' Gail cut in, deciding it was her turn again. 'Not anywhere on the whole whole beach. Well beach. Well was was there, Perry? Not on the whole there, Perry? Not on the whole island island, when we started to think about it. Why were the Dimas so b.l.o.o.d.y interested in us? I mean, who were were they? What did they want? And why they? What did they want? And why us us? Every time we turned a corner, there they were. We were getting to feel that. From our cabin, they were straight across the bay, peering at us. Or we imagined they were, which was just as bad. And on the beach, they didn't even need binoculars. All they had to do was lean over the garden wall and gawp. Which no doubt they did a fair amount of, because it was only minutes after we'd pitched camp that the people carrier with black windows drove up.'

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