Part 20 (1/2)

'I want to be sure, that's all. He's dead, okay? You want me to point you in the same direction?'

'It is a guilt trip.'

'That doesn't make me guilty.' Her flash of anger expired, leaving her weary and next to tears. That was the trouble with emotions: once they started coming back, they chose their own order. 'There was a bomb,' she began at last. 'Up the road. It pushed a house into the river.'

The high-pitched sirens, keening over the rooftops . . .

Zoe fanned cigarettes out on the table. She'd smoked two and a half of them before Sarah reached the end.

They were silent for a while; Zoe finis.h.i.+ng her smoke; Sarah drinking tap water, her throat raw from speaking, retching and pa.s.sive vice. She had told Zoe little about the events since Joe's death, but her own state said all that.

'You're saying you've been warned off,' the woman said at last.

'Uh-huh.'

'Joe gets killed, you get warned off.' She seemed to consider this s.e.xist as much as anything else. 'This guy, what was his name, Downey?'

'Michael Downey.'

'Six-footer, late thirties, well-built, stringy dark beard and a ponytail tied with a red rubber band. Carries a blue canvas bag over his shoulder. Wears a denim jacket. Warm?'

'He wasn't carrying a bag,' Sarah said numbly.

'Well, he was yesterday.'

Sarah opened her mouth, shut it again. Waited for Zoe to explain.

'I came by. You weren't alone, you had a couple of visitors.' Wigwam and Rufus, Sarah remembered. Wigwam doing a lot of creative enthusing about Sarah's achievements, Sarah's interior decorating skills, Sarah's cookery; her att.i.tude a warm amalgam of supportiveness and solicitude, with just the faintest hint of sympathy, as if Sarah had recently won only a small amount on the lottery, say, instead of having been arrested and so on. Rufus, true to form, had chosen an armchair and ceased to exist. It wasn't so much that they were an odd couple; they were very nearly an impossible one. Faced with them yesterday, Sarah's calm stupor had come close to shaking to bits. What happened happened, part of her wanted to scream. Let's stop pretending it didn't. But at least Wigwam cared. 'In the afternoon?'

'Friends, yes.'

'He was watching the house.'

She could feel the balloon straining apart. 'My house,' she said flatly.

'He's not there now.'

She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So if he's not there now, where is he? Should she call the police? And tell them what?

'You think he's the one killed Joe,' Zoe said.

She nodded, numb once more.

'But you've no real reason to think so.'

'Why else would he be watching? He gave the warning, he planted those drugs. Now he's just keeping an eye to make sure . . .'

'Make sure what? You don't make a mad dash for freedom and justice? Round up the bad guys? Pardon me, Tucker, but you look like the only das.h.i.+ng you're doing any time soon is to the bathroom.'

'Thanks a lot.'

'There's just one thing you have to do.'

'Oh, isn't that wonderful. At last, somebody who can tell me what to do. Have you got a ticket with a number, or did you push in?'

Zoe Boehm said, 'I'd forgotten, you bite. Sometime when you're firing on all cylinders, we can exchange recipes. Meanwhile, what you do is, you do this. You call the police and tell them it was garbage, that statement about Joe selling drugs. It's a simple thing. It's called telling the truth.'

'Are you crazy? That's exactly what this hairy lunatic doesn't want me doing.'

'h.e.l.l, Tucker, what's he going to do? He kills you, they'll actually start looking for him. Which he's gone to some trouble to avoid, up to now.'

'That's a big comfort.'

'This might come as a shock, but right now I'm more worried about the damage you did Joe's reputation than I am about anything that might happen to you. You know d.a.m.n well he wasn't dealing, and it's only the fact that you look about two steps from a boneyard that stops me holding you over a phone and choking it out of you. So why don't you have a shower, get dressed, remember where you left your principles, and do the decent thing? Who knows, it might get to be a habit.'

The force of which took her breath away. Another new emotion, shame, came tumbling after the others. 'I never . . . Yes . . . I didn't think.'

'Doesn't look like you were given half a chance,' Zoe muttered. She picked up her bag, hooked it over her shoulder. 'I'll call you tomorrow.'

'To check up,' Sarah said numbly.

'Oh, I'll have done that long before then. But I'll call you anyway.' She c.o.c.ked her head to one side. 'Look, don't feel too bad. It's not that I blame you. Your position, I'd have done the same.'

Somehow, Sarah doubted it. One thing bothered her though. 'If you loved him so much, why did you keep disappearing on him?'

'Who said I loved him? That was over years ago.'

'So why all this?'

'Because when a woman's partner gets killed, she has to do something about it. It doesn't matter what she thought of him. She has to do something about it.'

'I don't get you.'

'The Maltese Falcon,' Zoe said. 'Believe me, Joe'd have understood.'

IV.

She left. Sarah sat once more, feeling sick, weak and hungry all at once. The hunger didn't last. Most appet.i.tes seemed distant now, as if she could only focus on one point at a time, her current target being the retraction of her statement to the police a necessary truth whose one saving grace was, it need not involve Simon Smith.

But though inevitable, it didn't have to be immediate. She showered and dressed, and made herself eat a boiled egg; and while it was a strain not to be plucking at the curtains, checking for strangers in the street, she succeeded at this too. Then she sat with the newspaper cutting Joe had given her, retrieved from a jacket pocket. She had put Downey in his early forties when she'd first seen him, from the bridge. The more generous Zoe had him late thirties. And Zoe was right; he had been thirty-four at the time of his supposed death, making him thirty-eight now. The hair added years. But what did he want from her? He had been looking for Dinah too, but why did Joe have to die? A lot more questions hovered. None with obvious answers attached.

While she had the nerve, she made her call. Ruskin was unavailable. When would he be otherwise? About five, maybe six. She said she'd call back. Afterwards, she slipped into a waking doze. One of those almost-states, where the clock still ticks and traffic goes by, but inside everything comes to a halt. When the phone rang, she almost hit the ceiling.

'You sound breathless.'

'I'm okay.'

'Did I wake you?'

She glanced at the clock; it had just gone five. What am I, a baby? But she bit it back. 'I'm okay, Mark. Really.'