Bold as Love (23 page)

‘We all knew,’ said Fiorinda. ‘We knew there was something. Why else did we go back to prison, except to wait for this to surface?’

‘Not me,’ said Fereshteh. ‘He was in power, I needed to be near him. That’s all.’ ‘Oh, I know about
that
,’ said Allie, wiping her eyes. ‘I have done that.’

‘Me too,’ said Fiorinda softly. ‘Me too.’

They knelt around the dead little girl, in the stunned silence that tragedy exacts. Then Fiorinda stood up. ‘I suspect she’s not alone, but I don’t think we should search any further. Let’s go back upstairs, wait for Dilip and Rob.’

They went back upstairs. When they came into the front room Lola gave them one look and burst into tears. She curled up in a foetal ball, face hidden in a cushion, hugging her tote bag. They waited in silence: long enough for Fiorinda to wish fervently that she still smoked cigarettes, and for Allie and Feresh to stub their way through most of a pack. At last the men turned up.

‘Sorry,’ said Rob, ‘Bomb at the Insanitude.’

‘God,’ Fiorinda had opened the door. ‘I thought the war was over. Scare or real?’

‘Real. Not the mainstream Islamics, they’re outraged. Some freelance bastard fools. No dead, thank God.’

‘Many hurt?’

‘None seriously,’ Dilip shrugged. Bomb boredom. ‘What’s going on here?’

‘Pig’s old lady decided to tell us something. Brace yourselves. It is not good.’

All five of them went down to the cellar. Rob and Dilip looked at the dead girl, touched nothing, said nothing much. They came back and stared at Lola. Fiorinda went and sat on the end of the sofa.

‘Lola, sit up and talk.’

She sat up. Her expensive makeup had survived her tears. Frightened, desperate eyes looked out pathetically (if you accepted the pathos) from a geisha mask.

‘Tell us what you know.’

‘I don’t know anything. He used to come here. He used to bring kids here, to take pictures, make videos, nothing else: that’s all I knew.’

‘I don’t believe you. You didn’t bring us here to show us his hideaway studio.’

‘I didn’t know, I didn’t know
!’

‘You knew she was there. Were you here when she died? Did you watch?’

‘Fio—
!’ breathed Dilip, horrified.

‘Shut up. Were you here, Lola?’

Mrs Pig shook her head violently.

‘But you believe your husband killed her. Why? Can you prove it?’

Lola thrust the tote bag at her. It fell open, spilling a heap of multipurpose disks and big, old, plastic video tape cassettes.

‘Oh, okay. I see. But why now? That kid has been dead for weeks, and I’m afraid she may have company, under the floors, behind the walls. What made you decide to call a halt, suddenly, after letting it happen for so long?’

The Pig’s wife grabbed the bag back, glaring in dumb misery at her tormentor. She dug in the bottom of it, and pushed something into Fiorinda’s hands. A pair of pants for a girl about three or four years old. They were pink lace, with bows; and bloodstained inside.

‘Right,’ said Fiorinda, stone hard. ‘I suppose that would do it.’

‘I found them today,’ sobbed Lola. ‘They were j—just under her bed. I asked my baby, and she says, Dada says it’s okay, and she won’t make her pants dirty again, she’ll be more careful. I never believed he would do that. Not
his own flesh and blood
—’ She curled into her foetal ball, stopped sobbing and just lay there.

The five of them moved to the other side of the room, where terracotta curtained windows shut out the winter night, the street, the great city.

‘My God,’ said Rob, ‘What are we going to do?’

‘Fiorinda—’ Dilip tried to put his arm around her.

‘Lay off. We’re going to call the police.’

‘What?’ Rob’s horror broke into anger. ‘
No
! You don’t take that on yourself. We get hold of Ax, right now. We talk to Ax, we think very carefully before—’

‘Shut up. I can’t deal with stupidity at the moment. Sorry, Rob. We do not contact Ax. We do not sit around thinking up a spin. We call the police. Now.’

‘She’s right,’ said Allie, tight lipped, huge eyed. ‘I know it could be a disaster, but she’s right. It’s what Ax would say.’

So they called the police, and the police came to 113 Ruskin Road and took possession.

‘That was ten days ago,’ said Fiorinda, in the cafe on St Pancras. ‘I got the cops to do nothing, just take Lola’s statement and keep a discreet cordon round the hotel, until after your Bradford gig. We tried to act normally, except that Lola took the kids and left, right that night before Pig got home. She’s at her mother’s, police are there too. The morning after I called you, armed police came to the hotel. We thought there’d be a gun battle, but it was easy. They told him they wanted to ask him a few questions about that house in Ruskin Road, and he said, I want my lawyer. Simple as that. The hotel is practically empty now, except for him and the Met team. The Organs and all the other people, Pig’s entourage, moved out as soon as the police would let them.’

‘Fio,’ said Ax, ‘I don’t think you should be going anywhere near him.’

‘The police asked me to come to the suite with them, to try and avoid violence, and I did. That’s how I come to be talking with him. He won’t talk to anyone else, including not his lawyers, about anything but evil cameras, and how they are pointing at him everywhere. With me, he tells me the lot. It’s speeding things up a great deal: knowing where to look for the bodies, things like that. So I’m going to go on doing it. Sorry.’

They were looking at her as if she was a piece of broken china.

She sighed. ‘Okay. I know what you’re thinking. The whole story about me and my father. How he seduced me when I was twelve, not knowing who I was, and I had his child, and the baby died. I’m grateful that none of you have ever brought it up before. Or not much. It’s bloody good of you, really.’

The hum of the cafe seemed to rise, rushing in to fill their helpless silence. ‘You know the miserable facts, and I’m sure you know the rumour, which I am certain is completely untrue. But it isn’t relevant.’

Like hell, said the glance that flashed between them.

‘It
isn’t
, so lay off, both of you. I can do this. And me helping the police, for which they are dead grateful, will help you to manage it, Ax. Trust me.’

She smiled, ruefully. ‘My poor heroes. What a homecoming.’

There was a small commotion at the entrance to the cafe. Three idiots with skulls for heads were blocking it, grinning cheerfully (they couldn’t help it) and waving their arms.

‘Hey, my band!’ Sage jumped up, slung his bag over his shoulder: kissed Fiorinda on the cheek, touched Ax’s arm lightly, ‘See you later—’

They watched the Heads depart. ‘He told them to look out for me,’ said Fio. ‘And they did. When I was at my mother’s house I used to come down and find them drinking with my gran in the basement. She thought they were great.’

‘He never said anything about that to me.’

‘Nor me. I don’t know what they’d have done if anything had happened.’ Fiorinda was pretty sure the Heads were armed. It would have been out of character for George Merrick not to get that sorted, after Massacre Night. She wasn’t going to mention this to Ax, it would only upset him. ‘Died in my defense, I expect. The Heads are weird about Sage. He’s their sacred icon.’

‘He’s a very loveable guy.’

‘For all his faults,’ suggested Fiorinda, grinning.

‘For all his evil faults. And winding me up something rotten, whenever he feels inclined. Okay, I changed my opinion. I can change my opinion, can’t I?’

The Few, she thought, were going to be amazed at the new relationship, the new body language, the whole double act. She was amazed herself, and she’d been forewarned by the letters. She had loved getting the letters (although censored, what a noble soul he is, never takes advantage of his rank), but she’d been gobsmacked that they came with a cuneiform scrawl from Sage tacked on the end. Sadly, not even George had been able to decipher the text, and no use asking Sage: it would only piss him off. But what a formidable team they made, Ax and Sage united. And so natural, once you saw it, unlikely as it seemed until you did—

An elderly woman, very soberly dressed, went by their table: and stopped with the little double take people do when they have decided to give the beggar some spare change after all. Came back and patted Fio on the shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry for your trouble, my dear.’

‘Thank you,’ said Fiorinda, reaching up to touch the hand, smiling. The old lady nodded shyly at Ax, and hurried away.

Stone Age fame.

‘Shall we go?’

They went back to Snake Eyes, found the house quiet and reached their room unmolested. Ax hung up his leather coat, took the Gibson out of her case and restored her to her place; sat down on the bed and started to roll a spliff. Fiorinda sat by him, ‘What a considerate guy you are,’ she said, knowing what the grass was for. ‘Well…did you meet any nice sheep?’

He grinned at her: that flashing smile she remembered.

‘No lasting attachments. And you?’

‘No lasting attachments.’

‘Thank God for that.’

He took her hand, kissed it, and held it while he looked at her. What a phenomenon she was, this Fiorinda. At that first meeting of the Counter Cultural Think Tank, how everybody had stared… How could they help it? She’s
a
sixteen year old girl
. How can she be talking to us like this? Where are the strings, who is making the kid’s mouth move? Where did she get those cold, wise eyes, where did she find that tone of contemptuous authority? The skull-masked Heads sitting there grinning, like:
haha, we knew! We found her!
—especially that one mask more flexible and expressive than most naked human faces. Ax had known the kid’s reputation (drinking buddies with Aoxomoxoa, for fuck’s sake). He’d put it down to hype, and Sage being wilfully bizarre. He hadn’t expected anything like the girl herself. He had thought then,
I will have her,
without any sexual meaning at all…and even now it was not lust he felt, or not pure lust but something more painful: the shock of realising he had missed six months of her growing up. Was she actually taller? At Fiorinda’s age, it could easily be. Still thin, but she no longer looked like fishbones. She looked well put together, clear eyed and strong, her hair crisp and bright as copper wire on the surface, deepening to wine in the soft depths. I must never leave her again. Never, never.

‘Ax. I was so afraid you would be killed.’

‘Me too.’ He lit the spliff, and handed it to her. ‘I would love to fuck you now, but I could understand if you’re off the idea. If you don’t want, it’s okay.’

‘You have a point. I warn you, you may be off sex yourself after you’ve seen the Pig’s video diaries. But oh no. Soldier home from the wars gets to fuck girl. That is the rules, I wouldn’t want to break the rules.’

‘Hmm.’ He wanted very much to have her, but was not sure about the terms.

‘Even if he’s turned into a Muslim.’

‘Ah—’

Ax realised with horror that he still had to deal with that. He’d convinced himself it was better not to try to explain until he was back where he could touch her. Then the news about Pigsty had happened, and he had nothing scripted, he was helpless—

‘Oh, don’t look so terrified. It’s okay, Ax. You believe in God, everyone knows you do. That’s something people cannot help, it’s just the way you are wired. If you had to sign up for something organised, you might as well be a Muslim as anything. They’re all equally horrible.’

‘Good.’

‘Long as you don’t grow a beard.’

‘I will not grow a beard.’

‘What about getting circumcised?’

‘I plan to avoid that if possible. I have heard it is extreme pain.’

‘So, do you want that fuck?’ Smiling at him so tenderly, her heart in her eyes.

They finished the spliff as they stripped. Slipped into bed: God what a
joy
to hold her. She reached down her sweet cold hand to his balls and he buried his face in her hair, laughing for sheer relief and thinking, if all the rest is about to go to hell, there is a good thing I have done.

About eight in the evening of that day, Ax and Sage and Allie and Fiorinda were in one of the smaller presentation rooms on the mezzanine at the Pig’s hotel, with DCI Barbara Holland and some of her team. The room had been shut up for months, the air smelt of ghostly carpet glue and stale coffee; withered business stationery was arranged on every desk. The police techies muttered to each other, occasionally focusing in on a detail: replaying or trying another angle. An unspoken delicacy had separated the civilians, Allie and Fio together down at the front, the two men further back and several rows away.

It was going to take months to analyse the material that Lola Burnet had handed over. This disc was one of the simpler records: no computer generated backdrops, props, animation to be stripped out. It involved Pigsty and other adults, and a child. The adult faces and hands were blurred, very professional job, all attempts to restore them had so far failed. Only Pigsty had been identified. The others were all men, and seemed to be four separate individuals, but not even these facts could be relied on. Once an image has been through a mixing desk, anything might have been changed. The desk that had been used, for all the disks, was a generic, High Street model: could be the same machine as one that Pigsty had in his possession, but that had yet to be proved.

Fiorinda could not concentrate. There was no point in being moved or even sad, her pity would change nothing. Her mind kept straying to the implications of the scandal. Was this the end of the Countercultural Cabinet? What would happen to the revolution now? Beside her, Allie wrote on faded hotel-corporate notepaper,
Dachau
, Buchenwald, Auschwitz
. Fio nodded. Maybe it was because they were faceless, but they were like death camp guards, those men on the screen. No orgy, just working stiffs, plodding through their dehumanised routine.

The movie ended. ‘Nothing that has been digitally manipulated is evidence,’ said DCI Holland. ‘That’s the law. None of this material can be used in court.’