The Endings Man (13 page)

The repetition of spaces undid Curle. While he had been with Linda Fleming, he had tuned out the colours, carpets, walls, the shape and position of furniture, the painting on the wall, things that reminded him of Ali in a room filled with memories. This repression had taken him through what could have been a very bad experience. In contrast, the similarity of the layout in Haskell’s flat slipped effortlessly under his guard, despite everything in the room he now sat in being unlike anything in the one downstairs, so that for the first minutes after they were seated he had to struggle to keep his self-control.

‘Biscuits all right?’ Haskell asked, as he reappeared carrying a loaded tray. ‘I know Linda enjoys them with a cup of tea.’

When he’d first met him, Curle had thought him no more than twenty. Now that seemed a mistake. With dark circles under his eyes, as if he hadn’t been sleeping well, he seemed older.

‘Isn’t that a charming plate?’ Linda Fleming asked as Curle picked a biscuit from it.

It seemed to him a perfectly ordinary plate with a blue border, but he wasn’t interested in such things.

‘You have lovely taste,’ she said to Haskell. ‘He chose all
the furniture,’ she informed Curle, ‘and worked out the colour scheme.’

‘It’s nice,’ Curle managed, looking around vaguely.

‘I offered to help Ali, you know,’ Haskell said. ‘She would talk about getting her flat redecorated, but she never actually got round to it. I told her, you could make this place a jewel.’

Little fucking gay decorator, Curle thought. She won’t ever get round to it now. He was embarrassed by the sting of tears.

Blinking and looking round again, he said flatly, ‘Like this.’

For what seemed an interminable time, the two discussed decoration and furnishings while Curle ate biscuits, one after another, absent-mindedly, washing them down with weak coffee.

‘I’d even have painted the ceiling for her,’ Haskell said. ‘I could have got men in, but I did this myself.’ And over the woman’s responsive murmurs, ‘I’ve always been good with my hands.’

After a time, Linda Fleming said, ‘I have to go to the loo.’

‘I’ll show you,’ Haskell said getting up

‘No need! I suppose it’s where Ali’s was?’

She had no sooner left the room than Haskell asked, ‘Am I being stupid?’

Curle, startled by the abruptness of the question, was at a loss.

‘Sorry?’

‘I know something was muttered when you arrived, but, I’m sorry, I have no idea why you would be visiting Linda.’

‘To see if she was all right?’ The younger man’s assumption of a right to question him offended Curle. ‘I
haven’t seen her since the funeral.’

It was Haskell’s turn to seem disconcerted.

‘You mean Ali’s funeral?’ Curle didn’t think that deserved an answer. Who fucking else’s? he wondered. ‘You were at Ali’s funeral? I’d have gone if I’d known where it was.’

‘You should have asked.’

Haskell jumped up as if he was going to walk out, but instead began to pace about the room.

‘Who was there?’ he asked.

‘Relatives.’

‘I can’t imagine you being welcome. Do you mind me being honest?’

‘Yes. I mind a good deal.’

‘You must have cared for her.’ He sat down again and regarded Curle solemnly. ‘I give you credit for that.’

Curle, a man normally timid about violence, had a strong impulse to get up and punch the young fool in the mouth.

‘If I could be honest with you,’ he said, ‘I don’t give a fuck what you give me credit for.’

‘All the same, it’s true.’ Although Haskell’s cheeks had flushed, his voice was quieter, so soft that Curle strained to catch his words. ‘I thought you were just using her. God knows how many women he has on the side, that’s what I thought. Adultery means nothing now, it’s just a word. It made me so angry that she would let herself be treated like that.’

‘Angry with her?’ No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Curle had a vision of how Ali had died, the image Brian Todd had described to him of her being beaten to a pulp.

‘Not with her!’ Haskell cried. ‘I was her friend. Angry
with you, I’m not trying to deny that. I told you so, didn’t I?’

Sick of the conversation and of the blond man’s histrionics, Curle wanted nothing more than to get out.

He must have glanced at the door to the hall, for Haskell turned his head towards it and frowned.

‘She’s a long time,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I should knock?’

Before he could move, however, the door opened to admit Linda Fleming back into the room.

She hurried with short steps back to her chair. As she settled herself, she seemed unaware of how far the short skirt rode up her thighs. There was, too, a slight flush on her cheeks. Perhaps, Curle thought, taking so long embarrasses her. In a moment, however, as she straightened from putting her bag on the floor beside her chair, she pulled the skirt down and asked, ‘What did I miss?’

‘I was saying,’ Haskell said quickly, ‘how sorry I am not to have been at the funeral. I could have asked for time off. Perhaps if you tell me where she’s buried, I could take flowers to the grave.’

Her face froze for a long moment before she managed to speak. ‘The funeral was in Glasgow. Too far to ask you to go.’

‘I was her friend,’ he said reproachfully.

Despite Curle’s efforts, it took another quarter of an hour before they left. Linda Fleming, perversely, as it seemed to him, taking her time about their departure.

At the door, Haskell laid a hand on her arm.

‘Take a deep breath.’

He smiled at her bewilderment.

‘Don’t tell me you can’t smell it?’

As he spoke, Curle caught the heavy mouth-watering smell and was amazed not to have noticed it before, a sign
of how tense he had been when they arrived.

‘What is it?’ Curle asked.

Haskell flicked him a glance, but spoke to the woman. ‘Ghisau – Sardinian beef stew. I made it once for Ali. I get the beef from Colin Peat, a butcher in Haddington. It’s every bit as good as the Sardo Modicano the Sardinians use. And the best plum tomatoes I could find, though they’re not San Marzano unfortunately.’

‘I’m sure it’s very nice,’ Linda Fleming said. His hand still lay on her arm.

‘Come and help me eat it. There’s far too much for one. I can freeze what’s left, but I’d much rather enjoy it with someone. I was going to eat about seven. Please come.’

‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I’d like to, but Mr Curle has asked me to eat with him.’

At Haskell’s glance, Curle nodded.

A moment later, the door was closed on them.

As they went down the stair, Curle said, ‘I don’t think he cares much for me.’

She didn’t answer, hurrying down so quickly he feared she would stumble. As they came to her door and he began to say goodbye, she urged, ‘Come in! Quickly!’ glancing at the stair to the upper floor as if expecting pursuit.

Reluctantly, he followed her inside.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I really have to be going. I’ve arranged to meet my wife.’

Disregarding his words, she beckoned him into the front room. As he followed, she was upending her handbag on to the small coffee table. A fat grey notebook tumbled out of it.

‘I found it in his bedroom,’ she said. ‘It was in the drawer of a bedside table. I think it’s his diary.’

‘Oh, Christ!’ Curle said.

Walking away from Royal Circus, Curle could still feel in his chest a physical memory of how his heart had pounded as he came from what he still thought of as Ali’s flat out on to the landing. He’d fully expected to confront Haskell demanding the return of his stolen property. Going down the stairs to the street had been a flight from the risk of pursuing footsteps. It shows what a bad conscience does, he consoled himself, when even a weed like Haskell can put the wind up you. To make matters worse, Linda Fleming’s impulsive theft of the book had been pointless. A hasty glance had told her it was a diary, but they’d read it from end to end and found nothing more incriminating than dental appointments and books ordered on Amazon.

Curle was almost back to his car, when he stopped abruptly and crossed the road to check the numberplate of a green Subaru estate parked under a streetlight. He wondered how he’d missed it earlier. Perhaps Liz had for some reason needed to use the car in the afternoon and found this place when she came back. In any case, she’d parked facing against the traffic. He went back to his own car and angled the driver’s side mirror so that he could just glimpse the Subaru. She would have to come right across the road, giving him a good chance of spotting her and making it easy to pull out himself and follow. A glance at
his watch told him that it was just after six.

As he waited, he wondered what would happen when Haskell realised his diary was missing. It might not happen for some time, for he didn’t seem to make much use of it. If they were lucky and a week or two passed, maybe even longer, it was just possible that he might not connect its disappearance with his two visitors. Nice to believe that, but Curle didn’t persuade himself. Wishful thinking, he thought, biting his lip. For one thing, he had a feeling Haskell didn’t entertain many people to his flat. On the worst scenario, he’d notice it was missing this evening, in which case he’d know at once who had taken it. Entirely absorbed in her disappointment that the diary proved nothing, Linda Fleming had seemed surprisingly unconcerned about the consequences of her action, but he should have stayed with her longer. Brooding on this, he almost missed the Subaru looming into his mirror as it cut across the traffic.

By the time he managed to pull out, he was three cars behind it. It was harder to follow a car than he had realised. All right in fiction, in real life it would involve a team of pursuers and more than one car. Twice, the Subaru went through a set of lights, which caught him on the red. By good luck more than skill, he reeled her back into sight each time. It was quickly obvious that she wasn’t going home, and when they turned right on to Corstorphine Road he fretted himself with the notion that she might be on her way to Glasgow. She was at least as able a driver as he was, and he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the Subaru on the motorway. They passed the zoo and a light, steady rain began to fall. It was a relief when she turned into a side road. Not long afterwards, her indicator lights came on. As he drove past, he saw the neon sign indicating a hotel.

He parked and walked back, hunching his shoulders against the rain. Squinting between a pair of stone pillars, he saw the Subaru at the end of a line of half a dozen cars parked in front of the façade of a long two-storey red-brick building. Reluctantly, like a man going to be hanged, he made for the splash of light that marked the entrance.

On the other side of the revolving doors, it was dry and warm. A woman looked up from her place behind the reception desk, studying him as he hesitated. Through an open door behind her a man in shirtsleeves could be seen talking on the phone.

From his left, he heard what might have been voices coming from what he assumed was a bar. As he went nearer, however, the sound resolved into a fretful Muzak track, and the dimly lit space was empty except for a couple seated at a table in the far corner. Their heads were close as they leaned towards one another. Curle recognised Brian Todd at once, but it was only when he lifted his glass and said something that made the woman laugh that he was forced to admit the woman was Liz. In a state of shock, he retreated across the hall under the watchful eyes of the woman behind the desk. The whole thing had taken less than five minutes.

He sat in the car and watched the rain run down the window until the glass fogged over. At some point, he switched on the engine. Later he turned it off again. There wasn’t any question of driving away. It would have helped if he could have felt angry instead of hopelessly sad. Hopefully, anger might come if the wrong word was said. He couldn’t generate it from inside himself. There were stock responses to situations like this. From old habit, he ran little playlets in his mind. Those men were lucky who manufactured an image of themselves to live by:
I can’t help
my temper, I don’t take any crap, My father could do it with a look, I’d kill her if she ever.
Sceptical of graven images, for every situation in his life he had to invent who he was. Amid all the flux, the only certainty was that he couldn’t drive away. To drive away, he would have had to be someone else.

He walked back to the hotel through the slanting rain. When he came to the pillars, it came into his head that he couldn’t remember locking the car as he got out. He stood for a moment thinking about it, then went on towards the entrance. The Subaru was parked where it had been before.

There was still a couple in the bar, an Asian girl and an older white man at a different table. As he turned away, he saw a sign for the dining room. Ignoring the intent gaze of the woman behind the reception desk, he went across and down a short corridor lined with red and gold wallpaper. The dining room was spacious and the tables had white cloths, place settings and wineglasses, spirals of folded napkins. It looked like a pleasant place to eat, though there was no telling about the food since there were no diners. As he looked round, a waiter appeared and approached him menu in hand. He explained that he was looking for two friends who’d been in the bar earlier. No one was booked for dinner, the waiter assured him.

Back at reception, the woman denied any knowledge of the couple he described.

‘Their car’s still outside,’ he said. ‘And they’re not in the bar or the dining room.’

‘Some people like to eat in their room.’

‘Is that what they’re doing?’

‘I told you,’ she said, blank faced, ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about.’

Outside, the rain was heavier, settling in for a wet night.
He plodded through it to the car. It was locked, so that was all right.

When he came in out of the night for the third time, the woman narrowed her eyes at him and frowned.

‘I need a room,’ he told her.

She stared at him without answering.

‘My car won’t start. I’ll phone the AA in the morning.’

‘I could phone them for you now.’

‘It’s wet. I’m soaked. I’m tired. I want a room,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that the business you’re in?’

Once he had the key in his hand, he couldn’t resist saying, ‘Maybe I’ll see my friends at breakfast.’

‘Seven-thirty till nine-thirty. If you want it earlier than that, let us know before ten this evening.’

She spoke without looking at him, studying some spot just above his left shoulder, and turned away.

In the room, he sat on the chair by the bed without taking his coat off. He could always, he thought, go from door to door listening for the creaking of bedsprings. It didn’t seem a plan likely to work. After a while, he phoned room service and ordered scrambled eggs, toast and coffee. The waiter who pushed the trolley in, a youth with acne virulent enough to put Curle, a sensitive soul, off his food, was a blank wall to questions about who else might be taking meals in their rooms. It made Curle wonder if discretion had to be a speciality of a hotel catering for adulterers. Or maybe Todd was a big tipper.