Thin Air (9 page)

After ten minutes or so, a
bright young woman, dressed in a tailored beige trouser suit, her
yellow hair cut in a swinging bob, came bouncing through the double
doors that led to the inner chambers. ‘Hi there. Jay Samuels?’

Jay smiled and stood up.
‘Yeah.’

‘I’m Sophie, Zeke’s assistant.
Would you like to come up now?’

‘OK.’

As they walked past the
receptionist, Jay couldn’t resist pausing to say, ‘You could be a
model, you know. Here’s my card. Call me some time.’

The girl glanced at the offered
card, looking mortified. Jay was confident she’d never get through.
She never gave out her direct line, and her own assistant fielded
all calls. However, it felt good to see the girl realise she might
have been rude to the wrong person.

As Jay entered Michaels’ office,
he leapt up from his chair as if he’d been bitten by something and
almost ran across to welcome her. His actions unnerved her, because
they were so unlikely. ‘How are you keeping?’ he asked. ‘How’s Gus?
Work going OK?’

Nodding and repeating the word,
‘fine,’ Jay eased past him and went to sit beneath the window. She
crossed her legs and let her hands dangle loosely over her knees.
‘So - why am I here?’

‘Coffee?’ grinned Michaels.

She raised a dismissive hand.
‘No. Come on, Zeke. Tell me what you want.’ Just being in these
offices made her feel anxious and short of breath.

Michaels sighed. ‘I might as
well get to the point. Dex has been seen in London.’

A reflex of laughter expelled
itself from Jay’s throat. Then, she put her fingers to her mouth.
She could not speak. Strangely enough perhaps, she’d not expected
him to say anything like that. She felt as if a hard cold fountain
of silver waters burst upward inside her, from her stomach to her
brain. It was a spurt of dread, hope and joy.

Michaels stared at her, his
expression far from sympathetic. ‘Have you met him recently,
Jay?’

For a moment, she could only
stare back at him, too dazed to respond. Then she became aware that
in some way she was on trial. She was innocent, but merely being
asked the question made her feel guilty. She shook her head,
croaked, ‘No.’

‘Well, that surprises me,
because my informant tells me that Dex was sighted in your
company.’

‘Excuse me?’ Jay twisted her
hands together in her lap. Astonishment kicked her mind into gear.
‘When, exactly, and where?’

‘Is it true?’

‘No. You know damn well it
isn’t!’

‘If I did, I wouldn’t be asking
the question, would I? Jay, come clean. Admit it.’

‘There’s nothing to admit. Dex
is gone, Zeke. He isn’t coming back.’ She was no longer sure of the
truth of that. ‘Whoever told you that I’ve seen him is lying, or
mistaken. Who the hell was it?’

Michaels blinked slowly and
turned his attention to the intercom on his desk. With precise
movements, he pressed the buzzer and requested coffee from his
assistant. Despite her careful cool exterior, inside Jay felt sick
and afraid, yet elated. It was no condition in which to be sitting
here with Michaels. She wished he’d told her this on the phone, so
that she’d have been ready for him. It was clear to her why he
hadn’t done that. This inner terror was not good; she must assert
herself. ‘Tell me what you know,’ she said.

Michaels shrugged. ‘Very little.
All I can tell you is that Dex has been seen - with you. Or perhaps
it was another woman. If he hasn’t already made contact with you,
we’re sure he will.’

‘But he’s been seen before,’ Jay
said. ‘This is probably just another hoax, or like I said, a
mistake.’

‘Perhaps so, but you have to
remember he’s bound up to his ass in contracts with us. He thought
he could just walk away from us, taking all his work with him -
work that in part was already paid for. It was a lot of money. This
is a law suit situation, Jay. If you’re holding out on us, it could
mean trouble.’ He delivered a smug, meaningful look.

‘I see,’ she said, in a measured
voice. Anger contained her more flailing emotions. Anger always
made her calm. ‘If it’s a law suit situation, you’d better call my
solicitor.’ She got up from her seat, fully prepared to walk
out.

‘Sit down,’ Michaels said
wearily. ‘If you say you haven’t seen him, then you haven’t. I’ll
take your word for it.’

‘Take my word for it?’ She sat
down anyway. ‘I can’t believe the absolute cruelty of what you’ve
just said. You order me to come in here and then lay this on me,
without any warning. You know what Dex’s disappearance did to me.
Much to my regret, you saw it. If he’s back, it has massive
implications for me. I’ve got my life together now. I don’t want it
screwed up again. I don’t give a fuck about your contracts and
money, or whatever!’

‘Don’t get upset,’ Michaels
said, as if between gritted teeth. ‘I had to ask, Jay. You surely
understand that. If you had seen him, would you have called me? I
don’t think so.’

‘OK, OK.’ She took a deep
breath. ‘Let’s get this straight. Let’s talk. Who’s seen Dex, and
where?’

‘I don’t know.’

Jay rolled her eyes. ‘Then why
am I here? Your evidence is flimsy to say the least.’

‘The source is very reliable. I
don’t doubt them, but I can’t tell you who it is.’

‘If you want us to work
together, you’ll have to.’

Michaels seemed surprised by her
last remark. ‘Well, er...’

‘At least get more information
for me, such as time and place of sighting. You
do
want me
to find him for you, don’t you?’ From his expression, she realised
that had not been his intention at all.

‘If you hear anything, I’d be
grateful if you’d tell me, that’s all,’ he said lamely. His
assistant Sophie came into the room, and handed them both a mug of
aromatic coffee.

Jay was torn about whether to
leave at this point, or drink the coffee, which smelled appetising,
and grill Michaels for more information. Sophie smiled at her
nicely, which partly swayed her decision. Once they were alone
again, Jay took a sip of the coffee. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘for a
moment there, I thought you were calling on my professional
talents: Jay Samuels, sleuthing journalist. It’s not that, is it?
As far as you were concerned, I was just Dex’s appendage. I can see
that sexist attitude hasn’t changed.’

‘Oh, come on, Jay!’ Michaels at
least seemed embarrassed.

‘But it’s true. You’ve just
given me the shock of my life, do you know that? I’ve read all the
reports of sightings in the newspapers, but none of them seemed
real. Unfortunately, the fact that Sakrilege is taking this one
seriously lends the idea credibility. I’m a professional, Zeke, yet
you won’t treat me like one.’

He shrugged awkwardly. ‘We just
thought Dex would contact you.’

‘Why? He walked out on me,
didn’t he?’ She took another sip of coffee. ‘Oh, I don’t know,
Zeke. This all seems too unlikely. It’s just going to be a wind-up.
I’m not going to let myself get wound up by a wind up.’ She
laughed, perhaps at too high a note.

‘If he has come back, maybe you
should stay away from him,’ Michaels said.

Jay could only grin at his
pompous tone. ‘If you know what’s good for you,’ she added in a
theatrical monotone. ‘Tell you what, you just talk to your ‘source’
and call me. If in the unlikely event Dex makes contact with me,
I’ll tell him you want to speak to him. If you want more than that,
you’ll have to trade - information is currency.’

Michaels nodded, his face closed
in on itself. ‘I’ll see,’ he said. He focused his eyes beyond her,
as if someone was standing there. Swiftly, she looked round, but
saw only a door standing ajar. Was someone listening to their
conversation? For an absurd moment, she wondered whether it was
Dex.

‘So that’s it.’ Jay put down her
coffee, half finished, and stood up. ‘Thanks for letting me know.’
He doesn’t want my thanks, she thought. There’s nothing to thank
him for. This interview was never for my benefit.

As she left the office, she left
the door open behind her. ‘Keep in touch,’ Michaels called.

She raised a hand, but did not
turn round, ‘You’re such a sweet man, Zeke, so considerate.’

Outside, a moaning wind still
hurried high above the city. Jay pulled her jacket collar together
as icy splinters of air pricked her throat. In her car, her first
instinct was to call Gina, but as she was about to press her
friend’s contact number on her mobile phone, she changed her mind.
No, not yet.

She should go home;
half-finished features on her computer were waiting for her.
Spectres of deadlines pressed down upon her. But the winds rushing
across the city whispered to her with impish persistence. She
needed to be out, looking for something. The meeting with Michaels
had unnerved her more than she cared to admit. She needed to
reassert herself, do something on her own, using her journalistic
skills. Where to begin? she wondered, starting the car. The trail
was now three years old.
Don’t be stupid
, she scolded
herself.
Don’t even think about this. Go home!
But another
part of her mind ignored this advice. It was thinking about how if
this story had been about anybody but Dex, she’d have considered it
all more clearly. She’d have begun at the beginning, with his past,
his home life. Dex still had family, she knew that, although he’d
rarely talked about them with her. He’d met her own parents a few
times before they’d died within a year of each other. Jay had been
a late child in their life. The legacy they’d left her had bought
the flat that she and Dex had shared. Now, it seemed odd that she
hadn’t met his family, or at least learned more about them. Why had
Dex kept her away from them? It wasn’t that he’d been embarrassed
about his roots. Was this part of what Jez had alluded to in the
restaurant that night? She knew Dex’s family name was Banner, and
where his home town was: Torton; in the north east of England. It
was a coastal town, but not a resort. She could afford a day or so,
couldn’t she? Didn’t she owe it to herself to delve into this
story? She didn’t feel weak or upset, but curious and intrigued.
All she needed was an overnight bag.

Just as Dex had
once intuited, Jay was as guilty as many city-dwellers of thinking
that once beyond the nebulous bounds of London, travellers entered
a kind of cultural hinterland, a place where people watched
sullenly from behind their fences and, in private, might well eat
their dead. She drove along the M1, weaving dangerously from lane
to lane in an attempt to outwit the ponderous flow of the traffic.
The sky above the tarmac was too big and oppressive; patches of
pale but intense blue, a backdrop to a burst of silver-edged
clouds. The horizon seemed to be outlined in India ink.

Jay felt as if she was on her
way to an assignation fraught with danger and exhilaration; the
danger perhaps being the risk of discovery. She’d left cryptic
messages on Gus’ answer-phone, trying to make it sound like she was
off on some humdrum job, the details of which were too tedious to
relate. She’d be away overnight, but would be back in the
morning.

She was driving to the
mysterious north; the direction of darkness and cold. She imagined
grey-clad people hugging secrets beneath their heavy clothing, like
rags against a wound. She was a bright southern spirit, coming to
cast her light over their shadows, eager to penetrate and
understand. Her mission possessed a mythic quality.

By two o’clock, she’d left the
motorways behind, and was driving up an A road, where fields stared
away on either side to a flat horizon. She wanted to get a feel of
the landscape, move away from the hectic scream of hurry and panic
that she felt must be expressing itself silently within every car
on the motorway. Light drenched the land, golden as winter soup,
ambered with a memory of summer.

She lost herself in back-streets
of northern towns, looking for stout women with folded arms on
doorsteps, whey-faced children playing in the roads. There was none
of that; only the signs that interior decorators had surged across
the landscape of back to back houses, armed with neo-Victorian
wallpaper prints, and paint-strippers, and rag-rolled paint. She
was seeking the source: the source of Dex. But she was only at the
outer gate of the underworld. He had not risen up from restructured
miners’ cottages, but the bleak and terrible circle of a
mid-century council estate; a place where decorators could arm
themselves only with bull-dozers and excavators, and tons of salt
to sow the land clean.

The afternoon was dying by the
time she drove past the sign saying ‘Welcome to Torton’; it had a
tired, unconvincing appearance, seeing as it was situated near the
entrance to a modern industrial estate, where soulless cyclopean
buildings bulked without feature against the sky.

The High Street consisted of
fish and chip shops, building societies and a depressing array of
boarded up shops, although Jay caught sight of the glare of lights
from a modest shopping mall up a side street. She pulled into the
car park of a high-flanked old pub called The Ship that advertised
bed and breakfast on a shabby, hand-written notice in its front
window.

She entered the building through
a complicated arrangement of narrow doors and found herself in a
dingy bar that smelled of stale beer and cigarette smoke. The
interior had a mildly maritime theme, with netting, old life-belts,
glass balls and lobster pots gathering dust up in every corner of
the ceiling. Jay smiled to herself, wondering whether anyone ever
stayed here for their holidays. It seemed unlikely. She imagined
the odd couple might book a room for a week. They’d be called
something like Ruth and Ernie, and would have a thin, pallid child
with a chest complaint. Mainly, however, The Ship had to be a haunt
of diminished travelling salesmen, working away from home.