Touch (30 page)

On the TV a player had folded, his last few chips taken by a rival. The crowd cheered, the presenter whooped as the broken contestant walked away to the swirl of golden lights. I let myself out, leaving all as I had found it.

Coyle sat where I had left him, and I was surprised.

The gun was in his lap, his head against the side of the staircase, his breathing long and ragged. He half-turned his head as I approached. “Find… what you need?” Words came hard and slow. I helped him to his feet, supporting him gingerly, my hands either side of his chest.

“Yes. Put the gun away.”

“Thought you wanted… me to shoot someone.”

“I’ve been this nurse for less than five minutes. People lose five minutes all the time. It’s late, the dead of night. She can imagine that we came, imagine that we went, imagine that she imagined it. It’s better that way.”

“You do this a lot?” he asked, tucking the gun beneath the jacket draped loosely across his shoulders.

“Not habitually. Hold this.”

He took the plastic bag I offered, out of instinct rather than choice. Offer a hand to shake, a bag to hold; do it fast enough, people don’t think. As his fingers closed about the handle, my fingers closed about his and with a deep breath I

looked up into the nurse’s eyes as she staggered and swayed.

Felt the pain pound through my body, nearly knocking me down.

Gripped the plastic bag tighter in my hand, turned and walked away.

In the clinic upstairs the TV played, the clock ticked, the lights burned, and nothing had changed between this minute and the last.

Back in the van.

I cut the man down who I’d suspended by his hands from a coat hook, and as his fingers came free, I jumped, faster than he could swing.

Coyle slumped to the floor as I spluttered dirty wool and pulled the balaclava from between my lips. My arms ached, my wrists were stung from a silent fight I’d had against my restraints. I eased Coyle on to his back, pulled the blanket over him once again, breathed, I have sedatives. I have painkillers.

Fuck your drugs, he replied, though I didn’t think he felt the bravery in his words.

I drove a few miles, parked in an empty car park behind a shuttered warehouse where the CCTV cameras would not roam, settled down to work. I slung the first bag of blood from the same hook on the ceiling to which I had been tied. Peeled back the dressing from his wound, shone a torch into the bloody mess. Entry wound only, low calibre, I could still see the crunched-up end of the bullet gleaming near the surface of the skin. In the dark Coyle’s hand grabbed my arm by the sleeve, then remembered its repulsion and slowly let go. “You… know anything about medicine?” he asked.

“Sure. Somewhere there’s someone with most of a degree I earned.”

“That doesn’t comfort me.”

I swapped the bandages, left the bullet there. “Morphine?”

“No.”

“It’s your body.”

I felt his glare at the back of my neck as I climbed into the driver’s seat.

A service station on a winding motorway through the mountains.

Coyle didn’t sleep, but neither did he speak, wrapped in blankets in the back of the van.

My body didn’t carry money. Guns, knives – no cash.

I went into the service station anyway, ordered black coffee, two croque monsieurs. When I reached the bleary-eyed woman serving behind the counter, I put my coffee down, caught her by the hand. My former host swayed, dizzy and confused, and I opened the drawer of the till, grabbed a bundle of euros, pressed it into his fist.

His eyes had just about regained their focus, enough to look at me, to register my skin on his, before I jumped back.

I handed the cashier a twenty-euro note, and she seemed surprised to find her till already open, but looking into my smiling face she shook herself and asked no questions.

I perched on a cold metal bench beneath a red slate awning and let the coffee cool, untouched, by my side. A wet yellow sun was beginning to push up from the horizon, tiny and angry against a drained grey sky. It seemed a morning into which no colour could creep, try as it might. Low mist clung to the grass at the edge of the tarmac. Fat lorries grumbled away from the petrol pumps, engines roaring up to speed as they slipped on to the motorway.

I finished my sandwich and turned the mobile phone back on.

It took a while, settled down, showed a text message:
Do you like what you see?

And then another, sent a few minutes later, its sender unable to resist:
This one’s for you
.

Smiley face.

A many-chinned driver, his padded red jacket flapping around his belly, passed me by. I asked him for the time, and as he made to answer caught his wrist, jumped, took the mobile phone from the proffered, unresisting hand, dropped it into my pocket, jumped back.

Less than five seconds.

Three, at a pinch.

I still felt my host’s dizziness from my last departure.

Six thirty a.m., the driver told me when he stopped swaying. Better get moving before the traffic thickens.

In the gents’ toilet I slipped into a cubicle, rolled up my sleeve, found a vein and pushed ten millilitres of sedative into my veins. This done, I stepped out, walked up to a man at the urinal and, speech already slurring, said, “Hit me.”

He half-turned, so I grabbed him and

switched

trousers still around my knees, I hit him as hard as I could.

I was a big man, and what I lacked in regular exercise, I made up for with mass. Besides, the other guy was sedated.

He really didn’t stand a chance.

Dawn in a French service station.

I look for a car.

Not a lorry – too many people have vested interests in lorries making it to their final destination. Night staff coming off shift are ideal, but it takes switches through

truck driver, breath stinking of mints, to

policeman, back heavy, an ache all down my left side, to

cleaning lady

ah, the cleaning lady. Blue apron, dyed black hair, pale skin, thin arms, she’s finished mopping the floor, and as I pause and check her pockets I find that I am the owner of a wallet with forty euros in, I have no pictures of family or loved ones, my mobile is off, ancient and unloved, and I am – blessed be – carrying a set of car keys.

I leave my mop against the wall, and collect my coffee and sandwiches from the bench on my way out.

Coyle said, “Who the hell are you?”

“I am Irena Skarbek,” I replied primly. “I am a cleaning lady.”

“I can see you’re a cleaning lady – the question is why you’re a cleaning lady.”

“Can’t use this van, could be tracked. Dumped the phone in a lorry driver’s pocket, hope he’s going a long way at questionable speed.”

“Aquarius will guess you ditched the phone.”

I levered him up “A live signal is a live signal and should be followed no matter what. Even if it only buys us a few extra hours, I’m happy. Now, what kind of car do you think a woman like me drives?”

I drove a second-hand Renault that clunked and thumped its way on cracked suspension down the motorway. A plastic crucifix bounced irritatingly from the driver’s mirror. A whole family of furry cats nodded their approval out of the back windscreen. The upholstery smelt of cigarette smoke, the gear stick was a little too stiff. On the tiny back seat my bags of medical equipment and bloody blankets lay, tumbled between collections of old CDs and battered maps.

Coyle sat in the passenger seat, head back, legs stretched, and watched my irritation grow. At last he said, “Shall I…?” gesturing at the crucifix.

“If you wouldn’t mind.” He tucked it into the glove compartment, then hesitated, staring inside. “Anything interesting?” I asked.

“What? No. Not really. I… don’t usually steal other people’s cars.”

“I do. All the time. Do I have a driving licence in there?”

“Does it matter if you don’t?”

“I like to find all the paperwork. Makes it easier if you’re going to stick around.”

“Are you going to stick around?”

I shifted in my seat, testing the weight of my arms, heaviness of my back. “The body’s tired,” I admitted, “but so am I, so that’s not really relevant. I haven’t noticed any major muscular or skeletal problems; I’m not wearing a medical bracelet or carrying any sort of inhaler or EpiPen.”

“EpiPen?”

“Bees, nuts, lactose, yeast, wheat, prawns – the list of things that can kill you is not to be underestimated. Check the glove compartment.”

“I don’t see anything like that.”

“In that case, I imagine I’m sticking around. Sandwich?”

“I think,” he said, slow and careful as I gestured at the still-steaming croque monsieur, “I might puke.”

“No sandwich?”

“You haven’t been shot much, have you?”

“I’ve been shot a lot. Far more than you, judging by your scars. I simply didn’t hang around for the medical after effects.”

“Piss to your sandwich,” he explained.

We drove in silence.

Then, “Why Irena?”

“She had a car.”

“Is that it?”

“She was coming off shift. After a night shift most people go straight to bed. That’s eight or nine hours in which no one should be expecting contact from her. I can do a lot in eight hours.”

“That’s it? That’s the extent of your… discrimination?”

“If you’re asking whether I would rather be a glamorous mid-twenty-something with perky breasts, a healthy bank account and pain-free teeth – yes. But they don’t tend to hang around in service stations off the A75.”

Coyle seemed too tired to manage his usual contempt.

I turned on the radio, flicked through a few stations, settled on unobtrusive jazz. The traffic coming from the north had headlights on, though the sun was getting high. Black clouds were striped with lines of rain. Roadside billboards advertised garden centres, fresh milk, the new season’s clothes, crude political views and second-hand Fiats.

“Why are you helping me?”

Coyle’s voice was heavy. His head rolled, eyes staring without seeing at the oncoming traffic. I turned the windscreen wipers up as the first of the rain began to thicken against the glass, slowed for the rising sheets of mist from the rear wheels of the cars ahead.

“Sentiment?” I suggested, and he hacked a coughing disdain. “You could help me.”

“I could kill you.”

“Not right now.”

“I… have killed you. Killed your host. You talked about… retribution before.”

“It’s crossed my mind.”

“What’s changed?”

“I don’t kill the foot soldiers. Not unless I have to. Also…”

“Also?”

“I spent a lot of time wearing your face. It would be disquieting to break it now.”

“You told the man… the nurse, back by the stream.”

“Samir?”

“Him. You told him that, given the circumstances in which he found himself, he had to weigh up the risks of his actions and decide whether to stay, whether to run. Why aren’t you running?”

“Because I don’t think you’re as primed to shoot me as you once were.”

“You stole my body.”

“I gave it back.”

“Left me handcuffed to a radiator.”

“And told the police where to find you before you could starve to death. Really, if a pair of silver scales were to weigh up the justice of our causes, you’d find that my motivation to do you harm greatly exceeds any valid reason you could ever have to kill me. You murdered Josephine, would have killed more just to kill me. You gunned down Janus without a second thought, kidnapped me in the middle of dinner, and when I go to great lengths to keep you alive after your own side shoot you, all I get is rampant hostility and criticism. But if that doesn’t satisfy you then here it is: Aquarius lied to you. They faked the Galileo file. They sent you across the world to gun down me and mine, but the one monster who really deserves his fate they left untouched. And when you get a little nervous on the subject, they try and kill you too. So to hell with the why and wherefore of our little arrangement. It’s what you need. It’s how you stay alive. And there’s the end of it.”

His teeth slid across his lower lip as he thought, eyes tight, fingers clawed. “I… shot Marigare.”

“Mari…”

“The man who shot me. I wondered if… he might be…”

“No. He wasn’t Galileo.”

“No. I know. He was… one of us.”

“He tried to kill you.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know why?”

“No.”

“He said he was following orders.”

“I know.”

“I wouldn’t take it personally. Galileo is Aquarius, and Aquarius doesn’t even know it. Maybe the person who ordered you dead can’t even remember doing it. Then again, someone has to take responsibility for following the orders, as well as giving the command. Either way, you fired in self-defence, so this one’s probably not going to the top of the sin list.”

His eyes flickered to me, fingers clenching. “You… want to find him? You want to kill Galileo?”

“Yes. I rather think I do.”

“Why?”

“Deeds done. Friends remembered. But mostly, I think, because he wants me. We have both… taken action against the other, in our times, and now it appears that our relationship has a logic all of its own. It would be unwise of me not to respond accordingly. He gives us a bad name.”

“Kepler —”

“Irena,” I corrected automatically.

“— I think you did that yourself.”

I said not a word.

On the radio a caller was shouting over the airwaves. He had a lot to shout about. Taxes – too high. Social security – too low. Hours of work – too long. Healthcare – too expensive.

What was his suggestion?

That people should try harder, of course! He’d tried his entire life and now he was living in a one-bedroom flat above a crêperie with not fifty euros to his name. He’d fought and he’d lost, but only others were to blame.

Thank you, caller, said the presenter as he cut him off. You sound like you’ve got some interesting stories to tell.

Then Coyle said, “You said you understood.”

“What?”

“On the phone. You told… it that you knew why he ordered your host’s… Josephine’s death. You said you knew.”

“Yes.”

“Why. Tell me why.”

“Because I loved her.”

“Is that it?”

“Yes. I’ve known Galileo for nearly a hundred years. He – it – loves to be loved. It is all that we ever want. We are beautiful and we are wealthy, and people love us for it, but it is not us that is loved, merely the life we are wearing. I loved Josephine. I was… happy when I was her. I was beautiful as Josephine. I was a person, when I was her, I
was
Josephine. Not some shadow playing a part, but her, whole and true, a truth that was more whole than anything she had been. It’s that that makes beauty. Not leg or skin or breast or face, but wholeness, total and true. I was beautiful as Josephine, and Galileo… hasn’t been beautiful for a very long time. He wanted to be in Edinburgh, needed to be in Miami, and forgot a very long time ago what beautiful really means. That is all.”

Silence a while. Then, “I’m sorry. For Josephine. For your loss.”

I didn’t reply, and he said no more, but when I glanced up from the road there was a wetness in his eyes, and he turned his face away so I might not see any more.

Then he said, “Where are we now?” and his skin was yellow-grey, and his breathing was heavy, and his eyes were low.

And I said, “We’re about to stop,” and realised that this was now the case.

A hotel of little windows and iron walls, framing a car park.

I sat in the driver’s seat for a few minutes and practised copying Irena’s signature off the back of her debit card. It was no substitute for a pin code, but you make do.

The hotel was as close to a motel as the French could manage, though they would never admit to having sunk as low as the Americans in their hospitality. I asked for, and received, the cheapest room they had, and managed to pay for it in cash.

“Checkout is 10 a.m. tomorrow morning,” explained the dull-eyed receptionist as he handed over a small key on a huge tag. “Breakfast is extra.”

“That’s OK. We’ll be long gone.”

The room was up a path of singing flagstones. A single cedar tree leaned over a curious ginger cat, which paused, one paw raised to its mouth like a child caught eating a sweet, to regard us as we staggered by, too much – far too much – of Coyle’s weight draped across my back. Irena Skarbek had many pros, but upper-body strength was not one.

Coyle got blood on the sheets the moment he sank on to the bed. I piled blankets on top of him, fetched water to drink, and water in a jug to clean away the blood from his neck, his face, his hands. I fetched the remainder of my medical supplies from the car, and as I crossed the courtyard, a voice called out, hey you! Are you the cleaning lady? I’ve got a bone to pick with you.

No, I snapped in reply. Try someone else.

“Irena?” Coyle shivered beneath the sheets.

“Yes?”

“Where’s Max?”

“Who’s Max?”

“You were him until you were Irena. What did you do with him?”

“Left him sedated in the service station lavatory. I may have punched him too – only a little.”

“He’s a good man.”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “He was probably following orders too. Sorry about this.” I slipped the needle under his skin, and though his lips curled and his eyes narrowed, he stayed still as the contents of the hypodermic entered his bloodstream. “Fingers,” I said, and he obediently pressed three fingers over the cotton wool I laid over the vein. “Pressure for two minutes.”

“What was it?”

“Sedative. You’re going to have to sleep at some point.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s sleep or dead.”

“I don’t… understand why you need me,” and already his voice was thickening. “You said you had what you needed to take down Aquarius. Why… do you need me?”

I shrugged, swinging my legs up to balance precariously on the corner of bed he wasn’t already inhabiting, leaning back against the wall. “You shot my last ally. And it’s always useful to have an obliging body.”

“Is that what I am?” His eyes were drifting shut, his lips barely shaping the sounds.

“No. You’re… something else.”

He perhaps wanted to speak, but no words came.

I doubt I’d care for anything he had to say.