Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 133, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 805 & 806, September/October 2008

Proof of Love by Mick Herron

© 2008 by Mick Herron

In a starred review of the Herron novel Why We Die, PW said, “Smart, dogged and never down for the count, Zoë [Boehm] is a fine addition to the ranks of female PIs.” Indeed she is, and she’s here this month in a case involving her P.I. husband Joe Silvermann. Mr. Herron’s latest stand-alone thriller, Reconstruction (Soho 2008), also drew rave reviews from PW and the New York Times.

Some while ago — a few years before he died — Joe Silvermann chose a slow midweek morning to do some heavy shifting round the office; clear away the bits of orange peel and chewed pencil ends from under the filing cabinet. So he was wearing jeans and a Sticky Fingers T-shirt, and had built up a sweat, and hadn’t shaved — was everything, in fact, that the well-dressed private detective shouldn’t be when four million pounds came calling.

Or forty million, you wanted to get technical. If last year’s Rich List could be trusted.

“Is this a bad time?”

Joe looked down at his grimy clothing. “I’ve been undercover. But I’m free right now.”

He showed Russell Candy into the inner sanctum, which was more of a mess than when he’d started. Zoë was out. Joe had given up asking. When she was here, she was brain-deep in the computer, and when she wasn’t she was somewhere else.

“I should have made an appointment.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Candy. For you, I have time.”

Candy didn’t look surprised that Joe knew who he was — Oxford didn’t have so many residents with (British pounds)40 million-plus that the local paper ignored — and even less so that Joe had time for him. It would be an attitude he was used to. He was fifty or thereabouts, not much older than Joe, and his face was deeply lined, as if each million had scored its passage there. Anyone else, or anyone else with his money, might have done something about his hair, too, which had a gone-tomorrow look, and was flecked with what was probably dandruff, though Joe wasn’t a hair expert. His suit looked expensive, or at least fresh on, and his shoes were buffed to reflective glory.

Joe plucked a jar of instant from the shelf in the corner and waggled it invitingly. “I’m out of the real stuff,” he apologised, and then added, “Coffee,” in case Russell Candy thought he meant heroin. “Take a seat? How can I help?”

Candy took the visitor’s chair. “No coffee for me, thanks.”

“Tea? Water?”

“Nothing. Thank you.”

So Joe decided he didn’t want coffee either, and sat behind his desk instead.

“But you need a detective,” he said.

“Oxford Investigations,” Candy said. “You’re in the book.”

“We have a growing reputation.”

“And you’re handy. I live just up the road.”

Joe nodded, as if that had been part of his plan. “I’ve been here awhile. How can I help you, Mr. Candy? You have a problem?”

“It’s not a problem as such. More like an errand.”

“An errand.”

“A delivery. A collection and a delivery.”

“Like a courier service.”

“Pretty much. But I’ll pay your usual rates, don’t worry about that.”

Joe said, “Oh, I’m not worried, Mr. Candy. I’m sure you can afford my rates.”

“Good.”

“I’m just wondering why, if you need a courier service, you hire a private detective.”

“Well,” said Candy. “There’s the thing.”

Last time Joe had seen Russell Candy’s picture in the paper he was getting married, though without the caption you’d have thought he’d been giving his daughter away. There were eight years between Joe himself and Zoë, or six once you’d rounded her up and rounded him down. You could adjust for decades in Candy’s case, there’d still be a twenty-year gap. It was to do with money, of course, unless it was to do with whatever quality had allowed Candy to earn the money in the first place. But in the long run, it was to do with money. Joe wondered what it would be like, being Russell-Candy rich. So rich you not only didn’t have to worry about your future, but could afford to stop regretting your past.

Anyway, a good slab of Candy’s wealth sat on Joe’s desk now, in a padded envelope. Which made Joe a lot richer than an hour ago, even if the money wasn’t his.

Odd thing, he thought, digging scissors from a drawer. If Joe had been, whatever, a geography teacher or something, it wasn’t likely a passing millionaire would have trusted him with — he sliced the envelope, spilling cash onto the desk — what looked like many thousands of pounds. But being a private detective put him in a world where such things happened. To be sure, Candy had told him not to open the envelope — it wasn’t like he was pretending it didn’t have money in it, but that had definitely been the instruction — only how Joe worked, he had a mantra: What would Marlowe do? Would Philip Marlowe have opened the envelope? Hell, yes. So that’s what Joe had done, and here it all was: bundled twenties and bundled fifties; all in used notes, obviously. Nobody wanted clean money these days. It took him half an hour to count, and the number he came up with — or at least, the number more or less halfway between the different totals he reached — was £100,000. More than he’d ever seen in one place.

Joe sticky-taped the envelope together, put it in a carrier bag, and went home to get changed.

“You give him the envelope, he gives you a package. You bring the package to me.” This is what Candy had said after giving Joe the envelope.

“All this seems straightforward.”

“Good.”

Candy had paused, and his hand went fishing in his jacket pocket, but came out empty. It found his other hand, and they settled for a nap in his lap. Ex-smoker, Joe guessed. Dipping for his cigarettes out of habit, then remembering he didn’t carry them anymore.

Joe said, “But there is a problem.”

“Really?”

“You’ll know that blackmailers rarely take just one bite.”

“I never said—”

“Mr. Candy, please. I give him an envelope, he gives me a package? It’s a blackmail scenario. I’m not being censorious. I’m just wondering, why bring a third party into it? You’re not able to do this exchange yourself?”

Rather pleased with himself, he leaned back in his chair and waited.

“I want to know who he is,” Candy said.

“I see,” said Joe, who thought he probably did.

“You’re a detective, you should be able to... tail him. Find out where he lives, who he is.”

“I can do that. But other things — say, threats — I don’t do,” Joe told him. It came out like an apology. Much of what Joe said did, which was a good reason for not doing threats. “Violence either,” he added, perhaps unnecessarily.

“You won’t need to. Once I know who’s behind this, I can make sure it doesn’t happen again. But there’ll be no violence, Mr. Silvermann. I’m a businessman, not a gangster.”

“This is good to know,” Joe said.

When he wasn’t undercover, or shifting furniture, Joe dressed conservatively: shirt and tie, usually; fawn chinos; a tweedy-type jacket he’d long been trying to upgrade from without success. A few years ago, when he and Zoë were still holidaying together, he’d snagged a bargain at an Italian street market: a leather jacket black and shiny as night, with a strap around the collar that buckled separately. Zoë had paid eleven times as much for something similar in a high-end shop. His had fallen apart the following spring, and she was still wearing hers. But despite all that, Joe had liked Italy, once he’d worked out that zebra crossings were designated accident spots, not safe places to cross.

So he was wearing shirt and tie, fawn chinos, and tweedy jacket when he got back to the office and found Zoë in residence: bent over a monitor, as usual. The information superhighway — wasn’t that what people were saying? Joe had no complaints about the new technology, but was well aware of his own place in it: by the side of the road, his thumb in the air.

“Hey, Zoë,” he said to his — technically — wife.

“I’m busy, Joe.”

“With credit checks,” he said helpfully.

“And reference checks.”

“And reference checks.”

“Which pay the bills.”

“You don’t get bored? Staring at the screen all day, not to mention what it’s doing to your eyes?”

She didn’t reply.

“Because it’s not a secret, you can damage your health sitting at the computer all day long. Your posture suffers.”

“You have a problem with my posture, Joe?”

“I’m only saying.”

“You think I slouch? I don’t stand straight enough?”

“You stand fine, Zoë. You always have. I’m just worried you don’t get enough fresh air.”

“So now I’m pale and wasted, right? You don’t like my pasty complexion?”

“Can I get you a cup of coffee, Zoë?”

“We’re out of coffee.”

“I think there’s some instant.”

“What do you want, Joe? I’m busy.”

“We’ve got a job.”

“ ‘We’?”

“A piece of proper detective work.”

He was looking over her shoulder as he said this — at the screen on which it was so easy to go back and delete what had just been keyed — and thought: Push straight on, or beat a retreat? Push straight on.

Zoë said, “Prop—”

But Joe was way ahead of her: “Not proper, no, stupid word. ‘Traditional’ is what I meant to say. Yes, traditional. You know, out on the mean streets, dealing with actual flesh and blood and real live criminals. The kind of thing we always wanted to do, remember?”

“I remember the kind of thing you always wanted to do, Joe. Trouble is, it had nothing in common with real life.” She pushed her chair from the desk, and Joe had to step aside smartish not to be run over. She looked up at him. “If you want this to be a success, you could do a little less wittering about mean streets, and a lot more studying what I do. Before you wind up on the wrong end of a credit check yourself.”

“Blackmail,” he said.

“It’s not blackmail, it’s common sense.”

“No, blackmail. That’s the job.”

“Doing it or stopping it?”

Joe had to think about that. “Well, paying it, technically. Then making sure it doesn’t happen again.”

She pursed her lips.

“It’ll be a lot more fun than credit checks,” he unwisely added.

“Which provide eighty percent of our income.”

“Yes, but—”

“And of which I do one hundred percent.”

“It’s not a competition, Zoë.”

“If it was, I’d win.”

She pushed herself back to her keyboard and began stabbing it viciously; possibly randomly. The screen underwent various transformations. It was like looking through fifteen windows at once.

Joe waited until the clock in the monitor’s corner clicked onto the next minute, then said, “Zoë? I can’t do it by myself.”

He liked to think of this as his trump card.

Her fingers had stopped rattling, and she was using the mouse instead: clicking here, clicking there. But Joe was pretty sure she was slowing down. It was just a matter of time.

The clock in the corner turned over.

Zoë said, “I bloody hope he’s paying well.”

It was dark in South Parks. A lot of private detectives were former policemen, or had wanted to be policemen but had failed to make the grade, but Joe wasn’t among them: Being a policeman would have meant working nights, and Joe didn’t do so well in the dark. Which was one of the reasons he’d told Zoë he couldn’t manage this on his own; another being, he wasn’t sure he could manage this on his own. Tailing someone — an entry-level P.I. skill, if the books could be believed — was a lot harder than it looked. You couldn’t count on the bad guy being unobservant. On the other hand, if you could, a lot of novels would be short stories.

He was hunkered down on a bench: that was the word. The jacket had given way to an overcoat, and Joe had his arms wrapped round him; less as a shield from the cold than to keep Candy’s padded envelope secure — it was too big to fit his pocket. “Too much money to fit my pockets.” It sounded like the opposite to a blues song. The bench was at the top of the long slope running down to St. Clement’s, and there were trees behind him, and a brick toilet off to his left, and further in that direction the gate that was locked by now, so anyone turning up to collect the envelope would have to scramble over the railings, unless he was already hiding among the trees. Joe had considered doing that himself — the railings were high, and looked apt to cause horrible injury — but in the end was less worried about impaling himself than being found lurking by one of the groundsmen. “I’m a private detective,” he’d have had to explain. “I’m a sex pervert,” they’d have interpreted. From the bench, looking down towards the city, the streets were a blur of traffic and misty movement. A dog barked, too far off to be a worry.

“I meet him on the bench at midnight. I give him the envelope. He gives me the package.”

This was what he’d said to Russell Candy.

“And then you find out where he goes. His car registration. An address. Something to know him by.”

“This is personal, Mr. Candy.”

“What do you mean?”

Joe had said: “It’s not business. You’re a rich man, forgive me. There’s nothing wrong with being rich. Sometimes it means making enemies, but that’s not what’s happening here, is it?”

“You sound very sure of that.”

Joe shrugged. “You’re a rich man,” he repeated. “For business-type problems, you’ll have people. But you come to me.”

Even Zoë would have admitted, this was Joe at his best. It helped that he looked like Judd Hirsch, who’d been in that old show Taxi. Not a dead ringer, but the same kind face. People often wanted to confide in him. He made friends the way other people make appointments. And sitting in that half-tidied office — the filing cabinet plonked mid floor like a half-arsed installation — Russell Candy, he could tell, was having what Zoë once called a Joe moment, which in this particular case meant forgetting that he was rich and that Joe was for hire. They were just two men sharing a trouble.

So Candy had told Joe about his wife’s brief movie career.

Joe said, “The thing is, Mr. Candy, this is not like buying a manuscript. It’s like buying a book. Somebody else can still buy it, too. There are bookshops all over.” Deciding he’d taken the analogy as far as was useful, he added, “Video shops, too.”

“It’s eight years old. Seven, anyway. She used a false name, and wore a sparkly wig. It’s not like anyone would recognise her. Not without being told.” Candy paused. “What I’m buying is his silence. That’s what he’s selling.”

Joe said, “But an actual movie, a film, if it’s out there in distribution—”

Candy said, “There weren’t many copies made. Between three and four hundred. A lot’ll have gone abroad — Europe, the Far East — and besides, how many eight-year-old videos do you have? Most’ll have worn out years ago. And this market... there’s a lot of turnover.”

It would have cost him too much to say it, Joe thought. This market: porn. “He provided a lot of information, your blackmailer.”

“You think I’m about to give him this” — this being the envelope — “without good reason? I wasn’t born yesterday.”

He said, “Mr. Candy. Forgive me, I don’t wish to step on toes. But is your wife aware of what you’re doing?”

“No.”

“So you haven’t, ah, verified—”

“I knew about the film, Mr. Silvermann. She told me before we were married.”

“Oh.”

“She didn’t have to. I could have walked away, called the wedding off. You know how much bravery that must have taken?”

Joe said, “I couldn’t begin to guess, Mr. Candy,” and meant every word.

Candy leaned forward. “She was nineteen. And hurting for money. I can remember what that felt like.”

“The money part, me too,” Joe agreed. “Nineteen’s a bit of a stretch.”

“You’ve got to allow for gender differences,” Candy said. “Girls growing up faster, I mean. Plus the fact that everybody gets older faster now anyway. So Faye’s nineteen was probably more like your or my twenty-five. Anyway, that’s not really the point. She wasn’t a bad girl, is what I’m saying. It wasn’t like this was a step on a road she was taking. It was an offer made at a time she really needed...”

“An offer?” Joe suggested.

“She saw it as an opportunity. You know, like it was going to get her into movies, make her a star. I don’t blame her. And I’m not just saying that because I love her. I haven’t always been rich. I know the things being poor can make you do.”

Joe nodded wisely. “Half the world’s woes,” he said. “Did I say half? Ninety percent. Caused by not having what we need when we need it.” Candy was still leaning forward, his hands splayed flat on Joe’s desk. Joe reached out and patted one of them. “You’re right, though, Mr. Candy. It was bravery itself, her confession.”

“Oh, tell me about it. Tell me. I treasure the moment. It’s how I know she loves me.” He eyed Joe as if Joe were his favourite bartender. “I’m worth a lot, Mr. Silvermann.”

“Please. Joe.”

“I’m worth a lot, Joe. A hell of a lot. But take that away, I’m a catch? I’ve never been much in the looks department. Since meeting Faye I’ve been making an effort, but what you see is how far I’ve got. She tells me how to dress, and I still look like an accident in a charity shop. But you know and I know, I could have married years ago. It’s just, I never met a woman I wanted who I could believe wanted me and not my money.”

Because he paused, and because Joe was still there, Joe said, “I understand, Mr. Candy.”

“If Faye was just after my money, she’d never have told me about this.”

“I understand.”

Candy said, “He sent me a photocopy. Of the video cover. It’s her. Sparkly wig, but it’s her. He saw our wedding photo in the local paper. Says he recognised the blushing bride. She — Faye — she has a tattoo. Small, very tasteful.” He tapped his left shoulder with his right hand. “It’s there. It’s there.”

And then he’d started to cry.

So now it was nearly midnight, and here was Joe on a bench. Soon this blackmailer would turn up, and Joe would take the video and give him the envelope in return, making the nineteen-year-old Faye Candy’s sole movie one of the priciest properties he’d ever heard of. Not that she’d been Faye Candy at the time, of course. And anyway, had used a false name. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? If he, Joe Silvermann, ever made a dirty movie, he was pretty sure he’d do it cloaked in anonymity, even if he wasn’t cloaked in anything else.

“He gives me the video, I give him the envelope,” he murmured. Not that he was in danger of forgetting the procedure; he was just spooked by the dark, and the nearness of trees.

And then would come the tricky bit, which was finding out where the blackmailer went. A car registration. An address. Something to know him by.

He’d thought he was alert; ready for the slightest clue. A twig snapping, or a rustling of paper. But when someone arrived out of nowhere, and sat down hard next to him, Joe yelped.

“You Candy’s man?”

That’s what Joe thought he said. And in the split second that followed, he had a near-perfect vision of the fiasco about to be born: one in which Joe, mistaken for a local candyman, ended up holding a few grubby fivers, while this dopehead wandered off with what he expected was a bag of crack, but was in fact a beautiful fortune. The next moment, thankfully, blew that nightmare away.

“From Russell Candy, yeah?”

Joe said, “And you’re the blackmailer.”

As mentioned, it was dark. The faraway lights didn’t do much to reveal the newcomer, beyond that he was male, about Joe’s height — though slenderer — and fuzzily chinned, as if a beard were considering its options. Joe couldn’t really tell what he was wearing. Jeans, probably. A jacket of some sort. His voice quavered, so he was possibly nervous. If there was an accent, Joe couldn’t place it.

“Did you bring the money?”

“That’s why I’m here,” Joe said, without reaching for it.

“Don’t spin this out, man. We just make the exchange, and go our ways.”

“You could be anyone.”

“Didn’t I just say Russell Candy? You think that’s some sort of cosmic coincidence?”

Joe said, “Do you want to show me the merchandise?” He wasn’t sure why he’d said that. Merchandise. “The film, I mean?” he amended.

The man — he was a young man, Joe realised; he had the fluidity of movement of younger men — rustled about in the folds of his jacket. Then he was handing Joe a videotape-shaped object, wrapped in a plastic carrier bag.

Joe put his hand to it, but the man didn’t release his grip. “The money,” he said.

“How do I know it’s the right film?”

“You got a machine handy?”

Joe didn’t have an answer for that, so did what he usually did at such moments: said nothing, and waited.

After a moment, the young man pulled the bag back, and rustled some more. Then a torch snapped on, one of those pencil-sized lights, and Joe — once temporary blindness passed — was looking at a video box: Bedroom Stories ran the title, over a picture of a glitter-wigged girl trying to look mean; topless, but with her arms folded over her breasts. What might have been a dead moth decorated one shoulder. Trudii Foxx, it read below the title: two is, two xes. A false identity, like Russell Candy said. Though Faye Candy wasn’t, when you came down to it, that bad a blue-movie name itself.

“Seen enough?” The young man turned the torch off as he spoke.

Joe said, “What guarantee do we have this is the end of it?”

“My word.”

“Excuse me, but you’re a blackmailer. Maybe your word is not so bankable. How do we know, a month down the line, you won’t be back for more?”

“Because I won’t have the movie, will I?”

Joe opened his mouth, then closed it again: It’s not the movie, it’s the knowledge it exists. What we’re buying is your silence. But it was not his plan to outline any wiggles that this blackmailer hadn’t discovered himself. So he said instead, “And how do we know you haven’t made copies?”

“Do I look like a... technician?”

“I’m not sure what you’re asking me.”

“How would I copy a video? It’s not like taping off the telly. You’d need a special machine to record a videotape.”

“I think maybe you can do it with two video machines.”

“Really?”

“I think so. With some kind of cable.” Joe wasn’t a technician either, but he was pretty sure this could be done. “You connect the two machines with the cable, then put a blank tape in one, and play the film in the other, and bish-bosh. Just like recording it off, as you say, the telly.”

Both men considered this for a while. Then the blackmailer said, “Would you have to actually be playing the film? While you recorded it?”

“That, I’m not sure about.”

“Okay.”

Joe tightened his grip on the parcel.

The blackmailer said, “So, anyway. The price.”

“I have it here.”

“I figured. You going to hand it over?”

Joe had to ask. “Are you proud of yourself?”

“I need the money, man.”

“We all need money. We get jobs, we save up.”

“Look. I saw a picture in the paper, this rich bloke getting married. I recognised her from a dirty film. It was an opportunity, and I don’t get so many of those. All right?”

He remembered Candy saying something like that. She saw it as an opportunity. There was maybe a moral here, or some kind of mirror-imaging, that might repay thought later, but for the moment all he could do was fish the envelope out from beneath his coat and hand it over.

“Thanks, man.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Joe began, but he was alone by the second syllable.

That far-off dog barked again. After a while Joe got to his feet and went off to tackle the railings once more.

There were guidebooks available — etiquette for beginners, that sort of thing — but Joe doubted any of them covered this setup: your knock answered by the star of the porn film you were clutching in your spare hand. Faye Candy was sporting a lot more clothes than on the video’s cover, and had shed the sparkly wig, but was, no question, the same girl. Eight years older, but you’d not have guessed it. If her husband’s face wore the marks of four decades spent shinnying up the money tree, Faye’s was clear and fresh, as if her greatest struggle to date had been finishing Heidi. Looked, in fact, like butter wouldn’t melt, Joe thought, before pushing away an unsolicited memory of Last Tango in Paris.

This morning, Mrs. Candy was wearing black leggings that stopped three inches above her ankle and what looked like a man’s shirt: doubtless her husband’s. It was collarless and stripey. Blue on white. Unwigged, her dark hair dropped to shoulder length, and her skin, though white, looked prone to blooming pink at a moment’s notice.

“I’m, er—”

“You’re Joe?”

“Yes. Of course I am.”

“Russell’s expecting you. He’s in his study.”

The line should have thrilled him more — he’d never called on anyone who had a study. But he felt awkward in her presence, and suspected that the tape in his carrier bag glowed like phosphorus. When she led him down the hall, she moved with what Joe could only call grace, to which various adjectives jostled to attach themselves, lithe winning by a head. He felt like a heffalump, tromping in her wake. She was tall for a woman, and slim of build, though that shirt (he hadn’t been able to help noticing) didn’t do all it might to conceal her charms. “Slim of build” didn’t cover the whole picture.

He hadn’t watched the video. Would Philip Marlowe have watched it? The answer, true, got more flexible if you counted Elliott Gould’s shop-soiled version in the Altman movie, but there were rules, so Joe hadn’t watched the video. He’d left it on the table in the sitting room. Taking it into the bedroom would have been a tarnished act.

Come the morning he’d found Zoë in the kitchen, drinking coffee.

“I didn’t hear you coming in.”

“Joe, you wouldn’t hear a brass band coming in.”

It was true, he’d slept heavily. Actually, always did.

“So, last night—”

“Did I follow him?”

“Did you?”

“Did I get an address? A name?”

“You got his name?”

“Am I a detective?”

“What is this, the first to answer a question loses?”

“You’re asking me?” Zoë said.

He’d had to laugh. When it came to finding ways of getting under his skin, Zoë had yet to run out of inspiration, but she could always make him laugh. Or whenever, he amended, she felt like it, she could make him laugh. He was usually glad they were married, and often wondered if they’d one day make it work.

“So...”

“You lose.”

“And for losing, what do I get?”

She’d reached into a pocket and handed him a folded piece of paper: a name, address, phone number, car registration.

“This, this is genius.”

“I followed him, Joe. It was no huge deal.”

It hadn’t even involved scaling those railings. She’d been waiting outside, in her car, all that time.

“And then you hunted him down on your Internet.”

“It’s not entirely my Internet,” she said. “Joe? Did you really give him all that money?”

“You think I kept it?”

“He didn’t stop to check. It could have been cut-up newspaper. You’d still have the video.”

“He insisted,” Joe said. “Candy, I mean. He insisted.”

“I know he’s rich. But that’s plain dumb.”

“I think he saw it as a proof of love. To match his wife’s.”

“Like I say,” Zoë said. “Plain dumb.”

And now Joe was standing outside Russell Candy’s study, the unwatched videotape tucked under his arm. Faye didn’t come in with him; she just opened the door, said, “Darling? Your man for you,” then smiled at Joe, waving him in and closing the door behind him. Stuff to do, Joe supposed; whatever stuff needed doing when you were married to forty million pounds. Perhaps it needed counting.

Russell Candy said, “Mr. Silvermann. I didn’t hear the door.”

“Your lady wife let me in. And it’s Joe, remember?”

“You didn’t—?”

Joe made a zipper motion, finger and thumb to his lips.

“Then, Joe. Come in. Sit down.”

The room was what Joe’d have guessed a study to be: largely book-lined, with a lot of possibly walnut panelling. But it was the photos you noticed. These were all of Candy’s wife: in her wedding dress, at a party, on the deck of a yacht. Only one showed her and Candy together: a studio shot; the groom looking hot and blistered under the lights; Faye radiant, as in all the others. As Joe looked, he realised Candy was staring at him. Or staring, rather, at the package under his arm. Joe handed it to him as he settled into a chair.

“This is—?”

“Yes.”

“And did you—?”

“No.”

Candy closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he was still holding the package. Gingerly, as if it contained a bomb, he removed the videotape from the bag, closing his eyes again briefly as he registered its cover, then slid open a drawer and hid it from view. All this, Joe watched with compassion. None of it could have been easy.

After a moment or two, Candy said, “Thank you, Joe.”

“It was my job. There’s no need for thank-yous.”

“You followed him?”

“I have his address,” Joe said. “His name. A few other details.”

“Who is he?”

“Mr. Candy, are you sure—”

“Like you say. Your job.”

“McKenzie. He is a Mr. Neil McKenzie.” Joe offered a piece of paper across the desk. “You know the name at all?”

Candy thought about it. Decided he didn’t. Shook his head.

“No reason you should,” Joe assured him. “He only knows you through your picture in the paper. And he recognised your wife, of course. But he made no copies of the film.”

“He told you that?”

“I believed him. He didn’t seem — he was not what you’d call a technician.”

“And you’re a good judge of character?”

Joe shrugged modestly. “In my line of work, it’s a bonus.”

“So I won’t be hearing from him again?”

“I wish I could make promises. But a blackmailer, he’s more a jackal than a lion. And you’ve given him one good feed already.”

“But now I know where he lives.” Russell Candy’s hand wrapped itself round Joe’s slip of paper.

A good judge of character would recognise this as a Moment.

Joe said, “Mr. Candy. Russell. You don’t mind?”

“It’s fine.”

“Russell. You will forgive me for asking. We are not friends exactly, of course not. You’re paying for my services.” It struck Joe that this wasn’t the right line, and he changed tack. “But I feel responsibility. I gave you these details, McKenzie’s particulars, so that if he tries his blackmail tricks once more, you can go to the police. This is not just the right thing, Mr. Candy. Russell. It is the only thing.”

“He’s a vile little—”

“He is vile, yes. Maybe not so little, but that’s neither here nor there. And I’m not pretending he doesn’t deserve punishment, but what I am saying, Russell, is that it would be a matter of grave regret. To take vengeance into your own hands, I mean.”

“Trust me. I wouldn’t regret it.”

“Trust me, Russell. You might.”

“Is this part of your service?” An edge entered Candy’s tone: He was a rich, rich man, and Joe was offering him advice? “Am I paying extra for this part?”

But Joe was already showing his palms in surrender. “Please, I didn’t mean to offend. It happens, sometimes, that I get carried away. My wife—”

“You’re married?”

“She’s called Zoë. She likes to remind me of a case, this was a few years ago, when I got arrested while looking for a missing dog. It’s a long story and I won’t worry you with it now, but what I’m saying is that sometimes I go further than I should. Such as giving you unnecessary warnings just now. It’s over-involvement, Russell, that’s all. I don’t wish to see you in awkward situations.”

Candy looked like he felt he was already in one. “I appreciate that, Mr. Silvermann. Joe. Appreciate it in all senses. And I don’t plan to do anything — untoward, anything untoward, with the information you’ve given me. It’s security, that’s all.” He fetched his chequebook from a drawer: not the one he’d deposited the videotape in. “If the bastard returns, I’ll be prepared. And yes, you’re right, it’ll be a matter for the police.” He scribbled a cheque; didn’t even appear to notice the sum he was scrawling. “And I don’t have to ask you—”

“Discretion, of course, it’s my middle name. Though not for banking purposes,” he added. “Thank you,” he said, taking the cheque.

He didn’t see Faye Candy as Russell showed him out. Or anyone else: The multimillionaire did his own opening and waving away — there were those, no doubt, who’d regard this lack of staff as cheap, but Joe wasn’t among them. He saw it, rather, as adding substance to the man’s home life. Just him and lovely Faye, to protect whose reputation he’d secretly shelled out a hundred grand. Not to mention the substantial payment he’d made Joe himself. He’d called Faye’s confession a proof of love, and his own behaviour showed this true of himself also: There was love in this house, Joe thought, as its door closed behind him. It would be a terrible shame if Mr. Candy endangered it by acting foolishly.

Surveillance sounded like a French word, though whether that meant the French invented snooping probably depended on who you asked. Either way, Joe was in no position to throw stones. For the past two hours, while the evening died, he’d been sitting in his car surveilling a closed post office; closed in the sense that it wasn’t open, and closed also in the sense that it had shut down some while ago, and had boards over its windows. There’d been little to see, though an hour back — long enough that he could think on it nostalgically as a crazy, fun-packed moment — a woman had passed with a Chihuahua shivering on a lead. Joe liked to think he could empathise, but there were limits. That anyone could walk into a dog shop, point at a Chihuahua, and say, “I want that one,” baffled him.

Darkness had painted the sky its favourite colour before anything happened to interest Joe. It was a car. The make escaped him: Cars didn’t do much for Joe, which he conceded was a drawback in his chosen career, but he had the excuse right now that it was dark, and the car arrived lightless, and the streetlamps round this part of town — he was as far east as he could get and still claim to be in Oxford — weren’t as maintained as they might be. But car schmar: Its details didn’t matter. It cruised to a slow halt and its driver killed the engine. He got out, came round to the pavement, looked down at his hand, then back up at the deserted post office. Something about this scene, the slope of his shoulders broadcast, was wrong.

Joe nodded to himself twice, not without hope. He too emerged from his car. The sound of its door drew the other man’s attention.

“You.”

“It’s me, yes.”

“Your information—”

“Was not what it might have been. Russell, I’m sorry. There was no intention to deceive.”

Russell Candy held out the piece of paper Joe had given him that morning. “Neil McKenzie? 24 Linden Road?”

“There was some intention to deceive,” Joe amended. “But for the best of possible reasons.”

“This place looks like it’s been closed for years.”

“And to whose benefit?” Joe asked. “A post office, it’s a lodestone of the community. A lodestone.”

“That’s not really the point, is it, Silvermann?”

“Please, the surname. It’s an unfriendly approach.” Joe, standing close to Candy now, pointed at the empty building. “This, yes, was a ruse. But forgive me, your coat’s lopsided.” He moved surprisingly quickly; his hand dipping into Candy’s pocket before the man could stop him. What it came out with was small, black, leather, heavy, and had a strap at one end.

“Oh, Russell,” Joe said, more in sadness than reproach.

“That’s not—”

Joe slipped the strap round his right hand; slapped the sap into his left. The noise echoed fleshily round the dark. “Not which? Not a toy? It certainly feels like it’s made for harm.” He magicked it inside his coat. “Russell, I owe you an apology, yes. There is no Neil McKenzie. Or there is, rather, but that’s not what he’s called.” He nodded at the post office. “And that’s not where he lives. I mean, you’ve noticed this already.”

“You let him get away.”

“No. I traced him.” He gave a small shrug. “There was help. Internet-wise, you know?”

It remained dark, but Joe could tell there were internal struggles occurring: anger and relief. Russell Candy was a battleground. Joe was glad the leather sap was no longer within his reach.

“But you’ve decided not to tell me who he is.”

“For the good of all concerned.”

“For his good, sure.” This with growing heat. “Not mine. What I want more than anything right now is—”

“More than love? More than marriage?”

“I have those already.”

“But to keep them, that’s the trick.” Joe tapped a hand against his breast; the pocket into which he’d slipped the sap. “You think violence in one area does not seep into another? It’s dark here, Russell, and certainly, you could wreak vengeance then slip off unaccosted.” He thought about this, then said: “If McKenzie was here, I mean. And called McKenzie. But what I’m saying is, nobody walks unharmed from a beating. Not the victim. Not its perpetrator.”

“You think I paid a hundred thousand for a lecture? I wanted his name.”

“You paid a hundred thousand for a videotape, Russell. You paid me for a name. Generously, yes, but not a fortune.”

“But—”

“You could hurt him, Russell, yes, hurt him badly. With your imposing physical presence. Plus your weapon. But he has knowledge, remember? About your lovely wife’s past? And that’s the one thing you can’t take from him. Unless you planned more than a simple beating.”

Candy began to speak, then changed his mind.

“And in that case, Russell, believe me, there would be no winners. There would be a dead blackmailer, yes, but also a sick worm burrowing into you, and it would burrow and burrow until there was nothing left inside, Russell — nothing at all, no love, no satisfactions. You think your marriage would survive? And that, like I say, is if you walk away unaccosted. If you don’t...” Joe shrugged. He was still close to Candy: all this information as confidential as it was urgent. And while he shrugged, Candy shrank a little, as if Joe’s as-yet-unspoken conclusions were already hitting home. “If you don’t, it comes to nothing. Everything you wanted concealed will be out in the light. Everything your wife confessed — her proof of love — just a cheap noise in the tabloids.”

Russell Candy shivered.

“Listen.” Joe briefly rested his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Russell, listen. You want the truth? Go. This man, this blackmailer — yes, he’s vicious, but who knows? Maybe he has needs, maybe this is the only escape he has. Okay, you don’t care about his problems. But like I told you, he made no copies of the film. He’ll take your money and disappear. His problems, well, now he has the resources to confront them. So Russell, go home to your lovely wife and put this behind you. It’s over. The violence, your ugly weapon — Russell, trust me, you want no part of any of that. All the things you want, you already have.”

He came to a halt, aware that to go further would be to risk repeating himself. For a few moments — which felt much longer — the two men stood on the dark silent street; one of them reaching out tentatively, his hand just falling short of plucking the other’s sleeve.

At last Candy said, “I can’t stand the idea of him getting away with it.”

“It’s my belief that nobody gets away with anything,” Joe said, letting his hand drop back to his side. “Besides, I think what you mean is, you can’t stand the idea of him knowing what he does.”

“Yes. That too.”

“But that fades to nothing, Russell, when you think of all he doesn’t know. That your wife, your Faye, loves you enough to have risked everything — that she told you of this unfortunate film exactly when the information could have put your life together at risk. She trusted you. What is one little secret, lost to a stranger, compared to that?”

“If she hadn’t told me, I’d never have believed the bastard,” Candy said.

“Of course you wouldn’t.”

Candy shivered again, as if aware how nearly disaster had kissed him. “He’d have had to show me the damn movie.”

Joe wanted to know, but didn’t dare ask. Candy told him anyway.

“I destroyed it,” he said flatly. “Burned it. Unwatched. I wish I could burn every copy.”

“No one else will ever know. The coincidence, already, was huge. What were the chances, an eight-year-old film made for a... specialist audience, and this young man being local, and recognising the wedding picture in the paper?” Joe shook his head, wearied by how unnecessary it had all been. “But he’s gone. It’s over. And if it isn’t — if he ever makes contact again — you let me know. And I will take care of it.”

For the first time, Candy looked Joe directly in the eye. “You’re sure? It’s over?”

“I’m sure,” Joe said firmly. Just the saying of it cemented it as fact. He was sure.

“Thank you, Joe.”

“No need, no need.” Here was another Joe moment, only this time it was Joe himself in the grip of it. The successful conclusion of a case: It demanded the grand gesture. Fishing inside his coat, he produced the envelope containing Candy’s cheque.

“Here — I insist. You were right, perfectly right. You wanted his name, you paid me for his name. Which I did not provide. I did not earn my fee.”

“You did your job,” Candy said.

“But not what you asked. You wanted his name, his particulars. I thought it best you not have them. That was my decision. Not something you paid for.”

“Joe—”

“Please — it would be a portrait of Madison. You follow the reference?”

Candy’s bafflement glowed in the dark.

“The Long Goodbye. It’s not important. But trust me, I cannot take your money.” To prove it, Joe tore the envelope in half. Then quartered it. It would have been satisfying to cast the pieces into the night, but hardly sociable. He stuffed them into his pocket instead, then extended a hand. “Russell. Trust me. All this, you can put it behind you. Your life is what happens from now on. Go home to your Faye.”

Candy took Joe’s hand in both his own. “Thank you.”

“Please. I’m just glad things worked out.”

They walked to their separate cars in the dark. Candy’s started the first time, and disappeared smoothly into the night. Joe’s gave him trouble, and it was twenty minutes before he could leave.

There was a slow-burn conversion in process by which the city centre was being made more cosmopolitan, a metamorphosis most obvious in its cafes. The square behind the bus station boasted plenty, all with outside tables at which customers could read newspapers or chat with friends; an increasing number doing the latter via mobile phones. This was a passing fad, Joe had often mentioned in Zoë’s hearing. Why cart round items of domestic equipment when we could be paying attention to people and nature and the happy accidents that make life worth living? Most people were best ignored, as far as Zoë was concerned, and nature wasn’t at its best in an urban environment. As for happy accidents, she hadn’t the faintest clue what Joe was on about.

The woman at this particular cafe had evidently not long finished a conversation: her chunky mobile sat beside a large cappuccino, which she raised to her lips as Zoë approached. Zoë put her espresso on the table. “Mind if I join you?”

“Oh — no, that’s okay.”

Though there were other, unoccupied tables nearby.

Zoë said, “I like your tattoo. A butterfly, yes?”

The woman looked at her.

“On your right shoulder? Or is it your left? I always get muddled when it’s someone facing me.”

“Is this a joke?”

“Oh, right. You’re wearing a sweater.” Zoë took a sip of her espresso. “But if I could see your shoulder, it’d be a butterfly, wouldn’t it?”

Faye Candy put her cup down. “Do we know each other?”

“Not in the flesh. But I admire your work.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Fourteen seconds. Pretty good. I was expecting that line when I mentioned the tattoo.”

“I think you should leave.”

Zoë said, “Let me ask you something. Girl meets boy. They fall in love. Girl then meets man. Man falls in love with girl. Man very rich. What’s girl do?”

“You’re annoying me. I’m going to call for help.”

“Honey, I’m telling a story. An audience is the first thing I want. So anyway, of course you marry him. He’s rich, for God’s sake. You give up, what, two years? Three? Then one smart lawyer later, you’re on easy street for life.”

“You’re a lunatic.”

“I watched the film.”

Faye Candy opened her mouth. Closed it again.

“Joe left it out. It was a point of principle with him not to watch it.” Zoë lit a cigarette. “It wasn’t with me.”

“Who are you?”

“Name’s Zoë Boehm. And you want to know something? She does look a bit like you, the woman in the film. Even with the glittery wig and all that makeup. Not so much a stranger might notice, but a definite resemblance if you’re looking for it. And there’s the tattoo, of course. The clincher. But then, that’s why you had yours done, isn’t it?”

“You,” Faye Candy said slowly, “interfering bitch.”

“Thanks. Let me tell you what I think happened. You marry the millionaire, of course. Who turns down a once-in-a-lifetime chance like that? And you promise your boyfriend it won’t be forever, that you’ll be coming back to him, only richer. Did he believe you?”

“It’s true!”

“Maybe so. But he wanted a down payment, didn’t he? Something to tide him over. And this is what the pair of you came up with. He didn’t go looking for the film, did he? I mean, he’d already seen it, noted the resemblance. That’s what gave him the idea.”

“We’d watched it together,” Faye said. “Nothing wrong with that.”

“Sure.”

“He’s a college porter. You know how much that’s worth, being a college porter?”

“I’m guessing not a lot.”

“But he’s got talent. He’s a writer. He writes all sorts — poems, stories.”

“Blackmail notes. Was it his idea you got the tattoo? To put the resemblance beyond doubt?”

“I’m admitting nothing.”

“And then you faked the cover, of course. Must have been fun. Bit of a gamble, because the woman on the box clearly isn’t the woman in the film, but — and here’s the beauty of it — it doesn’t matter, does it? The rich man doesn’t need to see the film. All that matters is he knows that it exists. Because Russell Candy’s hardly going to think you confessed to making a blue movie if you didn’t. Who in her right mind would do that, and put her wedding to a rich man at risk?”

She tapped ash into her empty coffee cup. “It took pluck, I’ll give you that. He could have walked away. But he didn’t, so you’re home free. Candy knows the blackmail’s for real, because you’ve told him about the movie. No way is he going to shout for the cops, when all that’ll do is make your dirty secret public. No, the confession was a touch of genius. Poor sap probably thinks it proves you love him.”

Faye Candy said, “I’ll be with him. One day.”

It was clear she was talking about her beloved blackmailer.

Zoë ground her cigarette out. “The cheque Joe tore up was for a grand. You can make the replacement out to me. That’s Zoë B-o-e-h-m. Don’t worry, he’ll get his share.”

“Will you tell him?”

“Joe? I would if I thought he’d learn from it. But he’s set in his ways.”

“I meant Russell.”

Zoë said, “I’ve got your boyfriend’s name and address. Try another bite at the cherry and I’ll blow you both out of the water. Otherwise, how you live your life’s up to you. But you might want to get clear on the details in future.”

“Meaning what?”

“You got the wrong arm. The woman in the film? Her tattoo’s on her left shoulder. Yours is on your right.”

She waited while Faye Candy wrote the cheque, then folded it and stowed it away inside her leather jacket. When she left, a chill breeze was just making itself felt, and cups were rattling in saucers around the square. But Zoë didn’t look back, and was in the bank before the rain arrived.