Midnight Fugue

con fuoco poi smorzando

POSTLUDE

Midnight.

Splintered woodwork, bedroom door flung open, feet pounding into the room, duvet ripped off, grim faces looking down at him…

He sits upright and screams, ‘NO!’

Even in his shock and terror a part of his mind is assuring him that this is a nightmare, not all that surprising in view of the evening’s stresses.

A voice he recognizes says ‘Hello, Goldie’ and, despite the oddity of hearing it in his bedroom, the very familiarity helps soothe his fears, and he closes his eyes in relief and lies back, thinking that this must signal his awakening.

When he opens his eyes again, the duvet is tucked under his chin and the room is full of light. But the grim faces are still there on either side of the bed, men in their twenties or early thirties, dressed in dark sweaters and jeans; only two of them, it’s true, but looking strong and active enough to dowse any thought of resistance, even if he had the strength.

He looks to the end of the bed and sees the source of the familiar voice and tries to rekindle the initial relief he felt at hearing it, but somehow it’s reluctant to return.

‘Maggie…that you?’ he says.

It takes real effort to produce the words, like squeezing toothpaste from a nearly empty tube. What the hell’s wrong with him? OK, he’d drunk a bit more than he did when Flo was around, and he’d taken a sleeping pill like he usually did when she wasn’t, but no way could that account for feeling like he was swimming in gumbo.

‘What’s…going…on? Something…happened…to…Dave?…crashed…that…fucking…car…?’

Maggie Pinchbeck says, ‘No, Dave’s quite well, far as I know. Should be back from Broadstairs now. Hope he goes straight to bed and gets a bit of sleep before the police wake him up.’

‘Why…police…wake…him?’ asks Goldie Gidman, clinging to the fragile structure of conversation like a drowning man.

‘To tell him about the fire, of course.’

‘…fire…?’

‘The one at Windrush House that killed you, Goldie. That fire.’

It is both a comfort and a pain that in some remote part of his mind his thought processes seem to be working at normal levels of efficiency. So the nightmare continues, he comforts himself. All those years of sleeping sound while he was doing all that dodgy stuff, and suddenly a little crisis brings on the night sweats! Maybe he’d hit the rum even more than he recalled last night.

You been living too soft, man! he admonishes himself. Let this be a warning.

He tries closing his eyes again, hoping to slip back into sleep. A sharp prick in his left arm brings him back upright. One of the men is stooping over him with a hypodermic needle in his hand. The other is filling the tumbler on the bedside table with rum. His hands are gloved.

‘Don’t worry,’ says Maggie. ‘Just a little Temezepam. Drugi here lives up to his name, I’m sorry to say. Knows how to get his hands on all kinds of shit. You’ve already taken a bit more Restoril than you thought. Think of it as a kindness. You should be out of it when the flames really take hold. But who knows, Goldie? Who knows?’

‘Maggie, what…the…fuck…you…talking…about? Sling! Sling!’

He tries to kick off the duvet but doesn’t have the strength and in any case the man with the hypodermic has no problem holding him down with one hand. Maggie Pinchbeck comes round the bed, picks up the TV remote from the bedside table. On the wall the flat-screen fills with colour.

‘Say goodbye to Jimi,’ she says, turning the sound down. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll turn him up full blast before we leave.’

‘Sling! Where…are…you…man? SLING!’

‘He’s outside, Goldie. But he’ll be in here with you before you go. Faithful retainer makes brave attempt to rescue his old friend and master, breaks down locked door with axe, but the smoke gets to him and they perish together. The tabs will love it.’

‘Why…you…doing…this…?’ he asks, terror fighting against the drowsiness spreading through his veins. Now the deep sleep he had so desired to slip into just a few moments earlier looms like the mouth of a volcano. ‘You men…what…she’s…paying…I’ll…double…’

‘Come on, Goldie!’ she admonishes. ‘Double? You’re a billionaire, for God’s sake. You can do better than that. This is your life we’re talking about here. What’s it worth? How much did Mr Janowski owe you? Five hundred, was it? A thousand maybe? Surely your life’s worth a lot more than a Polish tailor’s?’

‘What’s…he…got…to…do…with…?’

‘Let’s give you a clue. Say hello to the boys. That’s Drugi who gave you your injection, and this is Kuba. Drugi’s a plumber, Kuba’s an electrician. He’s fixed your smoke detector, by the way. They’re brothers. Very strong sense of family. Have you guessed what family that is? That’s right, the Janowski family. My family, Goldie. When you checked me out, that didn’t come up, did it? Maggie Pinchbeck is the name I grew up with. But the name I was christened, the name I had before I was adopted, was Magdalena Janowski. I’m that baby girl you and Sling tried to burn to death with my mother and father, all because he complained that you’d crushed his fingers with a hammer over a little debt.’

‘Not…true…not…true…’

‘Yes, I found it hard to believe when I first heard it. That wasn’t till fairly recently. I didn’t find out I was adopted till I was eighteen, after Mum and Dad-that’s my second Mum and Dad-got burnt to death in a car crash. I’m sure they were going to tell me, but they left it too late. Maybe that’s what started me working with ChildSave. It wasn’t till seven or eight years later I felt able to start digging deeper and found I hadn’t been abandoned. I was Magdalena Janowski and my real parents had died in a fire too. Oh yes, Goldie. Some things they say you can’t experience twice. But thanks to you, I managed to be orphaned twice, both times by fire. That’s one for the Guinness Book of Records, don’t you think?’

She smiles, bitterly, humourlessly.

Goldie Gidman is fighting to keep his eyes open. The man called Kuba pours rum out of the bottle on to the duvet, then replaces the bottle on the table. There is a cigar case lying alongside it. Drugi takes a cigar out, carefully cuts off the end, looks at Maggie questioningly.

‘Soon,’ she says. ‘So, Goldie, naturally I tried to find out more about my real parents. The street they lived in had long since been redeveloped-one of your projects, I think-and it was hard finding anyone who remembered them. I had better luck tracking down family connections in Poland. Hence my dear cousins, Drugi and Kuba.’

The men smile in acknowledgement of their names and she smiles back at them.

‘I didn’t revert to my original name because I didn’t want to make my family history public business. But I did start taking a particular interest in the problems of immigrant children. Then quite by chance during the course of my work I met this old woman running a boarding house in Poplar. Not a very nice old lady; she was ripping off her mainly immigrant tenants something awful. But it turned out she’d lived in the same street as my parents. And when I mentioned their name, you know what she said, Goldie?’

Gidman forces his eyelids to stay open, as if by keeping them open he can keep her talking forever.

The two men look at each other, concerned that this is taking too long, wondering if Maggie is having doubts and is talking to put off the fatal moment.

Unperturbed she continues.

‘She said, “Oh yes, Janowski, the little Polak tailor that Goldie Gidman set on fire.” Just like that. Naturally I asked questions. She couldn’t tell me anything else, just said it was common knowledge that Goldie Gidman had arranged the fire. She was a nasty, malicious old woman, so I wasn’t going to take anything she said on trust. But I started asking around. Discreetly, of course; I can be very discreet. And you know what, Goldie? I couldn’t find another soul to corroborate what she’d said.’

She shakes her head in disbelief.

‘Not a soul. When you clear up after yourself, Goldie, you really do clear up, don’t you? But I was able to establish that my father had made a complaint against you and Mr Slingsby. It came to nothing, of course. No evidence. And I did notice that from time to time some of the papers, the Messenger in particular, would make a few sly cracks about your early business methods. Again, not a scrap of evidence. In fact, there was so little evidence that you’d ever done anything but spread sweetness and light, that I began to think, I must meet this guy and check him out for myself.’

Kuba looks at his watch and says, ‘Maggie, we have been here too long.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. I’m nearly finished. Goldie, you still listening?’

He nods his head. It is a real effort, but he wants to establish there is still communication between them. While he can hear, he is alive.

‘To cut to the chase, Goldie, when I saw your son advertising for a new PA, I applied on the spur if the moment. I never thought I’d be seriously considered for the job, but maybe I could wangle it so I got a closer look at you. Well, you know how it worked out, Goldie. You were looking for someone who’d keep Dave on the straight and narrow. You checked me out and thought I might do the business, and at least he wasn’t going to get horny every time he looked at me. In the process I got my closer look at you. And you know what? I was impressed! You really are good, Goldie. I thought, this is a guy who may play hard, but you can trust him. And all that stuff you do, community projects, kids’ charities, refugee organizations-impressive! I found myself admiring you, Goldie. For God’s sake, over the months I’ve worked for Dave, I even found myself liking you!’

She shakes her head in disbelief at her own gullibility.

‘And then Gwyn Jones turned up today, talking really strange. I had to check him out. That’s my job, protecting Dave, isn’t it? Some of my old worries started swirling round again. But it was all hints and guesses, no substance. I was ready to put it down to just another obsessive journalist ready to do anything for a story. Then I heard that Gwyn’s brother had been murdered up in Yorkshire. And Mick Purdy, who’s an item with Gina Wolfe, is paying you a visit.’

She nods at Kuba, who produces an aerosol and directs the spray at the duvet.

‘Not too much. We don’t want to leave traces,’ she says. ‘I knew I had to do something, Goldie. So I went into the control room downstairs and I switched on the in-house CCTV. That’s right. While you and Commander Purdy were talking, I was watching and listening. When I thought that Sling was going to slit Purdy’s throat, I got my phone ready to ring the police. Murder and accessory to murder would have done nicely. But something changed your mind, some message Purdy got. And from the way you acted last night, I could tell you felt that as usual everything in your garden was coming up roses. So I didn’t ring the police. With the kind of friends you’ve got, no point, was there? I rang the boys instead. OK, Drugi. It’s time.’

Drugi carefully wraps Gidman’s fingers around the glass. For a moment he summons enough strength to hold it, then it slips out of his grasp and the contents spill over the duvet. Now the Pole moves away from the bed and takes out a lighter.

‘Matches, Drugi. Don’t you know a good cigar should always be lit with a match-isn’t that right, Goldie?’

‘I don’t have matches, Magda,’ says the Pole.

‘Oh well. Can’t have everything, can we? The lighter then.’

The young man flicks on the lighter and puts the flame to the cigar.

‘One last thing, Goldie,’ says Maggie. ‘About Dave. Fortunately I think he’s got more of Flo in him than you. Time will tell. Anyway, I’ll take more care of him than you took of Mr and Mrs Janowski’s child. I might even be able to help him fulfil all the aspirations you had for him. If he can keep his dick in his pants, that is. But I’ll do my best, I promise.’

Gidman’s eyes close. Maggie nods at Drugi.

He draws on the cigar till the end glows red, then he tosses it on to the duvet.

For a moment nothing happens. Then there is a gentle swoosh and a blue flame plays around the cigar, turning to yellow as the duvet catches fire.

The woman and two men open the door, drag in Slingsby’s unconscious body, and drape it over the end of the bed. Already the duvet stuffing is producing a choking grey smoke.

The trio walk down the stairs and out of the house.

‘Magda, we should not hang about,’ says Kuba.

‘Go, go. You don’t want to meet the fire engines coming in.’

‘We will see you tomorrow?’

‘Oh yes. I expect I’ll be round at Dave’s flat, seeing you do a decent job this time. Dave’s going to be busy looking after his mom.’

In turn the two men kiss her on the cheek. Then they get into their old white van and drive away. Maggie returns to the house, goes into the control room and opens the gate for them. When the white van has passed through, she resets the DVR which she disabled before Drugi and Kuba arrived. The gate she leaves open for the fire engines.

The smoke is drifting down the stairs. Smoke alarms are going off all over the place.

She walks up the stairs, dialling 999. When she speaks, it’s an effort to make her voice sound agitated. As she talks, she is running her fingers through her hair, dishevelling her clothes. She wants to stink of smoke when the firemen and the police get here.

Gidman’s bedroom is an inferno. She stands and looks into the flames till the heat on her face becomes unbearable. Part of her mind is asking, does this make sense? Are you thinking straight? Is this the only way?

Too late now. She turns away and descends once more.

Outside, she breathes in deeply, letting the cool night air wash the taste of smoke out of her mouth. She looks up. In the black autumn sky, the crowding stars are shining so brightly that not even the undying electric glow of the great city stretching southwards for ever can put them out. Yet the astronomers assure us that many of them have been extinguished thousands of years ago.

Like our pasts, she thinks. The light is always behind, meaning that even the few steps we can see ahead into our dark futures are obscured by our own shadows.

She wonders how she’ll feel in the morning. She tries to peer into the darkness but the harder she looks, the darker it gets.

It doesn’t matter. At the moment she feels completely at peace with the universe.

She can hear sirens now. Soon in an oscillation of blue and silver light, with a glory like chrysanthemums, the great crimson engines will come sailing up the drive, casting bow-waves of gravel over Goldie’s precious lawns.

She moves forward to greet them.