The Family Arsenal

12

Lady Arrow got out of the taxi in Deptford High Street, looked around, and felt cheated. Then she walked to assess it, to give it a name. No name occurred to her; she wondered if she had come to the right place. But she had: there were the signs. Deeply cheated, tricked by the map and her imagination. She had wanted to like it and had prepared herself for a complicated river-front slum with the kind of massive mirrored pubs she’d passed on the Old Kent Road; damp side lanes and blackened churches and brick-peaked Victorian schools contained by iron fences and locked gates; with a quaint decrepitude, credibly vicious and with visible remnants of danger, a place where you could believe a poet might have been stabbed.

She had expected something different, not this. It was ugly, it was shabby — but not in any interesting sense. It was, sadly, indescribable. She had wanted to be startled by its grime, and the taxi ride across the vast grey sink of London had been long enough to suggest a real journey to a strange distant place. Deptford was only distant: characterless, without any colour, a dismal intermediate district, neither city nor suburb, boxed in by little shops and little brown terraces — many defaced with slanted obscure slogans — and very dusty. You could become asthmatic here: the air stank of dust and chemicals and the unhelpful sun was the size of an apricot. She looked for the river (she could hear boats farting in water) and saw a green gasworks. Closer, a power station poured out heavy clouds of tumbling smoke that gave the sky an ashy hue. The smoky sky seemed no higher than those square chimneys. If anyone asked she would say Deptford was like the scar tissue of a badly healed wound. She was oppressed by the council estates, cheap towers of public housing draped in washing lines. All those people waiting; she could see many of them balancing on flimsy balconies, staring gravely down at her.

She might have gone back to Hill Street — her disappointment was great enough — but it had been so hard for her to get here! Not only the taxi (the driver first refused to take her that distance — she had to agree to pay an extortionate fare), but the invitation, too. She had telephoned the house five times and either no one answered or else a strange voice demanded to know who she was. ‘Who are you?’ she’d asked in return, and hung up. When, finally, Brodie picked up the phone the girl was evasive, and it was only by Lady Arrow blurting out that she wasn’t in the least interested in getting her pound back — indeed, she’d gladly give her another one if it was needed — that Brodie said to come over and told her the address.

‘Albacore Crescent! I can just imagine it.’

‘It’s on the map. Just get off the train at Deptford.’

‘We’ll have tea somewhere,’ Lady Arrow had said, and now she laughed at the thought of it, seeing nothing in ten minutes of walking but two fish-and-chip shops with steamy windows, and a take-away Chinese restaurant. She was angry for noticing they were filthy: she didn’t like to think of herself as a fastidious person. Here, everywhere she looked, she had to face the limits of her tolerance. And she thought: This is what it means. When people say they’re living in Deptford they mean this, the gasworks, the nasty little shops, these poky houses, the smoke. Really, a pitiful confession.

Across Deptford Broadway to the hill and then into Ship Street, where she saw the entry to Albacore Crescent. She had not wanted to arrive by taxi; she deliberately avoided taking it to the door: she was ashamed. But it would not have mattered — the house was larger than she expected, and all the blinds were drawn. Seeing it, she remembered why she had come. It was more than a glimpse of Brodie at home, how she lived, what she did, whom she saw, a piecing together of the girl’s other life to make a story for herself she hoped she figured in — a way of ordering it, like an artist, so that it could be set aside. She wanted that, but she wanted more: Brodie. At Hill Street she had resented Murf’s hold over her, the companionable glances, the laughter, the assumption that she was his. She wanted to separate her from Murf, break his hold over her and have the girl to herself.

Lady Arrow was not discontented with her life, but she knew it lacked any edge, and it was enclosed — too secure. Other people, living close to the ground, spent more congenial days, like the waiters she envied, whispering intimately to each other in restaurants where she was dining. And sometimes she thought that even the girls she visited in prison had more to challenge and amuse them than she did. The plays she brought them gave her a chance to act with them. She would not be shut out from anyone’s life, and she was surprised that Brodie’s seemed so inaccessible: five phone-calls and what amounted to a bribe to gain entry!

She rang the bell, heard footsteps on the stairs and listened to the snapping of locks, bolts at the top and bottom of the door being shot. Brodie’s pale eager face appeared at a crack.

‘You’re barricaded in!’ said Lady Arrow as she stepped through the door, seeing the locks and bolts and heavy chains.

‘We don’t usually come in this way, said Brodie. ‘We’re supposed to use the back door.’

‘I hope I’m not infringing the rules — but who makes these rules? I say, is that your ice-cream van?’

Brodie was shrugging at the questions. ‘Sort of. It belongs to someone, but they’re not here, see.’ She was vague. In a thin sleeveless shirt, Brodie’s breasts budded at the pockets, and Lady Arrow saw the tattoo, the blue-bird chevron on her white upper arm. Brodie’s trousers were much too large for her; she held them up by the waist to prevent them falling down.

‘Hey, Murf — she’s here!’

Murf put his head through the door and nodded. His head was small and the sun behind his ears lighted them to look like the membranes of kites, one with a gold tail, the swinging ear-ring. He wore a jersey with a chewed collar, a pair of girl’s tight pink slacks, and in his bare feet he clawed at the rug with his toes. He plucked at the slacks that sheathed his legs and pushed at his thighs. Lady Arrow thought of a pet beast, ridiculously costumed.

‘They’re mine,’ said Brodie. ‘Them slacks. I’ve got his on. We decided to wear each other’s clothes today.’

‘What a splendid idea.’ Lady Arrow moved down the hall and she smelled — what? — something she couldn’t name, a hairyness of sour perfume.

‘Murf said it turns him on.’

‘Except it don’t,’ said Murf. ‘It was just an experiment, like.’

‘A pity it’s not working,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘But then how awkward for me if I’d come and found you fucking. I’d hardly know where to look!’

‘Yeah, well,’ said Murf, averting his eyes, pushing at his ears. ‘That’s how it goes. Have a seat.’

‘Is this all yours?’ Lady Arrow entered the parlour and paced. ‘It’s quite huge. I think it’s a success, I really do. And I imagine there are lots more rooms in the back and upstairs. It reminds me of a dove-cote, all these little rooms rising to the roof. Whatever do you do with them all?’

‘There’s some other people,’ said Brodie.

‘Yes, the owner of the ice-cream van.’

Murf glanced uneasily at Brodie, then said with mild aggression, ‘We don’t know nothing about that there van. Maybe someone nicked it and left it there.’

‘I understand,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘You can trust me with your secrets.’

‘We don’t have no secrets,’ growled Murf, still facing Brodie, who got up and left the room.

‘Of course not,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘Why should you?’

‘Have a seat,’ said Murf again, pulling a stuffed chair away from the wall and awkwardly presenting it.

Lady Arrow ignored him. She leaned into the hall and said, ‘Does it extend very far? It seems to go on forever, more rooms in the back — and a garden as well.’

‘Here,’ said Brodie, entering the room. In an attempt at etiquette she had placed an unopened bottle of pale ale on a green saucer with a souvenir opener. ‘Oh, I forgot the glass.’

‘Don’t bother,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘I never drink beer. I’ll have some of this.’ She tapped some snuff onto the back of her hand, lifted it to her nostrils and tipping her head back inhaled it. She snorted and blinked, then she said, ‘Aren’t you going to take me on a tour?’

‘Sure, there’s some pretty groovy places around here. We could go down to the power station. Murf’s got a mate who works there. Or we could take a bus to the Cutty Sark. It’s up Greenwich.’

‘I meant a tour of your house.’

‘There’s nothing to see,’ said Brodie. ‘Just more rooms.’

‘But how many?’

‘Six or seven.’

‘Why it is huge!’

‘You can’t go up,’ said Murf. ‘I’m redecorating the bathroom.’

‘Do let me have a peep.’

‘Have a seat,’ said Murf, and now he looked as if he might spring up and throw her into the chair.

‘Oh, all right,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘But I’d much rather have a tour of this lovely house. By the way, who owns it?’

Murf said, ‘Some people.’

‘You are a mysterious fellow, aren’t you? But you’ll see — Brodie will vouch for me — I don’t pry. I’m just interested. I was hoping we could be friends. Don’t you want to be my friend, Murf?’

‘Sort of,’ said Murf and picked self-consciously at Brodie’s pink slacks sitting so uncomfortably on him and clinging to his skinny thighs.

‘I’d like that,’ she said. But she thought: No, what’s the point, what am I doing here? She had tried to flatter them by taking an interest in the house; but flattery didn’t work — there was narcissism even flattery couldn’t penetrate, and her compliments, so close to satire, only made them suspicious. She had guessed, alighting from the taxi at Deptford, that it would be a failure and now that was confirmed. She had expected too much, and she could see she was unwelcome. It occurred to her that she might take a hundred pounds from her purse and say, ‘Here — it’s yours.’ It was a hopeless thought: they were children. You could give them anything, and they wouldn’t notice; but you couldn’t take a thing from them. They made themselves inaccessible. She had been foolish to think that she could take Brodie away and keep her. The young were not free enough to know affection, and why, she wondered, did they always insist by their lazy silence on kidnap?

Then she saw the Chinese carvings, the jade eggs on wooden tripods and the ivory figures on the fireplace. On the far wall was a painted scroll. Until then they seemed like the cheap plastic Chinoiserie she’d seen in other working-class houses. But these were delicate; they were small beautiful things, finely done. Even across the room they glittered.

‘Who do these belong to?’ She walked over and lifted the carving of a camel. It was ivory, heavy and cool, resting perfectly in her hand. It had a red saddle and tiny gold tassels. You had to hold a carving in your fingers to know its value, because a craftsman had held it. And now she could see the brushstrokes on the scroll, a column of anxious swallows in a pale landscape.

‘They belong to some people,’ said Murf.

‘There’s a few over here,’ Brodie brought her a carved red-lacquer box, and Lady Arrow was reminded of an idle child on a beach noticing an adult’s interest in shells, offering to sustain that interest — tempting the stranger’s desire and yet knowing nothing even of friendship — by searching for more and trailing along until they were both alone in a far-off cove. There was such casual cruelty in innocence.

‘It’s quite beautiful,’ said Lady Arrow, opening the lid. There was a mirror on the underside, and Brodie’s face reflected in it, framed by the lining of yellow silk. She wanted her, and again she was mocked by her reason for coming. The face slipped from the mirror. ‘Chinese.’

‘And this,’ said Brodie, finding a silver frog with filigree on its back. She handed it over. Lady Arrow felt the heat of the girl’s hand on the silver.

‘Very, very nice,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘Don’t you think so, Murf?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It don’t belong to me.’

‘This is my favourite,’ said Brodie. She held out a tarnished brass ashtray with a crude pagoda and a Thai dancing girl etched on it.

‘I like that one,’ said Murf. ‘When you give it a polish it comes up nice and shiny.’

Lady Arrow studied it. It was a cheap bazaar trinket, ugly and roughly done, the native’s revenge on tourists. You could cut your hand on it. She smiled at Brodie, agreeing, but she looked at the other objects and thought: She doesn’t know the difference; as long as she values this ashtray she will never know me.

Murf said, ‘I’m going upstairs to take Brodie’s gear off. I’ll be right down.’ He left the room walking in a self-conscious way in the tight slacks.

‘Anything I can get you —’ asked Brodie.

‘Call me Susannah,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘I’d love a cup of tea.’

‘Right.’ Brodie ran.

Lady Arrow could hear her shifting the kettle in the kitchen. She went to the door and listened: Brodie was still occupied. She climbed the stairs, distributing her weight, testing each step, taking care not to make them creak. She passed a bathroom, then saw the room in which Murf was changing — he was stamping out of the slacks — and another room, open and simply empty. She went up another flight, to the top of the house. It was darker here — the doors were shut. She tried one: locked. The second was open but held only a stock of newspapers and an old sofa. Then she was at the front of the house, in the large room with the low double bed — whose? — and the Indian cushions: almost a salon. The sour perfume she’d smelled earlier was strongest here — and she noticed the Burmese box on the mantelpiece, the silk robe, the view from the window. It was her first sight of the Thames: the power station, the old church, the Isle of Dogs, and at a great distance, St Paul’s. She wanted more. She went to a long cupboard and threw the door open, and gasped. Seconds later she was laughing very loudly.

‘Hey!’

Murf was on the stairs. She hurried into the hall, but he was fast, moving nimbly on all fours up the last flight. He bounded to the landing and ran to the door of the back room, then crouched in an attitude of truculence like a startled sentry, protecting the room as Hood had ordered.

‘I told you not to come up here! You’re not supposed to — this here room’s private.’

He had surprised Lady Arrow with his speed and noise, interrupted her laughter. But now she saw the absurd boy with the reddened ears, puffing and holding himself so importantly in front of the door — the wrong door! — and she laughed all the harder.

‘Sneak!’

13

She was delighted, she was justified, she knew why she had come: it was an inspired visit. And she had a claim on them. She would stake it emphatically. Now she could reach the girl, separate her from Murf; and though she felt like an intruder and vulnerable to humiliation (it had happened before: that hysterical procuress at Holloway had screamed from her cell, ‘Here she is again to look at the monkeys!’) — her voice alone sometimes made her an enemy — she knew Brodie was hers. And the others, whoever they were: all hers. The knowledge of strength, her certitude, was comedy. She had cracked a great joke.

Downstairs she was still laughing at the thought of it, and again she saw the brass ashtray, the piece of junk they’d singled out and preferred to the small Chinese treasures and she knew how they could make such a silly mistake. But what worthless thing were they protecting in that other room?

‘Your friend was upstairs,’ said Murf. ‘Nosing around.’

‘It probably don’t matter,’ said Brodie.

‘It’s private,’ said Murf. He spoke to Lady Arrow. ‘I told you it’s private, didn’t I?’

‘You’re being awfully boring, Murf,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘What is it you don’t want me to see?’

‘Nothing. It’s just private.’

Lady Arrow had become calmer, acquired the serene smugness of ownership, though for moments she fell silent, remembered, and laughed. The situation was under control. She sat down, jamming her hips into the chair, and she had the immovable solidity of a householder in her own drawing room, as if her bottom was cemented to a plinth.

Murf said, ‘You better go now.’

‘But I haven’t had my tea,’ she said and motioned for Brodie to bring it. She took the cup and smiled at Brodie over the rim. ‘You didn’t tell me you lived in such a fascinating house.’

‘It’s okay,’ said Brodie.

Lady Arrow drank her tea, smiling between sips.

‘When she finishes,’ said Murf, ‘she’s pushing off. I’m not taking the blame for this.’

‘Dry up, Murf, it don’t matter.’

‘Blame? For what?’ said Lady Arrow.

‘Sneaking around upstairs. Sticking your nose where it don’t belong.’

‘Did I see your precious room?’

‘You wanted to.’

‘What a lot of balls you talk, Murf,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘Brodie, isn’t there anything you can do with him?’

‘Brodie knows the rules,’ said Murf. ‘No visitors. She didn’t want to tell you, so I’m telling you straight.’

Wules, strite: she almost laughed. She said, ‘You came to my house, didn’t you? Did I make a fuss? I’m simply returning the visit, doing the civilized thing.’

Murf had no reply. He glared at Brodie and repeated, ‘She knows the rules.’

‘It’s not even five o’clock. You can’t chase me away so soon.’

‘Maybe when you finish your tea,’ said Brodie. ‘Murf’s right. We’ve got this stupid rule.’

‘That rule cannot possibly apply to me,’ said Lady Arrow. She raised her cup and drained it.

‘Right,’ said Murf, ‘that’s it. You’re finished — out you go.’ He stood up and advanced on her; he was more belligerent in his own clothes — faded jeans, a black jersey, an old waistcoat — than he had been in Brodie’s. He tottered near her, but even standing he was not much taller than Lady Arrow, who was seated.

‘I adore bad manners,’ said Lady Arrow, smiling at him with her long sallow face. ‘Yours are quite terrible, Murf, but I assure you mine are much worse.’ She turned to Brodie. ‘I think I’ll have more tea.’

‘No more bloody char,’ said Murf.

‘Brodie,’ said Lady Arrow, holding out her empty cup. Murf put his hands on his hips and glowered at her. She said, ‘Oh, do sit down and stop being such a ham.’

‘They’re coming back,’ said Murf to Brodie. ‘They’re not going to like this —’

Lady Arrow looked abstracted for a moment, then burst out laughing. Wonderful!

‘— and I ain’t sticking up for you this time. It’s your look-out.’

‘It’s this bloke that lives here,’ Brodie said, turning from Murf to Lady Arrow, who was beaming at the blank wall. ‘He won’t like it if he sees you here.’

‘I’d very much like to meet him,’ said Lady Arrow. Another competitor — who? And what hold did he have? But she was unconcerned. Brodie was slim, with a fawn’s small coy face, and short hair — so awkward and small-breasted she could have been a boy. It was a type Lady Arrow especially desired, the light uncertain body, the clear skin. She wanted Brodie in a boy’s beautiful suit and velvet tie, and to make love to her before an enormous mirror, undressing her slowly and hearing her clamour for breath as she slipped the clothes from her skin.

‘He’s got this bad temper,’ Brodie explained in a monotone, tucking her white arms against her side and hunching her shoulders. ‘Like he breaks things.’

Murf was close to Lady Arrow. He showed her the pegs of his teeth and said, ‘He’ll break your neck, lady.’

‘I’ve got a very strong neck, my boy,’ said Lady Arrow, and she thought: Brike your neck — they can’t hurt me, I own them. She was buoyant. Upstairs she had proven herself unassailable. The boy with dowels for teeth stood near her mouthing threats, but there was nothing more he could do, and she pitied his helplessness. ‘I would love another cup, Brodie.’

‘There’s no more tea,’ said Brodie.

‘Don’t deny me.’

‘Take a walk!’ cried Murf, working his shoulders menacingly.

‘Dear girl,’ said Lady Arrow, ‘I do believe he’s frightened you. But you have nothing to fear — you’ll see.’

Brodie was being obstinate, and Lady Arrow saw she would have to fight to have her — she would win, but she didn’t want to destroy Murf. She hated the way Murf nagged — he looked so silly trying to threaten her with that face and those ears, the scrawny shoulders, the grubby waistcoat. She believed she could have knocked him over quite easily, but she only laughed. Seeing how she was enraging him she rose to give him room.

There were bangings at the back entrance, the slam of a door, the thud and pause of boots.

‘It’s ’ood!’ said Murf, and now he looked desperate. ‘Get out, get out!’

‘Take your filthy hands off me,’ said Lady Arrow. To free herself from Murf’s pushing she simply stood up. Then she was out of reach, and again she felt sorry for him. His anger was so futile. Perhaps it was futility, nothing more, that made him angry.

Brodie said, ‘Please go.’

‘I don’t think I shall,’ said Lady Arrow, but she had barely finished the sentence when she saw the door open and the hawk-faced man enter. He was tall, with stiff black hair and he almost frightened Lady Arrow with his squinting eyes. He wore a black raincoat and black boots, but what disturbed her most was that he said absolutely nothing. Through his posture and his fixed expression of sullen enquiry he communicated threat. She saw him as her equal, and in Brodie and Murf’s cringing she saw his hold over them. But she would not be sent away. This was her competitor for Brodie. She was glad he looked strong, and yet to win was no victory — the advantage was hers. He shut the door and stared at her.

‘I told her to get out,’ said Murf, his voice becoming a quack. ‘She wouldn’t go. Brodie let her in. But don’t worry — she don’t know anything —’

‘Shut up,’ said Hood, without turning to look at Murf’s little gestures, his accusatory leaps at Lady Arrow. Hood bore down on her with his narrowed eyes.

‘This here’s Lady Arrow,’ said Brodie. ‘She’s a friend of mine.’

‘A very old friend,’ said Lady Arrow.

‘You said it.’ Hood smiled.

It took a moment for this to register. Then Lady Arrow straightened: she would make him regret saying that.

He said, ‘Anything I can do for you?’

‘Yes, you can tell Murf to stop accusing me of spying. He won’t listen to me.’

‘He’s just doing his duty,’ said Hood. ‘We don’t want strangers here.’

‘I’m hardly a stranger to Brodie,’ said Lady Arrow, slurring her words to load them with sexual intimacy. ‘But if you insist, I’ll go.’

‘I insist.’

‘It wasn’t Brodie’s fault at all. I invited myself. I didn’t realize you had such strict rules. But I quite understand. Under the circumstances, it would be rather awkward if you had people dropping in.’

‘Under the circumstances, I think you’d better get your ass out of here,’ said Hood evenly.

Lady Arrow smiled. ‘They warned me you were naughty.’

‘Piss off,’ said Murf, standing just behind Hood, seeming to shelter from the gaze of the tall woman.

‘Don’t get excited, squire,’ said Hood. ‘She’s going.’

‘What a pair of monkeys you look,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘But I know you’re perfectly harmless. You wouldn’t touch me.’

‘Wouldn’t I?’ Murf stepped forward and crouched as if preparing to pounce on her.

‘Easy, squire.’ Then he spoke to Lady Arrow. ‘What are you waiting for?’

‘I’d like a word with you before I go. I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve been introduced.’

He told her his name, then he said, ‘I don’t have anything to say to you.’

‘Perhaps not, but that’s beside the point. I have something to say to you. Do you think we could be alone?’

‘No,’ said Murf. ‘Tell her to get out.’

‘Run along!’ said Lady Arrow impatiently. ‘Brodie, be an angel — do take him away.’

Brodie said, ‘Come on, Murf. Let’s go.’

Murf appealed to Hood: ‘Don’t listen to her. I caught her snooping, but she didn’t see nothing. She’s Brodie’s mate — I didn’t want her here, but Brodie said —’

‘Upstairs, squire,’ Hood said softly. He had not moved. He had entered the room and folded his arms; his posture was unchanged, nor had his eyes shifted from the tall woman’s face. Murf muttered a complaint, and he kicked at the floor, but he did not reply directly to Hood. He screwed up his face at Lady Arrow, then turned and swaggered out of the room, still muttering. Brodie shrugged and without a word followed him. Her abruptness hurt Lady Arrow, who until that moment had expected the girl to return with her to Hill Street. She wanted her and she resented whatever hold this dark man had over her.

But she said, ‘How very Victorian you are — what a stern parent. You remind me of my father. You walk in and they flutter like doves. I suppose they accept it because they know so little, but when they know that you have no right to order them about they’ll hate you. I’m sure you don’t understand Brodie at all.’

‘If that’s all you have to say, you can go.’

‘Mister Hood, I believe in freedom.’

‘That’s fine with me, Mrs Arrow.’

‘Never call me that — Susannah, if you like,’ she said, and went on in a different tone. ‘Freedom must be taken, snatched if necessary, whatever the cost. Do you think a woman like me has no interest in such things?’

‘A woman like you is probably interested in a lot of things,’ said Hood. ‘But take my advice — don’t get interested in us. You might be disappointed.’

‘I find all of you fascinating,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘Do you mind if I sit down?’

‘Don’t bother. You’re not going to be here very long.’

‘Now you’re being stern with me, and I’m twice your age. Do I know your father?’ She smiled. ‘Really, you shouldn’t take that tone. I’d like you to visit me sometime. I think you’d enjoy meeting my friends, exchanging ideas with them. They have more in common with you than you might think.’

‘No thanks.’

‘I think you’ll change your mind,’ she said with playful malice.

‘Look, sister,’ he said, ‘I don’t think you’re my type. If you’re through you can hit the road.’

‘Oh, God,’ said Lady Arrow in admiration, ‘I wish I could say that like you.’

Hood moved, and Lady Arrow reacted, startled by this slight gesture of Hood unfolding his arms. He took off his raincoat and threw it over the back of a chair.

Lady Arrow strolled to the small fireplace and said, ‘Yes, I think you will change your mind and visit me.’ She selected one of the carvings, an insect worked in ivory, and weighed it in her hand. She said, ‘I’ve been admiring your art collection. It’s really rather beautiful.’

‘Presents from people I happen to like. Put that down before you break it.’

‘They’re hard to get in England — very scarce nowadays. I imagine you were in Asia — they’re the sort of pieces one finds there, aren’t they?’

‘If you say so.’ Hood took the carving from her hand and put it back on the mantelpiece.

‘Brodie and Murf haven’t the vaguest idea. Oh, I’m sure they find them pretty, but they don’t know their true value. Brodie is so sweet. She thinks that brass ashtray is some sort of treasure. That scroll. It’s silk. Ch’ing Dynasty, is it not? It’s late, but it’s lovely. No, they don’t know how valuable things can be. Children are unmoved by sham and humbug. But they are unmoved by sincerity and beauty, too. Such simple creatures — not blind, but so short-sighted.’

Hood was going to speak, to prevent her from saying anything more he agreed with. She had come close to echoing his own feeling in calling them children and defining their simple slowness. But Lady Arrow interrupted him. She said, ‘May I say you are a most fortunate man, Mister Hood?’

‘Your time’s up,’ he said.

‘But I’m not finished!’

‘Now,’ said Hood, raising his voice to insist.

‘Yes, I’ve been admiring your art collection. In these rooms —’

‘Listen,’ said Hood.

‘— and upstairs,’ Lady Arrow went on. ‘That painting. Your little man was awfully cross, but in the event he didn’t seem to know I’d seen it.’

‘You’ve got a nerve.’

‘Not me, Mister Hood,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘It’s you who have the nerve. But I admire you for it. You see, I own that painting. Yes!’ She laughed in long mocking shouts, trumpeting in his face. ‘It’s mine! It belongs to me!’

Hood relaxed; he stepped away and smiled. ‘Which painting are you talking about?’

‘You know! The one in your cupboard.’

‘I painted that myself. It’s called “Death Eating a Cracker”.’

‘It was my father’s. You can call it anything you like.’

‘ “The Widow”, “The Jailer”, “The Saint”,’ he said. ‘It’s just a copy.’

‘The Rogier self-portrait,’ she said. ‘And you needn’t try to deceive me. I can assure you it’s the original.’

‘You’re lying, sweetheart.’

‘No, I’m not. I was ashamed to admit it — it was so valuable. How can you own a thing like that? It was on loan — that got me a tax deduction, for charity, believe it or not. It was so embarrassing I loaned it anonymously. I’ve had so many calls from the curator — he wanted me to make a statement. Weren’t you surprised by the silence? The lack of response? And do you know, I was glad it was stolen! Relieved — I can’t tell you how relieved I was. Now this! It exceeds my wildest dream. It is magnificent!’

‘What are you going to do about it?’

‘Absolutely nothing. One can’t be burgled by people one admires. You can trust me, Mister Hood, I won’t tell a soul. I might even collect on the insurance — my accountant’s been insisting on it. You’re welcome to that, as well. I do feel it’s a bit out for you to want to chase me away. You see, when I saw that picture in your cupboard I suddenly realized what a family affair this has all become. I wish I had planned it this way — arranged for someone to steal my own painting. But that sort of thing takes genius. However.’

Hood said, ‘I’m going to check on everything you say.’

‘Do that, Mister Hood. You’ll see I’m telling the truth.’

‘Okay, now beat it.’

‘Not so fast, my man,’ she said. ‘You can’t order me now. You see, your project very much concerns me. I support you! I believe we can be friends at last, and I consider this house as much mine as yours. Frankly, I was rather hoping Brodie would come back with me. She’s not yours, you know.’

‘She’s staying here.’

‘She’ll come to me eventually,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘And you’ll visit me now, won’t you?’

Hood pursed his lips, but said nothing.

‘I’m sure of it,’ said Lady Arrow, and she picked up her handbag. At the door she said, ‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am that things have turned out this way.’

‘Keep going,’ said Hood in a flat threatening voice.

He banged the door and locked it, but when he went back to the parlour he clapped his hands and laughed — a yell of gladness, and still chuckling he sat down and waited for Mayo. The picture stirred him from its hiding place at the top of the house.

14

At midnight there was still no sign of Mayo. He wondered if she could be teasing him with her more frequent absences; she knew he was waiting and was deliberately hiding herself. She made her inaction secret to give it drama. She was whining in Kilburn over a pint of beer or in bed with an Irishman — for her a political act. She had deceived him over the passport, tricked him into forging one for the well-known actress, whose single attribute, so far as he could guess, was her theatrical ability to alter her face. You had access to a wig, so you were a conspirator. Araba had struck him as hysterical and insincere, a fraud, persuasive only to those who didn’t know the real thing. The trick had made him doubt his own judgement — the victim losing respect for himself when he knows how easily he has been victimized. But he said nothing to Mayo: he would have his own secrets.

He had drawn the cushions to the centre of the upstairs room and he lay on them in his bathrobe, with the cupboard door open wide and the lamp tilted to face the painting. He pondered it and smoked a pipe of Navy-Cut sprinkled with hashish grains. He had a feeling of wealth, the comfortable security of resting in undisturbed solitude. For the moment he wanted no more than this, and the self-portrait only added to his pleasure: now it could not be snatched away; he didn’t need to hide it; the owner didn’t care. It shone on him. Its greatness lay in the way the cubes of colour gathered to match his own mood. It was consoling: it did not reproach him — perhaps the greatest art never did — it exalted the eye. It shimmered with certainty, it was the surest vision, an astonishing light. What Mayo and the others did to enrage him the painting corrected: it was the only solace he had received, this illumination. And like a light it printed a small white star on his retina that stayed to remind and console him long after he turned away.

There was a knock at the door. Mayo never knocked. It was Murf.

‘You busy?’

Hood pulled the pipe out of his mouth and blew a grey-white cone of smoke at the lamp, watching it untangle in the light. ‘Come in, squire. Where’s Brodie?’

‘Watching telly. She thinks you’re narked. She said she’s sorry.’ Murf bobbed nervously and pushed at his ears. ‘I don’t know what that old girl told you, but she’s lying. She didn’t see nothing.’

‘It’s okay. But you can tell Brodie she’s got some pretty hot-shit friends.’ Hood puffed the pipe. He felt high, happy, a buzz inching down his ears like a centipede with sparking feet. ‘Don’t let me catch you bringing any lords and ladies down here, squire, or I’ll have to change my socks.’

‘I hated her,’ said Murf, who had started to sweat. ‘I wanted to brick her.’

‘No kidding. What for?’

‘She was laughing at me.’ He pushed at his ears again, a combing motion with his palms. Hood had noticed how he did this when he was upset, made self-conscious by a stranger. But the ears, as if exercised with brushes, sprang out wider. ‘Just standing there, laughing like a fucking drain. I could have smashed her face.’

‘I know the feeling,’ said Hood. ‘Don’t let it get you down.’

‘Hood?’ Murf sighed, whacked at his ears and shook his head. ‘There was something else. I said she didn’t see nothing. Well, maybe she did. But it wasn’t my fault. She come up here while I was changing. I caught her on the stairs. Laughing, she was. I don’t know for sure, but maybe she come in here.’

‘Maybe,’ said Hood. ‘You couldn’t help it.’

‘Honest, I couldn’t. Brodie was supposed to be watching her. Maybe she seen your picture. Anyway, she didn’t nick it, did she?’

‘It’s still here,’ said Hood. Murf leaned and looked at it, cocking his head to the side as if trying to understand it better. ‘What do you think of it?’

Murf said, ‘It’s a bloke, ain’t it? Old-fashioned bloke — them boots, them clothes. Yeah, I like it. First time I seen it I thought it was poxy. Who’s this flaming great tit, I says. Then Arfa sees it and he says it’s a antique, it’s worth something, they’re paying for them up the West End. He’s got ready money, he says. I thought maybe I could do you some kind of favour, flog it to Arfa. Sorry about that. Anyway, I had a crafty look at it. Later, this was. I’m knocked over! It’s all shiny, sort of moving and blowing up in me mush. Bloke’s looking at me, yeah, like he’s going to jump out and kick me in the goolies.’

Hood loved him for that. He had despaired of ever changing Murf. The boy was unaffected by the afternoon concerts on the radio Hood had listened to before he began spending his afternoons with Lorna. No symphony, not the finest phrase had altered those blaring ears, and nothing Hood had ever shown him — the Chinese scroll, the carvings from Hué — had worked his eyes wider than a squint. He had given Murf a Chinese treasure and Murf, making a claw of his fingers, had handled it like a turd. The silk shirt from Vientiane, his present to Murf for helping shift the arsenal and the loot, had become a rag on his skinny shoulders; the pocket bulged and drooped where he kept his stash of tobacco. He carried himself like an ape, with his arms hanging loose. He had one skill: the clock-legged bomb. But a sense of loyalty had brought him to the room tonight; he had told the truth; his response to Lady Arrow was crudely accurate — Hood himself had wanted to smash her in the face. And his description of the painting — how civilizing a thing it was! — had insight. In that small crooked boy Hood saw a shy friend.

Hood poked his pipe-stem at the painting. He said, ‘I’ve been trying to figure out who it is.’

‘Funny bloke.’ Murf scratched his head. ‘Sort of smiling and sad at the same time.’

‘And look at his eyes.’

‘You think he’s going to say something,’ said Murf. ‘Yeah, I like it.’ He caught his lips with his fingers in embarrassment and pinched them. He said, ‘Reminds me of you, he does.’

‘No.’ But Hood peered at the painting.

‘Maybe not,’ said Murf. ‘He’s posh like you, but not only that. Yeah, I think he does. Straight.’

Hood said suddenly, ‘What do you want, Murf?’

‘Nothing.’

Nuffink. ‘I want to give you something, squire. Anything.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Murf carefully. ‘But there’s one thing.’

‘Name it.’

‘Just don’t,’ Murf began and caught his lips again with his fingers. ‘Just don’t laugh at me.’

Hood waited for more. Was this a warning, a condition to prepare him for the wish — or the wish itself? Murf fidgeted and said no more, and Hood saw that it was all he wanted, to be free of ridicule. The woman’s laughter had wounded him and made her his enemy. Hood said, ‘Okay.’

‘Me mates don’t laugh at me.’

‘Then we’ll be mates.’

Murf grinned, filling his cheeks, as if he had food in his mouth; and he put out his hand, offering it as an equal. He said, ‘Shake.’

Hood reached up and wrung his hand — Murf’s palm was damp with nervousness — and he said, ‘Now I’m going to hit the sack.’

Murf hesitated. ‘Mayo didn’t show.’

‘No,’ said Hood. ‘Maybe it’s something big.’

‘Yeah.’ Murf sniggered. Something big: now it was a private joke they could both share. ‘Are you going to tell her about the old girl?’

‘Do you want me to?’

‘She’ll laugh at me.’

‘I can say I was here the whole time.’

‘Right.’ Murf brought up another gobbling grin. ‘And she’s bending your ear, this old girl. Then you’re out of the room, you’re having a wash. You don’t know nothing. Then she goes sneaking upstairs. You hear this fucking laugh of hers.’

‘And I caught the bitch in this room.’

‘Beautyful.’

‘That’s what I’ll tell her then.’

Murf said, ‘Goodnight, mate.’

Mayo did not arrive until the next morning, and showing her face at that early hour, with an over-brisk apology but no explanation for her lateness, and yet with a guilty pallor made of smugness and fatigue — the satisfied smile and yawn — she had the cagey adulterous look of a woman returning to her husband and children after spending the night with her lover. Romance: if not actual, then a metaphor, since she had always treated her political involvement like an affair, her energy hinting at brief infatuation.

Brodie stirred her bowl of cornflakes with a spoon and said, ‘There’s no more milk.’

‘I’ve had my breakfast,’ said Mayo. ‘I was up hours ago. I’ll just have a coffee. Any post?’

‘A letter from the National Gallery,’ said Hood. ‘They want their picture back.’

‘That’s not funny.’

Murf looked at Hood and laughed.

‘Look, sugar,’ said Hood, touching Brodie on the arm, ‘why don’t you and Murf do the dishes. I’ve got a bone to pick with the klepto.’

‘I always have to do the dishes,’ said Brodie, complaining.

Murf rose and began gathering empty cups. ‘You heard what he said.’

‘Go to it, squire.’

In the parlour, Mayo said, ‘I’m exhausted.’ Hood didn’t react. ‘The meeting went on for hours.’

‘The offensive,’ said Hood lightly, as if repeating a familiar joke.

‘That was part of it,’ she said. ‘And we expelled someone.’

‘Do I know him?’

‘Her,’ said Mayo. ‘I doubt it.’

‘We had a visitor yesterday.’

‘Not the police,’ Mayo held her breath.

‘No. A friend of Brodie‘s.’

‘I didn’t think she had any friends.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ said Hood. ‘It was a lady — in the technical sense.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I’ll tell you in a minute. But first I want you to tell me something. Where exactly did you get your picture?’

‘The self-portrait? Highgate House — why?’

‘Who lives there?’

‘No one lives there, you fool. It’s a museum.’

‘That’s the first I’ve heard of it. I thought it was a private house. I imagined you sneaking through the window, tip-toeing down the corridors — the folks snoring in their beds. I thought it was pretty cool. She’s a gutsy chick, I thought. But, for Christ’s sake, it was a museum. So it wasn’t such a big deal after all, was it?’

‘There was a burglar alarm,’ she said. ‘There were risks. What are you trying to say?’

‘Just this. You gave me the impression you knocked off a private house — and all you really did was waltz into a museum and rip off a picture. If it had been a private house you might have gotten somewhere, and if you’d chosen the right one you’d have scored in spades — you’d have had them screaming their heads off. But you’re a genius. You went for a museum and came out with one picture — you could have taken a dozen!’

‘What’s wrong with a museum?’

‘Museums don’t have money. They don’t pay ransoms, no one lives in them, they’re empty.’ He sighed and said, ‘How’d you happen to settle on Highgate House?’

‘I told you all this at Ward’s — that first day.’

‘You were drunk. You didn’t have a plan. All you talked about was a picture.’

‘Yes, and I knew where it was.’

‘You sussed it out?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘my parents used to take me there.’

She stated it as a simple fact; but it was a revelation. It was the most she had ever told him about herself, and it was nearly all he needed to know.

My parents used to take me there. He knew her parents, he saw them on a misty Sunday in winter guiding their daughter to the museum, the mother apart, the doting father holding the girl’s hand. They had planned it carefully; they knew they were paying a high compliment to the little girl’s intelligence in the family outing — part of her education, while the rest of her school friends idled at the zoo. A restful, uplifting interlude, strolling among the masterpieces. Privilege. And he saw the daughter, a spoiled child, small for her age, but bright, alert, in kneesocks and necktie, noticing details her parents missed — that Bosch cripple in his leather vest, the thread of piss issuing from the bow-legged man in the Brueghel, the Turner thundercloud and tidewrack of sea-monster’s jaws, the tiger launching itself from the margin of the Indian engraving. Look, dear, an angel. And finally the attentive parents brought her to the Flemish self-portrait and urged her to admire the tall man in black: What do you see through that window? Later, they bought postcards and chatted about them over tea; but the parents never knew how that afternoon they had inspired the girl — made her see the value of art even if she could not see its beauty; how the gentle stress that particular day, the origin of all her careless romance, had made that little girl into a thief.

Hood knew her parents, he saw them, because he could see his own. The same encouragement in a different museum, a different light: a Minoan snake-goddess had marked his eye. They had been taught to respect art, so thievery mattered; and the parents’ legacy was this taste, a hesitation. Only Brodie and Murf acted without hesitation. They could destroy easily because they had never seen what creation was — they did not know enough to be guilty; but Mayo, and he, knew too much to be innocent.

Mayo saw the strain of memory on his face. She said, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘You blew it. You’re a flop.’

He told her the version he had promised Murf, and what Lady Arrow had said. Mayo understood immediately, quicker than Hood himself had. She closed her eyes and he could see she was relieved — as he had been, but perhaps for a different reason: he had never wanted to lose the picture and she had worried about jail.

He said, ‘Maybe you’ll listen to me now.’

‘Do you think she’ll cough?’

‘Not a chance,’ said Hood. ‘She’s on your side — whatever side that is.’

Mayo said, ‘You’ll find out soon enough.’

‘Really?’

‘Don’t you see? That’s one of the reasons I was held up last night. We expelled someone —’

‘So there’s a post vacant,’ he said.

‘You can put it that way. I was trying to convince them you were clean. Well, they’re convinced.’ Mayo lowered her voice. ‘There’s a problem, Val. They want to talk to you. They think you can help them.’

‘I used to think that.’

‘Oh, God, don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet!’

‘Cold feet,’ said Hood, sneering. ‘Wise up, sister.’

‘I knew it. As soon as things started to go your way you’d begin your consul act — the big, cool, non-committal thing.’

‘I’ll play it by ear.’

‘They’re coming tonight.’

‘I might be out tonight.’

‘I told them they could count on you.’

‘They can count on me tomorrow. I’ve got other plans.’ He stood up and moved towards the door.

‘Where are you going?’

‘That shouldn’t be hard for you to figure out. You’ve got training — you said so! You’re a conspirator, aren’t you? You don’t have to ask questions like that. Get your raincoat and shadow me.’

‘Don’t go now, Val. Stay awhile — it’s nine o’clock in the morning! Don’t make me wait, please.’

‘You made me wait last night, sweetheart.’ He looked at her imploring face. He wouldn’t stay. There was Lorna, but more, he was punishing Mayo for her past, for betraying her parents’ trust; the picture. My parents used to take me there.

‘So that’s it. You’re going to get your own back on me. God, it’s as stupid as a marriage! It’s sickening. You’ve got other plans. All these secrets. You’re hiding something from me. Why don’t you just come out and say it — you’re not interested in me anymore.’

‘But I am. Come on, smile.’

‘The painting,’ she said. ‘They trusted me after that. If they find out it belongs to that woman they won’t like it — it’s no good to them.’

‘I won’t tell them.’

‘Thanks, Val,’ she said. ‘I feel such a failure.’

‘Bullshit,’ said Hood. ‘Think of the painting! It’s yours — you’ve committed the perfect crime!’

‘Kiss me,’ she said.

He hesitated, then he drew near to her.

She said, ‘What do you want?’

‘I want to kiss you, sister.’

‘Don’t,’ she said. She faced the wall and said, ‘Go! That’s what you really want to do, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I want to kiss you.’

She turned expectantly and lifted her arms in hope to embrace him, but Hood was on his way out of the room.

As he passed through the kitchen, he slapped Murf on the shoulder. Murf said, ‘Take me with you,’ and whispered, ‘I don’t want to stay here with these two hairies.’

‘Next time, pal.’

It was a lovely autumn day and Hood was so distracted by the sunshine he did not at first see the sweeper — just the father today, with his shovel and broom and the yellow barrel on wheels. The man pushed at the papers and dead leaves, then stooped to pick up a button. He looked at Hood with mistrust and said, ‘That your ice-cream van?’

‘Not mine,’ said Hood.

‘I can’t sweep there unless it’s moved.’

‘I don’t know anything about it,’ said Hood, and he heard the man mutter a curse.

15

— Because when it came, Mr Gawber was thinking, the thunderclap and the short circuit in the heavens, announcing itself there in the City like the rumble and flash of summer lightning, it would travel in every direction and be most evident here on the pitches of this bald heath: a sudden airless fissure streaking across the grass to that silent church, dividing Blackheath into two treeless slopes. Already there were no trees, so the slightest crack would heave open the unrooted ground and make it a place where there was no shelter; no place to squat either. It could be horrific: London’s most mammoth sewer ran under this heath.

The morning, so beautiful, with tufts of white cloud racing in the sky, intimated a ripeness that was next to decay — the season’s warning. And more than this, Blackheath, a square mile of grass, was like a roomy cemetery, all that space awaiting diggers and coffins. How lonely sat the city that was full of people! She was a widow, she who had had an imperial fortune. The princess of cities was supine with tramplings. The prospect made him sad, remembering. He had protected himself from life, which was pain, but the last pain was unavoidable. Yet if the eruption came, the fissure underfoot, the storm overhead, he might be granted the life he had denied himself, as the war had briefly proven his resourcefulness; and he came to see in the quake he imagined a humbly heroic retirement, testing him with the repeated whisper ‘Die!’ He would say no and live.

Mr Gawber puffed his morning pipe on the top deck of a bus. His mind, undistracted by a crossword puzzle, sped easily to thoughts of doom; he looked up from the simple puzzle and there was the unsolvable world. He lingered over his annoyance. She had rung again, as she had done a month ago, with the same weepy haste. I must see you, she’d said, it’s very important. You’re the only one who can help me. A dirty trick, that; singling him out to throw herself on him. Perhaps you can stop by on your way to work. I live quite near you now — Blackheath. But only the map made it near. In every other way it was a troublesome detour. He would not get to Rackstraw’s before lunchtime. Charity blunted his anger, and he made his objection general: I’m glad we never had a daughter.

He recognized her house at once, Mortimer Lodge, the fresh coat of pale green paint and white trim subduing the Georgian plumpness. In the western edge, it faced directly onto the heath, like a fort fronting an open plain, defying intruders. It was secure, unshakeable, detached, not crowded by nearby houses; and though it was not tall, its weight was apparent in the spread of its bay-windowed wings. Its hedge had body, its garden balance. The girl was luckier than she knew, but as Mr Gawber swung open the gate he had a vision — he did not know why: perhaps it was an effect of the sunlight slanting explosively on the rooftiles — a vision of Mortimer Lodge bursting open; the front toppling forward into the fountain and birdbath and the roof caving in and a puff of smoke rising from its shattered design. He endured it, let it pass across his mind, and he was left breathless. Now the house was unmarked. He thought he had rid himself of these punishing visions, but since the day he had uttered ‘macaroon’ to the strangers on the crossed line he had sensed a fracture in his life. It surprised him; he was strengthened by it, enlivened, like an old man who senses the onset of magic in his eyes. He wondered if he was mad, then dismissed the thought. He was only late for work, and Araba’s phone-call the previous night had made his dreams anxious and disconnected (searches, a son, ruins). He thought: I hope she doesn’t cry.

He pushed the bell and set a dog yapping inside. The gnome-faced woman with freckles answered the door, the puppy under her arm yelping and choking like a child in tears. He had been told this woman’s name; he could not remember it. Tomorrow, seismic, was at the front of his mind. He removed his bowler hat and said, ‘I believe we’ve met.’

‘Araba’s waiting for you,’ said the little woman.

‘I’m in here,’ called Araba, and when Mr Gawber found her in her loose blue dressing gown in the sunny room he was ashamed for having seen the house so furiously destroyed. He had confounded himself with exaggeration — surely that was insanity, not magic? Araba said, ‘I’m sorry you had to come here like this, but honestly there’s no one else who can help me.’

‘It’s no trouble,’ said Mr Gawber. ‘It gives me a chance to see your lovely house.’

‘You don’t think it’s corny? I always wanted to live in the country — I had to get out of Chelsea. It was so stifling. We’re going to grow our own vegetables here.’

Mr Gawber joined her at the window as she indicated the half-dug garden, a vertical spade in a small rectangle of hacked earth, like the beginnings of a cemetery plot, her own grave. He saw frailty on the actress’s face, lines of indecision he had never noticed before, deepened by shadow. It was more than the shaken guarded look that women habitually had, vulnerable in dressing gowns in their own homes; it was a threatened wincing expression, as if she had, shortly before he entered, heard a very loud noise. And dramatizing this with tragic pats on his arm she passed the unease to him, made him apprehensive, so that staring through the window to what looked to be a family graveyard he could only say, ‘No, I couldn’t agree more.’

She peered abstractly over the hedge as if into the past, and the abstraction in her eyes entered her voice as a drawl when she said, ‘Wat Tyler marched over there, on that road. He was a fantastic person. He was into revolt before people knew the word. God, why aren’t there people like that anymore?’

‘Good question.’ Wat Tyler, the lunatic with the pitch-fork, leading his mob of gaffers? ‘I wish I knew the answer.’

Suddenly Araba said, ‘You know, I’ve never been honest with you.’

He didn’t know how to reply. He said, ‘I never knew Wat Tyler had been here. I’m so glad you said that. Puts it all in a new light.’

‘But you’ve always been honest with me,’ she said, ignoring Mr Gawber, who was nodding studiously at the heath. ‘You’ve always told me the truth.’

‘I suppose I have,’ he said. ‘But there it is.’

‘I was really touched that you came to the play. It meant something.’

‘A very great pleasure,’ he said, and pretending to look at his shoes he glanced at his watch. Nearly ten. What did the woman want?

‘When I saw you there I knew you believed in me. You’ll stand by me and help me no matter what.’

He said, ‘It’s the least I can do.’

‘I admire your frankness — it’s something I never learned.’

My frankness? What have I ever exposed? But her statement gave him courage and he said, ‘I think I should tell you the tax people have been onto me again.’ He reached for his briefcase. ‘I have the correspondence somewhere here.’

‘Don’t show me!’ She walked to the far end of the room, fleeing the letters he held. ‘I couldn’t bear that. No, put them away.’

He stuffed them into the briefcase. ‘They think we’re dragging our feet.’

‘What have you told them?’

‘The standard thing. Thank you for yours of the et cetera. We are awaiting instruction from our client et cetera. Yours faithfully.’ He frowned. ‘They think we’re being a bit bolshie.’

‘Perhaps we are.’

‘I couldn’t agree more.’

‘But that’s not what I wanted to discuss,’ she said.

‘Of course not.’

‘Mister Gawber, that fellow you brought to the play —’

‘Mister Hood,’ he said. ‘Very interesting chap.’

‘Is he a friend of yours?’

‘I suppose he is. I must say he was quite taken with you.’

‘Really,’ she said, and her tone softened. ‘I was hoping you could tell me something about him.’

‘There’s not an awful lot I can tell you,’ he said. ‘I met him purely by accident some time ago. He’s become a client.’ He thought of Hood. A friendly sort. He had enjoyed his company, but Miss Nightwing was causing him distress. He wondered if at a certain age one turned to other men for consolation. Women didn’t turn to other women; they never lost their appetite for men — they still hungered at sixty. But he had only been at ease with men, and he was glad to be acting for Hood — that weekly cheque. Odd request; but it was an odd business.

‘American, isn’t he?’

‘What’s that? Oh, yes. But one of your better sort.’

‘The thing is,’ said Araba, and as she moved towards him companionably her dressing gown fell open. Mr Gawber saw her nakedness and the shock blinded him. He went shy. She said, ‘The thing is, I was counting on you to tell me where he lives. McGravy and I are giving a little party and we wanted to invite him. I said to McGravy, “I know. I’ll ask Mister Gawber. He’ll be glad to tell me.” ’

Mr Gawber laughed and said, ‘I’d love to help you out.’

‘Good,’ said Araba.

‘But I’m afraid I can’t,’ he went on. ‘Business. Silly rule, really. I don’t divulge clients’ addresses. I’ve been asked enough times for yours, my dear. I always say, “My lips are sealed,” and hope the person won’t press me too hard.’

She said, ‘But you have always been so frank with me.’

‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘I am being frank with you now. I can’t tell you a thing.’

‘All I want to know is his address. So I can contact him for this party. Surely you understand?’

He couldn’t look. The question was pardonable; but the nakedness? The dressing gown flapped. Did she know she was naked? The whiteness at the edge of his eye chilled him like snow, and he felt fear, like frost, in his own joints. He had been frozen in just that way, faced by a strange drooling dog on a footpath.

‘I understand perfectly,’ he said almost sorrowfully to the window, which held in its glaze segments of her body. Why was she putting him through this? ‘But I can’t help you. I must be going. I’m late for work as it is.’

‘Mister Gawber, I won’t let you go unless you tell me.’ She closed in on him carelessly. He folded his arms to block the view, but saw on her face an unreasonable wrath: his refusal had upset her — more than that, unhinged her. She took it personally. If she touches me I’ll scream. He wanted to be out of the house, and he thought: I will never come here again for any purpose whatsoever. He said, ‘You’re going to catch your death like that.’

‘I don’t care.’ She pushed at her dressing gown, but the white fabric was her own flesh.

‘It’s parky.’ His eyes hurt.

‘Tell me — I must know!’

‘This is very awkward,’ he said.

Araba raised one leg and put her foot on the seat of a chair. Her thigh shook. She said, ‘Don’t you have any feelings?’

‘A compromise, then.’ He straightened himself. He had seen under her flat belly a clinging mouse. ‘I’ll meet you halfway. Give me a note and I’ll see that he gets it. That’s simple enough.’

Araba said, ‘You’ve never let me down before this. Why are you protecting him? Has he something to hide?’

‘I respect privacy — yours, anyone’s.’

‘I have nothing to hide!’ said Araba and opened her dressing gown, showing her body: a narrow column of ice, the coldest candle he had ever seen. Once, she had told him she was a bitch. He had denied it, but now he saw the accuracy of it. How was it possible for the actress to play a bitch and not have malice in her? The bitch, the whore, the nag, the shrew: they lived in the actress, she gave them voice. She could not be forgiven her roles.

‘Try to understand,’ he pleaded, memorizing the carpet’s blooms.

‘All right, have it your own way,’ she said, and wrapped herself again in blue. ‘I’ll send you a letter. But if he doesn’t reply I’m bound to be a bit suspicious.’

‘I quite agree,’ said Mr Gawber. ‘But I’m sure he’ll be in touch with you. He seems a most dependable sort of chap.’

Araba said, ‘I never realized until now you hated me so much.’

He tried to reassure her, but he saw how he was failing at it and he left. Outside, his confusion hardened into anger: he raged, he swore, and again in the grassy cemetery of the heath he saw the shadow of a seam preparing to part for the canyon of a mass grave, to swallow it all. The calamity — but no, it was only a cloud passing overhead. Not yet, not yet.

16

‘You like them?’ She was wearing white thigh-length boots; the short black skirt was new as well, and standing before him she reminded him of a tropical bird with slender legs, a small-bodied heron raising her head and flicking her tail before taking flight. She walked up and down for him — the boots made her taller: not the slouching flat-footed girl anymore but a preening woman. Perhaps sensing the novelty of her height, she stood straighter and danced towards him, laughing. Then she sat down beside him and smoothed the boots. ‘I’ve always wanted ones like these. Real leather.’

‘Classy,’ said Hood. He knew they were out of fashion elsewhere, but they were still considered chic in Deptford.

‘You don’t think they make me look like a tart?’ She narrowed her eyes and peered sideways at him.

‘A little bit,’ he said. ‘Maybe that’s why I like them.’

‘I’ll go up the Broadway looking for pick-ups.’

‘You could make a fortune as a hooker,’ he said. ‘I’d take a cut.’

‘Funny,’ she said. ‘First time I seen you I took you for a ponce. Ron knew a lot of them. They’d come sniffing around for him. Something about the eyes. You’ve got mean eyes.’

‘And you’ve got a nice ass,’ he said.

‘You think so?’ She wriggled on the sofa. She laughed. ‘Me, I’m a raver — you don’t know!’

‘A new skirt, too,’ he said. ‘Nice.’

‘Got a blouse upstairs. I’m saving that for later. You can almost see through it.’

‘The hooker,’ he said.

She wrinkled her nose. ‘It don’t matter.’

The new clothes flattered her, and he knew they were for him. Lately, Lorna had begun to dress up for his afternoon visits. Suspicious at first, she had worn old dresses and slippers in the house as if to challenge his interest. She said, ‘Don’t mind me — I usually pig it around the house.’ But he noticed that she always made up her face and wore a white raincoat and silk scarf when she took Jason to the playgroup — for the other mothers. With time she relaxed; she sat in her dressing gown and drank coffee with him, talking with trusting familiarity, as if they had spent the night together. Hood had not responded to her clothes; he imagined her in other clothes, a riding outfit, a leather suit, a great robe; he played with the idea that there was no difference between her and a princess but jewels. But now she dressed for him as she did for the mothers at Jason’s playgroup, and today the clothes were new. The money had arrived.

He visited her regularly. He asked nothing of her. If there was time they smoked the pipe. She saw nothing unusual in his visits. At one time she might have been able to ask, ‘What do you want?’ and demanded he be explicit. But (and like the crescent of scar over her eye he had always meant to ask about — Weech’s work?) it was too late for that. He liked her too much to risk embarrassing her. He believed they were as close as friends could be, for the friendship had grown out of a cautious study of each other’s weaknesses. Once she had said, ‘I thought you wanted to fuck me,’ and when he laughed she added, ‘It’s better this way — for now.’ He had wanted to, but he was shamed by his advantage — his victim’s wife was also his victim — then he decided that sex made a couple unequal with doubting tension: if sex was tried it became the only reassurance, and there was power for the one who withheld it. That part had been set aside, though for Hood it was accidental — he had only desired her the first instant he’d seen her rushing out of the house. He hadn’t known who she was and then, when he remembered, the feeling died in him; afterwards, he did not think of making love to her. His remoteness made her curious and inspired trust in her, and though he saw how she was uncertain of him in the early weeks when she had expected sexual sparring, that awkward hinting dance, after a month it was plain he had no further intentions and she stopped being defensive. She was perfectly naked, but he did not want another victim.

The afternoons they spent together were happy. They touched more than lovers because they were not lovers; they kissed easily, they hugged and she lay with her head in his lap. It meant friendship. No further bargain was being struck: the kisses led to nothing. With the sexual element removed they were equal, mutually protective, like brother and sister, as if they had shared a parent they both hated, now dead and unmourned. And it was partly true: Weech was in a cemetery in the blackest part of Ladywell. Hood saw her new boots and skirt as an expression of her freedom, and he admired them as a brother might, congratulating his sister’s taste.

She said, ‘Ron never let me buy new clothes — at least not like these ones. Men are such fuckers. They like to see dolly-girls, all tarted up, false eyelashes, miniskirts and that. But not their wives.’

‘You think every man is like Ron?’

‘I didn’t know any others, did I?’

‘You know me.’

‘I used to think you were the same,’ she said, ‘only you ain’t.’

‘I sure ain’t.’

‘You’re the quiet type, you are. You bottle it up. I used to think, “What’s he waiting for?” ’

‘You don’t think that anymore?’

‘Now I know what you’re waiting for — nothing.’ She pursed her lips and kissed him, holding his head, then she stamped her boots and said, ‘These things are killing my feet. Here, help me get the buggers off.’ She zipped them down to her ankles, showing the pink roulettes of the zipper on her inner thigh and then she raised her legs playfully for Hood to get a grip. She was unembarrassed with her legs in the air, her skirt to her waist; but even holding her this way and pulling her boots off he felt no twinge of arousal.

She said, ‘Stop looking at me knickers, you dirty devil.’

Only then he looked and saw the wrinkle fitting the parrot beak of hair where she was narrowest. ‘Black ones. Very sexy.’

‘I bought a dozen. All colours.’

‘You’re a new woman, sweetheart,’ he said, tugging her boot, tipping her backwards. ‘All these new clothes — you must have won the pools.’

She looked away. ‘I don’t know.’ He worked the second boot off, then she smiled and said, ‘Right. I won the pools. But it’s a secret.’

‘I hope it was a bundle.’

‘A packet — well, enough anyway.’ In a resentful monotone she said, ‘He knew I wanted boots like these. But he always said no. Or a skirt — I used to wear skirts like these but when we got married he said I was just trying to get other men to look at me. As if he didn’t look at other women! It was the same as the dog track. That’s where I met the fucker — at the dogs. My father took me there a few times, and then when he died I went with my girlfriends from work. Nothing serious — just for fun, like, a little flutter on a Thursday night. Made a change from going home to the telly. It was at the track one Thursday. Ron come over and chatted me up. He’s wearing this expensive suit, he tells me he’s something in insurance, full of talk. How am I supposed to know he’s a villain? He was a heavy punter — always showing off with his money and talking about his connections. He knows this bloke on the Continent, he’s got business with the Arabs. Then we got married and after that he wouldn’t take me to the track. He went with his mates — Willy, Fred and them. “That’s no place for no married woman,” he says.’

Hood said, ‘But you’re not married anymore.’

‘No,’ she said, and she looked so sad he thought she was going to cry. She surprised him by saying, ‘He was a right bastard, he was. Sometimes I think, “Poor bugger, he’s dead,” then I remember how he used to treat me and I think, “Good — the fucker deserved it.” ’

‘Maybe he had it coming to him.’

‘Maybe, maybe!’ she mocked. ‘Are you trying it on? You always sound as if you’re defending him.’

‘Do I?’ She was quick; he wondered if it was so.

‘Yes, you do. I tell you what an absolute fucker he was and all you do is nod your head and say, “Oh, yeah, maybe you’re right.” Jesus, whose side are you on?’

He said coldly, ‘It’s unlucky to badmouth the dead. Even if they are fuckers.’

‘No, that’s not the reason,’ she said. ‘I keep forgetting you’re one of them. You’re different, but you’re one of them. Why aren’t you like the rest of them?’

He almost objected. He so easily forgot how he had come into her life; then he remembered that he had introduced himself as one of the family. Had he said he was Weech’s friend? He no longer knew. Lorna had told him all the other names, and he had given them faces and cruel teeth. He could not ask for any more, he could not reveal himself. It was too late for that: assumptions had to be taken for truth.

He said, ‘Maybe I am like them.’

‘If you was,’ she said fiercely, ‘if you really was, I wouldn’t want to know you.’

‘Take it easy, sister,’ he said. ‘How do you know them so well?’

‘I know they’re filth,’ she said, tightening her mouth, pronouncing it, as Murf did, filf. ‘They’ve been over here. The other night — Monday, it was. Ernie — you know him, the little one, eyes like a rat, hair way down to here — Ernie come round. I thought it was you, so I let him in. Asking questions, but I knew he wasn’t listening to me. The fucker’s just going sniff, sniff.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

‘I thought you knew,’ she said. ‘Anyway, it don’t matter.’

‘Did he ask you about the stuff upstairs?’

‘No. But I knew he was checking up. I could see the little fucker’s eyes.’

‘I should have known.’ Hood was uneasy; he didn’t want to be exposed, but there was a greater danger for Lorna, and he regretted that he had told her so little. At once he saw how he had toyed with her affection — his victim’s wife was his victim: the thought repeated, more deliberately and so more cruelly. He said, ‘If they ever ask you about that loot, say you don’t know where it is.’

‘I don’t, do I?’ she said lightly. She was calm, she didn’t know how unsafe she was. ‘Like I’ve never been to your house, have I?’

‘Right,’ said Hood. ‘So you don’t know anything.’

‘I don’t want to know anything.’

Hood said nothing. For a moment he thought of telling her everything, from the murder onwards, but there was a threshold in every friendship which, once crossed, made the past a deception. Then, every explanation seemed like a suppression of a greater fact, and truth looking like a lie was an unforgivable taunt.

Noticing his silence she said, ‘Anyway, they’re your friends, not mine.’

‘Sure,’ he said to stop her. Then, ‘You said you were going to show me the other clothes you bought.’

‘What’s the use? There’s nowhere to go. I can’t go shopping around here wearing stuff like that. The butcher’s, the newsagent. They’ll take me for a tart.’

‘We’ll go somewhere,’ said Hood, but he could not think where. They had only ever been to the park on Brookmill Road together and once to Greenwich to see the Cutty Sark and the Royal Observatory (he told her about Verloc; she said, ‘The fucker sounds like Ron’). ‘Where would you like to go?’

‘How about the flicks?’ she said. ‘I can sit in the dark wearing my new gear.’

‘Come on, think of a place.’

She said, ‘What I’d really like to do is go to the dog track, like I used to — not with my girlfriends, but my father. He’d find me a seat where it was warm and tell me which dogs to back. He’d have a cup of tea with me and he’d put his arm around me and keep the teds away.’ She smiled softly. ‘Sometimes we used to win. He always gave me half.’

‘We’ll do it,’ said Hood. ‘Where is it — Catford? We’ll win a bundle!’

‘Not a chance,’ she said. ‘What about the kid?’

‘Get a babysitter,’ he said. ‘You’ve got the money. Remember, sister? You won the pools.’

She sat back and sighed, then she said, ‘I’d love to go. There are races tonight. It’s Thursday.’

‘We’re going,’ he said.

‘Okay,’ she said, but she added quickly, ‘I didn’t win no pools. It’s their money. Ernie said, “We’ll take care of you, don’t worry.” And then, the next day, this thing came from the bank — fifty quid deposit. I don’t care, and maybe they ain’t such fuckers after all. But they probably stole it off Ron.’

17

The railway arches in the half dark — the black brick spans — were shaped like the crust of a burnt-out cloister. They ran parallel to the poorly lighted road all the way from the station at Catford Bridge to the dog track. And there were dead monks underneath — or so it seemed to Hood, who preparing himself to enjoy the dog races had smoked a joint in the train — discarded cartons, peaked like the cowls of monks’ habits, lay on the ground, holy casualties in the broken place, feet and hands and covered heads, and an odour of ruin. Ahead he saw the greyhound motif, a starved lunging dog picked out in lights, but between the stadium entrance and where they now stood was this shadowy rising brickwork mottled with football slogans, CRYSTAL PALACE, CHARLTON RULE, SPURS, barely legible, like the last messages of heathen raiders. The highlights were unexpected — rubbish that had the appearance of thick bushes and an impression of autumn foliage that was no more than the suggestion of darkness and the smells, verifying the dead cloister and giving it a further authority, the veiled aspect of a brittle engraving. And when the train rumbled on the spans and shook the yellow lamps on the line — but was itself hidden from this road — the sound raised the tattered smell again and corrected the engraved dimension the silence had imposed: the noise loosened it all and gave it brief life for the duration of the passing train.

Lorna said, ‘I always used to be afraid of this road.’

‘I like it,’ said Hood.

‘Well, maybe because I saw a bloke nobbled here,’ she said. ‘I mean killed.’

It had a name, this puddly two-hundred yards: Adenmore Road, London, was closely mapped. No city he had ever seen had been so examined. The darkest corner had an inaccurate caption, and even the wild place, the sudden hill of hiding trees above Peckham where he’d dumped Weech’s body — that, too, had a name.

Hood was surprised when Lorna chose the second-class enclosure instead of the more expensive one. At the turnstile she said it was the one she had always used with her father. The stadium was gaily lit with strings of coloured bulbs, and Hood could see the smoke drifting up from the various enclosures to the floodlights on tall poles, as if the whole circus was cosily smouldering. There was no shouting, only a low roar of voices.

‘There’s the dogs,’ said Lorna. ‘Way over there.’

The first race was about to begin. Across the track, on the far side of the stadium, six girls in hunting clothes marched in single file. Each held a sleek dog on a leash, and the sharp snouts and thin bodies were silhouetted in the lights like black metal cutouts in a row, shooting gallery targets. Then they turned under the lights and came towards the near grandstand, and up close Hood could see how young the girls were, how skinny the dogs — tottering on bony paws, panting in their tight wire muzzles.

‘Aren’t you going to bet on this race?’ asked Hood, looking down at his programme.

‘Too late,’ said Lorna. ‘I always watch the dogs in the paddock before I bet. Here, they all look the same, but out back you can tell which ones are fast. That’s what my father used to say.’

They stood talking under the first-class enclosure which, glassed-in and high, was at the brow of the grandstand. The steamy windows were full of red-faced people who sat at tables, eating, holding pint glasses, watching the track. ‘Ron always went up there, so he could act big,’ said Lorna. She led Hood to the side of the grandstand, where people were marking programmes on the terraces and hurrying up and down the stairs. Hood found Lorna a seat near the bookies, at the rail. The bookies worked rapidly at blackboards, some on stools signalled the odds with gloved hands to the far side of the stadium — pointing and clapping like deaf-mutes, while the men beside them spat on their fingers and wiped numbers from the columns on the boards and added new ones. They gave a hectic motion to the race that was like the instant before panic. Each one had a satchel with his name on it, Sam & Alec, Jimmy Gent, Pollard Turf Acc’ts, and as the starting-time grew near the activity around these men became frenzied as cash was exchanged for tickets. In this excitement Hood saw the pleasure of risk; the very sight of the men gambling heightened his desire for Lorna.

On the track, men in white smocks were heaving the metal traps into position.

‘You’re going to win tonight,’ said Hood.

‘If I won a lot of money I’d take a holiday,’ said Lorna. ‘Not to Spain, but maybe Eastbourne or Brighton. Check into one of them big white hotels on the front and look at the sea from the balcony. I always wanted to do that, live in a posh hotel and look at the sea.’

‘We’ll do it,’ said Hood.

‘First we have to win.’

The dogs were being unleashed and helped into the traps, one by one, and Hood could hear them whimpering. They didn’t bark; because of their muzzles they gave low curiously human wails, an odd lonely sound in that festive crowd of gamblers. Then the lights went out in all the enclosures and in the darkness there was silence, a hush that amplified the moans of the dogs. In the black stadium the only light was the yellow gleaming sand of the track. And over the moans a murmur that grew to a whine: the mechanical rabbit speeding towards the traps. As the rabbit shot past the traps sprang open and the dogs leaped out, stretching themselves after it. The race itself brought a new hush to the grandstand. The only distinct sound was the rabbit singing on the wire, a humming heightened by an occasional twang.

‘Five’s ahead,’ said Lorna. Hood heard her clearly. Instead of shouts there was intense concentration. It was not like a horse race where spectators screamed at the jockeys and jumped and waved their arms. This was studied enthusiasm, a kind of breathless suspense. A man behind Hood said in what was nearly a whisper, ‘Come on you two dog.’

The dogs sprinted past, and it was still so quiet in the grandstand that Hood could hear their toiling gasps and the scrape and skid of their paws on the track. When they rounded the last bend there was a little cheer, scattered shouts of anger or glee which ended the moment the dogs crossed the finish line: relief, jostling and some laughter — and a flurry of losers scattering tickets at their feet.

‘Let’s go round to the paddock,’ said Lorna. ‘I want to pick a winner.’

‘Everyone’s looking at you,’ whispered Hood. ‘They’re saying, “Who’s that fantastic chick?” ’

She laughed. ‘You’re dreaming.’ But she looked down at her new boots in prim admiration. He had never seen her so happy, and he imagined a life with her: a safe monotony, without incident, surrendering to Deptford, the pub, the bed, the child, the dog track, the weekend in Brighton. He wanted more, but he was tempted by less, and he sometimes felt this, passing the window of a south London parlour and envying the people inside having tea with their elbows on the table. He could save her that way; he saw in her the sad ageing of every lost soul — and it was true loss, since she had no notion of how she had been widowed. But what kept him from pushing the reverie further was not that it was a retreat from the life he had planned for himself but that underlying this obvious feeling was a smaller one: pity, the feeblest mimicry of love.

He followed her behind the grandstand to the paddock. Here it was damp, enclosed and yet open to the sky. It was divided by a sturdy metal fence. On the other side was a small shed; a few over-bright bulbs inside the shed lighted patches of grass where they stood. The rest of the lights were aimed at the closed doors of thirty numbered stalls built against the brick embankment of the railway line. These narrow cupboards rattled with the whimpering of the dogs locked inside — their wails carried, as they had from the traps, and Hood was alarmed by their frantic pawings on the wooden doors. The paddock was empty, but the cries of the dogs, and the dampness, the spiked fence and the spotlights that showed nothing but locked doors, gave it the appearance of a tortuous jail compound. Hood wanted to go. Lorna said, ‘Wait — here they come.’

Shivering, blinking and scratching at their numbered vests, the dogs were dragged into the shed by the kennel maids, who wore velvet riding caps and jodhpurs. Then a bowler-hatted man in brown gaiters — the starter — checked their collars and tried their vests to see they were securely fastened. Men, a dozen or more, had gathered at the fence to watch this simple ceremony, and they conferred in whispers, singling out particular dogs with cautious nods.

‘Number Two looks like he wants a kip,’ said Lorna. ‘But that Number Three’s a lively one. Got a strong back.’ She opened her programme. ‘Lucky Gold — nice name.’

Hood leaned to her ear. ‘Who are these apes hanging on the fence?’

‘Villains,’ said Lorna, confidentially. ‘It’s a crooked sport — attracts all the villains, like Ron and them fuckers. But my father told me what to look out for. Right here, before the race, you can spot the slow ones.’

‘That mutt looks like he’s limping.’

‘The villains step on their toes — their paws, like. That one’s probably been mashed. Or they give them a drink of water. Sometimes — straight — they put chewing gum up their arses. Anything to slow them up. But Number Three, Lucky Gold, he looks a fast one, he does. He’s going to win.’

‘All this poncing about,’ a man clutching the fence said loudly. ‘That clot’s just wasting time — they could have been around the track by now.’

‘Cheap,’ said another man, ‘filthy cheap —’

As he spoke there was a rumbling above the paddock, an approaching train. The warning was brief; the train thundered by a moment later, flashing across the arches overhead, a rapid intrusion of banging wheels drowning the voices and the dogs’ whimpers. The yellow windows blurred and lengthened to a ribbon by the speed. The paddock shook and the eyes of the dogs being led out bulged in fear over the muzzles. For seconds the paddock was darkened by the loud clatter.

The men left as the kennel maids filed out with the dogs, and Hood went with Lorna to the front of the grandstand, to a window with the sign Win and Place.

‘How much are you betting?’

She said, ‘A pound on Number Three to place.’

‘A pound to place? But you said he’s going to win!’

‘Who knows?’

‘Put your money where your mouth is,’ said Hood. ‘Play to win — why hedge?’

‘Because I might lose the lot, nitwit.’

‘If you’re worried about losing you shouldn’t be betting.’

‘It’s just a flutter,’ she said. ‘Bit of fun. Little gamble.’

‘Bullshit,’ he said, and she seemed amazed by how serious he had become. He growled, ‘If it ain’t risky, sweetheart, it ain’t gambling.’

‘The big villain,’ she said.

He snatched her money and stepped past her to the window. ‘Five pounds on Number Three — to win.’ He took the tickets and handed them to her: ‘Now watch that bitch run.’

He put his arm around her and kissed her. They walked arm in arm to an empty place on the grandstand steps. It was to be a long race, over five-hundred metres, so the traps were across the stadium from the finishing line. But even at that distance the dogs’ howls were loud, and they carried from the far side — long anxious wails from the barred traps. The lights went off and only the track shone, a sugary yellow; the rabbit started its circuit and the wire sang again. The traps banged open.

It was not clear until the dogs passed them which one was ahead, but at the turn they saw the number four dog baulk and the white vest of Number Three flash to the front.

‘He’s in the lead!’ said Lorna.

The pack darted after him, the lean dogs sprinting beautifully, low to the ground, almost horizontal in a silent chase, like gaunt racing wolves liquefying with the speed. Their names were absurd — Kelowna Gem, Tawny Perch, Aerial Miss, Star Beyond — but for half a minute their names mattered, and Lucky Gold jostled with the blue-vested number two dog, Act On, for first place. They had circled the stadium once and were now leaping around the last curve. Hood saw the second dog slowing and Lucky Gold’s slender head shoot across the finish line in a burst of light as the photo was taken.

Lorna screamed delightedly. Hood said, ‘You’re rolling in it,’ and helped her collect her winnings at the pay-out window.

After that win of nearly thirty pounds, they bet in the same way on the next two races, going behind to the paddock and choosing the liveliest dog before placing the bet. But both dogs lost; one was fast away but finished fourth, the other came in second. Lorna said, ‘I told you we should have got place tickets.’

‘Forget it,’ said Hood. ‘You’re still in the money. Let’s go up there and you can buy me a drink.’

‘We can’t go there — you need a blue programme for that enclosure. They’ll chuck us out.’

The first-class enclosure was just above them, a lighted ledge. They were at the margin of the track, away from the men crowding the bookies.

‘There’s your friend,’ said Lorna.

Hood was looking at the twinkling lights on the far side. It was a pleasing circus, a fine way of playing at risk. He said, ‘Who?’

‘Willy Rutter.’ Seeing Hood squint she added, ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know him. He’s up there.’ She frowned and pointed to a man leaning against that high window. ‘Look at him — he thinks he’s big. He’s looking at you.’

Hood said, ‘I see him.’

The dark-haired man, bulked at the glass, was gesturing, motioning in a friendly way. The light behind him blackened his face and showed how his hair was fluffed at his ears. But even so, in these dim features, Hood could see how mistakenly he had characterized the man. He had imagined a thug and had given him a heavy jaw and fangs and an ape’s shoulders. This was a smaller creature than he had pictured in his mind, a man who looked like a car salesman, waving with sham geniality. The man turned aside to face the light and Hood saw a smile on his pouchy face.

‘He wants us to go up,’ said Lorna.

‘I’m not going,’ said Hood, and without looking again at Rutter he steered Lorna quickly to the bar at the top of the second-class enclosure. He ordered drinks and said, ‘Aren’t we going to bet on this race?’

Lorna shrugged. ‘I should have known we’d see Willy here. I’ll bet he’s with the rest of them. I don’t want to talk to him.’

‘Then drink up and we’ll go.’

‘Go? What for? I’m not leaving just because that fucker’s here.’

‘Right.’ Hood looked for the man’s face, the stringy head in the crowd. There’s your friend: the man would expose him, and if he was exposed it was all over. The friendship he had contrived with Lorna would be proved a fraud; he would lose her. He did not worry about himself, but he feared for her. He said, ‘Let’s go around back.’

‘What’s the rush? We can give this one a miss. There’s still one more race. I’ll put a tenner on the last race — I’ve never bet a tenner before.’

They watched the preparations for the race, a handicap with staggered traps in pairs along the last stretch. When the lights went out and the race began, Hood said, ‘Let’s go to the paddock now.’ He did not wait for a reply. He helped her through the darkness of the enclosure, taking care not to alert her that he was running away from the man she had named.

In the paddock he instinctively looked for another exit. Seeing none he felt cornered. Lorna was at the fence, examining the dogs. The fence was a semi-circle, gateless, meeting the back of the grandstand at one end and joined to the gangway, leading to the track, at the other. Beyond it, above the dogs’ stalls, was the railway. He was trapped. The dogs began to moan loudly, a wolfish baying that made his own throat dry.

‘I’ve seen all I want,’ said a man near Lorna, and he started away. The rest of the men left and the dogs themselves were led out. The dogs’ close pelts gave them a look of nakedness, exaggerating their skinny, punished bodies, and they shook as they trotted beside the fence. From trap to trap, with the interruption of a futile chase: the agony was as familiar to Hood as waking to life.

He said, ‘So let’s go.’

‘I haven’t made up my mind.’

‘Decide at the window. It never fails.’ He took her arm and tried to hurry her, but as he turned the paddock entrance, that small alley, filled with three men.

‘There she is,’ one said, and the men started towards them. The smallest, whom Hood took to be Rutter, was in the middle; the two others marched at his elbows.

‘Here comes trouble,’ said Lorna into her hand.

Hood faced them. The paddock was empty — the dogs, the attendants, the starter had gone for the last race, and Hood could hear the voice quacking on the loudspeaker, urging people to place their bets: Ladies and gentlemen, the race will begin in three minutes. In the paddock there were only the cries of the dogs locked in their stalls, and the light broken by posts and trees into blocks of shadow that half hid the approaching men.

‘Hello, Willy.’

‘Lorna, baby,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to you. Sorry about Ron.’

Hood said, ‘We were just leaving.’

‘Who are you?’ As Rutter spoke the two other men drew close to Hood, preventing him from moving on.

‘He a friend of yours, Lorna?’ said Rutter.

‘What if he is?’ she said.

‘You’re in the way,’ said Hood. ‘We’re betting on this race.’

‘I got a tip for you,’ said Rutter. He lifted his hands and pointed at Hood. ‘Start talking.’

‘Put your cock-scratchers back in your pocket or I’ll break them off.’

‘You didn’t answer my question. You one of the family?’

‘Who wants to know?’ said Hood snarling and trying to keep back from the men so that they couldn’t slip behind him. A dog began to yelp from his box and he started more shrill baying from the others.

Rutter said, ‘Because if you’re one of the family, then maybe it don’t matter. But I think you’re crow-barring in, and the thing is, we’re looking after Lorna. Aren’t we, baby?’

‘I can look after myself,’ she said.

‘Ron was a mate of mine,’ said Rutter. ‘More than business. We done each other favours. When he copped it I cried like he was my own brother.’

‘Get out of the way, shorty,’ said Hood.

‘Don’t push your luck,’ said Rutter. ‘You can go if you want, but Lorna and me are going to have a little chat. Come on, baby, leave this geezer.’ He went to put his arm around Lorna, but as he did Hood chopped at his shoulder and Rutter staggered back.

Lorna screamed, and from the far side of the grandstand there was the muffled bang of the traps opening, the snare-drum mutter of the crowd, the whine of the fleeing rabbit.

Rutter clutched his bruised shoulder and yelled, ‘Okay, Fred! Do him! Do him!’

The taller of the two came at Hood, but the men were working to a plan he saw only when it was too late. As Hood prepared to throw Fred off, the second man jumped him from behind and began kicking him. Hood felt one tearing at his sleeve and he tried to swing on him, but still he felt the weight of the other on his back, choking him and booting his legs and trying to drag him down. Lorna was screaming still, and there was more noise: the thunder of the train above the dogs’ howls, the deafening clatter of the tracks banging above the railway embankment. He imagined from her shrieking that Lorna had been pounced on, and he tried to reach her. But the sound smothered him and as he stumbled he sensed the paddock’s lights tipping into his eyes. He was being pulled in two directions; he fought to stay upright and he felt warm blood trickling down his legs and gathering in his shoes. Then the train died on the rails. The men’s grip loosened on him. He heard strangled woofs. He steadied himself to hammer the nearest man when he heard an excited stutter.

‘If anyone moves, this fucker gets it in the chops.’

Murf held Rutter’s head in the crook of his elbow. They were almost the same size, both very short, but Murf had a demon’s insect face, his ear-ring twitched back and forth, and he stood just behind Rutter in a grotesque embrace, as if he was about to devour him. He had jabbed his hunting knife under the knot of Rutter’s tie and he was moving it menacingly against his throat. Rutter had gone white, and for a moment Hood imagined the knife halfway through his windpipe, preventing utterance.

The men backed away from Hood. Lorna ran to the exit, stumbling in her new boots. Hood went over to Murf, who still hugged Rutter tightly.

Murf said, ‘You want to put the boot in?’

‘Drop him,’ said Hood. He straightened his jacket and started to limp away.

Murf swung Rutter around, gagging him with the knife at his throat. Using the same childlike plea he had at the house — as if there was no knife, no thugs, as if they were alone — he said, ‘Now can I come wif you?’

‘Come on, brother.’