The Sudden Appearance of Hope

Chapter 100

A phone in Greenwich.

Within three hours, Gauguin had everything he wanted on the phone, the number it dialled, the young man with canine cufflinks, the lot.

Said the guy with cufflinks: “Oh shit shit fuck shit I just answer the phone, man, like shit fuck that’s all I fucking do. Please, it was just a job, an easy job, I didn’t mean…”

Said Gauguin: “It’s fine. You’re fine. Now breathe. Okay? I want you to keep answering the phone, and tell me everything.”

A phone on the floor of a living room in Morningside.

Just a phone, set in its cradle in the middle of the floor.

Outside: snow. Grey Edinburgh snow not quite cold enough to settle, not yet, not on the paving stones, but clumping on the cars, thicker in the shadows, cold in the room too, an apartment near the Observatory that hasn’t been heated for months.

The landlady grumbled, “Well I rented it out nine months ago, and the rent all came in good, and if you just want to have a phone then who am I to complain, there were never any parties or loud noise or problems with the electricity bill!”

Gauguin looked at the landlady without words, and the landlady left.

“Is this it?” I asked.

“It forwarded the call from London — but we don’t know where.”

“Can’t you…” A gesture, a flap of arms, come on, can’t you…?!

Gauguin looked away. “Somewhere in Scotland,” he murmured.

I opened my mouth to say fuck you, fuck this, fucking fuck the fucking desert walking through the fucking desert riding the fucking train…

and stopped myself.

Waited for the silence to settle where I would usually have counted backwards from ten.

Walked away.