Next to the desk is a bookcase. Finally, a bit of Davy’s personality. I look through it: a lot of historical novels (Patrick O’Brien andSharpeboth strongly represented), plenty of horror, some popular science, an entire shelf of dull-looking property books. The cookbooks are here, too, and are almost exclusively Japanese:Hibachi at Home,Further Journeys in Okonomiyaki,Make Your Own Shirako. I pull titles off and start flipping through, looking for notes, for lists.TEN MORTAL ENEMIES WHO WISH ME DEAD. That sort of thing.
None of the books contains any notes. I keep looking. ‘Who were you?’ I murmur. ‘Why were you so scared?’
And then it pops out at me: a brown leather case, at the end of the property shelf. I pull it out, open it up, and see the same expansive, confident handwriting that was in Davy’s diary.
10 Leinster Avenue
14 Manfred Court
27 Jupiter Gardens
… and so on. It’s a sort of ledger, and all the addresses have a date next to them. The dates are ancient – the first entries in the book are ten years old. I flip until the pages go blank – there must be several hundred properties here, although oddly there have been no new entries in the last three years. But it’ssomething.
‘Hey, Jonny? Take a look at this.’
But as I’m in the process of handing it over, there’s abzzz-clickbehind us. We turn around. Somehow, the hairs on the back of my neck have already informed me the news is bad.
Standing in the doorway – let’s not forget, the only way out of the room – is an extremely tall man, with a shiny dome of a head. If you were feeling whimsical, you might say he looks a bit like a bowling ball.
13
Now, there’s a bit coming up where I do a generic Eastern European accent. I’m not proud of it, but I’m just letting you know in case you’re worried it’s cultural appropriation or something. I justify it because I know that if I get it wrong, this man will kill me and Jonny with his bare hands. He could probably do us both simultaneously. So that kind of takes priority. I’m not going to patronise you by saying lots of my best friends are from Eastern Europe, because as you’ve been reading for the last however many pages, I don’t have many friends of any nationality.
Back to the room. This man istall. Jonny’s about six three, and this guy has a couple of inches even on him. He also lacks Jonny’s expression of gentle benevolence.
He opens the batting. ‘Who are you?’ English, I think, slightly middle class but that doesn’t do any good. Even if he spoke like the Duke of Westminster, there’s no mistaking the violence in his face.
‘We cleaners,’ I say. ‘We clean.’ (I told you I wasn’t proud.)
‘What about you?’
Jonny decides not to pretend to be from downtown Bucharest, and slips into multicultural London English. ‘We’re just cleaning, man. Why, you own the place? This your flat? You want us to get out?’
Bowling Ball looks at us for a second, takes another step into the room.
‘You’re not cleaners.’
Suddenly I’m glad I kept my mask and Marigolds on. I gesture at our cart, baffled but cheerful. ‘Yes,’ I say, loudly, as if I’m used to dealing with the rich and deaf every day. ‘We clean.’ Is my accent slipping?
‘You.’ He points at me. ‘Take your mask off.’
‘You want mask?’ I reach into my pocket. ‘We have extra mask.’
‘No. I said, take your mask off.’
He takes another step towards us. If we ran … it wouldn’t do any good. He’s quite clearly the most athletic person in the apartment.
‘Me … mask?’ I gesture to my face. Has he seen me before? Think, Al. Think. Has he got you on CCTV? The cameras at the Bridling village pub didn’t show our faces. Has he found out what we look like? Did he discover my camera before thepolice did? Does he already know exactly who I am? Oh Christ. I’m starting to panic. And he’s just stepped towards me again.
‘Take. Your. Mask. Off.’ He accompanies it with a mime. Quite hard to pretend I don’t understand that one. I’m going to have to go along with it. I raise my hands, loop one finger around my ear, and—
‘What thefuckis going on here?’
All three of us look around. Standing there, framed by the doorway and looking like a pissed-off Boadicea, is Em. I have never been happier to see her. Nobody replies for a second, and she follows up: ‘Hello? Does anyone in this room speakEnglish?’ The fury in her voice could scour a pan.
I pipe up. ‘We cleaners.’
‘I get that, dope. My question is, who areyou?’ This is to Bowling Ball.
