After seven weeks this would have looked good. After seven years it was puzzling.

He said, ‘Look, I’m a bit busy, couldn’t you do this some other time…?’

He had a bit of an accent. She wasn’t too good at accents. Bit up and down, like that nosey cop who used to get up Goldie’s nose. But accents were easy to put on if you had the gift for it. Vince did a great Arnie Schwarzenegger.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Health and Safety-they need everything yesterday. God, they’re the bane of my life these days. How long have you been here, by the way?’

‘Why? Isn’t that on your records?’

‘Of course it is.’

He was sounding edgy. The furnishings apart, it was looking good. But between looking good and absolute certainty there was a gap a rash jump to conclusions could easily tumble you in.

He said, ‘Look, just for the record, could I see some identification?’

Real edgy!

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘No problem. You’re quite right to ask. In fact, you asking reminds me I should have asked too. So I’ll show you mine if you show me yours, all right?’

A bit of jocular innuendo was always distracting, especially when accompanied by a menacing leer. She rarely had difficulty facing down guys who liked to talk big.

He said, ‘No, I’m sure you’re who you say you are. But listen, I’ve really got things to do…’

Her phone rang.

‘Mind if I answer this?’ she said, opening her shoulder bag.

She took the phone out. As she pressed the receive button the room swayed and this time didn’t level off immediately.

‘Oh God,’ she said.

The phone fell to the floor and she followed it down, cracking her forehead against the TV set which, as if in sympathy, let out a blood-curdling shriek. The warm trickle oozing over her left eye suggested it hadn’t curdled hers.

‘Oh fuck!’ he said, kneeling beside her. ‘You OK?’

‘Yeah, sure, that’s why I’m lying here bleeding,’ she grated.

‘You look bad. Shall I call an ambulance?’

Her wig had come askew. No wonder he was worried about the way she looked!

‘No, I’m fine,’ she insisted. ‘A glass of water maybe.’

He rose and went out of the room.

She needed to be out of here too. She scrabbled for the phone to confirm what she suspected, but there was no one at the other end. Which meant…

She didn’t like to think what it might mean.

She really needed to be out of here. Strength was returning to her legs, but not enough yet.

The man came back with a cupful of water.

She took it from him, squeezed a tablet from the bubble pack and washed it down.

She saw him looking at her and she said, ‘Aspirin.’

There was a tap at the door.

‘Don’t answer…’ she started to say, but he wasn’t taking any notice of her. Why should he?

She got on all fours to try and push herself upright as he opened the door.

Then for about two and a half seconds, everything happened in single-frame audio-visual flashes.

The young female cop in the doorway wearing the kind of phoney smile Fleur had tried for earlier.

Vince behind her swinging a short metal cylinder against the side of her head.

The girl falling into the room.

The man taking two steps back and standing on Fleur’s hand.

Fleur hearing herself scream.

Vince raising the cylinder that was the sawn-off barrel of a shotgun.

The flash.

The bang.

The man falling backwards.

‘For God’s sake, shut that door!’ grated Fleur.

One thing she’d trained Vince up for was instant obedience. He kicked the door shut. Still on her knees, she swung round to the TV set and turned the volume up.

Then she sat and waited, counting up to twenty.

Nothing happened.

The TV set was showing a night scene. She studied herself in the darkened glass. The streak of blood down her face was dramatic but its source was a lesion the size of a peanut.

She adjusted her wig, turned the TV sound up higher, and got to her feet. Vince opened his mouth and she quietened him with a look.

She went to the door and listened.

She heard a door opening, a male voice saying, ‘Don’t be silly, it’s the television. Come on, we’re half an hour late already. Ma will be furious.’ To which the shrill female replied, ‘So what? Can’t we be an hour late, or better still two hours? In my condition, how can I hurry?’

The voices faded away down the corridor.

Now Fleur turned and took in the room.

The man who might be Wolfe was gone beyond recall. The shotgun blast had all but removed his face. There was no way they were going to identify him by comparing him to a photo.

The female cop had fallen on her left side. Blood oozed from a long contusion on the right temple where Vince had struck her. A shallow bubble of saliva formed at her lips, sank, then formed again very slowly, so for the time being at least she was still alive.

Vince stood there, weapon in hand, regarding her with an expression she was all too familiar with, the look of a small boy who suspects he has done wrong but isn’t yet sure if his actions merit mild reproof, stern reproach, or severe punishment. She had to bite back the angry invective forming in her throat.

Then he said, ‘I thought he was hurting you, sis,’ and her anger dissolved.

He is what he is, she thought, and for better or worse she loved him. In fact he was the only person on the face of the earth that she had any positive feeling for, and his need to be protected was matched by her need to protect him. These two, the dead man and the probably dying woman, were so much collateral damage, the high but necessary price that had to be paid for the love between her and her brother. Everything came second to that. Love was a harder taskmaster than even The Man, promising small reward at the end of the day. But you knew when you entered his service that you signed all your rights away.

She said wearily, ‘We’ll talk about it later, Vince. For now, let’s get things sorted in here then be on our way.’

THREE

misterioso

PRELUDE

She says I’m pregnant.

The words bring such an explosion of joy that it shatters the barriers his mind had built against pain.

She sees only the pain and turns away.

But he turns with her, and now she sees the joy, and it’s so great that in a moment she thinks she must have imagined the pain.

He knows once more who he is…no, not is…he knows who he was, for now the nowhere existence in which he had felt himself shadowy, insubstantial, has sent out roots and will grow like the seed in her belly, while that other existence in that other world of pain proves to be the world of shades, inhabited by ghosts, himself nothing more than ghost when he visits it.

He knows he has to visit it, for that ghost of himself needs to be laid. So he descends into the shadowland to seek his old love, and when he sees her there, safe and secure in another shade’s arms, he turns away and climbs back to the light, not fearing to look over his shoulder because he knows she will not be following.

His new love waits for him, radiant to see him return, not questioning where he has been for no doubt lies between them, and he tells her no lies for how can a man lie about a world that no longer exists?

He feels the new world of her ripening belly under his hands.

Lucinda, he says.

What did you say?

Lucinda. That’s her name.

But we don’t even know that we’ll have a girl!

Yes we do, he says with the smiling certainty of one who knows that that other existence had been but a dress rehearsal whose disasters were a necessary prelude to a triumphant and lengthy run. And her name will be Lucinda. And from the moment she is born, she shall have nothing but the best.