Smoke & Whispers (2 page)

And didn’t know which room Zoë had stayed in, but surely it wouldn’t have been much different to this, and that thought held Sarah there a little longer, hand on the doorknob – eyeing the reds of the carpet; the creams of the bedspread; the regimented pattern on the walls – and wondering if Zoë had had such a moment, near the end of her life; a moment of hesitation on a threshold, glancing back to see if there was anything she’d forgotten. Except Zoë never forgot much. What she left behind she left deliberately, as being no longer of use.

Sarah flicked the light switch and shut the door, locking the darkness inside.

She didn’t need to take the lift – she could manage a couple of flights of stairs, thanks – but with six floors to descend, she’d have made the same choice: the lift didn’t inspire confidence. It had a metal grille for a door, and she suspected this might be all that was holding it together. The stairs it was then, which were wide; the landings hung with the kind of paintings that always look like they need cleaning: pairs of dead pheasants, tied at the ankle; improbably polished pieces of fruit. Sarah was compiling her own picture of the hotel’s past, a brighter place than its present. Crinoline featured heavily, as did steamer trunks carted by uniformed porters, with braces showing.

The bar, too, was a hymn to faded grandeur. There was a large mirror behind the bar itself, engraved with gilt lettering she couldn’t make out for the rows of bottles in front of it. The wooden counter curved like a ship’s flank, and had a brass footrail. If she checked, she’d probably find the screwholes that once fixed a spittoon in place. A thread-bare rug covered most of the floor. Scattered here and there were the usual round tables with small congregations of stools, but by the fireplace in the far wall was a sofa; also a couple of rattan armchairs that looked like they’d wandered in from somewhere else – possibly the dining room, whose entrance was to their left. Their backs faced the rest of the bar, as if they were engaged in private conversation.

She was the only one here, apart from the barman. Who, she guessed, was mid-thirties, which was pushing it for the look he was aiming at: head shaved to blond stubble; small gold hoop through his left nostril. But she’d be the first to admit she wasn’t the best judge of what passed for edge these days; besides, his eyes were a blue so pale, they almost shaded into grey, and he smiled with genuine warmth. And when he asked her pleasure, his accent broke like a wave on a faraway beach.

‘You’re not local.’

‘Ah. You penetrated my disguise.’ He wiped the counter with a cloth as he spoke, as if he were method acting. He wore a collarless white shirt, its top button undone, and dark chinos. ‘I heard that wherever you go in the world, you’ll find a Geordie and an Australian. I’m just cutting to the chase.’

‘So statistically, there must be a Geordie bartender in Sydney now.’

‘If I came from Sydney, miss, I’d never have left.’

She liked the ‘miss’. ‘So why not just go there instead?’

‘I am. I’m taking the long way round. What can I get you?’

He chatted amiably as he poured a glass of Sauvignon: his name was Barry, he’d only worked here two weeks, and he hailed – don’t laugh – from Wallaby Springs.

‘Sounds like a middle-of-nowhere place.’

‘You wish. Wallaby’s slightly left of nowhere. People heading for the middle miss it completely.’

‘This must feel like home from home.’

‘The hotel, you mean, not the city. We’re not weighed down with guests, that’s true.’ He glanced around theatrically: they were still alone. ‘We’re not supposed to be trumpeting this – act like everything’s normal, you know? – but the place is closing down. End of next month.’

Sarah said, ‘I thought it felt deserted.’

She didn’t just mean of guests, either. All she’d seen of staff so far was the woman who’d checked her in, and now Barry.

Who said, ‘That’s how come I got the job. Last guy quit soon as he heard. No barman likes to close a place down.’

‘But you don’t mind.’

He shrugged. ‘It’s not a career. Just where I am right now. And it beats flipping burgers.’

Flipping burgers, Sarah thought. Had any job summed itself up so succinctly? She took a sip of wine, which was crisp and dry and stirred an appetite: she’d not eaten since a sandwich on the train. ‘Speaking of which,’ she said, ‘is your restaurant open?’

‘Don’t worry, we’re not that closed. It’ll open at seven.’ It was ten to. ‘There’s a party coming in.’ was ten ‘Party?’

‘You’re not the only guest.’ He winked, and she thought: uh-oh. There was clear blue water between friendliness and fancying your chances. She didn’t want to be fending off Barry in a deserted bar. But he went on, ‘Some businessman, here to frighten up investors. He booked a buffet for twenty-five. Things’ll get busier.’

This, too, Sarah didn’t need: to be sharing a restaurant with a gang of venture capitalists. ‘How about room service?’

He made a face. ‘Sorry. Must seem like a half-arsed operation, right?’

‘Not your fault.’ The wine was going down nicely. ‘I’ll have another of these.’

‘Second one’s on the management,’ he said. ‘House rules.’

‘Thank you, Barry.’ When he set a fresh glass in front of her, she said, ‘A friend of mine stayed here a few weeks ago.’

‘Male or female?’

‘Female.’

‘Dark-haired lady? Curly hair?’

She said, ‘That was quick. That was very quick.’

‘She was my first customer. Or the first not to be an overweight bloke wanting to know if I had any useful numbers. Guys who tend bar and guys who drive taxis, we’re all supposed to be a sort of 18-rated
Time Out
.’

‘So you remember her.’

‘Yeah, she was here. We talked a bit. Zoë, right?’

‘Zoë. Yes.’

‘She drank what you’re drinking. Always a good basis for friendship.’

‘In the absence of anything else,’ Sarah agreed. ‘What did you talk about?’

Barry shrugged. He’d thrown his cloth over a shoulder, and again this struck Sarah as a little too perfect a gesture. Maybe he took his cues from that same olde-worlde sense she’d felt on walking down the stairs. Then again, what did she know about bartending? It must come with its own set of tics. ‘Usual stuff,’ he said. ‘She played her cards pretty close. Never did work out why she was here, or what she did for a living. But I only noticed that afterwards, you know what I mean?’

‘Yes,’ Sarah said.

‘She had a way of drawing you out without letting you in. What felt like a conversation at the time seemed more like an interrogation afterwards. I mean, she must have left here knowing all there is to know about the Springs, right? But I can’t even remember where she lived. London, was it?’

‘You’re talking about her in the past tense.’

‘Occupational hazard. A lot of the people I talk to, I never see again.’

There was noise behind Sarah; voices approaching from the lobby. This would be the party Barry had mentioned. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she told him. ‘Thanks for the drink. And the company.’

‘You’re very welcome.’ He raised his voice. ‘Evening, gents. It’s my pleasure to be serving you tonight.’

Sarah retreated to one of those rattan chairs; sat with her back to the incoming company. Businessmen. She could see it already. Loud-voiced laughter and off-colour jokes. She closed her eyes as the noise level rose, and found herself hurtling into tomorrow, when all doubts would be settled one way or the other: Zoë was dead or not dead, and Sarah would know whether she was free to mourn or not. This would be new territory. She had encountered death before, of course, but there were degrees of appropriate grief. An English attitude, but no less felt for all that. So far, there’d always been someone closer to the dead than her; she’d always been encroaching on someone else’s sorrow simply by feeling less of it than them. With Zoë, that wasn’t the case. With Zoë, she’d be mourning hardest.

Her wine was still dry, still crisp, but it was also rapidly disappearing.

Voices floated over from the bar.

‘You can call it the Athens of the North for all I care, old boy, the clue’s still in the name. North.’

‘It’s only three hours from London by train.’

‘My point exactly. In three hours, I could have a good meal, asset-strip a failing charity and still get an early night.’

It was the words as much as the voice, but it was also the voice – a round plump voice, which could only come from a tongue thick and fat, well used to digging the cream out of a doughnut.

But, of course, it was also the words.

‘So you’re only here to make money.’

‘Only God and the Treasury
make
money, old son. I’m more of a collector.’ more of a Ha ha.

‘But a generous collector. As those around me can testify.’ The clink of a glass being set on a counter. ‘I don’t get many complaints from those who follow where I lead.’

Sarah looked at her own glass, which had become horribly empty. In her mind she was tossing a coin, but there was never any doubt which side it would fall.

‘Is this all an act?’

‘All? No.’ The pause came with stage directions: she could almost hear him tilting his head to one side. ‘Thirty per cent. Maybe forty. Does it matter?’

Ha ha.

She slipped out of the chair, and found her legs a little wobbly – the wine? No, not the wine. Circumstance, pure and simple.

A small circle had congregated at the bar, behind which Barry was wiping the counter again, trying a little too obviously not to listen to the entertainment. The circled characters were the usual collection of suits; were all men; teeth and eyes and hair and limbs arranged in recognizable ways. She paid them no attention. Her interest was in their focal point: the man with his back to her, making all the noise, though whatever he was actually saying now was lost in another round of laughter: lost in another round Ha ha ha ha ha.

And then the laughter died bit by bit, as the men facing her realized she wasn’t about to sidestep them and make her order at the bar; that she had, in fact, come to a halt just behind their host, and wasn’t going anywhere until he’d turned. Which he did, once it became apparent from their expressions that there was someone behind him.

In that first brief moment of recognition, something else flickered in his eyes: a hint of shock. Or possibly even fear.

‘Good God,’ he said. ‘Sarah Trafford.’

‘Gerard Inchon,’ she said. ‘Fancy meeting you here.’

3

They’d both racked up some body miles since last meeting, but – glasses notwithstanding – Sarah was wearing hers better. It wasn’t that Gerard had put on weight (though he had) or lost more hair (though he had); it was that he seemed to be carrying something extra, the strain of which tugged at his mouth, making a flat line of what had once been plump and fleshy. His face looked drawn, was her initial impression; was almost a caricature of his younger self, though that thought lasted no more than a second, and whatever reaction he’d nearly let slip was swallowed in a smile that seemed no less genuine for being hastily slapped on. ‘After all this time,’ he said.

‘It’s been a while,’ she agreed.

‘You’re here alone?’

He was looking over her shoulder, satisfying himself she wasn’t the vanguard of a larger visitation.

‘I’m on my own, yes.’

He said to his gang, ‘Do excuse me. An old friend, an unexpected pleasure. Gary – fix drinks, good man. Introductions in half a sec.’

One hand on her elbow, he drew her expertly towards the fireplace she’d just left. Which was laid but unlit: split logs criss-crossed in tepee fashion – that thing about carrying coals to Newcastle had come home to roost. Nobody was doing it, so they had to rely on wood.

‘Sarah Trafford,’ he said again.

‘Tucker,’ she corrected him.

‘Of course.’ He released her arm. ‘You ditched the less-than-lily-white Mark, didn’t you?’

She had no desire to rattle the bones of her defunct marriage. ‘How are you, Gerard?’

‘Oh, bloody well. Not far short of fantastic, in fact. But what about you? You’re not actually
staying
here, are you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good God. What on earth for?’

‘I’m on holiday.’

‘In Newcastle?’ Gerard Inchon could do puzzled like nobody’s business. ‘Doncaster fully booked, was it?’

Thinner mouth or not, he could still give it some lip.

‘They had a rush on,’ she told him. ‘I suspect they’re having a whippet rally.’

He was into his forties now: his thinning still brown hair scraped back over his head; his jowls – she rarely had recourse to ‘jowls’, but Gerard demanded it – his jowls still wobbly, giving his face an inverted look. Still clean-shaven. Immaculately so, in fact. And, now his initial reaction had faded, still with that knack of assuming local attention as his due: for all he might resemble an extra in a forties film – a background figure at a racetrack, or remonstrating with a policeman – Gerard would never settle for a walk-on part. Not that he’d steal scenes, precisely. He’d just acquire them at fire sale prices, flog them to a shell company, then lease them back at rates he could claim against tax: he was, after all, a businessman – a ‘leading’ businessman, in fact. Nor was this just his opinion. Sarah had heard him profiled on Radio 4 when Inchon Enterprises went public; she’d been impressed by how little of his private life made it on to the airwaves. His marriage to Paula had been mentioned, and that was about it. Because Gerard Inchon was a public figure, but not one anyone knew much about. She suspected that was the way he liked it.

‘Now now,’ he said. ‘I’ll make the slighting regional references.’

He seemed quite serious about this, and perhaps was.

Sarah looked beyond him, to the crowd at the bar. ‘I’m interrupting your party,’ she said. ‘You’ll want to be with your friends.’

‘Friends?’

‘I’m using the term loosely,’ she assured him.

‘I’ve never met most of them,’ he said. ‘But you know what it’s like when you’re in a new town. You want to leave your marker with the movers and shakers.’

This was so far removed from Sarah’s experience that she couldn’t reply directly. ‘And what brings you here in the first place?’

‘You can’t guess?’

‘Business?’

‘You always did have my number, didn’t you, Sarah?’

They both knew this wasn’t so. They’d met during a troublesome upheaval in Sarah’s life – the same upheaval that had brought Zoë into it – and for a while she’d thought Gerard Inchon the cause of her problems. The fact that she’d been wrong should have taught her a lesson, she supposed, about first impressions and surface values. She was never really sure, though, that life’s lessons stuck.

She said, ‘I wouldn’t have thought the Bolbec tony enough for you.’

‘Tony? That’s New Labour speak for classy, yes? I didn’t have you down as a snob.’

‘I mean it doesn’t have wi-fi, Gerard. Or an atrium. Or a TV chef.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I think he used to be on
Steptoe and Son
.’

‘It doesn’t even have a sauna. Why aren’t you at Malmaison?’

‘Fully booked. Chelsea are in town. But don’t worry, I’ll sack my PA first thing in the morning.’

‘You haven’t changed, have you?’

‘Still the capitalist monster?’

‘Exactly.’ But she smiled as she said it. They had an understanding, Sarah and Gerard. They’d clash broadswords, but refrain from whopping each other’s limbs off. ‘How’s Paula?’

‘Fine. Fine. Fine.’ He glanced round. The group he’d abandoned had been augmented by half a dozen more: all male. ‘What are you doing now?’

‘I’ll just finish my drink and slip off quietly. I didn’t mean to drag you from your guests, Gerard.’

‘Not at all. I mean, that’s not what you’ll do at all. You’ll join us, of course. I assume you haven’t eaten?’

‘Well, no, but –’

‘Have to have gone completely bloody native to have done that. It’s not eight yet. They call it “tea”, did you know? Anyway, it’s a buffet, so you’ll hardly upset the placement. That’s settled, then.’

Sarah felt conscious that she was under-dressed; that everyone in sight, Barry excepted, was suited and tied and generally dolled to the nines. Gerard himself was tailored just short of perfection: a dark grey suit; a rich blue tie.

‘Well, I’m . . .’

But she wasn’t anything. All she had lined up was another attempt to contact Russ. And while meeting a bunch of strange businessmen wasn’t her idea of a night out, neither was sitting in a hotel room waiting for morning, when she’d take a trip to the morgue. If she stayed in her room, she wouldn’t be alone. Zoë’s potential ghost would be with her, rattling memories and whispering dread.

Besides, Gerard had a deaf spot where ‘No’ was concerned.

‘Thank you. I’d enjoy that.’

And besides again, what were the odds? Of Gerard Inchon being here, in the same hotel Zoë had stayed, in what might have been the last week of her life? Sarah wasn’t aware they’d ever met, but she was a point of connection between the two. If time was the means by which the universe prevented everything from happening at once, coincidence was the excuse it used when things occasionally did. But as an excuse, it quickly wore thin. Zoë, dead or not, was whispering already.
What are the chances,
Sarah? What’s he doing here, anyway?

Come to that, what had Zoë been doing here?

Gerard, smiling, took her by the arm once more. ‘Let’s have another drink,’ he said. ‘And meet these no doubt charming people.’

She was poured another glass by a smirking Barry, and in quick succession met two no doubt charming people whose names she immediately forgot. Gerard evidently had a Rolodex where part of his brain should be. If his story could be trusted, he’d barely met anyone here himself, but there was no hesitation in his introductions, and as soon as he’d made them he was off. The bar was filling up still, and Gerard worked the room like a politician, pressing flesh on each new arrival; producing brief barks of laughter and intakes of breath in about equal measure. It was early yet, though. She’d seen him split bigger crowds than this.

‘So you know our host?’

‘Not well. But yes, we’re acquainted of old.’

A waitress had joined the gathering throng; was cruising with a bottle of fizz, topping glasses, all bright-eyed and shiny. Sarah guessed someone had once told her her eyes were her best feature, because she was holding them open wider than natural. God, the hoops you had to jump through. It was a wonder footbinding had slipped off the agenda. She remembered Ginger Rogers’ remark: that she’d made the same moves Fred did, only backwards, wearing heels. And even as the thought occurred, Sarah realized she was drifting, and that her new friends were visibly unimpressed with her sparkle . . . Perhaps this had been a mistake. Perhaps she should have sneaked off to her room after all.

‘I’m sorry, excuse me a moment?’

She abandoned her glass, found the loo, then washed her hands and took a good long stare in the mirror. More and more often, this was her way of facing herself. She liked to know which Sarah she was talking to. ‘Are you up to this?’ The Sarah in the mirror mouthed the words back at her. ‘Because otherwise you could hide in your room and think about your dead friend.’
Not necessarily dead
, the answer came. And then, again,
What’s Gerard Inchon doing here anyway?
Not a question to be answered by hiding in her room. Nor by standing like a lemon while folk talked round her.

‘Party time,’ she told the Sarah in the mirror.

Knock ’em dead
, Sarah replied.

She collected a glass of fizz from the circuiting girl; had barely taken a sip before a man approached her with a smile. ‘We haven’t met, have we?’

‘We have now.’

‘That’s good. My name’s Jack.’

‘Hello, Jack. Mine’s Sarah. I don’t need to ask if you’re from round here.’

‘Holding a census?’ He glanced round the room, which now held about twenty people. ‘I’ll save you a few minutes. There’s yourself, your man Inchon, and those two in the corner, there, Little and Large. My friend John. And everyone else is toon-grown.’

‘You know them all?’

‘The ones I don’t, I can tell.’

She nodded in the direction of the bar. ‘And Barry there’s from Australia.’

‘Oh aye?’

‘A place named Wallaby Springs, would you believe.’

‘Now you mention it,’ he said, ‘no. I wouldn’t.’

He was neither little nor large himself, this man Jack; he was tall but thin, the kind of thin steel cables were. Sarah found herself remembering a soldier she’d once known. Jack, though, looked reasonably user-friendly. His dark hair, neatly styled, fell fuller than the military allowed, and the suit he wore – blue as evening fog – cost as much as everyone else’s put together, Gerard’s excluded. Patches of acne scarring on his cheeks were a reminder of an adolescence as far behind him as Sarah’s own.

‘And what is it you do, Jack?’

‘I’m a career criminal.’

It was so unexpected, she couldn’t help but laugh. ‘You’ve fallen in good company, then.’

‘A regular thieves’ gathering,’ he agreed. ‘No, these gentlemen are what pass for the great and good in these parts. By which I don’t mean they’re either great or good, just that they can be relied upon to turn up when money’s in the air.’

‘Is that what I can smell? I’m surprised the room’s not fuller.’

‘If the money was free, you’d have trouble bending your elbow,’ he agreed. ‘No, they’re here to gawp at your man Inchon. Hoping some of it will rub off.’

‘It?’

‘It’s always tempting to think other people’s success is based on luck.’

‘And what’s yours based on?’

‘My success?’

‘You’re here,’ she said, ‘aren’t you?’

‘Good point.’ He drained his glass, examined the empty vessel a moment as if surprised it wasn’t larger, then said, ‘The family business started in haulage, but these days it’s mostly storage. You know those big depots you see outside city centres? The kind trains go past when they’re reaching the station?’

‘Acres of dismantled cars,’ Sarah said.

‘That’s from a poem, I can tell. Well, we – the family – we own a lot of those. You wouldn’t believe how much people will pay to fill them with junk.’

‘Nice for you.’

‘As you say. So there’s capital to take care of, and never let anybody tell you that’s not a full-time responsibility. Hence, as you’ve pointed out, my being here.’ He pointed with his empty glass to where Gerard was doing his three-ring circus act. ‘Your man Inchon’s been scaring up local talent. I’d be failing in my duty if I didn’t take an interest.’

Your man Inchon. His third use of this. ‘What makes you think he’s mine?’

‘Just a turn of phrase. But you’re the only lady here. And we’ve established you’re not from these parts.’

Invisible quote marks hovered over that.
These parts
.

‘Fair enough. We’re old friends as it happens, but I’m here by chance. I didn’t know Gerard was in Newcastle. I’m on . . . other business.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘What were you about to say before you changed it?’

‘Nothing I particularly want to elaborate on. If that’s okay.’

‘Aye, of course.’ He didn’t try to work it, either. ‘He has quite a rep, your friend.’

‘We haven’t seen each other in some years.’

‘Well, he’s managed all right in your absence.’

Sarah didn’t doubt it for a minute, but it was an interesting slant on Gerard Inchon: that people in cities he didn’t frequent were keen on getting a gawp at him. Not the big beast Branson was, but he obviously punched above his weight in the marketplace. And his weight, as she’d already noted, hadn’t diminished in recent years.

‘And what is it you do, Sarah?’ she was being asked.

‘And what is it you do, Sarah?’ she ‘Editorial stuff. I’m a sub-editor.’

‘With a newspaper?’

She shook her head. ‘I freelance. A lot of publishing houses outsource their hands-on work. I do bits and pieces.’

‘But you’re your own boss.’

‘That sounds nicer than “spends a lot of time trolling after work”.’

‘Still true, isn’t it? It’s all down to spin. People take you at face value. You want to make a good first impression, you’ve five seconds to do it in. Ask your man Inchon.’ He put a hand on his heart. ‘Turn of phrase. Honest to God.’

The girl with the bottle refilled their glasses. Barry, Sarah saw, was busy behind the bar too: a lot of the company had moved on to spirits. She didn’t think that was a direction she’d be heading in. On the other hand, if they didn’t eat soon, the fizz would be damaging enough.