The Count of Eleven (37 page)

He returned her grin, though he felt embarrassed by his subterfuge. There wouldn’t be many more scenes like this, he promised her. Of course their passports, like everything else in their lives, would take care of themselves so long as he did what was necessary. “I’d better be off before it gets too hot,” he said, and made for the van.

The hard-edged sun in the desert sky looked shrunken by its own heat. The tunnel under the river offered the only available shade. The route to the clairvoyant’s led through the suburbs of Liverpool into Skelmersdale, a ne wish town which appeared to have been built in anticipation of a future yet to be filled in around it. Enormous circular slices of lawn interrupted roads split down the middle by fields, and the roadsides were scattered with isolated clumps and rows of identical houses like the first growth of some new boxy vegetable encased in corrugated chocolate bark. Crumpled sheets of greasy paper lay on the verges as if maps had been forsaken by walkers who’d given up trying to find their way or any pavements. When Jack began to suspect that he’d driven around the same roundabout twice he stopped the van and opened the road map.

He was leafing through the book when four children, three boys and a girl, came into sight wheeling a supermarket trolley alongside a row of maisonettes identical except for the patterns of their net curtains. All the children looked about eleven years old. They saw Jack and went into a muttering huddle, then they approached the road with four inventively varied kinds of swagger which were presumably meant to imply that they had every right to be off school or that it was none of Jack’s business. The girl glanced at the van and nudged the nearest boy, and the two of them came to the passenger window while the others dawdled past with the trolley. “Do you sell dishes, mister?” the girl demanded.

“Dishes of what?”

She grimaced as though at a childish joke. “You know. Dishes.”

For a moment Jack continued to assume that she’d mistaken the van for a mobile cafe both she and her companion were undernourished, their thin pale faces raggedly framed by lank hair and then he remembered the trademark which was still faintly visible on the rear doors. “Satellite dishes, you mean.”

“Yeah,” the boy said with spectacular aggressiveness. “Give us one.”

“I haven’t any to give away or even to sell. Can you tell me how to get to ‘

“What’ve you got if you haven’t got dishes?” the girl said in open disbelief.

“Nothing much. Nothing you’d like.”

“Give us ten pee, then.”

“Each,” the girl added.

“I might if you tell me Jack said, and imagined being observed in the act of handing money to them as if to lure them into the van. It wasn’t that thought which made him break off, however; it was a muffled sound at the rear of the vehicle. “What’s happening back there?” he shouted, and sliding his door open, jumped down onto the tarmac.

The rear doors were wide open. As Jack sprinted to them, one of the boys leapt out of the van and flung the briefcase into the trolley. The girl and her crony had already run along the passenger side of the van. They grabbed the handle of the trolley without faltering and raced away along the road.

For a moment Jack didn’t know who he was. People might have robbed Jack Awkward, but surely not the Count. He slammed the rear doors and glared after the children. “You don’t want to steal that,” he said in a voice which cut through the air like a jet of flame.

Perhaps they faltered, but they didn’t halt. His power mustn’t work at that distance. “I warned you,” he said, and bolted after the children, who squealed in chorus. Two of the boys darted across the road, either abandoning their friends or trying to decoy Jack. He was gaining on the trolley when the girl and her companion reached the junction and dashed towards the roundabout, into the path of a car.

The car veered aside with a screech of brakes and a short dirty yell from the driver. The children ran the trolley onto the central island, which wasn’t as broad as the distance Jack had yet to run to it, unless the perspective was confusing him. He put on speed, his breath blazing in his aching lungs. He had just reached the edge of the roundabout when the children arrived at the far side of the island.

They couldn’t cross. Cars were streaming two abreast onto the roundabout, the gaps between them too small for even these children to brave. Jack sprinted onto the dry grass of the island and managed to suck in enough breath for a shout as the children saw him. “Leave it. I don’t want you, I only want my bag.”

The boy swung round and snatched the briefcase out of the trolley. Cars were still cutting off his escape. He held up the briefcase, and Jack’s innards twinged as he realised that the boy meant to fling it into the traffic. “Do that and I’ll kill you,” he warned, stumbling to a halt in the middle of the island.

His intention was to give the boy a chance to drop the briefcase without feeling threatened, but the girl grabbed the trolley and pushed it towards Jack with all her strength. It stopped yards short of him, slowed down by the grass. He had already sidestepped, and now he ran at the boy. “Bastard,” the boy yelled, hurling the briefcase across the island, and fled onto the road.

The briefcase landed at the very edge of the grass and sprang open. The blow lamp rolled out onto the island. The children dashed across the road, dodging cars, and began to shout at Jack upon reaching the verge. Their insults grew fiercer as they put more distance between him and themselves, but Jack was scarcely aware of them. So long as he ignored them, he felt, they couldn’t draw attention to him. He replaced the blow lamp quickly in the briefcase and stood up. Once the traffic permitted he strode off the island and onto the parched verge. He was halfway to the van when he saw that someone was waiting for him.

The man was leaning on a baseball bat, a pose which, like his bright red singlet, seemed designed to show off the muscles of his hairy arms. Jack bore down on him without breaking his stride. He was the Count now that he had his case back.

The man straightened up as much as he could without lifting the bat from the tarmac and thrust his flattened mottled face, whose most prominent feature was its dislocated nose, at him. “What were you doing with them kids?”

“The absolute minimum, considering.”

The man made a face that squashed his top lip under his nose. “Less of the fancy language, bud. What were you after?”

Jack held it up. “My case.”

The man considered it and the answer at length, then allowed his lips to sag. “You’ll be wanting to report it, then.”

“No point. I didn’t see their faces.”

Perhaps he should have asked the way to the police station, because the man looked laboriously suspicious. “What were you doing stopped round here?”

“Trying to find my way, and I wouldn’t object to some help.”

“You wouldn’t, wouldn’t you?”

“If I can find something called the Concourse,” Jack said as though his patience was almost exhausted, “I’ll know where I am.”

The man started to knock on the roadway with the tip of the baseball bat, until Jack wondered if he could be signalling to another vigilante. The gesture was apparently an aid to thought, however. Eventually the man lifted the bat and pointed with it towards the roundabout from which Jack had retrieved the briefcase. “Across there and the next one. And the one after it, and you’ll see the caterpillar.”

The last Jack saw of the man was a glimpse in the rear-view mirror of him poking the grass verge with the bat as though he regretted having put it to so little use during the encounter. Then the roundabout swung him out of the mirror and there was only tarmac and grass. The road sloped upwards for no particular reason and down again to the next roundabout, where a sign directed Jack to the town centre. A one-way system wandered around the Concourse, a large windowless box containing all the shops. On its roof there did indeed stand a giant bespectacled caterpillar. Jack left the van in the car park over which the caterpillar kept watch and made straight for his destination, across the one-way road.

All the street names were grouped in alphabetical order as if they might have been invented and then placed by a computer. On one side of the road were Flamstead, Flaxton, I Flimby and Flordon, on the other were Harsnips and j| Hartshead and Hawksclough. Fomble should be just around the bend, and there it was, opposite Hazingly. The clairvoyant’s was the end house, which had sprouted a lanky stained-glass porch to distinguish it from the rest of the chocolate terrace. Before Jack could ring the bell a woman stepped into the porch, colours spilling down her ankle-length white dress as if she had just upset half a dozen pots of paint over herself. “I sensed you were near,” she said. “Mr. Onze.”

“Who else.”

Her wide face looked tautened by earnestness and by the rainbow hair band from which her red hair flowed over her shoulders. “Come in, dear, so we can keep the heat out,” she said.

The narrow hall smelled of incense and a fried breakfast. Framed photographs of figures outlined by flaring colours hung on the staircase wall. Ursa Gemini ushered Jack into the first room, which was darkened by curtains embroidered with silver crescent moons and pentagram stars. One corner of the small room was occupied by shelves of books in shabby jackets Nostradamus, Strieber, von Daniken, Vogh and much of the rest of the wall space was concealed by greenery in pots. “Sit at the table, dear,” the clairvoyant said like an aunt having a child to tea.

The top of the round table which occupied the centre of the room was covered in green baize. This, and the Tarot pack that lay on it, suggested to Jack that they were about to play a game which the Count would win. The large white globe dangling above it imparted a glow to the baize while keeping the rest of the room dim. Jack took his place on one of the twin straight chairs as Ursa Gemini faced him across the table. “You’ve an unusual name, dear. Where are you from?”

As Jack met her green-eyed gaze she held up one hand glittering with rings. “Don’t tell me. Have you something to do with water?”

“Not directly.”

“I see you near water, and the letter could it be N or M?”

“I’m sure it could be.”

“Could I be seeing a river, dear?”

“If you say so.”

“I see you by the river. Would that have an M in it?”

“Among many other things.”

The clairvoyant waved her ringed fingers at him. “Try and help me a little, dear, so that we can establish a rapport. You live near the river, don’t you? The Mersey, I believe.”

“True so far.”

“And the name of the place, dear, would that be the N?”

“Good heavens.”

VI nearly see it, but it won’t come clear. Is it quite a long word?”

“Even longer.”

“Yes, of course, two words. It’s by the Mersey, isn’t it? New Brighton, am I right, dear?”

“Amazing. However do you do it?”

“We all of us have the gift, dear. It’s a question of putting your faith in it and making it work for you.” She sat forwards, brushing the Tarot pack aside, and took his hands. Hers were soft with plumpness, but their skin was rough. “Now, dear, tell me how I can help you,” she said.

“I wanted to tell you that over the phone, if you remember. You don’t think you could say now without my having to.”

“I’ll do my best if that’s what you want, dear,” she said like the aunt indulging the child. “I never ask anyone to pay unless they believe in me.”

She grasped his hands more firmly and closed her eyes. After a while she said “I get the impression you’re concerned about someone besides yourself.”

“I think you could safely say that.”

“I feel it may have to do with how you make a living.”

That may be the case in a manner of speaking.”

Her hands had grown absolutely still, and Jack sensed her trying to read any movements of his, but he let them go limp. “I see danger,” she said. “Do you make your living by taking risks, Mr. Onze?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

She appeared to be listening intently, but Jack thought that was only to him. “I still get danger,” she insisted. “Has it to do with protecting other people, what you do?”

“Yes indeed.”

“Are you worried about someone at the moment, dear?”

“Come to think,” Jack said with surprise, “I suppose I am.”

“Someone close to you?”

“Couldn’t possibly be closer.”

“I feel it’s a woman.”

“Right in one.”

“It must be your wife.”

“Even closer than my wife just now.”

Her hands shifted uneasily, then she opened her eyes. “You could try to help me a little, dear. I’m beginning to wonder if you’re really here for a reading.”

“Why else do you think I would be?”

“I’m not sure I care to know.” She gazed at him and flexed her fingers. “Do you want to hear the truth?”

“I’m counting on it.”

“I don’t believe Bernard Onze is your real name.”

“I can’t quite see a birth certificate saying Ursa Gemini.”

She let go of Jack’s hands and pushed them away. “If you came to try and discredit me, dear, I’m afraid I must ask you to leave. I’ve no time for anyone who wants to destroy other people’s beliefs because he’s no faith of his own.”

Before she could stand up, Jack closed his hands around her wrists. “Let go of me, dear,” she said, loudly enough to be preparing to cry for help.

“I want you to feel that I’m telling the truth. Don’t make me let go until we’ve reached an understanding.” He tightened his grip, gently but firmly enough that she would bruise herself if she tried to break free. “I don’t know why you should feel discredited. You were closer to the truth than you seem to think.”

Her hands were flattening themselves under his as though they were doing their best to be inconspicuous. “You said everyone can see the future if they work at it,” he said. “Let me tell you what I see for you.”

He felt the pulsing of her veins, her tendons growing tense. “If you keep up your correspondence,” he said, ‘all will be well.”

He thought she might be impressed by his being specific so quickly, but she looked resentful. “Who with?” she demanded. “What about?”