The Five Gates of Hell (42 page)

He drove at a steady thirty-five; if anyone was following him, he would lull them into a false sense of security. When he reached Highway 1 he turned north. It was rush-hour. The air was fogged and glittery with exhaust. As he passed the Butterfield turn-off, the traffic slowed to a standstill and, just for a moment, Jed felt alone; just for a moment he wished that he too was leaving work after a hard day, that he too was heading for a cocktail and dinner in some comfortable house in the northern suburbs.

Then, as the traffic picked up speed and distances began to open between the cars, the sign appeared. Not green like the highway signs, but black and white. Discreet. Innocuous. STATE ABATTOIRS 1 MILE. Jed stamped on the gas and cut into the exit lane, his speed close to fifty now. This was the moment of acceleration, this was the cloud of ink. Down off the highway, round in a circle, under an overpass, and then he was slamming down the narrow road that led to the abattoirs: fifty, sixty, sixty-five. The mirror was empty. Two
clangs as he cleared the metal cattle grilles. He swung left into an alley. Pipes coiled overhead, white steam gushed from vents. A sweet smell like beaten egg. A smell that sweetened and decayed. He saw row after row of animal hides slung over rails in an open barn.

The alley fed into a concrete yard. His wheel slithered on mud and straw. This must be where the animals were unloaded. He took a wood ramp that led down past a slaughterhouse and sent his car twisting and rocking along a dirt track. The buildings were behind him now. There were ditches on either side and stands of yellow weeds. Ahead of him, through the windshield, he could see a thin blue strip, a forgotten piece of the harbour. He gunned the car up a steep bank and on to a disused railway. His tyres crackled on chips of stone. In front of him was an old iron swing-bridge. A sign whispered DANGER in small red letters. The sign amused him. Danger was relative.

Not many people knew about the railway. If you didn't know, and you consulted a map of the city, you could be forgiven for thinking that the line was still being used. On the map, the abattoirs looked like a dead end. To anyone following him, this detour of his would seem like a serious mistake – the result, possibly, of panic. That was the beauty of the manoeuvre. By the time they realised that the mistake was theirs, it would be too late.

He drove slowly over the bridge, the metal wincing under the weight of the car. Then down off the bridge, over wasteland, through the switchback streets of Venus. Down again, into the darkness of the harbour tunnel. In twenty minutes the Towers of Remembrance rose in his windshield. He checked his mirror. Still empty. He was seaweed in seaweed, rock on rock. They'd never find him now.

Nathan heard the stairs creak, the front door slam. He reached the window in time to see Harriet climb into her car. She was wearing a dark coat, the same coat she wore to the funeral. Her face showed nothing. A sealed envelope. Her scarlet lips set hard, like wax.

It was Wednesday morning. He sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee. Tell me something. Do you like this city? Her threats stood around in his head like jailers with bunches of keys. I could make things difficult. The day before he'd asked Dad's lawyer if it was possible to speed up the handling of the probate. Dad's lawyer had given him a glance that barely cleared the rims of his spectacles. ‘There are very good reasons,' he said, ‘why the law moves as slowly as it does.' The fan turning on its long neck. The wall the colour of soiled shirt collars.

Nathan lifted his eyes from the table. Clouds gathered above the hills and the garden darkened. He saw the rain come swirling out of the sky. He watched the drops crawl down the window. Another six weeks, the lawyer had said. Minimum.

Morning tipped over into afternoon and still he'd done nothing. He moved to the lounge and stood with the french windows open and listened to the rain on the surface of the pool. He remembered days like this when he was young. They used to sit at the kitchen table and paint on sheets of shiny brown paper. Though he tried to paint blue skies, they always came out muddy. When he complained, Dad said, ‘Look at George, it doesn't bother her.' Of course it didn't bother her. She never put any sky in her pictures, did she? She just left big patches of brown everywhere. If you asked her what the patches were, she'd say, It's brown things. Brown things? It's earth, she'd say. It's a table. I don't know. It's dogs. She would always have an answer. She could always find a way round things.

He closed the french windows and turned back into the room. There was something he'd been meaning to do and he should do it now, while he was alone, with no excuses. He climbed the stairs and
walked into the bedroom that had once been Dad's and was now his. He took a key out of the bedside-table drawer and unlocked the closet. Inside were two rows of clothes. Old suits, mostly. Blazers, coats. Frayed at the cuffs and buttons gone. Epaulettes of dust. This part would be all right, he realised. If Dad had worn these clothes at all, he'd worn them before Nathan's memory began; they preceded him and wouldn't hurt. He emptied the closet of everything except the wire hangers and the sheets of Christmas paper. All he kept back were two suits and a jacket. The suits were for him. The jacket was for Georgia. He thought she might like it. It was brown.

The airing cupboard next. Here were the familiar parts of Dad's wardrobe. Here, for instance, was the blue cardigan. Nathan lifted it out and touched it to his nose. It smelt so clean and warm, of talcum and vanilla, of his father. This was the cardigan Dad used to wear in bed. This was the cardigan he'd worn when he drank beer on the bottom of the sea. His face buried in the blue wool, Nathan thought of the nights he'd rubbed Dad's back for him, that peculiar blend of smells, skin and eucalyptus oil, he could hear Dad's voice rising drowsy from the pillows: ‘A bit further down, a bit further, yes, that's it, that's perfect.'

He looked at the clothes arranged in such neat piles in the cupboard, then he looked down at the clothes already packed into boxes at his feet, already creased and growing cold. He had to look away, through air that seemed warped. He folded the blue cardigan, put it back in the cupboard. He put the heels of his hands in his eyes and pressed. The rest of the clothes he sorted briskly, mechanically, as if they belonged to a stranger. He left no room for thoughts to start.

When the airing cupboard was empty, he dragged the boxes to the top of the stairs. He looked out of the landing window. Brown-paper skies and big silver raindrops sliding down the telegraph wires. No view of the harbour or the city, no sense of the time of day.

He reversed the car out of the garage and round to the front door, then he carried the boxes down the stairs and out to the porch, and loaded them into the trunk. At the gate he had to brake and wait for a car to pass. It was then that he noticed the man standing outside their house. The man was wearing a grey suit and holding a large black umbrella. Something told Nathan that the man had been standing there for quite a while. He couldn't be sure, the rain was falling harder now, jumping back off the sidewalk, it was like looking through smoke, but he thought he recognised the man. In that same moment the man realised that Nathan had seen him. One of his shoulders
twitched. He spun round and hurried away. It must be someone who's heard about the death, Nathan thought. Another coffin chaser.

In ten minutes he was parking outside the local charity store. A sign hung in the window: CLOSED. He took his hands off the wheel, leaned his head back against the seat. He hadn't expected this. It was more than dismay that he felt now. It was some slow disintegration; he felt as if he was gradually being crushed in someone's fist. He couldn't face taking the clothes back home again. He'd have to leave them on the doorstep and hope they were still there in the morning. He hated doing it, but he could think of no alternative.

He stacked the boxes against the door in two piles and ran back to the car. He sent swift glances left and right. Nobody had seen him. The rain was still coming down and the streets were empty.

Back inside the car he couldn't move. He couldn't even turn the key in the ignition. He could picture the clothes inside the boxes: how they were slowly losing their warmth, how they were slowly growing cold. Somehow it was worse than seeing Dad in that chapel. It was worse than seeing him dead. He reached up, touched his face. It was wet. He couldn't tell where the rain ended and his tears began.

He didn't know what to do next. A drink, maybe. Wasn't that what people did? He drove south through Blenheim. The main street widened into highway; water jolted in the harbour, the masts of boats duelled against a low grey sky. When the arrow showed overhead, left lane for HARBOUR BRIDGE and DOWNTOWN, he thought of Georgia and took it. On the city side he dipped into the shadow of the bridge and stopped outside the first bar he saw. He walked to the back and found a phone. He dialled Georgia's number, waited. The window next to the phone was open. Some gutter must've snapped and rain was splashing down into the dark yard. It sounded like a massage parlour. Hands on fat.

Georgia wasn't answering. He walked back through the bar. He wanted a drink, but not here. In the car he remembered the man on the promenade. What was his name? Reid. He looked at his watch. It was just after six. He could drive to Necropolis and have a drink. If Reid turned up, then he'd have someone to talk to. If Reid didn't turn up, he could try Georgia again.

Necropolis was a blood-and-sawdust bar on the waterfront. High ceiling, low lights. Tables the shape of tombstones. Famous names cut into the marble. Nathan ordered brandy, a large one. He sat on a stool and looked around. Always a real mix in here, everything from whores to millionaires, but no sign of Reid. In a way, he was glad.
He'd wanted the advantage of arriving first. This time, perhaps, he could do some watching of his own. Those few seconds before someone sees you, they can give you leverage, they can let you into secrets.

He was halfway through his third drink when the door opened and Reid walked in. There was a glimmer of gold as, pausing just inside the doorway, he placed a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. It would have been hard to mistake him for a priest again, and yet he had this presence, he shone around the edges, it was as if he'd been standing at God's right hand on high and some of that power and glory had rubbed off. When he walked towards the bar he seemed to occupy the air above his head, you might almost have said that he owned it. He passed close to Nathan, brushing Nathan's left thigh with the tail of his jacket. He ordered bourbon on the rocks. Then, on second thoughts, a double bourbon, no ice. He skimmed a hand across his short black hair. He was still wearing those gloves of his. Nathan felt a slow fizzing begin inside him, as if he'd swallowed sherbet: an effervescence.

‘I didn't frighten you off then.'

Nathan finished his drink. ‘Did you think you might?'

Reid ordered him another. There are people who know exactly what you want, and when. There are also people who time their evasions perfectly.

‘You must've used binoculars,' Nathan said. Then, when Reid didn't seem to understand, he said, ‘To see me from your window.'

Reid smiled.

‘Do you make a habit of watching people like that?'

‘Habit? No.' But the word prolonged Reid's amusement. ‘Sometimes there's distance, that's all,' he said. ‘Sometimes that's as close as you can get.'

‘Not much distance any more.'

Reid was still looking at Nathan, still amused. He lifted his glass to his lips and drank. He set his glass down again. ‘Why did you come?'

Nathan shrugged and looked away. ‘I don't know. I haven't been here for ages.' He looked at Reid again. ‘I suppose I felt like a drink.'

‘What else did you feel like?'

Nathan smiled to himself. He didn't need to answer that. It wasn't the kind of question you answered.

‘I mean, do,' Reid said. ‘Do you feel like.'

Nathan's smile lasted, but he was thinking now. This was a risk he
was taking. Out on a limb and what if it was amputated? The future? It could be reward, it could be punishment. He no longer knew what he deserved.

Afterwards he couldn't remember how Reid achieved it – a jerk of the head? a gloved hand on his forearm? – but suddenly they were leaving together. Outside the bar the night felt padded. Air so rich and dark, you could've cut it into slices like a cake. He felt his veins swell. A limousine slid past. The lick of tyres. Through open windows came staccato laughter, music, smoke.

He was steered towards a low car. Black or blue, he couldn't tell. It looked fast. It could split the air in two.

‘Get in.'

He obeyed. The perfume of new leather. And, faintly, cigarettes. Reid lit one, switched the engine on. The car hissed like a jet. Turbo. Money. Death.

They were heading west on Paradise Drive. They took the long curve inland at the Delta, the knitting-needle click as the gear stick shifted in its metal gate, the engine spitting, fighting the drop in speed. They approached the Palace Hotel from the rear, dipped down a ramp, it was like being swallowed by an open throat, they were underground.

They crossed the parking-lot, footsteps echoing on concrete. They reached an elevator. Reid turned a key in a silver panel. The doors slid open.

‘My back door,' he explained.

Once inside, he pressed 14. They didn't talk in the elevator. Nathan tried to see his reflection in the scratched stainless steel of the walls. All he could see was a blur. The doors lurched open on the fourteenth floor and Reid stepped out. Nathan followed. He stopped just outside, looked round.

Such quiet corridors. The carpet was a burgundy red, interrupted every ten feet or so by a black oval containing the letters PH in ornate red script. All the doors were black. Glass globes fizzed overhead, leaking a low-voltage yellow glow. In the distance, the word EXIT in weak red neon. He'd always wondered what the inside of the Palace looked like, but something seemed held back: it was as if, in the act of revealing itself, it had become still more mysterious.