Three Steps Behind You (17 page)

Oh, I see. Ally was just bait to get back onto familiar Helen territory. Or at least, I hope it was.

‘Didn’t help the police much, did it, though?’ I murmur, as the estate agent slides open the French window. Fresh air pours in.

‘Yet,’ says Nicole. ‘But I know you’re interested in their progress. Particularly DC Huhne’s progress. Because I know you Googled her too.’

It’s time for me to leave. I take one step into the garden to appease the estate agent, while Nicole (pleading delicate velvet shoes) watches us from the house.

‘I have to go and talk to my lawyer now,’ I announce.

The estate agent seems to think this means she is making a sale because she smiles broadly at me. She gets a handshake out of me, and I lie that I’ll be in touch. Then I walk back into the house, out of the front door. I don’t need to look back. I know Nicole will be watching me.

But then I realise that if I leave just like that, without warmth, my plan, the seduction, may fail. Which means the closeness that Luke needs, that I need, will evade me. So I turn, with a smile ready formed on my face, a wink ready to tug at my eye, a hand raised to wave at velvet Nicole.

Except when I turn around, there is nobody there.

Chapter 16

I don’t think the lawyer means to tell me about Jimmy.

At his offices, I am given coffee and a small muffin. I asked for tea but I don’t complain. It might cost more. The car hire company is paying up to £200 in legal fees. Beyond that, I have to pay. My settlement could easily reduce to zero. I’ve come to Adam’s lawyer, the one we used before. I wish I still had a suit. The crumbs of the muffin get into the grooves of the corduroy trousers, and my shoes leave garden mud on the carpets.

The lawyer (Mr McNulty, his card reminds me), is telling me that I am waiving all my rights under the agreement. Mr McNulty and the car hire company are not very imaginative. If I had to write an agreement for someone to waive all their rights, it would be much longer. This agreement does not even cover the three inalienables: life, love, liberty. It does not waive my right to kill myself. Or anyone else. If that is a right I have. If not, too late. Can I plead self-defence, I wonder? To be an author, I must flourish. To flourish I must have my closeness. Therefore I must defend myself against anyone who would come in its way.

In turns out, when I query it, that he only means my rights before an employment tribunal.

‘Fine. I’ll sign,’ I say, taking out my trusty red pen. I register its colour. Not so trusty. Nicole-red. I should have replaced this by now. It’s become a spy-pen, Nicole using it to watch my every move. Or else, it is appropriate; I am writing Nicole, after all, for book four. I can use her own devices against her. I take off the lid and move nib to paper.

‘Now, now, Mr Millard. Let’s not be hasty. I think the indemnity at clause 5.4.1. is a little onerous. And what about this provision for you to return your company car? Do you even have a company car?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t drive.’

‘You see,’ clucks Mr McNulty. ‘That’s template agreements for you! Had the same problem with Jimmy – if he’d had a company car, our friend Adam wouldn’t have had to give him a Maserati, eh? Now, if we just strike through here, and here, then—’

‘Adam bought Jimmy a Maserati?’ I ask.

Mr McNulty’s pen pauses, mid strike-out. He takes a moment, then looks up at me. His face is almost as white as his shirt.

‘Why?’ I ask.

There is another pause. I can see Mr McNulty thinking. He hasn’t had to do it until now in this meeting.

‘Ah, now, that’s confidential, Mr Millard! Let’s get back to this agreement, shall we? As I said, at’

‘Which agreement do I sign if I want Adam to buy me a Maserati? As his oldest friend?’

‘Well, not this one, Mr Millard. If you will concentrate, please, we’ve almost gone through the two hundred pounds on the clock.’

I look at my watch. There is a good fifteen minutes still available.

‘Is it because of the forms?’ I push. ‘Because I signed many more forms than Jimmy ever did. And, you know, I did it for friendship. Not a Maserati. But if the going rate is a Maserati, I want a Maserati.’

Mr McNulty puts down his pen. He folds his hands in front of him and looks at me.

‘Mr Millard. Dan. I don’t know what forms you’re referring to –’

‘For the cars, the forms for the free secret cars!’

Mr McNulty holds up a hand.

‘– but I’ve known Adam for a long time –’ he says.

‘Not as long as I have!’

‘– and he values loyal friendship as a commodity that can’t be bought. Adam’s life is commercial, about money – he’s a banker. It is second nature to him to regard problems as a question of “how much do I need to pay?” – and if it’s the going rate for a second-hand Maserati, so be it. But what a relief for him, how much he values, the things that can’t be paid for. Like friendship. Don’t you find?’

So what Mr McNulty is saying is that people like me are Adam’s biggest luxury. No, that’s not correct. Not people
like
me. Just me. I am Adam’s secret escape from the commercial world. The world of money and appearances and fakery means nothing to him. The money, which he’s always craved, as a tool, is nothing more than that – a tool. All he really wants is me. The testament to that is my Maserati-less driveway.

Mr McNulty is a wise man. I let him delete the indemnity at 5.4.1. and the reference to returning the company car. I stroke crumbs out of my cords while he makes an angry phone call to the car rental company. When he hangs up, he clicks about on his computer for a bit. I practise my fencing. It is no good. I do not feel method. I cannot write fencing yet. Which means Luke cannot fence properly. Which means if he has to defend himself, or I have to defend him, while I’m myself, we lose all. I must be method. I must go and learn fencing in the flesh.

After Mr McNulty has finished clicking, he starts printing. When he’s done that, he signs two bits of paper – the ‘adviser’s certificates’ – and hands them to me proudly. I don’t know why he is proud. They don’t look like a big achievement or worthy of framing, like proper certificates. But he tells me if I take them, and the newly printed agreement, to the car rental place now, they will sign the agreement and give me a cheque.

So I take the bits of paper and I walk to Hendon. To all the people in Holborn, Camden, Golders’ Green and Finchley in their big cars as I walk, I say this: You have a car because you are commodity to be bought. You have nothing innate, deep inside you, worth giving for free. You have never known true male friendship. True closeness.

Luke, like me, will walk.

His long muscular legs power his feet down on the pavement, up then down, suppressing the earth, containing it, ruling it
.

My legs, power up, power down, contacting, grounding.

He was made for this earth, to own it with fellow men, to live for free, not to be bought or sold. He was made for the closest comradeship, where men can inhabit each other’s souls
.

And I will inhabit again. Not directly. But indirectly. Through Luke. Through Nicole. Then share my message. And book four shall be seen as what must be. The truth of all time.

It is fair to say, though, that by the time I get to Hendon, I do crave a Maserati, even a second-hand one. It is a long walk. And for my blisters, despite my victory of friendship, I would like to know what Jimmy did for that Maserati.

Chapter 17

At the car rental shop, Steve is on the front desk. We nod at each other. I wave my agreement.

‘Can I just get the cheque, please?’ I ask, which I think is quite funny. Steve doesn’t get it, or at least he doesn’t laugh. He clearly doesn’t go to restaurants often enough. Not like me, Adam and Nicole.

‘I’ll get Prakesh,’ he says, and disappears into the backroom.

I see there are two cardboard boxes on the front desk with my name on. One ‘Dan docs’ and one ‘Dan stuff’, lids sellotaped down. How thoughtful of them to package these up for me. I start to slit the opening to ‘Dan stuff’ with my keys – or actually, now I look at them, Ally’s keys. How they came to be in my hands is a mystery to me, but I might as well make use of them now. The box is too small to contain a Maserati, but it’s still intriguing. I’m about to lift the lid when Steve reappears with Prakesh.

‘Those aren’t for you, Dan,’ says Prakesh, gesturing at the boxes.

‘How can they not be for me? They have my name on,’ I challenge.

‘Yeah, but they don’t say “Dan’s stuff”, do they? Just “Dan stuff”,’ Prakesh retorts.

‘But who else would be interested in Dan stuff?’ I ask.

‘I’m not able to disclose that information,’ Prakesh says.

They are probably starting a bonfire. That, or DC Huhne has been here.

I ask which it is. Prakesh does a little zipping motion along his lips, a bit like a body bag, but probably to denote silence (which is like a body bag too). But I see Steve wriggle a bit when DC Huhne is mentioned. So. She has expressed an interest in me. The question is: what interests her? The same thing that fixates Nicole, or the Ally incident? I can hardly ask Prakesh or Steve that. So I change tack.

‘The agreement doesn’t say you can have this stuff,’ I say, which is supposition really, because I’m only going on what Mr McNulty told me.

‘It doesn’t say we can’t,’ says Prakesh. ‘You’re waiving all your rights under the agreement.’

‘Not all of them,’ I say, thinking of liberty.

‘Okay, so you’re not waiving your rights to personal injury claims, but everything else.’

I’m not sure what claims I have to personal injury. Luke may have more. I’d be happy to waive both of them, to be untraceable: ‘I waive all rights to claim either I or my creation have personally injured anyone in the making of my art’. But I understand why I cannot do that. Even if Prakesh does not.

Still, I would like those boxes.

There are two ways to get what you want. One is to take it. The other is to pretend you don’t want it, but get it anyway, an indirect route. Over the years, I have become a master of both. Hence, book three. And indeed, book four.

In this scenario, I think I need an indirect route. I hatch a plan: once we have signed the agreement, I will order a cab without telling the others – wait around the corner for it. Then, when it comes, I will tell the driver I have a bad back, and ask him to go and collect the boxes for me. He can say, ‘Boxes for Huhne? I’ve been sent to collect them.’ Then I will have them, and DC Huhne won’t. True, when Huhne does eventually turn up, they will figure out something has happened, but by that point, the boxes will be in a bonfire of my own creation. Whatever’s in them.

Prakesh leads me into the back office and shuts the door. As he does so, I hear the shop door tinkle. A customer. Or Huhne? I try to catch a glimpse but our door is already shut.

We do a little signing ceremony. Or rather, we get out biros and scribble dates. Then Prakesh hands me a cheque. What I was expecting, but nice to see. I have plans for this money, the first this afternoon. After the boxes, and the taxi fare, of course.

‘Have you seen Jimmy recently?’ I ask, as we are standing up.

Prakesh shakes his head.

‘Good to keep in touch with old colleagues, though, right?’ I say.

‘Not always,’ Prakesh replies.

‘Perhaps I should pay him a visit,’ I say. Or just the Maserati. I would like to visit that.

But when Prakesh shows me back to the front desk, it’s not the Maserati I’m thinking of. It’s the boxes. And why they have gone.

Chapter 18

There is nothing in the boxes that can prove anything, I tell myself, as I head to the armourers.

At best, in ‘Dan stuff’, there will be a mug, a Pot Noodle sachet or two, maybe a spare shirt. Maybe there will also be fingerprints. But they already have those. And Ally doesn’t, nor her flat. I was careful of that. But the box will not have hair follicles or semen in. I do not collect that at my work place. Therefore it is unimportant, I tell myself.

I do not know what ‘Dan docs’ is. I suspect it is not collected Post-its with doodles on them. I am pretty sure somebody would have thrown them in the bin. Maybe it is all the forms I have filled in over the years – or just the ones since The Accident, when they went through all our forms. So again, there is nothing they can find there.

It is more the fact that they want the boxes that bothers me.

If they find me out, they find me out. They will catch Luke too.

But they mustn’t do it before my brilliance. My brilliance that will emerge in book four. I can write that from wherever they take me. Plenty of time again, like in Feltham. But I cannot do my research from there. I cannot make Luke complete. I must do that now, while there is time.

I was pleased to find the armourers is just round the corner from the car rental shop. Also, that it is actually called an armourers. Not a foil shop. Much grander, much more relevant. Because I need my armour. A lobster has an exoskeleton, but I do not, and nor does Luke. We need protection (and thankfully, smart Luke used protection, with Ally). Sometimes attack is the best form of defence, too. I will need to remember that.

The website showed me pictures of foils, épées and sabres. The foil is the most classical weapon – like a duelling sword. That was the one I wanted first. But it is too flimsy. I might as well try to fight with my violin bow. I am torn between an épée and a sabre. An épée is more romantic, leaner. But the sabre uses the side of its blade. It is heavier. More like a weapon.

I pick up one of the display sabres and weigh it in my hands. Yes, this feels right. It is not very sharp, but with enough force, it will have an impact. And it’s much more feasible for Luke, in the book, if not in life, than just a knife.

En garde! Luke sprang forward in a feint attack, then retreated. He drew his opponent on, prepared to parry, but they missed him. While they were recovering from his false move, he lunged. He struck them – blade, then point, blade, then point – his wrists oscillating behind the hilt of the sabre. He would disengage when he was through, but his opponent wanted this fight, wanted the stab, the blood—