Tigerman

  ‘In point of fact, Jed, I’ve been calling you “ma’am” since day one.’

  ‘Never mind that now!’ It was actually rather a good impression of Kershaw’s bluster. ‘And when you talk to her, you say “Kaiko”. In fact, say it now so that you don’t forget.’ She made a basso chuffing which he was fairly sure was a giggle. Was it possible she was talking through a cardboard tube?

  Gamely, he said: ‘“Kaiko.”’

  ‘Again!’

  ‘“Kaiko.”’

  ‘Practise, Lester. Dr Inoue was quite specific, and it’s a long walk.’

  ‘All right,’ he said, and she chuffed again and rang off.

  He looked at his watch, bemused. He had just enough time to open one box and look randomly through a few files, but not enough to find the one containing the records he wanted specifically, and somehow it would be admitting defeat to begin as if he had already been let down.

  He put the knife on the sideboard, ready for the morning.

  Not wishing to treat his half-arrangement with the boy with disrespect, the Sergeant went down to the café to leave a note, and, finding his friend already there, hastily ordered tea and made his excuses. The boy listened, then grinned hugely.

  ‘You have a date!’ he said. ‘With the xeno lady! That is hot.’

  The Sergeant shook his head. ‘It’s not like that.’

  ‘It so is.’

  ‘It’s not! She wants a friendly face, is all. She’s worried about something.’

  ‘She has many friends at the xeno station,’ the boy said, ‘but she calls you. This is totally hot adult dating (meet area girls now!)’

  When the Sergeant continued to protest, the boy enlisted the help of Tom from behind the bar. Tom listened carefully to the sequence of events, and grinned. ‘I don’t know, Lester,’ he said lightly, ‘I think maybe the kid has a point.’

  ‘Not on my best day,’ the Sergeant said, smiling back.

  ‘Oh! So you would tap that?’ the boy demanded.

  The Sergeant, who had never really thought about it, was about to say ‘no’ but found he couldn’t. It had always seemed such an impossibility that he might be attractive to Kaiko Inoue that he had never actively asked himself whether she was attractive to him. Now that he came to consider it, however – now that he came to wonder about what might happen between them if such a thing ever came to pass – he had to acknowledge that she was more than a little captivating.

  ‘The situation does not arise,’ he muttered, and realised he was blushing.

  ‘Ooooo-ooooh!’ cried the boy happily. ‘Barracuda!’ And then, in deference to the possibility that the Sergeant was too old for this reference, ‘Na na na na na na na na na NA NAAAAH! Oooo-oooh! Barracuda! Like in Charlie’s Angels.’

  The Sergeant stayed for a little longer, threatening everyone with terrible violence, and then took his wounded dignity back to Brighton House, trying to think about everything except Kaiko Inoue in his bed.

  13. Dinner

  THE CAR ARRIVED on the dot of eight, and the Sergeant stepped into it with a feeling of being on the outside looking in. Until now, insofar as he had been in this situation at all, he had been the driver, not the passenger, waiting patiently with a book while someone very influential tried to find his other shoe. He found he was imagining what he must look like to the polite young man behind the wheel, and worried initially that he must look very posh and snotty, then abruptly, in a veering inversion, that by trying to look less so he was denigrating the importance of the event which was consuming the driver’s evening. Was it perhaps more disrespectful to assert that they were on the same social level than it was to accept that they weren’t? The Brevet-Consul was a mucketymuck, but the Sergeant was a working man, and this was a temporary assignment. Except that, he supposed, it would never entirely go away.

  It occurred to him, with a sense of wonder, that it would almost certainly help in getting a job after the army.

  He didn’t say anything at all while he thought about this, and when he came to himself the car was slowing outside the NatProMan admin block, the red-brick misery which had once been Mancreu’s house of detention. It was lit from below by two floodlights which somehow served only to make it darker and more Gothic.

  Wonderful.

  He walked to the door and it opened as if God or some sort of technological whizzbang was involved, but this was Mancreu so it was neither, just a respectful NatProMan soldier in flunkie mode.

  ‘Thank you,’ the Sergeant said, and saw the kid’s eyes flicker in surprised acknowledgement. He went on in.

  The old prison had been largely modernised for the use of prisoners, so the majority of the cells were drab little cubicles which had readily become storage rooms and offices. The main hall, however, had been preserved – for historical authenticity or more likely because the triple-height open-plan room with its cages along the side walls was too expensive to remodel. Kershaw greeted him at the double doors and ushered him inside, and the Sergeant stopped for a moment on the threshold in utter amazement.

  The hall had been transformed. It was still wrapped in shadows, still echoing and bleak. But along the middle was a banqueting table laid for forty, and the cooking was being done on gas burners in the cells. At one end, another, larger cell held a military jazz band, the drummer a striking marine corporal with her head shaved and the island of Mancreu tattooed onto her scalp. The music was slow and edgy and made him think of Shola’s wake, the combination of sorrow and celebration, and the building vanished into its own darkness, so that the ceiling was invisible and the walls seemed to go up and up for ever.

  ‘I hear you’re making an announcement, Jed,’ the Sergeant said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Kershaw replied. ‘You were on the list, anyway. Inoue just called you first. You get that, right?’

  ‘It’s nice to be a plus one. I can pretend I’m an ordinary bloke.’

  ‘I thought you were an ordinary bloke.’

  ‘Oh, I am. But they’ve given me all these hats, haven’t they?’

  Kershaw nodded like a man who understood hats. ‘This is going to be an epic party, Lester. I’m glad you’re here.’ He smiled and – to the Sergeant’s amazement – actually leaned forward and hugged him, then dashed away to greet someone else. The Sergeant stared after him in bemusement.

  He felt a hand on his arm.

  ‘Did he just hug you, Lester?’

  ‘Yes, Kaiko, he did.’

  ‘Was it weird?’

  ‘It was, a little bit.’

  ‘You need practice.’ She hugged him too, fiercely, and slipped away again before he could register that it was happening. His memory reported: Slender. Strong. Soft in interesting places. Smells good. More, please.

  ‘Come on,’ Kaiko Inoue said, ‘we’re over here. By the way, this is when you tell me how well dressed I am.’

  He smiled and stepped back to give her proper consideration, and then found he was genuinely staring. Inoue was wearing a black dress, long and flowing and with a collar which fastened at the neck. She wore earrings made of tumbling gold and red links which rippled as she turned her head. Her arms were bare and narrow and surprisingly muscular.

  ‘You look great,’ he said honestly. She grinned.

  ‘Thank you.’

  There was a mirror standing in the corner of the room, and he could see himself reflected in it beside her. To his amazement, he did not look absurd. The suit was a good fit and he filled it the right way, with weight in the shoulder and chest, not much in the tummy. There was a whisper of grey at his temples – when did that happen? He looked like a grown-up, like the people he had guarded when they came to visit in Iraq and Bosnia. The two of them together were formidable. People of consequence, that was the expression.

  Inoue followed his gaze, and made an approving snort, then took his arm again and led him to their places. Someone had spent a longish while, he thought, writing everyone’s name in cool copperplate script on the little white cards a
t each setting. Inoue’s card was in Japanese as well as English.

  Even with all the places occupied, the room felt huge and echoing. When the band paused between songs the Sergeant felt an eerie moment of vertigo, reminded somehow that the sky beyond the shingle roof was a bottomless abyss and that he and the building itself were held on the ground by a blessing of physics he did not understand.

  The gathering had become, if not raucous, at least relaxed. The first course was done and enough wine had been drunk and enough fluff had been talked that the diners had lost their initial sense of awkwardness. The tinny chatter of the guests dipped as everyone realised they were suddenly that much more audible, their voices bouncing off the brick walls and echoing in the detention cells. Now they hunkered down and made exaggerated gestures of furtiveness to one another to conceal a genuine embarrassment in the quiet.

  They were a mixed bag – NatProMan staff, foreign officials and quasi-officials, and one or two the Sergeant did not recognise who must be regional bureaucrats or factfinders passing through. He hoped very much that the thin-faced man at the far end was not Arno the investigator. His eyes were unsettlingly sharp. As if responding to the thought, the man turned in his seat and waved a graceful hand, his lips curling up in a faint, cordial smile.

  It’s him. I know it is. The Sergeant nodded back, bluff and a bit clumsy. Well, that was of a piece with who he was supposed to be, after all. He retreated from the penetrating gaze and hid behind his neighbour.

  Jed Kershaw tapped on his glass with a knife. A high, pleasing bell-sound rang out, and he seemed happily surprised and did it a couple more times, then got a rhythm going. He tapped the glass, then stamped, then slapped his hand on the table. A moment later, to the Sergeant’s absolute amazement, he added vocals, doowahbopping and tchakachahing, and people began to clap along. When the head of financial affairs began tapping her spoon and fork together he encouraged her mightily like the conductor of an orchestra, and slowly a few others made impromptu instruments and were inducted into the fellowship. A Croatian officer with NatProMan insignia proved to have a very elegant bass voice, and a moment later the thing had become a rendition of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’s ‘Heartattack and Vine’ before collapsing into a mess of laughter.

  ‘Did you know he could do that?’ Inoue asked behind her hand.

  ‘I really did not,’ the Sergeant said. She shook her head in wonderment, and they shared a moment of complicit bewilderment. Jed Kershaw, bluesman.

  Kershaw waved for calm, and banged the glass again. The meeting came happily to order.

  ‘Okay,’ Kershaw said. ‘Okay, okay. Welcome, everybody. I hope you’re having a good time. I’m having a great time. I kinda love this island, actually. I really do. It drives me insane. But in this business you’re pretty much gonna go insane somewhere, so it might as well be here.’ Laughter. ‘It’s been a helluva week at Kershaw Towers.’ More laughter, Kershaw’s right hand waving to indicate the building, recognising the ugliness of the place, the pompousness of naming it for himself, and a little bit of pride in his ugly domain. ‘We had . . . what did we have? We had stolen fish. Yeah, don’t think I didn’t hear about that. We had guys in hospital because a demon came out of the sky and beat the shit out of them – or they got in a fight with one another over a pretty girl and someone else faked up some weird film, it’s very hard to tell. Thank God, that’s not my job, I have Colonel Arno here for that.’ And yes, the thin-faced Arno nodded languidly. Kershaw bobbed his head as if reading an imaginary list. ‘Someone threw a dead dog at Lester and Kaiko, which was bad for them but really sucked for the dog. How’s that coming, Lester? Bad guys on quad bikes who are mean to puppies. We do not approve of bad guys who are mean to puppies, do we?’ He referred the question to the table, as if the Sergeant might otherwise say that he rather did. The room booed firmly, and Kershaw raised his eyebrows.

  ‘We’re pursuing lines of inquiry,’ the Sergeant responded. ‘We anticipate movement shortly.’

  ‘I love how he says “we”,’ Kershaw told the table. ‘And I love that he’s not kicking down doors and yelling. He’s so polite, even when he’s pissed. And do not mistake, my friends, he is pissed. An Englishman assaulted with a dog? In front of a lady? Beshrew me! Fol-de-rol and hey, nonny noo, there’s going to be crumpets toasted over this frightful racket, right, Lester?’

  ‘I have no idea what any of that means, Jed,’ the Sergeant said primly, to general delight.

  Kershaw grinned. ‘So, actually it’s been pretty much an ordinary week on Mancreu – assuming the devil did not actually send a minion up out of hell to torment my Ukrainian contingent. They’re fine, by the way.

  ‘Except one thing is a little bit different. You know how it’s always the quiet ones? Just when I was leaving the office the other night, I got a report on my desk. Dr Inoue, couldn’t you have waited until ten minutes later? I was going to play some golf, and I missed my tee-time!’ Laughter, but a little strained. Everyone here knew what Inoue’s reports were about. ‘Yeah. So, this report. It’s not the same as the last one, or the one before. It says we have . . . maybe another three weeks before the next Cloud, and it’s going to be a big one. So I was lining up a big civil-protection effort for everyone who’s still here.

  ‘But we may not be doing that after all. We may be leaving. On receiving this report, the higher-ups have gotten a little windy. Yes, they have. And they are saying right now that they may push the button on this island. The final evacuation. We should get word before the weekend. So if there’s anything you want to see here, do here, do it this week. If there’s someone you’ve been thinking of asking on a date, I suggest you do that too, because there’s a good chance we’re all going on to our next assignments.

  ‘Hence this party. This isn’t a Leaving. That’s not who we are. This is not our home. When we came here we knew it was temporary. But it’s something. It’s the beginning of goodbye. So eat. Drink. Celebrate Mancreu. If you have business unfinished here, get it done. Because I’m pretty sure the clock is ticking.’ Silence, sombre and contemplative. ‘And if you do not eat this food that I have personally made, I will come to your house and hide the leftovers in your curtain rails!’ Laughter and applause, on cue, but from the chest rather than the gut.

  As Kershaw went to sit down, Kaiko Inoue got to her feet. She seemed unwilling, compelled. She’s got to explain, the Sergeant thought. Bit harsh, to make her read the notice of death to the relatives before the patient’s dead. He shot a glance down the table at Kershaw, annoyed.

  But Kershaw was looking uncertain and a bit nervous. His face, turned to Inoue, seemed to be asking her to sit down again, to stay quiet. Inoue was looking down at the table. She glanced at the Sergeant, and he smiled reflexively: be brave. She smiled back in gratitude. And then raised her head.

  ‘I must object,’ said Kaiko Inoue.

  Oh.

  Kershaw slumped slowly down, chubby hand holding his mouth as if he was receiving news of a death. Thirty-eight guests stared at Inoue, along with the military waiters and the band.

  ‘I must object,’ she said again. ‘I understand the logic. It is quite easily understandable. It is absolutely sure that we will have a Cloud again soon. The wind might take it anywhere. And each Cloud increases the likelihood of the Mancreu bacterium finding a home in another environment, if it has not done so already.

  ‘But I must object most strongly. This is not the right answer. Destroying this island is not the right answer. It is wasteful and foolish. Even if we burn the rock to the waterline, if we kill every plant and animal, if we dig deep down into the caldera and fuse the rocks to the mantle. Even then, we will not sterilise this place. Some small piece of ejecta will fall into the sea. Something will survive. And we will have ruined a beautiful thing for the sake of a security which we cannot have.’ She sighed. ‘I have said this in my report. I have made it very clear. And now I say it to you, in the hope that you will pay attention. What is contemplated here is not s
cience. It is like trying to knock the moon out of the sky with a rock. It is childish fear, not grown-up action. It may make things worse. And for sure: it – will – not – help.’ She bowed her head. ‘Thank you for your attention.’

  Kershaw nodded slowly to her, winced a bit, and stood again. ‘I’m going to say two things. The first is that Doctor Inoue’s concerns are well documented and I’m told they have been factored into the decision-making process, but that they are considered too sensitive for public dissemination and are covered under the Mancreu Confidentiality Resolution.’ He shrugged. You all know what that means. The Sergeant found himself wondering about his unsolved case, those stolen papers from Inoue’s office. Did whoever had them know about the MCR? Or care? Probably not. But for sure they’d burned the draft or stuffed it in a mattress, because if not, well, where was it? The time had passed for a dramatic revelation. Had really passed, now.

  Kershaw held up his hand sternly. ‘The second thing . . . is that it’s time for the pulled pork sandwiches, made to my grandfather’s own special recipe, which is even more secret than that! And for those of you who don’t eat the meat of the pig I’ve adapted it for goat, which is surprisingly good. And for those of you who eat no meat of any kind, God help me, there are yams. Gentlemen and ladies: bring it on!’

  From the wings, huge silver plates of sticky pork – and goat, and indeed yams – and fresh bread emerged, bowls of mustard and pickles, and about a hundred bottles of wine. The band struck up. Inoue took the Sergeant’s hand.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything.’

  ‘I did. And I could not have done, without a friend.’ She smiled. Around them, the party had picked up again, as if nothing had been said. Or perhaps because it had been. There was a desperation now which lent it an edge, a sense of urgency. Inoue pursed her lips. ‘It is very loud, Lester. Is there somewhere quieter? I need to clear my head.’

  ‘There’s a roof terrace,’ he remembered. ‘Well, there’s a roof, and some chairs.’