Touch

  The glass was still between Janus’ fingers, his eyes fixed on my face. At last:

  “Were you never tempted to try and live a life? Ten years, twenty, a long-term host?”

  “I could never follow through.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it was hard.”

  Silence, save for the ticking of the clock, the falling rain. Then, with a note of caution to his voice, “Kepler…”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “It’s your name.”

  “It’s a file.”

  “It’s you.”

  “I’m Samir Chayet.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “It’s what my driving licence says.”

  “No, you’re not!” His fist hit the table, sending cutlery clattering. I caught my glass before it fell, looked up and saw his single brilliant eye burning at me across the tabletop. “Who is Samir Chayet?” he hissed. “Who is he? Is he funny? Is he dry, droll, witty, a magnificent lover, a ballroom dancer, a baker of dubious pies? What the fuck is Samir Chayet to you? How the fuck dare you dishonour him by taking his name, you useless fucking parasite!”

  I held on to my glass by the bottom of its stem and waited for more. Janus exhaled, shuddering with more than merely effort, half-closed his eye, wrapped his fingers round the edge of the table, and then inhaled again, long and slow. “I loathe you,” he breathed, teeth clenching round the words as they shivered out.

  “That’s OK. I’m not exactly enamoured of you either.”

  A laugh that dissolved into a choke of pain, as quickly as it had grown.

  “Let me get you some morphine,” I said. “I can —”

  “No.”

  “You’re in pain.”

  “That’s fine. That’s… good.”

  “How can pain possibly be good?”

  “Leave the fucking morphine!” he roared, and I flinched away. He breathed out, breathed in, slowing himself down, and, face turned towards nothing, murmured, “What do you know about Samir Chayet?”

  “Why?”

  “Tell me what you know.”

  “What is this?”

  “Kepler – Samir – whatever. Tell me.”

  “I… not much. I’m a nurse at the university hospital. I was finishing my shift, had car keys in my hand. I needed a car. I’m comfortable. It was an acquisition of opportunity, no more. Marcel —”

  “My name is Janus.”

  “It’s a ridiculous name.”

  “Is it?” he breathed. “I rather like it. I think it has… weight. Time and power.”

  “Janus –” my fingers tight across the table edge “– what the hell is going on here?”

  He opened his eye, but there was no anger in his broken face, no retribution, merely the cold resignation of an empty stare. “Galileo is coming.” My flesh locked. No breath, no sound, no reply. “I called Osako – she was convenient too. I called her, said my name was Janus, said I was sorry, wished her well, that I had some money stashed she could take if she wanted it; I wouldn’t be needing it any more. She cried and hung up. But I think she may have cried for just long enough.”

  “Long enough for what?” He didn’t answer. I was on my feet, not sure how I’d got there. “Long enough for what?”

  A sigh, a stretch, a flash of pain. “For Aquarius to trace the call,” he replied. “Long enough, I think, for that.”

  “When?”

  “I think…” he plucked a number from the air “… three hours ago.”

  “Did you…” The words stumbled on the tip of my tongue.

  “Mention you? No. But by now it’ll be too late to run; you’ll only draw attention to yourself. I suppose the question therefore is, how well do you really know Samir Chayet?”

  “Why? Why did you do this?”

  “Kepler –” he spoke like a father, sad at a school report “– you are a slave trader. A murderer. A thief of time. But this isn’t even about you. I’m far too self-important to enact petty revenge on a passing acquaintance such as yourself. What you must understand is, much as I loathe you, more than that – more a thousandfold than that – I find myself disgusting. Truly repugnant. The luxury of having armed killers prepared to do that which for so long I have longed to do to myself but lacked the courage to attempt is, it seems to me, such a rare privilege that I dare not pass it up.”

  The sound of rain.

  I stood, hands locked on the back of a squat wooden chair, knuckles curling white. Janus swirled the last dregs of wine in the glass. Swallowed. His gaze wandered to look at nothing much, before drifting up to the ceiling, some other place.

  Words surfaced and sank like potatoes in a pot, and I said nothing.

  A bluff.

  A practical joke.

  A trick played by a tired old ghost too bitter and cynical to remember that within every pair of eyes that beholds him, a mind watches too.

  I looked at Janus, and Janus, feeling my gaze, looked back at me, and he didn’t care if I lived, and he didn’t care if he died, and he was not lying.

  I moved.

  Across the room, to a low wooden door; duck through into a tiny toilet with a sloping roof, squint into the single mirror above the sink and stare into the face of Samir Chayet. Worn for four hours and counting, never regarded. I am in my early forties? Straight dark hair, cut close, beard trimmed – not brilliantly but with a serviceable pair of scissors – almost certainly by myself. My skin is sanded elm, my name could be French, could be Islamic; Algerian will do as a guess, but what then? A mother, a father, a birthplace, a language, a religion? I feel around my neck for a crucifix – none – check my fingers for rings, fumble in my pocket for wallet, phone. I switched my phone off on acquiring Samir, never be available to make a fool of yourself; now I thumb it back on and tear through my wallet. I carry fifty euros in cash, two debit cards with the same bank, an ID telling me what I already know – Samir Chayet, senior staff nurse. What does a senior staff nurse do? I knew this once, long ago, when I was a medical student in San Francisco, when I was young and painted my toenails. Times have changed. I left those toes behind when I grew bored with patients being diseased, and now Samir Chayet has new toys to play with, new rules to learn, and I know none of them.

  The sound of Janus moving in the room next door. Three hours is a long time when you’re armed men with access to a helicopter. Running water in the kitchen: Janus doing the dishes.

  “You know, they’re probably already here, yes?” he calls out.

  Helpful.

  Contents of the wallet. Credit cards are dangerous – easy to ask me for the pin number, easy to catch me when I get it wrong. A library card, a couple of loyalty cards, union membership, a receipt from a local golf course.

  Who is this man, Samir Chayet?

  I look in the mirror, run my fingers through my beard, my hair, down the edge of my sleeve. I stare into round brown eyes that as a child would have begged for more and never been denied. I feel my belly, a little saggy but not embarrassingly so. When I raise my eyebrows, it seems that my whole scalp rises; when I frown, it’s as if my forehead is trying to touch my nose. I lift the lid of the toilet cistern, drop my wallet and phone inside and close it.

  Right now the question of who Samir Chayet is is not as important as who he seems to be.

  “Are you ready for pudding?” Janus’ voice drifted through from the kitchen.

  I stared at my reflection for a moment longer, and turned out the light.

  “What is it?” I asked, slipping into the kitchen, but now my words were Maghrib Arabic, slow to pass and heavy to form.

  Janus stood at the sink, a pair of yellow Marigolds pulled over his withered hands, suds of washing-up liquid hanging off the front of his shirt. His eyebrows rose at the sound of my voice, but in the same language with an eastern accent, he replied, “Crème caramel with a raspberry and vanilla sauce. Hand made by someone in a supermarket.”

  “It sounds lovely. Shall I dry?”
br />   A flicker of surprise in the corner of his lips. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  I picked a tea towel off its hook, lined up at Janus’ side, started methodically drying the dishes. “Ever tried making crème caramel? Yourself, I mean?” I asked, testing the words as they ran through me, remembering the shape of them, warming to my theme.

  “Once. When I was a housewife in Buenos Aires. It collapsed in the pot, looked like banana puke.”

  “That often happens.”

  “You a chef?”

  “I was, for a while.”

  “Were you any good?”

  “Used too much chilli. Management were disappointed that I wasn’t sticking to the style for which I had been acclaimed. I told them that it was bland and undersized. They told me to reform my ways or find a new job. I reformed my ways and found a new job.”

  “Sounds unfulfilling.”

  “I wanted to test a hypothesis.”

  “Which was?”

  “That the tongue of a chef could taste more – biologically, I mean, that there was something chemical in its capacity to taste more fully – than any other man.”

  “And?” Curiosity lifted Janus’ voice, the scourer ceased for a moment in its rounds across the dishes.

  “Damned if I could see what the fuss was about. I have worn some of the greatest musicians of the day and still cannot hear the sublime in Mahler. I have dressed myself in the bodies of great dancers, and certainly my muscles were flexible enough for me to stand on one leg and suck my own big toe without strain, and yet…”

  “Yet?”

  “I was forced to conclude that, though the body was toned to perfection, without the confidence of experience the feat for which it was honed still evaded me. It was a deep disappointment the day I realised that the lungs of an opera singer and the legs of a ballerina were not enough to achieve perfection in the form itself.”

  “You didn’t want the hard work.”

  “No one wants the hard work. I suppose you could say I lacked motivation.”

  We worked in silence; the fire burning in the room next door, until at last he said, “I imagine running looks bad.”

  “What?”

  “If they’re already here, I mean.”

  “Ah, yes. Running would raise a few questions.”

  “So,” he went on, “you intend to bluff it out? Dress yourself as a civilian?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “And you think drying the dishes will help?”

  “I think that our kind never work together. I think that we are lonely. I think we want friends, that we need… companionship, more than company. I think that everyone’s afraid, but more so when we are alone. We should have that pudding now.”

  “You’re in for a treat.”

  I put the last dish on to the rack and drifted back into the living room as Janus emptied the fridge of its sugary confections. Two white plates of crème caramel adorned with magenta sauce were laid out for my consideration, a silver spoon beside each. I tried a sliver and was cautiously impressed. Janus sat opposite, his pudding untouched.

  Then, “Did…”

  I took another bite.

  “Would you…” he tried again, his voice shaking round the edges. Stop. A slow breath in, a long breath out, and at last, “I think I will have that morphine now, please.”

  I laid my spoon down, leaned back in the chair. “No.”

  “No?”

  “No. You want to die, be my guest. You want someone here to give you the strength to go through with it, an audience for your big moment – fine. You want to stop the pain, that’s an entirely different matter.”

  His bones stuck up white beneath the ragged redness of his knuckles; his smile was wide, eyes narrow. “How long do you think you have left to live, Samir?”

  “You took the answer out of my hands. We do that, you and I. You’re a good cook.”

  “I worked hard for it. Are you not —”

  His words were barely formed, the sound balanced on the edge of his tongue, when the lights went out.

  There was no thunk of circuit breakers, no snap of electricity tearing itself apart. The lights were on and then they were off, and we sat together, shadows against the bright orange of the fire, the rain drumming on the window pane, the drip-drip of the kitchen tap as it emptied itself into a still-soapy sink smelling of chemical lime. I looked to where the shadow of Janus sat, back straight, neck locked, hands curled around the edge of the table.

  We waited.

  “Samir?”

  “Yes?”

  His voice shook, his hands knocked against the wood. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Not running.”

  “As you said, it would have been predictable.”

  The thump of a boot outside the door, the flicker of a shadow across the window pane. I thought about all the rugs on the floor, how the water would destroy them. I pushed my plate away from the edge of the table lest its contents be spilt.

  “Samir?” A stammering, a heat, that might have been acid tears on a ravaged face.

  “Yes?”

  “Good luck.”

  A metal object broke a pane of glass. I pulled my hands over my ears but still heard the flashbang roll on to the floor. I ducked beneath the table, and the light as it exploded knocked against the back of my brain. I curled up with my knees to my chin and my elbows covering my head as the front door slammed off its hinges, as heavy boots and heavy men charged in from the front, from the back, their trousers tucked into their socks, their sleeves taped around their gloves, and through the scream of my ears and the whining in my brain I half-heard Janus climb to his feet, hold his hands out wide and proclaim in cheerful bouncing English,

  “I fucking love this body!”

  He must have moved as he spoke, must have lunged, tried to grab, because the gunfire that ensued – a burst of silenced shots – kept going long after the body had fallen. I half-opened my eyes, and as my retinas strained to adjust to the restored gloom, I saw the pocked body of Marcel hit the floor on the other side of the table, each silenced shot a crater in his chest, one through his throat, another through his lower jaw, the final one to the head, and even as he lay there, the shooter fired and fired again, three more bursts, Marcel’s shirt popping and splattering red blood as the bullets bit in, until silence descended save for the drumming of the rain.

  Then, as was inevitable, someone put a knee in the small of my back, a gun against the base of my neck, and I begged for mercy in what I hoped was my very best Maghrib Arabic.

  Chapter 71

  Military hit squads never do things by half.

  If you could throw some circuit breakers, why not cut a power cable.

  If you could cut one power cable, why not cut all power to the town.

  That’d be convenient.

  I sat, knees tucked up in front of me, hands at my back growing numb from the cable ties, and watched heavily armed men lift the broken and bloody corpse of Marcel… whoever he had been… from the scarlet-soaked floor of his living room, deposit it in a black rubber bag and carry it outside. As they did this, more of their colleagues, all silenced pistols, balaclavas and a bare minimum of skin, stood over me, guns levelled at my head, their expressions unknown. Every now and then I begged. I begged for mercy, I begged for answers, I begged for them to leave me alone. I begged on behalf of my dear and beloved mother who would not live without me. I begged for my dreams not yet fulfilled. I begged for my life. And I did so in a language which they didn’t speak.

  Eleven men.

  They could have killed Janus with fewer, but eleven there were, distinguishable only by height and movement. They swept the house by torchlight, examined the half-eaten remains of dinner on the table, the cutlery drying in the kitchen. They patted down my pockets and, finding no identification, barked in Parisian-accented French, Who are you? What is your name?

  I made a guess at how French would sound if spoken with
an Algerian accent and replied, I am Samir. I am Samir Chayet. Please don’t kill me.

  What are you doing here, Samir Chayet?

  I was here to see Monsieur Marcel. Monsieur Marcel was going to help me.

  Help you do what?

  Help me get a job. He was friend with my cousin. Please. I don’t speak your French well. Algerian, you see? I am Algerian. I have not been long in your country, please let me go; are you police?

  They are not police. One of the skin-clad darknesses approaches another, murmurs in his ear. What is this, who is this man?

  He claims to be Samir Chayet, Algerian. His French is poor. He has no identification papers on him. We can’t be sure.

  Eyes settle on me, study my face, and a voice breathes, Will he be missed?

  Show no reaction. My French is not good enough to understand a conversation about my demise. Show no fear. Focus on the problem at hand. Focus on innocence.