Darkmans. Nicola Barker

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      ‘What?!’

      ‘Because it was fucked up.’

      The phone stopped ringing.

      Gaffar shook his head, slowly.

      ‘Yeah,’ Kane shrugged, ‘sometimes life can be a bitch like that.’

      He finally located his matches, opened the box, took one out, struck it and lit up his joint. Gaffar continued to stare at him, expectantly, as if awaiting some kind of punch-line. But none was forthcoming.

      About five seconds into this perplexing hiatus, Beede’s phone began ringing again. Kane glanced over at it, then back at the Kurd, then down at the ash on the tip of his roll-up. ‘So you’re gonna be at kind of a loose end for a while now, huh…?’

      Gaffar grimaced.

      ‘That’s too bad.’

      He inhaled on his joint. He suspended his breath.

      ‘I’ve actually got a couple of jobs you can do for me,’ he exhaled, with a slight cough, ‘if you fancy…’

      ‘Work?’ Gaffar enquired, lifting his chin.

      Kane nodded.

      ‘For you?’ his right brow rose, haughtily.

      ‘Yup.’

      Gaffar shrugged. ‘Sure.’

      They shook hands.

      ‘Okay…’

      Kane took another deep drag on the joint and then offered Gaffar the remainder. The Kurd took it. Kane gave him a long, searching look, then exhaled, sniffed and glanced back over towards the phone.

      ‘So I’ll need you to check up on Kelly…uh…’ he grimaced, ‘I’ll be wanting to maintain a certain distance there, if you see what I mean…’

      Gaffar looked blank.

      ‘Distance.’

      Kane measured out about a metre’s span between his two hands. ‘Me…’ he lifted one hand ‘…and Kelly…’ he lifted the other, ‘never the twain shall meet.’

      Still, Gaffar looked blank.

      ‘So you could take her some food – salad, fruit, maybe. Some flowers. Make a quick delivery. Nothing too complicated…’

      Beede’s phone continued to ring.

      ‘Can you drive?’

      Gaffar’s face suddenly lit up.

      ‘Drive? Me? Sure.’

      Kane moved over towards the door. ‘Good. Then you can use the Merc. She’s a dirty blonde. 220C. De-badged, of course. A strapping girl. Exceptionally reliable…’

      He ushered Gaffar out into the hallway, yanking the door firmly shut behind them. But as soon as the lock clicked into its groove, he turned back, instinctively, and reached for the handle again. He didn’t turn it, though – not at first – he just held on to it, loosely. He scowled. He struggled with himself. He proved unequal to the struggle.

      ‘Man…You head on up, okay?’

      He faltered, infuriated, on the threshold. ‘Just let me quickly go answer that.’

      ‘A bizarre coincidence…’ Elen explained, picking up her mug, taking a small sip, and then quickly placing it down again (the tea was still very hot). ‘She’d left a message for me at the practice. I was meant to be making a home visit this evening, but she was admitted last thing yesterday. She’s having trouble with her pace-maker. I’d warned her about it the week before; her feet were unusually swollen during our last consultation…’

      ‘Perhaps I know her,’ Beede interrupted, pulling out a chair and sitting down himself. ‘What’s her name?’

      ‘Mrs Bristow. Evie Bristow. Although everybody who knows her calls her Hat.’

      ‘Really? Why?’

      She shrugged, smiling.

      Beede stirred his tea, removed the teaspoon and then couldn’t find anywhere to put it, so pulled out a man-size tissue from a nearby box, folded it neatly in half, and placed the spoon on top (adjusting it, twice, to make certain it lay dead centre).

      Elen watched this laborious process with an expression of wry amusement. He glanced up, absent-mindedly, caught her fond look, and started.

      ‘The tea…’ She indicated towards her mug, trying to defuse his alarm. ‘It’s delicious.’

      ‘Good.’

      Beede still seemed a little edgy.

      Elen’s smile gradually faded. ‘Is everything all right, Danny?’

      Beede frowned. His mother was the only other person who’d ever dared to use his Christian name in its abbreviated form (in her case, Dan). Yet Elen had always called him Danny, from the very first time they met, during a professional consultation (she’d seen his full name on the cheque he’d paid her with, and had used it, as a matter of course, ever since).

      It still never failed to surprise him. He always felt a vague, nagging sense that she might actually be addressing another person, not this Daniel Beede, but some other, whom life – and its pitfalls – hadn’t encouraged to prosper; a more approachable Daniel Beede; a more loveable one; more cuddly, even.

      The only thing he knew for certain was that he actually bore no resemblance to this genial man (whom she appeared so determined to see in him), although a tiny part of him sometimes wondered whether he might not actually quite like to, occasionally (a brief excursion might be nice, into a world where fact was eclipsed by feeling), but whenever he started to experience these impulses – and it wasn’t often – the hard, enamelled Beede within him swooped down from a great height and harried the gormless, hapless Danny; kicked him around a bit, then shoved him – without scruple – back into his box again.

      He wouldn’t have tolerated it from anybody else. But this was Elen –

      

       Elen

      – and everything she did was so effortless, so natural, so kind, so unforced, that to interfere (to block or confront or disrupt her), would’ve seemed like the worst kind of wrong-headedness.

      ‘Yes. Yes. Yes, everything’s fine,’ Beede nodded, clearing his throat, ‘absolutely fine.’

      They were sitting at a desk in Beede’s corner office. A handful of people were working in the laundry outside, and could be observed – going dutifully about their business – through a slightly wonky window in one of the two, make-piece, plasterboard walls (the other struggled valiantly to remain perpendicular while doing its level best to support the door).

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