A darkly funny, moving and original novel about a man coming to terms with the corruption around him and the conscience within.
Harry Fielding is a shabby, solitary, but basically cheerful sort, living in a seamy flat in London and subsisting on a diet of gin and pre-packed airline meals in unmarked silver containers. He also works for MI5. Surveillance, protection, the occasional rough-and-tumble – just enough to keep body and soul together. However, when Harry witnesses Lisa, his next-door neighbour, killing and burying her sister’s violent husband, he begins to lose his appetite...
Philip Davison was born in 1957 in Dublin, where he now lives. He has written three previous novels: The Book-Thief’s Heartbeat, Twist and Shout and The Illustrator. He has also written television drama and, most recently, The Invisible Mending Company, a play for the Abbey Theatre’s Peacock stage.
Thanks to my editor, Robin Robertson; thanks also to Ish and to Bob.
ALSO BY PHILIP DAVISON
The Book-Thief’s Heartbeat
Twist and Shout
The Illustrator
The Crooked Man
It has been said that in every being there is another being and this being is the true self. Not a double. Not an opposite. Simply, the one each of us strives to be all our lives. Some who have suffered cruelty, violence or abuse as children somehow short-circuit this search with their cries. They are kidnapped by the other self and abandoned in a strangely familiar place where they are victim to the same cruelty, violence or abuse, but can remember little or none of it until such time as they are strong enough to cope.
This was part of Lisa Talbot’s experience of growing up. You must understand that if what follows is to make sense.
Lisa and her sister, Maureen, were assaulted and abused by their father as children. Their mother failed to protect them. She, too, was beaten. Their father was a junior banker. A money-lender to the small man. He believed everybody had their proper place in life. The fashion for the rich and royalty to appear to be like the rest of us appalled him. When he had administered a severe beating he would leave the house and seek out the company of prostitutes. Amongst them he was courteous and attentive. He would buy them drinks. On occasion, he would take one out to dinner in a cheap Soho restaurant. He would never touch them. He would secretly take satisfaction in not having to pay in full for their time. He would go home late and apologize sincerely to whomever he had beaten.
Lisa and Maureen are in their early thirties now. Their father is dead. Their mother has returned to Ireland to live with her sister.
I live next door to Lisa. Our flats are on the ground floor. We both live alone. Late one night she was startled by a man standing outside her bedroom window. It was too dark to make out his features. She knocked on my door. She was very frightened. She said he had made a menacing little whistling noise through his teeth.
This is how I came to know her. That night I went into her bedroom but, of course, the man had vanished from her window. I went outside. I saw no one. Lisa said he was probably watching from the bushes. In any case, he did not show himself again.
On the nights Maureen sought refuge in her sister’s flat Lisa would spend the small hours standing in the dark thinking what she might do to protect Maureen from her violent husband. She would stand back from her bedroom window and stare out into the night as if willing the intruder to return. She would softly mimic his whistle.
I have a friend at the airport. He has a company that loads food onto planes. He got me a job lot of dinners that come in individual foil containers. Something had gone wrong with their system and none of this batch got labelled. When I put one of these foil containers in a pot to boil I know it is going to be chicken, beef, cannelloni or curry. I do not know which. Sometimes I put two in for myself and I boil up some rice. One of these dinners tastes as good as the next if I don’t think about it.
I had two of these aeroplane dinners in a pot when Lisa knocked on my door again. I was embarrassed to offer her something to eat, but I offered anyway, and she accepted. I told her I did not know what her dinner was going to be. She really did not mind. She had called to tell me she was thinking of getting a dog.
I made a fool of myself dishing out that food to her. I tried to make up for my clumsiness by flirting with her. That made me feel a bigger fool. It was not long before I was offering to look after the dog when she was away on holiday, the dog she had yet to acquire.
I eat enough for two men, but I do not get fat. When I am not overeating, I drink too much. My eyes get clouded, even swollen. When they are in this state you will see in them a mixture of shame and desire. They see small conspiracies everywhere and I applaud the conspirators. I show that I am prepared to co-operate by exhibiting all the eagerness of a coward.
I have always feared my own impulsive nature. I have committed acts of violence in the past. I have fought with a butcher over his wife when I did not care anything for the woman. I have broken my wife’s nose in my sleep. In my unconscious state I let my fist swing down hard on her face. I have taken an iron bar and smashed the car belonging to my estranged wife’s boyfriend. Now, panel-beaters grin at me. Butchers regard me with suspicion. I look for a little bump on the bridge of every woman’s nose.
I have got used to living on my own. There is nobody to call me selfish. If you invite me to dinner I will ask if you can cook. If the invitation still stands, I might not find your house. I blunder on, one day after the next, mostly keeping to myself. A great variety of accusations are levelled at people like me. In most instances we are innocent. We knew nobody guilty of these supposed transgressions. In most instances.
I did feel guilty about the thoughts I was having of Lisa, my neighbour. I was calculating how best I might exploit the circumstances. I had a good excuse to call. I could knock on her door to see if she was alright. I could remind her that she could call on me any time. I remember I did not eat or drink for a day when I finally decided to call on her.
She was not afraid of me. She had not closed over her bedroom door. She did not put on her shoes. I found myself earnestly fulfilling my role as good neighbour. I made a point of refusing the drink she offered. I should have brought something, I know, but I had been too busy thinking about myself before I knocked on her door.
‘Tell me something about yourself,’ she ventured.
‘What do you want to know?’ I asked.
She did not reply. She wanted a lot. I could tell. The good and the bad. What would I tell her? What did she need to know?
‘What shall I tell you about myself?’ she blurted out. She desperately needed to fill the silence that followed her initial request. My question did not help.
Anything, I meant to say.
‘Everything,’ I said stupidly. I wasn’t thinking straight. This woman pulled hard on me. Nothing was clear in my head and it showed.
I began to see her regularly. She quite liked my short-order cooking and my aeroplane dinners. I had never bothered before, but now I found a way of opening and successfully resealing the foil containers. It took time, but I could tell her what she was going to get.
Then, late one night, Lisa’s sister came to her again in a distressed state. Her neck was bruised. Her lip was cut. The skin around her eyes was puffy. Two nights after that Lisa got in her car and drove to her sister’s house in Wandsworth. She arrived just after midnight. She parked her car in the drive that ran up by the side of the house. She went round the back. When Maureen’s husband, Frank, came to the door she hit him on the side of the head with a jack handle she had taken from the boot of her car. Before he had regained his senses she tied his hands behind his back and gagged him with a cloth. She wrestled him into the back seat of her car. She struck him again with the jack handle. Now that he lay slumped on the seat she could bind his feet. She had checked just once for the unwelcome attentions of neighbours, then she had set about her business with grim determination. Now, she went back into the house. She filled a suitcase with his clothes and his shaving gear and put it in the boot of the car.
She had driven somewhere the night before and had returned in the small hours of the morning. This night I had followed her to the house. Now, I followed her as she drove through the streets with Frank on the back seat. I was careful to keep my distance.
She drove over Putney Bridge, went north to White City where she took the Westway. She got into lane and kept a steady speed. I got in behind her. I was thinking about what she had told me of her father over our in-flight dinners. She had described the beatings and the abuse matter-of-factly.
I kept a steady speed and I watched for Frank’s head surfacing in the back window of her car, but he remained crumpled on the seat.
She did not stay on the motorway long. It was dangerous for her. She might have to stop to hit her brother-in-law again with the jack handle. She got off the motorway at Beaconsfield. There was very little traffic once we were clear of the town. The roads got narrower. I fell further behind. Only now, in a darker environment, was I aware that the moon shone above us. It was an unusually mild night. The air was uncomfortably thin. That moon looked heavy, like it might fall out of the sky.
I caught myself making that whistling noise through my teeth. I switched on the car radio, but could not tune in satisfactorily. The chimes of Radio Moscow were coming through.
Some way beyond Beaconsfield she got lost. I was forced to follow without headlights as she travelled a network of third-class roads that traversed a wooded area. She was looking for one particular turning, a foresters’ gate, a track.
It was three and three-quarter hours from the time she left the house in Wandsworth to the time she found the clearing in the wood she had selected. She had had to stop the car to strike Frank a third time on the head with the jack handle.
The track from the road swung in a wide arc and split into several routes. She took the one with a steep incline. This led to the clearing. I was some way behind. I parked half a mile away, near the gate, but off the main track. She would be leaving before me. I did not want her seeing my car. The trees were densely packed. Fortunately, there was not much undergrowth. I was able to cut across through the trees. The canopy above did not allow the moon to light the forest floor. It was difficult to remain on my feet as I advanced over the uneven ground. There were many dips and hollows. I had to take my time. She was on a plateau of sorts. There was a ridge that obscured her car but I had the spill light from her headlamps as my beacon.
When I eventually had covered enough ground to allow a clear, close view, I found that she had already dragged him out of the car. His hands and feet were still bound. He was caught in the headlights. I heard him moan. He rolled onto his side as she quickly moved away from him. He got no closer than one-half a body width to the line of trees that marked the edge of the clearing. The gag in his mouth appeared to make his eyes bulge. For a moment I thought our eyes connected. Then, Lisa drove over him. She travelled back and forth over his body four times. I watched her bury him with his suitcase in a grave she had dug the previous night when she had found this place. I watched her get back into her car and reverse down the track.
I stayed crouched where I was for some considerable time, staring into the dark where she had buried him. I moved when I thought it was safe to move. I stepped out into the moonlight that bathed the clearing and showed the way down the track. It began to rain. I could hear it raining in the trees, but it was not raining on me. Not in this clearing. Not on the track before me. There were no clouds that I could see. The moon hung in a clear black sky.
I opened my dry mouth and drew a deep breath. I began the walk to my car. I kept to the track. It was a shorter distance than I had thought.
How far ahead had she planned? How often did Frank go on a trip and leave his car in the garage? I was sure Lisa had not confided in her sister. She had done it all on her own. For her build she had found extraordinary physical strength, and she had had the presence of mind required to carry out the deed. Had she buried him deep enough? Had she laid the suitcase across his chest? Did she know that the forest floor moves? In time, it bulges, it gives way. Like the sea, it tends to return a body.
It was dawn when I drove down Marylebone Street. The chimes of Radio Moscow were ringing in my head.
The curtains in Lisa’s bedroom were drawn shut.
I was a little drunk when I knocked on her door at about six o’clock the following evening. I had a bottle of whiskey which was three-quarters full under one arm. I had a grubby old shoe I pulled out from under my wardrobe in one hand. I thrust the bottle into her hand.
‘That’s for you,’ I said, my eyes narrowing. Then I thrust the shoe on her. ‘That’s for the dog,’ I said.
It was for the dog she had not yet bought.
‘You’re a mess,’ she said. There was disdain in her voice, but no surprise. Perhaps she had put her ear to the wall and had heard the neck of the bottle collide with the rim of my glass too many times to be surprised.
‘I feel great,’ I barked. My eyes had suddenly widened, but they must have been cloudy. They wandered a moment then fixed on Lisa’s face. Her hands were full. That cleared the way for me to take hold of her small pink ears. I pulled hard on her ears thinking I might stretch that scowl off her face. ‘Just great,’ I said.
She did not like my patronizing her. She pulled away forcefully. She had been drinking, too. I had seen her sister leave earlier and now Lisa was panicking on her own.
‘What do you want from me?’ she asked fiercely.
I did not know now what I wanted from her. I only knew I felt very close to her at that moment. I felt uneasy, yes, but not as before when I had found it difficult to look into her eyes.
I told her I wanted to take her to dinner.
We got into my car. I asked her where she wanted to go. She deliberately misunderstood me. She told me she wanted to learn Italian. She wanted to go and live in Italy, if she could find somebody to go with her.
Do not confuse me with your fantasies, I wanted to say, give me the facts you conceal. Confirm what I have seen with my own eyes. I will listen carefully and I will understand.
We drove to Chinatown. The damn car can find its way there by itself.
We had dinner upstairs in a place I frequent. The grandmother was in charge on this floor. She had her youngest son, her niece and her daughter-in-law working out of the dumb waiter. Beside the service counter there was a heavy curtain hung across a doorway. Behind the curtain there were five Chinese children in pyjamas playing on a blanket on the floor. They had building blocks, plastic toys, paper and coloured chalk. They were quiet, but once in a while a little flat face would push through the folds in the curtain and granny would chase the child back behind the curtain with a surly frown. Evidently, the old woman enjoyed this.
We took a corner table. I sat with my back to the wall. Lisa sat facing me. I had a clear view of the stairwell over her shoulder. The service counter and the curtained den were to one side.
Lisa had not eaten that day. She was hungry. She ordered beef in blackbean sauce. I ordered prawns and I ordered chicken and Singapore fried noodles and a pot of green tea. I put a lot of soya on the noodles. I craved salt. We both crammed the food into our mouths. Before my eyes Lisa seemed to replenish her strength. I tried to keep pace with her. All the time I was thinking ahead. Thinking I would have to get out of Chinatown to get a strong coffee. As soon as I had finished eating I would crave caffeine. A double espresso would see me right. Then, I might have a drink. It seemed to me it had been a long time since I had had a drink. I was thinking Lisa and I might go to a dive her father frequented.
I needed to prove to myself that in spite of the closeness I felt I was not hopelessly entangled in this woman’s life, that she had no hold on me. I fixed on the young woman behind the counter. She was the daughter-in-law. Her demeanour made me think she believed that two strangers might meet and make each other happy regardless of the circumstances. Either that, or she had the presence of mind and the skill to pick any pocket she pleased with her long, slender fingers. Those fingers reached to the tips of the pair of large rubber gloves she wore to wash dishes. She was tall. She was an inch taller than me. She had to stoop to get her hands to the bottom of the sink beneath the high counter. She was working faster than I was stuffing food into my mouth with my sticks. I could not keep up with her, either. I decided it would be easy to fall in love with her. She seemed to promise that she would remain a stranger however often I kissed her lips, however often her hands might caress me.
I choked. She kept washing. Lisa poured me some green tea. Lisa and I then made polite conversation, as lovers do to mock their intimacy. Her fearless streak was again evident.
We all pretended that everything was normal, or rather, that each of us was in control. They were short-staffed that night. Somebody was out sick. The old woman was giving her daughter-in-law a hard time. She publicly admonished her with the same few repeated phrases until the young woman answered back. That really got the old woman’s goat. She began a tirade. I interrupted my eating and made a point of looking down my nose at her. I muttered bad-temperedly. I tapped on our teapot with my sticks until I got her attention. Lisa was alarmed by my action.
The old woman stopped haranguing her daughter-in-law long enough to look at me uncomprehendingly. Then, she started again.
‘Ah, for God’s sake,’ I wailed, ‘let her be.’
Other customers in this small dining room let out little nervous noises or widened their eyes at each other. They were only prepared to glance at the rowing women. My friend behind the counter was giving as good as she got. The old woman’s son kept clear. He took his time clearing a table in the opposite corner. It was his elder brother’s wife at the sink. Had his brother not rung in sick she would not have had to suffer and he was going to tell his brother as much when he saw him at the card table later that night.
The old woman’s niece was braver. She tried to intervene, but was quickly rebuffed. She summoned her uncle by singing a sorry song into the dumb waiter shaft.
‘Leave us all in peace, for God’s sake,’ I whined, ‘we’ve had enough.’ My voice did not carry.
The two women were shouting at each other now. The young one was in tears but she kept washing the dishes. The old man appeared at the top of the staircase. His slight, bony figure only half filled his starched white shirt. He was a wiry little man with a cigarette in his mouth and a severe squint. Evidently, his squint was not severe enough to intimidate his wife. He tried using a conciliatory tone and when that made no impression he put his hands on his hips and delivered a firm rebuke. He was disgusted with his wife’s behaviour, but not surprised by it. Ordinarily he was a match for her, but he was not prepared to add to the scene in front of customers. The old woman got him back down the stairs with a few belligerent words. There was peace for a short time. The children who had come out to watch the row develop were ushered back behind the curtain. The old woman apologized to one party who made a point of leaving the restaurant, then she started again.
I was drawn into this domestic scene. I was gladly involved. It soothed me. However, the dispute had the opposite affect on Lisa. Suddenly, she had to get out. The food was not sitting right in her stomach. Forget the espresso. We would go straight to a bar.
I got up and interrupted the old woman’s new tirade with my demand for the bill.
‘Yes, sorry,’ she said. ‘Sorry, you know.’ She indicated her daughter-in-law, then she gave me our bill.
I smiled sympathetically at the young woman behind the counter, but my attentions seemed not to register with her. She was too distraught. Too busy washing dishes in the sink.
The old woman was now making a public apology behind my back. ‘Sorry. Sorry, you know,’ she announced to the remaining customers.
Lisa would not let the young man help her with her coat. She took it from him and thrust her arms into it.
At last, the young woman looked at me. I smiled again and felt foolish. She was distracted by the two men ascending the staircase. I turned in time to catch sight of the two Special Branch detectives as they reached the top of the stairs. I knew what they were immediately. I was sure they had come for Lisa. I pushed her through the curtained doorway.
This doorway led nowhere. There was no exit. No window. No fire escape. Lisa and I stood among the quiet children. I looked hard into her eyes and she into mine. The two detectives stepped through the curtain. The old woman followed, protesting fiercely.
It had not taken long for Frank to surface. Someone’s dog had dug him up. Somebody had seen my car at the scene of the crime. A copper had spotted my car parked in a lane in Chinatown. Armed detectives had been sent. They had come for me.
On the way out, I told the old woman she was not looking after her grandchildren. If there was a fire, I told her, they would be burnt alive.
I have recounted to you what I told the police. Naturally, they wanted to know why I did not move to prevent her from killing her brother-in-law. I told them that I could not give a satisfactory answer to that question. I could only say that it was as if she was doing it to protect me. Frank was a thug who was getting a little more than he deserved. I could live with that.
It had been an ill-conceived act on Lisa Talbot’s part. I told the police that had I intervened it would have been to make a better job of it. Naturally, that gave them the hump.
I have told you Lisa Talbot’s story to show that my world is the real world. Lisa and I are two of a kind. We have not found the strength to cope with the damage that has been done to us in the past. Neither of us has any sympathy for the children we once were. Our energies are devoted to defending ourselves and others here and now. We seek to protect, but we are cowards. We mark our targets early, when they first threaten us. We hit hard and run. We are capable of grievous harm.
I realize that I have singularly failed to protect Lisa Talbot. It is as if I have betrayed her. The irony of my having led to her arrest scores my hardened heart.
Furthermore, I was seen to be careless and that leads me now to explain something of my job. Let me give you an account of a very different dinner engagement. When I have dinner with Hamilton, my boss, it is usually at a motorway stop. Call it dinner, call it breakfast. We usually meet in the small hours. My boss is an influential man. He arranged for me to be cleared of any charges in respect of the Lisa Talbot case. I could have been charged with failing to report a serious crime. They might even have pressed for a charge of conspiracy. Hamilton wasn’t performing a benevolent act. He would have let me stew had he not wanted me for a job. As it was, he had to send his little message through his network of masonic civil servants to ensure that his name could not be linked with mine.
When politics or circumstances dictate that extra caution is prudent Harry Fielding can be called upon to break into a solicitor’s office or the house of a politician. He can act as bodyguard, secure premises for a clandestine meeting or for the purpose of blackmail. He can launder money. He can administer a beating. He can pick a fight. As a rule chaps from the firm don’t get into fights. On the rare occasions that they do they like to have a little chat first. Some point of history perhaps, or some philosophical debate. It helps them get their bearings. They can work down from there. Harry can spy on any member of the firm whose private life is cause for concern. There is no kidnapping. No killing. Chaps do that. I am called variously: villain, criminal, bob-a-job man, by those whose job it is normally to undertake such tasks. Understrapper is the official term used to describe me. There are others who do the same job, though I have met none. We are domestic animals. We rarely get to travel abroad on business. We don’t get paid expenses. Ours is contract work without the contract. We can be safely denied within the firm as well as externally. At MI6 operatives are told that they are in the business of creating myths. At MI5 they are told that they are defending the realm. Harry Fielding is told to meet Hamilton at 2.00 a.m. in a motorway cafeteria.
I’m not complaining. I do my job well and they pay promptly. I’m ambitious. I want promotion. I think that is why Hamilton mocks me.
If it can be avoided they will not issue an understrapper with equipment of any kind. Understrappers are never furnished with guns. If I want to carry a weapon, Hamilton tells me, I must purchase one in the market place. I haven’t signed the Official Secrets Act. There is nothing official about me.
Unless it is bodyguard work (and this kind of work is rare) mugs like me are discouraged from carrying a weapon. This involves a certain amount of hypocrisy on their part. That, of course, makes me feel better if I choose to carry a loaded pistol on any other kind of job. That is to say, without actually encouraging me, the firm cultivates the notion that I always know best when it comes to judging circumstances in the field, irrespective of the amount of information they are prepared to give me.
I tell Hamilton I don’t take jobs that require a gun, but I carry a Beretta anyway. This Beretta was made in 1934. The man who sold it to me wanted to sell me a larger, more powerful pistol that carries thirteen instead of the seven this one holds. I took the seven-shot model. I’m no gangster. I wanted something compact. I told him I didn’t think anybody’s skin had grown thicker since 1934. If I ever had to use it it would be to discharge no more than two shots at close range.
Hamilton knows I carry it. His refusal to acknowledge my needs is part of the game.
I no longer look at the world with that fixed, confident stare of youth. Instead, my eyes hunt for the telling detail. I try to match what I pick out with experience. I invent the rest. This can be dangerous.
I could see from the way Hamilton was sitting that I had incurred his displeasure. I had been careless and I had been stupid. There could be no excuse for my behaviour. As usual, he had selected a booth with a clear view of the entrance. Without having to reveal myself I could observe him stiffly perched in one corner of the seat. He was well turned out in his three-piece suit. He had shaved before coming out to meet me. He had a newspaper spread neatly before him on the table. I was already late. I decided I would let him sit. No harm to get his blood pressure up a little further if I could manage it. I went back to my car. I sat in the front passenger seat for another thirty minutes. I sang a song to myself. I thought about Hamilton’s smooth face. When Hamilton shaved before coming out to meet at 2.00 a.m. it meant his blood pressure was already up. I imagined on such nights he had his instructions for the week and a car boot full of money.