The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 7 Part 14

"Yeah, you're right. It's a long time since I stole a boat." He smiled and swigged from his beer.

Dan would rather hire a boat nowadays anyway, and he didn't chase girls when he was working, but they stuck with the plan for dinner. Dan got down there a little early, had a drink at the bar and looked out across the restaurant. It was less than half full but Tully's presence made it seem overcrowded.

The guy was loud, talking like there were twenty extrovert people at his table, not three timid ones. He knew a couple of people on neighbouring tables, too, and called lame jokes and comments across at them, getting polite, almost subservient laughs in response.

Dan glanced out at the intense blackness beyond the restaurant lights. The hotel prided itself on its ecological credentials, so the lights that were scattered around the grounds were low-key, providing just enough illumination to ensure no one on a late-night walk would trip and sue.

There were no cameras, either, he'd already noticed that. And the staff were good at keeping out of the way. It was ironic, given the philosophy that underpinned both the hotel and its spa, that this place was ideally designed and situated for violence.

"You tell that to the gooks," shouted Tully, following up his own bizarre punchline with a raucous laugh.

Dan looked at where Luke would enter the room, looked at the tables that were free, calculated how Luke would get to each of them. He crossed the room then and sat down. When the waiter came, Dan asked for two menus and asked him to take the chair away.

"Mr Luke?"

"Mr Luke," said Dan. The waiter nodded and whisked the chair away.

A minute later, Luke wheeled into the room and looked across to where Dan was sitting. He looked for a path to reach the table, but turned away from the obvious one and started looking for another.

Dan got up and waved him back toward the obvious path, the one that went past Tully's table. He walked over then and tapped Tully on the shoulder, saying, "Mate, do you mind moving a mo just to let my friend through?"

Tully looked down at his own shoulder, a theatrical indication of how dangerous it was that anyone should touch him without permission, then looked up at Dan, trying to figure him out. He didn't look at Luke but said, "There's plenty of room to get past."

"No, see, there isn't he's in a wheelchair."

Luke looked alarmed and impressed, but the hint of a smile disappeared as Tully said, "So what, everyone has to move around the cripple, is that what you're saying?"

Dan put his hand on Tully's shoulder, this time exerting just enough pressure to let him know how things stood, and when Tully looked up Dan fixed his stare, saying, "Mate, I'm asking you to move because I can see you're the kind of guy who does the right thing when it matters."

Tully stared back for a second or two, his eyes twitching, giving away his entire decision-making process, then said, "I didn't catch your name."

"Dan Borowski."

Dan held out his hand and Tully shook it, saying, "Brian Tully." He turned and looked at Luke and said, "Just messing with you, kid, don't take it so serious." He got out of his chair and pushed it under the table.

"Thanks," said Luke as he wheeled through the gap.

"Decent of you, Brian, thanks very much."

Tully nodded like someone convinced he'd just been scammed but unable to see what had been taken or how. And throughout the meal, Dan noticed him glancing over with a confused meanness. Tully knew he'd been humiliated in some way or other and was weighing up how he could get back at Dan or more likely at the kid.

He didn't get any quieter, but he never directed his comments at Dan and Luke. They were only a few yards away but he was rattled enough by his first encounter with Dan that he didn't want to risk another exchange just yet.

Luke didn't mention what had happened at first, but as Tully shouted for about his tenth beer since they'd sat down, his eyes lit up and he said, "I get it I've been wondering why you confronted the guy, and now I know. You did it on purpose."

"Luke, I don't know what you mean."

But Luke was having none of it, laughing now as he said, "You chose this table on purpose, knowing I'd have to pa.s.s him to get here."

"Busted," said Dan, laughing. He was impressed that Luke had worked it out, but then the kid was going to Harvard so it shouldn't have been that much of a stretch. "You know, there's a place in India where the workers in the fields kept getting eaten by tigers. Then a tiger expert comes in, and makes masks for them, but tells them to wear them on the back of their heads while they're working see, the tiger likes to attack from behind, so the mask makes it think it's looking at someone's face and that rattles it. Tiger attacks stopped overnight."

"Is that true?" Dan nodded and Luke said, "Cool. I still don't see what it has to do with you picking a fight with Tully."

"I wasn't picking a fight. Sometimes you just have to show your face, make people understand they're not the only predator in the jungle."

By the time they finished dinner, Tully's family had left and the man himself was at the bar. Dan looked at his watch and said, "Think I'll turn in it's been a long day and I'm diving in the morning."

Luke looked envious and said, "I wanted to dive out here, but the guy who runs it says they can't take me, something about the hotel's insurance."

"You've gotta be kidding me." Luke shook his head. "You been diving before?"

"No, but I will, someday."

Dan nodded and said, "Tell you what, I'll have a word with the guy tomorrow, see if we can sort something out."

"Thanks," said Luke, but he smiled as he pushed himself away from the table. "You won't get anywhere, but thanks anyway."

Dan got up, and he knew Luke was talking from experience, that the kid would have tried every angle to get on that dive boat. They chatted as they made their way out of the restaurant, but Tully didn't turn to look at them. He was pretty drunk by now and Dan guessed he probably hadn't even noticed them.

When Dan got to his room he kept the lights off and walked out on to the balcony. He needed to get everything done in the next couple of days and was thinking through his options when he noticed the unmistakable figure of Tully swaying along in the half-light by the pool.

It took a second longer to see that there was a girl with him, one of the small local girls, her figure obscured by Tully's bulk as she led him by the hand along the side of the pool. At the far end, they made their way down on to the beach.

Curious, Dan left his room and followed them as far as the gardens that formed the divide between pool and beach. He didn't need to go any further the compliant moans and Tully's breathy running commentary were bad enough without seeing it. And how typical of Tully that he should even talk himself up during bought s.e.x.

Dan took a couple of steps back and found a small path that cut through the gardens to the side of the pool. It was paved so he could wait there without leaving footprints, not that he really believed anyone would care.

What really intrigued him was whether this was a regular thing, and what other solo jaunts Tully took. He was still thinking about that when he heard footsteps. It was definitely Tully because he was mumbling to himself as well, drunker than Dan had realized.

He saw him walk past and glanced out to see if the girl was with him she wasn't. It was a risk, because she could still be lurking back there, but occasionally, instinct just demanded that the time was right. This was one of those occasions and Dan was happy to take serendipity over professionalism any day.

He stepped forward, eased up behind Tully and pushed him into the pool. Tully managed to spit out the word "b.i.t.c.h" before he hit the water with a dull thud of a splash. Dan stepped back a moment, looking around to see if the noise had attracted the girl unlikely, given that Tully seemed to be blaming her for the push or any of the hotel staff.

Tully was struggling and sputtering back to the poolside and now that Dan was certain no one was coming he stepped forward and said, "What happened, mate?"

"b.i.t.c.h pushed me," said Tully as he reached up to take Dan's offer of a hand, too drunk to be suspicious of his presence.

It was quick then. Dan grabbed the hand, used it to flip Tully over onto his back as he pulled him up out of the water, then used his free hand to crack the back of Tully's head down on to the poolside. It was so quick, Tully didn't even get chance to cry out.

As he slid him back into the water he turned him on his front again. The guy was unconscious and bleeding badly from the gash to his head, but it was best not to take any more chances. As things stood, a drunk had slipped after s.e.x on the beach, cracked his head on the poolside and drowned they'd probably name a c.o.c.ktail after him.

For Dan, it had ended up being about as easy as he could have hoped, so easy he hadn't even had time to get an adrenaline buzz off it. But that was job done, and he really was going diving in the morning, so he went straight to bed now, and the following day he made no attempt to find out what had happened and none of the hotel staff mentioned it to him.

When he got back to his room around lunchtime he showered and dressed and was ready to head out again when there was a knock on his door. He opened it to the worn face of Stephanie Tully.

"Hi, what can I do for you?"

His breezy tone put her on the back foot, but she said, "I'm not sure, at least, I hope you are who I . . ."

"You shouldn't have come here," said Dan. "Don't speak to me again."

She nodded with an eager obedience that Dan almost wanted to shake out of her, then said, "Thank you, anyway."

"You're welcome. And I hope you realize I don't usually do domestics it's only because you know Lo Bello."

"I know. And I appreciate that. Did you get the money?"

He smiled and said, "Lady, I wouldn't be here if I hadn't. Don't get me wrong, I'd have happily done him for nothing, but I try to limit pro bono work to about once a year."

She smiled back, still uncertain, but he could see now the relief that was creeping into her. And it had been an accident, just as requested, ensuring none of Tully's colleagues would come after her Dan found it hard to believe they'd have cared that much anyway.

He found Luke in the bar and it was he who was first to officially break the news about what had happened to Tully. The pool was closed for the day, but Luke made it clear that was the only reason he was sorry. He didn't appear to suspect anything.

Dan made the right noises, then, as if remembering the really big news of the day, he said, "Oh, tomorrow morning, hope you don't have plans we're going diving."

Luke laughed in disbelief and said, "How? How did you manage that?"

"It wasn't so hard. You know, on the whole, people wanna do the right thing you just gotta help them see a way." He swigged from his beer as Luke thanked him a couple of times.

They talked diving for a while, but as soon as the moment allowed, Dan swigged from his beer and said, "Anyway, I was thinking tell me a little more about the guy who put you in the chair . . ."

FOUR HUNDRED RABBITS.

Simon Levack.

THE DANCE OF the Four Hundred Rabbits was a part of the midwinter festival of the Raising of Banners, a time when we Aztecs honoured our war G.o.d, Huitztilopochtli, the Hummingbird of the South. While warrior captives were having their hearts torn out in front of the war G.o.d's temple at the top of the Great Pyramid, a more genial ritual was being enacted nearby, in honour of the G.o.ds of sacred wine.

The priest named Two Rabbit presided over the temple of the G.o.d whose name he bore. He called together dancers, young men from the Houses of Tears, the priests' training schools. Each dancer represented one of the four hundred lesser G.o.ds of sacred wine, the Four Hundred Rabbits.

The task of organizing the proceedings fell to Two Rabbit's deputy, Patecatl. It was his job to set up the jars of sacred wine that were at the heart of the ceremony and to lay out drinking straws ready for the dancers at the end of their performance. For the climax of the dance was the moment when their graceful, sinuous movements broke up and they fell greedily upon the jars and the drinking straws, every man jabbing his neighbour with knee and elbow and fist in his eagerness to be first.

There were four hundred dancers and fifty-two jars. But there were only two hundred and sixty straws, and of those, only one was bored through. Among the four hundred young men who had been picked for this ceremony, one alone would stand with a hollow reed at a jar of sacred wine, happily drinking his fill.

It was a game of chance, but also a ritual, watched closely by Two Rabbit and Patecatl for clues to the will of the G.o.ds. Two hundred and sixty was the number of days in our sacred calendar, and fifty-two, the number of years between the ceremonial kindling of one new fire and the next. To see which young man seized the right straw and which jar he drank from might give the priests a clue to what lay in the future for our people.

Unless somebody tried to shorten the odds.

"Move yourself, Slave!"

I scrambled to my feet, narrowly avoiding the kick my master's steward had casually aimed at me while I bolted what was left of my warm tortilla. The sweet girl from the palace kitchen who had pa.s.sed it to me fresh from the griddle backed away into a corner, her eyes wide with sudden fear, but the big bully did not berate her for wasting bread on me. Nor did he demand to know what I was doing or hurl some witless insult at me, which was unusual. Instead, with a curt "Come with me!" he turned and stalked away.

"Thanks a lot, Huitztic," I grumbled. I glanced over my shoulder but the girl had fled. "We were getting along nicely there, too . . ."

I hung back, preparing to dodge the kick that a remark like would normally provoke, but all the response I got was, "This is no time for jokes. His Lordship has something to show you."

That was restrained by the steward's standards. Intrigued, I caught him up, and noticed that he was sweating. It was a cold, clear morning, when the frost lay late on the earth and the sky above the city of Mexico-Tenocht.i.tlan was a blue so bright it hurt the eyes, yet his brow was beaded with moisture, glittering in the sunshine.

"In here." He led me into a courtyard. "Your slave Yaotl, my Lord!" he announced in a loud whisper.

The enclosure was dark, surrounded by high walls the Sun had yet to clear, and the only warmth and light in it came from a squat brazier at its centre. I paused, squinting into corners while my eyes adjusted and I tried to make out what it was I was meant to see.

The feeble glow of the coals set off my master's features perfectly, picking out every line and wrinkle in his gnarled old face, but making his bright, ferocious eyes shine. Lord Feathered in Black, the Chief Minister, Chief Justice and Chief Priest of the Aztecs, the second most powerful man in Mexico-Tenocht.i.tlan and perhaps the most dangerous, did not trouble to greet me. Instead he leaned forward in the high-backed wicker chair that was an emblem of his rank, clutching his jaguar skin mantle around him, and snarled: "Look at the boy the rabbit, here. Tell me what happened to him."

I followed his gaze and saw for the first time that there was a young man sprawled against the courtyard wall. His legs were splayed like an infant's. In the poor light his skin looked sallow and unhealthy, and a trickle of saliva glittered like silver leaf on his chin. His eyes were open, but as I looked more closely I realized he saw nothing through them. Their pupils were huge black disks that stayed fixed on something far away when I pa.s.sed a hand in front of them. His breath had a sour reek that I knew well. He had been drinking sacred wine. Perhaps he had been celebrating: I noticed that he was missing the single lock of hair that boys grew at the napes of their necks, and this was a sign that he had taken his first captive in battle, and could call himself a warrior.

Why had my master called him "the Rabbit"?

I felt a moment of panic as I struggled to answer his Lordship's question. The old man was not renowned for his patience.

It was the steward who saved me, unwittingly. With a sudden nervous giggle he called out: "Come on, Yaotl. What's he taken? You're the expert!"

I stiffened indignantly at the taunt. Huitztic knew my past: how I had sold myself into Lord Feathered in Black's service, trading my freedom for the sum of twenty large cloaks, enough to keep me in drink when I had nothing left but the breechcloth wrapped around my loins. He knew also what had first driven me to seek refuge in a gourd of sacred wine: the despair and humiliation of being expelled from the priesthood, years before. As a priest I had learned and experienced the use of every kind of leaf, herb, seed and root, everything a man could put into his body to turn him into a s...o...b..ring imbecile. The steward's comment was a deliberate jibe, and it stung, but even as I bit back my retort I realized the oaf had given me the clue I needed.

My master responded before I could. "Be quiet, you idiot," he snapped. "You're in enough trouble over this already! Yaotl, I want your answer before I have both of you strangled!"

"He's been drinking," I said hastily. "That's obvious, I can smell it. But it's not just that. Sacred wine wouldn't leave him like this. He'd just have been violently sick and then fallen asleep, and by now he'd have a sore head and a tongue like tree bark. Anyway, you didn't send for me to tell you he's got a hangover. He's had something else mushrooms, perhaps: the Food of the G.o.ds. But I don't understand . . ." I hesitated before turning to look at the grim-faced old man in the chair. "What's he to you, my Lord? Why do you need to know what happened?"

"Isn't it enough that some prankster chose to break up the Dance of the Four Hundred Rabbits a religious ceremony, and me the Chief Priest? But it just so happens that this young fool is my great-nephew. So I take what happened rather personally."

The Dance of the Four Hundred Rabbits! In the years since I had left the priesthood I had all but forgotten about it, but it came back to me now. And the young man had reeked of sacred wine, which could mean only one thing. "Your great-nephew won the contest?"

The Chief Minister's deathly features twisted into something resembling a smile. "His prize turned out to be more than he expected as you have confirmed for me. Now you'll find out the rest how it happened, and who was responsible." He cast a sideways glance at his steward, who squirmed grotesquely. "You and Huitztic will look into this together."

I had to repress a groan. Being made to investigate what sounded like a childish trick would be bad enough without having that vicious buffoon of a steward for company.

"I will not be made a fool of." I noticed with a thrill of dread that my master's voice had dropped to a whisper, a sign of his rage. "I will not have my family made fools of. Somebody did this to young Heron here to spite me. After you've brought me his name, I'll have him cursing the G.o.ds for ever letting him be born!"

"What are you in trouble for?"

We were barely out of earshot of Lord Feathered in Black. The moment we were dismissed, Huitztic strode on ahead as before with barely a backward glance. I hung back until I judged I was out of range of his fists before I dared mention the thing that had most intrigued me about the interview we had just had: the steward's obvious fear and our master's equally evident anger with him.

I had miscalculated. The man spun on his heel and his long, powerful legs brought him back to me in two steps. Before I could react he had the knot of my cloak in his fist and was twisting it, tightening the rough cloth around my neck until I could feel my skin burning under it and was struggling to breathe.

"Let's get one thing clear, you little worm." Spittle fl;ew into my face as he dragged it closer to his. "I am not the one in trouble. I only did what he told me to. It was Patecatl who let him down, not me, and I'm not going to let you talk the old man into believing otherwise. I'll cut your tongue out if I catch you even thinking about it!"

"Patecatl?" I managed to gasp. "You mean the priest?"

"He's already in prison. That's where we're going now to see if they've sweated the truth out of him yet. Maybe you can think of some clever way of tricking him into giving it to us. If you can't then you'd better just keep your mouth shut. Old Black Feathers may have told me I had to have you trailing around after me like a lost dog, but I don't have to like it!" He let go with a snarl, thrusting me away from him so hard that I fell over backwards, my legs buckling under me.

"The priest's in prison?" I repeated, as I got up. I had to run to keep pace with him as he made off into the street outside our master's palace. "What for, though? You may as well tell me what you think he did."

Huitztic ignored my suggestion until he was brought up short by one of the city's countless ca.n.a.ls. As he looked right and left for a boat that could take us to the prison, he apparently had second thoughts. Wrinkling his nose as though he had caught a whiff of the green water at his feet, he muttered: "All right. I may as well since we've got to see him together. But you remember what I said. I only did what I was told!"