The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 9 Part 11

He nodded and smiled, relieved that she could read his mind, and watched her walk away, her a.s.s subtly swaying under her uniform.

If she drove through the night, she'd be in Mexico City in time for her plane, back over the border before you could say "four hundred grand". That was the plan, and for weeks she'd stuck to it faithfully, f.u.c.king him when he asked for it, telling him she loved him when that was what he needed to hear. And truthfully, the f.u.c.king and the candlelight and all the sweet nothings hadn't been so hard. Some mornings, when she woke up in his arms and heard him breathing steady and slow behind her and the street vendors setting up their wares outside the window ... Well, she didn't mind it so much. But the trouble with accomplices was G.o.dd.a.m.n guilty consciences and the trouble with splitting the money was loose ends. Darla didn't like loose ends.

Her arm ached from holding up her keychain torch and her eyes were gritty from staring down at the torn map with its stupid Mexican names. There was San Cristobal de las Casas and there was Ciudad de Mexico, but nowhere was Stupido de Los Dirt Tracko and Automovil Repair. She threw down the map and opened the car door, half-expecting a snake. But there was just dirt and c.r.a.ppy gra.s.s and her boot with some blood on it. The crushed hood belched up smoke in a pathetic plume. There was no choice but to hike back up the track and thumb for a ride on the main road.

She slammed the door and it opened right back up again, reminding her that she'd almost left something behind. She pulled out the black suitcase and hugged it to her chest like a child. "You're worth all this and more."

For the first time, he heard the guitar playing behind him, saw the old men in corners swigging out of plastic mugs and letting their ash drop on the floor. Up above, the paper lamps hung from strings tacked to the ceiling and neon signs for Bud Light and Clamato flickered on the wall. The waitress came back with his beer. He thanked her and lifted it to his lips, relishing the cool gold liquid trickling down his throat. Maybe it would run right through the hole in his belly. He almost laughed at that, but stopped when he felt another nail go through him.

The doors swung open and a little old woman in a black mantilla came in, clutching a basket under her arm. She went to a few of the tables, but people shook their heads or just ignored her. Maybe she was selling moonshine or telling fortunes. She made him think of his Abuela, so tiny, scrubbing the steps on Sat.u.r.day, melting chocolate for mole, slapping his face for cursing that one time. He never swore in front of her again.

When she finally hobbled over to his table, she opened her basket wordlessly, and he saw that it was full of knitted dolls. Each one wore a balaclava and clutched a machine gun, just like the drug runners in the jungle. He felt sad then. He wanted to ask her, When did it come down to this, the knitted dolls, the local crafts? So far from the men in masks sacrificing blood to the Jaguar, the shaman chanting his mantra, bringing the spirits with his sacred drum.

But then, he'd drifted pretty far. He'd been about to leave this life behind for good, betray the people who'd raised him. Grimacing, he dug 60 pesos from his pocket and dropped them in her outstretched palm. In return, she handed him three dolls, st.i.tched mouths grinning through their balaclavas, guns poised to fire woollen bullets at anyone who crossed their path.

The shapes of trees grew blacker against the lilac sky. Beyond, between, inside, night creatures chattered and rustled. Sometimes they even shrieked. A twig cracked. Darla spun around. The torch's thin beam bounced off glossy leaves that sprung back into place behind some mottled thing vanishing into the jungle's green void, slinking stealthy and feral as a jaguar. There wasn't anything as big as that in this rat hole, though, she was sure. She turned back, one hand trembling a little on the handle of the briefcase, the other clenching the torch. She stepped forward and its light faltered. She shook it hard. "Mother of s.h.i.t, don't die now, battery."

When the car crashed, it had only gone a short way into the trees. She'd seen that with her own eyes, and she'd been cool and collected, tracing the tyre marks back towards the track. But the further she followed them, the denser the foliage grew. She'd been going maybe a quarter of an hour and now it was night. Her torch was failing. The place was crawling with f.u.c.k knew what tropical s.h.i.t.

Back in San Cristobal, if you mentioned the jungle, everyone was totally weird about it, even Raoul. They were superst.i.tious, crossing themselves and talking about ancient G.o.ds, lost tribesmen, human sacrifice. It seemed to Darla there were more tangible things to worry about the Guatemalan drug runners toting Mac-10s for one thing, the bird-eating spiders and the giant f.u.c.king snakes.

As soon as she thought the thought, something bright wriggled in the undergrowth. She shone the torch on it and it slunk away. A pinkish tinge. Probably a coral snake. She imagined it striking, all bared fangs and venom, and her going all Bear Grylls and sucking the poison out, maybe snacking on the thing when it was dead. She had to laugh at that. A loud sound interrupted her. A person laughing, an echo. But it went on too long for that, the sound stretching out into something like a howl. Underneath it a rhythmic sound boomed. Drums. The torch c.r.a.pped out.

When he'd finished the first beer, the waitress brought him another, then another after that. He finished the last drop of the last beer and thought about the alcohol dribbling, spouting, gouting from the wound under his belt, except that he couldn't really feel it any more. The cantina looked softer now and the air felt cooler, clearer. A woman came out, wearing a red dress, and stood with her arms raised above her head. The guitar music stopped. A red light came on. The guitar began again, slow and rhythmic and the woman began to dance.

She wore gold hoop earrings and her gleaming hair was adorned with a white paper camellia. She danced with the heels of her shoes and her hips, holding one arm out, then the other, turning around to show the roses st.i.tched on to her scarf. Her brows were thick and her mouth was fierce as a shaman's. A jaguar's. When she bent her arm and pressed her hand to her waist, the guitarist slapped the strings, loud and staccato, the music burning into Raoul's ears, calling the spirits forth. When she raised her arms above her head, he stroked them so gently, picking out each note like he had all the time in the world to play the song.

Raoul closed his eyes and thought of the blonde, the jungle boogie in her skinny hips, the statue hidden in her stolen suitcase. The Jaguar G.o.d was in that lump of gold and spirits always took back what was theirs. They called the dark magic. They demanded blood.

He slumped further back in the chair, listening to the dying chords of the guitar, thinking of Abuela's handkerchief folded so neat and clean in his pocket, of Darla sitting beside him in the pa.s.senger seat of the coupe, the statue in her lap, her hand on his arm, a look on her face like she was remembering the night before. When he opened his eyes, the dancer was gone and the waitress was putting another beer in front of him.

"Will she come back and dance again?"

"Will who come back?" asked the waitress. Her fingers, slipping from the sweating gla.s.s, brushed his hand. They were cool and smooth as gold. He closed his eyes again, feeling that he loved the waitress and the old woman and the dancer, and even the blonde, because the same blood ran in all their veins.

She was alone in the dark, her heart going like the Kentucky Derby, the laughter echoing around her. She put down the briefcase. "Keep it together, Darla. Don't lose your s.h.i.t now, girl." Fumbling in her dress, she found her cigarettes, slid her fingers in the crumpled pack. Three left. Three cigarettes, like three wishes. She tapped Raoul's Zippo out, feeling a certain rea.s.surance in its familiar shape. Flicking it open, she strummed the wheel. No flame, just a sad blue spark or two. Made her think of a shy c.o.c.k you had to coax and coax before it was ready for use. Raoul's had been like that a couple of times towards the end, as if he knew their game was played out. Not that Darla believed in gut feelings. She turned up the gas.

On about the twentieth tw.a.n.g of the flint, a tall white flame leapt up, singeing her eyelashes. She sucked on her cheap Mexican cigarette, pretending she wasn't even going to look around. She didn't know what she'd been expecting to see hundreds of shining eyes watching her, or just one pair, red-rimmed and hungry. But there was nothing.

She dragged and exhaled a plume of smoke. The Zippo was still burning away, eating up its little tank of gas. It would be dead soon, like the torch, and she would be here in the dark until the dawn broke. A wave of tiredness. .h.i.t her. Her feet ached. She'd have to sit down for a while, wait for the light. Not on the ground though.

Kicking the briefcase over with her toe, she was about to sit down on it when she had an urge to know what was inside. Zippo in one hand, she flipped up the catches with the other. Inside was an old bit of lace, the kind Raoul was always mopping his forehead with. She sucked on her cigarette. "Better not be all there is."

The handkerchief was loosely wrapped around something solid and heavy. She pulled it away. Out rolled a gold figurine, smaller than she thought it would be. She picked it up, turned it in the light. From what she could tell, it was some kind of big cat, a jaguar maybe. Beneath him, back arched, legs spread, little gold mouth open and gasping, was a woman. She and the jaguar were f.u.c.king away. Not just f.u.c.king, but really staring into each other's eyes, like they loved each other.

She sat down, a strange feeling in her belly, as if all her life she'd been missing some crucial piece of the puzzle. All those long cons and short cons, boring affairs and quick, hot lays, and here was this ancient relic and just looking at it filled her with a raw desire for something. A connection. Love.

The Zippo light dipped a little, its brightness fading. All around her the jungle chirped and screeched. And there was the laughter again, the wild thump and smack of a drum. She dropped the lighter and clamped her hands over her ears. Her belly told her that she'd been a bad girl, that she'd never leave this place. But that was just stupid. Gut feelings didn't exist.

ROTTERDAM.

Nicholas Royle.

AS SOON AS Joe arrived in Rotterdam, he made for the river. He believed that a city without a river was like a computer without memory. A camera without film.

The river was wide and grey. A slice of the North Sea.

Joe was listening to "Rotterdam", a track on the Githead alb.u.m Art Pop. When he'd last been to Paris he'd played the Friendly Fires single of that name over and over. Earlier in the year, walking through the Neukoln district of Berlin, he'd selected Bowie's Heroes alb.u.m and listened to one track, "Neukoln", on repeat.

He switched it off. It wasn't working. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. The chugging, wiry pop of Githead didn't fit this bleak riverscape. The breathy vocals were a distraction. Instrumentals worked better.

He didn't have long. A couple of days. The producer, Vos, wouldn't wait any longer. The American was a busy man and Joe knew he had already more than tried Vos's patience with repeated requests to have a shot at writing the screenplay, or have some input elsewhere on the movie. For now, at least, the script had John Mains's name on it and Joe knew he could count himself lucky to be scouting locations, albeit unpaid. He hoped that by showing willing and maybe coming up with some places that not only corresponded to what Vos wanted but also helped to back up his own vision of how the film could look, he might still get to gain some influence.

Joe turned back on himself and selected a cheap hotel with a river view. His room, when he got up to the fourth floor, managed to reveal very little of the Nieuwe Maas but if you craned your neck you could just make out the distinctive outline of the Erasmus Bridge. They called it the Swan; to Joe it looked more like a wishbone, picked clean. Did swans have wishbones?

The room itself was basic and while you wouldn't necessarily pick up dirt with a trailing finger, there was a suggestion of ingrained grime, a patina of grease. Joe quickly unpacked his shoulder bag, placing his tattered Panther paperback of The Lurking Fear & Other Stories by the side of the bed. He checked his emails and sent one to Vos to let him know he had arrived in Rotterdam and was heading straight out to make a start.

He walked towards the centre. The kind of places he was looking for were not likely to be found there, but he wanted to get a feel for the city. He'd known not to expect a replica of Amsterdam, or even Antwerp. Rotterdam had been flattened in the war and had arisen anew in the twentieth century's favourite materials of gla.s.s and steel. But really the commercial centre could have been plucked from the English Midlands or the depressed Francophone cities of Wallonia.

A figure on top of an anonymous block of chrome and smoked gla.s.s caught his eye. It was either hubris or a remarkable achievement on the artist's part that Antony Gormley's cast of his own body had, by stealth, become a sort of Everyman figure. A split second's glance was all you needed to identify the facsimile as that of the London-born sculptor.

Only absently wondering why there might be an Antony Gormley figure standing on top of an office block in Rotterdam, Joe walked on. He stopped outside a bookshop and surveyed the contents of the window as an inevitable prelude to going inside: Joe couldn't walk past bookshops. It was their unpredictability that drew him in. They might not have his book in stock, but then again they might.

This one had the recently published Dutch edition of Joe's crime novel Amsterdam. He stroked the cover, lost for a moment in the same reverie that always gripped him at this point. The thought that the novel was this far this far from reaching the screen.

Leaving the bookshop, Joe spotted another tall figure standing erect on the flat roof of a shiny anonymous building 200 metres down the road.

When Vos had optioned the book, Joe had thought it was only a matter of time, but delay followed delay. Vos had a director attached, but couldn't find a writer the director would work with. Joe had asked his agent to show Vos the three unsold feature-length scripts he had written on spec, but the agent had explained that Vos and his director were looking for someone with a track record. Which was why Joe made a bid to write the adaptation of Lovecraft's "The Hound", Vos's other optioned property, but the response was the same. Hence the visit to Rotterdam to look for empty s.p.a.ces and spooky graveyards.

On the Westzeedijk, a boulevard heading east away from the city centre, Joe came upon the Kunsthal: a gla.s.s-and-steel construction, the art gallery had a protruding metal deck on which were scattered more Gormley figures in different positions. Lying flat, sitting down, bent double. Inside the gallery, visible through the sheet-gla.s.s walls, were more figures striking a variety of poses. Two faced each other through the plate gla.s.s, identical in all respects except height. The one inside looked taller, presumably an illusion.

Joe had missed the original Gormley exhibition in London, when cast-iron moulds of the artist's body had popped up on rooftops across the capital. Leaving the Kunsthal in his wake, he caught sight of another figure at one corner of the roof of the Erasmus Medical Centre. He realized he had started looking for them. This was Gormley's aim, he supposed, to alter the way you looked at the world. To get into your head and flick a switch. As public art, it was inescapable, insidious, invasive. Was that a good thing? Was his work really a "radical investigation of the body as a place of memory and transformation", as Joe remembered reading on the artist's own web site? Or was it all about him? All about Gormley. And if it was, did that matter? Wasn't Joe's novel all about Joe? Who's to say Lovecraft's essays were the extent of his autobiographical work?

Joe was halfway to the top of the Euromast when his phone buzzed. The incoming text was from Vos. John Mains, the scriptwriter, was going to be in Rotterdam, arriving later that day. They should meet, compare notes, Vos advised.

Joe scowled. He reached the top landing of the structure and exited on to the viewing deck. The panorama of the city ought to have dominated, but Joe couldn't help but be aware of the ubiquitous figure perched on the railing above his head.

He tried to think of a way in which he could get out of meeting up with Mains. He'd lost his phone and not received Vos's text. Amateurish. Didn't have time. Even worse.

He checked his watch. He still had a few hours.

At the foot of the Euromast he found an empty fire station. He peered through the fogged windows. A red plastic chair sat upturned in the middle of a concrete floor. A single boot lay on its side. Joe took a couple of pictures and moved on. A kilometre or so north was Nieuwe Binnenweg. With its mix of independent music stores, designer boutiques, print centres and s.e.x shops, this long east-west street on the west side of the city would be useful for establishing shots. At the top end he photographed a pet grooming salon, Doggy Stijl, next door to a business calling itself, less ambiguously, the Fetish Store. There were a few empty shops, more cropping up the further out of town he walked, alongside ethnic food stores and tatty establishments selling cheap luggage and rolls of brightly coloured vinyl floor coverings.

The port of Rotterdam had expanded since Lovecraft's day to become the largest in Europe. Why the late author had chosen to set his story here did not concern Joe; indeed, he had no reason to suspect Lovecraft had ever set foot on Dutch soil. The references to Holland and Rotterdam in particular were so general he could have been describing any port city. All credit to Vos, Joe conceded, that he had chosen to film here rather than in Hull or Harwich, or the eastern seaboard of the US, for that matter.

Joe's westward migration out of the city had taken him into one of the port areas. The cold hand of the North Sea poked its stubby fingers into waste ground crisscrossed by disused railway sidings. Ancient warehouses crumbled in the moist air. New buildings the size of football pitches constructed out of corrugated metal squatted amid coa.r.s.e gra.s.s and hardy yellow flowering plants. Interposed between one of these nameless buildings and the end of a long narrow channel of slate-coloured water was an abandoned Meccano set of rusty machinery hawsers, articulated arms, winches, pulleys. Elsewhere in the city this would pa.s.s as contemporary art. Out here it was merely a relic of outmoded mechanization, with a possible afterlife as a prop in a twenty-first-century horror film.

There had been a few adaptations of Lovecraft's work, successful and otherwise, and they weren't all by Stuart Gordon. Just most of them. Joe wasn't sure where Vos's film was destined to play, arthouse or multiplex. As he lowered the camera from his eye, he caught sight of a dark shape behind the machinery. Tasting a rush of adrenalin, he moved his head for a better view, but there was nothing or n.o.body there.

Disconcerted, he backed away. In the distance a container lorry crunched down through the gears as it negotiated a corner. A faint alarm could be heard as the driver of another vehicle reversed up to a loading bay.

Keileweg had been the centre of the dockside red-light district before the clean-up of 2005 that had driven prost.i.tution off the streets. If he hadn't done his research, Joe wouldn't have guessed. He found Keileweg devoid of almost any signs of life. The street was lined with boxy grey warehouses and abandoned import/ export businesses. A dirty scarf of sulphurous smoke trailed from a chimney at an industrial site near the main road end of Keileweg. On the opposite side, a little way down, a building clad in blue corrugated metal drew Joe's eye. Christian graffiti decorated the roadside wall: "JEZUS STIERF VOOR ONS TOEN WIJ NOG ZONDAREN WAREN". The building's main entrance was tucked away behind high gates. High but not unscalable. Approaching the dirty windows, Joe shielded his eyes to check out the interior. The usual story: upturned chairs, a table separated from its legs, a computer monitor with its screen kicked in, a venetian blind pulled down from the wall, its blue slats twisted and splayed like some kind of post-ecological vegetation.

The place had potential.

Likewise the waste ground and disused railway sidings running alongside Vier-Havens-Straat.

Slowly, Joe made his way back into town photographing likely sites, even throwing in the odd windmill in case Vos wanted to catch the heritage market.

He returned to the hotel to shower and pick up his emails, including one from Vos telling him where and when to meet John Mains. Joe studied the map. He left the hotel and walked north until he reached Nieuwe Binnenweg, where he turned left. At the junction with Gravendijkwal, where the traffic rattled beneath Nieuwe Binnenweg in an underpa.s.s, he entered the Dizzy Jazzcafe and ordered a Belgian brown beer. He drank it quickly, toying with his beermat, and ordered another. Checking his watch, he emptied his gla.s.s for the second time. As he stood up, his head spun and he had to hold on to the back of the chair. Belgian brown beers were notoriously strong, he remembered, a little too late.

Two blocks down Nieuwe Binnenweg was Heemraadssingel, a wide boulevard with a ca.n.a.l running up the middle of it. Joe stood on a broad gra.s.sy bank facing the ca.n.a.l and beyond it the bar where he was due to meet Mains. He straightened his back and breathed in deeply. He needed a moment of calm.

A soft voice in his ear: "Joe!"

He whirled around. A figure stood on the gra.s.s behind him, legs slightly apart, arms by his side. The lights of the bars and the clubs on the near side of the street turned the figure into a silhouette; the lights from the far side of the ca.n.a.l were too distant to provide any illumination.

Joe stood his ground, straining his eyes to see.

The figure didn't move.

And then a shape ghosted out from behind it. A man.

"Joe," said the man in a gentle Scots accent. "Didn't mean to make you jump. Well, I guess I did, but you know ... These are a laugh, aren't they?" He indicated the cast-iron mould as he moved away from it. "Easily recyclable, too. John Mains." He offered his hand.

"Joe," said Joe, still disoriented.

"I know," said Mains, smiling slyly.

He was about Joe's height with an uncertain cast to his slightly asymmetrical features that could go either way charmingly vulnerable or deceptively untrustworthy.

"Busy day?" Mains asked, moving dark hair out of his eyes.

"Yeah."

"When did you get here?"

"This morning."

"How did you get here?"

"I flew."

"Shall we?" Mains gestured towards the far side of the ca.n.a.l.

They walked towards where the road crossed over the ca.n.a.l and Joe was the first to enter the bar. Rock music played loudly from speakers bracketed to the walls. They sat on stools at a high table in a little booth and a bartender brought them beers. Joe observed Mains while the scriptwriter was watching the lads in the next booth, and he wondered what anyone would think, looking at them. Would they be able to spot the difference between them? Was Mains's precious track record visible to the naked eye?

Mains looked back and it was Joe's turn to redirect his gaze.

Mains said something and Joe had to ask him to repeat it.

"I said I haven't booked into a hotel yet."

"It's not exactly high season."

"No." He took a sip of his beer. "Could you not have taken the train? Or the ferry?"

"What?"

"It's not very environmentally friendly to fly, especially such a short distance."

"It was cheaper."

"Not in the long run, Joe. You've got to take the long view."

Joe looked at the other man's dark eyes, small and round and glossy like a bird's. A half-smile.

"So what have you got for me?" Mains asked.

Joe hesitated. He wondered if it was worth making the point that he was working for Vos. He decided that since neither of them was paying him, it didn't make much difference. He was about to answer when Mains spoke again.

"Look, Joe, I know you pitched to write this script, but we do have to work together."

"I know, I know," Joe shouted into a sudden break between tracks. The boys in the next booth looked over at them. Joe returned their stare, then turned to look at Mains. "I know," he continued. "Here, have a look."

He handed Mains the camera phone on which he'd taken his pictures and Mains flicked through them using his thumbs.

"Great," he said, not particularly sounding like he meant it. "I suppose I was expecting something more atmospheric."