How to Stop Time(49)

‘I get it. L’enfer, c’est les autres.’

‘Sartre?’

‘Oui. Dix points. Sartre. Mr Comedy himself.’

I force a smile and don’t say anything because the only thing I have in my head is that the sight of her face comforts me and scares me all at once. So instead I ask her something. It is a question I have often asked over the years. The question is: ‘Do you know anyone called Marion?’

She frowns. I really confuse her.

‘A French Marion or an English one?’

‘English,’ I say. ‘Or either.’

She thinks. ‘I went to school with a Marion. Marion Rey. She told me about periods. My parents were prudes. They never told me. And it is quite a thing not to be told about, you know, this blood coming out of you.’

She says this at a normal volume. There are still other people in the room. Stephanie is still frowning at us, holding the stone of her plum between her fingers. Isham is on his mobile phone, two seats away. I like her lack of shame.

I know I should engage in chit-chat. I know all the signs that chit-chat is required are there. But I ignore the signs.

‘Any other Marions?’

‘No, I’m sorry.’

‘That’s all right. I’m sorry. That is all I really wanted to say.’

She smiles and looks at me, and finds something in my gaze that troubles her. I feel she is trying to think where she knows me from again.

‘Life is always mysterious,’ she says. ‘But some mysteries are bigger than others.’

And then there is a little silence, and I force another smile and I walk away.





PART FOUR

The Pianist





Bisbee, Arizona, 1926



It was August. I was in the living room of a small timber house on the edge of town, on assignment for Hendrich. Every eight years there was an assignment. That was the deal. You did the assignment and then you moved on to the next place and Hendrich helped you change your identity and kept you safe. The only time you were ever in danger was during the assignment itself. Though I had been lucky. I had done three assignments before this one and they had all been successful. In other words: I had managed to locate the albas in question and convince them to join the society. No violence had been necessary. No real test of character. But here, in Bisbee, everything changed. Here, I was about to find out who I was. And the lengths I would go to, to find Marion.

Even though it was now evening and the dark was quickly dissolving the red mountains outside the window, the heat was intense. It was like the burning air outside but concentrated, like someone had decided to squeeze all of the desert heat into that timber house.

Sweat dripped off my nose and onto the nine of diamonds.

‘Y’aint used to heat much, are ya? Where you been hiding? Alaska? You been gold digging up in Yukon?’ That was the skinny toothless one who asked that. The one with two fingers missing on his left hand. The one who went by the name of Louis. He took another slug of whisky and swallowed it down without a flinch.

‘Been hiding all over,’ I said. ‘I have to.’

Then the other one – Joe – the one who’d just surprised me with a royal flush, the larger, cleverer one, started to laugh ominously. ‘This is all very interessin’ an’ all, and we always appreciate suppin’ moonshine with strangers. ’Specially ones wi’ some green in their pockets. But y’aint from Cochise County. Can always tell. Just from your clothes. See, everyone round here has a taint to ’em. From the dust. From the mines. You don’t see no cotton that white ’round Bisbee. And look at your hands. Clean as snow.’

I looked down at my hands. I was very used to the sight of them, these days, from all the music I had been playing. I had taught myself piano. That is what I had done with the last eight years.

‘Hands are hands,’ I said pathetically.

We had been playing poker for over an hour. I had already lost a hundred and twenty dollars. I drank some more of the whisky. It felt like fire. Now was the time, I realised. Now I had to say what I had come here to say.

‘I know who you two are.’

‘Oh?’ said Joe.

A clock ticked. Outside, far away, something howled. A dog or a coyote.

I cleared my throat. ‘You are like me.’

‘Sure doubt that.’ Joe again, with a laugh as dry as the desert.

‘Joe Thompson, that’s your name, is it?’

‘What you diggin’ at, mister?’

‘Not Billy Stiles? Not William Larkin?’

Louis then sat up tall. His face hardened. ‘Who are you?’

‘I have been many people. Just like you. Now, what should I call you? Louis? Or Jess Dunlop? Or John Patterson? Or maybe Three-fingered Jack? And that’s just the start, no?’

Four eyes and two guns were now staring hard at me. Never seen anyone so quick on the draw as those two. It was them all right.

They pointed at the pistol I was carrying. ‘Place it on the table, nice and slow . . .’

I did so. ‘I’m not here for trouble. I’m here to keep you safe. I know who you are. I know at least some of the people you have been. I know you haven’t always been working in a copper mine. I know about the train you robbed at Fairbank. I know about the Southern Pacific Express you took for more than most can ever dream of. I know neither of you need to be mining for copper.’ Joe was clenching his jaw so hard I thought he was going to lose teeth, but I kept going. ‘I know the two of you were meant to have been shot twenty-six years ago in Tombstone.’ I dug in my pocket and pulled out the pictures Hendrich had got hold of. ‘And I know these photographs of you were taken thirty years ago, and you have hardly aged a day.’