Gaines dismissed an idea so simple. ‘When I got in this game,’ he went on, ‘I had a little daughter.’ He said this as if he was just now discovering it; or as if he was discovering it about someone else. ‘A little girl,’ he said, after a pause; and after another  one, ‘I was twenty years old.’ This in itself seemed to be the story: at any rate, there was no more to tell. It was as if, ever since, he had looked at these facts obliquely – as if he couldn’t see them  but could, with care, make them out as a fairly robust implication of some other data.

He shrugged. ‘Investigate those mystery deaths if you like,’ he suggested, ‘or this Nova Swing rocket: but it’s a team game now. For all of us. Agreed?’ She had no idea who he was talking about. But each liqueur,  she noticed,  had caused his smile to become a little less intense. ‘Always bring the results to me,’ he recommended.  ‘And never, ever say that  word to anyone again.’ The assistant opened her mouth  to agree, but before she could speak he walked straight out through  the window, vanishing the other side, and leaving her with the impression that the view from her room was painted on the glass. As if the world fabric was a style of art to which only Gaines and people like him had the secret.

13 Eaten by Dogs

THIRTEEN

Eaten by Dogs

Anna Waterman’s bedroom had what she thought of as a suicide bathroom en suite – extensive mirrors above sink and bath, everything else black faux-marble cladding. The walls matched the floor, and there was no natural light. Uplighters provided enough of an oily yellowish glow to pee by. But switch on the three hundred watts of fluorescents hidden in the ceiling and you had better keep your eyes closed: otherwise you would see – turning  with you when you turned,  wincing and holding its palms up to the cruel radiance – whatever pitiful thing you had become over the years. In a bathroom  that implacable, even the happiest woman would find it easy to let the Jack Daniel’s bottle fall and smash. Display as many bowls of dried rose petals as you like in that kind of bathroom,  but after you’ve changed the peach-coloured  bath sheets and broken  open a new cake of handcut  hemp-oil  soap, you’ll still find yourself arranging the water glass and Temazepam cartons by the sink, or sitting quietly on the too-low lavatory pan, planning where to make the first cut – and cuts will always seem necessary, whatever the financial or emotional climate.