Borrowed Time

There were no more than twenty other customers in the place. Their applause when Spencer and the combo finished was a thin rattle around the smoky room, a sound like twigs snapping. A moment later Spencer sat down opposite Whitlock.

‘Nice meetin’ you.’ He reached across and shook Whitlock’s hand. ‘Call me Spence. What’s your handle?’

‘People call me C.W.’

Spence had the worst-fitting set of dentures Whitlock had ever seen. They were loose and they moved when he spoke, giving the impression that his mouth was out of sync with his speech.

‘Well then, C.W., this is mighty nice of you.’ Spence picked up the glass with finger and thumb, toasted Whitlock with a little swing of the glass, then swallowed half the whisky in one go.

‘How long have you been doing this, Spence?’

‘Singing in jazz dives? Since I was a kid.’

‘Never done anything else?’

‘I’d three years off to go to the war. Then I got married for a while and tried to make a go of a regular job. But it didn’t work out.’ He laughed throatily, making the dentures click. ‘Most of my life it’s been the way it is. Of course I ain’t what I was. Used to be a regular Eckstine. Now I’m just a broken singer of mostly broken songs.’

‘I thought that was Randy Newman.’

‘He stole the line off me.’ Spence laughed again. He finished the scotch and put down the glass, stared at it pointedly.

Whitlock got him another. ‘Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions, Spence?’

‘You a cop?’

‘No. I’m not anyone who means you harm.’

‘Easy to say.’ Spence picked up the fresh glass and sipped this time. ‘What kind of questions?’

‘About your friend who passed away the other day.’

‘Arno?’ Spence put down the glass. ‘You sure you ain’t a cop?’

‘I’m just a man who needs to know more than I do. Did the law give Arno any kind of trouble?’

‘Couldn’t say.’ Spence made a vague shape in the air with his hands. ‘Him and me, we got along because we didn’t pry in each other’s back yards. We could sit and drink ourselves motionless without having to communicate. But I knew Arno steered clear of policemen. He used to call them Cossacks. That’s what he’d mutter when he’d see one — Cossacks!’

The private investigator, Grubb, had told Whitlock that Spence had wept when he went to the funeral home to view Arno Skuttnik’s remains. He also said Spence told the duty undertaker that he and Arno had been friends for thirty years.

‘So what was it that made you buddies?’ Whitlock said. ‘Was Arno a jazz fan?’

‘Not that you’d notice. I think what it was, we were both the kind of loners that like to have a friend, y’know? You maybe think it’s strange in a man that sings for his livin’, but I ain’t really an outgoin’ fellow. I never in my life had more than two, three real friends at any one time. Arno was the same, and they were like him, they kept themselves in the shade.’

‘Do you know who they were, the others?’

Spence took a long pull on the whisky, studying Whitlock over the rim of the glass. When he put it down he smacked his lips. Whitlock could see he was making up his mind.

‘I’m no good with names, and far as I recall, Arno never gave any, anyway. But there’s a picture …’ Spence fished a plastic wallet from his inside jacket pocket and opened it on the table. He pulled out a coloured snapshot and handed it to Whitlock.

‘That was taken in here on Arno’s last birthday, six or seven months ago. Harry the barman took it. Those two people had dropped by to pass on their good wishes and leave a bottle of gin for Arno. He loved gin.’

The picture showed Spence and Arno side by side on the padded bench along the wall beside the bar. A man was leaning down, saying something to Arno; he was in profile and he wore a hat, but Whitlock could see it was Adam Korwin. The other person in the picture was a woman. She was turned away from the camera, her shoulder hunched defensively.

‘The lady didn’t want her picture took,’ Spence said. ‘She looked kind of mad that Harry did it.’

Whitlock could make out her left eye, the shape of her nose, the general style of her short hair, and he could see the rings on her left hand. She also wore a distinctive checked coat.

‘May I borrow this?’

‘If you promise I’ll get it back.’

‘You will.’ Whitlock finished his Coke and pushed back his chair. He didn’t want to pressure the old man any more than he had to. As he stood up he pointed to Spence’s glass. ‘I’ll leave you one at the bar.’ He put the picture in his pocket and turned to leave. Then he remembered something. ‘Spence. Do you know if Arno kept a diary, a journal, any kind of record of events?’

Spence shook his head. ‘It don’t sound like him. Besides, if he kept a diary, we’d none of us be able to read it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Arno never learned to write English.’

‘Not at all? How did he get by?’

‘People helped him out, I guess. Arno spoke English real well, but the writing was something he never got around to. He regretted that.’

Whitlock nodded and walked away. At the bar he paid for another large scotch and went outside. Upstairs, waiting for a cab to appear, he took out his notebook and scribbled a reminder to get the picture electronically copied and enhanced.

At the bottom of the page he put another entry in capitals: WHOSE WRITING ON THE PICTURE OF M. PHILPOTT?

5 (#ulink_25eb02b9-df21-5113-9968-2debfe786169)

Two days later Mike Graham landed in a Boeing 747 at Delhi and transferred at once to a black unmarked Sikorsky helicopter, the property of the New Delhi division of United Nations Information and Services. He was flown 500 kilometres north and set down on a patch of beaten earth in front of a large, shabby-looking cabin, set into a hillside above the northern boundary of Srinagar in north-western Kashmir.

It was almost dark when they landed. The setting sun was leaving streamers of red and purple above the mountains on the Pakistani border.

‘This is where I abandon you,’ the pilot called as Mike jumped out. ‘Bonne chance!’

As the helicopter took off again and Mike stood doubled over, his eyes shut tight against the dust storm, a tall Indian emerged from the cabin. He wore Levi’s and a checked lumberjack shirt. He smiled and waved.

‘Hi,’ he shouted, coming across. ‘I’m Ram Jarwal.’

He took one of Mike’s bags and led the way up to the cabin. When they went in, Mike stood in the living-room doorway and whistled softly.

‘The dilapidated exterior is designed to deflect envy and avarice,’ Ram said. ‘Inside, we UN hill-dwellers like to have our comforts.’

‘It’s beautiful.’

Mike stepped in and put down his bags. There was a big console television in the corner, showing CNN News with the sound turned down. In the middle of the floor was a deep beige Indian rug with a sinuous pattern worked in dark and light shades of green and gold. Packed bookshelves covered two walls from the floor nearly to the ceiling, with bracketed sconces at intervals above them, giving the room an amber glow. A couple of shaded lamps, with bases made from many-coloured porcelain vases, stood on black tables at opposite corners, spilling light across the polished floorboards.

‘Sit down.’ Ram pointed to one of the three armchairs. ‘I’ll get us a drink. You like Jim Beam, right?’