Dead in Time

Chapter Eight

I got in late and had to wade through the heavy blue smoke that wreathed the stairwell courtesy of Mr. Downstairs. Nobody really knew what he did all day, but he kept very strange hours, and his manner just didn’t tempt anyone to ask in more detail. Pink spiders and four a.m. panic attacks aside, he gave off the impression of being a little… special, to put it charitably. Although, with recent events being what they had been, I had to admit I wasn’t in the best position to call anyone else crazy. I unlocked my front door, glad to be back, even though the flat smelled of sandalwood and… curry? I edged in cautiously. Damon stood by the fireplace, ostensibly studying the photos on the mantelpiece, though he glanced up as I came into the room. He was barefoot, a pair of black leather trousers hugging his hips. A v-neck tunic with fluted sleeves in a slinky, silky sea-green fabric looked as if it ought to rustle when he moved, though I knew I wouldn’t hear it. Smoky kohl and a cropped red waistcoat with black and gold edging completed the picture.

“All right, babe?”

He held a very short gin and tonic in one hand, with a half-smoked cigarette in two extended fingers and, in his free hand, the empty jewel case of Fielding’s latest CD. The darkly sweet acoustic guitar of Only the Rain filtered from the stereo, along with Leon Fielding’s voice, soft but insidious. I wondered how long Damon had been here, drinking and listening to the songs.

“Hey.” I dumped my bag and kicked the door shut behind me. “All right?”

He took a mouthful of his gin, not really the kind of dimension that could ever be called a sip, and swallowed.

“Mm. You wanna drink, baby?”

“I’ll make some tea.”

He appeared to stifle a belch; I wondered if he could get drunk. It stood to reason, after everything I’d seen him put away, though it brought me back to all those questions about his physicality… about mine, too, really. Actually, about everything. Reality seemed a lot less static these days, and I was getting sick of questions that flapped loose without answers, like unbuckled shoes.

I went through to the kitchen. Fielding’s voice curled from the stereo, burred with a slow melancholy:

Don’t know why it seems like
Every drop’s the same
Whiskey or water I know it’s
Only the rain.

I put the kettle on, going through the comforting ritual of rinsing pot and mugs, finding spoon and leaves, organising the kitchen worktop the way one might calm and order a fractured mind. I shivered lightly and turned, that cold ache on my bones again. Damon trailed after me, a little too close for comfort. The cigarette dangled from his lips, his eyes heavy with more than the kohl.

“So, what’d he tell you?”

I leaned back against the cooker, fighting the urge to wave away smoke I couldn’t smell.

“Well, we talked about how it started. Your first contract and… the years up to—” I stopped short of phrasing it. “Y’know. All the biography stuff. He told me how you met, at some psychedelic art show.”

His face softened a little at that, and he took the cigarette from his mouth long enough to exhale in a sort of half-laugh. I wondered what had upset him—the thought of Leon being a suspect, or the fear that he’d revealed something Damon wanted kept hidden. I decided to probe a little bit, with all the grisly experimentalism of butting one’s tongue against a sore tooth.

“The year your dad died,” I said.

He blinked, and I saw how rubbish he’d be at poker. The kettle boiled, and I turned away, grateful for the opportunity to deal with the tea instead of him.