The Grin of the Dark Read Free

room, where he rouses his computer. I leave
Natalie's cool slender hand a squeeze that feels like a frustrating
sample of an embrace and trail after her parents to the basement car
park.
    The stone floor is blackened by the shadows of brick pillars,
around which security cameras peer. Bebe's Shogun honks and
flashes its headlamps from one of the bays for Flat 3 to greet
Warren's key-ring. I climb in the back and am hauling the twisted
safety belt to its socket when the car veers backwards, narrowly
missing a dormant Jaguar. At the top of the ramp the Shogun barely
gives the automatic door time to slope out of the way. 'Warren,' Bebe
squeals, perhaps with delight more than fear.
    The alley between the warehouses amplifies the roar of the engine
as he speeds to the main road. He barely glances down from his
height before swerving into the traffic. 'Hey, that's what brakes are
for,' he responds to the fanfare of horns, and switches on the compact
disc player.
    The first notes of the 1812 surround me as the lit turrets of the
Tower dwindle in the mirror. Whenever the car slews around a corner
I'm flung against the window or as far across the seat as the belt
allows. Is Warren too busy fiddling with the sound balance to notice?
In Kensington he increases the volume to compete with the disco
rhythm of a Toyota next to us at traffic lights, and Bebe waves her
hands beside her ears. The overture reaches its climax on the
Hammersmith flyover, beyond which the sky above a bend in the
Thames explodes while cannon-shots shake the car. Rockets are
shooting up from Castelnau and simultaneously plunging into the
blackness of a reservoir. They're almost as late for the fifth of
November as they're early for the New Year. The Great West Road
brings the music to its triumphant end, which leaves the distant
detonations sounding thin and artificial to my tinny ears. 'How did
you rate that, Simon?' Warren shouts.
    'Spectacular,' I just about hear myself respond.
    'Pretty damn fine, I'd say. The guy knew what people liked and
socked it to them. You don't make many enemies that way.'
    'Never do that if you can't afford to,' Bebe says.
    'All I did was look into the background of the films that were
topping the charts. Colin wrote the piece about testing Oscar winners
for drugs. He named too many people who should have owned up,
that's why we were sued.'
    The Hallorans stare at me in the mirror as if they weren't thinking
of Cineassed . After a pause Warren says 'Shows you should be careful
who your friends are. You could end up with their reputation.'
    I'm not sure if he's talking to me or about me. Planes rise from
Heathrow like inextinguishable fireworks. A reservoir is staked out
by illuminated fishermen beside the old Roman road into Staines.
Warren brakes in sight of the video library that's my daytime
workplace, and then the car screeches off a roundabout to Egham. As
we leave the main road near the outpost of London University, Bebe
tuts at a student who's wearing a traffic cone on his head like a
reminiscence of Halloween. The Shogun halts at the top of the sloping
side street, between two ranks of disreputable parked cars. 'Open up
while I find a space, Simon,' Warren directs.
    I hurry to the slouching metal gate of the middle house they own
and manoeuvre the gate over the humped path. A large striped spider
has netted the stunted rhododendron that's the only vegetation in the
token garden apart from tufts of grass. The spider is transmitting its
glow through its equally orange web to discolour the leaves, except
that the glare belongs to a streetlamp. I sprint to the scabby front
door and twist my key in the unobliging lock. 'Hello?' I shout as the
door stumbles inwards. 'Here's your landlords.'
    Though the hall light is on beneath its cheap mosaic shade, nobody
responds. Wole's door is shut – a ski-masked cliché on a poster bars
the way with a machete – and so is Tony's, on which Gollum holds
the fort. Besides a stagnant smell of