The Quiet Man

Organised Crime

“Yeah,” I tell him. “I know a couple of them.” He smiles at me. He knows who I am. Well, of course he does. This is the launch party for my book. All the staff presumably know that. My picture is in the lobby. Everyone is carrying around a book with my face on the back. I’m a writer of crime fiction, and rather than rubbing elbows with the publishers and the bookshop owners, celebrities and newspaper columnists, rather than chatting with the press like I’m meant to be I’m here at the bar watching an arrest on telly. Writers are often introverts, aren’t they? I should be more interested in crime than in empty socialising. But that’s not it. That’s not it at all.

“I used to read your blog,” he says. Oh: he really does know who I am.

“Oh yeah?”

He nods. “Fascinating stuff. What ever happened to that dominatrix? Did you ever see her again?”

Irene. Of course he doesn’t know: I never posted about her death. Sherlock would have seen it, and at the time I didn’t want him to know. Not from me, anyway, not like that. Did he find out? Did his brother tell him? Did he discover the truth in his own ways, through his various networks? Did he know I lied to him? He must have. He always knew those kinds of things. But he never said. I think he might have loved her. He never spoke about her again. She might have broken his heart; I think she did. If she hadn’t done, well. Maybe he’d still be alive. They might have got married. By now he’d be living with her in some grand country house with children underfoot. Or not: maybe he’d be living in her townhouse with her army of lovers, her sitting room full of clients. And he’d be in a basement with his chemicals and body parts, happy as a clam. That could have been. I’d have Mary and her flat, he’d have Irene and her business, but we’d still tramp across the city together, just like always. I’d still have him, in a manner of speaking.

That might have been all right. I would have gone on not thinking about it, not paying attention. We’d sit next to each other on the sofa, watching movies, and the closeness of him wouldn’t have occurred to me as strange. It could have happened that way.

“No,” I tell him. “No, we didn’t. She died, she was killed a short time afterwards.”

“Oh,” he says. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah, it’s too bad.”

“She was just like him, wasn’t she. That must have been strange. Two of them in one room!”

I didn’t think of it that way, really. She wasn’t just like him. She was more aggressive, somehow. More sinister. She made decisions he wouldn’t have made. No matter how amoral he wanted to pretend he was, he was always working toward doing the right thing. She never was.

He picks up a glass sitting upside down on a towel on the bar and flips it upright. “I never believed he was a fraud, you know.” He pours a pint, slowly, then puts it down in front of me. “I never did.” I don’t really know what to say. What’s the right response to that: thank you? It’s not me he’s demonstrating faith in. I’m not going to say anything to that. I’m just going to drink this pint.

“Cheers,” I say. The glass is cool in my hand, and it’s hot in here. Too hot; I should take off this stupid jacket. Mary wouldn’t like that. He looks up at the screen again, and I want to explain. He’d know, if he read my blog. He’d remember. It would be nice if someone else knew, if they could see it. It seems so obvious: all these arrests, all this organised crime activity, doesn’t it seem strange to anyone else? Related to the death of the king pin? Why is no one remarking on it? Everyone just goes on, as if nothing’s changed, as if nothing’s different.

“I think,” I start. Is this unwise? I don’t know him. It doesn’t matter; it’s just an idea. I’m a novelist, that’s all. I have all kinds of ideas. If he looks dubious I can tell him I’m working on another book. “I think those three constructed Moriarty’s back story three years ago. The part about him being an actor Sherlock hired, a presenter. That whole story. I think it was them.” I motion to the screen with my pint.