The Constant Gardener

He has seized her Russian bag. The first cab is pulling out from the curb. The second is pulling out behind it. Speculatively? In support? In a civilized country you can never tell.

"Get back to the car," he orders her.

"What car? It is useless. You are mad."

She is pulling at her Russian bag but he is rummaging in it, shoving aside her papers, tissues and whatever else obstructs his search. "Give me the car keys, Lara, please!"

He has found her purse inside the bag and opened it. He has the keys in his hand — a whole bunch of them, enough to get into Fort Knox. Why the hell does a single woman in disgrace need so many keys? He is sidling toward her car, sorting through her keys, shouting "Which is it? Which is it?" drawing her with him, keeping the shopping bag away from her, dragging her into the lamplight where she can pick out the car key for him — which she does, vituperatively, vindictively, holding it up to him and jeering at him.

"Now you have the key to a car with flat tires! Do you feel better now? Do you feel a big man?"

Is this how she talked to Lorbeer?

The cabs are edging round the square toward them, nose to tail. Their posture is inquisitive, not yet aggressive. But there is stealth to them. There is evil purpose, Justin is convinced: an air of menace and premeditation.

"Is it central locking?" he is yelling. "Does the key open all the doors at once?"

She doesn't know or she's too furious to answer. He is on one knee, her shopping bag wedged under his arm, trying to get the key into the passenger door. He is rubbing away the ice with his fingertips and his skin is sticking to the metalwork and his muscles are howling as loud as the voices in his head. She is tugging at the Russian shopping bag and yelling at him. The car door opens and he seizes hold of her.

"Lara. For the love of heaven. Will you please be so kind as to shut up and get into the car now!"

The use of courteous emphasis is well judged. She stares at him in disbelief. He has her bag in his hand. He hurls it into the car. She darts after it like a dog after a ball, lands on the passenger seat as he slams the door. Justin steps back into the road and heads round the car. As he does so the second cab overtakes the first and accelerates at him, sending him leaping for the curb. The cab's front wing snaps vainly at his flying coat as it passes him. Lara pushes open the driver's door from inside. Both cabs come to a halt in the middle of the road forty yards behind them. Justin turns the key in the ignition. The windscreen wipers are thick with frost but the rear window is fairly clear. The engine coughs like an old donkey. At this time of night? it is saying. In this temperature? Me? He turns the key again.

"Have you got petrol in this thing?"

In the driving mirror he makes out two men climbing out of each cab. The second pair must have been hiding in the back below the window line. One man carries a baseball bat, another an object that Justin concludes successively to be a bottle, a hand grenade or a life preserver. All four men are walking deliberately toward the car. By God's will the engine catches. Justin revs and releases the handbrake. But the car is automatic and Justin for the life of him can't remember how automatic cars work. So having put the car into drive he restrains it with the foot brake until sanity prevails. The car finally lurches forward, shaking and protesting. The steering wheel is as stiff as iron in his grasp. In the mirror, the men break into a trot. Justin cautiously accelerates, the front wheels shriek and bump but somehow the car is going along despite itself, it is actually gathering speed to the alarm of their pursuers who no longer trot but run. They are dressed for the occasion, Justin notices, in bulky tracksuits and soft boots. One wears a sailor's woolen hat with a bobble on it, and he's the one with the baseball bat. The rest wear fur hats. Justin glances at Lara. She has one hand to her face, the fingers crammed between her teeth. Her other hand clutches the console in front of her. Her eyes have closed and she is whispering, perhaps praying, a thing that Justin finds puzzling since until now he has regarded her as godless, in contrast to her lover, Lorbeer. They are leaving the little square and bumping and farting down a poorly lit street of terraced cottages fallen on hard times.

"Where's the brightest part of town? The most public?" he asks her.

Lara shakes her head.

"Where's the station?"

"It is too far. I have no money."