the kitchen table, drinking Coke, eating Twix. Before me was the transparent
plastic bag containing his personal effects. I have perfect control of my
emotions, so I wasn't particularly angry, more annoyed: he had a wife, the
lovely Arabella, who should by rights be picking over the contents of this bag,
and getting teary, but instead she was somewhere in Dublin, having it off with
the sleek Dr Yeschenkov. She had killed him. And as a reward she would inherit
the rights to all of his books, published or not. She was not only currently
shafting Dr Yes; she had also shafted her husband and the future prosperity of
No Alibis.
Poor
Augustine - to feel so deeply about anyone that you would want to end your own
life. I would never understand it. If I was horrendously betrayed the way he
was, the worst I would consider was a paper cut. Although given my haemophilia,
that might well be the end of me anyway. Perhaps if I'd found him with the gun
raised to his head, I could have talked him out of it. I could have assured him
that there were plenty more fish in the sea. Actually, having seen a
documentary recently, I understand that technically there aren't plenty more
fish in the sea, although that depends on your definition of 'plenty', and
'more', and possibly 'fish'. Or maybe I couldn't have. His head was screwed up.
He had thought he was happily married; his wife had gone into Dr Yeschenkov's
clinic, fallen for his plastic smile and youthful vigour, and unceremoniously
dumped him. I knew the police had tried to contact her, without success, but I
suspected she knew all about it and was deliberately lying low, knowing she had
been the cause of his death. I wondered if she would have the gall to turn up
at his funeral. No other family members had come forward. Alison and I might
well be the only mourners. Perhaps afterwards, having no one else to give it
to, the crematorium would present the urn to us. I could create a little shrine
to him in the shop. Fans from all over the world might travel to pay their
respects. I could put it in the store room at the back, with a little curtain,
and charge entrance. Perhaps, over time, Augustine's shrine would pay me back
for all the trouble he had caused, the food he had eaten, the drink he had
guzzled, the redecoration charges he had run up with his bloody last act, and
the hope he had extinguished by pulling that trigger.
I
opened the bag and emptied the contents on to the kitchen table. Augustine's
actual clothes had been retained by the police for routine forensic
examination. I knew for a fact that if they looked for it they would find alien
DNA upon them - they were after all my father's: his suit, his shirt, even his
socks. They had remained mothballed in my mother's room all these years, her
own little shrine to him, until Augustine had borrowed them. What was now
spread out before me were the poignant little reminders of his daily routines,
as much the essence of the man as his writings: his wallet, his loose change, a
torn cinema ticket, an old-fashioned handkerchief, his mobile phone, his cigar
cutter, even the cigar he had started to smoke. There was an unopened packet of
sugar from a cafe, a slightly furry Polo mint. I opened his wallet: a
twenty-pound note, two credit cards, one for Lloyds Bank in England, and an
expired one from a bank in Cyprus. A folded bill from the Europa Hotel in Belfast
showing two nights' accommodation preceding his appearance outside No Alibis, a
bar receipt from the same location showing that he'd drunk six pints of beer.
He had a kidney donor card, which, given his apparent alcohol intake, would
have been no use to anyone, a laminated card for a library in Scotland, a
business card for a solicitor in Belfast, and one for the Yeschenkov Clinic,
which, like mine, bore Pearl Knecklass's name. I flicked it back and forth
between my fingers. It wasn't beyond possibility that Augustine had organised
it all for his wife, knowing she was
plastic bag containing his personal effects. I have perfect control of my
emotions, so I wasn't particularly angry, more annoyed: he had a wife, the
lovely Arabella, who should by rights be picking over the contents of this bag,
and getting teary, but instead she was somewhere in Dublin, having it off with
the sleek Dr Yeschenkov. She had killed him. And as a reward she would inherit
the rights to all of his books, published or not. She was not only currently
shafting Dr Yes; she had also shafted her husband and the future prosperity of
No Alibis.
Poor
Augustine - to feel so deeply about anyone that you would want to end your own
life. I would never understand it. If I was horrendously betrayed the way he
was, the worst I would consider was a paper cut. Although given my haemophilia,
that might well be the end of me anyway. Perhaps if I'd found him with the gun
raised to his head, I could have talked him out of it. I could have assured him
that there were plenty more fish in the sea. Actually, having seen a
documentary recently, I understand that technically there aren't plenty more
fish in the sea, although that depends on your definition of 'plenty', and
'more', and possibly 'fish'. Or maybe I couldn't have. His head was screwed up.
He had thought he was happily married; his wife had gone into Dr Yeschenkov's
clinic, fallen for his plastic smile and youthful vigour, and unceremoniously
dumped him. I knew the police had tried to contact her, without success, but I
suspected she knew all about it and was deliberately lying low, knowing she had
been the cause of his death. I wondered if she would have the gall to turn up
at his funeral. No other family members had come forward. Alison and I might
well be the only mourners. Perhaps afterwards, having no one else to give it
to, the crematorium would present the urn to us. I could create a little shrine
to him in the shop. Fans from all over the world might travel to pay their
respects. I could put it in the store room at the back, with a little curtain,
and charge entrance. Perhaps, over time, Augustine's shrine would pay me back
for all the trouble he had caused, the food he had eaten, the drink he had
guzzled, the redecoration charges he had run up with his bloody last act, and
the hope he had extinguished by pulling that trigger.
I
opened the bag and emptied the contents on to the kitchen table. Augustine's
actual clothes had been retained by the police for routine forensic
examination. I knew for a fact that if they looked for it they would find alien
DNA upon them - they were after all my father's: his suit, his shirt, even his
socks. They had remained mothballed in my mother's room all these years, her
own little shrine to him, until Augustine had borrowed them. What was now
spread out before me were the poignant little reminders of his daily routines,
as much the essence of the man as his writings: his wallet, his loose change, a
torn cinema ticket, an old-fashioned handkerchief, his mobile phone, his cigar
cutter, even the cigar he had started to smoke. There was an unopened packet of
sugar from a cafe, a slightly furry Polo mint. I opened his wallet: a
twenty-pound note, two credit cards, one for Lloyds Bank in England, and an
expired one from a bank in Cyprus. A folded bill from the Europa Hotel in Belfast
showing two nights' accommodation preceding his appearance outside No Alibis, a
bar receipt from the same location showing that he'd drunk six pints of beer.
He had a kidney donor card, which, given his apparent alcohol intake, would
have been no use to anyone, a laminated card for a library in Scotland, a
business card for a solicitor in Belfast, and one for the Yeschenkov Clinic,
which, like mine, bore Pearl Knecklass's name. I flicked it back and forth
between my fingers. It wasn't beyond possibility that Augustine had organised
it all for his wife, knowing she was
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