Candleland by Martyn Waites Read Free Book Online

what if they thought of other people, said past partners’ names with their minds’ voices? It didn’t matter. They were there for each other, in the here and now. That was the thing.
    Afterwards they had lain in each other’s arms, unmoving, unspeaking. Eyes not connecting. Touching not each other’s bodies but those of the missing, the lost. No future together; the commonality that had brought them close would be the thing to stop them going further. Larkin had drifted off to sleep and when he had woken, he was alone.
    He had gone downstairs to find Moir at the kitchen table, hands shaking their way through a breakfast fag. After exchanging tentative pleasantries, Larkin asked where Faye was.
    â€œOut. Work.” Moir replied his voice as trembling as his hands.
    Larkin nodded. There was no sign of Andy. Larkin hadn’t expected there to be. “Just you and me then, Henry,” said Larkin.
    â€œLook,” said Moir, “d’you mind if I just stay here today? Just till I …”
    Larkin looked at his friend, sitting there in an old T-shirt and shorts. All the fight seemed to have gone out him. All the life. “No,” said Larkin, “that’s OK. I’ll go.”
    Moir nodded, relieved. He said nothing more, so Larkin finished up and left the house.
    The first place Larkin would go was the agency Moir had employed to look for Karen. A private agency based on the Caledonian Road. Although he wasn’t expecting any instant results, it seemed as good a place to start from as any.
    Larkin walked down the filthy street, pulling his coat around him to keep out the cold and exhaust fumes, and stopped in front of a doorway set between an off-licence and a boarded-up store front. A piece of card tacked to a bell said Finders. He had the right place. He decided not to ring and set about climbing the bare, broken wooden staircase.
    He reached the top. Two doors stood in front of him; one, battered and chipped, had a laminated cardboard sign pinned to it bearing the same name as the downstairs bell. Larkin knocked and waited.
    â€œCome in,” called a fag-addled voice.
    Larkin entered. The room was quite small and made smaller by the clutter. Shelves covered the walls, piled with box files, papers and text books. An old two-bar electric fire in the corner threw out heat to a six-inch radius. The skeletons of two chairs sat on a threadbare rug in front of a weathered mahogany desk. On the desk was another pile of papers, an Arsenal mug and a packet of Rothmans. Also on the desk was the room’s only incongruity: a top-of-the-range PC and printer. The whole office spoke of cramped efficiency; too much work for too small a space. Behind the desk sat a middle-aged woman, grey-streaked, pudding basin haircut, glasses and a nondescript beige top. She held a pen in her right hand, a cigarette in her left. Karen Carpenter was abruptly silenced as she clicked off Melody FM on a portable.
    â€œMorning,” said Larkin. “I called earlier …”
    â€œOh, that’s right,” she said, putting the pen down and sticking the fag in her mouth, “Mr …” She consulted a desk diary, well-thumbed for only February. “Larkin. Have a seat.”
    Larkin took his chances on one of the chairs and looked at her. She reminded him of someone but he couldn’t think who.
    â€œMo Mowlam,” she said, as if reading his mind.
    â€œSorry?”
    â€œI saw the look you gave me. I remind you of someone but you don’t know who. Mo Mowlam. Everyone says so.” She smiled. “Shame it couldn’t’ve been Sharon bloody Stone, but there you go.” She had the kind of music hall Cockney accent that seemed about to burst into song.
    Larkin smiled. It sounded like a standard line she trotted out to clients or potential clients, but it was a good technique, like a considerate dentist putting patients at ease. Any levity, any humanity, was