realise that has slightly camp Irish connotations?”
His face darkened. “I,” he repeated firmly, “am the master of the heartbeat, the music maker, the drummer of fate, the . . .”
“You’re a cardiac patient with complications,” I snapped. “Don’t give me this destiny stuff.”
I could see the flesh of his chest warp a little faster, hear the rhythm of his beat, faint behind the hissing of the speakers, slightly out, picking up speed. And if we looked closer still, we thought we could see his ribs rising and falling against his shirt, broken, out of joint, forced to snap up away from the breastbone to make space for that massive engine pounding away within him, and we could see the capillaries across his face flush and fade, flush and fade with each pounding of his heart. “What do you know of it?” he asked.
“Well” - I ticked the points off on my fingertips - “I know that one: cardiac problems account for a high percentage of premature deaths in the UK. Two: there’s a very long waiting list for a very small number of hearts available on the NHS. Three: even if you get bumped to the top of the waiting list, sometimes it’s hard to find a heart that will match you, owing to medicine, antigens, blood groups and all that medical stuff. Four - are we on to four? Yes, four: there are some back-street clinics not registered on the NHS, or even popping up on the regular black market, where you can get a heart transplant if you’re in a bad enough way and have a bit of ready cash, but you can bet your buttocks that the individual performing the operation believes in the power of incense and bad spirits in their work. Five: it’s not just humans who can donate working hearts. With the right attitude, the correct approach and a hefty dose of obscure occultism . . . what did you get given? Sperm whale?”
He looked surprised. Then he smiled, a long, deliberate smile that clearly took a lot of effort. “You know more than I had expected,” he said.
“That’s me. Full of useful information, not that it’s the same as truth.”
“You are not just some lost buffoon.”
“Well, that depends on your point of view . . .”
“What do you want, little man?”
“We’ll get to that. First, I’ve gotta tell you - I don’t like the fact that you’ve turned the brains of these kids here” - I jerked my chin to the empty-eyed hoodies - “to jelly. I mean, it’s none of my business, but we do not like life when it is but a mimicry. Life should be lived. And they are not living it.”
He shrugged. The ripples of the movement passed all the way down his arms to his fingertips, made his belly shake and shimmer. “I’m not here to manage your problems,” he said. “I’m not here to have anything to do with you.”
“Then I guess we’ll come back to this one in a minute. Right now, what I’d really like to know, is whether you’ve seen a kid called Mo.”
He hesitated. Not for very long. Then he laughed. We watched the great rising and falling of that blister in his chest, saw the pressing of his ribs against his shirt as they were pushed out with a creak, sharp broken edges scratching against the cotton. His heart was going faster now; the speakers couldn’t keep down the sound: dumdumdumdumdumdumdumdumdum
“How should I know?” he chuckled. “I see very few people, in my condition, but some random kid? How should I know? Why should I care?”
“I’ve got a photo,” I said, fumbling in my bag.
“Is this really what you came down here for? To ask me, me, if I’d seen a boy?”
“Didn’t say he was a boy, and ‘Mo’ could be anything,” I replied. “But yes, you have the gist of it.” I found the picture Loren had given me, held it up for him to see.
“Recognise him?”
He studied it, too long, too deep, too carefully, a badly played act by a man who didn’t get out much. “Nope,” he said finally, chest heaving beneath his shirt, heart twisting and boiling within his shattered ribs. “Is that everything, little man? Would you like a back massage on your way out?”
“Look again.”
“I’ve seen . . .”
“And you’re fibbing. We are not in the mood for lies.”
“Arrogance!” he laughed.
“Impatience,” we snapped. “You have a great bursting blister contracting and constricting within your chest. A