The Brush-Off by Shane Maloney Page A

was turning out to be a piece of piss. While we ate, Sal and the other guy kept up a running patter about Szabo. He was quite a mystery man from what I could glean—a refugee from Europe, a misanthropic recluse who had done most of his work in the fifties and sixties while holed up in rustic squalor. ‘A total output of what, fifty or sixty paintings,’ Sal said at one point. ‘Not exactly prolific.’
    â€˜Forty known paintings,’ the accent corrected her. ‘Now that he’s getting better appreciated, who knows how many more will emerge?’
    The conversation soon meandered elsewhere, and I was happy to go with it. I would have been happy to go anywhere, given the encouragement I was receiving under the table. At the salad, Salina’s hand brushed on my knee. By the tiramisu, it was lodged between my thighs.
    When the liqueurs and coffee arrived, I knew I was going places. ‘Have you ever been exploring?’ she asked, dipping her forefinger in Sambuca and offering me a taste. ‘In the Botanic Gardens at night?’

It would have been churlish to refuse. What I didn’t realise— could not possibly have realised—was that the expedition that followed would lead me much further than over an iron railing and into a thicket of Rhododendron oreotrophes . Further than an exploratory probe in the depths of the fern forest. Further even than the searing flare of an emergency light beside the moat of the National Gallery.
    And, before it was over, more than one body would be wheeled into the back of an ambulance.
    But right then, in the dead of the night, the itch of crushed leaves still on my skin, all I could see was Salina Fleet’s contorted face.
    â€˜Bastard!’ She said it again.
    Not an accusation this time. Not thrown in my face, but muttered under her breath. Her eyes followed the movement of the gurney into the back of the ambulance, the trail of water across the pavement left by the lifeless black legs. Her head shook with the movement of it, emphatic in denial. Despite the heat, she was trembling.
    Abruptly, slow motion became fast forward. The flashing light went off. Doors slammed. The ambulance began to draw away. I moved towards Salina, wanting nothing except to comfort and to calm. The policeman blocked my path with a hand to my chest. He gestured towards the rear of the departing vehicle. ‘Friend of his, are you?’
    Salina was moving out of reach, being led towards the police car. She wasn’t looking back. The air was humid, cloying. I shook my head. ‘Not really.’
    The cop was about ten years younger than me. His shirt had two stripes on the sleeve, and he had a howitzer on his hip. ‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough, mate?’
    I looked down and saw that I still had the bottle of wine we’d pinched from the hotel. We’d been swigging out of it as we crossed the lawn and I was holding it by the neck. Barely a tepid mouthful remained in the bottom. The Botanic Gardens suddenly felt a very long way away. The taste on my tongue was bile, not apricots.
    Beyond a pair of security guards, Salina was being helped into the back seat of the police car. The cop followed my line of sight. ‘You with her, are you, mate?’
    Salina stared back towards me. She was calmer, regaining control, her face as bloodless as marble. Guilty and contrite. She gave a little rueful shake of the head. Goodbye, Murray, it said.
    I shook my head slightly, mirroring her movement. ‘Not any more,’ I said. It seemed like the right thing. Only later did it feel like cowardice.
    More police were arriving. Another two squad cars and an unmarked Falcon. A security guard, fishing in the moat, pulled a pair of thick-rimmed glasses out of the water. Another had the discarded shopping trolley from earlier in the afternoon and was dragging it out of the gutter. The car with Salina went.
    There were maybe six cops, as many