Free Dead Air by Iain Banks Page B

I’d had to pay the market rate for the tub, but getting it cheap certainly made an appreciable and very pleasant difference, though it did, as Phil had been the first to point out, give Sir Jamie an extra hold over me; if I lost the day job I lost the cool houseboat and Chelsea address too.
    The Temple Belle was riding high on the flood tide as I walked down the jetty past the other houseboats; music and light came from a couple of them. Upriver, where the breeze was coming from, seeded with light rain, a train grumbled across Battersea railway bridge. Nearer, the towering façade of the Chelsea Reach development glittered with a cheesy opulence. The river was silent and traffic pretty much inaudible. The high tide meant there was no awful smell; the main drawback of living on the boat was that at low tide, especially on a hot summer’s day, the revealed mud smelled of ancient shit and things long dead. Probably because that was exactly what it was.
    Despite the rain and my empty belly, I hesitated by the old wheelhouse with the door keys in one hand and the slowly cooling curry in the other, looking out at the dark water for what turned into a minute or two, feeling a little lonely all of a sudden, and then - in my defence, almost immediately - a bit ashamed for feeling sorry for myself. The gentle background roar of the unsleeping city filled the sodium-stained skies and I stood listening for the river’s dark, liquidic music in vain.
    From my parents’ house, in Helensburgh, thirty kilometres down the north bank of the Clyde from Glasgow, I could see the river from my bedroom. I grew up watching the distant cranes of Greenock gradually disappear as the shipyards closed, to be replaced, later, by offices, shops, housing developments and leisure facilities. By then we’d moved to Glasgow itself to be near my father’s new dental practice in the city centre. Our first-floor flat in the leafy South Side was big - my brother Iain and I had rooms easily twice the size of those we’d had in the bungalow in Helensburgh - but the outlook was to the broad, tree-lined street, the parked cars and the tall red sandstone tenements like ours on the far side. I missed the view of river and hill more than I’d expected.
    I met Jo on a river cruise one sticky summer night, Ceel in Sir Jamie’s glittering new penthouse at Limehouse Tower, during a storm.
     
    ‘You’re the guy did that Cat Stevens cover. Didn’t you get sued?’
    Late summer, 2000. I was still doing the Capital Live! pre-midnight programme at the time and had been talking to my then producer near the stern of the little river cruise boat. We had been watching the metallic shells of the Thames Barrier pass - each one like a sinking ship, up-ended, the last of the sunset’s ruby light flaring from their summits - when this crop-haired, blond semi-goth with lots of facial metalwork barged in between us.
    Producer Vic stepped back to give her room, looked the girl up and down, decided I probably didn’t mind being interrupted by her, raised his eyebrows at me and wandered off.
    I did a bit of entirely justifiable sizing-up myself - the girl was all in black: DMs, jeans, scoop-necked vest, battered-looking biker’s jacket off one shoulder. About mid-twenties. ‘I wasn’t exactly sued,’ I said warily, wondering if I was talking to a journalist. ‘There was an exchange of lawyers’ letters that seemed to cost as much as serious litigation, but we managed to avoid an actual writ.’
    ‘Right.’ The girl nodded vigorously. ‘Oh. Jo LePage,’ she said, holding out a hand to shake while nodding back towards the glass superstructure of the boat, where music thudded and impressive-ten-years-ago disco lights flashed. ‘I’m with Ice House,’ she explained. ‘The record company. You’re Ken Nott, the DJ, right?’
    ‘Right.’ I shook her hand.
    ‘Right. What was that song? “Rushdie and Son”?’
    ‘Uh-huh. But the tune was mostly