Black

by Sophie Lark

  “Has Andrea come?”

  “I didn’t ask her to—she wouldn’t like this neighborhood.”

  “I don’t either,” Black said. He lowered his voice. “You know who owns this club?”

  It was almost assuredly run by the Bratva, if only as a very minor operation. Perhaps simply to funnel money through.

  “I figured,” Violet said, “but they don’t give me any trouble. And they pay in cash every week.”

  “Be careful,” Black warned her. One of the main industries of the Russian mafia was human trafficking, voluntary and involuntary. Violet was young and pretty.

  “I won’t do anything stupid,” Violet promised him. “I’m friends with the waitresses. They’re not being abused or anything.”

  “Alright,” Black said reluctantly. He knew Violet was an adult now and usually pretty street-smart. She would take care of herself.

  “You coming on Sunday?” Violet asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Andrea’s been trying to get me to take a job in her office.”

  “What’s it pay?”

  “Not near enough to have Andrea as a boss.”

  Spotting a waitress approaching, Black said, “You want a drink?”

  “I’ll just have some of yours.” Violet took a long draught of his beer, draining half the glass.

  “You finish it,” Black said. He signaled to the waitress for the check.

  “I have something for you,” Violet said.

  “What is it?”

  She pulled something soft, squishy, and paper-wrapped out of her bag,

  Black tore the corner of the wrapping.

  “A jumper?” he asked, perplexed.

  “I knitted it!” Violet said, proudly.

  “You knit now?” Black wanted to laugh, but he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

  “Yeah, while I’m watching TV.”

  “Well, thanks,” Black said.

  “You’d better actually wear it,” Violet threatened him. “That took me like two hundred hours.”

  “I’m a little disturbed you watched two hundred hours of television.”

  “I was catching up on Peaky Blinders.”

  “Did the Irish guy kill the other Irish guy?”

  She smacked his shoulder.

  “It’s a good show,” she insisted.

  “Alright,” Black said.

  He wanted to ruffle her hair like he used to do, but he knew she wouldn’t want him to mess it up.

  “Great job tonight,” he said again, signing his bill and preparing to leave.

  “Thanks for coming,” Violet said, smiling up at him. “And don’t forget your jumper!”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Black said.

  12

  The beauty and riddle in studying the movies of any politician is in trying to decide what is idealism and what is self-interest, and often we are left to conclude that the answer is a mix of the two.

  Boris Johnson

  Friday morning, the rain was pouring down twice as hard. Black had planned to wear his suit as usual, but then he saw Violet’s package at the foot of the bed. He unwrapped the jumper. It was a charcoal gray cable-knit, thick and warm. It wasn’t bad work—maybe slightly lumpier in some spots than in others, but overall, just the thing for an awful day like this.

  Black pulled it on after his shower, not bothering to do anything about his hair since it was likely to get soaked anyway.

  He had an umbrella, but the wind was blowing so hard from the side that it flung the rain directly into his face anyway.

  Because of the shit weather, it was impossible to find a cab. Black took a short tube ride, and then walked the rest of the way to the Houses of Parliament.

  He saw a Starbucks on the way, and decided to get a vanilla latte for Holly, remembering that Morris had said it was her favorite. He got coffee for the rest of the staff, too. It never hurt to come bearing gifts.

  The security guards at the entrance were already starting to recognize him. Thankfully, they didn’t make him put the coffee through the x-ray machine, only carry it as he walked through the metal detectors.

  “Awful weather,” one of the guards said, seeing how much water Black was dripping on the polished floors.

  “Yeah. Sorry about that,” Black said, grimacing at the puddle he’d made.

  “Can’t be helped,” the other guard said. “We’re just keeping the mop handy.”

  Black could find his way to Morris’s office without too much trouble now.

  Holly looked up with delight when she saw him coming through the door.

  “Byron! What a nice surprise! You brought coffee?” She lifted the cup and inhaled the rich scent. “Vanilla! You really are a detective.”

  “Morris told me,” Black said, “so it wasn’t much of a mystery.”

  Black dropped off the other coffees at Cara, Davis, and Daniel Clark’s desks. Cara was on a phone call, so she just mouthed “Thank you!” at him. Davis said, “Cheers.” Clark gave a stiff nod.

  Black brought the last cup into Morris’s room.

  “Black!” Morris called as he came through the door.

  Morris was sitting up at his desk, looking cheerful. He obviously had not been overly traumatized by his narrow escape two days earlier.

  “Brought some coffee in,” Black said, handing the last cup to Morris.

  “You’re too kind,” Morris said.

  Black could see that Morris had his thermos on his desk as usual, but he hadn’t started drinking from it yet. He ignored it in favor of the coffee Black had brought.

  “Looks like we’ll be getting international news coverage for the summit next week,” Morris said, looking excited.

  “That’s great,” Black said. “What are you doing for security at the event?”

  “The whole nine yards,” Morris said. “We’re working closely with Scotland Yard. There’s no way the summit is going to be sabotaged.”

  “Good to hear,” Black said.

  He’d follow up with Emerson to make sure that was true.

  It seemed like the bombings were escalating. The summit would be the obvious place for the Citizens to make a climactic statement.

  “Any good leads on your end?” Morris asked.

  “Nothing spectacular,” Black said. “The Met is trying to trace the materials used to make the package bomb and the one that went off at the fundraiser. I’ve been trying to follow the online communication of the Citizen’s group, but they’re cautious and insular.”

  Morris nodded, his eyes bright and interested.

  “That’s where it all happens these days, isn’t it?” Morris said. “Ironic for a group that hates technology.”

  “Apparently not enough to stop using it themselves,” Black said.

  Holly poked her head in the door.

  “We have a meeting with the youth advocacy group in ten minutes,” she said to Morris, smiling apologetically at Black for interrupting.

  “Duty calls,” Morris said to Black.

  “No problem,” Black said.

  Morris and Holly headed out of the office. Cara was still on her phone call, and Davis had disappeared somewhere. Black took the opportunity to sidle up to Clark’s desk.

  Clark looked up from his computer, annoyed.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Just thought we could have a chat,” Black said.

  “About what?”

  “How long have you been working with Morris?”

  “Almost four years,” Clark said. He didn’t seem to want to make eye-contact with Black. He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand.

  “That’s a long time,” Black said.

  Clark didn’t bother to respond to that.

  “Morris must have been just getting started in politics. What made you want to work with him? Some young, untested kid?”

  “I had read his articles,” Clark said, his voice clipped. “He wrote some for my paper. I could tell he was smart. Our views
aligned.”

  “What happened to your newspaper?” Black asked. “It’s not around anymore, is it?”

  “No,” Clark said tartly. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but newspapers are struggling. Everybody wants everything for free now.”

  Black was indeed aware of this fact. He remembered that the Citizens had once sent a series of package bombs to The Telegraph, in protest of their switch to an online media focus.

  “So it was Morris’s writing that caught your attention?” Black asked. “You’d never heard of him before?”

  Clark glared up at Black, his eyes red and watery.

  “That’s what I said,” he repeated.

  He gave a loud, wet sneeze, which he tried to direct into the crook of his arm.

  “Who were you talking to, at the fundraiser?” Black asked.

  “I talked to a lot of people,” Clark said.

  “You were speaking to someone outside the ballroom. Was it an employee?”

  “What business is it of yours?” Clark said, sneezing again.

  “I’m supposed to be investigating the bombs,” Black said.

  “Not doing a very good job of it, are you?”

  “I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”

  “Do you mind stepping back?” Clark said, sneezing a third time.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Allergies,” he said, giving his nose another swipe. His eyes were swollen and red now, in his mottled face.

  “Allergies to what?” Black said.

  “Probably your jumper,” Clark said, glaring at the pullover Violet had knitted.

  “You’re allergic to wool?” Black said. “Isn’t that illegal in Britain? Sort of like being allergic to tea and biscuits, isn’t it?”

  “Very funny,” Clark said.

  Black took a small step back from the desk, not enough to actually be helpful.

  “This position seems like a step down for you,” he said. “Working with a bunch of kids. I’m surprised you took it.”

  “It pays the bills,” Clark said furiously.

  “And you don’t have any other reason to want to be close to Morris?”

  “What are you implying?”

  “A lot of people have it in for Morris. Have you heard of the Citizens?”

  “Of course I have,” Clark said through gritted teeth. “I’m one of Tom’s closest friends.”

  Cara had hung up her phone call. She was now staring between Black and Clark, open-mouthed, confused but the tension in the room.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” Clark snapped, sneezing once more. He stood up from his chair, pushing it back so abruptly that it toppled over behind him. “The detective was just leaving,” he said.

  13

  It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.

  Buddha

  Black left Morris’s office, mulling over his interaction with Daniel Clark. It was hard to pin the man down. He did seem genuinely loyal to Tom Morris. But his antagonism toward Black was palpable.

  Perhaps it was just a general antipathy towards authority or law-enforcement types. But with so few leads to go off, Black intended to try to tail him over the weekend.

  While he waited for Clark to get off work, Black used his phone to do some more online reconnaissance on the various members of Morris’s team.

  He couldn’t find any overt connections between Daniel Clark and the Citizens—not that he expected him to be obvious about it. Clark was still a member of a vegan Facebook group, as well as some left-wing political groups.

  It was interesting that Morris himself was not particularly left-wing or right-wing. He was almost quintessential centrist, and he didn’t take strong stances on many things, other than the environment. His personality and platform seemed crafted to appeal to the widest number of people possible. It was hard to get a sense of who Tom Morris was, really.

  Black supposed that was common with politicians, especially young politicians who were still finding their way, still making alliances in Parliament.

  It made it difficult to investigate the case. Morris was a blank slate. It was hard to find the connections, the people who might want to do him harm.

  Meanwhile, the Citizens were abnormally security conscious. They had rigid protocols in place to prevent infiltration. Whoever was running the organization since Wright died was even more cautious than their predecessor had been.

  The rest of Morris’s team seemed equally benign, at least as far as their social media went.

  Davis Philbrook had the most widespread presence—unsurprising since it formed a large part of his job description. His Facebook and Instagram profiles were stuffed full of candid shots of him eating shawarma, walking his dog, winning a pub quiz night with his mates, and playing some kind of elaborate board-game with his girlfriend.

  Cara Belschwitz’s Instagram mostly featured her cat, Sir Pounce.

  Black sighed as the hours ticked by. Surveillance was his least-favorite part of the job. It was so tedious and mind-numbing watching the streams of people going in and out of the Houses of Parliament. It made his head hurt trying to keep watch constantly for Clark’s tall, stooped, paunchy figure.

  He had, at least, set up camp by a cafe window, so he could get a little food and another coffee to help pass the time.

  He checked Facebook again to see if Marina Schneider Lopez had responded to him.

  No luck yet.

  Black perked up a little when the workday drew to a close and the stream of employees headed home for the night began to increase. He didn’t see Clark among them, and he was afraid the man had gone out another exit, or Black had simply missed him in the crowd. It was particularly difficult to keep track in this weather, with all the umbrellas and hats and turned-up collars.

  But at last Clark came trotting out of the building, shoulders hunched up against the sleet, hands jammed in his pockets.

  Black tossed some money on his table and headed outside, following Clark from a distance. He hung back as far as possible without losing him, but Clark didn’t seem to be on the lookout for a tail. He simply hurried along to get out of the wet as quickly as possible.

  Black trailed Clark onto the Tube, boarding a different car and watching him surreptitiously through the adjoining window. Then he followed Clark back up onto the street and down a half-dozen blocks, into a busy residential neighborhood stuffed full of dry-cleaner shops, corner stores, cafes, pubs, and flats.

  Clark stopped briefly at an Indian restaurant to get a takeaway curry, then he carried his food to one of the more run-down apartment buildings, where he climbed a wrought iron staircase to a walk-up on the third floor.

  There he stayed the rest of the night.

  Black waited and waited, hoping Clark would be going out again after he ate, but he apparently intended to watch TV all night long. Black could see the flickering light of the screen reflected on Clark’s wall, though not the couch or the man himself.

  Around eleven o’clock at night, freezing cold and having worn out his welcome at the cafe and then the pub across the street, Black was finally forced to give up for the night.

  He took a cab home to catch a little sleep so he could resume tailing Clark the following morning.

  The following day, Black was back outside Clark’s apartment bright and early. Thankfully, the rain had stopped, so he could read a newspaper on a bench across the street and otherwise loiter about outside without looking suspicious.

  Still, it was a long, cold, stiff day. Black took a few looks at his phone now and then—quick glances at various news and social media posts—but for the most part, he had to keep his eyes trained toward Clark’s apartment building.

  He saw that Morris had ramped up his vlogs in the lead-up to his summit on Monday afternoon. He was constantly exposing his current location, everywhere from the gym to the grocery store to various community outreach activities. Black couldn’t help but feel th
at he made himself an easy target, and he hated that Holly was always at Morris’s side—directly in the crossfire if anything were to happen.

  This was the trouble with developing feelings for someone. You took a piece of your heart and you put it in their hands, and you just hoped and prayed that they wouldn’t lose it, or fall off a bridge with it, or deliberately tear it into pieces.

  He hated that vulnerability. He’d been resisting it, ever since things ended with Lex. But somehow Holly had captivated him, without any thought or consent involved.

  Black sighed and switched his surveillance spot.

  It probably didn’t matter where he stood, since Clark hadn’t so much as poked his head out the window. Clark stayed stubbornly put inside his apartment, not even coming out for food or errands.

  Around lunchtime he ordered a pizza, and it appeared that was going to be his only activity for the day, because by nine o’clock at night he still hadn’t emerged.

  Black planned to wait until ten, then give up for the day.

  At nine forty-two, Clark came stumping down the staircase, wearing a thick jacket and a cap pulled low over his balding head.

  Black felt his pulse quicken. The blood that had been pooling in his legs went surging all around his body in anticipation of moving.

  It was plenty dark out now, but there were few people on the streets, so Black made sure to stay far back on the sidewalk as he silently shadowed Daniel Clark.

  He only hoped Clark wasn’t going to get in a cab, because that would make it far more difficult to follow.

  Luckily, Clark seemed to be heading somewhere within walking distance. He shuffled along for six blocks, crossed the street, walked a few more blocks, and then went inside an extremely small and dingy pub.

  Black paused outside, considering his options. It would be difficult to go inside without Clark noticing him—it was such a small place and didn’t look particularly busy. However, this was what he’d been waiting for—a chance to observe Clark unawares in a public place.

  So, hunching up as best he could to try to hide his height, and keeping his face down, Black entered the pub.