by Mick Herron
So much for this not being as bad as it might be, thought John.
“In summary, I really wouldn’t want to be your balls, John. Neither one of them. But on the upside, your way out of this mess is clear, yes? You simply do what you’re told.” He stood abruptly, and the chair toppled onto the carpet with a muffled thud. “Richard here will be in touch soonest. Check on your progress. We’ll give you a couple of days, John.” He cracked his knuckles. “A couple of days. Then I’ll start getting irritable. And you don’t want that.”
The list of things John didn’t want had grown exponentially this morning, but he could agree that Edward growing irritable was likely to be included. It didn’t seem worth corroborating this, though, so he didn’t waste his breath on a reply.
As they watched him weave up Marylebone High Street, looking not all that different from others starting to appear on the streets now—those who had places to go and things to do—Richard said to Edward: “I think we motivated him.”
“That was never going to be the problem. Someone as shit-scared as Bachelor’s easy to motivate. No, the major difficulty is the usual one when you’re using shoddy tools. Are they up to the job? Or will they fall apart in your hands?”
And as he was watched doing his weaving, John Bachelor thought: whatever’s going on here involves several layers of fuckery. He was a milkman, for god’s sake. If they wanted to put the frighteners on him, all they had to do was threaten to sack him. So there was something going on here, more than appeared on the surface. Not that that altered things much. Whichever way you looked at it, he was going to have to find Benny Manors.
Biggest puzzle of all, though, was: How come they couldn’t do this by themselves?
First thing first, he had a drink. Early doors by anyone’s reckoning, but sometimes you skip the niceties. Back in Solly’s flat, sitting by the window, he watched the morning get a grip on itself while he drank an inch of peach brandy, discovered at the back of Solly’s sideboard and saved for an emergency. The first gulp burned the way the first gulp does any time of day, though the peach flavour added a hint of breakfast. Good to maintain a schedule. And while he was doing that he ran through his mental records on Benny Manors, which took zero minutes. It wasn’t as if he knew the man’s haunts or habits; they’d had exactly one meeting, and that hadn’t gone well. And if Edward and Richard hadn’t managed to find him with the Park’s resources at their disposal: well. Why did they expect him to accomplish what they couldn’t?
In this whole sorry mess, he was holding only one card that he could see.
He knew who Richard was.
Because their stories had collided in the past. Or brushed against each other, rather, the way a pass might be made at a railway station: information delivered, received, in the briefest of exchanges: an envelope swapped, a password muttered. So he knew this much: that Richard’s name was Richard Pynne, inevitably demoticised to Dick the Prick. And how he knew him was, Dick the Prick had stolen what should have been the crowning jewel of John’s career.
For once, just once, he’d had a glimpse of the limelight. After the death of one of his older clients, a list had come into John’s possession, a list of supposed sleeper agents. The details were probably written down somewhere, but the upshot was that John himself—John Bachelor, milkman—recruited an agent, Hannah Weiss. Not a high-flying operative, no Red Sparrow, no Modesty Blaise, but a mole of sorts, allowing the Service a glimpse into the workings of its German counterpart: not a bad day’s work, if he said so himself. And he did say so himself, but to little avail; Hannah was taken away from him and placed in the care of one Richard Pynne, Lady Di’s favourite and a noted high-flyer, who for some reason was thought a better choice to run a minor domestic op than clapped-out John Bachelor, who’d never done anything more complicated than carry bags and tell bedtime stories to ancient spooks.
Funny thing was, he’d heard rumours since that the whole operation, small beans as it was, had gone tits up, with young Hannah turning out not to be a double at all, but a triple; not so much allowing the Service a glimpse of the workings of its German counterpart, but the precise inverse. Which meant Richard had in fact done him a favour, even if it hadn’t felt like that at the time. London Rules: always be a fair distance from a fuck-up. And if it had been a rumour when he’d first heard it, it had obviously calcified into fact since, for here was Richard, so far from the seat of power that he was manning the door while someone bigger and crustier than he was put the screws on that clapped-out milkman.
You could call it karma. Or just one of life’s fuck yous.
The brandy was gone. He contemplated a second glass, but experience suggested that a second had a way of becoming a fifth, so instead booted up his cranky Service laptop and accessed his client files. There Benny was, in all his muted glory: the history of his brief career in the Service, the slightly longer history of his previous known activities, the address in Wandsworth which was clearly no longer current, his bank details . . . bank details? The man was out there with a bank account, money going in, money coming out, and those clowns couldn’t find him with the whole of the Hub at their disposal? Unless it wasn’t. That possibility had been nagging at him from the start, when they took him to a vacant safe house instead of the Park. Unless this pair were on a frolic of their own. So he considered that for a while, and came to the alarming conclusion that it made little difference. Even if they were off-reservation, that didn’t render their threats harmless. They knew about the flat. They knew enough to screw him up badly.
And unless he could think of a way of getting round that, he had no choice but to find Benny Manors.
So he hit the pubs round King’s Cross. What else was he going to do? He asked about his old friend Benny, had Benny been in?, and received blank looks. One place he was convinced had been the pub where it started: this was where he’d been sitting when Benny punched him in the face. There was the door to the gents it had been a struggle to navigate. But he had the same sensation an hour or so later somewhere else, and besides, what difference did it make? Nobody had heard of Benny here, there, or any of the places in between. They weren’t establishments where one punch thrown several years back was still talked about. There’d been punches since. They blurred together.
And another problem was, going into a pub and asking questions, it was de rigueur to buy a drink.
Drunks and pigeons: there are homing instincts. In fact—one of the random thoughts that flitted through John Bachelor’s brain at two in the morning, when it occurred to him that he was back at Solly’s, with no recollection of getting there—in fact, it would be interesting to get a pigeon drunk, to see whether this improved its homeward flight time. But that thought only lasted as long as it took him to crawl into bed, where the ceiling rotated like a fan in a black-and-white movie. He hadn’t found Benny Manors; hadn’t even found anyone pretending they knew Benny Manors. If Benny Manors had suggested King’s Cross as a convenient meeting place, it was only because Benny Manors hadn’t wanted John to know where a really convenient meeting place might be, such as wherever it was Benny Manors actually hung out. And as things stood, the only pointer he had to Benny’s whereabouts was that, on their one and only encounter to date, the man had been drinking Newcastle Brown Ale. That notion circled John’s head in the opposite direction to the ceiling, making him nauseous. He was too old for this. And even when he’d been young enough for this, it had lacked what you might call glamour. He slept at last, or managed a kind of sleep, which felt more like a ride on a broken Ferris wheel. When he regained consciousness, he felt abandoned rather than rested. And the usual morning stocktake yielded no happy balance: he’d spent nigh on a week’s salary greasing conversational wheels, and his mouth felt like a ferret’s timeshare.
He stumbled to the shower. It was still early, way too early, but the glimmer of an idea had broken on him while he was riding that wheel, and although its only
real attraction lay in the absence of any alternative, there was a slight possibility that its light might guide him home. He was probably still drunk, after all. And it would be foolish not to take advantage of the fact.
So not long afterwards he was loitering near a gym in north London, head pounding, eyes bloodshot, but upright, showered and dressed, which, given that it wasn’t yet half seven, suggested from a distance that he was a productive member of society. More productive members had jobs to do: while he waited, a van dumped bundles of newspapers outside a shop, their headlines variations on the same theme, that the waves made by the recent suicide of an American billionaire in his prison cell were still breaking shore this side of the Atlantic. The man had been a sex trafficker, and a well-connected one. A particular connection was mentioned by name in 48-point font. Not a happy day at the Palace, John surmised.
He was spared further contemplation of this odious pairing by the appearance of the woman he’d been hoping for.
She emerged from the gym with the air of one for whom the world has been on hold while she’d been otherwise occupied, a gym bag over her shoulder, her hair tied back. She was wearing sunglasses, possibly to avoid being recognised, but more likely because it was already bright, already warm. John wished he were wearing shades himself. At the very least, they’d have helped disguise his bleary appearance. But too late now. She’d already spotted him.
“John Bachelor,” she said, making little attempt to hide her contempt.
“It’s important.”
“It had bloody better be.”
She was all in black: black sweats, a black hoodie. Only her trainers offered colour: black too, but with a crimson band. Her hair was wet, and though she was still recognisably Diana Taverner—Lady Di—First Desk of Regent’s Park, he’d never seen her looking like this before: like someone who had a life. He suspected few people had. He wondered how many of them dared boast of the experience.
“How did you know to find me here?”
This was disingenuous. She liked it known that she did a ninety-minute early morning workout three times a week, and this was the most expensive place near her private residence. So he’d got lucky that this was one of those mornings, but everyone deserves the occasional break.
All he said was, “I didn’t. Not really.”
“Do I need to press a button?”
Which she’d have in a pocket, and would bring the Dogs running. That was all he needed, second morning in a row: to be tossed into someone else’s vehicle and taken somewhere he didn’t want to go. “No. Please don’t.”
She pushed her sunglasses up her nose. It was an oddly endearing moment, which was not something he’d ever expected in her company.
“There’s something you need to know about,” he said.
For a second or two, it seemed she’d dispute this. To inform him that it was unlikely he’d ever be in a position where there was something he knew that she didn’t, yet. He remembered their being in a pub together once, at a wake for a dead colleague, and she’d outlined his role in life, the full ambit of his responsibilities. It’s hardly Tinker Tailor, John. You wipe their noses, feed their cats, and make sure they’re not blowing their pensions on internet poker. The kind of summation he might have made himself, though he’d have pretended there was humour in it. But instead of heading down that road again, she said, “Okay, you’ve got my attention. For twenty seconds. Let’s hear what your problem is, and then I’ll decide whether it’s worth this gross intrusion of my privacy.”
“I’m being played.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re being ‘played’? You’re being played? Seriously, John, that’s a three-word sentence, and it’s only the middle one isn’t ridiculous. Who do you think is trying to play you? An amateur percussionist?”
“One of them’s Richard Pynne.”
And this landed, he could tell.
She took a moment to change her bag from one hand to the other. “Pynne? What would Richard Pynne be doing on the streets? He was reassigned from Ops. I think he’s in charge of the stationery cupboard now.”
“And someone called Edward. Biggish guy. Fifties. Wearing a suit, but looks like he’s done heavy lifting in his time.”
“It’s a big organisation. We could have any number of Edwards on the books.”
But this name too had triggered recognition. He could tell.
“But here’s me using up your twenty seconds. What were this pair after? Just the bullet points.”
“They want me to find Benny Manors.”
“Manors, Manors, Manors. Oh, Manors. Well, they went to the right person, I assume. He’s on your round, isn’t he?”
“Yes. Except . . .”
“Except what?” She halted, and John had walked a step on before he noticed and halted too. “Except you’ve mislaid him, yes?”
“He’s not exactly one of my lock-ins.”
“If he’s on the payroll, he touches base. It’s not a complicated principle.”
“He hasn’t always kept his appointments,” John said.
“But when I check your records, and I will, I’ll find the monthly reports all in order, right?”
“I keep clean records.”
“I’m sure you do. Okay, leaving that aside, this pair, Pynne and this Edward, are looking for Benny Manors, and they come to you. What exactly do they have on you that makes them think you’ll do their bidding?”
And here was the gamble.
Out in the sunshine he made his confession, trying to make it sound like an administrative oversight, one of those things that happens at work, the way a pad of Post-its might find its way into your briefcase. Everyone’s wound up living in a dead colleague’s flat, surely? That was the tone he was aiming for, all the while reminding himself that he had little alternative. Either he gave himself up, here and now, or someone else gave him up, soon. And at least this way he was bringing something to the table, besides his own misdeeds. At least this way he could spin it as gently as possible. And he could still tell himself he was halfway to getting away with it, until he clocked her expression.
There were rumours she’d turned a man to stone once, with the power of her stare. Except, John now realised, they weren’t rumours, they were interdepartmental memos. He could feel his limbs solidifying. He’d never leave this spot: they’d have to fix a plaque to the pavement explaining who he’d been and warning people not to chain their bikes to him.
“You do realise,” she said at last, “that I could sack you right now for what you’ve just told me.”
“Yes, but . . .”
She waited. He’d sort of hoped she’d come up with a but all by herself.
“But I can make it right. This pair, they’re up to something. I can help you find out what.”
“And in return, I’ll what? Forgive you your sins?”
“Maybe give me another chance.”
“Jesus, John. How many second chances do you need? You’ve had more lives than a cartoon cat.” She glanced at her gym bag, as if contemplating whacking him with it. If he was the cartoon cat she imagined, he’d go a funny shape on impact, before shaking himself back to normal. “Your time’s more than up.”
She meant the allotted twenty seconds, he hoped. But it was possible she was taking a longer view.
Taverner fell quiet. John had an urge to speak, to fill the silence with more apology, but had the sense not to. The hole he’d dug was deep enough. At last she said, “Pynne no longer has Hub privileges, which means he’d have to make a formal application to run a trace. So the reason they came to you is, they want to find Benny without anyone knowing they’re trying to find Benny.”
“Except me.”
“Without anyone important knowing they’re trying to find Benny,” she amended. “Or maybe there’s more to it. Manors, if memory serves, was a two-bit blackma
il artiste before some idiot recruited him for an op. He’s been feeding off the Service tit ever since. But if a pair of our own are looking for him, it’s likely because he’s reverted to type and has something on them. Blackmailers don’t change their spots. So he’s currently gone to ground, and they want the nearest thing to a friendly face to bring him into the open. And that would be you.”
“I’m not sure Benny thinks of me as a friendly face.”
“Well, that shows good judgement, but whether he likes you or not is beside the point. The fact is, he knows who you are. He’s not going to fear the worst if you show up, he’s just going to think his pension’s at risk.” She pursed her lips and thought some more. “Okay. If a couple of Park people are running rogue, I want to know why. So I’ll tell you what I’ll do, John. I’ll find out where Benny Manors is. And then you find out what he knows that’s so important to two of my agents.”
“And what do I do if they come back before then?”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something, John. When it comes to saving your own skin, you generally do.”
Which was as much of a compliment as he was likely to receive from that quarter. Finding the nearest café, he drank a large Americano, black, while thinking about the peach brandy back in the flat. This didn’t make him an alcoholic, he decided. The probability that he’d drink some once he got home did, though. It was another bright morning, everybody looking happier as a result, John Bachelor excepted. He didn’t think he’d improved his situation. On the other hand, he’d prevented Edward and Richard from spoiling it first, so maybe that counted as a victory. Something to warm his cockles, when he ended up sleeping on a pavement.
