by Mick Herron
‘Do you want me to lose it?’
Like she was reading his mind.
He said, ‘Let me think a bit.’
Price wasn’t carrying a lot: just odds and ends he’d taken off Sweeney’s hands. A relief operation: the man was happy to see commerce happening on his premises, even at twenty per cent under trade prices. Price didn’t feel great about ripping somebody off in front of their eyes – he preferred doing it at a safe distance – but even so, it was hard to get worked up about Sweeney’s situation. The way Price saw it, either you survived in business or you didn’t. Making a fuss was like complaining you were drowning when you’d never learned to swim.
Except Sweeney hadn’t been making a fuss.
Price had said what he always said: ‘Bastards. It’s hard enough making an honest wage, without some scumbag coming on the rob.’
‘They’ll slip up. That sort always do.’
He’d expected the normal rant: the mournful accounting, to the last lost penny.
‘Yeah, well. Won’t help us, will it?’
‘You never know.’
Almost as if Sweeney had a plan of some sort.
‘Boss?’
He met Win’s eyes in the mirror.
‘There’s a good bit coming up.’
For losing a tail, she meant. They were still on the motorway – heading into London – but there was an exit approaching. Win was good at exits.
‘I could dump her.’
‘Her?’
Win nodded.
That was kind of interesting.
‘Leave it,’ he said. ‘Wait till we’re in town.’
She nodded again, and moments later the exit was behind them.
He had stuff to do, but that was okay. Win would take care of it. She was good at this sort of thing.
This one was good. Zoë had slowly become aware that the Audi driver knew she was there – a matter of opportunities left begging: gaps in traffic unfilled; exits untaken. He could have blown her off half a dozen times, which meant he’d decided not to.
She’d taken off after him more on impulse than evidence. The Audi hadn’t been the only car to park near Sweeney’s that morning, but it had been the only one with a liveried driver. Of him, Zoë had barely caught a glimpse; her attention was on the man getting out of the back seat, who put her in mind of someone she couldn’t put her finger on, and wasn’t so much wearing as was hunched inside a brown suede coat, possibly chosen to match the car. When he’d stepped on to the pavement he’d tapped the car’s roof, and it had pulled out, heading away from Zoë. Mr Toad, she thought – that’s who he reminded her of. Mr Toad. After the past two days, it was like watching a Hollywood spectacular being mounted in front of her eyes.
Mr Toad went into Sweeney’s. The car drove up the main road and turned right at the traffic lights; looking for a parking spot was Zoë’s guess.
For the past hour, she’d been aware that the old dear in Cancer Relief was checking on her every five minutes: peering between wickerwork stands holding knick-knacks and greetings cards; her eyes hardened into marbles; her pink wool forged to steel. She knew Zoë was up to something. Whatever this was, it definitely didn’t involve further use of the facilities. All these things Zoë had weighed in the balance, but the main reason she followed Mr Toad was, he had a driver. Having that kind of money and choosing to spend it in Sweeney’s struck Zoë as offbeat enough to warrant attention.
So now she was on the motorway, and if nothing else, as least she was moving. Traffic was medium heavy, with no jams yet: ideal for tailing, but here it came again – the feeling that the Audi’s driver had spotted her, and was choosing not to leave her sucking dust. Which, if true, confirmed a couple of things – that an orange Beetle wasn’t the best choice for surveillance, and that Mr Toad was one of the Ugly Pals. You had to be really paranoid to be legit, and still keep lookout for a tail.
Zoë passed anonymous fields, and the usual motorway sculptures: directions to towns she had no interest in, and small brick fortresses marking where bridges once stood. And all the while, the Audi kept even distance two cars ahead, until it became difficult to say whether she was following it, or it was luring her.
And of course she lost it once they’d come off the motorway. She didn’t like driving in London, which always felt like joining a game whose rules had never been explained properly, or perhaps just never formulated, and the area she’d reached now – somewhere near Paddington, she thought, though the city’s shifting geography had fooled her before – was a whole new landscape: the kind people meant when they said a place had ‘character’, though this particular character would be one you’d cross the road to avoid. With few other cars for cover Zoë had had to drop back, and lost her quarry in small streets lined first with warehouses, and then with blocks that had started life industrial, but now seemed residential. An antique shop on a corner; an off-licence; a hardware store – she slowed to a crawl, feeling useless and annoyed. The last she’d seen of the Audi it had been turning left a hundred yards ahead, and by the time she’d reached that corner, it had vanished. Zoë drove slowly down the road, swearing under her breath. There were too many lanes it could have gone down. There’d be lock-ups too – weren’t there always, near railway stations? – and the Audi might be stowed thirty seconds away: she’d never find it. Alternatively, the driver might have simply decided it was time to throw her off, and be back on the motorway now . . . She’d memorized its plate, but damn: this was supposed to be her job. There’d been a time she’d been invisible. That’s what she told herself, coming to a halt on half a legal parking space. It wasn’t true, but it was a handy stick to beat herself with.
Zoë sat with one hand on the wheel; with the thumb of the other tapped her front teeth thoughtfully. There was nothing to do now bar drive home, and how much fun would that be? She didn’t trust her own moods these days, and didn’t think she could face an evening at the bottom of their well. All this in the time it took to tap her teeth; she was on the pavement before she’d formulated an exact plan of campaign. Just wander round a bit, was her afterthought. See if there are any lock-ups. Failing which, drop into that antique shop: might find something of interest. Zoë hated antique shops; never found anything of interest. But she hated being planless even more.
In the end, she didn’t get that far. She walked past some shops and a café, then found herself at a corner, looking down a lane which angled out of vision twenty yards from the main road, but seemed to lead to a row of garages – was she supposed to resist this? Nosiness was a virtue in her profession. Scaffolding callipered the wall to her left, though no builders were in evidence. A bucket hung from a strut. It was odd that you could hang a bucket in a public place here, and expect to find it when you got back. Though of course, nobody was back yet. Anything might happen.
Where the lane crooked she met, to her right, a row of garages; to her left, a continuation of the wall. The garage doors were a uniform blue, and all but one were closed. It would be grand if there were a brown Audi parked inside, but it proved empty save for the usual mess – a hose coiled round a hook on the wall; a shelf lined with paint cans and other stuff she couldn’t identify. The floor was patched with oil, and in one corner a tap dripped into a steel sink. This had been a small waste of time, except a leather-clad arm snaked round her waist as she stood looking, and another wrapped itself round her neck and lifted her off the ground – fuck, she was dangling mid-air, her breathing cut off. A little late her instincts kicked in and she back-heeled, aiming for the guy’s balls, but nothing doing: she hit his thigh, heard something fall softly to the ground a moment later. His cap – it was the Audi man’s cap: the liveried driver.
Black spots blossomed before Zoë’s eyes, and burst into sausage-shaped rainbows.
‘I’ll hurt you exactly as much as I need to,’ a voice said, and for a moment Zoë wondered where it was coming from: it was too high too squeaky too –
‘Until you tell me who you
are and why you were following me.’
– fuck, too much of a woman to be the man suspending her like this. Except that’s who it was: the man was a woman. A six-foot barrel-built woman, with arms like branches and a voice like David Beckham on helium.
‘Is there any of that you didn’t understand?’
Zoë pulled her left arm free and swatted backwards at the woman-thing’s head. This had the effect it would have had on a concrete bollard. So she did it again, and found herself squeezed harder: black balloons were bursting all around now, and more words floated into her ears: ‘I can keep this up all day. How about you?’
How about her was, she was trying to loosen the woman’s grip on her neck: like trying to prise roots from the ground with bare fingers. Zoë’s lungs were aching. She might not be smoking any more, but she hadn’t planned on giving up breathing . . . And what difference did it make this was a woman? Zoë slapped an elbow: feebly perhaps, like a dangled fish; but the intent, she thought, was clear: loosen up. I’m ready to talk.
Maybe a man would have taken two slaps to get the message. Maybe that was the difference.
Zoë’s hand dipped into her pocket.
‘Okay. I’m going to let you speak now.’
The woman’s grip tightened round Zoë’s waist and loosened round her throat. Air rushed back into her system and the world flushed red for a second, her vision clearing so swiftly it struck her this woman knew exactly what she was doing – had held her in that chokehold not a moment too long.
‘Who are you?’ the voice said again. ‘And what do you want?’
‘I just want to know,’ said Zoë – her voice a dull rasp – ’I just want to know if you want to keep your ear?’
Because she’d taken the nail scissors from her pocket, and was holding them to the woman’s left lobe: nipping just sharply enough to remind her what slice meant.
The silence that followed lasted seven of the longer seconds Zoë remembered . . .
And then she felt the ground beneath her feet again, and the other arm unwrapped her: she took a quick step away, and turned to face her new enemy.
Who was a woman, of course, but it wasn’t that surprising Zoë hadn’t noticed earlier. From behind, with the cap on, she’d have gone with the odds nine times out of ten, and called this male. But face-to-face told a different story: the woman’s skin was pale and babysoft; her lips full roses; her eyes brown and damp. Her uncapped hair, cropped to a buzz, was so blond it was colourless. This wasn’t beauty, quite – the effect was startlingly like an inflatable come to life – but it wasn’t masculine. In the moment it took Zoë to register those damp brown eyes, the other factors – the broad shoulders, the branchlike arms, the thick columns of legs; all cased in black leather, like an implausible S&M fantasy – faded to insignificance, but only for that moment. And then the woman’s weight and thickness reasserted itself, reminding Zoë that whatever gender she espoused, she was solid and dangerous.
Though the voice remained a bit of a hoot.
Heavy or not, she moved quietly, and even standing still looked ready as a dancer. Which was exactly what Zoë wanted: to get in a rumble with somebody bigger than her, who’d put some training in. She must have been six foot easy. Her reach – Zoë didn’t want to think about her reach. She already knew the important bit: that she wasn’t far enough away.
But she looked troubled, as if she were having similar thoughts about Zoë. Or maybe she was just aware that this was a little public: barely twenty yards from a main road. Anybody could be watching from any of a hundred windows.
When things stall, push them. Zoë pushed. ‘Are we going to fight?’
The woman thought about it. ‘Were you really going to cut my ear off?’
‘Yes. Well, probably.’
She was still holding the scissors, and didn’t think there was any harm in carrying on doing so.
‘You were following me, weren’t you?’
‘I was following your boss.’
‘You’re not too good at it.’
‘I’m better in a normal car.’
‘I was behind you by the time you parked.’
‘You’re smooth. Light on your feet, too.’
The woman’s eyes narrowed, as if Zoë were setting a trap.
‘On the other hand, I could have cut your ear off. Where’s your boss?’
‘Things to do.’
‘So it’s just us girls. That’s nice.’ But also fucking ridiculous. ‘Look, let’s not get too alarmed about this. I’ve no idea who you are, or him either.’ She put the scissors back in her pocket, making it clear she was doing so. ‘There’s a few questions I have to ask, that’s all. It needn’t involve trouble.’
A man would assume she was trying to make an idiot out of him. She was hoping a woman would recognize a desire to avoid hurt.
After a beat the woman said: ‘So what does it involve?’
‘There’s a place round the corner,’ Zoë said. ‘Nice cup of tea?’
‘So what’s it like? Being a private eye?’
‘Compared to what?’ Zoë asked. ‘It’s a long time since I’ve done anything else. Never had an office job, never worn a uniform. What’s it like being a chauffeur?’
‘Compared to stacking shelves?’
‘If you like.’
Win said, ‘Different world. Different galaxy. That pink plastic coverall? I could have been anyone.’ She looked down at her black leather jacket; her shining trousers. ‘Now, I’m somebody.’
‘There you go. You’ve things to measure it against. I’ve done barwork, but not in twenty years.’ She didn’t drink tea, nice or not: she’d ordered coffee. She took a sip, and told Win her life story: ‘I married a private detective. I’ve done this ever since.’ The end.
Win, still thinking about plastic pink coveralls, said, ‘I read they’re calling it “ambient stock replenishment” now. You ever come across something, they change its name, there’s a significant improvement?’
‘They tried it with “date rape”. I’m not sure “date” adds much. How did you get to be a driver?’
‘Made an impression on my boss.’
‘Handbrake turns?’
‘I bounced a man, for calling me a name. One thing led to another.’
Zoë bet. Sitting opposite, watching her speak, it was hard to deny Win’s gravity, even if most people would label her freak. Certainly, nobody in the café was unaware of her presence. The girl behind the counter couldn’t peel her eyes away: probably stuck between thinking her gross, and knowing that wherever she went, people would pay attention. A good half of those people would be men.
Mr Toad, for instance.
‘But it was more for your bouncing than your driving.’
‘He didn’t want a driver who couldn’t take care of herself.’
‘Have you trained?’
‘I passed my test.’
‘Fighting, I meant.’
‘I know you did. Don’t think I’m stupid, just because I’m big.’
Zoe raised her palms: ‘Hey. I already surrendered.’
‘But you didn’t, did you? Not really.’ Win raised her teacup. She had a strangely delicate manner, but then, was probably used to finding things fragile. ‘I dance. Fighting’s just movement.’
An unwanted vision from Fantasia swam through Zoë’s head.
‘But it’s not real fighting anyway. Fighting’s when there’s two of you. Mostly, when I do it, it’s just me.’
‘I can see how that might happen,’ Zoë said.
‘You’re a fighter.’
‘I don’t make a habit of it.’
‘Yeah, I bet.’
This was getting cosy.
Zoë said, ‘So. You drive. You look after yourself. And him too, I presume. Have you been inside yet?’
‘No.’
‘It’s a matter of time. Your boss is a crook, right? What’s his name, anyway?’
‘Price.’
‘Anything-in-parti
cular Price?’
‘Oswald. He doesn’t like it much.’ Win paused. ‘He’s a pretty good crook. He’s careful.’
‘Still comes down to the law of averages. Careful or not, he’s involved with a gang who shoot people with crossbows. That makes him a high-risk type.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘You kind of just told me,’ said Zoë. ‘By not denying it. And let’s face it, Win, once he’s been bagged, your long-term career prospects look about as good as a Defence Against the Dark Arts tutor’s.’
‘I could always go back to ambient stock replenishment.
’ ‘No you couldn’t. That’s the kind of job they mean when they say it’s a small world. You’re too big for it now.’
‘You planning on shopping him?’
Zoë said, ‘You’d not believe how much it’s hindered me in the past, but the courts don’t usually bang people up on my say-so. They like charges, trials, evidence. Stuff like that.’
‘So remind me why I care.’
‘Because I can be an unbelievable fucking nuisance when I try.’ Zoë drank more coffee. Her throat hurt, but she didn’t let it show. ‘I notice you’re not in a hurry to contradict.’
‘You’re already a fucking nuisance. And I can tell you’re not trying.’
‘But once I start, he’s got trouble.’
‘I could stop you.’
‘Probably. You’re bigger than me, and we’ve both noticed you’re stronger.’ She wished she still smoked. Now would be a good moment to light up. ‘But why bother? This isn’t TV, Win. The guy your boss ripped off doesn’t want cops involved, or no more than William Tell’s involved them already. Here and now, we can make it all go away. All you have to do’s give me the names of the guys involved in the robbery.’
‘Which robbery’s this?’
‘You’re five minutes late asking, Win. But on the off-chance there’s been more than one lately, we’re discussing last Tuesday’s. The one that happened at the jeweller’s your boss just visited.’
