The Score

by Howard Marks

  ‘Looking good, Cat,’ Della added. She passed the deli bags to the girl then tapped her hand against the girl’s thigh, signalling she should go. The girl scowled but took her key out, walked by towards the room Cat had just left. Cat looked at Della, she was dressed more for cocktails than a stake-out. Her tight suede dress left little to the imagination. The corridor was filling with Della’s scent, Rive Gauche mixed with menthols.

  ‘Nice to see you getting out,’ Della said, her bared teeth gleaming like porcelain.

  Cat was calm. Now she’d been caught, she didn’t care, wondered why she’d been so furtive about her little break-in in the first place. It was nerves, that’s all. The worst that Della could do was to try to milk the situation, use it on her later when she needed a favour. It was something she would have to live with. She’d lived with much worse.

  The girl had entered the room, checked her gear. ‘It’s all here, Del,’ she called back. Della smiled.

  ‘All right, Del?’ Cat asked, breaking her silence.

  ‘Interested, are you? In my welfare, I mean? Thought you’d dropped me.’

  For a moment Della fixed Cat with her stare. But behind its confidence something like fear seemed to linger. Cat wondered what its source was. ‘Thought you’d be out in the Mumbles with Zeta-Jones, Della. Not like you to do the dog work yourself these days.’ Della declined to answer. Still the apprehension in her eyes. Cat pushed again: ‘So why are you here?’

  Della regained her composure, smiled. ‘Maybe it’s love,’ she said.

  Della walked on, and Cat turned away, heard the door close and the women laughing. The sound of Della kicking off her heels. Back downstairs Cat found Thomas still crouching at the window looking bored. He didn’t look up when she entered.

  ‘She came back, the girl. With Davies,’ Thomas said.

  ‘I know. I saw her.’

  ‘Your phone was here, though. Stupid ring tone you’ve got.’

  She was tired, couldn’t even be bothered to bicker with Thomas.

  ‘Davies caught you, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ was all she said.

  Cat felt time was running out. She uncovered the nurse’s scuffed laptop from beneath the pile of papers on the desk, booted it. In the wireless section there was a list of a dozen networks within range. She suggested Thomas call his support and get addresses for each, see if any matched Morgan’s.

  When she brought back food from the pub, an all-day for Thomas and a tuna melt, she found he had got one address that matched. It was protected by a standard BT single-password, and using NetStumbler she sniffed out the internal IP. With a little further ingenuity – finding a working webmail address, calling for a password hint, making some guesses – she was in. She flicked through the web pages: no email accounts or messaging were being actively used. It seemed the only sites being accessed were wildlife and cancer charities. Morgan hadn’t been long out of jail, but whoever else had had access to the network had been as cautious as he would have been. It had been said that, during his years on the run, Morgan had refused to own a mobile or a laptop, and had never used a phone.

  The only bookmarked webpage she found was devoted to the urban fox. She smiled and wondered if Morgan had left it there as a taunt to the journalists, either suggesting that Morgan himself was as uncatchably sly as that animal or else as a joke aimed directly at Davies regarding the flimsiness of her recent column.

  She lay back on the bed while Thomas continued to watch the window. Despite being alone together in a bedroom he wasn’t trying any banter. He was sober after all. After her knockbacks she guessed he needed the buffer of drink before he tried again. Plus he was professional, in his way. She could think of plenty of coppers who’d be whining by now, blaming others for the wildness of the goose chase they were on. But not Thomas. He was bored, yes, and he was sullen, but he kept his eyes uncomplainingly on the Morgan house while she rested.

  Taking three aspirins she half-closed her eyes, looked out of the window. The rooftops snaked up the hill. Some shimmered in the weak sunlight. Others were covered in plastic sheeting which billowed in the breeze. There was something hypnotic in the light and movement. Was this a dead end? Or were they one inch from a breakthrough?

  Cat didn’t know. She slept.

  She comes round.

  She feels awful, like after that night on the vodka with her friend. But worse. Much worse. What can she remember? She had done the song, sung it exactly as asked, looked right into the camera too. Then what?

  She opens her eyes, looks down, thinks for a moment that she is falling as she sees some old flagstones directly beneath her. No, not falling, just facing downwards. She cannot move her head, it is held in some kind of hole.

  Her arms won’t move, nor her legs. She is strapped down onto some bench, her face looking down through a hole cut into it.

  And what is that sound? She begins to hear a voice, singing the song that is her song, the song that brought her here. But it is not her voice. The same song but a different girl’s voice. Because she is strapped down she cannot see that behind her, on a large screen, plays an image of the singer.

  The girl on the screen is young, about the age of the girl strapped to the table. They have the same coloured hair. They sing the same song in the same way. They both wear the same white dresses, the same crucifix, the same ghostly make-up.

  She cannot see it, but from behind her a figure approaches, dressed in black. She smells rubber. There’s a leap in her brain, which is like memory, but not quite.

  There is a canister by the table she is strapped to. There is a mask attached to the canister. She does not know about the canister, cannot see it, but she feels the mask as it is fastened over her face.

  She remembers now. This has happened before. It feels cold, a death mask. As before the bitter smoke fills her lungs.

  She coughs. The convulsions start and she kicks uselessly against her straps. She might as well not bother. She hears laughter now. Soft laughter, like the sound of broken promises.

  13

  CAT DIDN’T KNOW how long she’d slept when Thomas woke her.

  She blinked herself awake, following his gaze out of the window. The scene was the same. Wet slates glistened. The plastic sheeting crackled in the breeze. But there was something else, too. He pointed, directing her still-tired eyes: a man was descending the scaffolding at the house where the cash-drop had been made by the courier. Cat began to blunder up, ready for the chase, but Thomas, grim-faced, passed her the binoculars first. She pointed and focused. She caught the man just as he was disappearing from her sightline. Pale, thin face. A streak of white hair.

  They rushed out of the room, downstairs and outside, down the hill back to the scaffolded house. No sign of the man. He hadn’t time to get away. Cat indicated the side passage and started to pant out something about her sliding-key trick, but Thomas was ahead of her. Ahead, and altogether more basic. A crashing blow from his boot burst the side-gate open.

  The garden was empty, the same as before. Cat peered into the window. She couldn’t see much, but what she saw wasn’t promising. Thomas was ahead of her again. There was an iron gate at the back of the garden leading out into a little alley that serviced the backs of the gardens. The gate was unlatched, slightly open.

  They ran through. No one there, but they could hear footsteps now, tracking away from them.

  They hammered down the length of the slender passageway, came out into a building site. Still no one visible. Her breath was pounding in her ears. The area had been levelled and cleared, some old building demolished by speculators, no doubt, to fling up another seven-figure house. The reconstruction had not got far. Piles of breeze blocks and planks lay on one side and two cement mixers stood idle, one at either end next to bags of cement. They waited a moment and listened. Nothing.

  Thomas started to explore one side of the site. She took the other. She wondered if Thomas believed her now, about the attempted hit-and-run. Perhaps he always
had.

  They moved more slowly, picked their way forwards, making for the far end of the demolished space. Thomas slipped on the edge of a pile of sand, hit his knee on a pile of timber. He let out a hiss of pain, but quietly. Cat didn’t look round. A lane matching the one she had just run down headed off the far side of the building site. She peered down it, saw a man’s coat just disappearing round the corner. She ran, but quietly.

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ she heard Thomas say, but she couldn’t hear him follow.

  She grazed her hand on a wall as she raced down the passage, back onto the road much further down now, out of sight of the Morgan house and the waiting journos. The street started to get busy here. A small high street, filled with traffic and shoppers.

  She saw the man – running, but running in a gentler way. The run of someone who thought he’d evaded any pursuit. Perhaps he didn’t even know he had chasers. They’d been reasonably discreet.

  Cat clocked his direction, his clothes, his appearance, then ducked down out of sight as she saw him turn. She guessed he was checking his trail. She gave him twenty seconds, keeping out of sight.

  Then she rose carefully. He was walking forwards, calmly, up the high street. She followed. Next to a shop front, someone had put out the rubbish. Some cardboard boxing and a long roll of bubble wrap. She tore off the bubble wrap and jammed it up her coat. She was aiming to look pregnant, not fat. She took a hat out of her pocket and bundled her hair up into it, changing the shape of her face. Pale Face probably didn’t have a clear fix on what she looked like and was hardly expecting to be pursued by a mother-to-be, apparently just a month or two from her due date.

  She got close enough to the man to make pursuit easy, then settled into his slow walking rhythm. He stopped at a bus stop. She nipped into a Boots just beside it. She bought a lipstick – bright red, not her colour – a diet sandwich and a magazine on mothering. She applied the lipstick, keeping an eye outside all the time, checking that Pale Face was still waiting.

  She checked her look in the mirror. She hardly recognised herself: scarlet lips, hair out of sight, bulging tummy. Even flushed cheeks – a combination of exertion and trank withdrawal but which looked every bit like the bloom of pregnancy.

  She took her sandwich and her magazine and waited at the bus stop. Pale Face barely clocked her, just moved up so she could lean on the sloping bum-rests provided. She ate her sandwich, cradled her bubble-wrap tummy, read her mag.

  When a bus came, Pale Face got on and so did she. She bought a ticket to the end of the line, took a seat on the bus as far from him as possible.

  After a minute or so, she got a call. Thomas.

  ‘Sorry, I fucking knackered my knee in there.’

  ‘No worries. You in the car?’

  ‘Yep, you still on him?’

  Cat gave the number of the bus and their direction and current location.

  ‘You want to hand this over?’

  He meant to the Metropolitan Police. Who would, to put it mildly, expect two Welsh coppers to hand over news of a major drugs deal taking place on their patch.

  ‘No. Do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you better catch up as fast as you bloody can.’

  A minute went by. Not much conversation, just the odd bit of swearing from Thomas.

  Then: ‘I’m flashing now. Is that you?’

  She looked out of the back window of the bus. Thomas was two cars back, headlights flashing. She spoke quietly into the phone, confirming he was in position. She told him that she’d call and ring off as soon as Pale Face was off the bus.

  Three stops later and he got up. She buried her nose in her magazine, staying put. He glanced down the bus, maybe checking on her, probably not. He got off. The bus closed its doors. Cat rang Thomas. Two rings, then cut the line. Thomas flashed again. He was onto the target now. No way Pale Face could guess Thomas was on him. Cat let the bus travel up the road for twenty seconds, then walked up to the driver, showed her warrant, told him to stop to let her off.

  From there, it was simple. Thomas by car, her on foot. She ditched her bubble wrap and her mag, and, in constant phone contact, they tracked Pale Face to the opposite end of the heath from where they had started. The houses here were set back from the road behind high walls and hedges. The man entered the courtyard of a small mansion block that appeared more down at heel than its neighbours. Some tiles and brickwork had fallen from the facade, giving it a dilapidated air. Two rusting tricycles stood among weeds at the door like forgotten museum exhibits. Higher up some windows were broken. A tattered Anarchy flag fluttered from one. The building was likely a squat.

  Thomas was outside, idling his engine, when Cat arrived.

  ‘Candy from a fucking baby,’ he said, pleased with himself.

  ‘You fell over,’ she reminded him. ‘He just walked away from you. Just walked away.’

  They argued mildly as they watched the building. A light flickered on the second-floor landing. Just as quickly it flickered off. No lights showed on the other floors. Cat made a quick three-quarters circuit of the building and could see no alternative entrances. Parked at the back there was an untaxed combi up on blocks but no Rover. She was sure he’d ditched it. But the Rover didn’t matter. She juddered with adrenalin. They were closer. The London lead was not a dead end after all. There was a true line from Tregaron to where she stood, and the bastard was in his house. Suddenly she felt hopeful, imagined it possible she might be calling Martin with news other than of death. Her body did not ache, her temple did not tick. She made another roll-up to steady her for the next bit.

  ‘He the guy that tried to run you down?’ said Thomas, as she rolled.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How do you want to play it?’ Thomas meant: by the book or with a little more imagination.

  ‘I think he’s likely to resist arrest,’ said Cat coolly.

  Thomas grinned: what he wanted to hear.

  They stood under a tree. It started to rain. Cat smoked her roll-up, then made two more: one for her, one for Thomas. They didn’t talk much, just smoked. Then there was a blur of movement behind the frosted glass in the front door. They chucked their roll-ups and went to the door. Cat bent over, pretending to fumble for a key as the door opened and one of the residents came out. A bearded Asian man. Thomas said, ‘Ta, mate,’ and held the door open. The guy looked at them, but said nothing, walked on towards the street.

  Inside, the lifts didn’t work so they took the stairs. On the second floor where she had seen the curtains moving there were only two doors. One had clearly not been opened for some time. Mail spewed out over the doormat. She gestured behind her at Thomas to be quiet. They both moved to the opposite door, leaned in close to listen, trying to pick up any noises from inside. Nothing. Just the distant sound of a dog barking.

  ‘What’s your plan?’ said Thomas.

  She shrugged. ‘Your boot, then a little Krav Maga?’

  ‘Oh, I do like the sound of that, Price,’ he said, then stepped back, sighted himself, and delivered a smashing blow to the door about six inches in from the lock. The door frame was cheap pine, cut too thin. The lock was fine but the frame just collapsed. The door belted open, and rebounded hard back again, but they were in already.

  The darkness slowed them up. The hall itself was normally lit – the movement they’d spotted from below must have come from here. But the flat beyond was totally dark. Blackout dark, not ordinary dark.

  There was music somewhere, playing at very low volume. Cat had to strain her ears to make out what it was. ‘Karma Police’ by Radiohead. The music was so subdued it might have been from headphones or another flat, but she sensed the source was close.

  Thomas was about to yell again, but Cat raised a hand to shush him. As they moved into the flat proper, she felt the walls. They seemed thickened somehow, as if covered by some stiff material. She ran her fingers over it and felt the cones used to absorb echoes and block out sound in a recording studio. She
whispered as much to Thomas.

  ‘Why whisper? He must have heard us.’

  Cat mimed headphones. It was possible Pale Face really hadn’t heard anything. The whole place was built against noise intrusion.

  They felt their way on through the gloom. Cat put her phone into torch mode. It was poor light, but enough to navigate by. They found a door, soundproofed and heavy, but not locked. She moved it open, as softly as she could.

  The new room that opened up was bigger, not as dark as the one before. A human figure loomed out of the darkness. Cat started, assumed her fighting stance, drew back her hand to strike. The figure did not move and she saw it was a statue. She peered closer, saw a papier mâché figure of Michael Jackson, a promotional item discarded from a tour. There were other statues ranged down the wall. The floor felt padded, multi-layered. More soundproofing. Cat wondered if it was cork for insulation.

  They started to move forwards cautiously, when a door opened and the blue light of computer screens leaked out.

  The man emerged from his booth – a recording room? A listening room? – but Thomas and Cat were on him straight away.

  ‘You’re under arrest, hands on your head, turn to your left, kneel down. Oops, too fucking slow.’

  Thomas spoke the first part deliberately fast and incomprehensible. There was nothing incomprehensible about the big Welsh fist that caught Pale Face on the ear and dropped him to the ground. Thomas’s boot followed and Cat got in a blow of her own, before stopping it all. Violence sometimes felt good in prospect. It never did in practice. Already she wanted to rewind.

  They dragged Pale Face into a chair. Found a light switch, snapped it on. The room was as she’d thought: a soundproofed recording studio, some tacky statues, a few signed posters.

  Pale Face looked as Cat had been picturing him in memory, only smaller. Lesser. Cat was struck by how much older the man appeared close up. He wasn’t yet middle-aged but his face already showed deep crow’s feet and lines around his mouth. His wrists and neck were scrawnily thin. He sat there silent, unmoving, unnervingly calm. But they had him. She’d get it out of him, what he’d done to Esyllt.