There was the mantel, all right, but the sword wasn’t there. It lay on the floor to one side, among a spray of glass fragments, brought in on its return, no doubt. I went forward and stooped to pick it up – then, weary as I was, I stiffened painfully. Maybe I’d sensed something – a sound, a movement. But nothing like that could account for how I knew a gun was pointing at the back of my neck. I just felt it, and that was all. ‘Nice place!’ said the harsh unsteady voice. ‘Wish I could afford it. But it’s just a cold shell; it could use some warmth. And a better burglar alarm too. Stand up. Face to the wall, hands above your head. Move!’
Chapter Five
I stood up, very slowly; but I turned around, also very slowly. There was the gun, all right, tipped now with a short silencer, just enough to take the edge off the bang. It jerked up to level with my face, but nothing else happened. I looked the woman up and down. She stood in the classic range posture, legs akimbo, arms outstretched, the gun clasped tight in both hands. It was as steady as ever, and as hard to ignore; but now she looked dangerously disturbed. Or, to put it scientifically, barking mad. Her shaggy black hair stuck up in spikes, her dark shell-suit was crumpled and torn. She was a soot-streaked, battered mess; but then so was I, probably. It was her face: her features were slack, her eyes wild, with that tic still beating away at one corner, and her mouth was working so much she could hardly speak.
I shook my head in awe. ‘You’re really determined, aren’t you? Tailing me through all that – how long for?’
She gathered her breath and spoke with an effort. ‘Since the heliport! You were late! Didn’t spot me, did you? No! Too bloody confident after your famous coup!’
‘Well, I did feel—’
But once started she went ploughing on, as if she’d something bursting to get out. ‘And then the riot, and you heading off down all those back-streets – I lost you then, but it was obvious you knew something, you were going somewhere! I knew it was too close to be a coincidence – so I started searching. I knew how to find you. I just looked for the worst trouble, and there you were, right in there with those creatures, whipping it up! Just like in Germany!’ Her voice was pitching higher, near cracking. ‘Oh, you scored a real coup there, congratulations, yes! It made you careless, over-confident, so you thought you’d be safe to come out from under your stone at last, didn’t you? Get it off with a bit of rape and pillage!’ A trickle of saliva oozed from the corner of her mouth and made its way down her chin. ‘Get your lousy rocks off! Thought you had us whipped, didn’t you? Didn’t you, damn you?’
She was close to raving. ‘Look—’ I began soothingly. I didn’t get any further.
‘Thought it was clever, didn’t you, getting me suspended like that? Well, you were wrong, weren’t you, bloody well wrong, wrong, wrong! Because it just gave me more time to go after you! Yes, and more freedom to deal with you the way you should be dealt with – you and scheissdreck’ like you!’ She stopped, gulped in air. Her voice dropped suddenly, almost to a croon. ‘We don’t need you,’ she said softly.
‘Can I just—’
‘Whatever you’ve done, it’ll unravel when you’re not around anymore. And after you that bastard von Amerningen—’
‘Look—’
She sucked in her breath and spoke briskly, as if steeling herself for something. ‘The hell with the law – stamp on you like cockroaches, it’s the only way—’
‘Christ, woman!’ I roared in her face. ‘Will you listen?’
I suppose I was lucky the gun didn’t go off just from reflex. But I’d guessed that mad or not, she was too much in control of it for that. All the same, she jumped violently, and stood blinking and gaping at me like an idiot. ‘You’, I shouted, forgetting all the ideas I’d had about being calm and collected and soothing, ‘are an obsessive, self-righteous, self-centred, small-minded monomaniac! You jump to conclusions, you do the damnedest things, and you never stop to consider that just once, in any way, Little Miss Crusader might be wrong! Wrong wrong bloody well wrong! You never stop to listen, you never admit it’s possible! That’s not conviction, that’s mental illness! Who d’you think you are – God?’
She swallowed, and smiled an appallingly sweet smile. ‘You’ve given me all the proof I need!’ she said brightly. ‘But sure, do go on. I haven’t had many laughs lately.’ Almost lazily, like a cat, she stretched out the gun again.
I slumped against the wall. The way I felt, being shot might almost be merciful. ‘I don’t know where to start!’ I protested. ‘Look – those back-streets – of course I was going somewhere, I was trying to get home – round the riot! You didn’t see what happened afterwards, did you? No! You lost me. Well, you won’t find my car in the garage here; it’s lying burnt out in the middle of the road up by the shopping centre. I got turned around by petrol bombs and then tipped out by rioters. They nearly killed me. Think I staged that?’
She stared at me in scorn. ‘You could afford a hundred of those little sports cars!’
That made me really furious. ‘Yes, you stupid bitch, but they wouldn’t be mine! I liked that car, really liked it. It was the first thing I bought when I got the deputy MD’s job. There’ll never be another like it – and, Christ, I don’t suppose you know there’s a ten-year waiting list for those things? They’re practically hand built. Think I went that far just to keep up appearances?’
‘You might,’ she said, with even contempt. Smoothly sure of herself, unexpectedly enjoying the battle of words, as if it only made her feel more secure, not less. ‘Or it might just have been a convenient accident. If the rioters nearly killed you, why’d I find you with those creatures at the church?’
‘You didn’t find me with them! I was with a bunch of locals I’d rousted out and organized to stop them! If you don’t believe me, look up some of them – a builder called Sean, a trucker called Billy something, I can give you their addresses. They’ll tell you what I was doing.’
‘Just playing it cleverer than I thought, maybe. Stirring up two lots of trouble – vigilantes—’
‘Or there was the girl – raped and left for dead. I’d like to know if she was all right. And listen, woman, when you shot that … character, he was running, wasn’t he? With a broken sword. What d’you think broke it? Who do you think he was running from?’
‘You?’ Her laugh was as humourless as ever, the brick wall I was banging my head against.
‘Me,’ I said quietly. ‘With that sword behind you on the carpet.’
‘If you think I’m going to look back at it, think again. It was there when I came in. I suppose it just flew home ahead of you.’
‘It did, in a sense. But I could never make you understand about that. Any more than—’
‘Yes?’ There was a change in her tone, but I couldn’t tell what.
‘Well … there’s just one way you may have been right. I found out that Lutz is mixed up in something – but it’s not what you think. Not just – if anything, it’s worse, but … Oh, crap, what’s the use? You’d never believe it. It’s right outside any frame of reference you’ll ever have.’
She was silent. I looked up, and saw a very odd look on her face. For a moment it lost some of its ingrained lines, and about ten years with them. I caught a glimpse of what she might have been; it was more striking than I’d have expected. Then suspicion stiffened her features again. ‘Just Lutz. Not you. Right.’
‘Yes,’ I said, meeting the sarcasm head on. ‘Some of the board members, but principally Lutz. He did want to have a go at drawing me in, that night you called. For various reasons it went off half cocked. Probably would have anyway. I like to think so. I don’t think he was too confident either, because he waited to try until it didn’t mean so much. He chose that night because C-Tran was all set up, launched, everything. It was only then he was ready to risk alienating me – and having to get rid of me.’
‘What d’you mean?’ she demanded sharply.
‘I mean I had an interesting ride home from his plac
e. First somebody takes a pot at me with a high-powered rifle and a laser gunsight while I’m still coming down the drive.’ Her face had taken on another odd look. ‘You don’t bloody believe me? Well, after that somebody tried to knock my block off on the Autobahn – a car, a heavy with a slingshot. Nearly did it, too, except a truck got mixed up in it. You should see the car I was driving there, as well. I don’t think they’re going to hire me one again in a hurry—’
I stopped dead. The woman was looking positively sheepish. ‘That bloody rifle …’ I breathed. ‘That was you! I should’ve guessed Lutz wouldn’t want a killing on his own home grounds, or anywhere traceable to him. But you would! It was you, you – you self-righteous little—’ Words failed me, and I clenched my fists. Instantly the gun jabbed into my face again.
‘Me and my team, yes,’ she said sourly. ‘Pity I’ve never used that model before. It was the only one we could get in a hurry, and it had to be at extreme range.’
‘You’re apologizing? And that was your team in the car, too?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Not us. But it fits the pattern of other—’ She pursed her lips suddenly. She’d realized she was implicitly going along with my story; and there was something underneath that still made her determined to disbelieve me. Obsession, maybe, or something more solid – but what?
‘So,’ I said, watching the sweat streak her smudged face, ‘you may not believe me, but oddly enough I believe you. Lutz took a lot of trouble to make sure I was seen leaving safely. If you’d killed me then, you’d only have been doing his work for him. Maybe you’re only doing it now—’
That firing stance is all very well, a nice stable platform; but when you have to hold it too long it becomes a bit stiff. And so do you. I wasn’t in prime condition myself right now; but I’d been relaxing. Suddenly, careful not to send any vocal or physical signals, I bent my knees and dropped, fast, to a crouch. I expected the shot to part my hair, but she didn’t even get one off before I’d sprung. Not up but forward, catching the outstretched arms as they swung down towards me and forcing them aside, bringing the wrists down hard across my knee, like breaking wood—
The gun made a clattering mess of my floorboards, but mercifully didn’t go off. I let the woman go, pushed her back and grabbed it. Then I stepped hastily between her and my sword, but she was still doubled over, hugging her aching wrists. She looked up, biting her lip hard; she seemed to be waiting for something. ‘Turn around,’ I ordered, and with a slow weary smile, her shoulders sagging, she turned.
I thrust the pistol in my belt and grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and the seat of her pants. She gave a wild yelp; that wasn’t what she’d been expecting at all. I more or less raced her towards the door. ‘Open it!’ I ordered. Still sobbing with shock, she fumbled with the lock, but managed it. I ran her out onto the landing, and she gave a wild scream and grabbed the balustrade, evidently expecting to be flung over. I tore her loose and rushed her to the stairs, and she grabbed the rail again, thinking I was going to throw her down this time. She was in a state of complete gibbering panic, and that only made me angrier. I don’t know where I got the strength, but I gave her the classic bum’s rush all the way down sixteen flights of shadowy stairs, with her flailing and kicking and squealing and getting her leg stuck in the railings. From time to time one of my worthy neighbours looked out. ‘Mormons!’ I explained, and they all nodded sagely. Finally I reached the ground floor hallway, and more or less dropped her on her backside while I got my breath back.
She got hers back first; she hadn’t been carrying the weight, after all. She squinted up at me, the way you might look up at a dodgy-looking tree, wondering which way it was going to fall. ‘You could have shot me more easily up there. Or just quietly wrung my neck. I couldn’t have stopped you.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, woman …’ was the best I could manage. She started to get up, and I drew the pistol and motioned her down. She stiffened, but when I didn’t fire she subsided again.
She kept on looking at me. ‘You don’t add up.’
‘You can’t,’ I grunted. ‘You started with two and two and you get twenty-two. Or 1726.’
She slapped the smooth marble tiles violently. ‘What the hell are you on about? I’ve got to know!’
‘Whistle for it,’ I told her. ‘There’s something going on here, all right, but I’m damn sure it’s nothing that ever entered your narrow little horizons. Better to keep your nose out of this. And your one-track mind!’
She bridled. ‘I could say the same to you! That Autobahn incident – do you know what that was? Can you protect yourself against another?’
I groaned. All I could see was bed as a beautiful vista, sixteen floors up. ‘Yes, yes, yes …’ I had to do something about what I’d got caught in – to get some advice, some thinking done – but first of all I needed sleep. I reached down, seized her collar again and yanked her to her feet. I skidded her over the smooth floor, too fast to make much fuss, straight at the glass doors. The porter was nowhere to be seen, and that was just as well. I tabbed the lock and they sighed back as we hit the mat; I threw her stumbling out into the night. I looked up and down the road; there was nobody at all in sight, and only the occasional siren broke the silence. The sky was growing pale, the street lights looking dimmer. It’d be dawn soon; I’d have to leave my next move till evening. I needed the sleep, anyway.
I raised the pistol, saw her start, heard the sharp little gasp. I clicked on the safety, then the magazine release, shucked it out and put it gently down on the pavement. My toe spun it twenty yards or so. Then I unscrewed the silencer and dropped it in my pocket.
‘Wipe the magazine before you put it back in,’ I said, and handed her the pistol. ‘It’s a rough night out there. You may need this to get home.’
I turned on my heel and stalked back through the door, trying not to look as if I was hurrying, but all too alert in case she made a grab for that magazine. But I caught a glimpse of her in the glass, just standing there unmoving, staring after me. In the pale light, with all that taut malevolence drained from her face, she looked more as she might have – not at all bad, really. But I still legged it for the stairs at speed, trying not to think of the sixteen flights between me, a shower and bed. For the moment that was the most terrifying prospect in the world.
Evening brought others. I saw nothing of the day; I was asleep, dead to the world, for some eleven hours; and I woke with a head like a football, over-inflated, a tongue I could have lathered and shaved. But a bath and a meal restored my interest in the world, and in the news of last night. The rioting had died down with the morning light, but the city was still in deep shock. The police had arrested a few looters and minor troublemakers, but I wasn’t at all surprised to hear that the organized gangs had simply faded away. They were still being ‘actively sought’, and lines of enquiry ‘followed up’ only I knew just how far they’d have to follow, right outside the bounds of ordinary human experience. I was headed that way myself.
If I could get hold of a car, that is. Duly slept, showered and shaved, I spent an interesting hour or so trying to scare one up; they were heavily in demand right now. The remains of mine had been hauled away somewhere, but my suitcases were picked up more or less intact, though heavily scorched and dented on the outside; the explosion had blown them into a doorway. Eventually, by pulling strings on the C-Tran account, I got the use of a hideously expensive luxury saloon, not at all my kind of car; but I’d had interesting experiences around where I was going, the kind that put you off wandering too far on foot. Now, though, I was beginning to wonder if I wouldn’t be better off that way. In the early days it hadn’t always been easy, finding my way to the Tavern; but lately the old Morgan seemed almost to have learned the way itself, rumbling easily through the streets of the old port, across the cobbles, down the dark alleys that lead to one place or many, always guiding me towards the light and the warmth of a place I felt truly at home.
Now, purring along
in this sleek self-satisfied monster with my sword bumping and rattling uneasily on the back seat, I began to wonder if it wasn’t some sort of jinx. It was so alien here; the shadows of the old warehouses more or less slid off its mirror-bright metallic paintwork, the romance of the old street names – Danube Street, Orinokoo Lane, Chunking Square, Hudson Quay – hardly penetrated its tinted glass. All it found me were the modern redeveloped quarters, more yuppified even than my flat block, full of little boutiques and restaurants with festoon blinds and brass circulating fans, discos whose pink neon signs obscured the ageless stone shells they briefly inhabited. Around and about we went, three times by different routes; yet always we fetched up back here. I began to feel as if barriers were being raised across my path, all the more solid for being unseen.
Exasperated, I tried something I hadn’t for years; I braked outside a local pub, one of the seamier, unreconstructed jobs, and asked a pair of ancients coming out if they knew where the Illyrian Tavern might be, or one Jyp the Pilot, if he was in port. They glared at me and muttered something about never hearing the name, then toddled off on their sticks, looking back and grumbling to each other. I sighed, mooched inside, ordered a pint and repeated my question. Often the question warmed the atmosphere immediately; but this time it produced only a sour shrug from the barman, and a sudden looming shadow at the far end of the room. A massive man in black donkey-jacket and jeans, white-haired and balding, with a ruddy sailor’s complexion over his yellowing white jersey, rolled up to the bar and leaned on it, that bit too close to me. ‘What’d be yer business wi’ any such fella, eh, jimmy?’
I looked at him. I didn’t like being loomed over. ‘Who wants to know?’
He didn’t answer for a moment. ‘That yer set o’ wheels outside, jimmy?’
Cloud Castles Page 12
