by Mick Herron
Gerard said, ‘What?’ But Michael was already leaving the kitchen, Sarah tagging at his heels.
The light on the gun cabinet’s metal frame had stopped blinking; was a dead red eye fixed on nothing. Michael was aiming a chair when Gerard arrived. Another two seconds, and he’d have breached security the hard way.
‘Don’t bother,’ Gerard said.
He lowered the chair.
‘Lateral thinking,’ Gerard said. ‘He’ll be doing long division next.’
‘Give him the key,’ said Sarah.
Not a key but a piece of credit card-shaped plastic with a pattern punched into it: when Michael slid it into a slot on the frame, the window swung open. Michael reached in and pulled out an ancient pistol; probably a musket, Sarah thought. It didn’t look any younger than the Civil War, that was for sure.
Gerard said, ‘Now, I’d like you to be very very careful with –’
‘Where are the others?’
‘There aren’t any. I’m a collector, not a –’
‘Psychopath. We know.’ He nodded at a framed certificate on the wall. ‘But you shoot. Competition standard.’
‘Used to shoot. There was a slight change in the law, probably they didn’t announce it down at the zoo.’
Michael was holding the gun in both hands, and bracing his leg against the desk now, making sure Gerard could see what he was doing. He can’t possibly, thought Sarah: but on the other hand, the barrel looked mostly wood.
Gerard thought he might possibly. ‘Do you know how much that cost?’ he whispered.
‘I don’t care how much it cost. I’m after something newer.’
‘I don’t have any –’
Michael, obviously, had had second thoughts about the strength of his knee, and brought the barrel of the gun down on the side of the desk instead. It didn’t break, but made a splintering noise; something metal fell to the carpet. Even Sarah closed her eyes. When she opened them, the first thing she registered was the scarred desk; a wound of bright wood gleaming against its rich dark surface. Guns don’t hurt people: people hurt guns. Also expensive furniture.
‘You fucking bastard,’ said Gerard.
Michael dropped the once-valuable gun and picked its partner from the cabinet behind him. ‘Where are they?’
Gerard, confirming Sarah’s opinion of him, didn’t fight losing battles. ‘In the cellar,’ he said.
‘Where?’
‘The door’s through the kitchen.’
Michael took the plastic card with him.
‘Would it help,’ Sarah said, ‘if I told you we needed to do this?’
‘Not really.’ He went round the desk, and picked up the gun Michael had damaged. Sarah thought he was on the verge of crooning to it.
‘Was it very old?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And –’
‘And valuable. Yes.’ He looked hard at her. ‘How long do you think you’ll last? Do you think you’ll get to the end of the road?’
‘Are we talking metaphor?’
‘I’m talking Hampstead. Stealing guns? The Met do armed response, Sarah. I don’t want to see you hurt.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Your friend, I’m not bothered. They can turn him into mashed potato as far as I’m concerned.’
‘You’re not going to call the police, Gerard.’
‘What does that mean, I’m not going to call the police?’ He placed the bent weapon gently in the cabinet. ‘You’ve already cost me thousands.’
‘Because anything Michael finds that he can use, you shouldn’t have in the first place. Isn’t that right?’
He pursed his lips now. They were still tight. Below them, or somewhere anyway, they could hear Michael rootling around in wooden cupboards. ‘What’s going on, Sarah? What’s going on really? Did that . . . retard actually kill your absurd friend? You’re telling me that really happened?’
‘He wasn’t my friend. But yes, it happened.’
‘Nobody’s said anything about that.’
‘It was his blood in the floor. You knew about the blood.’
‘I already told you. I made it my business.’ He shook his head wearily. ‘Does this have to do with your drugs trouble?’
‘They were planted on me.’
He didn’t respond.
‘They were planted because I’d been looking for a girl, the child who lived in that house, remember? The house that was bombed. I went looking for her with a friend, and he was killed, and I was framed.’ Her voice broke. She took a moment to get it together. ‘Then I started looking again, and Rufus tried to kill me.’
‘Like having a pet dormouse turn on you.’
‘I’m glad it’s funny. We aim to please.’
‘And who’s the soldier?’
‘How did –’
‘He moves like one. Come on, Sarah, where’d you find him? He looks like a non-speaking role in a spaghetti western.’
‘He was Singleton’s friend.’
‘Singleton?’
‘Whose house it was. That blew up that night.’
‘Another soldier?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sarah. He died years ago. It said so in the paper. Whoever was in that house –’
‘It was him.’
She could tell he didn’t believe her. Oddly, this mattered to her. Here he was, the capitalist monster, and he’d been worried about her – she could tell he wasn’t faking. And along with this came the knowledge that if she asked, he’d keep quiet about their visit. Not because of whatever Michael might find downstairs. But because she’d asked.
Even with the thought, Michael was back. He held a handgun in one hand; a longer gun she thought was a shotgun in the other.
Gerard said, ‘You think I’m just going to let you walk away with those?’ But even Sarah knew he was bluffing.
Michael ignored him. He said to Sarah, ‘We should go.’
‘That’s a Purdey. It’s a very expens–’
‘Gerard. I’m sorry.’
‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Sarah.’
‘Rufus tried to kill me. Remember that.’ She put her hand on his shoulder, stretched lightly and kissed him on the cheek. ‘We’re looking for a little girl. And we really mean to find her.’
Because there was nothing more to say, they left then. Gerard didn’t say goodbye. He didn’t rub his cheek, either.
In the car, Michael said, ‘Did you have to do that?’
He’d put the guns in the boot. The street had been empty; nobody to see him do so. Not as far as they were aware, anyway.
‘Do what?’
‘You know.’
She knew. She didn’t bother replying. ‘We should go. Remember?’
‘Go where?’
‘The only reason they’ve got Dinah is because they want you to come looking for her. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘So it stands to reason she’s somewhere you can find her. Somewhere you know.’
‘I’m not stupid, Tucker.’
‘I think she’s –’
‘On the island. Yes?’
‘I think she’s on that island. Yes.’
He put the car into gear, and started to drive.
II
Howard still had the letter on his desk, words like fulsome and sincere dripping from it like honey off toast. When Amos Crane took the piss, he didn’t muck about. But there it was anyway: a written apology, with a coded reference to an incident definitely not described as violent assault. Crane might have farted at a departmental meeting for all the detail offered. In a lot of ways, then, an admirable achievement, and for all Howard knew, maybe Crane would have made it behind a desk after all. The letter would go in his file, of course. Just before the red ribbon went round it.
Crane was now, the letter said, taking a few hours off, catching up on some sleep; would be into the office later, to tidy up before leaving for Scotland. Howard already knew the first part of that, beca
use he’d been having Crane’s flat watched. A team of three: two in the van with The Fabulous Bakin’ Brothers daubed on the side, next to a picture of a large rabbit eating a cookie, and one in the launderette further down the road, the same load of washing cycling round in circles while he waited for his portable to beep. All three were freelance; this, Howard lied to himself, out of respect for Amos’s feelings: he couldn’t send colleagues to see him off. Insult to injury. Though his real reason was, nobody who’d ever worked with Amos would take him as a target: not for feeling, friendship, loyalty, but fear.
That was how matters had stood three hours ago.
Now, Howard was buttoning his jacket, unbuttoning, buttoning, unbuttoning . . . Catching himself at last, he forced his hands to the desktop. Slight tremor. More than slight, actually. Extreme a bit nearer the mark. He picked up the letter once more, put it down. Three hours. That was when the boys in the van called to say the product had just come in, and would be despatched as soon as possible. And since then: Nothing.
There was always the danger that things would go wrong. One day he’d have a sampler made of that, and hang it on the wall behind his desk. When things go wrong, there is always danger. Amos Crane was no longer a spring chicken, of course, and the three hard tickets he’d sent were young, enjoyed their work, and not overburdened with self-doubt: it was always possible that they’d finished the job and popped off for an early supper, forgetting to phone in first . . . Perhaps he should have flying pigs added to the design on his sampler. Amos Crane had never been a chicken of any description. The three hard tickets were young, enjoying both their work and an exaggerated sense of their own abilities. There was a world of difference between, say, arranging an accident for an overweight minister whose carnal appetites were in danger of becoming a public embarrassment, and preparing an early grave for a pro like Crane. They hadn’t forgotten to call, Howard knew that. They were beyond the reach of any mobile, that was all.
Very soon now, he was going to have to go out and see for himself.
In the end, Howard did what he had to do: because it was his job, because it was his duty, and because so long as he was the first to find out what happened, he’d get to choose what spin to put on events. He didn’t drive – he rarely did, in Central London – but took the tube instead just a few stops down the line, and made his way through a still pulsing Soho to the hungry-looking block where Amos Crane had kept a flat these past months, above a dying record shop and an apartment whose occupant offered French lessons. Crane moved several times a year, whether from professional caution or simply an inability to settle down, Howard had never decided. Certainly, he had never asked. He wondered now, somewhat belatedly, if there were anyone who would ask Crane such normal questions; anyone who offered him the basic low-grade human contact most people took for granted. Not now Axel was dead, Howard concluded. Possibly not even before that. The Crane brothers, it was hard to doubt, did not put a value on social contact any higher than the one they put on human life.
. . . He wondered sometimes how he would end, and whether it would be anywhere like this: in the ashtray of the city, surrounded by thieves and no-hopers. It wasn’t altogether impossible. While the job paid well, and only went to the highest of flyers, there were obvious disadvantages. Officially, you didn’t much exist. To those who asked, you were a middle-ranking civil servant. Such anonymity brought its own pressures, especially when it was enforced, undeserved: actually, Howard wanted to tell people (tell women), I’m James fucking Bond. As good as. Actually, I’m M. I tell James Bond what to do . . . Had his career path gone a little differently, a little more traditionally, he’d be within striking distance of Attorney General by now, two, three Parliaments down the line. He’d have wielded less power, but been offered much more deference. The evenings he spent brooding on this disparity tended to be those he drank too much. This job had a high burnout rate. You got a quiet knighthood, but your career was comprehensively over. And even dream about your memoirs, and you woke up one morning at the foot of your stairs with a broken neck, and stone cold dead.
None of which was what he should be thinking about now. Crane’s flat was up two flights; the street was busy, though anybody watching would assume he had a French lesson coming. Chance would be a fine thing. The Fabulous Bakin’ Brothers were nowhere in sight; the launderette, he’d already passed. There were women in there, but no man; and a large pile of very clean, untended laundry in a basket. The more he thought about it, the more the word his mind came up with was bugger.
The stairs were dark, and unpleasantly damp. Cheryl’s flat – first floor – had a severely scarred front door, noticeable for the word fuck ornately designed from cigarette burns. People always find something to do in a queue, supposed Howard. His breathing had become more complicated; he told himself it was the stairs, the damp. Ahead of him was the top floor flat, its own door ajar, and he realized he was unbuttoning his jacket again as he approached it, exactly as if he were preparing for physical exertion, for confrontation, which was not what he had in mind, exactly, but what was he going to do when he found Amos Crane in there, and Crane asked him why he’d sent three amateurs to do a pro’s job? . . . Duty seemed a ridiculous word all of a sudden. Rank stupidity was what this was. Crane was no respecter of seniority; Howard’s still-sore throat bore witness to that. And here he was, though, pushing open the door, walking into the spider’s parlour. And here was Crane, his hands and teeth still bloody, louring at him from an unspeakable corner of his flat, the bodies of his would-be assassins draped messily from the fixtures . . .
No.
Howard had to sit. The flat was empty. From an open window, a draught rushed through the rooms, carrying with it the noises of the street below: the thieves, the no-hopers, the honest stiffs and the working girls, all of them busy about their lives, which were still going on right now, just like Howard’s.
He went home. First he went back to the office to check on incoming; then he went home, because he felt he’d deserved an early night in the company of a decent Chardonnay and one of his special videos. Amos Crane had gone to ground, and God Almighty couldn’t find him without an effort. Effort, at present, was beyond Howard’s reach. He felt uncharged, fried-out; felt, in fact, like the proverbial wet rag. What he’d done would have to be paid for, he knew that. Get in first, the manuals said. Do the other guy while he thinks you’re a friendly. But if you do all that and still don’t get the drop, you have to be prepared to get bloody.
. . . That was what was waiting for him when Amos Crane broke cover. Meantime, he’d go home, have a rest, do some thinking.
Another trip by tube, then, which more and more resembled, these days, a visit to the underworld. Crowds of ill-smelling, nervous passengers, all crushed up too close together; many of them, he suspected, secretly enjoying the fact. On hot days, the blasts of air through the tunnels were pure sulphur. There weren’t as many rats on the line as there used to be, though. Howard assumed poison was set for them, and wondered if that too tainted the air; another invisible addition to the perils of capital life.
Disembarked, relieved, back in the world, he stopped at his local deli and treated himself to houmus, ciabatta, olives, then bought an evening paper at the corner. A world-famous rock star had just joined the choir eternal in dubious circumstances: it was impossible for Howard not to take a professional interest, however much he tried to view it as simple entertainment. Amos Crane, inevitably, came back to mind. Amateurs, he’d told Howard once, assumed that if you left targets with their pants down, an orange in their mouth and a pair of tights wrapped round their neck, nobody asked questions. Forensics, in fact, were a real sod in such cases. You were better off tipping them out a window . . .
Thank you, Amos, he’d said. I’ll keep that in mind.
He let himself in the front door; checked the mail out of habit. Nothing. His flat was ground floor, and getting in was a major security operation, calling on three keys. Inside, he dumped his shoppin
g on the floor while he shut the alarm down, then put the shopping in the fridge, opened the Chardonnay, poured a borderline-insensible measure into a very large glass and drank most of it standing there, fridge door open, staring unfocused out of his flat’s back window, and its view of not very much. Sometimes the view through the window was the same as the view in his head, he decided: just a blank, formless space, as if somebody important forgot to fill in the details. Christ, and this was his first glass of wine. Much more, and he’d be speaking in French. He refilled the glass, shut the fridge door, and took his wine into the drawing room: a large, excellent place which always made him feel calm and comfortable, where, sadly, the first thing he saw was the sheet of writing paper on the glass-topped coffee table, and calm and comfortable left the agenda.
Howard,
I’ll take the events of this afternoon as constructive dismissal, shall I? I won’t go into how very upset this leaves me. Perhaps it’s as well you’re not in, or I might have acted in a way you’d regret.
I shall expect emoluments, pay in lieu (notice, holiday, etc.) to be arranged with your customary attention to detail. Meanwhile, I’m off to Scotland. Funny how some jobs you just can’t let go, isn’t it?
Downey is mine. Remember that. I’ll attend to you when I get back.
Sorry about the mess in the bathroom.
Believe me, Amos
He finished his wine first, because there was no longer any particular hurry. But having done that, the need to use the bathroom overcame him.
The mess wasn’t as bad as he’d expected, actually. At least Amos had left all three in the bath.
III
These were the missing days. Sarah spent them living a road movie: not the American variety, all sand-strewn horizons and miles of cattle wagons trundling over a prairie, but a homegrown version in which damp hedgerows featured largely, and the scenery lacked visible rhyme or reason. Dry stone walls appeared out of nowhere, ran humbly along lanesides for a mile or two, then vanished into the ground. Who decided that’s where they should be? Fairytale trees, tough and withered as witches, jutted at dangerous angles from hillsides. She remembered Mark saying once that all the best road-books and films – he was an infallible source of opinion – were the product of foreign eyes celebrating things the natives never noticed: Nabokov setting American geography in motion; Wim Wenders discovering Texas to the sound of a steel guitar. Okay then: maybe she should have packed a pen or a camera. She had the refugee’s eye all right; she was an alien in this landscape. A visitor from outer space.
