Down Cemetery Road

by Mick Herron

  And now it was over, and Amos Crane couldn’t help thinking they’d been victims of their own success: too good at what they did to be allowed to try anything else, they’d been obvious candidates for downsizing once the winds of fortune changed. Axel’s downsizing had happened in the field, of course. But Amos had been targeted, no doubt about it, and all because his first desk operation – his first – had chalked up a few minor casualties: it was getting so you weren’t allowed any mistakes, which hadn’t been office policy in the good old days. He blamed political correctness. And what was worse, Howard had sent freelancers, amateurs, to do the job, which was cheeky as well as being a fucking liberty. Howard would pay for that too. In his mind’s eye, in fact, Amos was starting to make out a queue: a lot of people demanding his attention. Michael Downey was still at the head of it, blood being thicker than water – Amos Crane could vouch for that. These clichés didn’t get where they were by not being true.

  And that was a lesson Michael Downey knew too, Crane reminded himself: the lesson about blood. Downey had also served an apprenticeship. Not quite the same league, but he’d been to the edge, which in his case was a place called Crows’ Hill, a camp for Iraqi prisoners where he’d served three months as a guard towards the end of the Gulf War, along with his friend Tommy Singleton, always the better soldier. Among those at Crows’ Hill were a small group captured at an Iraqi military compound, where a torture chamber had been discovered – electric batons, ceiling chains; a bathtub streaked with blood, though no bodies were found. A school of thought held this irrelevant. No bodies were found because the bastards buried them. One dark night Singleton, Downey and a handful of others – probably drunk or high: Crane neither knew nor cared – took the group of three out to the wire and shot them dead.

  They could have been shot themselves. (Probably ended up wishing they had been.) But it was a popular war, and nobody wanted to spoil the party, so the fix was put in instead: that couldn’t have been particularly difficult, Crane reflected. Removed from Crows’ Hill, Singleton’s crew was kept in close confinement for the duration; even after the war, the army didn’t much know what to do with them. For years, they were a scandal waiting to happen. When they were co-opted en masse for ‘special services’, you could hear the sigh of relief in An Najaf. And it was only once these special services were over that they were delivered into the hands of the Department: officially dead – a cover story lacking subtlety, but avoiding loose ends – they’d become embarrassments, and the Department Crane worked for dealt with embarrassments. But there was still curiosity about how long it would take them to die from the effects of the nerve-bomb: the experiment had been a failure, immunization having worked at only seventy per cent, but that didn’t mean the statistics weren’t worth keeping. So they’d been sent to the Farm, itself a hangover from the days of germ warfare, the idea being that they’d remain there until their various cancers took hold. After that, they’d be chucked. Before that, though, they’d escaped.

  . . . Crane tutted like a disappointed teacher: they’d escaped. Actually, when you thought about it, that was what had put him here, on this train . . .

  Because after dealing with Howard’s bob-a-job boobies, he’d headed straight for King’s Cross: morally certain that Downey would have worked it out by now, he wanted to be near the island when the soldier came looking for Dinah. It wasn’t that difficult. Dinah was bait, Downey had to know that; and who put bait somewhere their prey would never find it? . . . Besides, he had the woman with him, and Axel had said the woman was smart. Axel was no great fan of women, so if he’d said it, it was probably so. Sarah Trafford, née Tucker. Dumb enough to get involved, but smart enough for Axel.

  Perhaps he scowled at the thought, because the short man sitting opposite asked, ‘You all right then, mate?’ He had a harsh northern accent, so irritating to the civilized ear, and wore a scarf no sane man would admit to.

  ‘I’m fine. Thank you.’

  ‘Only ye look like death warmed up, like.’

  ‘I doubt that.’

  ‘Y’what?’

  Crane sighed, and leaned forward. ‘Have you ever seen death, warmed up? Have you?’ The man pulled back, but Crane continued: ‘The skin pops and blisters like an overcooked rice pudding. The eyeballs burst. And the lips peel back so the teeth look big as tombstones. Believe me, if I looked like that, you wouldn’t be making polite conversation.’

  ‘Ye’re a fockin’ lunatic.’

  ‘It’s been said.’

  He closed his unburst eyes and leaned back in his seat, while his fellow passenger went to find somewhere else to sit. The train rattled away beneath him, carrying him off to Edinburgh. From there he’d pick up another train, or hire a car. Something. It was a damn shame he didn’t have all his equipment with him – especially after carting the bear all that way – but hell: into each life, a little rain must fall. Round about wherever Downey was now, it was coming on cloudy, that was true.

  The train jerked, and he opened his eyes involuntarily to see a woman walking past carrying packets of sandwiches and a plastic cup of coffee: a woman in her forties, with dark curly hair and a deeply harassed expression. She was none of his business. He hoped she wouldn’t sit down. He didn’t want company and he didn’t want chat. But he needn’t have worried because she was on her way down the carriage, and barely glanced at him on her way past.

  Turning to look out of the window once more, the first thing he saw was his own reflection. Death warmed up indeed, he thought: no, not that, never that. What he in fact was was cold all of a sudden, as if he’d just had a glimpse into his own future. Everybody’s future is the same in the long run. What worried Amos Crane for a moment was how very short the long run suddenly seemed.

  V

  Sarah walked down to the sea that morning, and sat on a bench to watch the waves beat on the noisy shingle. Somewhere out of vision, lost in the grey haze of the day, was the island where they were holding Dinah, whoever they were – that was what she told herself, and she’d come too far to accept that she might be wrong. Or to give up just because Michael had abandoned her. She was wearing his denim jacket, in a pocket of which she’d found a bundle of notes: tens and twenties, more than enough to pay the bill, though she felt mostly detached from such mundane obligations. It is very important, she remembered thinking at some point during the madness of the last few days, when your life is falling apart, to focus on one thing and one thing only. For better or worse, that had become Dinah. The invisible girl. To get this close and no further was more than flesh and blood could stand.

  The wind shivered the shingle, shifting specks of sand. For a moment, it looked like ghosts were chasing each other down the beach.

  When she looked round, because she thought she was being watched, Sarah saw a woman approaching down the path. Could be any woman. Wearing a red jumper, as if she liked to be noticed.

  She looked back to the sea. One of the things about which was, there was so bloody much of it . . . Like a great grey blanket, covering most of the world. When they drag us down Cemetery Road, she thought, that’s what’ll be left: the sea.

  She was hardly surprised at all when the woman sat on the bench next to her.

  Because of the curious lethargy which had overtaken her – as if her body were remembering all those tranks – it was no effort for Sarah not to look around. Not at first. But her silence didn’t seem to faze her new companion: for a number of long minutes, the two women sat without talking; both watching the sea, though probably thinking different things. The wash of the waves had a tidying effect, Sarah decided at last. It tended to smooth your thoughts out: no wonder it turned up so often on those meditation trance tracks . . .

  ‘I suppose I was expecting you,’ she said at last.

  ‘Hey. Missing persons, a speciality.’

  ‘I tried to call you.’

  ‘I know.’

  A cigarette was waved in front of her face. ‘You want one of these?’

&n
bsp; ‘I don’t smoke.’

  ‘I know you didn’t last week,’ said Zoë Boehm. ‘Just thought you might have upgraded your lifestyle since.’

  Sarah turned to face her. Zoë hadn’t changed much, but then, it had only been a few days. ‘Nice jumper.’

  Zoë blew a ring, to show how much she cared. Then eyed Sarah critically. ‘You’re not in the state you were. Doped to the gills, I mean. But you’re a different sort of mess, still.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘But given how many people you’ve pissed off in the last few days, I’d say you’re on course for a full recovery.’

  ‘Lately I’ve thought it a wasted day if nobody tries to kill me,’ Sarah agreed. ‘So tell me, what brings you to this neck of the woods?’

  Zoë stared at her a moment or two, then tossed her curly hair and gave a laugh. ‘You sure land on your feet, don’t you? If Joe hadn’t –’

  ‘I’ve seen a man die lately. I nearly joined him. I might yet. Don’t tell me how lucky I am, I don’t want to know.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘You called me, remember?’

  ‘But you didn’t – Oh.’

  ‘1471. One of my favourite numbers, that.’ Zoë tossed her cigarette, and the wind grabbed it, sent it sparking to the beach. ‘One of the few times I’ve been glad I forgot to turn the damn answering machine on. I’m always doing that. Shit, the number of jobs that must have cost us.’

  ‘I bet Joe never forgot,’ Sarah said.

  ‘That’s right. He never did.’ She fumbled for another cigarette. ‘Anyway, when I got into the office and checked the phone, the most recent call was from Scotland. And I don’t know anyone in Scotland.’

  ‘So you immediately thought of me.’

  ‘Nope. Took hours for the penny to drop.’ She flicked her Bic lighter, and got her latest nicotine hit up and running. ‘Once it did, I rang the number and gave the guy who answered your description. Your new hair threw him at first. Apart from that,’ she shrugged modestly, ‘it was easy.’

  ‘He told you? Just like that?’

  ‘I had to promise him a blow job. I might also have given him the impression I was teenage and blonde, but if he demands payment anyway, you can expect it to have a hell of an impact on my expenses.’

  ‘I don’t remember hiring you.’

  ‘It was a joke, kiddo. It was a joke.’ From her leather shoulder bag, Zoë produced a small bottle of vodka. ‘I read once you should take salt on a long journey. To liven up what you catch and eat.’ She unscrewed the cap, passed the bottle to Sarah. ‘I always thought that was an interesting point of view.’

  Sarah took a good long swallow. It was mildly like being struck over the head: probably more pleasant. As she handed it back, she glanced inside the bag Zoë had put down between them; one of those amazing arrangements whose insides hold more than their outsides promise, and into which you could fit most of the average wardrobe. Clothes it held, too, but something else besides: small and silver it winked at Sarah, and she couldn’t pretend not to have seen it.

  Noticing her look, Zoë pulled it out.

  ‘Six shots,’ she said. ‘A real handbag gun.’

  ‘What do you need that for?’

  ‘Same as the vodka. I didn’t know whether I’d need it or not, but I felt better bringing it along.’

  ‘You know, don’t you? Do you?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘Everything that’s happened. Someone tried to kill me.’ It still felt strange, dropping that into a conversation. Saying it was a way of getting used to it. ‘But Michael shot him.’ Stupid: Zoë didn’t even know who Michael was.

  Gun in one hand, cigarette between the fingers of her other, bottle between her knees, Zoë nodded. ‘I heard a story. Someone on the local force who was there. But there were a lot of official denials that anything happened at all. So I presume he was a spook, the guy who copped it.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A spy.’ She took a drag on her cigarette. ‘Any way you look at it, I thought it best to bring the gun.’

  ‘It’s pretty small.’

  ‘Joe gave it to me.’ Maybe, somewhere in Zoë’s subconscious, this was a relevant response to make.

  Sarah had all but forgotten, in this recent stretch of her life, that the worst losses had been suffered by other people. And that Zoë, for one, needed to know the facts. ‘It was Rufus,’ she said.

  ‘Rufus?’

  ‘Who killed Joe. Who tried to kill me. Who was a . . . spook.’

  ‘The one you told me about? Married to that friend?’

  She nodded.

  Zoë said, ‘Fuck.’ After a while she said it again, but after the second time she was quiet a lot longer, looking out to sea as if there were answers to questions she hadn’t even thought of yet floating out there somewhere, out of vision, out of reach. For a few moments, Sarah wondered if Zoë were disappointed; if she’d hoped to kill Joe’s murderer herself. And then dismissed the thought. Revenge, bloodshed, killing – that was a job for life’s soldiers, which was why so many of them were dead.

  Without speaking, Zoë handed the bottle to Sarah. Who took it, drank from it, and then began to speak: bringing Zoë up to speed on why she was there, who Michael was, where Dinah was . . . What happened. Everything.

  And Zoë said, ‘Jesus . . .’

  A flock of gulls had descended on the strip of gravelly beach before them; were swooping and screaming now, disinterring the remnants of an uncomfortable picnic. Maybe thirty or so. Impossible to count. Sarah remembered, as if it were a scene from a film long ago, seeing a similar flock drop on a scattered packet of crisps on a busy main road in Oxford. Ignoring traffic they’d come screeching down, snatching crisps from under the wheels, while the unlucky hungry ones were left hovering over the junction at head-height; their wing spans making them as much of a threat to cars as the cars were to them. She’d been standing at the lights, waiting to cross. It was like walking into a Hitchcock film, but then again, so was this.

  ‘Bloody wept,’ Zoë continued.

  ‘Yes.’

  That didn’t leave much to say, for the moment. They sat watching the birds wheeling in front of them, as if in celebration of the gift of flight. Though actually, Sarah thought, birds didn’t do that: birds were just birds, no more capable of taking joy in their gifts than men were. Ha! She must still be tired; she was definitely talked out.

  Zoë lit another cigarette.

  This time Sarah stretched her hand out, and Zoë dropped a cigarette into it without comment. The lighter flared. She felt the first drag catch the back of her throat, and her cough was pure reflex: a real hacking, throat-killing experience, her first in years.

  Zoë said, ‘That sounds really bad. Have you thought about giving up?’

  ‘It’s crossed my mind,’ Sarah said, when she could speak.

  ‘Course, it’s not gunna kill you that much faster than anything else.’

  That went past Sarah the first time. Then she thought about it, and nodded. ‘I know.’

  ‘You given much thought to your options?’

  ‘I thought, the press.’

  ‘Could be. Kind of depends on how much credibility you’ve been left with, though.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Zoë ticked them off on her fingers. ‘You were caught packing dope. Your husband’s a thief. You can’t prove Rufus was anywhere near your house, because the spooks disappeared him . . .’

  ‘What about your friend in the force?’

  ‘Uh-uh. He’s not a friend, he’s a contact. And he’s got a family to support and bugger all qualifications. That’s why he joined the force in the first place.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Plus, your friend Rufus isn’t dead. That’s the story, anyway. Word is, he’s got terrorist connections, was using your friend Wigwam as cover – I think the word “dupe” was mentioned – and went to ground when he was rumbled. And the press
have already been told they can’t print a word of this, so obviously they’re convinced it’s the truth. As for your friend Michael, he died years ago, remember?’

  ‘Singleton’s body . . .’

  ‘Wasn’t Singleton’s. By which I mean, nobody’s gunna have an easy job proving it was. Particularly given that what’s left of him’s been cremated.’

  ‘So I need Michael.’

  ‘Looks like. Pretty urgently, too, you ask me.’

  Sarah looked at her.

  ‘Sweetie, if I can find you, they can. And in case you’ve forgotten, we’re fighting a war at the moment, rather than ’fess up to revolting toxic warfare experiments. If the spooks catch you now, I doubt a fake drugs bust will be their method of choice. Not now you’ve been in close contact with Downey. Even if he hadn’t told you everything, they’re bound to assume he did. There’s no pretty way of saying this. They’re going to kill you, Sarah.’

  She nodded dumbly. She knew they were going to kill her. Hearing somebody else say it still had a raw edge to it somehow . . .

  ‘But finding Michael Downey again, well, that would be a start.’

  ‘He’s gone after Dinah.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘On this island. Somewhere out there.’

  ‘I’ve got a map.’

  Of course Zoë had a map; she probably had a car in the depths of that bag of hers. While she rooted it out, Sarah finished her cigarette: the first in a hell of a long time but, such was the familiarity of it, probably not the last. Not the quickest way to kill yourself, after all . . . A sudden vivid flash, and she was looking at Joe again, slumped over his desk, the razor still in his hand. Rufus had done that. Killed him, arranged him, left him there: you didn’t do a job like that without practice. And Rufus might be dead, but there’d be others just like him. Brothers under the skin.