Nobody Walks

by Mick Herron

  “I’m not much for computer games.”

  “No? Well. Enough people are to have made Vincent very rich. Like I say, he wrote Shades in his bedroom. He has staff now, and the company went public last year. Shades 3’s out in the autumn. That’s going to make a lot of people happy.”

  “And make him even richer.”

  Flea said, “Not really.”

  Bettany raised an eyebrow.

  “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

  “How’d you end up working for him?”

  “I answered an ad. Not everyone gets head-hunted.”

  Bettany wasn’t sure what to make of that either.

  She said, “You don’t know, do you?”

  “Don’t know what?”

  “It’s a famous story. In the gaming world … Liam didn’t apply for a job with Vincent. Vincent went looking for Liam.”

  Bettany waited.

  She said, “When I said Shades was a hidden game, I meant really. Hidden. There was no clue in the packaging or anywhere. It was up to someone to find it by accident. And that was Liam. Liam was the first to uncover the secret.”

  “And that impressed Vincent.”

  Flea began to speak, then changed her mind. She sipped wine. Her lips glistened red, until she ran her tongue round them.

  “I guess … I think Vincent always knew someone would crack Shades. And that when it happened, it would be big news among gamers. So once he found that the guy who cracked it was here in London, hiring him was too good a story to miss. And Vincent knows the value of a good story.”

  “But if Liam had been in Taiwan, he wouldn’t have bothered.”

  “I doubt it. Mr. Bettany—”

  “Tom.”

  “Tom, we’re all so sorry about Liam. Vincent too. He’d have told you that himself if he’d known you were there.”

  Which sounded a polite lie.

  “How close were you?” he asked.

  “Me and Liam?”

  He waited.

  “We were friends. Not … We weren’t dating or anything. But we’d hang out.”

  “You knew he smoked dope?”

  To give her credit, she held his gaze. But instead of answering she took another sip of wine. At this rate, she’d be on her second by closing time.

  At last she said, “Maybe.”

  “How does that work? Maybe you knew and maybe you didn’t?”

  “I meant …”

  She trailed off.

  “There’s an idea,” he said. “Tell me what you meant.”

  The door opened and men in football kit came in, smelling of sweat and exercise, filling the pub with noise. Bettany didn’t take his eyes off Flea Pointer.

  Who said, “… I only meant, look, I’m sorry, I know it’s hard to hear this, but Liam was twenty-six. If he smoked a little dope now and then, it doesn’t mean anything. He had a good job, and it’s not like he was a stoner, you know? He just used it to relax.”

  “And how about you?”

  “How about me what?”

  “Did you get high with him? Was that one of the things you did when you ‘hung out’?”

  “Mr. Bettany—”

  “It’s just a question. Do I sound angry?”

  He didn’t sound angry.

  “So a simple yes or no will do.”

  “Sometimes,” she said.

  Bettany didn’t reply.

  “Not often. Maybe three times?”

  She made it a question, as if Bettany had been there, and counting.

  “Okay,” he said. “So this dope, where did it come from?”

  “… Mr. Bettany?”

  “Liam get hold of it himself, or did he smoke yours?”

  “I’m not sure I want to answer any more questions.”

  “You probably didn’t want to see Liam cremated either. Life’s tough. You smoked his, didn’t you?”

  She said, “Usually.”

  “Usually?”

  “Always. I’ve never … I wouldn’t know where to get hold of it.”

  This seemed to embarrass her. It was as if she were confessing to never buying her round.

  “And where did Liam get it?”

  An eruption of noise from the bar signalled a successful joke. Glasses rang and money was slapped on wood. A coin dropped into a slot and buttons were punched and the jukebox came to life, its opening notes meeting groans and more laughter. Through all of which Bettany’s gaze remained steady.

  Flea said, “Liam said he usually … scored at a local club. I think he always went to the same guy, because it felt safer that way. But really, you know, it’s not like it’s … It’s barely even against the law any more. It’s not like we’re talking about, I don’t know, coke even.”

  Yeah, because that stuff’ll kill you, Bettany thought.

  Perhaps the same notion struck Flea Pointer, because she coloured.

  The music was getting louder, making the pub seem twice as full. What had been a quiet corner would soon become a crush. This wasn’t a part of the city that saved itself for the weekend, if such parts existed any more.

  Flea reached under the table.

  “This … Here. This is yours.”

  She pushed the bag across the table.

  “I’m so sorry. About everything.”

  He nodded.

  “I don’t know whether you … I mean, there’s a garden of remembrance at the crematorium. Or maybe there’s somewhere special …”

  He said, “Did he say which club?”

  She didn’t pretend not to get his meaning.

  “No,” she said. “He didn’t say which club.”

  He nodded again, collected the tote bag, and left.

  1.9

  So now he was perfectly balanced, Liam’s money in his pocket, Liam’s ashes in his hand. Bettany carried the bag by its handles, scrunching them to reduce their length. When he’d hung it from his shoulder, its cargo banged his hip.

  He had more than enough cash to get drunk. He was out of practice at London drinking, but it wouldn’t be hard to pick up. It was dark, and the evening was swallowing landmarks. The city, like all cities, was offering anonymity.

  Anonymity was what he’d need, in London.

  So he walked the streets and checked what was on offer. It was early for clubs but pubs were available, and wine bars. Other places, he had no idea what they were. Literally. He passed a window through which white walls shone, art hung at well-lit intervals, and he’d have thought it a gallery if there hadn’t been people unfolding menus and laying tables. Every twenty paces, the world changed. Now he was passing a bookie’s and a boarded-up salesroom, now a string of takeaways, Bangladeshi, Japanese, Thai. A dentist’s surgery next to a sex shop. Down a sidestreet brickwork was festooned with graffiti, pop-lettering so stylized he couldn’t make out what it spelt. Beyond that a six-storey building shrouded in canvas, presumably for construction purposes, though the resulting blue cube resembled an artwork.

  You might wonder if this was a functioning district, or just put on for show.

  Among the exhibits, a man wandering the streets, his son’s ashes in a bag.

  Time was they must have walked hand in hand but that was so long ago it didn’t feel like history, more like scenes from a film watched late one night, not paying proper attention. By the time Hannah grew ill, Bettany’s relationship with Liam had fractured beyond repair. Afterwards, there was just the one argument. They had it many times but it was the same one, based on an equation Liam had discovered, tested, and found unanswerable. If Bettany had been a better husband, better father, better man, been around more, Hannah wouldn’t have died.

  That was how the young saw things. If that, then this. If this, then the next thing. Life, to the inexperienced, happened in straight lines.

  Besides, he had been there. His job over, he’d been there for Hannah, for Liam, was making a proper family the way Hannah wanted. But by then, it wasn’t just the three of them. It was four, the newcomer bei
ng the tumour in Hannah’s brain.

  You might find her behaviour … erratic.

  Always good to have advance warning.

  What kind of erratic? he’d asked. As if there were an established procedure he could expect to unfold.

  He was told paranoia was not uncommon.

  As it turned out, advance warning was no help when Hannah ceased to be herself and became the voice of the tumour. Or was she simply venting long-suppressed feelings about his failures as husband, father, man? And how often had Liam overheard her outbursts, which would spring from nowhere? Over breakfast, calm as Sunday morning, she’d look up from her paper and ask how long he’d been fucking Meryl Streep. Or talk about the real family she hoped to be reunited with one day. She’d had names for them, a husband and two daughters. Her proper life.

  Assailed by these thoughts, he needed another drink fast.

  He chose a bar rather than a pub. Laminate flooring and a circular staircase in a corner leading down to toilets. Behind the bar, bowls of lemons and limes next to a wooden chopping board.

  With a frosted bottle of Mexican beer Bettany sat with his back to a wall and watched the crowd develop. The bar was on a main road, and traffic shunted past in stop-start rhythm. Young people drifted by, the girls displaying more leg than the weather warranted, the boys wearing saggy-crotched jeans, their underwear showing. A fashion first practised by someone taking the mick, not that Bettany was an expert, or even welcome here. When he’d ordered a drink the girl had glanced across the room, as if checking with someone before serving him. Whoever the someone was must have been elsewhere.

  He wondered if Liam had come here, whether it was the sort of place Liam had liked. He had no idea of his son’s tastes. Late son. Whether he preferred beer, wine or spirits. Vodka and tequila seemed the current trends—had Liam swum with the tide, or followed his own inclinations? This gave Bettany something to think about while a young man approached. Black, smartly turned out, neat goatee so short it was near invisible. A nametag read TOBIAS.

  “Enjoying your drink, sir?”

  Bettany studied the bottle. It was kind of piss, to be honest. Maybe that showed on his face.

  “So you’ll be leaving after this one then.”

  “Is that a question?”

  “We have a smart code, sir. I was round back when you arrived, or I’d have pointed that out.”

  “So I don’t meet your standards.”

  “Nobody wants trouble.”

  Even for a mid-week evening that was taking a lot for granted, Bettany thought.

  He said, “Mind if I ask you something?”

  A raised eyebrow seemed to be acquiescence.

  Bettany reached inside his coat, and the young man tensed. But when Bettany withdrew his hand, all it held was Liam’s photo.

  “Ever seen this man before?”

  He’d nearly said boy. But the boy was long gone, even more impossibly distant than the man.

  “You a cop?”

  “Don’t cops have a smart code too?”

  Tobias glanced at the photo.

  “He doesn’t look familiar.”

  Bettany tucked it away.

  “You work for the bar?”

  “Can’t you tell?”

  “I meant, this actual bar. Or do you come through an agency?”

  “I work for the bar.”

  “Only I thought that’s how it worked. That door staff, whatever you call yourselves, were supplied by agencies.”

  “We get called lots of things. Some places use agencies, yes. But not us. Nearly finished?”

  “Other places round here use them?”

  “I’m sure some do. Looking for employment, sir?”

  “Lately I’ve mostly worked with meat,” Bettany said.

  “That’s perhaps as well. No offence, but we’re encouraged to maintain high standards of personal hygiene.”

  “Got me there,” Bettany said.

  He drank half of what remained in his bottle and stood.

  “Is it still true that it’s bouncers push most of the drugs round the clubs?”

  “I think you need to leave now.”

  “Ever heard of muskrat?”

  “Now.”

  Bettany went.

  1.10

  The next bar had a bouncer in place, Asian, a barrel of a man in black tie who barely spared Bettany a glance. Further on was a pub, which was more inviting—had a blackboard boasting, with a hint of desperation, of the plasma screen on offer, and the match now kicking off—but Bettany kept walking.

  He was heading away from Liam’s flat. The streets were busier, people out to find a good time or leave a bad one behind, and the air was thickening with cigarettes and traffic and fast food. Smokers huddled round doorways, making stepping out of a modern pub like stepping into an old one.

  Pasted to a bus stop window was a missing poster, a Chinese woman. She looked painfully young.

  He stopped at the next bar, whose bouncer wore a T-shirt. When he showed him Liam’s photo the bouncer stared. At Bettany, not the photo.

  Bettany said, “Do you recognise him?”

  “Nah.”

  “Have you looked?”

  “Move on, yeah?”

  Bettany put the photo away, but stayed where he was.

  “You’re blocking the pavement.”

  “I was looking to score some dope.”

  “You were what?”

  “You heard.”

  The bouncer said, “Funny man. We do open mic on Saturdays. You’d need to tidy up, though.”

  Bettany moved on.

  “And lose twenty years,” came floating in his wake.

  Something wild was tugging at him, something reckless. Maybe a little of Liam’s connectivity, telling him because of that, this.

  One thing happens, so the next thing follows.

  Someone sold Liam muskrat, so Liam smoked it.

  In a pub off the main drag he showed the bartender Liam’s photo, and got another slow response. Asked whether there was a problem with drugs in the area, and got told nothing. Asked again, and got told to leave.

  He left a full pint on the counter, unpaid for.

  Bettany looped a circuit, looking for he didn’t know what. He cut through a playground near an estate comprising a pair of ’60s blocks. Dark oblongs limned in light were drawn curtains, and discs fixed at tangents to balcony railings were TV dishes. The playground was swings and a seesaw and plastic animals swaying tipsily on big springs. A five-a-side pitch carved out by ten feet of wire mesh occupied a corner. A red pinprick winked in the darkness at its far side. He didn’t slow down but watched it glow and fade, and be passed along, and felt the air grow thick again.

  On his second go-round, they emerged from the shadows. Three of them, kids, two boys and one he wasn’t sure, but probably a boy. All mixed race. The tallest called from behind the mesh.

  “What’s in the bag?”

  “Nothing you’d be interested in.”

  “How you know what I’m interested in? You know something about me?”

  Bettany said, “You guys smoke weed at all?”

  “That what’s in the bag?”

  “No. I’m looking to buy.”

  “You got money in the bag?”

  “Ever heard of muskrat?”

  The tall one laughed.

  “We hear of muskrat? That’s sick.”

  The one who might have been a girl made a gun out of finger and thumb, aimed it at Bettany’s head. Pkoo.

  “You a paedo, man? That why you hangin’ round?”

  Pkoo.

  Bettany walked on, tote bag in hand.

  Invisible, painless bullets struck him dead every step of the way.

  He visited more pubs, asked more questions. Nobody was glad to see him. Even those who might have cared, who didn’t take him for a cop but a parent tracking a runaway, wanted him gone.

  “He looks old enough,” said one woman, still in her teens. “He probably ju
st wants his own life, you know?”

  Some places he asked about drugs, whether they were a big problem round here. This wasn’t popular either.

  His first serious run-in came on neutral ground. He’d stopped to collect his bearings and decide which street to try next, knowing that whichever he took there’d be somewhere, a pub, a bar, a café, he could imagine Liam entering. A barber’s window threw his reflection back as he stood there, and in this same window he saw them approaching, a matching pair. Tweedledum was barrel-chested, wore sleeveless leather, and the tattoos gracing his arms formed an intricate narrative that might repay study. Tweedledumber had opted for facial piercings. Both were stubble-haired and lightly goateed.

  “You’re bothering people.”

  It came scraping out of Tweedledumber’s mouth as if some of those piercings had rusted on the inside.

  Bettany didn’t pretend innocence.

  “Just asking a few questions.”

  “There’s a Citizens Advice up the road,” Tweedledum said. “You want answers, there you go. Anywhere else, mind your own business.”

  “Message received.”

  “I hope that’s not a piss-take.”

  Bettany raised his free hand, palm open. “I’m not looking for trouble.”

  “Keep being a bother, it’ll find you anyway.”

  For a moment longer they remained in formation, making it impossible for him to get by without squeezing between them. Then, as if operating on a frequency only they could hear, they moved aside, like an electric gate.

  Bettany passed through.

  Raging Angels. Neon Twist. Nightclubs had once striven for sophistication—Downtown Manhattan, The Mayfair, Tuxedo Junction. These days, implied threat seemed the norm.

  Just short of eleven, he walked into a club while its guardians were occupied. Big front doors gave onto a red staircase with a wide mirror at the bottom, and another door guarded by a youth wearing a MADE IN BRIXTON tee. He did a double-take on seeing Bettany.

  “Friend of Tommy’s,” Bettany said, dropping one of Liam’s twenties on the table and sliding by.

  It wasn’t heaving, but there was a respectable crowd for a Tuesday in a recession. The bar was on a mezzanine with the dance floor below, visible through railings, and looking to Bettany like a wine cellar, stone walls and shallow alcoves. The music was mostly bass, and coloured spotlights looped and spun, overpowered every few beats by klieg lights drowning everything in thick white glare. He turned his back. What did he know? He must look like a bible illustration come to life. A girl shrank as he passed, making a bleuch face for her friends.