Nobody Walks

by Mick Herron

  Something about which thought inevitably led to Vincent.

  Not touching was a thing with Vincent Driscoll, of course, and that wasn’t just about physics, wasn’t just about the physical. She sometimes wondered if he even remembered who she was from day to day. Oh, he had a grasp of her name, and her function—to keep the human elements of the business ticking over without his having to get involved—but all he needed for that was a Post-it on his fridge. The woman you see at work is Flea Pointer. She deals with the people. One quick glance at breakfast, and he’d be up to speed. And while at first she had regarded this with an amusement not untinged with contempt, over the past year it had come to seem less funny, and that slight contempt had turned inward. What did it say about her, that he had so little interest? Zero interest.

  Nothing. She found she was mouthing the word aloud, and disguised this by mouthing another word or two, as if humming a lyric or rehearsing a shopping list, then glanced around to see who was staring at the mad lady. But nobody was staring at the mad lady. Everyone had their own bubble they were trying not to burst.

  But nothing. That was what it said about her. Vincent was Vincent, and Flea Pointer could be … Kylie Minogue, it wouldn’t make a difference. Talk about being inside your own bubble. Vincent, famously, had written Shades in his teenage bedroom, and to all purposes he was in there still, building it anew each morning. Boo Berryman aside, he didn’t have close relationships, and he was only close to Boo so Boo could keep everyone else away. Throwing around words like Asperger’s was a cliché—the slightest indication of indifference, and onlookers started clucking about where you fell on the spectrum. And that went tenfold if you worked in IT. So it would be easy to write Vincent off as someone for whom intimate relationships were like trying to breathe on the moon, but Flea thought, had always thought, that the truth lay elsewhere. That all that was really needed was for someone to find the key to his bedroom door, and let him out.

  Here was her stop. Abandoning her survey of the city’s mad dance, she made her way down the stairs and joined it briefly, before leaving the pavement for the towpath, and heading for Lunchbox.

  Today, she had not thought about Liam until leaving her flat. She thought about him now, though, about the little hole his absence would make in her day. Soon she would have to raise the matter with Vincent, in fact. Talk about recruitment. Though she had the feeling that this wasn’t going to happen, that Liam didn’t need replacing because Liam had been the gimmick hire, a phrase she couldn’t swear to anyone having used, yet which had seemed to hang in the air somehow. Liam had been a sweet guy, but he wouldn’t have been there if he hadn’t been the first one to play Shades properly. Something nobody ever said because everybody knew.

  She wondered if that included Liam. Rooting in her bag for her keyring, she wondered if that had been the reason he’d spent so much time doing dope.

  Here were her keys. She used them, stepped inside, and felt resistance as she pushed the door closed behind her, the sudden bulk of a body blocking her, and

  panic

  it was amazing how swiftly it descended, dropped like a net. It was what the city trained you for. All that crazy pavement stuff happened in public, but anywhere you were alone, the possibility of contact increased. Both kinds of contact, good and bad.

  Mostly bad.

  “Get off me!”

  She was inside Lunchbox, her everyday destination, and someone had come in with her. His big hands were guiding her in, keeping her facing forwards, while he kicked the door shut behind them. The grey morning light was replaced by its green-tinted replica. The floor was a big shiny rink.

  There was nobody here. She was always first.

  “Get off—”

  “Flea.”

  Released, she jumped forward, out of the reach of the intruder’s grasp. The nearest phone was on the nearest desk—no, the nearest phone was in her bag, but if she got tangled up trying to retrieve it, he might—

  “Flea.”

  She reached the desk, grabbed the phone, and yelped as an alien hand slammed it back down. He’d moved so fast, was right with her still—

  “Flea,” Bettany said again. “It’s me.”

  And barely flinched at all when she slapped his face as hard as she could.

  “You mad bastard!”

  She swung at him again, a blow easily avoided.

  He caught her by the wrist.

  “You want to stop this now.”

  “Stop this? Stop this?”

  For some reason his instruction snagged on her mind.

  “You want me to stop this?”

  He released her and she swung again immediately, both hands this time. She wanted to claw his eyes out. She’d been kind to him, this mad bastard, she’d been kind to him when Liam died, and look how he’d repaid her.

  And then he had her wrist again and this time he spun her round so he was spooning her upright, and his free hand clamped across her mouth just as she was about to scream.

  It was as easy as this, she thought. Middle of the city. You could be murdered as easily as this, and the world would keep spinning, and no one would come to your rescue.

  “I really need you to be quiet,” he said.

  Her heart was going to burst.

  He removed his hand.

  “I’m not here to hurt you.”

  “Then why—you frightened me—”

  And hadn’t stopped frightening her, in fact, because she could feel something pressing against her, something in his coat pocket, something hard and metal and unforgiving.

  “Is that—?”

  He released her, and she half-stepped half-staggered away from him and came to a bump against a desk.

  “What’s that in your pocket?”

  “There’s something I need you to do.”

  “Is that a gun?”

  “Flea? Your colleagues. When do they usually get here?”

  “You came here with a gun?”

  “I need you to make sure they don’t come in. Are you listening?”

  Flea ran.

  4.4

  Earlier that morning, Boo Berryman had been for a jog—the sky dark and the air damp. The tube ran overland near Vincent’s house, and one rattled past as Boo entered the narrow lane to the common. It held few passengers. From Boo’s perspective they looked frozen in place, a tableau of raincoat, misted window and conversation-proof newspaper.

  He rounded the common counterclockwise three times. Dog-walkers made tracks here and there, their charges snuffling busily in their wake, and a few other joggers overtook him as he ran. Boo wasn’t built for speed, but the early shift appealed to him. The air tasted different then.

  The slapping of feet on wet grass. The barking of dogs. Another train rattled past, heading the other way. Even emptier, that direction.

  A lot of joggers listened to their iPods as they ran. Others used the time “to think.” For Boo it was a clearing out. For however long it took him he was simply a body on the move, a machine going through its paces. His brain registered the physical effort he was making, and dimly catalogued surroundings, and that was all.

  Circuits done, Boo slowed to a walk. His knee was protesting, and he knew better than to force it into submission. Back at the lane he did his stretches before heading for the pavement, and falling back into the day.

  Bishop must have dozed off in his chair because he definitely came round from something, a sensation of weight being let slip. His hands were empty. He blinked, worked out where he was, and reached for his phone.

  “Yeah, it’s me again. Okay, listen, that barman reckons he saw Boyd? Says he was carrying his son’s ashes in a bag. Yeah, I know. So maybe it’s crazy, but what if it isn’t? Maybe Boyd was out on the streets same night he saw his kid burned, maybe that’s what sent him mad enough to show his face again … Yeah. So first thing, or make that now, get some bodies round the local crems, crematoria, see who they had on their books Tuesday … What? It’s the plural. I
t is. Look, just get it done. We’re looking for someone the right age to be Boyd’s son, so anyone up to, I don’t know, mid-twenties. No, not called Boyd. Anything but Boyd … Okay. And make it fast.”

  The letting slip sensation, Bishop had been dreaming he’d been carrying that bag himself. One of the gifts the sleeping world bequeaths to the waking. And that was another thought that drifted away like smoke as he gathered his daytime self around him, and wondered whether it was too soon to let the Brothers McGarry know it was happening at last, their revenge taking shape.

  But no. Leave it be for now, he decided.

  Wait until they had the actual Martin Boyd nailed down tight, no disappointments. After that, well, everybody’s day could only get better.

  Guest of honour excepted, of course.

  Boo didn’t yet know Vincent’s plans, but hoped he’d opt for the office. It wasn’t good for Vincent to go hermit. Boo thought of it like wandering into a forest. Vincent liked it because it was peaceful and shady and he could hear himself think, but there was always the danger that if he wandered too far, he’d not find his way back.

  Boo’s job, as he’d always understood it, was to make sure that never happened.

  He let himself into the kitchen, scooping a towel from the back of a chair, throwing it round his neck. There was a warmth in the air. Putting a palm to the kettle, he could tell it had recently boiled. An early morning, which meant Vincent was planning to head into Lunchbox. Boo’s spirits lightened.

  Maybe today would be a good day.

  The next time Marten Saar showed his face, the sun had made inroads on the day. His renewed acquaintance with the girls in his bedroom had left him a little less restless, a little more relaxed, and altogether readier to face the view from his window, which was more clearly delineated now. Harsh lines kept the buildings separate, the traffic had rediscovered primary colours, and if the ghosts on the pavement were still ant-sized, there were more of them. He lit a cigarette, an action performed so fluently it might not have occurred to him he was doing so.

  He was thinking about the Cousins’ Circle again.

  At some point during the last couple of hours, when to all obvious intent his mind, like the rest of him, was occupied with anything but business, he’d arrived at a decision. Which was that he’d agree to Oskar’s strategy. The lean years were behind them at last, and the current success would mean nothing if they didn’t build. This twenty-second floor had been hard-won, but it was an eyrie, not an empire, and if the next step required dangerous alliance, so be it. That was how wars were won. He could all but hear those words rasping from his friend’s tobacco-mangled throat. And there was no shame in a general taking advice from a street-fighter. Oskar was wily. He’d run rings round the local Blues last year, when they’d held him for shooting a hard-case. If Marten was going to make cause with the Cousins he wanted Oskar beside him, ensuring these new friends stayed honest.

  Two more good years. Three. Then he’d swap this shit-hole in the sky for someplace more solid, where he could feel London’s rumblings through his boots.

  Rumblings there were up here too, but just the usual ones. Noises from bedrooms, from the plasma screen, from the kitchen, the usual guttural rumblings of men feeding and buffing themselves and lazing about, waiting for instructions or the promise of action. No knowing how they’d take the thought of allying themselves with another crew, especially a bigger one, stronger and more Russian. Except that it didn’t matter how they’d take the thought, all that mattered was they do the deed. Take their orders, carry them out. Nobody had to be told that their lock on the market wouldn’t last forever. Adapt and thrive. It wasn’t just market sense, it was evolution.

  Oskar would appreciate that, Marten decided, but calling his name got no response. He asked where he’d got to, but drew a blank. Oskar had gone out. Nobody knew where.

  It didn’t please Marten. What was the point of a right hand if it detached itself at will? But he’d be back, and arrangements would be made, and next steps taken, alliances forged.

  Meanwhile, he’d go shower.

  There was only one candidate. Nice, the way things sometimes turned out. The only body fed to the flames in N1 Tuesday last who wasn’t old, female or black was one Liam Bettany, whose address Bishop now had.

  Clickety-click, he thought. The sound you got if you listened carefully to a lock being turned, the tumblers falling. Clickety-click. Someone released, someone shut in.

  The kid had died in a fall from a window, high on dope. Put that together with Boyd, who was maybe called Bettany, going looking for dealers, making use of old contacts to get a gun, and what you had was your basic revenge scenario.

  Once you knew what someone was doing, the second-guess became possible.

  Muskrat came from a single source, an Estonian crew headed by Marten Saar, who’d been a gutter rat for decades but was lately thinking big. His next-man-down was Oskar Kask, and Bishop had had dealings with him. He was a short man, lazy-looking eyes, but it would be an idea not to be taken in by either because his height didn’t matter and his laziness was a mask. Bishop recognised the signs. A repressed electric charge throbbed off Oskar Kask, as if he were looking for an excuse to do you harm. If Boyd/Bettany was planning on taking on that crew, it was really only Kask he had to worry about.

  But that was a worry he’d be saved from. There’d be no joy for the Brothers McGarry if Boyd wound up stuffed in someone else’s dustbin. They wanted something to take the chill off the long locked-in evenings, which meant a few farewell words of apology and terror, followed by drawn-out suffering. Something they could replay over and over, without getting tired of.

  Clickety-click. It was only fourteen hours since Martin Boyd had picked up the gun, and he’d hardly expect them to be this close already. But the kind of luck he’d been living on couldn’t last forever. Even he must know that. Or soon would.

  4.5

  Bettany caught her by the stairs, his hand round her elbow. He pushed her against the wall.

  “Flea. Listen.”

  “You’re here to kill him!”

  “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “Then why have you got a gun?”

  She was shouting. This was no good. This wasn’t the calm exchange of information he’d been hoping for.

  “Flea—”

  “Don’t touch me.”

  He had to know when others would start turning up. Had to make sure they didn’t.

  “Look—”

  There was a loud banging on glass.

  The pair froze, as if both were guilty.

  The letterbox rattled, and someone called through it.

  “Flea? That you? Let us in, will ya?”

  “Haydn,” whispered Flea.

  “Can he—”

  “No. Not through the tinted glass.”

  “I know you’re there. Stop messing around.”

  “He’s always forgetting his key,” she whispered.

  “Get rid of him.”

  “Why don’t you just shoot him?”

  “I’m not here to shoot anyone. Look, just trust me, okay?”

  “Trust you?”

  “Flea! The door?”

  “I don’t even know you. You turned up out of nowhere with a beard. Now it’s like you’re someone else. And I don’t know either of you!”

  Bettany took half a moment to work his way through that one.

  “Just get rid of him, can you do that? I’m not here to hurt anyone, but we really don’t need company.”

  “And what if I just run? What if I open the door for him and leg it down the street? Will you follow? With your gun?”

  “No,” he said. “I won’t.”

  The look on her face suggested she’d been expecting a threat.

  “You were Liam’s friend,” he said. “Can you be mine too?”

  “Flea! Open the bloody door, woman!”

  She said, “If you’re lying …”

  But there was no
where for that sentence to go.

  He stood by the stairs while she went to the front door and opened it a notch. He couldn’t hear precisely what she said, but it included the words Vincent, home and today.

  It was effective enough. A moment later she was closing the door, walking back.

  He said, “The others. They’ll start arriving soon, right?”

  “What do you want me to do about it?”

  Challenging now, as if she’d weighed up the whole matter of the gun he was carrying, and decided it wasn’t all that.

  “Call them,” he said. “Put them off.”

  “I’m not going to help you hurt Vincent.”

  “I don’t want you to. I just want you to keep your colleagues out of the way.”

  “Because you think he had something to do with Liam’s death.”

  “And what if he did?”

  “He didn’t.”

  “But what if—”

  “He didn’t.”

  It wasn’t clear which of them was most taken aback by her vehemence.

  He said, “I just need to ask him a few questions.”

  “You already did that.”

  “This time he’ll answer them.”

  “Because you’ve got a gun.”

  “I’m not going to hurt him, Flea. I promise.”

  She shook her head.

  “Will you call them?”

  Flea stared at him long and hard, apparently believing this would impress upon him the serious consequences that might yet befall him. It made him want to smile. Before he could succumb to the temptation, she produced her mobile and began the process of telling her colleagues not to come in today.

  Bettany paced, walked off his adrenalin spike. He’d had no sleep—when you were making enemies, even small ones like JK Coe, lazy ones like Dancer Blaine, you didn’t rest your head in the usual places. Not until you were ready for them to find you.