by Mick Herron
She thanked him, said that was all, and he left.
There was a white phone—rotary dial—on an otherwise bare table, desk height, and she picked this up and rang a number from memory.
“It’s me.”
“He’s made his move.”
“Good.”
“Not entirely.”
She said, “Choose your words carefully.”
“Plan A didn’t happen.”
She thought about this, and the voice down the line went quiet while she did so.
Thinking about it, though, wasn’t going to get anyone far. There’d only ever been two plans, A and B. A had been for Tom Bettany to put a bullet in Vincent Driscoll’s head. B was messier, but would get the job done.
“All right,” she said. “You know what to do.”
He hung up without replying, as she’d known he would. He wasn’t a joe but he had a joe’s bones, using few words and leaving few traces. And knew there was no point discussing what was, when you came down to it, an order.
She recradled the receiver, a small part of her brain enjoying the old-fashionedness of the action, once an everyday occurrence, but increasingly retro. Mostly, though, she was shuffling cards in her head. Plan B was now plan A. Proceed accordingly, she told herself. Wiping all trace of plan A from her mind, she left the room to find the really quite attractive young man with a Security laminate waiting.
Behind her, the room carried on quietly buzzing.
4.8
The shot set the lightbulbs humming.
Boo Berryman, give him credit, leaped forward. If he’d rung a bell first, he couldn’t have given more warning. Stepping aside, Bettany cracked his head with the gun as he passed. Boo hit the floor with a thud that shook more plaster from the fresh hole in the wall.
Flea’s short sharp cry added a higher pitch to the mix.
Ignoring Bettany, Vincent Driscoll stepped forward and knelt by Boo’s side.
“Did you have to do that?”
“Instinct,” said Bettany.
Partly true, but he didn’t like being jumped at.
The noises shivered away.
Berryman groaned.
“I don’t know what to do,” Vincent said.
He was looking at Flea.
“There’s a first aid kit downstairs.”
“He’ll be okay,” Bettany said. “It was only a tap.”
A further groan from Boo suggested a second opinion.
“Make him sit up.”
Vincent struggled with the recumbent Boo, and Flea came forward to help.
Bettany stepped aside, looking towards the window again. Whatever had flashed earlier wasn’t flashing now. Either it or the sun had moved.
“Why did you shoot?”
“Mmm?”
“For God’s sake … You could have killed someone.”
“I wanted to know what would happen.”
He was distracted, focused on what was—or wasn’t—going on through the window. Then he snapped back to himself.
“Sit him up against the wall.”
“He’s bleeding.”
“It’s just a scrape. He’ll be fine.”
“I think he’s concussed.”
“He’ll be fine.”
Vincent rose. For the first time in Bettany’s experience, he seemed totally present. He said, “What just happened?”
“I pointed a gun at you. Fired it. In full view of that window.”
“And what did that tell you?”
“That someone wants you dead,” said Bettany.
Vincent wore much the expression he adopted when faced with a programming problem. It spoke of enjoyable puzzlement.
“How does firing a gun at me prove that?”
“It tells me that nobody’s looking out for you.”
From the floor, Boo Berryman groaned.
“Okay, Tarzan did his best. But I was warned off you by some serious people, and they knew the warning didn’t take. If it had, I’d be long gone.” He paused. “London isn’t a healthy place for me.”
“He’s a spy,” Flea said.
“Used to be. But the point is, if my former employers really wanted to keep you safe, they’d have someone watching your back. And the moment I raised a gun in full view of that window, I’d have been dead.”
Vincent looked towards the window, as if it offered proof of this assertion. But the proof was a negative. There were clear angles of sight through the windows to the rooftops opposite, where no marksmen waited, keeping an eye on Vincent Driscoll.
“There was someone there,” Bettany said. “On a rooftop, other side of the canal. They’re gone now. But they were watching to see what happened. And the fact that they didn’t try to stop me means they wanted me to do it.”
“Shoot me.”
Bettany nodded.
Flea said, “Warned you off how?”
Bettany’s reply was directed at Vincent. “I was told you had nothing to do with Liam’s death. Which meant one of two things.”
From the floor, Boo Berryman spoke. “That he had nothing to do with Liam’s death,” he said. “Or else he had everything to do with it.”
“Told you he’d be okay,” Bettany said.
“Bastard,” Boo said.
He was slurring, but not badly. The graze on his temple looked nasty though, a rough red slice of skin.
Vincent said, “Someone told you I was innocent to make you think the opposite?”
“Like pinning a target on your back.”
“So someone set me up.”
“Set us both up. Me to kill you. You to be dead.”
“Why?”
“There’s a question. Who’ve you upset lately?”
Vincent said, “I don’t go round upsetting people.”
“Really? What about your shareholders?”
Flea said, “Oh, God.”
“Brand new product, long-awaited by all your fans. Part three in a successful series. And you’re planning on giving it away like something in a cereal box.”
Bettany put the gun back in his pocket.
He said, “You can see how that might make some people tetchy.”
“I’ve explained that. It’s not like—”
“You’re missing the point. What happens if you die?”
Vincent said, “I’ve not really given it any thought.”
Still sitting, Boo said, “He means to the company. To Lunchbox.”
“My shares will be sold. Current shareholders get preferential rates …”
“And plans will change,” said Bettany. “Specifically, the one involving giving your product away.”
“Oh …”
“Yeah. Oh. You might want to give that some thought.” He turned to leave.
Flea said, “Hey!”
“What?”
“You can’t just go!”
He hesitated. “Do you trust me?”
“What?”
“Do you trust me?”
“… I don’t know.”
“Well do,” he said, and left.
Boo said, “Could someone get me a glass of water?”
Bettany’s footsteps had faded away.
“Please?”
“I’ll go,” Flea said.
She headed off down to the kitchen area.
Once she’d gone, Boo said, “Vincent?”
“It’s coming. She’s gone for some water.”
“He’s right, you know,” Boo said.
“About what?”
“You’re in danger. Somebody wants you dead because you’re planning on giving away a fortune.”
Vincent said, “There’s not going to be a fortune.”
“Yeah, but—”
“It’d sell a few thousand copies at best. To completists. The thing is, Boo, it’s really not very good.”
“Will you shut up a second?”
Vincent frowned.
Boo heaved himself upright, and rubbed the ugly mark on his temple. Then he
shook his head, as if having trouble focusing. He said, “God, that’s gonna hurt tomorrow. Hurts today, if you want to know the truth.”
“There’s a first aid kit somewhere. Flea will find it.”
Boo gripped Vincent’s elbow.
“Listen to me. It doesn’t matter what Shades 3’s like, it’s still going to make somebody a fortune if they can stop you giving it away. If you die, that plan’s buried with you. And let’s face it, you being dead’ll make pretty good publicity.”
Vincent said, “Could you let go of my elbow please?”
“Sorry.”
“I know you’re looking out for me. I’m just finding all this a little hard to believe.”
“That guy shot at you. Here. In your office. And you’re still having trouble believing something’s up?”
“His son died. He’s upset.”
“So am I. He hit me, you probably noticed. But he’s not the one we need to be worrying about, Vincent. He’s not the one who wants you dead.”
Then Boo paused.
He said, “Did you hear that?”
4.9
Oskar Kask entered through the towpath door, having crossed the canal by the arching brick bridge. The rooftop from which he’d been watching events inside Lunchbox was the garden of an apartment block, not two hundred yards distant, and he suspected Bettany had seen him there, or seen something. A sunflash off his binoculars, his own sudden movement. He hadn’t told Dame Spook this. She would have wondered whether it had skewed the result, becoming the reason why Bettany buried the bullet in the wall instead of in Driscoll’s head.
The door to the building opened with a hiss. The floor was clean, hard, tiled. He crossed it making little noise, but not caring unduly if he did. Speed mattered more than stealth.
Upstairs, the talking stopped.
Halfway up to the first landing, he produced an automatic from a shoulder holster, and began screwing a silencer onto its barrel.
“It was Flea.”
“Flea didn’t go out,” Boo said. “That was the front door.”
He was on his feet, putting a hand to his head. His palm came away moist.
“Call the police,” he said.
“What are you doing?”
“Call the police. And lock the door. Does this door lock? Lock it.”
“Boo—”
But Boo was already lumbering from the office. The jarring motion as he pulled the door shut set his head ringing. Damn Bettany for clubbing him when he needed to be sharp.
A man was coming up the stairs, a short man with frizzy hair and a heavy blue chin. He held a gun in one hand.
Boo’s morning kaleidoscoped, and trains rattled past. The slapping of feet on wet grass and the barking of dogs. The warmth of the kettle against his palm. His knee gave a twinge, and his head was abuzz, and he’d spent the past six years half-expecting a moment like this one, and here it was. If he didn’t feel ready, that was just how life worked. You were never ready for the really bad moments.
The man levelled his gun at Boo as he crested the stairs, moving swiftly towards him.
Then Tom Bettany stepped out of Flea Pointer’s office and pressed the barrel of his own gun to the man’s temple.
“Drop it.”
The man stopped, dropped his gun and raised his hands, without—it seemed to Boo—altering the blank expression on his face.
Bettany kicked the gun away.
Boo said, “So you came back.”
“I never left. Ever seen him before?”
Boo shook his head, then realised Bettany wasn’t watching him. His eyes were fixed on the newcomer. He said, “No. Never.”
“Well, take a good look now. He came here to kill your boss.”
“You know who he is?”
“I know he likes to hang around crematoriums. You bring your thermos with you?”
The man’s lip twitched, but he said nothing.
“What’s going on? Who’s he?”
It was Flea, coming up the stairs behind them, a glass of water in one hand and a plastic first-aid satchel in the other.
“Tom?”
“He came back,” Boo said.
Flea stopped on the staircase. She could only see the back of the newcomer’s head, but the gun on the floor told half the story, and Bettany’s gun told the other.
“You knew he was coming.”
“I warned you.”
“No, you knew.”
She put the first-aid kit on the stair in front of her.
Bettany said, “I told you Driscoll was in danger.”
“You didn’t tell us he was bait.”
“He’s still alive, isn’t he?”
As if to settle this matter, Vincent stepped into the hallway.
He said, “I couldn’t call the police. My phone’s in the car.”
Bettany glanced towards him, and the gunman made his move.
PART FIVE
5.1
He was half a second off his game. Maybe less.
Enough of a gap for the gunman to slip through.
Bettany had glanced away and the stranger had been waiting. He didn’t go for his weapon, which was smart, because that was on the floor behind Bettany.
He went for Flea Pointer instead.
Who screamed.
Bettany levelled his gun at the man’s head but couldn’t get a clean sight, because the man had an arm round Flea’s neck, and had swung her in front of him.
“Let her go.”
That was Driscoll.
Bettany didn’t speak. He moved sideways, arms outstretched, gun level. The man retreated in synch, Flea’s heels dragging on the floor.
“Let her go!”
“Shut. Up,” Bettany said.
Flea’s eyes were wide as doorways, and she was gripping the man’s arm with both hands but couldn’t speak. A gurgling noise was all she could manage.
Bettany changed sides and still the man moved with him, edging back towards the stairs, half his head shielded by Flea’s.
There was a yard between them, if that. A yard and Flea Pointer, whose face was scarlet.
Now Berryman spoke.
“We can take him.”
Flea’s frantic look suggested otherwise.
“Stay back,” Bettany said without turning.
“He won’t hurt her. He won’t dare.”
“Stay. Back.”
It was noise. The two men behind him, Flea herself, were noise. Only the signal mattered. The signal was the gunman. It was what his eyes broadcast. That was where Bettany would read the future, or the next little fragment of it.
And the signal passed both ways, because every move he made, the other echoed.
They’d slow-waltzed to the top of the staircase. Without looking behind, the gunman sensed this and halted.
His hair was a grey frizz, his eyes dark. Like a rubber ball, he radiated the impression of stored kinetic energy.
Had he killed Liam?
Bettany pushed the thought away. The man was Ingrid Tearney’s tool, that was clear, but all that mattered now was whether he’d hurt Flea Pointer before Bettany could take him down.
He said, “Let her go.”
No reply.
“You can’t make it down the stairs. Not without releasing her. Let her go.”
There was movement behind him and Bettany cursed inwardly but didn’t turn.
The man said, “I could break her neck.”
Was that an American accent? But he might be disguising his voice, or parroting English learned at his television’s knee.
Bettany said, “And you’ll be dead the next second.”
“You don’t want to kill me.”
Boo Berryman said, “Maybe I do. Let her go.”
He’d picked up the discarded gun and held it the same way Bettany held his, right hand clasped around the handle, left hand steadying his wrist, with the crucial difference that the idiot didn’t know what he was doing.
A brief smile tic
kled the lip of the gunman.
Bettany said, “Put that down. Get back in the office. Leave this to me.”
“This is my job.”
“It’s not a job, you moron—”
And there was the second gap.
Bettany’d barely flicked his eyes Boo’s way but it was enough, because Flea Pointer was crashing into him and he only just had time to raise the gun, point it ceilingwards in case the contact caused him to pull the trigger. It didn’t, but the impact of Flea’s body knocked him down anyway—
“Stop!”
That was Boo, standing at the top of the stairs, pointing the gun at the fleeing stranger’s back.
“Stop!”
But he didn’t. He took the stairs a flight at a time, leaping down to each landing like an Olympian in a hurry.
Bettany tried to get up, but Flea was clinging to him.
“Couldn’t … breathe …”
“I need to get after him—”
“Here.”
Vincent Driscoll prised her loose.
She went to him readily, wrapping her arms round him while she sobbed and gasped for air.
Bettany scrabbled to his feet and took off.
Boo Berryman was left standing, the gun he’d snatched hanging heavy at his side. He said “Stop” again, but mostly to himself, and nobody noticed.
Two drops of water raced each other down the window pane, enjoying random bursts of speed they then frittered away on unnecessary diversions. Before either reached the sill, JK Coe lost patience with them. He wanted to raise a hand and smash the glass. That he didn’t spoke more of torpor than restraint.
He was in his kitchen. Coming on lunchtime, but he wasn’t hungry. If he ate he’d throw up everywhere, and that would be another room closed to him, another place he couldn’t stand to be. His sitting room was already out of bounds, where Thomas Bettany had robbed him of … He couldn’t list precisely what Bettany had stolen, but knew he was no longer the person he’d been. Once you’d faced torture, even if that torture never laid blade on skin, you were diminished. You knew the floor of your own fear, and how it felt to be dragged along its surface.
One drop of water won the race, and the other lost. Coe had forgotten which was which.
