by Mick Herron
Chapman went white.
Faulks said, ‘City policing’s bad enough without your lot importing toerags then arming them. The boss says you’re keeping a zip on who this menace is. That’s help-ful, thanks. Any deaths today, we’ll know where to send the bill.’
Chapman put a hand to his chest . . .
And the angry cop who was also a decent man regis-tered that the fucking spook might be sick.
‘Oh Christ, that’s all we need . . . You okay?’
Sam Chapman gasped for air, nodded; waved a hand about, as if ushering away whatever bad angel had kissed him. But he didn’t look okay; looked like he needed to lie down.
Faulks said, ‘There’s a medic. I’ll –’
‘No.’
‘Well, you look like –’ Tact kept Faulks from finishing. He glanced around. Beyond them the fourth estate was gathering, along with the usual suspects: locals who hadn’t seen this much excitement since a house had blown up a few years back. Faulks had better things to do than babysit a spy. But couldn’t let the man die in the street: it wouldn’t show up well on his Performance Development Review.
‘You want to sit?’
‘I’m okay.’ But then he said, ‘Maybe for a moment. Fuck. This never happened before.’
He looks scared, Faulks thought.
The nearest police car was empty, parked in front of the big house that was the only non-nursery building on the business side of the cordon. Faulks led Chapman to it, inwardly cursing; hoping this would be one of those swiftly resolved episodes whereby Chapman would sit down, perk up, then bugger off in quick succession. Colour was already returning to his cheeks, though he stumbled as they reached the car door and leant heavily against Faulks.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbled.
‘I’m calling a medic,’ Faulks said. ‘Better safe than –’
‘No.’ Chapman eased himself on to the back seat, feet on the pavement, and fumbled a packet of cigarettes from his jacket. ‘I’m okay. Just need to sit for a moment.’
‘You sure that’s wise?’
‘Sitting never hurt.’
Faulks didn’t pursue it. He eyed Chapman: the man was physically Faulks’ opposite: thin, pale, dark – Faulks got stick for his weight and florid complexion, but he wasn’t the one who’d just strayed on to heart-murmur territory. A cloud of smoke proved Chapman was still breathing.
Chapman looked up. ‘See? Told you I was okay.’
‘You want a check-up.’
‘I want a lot of things. Mostly, I want to be on the other side of that fence.’
‘Not going to happen. You’re wanted back at the office.’ Chapman stood. ‘Bloody pencil pushers. Bane of every profession.’
‘Take it up with your bosses. You can walk, right?’
The spy nodded. Whatever had scared him – caused him to turn white – had receded; in its place was that cynical mask he’d worn on arrival. But Faulks believed in certain adult characteristics; that when you’d just showed compassion, for instance, it would be acknowledged. ‘I nearly applied for Six once,’ he said.
‘Standards have dropped. You should try again.’
Faulks had preferred him when he was having a heart attack.
Chapman watched him go. Turning pale was an old trick: he used to practise in front of a mirror, armed with bad memories. Whistler’s BlackBerry in his pocket, he left before Faulks noticed his own was empty.
Ben said, ‘I didn’t send anyone to kill you.’
‘I arrange to meet, you send men to kill me.’
‘Whoah. Slow down. When did we arrange to meet? I never heard of you before this morning.’
‘I leave message.’
‘You left me a message?’
‘I ring your telephone. I leave you message.’
‘You rang my mobile?’
‘No. I ring your office.’
‘. . . When?’
‘Last night.’
Ben said, ‘I think we’d better back up a bit. I didn’t receive any message. All I know is what I’ve learned this morning, and what I see in front of me now. If anyone tried to kill you, it had nothing to do with me.’
The boy blinked slowly. Whether he believed him or not, Ben couldn’t tell.
Louise Kennedy said, ‘What’s any of this got to do with us?’
Ben said, ‘Let me handle this, okay?’
‘No, it’s not okay. You have no more idea of what’s going on than we do. And we’re the ones who’ve spent the past few hours at gunpoint.’
‘This’ll be a lot easier if –’ ‘Quiet!’
They both shut up.
The boy said, ‘I have the gun. You talk to me only.’
Ben looked at Louise, and nodded slightly. What the nod meant – do as he tells us; you have a point; fancy a drink after? – neither could have said.
The boys increased their grip on Eliot’s legs. Since their trip to the bathroom, they’d said little. Eliot wondered what the effect of stress on young minds was, and how long they could endure this without snapping. Maybe they would emerge physically intact; maybe Ben Whistler’s arrival signalled the beginning of the end of their ordeal. But it wasn’t happening soon enough, and the damage already done might linger, infecting the remainder of his sons’ childhood.
It was tempting to slip away from the present. To slip back on to his mental spacecraft, and sail into darkness until all this went away . . .
The Gun said ‘Quiet!’ and a hush fell on the room.
Outside it was quiet too, though there had to be activity there. The kind Eliot had frequently seen on TV: drama, mostly, and the occasional slice of news coverage, which always seemed less urgent than fiction. In real life events stretched into hours, with no slow fade to indicate time’s passage. Updates between regular programmes failed to convey the painful drag of the minutes crawling by inside the building. Perhaps those outside thought they felt the tension too – it can be stressful waiting for something bad to happen. But it was a lot more stressful when you were the one it might happen to.
Tear gas and SWAT teams – did the British police have SWAT teams? It was frightening how much of life was coloured by the American version: books, TV, films. You could be so clued into contemporary culture that you lost touch with the way things were . . . Which wasn’t the issue right now: the issue was, why hadn’t they used tear gas, or SWAT teams or whatever? And the answer was, because that was a last resort. Introducing smoke and more guns increased the chances of hostages being hurt, and would not happen while there was a chance this boy could be talked out of the room.
The new guy, Ben Whistler, said, ‘You’re a friend of Miro Weiss.’
‘Yes.’
‘His boyfriend.’
‘We were lovers, yes.’
What was this, a soap opera? Eliot looked at Louise, but Louise wasn’t looking back. The Memory whimpered at the back of his mind, but it turned into a story that had happened to different people. His sons’ bodies pulsed beneath his palms. They didn’t know what he’d done to them. If not for the Memory, the three of them would have arrived at the nursery later. They’d have been home now; the twins playing in the back room, while he and Chris huddled on the sofa, watching the what-if unfold on TV, all of it happening to others. And it would have seemed slow and unreal; would have begged for a fade-out, or the merciful release of a commercial break.
‘Being private is not the same as lonely,’ Jaime was saying.
Ben said, ‘That’s true.’
‘And you were his friend too, yes? He spoke of you.’
He was losing it – Eliot was losing it. He hugged his children closer, the effort of maintaining a gentle pressure beyond him. And he looked at Louise again, and this time their eyes met, and for Eliot that moment felt like sanctuary – carried him out of the here and now to a place with-out guns, and reminded him, as precisely as an anatomical drawing, of the first time they’d shared a glance, in a school up the north end of the city. It didn’t seem likely rig
ht now that that could have happened. On the other hand, it hadn’t seemed too realistic at the time, either.
Something in Louise’s eyes clouded, then cleared. She was remembering too, he realized. And as she looked away he hugged his boys tighter, and allowed himself the release of stepping back in time five days.
He had been roped into it, was the funny thing – not that he couldn’t do quizzes. His general knowledge, he guessed, probably ranked in the top ten per cent nation-ally; his particular strengths being those of any graduate his age: contemporary literature, seventies TV, late eighties pop and pre-Blair politics – well, contemporary lit minus the last four years. Having children was a learning curve all its own, but did tend to exclude you from other fields of knowledge. Anyway, perhaps he’d mentioned this once too often at the office, because suddenly he was on a team for a quiz event, raising funds for a local school.
‘I won’t know anyone there,’ he’d told Christine. ‘Just Lizzie.’ His colleague, who’d pressganged him. ‘And seven hours a day of her’s more than enough.’
Chris said, ‘Oh, go. At least you won’t sit slumped in front of the box all night.’
While I do all the work was her unspoken corollary – by which she meant, of course, all the work he didn’t do, which included washing up, laundry, playing with the boys while she spent an hour in the bath; not to mention actually going out and working all day long. A typically unfair accusation, then, and all the more so for remaining unspoken. He wasn’t even allowed to defend himself. If he tried, she’d point out she hadn’t said anything.
Slumped in front of the box, too: that wasn’t him. He didn’t do that. Using the remote, he’d switched it off, and reached for the paper. ‘Okay, then,’ he’d said. ‘It’s next Tuesday.’ So I won’t be around to do the washing up was what he meant, but that, too, remained unsaid.
So the following Tuesday, mid-evening, Eliot caught a bus up the other end of the city: this because Chris needed the car first thing in the morning, and it was outside the house right then, but they’d lose the space if he used it, and then she’d have to cart the boys round the block look-ing for it and . . . Nothing was ever simple any more. Even the simple stuff was complicated. Eliot couldn’t fill the kettle without being told he was doing it wrong, and if the stated reason for whatever error he was committing always sounded reasonable at the time, it nevertheless felt like Chris was pursuing a hidden agenda, designed to underline how useless he was at everything.
At the school he made his way to the hall without seeing anyone he knew, and for a few moments stood watching people clustered round tables, laughing and talking. It occurred to him that he could slip quietly away now and do anything he wanted – go to the pub, go to the cinema – but before either of those things could happen, Lizzie hailed him. ‘Eliot! You made it!’ Everybody turned to look. Lizzie was not a quiet woman. ‘We’re on Table 4! They all have numbers! On a piece of card!’ Soon she’d be describing what a number 4 looked like, and possibly explaining counting: to forestall this, he told her he’d see her there, and made his way across the hall indelibly marked as the loud woman’s companion. Table 4 was occupied by an attractive brunette; familiar, though Eliot couldn’t pinpoint why at first – she had grey eyes, was early thirties; wore jeans and a white collarless blouse, open at the neck to reveal a pendant on a thin silver chain. Lapis lazuli, he thought, irrelevantly. He had no idea what lapis lazuli looked like.
Louise had said, ‘Oh, hello. Aren’t you Gordon and Timmy’s dad?’, and as soon as she spoke, he realized who she was.
‘And you’re their teacher. How come you’re at this table? Sorry, I didn’t mean that as rudely as it sounded.’
‘I do T’ai Chi with Lizzie. I’m Louise. Louise Kennedy.’
‘I remember. And I’m Eliot. Colleague of,er, Lizzie’s.’ He sat. ‘I didn’t realize she did T’ai Chi. That’s a martial art, isn’t it?’
Lizzie was still the other side of the room, chatting. Lizzie, he reflected, really was large and altogether too loud; jolly, obviously, was the adjective most often applied to her – well, apart from fat – but every few months she’d have an emotional meltdown, and lock herself in a toilet or leave work hurriedly mid-morning. One or other female member of staff would then spend the rest of the day on Lizzie-duty, while the men studiedly refrained from noticing anything amiss. Chris knew all this, of course, which doubtless accounted for her equanimity about Eliot com-ing out for the evening. If she’d known Louise would be of the party – or any other thirtyish attractive single woman – she might have been less encouraging. However little interest she had in Eliot these days, she didn’t want anybody else taking up the slack.
Meanwhile Louise was smiling politely, but with a visible tightening round her mouth; far from being about to take up Chris’s slack, she was evidently wondering what she’d let herself in for . . . Stop living in your head, he told himself. Talk to the woman. And for fuck’s sake don’t start thinking she fancies you just because you’re sitting next to her and she hasn’t yet called for help.
Eliot said, ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope they’ve got a bar here,’ and the tightness left Louise’s smile, which this time reached her eyes.
‘You’re a friend of Miro Weiss.’
‘Yes.’
‘His boyfriend.’
‘We were lovers, yes.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘You did not know he is gay?’
‘I’d got that far. I just didn’t know he had a boyfriend,
Jaime. I thought he was . . . ’
Ben looked for the right word.
‘I thought he was lonely.’
Jaime gave that some thought. ‘He was private man,’ he said at last.
‘I know.’
‘Being private is not the same as lonely.’
‘That’s true.’
‘And you were his friend too, yes? He spoke of you.’
‘Nothing but good, I hope.’
Jaime looked blank.
‘I mean, I hope he didn’t say anything bad about me.’
‘He said you were his friend.’
‘I’m glad he said that, Jaime. But it wasn’t exactly true.’
‘You were not his friend?’
‘I didn’t know him that well. We worked together, yes. But like you say, he was a private man. He didn’t open up much.’
‘Open up?’
‘He had his secrets. He never told me about you, for instance.’
‘He said it would be best if people did not know about us.’
‘Because you’re gay?’
‘He said people would not understand.’
‘It’s not the 1950s, Jaime. I’m not sure anyone would care.’
‘He said where you worked, they do not like such things. Being boyfriends. Being gay men.’
Ben said, ‘Once upon a time. Things are different now.’
‘You are gay?’
‘That’s the second time I’ve been asked that this morn-ing. I might change my aftershave.’
‘I do not understand.’
‘I’m sorry. Trying to be funny. No, I’m not gay.’
‘Then you do not know what it was like for Miro.’
‘No, I suppose I don’t.’
Was this going well? Ben couldn’t say. Let me handle this he’d told Louise Kennedy, and she’d quietened down, either in direct response to instruction or because that’s what she’d planned on doing anyway. And the boy, Jaime, was at least talking freely, and you’ve got to establish normality – that was what Ben had been told. Don’t forget about the gun, but don’t act like it’s all there is. Not for-getting about the gun was going to be the easy part. But at least Jaime was talking freely, and maybe the gun would fade into an unimportant accessory; something that might be dangerous if misused, but otherwise could be safely ignored, like a ballpoint pen, or a corkscrew.
Keep talking.
‘Have you seen him lately, Jaime? Been in touch?�
��
‘He is dead.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘If he is not dead, he would contact me. He would not just disappear. He would not go without goodbye.’
‘Well, that’s the thing. When he disappeared, Jaime, he made a lot of people very unhappy. Not just you.’
‘He did not disappear,’ Jaime repeated. ‘He is dead.’
‘Dead people turn up sooner or later.’ They float to the surface, thought Ben. Or the smell gives their location away. ‘And when Miro disappeared, a lot of money dis-appeared with him. An awful lot. People jumped to the obvious conclusion.’
‘You think he took this money?’
‘That’s what people say.’
‘He is not a thief.’
‘It surprised a lot of us.’
‘So why you think he is a thief?’
‘Well . . .’
‘Because everybody say he is? Everybody where you work?’
‘. . . Yes, Jaime. That’s pretty much what everybody where I work said.’
‘I do not think you are much of a friend. If people say bad things about my friend, I do not believe them. I believe my friend.’
‘Except we weren’t exactly friends. And Miro wasn’t there to put his side of the story, Jaime. He was gone just like the money was.’
‘He rob your safe?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘He steal hundreds of pounds?’
‘A lot more than that, Jaime.’
‘Thousands?’
‘A quarter of a billion, Jaime. That’s how much money went missing when Miro disappeared. A quarter of a billion pounds.’
This number registered in Louise’s brain with something like familiarity: back at DeJohn Franklin Moers, such sums had been the common currency. Not that she’d grubbied her hands with actual lucre. Money had been a notional commodity; much discussed; glimpsed briefly as online transactions; and put to bed as the bottom line of a descending row of figures, a sum belonging to somebody else, and so huge as not to exist in any meaningful way. A billion dollars in hundred-dollar bills, she’d been told, weighed ten tons. How much space it occupied, she couldn’t guess. A quarter billion sterling in, say, twenties . . . And was that an English or a US billion? Either way, it was more cash than you could steal without forethought, muscle and transport. But out there in the ether, money – in its pure, incorporeal state – was vulnerable; could be ripped off, raped or burned by anyone with digital flair and inside knowledge. The kind of knowledge she’d dealt in, day by day.
