Fitzrovia Twilight (Nick Valentine Book 1)

by James White

  Eventually the sobbing stopped and Nick gave a sigh as he rolled onto his back. It would be so much easier to leave it, but he couldn’t.

  It took him about ten minutes to free himself from his bindings. It took him about another hour, pacing the flat, drinking the rather fine Scotch the Germans had left behind, and some renewed sobbing and soul-searching before he was ready to make his next move. He’d been played, by everyone, from all angles. He was still arguing with himself over whether Clara had betrayed him, or had just, as he had, failed in being totally honest. Carruthers was a different matter, but despite everything, his mistakes, the duplicity, he realised what hurt hardest was not what Clara may or may not have told him the truth about, but her departure. She’d left an empty space in his heart already. He’d been planning a trip to the coast with her a few hour ago, dreaming of a new life by the sea maybe. Now they were blown apart because of the abstract constructs of nation and duty. He could walk away now and lick his wounds. He knew that. He also knew that’s what everyone would be expecting him to do, but he had scores to settle and a love to win back. It was time to do just that.

  The fog had matured into a thick blanket cloaking the streets in a muffled stillness. The streetlights were all but useless, reduced to suspended glowing orbs floating in isolated white halos among the murk. Nick practically had to feel his way back into Soho and to Teddy’s office. It took him just seconds to spring the lock and he was in. There was a light on in the back room and Nick could hear cursing and low murmuring punctuated by groans of pain. They hadn’t heard him come in. He softly shut and locked the front door, drew the pistol the Germans hadn’t bothered to take away with them and cast his eyes around the gloom of the front office. It was a mess. Steel shelves lined three of the walls, piled high with condiment boxes, books, ornaments, any kind of clutter and rubbish you could think if, all of it stored in a seemingly haphazard way. Some items Teddy had clearly taken (taken being the word) in lieu of payment on debts. There was a large filing cabinet, a cupboard, an old tea chest and numerous boxes and crates scattered around the floor. Nick wasn’t in the mood to do it the slow way.

  Nick gently nudged the door to the back room open. Teddy was slumped in a chair, his hand up to his face, while the younger boy fussed around the figure of Razor, now groaning somewhat more quietly on the ground than he had been when Nick left. Razor was deathly white, probably deep into shock, Nick thought, with an injury like that. Teddy looked up as Nick framed the doorway, but the big man didn’t start, he just stared.

  “Ramona,” Nick said quietly.

  The young boy whirled and straight away, his eyes widened in terror at the sound of Nick’s voice. Teddy looked at Nick and smacked his blood-encrusted lips.

  “You know what I’m after.”

  Teddy shook his head slowly, in obvious pain. Nick looked at the young lad.

  “How old are you, son?”

  “Fifteen,” the boy stammered.

  “Get out of here.” Nick nodded at the door. “Get out of London and get a new life somewhere else. Despite what he told you…” Nick inclined his head at Teddy. “This is no way to make a living. You never saw me tonight, understood?”

  The boy looked uncertainly at Nick, to Teddy, then back to Nick. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his scrawny throat.

  “Go!” Nick commanded.

  The boy hovered and looked at Teddy. The fat man shrugged and the boy slowly walked to the doorway. He paused. Nick didn’t move. The young lad was forced to squeeze past him. Nick could feel him trembling.

  “One more thing,” Nick called over his shoulder, “if I ever see you again, ever, you’re dead.” He waited until he heard the front door shut then walked up to the prone figure of Razor. He looked in a bad way. “Ramona,” Nick said again, looking at Teddy.

  The big man just glared back, saying nothing, giving no indication he’d even heard.

  The crack of the pistol shot reverberated around the small room with a bang that made Teddy jump. The Mauser was smoking in Nick’s hand, Razor had stopped moving, a neat hole in the centre of his head, a dark pool of blood oozing into the carpet underneath him. For the first time since he’d walked in, Teddy looked scared. Nick could see the fear in his eyes. He began to try to say something but it came out as a whimper. Nick closed in on him.

  “Ramona,” Nick repeated.

  This time Teddy nodded franticly, wincing as the pain from his jaw shook through him.

  “I told you, I leant her money. The German, he bought the debt from me.”

  “What else?”

  “Nothing else. I…”

  The pistol barked again, the stench of cordite filling Nick’s nostrils along with the all-too-familiar smell of scorched flesh, a smell that took him back, not as far as he would have liked, but back, far too recently. The big man was howling, looking at the smoking hole in his thigh pumping blood.

  “You see, I think there is something else, Teddy,” Nick said, crossing behind the man and standing behind him. He rested his hands on the shaking shoulders, conscious that the smoking gun barrel would just be in Teddy’s peripheral vision; the stench of its smoke would be filling his nostrils. Nick leant over, close to Teddy’s ear. “I think you still kept part of that debt and you kept calling it in. You were probably blackmailing her as well. When you heard she’d been killed, which you no doubt heard of quickly, then you went to the little love nest you knew about and ransacked it for anything of value. Now I don’t really care about the first two things but I do care about what you found there. Just nod if I’m on the right track or, of course, I could shoot your other leg?”

  The big man nodded miserably, whimpering with pain from between gritted teeth.

  “Good, we’re getting somewhere. Nasty business you’re in isn’t it, Teddy.”

  The man nodded again. He was ready, ready to give up what Nick wanted.

  “Good, so you went to her place and you pulled it apart. Probably found some money?”

  The man gave a nod of his head.

  “Some other bits and pieces you thought you could sell? Jewellery, watches?” The head bobbed again in agreement. Nick stepped back in front of the man and placed the muzzle of the gun against his unwounded thigh, pushing the nose of it down into the soft flesh. “You found some films and some photos?”

  Teddy’s eyes were wide with fear, his whole body shaking. He looked at his leg then back into Nick’s eyes. Nick didn’t blink; he felt his finger start to tighten on the trigger.

  “Yes!” spat Teddy, blood splattering out from his mangled mouth. “I found a camera; there were some films with it, negatives and prints. I took the lot. All of them were stupid, holiday shots, her around London. Except one. It was lists and orders. You can take it! You can take it! I was going to hand it in anyway. I’m a patriot. That’s who you work for, the government, isn’t it?” Teddy looked at Nick hopefully. He knew he was begging for his life. He shot a look across at the body on the floor and gulped. “I won’t say anything about that, I promise. Or my leg. You can take the films. I was going to hand them in. Maybe there’ll be a reward…”

  “Where is it?”

  “In the front room.” Teddy gritted his teeth with the pain. “In my desk, top drawer. It’s locked, here.” He fished in his pocket with some difficulty and pulled out a small ring of keys. Nick took them off without a word and walked through to the front office. He flicked on a small table lamp and started trying the keys. There were about twenty or so on the ring, but only a handful were small enough to fit. He tried them all, twice. With a grunt of impatience, he marched into the back room. Teddy had dragged himself on one leg to the desk and he was frantically scrabbling in the drawer. His face froze as he saw Nick, then he looked back down and redoubled his efforts. Nick calmly walked up to him and shot him in the foot. He fell with a scream and rolled on the floor, his foot spraying blood from the punctured leather of his shoe. Nick looked in the drawer in which Teddy had been scrabbling. There was
a small revolver at the back of it, behind a load of clutter. The poor guy hadn’t been able to get to it in time.

  “Nice try,” Nick said, dropping to his knees beside the man’s head. “Now, where’s that key?”

  Teddy fished in his pocket again without a word. His breathing was laboured now and the colour had completely drained from his face, the bruises where Nick had hit him showing livid purple against his milky skin. He’d go into shock soon.

  Nick walked back out and tried the new set of keys. The second one he tried fitted and he slid the drawer open. It was a mess, but there was an envelope about the right size for photos. Nick opened it and slid out the negatives and the photos. He studied the negative under the lamp, squinting to make them out, carefully checking them against the prints. There were only three shots and they corresponded to the prints. He looked at the prints and let out a low whistle. Three pictures – all this for three pictures, but no wonder. They held peoples live, quite literally. Now Nick understood why they had been so important to Jurgen and Clara and why Carruthers had been so keen to get them. The funny thing was, they had nothing to do with the Brigadier at all.

  He stuffed the pictures and negatives back in the envelope and slipped that into his jacket breast pocket, then paced back to the rear office. Teddy lay where he’d left him, breathing shallowly, looking up at the ceiling with rapidly glazing eyes. Nick squatted beside him.

  “Thanks.”

  The man pawed at him with a weak hand. “Hospital, please…”

  Nick shook his head. “You’re all out of luck I’m afraid. I’ve killed plenty of men better than you for less. Bye, Teddy.”

  Teddy’s eyes widened. Nick put the barrel of the gun to the man’s forehead and pulled the trigger. Teddy Adamson gave a last spasm and was still. Nick stood and calmly walked out the office, pausing only to wipe the lamp and the drawer with a handkerchief. Shutting the front door quietly behind him, he set out into the smothering fog once more. His footsteps echoed hollowly along the empty, shrouded streets. He reloaded his gun as he walked. The pieces were all starting to fit and he did not like the picture one bit. It had cost him too much; he didn’t want it to cost him anymore, but there were still those who did have to pay. Stephen was dead and his killer was still out there. Now Nick had the means to entice him in.

  He strode into the darkness of the night, resolute in his purpose. When he reached Conway Street, he could see he was too late. He’d been expecting that anyway. There was nothing left to search there; it wouldn’t have taken Clara or Jurgen long to conduct a thorough search. Since he had what they were after, he knew the Italians would have had an equally fruitless journey. The question was: what would they do now?

  Nick sat on the wrecked bed and thought. Ultimately, all roads led back to Carruthers. Therefore, they would either go after him or cut their losses and leave the country. Right now they had nothing, but they were compromised. Another thing was bothering Nick, though: what was Lucia’s role?

  She’d been allied with Jurgen when they first crossed, but then she’d given him up, intimating that they weren’t working together anymore. Had she known about Clara? Why had she stopped working with Jurgen? She could have shot Nick when she had the drop on him earlier, but hadn’t. Why? Perhaps she had known that he’d blunder in like that, though she had warned him to be careful. If she wasn’t working with Jurgen, then who was she working for? Nick was really starting to dislike murky motives. Nothing about this had been straightforward or clear from the start. What had started with him being pressured to find out who’d kill a nightclub hostess and find out who she knocked around with had ended up as a mess of more dead bodies, one of which was Stephen’s. Nick shook his head. He really was on his own now. His thoughts drifted to Clara. Where was she now? Would he see her again? He had a strange feeling he would; he wanted to but the thought filled him with unease. Maybe he should go with her. He fished in his outer jacket pocket and looked at the scrawled number and address. It was all he had left of his life, all he had left of anything at all.

  After a time, he carefully folded it and placed it in an inner pocket of his wallet. It was something to hold on to – all he had to hold on to. He dabbed at his eyes and stood. He’d figured his next move. Time to clear up the loose ends and see where it led him.

  CHAPTER 21

  Before he’d even made The Blue Rose, the big black sedan had growled to a stop alongside him and once again the gorilla in the suit had ushered him in. Nick idly wondered just how closely Richardson was watching him.

  “Nick, I was hoping you’d have some news for me by now.” Richardson blew out a curl of blue cigar smoke.

  “That makes two of us, but I’m close now. You know they killed Stephen?”

  A flicker crossed Richardson’s face. “I’m sorry to hear that, Nick. Really I am. Family is important.” There was a minute’s silence before Richardson cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose I have to worry then?”

  “Worry?”

  “About you seeing this through, not if it’s personal now.”

  “Oh, it’s personal all right. No, you don’t need to worry,” Nick said wearily.

  “Good. Only I was starting to. I want this cleared up. I just need a name.”

  Nick fixed Richardson with his pale blue eyes and stared intently at the older man. He leaned close. “You’ll get more than a name.”

  “A name is fine, Nick. I like to take care of my business myself.”

  “There’s more to this than your business now, more to it than Stephen’s murder. There’s information of national importance being passed through the wrong hands and the future of this country being put at risk.”

  “I know.”

  Nick started. “You know?” he repeated incredulously.

  “Heard a whisper.” Richardson leaned back and looked out of his window. “I know you don’t think highly of me, Nick, that I’m just a businessman with menaces. Well, maybe I am, maybe I’m not, but I’m a patriot, too. I don’t like what I see and what I hear these days, with Germany, Italy, Spain, now the British Union of Fascists. Some of my boys even thought about joining until I put them right. You see, I don’t need a new order, I like the status quo. It’s good for business. What you’ve got now is politics mixing with crime on the streets and I don’t like it, any more than I like the idea of enemies of this country getting their hands on things they oughtn’t to.”

  “Well, well, who’d have thought? Maybe I should be asking you for leads.”

  Richardson gave a smile. “Like I said, I only heard whispers, but a man like you can get to the truth, and when you do…” He pushed a stubby finger into Nick’s chest. “You tell me and I’ll take care of it.”

  “Sure. You know why I was sent away from the front in the war and redeployed into Intelligence?” Nick didn’t wait for an answer. “I was sick of seeing people die around me. Imagine, you’re talking to someone, someone with a sense of humour, a life, stories, and a split second later they’re gone. You’re wearing them, their blood on your clothes, in your eyes, their tattered flesh clinging to you. Day after day.”

  Richardson paled slightly and the heavy shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  “One day we get sent to a section of the line where there’s an active sniper. He’s so active we lose nine men in the first five days. One of the men I’m talking to when the top of his head gets taken off and I’m tasting his brains.”

  Richardson now looked equally horrified and enthralled.

  “So, that night I crawl into No Man’s Land and I spend the night sliding on my belly through the mud, trying to find him, only I don’t. I lie there among the decaying bodies under the sun all the next day and I spot him. I spot him when he shoots and takes two more of our lads, and I’m less than sixty feet from him, but I can’t do a damn thing until dark, which can’t come soon enough.”

  “As soon as the sun is down, I’m slipping my way over to him. He’s lying still, waiting for a little more darkness
to slip back to his lines and his medals and his rum ration.” Nick stopped abruptly and looked away from the men, into the shining lights of the cafes and the smiling people gaily going about their business. He turned slowly back to Richardson, who swallowed heavily, his eyes not leaving Nick’s.

  “When I was done, I slipped back to my trench, covered in mud and slime and blood. My men look at me horrified; they’re convinced I’d died out there. Then I tell them, ‘I got him,’ and they congratulate me, and word gets back up the line and the phone rings and everyone’s telling me ‘Well done’.” Nick gave a snort. “They let me sleep in past stand-to, but when I get up in the morning, no one will look at me, meet my eyes. You see, they’ve seen it, just like the Germans have seen it, and the line is totally silent in our section. Then the phone goes and I’m told to report back to rear HQ and from there, I’m away from the front for evaluation and ultimately into a new role as an assassin for HMG. What I did showed I had the right stuff apparently, even if it wasn’t the done thing. Even in that war, with everything else that went on…” Nick shook his head and gave a wry smile. “You see, I solved the problem of the sniper. That section of line stayed quiet for weeks afterwards.”

  “What did you do?” Richardson asked in little more than a whisper.