Smith 1: Smith, #1 462j3w

Contents

Further information Logo To all the young punks. Chapter One - ers-by Chapter Two - Still ing By Chapter Three - Recruiting Now Chapter Four - Still Recruiting Chapter Five - Brand Awareness Chapter Six - Liberate Your Thinking Chapter Seven - Stress Management

Further information

www.timothylondon.com

Here you will find links to an original musical soundtrack, images and information.

All rights reserved. 2021.

PUBLISHED BY SOULPUNK

ISBN 978-1-9196547-1-3-

To all the young punks.

CHAPTER ONE

ers-by

SOMEONE IS BEING tortured. It’s a sedate affair, almost gentle, the pain apparent in the clenching of tendons at the man’s ankles, occasional moans and ragged sighs, all muffled by the cloth bag over the man’s head. Smith wonders again what the bag actually is. It’s not a regular sack, too big to be a cushion cover. Perhaps it’s been made specially, to certain specifications. Washable, of course. What’s the bag for? To take away the personality of the victim, reduce him to a talking, twitching carcass. To make it easier for Smith to ask questions as Bassett, the in-house torturer, does his stuff.

Clad in a dark green cardigan, with tiny knots of fluffed wool betraying its age and a smart, light check shirt from Marks and Sparks. Tie. Bassett looks like he may be suffering with back pain. It’s all the bending down, to whisper, to listen, to dig and slice. He’s getting on a bit, is Bassett. They should build him a stage so he doesn’t have to bend all the time.

‘His’ man, Bassett, also known as ‘Allsorts’, is really very good at this. He doesn’t take it personally when he reaches the slight up-slopes of the man’s last feeble resistance. Bassett just gives a little flick of the reins, so to speak, and the journey is resumed.

There we are. The taps are open fully. The carcass shivers, like a cat treading in a pool of water, a deep vibration, from the core to the skin. Accompanied by a tumble of words. Almost too many words. Bassett should stop now and let the

man ponder his situation. The taps are flowing. ‘Okay, wait a moment,’ he quietly tells Bassett, who looks up at him, from his crouch, lips by the man’s left ear. Smith knows he won’t need the pill wrapped in foil, fingered in his tro pocket. He hasn’t yet; Bassett never makes mistakes. But it’s good to have the cyanide, just in case, to get it over and done with quickly.

Questions in English. Answers in Yoruba. That’s why Smith’s here. To translate. That’s his job, but there’s more to it than that. He has to interpret, too. Figure out exactly what is meant. Meanings can get lost in translation, lost in the transit of pain. Here are the essential answers he has translated and interpreted today: Jim Darboe, a significant officer in the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, otherwise known as MEND, normally lives under the protection of a local criminal in a house in Njemanze in the city of Port Harcourt in Nigeria, from where he plots the destruction of pipelines, the kidnap of oil company employees and attacks on the Nigerian military. But for reasons unknown, he is visiting Britain, using a fake port, and staying at an address in Birmingham. Here’s the street. Here’s the number.

Unfortunately, the rules of the game mean that the man must provide several more unnecessary answers to obscure the importance of the crucial ones. And Smith must stay and watch a while more, letting the smoke from the cigarette in his left hand, burning, without touching his lips, obscure the smells the man has produced. So much smell from one man, mixed with iodine. It’s always a surprise. More names, places, dates. All unnecessary.

Becoming aware of the faint sounds outside the concrete workshop. Smith knows there’s a football field not far away. It’s a Saturday – time and a half for Bassett. And a day for the weekly shop. A walk in the park with the grandkids, to feed the ducks. Torture a man who, only yesterday, had been joyfully chatting away on his mobile at the counter of an international money transfer shop in north London before being bundled through the back of the shop and into a Transit van and transported to this trading estate in Surrey by two efficient gents in suits. Now Bassett is looking at Smith, questioning. Smith nods.

It’s over. He can leave now and Bassett will clean up the small mess. Neatly torn black bin liners around the chair, slicked with liquid. Incredibly, the man can walk, stagger unaided. Waiting, tottering slightly, head tilted to one side inside the sack as Bassett pushes the mess from the floor into a plastic shopping bag with rubber-gloved hands.

Bassett really is very good. This man will be back at work by the end of the week. Perhaps there will be a moment when a great, throbbing sob will heave his shoulders and make his eyes bulge, but he won’t cry, not in front of his customers. Life will go on, for a while. He won’t tell anyone, least of all the police, because as far as he knows it’s the police who have him now, plus he doesn’t want to be sent home where torture is more basic and probably more final. Smith ponders for a moment how much the Nigerian government are paying for this job. Quite a lot, probably. It might actually be cheaper for them to come to with the locals, but that’s not how it’s done. You don’t negotiate with the insects.

Without the sack the man becomes a person. Smooth skin, sweaty, shaved skull reflecting the fluorescent tubes. His jacket and shirt on, bandaged and plastered, no need for stitches, elbows squeezed in tight to his ribs. Perhaps in pain. Perhaps because his instinct is to hug himself. They sit on plastic chairs, either side of a cheap laminated desk in an office next to the workshop, Smith’s creased suit jacket slung over the back of his chair, his tie pulled down, top button undone, sitting uncomfortably, his long legs looking for somewhere to rest. The window above the man’s head shows a dim sunlight. Smith silently shows him what to do, putting his own hands on the table, splayed fingers. The message gets through and the man follows suit. Smith smiles at him. It’s just the two of them, but the suited gents are just outside, leaning against the wall, enjoying the late spring sunshine. He won’t need them.

‘Do you know who I am?’ The man nods, then shakes his head. He doesn’t want

to know.

‘Joseph, my name is Mr Smith. It’s okay, you can say my name. We’re nearly done. You can go home soon. Now, Joseph, tell me who, again, and where.’ Smith gives a rolling, royal wave of encouragement with his right hand. ‘It was . . .’ he says. And, thus prompted, Joseph tells him all over again, but this time with more detail and considerably less agony. Smith is only mildly interested.

When did the callous begin to grow on his soul? Years ago, before 200 stories, in five, six, seven different languages. A Russian man, apologising and calling for a priest. A Ukrainian man, spitting Russian and fighting, the only time Bassett has needed any help. Back then, Smith thought he was the least bad option, having met some of his more enthusiastic colleagues. In a strange twist of selfawareness Smith had thought that by becoming an inquisitor he could do good, or at least counterbalance some of the bad. His years spent as an active agent were periods marked with a full stop, end of the operation. No need to think. Now everything is cerebral, he doesn’t know what he’s for.

A lot of the stories he has been told have been about oil, or governments, or bombs. But many have been mysteries, questions asked and answers given about subjects he could only guess at. Hard to tell who were the most deserving of torture. Had he interrogated innocents? Undoubtedly. The shepherd in eastern Morocco, who had really just been a shepherd and who had known nothing of value. Eventually left lying by the sandy roadside with a bullet or two in his head because he was less than useless to Smith’s boss.

But, after all, who was truly innocent? It was his ability to acknowledge the many subtler shades of grey in the spectrum between not so bad and truly fucking evil that had got him this job in the first place. This job? This opportunity. To travel. See places. Meet interesting people. Travel to Surrey. See the inside of yet another concrete box. Meet Joseph, a sorry soul from the Niger

Delta who was unfortunate enough to be related to a terrorist. When he was an agent, the answer would have been simple: Joseph would be dead. But he had grown a conscience, and over that he had grown layers of cynicism, protection. In order to do his job.

Stephen Smith catches the bus back into town. It’s a long journey through the shop traffic, the double-decker wreathed in exhaust fumes. The top deck alive with smells. Rancid fried chicken. Teenage perfume. A crafty t smoked somewhere behind him at the back of the bus. A freshly opened can of Czech lager. Soap and body odour. All with a top note of torture, the smell he can never seem to wash from his nostrils nowadays.

It’s not until the bus approaches Vauxhall Bridge, slowly crossing the Thames, that he gets the call. It’s been three and a bit hours since the address was wrung from Joseph. It seems they didn’t waste any time. Smith’s bosses had sent the message to a man at home in Dulwich, London, who had sent it on to a general in Lagos, Nigeria, who had delegated it to a colonel who incorporated it into an order to an undercover team who had kicked in the door of the house in Birmingham and thrown a couple of grenades, without checking first to see who was actually in the place. The problem is, inside the house were three British Army soldiers, two of whom are now dead and the third badly wounded. Oh, and several of Darboe’s extended family – a woman, a couple of kids, a grandma – all dead. Joseph hadn’t mentioned the family. Smith hadn’t asked.

Looking for excuses. The job should probably have been given to one of their own, but the Nigerians were trying to save money. They had already spent a fair amount on the kidnap, torture and translation. Tight-fisted bastards. What did this mean? Nothing. Something. Why were there British soldiers, three of them, in a house in Birmingham? Smith notices the something, something inside himself. Pain, like an ulcer just above his groin. A slight dizziness. The evening becoming darker, with an encroaching, misty grey.

When did Miriam Taylor first notice? Perhaps it was at school, when the pleasure she felt for her best friend – who arrived at the gates in her father’s shiny BMW, who went on holiday twice during the summer break and skiing in the winter, whose complexion was innocent of pimples and whose complacent demeanour was sublimely untroubled by the normal teenage horror of the future – turned to envy. How did her best friend do it? How could she be so . . . right, all of the time? It was a genuine mystery. Yes, her friend was lucky to be born into a relatively well-off family. But Miriam’s dad was pretty well paid, too. Miriam was as conventionally attractive as her friend, she washed and moisturised, and tried to eat well and exercise, and she had intelligence and a sense of humour. Boys liked her. Girls liked her. But, somehow, she just knew, her friend was higher up the pecking order. If Miriam was a cheerleader, her friend was the prom queen. At ease with life. Just, not struggling.

But what did Miriam notice? She’s still unsure, years later, exactly what, when she notices it yet again. With a wry smile she watches another woman, literally rising above her in the glass-box lift which goes to the offices above the newspaper bear pit. This same woman, the same age, with fewer qualifications, with less experience, whose legs and breasts are no more remarkable than hers, who can’t write for toffee . . . there she goes. Up to her new job, to meet the owner, to talk ‘’ and accept the position of assistant editor on the foreign desk.

‘Trying to see if she’s wearing any knickers?’

Slightly embarrassed, Miriam looks over her shoulder at a stocky man in shirtsleeves and tie. Bill Freeman, her boss, is giving her a stern look, as if he has any other.

‘If she’s not, there are other reasons why she got the job, too, Miriam. For instance’ – she falls into step with him as they walk towards her desk – ‘if I told her to interview a traffic warden she would interview a traffic warden. Not a traffic warden’s wife.’

This is a reference to a recent example of what Miriam presumed would be accepted as above and beyond the call of duty, when she managed to interview the wife of a traffic warden who had been brutally murdered, apparently for doing his job and handing out tickets, including one, presumably, to the wrong person. Wanting a short interview on the dangers of being a warden, Bill received a theory on the type of heartless killer who would be prepared to make a widow of a beautiful young Indian wife, who, by the way, needed a translator to tell of her sorrow, which meant the useless piece also cost him money.

‘You still used it though, I noticed.’

A withering look shuts her up. Bill accompanies her all the way to her desk and leans in close as she sits. She notices her friend Neil wincing in sympathy behind Bill as he es by holding a cycling helmet.

‘Right. Sort yourself out. People are beginning to notice. Prove me right. Show that you’re capable of following orders. I know you get bored. I’m giving you a story that doesn’t need jazzing up. In fact, if you jazz it up, you fuck it up. It’s really that simple.’

Miriam feels honoured by the swearing. He cares. She manages an ‘okay’.

‘This’ – pointing at her PC monitor and, she presumes, an email waiting for her –

‘is a real story. Dig it up, but concentrate on the story. Don’t get distracted with the morality of it all. That’s not your job. Just report it. On my desk by Tuesday morning.’

Bill’s empty space is soon filled by Neil, now munching a sandwich. ‘He loves you really.’

‘He thinks love is a conspiracy theory, won’t believe it exists until there’s been a thorough investigation and even then he’ll remain highly sceptical. You busy?’

Neil puts his hands up, palms out, one holding the balled-up sandwich wrapper as he backs away. ‘Not me, Miriam, dear, you don’t get me. Busy, busy, busy, all day long.’ He places the wrapper on her desk and makes a quick exit.

Several huge TV screens, each silently showing a different twenty-four-hour news channel, hang from the ceiling of the two acres of open-plan hangar in which she works. Beneath the steel beams and girders and natural-daylight bulbs toils a regiment of hunter-gatherers, fighting extinction by digital.

Settling into her chair, Miriam tunes out the hubbub and concentrates on the information written in the email from her boss, based on an anonymous tip. In a north London borough, compulsory property purchases, graveyards sold off, links to construction companies, a literal hole into which pours millions of virtual public/private finance and matching funds, a project which obviously needs labour, diggers, materials, but, most importantly, consultants. An office, a phone, a qualification plus a in the right department and you, too, can be a consultant.

What do you need to know? Or who? In this case, the brother-in-law of the head of the council commissioning agency was asked to cast his expert eyes over the possibilities of the new building becoming dual-use workshops and living space; how would that fit in with the current plans and, please, come up with the right amount and then pocket a million pounds for your trouble, which amounts to a 10,300-word survey report. Turns out, the brothers-in-law are both directors of a company, ed in the Bahamas, which has another director, the head of planning at the same north London borough council who are paying for everything. Very cosy. A bit local, but the magic million makes it sexy enough. Any less and it would be a job for a local gazette.

It’s her job to see if there is anything else that can be squeezed from the story and, if she misses anything relevant which someone else finds out about later, particularly a rival publication, then she will be in the shit. Makes a change from the murder and mayhem trail, her usual beat, counting beans instead of bullets.

Miriam allows herself a sigh.

Saturday evening. She’s got nothing planned. At the age of thirty she should be arranging, at the very least, a trip to a pub with some other thirty-something graduates. There are names and numbers on her phone, people she could call, but she seldom does. Neil, her best friend at the paper, has a busy life with his latest boyfriend and is seldom available for anything more than a quick gossip at lunchtimes. Her last boyfriend is a year-old memory of uncomfortable silences and so-so sex. She pats her laptop in its soft case, her date for the evening, and suppresses another sigh. She loves her work but it’s a one-sided affair.

As Miriam es the conference room she looks in and sees the editors seated round the table, discussing the Monday edition. Bill sees her and holds up a finger so she waits for him to come out.

‘Call John Kaspar, Redbridge Council. He might have something for you. First thing Monday. Got it? Kaspar with a K.’

‘Got it. With a K.’

‘You’ll probably need to go to his office.’

Miriam keys the name into her phone as Bill returns to the meeting. She makes her way out of the building, through metal detectors, past security guards and onto the street. ing cleaners negotiating homeless people preparing cardboard beds in office doorways on The Strand as she heads towards Charing Cross station. The streets temporarily quiet between the end of the day and a Saturday night. London, making up its mind. Glad that she’s wearing warm slacks and a jacket now the air has chilled and a slight mist promises rain.

There are wisps of smoke, hanging in corners as if suspended, at number fiftytwo. Charred flesh battles melted plastic foam and the distinct smell of explosives. Outside, there is only the smashed window to prove to the locals that something happened here. The locals aren’t looking though. Curtains are drawn, windows are shut. Too many flashing lights, too much fluorescent yellow coming and going. Men in suits. Even a helicopter for a few clattering minutes.

A small group of young lads had gathered at one point, faces shrouded in hoods, causing the local police boss to wonder for a moment if it might kick off again. But this is too mysterious to provide a spark for a riot. Gas explosion. Sofa fire. Who knows. Just five-O doing what they do, with all the accompanying kerfuffle.

The youths were sauntering off as Smith arrived, jumping out of a taxi, flashing his magic multi- at whoever frowned at him, slipping through with no explanation to examine what he feels he has wrought. London to Brum in two and a half hours. And here it is. All his own work.

Apart from the dripping walls caused by high-powered jets of water, the room has been left untouched. Waiting for the ‘experts’ to arrive. Some of the cops attending assume Smith to be one of these ‘experts’ with his neat laptop case and professional urgency, here to sift and bag and box. The older hands know better and avoid eye .

Smith stands still. The dizziness intense. He concentrates and looks. There. A foot. A small foot. There, the crushed, scraped-out body of a man, intact apart from the hollow running from chin to pelvis, as if a giant, sharp spoon had dipped in. There, a smile. A smile! Yes, it is, truly, a portion of a face, a young boy. The top of his head is buried in a mass of congealed material, his body, somewhere else, leaving just his smile, still perfectly intact. Caught laughing? As the door was kicked in and the grenades thrown, just as he was giggling with his sister, tickling perhaps. An in-joke between siblings. Or something on TV. A moment before the air is sucked from the room and four adults and two children are taken apart and reassembled as cosmic modern art. Celestial irony. Look what I can do, says God. But it wasn’t a god. It was Smith. Who shouldn’t even be here.

Managing to stay upright. Marching out, his face, drawn and white and reflecting yellow from the lights on the street. Leaving on foot as a car arrives. He notes the men watching him. Smith knows they’ll be straight on the phone, wondering what he’s doing there. They stay in the car and he walks quickly round a corner, down another street, more houses, identical to the cheap red brick of number fifty-two.

Walking for an hour, as rain begins to drizzle until, damp and disorientated, he

manages to board a near-empty bus heading towards the city centre. Why this one? Why now? He’s seen worse (not much worse, he its to himself), but this time he’s run out of excuses. He’s been wrong for a long time, forever actually, and he wants it to stop. He can’t excuse himself for that boy’s smile, all that’s left of a child. This postmodern art atrocity: he did that. His misted blur of a face in the bus window, he can’t look even at that morphed version of himself. He catches a glimpse and panics.

It’s not so unusual for the staff at the Istanbul Café to serve a coffee to a bedraggled businessman at this time, even on a Saturday night. Too early for the after-pub rush, too late for the after-shop supper, Smith is the only customer. Outside, car headlights flick past and echoes of a small city squeeze past the plate-glass window to blend with a Turkish love song, auto-tuned over an electronic beat. If Smith concentrates, he can probably make out the meaning. As it is, he subconsciously s a woman’s name and the fact that she is special to the man who is singing. So special.

His gaze is fixed beyond the counter, where one of the two young men preparing the food is using a long, sharp knife to slice wobbling slivers of compressed meat from the doner kebab slowly turning on its upright spit. Another young man waits, this side of the counter, dressed in waterproofs, a crash helmet in hand and an insulated bag hanging over one shoulder. The bag is emblazoned with ‘Istanbul Delivery’.

Soon, a pitta bread is full of meat and the man behind the counter is loading a pile of mixed salad on top. Then he takes a plastic bottle from the top of the counter and squeezes a dark brown juice over the ensemble, before packing it into a polystyrene box which he wraps with a sheet of off-white paper before putting it into a paper bag. Plastic knife and fork, napkin, a sachet of hand cream. The package is handed over to the delivery man who stuffs it in his bag before slowly making his way through the café, ignoring Smith as he walks past his table.

At the door, Smith doesn’t see the delivery man stop and catch the eye of the man behind the counter, nodding his head sideways at Smith. Barely acknowledging the indication, the man behind the counter stares at Smith while he wipes the long knife clean with a cloth. Smith’s eyes are on the doner, turning, burning ridges of meat charring dark brown, and he wonders why the picture in front of his eyes is melting, blurring, until he feels something wet on his cheek. That’s it! Not the pain, not the dizziness. This. What it means. The tears are streaming now, but he knows he is smiling and the young Turkish guy is frowning, calling someone in from the kitchen, pointing at Smith, moving around the counter, concerned, absent-mindedly holding the knife.

Supreme Secure. Masters. Advanced Secure. Every year a new name. Level 12. Royal Arch. Scott & Wales. Sometimes twice a year or more, depending how busy. Taxes paid, probably. Legally ed, probably. The many companies Smith has worked for over the years, but all the same company, owned and run by the same bosses, engaged in the same work. Names sometimes chosen to send a subtle message: something masonic; something patriotic; strong and solid, immovable like the plinths on which the griffin statues sit at the entrance to the City of London on Fleet Street. At other times, the name reflects a whim or a joke. The bosses pride themselves on having a sense of humour, Smith knows. The current name: G & K. Smith knows it doesn’t mean anything. That’s all it is, just the letters. But spoken with authority as good as any.

George speaks with authority, even on a wet night, even from down here, face on the tarmac, Smith can tell the effect George is having on the local bobbies. The pressure on his back is removed. Sixteen stone of Brummy policeman elevating from his lungs and spine. He knows there is blood mingling with rain water on the ground, his blood and theirs. He can feel the bruises and fractures on his ribs and shoulder, evidence of truncheon blows and, bizarrely, a police riot helmet, swung from above by an over-zealous female officer who had grabbed the first weapon which came to hand in the back of the van. Smith feels no anger towards them, though. His thoughts are elsewhere, even as he is hauled to his feet, the restraints removed from his wrists and two smart-looking gents in suits march

him to a dark car waiting a few yards away from the police van and the small group of onlookers who will never know who or what they have captured on their mobile phones.

Smith spots the young Turkish guy, sitting on the edge of the pavement holding a swab to his forehead. He tries to smile a ‘sorry’, but he feels his face is already swelling, making it look more like an insane grimace. The long knife is on the ground nearby, broken in two, amongst the pebbles of broken glass, all that remains of the café’s main window. Sorry, he tries to say. But nothing comes out. Sorry, as he watches George through the car window, retrieving his laptop – can’t leave that around – and picking up his sodden coat in a bundle, shaking hands with one of the cops. Sorry, as the boot lid slams and George gets in the car and, without a word, they drive off. Sorry, as the dizziness returns and coffee and bile spill down his ruined shirt front

Escape: her mum and dad escaped to the suburbs. Miriam escapes in the opposite direction. It’s the inevitable feeling, each time she visits, even as she gets older and more able to deal with that feeling of slowing down, of being drawn into the crawling dynamics of her parents’ retirement. No matter how much she loves her parents, and she does, or how much she sometimes yearns for that familiar comfort of being looked after, the sensory nostalgia of a Sunday ‘at home’, it always comes to this itch. Restless on the sofa, or all talked out with her dad in the back garden, hanging the tea towel on the cooker handle, hip to hip with her mum in the small kitchen. She needs to leave, to wriggle her way north through the London warrens and get back to her own place, where her breaths fill her chest without constriction or self-awareness.

The goodbye on the step, Mum calling from inside, Dad in his slippers, knowing he will watch her all the way up the street. But just one step, two steps, three, and she is free. A cheerful wave over the shoulder but thoughts already deep into the story, whichever story is distracting her. It doesn’t matter, really, because at this stage in her career, the whole world is a fascinating plate of exotic experience. She knows and appreciates how lucky she is, and if the job came

with a badge, one of those big seventies-style ‘Jim’ll Fix It’-size badges, which read ‘Journalist’, she would be happy to wear it, to bed if necessary.

She walks away from her father. A whiff of spring precedes, a breath of hope envelopes her, and as he watches his daughter, he’s making wishes and thinking: this is the one good thing in a world of bad things. His face tells that story and then another as he glances up and down the street, carefully checking the parked cars, spending long enough to get a reputation with the neighbours for being nosey. He doesn’t care. Although he is a very careful man, it’s true.

Closing the front door, back into the living room, but walking in his mind alongside his daughter, turning the corner, on to the main shopping street, walking past shops he never enters, into the station entrance, waiting on the platform. In his imagination he looks across the tracks to the platform on the other side and sees, someone, hard to tell features, someone, examining Miriam. Really staring and talking into a mobile phone. Disappearing behind the arriving train. The train leaves and the platform opposite is revealed empty. Miriam’s dad unclenches his fist, tucked deep in his tro pocket. Back from his imaginary journey, dropping the imaginary pistol.

On the train, Miriam, unaware of her virtual escort, examining her phone, flicking through the internet, already at work. She would agree with her dad: it’s too soon for that kind of thing, although she’s not sure what kind of thing exactly. There it was again, actually. Brought on by one of those strange conversations she has with her father from time to time; whereas, when she was a child and on into her teens, her father’s absences were unexplained mysteries, made more mysterious by the gifts he brought back for her: a Zulu shield, an Egyptian sword hidden in a camel beater sheath, beautiful carved heads in mahogany which still sit on the dressing table in her bedroom. For a few years now he has been attempting to explain where he was and what he was doing, without mentioning names or governments, as if he needs to confess, as if he has done her a great wrong and needs to explain. The conversation this afternoon had been the most straightforward yet, as if, with each ing year, he judges

her mature enough to understand the complexities of his work. Guilty and proud. But there is also always an element of instruction which she somehow resents.

As ever, it started with him asking her about work. At the mention of the word ‘consultant’ her father had let out a little ‘aah’ and settled back into his armchair, smiling to himself.

‘So, Miriam. What do you think happened here? A tale of everyday council corruption? Not at all surprising. Happens all over the world. I suppose I was a consultant, in a way . . .’ And he was off. Miriam politely listening, counting minutes towards a justified exit.

‘As you know, I was often in Africa for the department. Very busy, particularly in the countries around South Africa. The west wanted a buffer zone, a bit like the Eastern Bloc in reverse. With the chance that our little bit of civilisation on the tip of the African continent could be surrounded by communists, a zone was created by the South African army who declared an unofficial war, sometimes advancing miles into Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, upsetting the border areas, moving ANC bases further and further away, attacking rebels and revolutionaries and whoever else they happened upon, half the time. So, trade was brisk. Everyone needed a pop gun or two.’

Her father’s gaze was becoming distant, sad. Miriam felt both pity and annoyance.

‘Why didn’t you quit, if you hated the job so much, Dad?’

‘Quit? Resign, you mean? Couldn’t. Nobody resigns. It’s a job for life, like the

Provisional IRA, or the Sicilian Mafia.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘That’s the thing, Mi. Once you’re in, you’re in. It’s better not to do it in the first place. If you can. Bloody hard, I know. But you’ve got to be careful. Once they get their claws in you, it’s near-enough impossible to get them out.’

‘But you worked for the government! Surely you could’ve done something else, instead of going around selling bombs to dictators. Why didn’t you ask for a new assignment? Or just leave?’

‘I told you, Mi. You can’t. One can’t. Just leave. I know it sounds dramatic. But that’s the way of the world. Government. Industry. Once they’ve got you by the short and curlies, once you’ve agreed to do things their way, that’s it! You’re bloody buggered!’

Hearing the swearing, Miriam’s mum hurried in with an offer of tea and scones to change the subject. The garden. The allotment. Miriam’s love life. Philip relaxing his face into a benevolent smile. As she watches the backyards of south London’s endless terraces judder by through the train window, Miriam thinks, that’s what always happens. When her dad seems to be on the verge of saying something crucial, her mother slips in to guide him to a safer place, where the conversation isn’t peppered by departments and weapons grades and crates delivered to a jungle airfield by unmarked container planes. One of these days she’ll take the old boy out and do a proper job on him, find out the truth behind all these mysteries. You never know, there might be a story there. But for the moment, she’s not sure if she really wants to know – her instinct is that, somehow, this will get in the way. This finding out. It’s part of a bigger story, too big for her to deal with right now. She’s got smaller fish to fry.

Everything hurts, but he’s been patched up and the edge of the pain has been dulled with strong painkillers. His face is fully swollen now, his angular jaw making a comedic V at the bottom of the heart shape. Hands bandaged. Vague

memories of knuckles catching on metal buttons and teeth. George told him, as they drove off, ‘you damn near killed one of them.’ Good. He’d like to kill George, too, who is nearby, organising a ‘holiday’ for him. Sorry.

It had been George, the last time, too. George the soother, with his unruffled manner, only mildly hurt by Smith’s temporary hatred. The bosses like George. George keeps things running. He was waiting at the airport as Smith arrived, what, three years ago now? Smith, gliding through the special arrivals corridors kept empty, doors kept unlocked, for special travellers, his skin tanned, leathered by the desert sun, hair wiry and crisp, George guiding him by the elbow. Feeling like Peter O’Toole returning from playing Lawrence of Arabia to an alien city, soggy and grey with incomprehensible citizens. The holiday that time had truly been a holiday. George had organised a month in the Cotswolds and a complete ban on booze. It had worked. He got his head straight and went back to work quickly, happily. After all, last time had only been one man, just the one, beaten, shot, left by the side of the road, all in a day’s work. Looking back now, it was nothing. Looking back, the important thing was, he was introduced to Alice.

There’s no knock. Here’s George. A timelessly dapper man, shrinking the room, dressed in his trademark blazer, mimicking the toffs who shop at the same firms for generations, whose tailors are the sons and grandsons of their father’s tailors, who can spot an intruder, an oik, at a hundred paces by the length of a pair of socks, by the thickness of a tweed. They’d spot George, son of the owner of a small chain of grocery shops. They’d spot his tie, which is neither club nor regiment. His gloves, always worn. His shoes, too new. His accent, layered thick to hide the flat Lincolnshire burr.

‘How are we feeling? You look terrible.’

‘Fuck you, George.’

Apparently unperturbed, George sits on the single bed and looks at Smith in the mirror so that he doesn’t have to crane his neck to look up. Everything is uncomfortably close in here, a small, windowless room with its tiny en suite bathroom. A temporary resting place.

‘Stephen, I’ve organised a little holiday for you. You’re going to be with Frank. You Frank, don’t you? I believe you’ve worked together in the past. It will just be the two of you. When you’re ready, we’ll bring you back to the fold. It might take a few months or so. We’ll have to see.’

‘You’re going to lock me up, you bastard.’

‘Yes, just for a while. It’s for your own good. When you’re better you can get back to work. We all get upset sometimes, Stephen. And we all know how sensitive you are. But, as the boss says, that’s what makes you special.’

Standing, bustling, George leans across to the door and taps it. He talks as the door opens to reveal two men, standing, waiting patiently. The same two from the torture box in Surrey. The same two from the glass-strewn road in Birmingham, this time wearing generic ‘security’ bomber jackets, with Velcro epaulettes and radios hooked onto their chests.

‘Now, you’re not going to make a fuss, are you, Stephen? We don’t want any more cracked ribs . . .’

But Smith has turned his back to the room and is staring at the wall, enjoying the

sensation of obliteration as his eyes roll up into the tops of their sockets and a dizzy swirl washes away past and present, unaware that he has toppled like a tree back onto the bed as George tuts and nods his head at the two fit young men who are now contemplating lifting Smith’s dead weight down four flights to a waiting car. Of course, it could have been worse, contemplates George. Or better. He would have been just as happy to shoot the awkward bastard. Or stab him. Shoot, stab, all the same to him.

She’s not a gym person, but occasionally she forces herself to take advantage of the hip she bought at the beginning of the year and kid herself she’s prolonging life and health with a half-hearted workout and a sauna. Miriam catches glimpses of the huge TV screen at one end of the room between dipping back and forth on the Ab Crunch Bench, feeling muscles in her abdomen creak beneath the skin. Wondering to herself, why are all the young people in the music video wearing brand new clothes straight from the hanger and trainers which look creaseless and unworn? And why are they all carrying or wearing blue scarves? There’s a lot of blue in the video, which accompanies a spartan hiphop track – two men wandering along an American backyard, with a crowd following behind them, perhaps twenty or so young adults, all staring straight into the camera lens, straight at her, nothing to distinguish them, their faces distorted into the same lopsided snarl. The bass drum is low and sonic and, she thinks, is matching her heartbeat, causing an uncomfortable phasing. Stopping to swig water she decides, she’s had enough, no need to ‘warm down’, she’ll go straight to the sauna and then home for an early night.

After the sauna, which lasts as long as she can stand the smell of dampness from the wooden slats on the floor, she moves gingerly back through the gym. There’s another video, more hiphop. This time the crowd of youngsters are in the front of a house, on a dusty street somewhere suburban, this time they’re following just the one rapper who has a pit bull pulling him along on a studded leather lead. This time they, and even the dog, are decorated with red scarves. Miriam has noticed young men from the nearby estate where she lives who often sport the same kind of scarves, sometimes red or blue, but also black and grey. A transatlantic connection, another secret code. There’s that thing again, always

floating below the surface. Is it avoiding her or is she avoiding it?

Forced to contemplate further on the significance of colour as she walks past a cordoned street corner at a busy junction a few streets down from the gym, the yellow incident tape connected from a traffic cone to two corners of a restaurant doorway and in the space between, ambulance medics crouching over a figure lying flat on the pavement as policemen stand by and talk into their radios. Forced to the other side of the road where several people have gathered, Miriam can see, in the gaps between ambulance and police van, a spreading pool of red beneath the prone figure and the boots of the medics. An older woman mutters, more to herself than to Miriam, ‘Lord, when will it end?’ And Miriam, not knowing even when it started or why, gives her a sympathetic smile before turning once more for a final look as she walks away, noticing the blue scarf stuffed into the top of the traffic cone. A marker? Another signal? Moments later and the big city momentum has reduced the incident to another tragic stitch in the tapestry of London living. Miriam’s mind is once more on the meeting tomorrow with the boss of Redbridge Borough Council.

The following day, Miriam’s morning is taken up with a washing-machine emergency in her flat but she manages five minutes between wringing sopping towels into the sink to make a phone call to the office of Councillor Kaspar, arranging a meeting for later that afternoon. It’s bloody miles away.

The last part of the journey, to a far-flung borough, she finds herself on her third bus for over an hour. Empty, it gives her a chance to open her laptop and check her emails.

Outside, going east, the buildings change. More space between terraces, more semi’s, road widening, trees stretching, slower-moving people – miles away from London is this part of London, sitting on the ever widening concrete apron of the expanding city.

Her inbox is the normal Monday glut of useless information sent by people and companies whose mailing lists she doesn’t g up to. But among the Amazon recommendations and offers to buy discounted washing-machine parts, there are the newswire services and several acquaintances, s really, who feed her titbits of occasionally interesting information from their various fields. Here’s one now: a doctor friend, known since school, working at a hospital in the Midlands. She normally sends Miriam livid instances of hospital incompetence and bureaucracy but today recommends she look into an explosion in a house in the Lozells area of Birmingham. Rumours of arson, several deaths and a mysterious visit from a uniformed army officer to the one survivor who is struggling with a head wound in a private room in the hospital, away from the main wards. Probably drugs or terrorists, her doctor friend asserts. Probably a gas leak, Miriam thinks.

The bus stops, its last stop, outside the town hall, a large, revolution deco building, puffing out its grey brick chest over rows of two-storey houses, school fields, allotments. Inside, she is eventually directed to a room four flights up.

In a subtle but effective indication of authority the carpet is thicker at the beginning of the wide corridor on the top floor. Before she reaches it a door opens and a large man walks briskly towards her.

‘Miss Taylor, is it?’ Hand extended, Council Karate Move Number One.

‘Councillor Kaspar. Call me John. We’ll go to my office, just down here.’ Neutral Cockney, a municipal accent. ‘When they built this place I think they had Napoleon’s idea of the construction of the Parisian streets in mind. Build ’em wide to fit a well-ordered regiment who can take on the Paris mob. Wrong way round, of course. For my first few years it was the mob that was in charge of this place, expecting a regiment of Coldstream Guards to come marching down

the corridors and turf ‘em out. Here we are.’

A led door. A neat brass nameplate: Councillor John Kaspar. With a K.

He ushers her in and she finds herself genuinely awed. A big desk, the kind you expect to find between you and a mogul, or a dictator, in beautiful, worn teak. And behind, framed by a pair of very thick red curtains, a view of the streets and gardens and fields nearby which, by some quirk of geology, sit in front of a gentle valley that falls to the distant M11 motorway. Two opposing slopes of freshly green trees crossed by a thin grey line of concrete over which the flashing lights of sun-reflecting cars and lorries zoom.

‘Please, sit down. I’ll sort us out some tea, shall I? Or would you prefer coffee?’

‘Tea, thanks.’

On his desk, an old-fashioned intercom. He flicks a switch and, without waiting for a reply, orders the refreshments. With obvious relish he takes his time examining her from boot to head as she wriggles out of her coat while still sitting, her skirt riding up over her knees. (It’s worked before and will work again, this wriggling.) She takes her own time and examines back.

A big man in a well-fitted suit always looks bigger. Broad chest. Thick brush of hair, probably cut in the same style for the past thirty years, with slightly varying lengths being the only nod to fashion. Gone out of fashion, come back, gone out and now in yet again, sitting well on his sixty years. Tanned evenly, face and hands. He’s unbuttoned his jacket, as you should when you sit down. He holds himself upright, one hand lightly resting on the desk, the other on his knee, his

high-backed chair pushed back on its wheels. He swivels slightly, to take in the view or to let her take it in more. His hand sweeps out, in an ‘all this could be yours, one day’ gesture, actually council karate move number ten, a Hapkido invitation for her to ire and fall into his world.

‘Impressive, for the suburbs. You don’t expect to find views like this anywhere near this end of Essex, do you?’ He swivels back round, wheels forward, both elbows on the desk, clasping hands under his chin, the get-down-to-business move. ‘Bill hasn’t told me what this is about, but he says you’re looking for some basic info on procedure, about how councils go about their business.’

A knock at the door and a young man brings in a tray, placing it on the desk then marching out, leaving a wisp of cologne. The councillor waves a hand and the scent puffs away into the coffee aroma. There’s no question about who pours. She takes her cup, in a saucer, both with the council coat of arms glazed into the china.

‘Now, is there any area in particular you would like me to tell you about? Oh, and’ – fully engaging her eyes – ‘I would prefer you not to record this, Miriam. All off the record. If you don’t mind.’

‘Of course’. She smiles. He doesn’t respond. She gathers her thoughts.

‘Land, I suppose, building, construction. Who orders it, who is in charge. How easy it is for corruption to creep in, although I’m not suggesting . . .’

‘That I’m corruptible? Ha! Of course I am. We all are. You, me, anyone.’

He sips the coffee, grimaces. Places the cup and saucer back on his desk. Stands up, hands clasped behind his back and looks out over his dominion. He turns back to her. ‘Have you eaten?’

Multi-national Indian, generic, but with a good wine list and no music. He is a known, valued regular. They are early, too late for lunch, though, which means they have the place to themselves.

‘Nothing to eat since breakfast. Meetings all day. That’s what I do, meetings. Shall we have a bottle?’

He checks the wine list. They order. He has Methi Gosht. She has Butter Chicken and decides not to eat again until at least ten o’clock tonight. The wine relaxes her.

‘To be honest, John, this was Bill’s idea, and I’m not exactly sure what you can add to the story. It’s in another part of town completely and it’s already been well documented. No offence. What did Bill say exactly? Did he just want to get me out from under his feet for a few hours?’

‘I appreciate your honesty, Miriam. Bill said to me he was sending a promising young woman journalist and when I said, what for?, he said, just talk, John. Just talk, like you do. I think I know what he means. But if you like, we can enjoy our meal and talk about the weather.’

‘I’m sorry. I’ve offended you.’

A pause, he looks at her.

‘That’s rubbish. You know you haven’t. I’m going to give you some advice. When you walked in you exuded boredom. You thought you had me sized up and parcelled in less than a minute. Here’s another old council hack, you thought, another old sexist who thinks he knows it all, with his job for life and sanctimonious fake left-wing credentials. A few years ago, you would have been sent straight back out again, blacklisted. I would have made a career-changing call to your boss and you would have regretted not having the good manners to pretend you were interested in what I had to say.’

She begins to reply but he talks on.

‘But I’ve mellowed. And Bill is one of the good bastards. So, learn to pretend. When you’ve lost your elastic, youthful good looks, batting your eyes won’t work. Won’t work even when you’ve still got ’em on anyone like me. Think about it.’

She waits, mouth slightly open, ready to smile. He should be twinkling. Instead she encounters the hard wall of an unblinking stare. Well practised. She looks away and addresses the wall over his shoulder.

‘I’m sorry. No, I mean, well, you might be right, about making a snap decision. It’s hard not to . . . the building, the office, the desk, the view . . .’

Interrupted by the arrival of the food. When he begins again his tone from the

preceding conversation has vanished. He dictates, warmly.

‘I left school with no qualifications. Then I went to work at a factory – leather work, bags and shoes – and quickly got a reputation for being a bolshie, mouthy type, always complaining. The union man came to see me. We were all , for all the good it did. He told me to stop rocking the boat. He was in with the bosses, getting a backhander. Threatened me. So I knocked him out. Hit him once and his head bounced off a wall and he was down, sparko.

‘I learned, there and then, nearly everything I needed to know about life. The workers who had witnessed it all swore to the police that he started it. I got off and they elected me shop steward. The first thing I did was organise a down tools. It took just a morning, but everyone took the day off for a holiday. By the afternoon, management had agreed: higher wages and lower hours. That easy. That straightforward.

‘From there I started going to the conferences. I made speeches. I made friends. Some of the persuading went on in the meetings, some of it in the alleys outside. Working men, strong, violent, some of them. Liked a fight. And I quickly realised I didn’t want that kind of life. My place was in organising, leading. I went back to school and studied history, night classes. I read every book about the unions, communism, the class struggle. Anything. The early seventies came and I was being paid full-time by the union. It was a start. That’s when I moved out of London. Got married. Had kids. Left the factory for good.

‘The men I represented worked their balls off. When we took them out on strike they had to survive on hardly anything. Their wives hated us. The bosses hated us. But to the men, we were heroes. We changed their lives. Got them a living wage, probably gave them a few extra years to live and enjoy the grandkids.

‘Then I ed the council, became a councillor. And we were doing it there, too, us socialists, us lefties. We took families out of rat-infested ruins into state-ofthe-art, Corbusier-inspired living space. Centrally heated with views across the city and magic rubbish chutes. They loved it and they loved us for it. Don’t let anyone tell you different. When those estates went up they changed lives. Of course, it all went to shit later. Too many of ’em brought the slum with them. It would take more than a nice flat to change generations of ingrained filthy living.

‘Over the years I rose through the ranks of the council. Made a point of always being where the action is, which is and always has been, property. Land. Building.

‘Never applied to be an MP, that’s a poisoned chalice if you ask me, but I’ve made myself indispensable round here. I’ve had one goal in life, since those days in Finsbury Park, since my first proper day’s work in a factory.’

He pushes his plate back, half finished. ‘What is it? What do you think it is, this goal of mine?’

Time for her to talk.

‘Helping others? Making a more equal world? Revolution?’

He laughs so loudly and so hard a face appears through the galley doors to check a crazy man wasn’t starting trouble. The waiter watches, smiling.

‘No, you silly girl. My goal was to pull myself out of the swamp of shit I was born into so I wouldn’t have to live like the scum I represented. I wanted to be rich. And powerful. And, guess what? I am!’

Oh.

Laughing, less frantically, taking a sip of calming wine, pulling his plate back and diving in with knife and fork as another dark-suited man, who has slipped into the restaurant, a man of similar age, who could be a brother mason, approaches the table, speaking in a soft Scottish Highland burr.

‘John. What’s so funny? Expenses? Equal opportunities? Hello, you’re with another beautiful woman.’

The councillor turns, acknowledges the man, extends a hand, wiping his mouth with a napkin with the other.

‘Eric, this is Miriam. She’s a journalist, so watch what you say. Miriam, this is my friend Eric. Chief Commissioner Eric Ambler, to give him his full title, which, of course, he doesn’t deserve.’

Eric doesn’t shake her hand. He seems to be looking down at her from a great height, even though he’s not particularly tall.

‘I’ve just been telling Miriam here how much I hate those fuckers, those ants who pay my wages. And yours.’

‘Don’t let him intimidate you, Miriam.’

‘Too late, I’m afraid.’

The chief commissioner talks on as he turns away. ‘He’s just a plain speaker, telling it like it is, saying what’s on all our minds but we’re all too nice to say. John, I’ll speak to you later.’

Kaspar turns to Miriam. ‘So, now you know what a bastard I am. This is probably what Bill was hoping to get across. We’re all bastards. Me.’ Nodding his head in the direction of Ambler. ‘Him. Bill, you.’

‘You’re just a young bastard, that’s all, an apprentice bastard. You haven’t earned your stripes yet. So, when you approach this story, the brothers-in-law, the planner, just what they are. They’re bastards who are going to get caught. I haven’t been caught. You haven’t had time to get caught.’

Miriam finds that she isn’t surprised that the councillor is aware of the details of her assignment. Of course, Councillor Kaspar is too wide not to have reach over the other side of town. Did Bill tell him or did he know already? Does he know any more than that?

‘You knew all along why I was here, didn’t you? What else do you know?’

‘I don’t do free favours, even for pretty young journalists. I can help you, if you

can help me. I don’t need a favour just now, but perhaps in a while, in a few months, or even a year, I might. Do you want to help me, Miriam?’

She nods without hesitation. Inside, she is shaking her head emphatically.

‘In that case, I’ll help you put these chiselling bastards where they belong.’ He gestures with his fork at her untouched food.

‘Eat up. My treat.’

No hint of sex involved. Easy, really. So why does she feel so dirty?

Pressing ‘send’ on the email. The piece on the brothers-in-law and the borough planner, together with a suggested headline: ‘The Million Pound Question – Where Does The Corruption End?’ It’s late on Monday night but she knows Bill still loves her even if he hasn’t read this article yet, proof provided by a curt ‘well done, Miriam’ in an email sent earlier this evening. The congratulations are for a short piece she had sent in last week: about the party at the funeral of a biker, a Hells Angel, on the south coast, Ramsgate. A fight and another death, not of a biker, just someone from the hotel who got mixed up in it. A relative along for the ride, literally, who didn’t understand the fine balance of inebriation and respect needed for a biker’s wake. She is relatively proud of the piece and it made the Saturday edition. It’s another small step. A kind of crime novel in micro-form that the editor appreciates, all her own work. Is she still, officially, ‘promising’? Or has she arrived yet? She still can’t tell. She wasn’t in the lift, going up, that’s for sure.

Pausing for a few minutes before beginning her bedtime routine. She’d like to share her small triumph with a quick drink and a chat but there is no one close. Her loose network of friends from university has long since dissipated. When she finally moved into her own flat it was a blessed relief from the kind of house sharing that London house prices forced on twenty-somethings but she immediately lost the casual friends and confidantes that went with bathroom rotas and borrowed umbrellas. So moments later she is regarding her reflection while brushing her teeth and feeling old and distracted all at the same time.

During research about the motorcycle group she found out that the patches worn on the traditionally abused, ripped-sleeved denim jackets are called ‘colours’. Perhaps there’s a link there, with something. In bed, on the verge of sleep, she entertains her mind with blue and red bandanas, the red curtains in John Kaspar’s office, the green trees through the window, the bikers’ skulls and motifs, all forming a mosaic which swirls the images together. She considers talking to the fashion editor about how to make custom fabric designs, pictures herself in a dress made from her thoughts, and is asleep before seriously contemplating a change of career and becoming a fashion designer.

It’s a boring room for a bedroom, not very homely, not a promising start. Stephen Smith is realising his bosses really aren’t very happy with him. At least, one part of him realises. The rest of him doesn’t care. George let him know this is just a temporary arrangement, while they wait for a ‘nicer’ option to become vacant, before leaving Smith alone with the two uninterested minders, back in their suits, who lounge next door. He is in bed, a single bed, in between new sheets and duvet, on a new mattress, which is still covered in polythene. There’s a new carpet on the floor. The lilac paint on the walls is made sickly by the lowwatt lamp on the bedside table, also brand new, from somewhere cheap. There is still a desk in the room, left over from when it was just another office in this block of offices.

Although it was dark when they arrived, Smith sensed another trading estate. He’d been to enough of them over the years. He recognised the twists and turns

which took them away from the motorway, but not too far. He recognised the feel of the tarmac, the light bumps of the sleeping policemen and the way the car was parked. Where do they find all these empty industrial estates, he wonders. But then, this is how it is nowadays, there are many such places, waiting for technological revivals and full employment.

They had left him here with little ceremony. A new pair of jeans and a shirt and underwear had been left on the bed, ready for his arrival. His shoes had been removed, along with the rest of his clothes, probably to be incinerated. There’s a small toilet through the second door. A bottle of vodka on the desk and a shot glass and an untouched cheese sandwich on a paper plate. Through the window he can see reflected lights in the distance, probably the motorway, and a dark mass behind a single dim streetlamp, a warehouse of some kind, probably.

He swigs the vodka from the bottle and leans against the headboard. His face hurts. His mind hurts. The callous has been picked off his soul. He feels the pain of the bugs he breathes in and out of his nostrils, the insects he steps on, the battery-farmed animals out there in the countryside, the children who mourn their dead parents, the terminally ill and the condemned poor. The door to his safe place, from where he could continue his chosen line of work, has been well and truly kicked in by the size elevens of guilt and blame. It’s his fault. He killed the kids and the soldiers and the mother and the grandmother. He is to blame, for all the deaths, for all the hurt, for not being smart enough to make it all better, for everyone. Is it enough to feel sorry now? For the torture. For the meat on the spindle of the kebab, turning and burning, turning and burning.

Laughing at his self-pity, Smith chugs vodka, dribbling it down his chin, pulling himself out of the bed. He is, he decides, going to be ill for a long time as, between swigs, he methodically smashes up the furniture in his room.

Smith’s bosses take a little break. ‘It’s sad. He’s become a Buddhist.’ One

brother to another, his voice tinged with tiles, creeping around the half closed bathroom door. Cross-legged, tro-less, the other brother sits resolutely in a flimsy-looking hotel chair, his elbows resting on the arm rests, his hands making a cathedral before his chin. White shirt, pulled together at the top by a tie belonging to a regiment disbanded before his birth, out of which billows a neck ing a Kinder Egg-shaped head, smooth-shaven all over, apart from the eyebrows which have been narrowed and trimmed. Below, a girth, which can only be imagined, held in at the edges by the chair. The shirt has old-fashioned long tails covering chest, belly and loins, and the skinny white legs sticking out below the mass look as if they belong to a much thinner man crushed by the torso.

Everything is neat. Two matching fake crocodile-skin suitcases lie on the suitcase stools you only find in old-fashioned hotel rooms. Two pairs of dark tros are folded over the tro press. The curtains are drawn shut and the only light comes from the tube above the headboard of the king-sized bed, illuminating a curled figure draped in sheet, head between two enormous pillows, eyes shut, thumb in mouth. Could be a boy or a girl, could be anything from twelve to an under-nourished twenty-something. The breathing is regular, deep, with a cute little snore – so endearing – giving no hint of torn tissue, spots of blood, bruises from being flung one way then another like a landed fish ed between two fishermen. Blessed relief received from whatever was inside the empty capsules on the bedside table, from whatever the residue at the bottom of the otherwise empty glass contains.

‘Many things are sad, brother.’

A toilet flushes in the bathroom and the door fully opens to create a matching pair; also in shirt-sleeves, no tros. The same ivory shins and hairless thighs. Although one of them is an Horatio and the other is a Cornelius they never use their own names. Creatures of careful habit, it’s possible they occasionally forget which one they happen to be.

Let’s presume the brother from the bathroom is Horatio.

‘Ah, yes, but I’m particularly upset about Stephen. He was such a promising young man. And he’s done very well. Don’t you think he’s done very well?’

Cornelius sneers a little. ‘You’ve always fancied him, you dirty whore. I think it’s time we demoted him. I don’t trust Stephen. He’s too bright and he’s got a conscience.’

‘Yes, but that’s what makes him so much fun, don’t you think?’

The stink from the bathroom stirs the young person on the bed. The brothers ignore the muttering. They are used to each other’s smells and they are used to bodies on beds, no more remarkable to them than an abandoned towel. Cornelius takes one pair of tros from the press and sits heavily on the edge of the bed.

‘If he was another of your psychotic automatons there would be no game, you have to it, brother.’

‘My boys get the job done and with considerably less fuss. Demote him.’

‘Not yet. I want to see what he does next. Frank tells me he’s on a bottle a day. Switches between all the main spirits and has asked for marijuana. Marijuana! He doesn’t smash up his room now he’s in the new place. Good job, too, he was on his third bed. You see’ – grunting with the exertion of pulling his tros on – ‘if he comes through all this, he might be the one.’

Cornelius snorts. ‘We don’t need a “one”. We are going to live forever. We just need to up our intake a little more.’

Horatio laughs. ‘Yes, we need more sustenance. We need to become more impressive, more substantial.’

‘The bigger we get, the harder it is for anyone to move us. Look at you, brother, you’re fading away!’

‘I know it, brother. I need another breakfast. Shall we call room service?’

‘Let’s eat out. I know a wonderful little place just a short stroll around the corner. I’ll freshen up if you can tidy up.’

‘Happy to, brother.’ And, as Cornelius runs a tap in the bathroom the nicer one, Horatio, the brother with the sweeter side to his personality and an occasional jaunty air, sits himself down next to the sleeping figure on the bed, strokes the dyed blonde hair, smiles wistfully to himself then, taking a pillow, covers the sleeper’s head completely, leaning with the considerable weight of his belly as the young person jerks gently for a minute or so beneath him before becoming permanently motionless.

Horatio sighs. It’s tuneful and heartfelt. From the bathroom his brother pipes up. ‘What was that?’

‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’

CHAPTER TWO

Still ing By

A LIGHTHOUSE NEEDS special furniture. But one whole floor is furnished with rectangles and squares, which cramps the space and makes it ordinary. Smith rubs his beard on the edge of a shelf as he looks along the row of . . . what? Books? CDs? DVDs? He takes a book by the top with one finger and angles it, slides it out far enough to read the spine. Through porthole windows a meagre light, not enough to read by. He doesn’t really want a book. He’s posing, for the camera. Book. DVD. Everything in the room is special, he assumes, because of the camera. Every movement creates a retro-script that will be examined by specialists in human behaviour. Probably. So he likes to have some fun with them, making random choices and feigning significance.

The camera is in the ceiling, in the centre. It’s not disguised as a smoke alarm, he had noted on his first semi-lucid day’s meandering through the building. None of them is. One in every room, including the toilet. When he had covered that camera with a wodge of sodden toilet roll, nothing had happened. No one had come. Money was tight and he had no idea how special he was. None of the cameras might be real, or monitored, or monitored very often.

Most of the time, he forgets about the cameras and gets on with living in a lighthouse. It’s a landlocked building, attached to a large house by a thin terrace of single-storey sheds or stores that might once have been stables. It’s not even on top of a hill. The views from the top, through the triangular panes of window in the cone, are of city slate, the sea in the far distance beyond cranes and dockside warehouse roofs. In the opposite direction, he looks down into the half acre of garden at the rear of the large house. In the summer, the garden is used

for packed lunches, eaten on the grass. There was a company party, with a small marquee and waiters serving wine on a fine evening in late June. Speeches and some cheerful flirting distracted him in the dusk as he watched from the window. He still hadn’t figured out what the company did, what they sold. The workers are a mixed bag of ages. Probably something financial, he has mused. The hair is conservative, but the dress is casual. Could almost be some of our lot, he has thought.

His bed has a curved headboard on one curved end that fits snugly into the curved wall. It takes up a large part of the bedroom and is the only fitted piece in the building. It’s where he likes to be, most of the time. Muscles wasting. Wrists limp. Fingers almost bloodless. Minimum movement. Breathing hot air under the covers, not quite asleep.

Food, drink, booze, a full kitchen. And then Frank brings takeaways, of all kinds, whatever he wants. They sit together at the small kitchen table eating, drinking. He trusts Frank. Frank is good to drink with. Frank doesn’t expect to be entertained or attempt to entertain. Mr Smith and Frank drink like old-timers on their favourite bar stools, proud of their consumption and lack of inebriation. He has drunk Frank under the table, once. Literally, under the table. Frank had slowly slid from his chair until he was out of sight. When Smith eventually looked, Frank was curled up around the chair and table legs, gently snoring on the floor.

They drink whisky a lot. Also beer and wines, mainly cheap supermarket plonk. There is a half drunk bottle of wine in his right hand as he pushes the DVD back in place. Some part of him had noticed it was True Grit, starring John Wayne. Left over from the previous occupant. Not a book, a DVD.

Frank insists that he should treat his confinement as a holiday. The lighthouse as a holiday home, let out for short and long stays. This was a long stay, of course. It’s a beautiful city, Frank reminds him, people come from all over the world to

appreciate its stocky majesty, its humble boasting, its closed doors and sensible festivals. Or, as Frank put it, just to have a look and that. So he should be grateful. They could have kept him at the offices on the industrial estate.

The lighthouse dwellers are equally taciturn when drunk; Smith never tries to pump Frank for information about the outside world, just as Frank never asks him anything apart from what he wants for tea. With no TV, computer or radio as such, his guesses about life outside are limited to observing the mood of the workers in the large house, whether the sun shines or not, and the CB radio on the top floor.

Although just a receiver, the radio works. It has no transmitter or microphone, but he can sweep the channels and listen in to the occasional broadcast from dyed-in-the-wool CB specialists and, sometimes, the ships that dock in the port about two miles away.

He has noticed several regulars, locals, who talk more about the creaking technology they are utilising than anything else. They appear to know each other, or know of each other by reputation garnered more from conventions and websites than the conversations they have. He seldom stops to listen.

The ships are more interesting. From all over the world, sometimes in English to the harbour pilot or customs frigate, sometimes in their own language, either from ship to ship or, very occasionally, on board the same ship, probably some vast, antiquated tanker that needs, like a Brontosaurus, a brain in the prow and a brain in the stern. The languages are Greek, Russian, French, various Norse. He once heard Gaelic, two islanders from the north on board a vessel laying cable across the North Sea – nothing important, just a brief, homely interlude for the sailors. Sometimes he will hear some words of a language he is fluent in and it will be like coming home. Other times, he makes an educated guess and fills in the gaps with his imagination.

He listens by himself. If Frank appears, he turns the machine off, but Frank never seems to mind one way or the other. Obviously the radio was there for a reason. They have their reasons. He has his.

The CB radio is probably being monitored, might even be set up with phony broadcasts to trigger a response. With his people, he reasoned, it could just be an oversight, or a joke, all part of the fun and games – he can easily imagine Cornelius and Horatio chortling together as they request more ridiculous stories in more ridiculous languages, even if he couldn’t imagine them paying for the actors. Still, he listens and waits. His mind still, on pause. He has been trained well, but is a natural, also, very luckily finding the very thing in life that both interests him and that he is very good at: human communication, the connection between us all. He is very understanding, these days. He used to be quite good at being violent, too. But let’s not think about that today.

He takes a swig from a wine bottle and goes to the narrow wooden steps that lead to his bedroom. Through the door and then up the iron ladder bolted to the wall, through a trap door and on to the top floor, where the lantern would have been if this was a real lighthouse and not an Edwardian folly, or whatever it is. Instead of the lantern is an overstuffed armchair, that puffs dust every time he drops himself into it, and a packing case, wooden with metal edges, on which sits the CB rig. There’s a socket in the side where the lead for the mic once connected. Two wires tangle upwards from the machine and are Blu-Tacked to the leading between the window panes.

All around, warped and fly-visioned, the city lights blur in the old glass. Daytime, it was possible to make out the world clearly from here, but now, the streetlamps and house and tenement lights and the odd car headlights are just a series of starry dots and blobs in yellow, white, red and blue. He leaves the room light off, an anglepoise lamp on the floor by the chair. He turns on the CB radio and sits down, sipping red wine as the crackles indicate the machine is warming up. This is wrong, he knows. The radio is old, but not valve. It shouldn’t need to

warm up. He imagines, somewhere else in the city, or in a place miles away, a cup of tea hastily being put down, someone being called from the bathroom, a mouse click on a computer and the evening’s entertainment beginning.

Leaning forward, he twiddles the CB’s dial, forward then back, then back further, sweeping the frequencies. The click of a syllable through the static; he rewinds and tunes into a voice. Faint, in, what was that? German. Good old solid German. The language of spies. History and commerce, modern warfare and atrocity. Novel and transcript. Friend and foe. This should be fun, he thinks

Sitting on the side of his bed, Frank shakes him, not unkindly. ‘Mr Smith, come and eat.’ Frank has removed one shoe and is examining the sole. On the tip and heel are Blakey’s, or segs, as the locals called them: two worn strips of metal that click when Frank walks on a hard surface.

‘Get lost. Fuck off. Let me sleep.’

Frank taps the shoe, holding it upside down, then feels around inside.

‘Breakfast, Mr Smith.’

With one shoe off, holding the other, Frank limps to the bedroom door. Then the sound of one tapping shoe and the whisper of sock, alternately on the wooden steps. Getting up, Smith goes down to the kitchen where Frank is pulling bacon from a grill where it has fused, not quite burnt, to the bars. Frank knows he prefers it crispy like this. There is toast and a pot of tea, two mugs, two empty plates and Frank’s shoe on the corner of the table. Taking the shoe by the toe,

Smith raises it above the back of Frank’s head.

On the floor, two buttons pop from his pyjama top as Frank pins one side of the shirt to the floor with one hand, while the other pushes his head in the opposite direction. Although taller than Frank by a foot, Smith is helpless. Frank’s left knee is digging into the muscles of his inner right thigh and his leg is already going numb. He has dropped the shoe. He can feel spittle wet on his cheek and his eyes are blurred with tears. He lies half on his back, half on his side until Frank feels his body go limp and eases off.

Some time later. An hour? Half that? More like a few minutes. Frank is sitting at the table, sipping tea. Still on the floor, in a more relaxed version of his captive pose he watches Frank ignore him. Slowly he gets up. Frank has both his shoes on now and slides a chair out with one shod foot so that he can him at the table.

‘You all right, Mr Smith?’ He knows Frank doesn’t expect an answer, he’s just showing that there are no hard feelings. Fun and games. The bacon is cold, but comes alive between the toast and sips of warm tea. It’s delicious.

Outside, the day is the same old drear. He notices time. Frank rolls a cigarette. He never smokes inside, but the smell of recently puffed smoke hangs around him when he arrives in the mornings, afternoons or evenings. It’s always Frank, never anyone else. When it’s not Frank, the doors are locked and he’s left alone. There’s a reason for that, too, he thinks. Frank is a friend, a colleague, someone who has worked under his command in tricky situations, someone he can trust. Frank is there to defend and protect him, as well as guard him. It’s not personal, but there is some human connection there. If Frank had been with him then perhaps he wouldn’t have flipped his lid in the first place. Business blurs and blends into personal, impossible to separate the two.

‘What are we drinking today, Mr Smith?’

‘Vodka, if you can’t get Schnapps, Frank.’

‘I can get Schnapps.’

‘Schnapps it is, then.’

‘Lemonade?’

Sensing Frank’s disapproval, he likes to mix fine liquor with sweet, fizzy lemonade. It’s a way of ing with the younger generation, he thinks, an honest ission of the purpose of alcohol: to taste nice and get you drunk. During their sessions, Frank drinks from a shot glass while he swigs from a frothing tumbler. It’s all the same, he tells Frank. His teeth are collateral damage from the main attack on his liver and brain. Frank doesn’t mind, really. It’s hard to annoy Frank. He’s very patient, is Frank.

Some cops don’t seem to be cops. Miriam has self-consciously adopted some of the mannerisms and language of her older colleagues. Five years ago, to Miriam, an officer was an officer, or a constable or a Detective Sergeant. Nowadays a cop is a cop is a cop. Except some of them aren’t. Take this one, for instance, the slight, dark-haired young woman moving assuredly along the hospital corridor towards her, dressed in the standard uniform of dark body armour, white shirt, shapeless tros, one gloved hand holding a cap tucked under her arm, looking for all the world like a successful contestant in a gymkhana. Pony tail swishing

behind her head, super-confident, very attractive in an unblinking kind of way, large brown eyes now fixed on Miriam, who stands, folding her laptop.

‘And you are?’ Very brisk. Miriam looks at the cop’s epaulettes, checking for pips, not that she would know what they meant if there were any there. No pips. No stripes. And no number.

‘Miriam Taylor. I’m a journalist.’

For a moment the cop looks at her then she walks past Miriam and through the swing doors monitored on the other side by a hospital security guard who nods her through. Miriam watches her through the door windows, moving on into the ward, disappearing into a curtained booth. It’s a small ward, room for just six beds, officially, but all the beds have been removed apart from the one, presumably, in the booth, on which, again presumably, because she hasn’t managed to have it confirmed yet, a gunshot victim is ‘stable’ and, apparently, able to identify his attacker. Presumably, apparently – that’s all she’s managed in the two hours she’s been waiting, the first journalist on the scene. No one will confirm one way or another; doctors and nurses are too busy to talk and wouldn’t anyway unless they want instant dismissal. The official quote was ‘no comment’, from the hospital manager. The anonymous tip was: someone got shot while walking their dog in a private park in Notting Hill, London. The who, the why, all as mysterious as those behind the two or three murders a week her paper normally covers.

Was it always like this, this small weekly Armageddon in the UK? Probably. Looking back, Miriam thinks her halcyon days were only innocent because she was very young and grew up in the suburbs, where the police tape fluttering outside offices in government buildings or in pub doorways were seldom glimpsed by a child. Now, working at the nub end, Miriam is normally too busy to wonder how ‘normal’ everything is. Another day’s mayhem. It’s normal. There will be another murder tomorrow and one after that and onwards. It’s how

the nation’s wheels turn, slicked with human blood.

Miriam decides to give up on the wait. She calls the office, but Bill is busy. A spot of lunch at the hospital canteen, then one more try, she decides. As she walks down the corridor, away from the ward, she hears the swing doors open noisily behind her and she is quickly overtaken by the female cop, pony tail swinging, walking very quickly, who has rounded the corner even as Miriam manages an ‘excuse me!’ and has thumped down two flights of stairs before Miriam can quicken her pace to follow. She waits at the lift, looking back down the corridor at the swing doors. The security guard has disappeared. In fact, she can’t see anyone around at all. But the call of a coffee and a salad wins over the ever so slight chance of actually getting in to speak to someone and she is in the lift, going down, wondering what the emergency was – the cop was in a real hurry.

In the canteen, the TV suspended from the ceiling at one end of the room is set to a long-running show exploiting clips of violence recorded in the UK, but, with the sound down, the shaky citizen-journalist shots of night-time incidents in fastfood shops and on the streets of various cities look like the same crime from many different angles. The few visitors and staff sitting around the tables of the canteen are absorbed in the images. There is no conversation, even on shared tables.

Miriam is half way through a Styrofoam dish full of bean salad, hypnotised by a point-of-view camera tour around a smart and bloody detached house in the south east somewhere, when movement in the real world on the periphery of her vision distracts her from the TV and she notices through a window the arrival of several new cops disgorged from a police car parked at an angle with its lights flashing, the cops heading as urgently towards the stairs as their female colleague was in making her exit in the opposite direction. Something’s up.

Back in the corridor and still chewing her bean salad, Miriam manages to get

into the ward on the heels of the police, but is stopped before she can see what has happened and ushered out by a security guard, the same one as from before.

‘What’s happened?’

The security guard seems amused by something and, surprisingly, once he has pushed Miriam back into the corridor, he keeps on walking, calling over his shoulder, ‘He’s dead!’

‘Who’s dead? The witness? The victim? How did he die? Where are the doctors?’ But the guard has gone, as definitely not there as the female cop. Miriam checks the ceiling. Yes, there are the cameras. And there, too, on the stairs. Surely, also, by the entrance. Whatever happened, it will all be on a computer’s hard drive somewhere else in the hospital.

A visitor, upsetting the fine balance of lighthouse living. With three people in it, the kitchen shrinks around them. He can tell George feels uncomfortable. He’s here to do his duty, no doubt, here for reasons not his own.

‘George.’

‘Stephen. What on earth are you wearing?’

What is he wearing? He takes a step outside his body and sees a thin frame in an old-fashioned stripy pyjama top, brown corduroy tros, bare feet. There’s a crocheted blanket on the back of his chair where it has fallen from his shoulders.

It’s warm in the kitchen from the stove – pancakes, hash brownies. Frank is making a fresh pot of tea. They do live very well here.

George shrugs off his short macintosh and leaves it, inside out, on the back of the chair; he leaves his thin leather gloves on. Smith can see the top of George’s wallet poking from the coat’s inside pocket and, tucked behind that, a folded piece of paper. All positioned there for a reason.

‘Are we drinking tea, Frank? Make mine three sugars, not too much milk. Have you got semi-skimmed? Oh good, you have a selection.’

‘Well, Stephen. This is very cosy.’

‘I’m glad you like it, George. I’m thinking of putting it on the market, though. The neighbourhood’s not what it was.’

‘Looks all right to me.’ George sniffs, then sneezes into his hand.

‘Excuse me, summer cold’. George reaches into his coat pocket, dipping around for something. He wipes his nose with a crumpled tissue, then reaches again. ‘Ah.’ He takes the piece of paper and unfolds it on the table.

‘This should interest you. Apparently there were some mistranslations.’

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to translate for me, George, I don’t understand.’

‘I think you do, actually. Or did, at least. Look at this: he told you something, blah, blah, family, that’s right, and you assumed, or we assume you assumed, that he was talking about “family” in the criminal sense, as in a criminal family, when he meant, literally, family, you know, with kids, a mother, a grandmother. You know, the ones who were blown apart by those idiotic Nigerian commandos.’

George slides the paper over to him.

Smith looks at it. Pretends to read it. ‘All gobbledygook to me, I’m afraid. Forgotten everything I thought I ever knew about Yoruba. What’s this all about, George?’

‘What on earth did you think you were doing when you went to Birmingham, Stephen? There is considerable annoyance at your actions and some considerable fall-out. A lot of mopping up. Not only did you mistranslate, but then you went and compounded it all by putting your big feet in it at the crime scene. Makes us look amateurish. Culpable.’

He knew about questions, and answers. He knew how to do it properly. If Bassett was here he could show them, show George how to ask questions that got the right answers. Instead, Frank shifted weight from one foot to another as he stood by the table, unembarrassed, waiting for Stephen to . . . do something.

‘Can I keep this?’ Smith begins to fold up the paper, take possession of it.

‘Oh, no, no, no. Sorry, no. I’ll need that.’ George holds out his hand, his gloved hand. In summer.

Slowly, Smith pushes the piece of paper into George’s tea, crumpling it, the tea spilling on the table. He places one hand over the top of the cup and then his other hand over that.

‘Oops, George.’

Frank tuts.

‘Excuse me, Mr Smith.’ Frank gently, firmly, prises his hands off the cup. Then slides the cup over to George, who picks out the dripping paper with the tips of his fingers.

‘That really was very silly. Totally unnecessary.’ Frank has placed a tea towel on the table. George smoothes the paper out and folds the towel over it, pressing, dabbing.

‘What was it, George? I thought it was sugar, George. Three sugars. You said you wanted. I was just giving you what you wanted. There’s no need to look so upset. Is there, Frank? Frank? He looks upset. Give him a cup of sweet tea, George has had a shock.’

Standing, beginning to pace, two, three steps, back and forth by his chair. Frank mutters, ‘Sit down, please, Mr Smith.’

‘How’s the old paper, George? How’s the old journalism, mate? Getting to the truth are you? Making a splash?

‘Sit down, please, sir.’

‘Making a mess? How’s the old typewriter, George? Busy? Tap, tap, busy, busy?’

As Frank pushes Smith firmly back into his chair George picks a tiny piece of lint from his tro leg. ‘As you very well know, we don’t use typewriters . . . or stone tablets and chisels. We have very expensive computers. Now’ – folding the damp paper into a lump, shrugging back into his macintosh – ‘why don’t you get dressed and we can get some fresh air?’

In his suit tros, light checked shirt, squeezing a tie knot at his Adam’s apple, Smith realises he is excited. He takes his overcoat from a hook next to his bed. There’s something odd about the coat, something lopsided. Feeling along the hem, in the corner, an object, hard and weighty. There’s a hole in one of the coat pockets. Lifting the hem to his fingers, poking inside the hole: cold metal. A small gun. The last time he wore the coat was when? Just before he came to the lighthouse at the end of the last winter. He was wearing the coat in the rain. No, he’d taken it off and it was on the ground, amongst the broken glass. As he was led back to the car, George had quickly knelt and bundled his soaked coat into a ball and then chucked it into the boot. All attention was focused on his laptop.

Did he have a gun? He’d had guns, over the years, but did he have one then? What is it? A Jericho? A Browning? A Taurus. The things he’d been forced to

learn about, the words he had learned in order to be safe, to be deadly, to do his work, still amazed him.

A gun. For him? Or for them? Was it there when he left for Birmingham? How could it not have been? How could he or they not have noticed?

The hospital manager has a daub of what looks like salad cream on his jacket lapel. This being a hospital it could be many unsavoury things but, somehow, it’s a fitting medal for this harassed man, with the red smears of anger on his cheeks, too busy to keep himself clean. Miriam is, apparently the last straw.

‘No comment. No fucking comment!’

The question had seemed straightforward enough to Miriam: had the killer or killers been caught on CCTV? How was she to know that the hospital didn’t have the facilities to record the networked footage of over thirty cameras dotted around the complex and that only four of the cameras are actually monitored? The rest, connected, but their signal disappearing into the ether? She hadn’t known, but a good guess got her close and the manager’s reaction confirmed the situation. Hence the no fucking comment.

So that’s that, then. She is suddenly an important witness, which could be really useful or really annoying. Miriam doesn’t get a chance to ask about the security guard before the manager marches off, already on his phone, flinging a filthy look over his shoulder. A late afternoon sun has brought a little moisture to the brows of various TV crews and journalists milling around on the grass in front of the main entrance. Expecting a statement from a senior investigating officer any moment, they are already jockeying for position. Everyone knows everyone else; they meet almost daily at one murder scene or another and there’s a kind of

camaraderie amongst the competition. Miriam gets a couple of nods of recognition but she knows she doesn’t need to be here. She can get the statement later from a wire service or one of the news channels. Her job is to be quick on her feet and go where camera crews fear to tread, in this case, back into the hospital via the Accident and Emergency entrance and up four flights of stairs to approach the murder ward from the opposite direction.

Soon she is lost. The corridors look the same and her medical knowledge is as good as the last hospital documentary she watched, probably about plastic surgery, so the signs pointing her towards Oncology or Diagnostic Imaging don’t help. About to give up, she bumps into a woman distractedly leaving a room with an armful of what looks like brochures, which are knocked to the floor in the collision. As Miriam helps her pick up the brochures the woman casts her eye over her.

‘You’re not the police.’

Miriam smiles. ‘Well spotted. I’m a bit lost, actually.’

With the bundle of papers rescued they both weigh each other up. ‘If you’re not the police and you’re not a doctor or a nurse and you’re definitely not a cleaner then you’re either the murderer . . . or a journalist.’

‘Guilty.’ Miriam waits. ‘Of the latter.’

‘Of course.’

‘I’m trying to find out a bit more about the incident earlier. I don’t suppose you . . .’

The woman looks up and down the corridor. Then decides. ‘Come with me.’ Opening the door she has just come through with her elbow, she backs into a small office. Miriam follows her. The brochures go on the chair behind the desk and the woman gestures to the other chair. The woman sits on the desk in front of Miriam and crosses her legs before thrusting out her right hand. They shake.

‘Doctor Madeleine Simenon. I work here.’

‘Miriam Taylor. Journalist.’

‘Right. I’m going to get myself sacked because I hate working here and you’re going to help me.’ Miriam can’t tell if the doctor is joking or not. ‘What do you want to know?’

Miriam thinks for a moment: what does she want to know? ‘Er, did you see the murder victim?’

‘Yes and no. Next question. None of this will be on the record and I will deny I said anything to you at all if my name comes up, by the way.’

‘No, that’s fine. Off the record. I just need some background, basic info. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

Miriam is aware of how enclosed the space is, but it’s not unpleasant being this close to Doctor Simenon, who doesn’t seem to notice, probably used to the proximity in her tiny office. Quite pleasant, though. The doctor smells of mineral and flower, efficiency and caring. Very likeable. About the same age as Miriam’s mother.

‘Can you tell me the victim’s name?

‘Nope. No idea. They wouldn’t tell me.’

‘That’s unusual, isn’t it?’

‘Depends. If the person is considered important. Or a criminal. Or a grass.’

The word ‘grass’ is pronounced, with some comical effect, in an exaggerated upper-class accent. The doc has a sense of humour.

‘Do you get a lot of grasses, or other anonymous patients, here?’

‘No more than most London hospitals, I guess, but I couldn’t be sure. Miriam, was it? Miriam…’ Turning to her, quite close, smiling. Good skin, as her mother would say. Not a smoker. The faintest touch of eyeliner, a dab of pale lipstick. ‘Our violent crime victim turnover means we hardly get a chance to take a breath

let alone delve into each case, beyond sucking out the bullets, stitching ’em up and getting ’em out as quick as possible.’

Reaching behind her, the doctor picks up a form, several pages in a sheaf of A4, and reads: ‘Gunshot to the neck and shoulder. This is when he came in, not after the . . . you know . . . Male, early sixties, evidence of heart surgery . . . Lost a lot of blood. Critical. I’d just inherited him from another doctor when the second attack happened and I haven’t been allowed into the ward since. Which is why I find myself with enough time to talk to journalists. That do you?’

More than she was expecting, so Miriam is very pleased. Her joy is infectious, inspiring the doctor to have one more look at the form.

‘This might interest you, a list of his possessions when he was brought in. The usual: wallet, change, watch – expensive, a dog lead. Apparently the assassin shot the dog, too, at least, so the rumour goes. Oh . . . and a gun. In a holster, strapped to his chest.’ The doctor stands and Miriam stands, too.

‘Finally, I have been reliably informed that he was eventually and irrevocably dispatched by strangulation, something hard which broke his windpipe. Happy?’

‘More than. Thank you so much, Doctor Simenon.’

‘Madeleine, please. , no names.’

‘Don’t worry, you’re safe with me. Thanks again.’

‘We’re going to see Alice?’ George is on one side, Frank on the other as they bounce along the cobbles in a car too small for comfort. He recognises the route. He knows approximately where the lighthouse is (indeed, he had been there before to interview a client), but somehow he had become disorientated, knowing the Firth of Forth was to the north, but believing it to be to the south, as it always was with the Thames when he lived in London. Was it really only a year he had spent in Edinburgh? And when was this year, this now, exactly? It doesn’t matter.

‘Yes. You’ll like this, Stephen. We’re going to leave you two alone for a little while. I’m sure there will be plenty to chat about.’

‘You’re taking me for a mercy fuck, George. Don’t be shy.’

The flat is still where it was. In a grey block, opposite the cliffs and rocks, on the top floor, thick carpet, the sky above the ceiling. Much bigger than it had any right to be, as an ex-council place. Three bedrooms. Two empty. A big sitting room, furnished in ironic plush, the literal minds of the fixers lit by their directive: a sex palace for a small king. Three eras of porn styling. Glass-top coffee table. Black leather sofa. White fake-fur rugs. Large floor-length mirror. Big speaker sound system. Sunken lights in the rippled plaster above, even a lava lamp between the reclining chairs below. How many of his colleagues had used this place? He notices the carpets, discoloured with many creamy-white stains when he was last here, have been replaced.

‘We’ll be just here, Stephen, if you need us. Right here.’

Smith thinks it unlikely. ‘Here’ is just outside the front door, on the landing, next to the lift. There is one more flat on the floor, next to this one. He had never seen anyone arrive or leave, he had always presumed it was empty. He learned, much later, that the whole block had been bought as part of a job lot, when the estate still had a reputation that meant the selling price for thirty apartments was the same as for one detached house in a more exclusive part of the city. Estate. Or ‘scheme’, as they called it locally. Well, the idea of cheap housing for all had been well and truly sold along with the building, which now overlooked a car park with expensive cars and not a hint of dog shit. He had been there, with Alice, and others, during the scheme’s transition. Just along from the Scottish Parliament.

It was a lot of renovation for one person’s sexual proclivities. But, then, he is special. Don’t flatter yourself, he hears George, or someone saying. This wasn’t for you. It was only sometimes for you. Like Alice.

Alice is wearing a hesitant suggestion. His intellect and stupid horniness do battle delightfully as he regards her. Then he realises, he’s getting on a bit now, and so is she. You can’t pull this carefree glamour-sex act beyond crow’s feet and fallen arches. One of the things he most liked about Alice, compared to the others, was that she was at least his age, if not older. It made the giving more special.

Where are the cameras?

‘Go in the bedroom. Take off all your clothes and lie on the bed, face down. Don’t ask questions, don’t answer me, just do it.’

He does it, aware of his skinny depleted body. She doesn’t mention his obvious ribs or his sallow skin when she follows him in. It’s a new experience for Smith

but very much a part of his life now. He submits.

‘We have half an hour. Then they walk in, whatever state we’re in, whatever we are doing. And when they walk in, I want to be sitting in a chair, smoking a cigarette, and I want you to be fully dressed and ready to go.’

He feels the bed shift as she sits next to him.

‘So. You’re going to give me what I want right now. I’m not fucking around, Stephen. Give it to me, or I will really hurt you.’

Face in the pillow, Smith is smiling. How clever, to know what he needs. Was it her? Or was it them? Bless them. Bless them all.

Several hours and they are back, sitting in the porn chairs, she, smoking, enjoying dropping the ash on the new carpet. He is sipping a whisky and Coke from a tumbler. There is an ice machine in the kitchen, which had come in handy once or twice over the years, so he has something to rattle around in his glass. Pleasantly drunk, he watches the shadows creep along the crags outside, across the park, cars heading home on the ring road around the small mountain that squats in the middle of the city.

‘I did this as a favour, you know. Really, I’m beyond it now. You and me. Very useful, in some ways, but you were a pain in the ass a lot of the time. No pun intended. You were a cliché with needs. A bit too needy, Stephen. Now look at you.’

Fully dressed, ready for what? Office? Taxi? Hotel? Assassination? She is here but already counting on being somewhere else as soon as she is allowed. Smith hasn’t met many women colleagues in all the years he has been involved, doing what he does, whatever it is. They were still very much the dressing, the sauce, a sprinkle of spice in any project. They were the young women who held the numbered signs in between rounds of a boxing match. They were there to light cigars, brush imaginary dandruff. He had wondered, with the arrival of the internet, if the balance of power would shift. After all, muscles and aggression were a hindrance when it came to online manipulation. But, of course, the online manipulation was never going to replace armoured cars, grenades and body armour, pumped muscles and arena aggression, when something needed to happen. The internet can be turned off. And something always needed to happen.

‘How are you?’

Alice, blinks and looks him over.

‘Are you drunk enough yet? There’s more, you know. I can keep this going all night. We can wear you out completely and start again tomorrow. I’m allowed . . . to do what I want with you.’

‘I thought we only had half an hour.’

‘We do.’

She gets up and stands over him, legs splayed. She slaps his face hard enough for blood, takes the glass from his hand and smashes it into the mirror. He looks across. Behind the mirror, embedded in the wall, is what looks like a camera

lens.

‘Very good. Very good indeed, Miriam. Go and give yourself a pat on the back.’ Bill is pleased. If she hasn’t exactly solved the case she has certainly added enough detail for it to travel towards the front of the newspaper. Page four, to be precise, which features a photograph of a man in a dinner suit, bow tie, expensive mullet hair do, carrying a rat-like dog. The pair of them, man and dog, stare bowl-eyed into the camera lens, both baring their teeth as they arrive at some exclusive dinner or prize-giving ceremony last year. The man is Derek Ross, a literary agent with some well-known authors on his books, previously a resident of Notting Hill, London. The dog, Feldy, resided at the same address. Both murdered (can you murder a dog?) on the same day by assailants unknown. Headline: Literally Murdered Twice. Not her idea. But the info from the doctor had certainly helped to get the article noticed. She had even been invited on to a radio show to talk about the case. Of course, she declined, not trusting herself not to blurt out the name of the doctor or that she had watched the killer leave. No one knew. She hadn’t even mentioned it to Bill.

‘Has there been any news from the SIO?’ Miriam is presuming she isn’t the only journalist on the investigation. The Senior Investigating Officer of interesting murders like this one average a press release at least once a day until they give up or fit up. Showbiz.

‘How would I know? It’s your job to find out. I can’t afford to put anyone else on to this, there’s already been another one.’

It’s true. In the three days since the death in the hospital, another man has been killed, murdered, shot in the head as he walked to the shops. Again, this victim is notable because he isn’t black or Asian or poor so he warrants coverage. The approximate newspaper equation being: one middle-aged white property developer equals a small riot in New Cross. Or a spate of gang-related murders

of black teens across Manchester. Miriam will have to fight to keep her story alive.

‘Bill, why are the police so crap at solving murders?’

‘Are they crap?’ Bill is the busiest man she knows. Even when, as now, he is leaning back in his chair, feet on desk, a half drunk cup of tea sitting next to his feet, having some kind of late lunch break, his eyes are never still, darting from papers on the desk, to the constantly evolving computer screen set to BBC News, to Miriam’s face and to the old clock, salvaged from his first editorship at the South London Press many years ago, looking out of place fixed to the only wall of his office that isn’t made of glass. His body remains tense, ready for action. Ready for a heart attack. The man never relaxes.

‘They solve around seventy per cent of murders. Or, at least, someone goes down for seventy per cent. That’s not a bad ratio. You’ve got to , Miriam, the police aren’t there to solve crimes. They are there to make you feel safe. To prevent you from doing anything stupid, like thinking for yourself too much and acting on your conscience. Solving crime is a by-product of what they’re about, which is protecting the establishment. Our job is to make people think the establishment is being examined and brought to . A by-product of that is, we occasionally manage it. But, mainly, we entertain. Our power is only a possibility. We’re as vulnerable as anyone, really. This, you know already.’

But it’s good to have it spelled out occasionally. Miriam makes a decision. ‘I saw the killer, Bill.’ He stares at her. ‘She walked past me in the corridor and then I saw her running out afterwards. Her truncheon banged my leg. She must have used it to . . . you know.’

‘She? It was a woman?’

‘She’s a cop. Or she was dressed like one. No badge number. And I think the security guard was in on it, too.’

‘Who have you told, Miriam?’ Bill’s feet are firmly on the floor now. The look on her boss’s face is bringing it home. Shit! She saw the murderer. And the murderer saw her!

‘She knows I’m a journalist. I told her.’

‘She talked to you?’

‘Asked me who I was . . . Should I tell the police? I should, I think . . .’

Bill holds up a hand, makes her pause for a moment, obviously thinking. ‘Have you told anyone? Anyone at all? The doctor?’

‘No, only you.’

Silence. Bill picks up a pencil, chewed at one end, and taps it a few times on the desk, looking up at his big clock ticking noisily. Miriam is aware of the quiet, the ticking. Bill puts the pencil in his mouth and then, almost in disgust at himself, takes it straight out, unbitten.

‘Right. You don’t say anything to anyone. Ever. You’re off the story. But you need to be seen, you need to be visible. Have you got anything else? Something old? What about that bomb in Birmingham you told me about?’

‘That was months ago! Bill! Why are you taking me off the story?’

‘I’m saving you. We need to send a message. They need to know not to touch. And they need to know you’ll stay quiet.’

‘Bill, I don’t understand. Who? Do you know who killed Ross?’

‘Talk to your dad, Miriam. He’ll explain. Now, go and write me something quick. I want it in tomorrow’s edition. I want them to see it.’

That’s it. Out the door and off the story. Bill’s reaction was so sudden and so thorough that she can hardly believe what happened. Not at all what she was expecting. What was she expecting? Perhaps a call to a trusted police chief. Protection. Excitement from her boss at an exclusive angle: top reporter spots killer. She wasn’t expecting to feel so scared, so vulnerable. She wasn’t expecting him to mention her dad.

‘This is going to sound rather strange, no doubt, Mimi.’

Families have pet names for their , it’s a way of reinforcing the strength

of the unit. In using Miriam’s pet name her father is seeking to reassure her and himself as danger threatens. With her mother in the front room watching TV, Miriam is free to talk to her father about her dilemma while sat at the kitchen table, sipping hot chocolate: should she go to the police or follow Bill’s instructions and never mention it again? She also wants to know what it is that Bill thinks her father can ‘explain’.

Philip Taylor had immediately looked alarmed and then tried to hide it by bustling around the kitchen, making the drinks, keeping his back to her until they had sat down. Then he began, his face still, but his eyes focused with concern upon her face.

‘In the years during which I was active, really active, from when I was seconded from the department to the industry to practically when I retired I was unfortunate enough to observe or hear about various incidents – torture, kidnap and many other crimes, committed with the connivance of different elements in what we used to call the establishment, sometimes by agents of an organisation, or a company, a business, actually, who make this kind of activity their speciality.

‘You probably don’t think that unusual, in some ways. We live in a violent world. The UK has always defended its interest with secret groups like Military Intelligence or the SAS, who sometimes kill people. This is different. These people are not controlled by the government, or the military. True, they are sometimes used to carry out sanctioned operations which need to be at arm’s length. But for this they are hired, as you would hire a caterer or a plumber, to carry out a service and then they are paid. You will have heard of security companies, many of whom are active in places like Iraq, tough men and women for hire, who can use weapons, often ex-soldiers themselves. But, again, this is a different situation. These people are totally unable.

‘I first heard of them when I was working in one of the Gulf states and a

colleague disappeared for a few days before his body turned up near where we stayed. He was tortured before he was killed, and originally it was presumed to be the work of separatists. He was a good friend. We’d been working together for a couple of years and I was upset. I began to make enquiries, starting with the embassy, poking around the expat community, getting nowhere. The local police weren’t interested and the Foreign Office appeared to have washed their hands of him.

‘Then I was paid a visit. Someone who identified themselves as working for some company I’d never heard of just walked up to me in the hotel bar and started talking. He was absolutely clear – blatant is the only word for it. Told me my colleague had been trying to prevent an arms deal, British security equipment being sold to a regime who regularly murdered and tortured their own people with impunity. My colleague had threatened to expose those involved in the deal by ing the United Nations and various political organisations with names of those in government who had stakes in the arms companies involved and with detailed records of the regime’s use of British equipment in recent massacres. It wasn’t unusual for us to deal with a bunch of villains like these, but, for some reason, this time my colleague had a crisis of conscience and decided to do all he could to scupper the deal. That was it. That’s all it was. This man, who I had never met before in my life told me that, first he, my colleague – I won’t tell you his name, you don’t need to know, Mimi – my colleague was tortured to find out exactly who he had told about what, then he was killed, on orders from someone in the company and with the full agreement of the British government. He told me to stop asking questions or I might end up the same way. Then he left.’

Philip takes a sip of his drink. Then places the cup back on the table. His hands are splayed on the table top and he is sitting very upright. Miriam notices with concern that a bead of perspiration has popped up just above an eyebrow. Her father looks sick.

‘There’s more. But you don’t need to know everything that happened back then.

Miriam, understand this: these people exist. But they exist as part of a spider’s web of power and intrigue. They are for themselves as much as for whoever pays them. They are in competition, sometimes with each other and those who work for them, and they often work at the same time for more regular employers, such as the police or the army. You’ll find them in all walks. Not all of them are trained killers. Some are apparently ordinary men and women, occupying powerful space, wielding influence. Some work part-time or are coerced or blackmailed into doing something.’

Blinking, ashen faced, Philip focuses on his daughter. ‘They are slimy fucking scum, Miriam! Forgive me, but that’s it. They are. You never know who is or who isn’t and they are . . . everywhere.’

Miriam was truly shocked. The most profane language she’d ever heard from her dad in the past had been a muttered ‘shit!’ after he had stubbed his toe once. Even more shocking for Miriam is the look on his face, as he seems to be looking through her at some point beyond the back of her head, scared out of his wits.

‘Dad. Dad, did you, did they ever ask you to . . .’

He manages a smile, a sorry grimace in an effort to reassure her as his eyes once more focus on hers. ‘It’s best left there, Mimi. Honestly, it is. If Bill has told you to leave it, then, leave it. Don’t tell anyone, not a soul. It sounds like them. It sounds like they messed up the first time and had to go and finish the job. You said the security guard disappeared, or was in on it. That’s typical. Think of any group of people who wield power over others and there you will find them: security, police, heads of this that and the other. The poor man they killed, even him, a literary agent. Responsible for negotiating million-pound deals, rights, biographies, kiss-and-tells. He probably rubbed them up the wrong way. Poor man. And his dog, of course. Don’t know what his dog might have done.’

With this poor attempt at humour the conversation is over, as her mum enters the kitchen, her lips compressing at the sight of her husband’s face.

Later that evening, Philip watches his daughter walk up the street. This time, he waits a moment and then actually follows her, one hand inside his jacket pocket. He walks behind her all the way to the station and then, hidden in shadows by the closed ticket office, he watches until she is on the train before slowly, miserably walking back to his house and eventually releasing his sweaty grip on the small revolver in his pocket.

For the entire journey home, Miriam forgets to be scared. She has no reason to doubt her father, or Bill. They are both deadly serious and they can’t both be mad. But this proposition: it turns everything upside down. Yet, for some reason, she isn’t surprised. Just like she wasn’t surprised that Councillor Kaspar knew all about the corruption in a borough the other side of London; just like she isn’t surprised when she hears of another violent death, whether she’s investigating it or not. This new information explains a lot. It feels almost like the missing piece of the jigsaw of her maturity. She has finally grown up as she realises what she’d already suspected for a long time: there is a secret world of conspiracy and murder and she has been skating over its surface until this moment. Now, she’s fallen through. Now, she is in it.

CHAPTER THREE

Recruiting Now

A FINE DAY, milky sun and sky, hard lines on the ground, silhouettes and dazzled eyes. The garden below has a patch of painted sunlight that moves, almost perceptibly, across the grass and crazy paving. Smith has been sitting here for a long time. He knows this because his legs are feeling cramped and his glass is empty. Frank had brought breakfast then left and he has been standing on the top floor all day. But the days are short this time of year, he thinks, so not long really. He has been watching the big house, waiting for the security guard to appear at each window, as he normally does. It must be a Sunday, or Christmas, or Boxing Day (what is the date?). If it is Christmas Frank would have brought something, some mince pies, a cigar or a pine tree.

Where was Frank? He actually felt quite hungry. For some reason, the past few days had brought purpose, in a small way. The bed was no longer winning. He had made sandwiches for himself, surprised Frank by putting on the coffee one morning, dressed himself. Frank had even brought some new clothes for him: practical stuff, jeans and lumberjack shirts and vests, a woolly cardigan, warm for the winter. Thick socks. A promise of some boots, but in the meantime his old shoes were there. Frank betrayed himself yesterday with the tiniest glint in his eyes that said, let’s go for a walk.

It’s getting dark. His glass is full again. He hadn’t noticed.

And, in truth, he is ready. Not exactly bored, but ready for something else. As

long as he doesn’t have to pretend, it might be possible, he thinks, to remove a layer.

A movement, below, in the garden. Immediately he knows. The movement was too fast for a friend. Too fleeting. Too heavy for a bird. Too sneaky for the security guard. Where is the security guard? By now, he should have been around, on his second tour of the premises, but the dimly lit rooms beyond the windows of the large house are empty. He silently goes to the trapdoor and lowers himself down into the bedroom. He goes to the kitchen and takes the longest sharpest knife from the cutlery drawer. Not very long, not very sharp. Long minutes listening. Dead sound.

Back on the top floor he is startled by the sight of a microphone with a long curly lead attached to the socket of the CB radio resting on the chair. Good. He picks it up in his left hand and then turns violently and stabs the knife into the back of the chair, leaving it there, slightly quivering, as he drains his glass. Acting again, comfortable in his role. He turns on the radio and winds the dial, back and forth. Counting, in Finnish, a man’s voice, fading in and out, but clear enough. He had learned enough Hungarian to understand the basics of the sister language. He depresses the button on the mic and talks in Hungarian. The counting stops. Then, a familiar voice. It’s Frank.

‘Mr Smith, please stay where you are. There were two men here to kill you and I’m a bit busy right now with the second guy, but everything will be fine. Roger that, Mr Smith?’

‘Yes, roger that, Frank. Frank?’

‘Yes, Mr Smith?’

‘My glass is empty. Do we have any more?’

‘Later. I’ll fucking sort you out later. Now shut up and stay where you are, Mr Smith. And turn off the light.’

There was no light to turn off, just the reflections of the city. In the garden, birds fluttering in the bushes. There’s Frank, standing, looking up at him, lit by a sliver of yellow light from a window in the big house. The security guard, carefully looking out, seeing Frank, turning the light back off again. Frank, turning to look towards the window, looking once more up at him, motioning ‘stay there’ with the palm of his hand. Smith returns the gesture with his empty glass, then watches Frank nipping off along the path to the back door of the large house and disappearing inside. He was quite prepared to be killed when he first arrived. Indeed, even expected it. How does he feel now?

The next morning there is a cracked pane of glass in one of the first-floor windows of the large house. It’s quickly replaced by two men in jeans as Smith watches, paused on his way down the stairs and then, it seems only seconds later, he is walking in the brisk morning air, watching his breath plume just beyond his nose. He’s in the countryside, but he’s in the city, walking on the urban mountain that is Arthur’s Seat. The ground is rough but Frank urges him along at a fair pace and soon they are high enough to see a glinting sea in the far distance with the lighthouse buried somewhere below amongst grey and brown roofs, and he realises Frank will have to die if he ever wants to escape.

Does he want to escape?

He hadn’t wanted to, but now there was the slimmest chance that it might be

worth it. The bud of some other future had begun to itch his insides. He knows that what he is worth to his bosses, to the group, the organisation, is at least equivalent to the lives of several men; large amounts of money; an expensive prostitute or two. Time, money, effort, resources. They want to keep him safe. Who wants to kill him? Nigerians? The British Army? Could be any number of the many enemies he presumes he’s made over the years. Could be one of his colleagues. Could even be his bosses, or perhaps just one of them. There’s no point speculating. But at the moment, he’s a sitting duck. Better to be a moving target. Better not to be a target at all – better to be the attacker. When he’s ready. In the meantime, he’ll depend on good old Frank.

Here are the walking boots. A class signifier that shows you have enough cash to buy them, to use them regularly, to know that there is a world outside the two square miles to which your poverty keeps you tethered. It’s either trainers and trackies or good, strong walking boots and a proper, thick coat, the kind your granddad wore. Not many mods in Scotland. Not many dandies.

Useful, though, for the kind of keep-fit workout that befits a middle-aged man returning from indolence and alcoholic over-indulgence. Frank knows his stuff. But that’s his job. Frank is timeless, from any era since Queen Victoria. A sports tutor, a trainer, an army sar’n’t major, a personal instructor – the kind of man Irvine Welsh would employ to keep him fit. As at ease on a film set as in the scuzziest gym in Glasgow. A man’s man. Zen-like, with an undertow of steel toecap. He knows Frank loves him, would kill, or even die for him. He also knows that Frank will do what he’s told, because he believes authority has the best of intentions. Anything else isn’t logical. So he understands that Frank, equally, would kill him, if ordered to.

Men like Frank built dams, whipped huskies and conquered the west. And then they ceded everything they had acquired to people like Smith. People like me, he thought.

Somewhere there was a family, a daughter or two, even a mum, still alive. All irrelevant. Once Frank had discovered how things worked he never needed anyone else. Endless war games. Serial military adventures in small countries, where the moral rights and wrongs are clear. Or at least, clearly explained, briefed and left no more investigated than the activities of any empire’s army. That’s all he needed. Anything else left Frank confused and unable to act.

There will be a part of him that mourns Frank. But it’s an emotional nerve owned by the company store. The real Stephen Smith couldn’t give a shit.

Running, cod liver oil, plenty of meat. He feels not exactly invincible, but quite strong. Frank is around all the time now, sometimes sleeping over on the sofa in the living room on the first floor, a room they never use, sometimes turning up at the crack of dawn to goad and needle him out of bed and into his sweaty jeans, that chafe and rub and ride up his socks. A pair of trainers to go with the boots.

They run around the mountain, they hike its rocky corners. They regularly see the same faces who develop lives in his imagination: three men who could be son, father and grandfather, ruddy and full heads of hair, talking while running, as far as they can, abreast, in puddle and over dog shit, catching their financial talk. A whippet of a woman, who often sneaks up behind him and Frank, and es them at narrow bends, dressed in super-tight running Lycra, seeming to carry the weight of a wisp, earphones thrust into ears, on a mission to run out the bad memories. A singing middle-aged punk, in baggy shorts and black Doc Marten boots that slip and slide all over the wetted rocks – one time wearing a black plastic bin liner, perhaps to ward off the rain, perhaps to sweat off the beer gut (oh, he could have cried with joy at the sight), powered by Guinness and whisky, determined to make it to the craggy top. Two women, his age or close, running in rhythm, locked in a cycle of movement in the way that women can. Others who might notice him and Frank: Odd and Job, sweating their way around in the opposite direction, six foot one and five foot nine, a far-eyed Jesus of a jogger being pursued by an energetic yet placid terrier.

He has been promised another session with Alice, in a note, scribbled, apparently signed, by George. They must have thought it did him good. Perhaps she requested, perhaps she ordered. Never quite sure of the pecking order with Alice. Men will think what they do about women who don’t fuck around while fucking around and, in some ways, he’s no different. George was always below him, somewhat bored and uncommitted, but ready to take command if his captain is wounded in battle. Now he holds Smith’s libido in his grasp.

Surprisingly deadly, for the son of a grocer, was the thought he had the first time he watched George kill. Prime Minister Thatcher had famously been the daughter of a grocer from Grantham. George is also from Grantham, though a different one, less red-brick terraced cornershop, more outskirts of town, house with history, trusted retainers and a uniformed private chauffeur. But geographical coincidence enough for him to name and damn the man, as the son of a grocer. Sometimes, just, The Grocer. George the Grocer, working for Smith. George, born into the privilege of wealth, indeed, like Frank, both the kind of men who inherited authority, even if they were nominally sub to his dom.

He wouldn’t need to kill George, unless he saw him. It was entirely feasible to escape, having killed Frank, and never be seen again. And never to see George again. This is beginning to become a real option, as opposed to the months of dream and drip, drip, drip of fantasy he had been consuming. Why they wanted to run him into this clear-headed state, he didn’t know, or care. But it suited and he was enjoying the awakening of muscles, the extension of limbs, the slope of his relaxed shoulders and the muscle-knowledge of months of training once more preparing him for action.

Now he ignored the CB. Since hearing Frank’s voice through the crackle of the cheap speaker the joy, the illusion of a vast, un-tabled world has shrunk to his paranoid suppositions. They played recordings in the hope they could trigger a response. Most of the time, because they were too cheap to employ translators, they didn’t even realise what they were transmitting to him. Library recordings

from a bygone era. A museum experiment. Frank’s voice had busted through the comfort of a three-channel past and awakened him to the digital now. He didn’t want to play any more, not that bit, anyway.

In the corner of the hem of the overcoat he never wears is a gun, a Taurus, a small neat Brazilian thing. Imagined slid in the elastic, between slippery sweaty bronzed skin and shiny thong on Copacabana beach. Or in the combat boot of an off-duty policeman in a favella, unofficially cocked against the temple of a thirteen-year-old boy, ed around greasy men in smoky rooms. Enjoyed, for its lightness, its blackness, its choice of ordnance and its ubiquity. The Saturday night special of the fascist militia. An appropriate weapon for a man like him. Missed or placed?

Under the covers, he had taken it apart, put it back together, counted bullets, cocked and clicked, in the dark and by the light of the digital alarm clock. If they knew he had it then they knew what he was doing. If they didn’t, perhaps they thought his encounter with Alice had brought on urges that deserved tented bedclothes and hours beneath. Either way, combining with his increasingly better health, the exercise, the fresh air, the new encountered faces, the gun was slowly beginning to open his petals. Spring and hope, bullets and increasing heart rate, love’s young dream in a blue sky. Smith was getting better. Almost ready to go back to work. Almost.

Saturday morning on the rock, breathing easy. Frank is several yards behind him, struggling up the large slabs of the steep incline which Smith’s legs take with an easy lope. Frank s him at the top. Wheezing slightly. They nod to each other. Then, without a word, Smith heads back down the mountain, leaping over hillocks and boulders, driving away pointless memories, considered and dismissed. Frank doesn’t bother to follow just yet. He watches Smith’s descent. He can see him, all the way down to the road at the bottom of the slope, see the small balloons of breath released behind his head. He can always catch him up later. It’s not a problem to give him his head for a while, in fact it’s healthy, means Smith will sleep well tonight. Frank approves.

Later that evening, with Smith nodding and tired at the kitchen table, Frank dries his hands on a small towel, which he then folds neatly over the handle of the oven door. The washing-up done, food digesting and, for the first time, there’s no alcohol on the table. Frank approves of this, too. The booze was beginning to affect his own health, with sharp stabbing pains in his kidneys and a slight tremor in his fingers in the mornings. He prods Smith with two fingers.

‘Mr Smith, I’ll be sleeping here tonight. Go on, off to bed.’

Smith looks up and actually smiles at Frank. Stretches, yawns and pushes himself up from the table top. He’s looking good, thinks Frank, looking up at the clear complexion and shiny hair. He looks ready for anything. He’ll have to call the bosses tomorrow and let them know.

The next day, Smith gets up in the morning and doesn’t realise that today everything will change. All he notices is that the central heating has been completely turned off. So he is cold.

‘Frank?’

The portholes are misted. He goes downstairs to the kitchen. It’s empty, spick from Frank’s late night cleaning. He puts the oven on and looks for the central heating controls. The electric is off. Gas is filling the room from the oven. He turns the knob back and wafts the air around with a tea towel.

‘Frank?’

Climbing to the top of the building he looks out. There is a fine sprinkling of snow on the city roofs. Clear, bright sunlight. In the garden of the large house below, sprawled half on the grass, half on the path he sees Frank, motionless, face down. Even from here he can see the small crimson shape attached to his head like a cartoon speech bubble. From somewhere, a man appears, walking slowly to Frank’s body. He stops, and, standing over him, aims a revolver with an elongated barrel. Frank’s body jerks several times and small dots of red appear near his shoulder blades. The man, suited in dark material, no tie, short, smart hair with the hint of a razor cut around the sides, is rather too well dressed for an assassin. Too memorable, Smith thinks. The man looks up and into Smith’s eyes. Smith waves, slightly, then moves from the window and nimbly slides down the ladder to the bedroom. As he moves he hears several pops as bullets crack the panes near where his head had been.

Cramming pyjama legs into jeans and bare feet into shoes, pulling on his long coat, he rips the side pocket to push his hand through and get the gun. Quickly down the steps to the kitchen. Once more, taking the sharpest, longest knife from the cutlery drawer. Seeing a wooden rolling pin and taking that, too, putting both in the coat pocket that isn’t ripped. Grabs the heavy frying pan, holding that in his left hand, the gun in his right. Hearing the door below being alternately kicked and assaulted with bullets, a rapid series of thuds from an automatic handgun.

In the hall of the lighthouse there are three doors: one, leading into the garden, is the main door. A smaller door leads to a basement, the scene of several interviews over the years. The last door leads into a row of outbuildings. He has never been through the latter. When he and Frank left for their runs and walks, it was always through the main door and then out through another door in the garden wall. This main door is built with sturdy, thick wood, with two Mortise locks and three sliding bolts, all locked, and a London bar reinforcing the frame. It is the Mortise locks that are under attack from the gun outside, but the bolts

will hold and the building’s attackers will need to spend some time trying before the door gives way.

The door to the outhouses, however, is an older, more standard design, again with Mortise locks and bolts, but flimsier. Several well-aimed kicks will gain entrance. Better to attack than wait for them to get in. He doesn’t have the keys, so he starts to chisel the door frame, using the knife and rolling pin as a hammer, at the spot where the lock holds, trying to time his banging to match the assaults on the door outside. The task made more difficult by the narrow light of the small barred windows near the ceiling.

Clearing the first lock is easier than he thought. The second, lower and at a more difficult angle, is harder. The tip of the knife snaps off. He hits harder, a flurry of blows. It’s silent outside when he stops. They are listening. He hits the knife handle again, the wood splinters and the lock is clear. From outside he hears the faint sound of smashing glass. They are obviously trying to gain entry via the outbuildings. It’s a race.

Sliding the bolts as quietly as he can, the door swinging in, frying pan in one hand, gun in the other. A dark room, empty apart from a garden rake, a Flymo lawnmower, some thick rubber gardening gloves on the sill of a dusty window. Another door, with just a Yale lock. The door must lead further into the outbuildings. In the next room is the door to the garden, half way between the lighthouse and the large house. He hears shuffling, broken glass falling to the floor. With the frying pan in front of his face, he opens the door as quickly as he can and steps through. The bullets hit the underside of the pan almost immediately causing it to pound his face, bouncing off his cheekbone. They are reliably accurate, he thinks. Seventeen rapid-fire shots fired through a window, then a moment or two for a reload, but probably at least two in the assault team. Smith crouches down, against the wall below the broken window. The pan has a neat dent the shape of an egg on its base.

The door is being kicked and the barrel of a gun appears through the window for a second go; with the pan in his hand, just as it starts to fire, he hits the barrel with all his strength. A bullet ricochets from the heavy metal and the firing stops immediately. Aiming his own gun upwards, he leans around and fires through the door to the garden, six times, splintering the wood. Then he fires again, all nine bullets, emptying the cartridge through the holes made by the previous shots. A moment. Then he stands and carefully peers through the window, leading with the gun. There is no one there. He ducks down then looks again. Still no one in sight. They weren’t expecting him to be armed. He wasn’t expecting to be so lucky. It’s a sign.

After carefully opening the door, he runs out, looking all around, and then hunkers down against an outbuilding. Frank’s body lies before him. He had noticed, as he ed through the door, spots of blood on the paving by the window and door. The door through the garden wall is open and he can see out onto the street. All is quiet. The large house is still. Very faintly he can hear a thin electric voice – the CB radio. Smith runs back through the buildings, up the steps and ladder on to the top floor, panting, listening.

‘Out now, Stephen . . . get out now.’ A woman’s voice. Alice?

‘You have two minutes. The shots were heard and reported. The police will be there in two minutes. Leave now and don’t come back.’

Grabbing the radio mic, clicking the button.

‘Where? Who is this?’ No response. ‘Speak to me, you bastards.’ Static . . .

Locating Frank’s car with the remote unlock is as easy as it looks on the TV. It’s an Audi Quattro, inevitably black, full tank, parked opposite the garden door. The street is quiet. He has a wallet and a bunch of keys from Frank’s pocket. He has Frank’s gun, a Sig with laser sight, nine bullets in the clip. Setting off, ing how to drive, taking it easy until he’s on the ring road and well away, aiming for the south.

He has no target, no goal, no reason to head anywhere. As good as anything would be a sunset, a beach, somewhere warm and safe. For the first time in months or perhaps years, he can go anywhere, he can reinvent and start again, which, of course, is what he has always done. He can choose any persona, which is what he has always done. And he can start, yet again. But this time with a difference. He won’t be working for them. Whoever tried to kill him has set him free.

It starts with a police car, tailing, in no particular hurry to either overtake or pull him over. Eventually the car drops back and out of view. Loosing his tensed muscles, Smith keeps a steady pace, a law-abiding sixty. Then, suddenly, they arrive. Two cars – a BMW and a Skoda, one behind, the other alongside – burst onto the motorway from a slip road. He glances to his right and sees two men in the front seats of the BMW, one of them holding up a wallet, pointing, urging him to pull over. The Skoda behind is flashing its lights. Maintaining a steady sixty, he frees Frank’s gun from beneath his overcoat, keeping his eyes straight ahead. His feet feel over-large due to the thick walking socks and the car judders suddenly as his right foot slips from the accelerator pedal.

Recovering, he can see further up the road the back of a large lorry. In two minutes he will be on its tail. He glances at the BMW. Another car has crept up behind it, and the driver is irately flashing his lights at the BMW to move out of the way. The BMW has to either accelerate ahead or drop back and pull in behind him. Speeding up slightly, Smith creates a gap between the Skoda and himself. The BMW pulls in to allow the driver behind through. The lorry is a few hundred yards away. Smith rams his foot down and drives at an angle,

slotting in front of the overtaking driver and squeezing past the tailgate of the lorry. He is now sitting alongside the lorry, the irate driver behind him, even more irate now, honking and flashing his lights. Further back, he can see the BMW and, behind that, the Skoda.

An arm from the lorry cab, gesturing him to move on and finish overtaking. The lorry has slowed to fifty and he matches the speed. Ahead he can see a bridge and a turn-off. He edges forward until he is next to the lorry cab. The driver has wound down his window and gestures again, more urgently, obviously puzzled. The lorry is slowing down. He, too, slows down with it, judging his moment then shooting forward diagonally, making the slip road off the motorway at a dizzying sixty-five, neatly missing the lorry’s bumper by inches and leaving his pursuers the wrong side of the lorry. He laughs out loud.

Slowing as he reaches the top of the slip road and a small roundabout, no other vehicles around, Smith pauses a moment, feeling the sweat forming in the small of his back. He needs to decide. He decides. Driving straight on and down the other side of the slip road and back onto the motorway, in the same direction as before, shortly overtaking the same lorry with a minimum of fuss.

Soon he has the Skoda in sight. Hanging back, he waits until the road has cleared of traffic. Approaching the Skoda, he winds down the front enger window. The Skoda is doing a steady eighty on the inside lane. Two men in the front. The driver notices him in the rear-view mirror, but then Smith is already alongside, swerving slightly as he splits his concentration.

Aiming the Sig through the open window, he sees the driver of the Skoda panic, braking hard, but Smith is matching him, anticipating his actions. The red laser dot from the Sig is where the knot of the driver’s tie would be, if he was wearing one. He squeezes. The driver’s window cracks, disintegrates, blood at the throat of the driver, the enger grabbing for the steering wheel. Lucky shot. Smith glides across and, ever so gently, clips the wing of the Skoda, which weaves

towards the hard shoulder, crossing it and then mounting the metal barrier in a smooth skateboarding move, riding the rail for several yards before flipping into the dense hedgerow beyond and falling out of sight. Pulled over onto the hard shoulder, Smith gets out of the car, leaves the engine running, hazard lights flashing, and pushes his way through the bushes to where the Skoda lays upside down on crushed branches, its rear wheels still spinning, the engine screaming.

The driver is dead, neck broken, small bullet hole at his throat, already soaked in blood. The enger, a man in his late twenties, wearing a dark suit, is hanging , suspended by his seat belt, groaning, reaching feebly through the smashed window on his side for the door handle. Smith turns off the engine through the broken window, pulls the door open on the enger side and begins to undo the zip on the man’s tros, his belt, waistband button, tugging them down, snagging them on the man’s shoes, the man kicking and wriggling. Smith punches the man’s head, four, five, six times. The hanging man still struggles, trying to reach inside his jacket pocket. Smith feels around inside the man’s jacket until he finds the revolver, fallen into the man’s armpit. Forces the gun into the man’s mouth.

‘Don’t move.’

Pushing it right in until the struggling stops. Leaving it there as he finally removes the tros, then starts disentangling the man’s jacket from the seatbelt and his arms. Smith steps back, ready to leave. The man coughs and the gun falls out. The man flails around and, more by luck than design, he gets a hold by his fingertips, switching the gun round so he has a hold by the grip. Smith shoots him through the forehead, too close to miss. Pocketing Frank’s gun, Smith returns to his car. Got lucky.

Motoring now, as fast as he dares. Thankful for Scotland’s dwindling population, its empty roads, its sense of privacy. Miles away he sees an ambulance speeding

in the opposite direction, lights flashing, followed by an unmarked car with blue lights sparkling across the grille.

At least fifty miles away from where he left the Skoda, Smith pulls off the motorway and onto the first of many smaller roads that take him through the very empty countryside of the Borders. Eventually he pulls over into a small track through a roadside copse. Here he tries on the tros and jacket. It’s not a bad fit, but the waistband of the tros is a bit loose and the jacket hangs short. In the glove compartment he finds a natty Paisley scarf, which, tucked into the jacket, hides the pyjama top. He checks the mirror. He sees a tight-lipped character actor from a provincial show, probably a farce. Perhaps he is the leading man.

A root through the pockets and he has a roll of cash, loose change, a mobile phone. And a wallet with a badge attached, identifying his sartorial benefactor as Detective Inspector Barry Bolton of the City of London Police. There are no items that could identify his victim beyond that. The unlocked mobile has just ten numbers stored, no record of calls made or texts sent or received. The numbers are all for other mobiles – the team, probably.

Next he turns his attentions to what Frank has left behind. More cash. Together with the money from the dead man he has around a thousand pounds. Two credit cards in the name of Eric Ambler, a familiar name from somewhere. The keys, presumably including those for the lighthouse, a selection of ten for a Mortise lock and another six for Yales. Perhaps another two locations, if he can find the addresses, although he can’t think why he would want to go to either of them. Yet.

Investigating the car, an unused police-style notebook and several pens in the glove compartment, together with a Swiss Army knife. Car documents, all made out to Eric Ambler. In the boot, a spade, an emergency foil blanket, first aid kit, a case of six bottles of Isle of Jura and a pair of Wellington boots, too small for

him. Beneath the spare wheel, he finds a flat packet wrapped in waterproofed tarpaulin containing a plastic folder. In the folder is an old iPhone, its battery removed and lightly taped to the phone’s body, several stapled sheets of A4 paper containing lists of addresses in the UK (no names) and a pack of fiftypound notes, equalling another thousand pounds. Having exhausted the possibilities of Frank’s emergency stash he returns to the driving seat to sit and wait, thinking without thinking.

Five minutes later he transfers the numbers from the dead man’s mobile to the notebook, stores the cash around various pockets in the jacket and tros, throws the mobile deep into the woods and heads off, having programmed the GPS sat nav system for a destination several hundred miles away.

Twenty four hours. More miles, west, then east then west again, a change of car (a straight exchange for something less obvious from a quietly desperate second hand dealer in a small town), a night in a small, cheap hotel in another small town in the north of England, checking, looking, hiding, staying lucky, keeping off the main roads, sipping whisky to stay focussed. Smith eventually allows himself to arrive at an A road and picks up speed. Heading south again.

A couple of hours later he pulls into a service station and parks, engine running, next to the lorries and trucks. He takes a look at the list of addresses on the sheet of A4 from Frank’s car. There are ten, including the lighthouse. One, in particular, is very familiar to him. It’s a long drive but it will be worth it.

Still alive! Miriam seldom used to her blessings, but for these past months it’s become a ritual for the end of each week, as she leaves the newspaper offices and is shot out of the revolving doors onto the London pavement. Still alive, she tells herself. Despite everything.

Months after finding herself in the midst of an ongoing murder attempt, Miriam’s worldview is irrevocably altered. Whereas before, the daily reporting of death and violence was the exciting part of what she did, now she sees the broken glass, the shell cases being collected by cops in white boiler suits, the snapshots of victims or police photos of injuries and thinks, that could have been me. Whereas before, she felt she was doing some good, in a vague way, bringing the world’s gaze to the bad things so that something can be done about it all, now, she’s not so sure. Is she selling violent titillation to the public along with TV producers and Hollywood film directors? Is she part of a reality pornography which completes the cycle from the street to the authorities and then back to the street via journalism? She’s just not sure.

So Miriam works on, accepted by the paper’s hacks, finally; no longer a promising newby, she has arrived, her nurtured cynicism a special to the boozy lunches and insider knowledge which means she understands and even enjoys the snide remarks and evil jokes. Not sure if she likes her new self. Not sure if she has any control, any say in how she’s shaping up.

Her saving grace, as she sees it, is a secret project – a bulging folder kept under her bed at home and on two separate hard drives, as well as a series of posts containing abbreviated information to an anonymous blog platform currently set to ‘private’, which she set up using a fake name. The folder is filling up, slowly, with information about the death of two women and two children and two British Army soldiers in an explosion in Birmingham almost a year ago.

First of all, Miriam had tried to interest Bill in the story. He told her it was too old, too complicated, and when she mentioned the visit to the hospital by a British Army officer, ‘inappropriate’, the latter being his description of stories which could have her investigating the people who, apparently, might still be wondering whether they should knock her off. So she had been steered away from white-collar murders and violent incidents and sent, instead, to inner city estates and shopping streets where the victims and, in all probability, their

attackers were poor, under twenty-five and almost always black. These cases are seldom solved by the police and she now knows as much as she needs to about the significance of variously-coloured bandanas and gang initiation ceremonies.

As a secret, defiant gesture and also as a gift to her old, more noble self, Miriam decided to push ahead with the Birmingham story anyway, quietly combing through all the reporting of the incident and gradually building up a list of the main cast of characters and a description of what had happened in Lozells, following her instinct that there was a lot more to this case than drugs or postcode wars.

It hadn’t been easy. For some reason the coverage at the time on the various news channels and in the papers had been minimal. She hadn’t read about a single reporter who had even been to the house of the explosion. The names of the victims were never officially released. The cause of the explosion was never officially recognised or described. Miriam found that the house is privately owned by a Mr Joseph Kahsaye, ed to an address in Leighton in London. Miriam paid a visit, but it was quiet, no one in, looked deserted, with a pile of mail visible on the floor through the letterbox.

On a wet Wednesday Miriam made the journey to Birmingham. She went straight to the road in Lozells, identified number fifty-two, with the windows still boarded up and the dark stains in the front garden where charred furniture had been dumped, and knocked on the doors of the nearest houses. She got lucky across the street. A pleasant young woman with a two-year-old clamped to her calves told her the family was a mother, a grandmother and two children aged around five and eight. They were quiet, newly arrived and the kids hadn’t started school yet. But she hadn’t spoken to the family in any depth, just a ing conversation between two mothers. Then Miriam spoke to an old woman from two doors down who had stopped outside the house on her way to collect her pension once, seen the children playing there, and exclaimed, ‘Such beautiful pickaninnies!’ to their watching grandmother who, apparently not understanding, told her ‘We are Nigerian’ in crystal-clear English. Other doors remained firmly

unanswered, but she had a little more luck from a ing lad on a BMX bike way too small for him who told her a friend had told him that it was a ‘car full of Africans’ who attacked the house with grenades and that it was all about, inevitably, drugs. He declined to give either his name or his friend’s name and rode off before she had a chance to question him further.

On the train to Birmingham Miriam had made a few calls. The council had no record of the family. They weren’t ed with social services or the education authority or the council tax office. She didn’t speak to the police, afraid of alerting them to her enquiries, but she did collar a postman who, after some basic chatting up, told her the family were still receiving post, that somehow the message hadn’t got through to the sorting office so he had carried on pushing mail through the front door of the house and there was a ‘proper pile of them’ now, making it difficult to post any more without folding them. This had prompted Miriam to return later that evening and stick her hand through the letterbox. Sure enough, there was some kind of collecting container inside the door and it was full. She had managed to get hold of four envelopes before her efforts knocked the container off the door and onto the floor.

The letters to number fifty-two consisted of two containing suggestions to change utilities addressed to ‘the occupier’, one actual utility bill made out to Mr Kahsaye, and one brown envelope addressed to a Mr Darboe, which contained a cheque made out to Delta Real Estate Ltd from Harrison & Bigley Associates; both companies, she discovered later, dissolved at around the same time, shortly after the explosion, according to the records at Companies House. The cheque was for ten thousand pounds.

A thorough internet search for Jim or James Darboe took her to various families based in West Africa, including Nigeria, but no one with that exact same name. Pretending to be a relative, Miriam had called direct to local government departments in Lagos State and then Delta State to enquire whether her ‘uncle’, James Darboe, was officially ed, so that he could obtain a birth certificate for use abroad. It took several phone calls but eventually a lazy-voiced woman in

the office for the National Population Commission in Port Harcourt itted that a James Darboe was ed and, yes, he could get a birth certificate if he arrived in person with the correct documentation.

Her enquiries at the City Hospital on Dudley Road in Birmingham, where the lone survivor had been taken, were more fruitful. Miriam’s there managed to get a name and organise an unofficial interview with one of the ambulance crew. She also gave Miriam an idea of his injuries, a severe head wound and some internal damage. Colin Williams had been kept in an induced coma for several weeks until he was eventually moved, still unconscious, to an unknown destination.

Another two hour train ride to Birmingham New Street and another excuse given to Bill to provide cover for the afternoon – this time some bogus research on ‘gangs’ in the Midlands, which seemed to do the trick. The interview with the attending Emergency Care Assistant who had driven the first ambulance to arrive at the scene of the explosion was perfunctory but garnered the most information. Meeting ‘Tony’ on a corner near Rotton Park, sheltering from the rain beneath a tree, Miriam discovered that, on arrival, Colin Williams was the only person still alive and he was found on the stairs of the house, not in the living room with the others.

Tony, a nervous man in his late thirties dressed for a football game in shorts and trainers but with the hood of his kagoule putting his features in shadow, was still clearly disturbed by what he had seen at the house, particularly the state of the two children. There was nothing to be done for any of the victims in the living room, but, as soon as the fire brigade had put out the flames, he had attended and helped remove Williams, who was barely conscious at the time and didn’t talk at all. Tony described Williams as ‘youngish, maybe late twenties, white, dressed in casual gear, jeans, Man City football top’. Searching for some clue to his name, Tony had found a military ID card and, tucked into his belt at the back of his tros, a revolver. At the hospital, the gun and other personal effects were bagged up and immediately taken by a man in civilian dress, who Tony assumed

was with the police. Apparently the hospital had been ‘flooded with cops’, including two armed with machine guns.

Tony had expected to be interviewed by someone – the police or intelligence services – and had even asked his boss when it would happen, but neither Tony nor any of the other attending ECAs or paramedics were questioned. In fact, after Williams was removed from intensive care at the City, nothing more was said about the event. People kept their mouths shut. There was nothing in the press or on TV about the deaths, only a mention of an ‘explosion in the Lozells area’. Tony was puzzled and disturbed and his instincts were that something ‘wrong’ had gone on, that there was a cover-up. Perhaps he would have left it there if it hadn’t been for the kids. That’s why he agreed to be interviewed, anonymously, by Miriam. The kids deserved at least an investigation of some kind, didn’t they?

Anxious to get to his football match, Tony had said goodbye, but before he had gone a few yards apparently ed something and called Miriam back.

‘One more thing. We were just getting things sorted in the back of the ambulance, getting ready to move off. I had to get out to move a wheelie bin one of the police cars had knocked over before I could reverse, yeah? And I saw this bloke, tall bloke in a suit. I hadn’t seen him go in but I saw him come out, lift up the tape and run off. He looked like he was crying. Nobody stopped him or went after him. The cops just looked the other way. There was something not right about him. I couldn’t figure out what he was, official or what. But, like I say, he was crying. I mean, yeah, it was upsetting, but you don’t normally see that. People just get on with it. But he ran away.’

‘We need to get him back’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’

Two cars returning from an important appointment, travelling separately but going the same way. In the background of the one with the cream upholstery, above the purr of a well-tuned engine, the polite waves of BBC Radio 4 laughter as the timeless fogies of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue form humour from wicked nostalgia. A dead man’s radio show, listened to on digital catch-up via a tablet locked into the car sound system. The driver doesn’t know whether to pause the show while his enger takes the call. He compromises by turning it down which compounds the irritation apparent in the listener’s voice. In the other car, with the midnight blue seats and carpet which show the crumbs and stains, the atmosphere is more businesslike. Cornelius lacks his brother’s sense of humour. He prefers old-school working-class comedians like the sadly-missed-by-some Jackie Hamilton. He doesn’t laugh when he occasionally watches old videos of The Comedians, he just nods in agreement. A different kind of nostalgia.

Both cars are moving very slowly in wet traffic on a particularly grey day in London.

‘You might be happy to let him run around the realm causing havoc, I’m afraid I’m not. I want him caught.’

‘That’s not what you really mean, is it, brother?’ Horatio is testy, annoyed at missing the flow of the show. He’ll have to wait five years before he can listen again to this episode, from the beginning, with fresh ears, to pick up the subtle in-jokes particular to the evening when it was recorded.

‘If you hadn’t sent your boys over to do him away in the first place he would still be safely locked up in our lighthouse. As it is, you can only blame yourself.’

‘And what makes you think it was me? Could be any number of people want our Stephen’s blood. He’s been around, you know. Seen all kinds of things. Never been reliable. Could be the hoods. Could be the spooks. Even the police don’t like him very much. Why blame me?’

‘You’re boring me, brother. Anyway, the fact is, he’s out now, so why don’t we see what he does? It might be amusing. Call your dogs in.’

‘Personally, I think it will be more amusing to leave my dogs off the leash. See how far he gets. In fact, I’ve got a particular dog in mind . . .’

‘Oh, you’re so predictable. So, so predictable. You want to set that horrid Russell on him, don’t you?’

The mood has altered. The radio show forgotten. The traffic is moving faster and a dim sun brightens the drips of rainwater on the traffic signs and railings. The rain lets off. The prospect of a dog fight, much more entertaining, lasting longer than half an hour. Keeping that deadly boredom at bay.

‘Russell was born to take on Stephen. They are so alike, but so different.’

‘You mean they’re both a couple of oiks. Like us.’

‘Yes, like us! We’re a couple of oiks. They should never have let us in!’

The cars are nose to tail, heading down a dead-end street, pulling up as close as they can get to the house at the very end, with a front door you would hardly notice, unless it was pointed out to you.

‘So let’s wait and see. We could have a wager.’

‘We could. But what shall we have for tea?’

‘I’m in the mood for kippers.’

‘Very well. You fry. I’ll butter the bread.’

Waking up in the car again, the musty smell of the confined space becoming familiar. A half-empty bottle of whisky tucked in the sleeve of the front enger seat. Walking, peeing against a tree. Doors open to clear the body odour, leaning in the car, emptying the rucksack of everything, then putting the two guns in each side pocket of his waterproof. Foil blanket folded into an inside pocket with the iPhone, battery now in place but still turned off. Police badge, four hundred pounds in a roll, Paisley scarf, torch, all distributed around various pockets, Smith heads down the lane off which he has parked.

Ten minutes later and he is clambering over a stone wall, tros snagging on the barbed wire spread over the top, then walking briskly along a path by the side of a field. It has started to rain and he flips up the hood of the anorak. A few hundred yards away he can see the lights of a house, a familiar outline, even in the rain. A big building, slightly lighter against the dark grey sky. He gets closer

and the white between the fake Tudor beams becomes apparent. The house is surrounded by a low wall, with rose bushes lining the wall on the inside, down one side, until the wall meets a shed attached to the house. A light is on in the front window nearest the front door, which is hidden in a porch. He goes round to the back of the house and crouches down by a waist-high wooden fence that encloses the orchard in the back garden.

Taking his time, he looks the house over. There are no lights on round the back. Listening, all he hears is the rain. He turns on the iPhone, being careful to shade the glow from the angle of the house. The phone is fully charged. There are two anonymous numbers stored, but no notes, or text history, no apps, no music.

Leaving the phone by the fence, Smith moves on, bent over, keeping the fence between himself and the orchard, all the way round to the other side. The house, completely detached and bordered by fields on three sides, stays silent. Taking the foil blanket from his pocket, Smith wraps it around his shoulders and sits down, making himself as comfortable as he can as the rain patters on his hood.

Well over an hour later, as the faintest of lights in the east anticipates the approach of dawn, a light goes on in one of the upstairs rooms of the house, quickly followed by another, also on the top floor. There is the slight sound of steps, voices, doors opening and shutting, indistinct but offering evidence of nervous action. He stretches carefully and folds the blanket as small as he can, stuffing it in a gap under the fence. Taking the Berretta, still with the silencer attached, he checks the clip and carefully moves towards the house.

Suddenly the back door opens and a man runs out, dressed in a jacket, jeans, green Wellington boots and carrying a large shotgun. He is running towards where Smith has left the iPhone. He calls out: ‘Over here, this side’.

A woman appears from the other side of the house, from a door in the shed. She is holding a pistol of some kind, double-handed, running in a crouch. The two of them are spread out, forming a V, with the iPhone at its apex. Smith looks up. A window has opened and someone shines a very strong lamp on the garden, sweeping it towards the opposite fence.

‘Not at us, you idiot, over there, over there!’

Enough light to take positive aim. The silenced gun pops, once, twice, three times. The man drops to the ground. The woman turns, panicked, then she too drops to the ground. Smith moves quickly along the fence to the front of the house, easing himself over and then running to the front porch. He can hear the woman directing whoever is pointing the lamp. He tries the front door. It’s locked. Taking Frank’s bunch of keys, he systematically tries each one in turn until, on the fifth try, the heavy Mortise lock of the door clicks open. He goes through the same process with the Yale and then he is inside the house. Quietly closing the door behind him, he looks around the familiar dark hall.

Moving straight to the stairs, he then eases his way up, his steps muffled by thick carpet, until, at the top of the stairs, lying flat against the top step he cautiously looks around the side of the landing. A door opposite is open and he can hear someone moving in the room beyond. Inching towards the door, looking inside, a naked woman, kneeling on a bed, her back to him, is holding the big flashlight. There are shots from the garden, two sharp cracks from the woman’s pistol, then the woman below, calling, ‘I’ve found it. Shine the lamp round the garden. He’s here somewhere. Call in, get some people over.’ As the woman in the bedroom is deciding which to do first Smith moves up behind her.

‘Don’t look, don’t move, don’t say or do anything. Keep the light on and stay still.’

Slowly, he eases an arm under her left armpit and takes a hold of the lamp handle. His gun is at her temple. He can feel her tremble, tense, then tremble. He holds her tight, squashing one breast beneath his forearm, then, using his chest and shoulders he slowly pushes her until she is on the bed, beneath him, face down. He moves up and kneels on her with both knees. She cries out. Smith is looking down the beam of light into the garden. The woman below has heard the wrong noise in the bedroom and she is paused, frozen, turning towards the light that now shines right into her face. Smith empties the rest of the clip in the Berretta, another eleven bullets, into her body, legs, face. All is still in the garden. Smith listens, the woman beneath him struggles, and he allows her some movement, switching off the lamp and placing it on the floor.

Finding her face suddenly free she turns on him. ‘Bastard! Stephen! You bastard!’

‘You’re such a fucking idiot, Stephen. This will be the first place they’ll look.’

‘I don’t think so. Your managers were way down the pay scale, the house was practically unguarded. Even the business with the iPhone was amateur hour. How long did it take for them to notice the scanner was lit up? I was bloody frozen out there, waiting for them, to come and blow my brains out . . . with a shotgun, for Christ’s sake!’

She is on the bed, wrapped in a blanket. The window is still open, dim light from a wet sky revealing her angry face.

‘I wouldn’t be too sure, if I was you.’

‘I’m not sure. I’m quite sure.’

‘God. I’d forgotten what a fucking pedant you were.’

‘Give me your hands.’

He stretches out his hand towards her, standing over her.

‘Give me your hands. No, actually, turn around.’

She doesn’t move, gazing at him defiantly. He takes her by the shoulders and forces her round on the bed, pulling the blanket off, then pulls her arms back, wrists together. She doesn’t struggle, just becomes limp so he has to move her like a corpse. Holding her slim wrists with one hand, he pulls out the Paisley scarf from a pocket and proceeds to tie her wrists together. Wrapping the blanket around her torso, he lifts her legs onto the bed, looks around for a belt, a cord.

‘What are you doing? Stephen?’

Out the door, to a bathroom, where he finds a dressing gown hanging on the back of the door, a dry flannel on the side of the bath. Taking the soft belt, he ties her feet together, then lashes one end around a leg of the bed.

‘Stephen?’

Looking in another bedroom, finding a man’s tie on the top of a dresser. Forcing the flannel between her lips, balled, the tie tight around her head, her eyes wide. Fearful, angry. No, this isn’t it. Not it at all.

‘Don’t struggle, you’ll make the knots tighter. In a couple of hours I’ll come back and untie you. Don’t try to escape because I will find you and kill you if you do. Understand? Understand?’

She gives a small nod, searching his eyes. He shuts the window and leaves, then quickly returns.

‘If you need to pee just go where you are – I’ll be burning the place down later so don’t worry about the mattress.’

Running around the house. He finds the scanner. It stands alone, unconnected to the laptop. Cheap. They have better equipment than this. It pleases him to think he is unexpected. There is a computer printout of his face in a clear plastic wallet next to the computer, next to seven more, in two columns, and another A4 sheet of faces beneath that, only one a woman. He recognises one, no, two. The guy from the woods. The guy driving the car. Someone is looking for him.

Dragging the two bodies, one by one, into the shed as crows bark in the ading fields. They are both middle-aged, a husband and wife team, presumably, tied to the house like a gardener and a cook on a royal estate. What an end. Did they have any idea what they were doing, who they were working for, who came to their brothel? The iPhone retrieved, in his pocket, turned off again. Locking the house behind him, he checks his watch. Five thirty-two. Two hours before they will need to check in, or longer. He can just about make it.

Trotting up the lane to the car. Driving off very fast, as fast as he safely can. Three quarters of an hour later he is at a roadside café festooned in Union flags in a layby next to an A road, already busy with people heading to work. Several lorries parked by several vans, breath and steam and smoke making a head-high mist by the counter. A beaten-up Transit catches his eye. The name of a building firm and a phone number with an area code for some miles away. Replacing the battery and turning the iPhone back on. Choosing. Two men, younger than the truckers, in plaster-stained jeans and hoodies, wait to be served. He dials one of the numbers. It rings for a while, then the voice of his erstwhile boss, croaky, as if just woken.

‘Stephen. How delightful. So nice of you to us.’ Clearing his throat. ‘Shame about Frank, but you sorted them out though, didn’t you? You do know it wasn’t my idea, don’t you?’

‘I presumed not. Otherwise why bother? You could have got George to sort me out long before. What’s the idea?’

‘My brother wants to try to put you in jail, fail because you are obviously violent and deranged and have to kill you instead. I, however, am happy to keep you alive as long as you remain useful.’

‘I’m not coming back. I’m reg.’

‘Oh, don’t be silly, Stephen. You can’t resign. No one resigns.’

‘Too late.’

He disconnects but the phone rings almost immediately.

‘What?’

‘Honestly, Stephen, you are so ungrateful. Listen to me. Do what you want, start a new life, become a bird watcher, a painter, the Moonies. But every now and then you will have a little job to do, for us, for me. And if you manage that, then you’ll know at least one of us – and you know to whom I refer, don’t you, Stephen? At least one of us will be looking out for you. In my own fashion.’

‘What do you want?’

‘That’s my boy! What do we want? Money! That’s what I want! Running a bit short, recession is biting, people are tending to keep things in-house, not so much use for our services. So, a little bit of money. To tide us over. Keeps us going for a bit. Keeps you alive for a bit. What do you say?’

‘I say fuck you. What do you expect me to do? Rob a bank?’

‘Not initially, perhaps later. No, I’ve been given a hot tip. It will be waiting for you in an email back at the house, in Russian. Coco’s probably opening it up right now. How is she, by the way? Do send her my love. I hope you’ve got something in mind for poor Coco because she’s shaping up to be a liability. Like you, Stephen. But, unlike you, her charms are faded. Not sure what she’s good

for and you know how much my brother hates rubbish. Anyway, breakfast calls. Have a good think, Stephen. And then do the right thing. I’m sure you will. But be quick, they’ll know just where to find you now.’

Staring at the phone, Smith holds his breath, making a decision. No, the decision is made. He knows what he has to do, what counts is how he goes about doing it. Exhaling, back in the moment, he deletes the call memory and the two numbers in the phone. Looks round.

The two builders are heading back to their van with steaming polystyrene cups, already biting into bacon sandwiches from the caravan. He gets out of the car and walks quickly over to the men.

‘Hey.’ He catches them up and they eye him suspiciously.

‘One of you dropped this.’

He offers the mobile. A sceptical nod of thanks, a hand reaches out, takes it.

Smith watches the van drive off, the enger examining the phone, making a call. The battery should stay charged for at least six hours or longer. Long enough.

Untying Coco, leaving the gag until last. She collapses sobbing into his arms. He holds her.

In the kitchen of the mock Tudor house, Smith sits facing Coco. Plates and crumbs, a toasted crust and a teapot between them on the table. The kitchen is warm. Coco is dressed in the dressing gown from the bathroom, the belt around her waist. There are still faint red lines at the corners of her mouth. He watches her and she watches him.

‘It’s been two years. Where have you been?’

‘They must have told you something. What did they tell you?’

‘They told me you were busy. Then I heard you were ill and I would probably never see you again. I didn’t mind. I was never in love with you. I liked you, though. You were always kind, in your own way.’

‘Why are you still here? I wasn’t sure, but it was an educated guess that you would . . . still be here.’ He feels sleepy, rubs his eyes. ‘But still, I want to know. What are you doing now that I’m . . .’

‘Now that you’re not around? You flatter yourself, Stephen. They realised I was an asset to them. I was given a manager, before I met you. I’m very good at it. So good you didn’t notice. Basically, this place is a knocking shop, for them – R and R, where the boys, and occasionally the girls, come to get their kinky rocks off.’

Had he known? Of course he had known. He knew with Alice. But knowing took all the fun away. He didn’t want to know.

‘You chump. You thought I was your exclusive little slave? What did you think I did in the weeks, the months when you weren’t around? I was earning my keep, darling, fucking every paranoid, overworked manager they sent. And the odd under-manager. And the cops and the money men and the Arabs and the Russians.’

He drinks tepid tea. His eyes drooping.

She speaks softly. ‘You need to get some sleep, Stephen. You don’t have to worry about me. As you said, you’ll hunt me down like a dog if I try to escape.’

‘Where do you keep your stuff?’

‘What stuff?’

‘Your specialist stuff, you know.’

‘Oh. Well, we can do that before you rest, if you like, if that’s how you’re feeling. It will be just like old times. Come with me.’

In one of the bedrooms upstairs she opens a wardrobe. Behind hanging garments of rubber and leather and metal chains there is a built-in chest of drawers. She opens one.

‘Take your pick.’

He looks inside and shuts the drawer. Opening the next one down he pulls out a pair of handcuffs. He tests them, looking for release catches.

‘Where’s the key?’

‘I’ve got it on my key ring. It’s not normally me who wears them, this being England.’

‘Get it.’ He follows her to another room, her room. A single bed. Teddies and soft toys on the bed, like the bedroom of a teenager. Girlish things on an ornate dressing table. A gossip magazine on the floor. How could he have been so stupid?

‘Lie down’. She obeys, moves her arms up to the rails, wrists together, watching him, waiting. He slips the handcuffs through the rails at the head of the bed and clicks them into place around her wrists. The dressing gown has parted, she moves her legs and it falls away beneath her waist. She opens her legs. He pulls the counterpane from beneath her and covers her up.

Returning from another room with a duvet, he settles on the carpeted floor next to her bed and lies down with a deep sigh, eyes shut, one hand placed on Frank’s pistol on the floor next to him.

‘It’s a bit of a waste, don’t you think, Stephen? We can be more comfortable on

another bed. You can cuff me. I want you to. Stephen? Don’t waste time. We don’t live long. Stephen?’

He is breathing gently. Asleep. She shifts a little, but she is used to discomfort.

Waking with a start. A first mistake – he forgot to check in, but not sure if it matters. If Horatio knows he is here why bother? Because Cornelius might not know. He looks at his watch. He looks at the bed, already up on his knees. She’s gone. The handcuffs are on the bed, opened. He pats his hand on the floor, where the gun should have been. Gone, too. No, under the duvet, still there.

Downstairs, in the kitchen, Smith finds her drinking coffee. The managers’ laptop is on the table in front of her. A bright, cold afternoon through the windows of the kitchen, which looks out onto the orchard in the back.

‘I thought I better check in for you. They showed me how to do it for when they wanted a night out. You don’t mind, do you? Oh, and someone has sent you an email.’

He sits, opens the laptop, examines, knowing there will be no history, no way of telling how truthful she is. He reads the email. A time and an address in Russian as promised. He translates: a registration number for a car, then ‘unarmed, 4 including driver’, then an amount in numbers. Coco is watching him. He manages a smile. He touches her hand.

‘You’ll get in trouble you know. They won’t like it. They might kill you.’

‘They might. You might. I might drop dead tomorrow from caffeine poisoning. I might get run over by a bus. I’ll worry about it when I have to. Coffee?’

She pours him a cup from a battered old metal pot, sitting on the Aga, and places it in front of him. ‘You don’t know if I really checked in, do you? How long will it take for them to arrive?’

He takes out Frank’s list of addresses. ‘The nearest one is fifty miles away. They would have been here by now. But it’s not them I’m worried about, it’s the other lot, the “other brother”.’

‘Cornelius?’ The easy way she says the word. Not just a company comforter, then, not just a corporate prostitute.

‘What do you know about Cornelius?’

‘Not much. We’re owned by Horatio. He’s a bastard. But Cornelius is a real bastard. They are the bosses but they seem to be in competition with each other, too. Playing games. It’s all a bit silly, not much to do with the other fifty per cent.’

‘Fifty per cent?’

‘Women, Stephen, you know, the other ones, who are slightly less worried about guns and shooting and ruling the world. Boring for you, I expect. Like what you do is boring for me. Where did you get that list from?’

‘It belonged to Frank. Frank’s dead.’

‘Frank? The little man? I liked Frank, he was very . . . clean, polite. Sitting down here with his milk and two sugars while we . . .’

‘They killed him. Cornelius killed him. He was after me.’

‘I’m not surprised. He never liked you.’

‘How do you know?’

‘You don’t need to know that . . . Actually, you look different. You look as if you’re no longer here. You look ready to be outraged. You look like a customer, not a manager. Have you lost it, Stephen? Have you lost the urge, the desire? Have you been watching too much television? Are you just another punter? It’s all part of the game, but I’m never sure with you, to be honest.’

‘I took some time out. In a lighthouse.’

‘So I heard. I thought you were with Alice. Did they let her stay with you? I can’t imagine you could have gone that long without at least a couple of sessions. Do you take ecstasy with Alice, too?’

‘I didn’t see Alice. I drank. And I slept.’

‘Liar.’ She sips her drink.

He is looking down at the table, hands splayed, showing how it’s done, How to sit.

‘If I was the boss, either one, I would be a bit worried. You’ve probably got files all over the place, on internet clouds, waiting to be activated, published in the Guardian and all that. Have you? Have you got secret files, Stephen?’

Was this her idea? This house, where she could sex out secrets, relieve corporate stress? Was this her thing? She is looking into the dregs of coffee in her cup, swilling them around, not looking at him.

‘You don’t have to take them all on. If you have . . . cover, you could just go somewhere else. Move away. Go to one of the few countries in the world where you can’t speak the language, they’ll never find you. And even if they do, they’ll leave you alone. If you’re careful. You must have enough dirt on them by now. You could learn another language, Stephen. Start again.’

Looking up.

‘I’ll come with you’.

‘And what will you do? Open a brothel? Be my little wife? What is it you want, Colette?’

She shifts, draws herself in, self-protecting. ‘I’m bored. I want to do something else. I thought this would be a bit more . . .’ She waves her teaspoon around the kitchen, taking in the house, the garden, the dismal orchard, the desperate sunlight.

‘Glamorous?’

‘Fun. I thought this would be fun. When the boss explained, it all made sense. What else would a girl like me do? Chucked out of boarding school, too dumb for uni, too well off to be driven to improve myself. I liked parties, drugs, drink, sex with good-looking guys, sex with ugly old bastards, new sensations. I wanted to feel alive and forget that I was going to die, like everyone else. I thought, when he said, ‘You can do whatever you want, my dear,’ he really meant it. But look. Just look around you. This place. Those two. ‘ Gesturing towards the shed with her spoon.

‘An endless queue of men, talking shop, woops! A fuck, a blowjob, then more shop. Who is making what and where, like an ancy firm. I’m bored. Bored, bored, bored. I want something new. With you. Perhaps.’

So, not trained, not part of the upper management, but educated by gossip. She is realising her age. Her usefulness is being depleted by the years and she’s worried. The fact is, when he met her, years ago, she was already too old for some. Perhaps that’s why they let him have her – she was desperate and experienced enough to pretend convincingly. What he had decided to accept as a similar need to his own, or at least a need that fitted neatly with his, was just her survival instinct, in full effect.

But he can’t be sure. He needs to be sure. He moves to the sink. Turns the tap on to a thin drizzle that clatters in the metal sink. He returns and sits opposite her, hands flat on the table. She is watching him. He is looking at her. Something in his intent gaze makes her sit back, sit up. She puts her hands on the table, flat out, palms down. Does she do this too easily? He will find out.

He makes her an offer, not spoken as such: you can tell me everything you know. You can tell me some of what you know. You can lie. You can pretend. And each decision will have consequences, the same consequences. In the end, I will find out what is true. I can manage your pain. He slips easily back into his role, behind his desk, so to speak. The chair’s comfortable, so to speak. He’s very good at his job, even without a Bassett.

Coco – Colette – is a full depot of titbits of info. Smith creates file called ‘Paleface’ and drops it all in. She watches him as he sends it via emails to clouds, to email addresses, to servers around the world from the laptop. He takes her picture with the on-board camera and puts that in the file, too. Then he smashes the laptop on the slate floor of the kitchen, removes its drive and puts it in the Aga.

Later, he takes the coagulated lump out of the oven with a pair of oven gloves, drops it into the sink and lets the cold water run until it is hard and brittle, then drops it back onto the floor, finally stamping on it until it cracks into pieces.

At the end of the orchard, throwing pieces of the computer’s ruined drive far into the field. She s him, engulfed in a thick man-size sweater, jeans and Wellingtons.

‘Why “Paleface”, Stephen? I thought you were one of the Red Indians.’

‘Just the reflection in the mirror, that’s all.’

‘Well, I suppose that’s me fucked then.’

‘You always were, Colette. They were never going to let you out. No one resigns. You were lucky, you kept your looks.’

He throws the last piece of computer. ‘I’ll give you a thousand pounds. I can get you a port. I can give you an address in America. After that, you’ll be on your own.’

‘My name’s Coco. I don’t answer to Colette.’

‘It’s irrelevant. I’ll drop you somewhere. Let’s go.’ He pauses. ‘What have you got in the house, in the way of powders and pills?’

‘I’ll see what there is.’

With three Calor gas containers stacked in the kitchen, the Aga door open, stuffed with clumps of newspaper, all the doors of the house left open, the windows, too, a trickle of two-stroke petrol from the lawnmower’s top-up can trailing through from room to room, an eventual small explosion and fire would

be inevitable. Even though they are miles away by the time it happens both Smith and Colette feel the fire and it feels like a declaration of war.

Dropping her at a coach station in a town some seventy miles away, knowing her chances are slim, to say the least, and wondering, has he made her chances better or worse? They would have done something sooner or later. What else could she do, what skills, beyond her capacity to enjoy lots of sex, does she possess? Does she even realise the evidence she has provided him with might have saved her life, if she had been clever enough to find a secure way, an amusing way, to use it? Their boss tended to forgive, or at least, was more likely to forgive, if strength was backed with humour, a zest for life, a slash of humility. It was the ‘humanity’ of Horatio, as opposed to the cold efficiency of Cornelius. A game. The game. Ra ra.

During the journey she talks a little. ‘At some moment in my life I’m going to to think of tomorrow. The day after tomorrow. A future. I might have kids, you know? It’s not too late.’

‘Don’t come back. America’s a big place. The ID is solid, you have a chance. this: Bill Jabroni, Rapid City Journal. Bill Jabroni, Rapid City Journal. It’s in Dakota, right in the middle. Say you belong to me – ‘I belong to Stephen’ – and he’ll understand and help you find a husband or a visa or something.’

She slams the car door and doesn’t look back. He drives off as soon as the door slams. Sounds like a starting pistol or the first shot of the shooting season. Smith barely notices.

The one advantage of going to Canvey Island: it’s an island. They wouldn’t

expect him to go there. One road on and off, presuming he didn’t have a boat, the only way in and out. He would have to be stupid or mad to go there. They know he isn’t the former.

The journey down to the M25 gives Smith time to think. Just before Luton he makes a small detour to buy a cheap pay as you go mobile. And not long after that he is in a traffic jam, heading slowly clockwise, the mobile held to one ear.

‘I presume this is Stephen?’

His boss sounds happy to hear from him. Always happy to hear from him.

‘I’ll do it. But you make sure Colette stays alive, unharmed. There’s a file, in a hundred places, you’ll never find it. If I die, if she gets hurt, it gets activated, sent to every media major outlet in the world, to SIS, to CIA and MI, to the French, the Israelis, the Russians. What I know, what I can tell them, will destroy you and your brother and probably bring down the government, the House of Lords and get the Windsors’ heads chopped off.’

There is a pause. Can Smith hear just the slightest tremor in his boss’s voice? Anger? Fear?

‘My boy! No need for all that! Get me the cash and everything will be ticketyboo. You know me.’

‘No fucking around. One job, then I’m out.’

‘If Coco can get herself out of the country then I’m sure she’ll be fine. Send her to America, she’ll blend in well . . .’

Disconnected, Smith opens the enger window all the way down. Shunting forward, he finds his car next to a large articulated lorry and skims the mobile out, to fall beneath the lorry’s wheels.

CHAPTER FOUR

Still Recruiting

SHE HAD FAILED, several times, and now it was up to him and it seems quite straightforward: find and kill. It was unusual to meet a woman in an action post, let alone one with authority. She was younger than him, by at least five years and possessed the kind of confidence that is bred rather than attained. He didn’t have it. His confidence ebbed and flowed depending on how successful his plans and predictions were, how well he carried out his promises. If he had a ninety per cent success rate it was due, at least, as much to his nervous disposition as it was to his intelligence. Chipping away at a problem, endlessly checking and checking again until he was as sure as he could be. It is only in action that he can improvise.

All this self-knowledge had been revealed to him by several sessions with the resident force psychologist. So Blake knew where he was with Yasmin the moment they met. She, obviously angry at his presence, the boss happily sensing conflict. He, studiously ignoring her, until, at the end of the briefing, when it is clear that he is in charge, he turns to her to make it clear.

‘You will do as I say. You will not question me. You will suborn for me and do your duty. We will not have a conversation about your previous attempts. We will not review the case. We will begin immediately to find and kill Stephen Smith. Am I clear?’

Giggling, Cornelius makes a camp motion with licked finger, pursed lips,

pointing crookedly at the quietly fuming Yasmin.

‘Well, he told you. Didn’t he, bitch!’ He laughs uproariously. Conflict. Forging iron wills and sacrifice in its heat. He likes it. Blake understands and makes it happen, at least in the foreground. In the background, he will do what he does best.

Soon they are left, the two of them, in a bare office, laptop against laptop on opposite desks. He gives her a crooked little smile that says, okay, the boss is out of the room, relax, it was all for show anyway.

‘What do you know about me, Yasmin? And, please, call me Russell.’

‘I know there are stories, but there are stories about everyone. At the armoury they are very impressed. Some of the rank-and-file are less impressed. Me? I couldn’t give a fuck. I am happy to “suborn” and do my duty and all the rest of the shit you came out with. And, at some point in the future, I will hurt you for shaming me in front of the boss. Does that answer you?’

‘So you don’t know me at all, right? In which case I will give you some basic info in order that we can work together. The whole spiel I gave for the boss is irrelevant. What you have heard about me is irrelevant. There is only one thing you need to know about me, Yasmin. And that is: I am ninety per cent successful. With everything. Sending down, locate and secure, kill or kidnap. Scare or snare. Ninety per cent.’

She has medium-length dark hair, tied in a ponytail, and brown eyes, big and slightly slanted, not the normal Anglo-Saxon willowy blonde preferred by his

superior for the various duties thought appropriate for a woman. Very UK, or at least, very London. Those eyes gaze at him over the straight line of the laptop screen.

‘Which is why, if you are smart, you will put your ego aside and do all you can to help, so that we can share the fruits of our successful endeavours.’ Saying it, not believing it himself, even as he says it.

‘Why are you talking like that? Are you taking the piss? The “fruits of our blah blah blah”? Bullshit.’

She stands and walks around, behind him, leaning on the back of his chair, talking close to his ear. Girl’s boarding school diction coarsened by the canteen. ‘I would have sorted him out by now but I was called off. I don’t know why, one of the bosses, the other one, told me to leave it. Smith has just been very, very lucky. Like you. Very, very lucky. My team have got a lock on the mobile. He thinks it’s secure. But we’ve been tracking it for the past two hours. The local boys are about to make it happen. I’m on my way. Want to come, Mr Ninety Per Cent?’

She leaves the room noisily, putting her mobile to her ear as she closes the door. He gets up and takes a look at her laptop. There is a report, including coordinates and vehicle description. Not too far away, really.

He sits back, watches. It’s comfortable in his car. It’s raining out there. Two youngish builders, plasterers by the looks of them, on their knees, hands behind their heads, foreheads against the white van, covered by two armed cops. In the van, Yasmin and two others. He watches tools, plasterboard, wood, being thrown out through the back doors of the van, making a scattered pile on the road.

There’s a traffic jam – an actual traffic jam! – on the road behind them, held back by bemused traffic cops. A small road, next to a country church, on the edge of a village. A helicopter above. A local detective inspector observes the scene from a distance. Everyone’s watching Yasmin make a tit of herself. Perhaps the church bells should ring out. Let’s make a day of it. Ten minutes.

Ten minutes later, Yasmin is sitting beside him, white flecks of plaster in her hair, staring ahead. He attempts neutral.

‘My rules from now on. Try not to let your pride get in the way. This was always going to be a waste of time. For you. For me, it says what I can’t. We’ve lost four hours. We won’t waste any more. Get back, we’ll meet in one hour fifteen minutes. Bring everything and bring your team, those two.’ He gestures to two men interviewing the builders, now standing by the van. ‘And one more thing, Yasmin.’

‘What?’

‘Kill the builders.’

‘What?!’

‘Kill them. Now. Do it.’

He is staring straight ahead, hands on the steering wheel. He can see, from the corner of his eye, she is sliding her hand towards the inside of her coat. He waits

until he is sure her hand is on the grip of her gun.

‘Actually, on second thoughts, don’t.’ Turning to her. ‘They seem like nice guys. I think one of them fancies you. They probably vote for our lot. Let’s not shoot them today.’

‘You bastard!’ She starts to laugh, she can’t help it. The two of them, laughing, like two married corpses in a grave, snickering into the palms of their hands. Let’s get to work, a part of him is saying.

I need to be careful, she tells herself.

‘It’s the south. Probably the south east. We can only really rely on habit and training. We might get lucky, but he’s a very successful manager. And his people like him, despite the fact he’s really an outsider. So. Habit. And a certain amount of . He’s not just a translator.’

‘Habit.’

At this level they are interchangeable. The nuts and bolts, the obvious construction, the architecture of the situation. They can play pat-a-cake and keep it going until a profile is established. Something to work with.

‘He’s always been unpredictable.’

‘Yes, but they like that. They use it.’

‘He won’t want to worry about the details. So he will make one brilliant Napoleonic dash at a time, from bright idea to bright idea. But his options are limited.’

‘We know he left in a hurry. We know he was driving a second-hand car. We know he has at least one gun. We know he might be with the woman, although that’s unlikely. We know he will have picked up a security blanket from somewhere. That could be a port and money. But then we also know he wasn’t that well paid and his remains untouched.’

‘So he probably needs more cash. But, as we don’t know what he’s aiming on doing, we don’t know how much he needs.’

‘You said one of the bosses, the other one, told you to lay off in Edinburgh?’

‘Yes, he sent a personal message. But then the other one told me to get after him again. That’s where I lost two of my team, he shot them off the road like a fucking cowboy.’

‘So the bosses are arguing. Of course, we do what Cornelius wants, but it does make it interesting.’

‘So if Smith is being ed by the other boss he could get money, resources . . .’

‘I don’t think he can. Smith’s gone rogue. They’ve done it before. Let an agent completely off the leash and send them down the warren, berserker style.’

She looks at him. ‘I don’t know what you’re going on about.’

‘Because the other boss wants him to find a different way in. Look, it’s like this. Did you ever build a sand castle when you were a kid? And did you make a moat? Did you dig a canal from the sea to your moat, so it would fill up with water? And then, did the tide come in and the water come every which way and flood the castle anyway? He wants Smith to find new ways in. He’s been let loose to attack Cornelius from the most unlikely direction. It’s a feud!’

‘So you think he’s going to do something? Attack? How? What’s he going to do?’

‘He’ll come from the direction that’s left to him once he’s worked out what’s left, what his options are. And his options are few, believe me, Ms Scott. There aren’t many places he can go, there aren’t many options left to him – which is what makes him so dangerous.

‘Someone like Smith, already quite nihilistic, misanthropic, but with the smarts and the training – he can be quite a threat, especially if he feels there’s nothing left to lose.’

‘So, what, he’s a kamikaze? That doesn’t sound like an intelligent use of resources. I thought he’s one of our better employees?’

‘He is. Or was. The theory is, he’s gone a bit doolally since discovering them kids blown to bits. So, rather than just put a bullet in the back of his head – which is what we would do, probably, if we’re honest, if it was our choice – the other boss has decided to send him out to see what damage he can inflict on Cornelius before we blow him away.’

‘Look, we’ve got the okay. We ignore the other boss. I never liked him anyway. This is a loyalty test and I’m sticking with the one I know: Cornelius.’

Yasmin seems uncomfortable at the frequent use of her boss’s name – she tries not to use it herself – she knows how much it can upset him. But Blake seems to enjoy saying it – ‘Cornelius’ – all the fucking time, like they’re related or best friends or something. Blake should be more careful, not that she gives a toss.

‘So, how about we do what we’re paid to do? We start from the basics and build from there. He’s six foot one . . .’

Laid out, on the network, on their laptops, a Powerpoint presentation. Working on it together, but at separate addresses. She is at her folks’ home, in the Home Counties, in her teenage bedroom. Blake has checked and knows that her recent relationship with a captain in the Grenadier Guards has fallen apart – the captain’s regular stints abroad left him jealous of his independently-minded woman. She, apparently, isn’t too upset, even though they had actually moved in together, a uniform house at the regimental duty station, his superiors happily overlooking the lack of a marriage or civil partnership certificate to make sure a promising officer is kept happy, in between tours.

He’s not sure, but willing to believe things got violent. She can, of course, look after herself, but her ex-partner, being a great strapping army man, pumped full of steroid-laden meat portions, would probably have got the better of her, at least while he was awake. Either way, with the captain away for six months a personal visit as part of a background check is out of the question.

He allows himself three hours to check Yasmin out. In order to maximise her use he feels he must be able to use her to her strengths. Like a soldier checking over a new complicated weapon before going into action, knowing a few hours’ prep could save his life in the field. He has the basics and he has rumour and gossip. But he still doesn’t know her. A proper field trial is required. A bonding exercise during which he can take notes. Plus something that will forward the search and the destruction of the rogue manager. Something that will help him achieve his targets. Blackmail would be good.

They meet in the car park of a large shopping centre off the north side of the M25. Over an hour gone already. Yasmin gets into his car.

‘What?’

‘Yasmin.’

‘What are we doing? Do we need the team? I’ve put them on alert – they’re waiting for an address. What’s happening, Russ?’ Familiar, but not friendly. Driving off at speed, blue lights flashing, back onto the motorway.

‘We’re going to make a friend. Just up the road. We won’t need back-up. We

need a bent feed, to filter the info from the PNC, something direct. So we’re going to the Data Centre in Hendon to find one. Okay?’

‘So, do you have someone there already? Or are we just going to pop in and choose someone at random?’

He offers a mysterious smile he has practised in the rear-view mirror over many traffic jams, a little ego rub he allows himself. They all do, he knows. It’s one of the alluring things about the job, however mundane it gets. They don’t have to pretend: they are really in a real-life, living, ongoing world of crime and punishment. Televised, filmed, glamourised, but real, real, real.

So he stays silent and smiles.

Twenty minutes later, flashing warrant cards and barcode laminates, walking quickly through the entrance of a modern office block, in the vertical glass-andconcrete police mini city of the Data Centre. He knows the building well and heads straight to the floor he wants, via the stairs, running up, with her on his heels.

A long room, like a call centre. Forty or so humans as adjuncts to the computer system, boothed apart, with thin partitions, some personalised with photos, Postit notes, postcards. The partitions low enough to stand and lean over, to throw paper airplanes and flick elastic band-powered paper clips. All the fun of a large open-plan office. A permanent, shifting staff, twenty-four hours divided by three by the booths makes, enough humanity to get lost in, to be unremarkable. The constant games of tables and chairs, the variables of family, births, deaths, promotion and the sack. Somewhere in here will be their feed.

Looking round the edge of the doors to the main room, then scoping the toilets, the large disabled toilets. Empty corridor. Pushing Yasmin through the wheelchair-width door. Knowing the CCTV stops after the ground floor – this is the heart of the citadel, why would they need to record their own? The space, surprisingly, is large enough to accommodate them both. Leaving the door open a crack. She gathers herself.

‘There are more comfortable places, Mr Blake. Or did you just want someone to watch while you pulled yourself off?’ Formal again. Worried.

Blake is opening a small paper bag, taking out a polythene sachet.

‘Shouldn’t you close the door?’ Slightly wide-eyed at what she sees.

‘Leave the door. Tell me if anyone’s coming. If they’re coming in just let them. Move away from the door so they can get in, whoever it is.’ He is pouring white powder from the sachet onto the top of the cistern.

‘Take out your pistol.’

‘Russell, this is headquarters. We can’t do this.’ Nevertheless, he notes, her pistol is already in her hand, eyes bright, lips wet, prepared stance. The room is warm, they are over-dressed. Her face is damp with sweat already, but her hands are steady as she looks through the crack of the door jamb. He backs as far away from the door as he can, practically sitting on the sink. He folds his arms. They are both quiet.

The sound of someone in a hurry, quick footsteps, click, click, female. The door is pushed suddenly. He grabs an arm, pulling her right in. Yasmin doesn’t need to be told – she closes the door, throws the lock in place. He has the woman, young, perhaps mid-twenties, held viciously by the hair, almost on tiptoes, his hand over her mouth pushing hard. He nods to Yasmin who raises her gun to the woman’s eye-level.

‘Stop moving. You’re in trouble but it can get a lot worse.’ The woman has her handbag in one hand – it drops to the floor. Blake motions to the bag, to Yasmin.

‘Credit card.’ Yasmin drops to the bag, lifts it, rummages, finds a purse, opens it, find a credit card. Good, a black one, high contrast.

This woman, he knows, is weighing her options. He must reduce them. His gloved hand tightens on her mouth. Shifting slightly, he also pinches her nose between thumb and forefinger. He realises Yasmin is watching, assessing. The woman starts to struggle. He pinches harder, holds it. Then he lets go of her nose. She draws wet breath deeply through her nostrils. A thin line of dribble from the side of her mouth escapes under his hand. He motions to the powder on the cistern.

‘Make a line. A fat one.’ Taking the credit card, Yasmin chops the powder into a thick three-inch-long line. Very professionally, he notes. ‘Leave the card there.’ The card, with a coating of white grains.

‘Bank note.’ She’s getting it now, already pulling a twenty-pound note from the woman’s purse, rolling it. Ready. Harsh whisper. ‘When I take my hand from your mouth you will not make a noise. If you do we will kill you. You don’t have a choice. Do what you’re told and you might live.’

He takes his hand away from her mouth, lets go of her hair at the same time. Suddenly, she is free. She almost tumbles over, her feet suddenly light. He smiles at her. Yasmin brings the gun to her temple. Good.

‘Take this and put it in your nose. Now snort the line. It’s cocaine. This is a treat. For you. It’s your birthday.’

She can hardly speak through her fear. ‘It’s . . . it’s not my birthday.’

‘Today is your special day.’ He takes his mobile from a pocket, sets it to take photos.

‘This is very good cocaine. You will feel wonderful, very confident. The rest of the day will just fly by. Go on, you’ll enjoy it.’ Is the woman thinking this is some kind of extreme birthday prank, like a stripogram or a singing birthday card? Probably. It’s only logical.

The woman doubles over in agony. Yasmin has her pistol at waist height, ready to jab it in the woman’s kidneys again.

‘Do it, bitch. Just fucking do it.’ A trickle of water runs down the woman’s legs. Yasmin watches and he can see her face reacting to the fuck-up. Stupid.

‘You-oo-oo made me wet myself!’ She’s sobbing. Very messy, very quickly. Okay.

To Yasmin: ‘Bag. Mobile. Name, number.’

To the woman: ‘I’ll count to five. If you haven’t snorted the coke by then you will be dead. Heaven or hell. You decide. One, two . . .’

The woman bends, she knows what to do. A bit of luck there: Friday night training, hedonistic Hendon. He snaps with his camera phone, she snorts, he snaps. Ten pictures. In which the woman looks distressed, slightly crazed, fearful, for all the world like a cokehead who has had to nip to the bathroom to get sorted in the middle of her shift, afraid of exposure, paranoid, desperate. Perfect.

He pushes down on the woman’s shoulders, sits her down, dabs at her eyes with damp toilet paper. Her pupils are dilated. She already feels so much better, if a little disorientated. He laughs. She s in.

He shows her the pictures. Her face, her nose, the white powder, the card. Unbeatable.

‘You can try to tell your boss what happened. You can insist it’s the truth. At the very least, you will be given some time off. There might be an investigation, but they won’t find anything. They won’t find us. Because we don’t exist. And then, when I send your boss – it’s a Mr Halpern, yeah? – these pics, taken on police premises, and a little story about internal dealing, well, there will be blood tests, suspension and, eventually, they will have to let you go. The union will laugh at you. You’ll be unemployable. But it won’t stop there. Because, if you do go and spill the beans, we will be back, some time soon, to see you again. You will become a loose end, which will need tidying away, sewing up, finishing off.

Killing.’

‘What . . . what do you want? I haven’t got any money.’

‘We’ll call you, we’ll let you know. Nothing too bad.’ He picks up her credit card, reads it, licks the residue of white from its edge.

‘Ms Anderson. Just a bit of info. Once, twice, maybe three times, then no more. Then it’s over. Easy. Now, wash up, get back to work. Have you got some spare tights in your bag? We’ll leave you now to get changed, then we’ll just be watching you for a few minutes, while you get back to work. Keep your head down. Don’t talk to anyone unless they talk to you. If they ask about your red eyes just say you’re coming down with a cold. That will explain the sniffles, too. Okay?’

She nods miserably. Definitely not laughing now.

‘Tights?’

She removes her shoes, starts to remove her tights.

He is out of the door, followed by Yasmin who is already beginning to giggle. She holds it in until they get to the lift. The lift door closes and she breaks down in a laughing fit. He smiles, with her. They get out on the first floor and walk the rest. She composes her face to walk past the main desk and security gates in the front of the building, but as soon as she is outside she is howling with laughter,

keeping it up until they have walked past the rows of cars, until they are sitting in his car, until he has slapped her hard across the face, once, twice, until she is tasting blood. Then she stops.

‘I hope you got her number. Did you? Get her number?’

She is glaring at him.

‘What? What are you going to do, Yasmin? You fucked up. You need to keep your temper under control, or you won’t be any good to me. I will sack you. You’ll be shoe-shining for another ten years. Now.’ Taking his phone out. ‘Give me her number and I’ll send her a little reminder, prove that she didn’t imagine the whole thing.’

Sending the series of photos to the woman’s mobile, watching Yasmin, now quiet, staring straight ahead through the windscreen at cars moving, doors opening, shutting, office bodies, suited, some uniformed, back and forth in the grey day, on the grey car park. She needs to weigh her options, then make the right decision.

Finally. The last bit. He stretches his left hand, slides it in between her legs, pushing up to her crotch, all the while looking straight at her. She turns to him, her mouth slightly open in surprise. He presses, moving his fingers. Her legs, tightened muscles, slightly squirming, then, that’s it, there, relaxing, opening a little. She smiles a little. Always, it comes back to this and this she can understand. Her pistol in his groin, barrel pushing painfully against testicle. So now he knows. With almost thirty minutes to go.

It’s late. By anyone’s marker it’s late. Essentially in his prime, Blake can keep this up for days and nights, weeks, possibly. But he has to work to optimum, maximise efficiency, reduce, realise, pro-act, create more options, have a strategy ready for when his current strategy reaches peak action; make a relay race of his intelligence and cunning and fitness. Everything he’s got, powering his aim, powering his charge, all of the time.

Sipping a high-caffeine drink, small, sharp, painful blasts of energy suffused in carbonated water, wide-eyed and fizzy as he reads all the strands that lead from Stephen Smith.

Maintaining two folders. One for his boss, one for himself. One on the computer, one of them printed, dead trees felled for an analogue of deceit.

Roberta Swann. Somewhere in the land, someone exists who can help him get what he wants. He truly believes that. He believes in the free market capitalistic economy. If there is a genuine need there will, eventually, be a supplier. Sometimes the supplier needs coaxing to accept the new market. Sometimes they need to be talked down from their original price. Sometimes they understand and sometimes they are the very people who feel they have nothing to offer.

His laptop screen flicks from page to page. From LinkedIn to somewhat more private websites with a portcullis logo and stern warnings about misuse. Who is Roberta Swann? Here she is, first laying out her stall in a big university two decades ago, more than two decades, actually. But less than three. What is she selling? She is selling a lightweight revolution. Very nice. The kind of revolution he approves of. The kind that sneaks up, via education and dissatisfaction, with only a few key publicly-owned monuments and buildings vandalised, perhaps a single potent symbol of some kind of vaguely fascist something or other burned down completely. And then, glory! The power of the mass of the people, on strike, or on holiday for a few days, plus a disillusioned army, plus the right weather, plus a top-heavy cabal of lefties in the main broadcasting company (as

if!) leaning fate, like a huge beautiful bloom on the end of a bending stalk, towards the sun. Making things a little bit better. He might well have signed up himself, back then.

Sister Roberta, with the shining light of the right direction, dancing the world right to African Pop with sensitive young men sporting ironic quiffs. A particular kind of indulgence, available to all classes, a chance to step out of the slow lane towards factory life, but to stay connected to the workers nevertheless, via various revolutionary organisations led by men and women who measured the value of labour even if their own work was reading and dreaming, not digging and drilling. He understood, he really did, and was happy he had sidestepped the time clock and avoided the dull sweat and chores in his own way, as she had, at university, back in the eighties, when it was free. Both of them escaping the factory life, in their own way.

So, it was a sex and right-on fun thing. Smith was older by several years. They met at his last year and her first, at a party where, once the basic principles of attraction were established, the button badges and musical preferences did the rest. Smith had, probably, already been recruited, even if he hadn’t accepted it yet. She was just intelligently silly, understanding the process of time like a lower middle-class girl, striving for middle class, but without the bourgeois sensibility but also the working class, but without the traditional calluses, would. It’s the part of education that isn’t written on the syllabuses of two and a half decades of the country’s further education strategy. How to make a living when you’re a bit smart.

She is still alive, apparently, and living in a small town in the north, a pretty place, once home to seventeenth-century industrial potters but now with the largest non-urban bohemian population in the UK and rising house prices to reflect the lowering crime rate. Literally, the displacement of poverty leading to a kind of rainy paradise – just like the commie prophets had predicted all along.

It’s a three- to four-hour drive, even with the flashing lights. Is it worth it? Leave Yasmin down here, with her diminishing team, leave now and get there for breakfast. But first he must make a quick call to Yasmin.

‘It’s me. I’m heading up north. I’ve added the new stuff, did you see it?’

‘I’ve seen it.’ Up late, like him. ‘Is she worth it? It was a long time ago. We can get local plod to pick her up, send up one of the boys to interview her. Shouldn’t we be looking down here, where he is?’

‘Yasmin, this is root stuff, right down there in the depths of the earth where he’s plugged in to get his basic sustenance. You cut a tree off by digging up the roots – you don’t have to chop it down.’

‘He won’t even know, though, will he? If you chop her off. What’s the point? I mean, I’m sure she’s a leftist bitch and deserves everything you give her, but I think you’re wasting time. We should be down in the muck where he’ll end up, raking around in the undergrowth. Still . . . whatever.’ He hears her sucking in, what, smoke? Is she smoking a t?

Exhaling, suppressing a cough. ‘Anyway, you do what you want. If I get a bead on him, I’ll let you know. Release the hounds. Corner the foxy bastard and tear him to shreds. I’m going to see the soldier boy, see if he noticed a tall man in a suit having a breakdown. Have fun oop north.’

‘Yasmin, if you do anything, anything, without ing it by me first, I will be very upset.’

‘Not half as upset as you would have been if I’d blown your balls off today.’

A moment. Suddenly realising, yes, she could have, although it would have been tricky explaining. But she would have managed. With her efficient emotional disconnect he could see her lying well enough to escape a bullet, to get away with killing him. But then she’s not that smart. She would be at the mercy of a paralysing paranoia created by a limited imagination, based on her own limited instincts. She would think he’d have something on her that would activate in the event of his death. A file, somewhere. Perhaps he should organise that.

‘I can always grow another pair. Go to bed. I’ll speak to you tomorrow.’

Ringing off before a casual goodbye becomes stoned banter.

God bless the systems put in place for the warriors. Blake is on his knees, by the bed, his belt in his right hand, dressed in T-shirt and boxers. God bless the pain interrupted, like a spiritual Tens machine, cutting it off at the , on the spine, before the pain reaches the brain’s understanding. It’s a good trick, this one, taught by an old hand many years ago. To be in control of your destiny, to have complete control, you must be able to direct the pain, to wherever it can be dealt with most efficiently. Time is money. Daylight saving. He slices the leather belt over his shoulder, on his shoulder blades, as hard as he can. Once, twice, ten times a side, a metric of pain control, across the spine, the blades, the cartilage, the back of the ribs, the thin skin and the muscle.

A small microphone in his room relaying the rhythm back to a smile of understanding some miles away. The knights, across the Blessed Isle, ripping

away their bedtime prayers. Rip away the night air, the skin fibres, the guilt. Make noble and ready for attack. The few young-ish men, whipping their backs while their superiors the days when, as young men, they did the same. Old oak, shined and polished, flickering with dots of fire reflection: a real fire, shared, like some aspects of the British accent and also, certain characteristics, by both the most upper and the most lower classes. The difference, of course, in the quality of wood that is burned. As pine-scented logs crackle contentedly in a huge grate, a small pile of glossed beading, hardboard and MDMF, plus nails and plaster, sends faint plumes of poison up the nostrils of the ex-squaddy in a squat.

Even though Blake understands the principles of sacrifice and discipline and the need for a status quo, he doesn’t quite get the nuanced version available to the neat, pressed and stout individual in the upholstered antique chair who receives his report with a languid glee, and then takes a phone call on a mobile stupidly small for his bulk wherein he finds out that Blake is whipping himself again. Bliss. Bliss. All is in order. Brother, this game is a good one, one of the better ones. How long before the table is upset? How long before Nanny interrupts? How many delightful hours will they kill this time? Cornelius stabs at the phone several times before disconnecting and turning to his brother in a matching chair just three feet away with an inscrutable glaze across his face, calculated to infuriate.

‘That’s about my boy, Blake. He’s had an idea, thinks he can draw Smith out into the open. Hope your fella’s a good runner because once Russell gets the scent he won’t stop until he sinks his teeth in.’

A vintage telephone, especially adapted to maintain the dial, a bit of a pose, she knows, but, still, it gives the family an extra few seconds every day, forcing them to consider just how important the phone call is before they go through the process of winding and waiting. Of course, Roberta Swann has a mobile, too. So it’s odd that whoever called her doesn’t also try the mobile. There was a click on the line, like the old days, a familiar click, a pause, then a click again, then some

quiet hiss, the audible silence. Yes, like the old days, when they would experiment by shouting ‘Bomb!’ or ‘Kill the president!’ down the phone then listen, for the click, the transatlantic click, the Pentagon click, which did actually happen once or twice. Or perhaps it was just a bird on the telephone line outside.

Leaving her feeling apprehensive. Like the night before each of the kids started infants’ school, each one. Unable to sleep, but also joyously aware that she is a mother and this is how mums are. But she’s no longer a revolutionary, not really, so the reminder of the dark forces she had identified years ago and, in the end, chosen to ignore in order to, you know, lead a life, is unsettling, for a moment.

In the country, the techno clicks and beeps that are taken for granted in the urban environment are still alien. The sound of the boiler in winter, the cooling of pipes, the late night microwave of a late night teen on a munchy mission will keep you awake like a cracking twig in the jungle. Owls and animal rustles that will frighten the city dweller’s first night amidst the hills and woods are the sounds of sirens and cars and sub-bass ing, in reverse.

So Roberta is up later than usual. Double checking the front door bolts. The windows, turning off, moving the fire-guard closer to the grate. Listening at the doors of her two teenagers for sounds out of the ordinary. Retiring to her bed, eventually, lying with arms above the counterpane, gazing straight up, fighting the need for a prayer or a fiddle. Hoping that tomorrow is just another day in their rainy northern paradise.

ONE THOUSAND!!! The headline is impressive, Miriam its to herself. The morning edition’s front page is devoted to the campaign that has taken over, or so it seems, the whole publication. As Bill had said in a meeting a few days ago: ‘Someone, in their wisdom, realised we hadn’t run a campaign for a few months and every newspaper needs to run a campaign regularly to show how relevant and effective we are. We had the choice: No Early Term Abortion, or NETA –

concise but the subject matter’s too messy. Sack All Corrupt Councillors, or SACC – no one gives a toss. Or this – Stop Our kids Murdering Each Other Now in England, or SOMEONE, which is what we are going with. Snappy, right? We also have a variation which is SOMEONE’S KID, and there the acronyms stop, although we could do with some variations for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, if anyone has any bright ideas.’

The definition of ‘kid’ is somewhat stretched, Miriam believes, but, still, one thousand fourteen- to twenty-five-year-olds shot, stabbed, beaten, burned, or, in one notorious case, crushed to death in the past year. Pretty impressive. Pretty distracting, too. As one of the specialist reporters in this area of crime Miriam has been busy, working with Neil, compiling statistics (there’s an updated online pie chart for each major city, convenient for house buyers, showing where the murders tend to happen), interviewing families and the murderers themselves, on the very odd occasion they have been caught. Another number to add to the one thousand would be the two hundred or so murderers caught and the class and skin colour of both murderer and murderee, although the newspaper won’t dwell too long on the latter, focusing instead on the (lack of) safety of streets running with blood, apparently controlled by murderous gangsters, and the inept police response.

By the end of the week the journalists were running out of angles, but, happily for the paper, there was another murder: a young man gunned down at five a.m. outside a party took the tally to the magic one thousand. So there was the murder which Miriam felt she should be covering, and then there is this, another angle, insisted on by her editor, an interview with a ‘financial journalist’ who can explain the ‘economics of youth murder’. Which is how Miriam finds herself in a room with a dapper man who introduces himself as George. ‘I’m sure you won’t have read my work,’ he says. ‘I freelance, mainly for the FT and some of the better online financial sites.’

They are in one of the meeting rooms beside the main newsroom. George is waiting for her, sitting comfortably with one leg crossed over the other, still in

his coat, still wearing gloves, and Miriam notices the blinds are lowered and closed. The blinds are never closed. It’s a matter of principle that everyone can see whatever is going on everywhere in the newsroom – literal transparency which is meant to remind the journos that if they do anything naughty, someone will find out and they’ll get into trouble. Probably at Bill’s insistence, this clumsy psychological device is taken at face value by his workers but Miriam finds herself immediately suspicious.

Sitting down at the shiny conference table, Miriam smiles at George who slides over a plastic folder containing sheets of printed paper as he introduces himself.

‘So, George, thanks for coming in. What’s this?’ Miriam hasn’t opened the folder on which her fingertips lightly rest as if worried about catching something.

‘I thought we could save a bit of time so I sorted you out some basic info – house prices in the affected areas, unemployment, knock-on effect on the local economy and so on. I’ve focused on London . . . and Birmingham.’ Something about the ‘Birmingham’ makes Miriam pause. George smiles at her beatifically. She can’t work him out. He’s neat, dressed expensively and conservatively, apart from the leather gloves. Perhaps he has a skin condition.

‘Well, thanks, George. I’m sorry, I don’t know your surname? Bill didn’t mention it . . .’

‘Everything you need is in the folder, I believe, Miriam. I must say, this campaign is very noble. Well done to all concerned. You must be rushed off your feet. There was another one last night, wasn’t there?’

‘Yesterday morning. If there’s nothing more, I can look this over and call you if anything is unclear?’

‘I don’t think anything will be unclear, Miriam, but, by all means, call me. Here . . .’ George produces a card, as if he was expecting the request. Miriam takes it. There’s no name, just a mobile number. That seems to be that, but George remains where he is, just as relaxed, smiling at Miriam.

‘I expect you’ve been too busy for any other stories this week.’

Miriam nods, unsure of the situation now.

‘What else are you working on, Miriam? Anything meaty?’ The enthusiasm of the question is undermined by the look of calculation in George’s eyes. ‘I was up in Brum yesterday, partly to look into this for your paper. Good to get out of the old smoke. Been to Brum recently, Miriam?’

‘No, not recently. Why do you ask?’

‘Oh, you know, our second city and all that. How about Edinburgh? I’m always up that way, if I’m not in the City. Get up to see our Scottish cousins much? S’pose there’s not a lot of the old urban violence in Edinburgh.’ He pronounces Edinburgh with a Scottish burr, having fun, rolling the ‘rrrr’ on the end.

‘Well, must dash. Lovely to meet you.’ George is on his feet and moving towards the door while Miriam is still getting up. ‘No, don’t get up.’ He turns, and taps

the folder on the table, giving Miriam a whiff of aftershave and Imperial Leather which reminds her of the family bathroom after her dad has finished his morning ritual. ‘Everything you need in there. Oh, by the way, no need to use my name, might get me into trouble with some of the other people I work for. Just “A Financial Journalist” will do. Cheerio!’

As soon as George has disappeared from sight Bill puts his head round the edge of the door and casts his eye over Miriam. ‘All right?’

‘Bill, who was that?’

‘That was George. Didn’t you ask him his name? Call yourself a journalist?’ Bill is smiling.

‘But how do you know him?’

‘I don’t, really. He was recommended by someone else for a piece a couple of years ago. I told you, he writes for the FT, meant to know his stuff. Did you get what we need?’

‘But I don’t know his name!’

‘Do you need to know his name? Just put “A Financial Journalist”, or don’t mention him at all. All his sources will be referenced so you can check them out. Just saved you a job, that’s all. Give him a call if it’s troubling you. I can give you his number.’

‘I’ve got his number, thanks.’

Secondary schools are perfect for watching. In this case, over a thousand young people and kids, plus teaching staff, some of whom look the worse for wear, every morning, plus the ancillary staff, the cleaners leaving, the caretakers, the cooks, the assistants, the secretaries. As many men as women. Beaten-up motors and shiny heistress motors. Parents dropping off, waiting for returning kids, ing packed lunches and musical instruments. Cars, engines running, windows steamed, gruff unshaven dads, too early, or at the end of a shift . . . He sits and watches Roberta Swann ring her eldest son, even as the boy is entering the school building, watching him hurry back and accept an envelope from his mum. Money for a school trip?

She drives off, he follows, right behind. Just another parent, going the same way.

A school day, with teenage kids, not the whole eight hours. It’s not really a day, is it? Perhaps that’s why she can never get anything done. After washing up, putting a wash on, food shopping, planning the tea, a bit of lunch, there’s only a few hours left, maybe three or four, in which to do anything. At her desk, in her craft room. Third attempt at a children’s book, story and pictures, cheerfully collaged and one-dimensional. Nelly Goes Shopping.

Sitting, waiting to do what she had spent years promising herself she would when the kids were older, when things were settled, when she didn’t think every other thought as a what-if. What if he had lived? What if she had really loved him?

Blake has her file open in his mind as he watches the back of her head look left, right, hears the car shudder as she crunches a gear. Distracted. Still. Anyone would be who had found their husband hanging by an electrical cord from the big tree at the end of their garden. The tree stump is still there, obscured by a kind of memorial, an earthenware pot, containing a large dying shrub, all very dismal. The kids play around it, not noticing. They were so young; even if they know the story, they don’t know the details.

All good for him. She is near her house now, doesn’t bother to indicate, right turn, left turn. Nicely spaced semis. Tree-lined road. Not very artisan, Roberta. Not very crafty. He flicks the radio on – BBC Radio 4 – turns it up, some plummy-voiced guff about something arty. He speeds up and touches bumpers. Unlikely for there to be a scratch on his, but a small dent on hers.

She stops suddenly. He stays. Sits for a moment. She gets out – after all, her house is just there, yards away. She is striding, annoyed. He gets out, hands up, placatory. Her voice has a little defensive breaking edge to it. ‘Wasn’t I going fast enough for you? I definitely didn’t stop. But I suppose you’re going to try to blame me anyway.’

‘Sorry, sorry, sorry. Believe it or not, my foot slipped. I was listening to the radio and didn’t notice. Are you all right?’

Examining the bumpers, minor damage, Radio 4 comforting and soothing the situation. Asking again, concerned: ‘Are you okay? Look, can you get back okay? Are you on your way to work? Let me give you my insurance details. Shall we pull over?’

Of course, it’s much more sensible and civilised for her to just pull up into her drive and for him to walk up her drive, too, so they can continue the

conversation about insurance by her car, where the damage is. Leave his car there, a few yards away.

Much easier for him, too, to hold her by the elbow and hurry her, lifting, pushing, tripping her heels with the toes of his shoes, push her face-first into the front door, fish her keys from her coat pocket, let himself in, push her in front, onto the floor of the busy hall. All with only the slightest ‘no’ from her lips. It’s almost as if she was waiting for him to do it. Happy to oblige. He stands, one foot on the small of her back, heel digging in and leans down, tapping the side of her head with his gun.

‘I think you were expecting me, Roberta.’

Waiting. Anticipation. A luxury. He has, looking at his watch, well over two hours. Now, what does he want?

‘What do you want?’ Her voice is measured, surprisingly calm. He needs to sort that out. He kicks her, hard, just below the buttocks, catching the inside of her thighs, then, again, slightly higher. She cries out, but he is instantly on her, lying full length, pushing her head into the mat on the parquet flooring.

‘Shut it, or you really will get hurt.’ He stays there until he hears the whimper and recognises the signal to move to the next stage. He gets up and grabs a bunch of the back of her coat, pulling at the same time as he straightens. She is on all fours, then, fast, whipping round, a Stanley blade, cutting tro, slicing his knee, his shin, stabbing his calf. Where did that come from? He backs off, but there’s nowhere really for her to go as she stumbles backwards onto the first step of the stairway, screeching.

He is roaring, blood is filling his shoe via his sock; he is shocked at the instant hydraulic reaction of his pulse.

Waving the blade in front of her, sat on the bottom stair. He kicks, with his cut leg. A spray of his blood spots the hall floor, the stairs, her face, and the blade goes flying. He grabs her by the hair and drags her through a door. The kitchen, of course. Forcing her to the ground on the wooden floor, placing a chair over her, sitting on the chair, her clothes caught under the legs of the chair. Reaching down with one hand to punch, slap, punch her head until she is quiet.

A tea towel. Family like this won’t use a tea towel to dry dishes. Unhygienic. It’s there, maybe, to dry hands, wipe a washed knife blade. Stem the blood from several cuts to the leg. Clean enough. Stuffed down his sock, sock pulled up almost to his knee. He stands, kicks over the chair. Bending over her, noticing blood by her ear, pulling her coat down, tying her coat sleeves around her wrists.

A quick limping search through the kitchen drawers and cupboards. Family like this will have a first aid kit. Two kids. Middle-class mum. First aid kit. He finds it: well stocked, bandages, plasters, everything he needs to block the slits. Not as bad as he thought. A few stitches, perhaps. He’ll have to kill her first, though. Family like this.

Breathe. Assess the damage. Two rooms, blood everywhere. His blood. She moans. And he decides what he can do, what’s left to salvage. He gets her onto a chair, leans her onto the table. Gets some water in a glass, puts it to her lips.

‘Roberta, hello. We haven’t met. I don’t know what you’re like, I don’t care. You’ve obviously got some balls, I’ll give you that. But I don’t know if you’re a good person or a bad person. My aim is to get to know you. Now, what you tell me will be the difference between whether I kill you or let you live. Understand?

Roberta? Understand? If you want to live you must talk to me and be very careful to tell the truth.’

He takes his mobile from a pocket, sets it up to record video, props it carefully against a mug containing tea dregs and points it at her. Head bowed, conscious but wobbling, her hair hangs over her face.

‘Roberta. Roberta. Look up. Look up, darling. You need to talk to me. Or I’ll have to hurt you some more.’

There’s a wooden spoon on the table, porridge residue hardening on its edges. He takes it, raps the table a couple of times. She won’t look up. He hits the top of her head with the spoon. Then again. Then she looks up. Tears and blood-flecked eye, swollen already. She looks like a beaten wife, one of many he has seen over the years, at various stations around the city. Not all wives, of course, but treated all the same as if they were.

‘Bastard. Bastard.’ That’s another cliché. Perhaps not feeling very inventive, in her bruised and broken state, but, still. Why is it always ‘bastard’?

‘Listen. Roberta. Darling, Roberta. I’m going to ask you some questions and then, if you answer them well, I’ll leave and you can call an ambulance and get yourself sorted. Okay?’

He checks the mobile is recording. ‘Did you love him? Did you? Did you love him?’

‘What? Who? He’s dead, you bastard. He died . . .’

‘No, not your husband, Roberta. I’m talking about Stephen. Stephen Smith. Did you love him? Was he special to you? A special person?’

‘Is this about Steve? Is that why you’re here? Who are you? I haven’t seen him in years. Leave me alone.’

‘Roberta, . what I said? You need to answer the question. Or I will have to hurt you some more. He was your first love, wasn’t he? Did you really love him? Tell me? How did you feel?’

She is looking at him properly, for the first time, curious, mystified, despite the pain and shock. Not blinking. When she answers this time, her voice has lost its hysterical edge. ‘Yes, no, I don’t know. It was years ago. Why? Yes, I loved him, I loved him, does that do? You sick bastard. Is that what you want?’

‘Say it then. Say “I loved Steve”. Go on, say it, then I’ll leave you alone. Look, over here, here.’ Tapping with the wooden spoon on the table by the mobile.

‘Say it to me, over here. Say “I loved Steve Smith”. Say it and then I’ll go.’

Defiance dissipating. Some slight memory, some slight feeling. Remarkable how women can hang on to it, even in the most trying situation.

‘I always thought something like this might happen, back then, though, it was back then. Not now. I don’t do anything any more. Yes, I loved Steve Smith. I’m not ashamed to say it. You can’t lock me up for loving him, whatever he’s done. Now fuck off.’

He takes the phone, leaving it in record and gets up without a word. Walks around, on the way out, behind her, recording as he goes. Points with mobile and gun at the back of her head and blows her brains out. Bang.

He has thirty-five minutes in which to set the place on fire, a good, solid blaze. Gas cooker. Newspapers stacked, ready to recycle. Lots of exposed wood, stripped, ready to burn. He lights all the rings. Spreads the newspaper around. What a mess.

Do you offer some to the policewoman who doesn’t seem to mind? Yasmin doesn’t mind at all. It smells all right, actually. He cups the stubby t in his left hand in a well-practised back-of-the-bike-sheds move.

‘Can I see him?’

‘Well, there’s nothing to see. He just lies there. He doesn’t talk. But he’s okay. He can get up, wash himself, eat and that. Do you want to come back when Mum’s home? This evening?’

Is he bunking off or just a young-looking undergraduate working from home? Quite nice, really. If she was younger, this is the kind of rough boy she would have fallen for. Sneaking him into the dorm through a back window. Probably

have to share him around, with Mel and Suze. That’s okay. They shared when they got one, too. He’s got a single squeezed spot at the side of his brow. Or an attempt at a self-pierce. Eyebrow rings. Who thought those up?

‘No, it’s fine. I just want a quick peak, if you don’t mind.’

‘Sure. This way.’ Calling up the stairs as he climbs. ‘Col, Col, you’ve got a visitor. Put your clothes on.’

He leads her to a bedroom door, opens the door and checks inside. ‘Here he is.’

The footage of this husk of a young man showed him in his prime. He could have been a rugby player. Shirt off, giving the thumbs-up in a barracks somewhere hot. Even though it’s been months since he was blown up by a grenade or whatever it was that happened in Birmingham she was still expecting a bit more of the original hunk and less of the . . . virtual corpse. Very disappointing.

‘Colin, I’m from the department. I’m a policewoman and we’re just following up what happened when you got hurt. Colin, do you understand?’

In baggy trackies, a thick hoody. The bedroom is very tidy. He is a bundle of cheap sportswear on the bed, gaunt face shaded by the hood. Bony hands, livid with scratches, cover his crotch. Socked feet, pulled on in a hurry by his mother, probably. She moves closer, to see into his eyes.

His brother speaks for him. ‘He never talks now. Like, he never seems upset or anything. He never seems like anything. If we take him out or if his mates come round, he just doesn’t react. I put the TV on or music but I don’t bother, now. I can’t tell if he’s happy or sad or how he is.’

She smiles at the brother’s concern. He smiles back. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’

‘Yes, that would be lovely, Euan, thanks. Milk, one sugar.’

Sitting on the bed, prising his hands from his crotch. She feels, to check. No, nothing there: soft, soft, soft. Security. Boys hold on to their penis, before the neck or the eyes or anywhere else vulnerable. One thought, blokes.

‘Colin, do you ? Do you what happened? Do you the nasty black men? Yeah? Do you what you were doing there?’

He is regarding her from far away. His body tensed, jaw muscles rigid. Chewing his tongue. The local paper called him a returning hero. They obviously hadn’t taken a look. The paper also said he’d been blown up by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. Somehow Afghanistan is more acceptable than Birmingham. More glamorous. Less difficult to explain. This boy’s not explaining anything. Waste of a journey. She touches his lips, they part. She can smell his breath, rancid, sweet. Green-coated tongue tip nips out for a run around his lips. She feels his arms through the cloth. Wasted. But that could just be the inactivity. He’s gone. Nothing for her here.

Euan returns with a mug of tea. She turns and smiles again. Gets up. Thanks him, smiles, sips the tea, moves out of the bedroom into the corridor. Sips the

tea. Fixes big eyes on the younger brother.

‘Which one’s your room, then?’ Oh, she really shouldn’t.

This is the place. Days, not weeks. Hours, not days. Maximum effect. A full pub, locals and visitors, music fans, all here to celebrate an anniversary of the first gig by a ‘Thames Delta Rhythm and Blues’ group, half of whose are dead, the other half on stage with some younger guys filling in for the missing . Some genuine Essex ‘faces’ in the crowd. Smith only needs the one. The feeling is one of a hybrid event, like a small remote village in Italy, celebrating the harvest, welcoming the tourists with smiles, taking their money but wishing the dark night on, when they will sacrifice a local virgin to the gods of wine as the tourists sleep. In this case, it’s lager being sacrificed, lager and the truth, as old stories are retold, as tall as they are old.

Well past midnight. The tourists are asleep, or on their way, and he has managed to include himself in the lock-in by staying quiet and separate and standing next to an authority figure, confusing the landlord and the louder low-lifes into thinking they might be connected. The authority figure drinks whisky, American-style, from a constantly half-full glass handed to the bartender to top up from time to time. He doesn’t seem to be getting drunk. Standing, back to the bar, watching the arguments, the man-hugs, back slapping, finger pointing of middle-aged males in sportswear in their final liver years, swapping regrets and small victories. He sighs and shifts his feet, leaning back, elbows touching the edge of the bar for balance. Without looking at Smith.

‘You’re not the normal cop we have round here. Enjoy the music?’

‘What makes you think I’m with the police?’

‘You’re with something, mate. That piece of metal in your pocket is blatant enough. What are you, then? Special?’

‘They ceased to exist a long time ago.’

‘Nice motor. Shouldn’t leave it round here, it’ll get jacked. You staying on the island tonight? Got a room? If I was you’ – turning to look at the effect his words will have – ‘I’d head back up to the city, where it’s a bit safer.’

He walks off, taking his glass, hand in side pocket of his jacket, sliding out a thin tin, nodding to two men standing with the larger group near the door, but apparently less drunk, indicating Smith. They look over, taxi driver one, and, smaller, taxi driver two. Smith follows the authority figure outside, smiling on the way at the taxi drivers, where he finds him lighting up a small cigar. Across the pub car park is the big concrete wall that keeps the brown water of the Thames from sliding over these flat lands and drowning the caravans, amusement arcades and small-time villains that make the place so amusing. He hears a door behind him open and shut, just long enough to it two wide blokes into the night air. They stand behind him: shuffles on the gravel.

‘No trouble, son. It’s been a good night. Get in your car and drive off. The local plod know better than to stop any drivers on the island tonight, so you’ll make it to the motorway, no problem. Off you go.’

The signal had been when he dropped the hardly smoked cigar to the ground. Dropping, like the cigar, Smith feels the arms, chest, belly of one man glide over his shoulder, hands looking for where his head had been. He pushes up and the man topples head first to the ground. Left foot kicking out behind him, once,

twice, heel connecting with the shin of the other guy, then, spinning round, using the momentum, he grabs material and flings him on top of the first.

‘Very good! Ha! Lovely! He’s a regular Mick McManus! Come on, you twats, round two!’ As the taxi drivers get to their feet, the big man is striding off, applauding, towards a small white car. Smith has the Beretta in his right hand. The taxi drivers take stock and halt, one of them with his hands outstretched. The white car’s lights flash, doors unlock. Swapping his gun hand, Smith bends and picks up a small smooth stone from the rockery beside the pub wall and throws it up, high. It lands on the car windscreen with a crack. The enger door is wide open. The big man peers through the cracked windscreen then pushes himself out. He’s holding a sawn-off shotgun. Unnecessary.

Smith shoots him quickly, once. The shotgun explodes, arced away from Smith, spraying pellets that hit the concrete wall. Lethal sea spray. One of the taxi drivers manages a strangled ‘Alf!’ Alf falls back onto the edge of the car door, half into the car itself.

Smith walks towards the two men. ‘Down. On the fucking ground. Flat out. Down. Now.’

The pub door is opening, closing, opening. Murmuring, muttering, from five, six fully grown men, geezers, watching the seldom seen sight of an event that sustains the reputations on which they leech. A genuine gunfight. Murder. Shotguns. Blood. ittedly, not that much blood.

At the small white car now, Smith notes it’s a Honda. Lovely. He pushes Alf into the enger seat, tucks him in with the seatbelt, slams the door. Quick glance to the audience, the taxi drivers, one of whom is pushing himself up. Two shots, close enough to the man’s head, bullet bouncing into the dark, to dissuade

further motion.

Into the driver’s seat of the Honda, door still open, Smith grabs Alf’s keys still gripped in his hand, starts the car, revs it and drives it up the grassy slope leading to the top of the sea wall, second gear, foot to the floor. His enger groans. Smith rolls out of the car, back down the slope, managing to stop himself with out-flung arms, in time to see the car scrape the top of the wall with its exhaust pipe and come to rest, teetering on the edge of the concrete. Looking back, the taxi drivers, the small crowd of men by the pub door, watching. The car, creaking, topples over and a high-tide splash wets the luminous night-time grey of the wall.

Someone speaks. ‘Fucking hell.’

On his feet, gun in hand, taking it easy, the men jostling to get back into the pub, which begins to resound with muffled shouts. The taxi drivers backing off. Smith, in his BMW, calmly drives off, away from the pub, hoping that Alf was the genuine article and not just a paranoid businessman. What kind of businessman keeps a sawn-off in their glove compartment. Incidentally, impressively large glove compartments in a Honda Civic.

Ten minutes later and Smith is firing up the laptop in his room at the Oysterfleet Hotel, just up the road. His jacket, slung over the solitary chair, is streaked with grass and mud. But his fingers are steady. Alf’s demise has barely ed. He doesn’t count. Smith is allowing himself the distinctions necessary to survive. He will only care about the good guys. The bad guys can go to hell. Who gets to decide which is which? He does. Who else? Perhaps this woman, Miriam Taylor. Smith needs a journalist. Not some cracked conspiracy theorist with reams of clues indicating the Jews got together with the Thetans and Hitler’s children to form a secret cabal including the American president and the queen of England who run the world from their moon base. He knows the truth is far more

outrageous and so, it seems, does Ms Taylor.

In a newly minted anonymous blog calling itself A Quiet Word is a fairly thorough examination of the deaths in Lozells, including the names of the dead family and the one survivor, eye-witness reports of the incident and recent pictures taken of the street and house on a mobile phone. Then several questions – Why were three serving British Army soldiers in the house? Who were the ‘African’ attackers? Who was the distressed man seen running away? Why do the police, the council, the emergency services say the explosion was ‘domestic’? – and an email address: info(at)aquietword.blog.com.

For Smith it’s not a problem tracing who writes the blog through the email address, even if it’s ed under a false name. The IP address ties the PC to a certain address and the address belongs to a certain person. Connecting with a database usually used by the police to by the need for court orders. Basic skills. Here she is. Not only is Miriam Taylor a Legitimate Journalist who works for a major UK broadsheet, her reporting in the newspaper’s campaign against the growing number of murders of young people in the UK indicates an overview which chimes well with Smith’s insider knowledge.

In fact, Smith is a little surprised that the journalist has got away with her sly references to the ‘establishment gangs’ in the newspaper, let alone the blog. He reads through more of her work in the online editions, noticing how she has spent the past year almost exclusively covering violent incidents in inner city areas. Smith also notices that almost a year ago she made an initial report on what looked like a bungled murder attempt on a literary agent, followed by a more thorough and quite brutal finale in a hospital, a story that mysteriously faded away into nothing. There’s something about it he recognises: the incongruity of the dog being shot, the fact that the man was murdered ‘twice’.

Some journalists he knows and has occasionally met are as involved in ‘The Game’ as any spy, cop or politician. Indeed, our own George the Grocer is, as far

as the straight world is concerned, a financial journalist, although you might be hard pushed to find many articles written by him. Some journalists inevitably find out bits and pieces which they sometimes put together into a convincing if outrageous story. Then one of two things happen. They decide, or are convinced, not to hand in the story, or ask for it to be pulled, or they meet with a tragic accident, drink themselves very quickly into the grave or get themselves shot in a war zone.

This Miriam Taylor is either very brave or she has very effective cover. Perhaps she’s someone’s daughter or sister, although that doesn’t normally stop the reaction. Smith needs to find out. If she stays alive, she could be perfect, the barrel for his bullet, someone to record it all for posterity. Record what, exactly? He’s still finding out.

A pub full of witnesses reliving the tragic events of the night before don’t expect a replay. It’s a miracle the pub is open at all. So when Smith walks in, bang on eight o’clock in the evening, and heads straight for the taxi drivers, no hesitation, wearing a pressed black suit, gun still obvious in his side pocket, there is some alarm. And some backing off. But Smith is quick. The shorter taxi driver spills some beer down his jeans. Smith is next to him, between the two of them, talking in their ears.

‘Keep calm. You won’t get hurt. We’re leaving. Now, now, now!’

Hand in the pocket, gangster-style. They leave the pub. He’s counting on the Canvey lowlifes to be absolutely allergic to the police.

‘You.’ He prods one of the men in the ribs as they cross the car park. ‘Call one of the men in the pub, tell them to keep it quiet. Do it. What’s your name?’

‘John. Look, what is this?’

‘Do it. Make the call now.’

John takes his mobile out. ‘It’s me, John. Yeah, no, I’m all right. No, don’t do that. Leave it. Leave it.’

They are on the path of the sea wall, by the yellow and blue tape fluttering around the chipped concrete edge. The grass bank below shows evidence of where the crane had been positioned to pull Alf’s car out of the estuary, during low tide. No witnesses. Across the flat dark water, the lights of Kent, might as well be another country. Smith’s voice has that peculiar resonance that occurs next to still water. Anyone listening across the estuary could probably make out every word.

‘I intend to get rich very quickly. And I intend to stay out of jail and enjoy myself. How does that sound. John?’

‘This is fucking mad. Who are you? What did Alf ever do to you?’

‘Did you like Alf? You, what’s your name?’

‘He’s called Micky.’

‘Micky, did you like Alf?’

‘Fuck you, you cunt. Come on, get it over with. Shoot us, then.’

‘Micky, calm down. You don’t want me to shoot you, not really.’

John seems all right. Micky appears to be on the verge of a breakdown.

‘John, explain to Micky what’s going on here.’

‘What? How can I explain anything? I don’t know what’s happening myself.’

‘Look, you’re going to help me, and yourselves, to get rich. Lots and lots of cash. No more pissing about with whatever you’ve been pissing about with. Alf was small-time. You know he was. I’m big-time. I’m building a firm.’

‘You serious?’

Smith gestures to the incoming tide, where the Honda had sunk up to its roof.

‘I need a decision now, boys. Otherwise I’m off. If you’re interested I’ll explain exactly what I’ve got in mind. Does two million get you interested? John? Micky?’

John’s mobile beeps. He looks at Smith.

‘Go ahead. Answer it, John. Tell them you’re fine. Tell them to get the pints in. I’ll have a Guinness.’ He turns his back to the taxi drivers and walks down the slope towards the pub.

CHAPTER FIVE

Brand Awareness

‘MESSY, BLAKE. NOT like you.’

Before the news hits the websites he reports to the boss. In person. Which involves a visit, in person, to his flat, from the boss. And someone else, introduced only as a friend. While explaining the motivation and the end result of his visit up north to Smith’s old flame he gets to size up this friend. Ex-army. Tough. Ex-alcoholic. The kind who wouldn’t notice the nicks and scratches of barbed wire, the grazes and bruises of a Saturday-night ritual beating. A familiar facial type. Crab-appled. Buzz cut, a good head of hair. Muscled knuckles. Lithe and stocky. A corporal. A commando. But something else, too.

‘In the end, I got what I need.’

‘And what do you plan on doing with it?’

‘I’ll put it online. Send it to a few sites. Tag it well. He’ll notice, or someone will. It’ll apply pressure in his most sensitive place: the memory of when he was a good man.’

‘You expect him to make mistakes because he’s upset. What do you think,

Warren?’

This is unusual. The further up the tree he gets, the less he sees of men like himself. Warren – Christian or surname? Warren.

Identifying the wrong thing about him, that doesn’t fit, the signifier: he’s wearing aftershave, the strong sort that normally wafts from a bathroom a teenager has just vacated. On a man his age – what, fifty-five? – it’s positively kinky.

Warren has a Welsh accent fighting the barrack-room Cockney.

‘Get a man off balance before the main thrust of the attack. Good sense. Is your man the sensitive type?’

‘Yes. He’s recovering, or not, from a breakdown. He’s gone rogue.’

‘Warren here is a bit of a rogue. He knows about rogues. That’s why he’s here. He has some information you might find useful. He knows about our rogue. Added to which, he’s a charming fellow, terrific company. I’ll take my leave. Russell, no more messes, if you will. They’ll find a bullet in her house. There will be CCTV. All kinds of things I have to try to make go away. In some ways, it would be easier to just hand you over and let you explain yourself . . .’

He knows better than to say anything. Everyone in this game will have a file. s for journalists and activists. Stupid not to. But if it gets to that point,

life will probably be pointless. Let it not get to that point, not yet.

‘Yes, right. Goodbye for now. Warren, will you walk me to the car?’

Watching from his window. Warren leaning in through the open window, the boss in the back seat of a sleek Volvo V70 on the street outside. The position of Warren’s shoulders, the way he is too close . . . yes, he is, he’s kissing . . . no, a mistake, just . . . He was. Warren, walking away, lightly wiping his mouth, looking up and seeing him looking down. Marching out of sight beneath him. The door below, banging, stomping up the stairs. His doorbell. Blake opens the door and Warren punches him, very hard in the mouth. Thrown back against the wall, the older shorter man with a forearm across his neck, right hand raised a foot from his face. H.A.T.E. Home-made tattooed-knuckle cliché.

‘You’re a nosy cunt, aren’t you? See anything you like?’ Then, suddenly, Blake is free. Warren, marching pigeon steps into his front room. Well, this needs stopping right now!

Warren is sitting looking at the footage of Roberta Swann’s unedited murder on Blake’s mobile. Blake’s voice, clearly urging, instructing, Swann’s voice near hysteria, desperate and brave, amplified on the tiny phone speaker. It takes a moment for Blake to understand, then there is a beep and he realises Warren has just sent the footage somewhere.

‘Complicated, isn’t it?’ Looking up at him, Warren places the phone back on the table.

‘You don’t seem all that, though, it’s got to be said, but the boss speaks highly of

you. Says you have an ego, that you’re a cunning cunt. Be careful, he says, don’t try to bully him, Warren, he’ll get nasty. Nice video, that, by the way. Very good quality. You should edit it first, though, take your voice out. It’s as clear as a bell! I’ll watch that again, I will. At my leisure.’

Blake sits opposite Warren, rubbing his jaw. His front room is empty of books, pictures, photos, posters. There are no CDs and no knick-knacks, no scatter cushions and very little colour. All is grey, beige, white and black. It’s a place where he gets to work. The days of relaxing with porn and games and music are long gone. Warren is in the way.

Blake lifts up his tro leg. The deepest cut, in his calf, is weeping blood through the plaster. Warren looks, too. Blake gets up and goes to his bathroom.

He washes and dresses the wound, plucks his gun from the cistern, unwraps it and puts it in his tro pocket where it bulges like a carbuncle beneath the cloth. He hears his phone buzz, the tone he uses for Yasmin. It gets louder. The bathroom door swings open. Unlocked. Warren hands his phone to him, looking pointedly at the gun in his pocket. ‘My phone gets me excited, too.’

Blake answers the call. Warren is leaning on the side of the doorway, arms folded.

‘Russell? Can you talk? Actually, no, can you listen? I’m in a hurry.’

‘Talk.’ He pushes the door closed with his foot. Warren kicks it back open again.

‘The Hendon woman, I told her to check with the bank to see if the credit cards have been used. And one of them has. You know, that Smith got from the minder. What was he called?’

‘Frank.’ He slams the door against Warren’s foot, but the flimsy s just wobble a little and bounce back. Warren is smiling.

‘What’s that? Is someone kicking your door in?’

‘Speak.’

‘In Essex. Chances are he got rid of them long ago, but I would have destroyed them, wouldn’t you?’

‘Where exactly?’

‘A small town. Petrol station. I’ll text the address. I’m on my way now.’

‘Wait there for me.’

‘And, Russell, you’ll never guess whose name is on the cards . . .’

‘Who?’

‘Eric Ambler. Chief Commissioner Eric Ambler.’

‘Cheeky bastards!’

He rings off. Warren waits in the same pose, travelling-salesman cliché, foot in the door. Selling grief, complication. ‘Warren. What is the point of you, Warren? What does the boss expect you to do?’

‘Keeping an eye out, that’s all. Extra pair of hands. He probably thinks it’ll be more fun, with me along. Aren’t you enjoying yourself, Russell?’

Before leaving for Essex, Blake s an edited version of the video showing Roberta Swann’s murder on several sites, including a blog prepared in advance, named stephenesmithtranslator.com. He has a look at the Dropbox address to which Warren had sent the video; he’ll get in there later, remove it. Warren waits for him, smoking a roll-up at the open window, watching the street.

In the car, Blake’s car, Warren rolls another cigarette. Blake puts the enger window down. There’s a light drizzle. Warren presses the button on his side and puts the window back up, pulling out the pristine ashtray and tapping a smidgen of ash into it. Blake opens his own window a centimetre and stares ahead. ‘Warren. What’s that, your Christian name or your surname?’

‘Christian.’

‘What’s your surname?’

‘Bassett.’

‘Why does that name ring a bell?’

‘Why do you think I’m on this job? Do you think I’m the type? Do I seem like a graduate? Or a cop?’

‘You’re a pain in the ass. What is it then? Are you the bomb expert?’

‘In a way. I’ve got specialist knowledge. A family connection.’

‘Bassett. That’s the same name as . . .’

‘That’s right. Clever boy. My brother, my bro. Torturer-in-chief for Horatio and Co. Worked very closely with Stephen Smith. Did the naughty work. Smith did the talking. And the listening.’

A pause as Blake negotiates road works, temporary traffic lights.

‘How does that work then? Meet up once a year at Christmas for a family gettogether, swap torture stories? Regular phone calls? Uncle Warren to the kids?’

‘We are . . . estranged . . . but you’re not far off. He still loves our mam. We coincide over one or two family situations. There’s only a year between us and we’re quite alike. In some ways.’

Blake senses the man almost purring with satisfaction. This must be the key to his success. A bit of rough like him would normally get caught round the tro cuffs. But this is what makes him interesting. This is what brings the kisses. This is why the aftershave sits on top of the man’s personality like sour cream. He has to play it for all he’s worth now, because this is his moment. He is only a temporary contemporary. After this, he slips back down to the dark place where they keep the brutes who do without thinking.

‘It’s a bit like, you’ve got John Bassett, my brother, sitting here, with you. Or, at least, a part of him. You can ask him questions if you like. Get a feel for your man. When you do bad things for other people you have a unique relationship. Grateful, they are. But they hate you. It’s very intense. You wouldn’t know, Russell, because what you do, you do for yourself. You might have started out thinking you were serving your community, but nowadays, well, look at you. You love it. The job. The boss has always had a keen eye. He fancied you from the moment he saw you.’

That’s too much. ‘You should know, you fucking poof. What else do you do to keep your job?’

Warren chuckles. ‘He said it would have an effect. And it did. Made you wobble a bit, didn’t it?’

‘Who did? What do you mean?’

‘The boss. He said, “Come here and give me a snog, he’s watching. Give him something to see,” so I did. Tongues and everything. Proper manly snog. I think he enjoyed it. I know I enjoyed your face, especially punching it. You don’t know you’re born, mate. You don’t know anything, really.’

Traffic slows. Sensing the difference in years, multiplied by experience and genes, loaded with bloody history. Warren is the latest version of the man on whom the Empire was built. The packhorse psycho. Backbone of a fighting unit. Bringing war into every home he visits, every bar he drinks in. The genuine article. Unsophisticated, violent, using the tiny amount of empathy he was given with his mother’s milk to search out a weak spot. This man is either on or off.

‘Don’t you want to know, then?’

‘Know what?’

‘Go on, ask me. Ask me about him. Smith. Ask me and I’ll tell you.’

So Blake pushes his growing hatred deep down inside for another time and place and asks.

John. Micky. Skadge. Vic. Would-be London taxi drivers, all. First things first,

they need what an army needs: weapons, transport, sustenance.

Smith insists on doing the list backwards. In a decent little fish-and-chip place in a nearish seaside town, opposite the burnt pier (they’ve all got burnt piers nowadays). On the way, there was a minor tussle about who had to sit in the middle of the rear seat. All very good-natured. No one wants to piss off the new boss. The batter, bones and smears and crumbs on the plates as they are spirited away by a woman who knows well enough to leave them to it. He lays down the ground rules, shrunk to fit the operation, the time frame. He hints at an occasional dropped ‘H’, a little bit of glottal stop, because he respects them, to show he speaks the language. Somewhere deep down in his lungs is a soft northern burr, long extinguished. But everyone can do a bit of fake Cockney, wherever they are from originally.

‘After this, we will not be seen in public all together during the day unless we’ve got a job on. Use these to each other.’ He hands them each a pay-as-yougo mobile phone.

‘Expenses.’ He es out two fifties to each man. ‘For petrol, food, over the next two or three days.’ Cheap mobiles. A hundred quid. Class, I don’t think.

‘Tonight we’ll get the guns. I’ll give you the details in a minute. I want you all to be tooled up. Everyone gets one, plus a couple of boxes of bullets. We won’t be shooting anyone but we will be scaring the living shit out of a few people.’

He takes out a folded map, points to a large port, further round the coast. ‘This is where we’re going tonight – Harwich. We’ll take my motor and get another one on the way. I’ll pick you up separately from these locations.’ A tourist map of the island, initialled ‘J’, ‘M’, ‘S’, ‘V’. ‘Be there from seven.’

Giving them a moment to memorise where they should wait. Taking the map back. Questions. Micky, probably. John already knows. John is the sergeant major. Micky is the bolshie bastard he might have to shoot, eventually. He might have to shoot all of them, but let’s hope not. So, Micky it is.

‘You’re paying for the guns, right?’

Smith nods.

‘How much?’

‘Why?’

‘I might be able to get them cheaper.’

There’s a surprise. ‘Tell me more.’

‘A box of Chinese, from South Africa, with ammo. Waiting to go up north. They won’t mind selling a few down here, to me.’

‘Where?’

‘Not far. Same place, actually, or near enough. You’d have to let me sort it out. Give me the cash, I’ll get them.’

‘Very good, Micky. Go outside and negotiate a price for five, plus ten boxes. Then come back in and we’ll arrange for you to collect, on our behalf.’

‘It’s not that simple. I don’t have a number, just an address. They know me, but they won’t be happy to see you, or anyone else. I’ll go tonight.’

‘We’ll go tonight. You can go in by yourself, but there’s no need for you to drive all that way in your old banger when we can go in my lovely beamer, is there?’

This eats up the last of the cash. There’s always the cards, though. Rather not use them again. But, needs must. Here’s Vic, who knows how to work his brain: ‘What about the job? When do we get the details, Baz?’

Barry Bolton has come in handy. It makes perfect sense for an ex-copper to be setting himself up like this. The bare minimum cover story he’s invented for these bit-players is that he, Barry, Baz, got kicked out of the Met for taking bribes, he wants a bit of revenge as well as the pension he was due – that’s all. He likes Vic.

‘Well, Vic, you get the details once we’re ready to rock. No need carrying an extra load around before then. But it’ll be soon. Very soon.’

A few hours later. It’s a dead-end lane. Run-down cottages set back from the road. The country ghetto: scams, pilfering, stills, factories for cutting powders, lock-ups and paedophilia. Somehow scummier than the scummiest inner city estate. All the grass and mud and suspicion. John’s not happy with the sudden change of plan, but he’ll do it. There will be a dog. Probably two men, perhaps an unlucky woman. If the opportunity presents . . . if not, they just buy the guns and leave. Micky has been gone three minutes. It took just a minute to inform John of the changes. He leaves Skadge behind the wheel, a nervy skinny man in his late twenties, most of which he spent looking at whitewashed walls and the hairy arse of the man in the bunk above. Vic is calm. Easygoing. Sense of humour. Quite witty, is Vic. Vic stays in the enger seat, looking along the lane down which they reversed. Vic plays golf, prematurely middle-aged, looking to get an extension on the back of his house for a pool table. Motivated.

John goes round the back. As Smith arrives at the front door a dog is already barking madly in the house and he can hear a door opening at the back of the house. Voices – Polish, as he expected. He rings Micky’s number on his mobile. As he hears it ring inside, he knocks the door. A Polish voice, getting louder. The door opening.

‘Who the fuck are you? Micky, I told you to . . .’

The young man is holding a pistol, but he’s dead already so he won’t need it. Smith has time to check if it’s loaded before Micky has rushed through a door into the small hall where the Polish man is crumpled against a pile of full bin liners, in three colours. Recycling, of course: smart educated Eastern Europeans will inherit the earth. Smith hands Micky his own Berretta and shushes him with a finger to the lips.

Growling, steps, a voice calling, ‘Jarek! Jarek!’

A big man, just a whisker behind the dog. Such a small hall to cram all this violence into. Micky shoots the dog, but not before he’s had a chunk taken out of his calf. The big man takes a single shot to the forehead from Smith and fills the doorway, on top of the dog. He looks the same age as Jarek was, or, will forever be.

Smith sighs. ‘Is that all?’

Micky, poor Micky, is wide-eyed. Nerves kicking in now the adrenaline has slowed. ‘Why did you do that? What for?! They sold me the guns, I was getting them! You didn’t have to . . . Fucking hell, you killed them!’

Smith steps out through the front door to the garden. He’s in the light from the hall, waves to the car, which immediately reverses down the lane and stops by the garden gate.

‘Get the boxes. All of them. Get everything.’ He pushes Micky into a small sitting room, over the bodies of dog and man. Along one wall are stacked cardboard boxes. John arrives, covered in mud, scratched hands, torn jacket, not shocked by the carnage. He expected it. Wanted it. Old-fashioned criminal. Good choice.

Smith opens one of the boxes. It’s full of bullets. Another is full of cartridges. Another has four pistols in polythene, wrapped in shredded newspaper.

With everything loaded in the boot, a car full of taxi-driving, murdering villains from Essex, Smith pops back into the house. Taking a small wrap from his pocket. Unfolds the dealer origami. White powder. He licks a finger, takes a dab,

rubs it on his gums. Very nice. Sprinkles it liberally around the room, especially on the low coffee table. Treads it into the carpet. Rolls the paper into a ball and flicks it into the open fire. His taxi drivers need never know that his own source for firearms was two Polish lads fresh off a boat. Goodies or baddies? Essentially, gun-running baddies. Okay, so they go in the I-don’t-give-a-fuck column.

In the BMW enger seat, buzzing on the next door neighbour’s lights going out and the twitching curtain, hearing the dogs barking and telling the world what they will wake up to find tomorrow. Aware of a shocked and bleeding Micky. Is Micky married? Will anyone miss him? How would you feel, John, if he suddenly disappeared? Later, perhaps, over a pint, when everyone’s recovered.

The notes Miriam doesn’t write: how much did that hurt? Did she know she was going to die? What is that light in her eyes – a reflection of the window, or something more human? The video of a woman – is it fake? A woman who looks as if she has just been badly beaten and then . . . is it? Who is apparently shot in the head? If it’s a fake, it’s very good. Painful to watch. Images that will stay with Miriam as she is distracted by her official assignments. What’s the connection here? How does a standard Google search of ‘mystery explosion lozells birmingham’ take her, with a few clicks and a couple of pages, to this domestic nightmare? ed under the title ‘sick sick ultravilense’, part of a YouTube channel specialising in apparently real footage of all kinds of human atrocities, including executions by gun and beheading, the fresh results of miscarriage, a suicide from a motorway bridge . . . Generally removed within twenty-four hours, but not before being copied and posted on a thousand other websites. But there, in the tags, are the words ‘birmingham, lozells, murder, death’ and twenty other overblown and lip-smacking one-word descriptions guaranteed to take a casual browser to their heart’s content of depravity. Miriam searches on and discovers the woman has a name – Roberta Swann – and there is an ongoing investigation into her death and the subsequent fire that gutted the house where her body was found. The footage will never disappear now. Less willing to believe in coincidences but still trying to retain a certain amount of

professional composure, Miriam decides to do a little more digging, write something up; after all, it’s a story in its own right. But she’ll find out a bit more before sharing its possibilities with Bill.

This is something the plods do best by themselves, this basic investigating. They have the manpower. If they have it, so does he. But he can’t access his Hendon woman until this leech has left.

A double room in a small motel. Blake is finding the room too small to accommodate himself, Yasmin and Warren. Any room he has to share with Bassett is too small, although Yasmin seems to like him enough, a half smile as she questions him.

‘So where were you, then, Warren?’

‘Oh, I did my bit, here and there. Jungle, snow, desert.’

Yasmin is on the bed, Warren is standing, smoking, window open. Whose room is this?

‘And Wandsworth. Don’t forget Wandsworth.’ He can’t help it. Basically they’ve got a villain travelling with them and whatever he did in the army doesn’t count. Because this bloke is a villain. The enemy. The wrong side. Ex-con bastard.

‘How long? Five years?’ Information from a snout. Not so secret.

‘Did he mention what he went inside for, Yasmin? No? He crippled a man, broke his neck. The man happened to be a member of North Wales Police, a constable. One of ours.’

Warren might be impressed. A self-deprecating grimace, smile, shoulder hunch.

‘He was also a drug dealer. Not exactly the upstanding member of the force you might think. He tried to fuck me. I fucked him first.’ Leaning in to Yasmin. ‘That’s all.’

Yasmin is amused.

‘Seems fair enough to me. I get the feeling you don’t like Warren, Russell.’

‘You think that’s “fair enough”, do you? We look after our own, bottom line. I don’t know what he’s doing here. It’s a fucking joke. In fact, Warren, can you leave? Get out my room. I need to speak to Miss Scott alone.’

Warren shrugs, drops his dog end on the carpet and crushes it with a heel. As he walks past Blake he pauses, checks up and down, looks him over – prison move – and he’s nearly out of the door when, there! Blake slams the door with all his strength, catching wrist between door and frame. Then again, quickly.

Yasmin is on her feet, hand over her mouth. Warren has staggered, holding his wrist. Reviving. One step away from him. Slam! The door in his face. In. His.

Face. He felt the nose take the brunt. Opens the door again. Warren, leaning, back against the opposite wall, nose streaming blood. Blake kicks at his shin, one, two, three. Grabs him by the lapels and pulls him into the room, kicking at his feet, throwing him into the chair by the desk that no one ever uses in these rooms. Lands on top of Warren, leaning all his weight on the older man’s shoulders, pushing, pushing on his neck. Warren choking.

A quick look. Yasmin’s enjoying herself. She’s taking pictures on her mobile. Leaving Warren spluttering, leaping for the mobile, knocking it out of her hands, too late. A beep. Sent. Raising his hand, ready to knock the smirk from her lips. Noticing the flicker of her focus adjusting behind him. The chair missing and literally bouncing off the bed back into Warren’s face. Warren off balance. Then, both of them on the ground by the bed, Warren’s shirt riding up, showing off muscle and scar tissue, stab-sized wads of melted hairless flesh. Blake can’t get a grip. Tight space, better for a small man. Warren is on top, one knee in his chest. His good hand somehow holding the sharpened pencil from the desk, raised and aimed at the jugular. Then a swift movement from above, the side, something heavy hitting Warren at the temple, one of his eyes popping, and he tumbles off and to the side of Blake. Out.

Yasmin is sitting on the bed as Blake pulls himself up. Warren groans. On the bed, the bedside lamp, remarkably intact, a dab of red on one of its sharp corners. Her skirt ridden up, her shoes both off, hair fallen half across her face. He looks down at himself: his shirt is torn, buttons missing, a few scratches. Okay. Looks at her again. She shifts, legs part a little, no attempt at covering up, flicks hair from her face. Lifting his foot, bringing his heel down as hard as he can on Warren’s head. Back at her. She’s undoing her blouse. His foot down, again, on the hollow head. Belt buckle. Flies. Kneeling on the bed. She has her legs in the air, pulling tights off, knickers with the tights, legs open wide and . . . he’s in. A vicious quick-time rut that leaves him bloodier than his fight with Warren. That leaves the inside of her thighs bruised, dark teeth marks on her shoulder.

It’s Blake’s room. Conveniently he has a change of clothing right to hand. Inconveniently, he has a half-dead man on the floor by his bed. Ignore him.

‘Let’s get Ms Anderson on the blower. See if she’s had anything strange going on in Essex.’

Yasmin makes the call. Still on the bed, tights and knickers a crumpled mess in the bin, hair pulled back.

‘Debbie Anderson! How’s the coke habit?’

Even from the other end of the room Blake can hear the frantic gasp of the woman at Hendon. Satisfied. Satisfaction. Sometimes the job’s very good.

Warren stirs.

Satisfaction!

The marshes of Essex. Flatlands. Bleak. For birdwatchers and bad people. There is a mist, appropriately. They sit in the car facing forward, watching the mist come down. Or rise up. Warren’s in the back, strapped in, dressed only in a baggy pair of boxer shorts, shivering slightly, a tartan rug neatly folded beneath and behind, to soak up the blood. The engine purrs. When did it get like this? He has his hand between Yasmin’s legs, working. She gasps. Insatiable. This is a definite improvement in their relationship. He has to sniff his fingers – he has to. She would expect it, as a compliment. Whispers, hoarse, coming from behind.

He adjusts the rear-view mirror slowly.

‘Yes, Warren?’

Warren’s face is a swollen mass. Teeth missing. Ear almost torn off on one side. Not really bleeding, though. His hard body managed to break the bouncer’s torch eventually. The bits lay in the well of the enger seat, pushed to one side. Lots of broke about Warren, though. His whispering.

‘My brother . . . cut you . . . turn you inside out . . .’

It’s too much to keep going. He doesn’t need to, they can fill in the blank space of his anger bile. Blake smiles at Yasmin. ‘Let’s do it.’

Out of the car, onto the damp grass. The air is spoiled by rotting vegetation. It’s very still. They drag Warren across the grass and into the rushes by the gravel pit. He attempts to speak again, sounds like he’s chewing wads of paper. Yasmin stands by as he goes to the car boot and takes out the petrol can and funnel. Not an owl hoot. Not a car or a plane. Quiet in the pits. Even the fish are sleeping, or too afraid to make a noise.

Yasmin holds the funnel in place and Blake pours a mouthful of petrol down Warren’s gullet, then quickly holds his mouth shut. A splutter. A swallow. Again. Then again. Enough. Yasmin stands back as he douses Warren’s doubled-over body with the rest of the petrol, spreading some around the wet spongy earth in a rough circle. It rests in a film on the top, reflecting crazy stars where there are none. Dots of different tone. High contrast is better.

Stepping back. Of course, Yasmin has the honour. A box of matches (a whole box, what a waste) flaring, arcing dropping onto the ground next to Warren. For a Guy Fawkes’ night moment it looks like the flames have been doused then, whoosh, an up-pouring of yellow and orange stalagmites spiking the night air. Warren has managed to sit up, almost cross-legged. Finds his voice, finally, opens his mouth to the sky and howls, long and ghastly, screeches, until flames shoot through his lips and he blows his last illuminated breath into the damp air. Burning and burning and burning.

They drive away, chastened, a little. Are they? No. He doesn’t think so as, parked up again, they tumble onto the back seat, still damp with Warren, and grind once more between parted cloth and zip in a dark layby.

Faces as large shells on a beach. Mums and dads. The dads look like George from ancient sitcom George and Mildred: the wheedling face and swinger’s moustache; the mums are flab-faced jellies. Doctor Simenon in a sheer mesh bodysuit walking on pavement into a ruined and burned living room which is built like a TV set, her body filling up like a wet sack with mass, then deflating, elongating. Noting her own sexual interest in the doctor.

Windows painted like Playschool pictures, bright blue skies, pure white bubble clouds. A man in colonial shorts serving a cocktail. Hand running down the doctor’s hips to her thighs. A woman slowly looking up, straight on, sullen, swollen lips, bruised face, zips of blood crossing the bridge of a busted nose. Moving round, behind her. A sudden railway tunnel in the back of her head, entering the hole, flaps of dark red and brown, through and into a view the other side.

Waking up to the view, through the train window. Miriam has been asleep for

just a few minutes. She checks the side of her mouth for dribble and glances at her fellow engers, who are all busily ignoring her. Laptop sits upright and alert in front of her.

With the ticket booked and paid for, the visit sanctioned by Bill, who might be coming round to a piece on the Birmingham deaths after all, she is obliged to make the two-hour journey west to meet the Coroner who is based, for some reason, in Bristol, even though all hell has broken loose back at the office: a spectacular armed robbery in Marlborough, the last place you would expect to find a courier, plus three security guards, transporting unconfirmed millions in cash through sleepy streets.

As she travels she feels the jealous pull of a big story plucking at her attention and dips into the latest online reports, places several phone calls to impatient colleagues. Travelling past Marlborough, unable to take advantage, she watches the details unfold like a civilian. On the screen, two black BMWs box in another black BMW in a small street, part of an apparently convoluted route the courier was taking in order to safely move the cash, belonging to a Belgian millionaire who had recently bought a large mansion and estate on the outskirts. The story had some remarkable points: the inside knowledge, the efficient execution, the location. But, best of all, high-quality video footage ed to YouTube within minutes of the robbery taking place, which showed: the sleek black cars, smartsuited armed robbers, one from each car, while drivers revved the engines, casually pointing automatic pistols at the courier and his three security guys in their car. The robbers, in dark glasses and obvious black wigs, don’t speak, but they do blow out all the windows of the courier’s car with muted pows from silenced guns. After which a large sleek suitcase is handed out of the car into the hands of the tallest robber.

At which point the footage gets very surreal. The robber opens the case on the roof of the courier’s car and the camera moves in close to scan the neat bundles of fifty-pound notes. Another case is handed through the car window and slid underneath the first. The robber takes a bundle, at least five thousand pounds,

and tears off the paper band, fans out the money and waves it in front of the camera. Panning out, over the shoulder of the robber, the camera takes in the sight of an elderly woman stepping out of her front door and taking two steps along her drive, to get a closer look, apparently. The robber turns to the woman who looks mesmerised, either by his gun or the money, she’s not sure. Suddenly he flings the notes into the air. The wind scatters them across the road and into the trim hedge at the bottom of the woman’s front garden, next to her drive. The camera zooms in, wobbling, to focus on a very puzzled face, torn by emotions inspired by littering, yobbish behaviour and the flagrant abuse of the queen’s currency. Bloody film crew, probably. Television. The slightest ‘ha’ of a triumphant laugh off camera and the footage ends.

Delving further, Miriam learns that the robbers subsequently drove off in two different directions. The cars haven’t been found yet. No one was hurt. Most of the money left at the scene was recovered, primarily by one of the residents of the road in which it happened, who went around with a litter stick, spearing the notes from bushes and lawns.

What was stolen? Probably two million in what looked like used notes. One day’s work, presuming the commute wasn’t too far for the robbers. The suits, she realises, looked like any suit worn by any male suit wearer, a very effective disguise, with the advantage of instant respectability, depending on how they wore their tie knot. At the worst, they would look as if they were on their way to a court appearance. But mainly, they looked like cops, the well-paid, highly trained specialist types who haunt the glass walled canyons of the City of London. That kind of appearance is like a security all by itself. Very smart. For an armed robber.

A long journey for a brush-off on a bridge. Miriam Taylor hasn’t even made it into the Coroner’s office in the new-build police fortress buried amongst flyovers and industrial estates on the outskirts of Bristol, before she’s waylaid by his deputy, obviously intent on sending her back to London as quickly as possible, despite, apparently, being asked by the Coroner to be as helpful as

possible. They meet on a bridge across the canal, or should it be the moat, that runs along one side of the building. The young man is awfully sorry, but the Coroner called in sick this morning and the report is ‘lost in the system’, so, really, no can do. So sorry.

How sick is the sick Coroner? Energised by a nosy inclination, or an oldfashioned hunch, Miriam decides to take another train across to the nearby city of Bath and a taxi to a smart semi in Oldfield Road, to knock on the door of Mr Les Morris, Coroner. Who is less than pleased to see her. And who looks quite well, all things considered.

‘It was a very sad case. Such young men.’

To give him his due, Mr Morris has a convincing sniffle. He has allowed the journalist into the very personal space of his kitchen, even introduced her to a Mrs Morris who was on her way out with two nervous Spaniels. They sit at the large wooden table and she thinks of the murder footage jumbled up in her dream. If Morris had the camera, they would be positioned just as the victim and her unknown assailant were. When he gets up to get some paperwork, walking round behind her Miriam feels the breath of a horror moment on her neck hairs. Sitting back down again, Morris forces a smile as Miriam gets out her notebook.

‘Why are the details of the report not available, Mr Morris? That’s unusual, isn’t it?’

Morris is shuffling papers on the table, looking for something. He clears his throat, wipes his nose with a tissue.

‘Miss Taylor, I will be retiring this year. I’ve had a good solid career ending as Coroner in the town in which I grew up. I really didn’t want anything to cast a cloud over my last couple of months. When you got in touch initially I had made my mind up one way. Then, this morning, to be honest, I got cold feet again. My wife thinks I should leave it all alone. But I can’t. Not officially and not personally, either. There are details that weren’t known to the jury, evidence that wasn’t aired, because of requests by other areas of government – national government – to keep this information out of the public domain. I didn’t understand why, then, and I still don’t know now. But there it is.’

He hands her a single sheet of paper, closely typed, no heading.

‘I’ll give you some time to read it in a minute, but before you do, may I ask why you are interested in this case? After all, it was a year ago and there has been no further media interest. The official explanation seems to have been accepted. Essentially, I thought this inquiry was done and dusted as far as the press is concerned.’

Or as you hoped.

‘It was brought to my attention just after it happened and the whole thing has stayed in my mind since then, Mr Morris. It’s only recently that I managed to convince my editor to let me take a deeper look.’

He nods and indicates the paper in her hand. She smiles and then begins to read.

Further to the verdict of accidental death in the case of six people found in a house in the Lozells area of Birmingham (see covering letter for Coroner’s

report details): there were aspects of this case which I found to be unsettling and I am not wholly convinced that the verdict was based on all the evidence available or that aforementioned evidence was either true or correct.

What I was prevented from mentioning to the jury was that:

1. The pathologist brought in to conduct the post-mortems was not named to me and his qualifications were not provided for my examination;

2. The victims’ bodies were removed from the mortuary in Birmingham and taken to an unknown place for the post-mortem;

3. The fire damage reports do not conform to any precedents;

4. The injuries which caused death do not seem consistent with those of a gas explosion;

5. The police report appears to be perfunctory and lacks detail.

On the day I received first notice of this tragedy I was visited by a man who identified himself as an agent in an obscure department of one of the government security agencies. He had no identification and refused to present me with any when this was requested. I accepted his position on the basis of an email from the Head of the Council and a phone call from someone at the Ministry (who shall remain nameless). The agent was well informed about the victims and seemed to know what had happened to cause their death and injury. He said they

were caught up in an ongoing investigation into planned terrorist atrocities in the UK by Nigerian nationals.

Their investigation was, apparently, at an early delicate stage and I had it in my power to ‘ruin the whole affair with the wrong verdict’ and by ‘making a fuss’. He asked me to accept the post-mortem reports at face value and to help the jury to deliver an ‘accidental’ or ‘misadventure’ verdict, or risk being partly responsible for many more deaths in the UK.

His argument was persuasive and, after consulting further with my superior in the Ministry, I decided to do as he asked.

Since then I have heard nothing more of the operation against ‘Nigerian terrorists’ and feel that neither the family nor the British soldiers whose presence at the house has ever been explained have benefited from a true and honest of their deaths.

It is my opinion that I was persuaded to abuse my position for reasons unknown. I now absolutely regret that decision.

L. Morris, Coroner

She put the paper down. ‘Can I . . .’

‘No, sorry. This can’t go on the record. I have no proof and it would cause a lot of trouble for several people. At some point, I will make it available.’

‘A lot of trouble?’

‘I’m not proud of what happened. On balance, I probably should have made further enquiries, stood my ground. But they appealed to my patriotic duty – they said it was a potential national crisis. And, anyway, all I could have done was noted the unusual circumstances of the post-mortem and so on. I was completely overruled by those at the top. They would simply have removed me and appointed someone else.’

‘So why are you telling me about it, now? What’s the point? I can’t use the information without proof. It sounds ridiculous. My editor won’t be interested in this. It’s more procedural than anything.’

‘I don’t want you to write anything. But I want to know. I want to find out if I made the right decision. Then, perhaps, at some point in the future, you might have an interesting story to write about.’

Miriam gets into the taxi, says to the driver, ‘Wait a minute, please.’

Back at the door, to the bemused Coroner, ‘Did you speak to the family of the survivor?’

‘I was told there was no point. He was in a coma at the time.’

‘Has anyone ever spoken to him since? Anyone official? Did you?’

‘The inquiry was over long before I would have had a chance to speak to him formally, even though the reason they chose my office is because it’s the local one for all three of the soldiers. They were all based in Bath. I think the boy who survived still lives with his family.’

‘Do you happen to have an address?’

Back in the taxi, on the way to visit the family who live just ten minutes away, Miriam is thinking of the questions she might ask, if not the soldier – if he truly is catatonic – then at least his family, who surely must have been given an explanation as to how he came to be blown up in a house in Birmingham.

‘I’m here to see Colin. What’s your name? Are you his brother?’

And put your shirt on. Miriam realises quickly that Euan is in a bit of a rush, toothbrush poking from the side of his mouth, hair gelled to perfection, T-shirt hung over his shoulder, the band of his underpants teasing a full exposure any minute with belt hanging loose. He invites her in, through the curtain of Old Spice.

‘She was only here a couple of days ago.’

‘Who was?’

‘You know, the other one, like you, from the police, or something.’

‘Oh, yeah, of course. Are your parents in?’

‘Mum’s coming back any minute. Do you want to wait for her? I haven’t got time for . . .’ His face shades red. Pointing to a door, he bounds up the stairs, so she walks out of the hall into a sitting room. From there she hears a moment later: ‘Euan! Euan! You left the door open again. You know we can’t trust Colin to . . .’

Miriam is already smiling as a woman enters the sitting room.

‘You must be Colin’s mother?’

The habit of politeness is much abused by the British press. Once in the house and not obviously trashing it or shitting on the carpet it’s that much harder to get rid of someone who is being as nice as they can. Sitting down to tea with Colin and Euan’s mum, a Mrs Victoria Williams, and convincing her that there will be no muck-raking, that the article will probably never even make it to press. That her son must have been a hero.

‘Who was the woman who came two days ago, Mrs Williams?’

‘I don’t know, I wasn’t here. Euan told me it was a policewoman checking to see

if there had been any developments. I don’t know what they’re expecting. He hasn’t spoken, hardly moved. He doesn’t do anything. Except scratch. I can’t stop him. He wets himself, and worse . . .’ She sighs. Regains her composure. Tea strength. Sip, sip.

‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Williams . . . Tell me, during the investigation, did you ask anyone what Colin was doing when it happened?’

‘I was told it was better not to. A man came, he was an expert. He said that Colin was doing secret work for the army, on a special assignment, and not everyone would approve, that all kinds of things could come out. You lot, the papers, would have a field day. He said they knew it wasn’t Colin’s fault. That if it wasn’t so secret he probably would have got the George Cross. Unlucky, he called it. He said there might have been a leak and that’s how they got him – the terrorists, bloody Muslims. I thought about making a fuss, just so I could know it wasn’t all for nothing, but it won’t help, though, will it? Won’t bring him back from wherever he is. So that’s it. I’m telling you what I can but I don’t really know anything.’ She is tearful, gazing at the framed photo of her son sitting above the fireplace decked out in parade uniform, smiling for his mum.

‘Mrs Williams, did they tell you where Colin was? Where he got hurt?’

‘What do you mean? Afghanistan, of course. Where else?’

Time’s up. Bustling body language, straightening shoulders. Enough questions from outside her world.

Miriam anticipates. ‘It’s all right, I don’t want to see Colin. Thank you for your

time, I won’t disturb you any more.’

As she leaves, here comes the lucky son, thundering down the stairs again. His mother leaves it to him to escort Miriam off the premises. He’s in a hurry but lingers on the pavement as she dials a taxi. ‘Did she say anything?’

‘Who? Your mum?’

‘No, the other woman. Did she say anything about what happened?’

‘No. Why? What happened?’

‘She was just a bit . . . weird. Nice, but, I think, like, she got the wrong idea and I didn’t want to . . . not with my bro next door . . . He might be a zombie, but still. Anyway, tell her she can call me if she wants. She’s the police so she can get my number easy, right?’

On the train home, checking on the armed robbery (already known as ‘The Smoothy’, in honour, she supposes, of their suits). Nothing. No cars. No names. No probables. No possibles. No leads. Perplexed police, perplexed press. The perfect crime, at the moment. She watches the footage again. Over one hundred thousand views on the web and rising. Plenty of positive comments. The gang are already stars. She studies the face of the tall robber. It seems unnaturally still. Plastic surgery, perhaps, or a latex mask. The suit? High street wedding, lower manager, made in Lahore.

She’s tired, but buzzing. Why was Private Colin Williams in a three-bedroom house in Birmingham with two other soldiers and a Nigerian family? Why would they lie to his mum? This is something. Could be something . . . but how to sell a year-old story to a grizzled Bill? Well, he’s paying for the train ticket (and taxi) so he’ll have a financial interest, at least. But where now? Sunday tomorrow, so it will be near impossible to follow anything up for a day.

The only thing is a big thing: a two-million-pound heist, a hundred and fifty miles away. Dominating the police lines of communication, the airwaves, the wires, the canteens. Too cheeky to let it go. This is a personal affront to the nation’s law enforcers. It’s not the amount, it’s the suavity, the suits, the ease, the disappearing . . . the smooth. They make us look flat-footed. Badly dressed. Bigarsed. Lard. Useless. Doughnuts. It gets in the way, and a thousand smaller crimes go unnoticed, unresponded to. It gets in the way, too, of the chase. Blake feels distracted, feels more like police than whatever weird in-between thing he has become, that it’s best not to ponder on.

Something useless-Warren had said, before he lost his cool, something about his brother having immense respect for Stephen Smith. Not to underestimate him. He’s a very intelligent man, the kind who could have done practically anything. A method actor. Who could learn parts and roles, inhabit them. If he didn’t want to be found then he wouldn’t be. So the trick is to make him . . . want to be found. Would he be in the market for a big show-offy job like this? With its conceits of video and mask? Why make such a fuss? Smoke and mirrors? Or does he want to be found?

They study the footage. Well, he’s tall enough, right build. No other clue. The cars, the suits, even the location, who can be bothered to the details? All so mundane, so boring, too boring to look at.

They get the ballistic reports. The spent bullets are Tokarev calibre, probably

from a Norinco pistol of which thousands are produced every year, hundreds of thousands of them cracking and popping away at targets and neighbours around the world. What else?

Two million. Minus fifty thousand. Crew of four. Plus back-up and those involved in laundering. Still enough for a retirement job. Old instincts kick in, even Yasmin feels it: they will do it again. That’s why there’s no sense of panic in the national force. They’ve got to – can’t resist doing it again. And, as there aren’t, despite what some people might think, millions of pounds of cash crossing the island every day in neatly packaged bundles, all they’ve got to do is keep an eye on the big amounts that are vulnerable. Even set up a flytrap of their own. The prospect of this kind of work can almost make an almost-ex-copper jealous. But it’s diverting thoughts and resources away from the job at hand.

The naughty murder video has finally gone viral. Blake has shut down all the sites he posted it to, and now there are copies and copies of copies doing the work for him. Couldn’t remove it even if he wanted to. The woman has been ID’d. There is a police investigation. There are newspaper articles, one in particular, by a journalist called Taylor, that seem to hint at other elements, dark forces, without being specific. What does she know?

If the violent murder of a woman he once loved won’t bring Smith out of the woodwork, what will? It’s not looking good. Maybe go after the family, the parents, the sisters? No. Fall back on training, old-fashioned blister style. Follow up every lead. Something else Warren had said. About his brother sharing a house with Smith for a while. Liked it so much his brother bought it. On the coast in Kent. He mentioned the town. Let’s go and visit the other Bassett. They can tell him the good news about his beloved brother. Then go and see the journalist.

Miriam wakes to a text from Councillor Kaspar, an invitation to something he

thinks she might find interesting, call him. Not the mental image she wants as she sips coffee and works her way through wedges of Sunday papers.

Sometimes, when the sun shines through a window at just the right angle, when noise from the streets two storeys below coincides with the slow hum of comfortable chat on a radio, when you feel rested and your skin is clear and you have a million things to do tomorrow, then your own small domestic Hollywood – no, New York – drama of a single woman in a big city apartment reaches the required cinematic level. In the shower, scraping soft bristle from her legs, foaming and creaming, and her thoughts turn to Doctor Simenon – this has really got to stop! Cherry-picking the more normal erotic dream imagery, she allows herself the luxury stroke of the single girl and – damn it! – is that really her doorbell?

It’s eleven a.m. on a Sunday morning. She’s subconsciously aware of Ghanaian, Nigerian and Caribbean ladies of a certain age, in extraordinary hats, arriving at churches and halls and reclaimed industrial premises for their weekly exorcism. Where the King James Bible is quoted like a how-to manual, sung and screeched, while the secular world gets on with the most civilised hour of the week, dozy hangovers melting into fried eggs, musty-breathed fucks delaying the day, kids hitting the swings while dads sip Styrofoam coffee, grown men creating tsunamis in lager-ocean stomachs as they rush around dog shit-strewn grass searching for the last drops of the teenage football dream. London dreamtime. So, in this misty urban moment she breaks all the rules and opens her front door, without checking the spyhole first, without putting the chain on, in fact, without putting her clothes on, wrapped only in a bath towel.

‘Miriam Taylor? Sorry to disturb you.’

She is cursing herself and edging the door shut. He makes no move towards her, in fact, steps back an inch and raises a police badge to her eye-level.

‘Please, take it, have a good look. Make a call if you need to. I’m sorry to disturb you on a Sunday but I was hoping we could have a chat about the story you’re working on.’

She takes the wallet. D.I. Bolton. City of London Police. Fraud. Council corruption? That was a year ago.

‘Did you want me to wait while you get dressed? Sorry.’ He’s very sorry.

‘Give me two minutes.’ She shuts the door, hurries to her bedroom, throws on jeans, big jumper, towels her hair, goes back to the door and peers through the spyhole. Even through the warped glass he looks okay. Hands in overcoat pockets, silently whistling to himself. She opens the door.

‘Yes, sorry, come in. D.I. Bolton, is it?’

‘Barry. Do you mind if I call you Miriam?’

Cheeky.

‘No, no. Do you want some coffee, Barry?’

‘No, thanks. A glass of water, though, if that’s okay.’

She waves at her two-seater sofa and walks behind the sink unit, which marks the beginning of the kitchen. Instead of sitting, he s her and peers through her window onto the street, crowding her just a little. She is aware of how she smells, the sweet fruits of her shower blending with breakfast coffee, and as he moves back to sit down, the disturbed dust motes in the bright sunshine where he was standing are vivid. Confident and comfortable, doing her job. A visit from the Old Bill, first thing on a Sunday, like a proper journalist.

She sits on the low chair opposite him. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘In some ways, Miriam, you are a very fortunate journalist. You happened upon a story dating back to around this time last year, which could have huge implications for the country, for the government. You’re in a unique position. This is the kind of event that makes your career. It could make you.’

What’s this, a nationwide web of council corruption? Interconnected groups of officials and councillors coining it at the taxpayers’ expense? Was this what Councillor Kaspar wanted to see her about? Let’s find out.

‘Has John Kaspar, Councillor John Kaspar, been in touch with you, by any chance?’

He’s amused, possibly confused. She takes the pause in proceedings and uses it for an appraisal. Well shaven – expensive razor, plus time and leisure and a steady hand. Doesn’t smell of anything. Well cut Sunday jeans, worn by a man who normally wears a suit. Shirt, unbuttoned, light check pattern. Moccasin slipons! Very casual. A bit Essex, actually. Posh cop. Accent – southern, unplaceable.

‘This is about something else, Miriam. You’ve been making enquiries about an explosion in the Lozells area of Birmingham’

Oh fuck.

‘You’ve been making enquiries and stirring the pot, to see if there’s anything there worth looking at. And you are beginning to think there is. And you’re right – there is.’

‘Do you really work for the City of London?’

‘Yes, that’s one of my capacities. My brief is wider than just the City, though.’

‘Well, go on. I’ve got a feeling you’re about to tell me to leave things alone, warn me off. But you’re just making me more curious. You sent someone up to see that boy, Colin, to check to see if he’s talking yet, didn’t you? What would you have done if he was?’

A quizzical look, a half-smile – he even tips his head slightly to one side, cute, like a shaving advert man doing a monkey impression. The wait is longer than she expects. He is really looking at here.

‘Good,’ he says, as if they have just agreed something together, ‘good.’

‘How does this story, this tragedy, have implications for the government? Huge implications, you said?’

‘Yes, I did. The problem is, you won’t be able to use it. When I’ve told you a bit more, and I will, I promise, in a few minutes, you still won’t be able to publish what you write, not all of it. You won’t be allowed. So we have to find a way for you to get some of it out in ways that are unstoppable. Via the internet. Your blog, perhaps.’

‘How did you know . . .’

He sits forward and shrugs his overcoat off, standing slightly to pull it out from under him. Long legs. Dropping it back to crumple beneath him as he sits down again. ‘Can I change my mind about that coffee?’

He talks as she empties the macchinetta filter, swills it with water, fills the base, adds two spoons worth, screws it all together and puts it on the gas ring. Talks as she stands over the pot, waiting, letting it bubble up, turning off the ring, pouring it into a small mug. By the time she asks him if he wants milk he had told her the story.

‘Two British Army soldiers, two women and two kids were killed in an explosion in the house you went to, number fifty-two. That’s six people. The explosion occurred in the front room. Apparently a gas explosion, which was contained in the one room. The fire brigade managed to put out the flames before the whole house went up. There was one survivor, a British soldier called Colin Williams who you have been to see and who has severe brain damage. The local authorities and the police say it was a gas explosion. You suspect it wasn’t. You’re right. This was an assassination attempt. A small group of Nigerian commandoes with the blessing of some people within the UK government

thought they would find a Nigerian terrorist there called Darboe. Something went wrong. Darboe wasn’t there, they didn’t check first, the commandos burst in, threw several grenades and legged it out of there. It was a botch. The reason why it went wrong was because a man called Stephen Smith messed up an . . . interview and got the wrong information. Gave the wrong information. I know all this because I’m in touch with Smith. He told me. And that’s it, in a nutshell.’

‘And you are telling me why?’

‘I saw your blog – it was easy to find out who you are. I’ve read your reports. You have half an idea of what goes on. You seem to have a conscience. And my conscience is troubling me. I think the public have a right to know what Smith told me.’

Fear and excitement. Making the blog public was a stupid thing to do, she knows, but she was driven by frustration and pride and her ego. And it’s so easy. One click and there it is, for all the world to see. Including this man, who Miriam can’t place. One part of her wants to call the police, kick him out – but he is the police! – and another wants to trust him, because of what he brings and how he brings it. She pulls a scrunchy from her jeans pocket and automatically ties her damp hair back.

‘How do I know what you’re telling me is the truth?’

‘I can prove it. I’ve got the proof. Smith gave it to me, I can give it to you.’ He leans forward. ‘Look, let’s say that there are changes due. There’s an older mindset, a hangover from another era, that reflects how some people, a few people with a certain amount of power, want to remain separate and unable to the world. In this country it’s an ingrained sense of entitlement. Not everyone who works for them agrees with the status quo.’

Exciting. ‘Am I getting this right? Are you saying there are people in the secret services like you and this Smith person who want something like a revolution? To overthrow the establishment? What, the royals? Everything? It will never happen!’

‘Whoa, slow down! No one’s talking about a revolution. What I’m talking about is a subtle shift in direction. It happens all the time. The public doesn’t get to see it most of the time, but the results eventually come to fruition. And, as a result, things get a little better for a lot of people, in different ways. In this case, we are talking about official collusion in an assassination attempt that went disastrously wrong, part of a wider project involving torture and illegal detainment at home and overseas. It affects a relatively small amount of people in this country, but those it does affect suffer terribly. And it’s being done in your name. Our name. Sanctioned by people who are employed and paid by the people of the UK and who are, normally, totally unable.

‘If this story can be brought out, verified, presented in a way that makes it unavoidable, then it becomes a series of questions that need an answer: who? Why? Under whose authority? Using what money? From there we get scrutiny. And a little bit of light is shone into a nasty dark corner for a while.

‘If you’re prepared to be brave, I can provide you with the details, the facts. All you have to do is arrange their dissemination. I can help you with that, too. But it will be your story.’

‘Why do I need to be brave? What could happen to me?’

The coffee is dregs and the day marches on into noon. The world is awake

outside. Upstairs, the scrape and drone of a hoover.

‘I won’t lie to you, Miriam. There are people who really don’t want this information to get out. They would try to discredit you, influence your employers, get you sacked. Or worse. You would have to be very careful.’

The hoover stops. Music. Someone clattering up the stairs. It’s a big house, divided up into several flats. This one sits in the middle, sandwiched between a noisy couple upstairs who regularly have marathon daytime sex and a mousy woman below who never makes a sound.

‘Right now, you’re probably thinking, why should I believe him? I’ve never seen him before, he could be anyone. Right?’

No one would hear if I screamed, no one would notice, or even care. Stupid Miriam. ‘Yes, I am wondering how you can prove all this to me. What have you got?’

‘I have the pathologist’s report, the names of the Nigerian commandos and more, in my car.’

‘Why don’t you go and get them and leave them with me. I can read them and get back to you.’

He smiles. It’s a pleasant smile. ‘Are you hungry? I am. We’ll pick them up on the way, get some lunch, my treat. That place on the corner looks okay.’

She knows the place, it’s her place, for the odd occasion when she has someone still there, in her bed, on a Sunday morning and she doesn’t want any hint of domesticity to infer more than biological interest. It’s her shag caff.

‘You can look at them while we eat, talk some more. Look’ – he’s getting up, shaking down his overcoat – ‘if you’re not sure, think how I feel. I could lose my job, end up inside, or worse. They don’t like it when one of their own blows the whistle. Believe me, I’ve got more to lose than you.

‘My original intention was to go to someone more established, who was less likely to get bullied or pushed around. No offence, but you’re still a bit green. But then I found out you were already on your way so I thought, why not?’

He goes to the front door. ‘I’ll see you in the café. If you’re not there in the time it takes to eat a full English then I’ll know you think I’m a loony time-waster and it’s not happening. And you’ll be too late when someone else breaks the story.’

And he’s gone. Listening to him tap down the stairs, open the door to the street, walk along the pavement. Who can she call for advice? Not Bill. Not her dad. She can already hear them telling her to leave it. Run a mile. Despite what she’s been finding out, what she suspects, despite her father’s paranoid descriptions, it does all seem quite unbelievable. But if there’s any truth to what Barry Bolton has told her she needs to find out.

He is sitting at a table in the corner. The café is packed, not a seat spare, apart from the one he pushes out to her. As she sits a waitress brings two plates to the table, both loaded with fried eggs, bacon, sausages, The Works, as the menu

calls it. There’s already a pot of tea and two mugs sitting there.

‘I don’t like control freaks, Barry. Plus, I’m a vegetarian.’

He smiles at her, a forkful of dripping egg and fried bread poised. ‘No, you’re not.’ He proceeds to chew joyfully.

And he has her. The small things matter so much. You lead and show and almost lift their little hands and hold them and do it for them. She is enjoying the food. Hungry. Excited. He takes out the folder, curled in his pocket, es it to her.

‘I hope this doesn’t put you off your food. It’s pretty toe-curling stuff.’

She’s tough enough. A good choice? Not sure yet. Can always get another one. But this one is nice, pretty. That helps, now he is feeling so much better. He sips some orange juice, freshly squeezed.

Unbelievably cold, ice on the beach, the sea slowing to a lumpy mousse as it slides to the shore. Yasmin, head tucked into the collar of her coat, a sexy tortoise, shiny sheathed legs, black curved lines to pointed heels from the bottom of the midi coat. She must be freezing.

Blake looks up to the clifftop above the reinforced concrete block that serves as a promenade in this tiny bay. Probably nice in the summer: sandy beach, calm sea, single shop selling ice creams and sandwiches and fizzy drinks and plastic spades and lilos. His idea of hell. There’s no path up the cliff. He wasn’t

expecting one. Just wanted a little look. Visible, past the rounded bulk of the promontory, is a window and corner of grey roof, white drainpipe. Single storey. A rough wall, perhaps a sloping garden to the cliff edge. Brittle brambles either side of the wall, but that’s all right because they’ll be entering through the front door. A light comes on in the window. Then, seconds later, is off again.

Spotted! The bugger’s got a telescope.

‘Did you see that?’

But she’s ignoring him, hunkered down in her clothes.

‘I think he spotted us.’

‘So what. Come on, let’s get on with it. I’m bloody freezing here. Russell, come on!’

They walk briskly back to the car. A phone call. Probably an hour, at least, before anyone arrives. He won’t call the local cops. Protocol. Probably armed. But he’s not like his brother who saw action in the field and was as tough as old boots (but not flameproof). This one’s had a relatively easy life. As tough as, say, a dentist. Or a vet. Not as tough as a vet, they have to deal with horses and stick their arms up cow’s arses. This one’s a clock mender. A fiddler. With a scalpel. And a blackjack.

Approaching the house, parking in a small drive outside. There’s no car. No

garage, nothing parked nearby. The front door opens as they get out of the motor. Pausing to look each other over. This is different.

Bassett is evidently the antithesis to his brother. Stocky, though there the similarities end. Balding egg-shaped head. Specs. Soft fat around the face. Round-shouldered, paunchy, baggy-troed and wearing slippers. Carrying a newspaper. For all the world like a retired clerk doing the crossword out of habit, leaving his ham sandwich to go and greet unwelcome relatives visiting unannounced. Well, might as well get on with the charade.

‘Mr Bassett?’ He takes his police badge from his coat, holds it open.

‘We’re from the Metropolitan Police. Can we have a few words, a bit of a chat?’

Near enough to Bassett to see, now, the sawn-off shotgun barrels poking through the end of the rolled-up newspaper. Christ! Yasmin, behind and next to him, is slower to move. Both barrels. Ten-bore, extra big barrels for more shot, with the choke open for maximum spread. At a short distance like this, though, the shot hardly spreads at all, which is what saves Yasmin’s legs. Basically, Bassett, you missed. However, he feels the hot pain in his calf indicating at least one pellet has found its mark. He looks across at Yasmin, on the other side of the drive. Almost prone, she is looking down at her legs, the inside of one thigh, a darker dot against the dark mesh of her tights, grimacing in pain. The front door has shut, so gently he didn’t notice. He is by a narrow flowerbed below a window.

‘All right?’ Calling to Yasmin. She ignores him, picking at the hole with the long nail of her littlest finger.

The window above him opens. He rolls and rolls and a shower of frozen earth from a small geyser blowing up next to where he was just lying covers him and works grit into his mouth. The window shuts. Hardly a click. Right, this is silly. What’s Yasmin up to? He looks up, can’t see her. He can hear her, though. The uneven clip-clop of heels on patio round the other side of the bungalow. He gets up and heads round the house from the other direction. Before he reaches the corner, another explosion, followed by a frustrated high-pitched snarl. Yasmin.

The patio doors are open, both of them, still swinging slightly, splintered wood around the central lock, cracked pane of glass in one of the small wooden frames. A drip of blood on the carpet by the door. He gingerly enters.

Past the conservatory, an open door. A corridor. Another door, almost shut. Beyond the door he can hear, what? Heavy breathing? Slightly hoarse whispered oaths. Kick the door in, pistol in stiff armed position, eye trained down the barrel, to the site, past the site, pointing at . . . a middle-aged man sitting in a kitchen chair, by a kitchen table. Below the chair, on the floor, Yasmin’s gun. One arm resting on the table. The sawn-off next to the arm. Calmly watching him, eyes flickering to the side. Next to him, on the floor, Yasmin. Breathing hard, a small kitchen knife pinning her right hand to the skirting board, through the thin leather of her gloves. She’s swearing through gritted teeth at the composed figure on the chair. Who is dripping. From a wound to his side, through the pastel pullover, past his hip, onto the seat of the chair, puddling, and then onto the lino floor.

‘It’s empty.’ Bassett nods sideways at the shotgun.

‘Get me out of . . . getmeoffthisthing . . .’

He pulls the knife out of her hand with one swift movement. Now it really hurts.

She screams with pain and anger. He looks at Bassett. I don’t fancy your chances. Bassett lifts up his pullover and pulls the sodden section of his shirt from the top of his tros, showing the wound to Blake – for what? His approval? There’s a chunk of flesh missing where his kidney would be. The blood is bubbling out. He makes no attempt to stop it. Of course!

‘Get a towel, get anything. Stop the bleeding.’ Bassett has his finger in the wound, agitating it, opening it up. Blake slaps him hard across the jaw, then again with the butt of his pistol. Bassett wobbles back into place, sitting very still, taking shallow breaths through his nostrils. Yasmin gets a wad of kitchen roll and shoves it into the wound. Bassett stiffens, his eyes open wide with pain. She pushes it in, grinds it into the wound, and Bassett wriggles. Blake pushes down on his shoulders, keeping him in place as he tries to push up from the chair. Yasmin looks wild. Quite sexy, with sweat-dampened hair plastered over her forehead, teeth clenched, trying to stay upright on those heels (for all the good they did – she might as well have worn flip flops). Pain suits her. And anger. Poor Bassett.

‘Go and get yourself sorted. Do it.’

Defiant, but suddenly aware of her bleeding palm, she leaves him alone with Bassett.

‘Now, Bassett. Oh, your brother says hello, by the way.’

Bassett doesn’t look very interested.

‘When my colleague comes back she will want to interrogate you. Not for

anything you might have to say to us, you understand, just for fun. I can stop that happening by putting a bullet in your head. But before I do that, you need to tell me a few things you might know. About Stephen Smith. okay?’

Bassett’s eyes are blank, but his mouth forms a smile. A quiet murmur, a butler’s murmur. ‘About five minutes, sir.’ The same Welsh burr as his brother, slightly more pronounced.

‘What’s that? What did you say?’

‘About five minutes. Sir. Dicky heart. Blood loss. Shock. Not a lot of point, really. Mr Smith didn’t tell me anything. We didn’t really speak much. He was a gent. Too soft.’

Bassett’s eyes are rolling back in his sockets. Shit. He slaps him hard.

Yasmin is back. She has a safety razor in her hand, which is wadded with toilet roll in her fist. She slashes Bassett’s face with the edge, drawing two thin red lines down from temple to jowly cheek. Bassett is shaking. Fitting.

Yasmin has the knife he had pulled out of her hand raised up, ready to slash and chop, slash and . . . He holds her wrist and fights her as Bassett gasps, then whispers out his last breath. She screams with frustration and he pushes her away. There’s enough mess. No need for another burning house.

Of course, there’s nothing in the place. It seems the elder Bassett was a plate

collector, with a decent collection of Wedgwood, some of which Blake wraps in the local free newspaper and puts in a plastic bag for later. They find a few hundred in cash in an envelope in a drawer. They find another gun, an old Webster revolver, wrapped in oil cloth in the cupboard under the sink. There are no family photos, no memorabilia, hardly any clothes. The place is spartan, scrubbed. The only clue to the delights of the man’s soul are in an estate agent’s letter, confirming that his bungalow will be on the market as from next week and if he needs any help looking for property in Spain then they have a sister company who specialise.

What. A. Waste. Of. Time.

Trying not to drip blood on the floor, Yasmin limps around on her heels, looking for and finding a first aid kit. The plasters are decades old, but she finds a creamcoloured bandage to press over her palm. The pellet in her leg is too deep to prise out, and the blood and pain are minimal for the moment. He considers digging around for the pellet in his own calf. The scab of sock and dried blood around the wound are keeping him mobile for the moment so he leaves it.

Bassett topples over the cliff edge with a hefty push from both of them. Yasmin insists on tearing at the wound in his side first, with a sharp flint-flecked lump of concrete from a rockery in the garden, to make the gash unrecognisable as a bullet wound, takes some relish about it, too. They leave after a hurried repair job on the patio doors, mopping up the blood and a scout around for stray pellets.

Several minutes later, on the main road away from the coast, Blake spots a car moving fast in the opposite direction. There they go. One hour. Bang on.

He watches as Miriam Taylor sits back, curious to see his reaction. What is his reaction? Not best pleased, as a schoolteacher used to tell him as he turns his gaze to the screen. Who would be happy at the sight of their first proper flame having her head decimated by a bullet, after being tortured, seeing it all over the internet? Absolutely no need for that, you nasty fucks. He’s coming out, waving flags, all they’ve got to do is look. Perhaps they’re thinking about his family now. Three sisters survive his parents. But that would be silly, opening the door to all kinds of bad things. Everyone’s got family. Very messy.

Somewhere beneath the scar tissue there is an upset. Once he would have selfmedicated and visited Alice to make candle-lit shadow plays on the wall until he could focus again. It’s just the normal chaos of life, of course. But it can be hard to when the blood spills onto your face, when the sneaky shoots of empathy poke up through the ice. He is, after all, relatively speaking, on the side of good now, isn’t he?

‘That’s not very nice. Not nice at all, Miriam. And how did this come to your attention?’

‘I simply googled the Birmingham deaths and it came up. Look, it’s got the tags. But I still don’t know how this is relevant. They know who she is now. Roberta Swann. She was found in a house fire. The police say it was arson. Body burnt to a cinder. Do you think this Stephen Smith might have done it? They can’t find him.’

‘Perhaps.’ Well, he would have set the fire, too. The torture, well, the whole point is not to bash a face until it’s practically unrecognisable. So, no, not him. Not even at his most deranged.

‘How well do you know Stephen Smith, Barry?’

‘I’ve never actually met him. We’ve done it all with secure mobiles and Dropboxes. But he’s meant to be a charmer.’

There’s not a lot more Smith would like Miriam to know. The story is there, and as long as she’s careful, Bill is gradually allowing more of it to drip through into the paper. There’s actually not a lot more that needs to be said. But the temptation to carry on talking . . . he recognises the process. It’s the relief. His clients, after the interview, after Bassett’s light touch, wouldn’t shut up. They just wanted to carry on, shitting out irrelevant information, about how they fancied their mother, killed their pets, stole chewing gum, stuck their cocks through a glory hole in a gents in Soho. It’s the reason why the Catholics are so successful. Trouble is, a little more confession and she might end up dead. She might end up dead, anyway, but probably not if he leaves it here. Perhaps a little more, some context. She doesn’t have to use it.

He obviously knows a lot more than he’s saying. Miriam knows this, feels it to be true. Surprisingly, so far, the story pans out. Checking everything against what’s known, what’s available, even Bill, surprisingly, looked quite excited when she gave him the bare bones. ‘We’ll see,’ he had said. Off to make his own enquiries, no doubt. We’ll see.

This is the third time. The second was in a restaurant in town. Now here he is, back in her place, taking up all the room with his legs. He seems a little different, excited. He’s being a naughty boy, perhaps.

A quick chat with her dad on the phone had been less than useful. She could hear the panic in his voice when she told him about Barry Bolton. What is it that frightens him? Didn’t his exposure to the secret services go with the territory? They had argued over the years about the arms industry, what it meant for the

country to be so dependent on it for security, about whether wars had been started in order to test and flaunt products. If she damned the industry she damned him. It was hard to reconcile the gentle Sunday gardener with the man who helped sell small arms that ripped apart empty-bellied Africans, who extolled the virtues of one type of bullet over another. He is her dad, after all. Now it seems he wasn’t as happy in his work as she had assumed. He rang off after pleading with her to ‘drop the whole thing’. Obviously, she can’t do that.

Looks like someone’s been to the shops. Smith even smells new. She approves – good taste, someone who understands his body shape. She wonders about his body. He seemed upset when viewing the video of the woman. Really upset. Then the shutters came down and she couldn’t tell, but there was just enough reaction for long enough to see something.

‘That woman, Roberta. You didn’t know her, did you?’

‘Never seen her before. Why?’

‘You looked . . . I don’t know, I thought you might know her, that’s all.’

He is pulling something from his inside jacket pocket. She catches a glimpse of a gun in a holster. A gun! He has an envelope, es it to her. She looks inside. That’s a lot of cash.

‘There’s ten thousand pounds. It’s to be used in an emergency. If you need to get somewhere in a hurry.’ He stands and goes to the window, something of a habit with him, every ten minutes or so.

‘I don’t need this . . . I don’t understand . . .’

Because she doesn’t.

‘If you don’t use it, you can give it back when things have died down.’

‘No. I . . . no. Here, take it back. I don’t want it.’

‘Fine. No problem. Just let me know if you ever need money.’

He sits beside her, takes a hand. ‘Look, don’t worry. I’ve got money set aside. You’re doing a good thing here. The truth. Just imagine how the families must have felt, do feel, still. This will make a difference to them. Perhaps it will prevent something similar happening again.’

His hand is warm. He’s holding her hand quite firmly, tightening, easing, tightening.

‘There’s this stupid game I play. Humour me. I like to rename people, name them after things or other people, characters, famous people. Or give them silly names. I’ve already got one for you. Do you want to hear it?’

Strange, but, stranger still, she doesn’t think she minds. So far it’s all been pretty

grim with D.I. Bolton. They could do with some fun. He’s almost smiling.

‘Your name is Phil, short for Philomena.’

‘Phil?’

‘Phil. Don’t ask why – I never tell. What do you think?’

‘I don’t think I’ll get used to it – it’s my dad’s name.’

Oh, that’s the first time he’s lost his cool! Red flushes on his cheekbones, head down, bashful, shoulders shaking. He’s laughing! He throws his head back and laughs out loud. She s in.

‘You idiot! Is that you trying to be charming?’ She takes his other hand. ‘Don’t try so hard. You don’t need to. Just don’t call me “Phil”, okay?’ And she kisses him.

A new experience for Miriam: hate mail. With a number of balls in the air, it could have come from any juggler’s fan. Someone wishing her all the pain in the world without explanation. She trashes the email. It was addressed to her but, beyond that, it could have been aimed at any female journalist who didn’t write for the Sun. ‘Commie Cow Cunt’. Almost a Sun headline.

From now on, and for a while, she suspects, anything out of the ordinary will be caught in the corridor between D.I. Barry Bolton and the distorted world he presents to her. It would be easy to believe there are connections from the death house in Birmingham to chemical weapons stores in rocky hideaways, to assassinated Russian oligarchs, to suicidal governmental inspectors, to politicians grinning like stroked cats on TV – a big circle of mystery and death leading back to the man lightly snoring next to her. But then there was Bill’s reaction to the hospital incident. And her father.

Preposterous. It might be possible to bump into an old school friend amongst the million or so people thronging the West End of London on a Saturday afternoon. It might be possible to find a twenty-pound note on Oxford Street on the same afternoon. It could happen, twice. You could win the Lottery. But the chances of a conspiracy theory coming alive in front of a young journalist like her is ridiculous. Keep to the facts. There are precedents: firebombed house full of black kids; revenge attack. It’s a localised tragedy, has to be. How about this: the soldiers were operating as enforcers for a drug gang, waiting for someone who owed them money. They were attacked by a rival gang and the family got caught in the crossfire. It’s simple. Miriam doesn’t believe it.

Leaving, trusting the new man in her life, to the minimal comfort of her flat, she answers her mobile which flashes up ‘Dad’.

There’s no small talk. It’s a good connection and Miriam can hear the rasp in her dad’s voice. He sounds terrible. ‘Miriam, there are things going on, being done by various people, for our good, you understand, that are hard to explain. I know you never agreed with what I did. No, you didn’t, if you’re truthful. From when you were old enough to understand that I, what I did, was to do with weapons, the military. You rebelled against it. Rightly so. When you were fifteen, fourteen, I think you hated me, just a little. You started to pay attention to the world, to the news, the late night news, when you started staying up late and you realised the world wasn’t all fluffy toys and fundraising for orphans. You began to understand what an orphan is. How orphans come to be orphans.’ She tries to

interrupt but her father has something to say.

‘No, Mimi, listen, just listen. Did you blame me at all? I think you did when you saw that news item about Mozambique, and you knew I had just returned from the same place, because I gave you the stamp with the fish on it, for your book. And now I can’t protect you any more, even though I want to. As a journalist you are finding out that the world is a bad place. There is some good, there are some good people. People love each other. Life goes on. But not all the time. Not most of the time.

‘So, when you told me about what happened at the hospital and now the story you’re writing about – the explosion and all the murders and death – well, it’s hard. Because I know what all this means, and it’s not good, and I wish you were doing something else, somewhere else. But I also understand how things happen, and you have your own life... ‘

‘Dad? Dad? Are you still there?’ Miriam is on the street, just yards away from her front door. When her father speaks again, his voice comes out of the clatter of a motorbike zooming past her. He sounds more composed.

‘Your mother tells me you’ve met someone, a policeman. It’s too much of a coincidence.’

‘What is?’

‘Please, Miriam. Break off whatever relationship you might have with this man, this Barry. Don’t get any more involved.’

‘It’s too late. I am involved. It’s my job to get involved.’

‘Does he have a gun?’

‘What?’

‘You heard me, Miriam. Does he have a gun? Have you seen him with a gun?’

His voice has hardened, emotion removed, dealing with the situation. Is this what he brought to deals for a thousand crates of machine guns, transfers from Swiss s made payable to Death Inc.?

‘If he has a gun – he does, doesn’t he? – please, darling, if you’re out – I can hear the traffic – just don’t go back. I’ll go to your flat tomorrow, get your things. We’ll find you somewhere new. This is the worse thing you could get into. As a journalist. As a person. Don’t tell your mother. Just say you’re moving, invent a reason. We’ll do it tomorrow, no fuss. Okay? We’ll leave it there for now. All right?’

Obviously not.

Two Winston Churchills, Young Winstons, Ageless Winstons. Tiptoeing along New Bond Street together. Not quite arm in arm. It’s a jolly day. Checking the shop windows, reflections of smart women walking quickly between shops

carrying thick paper bags with rope handles that bear discreet class messages, warning marks for other shopping creatures. Flaunting the bags like medals, refreshed once a month (once a week for some). Too slim to be carrying anything like money, bags lined with plastic cards; everything is about the line.

Two well-stocked barrage balloons, pinstriped of mind, virtually spatted and pince-nez’d and monocled, wrapped in jackets that almost drape. Watching the traffic, busy eyes flickering hither and thither, swivelling to slowing vehicles, advancing bicycle couriers, weaving motorcycle couriers. Looking out.

Boss One. Boss Two.

Like two dreadnoughts parting the female waves, cruising the dominions, satisfied with the commerce, the democracy of the privileged which allows anyone to shop anywhere, if they have the credit. Satisfaction guaranteed. Status quo renewed every day. The birds sing above the traffic. The sun shines from beyond the exhaust.

‘I like the girl!’

‘Which girl?’

‘The journalist! She’s got spunk!’ Oh, how they laugh. It’s a great British double entendre and New Bond Street is a music hall for a moment.

‘Is he fucking her then?’

‘You know he is.’

‘Shafting her. Giving her one. Or two, eh?’

‘And how about your Mr Stickler and his big-eyed bitch? Are they rutting yet?’

‘You really don’t like Russell, do you?’

‘I’m going to arrange to get his balls blown off. Do you know how many people he’s killed? He does it by accident, you know. The boy is a liability. Ambler is less than impressed.’

‘Fuck the Chief Commissioner. He’s a bit of a firebrand, it’s true, lovely Russell. They make a good team, him and Yaz. They’ll burn up in their cosmos of chaos. They can’t stand their own heat.’

‘Very poetic, I’m sure.’

‘I don’t think they realise they’re doomed. She doesn’t. Not very bright. Quite a good family, incidentally. Father worked for the London Chamber, you know. He’s a nothing from Nowheresville, of course.’

‘Of course. Like Stephen.’

‘Ah, yes, but you think Stephen is special, don’t you?’

With one step they are in Old Bond Street.

‘Do you think he might be planning something . . . against us?’

‘Oh, I’m sure of it. I hope he is. Such a rebel. You know he’s behind that robbery? Two million smackeroos. Now that’s the way to get funded. That’s what we should do.’

Is one brother looking a little smug? Does the other brother notice?

‘Bit old for all that now. Not really necessary, either. We might get shot!’

‘He might get shot.’

‘I wouldn’t mind. He unsettles me. I get indigestion, even if I haven’t eaten anything when I think about him. I’ve got it now.’

‘We should eat something.’

‘We should.’

‘A pub lunch.’

‘At the ’Dilly!’

‘Brook’s or Boodle’s?’

‘Tiger Tiger!’

‘Oh, are you sure? I’m not sure if my belly is up for slum slop. Do we have to?’

‘It’s good to eat with the workers once in a while. Shows you care.’

‘They don’t care.’

‘Yes, but they notice. Come on, let’s get lively.’

Their constitutional becomes aerobic. Perhaps only in the big cities of the west will their power of invisibility work: two wide men creating a compact mobile universe, who would, with only a slight move one way or another, be freaks on their way to something freakish. As it is, they slip through the West End unremarked by anyone, apart from the occupants of the low black car which,

struggling with one-way systems and sluggish traffic, attempts to keep them a few yards in front of its sleek bonnet and apart from the two men, tall, suited and booted, talking in mutters that hardly animate their lips into hands-free mobile mics, who follow along behind, shrinking their long-legged pace to match Dee and Dum’s. They are particularly happy for the brothers to quicken, in any direction, to loosen up the cramp this pavement tempo always brings. Athletic bucks, ready to charge, canter, impress. The kind of human accoutrement money can’t buy.

One of these guardians, the hint of a hairy shadow on his chin, catches the eye of the other and mutters, ‘Pair of old tarts.’

The other guardian, hair in a severe short back and sides, shirt collar rubbing a red ring on his neck, smiles slightly, ing the mic a few inches from his mouth. He says nothing, gladly quickening his pace, heels clicking the pavement, fighting the urge to kick and punch and claw and poke that always sits just below his surface calm. Very well trained. Just about in control.

Elsewhere, Smith is walking too, considering, dodging other pavement walkers, going the least recorded route, subconsciously acknowledging cameras on poles, walls, above doors, at junctions, paved areas, alleys. Lessening his presence. Poor Roberta. There was absolutely no need for that. She wasn’t in ‘The Game’. She was absolutely out of it. Not that there are any rules, but, still. Even for some of his more extreme psychopathic colleagues this is wrong. It doesn’t have the feel of the normal, dim-witted, over-enthusiastic plod. Or the asinine cruelty of the postgraduate manager. Too messy, too accidental, too vicious. The bosses don’t like flamboyance, they don’t like things to be too public. People might notice the brand. Either brand.

Putting it in his pocket for later. Aware of the detached enjoyment connected to the prospect of revenge. What can he do? It’s a part of him. It’s what makes him

so bloody useful. His pace picks up. He walks faster, as if he’s going somewhere.

CHAPTER SIX

Liberate Your Thinking

HEAVY, THE BUILDING, sitting like a squat paperweight on the green field slices of the suburban hinterlands to the east of the city. Heavy, the double doors, big enough to it a man on a horse, a policeman on a horse, down a corridor wide enough for a convoy of demonstrators to get their heads smashed in. Or a slightly built journalist to walk noiselessly across the carpet lawn.

Heavy desk. Heavy man. Heavy jowls. Immovable, all this heaviness. He hasn’t changed, not a single hair, not a crease, not a wrinkle

‘You summoned?’ Miriam sits, hands in lap, on the civilian side of the desk, the collateral damage side.

‘I hope you don’t mind. Bit of an emergency. Thought you might be able to help.’

‘It’s a bit later than I was expecting, Mr Kaspar, but here I am. I’ve got a lot on. Could’ve done without tramping all the way out here to your nation state, to be honest.’

He leans back and appraises her. ‘You’ve discovered a set of testicles since we

last met, I see. Good for you. And still managing to look so delightfully feminine, too.’

To business.

‘Now, a favour’s a favour. I was hoping to tease our relationship out for a while, discover some more mutual interests, be a little bit handy for you, but you know how it is, nothing came up and you’ve been busy with all your murders and explosions. As it happens, you can be very useful to me, finally, right now. Later, we can see . . . I might have the odd titbit and you might have something or other you can help me with. That’s how this back-scratching lark works, I believe.’

He es over a yellow Post-it. She reads a name: Gerald Yorke. She sees a website address, an ungrammatical jumble of numbers and letters, dot com.

‘I’d like you to visit Gerald Yorke. I’d like you to ask him several questions, about certain business dealings, expressing a professional interest in them, and him, in your capacity as a journalist with a popular, serious newspaper. He’s not to know your speciality is in another area. Mention someone in the money section, say you’re working for him. He won’t know you normally wouldn’t touch fraud, let alone something as technical as this. He will just shit himself at the prospect of your writing about him. And that will be enough. You won’t have to see him again, we won’t mention it, we’ll be all square and ready for our next adventure.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Take a look at the website. Don’t let the ant-speak bamboozle you. Just

take a look at the amounts and the locations. , he works for local government and he gets paid about fifty grand a year. Then ask him where he gets the pounds-shilling-pence to invest that kind of money in tax haven s in Jersey et cetera. I’m sure you’ll figure it out, make it convincing. ‘

‘What’s this got to do with you, Councillor Kaspar?’

‘You think this must be some kind of corruption on my part, some kind of thieving, don’t you? You think I’ve got my hands in the till and this man is something to do with it all. Right?’

He stands and walks, heavily, to sit on a corner of the desk, then bends his mouth to her face, inches away. ‘Have a look at the name on the door on the opposite side of the corridor on your way out, just down a little bit from my door. Have a look at the brass nameplate. See what it says.’

She can smell the expense lunches, the fine wines, the regular visits to a Harley Street dentist on his breath.

He moves to the window, looks out. ‘You can find his address in the council records. Thanks for your help.’

Folding the Post-it, she gets up, leaves, thoroughly dismissed, through the heavy door frame, strong enough to stand under and be fairly safe during an air raid. Closes the door, built not to bang, and steps to the door opposite, down the corridor a little. The nameplate reads: Gerald Yorke. Director of Finance.

Tweezers, boiled in salt water. Bandage ready. Black bin liner split and spread under a towel over the carpet. Pencil between his teeth. Very John Wayne. There shouldn’t be much blood. He’s checked, there’s no vein nearby. But he needs it out quickly to prevent infection.

The edges of the hole in Blake’s calf are swollen, blue-ish. He has cleaned off the scab and it’s all ready. The tweezers enter and, for a moment, he is surprised at the lack of sensation. A bit deeper, they touch something metal, then, an agonising streak up his leg to his arm, his teeth cracking the pencil into splinters of wood and lead in his mouth and a gurgling scream as he slides sideways to the floor.

Lying there, not daring to touch the wound. Doorbell. The pain subsides. He pushes himself up using the furniture, drops the tweezers onto the towel and hobbles to the spyhole. Opens the door. Turns and hops back to a chair. Sits, examines the hole in his leg as Yasmin walks in. She’s limping slightly. She sits opposite him. Wicked smile.

‘You’re trying to do it yourself, aren’t you? Did it hurt, you big pansy? Why don’t you just go to the hospital? Go to one in the right place, they get so many of these, no questions asked. Look.’ She lifts her skirt. Under the tights, a white bandage around her thigh. ‘Took half an hour. Come on, I’ll drive you there.’

He picks up the tweezers from the towel. Sod sterilising them again. Get on with it.

‘Do you want me to do it? I don’t mind. I’ll enjoy it.’

The tweezer ends hover near the hole. His fingers tremble at the memory of the pain. He es the tweezers to Yasmin. ‘Do it. Do it quick.’

‘First I need to tie your leg down, to stop you kicking me in the face. Lie down. Face down.’

She drags the heavy chair he was sitting on next to the bad leg, slides the belt from his tros, ties his leg to the chair. Then she sits on his backside, facing his heels. She hums tunelessly, Reaches back, behind her, tracing scarred welts.

‘The boss wants to have a chat with you, by the way. He came round, like he does. Checking up on me. Such a sweetie. He wants to know what you did with Warren. Now, hold still.’

She stabs the tweezers into the hole and he roars into the carpet, his body arching, the chair leg banging on the floor. She swivels the tweezers around in the wound, making no attempt to retrieve the pellet.

‘And he said he’s very disappointed with you, because you haven’t got Smith yet. He says you’ve got a week’ – pushing the tweezers in deeper – ‘that’s it. You’ve got a week.’ Squeezing them, pulling out, ripping the flesh around the wound. A bloody ball pops out of the tweezers’ grip and onto the carpet.

She gets up, drops the tweezers on the floor by his head. ‘You’d better put something on that, it looks nasty. Did you hear me? He said you’ve got a week before he gives it to someone else. Oh, and did I mention he wants to know what happened to Warren.’ She sits back down, looks at him lying, tensed, in his boxers, fists clenched.

There must be something. On the phone again to the Hendon bitch. She’s beginning to sound more confident.

‘Do you know she had the brass front to threaten to report me to her boss if I called again. She said she’s tracing the call and she knows who it is. Cow.’

He’s talking to Yasmin’s backside as he opens a drawer in the kitchen, taking out a small knife. She is bent face down on the kitchen table, naked apart from a pair of shiny knickers and her shoes and the bandage around her thigh. Her arms are tied to the top of the table legs at one end, her ankles to the bottom, at the other. She makes a noise with her mouth, through a gag made from a silk scarf.

‘What’s that? I didn’t get that, Yaz.’ He slits each side of her knickers and whips them away, dropping the ripped cloth by her head on the table.

‘Anyway, I threatened to go round there this evening and stick her with a baseball bat, and then she told me something quite interesting. Apparently, the online people have been inundated with emails and tweets and whatever, all saying one thing: “Two million. Number fifty-two. Not enough.” A positive bombardment on police crime-reporting sites, email addresses, even forums. All anonymous. All untraceable. You know what that means.’

He pulls down his boxer shorts and stands behind her.

‘That means it’s him. The heist, the Smoothy. Definitely him. Who else would know, would link the two together? “Not enough”? He’s telling us, he’s going to

do it again. And I . . .’

He thrusts.

‘I’m . . . going to get him this time.’

He thrusts again.

‘No one . . .’

And again.

‘Fucks . . .’

One more time.

‘With me . . .’

He slaps her ass hard, once on each cheek, steps back, pulls up his boxers. Unties her gag. ‘Come on, we’ve got work to do.’

She watches him untie her hands and leave the kitchen, strutting a little. ‘Well, that was worth it,’ she mutters to herself.

Later that evening, sitting in the car, watching. Disabled bay, not the best spot, but the street is crowded with parked cars and they can’t exactly park in the middle of the road. The clack of heels. Called goodbyes. Debbie Anderson, the Hendon mole, walks into view. She looks a little unsteady. A bit pissed. She stops at a house several feet away and takes the few steps to her front door. Number twenty-seven. Years of London living mean she should have her keys in her hand, but she is obviously befuddled, clucking and tutting as she looks for her keys in her handbag. Long enough for him to walk quietly up behind her, put his arms around her, like a ionate lover, squeeze her, hand over her mouth. He whispers endearments: ‘Ms Anderson, we must stop meeting like this.’ Helping himself to her keys, bundling her inside to a hall. Looking for ‘B’. There. Another front door. Through and into her own precious space, squeezing harder, squeezing all the struggle out of her, squeezing her along the short corridor to her bedroom in the empty flat. Pushing her onto the bed, face down, sitting next to her.

‘Debbie, did you enjoy it last time? That was very good-quality cocaine, Debbie. I bet you felt great. And you were so good, so clever, when I spoke to you today and you told me what you did, that I want to thank you again with some more.’

She attempts to rise but he clamps a hand over the back of her neck, pushes her face into the bedclothes and slaps the back of her head with his other hand.

‘No, you don’t have to thank me, Debbie. Just . . . just do this for me now and everything will be over. I’ll never you again, not unless it’s an absolute emergency.’

He takes a wrap from his tro pocket, opening it with one hand and his teeth, spreading it in front of her, keeping his other hand on the back of her neck. She is wild-eyed, whimpering, straining. He allows her to raise her head up an inch then plunges her face into the powder, pushing, rubbing her nose, her eyes in it, until she has a mask of white over her sorry sobbing mush. She breathes hard and the powder goes up her nose, into her mouth. He rubs it in with his other hand.

‘There. That’s right. Have a really good sniff.’

Done.

He gets up, aims his mobile, ready. ‘Smile.’

She looks round forlornly. Face of fear. Click. ‘Lovely.’

Her shoulders heaving, curled up on the bed, she doesn’t watch him leave.

He’s back in the car in seconds. ‘She wastes most of it. I think she only takes it to be polite.’

Yasmin revs the motor out of the bay, up the road, and past number twentyseven. No lights on.

‘What we have here is a permanent revolution. Constant motion. Turmoil of the ant’s nest. The constant improvement of the species. The only tests that mean anything are the ones we apply to ourselves: are we happy? Are you happy, Miss Taylor? Why you would think that kings, queens, Hitlers and Stalins, presidents and dictators will be asking themselves any other kind of question is beyond me. Bishops? Popes? Ayatollahs? Everyone gets up in the morning and, at some point, asks “am I happy?”’

Doors and windows, a pub full of people, and yet she is trapped. Menace and bulk sweetened with just enough charm to prevent her calling for help. A boss, exuding authority, seeping superiority. Even the spit from his hard consonants is a blessing from a monarch.

‘Divinity and three-D spectacles. Ways and means to make sense of the joke of life. The reason why so many apparently intelligent powerful men become Catholics later in their lives? Because they are looking for divine order. A better system than anything they can come up with. Fallible stupid men and women.

‘So, of course, we build secret societies. We do whatever is necessary to keep the power, money, the sex, to which we are accustomed. Your father, a peace-loving man, a churchgoer! Happily selling guns to people he knows are going to use them on other humans, on women and children. At least with a machete there’s a chance he might be chopping down a tree or a bush. Perhaps he won’t use it to remove a hand or a leg or an ear. But a gun only has one use, my dear – to kill. There’s your father, selling guns because, on balance, he will be a happier man, even with that dreadful knowledge. “Now I am become death.”’ He gazes at her mournfully. ‘You can’t de-invent, my dear.’

A deep breath, a sigh.

‘It’s all a glorious mess! The rights and wrongs shift from arbitrary point to arbitrary point. You decide. Where will you sit, in which church, alongside whom? Men who go to war, for fun, for land, for things? Other men, who eat food out of the mouths of other starving humans? Who do you sit with? Bride or groom?

‘I don’t agree with your judgement, my dear, but I will fight for your right to judge. It’s much more fun that way. All the other experiments have been complete failures. Humourless. Taking all the soul and vitality and luck out of living. Who wants that? This is a jolly mess! I much prefer a jolly mess to a well-ordered hell.

‘You might say, “But that’s only because you were born into wealth and privilege, Horatio!” But you don’t know me. You make assumptions based on my appearance and my accent. I come from a small mining town up north. My father was a miner. I was brought up in a two-up two-down with an outside loo. We ate meat once a week, on the same night that I would bathe in the same water visited by my four elder brothers first. I had rickets! Whooping cough! I was sickly, undernourished, and left school at fourteen to go down the pit. And that’s how I got to be where I am today, that’s what made me!’

‘I think you’re lying. You never went down the pit.’

‘Ha! You’re so astute, Miriam. Absolutely! Never even been near one, to my knowledge. Never done a day’s work in my life and I don’t intend on doing so.’ He gathers his coat from the seat. ‘Well, must go. Lovely to meet you, at last. Heard so much about you. Off to see a man about a proverbial. Cheerio!’

‘Wait a minute, what do you mean you’ve heard so much about me? From my father? He’s never mentioned you. When did you last see him?’

‘Just a manner of speaking, Miriam. I’m a bit old-fashioned. Some might say a little eccentric. Ta ra.’

He cruises out of the pub, through the drinkers, the journos, hacks and secretaries, a slice of sepia through a colour frame.

Neil s Miriam with a drink, looking after the tanned dome disappearing behind the pub door. ‘Who was that?’

‘Horatio. He’s just explained the world to me. Why he chose me when there’s a whole pub full of drunks I can’t be sure. Turns out he knew my dad. Harmless enough, I think. Cheers.’ She sips her wine and re she didn’t tell him her surname.

The memories of his parents are vague. When they come upon him he’s not sure if they are stolen from films he has seen on TV, or other people’s reminiscences. He re being loved and looked after, but the specifics often evade him. So, for Stephen Smith, it’s relatively easy to invent or steal details and present them as genuine. It helps to talk to drunk men, who are sensitive and sentimental at this time of night.

It’s a celebration. Like a stag night a full two days before the wedding, so the groom can rest and look his best, so the best man turns up to do his job. A modern improvement. The plan has been laid out. Everyone knows their job. Convincing them was easy enough after the success of their first t venture.

‘Cor, two fifty each! I could stick right here and be very satisfied. Very satisfied.’ Vic had summed it up nicely. But he knew they wouldn’t stick. It had been too easy, too smooth. They could see the possibilities. With a bloke like Barry Bolton at the helm, there’s no reason they can’t do a million each. Then, then they could call it a good day’s work, thank you very much.

More than happy to put the rest of the cash to work towards the next job; half of it is actually in a sealed cardboard box in a storage depot waiting to be collected by Smith’s former boss. All very democratic, though, forgetting how the whole caper came to be in the first place. Who was that bloke again? Alf? Never heard of him. It’s all been, so sudden, this love affair. Even limping Micky has been hypnotised by the wads of bank notes. Turned out surprisingly useful, our Micky. He was the local fixer. Didn’t really get his hands dirty, but now he’s done a proper job he’s got the taste for it.

Baz, mate. Baz, you’re all right. Can I, Baz? Is it all right, Baz? Nice one. Nice one. The bar is shut up, dark, quiet. Just the five of them. A slight whiff of sulphur seems to hang around them. Meeting at a disused warehouse earlier, near an old abandoned airport a few miles away, they had spent the afternoon blowing boxes and bottles and ancient metal furniture into smithereens with various highpowered automatic guns. He had shown them how to load, clear, put the safety on and off. How to hold, point, aim. All pretty easy. Made easy by the manufacturers, of course, who always built for the bottom line, in both profit and intelligence. All over the USA and Russia, beefy forearms, tensed hand muscles, lovingly squeezing fingers, hammering butts making proud shoulder bruises – watching the darts and puffs of dirt smoke as they did what men do. Prepare for battle.

There was only one pertinent question, from Micky. ‘Why do we need all this firepower, Baz? The pistols would do, wouldn’t they? Looks like we’re going to war with all this iron.’

‘That’s the point, Micky. We’ve got to look like we are. Up the ante a bit from last time. The regular police won’t come after us, they’ll have to get Armed Response, and that gives us time to clear off. The bigger the guns, the more wary they’ll be to take us on.’

‘Sounds sensible, I suppose. Are you sure there’s enough of us for this? It’s like two jobs in one.’

‘We move fast, they won’t know where to look.’

He is checking an assault rifle, lying in bits on top of a steel drum that’s been riddled with holes. Putting it back together, piece by piece, showing off for the troops.

‘Micky, no one gets hurt. Okay? But we need the guns. If anyone gets half an idea , this will warn them off. After the job, the shooters get ditched in the water. No one comes after us, no other teams, because they think we have the biggest, baddest firepower. Like I say: quick, in, out, retire. There’ – the rifle is assembled – ‘that will only hurt someone if we want it too.’

He points it at Micky. ‘Bang.’

A celebration.

‘Don’t you think it’s strange that I can’t find a thing on your friend Stephen Smith?’ Barry smiles indulgently at Miriam. ‘Do you know what he looks like?’

‘I told you, we haven’t met. I’ve seen a picture, though.’

‘Have you?’

‘He looks a bit like me, actually, similar face. Different hair, though. Not as tall.’

‘I can’t find a mention of him anywhere online apart from every time that nasty clip comes up, for some bizarre reason. Sometimes there’s a link to a site called stephenesmithtranslator dot com but it’s defunct now. Do you trust him, Barry? Do you think there’s a chance he shot the woman, Roberta Swann?’

‘I doubt it. He’s not the type. Besides, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence left after the fire. No one saw anything. I’ve asked around with the force up there but they’ve just drawn a blank on the killer. Anyway, enough of this. We’re meant to be celebrating, aren’t we? Another scoop. Well done, Miriam!’

‘Thanks, Barry.’ They clink glasses. A little drink of champagne, blessing her career. The start of a whole new conspiracy. Some worried faces in high-up places. Good.

‘You know my dad told me to tell you to get lost. He thinks you’re dangerous. Are you?’

‘What do you think?’

‘You carry a gun. I’ve never met anyone who carries a gun.’

‘Your father carried a gun, when he was abroad.’

‘How do you know that? What do you know about my dad? Have you been checking up on me?’

‘Of course. It’s my job. Don’t worry, there’s nothing bad. But he bumped into a few familiar types over the years. Inevitable, in his line of course.’

‘Inevitable.’

They are in bed. Sheets crumpled. Delicious afternoon sex, when the world is working.

‘I met someone who knew him – my dad, that is – the other day. In the pub.’

He tops up her glass. ‘Phil.’

‘Me or my dad?’

‘Your dad, of course. I need a new name for you. I can’t call you by the same name as your dad – it’s too perverse.’

‘He was a bit odd.’

‘Your dad?’

‘No, this man. He just started talking to me as if he knew me really well. He was like something from an Ealing comedy. Stupid posh accent. The thing is, he knew my name. But I didn’t tell him.’

‘But you said he knows your father.’

‘Yes, but how would he know what I look like? It felt like he was there to see me especially.’

‘Did it spook you?’

‘A bit. You said it might be a bit dangerous. Should I be scared, Barry?’

‘Did this man have a bald head? Shaved completely? A bit rotund?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ah, we know who that is, I think. Was he taller than he was wide? Or the other way round?’

‘What do you mean? He wasn’t that tall, but he wasn’t that short.’

‘What was he drinking?’

‘I don’t know. Yes, I do. He was drinking port. He made a point of telling me. I thought he was scrounging a drink.’

‘Okay. No, you needn’t be afraid. Not of that one. Not at the moment.’

‘Who is he, though? What should I know?’

‘As little as possible, for the moment. Plenty of time later, perhaps. He was Smith’s employer.’

He drains his glass. Grins. ‘Horatio! Ha!’

This one will be all his own work. So a little look over the battlefield is required. Multi-tasking, walking, talking, listening.

‘Thank you, Stephen, you are so kind.’

Walking briskly, Smith is enjoying himself as he listens to his ex-boss express his gratitude. A low rumble of evening traffic floats from the motorway, so he enunciates his reply clearly into the mobile’s mic. ‘Tell me about the soldiers.’

‘The who? The soldiers? Those poor dead brave lads in Birmingham?’

‘Tell me what the fuck the British Army was doing in the house.’

‘A simple case of too many cooks, Stephen. A certain Dutch oil company had employed our boys on an ad hoc basis to get the same result and no one told us. They were waiting for Mr Darboe, too. It seems certain generals are confusing the army with their own private militia, perhaps forced to supplement the budget due to government cuts.’

If Smith is surprised he shows no sign, his face clearly lit by the combination of lights from the odd oncoming car’s headlights and the streetlights just ahead.

‘That’s the last one.’

‘The last one? But, Stephen, what about the rest? By my estimation there is a substantial amount owing.’

‘That’s all you’re getting. We’re finished.’

Is there some reason Smith doesn’t ring off at this point, making his decision final, irrevocable? The phone is still fixed to his ear.

‘Did you spend it all? That’s very greedy, Stephen. You’re a greedy cunt. In that case you’ll need to get me some more. Lots more.’

Coming to a halt at the end of the path where the pavement begins, Smith can see the roundabout where this road meets the ring road by. There’s a small petrol station that signals the beginning of civilisation, the end of the small patch of countryside between the town and the motorway behind him.

‘Think of Miriam, my boy, living there all by herself. If that’s not enough of an inducement, think of yourself. How will you possibly survive if I’m not there to look after you? There are so many people who would be happy to see you brought down. Why, I’m your only friend! Are you still there? Stephen?’

‘I’m still here. What do you want?’

‘That’s right. That’s better. More of the same, dear boy, much more. I’m sure you’ve got something in mind.’

‘I’ll need something in return.’

‘Apart from your life? Anything. Name it.’

‘I’ll let you know.’

With the phone back in his pocket, warming his groin, Smith marches on, hoping for a bus stop or a taxi but resigned to another mile or so of walking before reaching the railway station which will take him on a convoluted route back to Essex.

Gerald Yorke looks as if he is from a different world to the councillor in chief across the town hall corridor. The corridor might as well be an ocean.

Somehow, even his old brown shoes seem crumpled. Tros too long, crumpling at the cuffs. Hands crumpling pockets. Brown jacket, obviously pressed by wearing it to bed. For Miriam, he doesn’t have the look of someone involved in a fraud involving hundreds of thousands of pounds. From toe to crumpled face, he looks a sorry sight.

‘Thanks for seeing me, Mr Yorke.’

‘Happy to help. Can I get you a tea?’

Yorke’s house is in a modern terrace, deceptively large inside, built with too much brick and not enough window. Perhaps Councillor Kaspar has a window tax in his borough. She wouldn’t be surprised.

‘No, thanks.’

‘Please, sit down. How can I help?’

‘I’m afraid this isn’t really about the rebuilt estate, Mr Yorke, not exactly.’

‘A lying journalist. Whatever next.’

‘Well, I suppose it’s connected. I wanted to ask you something else. If I mention the words “Chatterton and Bluebird”, what comes to mind?’

The reaction is unexpected. He gets up quickly, scraping his chair back on the dining-room floor. He leaves the room. And she waits. And waits. Five minutes go by and so she goes to the door, calling. No answer. Walking through the house, calling. Eventually, making it to the back door, where she can see him in the garden, on the phone, striding up and down, obviously angry, waving his arms until he notices her. Striding back to the door. Pushing it open, almost catching her face.

‘Bitch! Who told you? Who. Told. You?’

Miriam backs off, wiping spittle from her face.

‘Get out! Out, out, out, out, out!’ Screeching, eyes popping.

Yes, good idea, probably the best thing to do. Retreating quickly, front door slamming as she leaves, the draught flicking the bottom of her skirt. Breathe out.

As she waits for a bus her mobile buzzes. It’s Kaspar. He sounds very jolly. Top volume, using hands-free, his walnut walls amplify the syllables.

‘Well done! I don’t know what you said to the miserable bastard but it was the right thing. I wish I could have seen his face. Thank you, Miriam. I owe you a dinner, somewhere nice this time.’

He rings off and she realises she hadn’t said a word. Not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but feeling somehow incorporated, into something, a body perhaps, that doesn’t feel altogether healthy.

The hardest thing was to get them to use the prosthetic stuff. One big facial difference for all of them: he and Vic have noses, big bulbous nostrils. Skadge insisted on caveman eyebrows. John has puffy eyes and Micky has half a face, from his cheeks down to his neck. Enough, with the wigs, to distort memory. The cameras would still pick up gait and height and build and so on. The boys are, unfortunately, doomed, unless they get out of the UK, far away, and never come back. Which, to be honest, they’re all thinking about doing anyway. Although Spain isn’t very far. In the end, it probably won’t matter, Smith assumes, as they’ll be shot, if things go according to plan.

And a rough and ready plan it is.

An unusual place for a bank: on the corner of a small feeder road opposite a small parade of shops that connects to a busy A road, which in turn connects to a motorway. The area has a high proportion of retirees; motorised buggies play bumper cars on the limited pavement and a busy post office opposite the bank. He doesn’t expect a lot of money, but it all helps: the fuss, the commotion.

Initially, this bank was going to be number two. A smoke screen for the getaway. Only John knew otherwise. Smith tells the others about the swap on the way to the job, throwing his merry crew for a few minutes until they argue it all out and see the half dozen to the six. The real reason being that he doesn’t trust Micky, but he can hardly come out and say that – think of morale!

It’s simple. Skadge parks on the street, half on the pavement, motor running. They pull down balaclavas over their faces. Latex gloves over fingers. The others get out and enter the bank, pulling bin liners off impressive assault rifles, shouting and frightening the customers and staff. The tellers hand over all the cash in their drawers. Vic takes care of the door. John lets loose a line of large bullet holes across the ceiling. They drop a smoke grenade and make their exit. Walking. They get in the car, which drives off at a leisurely pace until it is on the A road, at which point it motors for a mile before turning off into an estate of detached houses which borders a field. Alongside the field runs a lane. Down the lane is a small car park next to the entrance to a woodland area. They park the car, get out and into a Luton van Vic had parked there early that morning. They drive quietly back towards the bank, where, by now, the police have arrived. Three in the back, John and Smith in the cab, John driving. They are waved along by a traffic cop and soon hit the motorway. There are two helicopters in the air. They spot, driving in the opposite direction, a sleek black 4x4, silent, but flashing blue at the grille. Armed Response.

An hour later and they are approaching the grey-walled block that is their main target, along a small road not far from the motorway. Smith checks the time. One hour.

The van stops at the security gate. This time they don’t bother with the balaclavas, Skadge gets out and fires his assault weapon at the small office next to the entrance. The bullets pierce the door and bring pieces of roof down. Smith gestures to a pale face peering over the top of the smashed window. The two security men inside open the gate and walk out gingerly with their hands held high.

Driving to a loading bay, with its steel shutters down and reversing into place.

The two security men are ushered to a door above which there is a camera. There are cameras all over the outside of the building, a full production being watched somewhere in the building by another incredulous security guard. He sees a tall man with unreal facial features point to the two men, the door and then to the big gun pointing at the men. The gun fires at the door, a quick blast. The door absorbs the shells. It clicks open. They enter. The cameras track them walking quickly through the depot, the tall man directing the men in front of him until they arrive at the other side of the loading bay, the other man following behind, occasionally turning to check the rear. Four or five men and women in overalls stand and watch in amazement as the tall man herds the security men into and amongst them. Arms go up. The security guard is breathlessly on the phone as he watches the tall man press a green button on the wall and the shutters begin to slowly rise, the daylight illuminating the scene. In wheeled crates – similar to bread crates (how appropriate!) – are plastic bags in yet smaller crates. On the bags are printed letters and words indicating various destinations, cash points and banks and supermarkets. Each one has an individual barcode. The tall man takes a barcode reader that had been dropped on the floor and checks some of the bags. He hardly looks at the workers, standing to one side. He gives no indication that he hears the alarm or notices the flashing lights.

The shutters fully open to reveal three more men, suited but unnaturally ugly, all carrying the same type of rifle. The Luton van has its back shutter open, its tailgate down, resting on the lip of the bay. By now, the security guard is

relaying the images to someone on the other end of the phone, moment by moment.

At the loading bay, invigorated but calm, Smith checks a clipboard, placed on one of the crates, glances at Skadge, notes the sweat, the wild eyes. Calm down. He points: this one. This one. This one. This one. One more. Ten minutes? More like seven. Standing guard with John as the others load the van. They pull the shutter down after them. Smith presses the red button next to the green one and the big shutters slowly fall. He stands, watching the workers and the security guards. He can hear the guard’s radios, crazy voices, hyped, hyper. What’s going on? They know what’s going on, it’s all on camera. The shutters are half way down. He waves to the camera looking down from the corner of the warehouse. A royal wave. Then two fingers. Nips under the descending shutters, jumps down and runs around to the cab of the Luton van, the door open ready for him. This time Skadge at the wheel. John squeezed into the middle. The van swerving slightly, speeding up, heading for the exit. The gates, now shut.

Ramming the gates. Built to withstand force from the outside, they give on their hinges and the van is through, with minor scrapes on either side. He can hear whoops from the back: Vic, or Micky. They drive along the road, away from the motorway for several miles, before stopping in the middle of the road.

Twenty minutes.

Micky and Vic lay caltrops across the road, spikes, ready for the police tyres. Get back in. They motor off.

Ten minutes later and they reach a small village, spread out for a mile either side of the road. Turning into the car park of a small office building and driving around the back. Perhaps someone notices. Perhaps not.

The van parks next to two cars, a Honda Civic (good old Alf!) and a Skoda.

The men in suits transfer the money from the crates into the car boots. It doesn’t quite fit.

Smith lets a bank note float out of his fingers from an opened bag. The wind blows it west. He walks to the edge of a field separated from the car park by a rough embankment and shakes the bag into the wind. Notes flutter out over the countryside, decorating the field like an expensive fertiliser. Flaunt it.

The two cars move off, gently, in convoy, until they are out of the village. Then the Skoda, in front, speeds up and leaves the Honda in its wake.

Fifty-five minutes. Ten to get to the motorway. Won’t make it.

In the Honda, with Vic driving, doing the honourable and covering the rear, Smith hears the helicopter. So does Vic, picking at his false nose.

‘What do we do, Barry?’

‘Leave your make-up on.’

The helicopter is drawing level, trying to match their speed, getting a good look,

quite low. Smith opens the window. Points his gun through the gap and fires at the helicopter. Two short bursts.

‘Jesus! Baz! What are you doing?’

‘That should keep them back for a bit.’ Indeed, the helicopter has fallen back and risen high into the sky. In the distance he can hear sirens.

‘Barry, don’t get me wrong, mate, but that wasn’t very clever. What do we do now?’

‘If we make it to the motorway they’ll hold off until they can get AR in place. We drive to the nearest service station, create a diversion, steal another motor, transfer the money, get on our way. It’s going to be rush hour soon, they can’t stop all the cars. Relax. We just have to keep our nerve.’

A beeping. He takes a mobile from his jacket pocket. Before he speaks, the Skoda appears from the opposite direction, skidding to a halt next to them. The enger window slides down. There’s John, his rock, panicking, sweating, shouting, ‘Road block! Road block!’

The rear window slides down. Micky’s face, a shade lighter than his prosthetic flesh.

‘Baz! What’s the plan? What’s the back-up?’

The sirens are getting louder, the helicopter ed by another now, the two hovering well away from them, either side of the road. Smith gets out of the car, takes a leisurely stroll a few paces away from both cars, stands in the middle of the road and loads another magazine into his gun. He looks over a desiccated hedge, a draining ditch on one side, a low wall on the other. Flat fallow fields both sides. The motorway in the distance, slight glimpses of lorry tops through the roadside woods and bushes. The sirens have stopped.

Aiming vaguely in the direction of one of the helicopters, he fires the full magazine into the air. Marches back to the cars. Expectant eyes watch him from the windows. He leans in, next to Skadge in the Skoda.

‘You go that way, carry on. They won’t stop you. If they try, fire a few rounds at them. You don’t need to hit anyone, just keep them off. They’ll back off and let you through. Keep going to the motorway, don’t stop until you get to a service station. Drive into the car park. Split up. Steal another motor. Talk on the phone. Meet up. Get in. Drive off. Leave everything apart from the money in this car then torch it. Don’t take your disguise off until you’re clear. Got it?’

Skadge nods. Good boy.

Micky is in the back, shaking his head. ‘It’s not right. It’s not right.’

John leans over. ‘Shut up, Micky! All right, Barry, see you later. Let’s go.’

He sees John heft his rifle up as they drive off. That should do it. If he points it, even better. He opens the boot, pulls a thick black plastic bag from a pocket in his jacket, stuffs in neat bundles of fifties, fills it up. About a mill.

Gets back in the Honda, bag on his lap.

‘Vic, I like you. So I’m going to give you some advice. They’re about to get themselves shot, maybe killed. If you give yourself up now, you could be out in ten or twelve. Still young enough to have fun. And there will be a nice bit of money waiting for you when you do. Your choice. Just walk straight on up there with your hands up.’

‘What . . .’ Vic doesn’t get a chance to finish. From not too far away comes the sound of concentrated weaponry, a screech of tyres. More firing. He flings himself out of the car. That sounds like John’s decided to go down guns blazing. Poor Micky. An explosion. Smoke in the sky. Almost a full tank, bank notes once more fluttering on the breeze. From where he lies in the ditch, burrowing, burrowing, in the dead leaves, looking for a gap in the hedge, Smith can see Vic’s feet through the gap between road and car, walking away. He can hear him calling out, ‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! I’m unarmed!’

Aiming from his muddy hidey-hole Smith fires at the car, at the petrol cap. Quietly, the car bursts into flames. He leaves the gun in the ditch and, crouching low, bag bouncing on his calves, runs alongside the hedge for a moment, before straightening up and putting all his effort into running across the road, vaulting the wall, heading across the field, maximum speed, kicking up clods of earth.

Buried in the hoarse breaths, the thumping of blood to his brain, is the flutter of a helicopter. Almost across the field. The motorway, raised on concrete beyond the trees and bushes. Directly in front, a track, leading to a farmer’s tunnel, under the motorway. Taking one, two smoke grenades from his pockets, pulling the ring, one, two, chucking them up, onto the motorway. Red and blue smoke billowing, brakes screaming, the wind gently blowing the smoke across the road, obscuring everything beyond a few inches away. The helicopter, lower now,

louder. And he’s through the tunnel and on the motorbike, engine kick-started, helmet on, leather coat over his suit, made pregnant by the cash, and away, followed by smoke, along the muddy track on the other side.

The track that leads to a warren of lanes through an ancient woodland, to a large town, via several routes, to another car, parked somewhere sensible. Worth the long walk a few days ago.

Blake understands but is still rather upset.

Planned carnage. What’s the point of all this firepower, all this training, if you can’t use it to take the bad guys out? These, these, Turks, these Arabs.

Of course, they don’t look like Turks or Arabs when they are laid out, all burnt, strange features, which turn out to be plastic. Initially thought to be plastic surgery. They look like three blokes, three white blokes, bodies ripped to pieces by police bullets, charred, smooth suits in tatters. The important one missing, as he knew he would be, from the moment he saw the footage from the helicopter.

That lanky long-legged run across the mud with a black football of – undoubtedly – cash, hand in pocket, smoke . . . then . . . nothing: disappeared. Upsetting.

‘Shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit!’

Yasmin is enjoying the show. He punches chairs, kicks walls, smashes his own

glasses and plates. She sits relaxed on the sofa, occasionally ducking, studying her nails, laughing to herself. There is a knock at the door, followed by more furious knocking. He answers. It’s his neighbour. Would he please . . . would he mind . . .? No, he bloody wouldn’t. Slams the door. Threats through the door to call the police. He smiles, calms down. Sits next to Yasmin.

‘Feeling better?’

‘Have you checked in with the Hendon bitch? Anything?’

‘He’s disappeared. Perhaps a motorbike, but they haven’t found anything. There’s CCTV of about twenty motorbikes entering the nearest town. Half have been ed for. The rest are all possibles, but they all fall off the radar at some point. He could be anywhere. If it was him.’

‘It was definitely him. Couldn’t be anyone else. What about the one they got?’

‘He’s not saying anything. Vic Hills. Done time for various things Old-style exEast End. Never violent before. He won’t talk, his sort know the score. There’s the best part of two million pounds waiting for him when he comes out, or his share, anyway. He wants it still to be there.’

‘Where is he?’

‘I’m not sure. Why? You’re not thinking of trying to see him?’

‘Find out where he is. He’s been with Smith, met Smith, knows what he’s been doing. I want him to tell me about Smith.’

‘You’ll have to speak to the boss. Get accreditation. You won’t get it. You know he doesn’t like mixing it up with rival firms. Anyway, I’m sure he’s going to pull you off this case now. You’ve had your chance. Perhaps he’ll let me have a go.’

He looks at her for a while.

She gives up. ‘What?’

‘Do you want this? Do you want to take over, Yasmin?’

Not frightened, still.

‘I could do a better job than you. Couldn’t do any worse. You’re too crude. If it doesn’t work the way you want, you kill it. Too macho, that’s your problem.’

‘Perhaps. But that’s what I’m here for, though, isn’t it? If he wants a regular cop, there are plenty. If he’d wanted a snotty graduate, like you, to go pussyfooting around, using family connections, making graphs and probability plans, then he would have said. No. What he wanted was someone like me to go and make maximum damage. It’s what I’m good at. On, or off. No in-between. Smith runs rings around you minor toffs, even if he is from the gutter, like me.’

Standing, looking around the smashed-up room, his minimalist think-space, crunching broken glass into the carpet.

‘I make a mess. And everyone nearby gets a little bit of it on them.’ He looks down at her, bends close. Now she flinches. His hand to her hair. Picking a tiny jag of crockery between finger and thumb. Holding it to her cheek, pressing it in, drawing blood, a pinprick. Dropping it in her lap. ‘Even you.’

Washed, spruced, hair combed, face calm and composed, he takes a plastic folder from the top shelf of a cupboard in his living room.

‘I knew this would come in handy soon enough. I’ve got MI5. What have you got?’ Yasmin doesn’t laugh. He’s not funny.

‘I’ve got an AT. Tactical. But I’ve used it before.’

‘That’s fine. We’ll be in and out before anyone is woken up. Do you need a coffee?’

She has been sleeping on the couch. Looking a little tousled. The intimate days are clearly over. Fine. She wasn’t that good.

‘Let’s go then.’

She stretches. ‘I messaged the boss. Just to let him know.’

‘You silly bitch. What did you do that for? You didn’t need to worry him about it.’

‘I thought he should know.’

‘You think you’re covering your arse. Well, don’t worry. No one’s getting killed. We’ll be at a police station. I’m not that stupid.’

She’s unperturbed. ‘He didn’t get back to me yet. But then, it is four o’clock.’

They had obviously decided that this isn’t a high-risk prisoner, even though he is housed with terrorist suspects. Which is what happens when you’re part of a gang using high-powered military hardware. Otherwise there would have been phone calls as soon as they arrived. A bored sergeant with dark rings under his eyes takes a look at the ID cards and the special interview form and seems satisfied.

‘He’s not a terrorist. Not unless they have Cockney accents and a golf handicap nowadays.’

‘Yes, we know. Just procedure. Anyone with weapons like that gets looked at.’

The bored sergeant seems happy to have his routine broken up by a proper spy and his pretty colleague. He takes them through the system of doors and locks. If the fact that they are both limping bothers him he doesn’t let it show.

‘Funny time for you lot to be interviewing someone, isn’t it?’

‘Got to get the paper work done. Big job starts tomorrow.’

‘Say no more. Here we are.’

Ushered into a small control room with a bank of monitors, each screen split into four views of separate cells. Thirty cells. Eight monitors. The sergeant points at the corner of one monitor. A bundle underneath bedclothes. Using a mouse he turns up the volume and they can hear gentle snoring.

‘Habitual criminal Victor Hill. Nice chap. Shame to wake him. I’ll take you to the interview room then I’ll go and get him.’

They are both seated behind the desk in the surprisingly comfortable chairs, by themselves.

‘They’ve done the place up since I was here last. Used to be a proper dump. Still stunk of PIRA shit. Shit and blood.’

The door opens and a blinking Vic enters holding up his beltless suit tros, followed by the genial sergeant.

‘You don’t need him cuffed, do you? I know I should but . . .’

‘No, you’re all right. Sit down, Vic. You can leave us now, Sergeant.’

He follows the sergeant out as Vic sits down. In the corridor outside.

‘I don’t need to tell you that we don’t like anyone listening in. Not that there will be anything to hear, should be over in a couple of minutes. But, if anyone hears that you heard . . . could get both of us into proper trouble. Okay?’

‘I’ll be in the monitor room, mate. There’s no feed for this room through there, anyway. But point taken.’ Proper spy.

Blake sits opposite Vic.

‘Sorry to wake you up, Vic. Just a few more questions that couldn’t wait.’

Vic is bemused but his jaw is set. A cop’s a cop.

‘I’ve said what I’m going to say. Now you can get on and send me down. You know the score. I know the score. Getting me up in the middle of the night won’t change that.’

‘Did you know Stephen Smith is wanted for murder? Did you?’

‘Who?’

‘Stephen Smith, also known as Barry Bolton.’

‘Oh, wouldn’t surprise me. He’s a bit of a nutter.’

‘Did you know who he murdered, Vic? Where do you think he got the name from?’

Taking out a sheet of paper from a folder, a copied report of the heroic death of D.I. Barry Bolton from the Sheffield Evening News.

‘He killed a cop? What for?’

Meaning, what’s the profit motive?

‘Then there’s this, Vic.’

Another report, this one from an unnamed government department with details of the explosion in Birmingham, followed by photos of blood, burnt flesh, a young child’s partially destroyed face.

Visibly upset, Vic winces. ‘That’s fucking sick. You telling me he did this?’

‘He’s a wrong ’un. A psycho. You know he is, Vic.’

Leaning in, he can sense Yasmin’s surprised approval. Getting closer to Vic, so he can talk quietly, urgently. Damn, he would have made a good policeman.

‘He sent the others to die. He did, mate. He only let you go because of the helicopter. There would have been footage of him gunning you down. Death by cop. He might as well have killed them himself. John. Micky. The other guy . . .’

‘Skadge.’

‘Skadge. He killed them. You don’t owe him anything.’

Vic sits back, sighs, blows. ‘Yeah, fair enough. He knew. The bastard knew. I didn’t know about the family, but I knew he was a killer. John and Micky were there, when he did Alf. Unbelievable. But he’s good. Make no mistake, he’s good.’

‘What happened, Vic? Tell me the whole story.’ Turning to Yasmin: ‘Please go and tell the duty sergeant we might be a bit longer than I anticipated.’

She gets up. Smiles at him. Lovely.

‘Yes, sir.’ Even better.

‘Go ahead, Vic.’

‘Aren’t you going to record it?’

‘It is being recorded. High-tech. Hidden mics.’

The door clicks gently shut and Vic begins. He’s an expert, giving a lecture, a professor of crime stating his professional opinion, enjoying himself.

‘All right. You see, a lot of people think that villains, people like me, are, like, weak. But you’ve got to have balls to be a robber. And he, Barry, whatever his name is, he was very brave. Very brave. And smart. What happened, after the depot, the guns, all of it – I think he planned it, just like that. He wasn’t surprised, no panic. He knew what was going to happen.

‘With a bloke like that, he won’t get caught. Only if he wants to get caught, especially if he’s a murderer. But I’ll tell you everything I can . If you do something for me. Can you? Do you have the authority? What’s your rank,

anyway? Show us your card.’

It impresses him. Better and better.

‘Right. If you’re with that lot, then good. I’m not stupid – you’re here because it’s guns and drugs. That’s fine. Despite everything else, I’m a patriot and what you do, well, obviously, you can see I’m no terrorist, right? I’ll tell you how it happened and a lot more besides Then you have a word and get a couple of years off for me. Try. Put in a word. Will you do that, son?’

Son. Perfect. Blake nods, and listens.

In a bid to find out what’s what from people who might know, the police officer will interview anyone connected with a crime. This is police work now. This is better than being sent to knock off strangers, whatever they might have done. Truth be told, carrying a gun just never feels right. A British copper doesn’t need a gun. He needs basic training, leg work, a good nose. And his baton.

All of which wisdom Blake treats Yasmin to on a journey across town to a newspaper office. Travelling by Tube, for a change. Not the ideal way to go, but, in the end, quicker, at least without sirens and flashing blue lights, to get through central London.

Yasmin listens, doesn’t talk much. She’s obviously changed her opinion of him since observing his correct handling of Hill. Good information, that. Good police work. As well as information on ‘Baz’ Bolton aka Stephen Smith, there were golden nuggets that can be fed, at the right time, to the Met, about all kinds of

historical events that were included in reports, in folders, gathering dust, dating right back to the seventies. There will be some very happy detectives retiring on a positive note this year, finally managing to scratch the itch of unsolved crimes. And he will bask in the praise of his loving boss. Now, just do the same thing again with this journalist woman and we’re cooking. Yasmin keeps checking her mobile.

He likes her again. She looks pretty, hair pulled back. Solemn brown eyes. He liked the way she said ‘sir’. She can say that again. Perhaps tonight.

He catches a glimpse of himself, doubled, made grotesque, in the train window. He sees a man who looks too self-satisfied for his own good, hanging on as the train lurches through the twists and turns of London’s intricate bowels. Wipe that smirk off your face.

Shifting the middle finger from one of his hands holding the metal bar above his head, moving it so a fingernail is in his palm, pressing, digging in the nail, using the motion of the train to make a rhythm, the sharp pain reminding him that he is just a servant, a public servant, doing his duty. Right and wrong.

‘Miriam?’

Here’s a familiar face. George-something, the financial journalist, exuding gents’ clubs, Bentleys, companionable jaunts around small country estates. Small time, dressing big. A character. Fleet Street character. She doesn’t smile. Takes his proffered hand.

‘ me?’

‘Yes, of course. You write about money.’

‘Hope that stuff I sent over was useful.’

Not really. ‘Yeah, it was great, thanks!’

They stand, being buffeted on both sides by rushing people, the impossible endless stream that disappears for hours every day into the buildings that surround them. The traffic, the phone conversations, the footsteps. It’s noisy.

‘Have you got a moment?’

‘Well, I’m on my way to the office . . .’

‘Of course, won’t be long. It’s a bit noisy, shall we . . .?’ He gestures to a nearby café.

It’s the kind of place that manages to allow incredible bustle and turnover, as well as a calm corner with a window view. She blows on her coffee and he stirs his tea (three sugars, even that’s old-fashioned). She notices his eyes flicker from her to the street throughout their conversation. Not distracted, exactly, or worried, just watchful – for wild animals, perhaps, or pheasant. With his gloves on.

‘How’s the murder business?’

‘Busy as ever, although it’s not something I would expect you to be particularly interested in, George.’

‘You would be surprised what matters to a financial journalist, Miriam. The knock-on effects, the finely balanced markets. All human activity is there, tied up in Mammon et cetera. Did you actually read what I sent?’

‘Yes, of course, it was very interesting. The campaign was deemed a big success, but things are moving on.’

‘I noticed. You’re interested in explosions now and conspiracies. All sounds very strange, doesn’t it? Far-fetched.’

‘The more I find out, the harder it is to understand.’

She can feel her mobile vibrating in a pocket, urging her to get on with the day. George is studying her. She is dressed every inch the modern, sensible yet sassy female journo. Probably in her prime, right there and then. Not having seen her ‘Barry’ for several days, plenty of sleep, loving her job, loving her life. Untouchable.

‘There’s someone I‘d like you to meet, Miriam. She might be able to help you with the story. She has information. Didn’t tell me everything, but sounds quite

genuine.’

She’s interested.

‘Only problem is, you would need to see her this morning.’

‘Can she come to the office?’

‘No, unfortunately. A bit sensitive about, you know, being recognised. I know it all sounds very mysterious, but I’m sure it will be worth your while.’

‘I could meet her later this morning. Do you have a number?’

‘Well, actually, if you want to meet her, you would need to come along now. I can take you there. Just across the river. Do you need to call someone?’

Bill. She needs to call Bill. I’ve been kidnapped by a financial journalist, who’s taking me to an unknown destination to meet an unknown woman who’s going to talk to me about . . . something.

‘What kind of information?’

‘About a man called Stephen Smith.’

She decides to text Neil instead: ‘tell bill running late cos following lead.’ Neil can translate that into a message her editor will understand.

There was no guarantee that she would be there, but it’s still bloody annoying. Didn’t like the look her editor gave him: the old seen-your-type-before look. They are on their way out and some footage from the botched depot robbery comes on the huge screens placed around the newsroom. Blake stops to watch, Yasmin waits a few steps away. There’s Smith with a stupid fake nose plastered across his face, distorting his features, herding the terrified security guys through the depot. A different angle, from above, wider, captures the shutters opening, the silhouettes of the robbers on the other side. Yet more iconic footage. Smith should be a film director. He is suddenly conscious of the editor standing by his side, also watching the screen, talking without turning towards him.

‘You’ll see that on posters. Someone’s already started on the movie, funding in place, big bucks. Pretty soon you won’t know where reality ends and Hollywood begins. Who did you say you worked for again?’

He hadn’t. He looks at the old journalist.

Before he gets a chance to speak, Yasmin jumps in. ‘It’s Bill, isn’t it? Bill, we’re from Cornelius.’

There’s a palpable change in Bill’s demeanour. He steps back a little, looks them both over, toe to head, and there is recognition in his eyes.

‘Go on. Out. Get out.’ He starts to usher them out of the room, and as they go through the doors to the lobby he catches the eye of one of the security guards who quickly s him.

‘Out – and don’t come back. Miriam’s got nothing to do with anything you might be interested in. She’s got no idea. She’s not in the game.’ Turning to the security guard: ‘Make sure these two leave. Don’t let them back in.’ He turns and marches back to the newsroom, pauses at the door to look back as Blake and Yasmin walk through the swing doors with the security guard a step behind. Blake turns, stares, points a gloved finger at him, a kind of threatening presidential point, before walking off across the plaza. Both of them, limping slightly.

One of those endless Lego blocks that are considered slum ghetto when lived in by poor people, but luxuriously convenient when lived in by the middle classes: the difference a concierge makes. And a considerable maintenance supplement to the lease.

To the top floor and then a long curving corridor, every other front door parked next to a chained bicycle. George chit-chatting for the entire taxi journey there, minor but quality gossip about people Miriam knows slightly. Avoiding the subject on the couple of occasions when she tried to broach what this is all about.

Finally, a door opens into a spruce apartment that smells of polish, cleaning fluids, air freshener. The air of a motel room. A hint of fresh coffee. Fantastic views across to the river, beyond, the city skyscape. A low-flying plane with a glamorous hostess. She notices: George has a key to the flat. The glamorous hostess offers coffee, or fruit juice, a croissant perhaps, in a throaty drawl – another exclusive girls’ school graduate, wearing her experience on her tones. They sit at the round table in the kitchen diner, and George makes the

introductions.

‘Miriam, this is Alice. She knew, knows Steve Smith.’

Well, there’s a turn-up!

‘She’s willing to tell you some of what she knows about the man, or, perhaps, everything she knows, I’m not sure. Alice?’

‘Nice to meet you. I’ll talk for a while, then you can ask me questions if you like. Please don’t record what I say. It’s off the record, but very usable.’

It feels like a set-up, all too pat, too controlled. Barry had told her that she would be approached, but just to go with the flow, listen and decide later. She thinks she’s safe. She’ll be okay.

‘Why do you want to talk to me, Alice? Can you tell me your full name?’

‘No. Let’s just keep it to Alice and Miriam.’ Flick of the hair. ‘I’m talking to you because I think you’re close to something, perhaps too close to it, and you really can’t see it. It’s important the real story is told and I can help you tell it. I knew Steve well enough and he told me all kinds of things, but, specifically, about the deaths in Birmingham. He told me exactly what happened, and I can tell you.’

George stands. ‘Right, ladies. Now the introductions have been made, my job is

done here. Miriam, you’re okay to get a taxi back across the river, I presume? Expenses stretch that far at your old rag, do they?’

Miriam nods.

‘Alice, lovely to see you again. Oh, and, Miriam, please call me later. We can have a little chinwag and I can flesh things out, perhaps. Needless to say, this is your story, and, as far as I’m concerned, it stays that way. Cheerio.’

The flat is quiet. The city rumble is very far away. The planes criss-crossing the sky intrude more than the neighbours. Alice is fingering small croissant crumbs from her plate and licking them off. She is not hiding her examination of Miriam, her eyes looking sleepy, like a cat’s.

‘You’re sleeping with him.’

‘Who?’

Alice focuses on her. ‘A man. A new man. I can tell, you have that look.’

Too early in the morning. Too personal. Alice seems to realise.

‘Sorry. Distracted. Let me tell you about Stephen Smith.’

‘Okay. So, how well did you know him? Do you still know him?’

‘I knew him well. Don’t know him any more. I knew him over a number of years and then we lost touch when the Birmingham thing happened. I’ve read your reports. I’m just curious: you seem to think it was an assassination attempt gone wrong. How on earth did you reach that conclusion? All the reports at the time were about a gas explosion. End of story. What made you dig around?’

Standing, Alice goes to the kitchen area. Brings a carton of orange juice to the table.

‘And how does that terrible video fit in with everything?’

‘I was hoping you might shed some light on that yourself. You say you knew him. Actually, I had help. I still don’t know the whole story. But I do know it involves more people than just Smith. As for the video of that poor woman, I don’t know how, but I do know it’s connected.’

Alice is deciding, has decided.

‘I knew Steve through work. We met when I was on a special assignment for him. He was, is, a linguistics expert, freelance, working all over the world for all kinds of people. Very respected, trusted. Translating crucial documents for big firms, governments, involved in negotiations, handling the minute cultural differences, oiling the wheels.

‘We became friends and then lovers. We weren’t a couple, but every now and then, between assignments, we would meet up, get together and, you know, it was nice.

‘I sometimes worked in the same parts of the world as Steve. It was convenient. Neither of us had any ties, no family to speak of. His parents were dead and so were mine. He had lost touch with his siblings. I didn’t have any. So it worked out. The last time we met, was just after . . . this thing. He told me what happened. He was absolutely distraught. Very upset.’

Elbows on table, leaning forward. The nub. ‘He told me that he was responsible for ing on the wrong information to some very bad people. They were looking for someone.’

‘Someone Nigerian?’

Alice looks at her a moment. ‘Possibly. This person was meant to be at the house. They were only meant to get him, take him somewhere else. But it all got screwed up and somebody got excited when they saw the soldiers and that’s when it all went terribly wrong. It really wasn’t Stephen’s fault, he couldn’t know what would happen. But he blamed himself, poor soul, and had a bit of a breakdown, couldn’t go back to work.’

‘Who does he work for exactly, Alice?’

‘Oh, he doesn’t work for anybody now.’

‘Who did he work for?’

‘A security company. All very hush hush. Like me.’

There’s that sleepy look again. It works. Miriam is distracted.

‘Not long after that, Stephen told me he was going away, for good. I haven’t seen him since.’

Then Alice pauses, assesses. ‘You don’t believe a bloody word, do you?’

Despite herself, Miriam smiles and shakes her head. ‘I don’t know what to believe. But thanks, anyway.’

Alice checks her watch yet doesn’t look like she’s in a hurry to be anywhere.

‘Alice, what do you do? You say you met Smith at different points around the globe . . .’

‘I’m not going to tell you what I do, Miriam. I travel. That’s all. Hush hush.’ With a finger to her lips. Sleepy.

‘Are you employed by the government?’

‘I’m strictly freelance.’

‘Is this your flat?’

‘It belongs to a friend of George. He’s lending it to me while I’m in town.’

‘How do you know George?’

‘George knows all kinds of people. He’s a journalist. He’s in money. Both are people businesses. Lots of handshakes, you know.’

Miriam stands, ready to leave: the well is apparently dry.

‘I don’t suppose there’s any way I can you, in case I need to follow up on anything?’

Alice considers this. ‘I know it’s early but I fancy a drink. Will you me? George’s friend keeps a well-stocked drinks cabinet. I’d like to talk to you. I’m interested in what you do.’

She seems as interested as the queen might be. What now? Boozing before eleven in the morning. What the hell. All part of the job. She might get some more out of her. ‘I’ll need to call in.’

‘Good.’ Alice smiles at her, seemingly genuinely pleased.

She’s got to come home some time. Having exhausted the possibilities of finding something interesting in Miriam’s flat, Blake and Yasmin settle down to make themselves comfortable on the sofa. Yasmin checks her mobile.

‘Can’t you leave that thing alone for a moment? You’ve been fiddling with it all day. Who are you sending messages to? Got yourself a fancy piece, Yaz? Give it a rest.’

She pockets her phone. Still quiet. Had the stuffing knocked out of her. Can’t stand the pace. These boarding school girls are meant to be tough. She’s not so tough.

‘What are you going to do when she gets here?’

‘What are you so worried about, Yasmin? I’ll ask her a few questions, see what she knows.’

‘What if she doesn’t know anything.’

‘Then I’ll stick with it until she does.’

‘But what if she really doesn’t know anything. Then you’ve roughed her up, or worse, and it’s one more thing. Let me talk to her this time. Then we leave. Show her the ID you used for Vic Hill. Even if she asks around, no one will know. But for God’s sake, don’t touch her, Russell. Leave this one. She’s connected. It will mean trouble.’

This is beginning to get his goat, beginning to itch his balls. Who does she . . .

‘All right, Yaz.’ Holding his hands up. Smiling. ‘You handle this one. I’ll be the quiet one. Ask a few questions then we leave. Fine.’

‘Honestly, you’ll thank me for it in the end.’

Yes, thank you, Yasmin. Three bags full, Yaz.

This is ridiculous. She’s absolutely plastered at three o’clock in the afternoon. What does Alice put in these cocktails?

So, it turns out that Alice is a funny, funny woman. She’s lovely! The hours just fly by and Miriam’s told her about everything. School. Mum and Dad. Brothers. Sisters. Uni. Starting at the paper. Even Barry. She didn’t mention his name, of course, but she talked about how he felt familiar, how he was tough and gentle, just like the adverts, about his sexy arse. Everything.

And has she got anything out of Alice? The mysterious Alice? Well, she feels like she knows her quite well now. Although she can’t think of anything in

particular. Talk of hot places, cold places, jungles and savannahs. Did she mention a safari? Sort of a Sunday-afternoon-film sort of life, by the sounds of it.

Pissed. But it’s all right, she’ll write off today and get back on it tomorrow. Her mobile vibrates. A call, not a message. Bill. She answers, getting up unsteadily to walk to the hall, waving ‘two minutes’ to her new bestest mate.

‘Miriam, are you drunk?’

‘A bit, Bill. I’ve got a bit more info, from George, well, not George . . . You know George, right? You know, the mister money man . . .’

‘Miriam, shut up. Did you visit a man called Yorke? Gerald Yorke?’

‘What? Yorke? Yes, I did. I was following up another lead from Commissar Kaspar. I didn’t say much. Neither did he. Why?’

‘He’s dead. What exactly did you say to him.’

‘I told him . . . I said what Kaspar told me to say. He’s dead? No. Can’t be. He was alive.’

‘And now he’s dead. Suicide. Hung himself.’

Oh.

‘So, welcome to the dark side, Miriam. There’s no looking back now. Don’t bother coming in today. Go home. Sober up. I’ll see you tomorrow. And, Miriam, be careful. You had visitors today at the office, not your kind of people. I should never have run that piece, and you should never have written it.’

Bill rings off. Oh.

She goes back into the front room.

Alice is sitting on the sofa, concerned. ‘Everything all right, Miriam?’

Later, she re the older woman hugging her, for a while it seemed. She didn’t cry. It felt like the end of an initiation ceremony. She was relieved, happy to have made it through to the other side. They have another drink. Everything is touchy-feely, hand-holding, more hugs, hair-stroking, perfumed and feminine. She re thinking: what is it with these willowy older women? She could almost imagine herself . . .

And then the taxi calls her down to the street.

The key is in the lock. The sound of shoes kicked off, bag dumped on the floor, a hurried stumble to the toilet. A noisy pee with the door open. A sigh. A self-

onishing ‘shit, shit, shit’. A burst of water from the tap. At least she’s hygienic. The door opens into the dark room and in she comes, head down over her mobile, checking messages, missed calls. A bedraggled but attractive young woman. Miriam Taylor. She looks up. Drops the phone. She’ll regret that.

‘What?’

Yasmin is on her feet, bending picking up the phone, ing it back to the young journalist, talking, soothing.

‘Miss Taylor? Please don’t be alarmed. We’re not here to hurt you. We’re not burglars. We’re with the security service. We tried to see you today at the office but you didn’t come in and they said you weren’t able. So we had to come here, as this is very urgent. We thought it would be better for you if we waited inside.’ Waving a hand towards the front door. ‘The neighbours. I’m sorry if we startled you.’

The journalist hasn’t moved. She accepts her phone and looks at the two of them in the dim light from the lamps outside. He stays on the sofa, getting a good look at her. Off you go then, Yaz. Fill your boots.

‘Is this about Gerald Yorke?’

That’s a new name. Yasmin takes control. ‘Gerald Yorke? Please, sit down.’ Gesturing to a chair opposite the sofa. Pulling the curtains, finally turning on a side light, sitting, leaning forward, palms upwards, open. The journalist is shitting herself.

‘Miss Taylor, we’re here to talk to you about a story, the one about the explosion in Birmingham. It’s really important you tell us everything you know, including what you haven’t written about, any information at all, even if you think it’s not important.’

Yasmin glances at Blake. He takes out the ID, es it to Miriam. She takes it, but looks at him, then at the ID.

‘If you want to, please feel free to call headquarters at Millbank and they can confirm the official nature of this interview when we are finished.’

Eyeballing her, keeping her calm, half-smile on lips, concerned. Classic empathetic female-cop routine. Rape case.

‘Do you want to make a drink, a cup of tea, before we start? Miriam?’

Good idea, he can smell the stink of alcohol from where he sits. She looks like she’s been on a minor bender. Bloody journos. Drunk in the afternoon. Weekday. Call it work.

Miriam seems to be getting it together. ‘Yes, yes. I’ll make some tea . . . Eh, how did you get in?’

He sees her fiddling with the phone. He nudges Yasmin.

‘Miriam, please don’t try to call anyone while we’re here. Just wait until we’re gone, please. Can you leave the phone by your chair?’

He’s ready to knock it out of her hands. But she does as she is asked. She fills the kettle, turns it on. Standing by the kettle. By the kitchen drawer. Thinking of knives, no doubt. Yasmin is still sympathetic.

‘We talked to Bill at the paper. He said you weren’t in, that you were out interviewing somebody. Something to do with the Birmingham story?’

He watches the journalist’s shoulders drop a little, relaxing. The kettle boils, she’s talking as she pours. He could do with a cup himself. No offer. She’s not even making proper tea, pouring the boiling water onto a teabag in a big glass. Faintly fruity smell. Snooty tea.

She’s answering: ‘Er, no, it was another story. Something else. Look, is this going to take long, it’s just that I’ve got someone coming round . . .’ Checks her watch. ‘Oh, any time now.’

Likely story.

‘No, it won’t take long. Please come and sit down Miriam and we’ll just ask you a few questions.’

She does as she’s told. Puts the glass on the floor by her feet. Perches herself on

the edge of the chair.

‘Do you know a man called Stephen Smith?’

‘I’ve heard of him. I’ve never met him.’

‘We’re trying to trace him in connection with the Birmingham case and other incidents. Have you any idea where he might be?’

‘No, I’ve just been covering the story. He seems to have disappeared. How did you get in?’

‘Miriam, could you concentrate, please? This is very important. Are you saying you’ve got absolutely no idea where he is right now?’

‘Yes, I mean, no. Of course not. I would interview him if I knew. Or try.’

‘What do you know about Roberta Swann?’

‘The woman who was in the video? The one who was murdered?’

‘Well, we don’t know if she was murdered, but yes. Have you found a connection between her and the Birmingham story? Stephen Smith?’

‘I don’t know. It’s confusing. There seems to be a link, but I don’t know what it is yet. Are you saying there is a link?’

‘Has anyone talked to you about the so-called Smoothy heist? The same gang who tried to rob a depot a few days ago?’

‘What, are you saying that’s linked with . . . all this?’

‘We’re not saying that, no. We’re just trying to tie some ends together. Loose ends. You mentioned someone before, a Yorke?’

‘Gerald Yorke. He died.’

‘Who is he? Has he got anything to do with your enquiries?’

‘No, no, I don’t think so. That was something separate, to do with the council.’

‘Which council? Birmingham Council?’

‘No, a London borough. Look, this all seems a bit random. What do you want exactly?’

‘Miriam, what else do you know about the Birmingham story? What haven’t you written about yet? Where did you get the information in the first place?’

‘Someone got in touch . . .’

‘Who? Who got in touch? How did they get in touch? How can you them?’

Miriam’s staring at Yasmin. Really staring, as if she’s recognised her from somewhere. And Yasmin is staring back. Both of them, recognising, and Miriam is once again bringing her phone up, ready to dial – yes, there it is, nine, nine . . . No point treading softly now.

‘Please put the phone down, Miriam.’

‘I think I’m going to call the police if you don’t leave. I’m going to call them. You’ve got no right to break in and . . . do this. He told me you’d come. I should’ve believed him.’

He is up and by her side, hand enclosing hers, squeezing against the phone. Squeezing, then releasing. The phone drops to the floor. Damn it. A voice speaks: ‘Emergency services, which service do you require?’ He’s got the phone. Off. Back open. Battery out. SIM card in his pocket.

‘What are you doing? You can’t do that! That’s mine!’

He slaps her across the face with the back of his hand. She falls back, holding her cheek.

Yasmin whispers urgently, ‘Stop it! Not now!’

He ignores her, leans into the journalist’s face. ‘Listen. Tell us everything you know. Then I won’t hurt you. If I think you’re lying, I’ll hurt you. If you refuse to tell me what I want, I’ll hurt you. If you shout or make a noise, I’ll hurt you. Clear?’

The journalist looks defiant. Here comes fun.

He reaches out with one hand and takes a hold of her hair, pushing her head against the back of the chair. Throat exposed. She grabs his wrist with both hands, trying to twist off his grip. Not strong enough. He jabs, lightly, at the centre of her throat. Lets go of her hair and she coughs and splutters, heaving breaths, gulps. Hurts, doesn’t it.

‘I won’t tell you again. Settle down and start talking, or it gets worse – a lot worse.’

He is aware of a furtive sound, was ing it subconsciously for several seconds. He turns to see Yasmin pushing buttons on her mobile. She stops, looking at him. Presses one more button. Send. Definitely send.

‘Who are you texting? Are you selling me out? Are you texting the bosses? Let

me see the phone.’

Sudden wet pain in the eyes. Then a crack, more of a sound than an impact, on the side of his head, twice, second time, glass crumpling. Snooty tea in a heavy glass. He falls to the sofa. Yasmin is up, backing off. Shouting at him with her gun pointed at Miriam who has frozen, in awe of her own violence.

‘Sit down! Sit down! She knows me! We’ve got to get rid of her, now!’

He feels for his pistol, the PPK, kept in the holster on his belt, covering the movement by holding his head up, his eyes. He looks up. She’s blurry but unmissable. He fires: one, two, three. She falls behind the sofa, out of sight. Where’s the other bitch? On the way out, of course.

‘Stay there. Stay, or I’ll kill you.’

She’s by the door. Freezes.

‘Come back here.’

He can feel blood dripping from the side of his head. He puts fingers to the pain, feels the glass shards, embedded.

She hasn’t moved. He raises the gun, barks, ‘Now! Do it! Sit down! Do it!’

Now she’s moving, trembling, crying.

He grabs her, a fistful of cloth, and swings her into the chair. ‘Who told you about Birmingham? Who told you to expect us?’

He pushes the gun barrel into her mouth. It must taste of . . . bullet. She can’t speak. She wants to speak. Okay.

‘Barry. Barry Bolton. He’s like you, like you say you are.’

Barry Bolton is, of course, dead. So, we know who Barry Bolton is, then. Tell her.

‘Bolton is dead. He was a colleague of mine. The man who calls himself Barry Bolton is Smith. Smith killed Bolton.’

‘No, it can’t be!’

But he can see by her eyes, she knows it’s the truth. That it makes sense.

‘Where is he, Miriam?’

‘I don’t know. All I have is a number. He didn’t tell me . . . Oh God.’

The gun is at her forehead this time. Truth spot. That sounds like the truth. Okay.

He stands back a step and considers. Stupid Yaz, all she had to do was wait.

Then he swings the gun-hand from above his head to slam the end of the grip against her temple. Her head snaps back and she crumples into the chair.

Take a moment. Vision is almost normal. The liquid wasn’t actually boiling, just stings. Probably whatever was in the teabag. Double check. Yup. She’s out, for the moment.

He looks behind the couch. There’s Yaz. Bleeding away. That’ll go right through to the ceiling below eventually. Just about alive. He locates her phone. Check text history. Message to unknown: ‘RB lost it again asst.’ He scrolls through the messages, all to the same ‘unknown’:

‘in flat waiting’

‘waiting’

‘on way to MTM’

‘MTM not @ work’

And so on, a series of abbreviated updates through the day. What does ‘asst’ mean? Assist, presumably.

He texts another message to ‘unknown’: ‘all OK no asst’. Might work.

He goes to the bathroom, looks in the mirror. Ugly stress on his face. Breathe. Do the right thing. Turning his head he sees the small sections of glass, the gash. A pair of tweezers. Where would he be without tweezers. They should include them in basic equipment. Special tweezers pouch in the utility belt.

Picking the glass out, bit by bit. Feeling, turning his head, feeling. Relaxing his features. It’s okay. Do the right thing. Do the job.

A face appears apparently from out of the ether over his shoulder. A large oval tanned egg of a face, lightly perspiring. It’s speaking.

‘Messy, Russell. You’re always so messy. Like a little child.’ Examining his face: ‘Who did that? The journalist?’

He nods.

‘Here, let me. Turn your head to the light, that’s right.’

Firm hands positioning his head. He can just see out of the corner of his eye, the reflection in the mirror. A dentist, a doctor. Of course. The reassuring smell of his hands. His boss, taking the glassy thorns from his head. Tutting. Soothing. Finding cotton wool balls. Running the tap, wiping, pushing on his shoulder to lower him to his height, so he can cast his fatherly eyes over him.

‘You really are too impetuous, Russell. You’re costing the company, becoming expensive with all this impetuousness. You’re still quite young, still learning, but will you ever learn, Russell?’

Patting his shoulder. Blake’s sitting on the edge of the bath. Head at waist height to his boss, who holds his head, brings it to his ample girth, comforts him.

‘Will. You. Ever. Learn. Russell.’

Squeezing his head between his hands, pushing.

Trying to balance on the edge. What? What? His boss’s hands, the heels vicing his temples, fingers holding his ears, tearing them.

‘You didn’t have to kill her, Russell. That was just wasteful. And the other one. She’s no good to us dead. Neither of them are.’

Through the pain, he manages a weak scream. ‘She was selling me out, selling us out. Boss! Boss! I didn’t kill her. The other one’s not dead. Boss! Let me go!’

He pushes, separates the older man’s arms, pushes up, releases the pressure, but somehow finds himself in the bath, head by the taps, looking up. His boss looks down, from a long way away.

‘I’m very disappointed, young man. You’ve let me down.’

There are tears in the egg-face eyes, although the expression remains hard. ‘Stay in here and think about what you’ve done. I’ll tell you when you can come out.’

The boss moves out of sight and is replaced by a young man in a suit carrying a metal baton. The stick swings against his knee, which is resting on the bath’s edge. It cracks, metallic reverberation through the enamel. The bathroom door shuts. The young man stands, relaxed, watching him. Smiling. Classic hair. He must get his cut, as soon as he can. Somewhere someone is grunting and moaning in pain.

Miriam wakes up to a vision. A doctor? No, must be a dream, because the doctor looks like that man in the pub that time. Horatio. The one who knew her dad. Except this one looks different. Less kind. Professional. The face is smiling but the eyes aren’t. And then excruciating pain. Eye pain. Head pain. The worst hangover. She knows she was drunk but this . . .

ing.

She is in her bed. The doctor is sitting beside her. There is a damp cloth over her forehead, one of her hand towels. She tries to sit up, but the dizziness and the

doctor’s firm hand keep her head on the pillow.

‘I’ve taken the liberty of calling an ambulance, Miss Taylor. I hope you don’t mind but I won’t linger. So sorry about everything. I don’t think there’s any permanent damage. You might have a bit of a headache.’

Might. Wait. There’s a dead woman in her flat!

‘Who are you? Where’s . . .?’

‘Relax, my dear. It’s all been taken care of. No one was badly hurt. Just a rather over-enthusiastic officer. I’m afraid he’s a bit overworked. You know how it is. And he flipped his fucking lid. No need to worry. We’ve cleaned everything up as best we can. The blood stain looks much worse than it was. Just a scratch, really.’

There is some shuffling by her bedroom door, which is ajar. A face looks through the gap and nods at the doctor. He stands, smiles down at her once more. They leave.

‘Please say hello to your father for me.’ Quietly. Did he really say it?

As he walks through the door she is sure she sees the profile of the man. The secret man, the bully who shot the woman, the murderer who recognised her, probably saved her life. But then he hit her. Seems to be held by another man, his arm bent behind his back. It’s all happening too quickly to be sure.

Her front door closes softly. She hears the click.

Wakened again by hammering on the door, she makes herself roll off the bed and crawl to the door. Opens it to a blur of fluorescent yellow and professional concern.

This one really is a doctor. White coat, stethoscope, harassed, foreign accent. All in order. He seems to think she’ll be okay. Having been scanned, blinded by pinlight torches, kept in. She now has her marching orders. Her bed is required.

Her dad is standing by the bed, holding a plastic bag with her clothes from yesterday. He hasn’t said much. A ‘V’ of a frown, a distracted presence. Very concerned, of course. Unusual that her mum’s not there as well.

‘Where’s Mum?’

‘I told her not to come, Mimi. She’ll only make a fuss.’

She could do with a fuss.

‘All set? Let’s go. Mum’s got your room ready.’

They start walking through the ward. She’s a little woozy from the painkillers and she knows the faint throb in her head is just the warning sign of an imminent monster ache. But, over all, she feels surprisingly chipper. Mum’s got her room ready.

‘Dad, I won’t be coming back to yours. I want to go to my place.’

‘It’s not a good idea, Mi. Your place is a bit of a mess. We’ve got some people in to sort it out. They won’t be finished yet. Besides, you might want to think about moving.’

‘But I like it there. It’s mine.’

‘We’ll talk about it later.’

They reach the car park. She watches her dad looking around.

‘Have you forgotten where you parked?’

‘No, no, just over there.’ They walk on, although he seems to be hurrying, hurrying her on, too. He talks over his shoulder. ‘What did the police say?’

‘They asked me what happened. I told them as much as I could . I’m still not quite sure.’

They get in his car. His sensible Volvo, big enough for tents, groceries, the kids, the dogs. She notices a tyre lever in the door pocket next to her dad. Not like him. Everything-in-its-place type of bloke, her dad.

He starts the car.

‘Dad, you told me there would be trouble. You said I should move. What do you know about it? What didn’t you want to tell me?’

She wants him to turn off the engine, she wants him to turn around, hold her hand, explain it all, and reassure her that, in the end, everything will be all right. Instead he pulls off without even looking at her. They drive along, edging the speed limit, bumping clumsily over sleeping policemen, through the city, heading for the safe suburbs.

‘Miriam, you’re a headstrong girl. But you’re intelligent and talented. You can go far. Some people in the media and in politics and other walks, they get some help. And in return they do things. Often, things they might regret.’

Now they are driving steadily, her father frequently checking the rear-view mirror.

‘The industry I worked in, the kind of work I did, it’s best not to talk about it. I’ve finished now, and there’s no need for any of that time to be a part of this time. Growing old with your mother. Watching you and your brother getting on with your lives. That’s all I want now.

‘But some of the people I worked with, some of the people I met, working for the company, for the country, they don’t let it lie. Once they have their hooks in you, they won’t let you be. To them, you are a resource . . .

‘I don’t want you to become a resource, Miriam. But if you carry on like this, that’s what will happen. They will help you, in your career. You’re guaranteed to do well. But it comes at a price. ‘Favours for favours. It’s all linked in, even if they don’t all know each other. They recognise each other. And I recognise them.’

‘What are you saying? That I should stop being a journalist?’

‘I’m saying, if you ever meet this Barry again, or any of them, just politely take your leave. Forget about the deaths in Birmingham. Take the normal stories. Interview pop stars. Don’t get involved.’

‘I think it’s too late, Dad. I think I am involved.’

Gerald Yorke.

‘Then I’m going to have to teach you how to use a gun.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

Stress Management

IN A HOUSE at the end of Milford Street two brothers are toasting crumpets in front of an open log fire, cheerfully ignoring the city rules about smokeless fuels. The house is right at the end of the street and you can’t go any further. Either side of the street are posh tenement blocks, black railings, skeleton trees wrapped in pointed fences. The pavement is shining charcoal. The house, just one storey high, looks cute and cosy, with a single light decorating the gaps around the thick curtains in the front-room window.

The room is small, overstuffed, too much bulk: the wallpaper is flock, embossed; the legs of all the pieces of furniture are stocky, squat like a pit bull, sitting on layers of ancient carpet in ancient grooves. The dust lies thick. The room is never cleaned. At night a rat ventures out from skirting boards under a bureau to lick up the crumbs and lord it over the room.

The brothers sit in matching Chesterfields, worn to shine. They lean over the fire, a toasting fork for each of them, taking a corner of the fire. There is a plate on the hearth in between them, loaded with a pile of untoasted crumpets and, beside that, a butter dish with a pat of butter melting from the heat, two matching tea knives laid on its edge. They toast and spread and butter and toast. It is their intention to keep going until the pile of crumpets is gone.

Miriam’s flat is no longer Miriam’s. The cleaners have wiped it clean. The new carpet has hidden insoluble stains. Everything is so neat. Nothing has been

moved, just wiped or replaced and then put back in exactly the same position. Very sympathetic. Must have cost a fortune. But, when they left, they took her place with them. She might as well make her dad happy and move. Start the process now.

A new mobile phone. A gift from work. Bill has been very sympathetic, in his own gruff way. Lots of sympathy. Lots of expressions of horror. She’d spent the afternoon back in the office. The stories she had been working on had been reduced day by day, until they had disappeared. New news is always more important than the slowly arriving end of the world. Bill tried to smile. ‘What did you expect?’ Oddly, though, to her, the story seems to have grown and grown, to such a size it’s impossible to see it any more.

Picking through the flyers and bills dropped under her letterbox, she finds the inevitable estate agent’s offer to help sell her property. So kind. Takes out her phone. Then sees, on some wall beading by the door, a SIM card. Her SIM card?

Her old SIM card, now in her new phone. She had back-up copies of all the numbers apart from one, which was unique to this card. Barry. Or is it Stephen? She doesn’t hesitate. She calls the number. Which is dead. She tries to send a text, but it pings right back to her phone. That’s that, then.

Double-checking that she hasn’t forgotten anyone, scrolling down, she finds a new name: Cornelius. A number. She carries on and finds another: Horatio, plus a number. Definitely not something she re doing. She’ll try them later, perhaps.

‘I think we have company, brother,’ one brother says to another, in their cosy house. Which one is Horatio? Which one Cornelius? Either? Neither. The plate

is empty and the fire is dying to embers. Their heads are in the shadows of the wings of their chairs. They are sated. The room is quiet.

‘Is that a rat, do you think?’

‘It might be a rat. A big fucking rat.’

‘A fucking big rat. If that rat comes near me I’ll stick its pissing body with my toasting fork.’

‘Rats don’t piss, brother. Mice piss. This is a rat. Rats are very clean. They help us keep our house in order. They clean up.’

Stephen Smith is standing between the chairs, his height enhanced by the yellow firelight.

‘You two just get more and more hilarious. Have you thought about a career on the stage? They’d love you in music hall.’

‘We’d offer you a crumpet, Stephen, but we scoffed the lot.’

‘I know. I watched you.’

‘We know you did.’

‘No, you didn’t. I sneaked in and watched you choke yourselves. You never think anyone notices you. I do.’

‘We know you do, Stephen. You’re the only one who cares. And that’s why we love you.’

‘I’ve got a big knife here, a big machete, a very sharp machete, and I’m going to cut your bellies open and take all your crumpets out. I’m going to empty your bellies, slice you open and suck it all out.’

‘Oh, please do, Stephen.’

‘Please do it, Stephen!’

‘Then we can start again.’

‘Yes, we can do it all over again.’

Smith steps back, almost into the darkness. ‘I want Blake.’

‘We thought you would.’

‘He’s a liability. He’s a psycho. You don’t want him.’

‘Not any more. He was fun for a while but now we don’t want him. He’s not one of us, anyway.’

‘Neither am I.’

‘That’s right. You went to a polytechnic, didn’t you? You didn’t even go to a grammar school.’

‘By rights, Stephen, you should be as pig-ignorant as all the rest of the ants.’

‘But, somehow, you’re not.’

‘You’re a very bright boy, Stephen.’

Smith’s voice comes from the shadows by the door, from the corridor, perhaps. ‘Give me Blake. Or I’ll come and slit your fat bellies open.’

They call to him.

‘Very well!’

‘Okey-dokey!’

‘Bye, Stephen!’

‘Thanks for dropping by!’

And each brother peers from the depths of their chair, one towards the door, the other to the window. And in each brother’s hand there is a Colt 45 pistol, with matching pearl handles. On the worn mat between the chairs is a shiny, bulging, black plastic bag. So that he stays alive.

Do you know we are at war? War has been declared. The people you think represent you declare war whenever they feel the need. War is declared when minerals are needed to help make a component. War is declared when a currency needs to be temporarily devalued. War is declared when a bet is made.

There isn’t a global conspiracy masterminded by one or two central groups or individuals – just a series of local conspiracies that sometimes overlap.

The natural government of the world is gangsterism. Combinations of armaments, diplomacy, mysticism and family. And PR. The weak spot is PR, because that’s where the gangsters meet their public, who outnumber them yet allow them to operate as long as they manage to convince them that the kind of chaos that exists without them is worse than the chaos that exists with them. And

as long as they remain entertaining.

In other words, gangsters worry that some day they won’t be frightening enough, charismatic enough, clever enough . . . to prevent a revolution.

Posted to stephenesmithtranslator.com underneath a lovely picture of of the British government in their early twenties, standing with other young men, on some steps outside what has to be a venerable institution, wearing a uniform that wouldn’t have seemed out of place at the turn of the nineteenth century.

At home, safe, ready for rehabilitation. All cops lose it after a while. It’s like being on the front line constantly, week in, week out. Always hanging around with other police, never getting a chance just to be normal, like everyone else. It does get to you. You do need to have a proper rest.

Blake has heard, casually, from others, that sometimes they put you up in a kind of health centre. But this one has toms – high-class quality prozzies – who visit, stay, let you do what you want. And you can take drugs, get pissed, not that he would, but, still, a place where he can go and work out his anxieties, before getting on with the job.

Perhaps they’ll send him there. If not, it doesn’t matter. He can work it out here. He’ll need a proper rest, get his legs back in order. That whack to his knee has cracked his kneecap. There is a sleeve of plaster keeping his leg straight. The wound to his calf, in the other leg, is healing nicely, but he still limps when he puts weight on it. He can get around with crutches. But he can’t drive.

It makes certain things more difficult, like cooking, bathing, getting comfortable in bed. This is difficult, too. Lying on his bed, twisted, so he rests on his hip, but his front is facing down on the bed. It’s hard to get the belt to swing, to land, to whip properly. He perseveres, because he needs to do this, to clear his mind, whip away the niggling images of Yasmin falling. Roberta’s head. Bassett’s tumbling body. He perseveres.

Then he hears a voice: ‘Do you want me to do that for you?’

A familiar voice, even though he’s never heard it. He knows who it is.

Stephen Smith is now standing over him. He has to contort his head to get a look at him. A bit older than me. Tall. A bit taller then me. Unshaven. Looks a bit tired. Still suited, though.

Feeling vulnerable on the bed, naked apart from the plaster cast and bandage. Not really frightened, though.

Smith takes the belt. He doesn’t try to stop him. The belt is about an inch wide, black thick cowhide from Burton’s menswear. He lies down, resting his head on his folded arms, his back and buttocks exposed. He can handle this. In fact, he craves it. Waiting. The belt swishes a couple of experimental arcs. Then.

Pain.

Not the kind of cleansing pain he was expecting. Proper pain. Deep, deep searing

into his kidneys. Through his own screams and the buzzing of the Taser he can hear Smith calmly speaking.

‘I had a look at your home, your street, where you were brought up, Russell. Very ordinary. Quite nice, really. Is that right they built special houses for the police, on the end of every terrace? Free housing. Good pay. Solid job. Weren’t you happy?’

The pain stops. It feels like he’s been kicked on the inside. He tries to curl up but the plaster cast only lets him bring one leg up, wires tickling his back. Breath. Control. Too late.

This time there is the smell of burning flesh. Well over the legal limit. His screams become mute. Smith carries on the one-sided conversation.

‘So, what makes a smart fella, keen sportsman, son of a mechanic, loves his mum, no psychopathic tendencies . . . what makes a man like you were become the man you are?’

Suddenly very quiet again. Blessed relief. If only he would just shut up.

‘Because you’re not getting paid very much. You don’t take advantage of the perks. By all s, you’re lonely, rotten in bed. You have no interest in films or music or books. All you do is exercise, masturbate and whip yourself. You’re not even very good at your job. I really don’t get what they saw in you.’

There is a gun in the bedside drawer. He swings his plastered leg at Smith, the heavy mass knocking him into the wall, the Taser dropping from his hand, wrenching the barbs in his buttocks.

Now. The drawer. The gun. He turns, twists, looks around. Smith has dropped out of sight. Shuffling to the edge of the bed to look down to where he fell. Maybe he got lucky and he’ll see a broken head. Today’s not his lucky day, though. A different kind of pain, in his calf, in the wound. In the wound! His gun drops onto the sheet. He sees, through half-closed eyes, a golf iron swinging towards his head.

Cold exacerbates pain. Smith is aware of how much. One of Bassett’s tricks was to hurt the client – not too badly, a cut here and there somewhere sensitive – then leave them hooded and gagged, overnight in a cold room. Bassett maintained, in his quiet way, that it was the cold that did it. Smith thinks it was probably a combination of a few things. Either way, the following morning they would normally be quite talkative. Apart from once, when the open windows and the winter had finished the poor sod off. It’s not that cold now, but cold enough.

The kind of mucky grey day that diminished the Roman army’s morale. Floating pillows of soft spongy fog that enter the lungs, accompanied by a chill wind and deep-freezing ground frost. It must be really painful, to be lying there on the grass and mud with no clothes on.

Blake comes to consciousness in the tried and tested way: cold water splashes over his head and his eyes blink. Blood has scabbed around his ear on one side of his head. A few feet away the plaster cast from his leg is split in two, jagged edges looking white against the khaki. He moans. Smith continues his discourse, as if there had been but a moment’s pause.

‘In the end, you were providing some entertainment, I suppose. They enjoyed the fact that you thought you were somehow the equal of the low-end aristocrats and money boys they normally signed up. You were their human Rottweiler. Slightly more intelligent, but not much. I think you would have made a good policeman, for what it’s worth.’

Smith sits down on his haunches, to get out of the wind, to get closer to Blake. The smell: the desolation of rugby, forced on schoolboys; trenches, filled with young men; the comfort of mud as a face buries itself away from shell burst and whistling shrapnel. A familiar smell to a breed of men. The smell of fear.

‘Each moment you stay alive, Russell, depends on what you say to me. You’re not much use to anyone now. But I am interested enough to keep you alive as long as you keep talking. Do you understand?’

He sees Blake’s eyes focus on him, sees him testing his muscles. Watches as the hope goes, almost in the same instance.

‘Yes, that’s right. You’re going to die. But, for the sake of a precious few moments longer, will you tell me: what on earth did you think you were doing? Going round killing people you didn’t know. You even killed my old girlfriend. There was no need for that, she was nothing to do with anything, not in the game at all. What was going on in your mind. Russell?’

Blake speaks. Too quietly. Smith leans in close enough to smell his breath. Already dead, by the smell.

‘Say that again, please.’

‘I was doing the right thing. I was doing my job.’

There we are. Simple enough.

Stephen Smith, translator, company manager, spy, nark, killer, player. He has saved the pill, the one for Joseph Kashaye, in case things went wrong, in case there was no saving him, in case Bassett made a mistake. Of course, Bassett never made that kind of mistake and he had kept that same pill for years, wrapped in foil, never needed to use it, kept it for a year in a special secret place, one of many that he has around and about the country. It’s just a pill. He places it in Blake’s mouth, squeezing the sides of the policeman’s jaw as you would with a cat. The pill sticks to the roof of Blake’s mouth. Smith loosens it with a few drips from the bottle of water then clamps the mouth shut again, holds the nose until the cop swallows. Stretches himself up to full height and looks down on his fellow killer.

Moving away a few paces, Smith puts a hand inside the side pocket of the thick anorak he is wearing and pulls out a pack of ten cigarettes. Turning away from the wind, he lights one with a cheap plastic lighter. Standing, not smoking, waiting.

In her empty flat, Miriam receives a text, shortly after Smith’s cigarette has burned down to the filter. From anonymous: ‘I owe you one.’ And then a link to a website called palefacetrilogy.com and a : ‘birmingham’. She deletes it. Then she deletes ‘Cornelius’, followed by ‘Horatio’.

End