by Ian Rankin
“Pass me if you want,” he said to himself, waving one hand out of the window. But the car slowed to keep with him, and Miles, his heart suddenly beating faster, took a good look in his rearview mirror at the driver. Maybe foreign; hard to tell behind those unseasonable sunglasses. Oh Jesus, it’s a tail. Of course it was a tail. What was happening to him? Slow, Miles, far too slow.
He pushed the car up to thirty-five, forty, forty-five, passed a couple of vehicles with an inch or two to spare, heard them sounding their horns, but his concentration was on the mirror and the Mercedes. It was like a shark after its prey: content to sit on his tail, to ride with him until he grew tired or panicked himself into the wrong action. Fifty, fifty-five: near suicide on these central city roads. He took a roundabout too quickly, and suddenly there was another car in the chase, its headlights on full, siren blaring. Miles didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The Merc signaled and turned into a side street, leaving the police car to do its duty. Miles signaled and pulled into the pavement. The car wedged itself in front of him and stopped.
Never mind. He had the telephone number ready.
A gun pointed at him through the window, ordering him to come out slowly. Four of them, none uniformed, all with handguns. Miles opened the door as though it were a surgical operation. He stepped out slowly, turned and placed his hands on the roof of the car. He didn’t want them to make a mistake and pull a trigger.
“Is this your car?”
“Yes.”
“We have a report that this car has been seen in the vicinity of a bomb explosion.”
“That’s ludicrous. I haven’t used the car for two weeks. It’s been sitting outside my house in St. John’s Wood all that time.”
“I’m sure we can sort it all out, sir. Driver’s license?”
“Look, officer,” said Miles, thinking, this is a clever one, whoever’s behind it, “just do yourself and me one favor.”
“What would that be?”
“Just telephone Special Branch. I’ll give you the number. I’ve been set up, God knows why. Please, telephone Special Branch.”
The gun was still aimed at his head, still only needing a squeeze of the trigger. This would be a bad way to die, a wrong way to die. Miles willed the man into dropping the gun.
“Very well,” he said. “We’ll do it your way.”
Complete confidentiality, that was what Jim Stevens had promised Tim Hickey. From now on, only code names could be used, for Stevens was beginning to work his way deeper and deeper into the case. He told Hickey that the story was so big he had gone freelance, that he had a ready buyer. Hickey looked nervous. He didn’t like change. But Stevens was his only horse, so he nodded agreement.
An ex-colleague, one of the few left whom Stevens had not bad-mouthed out of existence on his final afternoon in the office, set up a watch on the comings and goings of the hush-hush Sizewell committee. It met twice a month in an anonymous building just off St. James’s Street. The location was curious in itself, but then the committee was engaged in difficult and interesting work: work that would interest many separate parties, not all of them scrupulous about waiting in line with everyone else to hear the ultimate findings.
The other members of the committee were checked out. All were experienced, none came from the security services themselves. Stevens could imagine that MIs 5 and 6 would dearly love to know what was being decided behind the heavy and ornately carved doors of the committee room. The room itself was ultra-safe, swept each and every day for naughty little devices. This much the newspaper’s parliamentary correspondent, an alcoholic but hardworking pro of forty years’ standing, was able to substantiate.
On the assassination side, things were slower, almost to the point of dead stop. Janine had done her bit, but the Israelis were cagey operators (with good reason) at the best of times, and this was hardly the best of times. Stevens’s mysterious telephone caller had rung him at home twice and seemed pleased at the direction the investigation was taking.
“Yeah, well, we’d be going a whole lot faster, mate, if you’d pull the finger out of your posterior and come across with some facts—hard facts.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the connection between S. and a certain murder, a garrotting I believe, in London recently.”
The voice had exhaled noisily.
“You’re progressing, Mr. Stevens, believe me,” it had said before ringing off.
The next time, Stevens was planning to threaten that he would pull the plug on the whole thing if he were not given some help. He had worked hard on cases before, of course, but this one was like drawing teeth. It was an apposite image: his back tooth had given up the ghost.
He prodded his mouth now. He had wormed some names out of Tim Hickey, too. Cryptonyms, most of them, but there was one which Stevens felt confident about. When someone had been screwed around, they were usually ripe for the confessional. This man must be ripe.
And there couldn’t be too many Miles Flints around. Even if he were ex-directory, there would be rates to pay, bank accounts, taxes. Stevens would find this guy Flint and he would speak with him. It seemed they might have quite a lot in common.
“As you are aware, of course, Harvest was always merely part of a much larger operation, which has been sustained for over a year now.”
“A sort of seedling, eh?” said Richard Mowbray, smiling at his superior, while Miles sat in injured silence, his mouth straight as a glinting needle. He was still shaking from his run-in with the police, though they had been polite and sympathetic after checking his credentials.
Partridge did not smile either. He sat behind his desk, hands on the flat surface in front of him, as though talking to a television camera, perhaps to advise his countrymen that they were now at war.
“The director would have been here himself to tell you this, but he has a prior and more important engagement.” Partridge paused, making it sound as though their boss had been summoned to Buck House, but Miles was in no doubt that King’s Cross was a more likely bet. Here was proof of the gradual handing on of responsibility. Partridge looked and acted every inch a director. It was his calling and his destiny. “From other segments of the operation—overall code name Circe—several sources of potential irritation have been pinpointed.”
Cough it up, man, thought Miles.
Partridge, however, was enjoying the sound of his words, and relished having this particular audience captive before him. Perhaps there had been just a touch of melodrama about his wish to see them together. Well, the melodrama was not about to stop there. He had something to say that might just cause them to shift a bit in their seats. He hoped that they would sweat.
“One of these is about to be dealt with. Special Branch has been controlling things up till now, and it will be Special Branch, along with the RUC, who makes the arrest.”
“RUC?” This from Mowbray, his eyebrows raised a little.
“It stands for Royal Ulster Constabulary,” said Partridge with exaggerated patience.
“I know what it means,” snapped Mowbray, “sir.”
Partridge nodded, pausing, taking his time. There was plenty of time.
“I don’t have to spell it out, do I? An arrest is going to be made in Northern Ireland. Very soon.”
“And?” said Miles, suddenly interested.
“And,” said Partridge, “we need an observer there, just to register our presence, our interest. I thought”—his eyes sweeping the two men—“that one of you would be best suited to the job, having worked on Harvest at this end.”
“Having worked up a dead end,” corrected Mowbray.
Partridge just smiled.
“Circe is a much bigger operation than Harvest. We are here this evening, gentlemen, to decide which one of you should have the honor of representing the firm in the sun-drenched paradise of Belfast. Now, who’s it to be?”
Partridge made them coffee at his own little machine in a corner of the room, which was suddenly fille
d with the aroma of South America, of wide spaces, sunny plantations, a harvest of beans. The room itself, though, was small and stuffy, and Partridge had opened the window a little to let in some of the chilled evening air and a few droplets of rain from the burgeoning shower.
Miles gulped down the coffee, listening to a siren outside and being reminded of the horror of that gun appearing at his window. His soul had prepared itself for death, and it was still pondering the experience.
Partridge had gone over the details of the mission with them, insisting with a mercenary grin that it was really a sightseeing tour, nothing more. The real work would be done by the RUC’s Mobile Support Unit and the officers of Special Branch.
Special Branch, thought Miles, God bless them.
“Call it lateral promotion,” said Partridge, but Miles knew that it was more a case of the last-chance saloon. Both Mowbray and he were thorns in the firm’s side; neither would be lost with regret.
“It’s just our presence that’s required,” Partridge continued, talking into the vacuum created by the silence across the table. “Otherwise it looks as though we don’t care, looks as though we just sit around in oak-paneled rooms drinking coffee while the others get on with the real laboring. Do you see?”
Miles saw. He saw exactly what Partridge and the old boy were after. They were seeking the resignation of whoever got the job, and they presumed that that man would be Miles Flint. Miles had more ground to make up than did Richard Mowbray. Partridge was guessing now that Miles would feel forced to accept the mission, and then would resign rather than go through with it.
“How many days?” he asked.
“Two or three, certainly no more than three.”
“Overseeing an arrest?”
“Nothing more.”
Miles had seen that look on the face of every quiz-show host.
“This is all bullshit!” spat Mowbray. “We know your game, Partridge. We know you’re after the top job, and you’ll sacrifice any number of us to get it.”
Partridge shrugged his shoulders. He was still smiling at Miles, as if to say, your opponent’s out of the contest, it’s just you now, all it needs is your answer to the golden question.
Two minutes later, and with no applause, no cheering, the prize belonged to Miles.
“Thank you, sir,” he said.
“I don’t believe it!”
And she couldn’t, couldn’t believe that he was going, that there was so little time, that he was leaving her again right now when everything was balanced so finely on the wire of their marriage.
“It’s the truth.”
“Are you doing this to spite me, Miles?”
“Of course not. Why do you say that?”
“Well, that’s the way it looks to me. One minute we’re talking of rebuilding our whole relationship, and the next you’re off to Northern Ireland. It doesn’t make sense. Why you?”
“It’s something the office has been working on for a while, a new initiative. I know more about it than most.”
“You’ve never mentioned it before.”
“Only a couple of days.”
“Oh, Miles.” Sheila came forward and hugged him. “Can no one go in your place? Whatever happened to delegation of responsibility? Tell them you’ve got personal problems, tell them anything.”
“Only a few days,” he repeated lamely. Sheila drew back from him.
“Do you trust me for that long?” she asked. She was thinking, I’ve used Billy Monmouth as a weapon before, I can use him as a threat this time. Miles drew her to him again.
“I’ll always trust you, Sheila, and you have to trust me.”
“When do you have to leave?”
“Tomorrow.” He felt her stiffen, but held her fast. “The sooner I go, the sooner I’m back.”
“We haven’t even had a chance to talk about Billy yet,” she said into the fabric of his shirt, her face hot against his shoulder.
“Say it now. It doesn’t matter what you say. This is something new. But say it if you want.”
Say what? Say that Billy was nothing, merely a cipher for her frustration? Say that he had congratulated her on her dress sense, admired her hair, taken her to the theater? Say that he had been busy using her as she had been busy using him?
“Be careful, Miles, won’t you?”
Again, Miles wondered how much she really knew of his job. Her eyes were shiny with a liquid that would recede soon. Her cheeks were burning to the touch, a fine down covering them.
“Be careful,” she repeated in a whisper.
Yes, he would be careful. He could promise her that.
“Let’s go to bed,” he said.
EIGHTEEN
BILLY MONMOUTH ALWAYS STARTED THE DAY, if he was awake early enough, with a sauna, swim, and occasionally a massage at his health club. If anybody’s body needed toning, he reasoned, it was his. By arriving early, he missed the majority of the cooing, made-up middle-aged women with their flapping eyelashes and breasts. The pool was unused before breakfast, and he could swim without being embarrassed by his puffing, red-faced splashes.
Lying in the sauna, which had not yet quite revved up to its full fierceness, he let his mind drift back toward sleep. He pretended he was back in his mother’s womb, pretended the interior was blood-hot. Plunging into the icy pool outside could be the trauma of birth.
From the safety of his womb, he could think, too, of poor Miles and poor Sheila, caught in a marriage where incompatibility and love trod the same awkward line, tentatively holding hands. It had been a game to her. He realized that, of course, but had hoped that her feelings might change. Acting as a player in a new game, she had become hooked for a short time. And he too had enjoyed their secret meetings, their passing of messages, the counterfeit trips together. It had made him feel like a spy. The pity was, in the game, Miles was his enemy.
And however hard Billy tried, he could not regret having deceived his friend. He would do it again. For he had played the game a little too intensely this time.
He loved Sheila, God help him.
The door opened, letting in a cool draft of air, breaking Billy’s concentration. The betoweled man sat down, breathing heavily, then poured water onto the coals, releasing a lung-bursting gulp of heat.
“Good morning, Andrew.”
“Morning, Billy. How’s tricks?”
Andrew Gray scratched at his chest and his shoulders, then studied his fingernails, seeking grime. He seemed to find some, for he cleaned the offending nail on the edge of a tooth, then spat into the coals.
“I can’t complain, Andrew. Yourself?”
“Just fine, Billy, just fine.” Gray was a heavy man, heavy not with any excess but with a sense of well-being. He exuded a confidence that left Billy looking shy and frail by comparison. He eased himself back onto the wooden spars of the bench, then swiveled and slowly lay back. The breaths he took were big, too, filling the cavern of his chest. Billy closed his eyes again, hoping his day was not about to be spoiled.
“Who was that woman you were with at lunch, Andrew?”
“You mean the day you had lunch with your friend Miles? I don’t remember her name. Miles seemed like a nice chap.”
“Yes.”
“So, anything happening at work?”
Billy did not reply. To talk to Gray he needed to be in a certain mood, and whatever that mood was—indifference, perhaps, or cynical torpor—Billy did not feel it this morning. His mind, after all, had been on personal things, secret feelings and emotions, things he very seldom revealed to the brutality of the outside world. But Gray had come in on a chill of wind to remind him that the world was always there, waiting, and that there were other games to be played. Lies, damned lies, deceit and the manipulation of history: that was the role of intelligence. Just for a moment, Billy felt real dirt on his skin. Gray would doubtless say that such sentiments were bad for business. Gray himself was hardened. One had only to look at that monstrous rib cage to see that the man w
as impervious, rock solid, unloved and unlovely. There Billy had the edge on him perhaps. Not that this would have bothered Gray.
Andrew Gray was a businessman whose business was death.
Billy had never plunged into the pool with such relief before, and he wanted to stay submerged forever, his body chilled to everlasting. Instead he showered, the water scalding him, then went to the massage room, where the Organ Grinder, his arms as thick as thighs, was reading the daily tabloid.
“Mr. Monmouth, sir. Long time no see.”
While the Organ Grinder folded his newspaper, Billy hoisted himself onto the table.
“Do my back, will you?” he said.
“My pleasure, sir.”
The Organ Grinder was already rubbing his hands with preparatory glee.
Under the slow, circulatory pressure of the handstrokes, Billy began to drift again, but by now it was too late: Gray had entered all his dreams. Each scene contained, somewhere in the shadows near the back, waiting to walk on, the malcontent figure of Andrew Gray, his chest expanding and contracting like a machine.
“Thought I’d find you here.”
When Billy opened his eyes, Gray was sitting on the table next to him, swinging his legs, dressed only in the silky bottom half of a tracksuit. He was rubbing at his chest again, scratching occasionally, finding nothing of interest beneath his fingernails.
Billy said nothing, just tried to give himself up to the massage. The Organ Grinder, despite his name, was by far the gentlest man in the room. Billy remembered the crack Miles had given him with that exhibition catalog. Miles had not been gentle then. It had been a time bomb of a swipe, too, not hurting at the time, but requiring treatment afterward. He’d not forget it in a hurry.
“Mind if I try that?” asked Gray. “It looks interesting.”
Somewhere above Billy, roles were exchanged, a few cursory instructions given—don’t hurt, don’t prod, just go smoothly. And then the Organ Grinder was seated before him on the table, while Andrew Gray’s hands fell upon him, working their way into his flesh.