by Ian Rankin
“So, nothing’s happening at work, huh?”
“Andrew, what do you want?”
“Nothing much.” Gray had started to finger-slap Billy’s shoulders. “It’s just…” slappety-click…“well, just something I heard this morning. A phone call from a friend…” click- slappety…“about your friend Miles Flint.”
Billy sat up, pushing Gray away. He stretched his back, feeling some clicks that should not have been there.
“Go on,” said Billy. “Tell me about it.”
There was no reply. Damn, damn, damn. Billy went back into the changing room and opened his locker. He would dress quickly, try the number again, then go to the office.
Andrew Gray was manipulating his silk tie into an extravagant knot.
“You’re sure it was to be today he was leaving?”
“My source is, as they say, Billy, impeccable.”
“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me who your source is?”
“A little birdie—but not Partridge, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Gray smoothed down his shirt collar and smiled at himself in the mirror.
Billy Monmouth heaved himself into his clothes, not bothering too much whether his tie was askew or his shirt neatly tucked in.
“Does it all connect, do you suppose?” mused Gray, making a final examination of himself.
“What do you think?” said Billy, panting now as though he had tried too many lengths of the pool.
“It remains to be seen, I suppose,” said Gray.
“Tell that to Miles Flint.”
“I hope you’re not going to be rash, Billy.” Gray’s voice was as level and as deceptive as thin ice.
“I owe him this much,” said Billy, walking out of the room with his shoelaces undone but his resolve strengthened.
Andrew Gray nodded to himself in the sudden silence. It had always been his most cherished edict: neither a borrower nor a lender be. Barter, sure, buy and sell, certainly. But Billy Monmouth spoke of “owing” something. There were traps aplenty for the unwise borrower and the unwary lender. He would have to speak to Billy about that sometime. Never have friends, that was the golden rule. Never ever have a friend.
It was becoming more bizarre still. Miles read again the note from the old boy, scrawled as though the writer had been in a rush to catch a train or, more likely, to catch the engine numbers of several trains. It appeared that Miles was to have a cover for his trip across the water, an overelaborate cover at that. He was to be a member of a chartered holiday group, flying out of Heathrow with half a dozen others.
“Why, for God’s sake?” he asked Partridge over the telephone, while Sheila sped through the house with newly ironed shirts and handkerchiefs. Miles walked with the telephone to the study door and closed it with his foot.
“Security, Miles. You can’t be too careful. The IRA has rather a good little intelligence operation going for it these days. It covers seaports and airports. They’re always that little bit more wary of individuals who enter the country, just as our people are.”
“But all these people I’m supposed to travel with…”
“A seven-day tour of Ireland. Special offer from a national newspaper. Your fellow passengers will be met in Belfast by the rest of the party, who will have traveled by boat or by plane from Glasgow. It’ll be easy enough for you to slip away unnoticed. We’ll see to that.”
“But they’ll notice I’m missing.”
“Be anonymous, Miles. The more anonymous you are, the less chance there is of that. Besides, the courier will inform them that Mr. Scott has been taken unwell and may rejoin the tour at a later date.”
“That’s another thing.”
“What?”
“That bloody name.”
“Walter Scott? I rather think it a nice touch. You are Scottish, after all.”
“How am I supposed to remain anonymous with a name like that?”
“Oh, come on, Miles. It’s just some pencil pusher’s joke, that’s all. It’ll only be your name for a couple of hours at most. I think you’re being a bit too serious about the whole thing.”
But that was just his point! It was not Miles who was being serious, but the firm, and this strange brew of the serious and the farcical was making him very nervous indeed.
“When does your flight leave?”
“Three hours from now.”
“We’ll have a driver there to take you to the airport in plenty of time.”
“Well, my wife thought that she might drive me—”
“No, no, leave that side of things to us. All the best, Miles. Bring me back a souvenir, won’t you?”
“What did you have in mind?”
“A decent showing, no cock-ups. Good-bye.”
Self-righteous bastard, thought Miles as he went upstairs to wash.
When the telephone rang again—in the hall this time—it was Sheila who answered.
“Hello?”
“Oh, is that you, Sheila? Can I speak to Miles, please? It’s Billy.”
Sheila stared at the receiver and saw her knuckles bleached white against the red plastic. She was silent, waiting to hear something more. She heard background noise, men’s voices.
“Hold on, will you?” she said finally, placing the receiver down gently on the notepad beside the telephone.
Billy Monmouth stared out of his window and into that of another office, where someone else was on the telephone. He wondered if it were a momentary revelation of some parallel universe, a universe where Sheila and he were together. Her voice had unnerved him, and then her silence had pushed him toward rash speeches, pleas, God knows what indiscretions. He had always been afraid of women, but not of Sheila. He missed her. And now Miles was leaving for a few days…And he had telephoned to give him a specific warning…To warn him that he might well be—
“Hello, Billy, what can I do for you?”
In the parallel universe, the telephone caller put down the receiver and greeted a female colleague who had just entered the room. He was rewarded with a peck on the cheek.
“Hello, Miles.” Billy suddenly felt very warm, his face growing hot to the touch. He let his fingers graze his jaw, which was still stiff though no longer painful. “I just heard a rumor that you’re being sent to Ulster. Is it true?”
“Yes, it is.”
“What for? Why you?”
“I drew the short straw, that’s all.”
“How many straws were there? Just the one?”
“No, two. Listen, what’s wrong?”
“Who arranged it, Miles?”
“Look, Billy, I’m getting ready. If you have something to say, say it.”
Billy swallowed, his eyes on the window across the way. “Be careful, Miles, that’s all.”
“Look, if you know something I don’t—”
But the phone had gone dead on him. Damn. Why did people do that? It was such an absurd gesture, and rude, too. Damn. What did Billy mean?
“Have you finished in the bathroom?” Sheila called from upstairs.
“Yes, thanks.”
For Billy to call him at home, after what had happened, well, it had to mean something. And Sheila had answered the telephone. What had they said to each other? What was going on? He should be at home saving his marriage, and instead he was flying off to Northern Ireland under the name of Walter Scott. But he had no time to think about it, no time to do anything but act.
Sheila was in the kitchen, preparing herself a sandwich, and Miles was already on the plane, when a ring of the doorbell interrupted her reverie. She peered out through the spy-hole and saw a fairly grubby man standing there, examining the top of the house and the telephone wires that stretched across the street. He looked dangerous. There was a young woman with him. She looked not at all dangerous. Sheila slid the chain onto the door quietly, then opened it two inches.
“Yes?”
“Oh, hello, you must be Mrs. Flint?”
“That’s right.”
; “I was wondering if I could see your husband.”
“I don’t know. Can you?”
The man laughed a short impatient laugh. “It’s a business matter,” he said.
“My husband’s not here.”
“Oh.”
“He’s gone off for a couple of days.”
The man seemed almost heartbroken. Suddenly he looked more tired than dangerous. He looked as though he might collapse on her doorstep. She was about to offer them coffee when she remembered what Miles had drummed into her: never let in strangers, never, even if they look official—especially if they look official. She stood her ground.
“A couple of days, you say?”
“That’s right. Good day.”
And with that she closed the door slowly but firmly on Jim Stevens’s hopes and prayers. Still, a couple of days. It was nothing. He could wait. What choice did he have?
“Told you so,” said Janine. “I told you he’d left, suitcase and all.”
“Clever little bugger, aren’t you?” said Stevens, wondering how the hell he could afford to pay her next month. He had little enough money as it was. “Come on,” he said, “you can buy me lunch.”
“Around here?” she cried, flabbergasted. “It’d cost a week’s rent for a bacon buttie. There’s a café in Camden, though, dead cheap. I’ll treat you to a salami sandwich.”
“Wonderful.”
“Come on, then,” she said, flitting down the steps. “It’s called Sixes and Sevens.”
3
SIXES AND SEVENS
NINETEEN
“AH YES, MR. SCOTT.”
And with that the courier ticked his name off the list. Belfast airport was near empty, which was fine by Miles; it was also, to his surprise, very modern and very clean. He didn’t know quite what he had been expecting, an old RAF-style hangar perhaps, ringed by steel. But this was not like arriving in a country at war. No soldiers paraded their weapons. The atmosphere was…well, ordinary. Perhaps he would have an uneventful few days after all. If only he could get away from Mrs. Nightingale.
“Coo-ee, Mr. Scott! Over here!”
And here she was, in the ample flesh, wading toward him as though through water, her hand waving like a distress signal.
“Coo-ee!”
She had been sitting next to him in the Trident, humming along to Handel’s Fireworks Music and crunching barley sugars with real ferocity. To her questions, he had decided that he was a widower and a civil servant. Wrong answers both: she was a widow (her wedding ring had tricked him) and a civil servant too, executive officer, Inland Revenue. He wondered now why he had not played the old card of pleading homosexuality. Perhaps he still could. What he could not do was retrieve the past excruciating hour of tales about the tax collector’s office. His head throbbed like a gashed thumb. When, oh when, was he supposed to slip away?
“Mr. Scott, have you asked him about the baggage?”
“Not yet, Mrs. Nightingale.”
“No, silly, call me Millicent.”
“Millicent.”
“Well, go ahead and ask.”
The courier, however, saved him some small embarrassment by answering the unspoken question.
“We’ll go and collect it now, shall we?”
“We’ll go and collect it now, Mr. Scott,” repeated Mrs. Nightingale, putting her arm through his. Miles wondered if the courier were in on the deception. Everything that had seemed so well planned in London now seemed tenuous and half baked. He might yet end up on a tour of Ireland. Seven days and nights with Mrs. Nightingale.
Outside, baggage collected, they boarded a minibus. The country around them was darkening, as though the wattage of the bulb were fading. On their way out of the airport, Miles noted a checkpoint where every second car was being stopped and searched. Speed bumps bumped the minibus out onto a main road. There were no signs visibly welcoming them to Northern Ireland, but pasted onto a road sign was a Union Jack poster with the legend ULSTER SAYS NO printed in large black letters. Miles closed his eyes, hoping to feign sleep. Mrs. Nightingale, a little later, placed her hand on his.
The hotel was unpromising. His room was a single (giving Mrs. Nightingale a whole range of options), the bar was dowdy and full of nonresidents, and the view from his window was of a flat rooftop where the matted carcass of a cat lay as though it had died of boredom. It might have been London. In fact, it was much quieter than London, for not even the wailing of a police siren could be heard.
There was a knock at his door. Not Mrs. Nightingale, for he doubted very much whether she would have bothered to knock.
“Come in.”
It was the courier.
“Mr. Scott, sir. You’ll be leaving us first thing in the morning, so get an early night if you can. Someone will be here with a car for you. They’ll come to the door, so make sure you’re alone, eh?” The courier gave an exaggerated wink. He was the sort of despairingly jolly fellow so beloved of holiday-package groups. He did not look like a member of the services.
“Do me a favor, will you?”
“Yes, Mr. Scott?”
“Try and keep Mrs. Nightingale out of my hair.”
The courier smiled and nodded. “Understood,” he said, and was gone.
Miles settled back on the creaking bed and flipped through a magazine which, having noticed that every traveler was carrying some sort of reading matter, he had bought at Heathrow. It was filled with book reviews. Not a word on Coleoptera, though. He supposed that he could try the bar again, but was afraid of what he might find there. He recalled Mrs. Nightingale’s clammy hand on his, and he shuddered.
There was no telephone in the bedroom, but there was a battered pay phone at the end of the hall. He would call Sheila. He slipped out of the room in his stocking feet and padded through the deserted corridor. He had only the one ten-pence piece, but that would be sufficient to reassure himself that Sheila was all right…Did he mean all right, or did he mean chaste? He wasn’t sure. He dialed his home number, but there was no reply. Well, she could be anywhere, he supposed. He dialed his own number, the one for his study telephone. Still no answer. Finally, he decided to call Billy Monmouth, just, so he assured himself, to hear a friendly voice. This time the call was answered. Miles pushed home the coin. It stayed in, but nothing connected.
“Blast this thing.” He slapped the front of the apparatus. “Damn and blast it.” The telephone went dead. He had lost his only coin.
“Mr. Scott!”
“Mrs. Nightingale.”
“Millicent, Mr. Scott. You must call me Millicent. Who were you phoning?”
“Trying to reach my son.”
“You didn’t tell me you had a son, Mr. Scott!”
“Oh?”
“Let’s go down to the bar and you can tell me all about him.”
She was already tugging at his arm.
“I don’t have any shoes on, Millicent.”
She looked down at his feet, then laughed.
“In that case,” she said, “we’ll just go along to your room and you can put your shoes on. I’ve been dying to see your room anyway. Come on.”
In the small, smoky lounge bar, the hotel guests were being treated to jokes and songs by a local, who, unshaven, his cap askew on his sweat-beaded head, seemed irrepressible. Miles noticed, however, that the man’s eyes remained as sharp as a fox’s. He was working hard and methodically to win the free drinks which were his right, and he wasn’t about to let any of the pale-faced guests escape. He swayed before them like a snake before its prey, seeming to entertain when in fact it was already digesting its victims.
Everybody laughed, of course, but it was a laughter colored by fear. They could all see that this was a potentially dangerous man, and they would gaze at the barman when they could, pleading with their eyes: make him stop.
Miles sipped his lager. Ordinarily, he would have drunk Guinness, but he did not wish to appear patronizing.
“Go on, Declan, tell them the one about…
”
Yes, Declan needed his prompters, needed the whispered reminders from the wings.
“Remember, Declan, that time when you…”
In truth, several of the party could not make out one word of Declan’s stories, and their smiles were the most enthusiastic of all. Mrs. Nightingale was one of these. Her laugh was a garish parody of fun. Well, at least she’s quiet, thought Miles, thankful for the smallest of mercies.
It was not quite dawn when, a light sleeper at the best of times, Miles heard a key turn in the lock, his door open, and saw two shadowy figures enter the room. By then, he was already out of bed, keen to appear efficient. “Packed and ready to go, gentlemen,” he whispered. The men seemed satisfied. Miles was already dressed, and had only to slip on his shoes. One of the men lifted his case, then headed out of the door, checking to left and right as he did. The other man motioned for Miles to go ahead of him, and relocked the door behind them. Within ninety seconds, they were out into the chill darkness. A Ford Granada was revving up beside the pavement. Miles was ushered into the back of the car beside the first man, who held his suitcase on his lap. The second man, getting into the passenger seat, motioned for the driver to move off. Nobody had said a word, except for Miles’s smug little whispered announcement. He regretted having said anything now: silence should have been maintained. Then, in sudden panic, he thought of another potential and horrific error: how did he know who these men were? They could be anyone at all. He had not asked, had seen no identification, had not heard their accents. But the city streets outside told him to be calm. Morning was approaching, bringing with it a waking serenity. He would wait and see, that was all. He would sit back and say nothing and trust to the fates.
After all, it was time for a definite change in his luck.
“Mr. Scott?”
“If you say so,” said Miles.
“Well, that’s what your lot told us.”
“Then I suppose it’s true.”
“I’m Chesterton.” The man thrust forward his hand, his eyes still glued to the papers he held. Miles shook the hand.
“Any relation?” he asked, smiling.
“To whom, Mr. Scott?”