Why We Die

by Mick Herron

  ‘He met Arkle in a Soho club.’

  Chains and chokers, Zoë thought. Women leashed or leashing.

  But Win said, ‘Not Arkle’s usual stamping ground. He hasn’t much use for women, and I don’t think he drinks.’

  ‘Obvious place to hang out, then.’

  ‘There was a reason he was there, but I don’t remember. Oz – my boss says he knew straight off he’d found talent.’

  ‘But you think he bit off more than he can chew?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s him doing the chewing. Arkle’s got a look to him, like everybody else is a victim. They just don’t know it yet.’

  ‘Your boss is hardly an innocent though, is he?’

  ‘We’re not going there.’

  And Zoë supposed she knew what Win meant by this; knew, anyway, not to go poking it with a stick. Love took different forms, and one of them obviously dressed in black leather, and looked like a fairground attraction.

  ‘What about the other pair?’

  ‘Trent’s the runt of the litter. Drinks. Doesn’t look much, but probably vicious when cornered.’

  ‘I know the type.’

  ‘And Baxter’s the brains. Part West Indian by the look, and handsome with it.’ She glanced away from Zoë, momentarily distracted.

  ‘But looks aren’t everything.’

  ‘I’ve never spoken to him. Watched him on their cabin landing once, making a phone call. What’s that stuff, supposed to be really hard? They make statues from it.’

  ‘Obsidian?’ Zoë guessed.

  ‘Might be. Anyway, that’s him. Hard as . . . whatever. I think he could be cruel if he wanted.’

  ‘His gang robs jewellery stores. They fire crossbows at passers-by,’ Zoë reminded her. ‘I doubt the RSPCA’s planning on canonizing him any time soon.’

  ‘I just meant he’s not somebody I’d want to know better.’ Win picked a paper napkin from the table and carefully began shredding it. ‘So what do you do next?’

  ‘Me? I pass this on to my client. All he needs are the names.’

  ‘And he tells my boss, who realizes the Dunstans are blown. So he distances himself from them.’

  ‘That’s the idea.’

  ‘He – Price, he’s not going to like it when your client suggests he retrieve the gear. He can hardly tell him he’s already got it.’

  ‘Do I care? They’re all crooks, Win, Sweeney included. On the scale of things, he’s paddling down the shallow end, but the stuff the Dunstans took from him was stolen in the first place. And the only reason your boss knew Sweeney had it was, he’s a fence himself. This way, Price may lose a little capital, but he gets to understand the Dunstans are bad news. If he cuts them loose, he’s ahead of the game.’

  ‘He’ll probably tell Sweeney it’s not his problem.’

  ‘Then Sweeney learns a hard lesson. But I still get paid.’

  ‘And what about the Dunstans?’

  ‘What about them?’ Zoë agreed.

  ‘You think, if my boss ditches them, they’ll head back to the straight and narrow? Back into the cement business?’

  ‘Stories I’ve heard, the cement business is anything but.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m asking.’

  ‘I know.’ Zoë looked around the café. They were the only customers, and the staff were getting edgy: sweeping corners, stacking plates. The evening light had a silvery shade. She looked back at Win. ‘Maybe I’ll have a word with whoever’s investigating the Oxford end. Not that I’m Miss Popularity there.’

  Win didn’t nod; didn’t say anything.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You don’t seem the type to let them get away with it, that’s all.’

  ‘How would you know what type I am?’

  ‘That thing with the scissors? That was pretty cool.’

  ‘Are you trying to play me, Win?’

  Win shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter to me. And all you want is to get paid, right?’

  ‘If I’m looking for the moral high ground . . .’

  ‘You’ll what?’

  I won’t look for the space occupied by a thieving fence’s gopher, Zoë didn’t say. She fished in her pocket for a note to pay the bill. ‘If you’re that concerned, there’s a payphone in the corner. Maybe you could call the cops yourself.’ She’d have thrown Win a coin, if that hadn’t been a Bob Poland trick.

  Win laughed: a high-pitched, strangely airless laugh. It was like listening to Minnie Mouse choke on a fishbone. ‘You think that’s what I’m after? You have your slow moments, Zoë.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Tell me, Win, does your boss get to hear about this? Or does it stay between us girls?’

  ‘What does?’

  ‘This idea you’ve got to rip the Dunstans off.’

  A sudden gust of wind rattled the window. Win smiled a long slow smile.

  Zoë crossed the square at the foot of the hill; double-checked the map in her head, and headed off into narrower backstreets. Most towns were the same at heart: rivers and brick; war memorials, clocktowers. She almost felt at home here, the way she almost did where she lived, and might have described this next street before turning into it: the row of narrow terraced houses with tiny front yards leading down to basements; the high wall on the opposite side with wooden gates set into it: a wall that hinted at industrial machinery behind. The gates didn’t open often. This wasn’t intuition so much as the rust on the padlock binding them shut. There was a small door in the left-hand gate. And parked on the kerb opposite was a van she recognized, though it took a moment to work out why – a shaven-headed man with a smile tight as a shark’s. It had passed her as she walked through town. She’d seen the driver’s teeth.

  Looking at it more closely, she could make out painted-over writing on the side. Dunstan & Sons.

  So: that would be Arkle.

  From here, she could see the cabin in the sky; a tin box perched on scaffolding, its windows blank squares. Zoë guessed they were meshed over, easier to see out of than into, and if Arkle were up there he might be wondering what she was staring at. She crossed into the lee of the wall, and walked the length of the road and back. There was nobody around, though she could hear voices inside the yard. The sign above the gate also read Dunstan & Sons, written as imitation scrollwork, as if in invitation to posterity. Zoë stopped and crouched where the gate hinged to the wall; looked through the gap into the yard, where a man in white jeans and black jacket stood, caught in the act of raising an arm as if to fend off a projectile. When she shifted focus she saw Arkle was there too, and even as she watched he fired the crossbow he held.

  iv

  What he liked was the sound of the bolt hitting home. Wood was good. Glass, too: a bolt could punch through glass with a noise like somebody opening a coke can. Metal was noisier, but had less stopping power than you’d think. Arkle had once spent an afternoon taking potshots at an abandoned car, and found few points outside the engine block the bolt couldn’t carry straight through. Flesh was a whole other story. It didn’t make a noise that compared to any other kind. On the other hand, it didn’t offer much resistance either.

  He fired and the bolt whipped past Whitby, and buried itself in the wooden upright behind him. The margin was a couple of inches, which it seemed Whitby thought way too narrow because he went white, and looked ready to puke.

  ‘I hardly ever miss what I’m aiming at,’ Arkle said.

  Whitby didn’t say anything.

  ‘Course, I sometimes hit other things too. If they’re in the way.’

  Back at Kay’s dad’s, Arkle thought he’d found a prowler: someone nobody was going to get upset about when Arkle bounced him round the garden. But then the guy said he’d come looking for Katrina, and Arkle had backpedalled, let go of him; had even dusted him down, though he’d barely dusted him up yet. ‘Katrina?’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  ‘You a friend of hers?’

  ‘We met just once . . .’

  Not often enough to know tha
t everyone called her Kay.

  Arkle glanced through the window. Kay’s father was still staring into nowhere. He was riding his own mental iceberg these days, ninety per cent of it lost from view. ‘She doesn’t live here. Didn’t you know that?’

  ‘I was passing through town. I looked her up in the phone book.’

  ‘You got her father.’

  ‘Are you . . .’

  ‘I’m her brother-in-law.’ Actually, that sounded kind of strange. He said it again: ‘I’m her brother-in-law. This’s her old man’s place.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to trespass.’

  He looked relieved, for some reason, that Arkle was the brother-in-law.

  ‘Passing through on your way where?’

  ‘Oh, uh . . . St Ives.’

  ‘From?’

  ‘Oxford.’

  Arkle stared hard, waiting for him to embellish that, or perhaps change his mind.

  ‘We met the other week. She was staying at a hotel? With her husband?’

  Statements turning into questions, as if he could feel the ground giving way beneath his feet. Oxford was beyond coincidence, but whoever this guy was, he wasn’t copper.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  Which was when Whitby had told Arkle his name was Tim Whitby, looking relieved saying it, as if the social formula offered protection. Maybe, in Oxford, it was only people who didn’t know your name you had to worry about.

  ‘You drove here?’

  ‘I’m parked down the hill.’

  Arkle said, ‘The old man’s a fruitcake. Should be living in a tree.’ He said, ‘I’ll give you a lift back. Drop round Kay’s on the way, see if she’s in.’

  ‘Kay?’

  He smiled. ‘Katrina.’

  Whitby burbled in the car, though he might have been acting; might have been, if not copper, some kind of investigator: private or insurance. But Arkle didn’t think so. He was too nervy, too retail – like someone who approached you in shops, asking if you needed help. Besides, he was hardly under cover: he’d already told Arkle about meeting Kay in the Oxford hotel . . . Which had been Baxter’s idea, of course. Whoever booked into an upscale hotel to case a jeweller’s?

  ‘That’s what makes it smart,’ Bax had said. ‘Kay’ll come too. Cover.’

  Which was when Arkle asked him straight out: How much did Kay know?

  ‘I told you. Nothing.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you believe me?’

  Did he believe him? Didn’t he believe him? How come those two questions meant the same thing? Arkle didn’t know whether he trusted Baxter any more, but he knew he didn’t trust Kay, because she was the reason he didn’t know whether he trusted Baxter any more.

  Whitby was still burbling: ‘We got talking. She mentioned she lived here and like I said . . . I was passing through.’ It sounded like he was on a looped tape, a tape Arkle broke by braking. ‘. . . Why are we stopping here?’

  ‘She didn’t tell you about the family business?’

  ‘We didn’t get on to that.’

  Arkle was already on the pavement. Whitby had no choice but to follow. They went through a door set into the wooden gate, Arkle holding it open like Whitby was a treasured guest instead of someone he’d found snooping round old man Blake’s. ‘Sand and gravel,’ he said, pointing. ‘Not much gets built without one or the other.’

  ‘It all looks . . .’

  ‘Abandoned?’

  Whitby gave an embarrassed shrug. ‘A bit.’

  ‘Yeah, well. He was a good businessman, the old man, but he had this weak spot.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘He died. Whole place went straight to fuck after that.

  ’ Whitby stared at him a couple of seconds. ‘Are we near the car park? I’ve not got a great sense of direction.’

  ‘You don’t want to see Kay?’

  ‘I’d better be going.’

  ‘Long way back to Oxford, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Except I thought you were going to St Ives.’

  ‘. . . I’m on my way back.’

  ‘That’s not what you said.’

  ‘I think it is.’

  Arkle said, ‘Yeah, maybe, who cares? What did you and Kay talk about?’

  ‘This and that . . . I don’t remember.’

  Arkle said, ‘You drive two hundred miles and you don’t remember why? One of us must be a fucking idiot, and know what? You think it’s me.’

  ‘. . . You’re not her brother-in-law, are you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look, if you’re her husband . . . We just talked, okay? That evening, in the bar? Talk, that’s all we did. And I was passing, so I thought I’d say hello . . .’

  Arkle stared at him, then started to laugh. ‘You think I’m Bax?’

  ‘. . . I just want to go find my car. That’s all.’

  But Arkle was on a roll: this guy thought he was Bax? That hadn’t happened before. ‘Watch,’ he told him. ‘You think Bax could do this?’ He crossed to the metal staircase, Whitby’s eyes on him every step. It was like snakes and rabbits. There was always somebody in control, somebody who was lunch. Arkle plucked the crossbow from behind the bottom step: it was already prepped and loaded. Bax was smooth, everybody said so, but no way Bax was in this league. When Arkle released the bolt it whipped past Whitby’s head with inches to spare, and buried itself in the wooden upright of the nearest sand container. Whitby looked ready to puke.

  ‘I hardly ever miss what I’m aiming at,’ Arkle said.

  Whitby said nothing.

  ‘Course, I sometimes hit other things too. If they’re in the way.’

  ‘You’ve made your point.’

  ‘What point’s that?’

  ‘Whatever you want. Can I go now?’

  ‘Just when we’re starting to have fun?’ Arkle slotted another bolt, and began to wind it. ‘You had any more thoughts about that conversation yet? The one you had with my sister-in-law?

  ‘I’ve already told you –’

  ‘Because I’m having trouble believing you came all this way just to see how she is.’

  Whitby said, ‘Okay, that’s it. I’m going through that door. Don’t try to stop me.’

  ‘Yeah, right. And how fast do you think you’ll get there?’ Arkle asked. ‘This fast?’

  The bolt hit the gate at Whitby-head height, and if it didn’t go right through, there wasn’t much of it left showing.

  Arkle said, ‘I want you to imagine for a moment what that must have felt like for the gate.’

  Whitby looked like he was going to speak, but didn’t. His fists, which had clenched, had loosened again; his mouth was open, but not in a smile. Perhaps his teeth would drop out. And this, Arkle realized – fitting another bolt – this was better than back in Oxford; those precious seconds when he’d known he was about to fire at the uniformed idiot. Because this target knew it was happening . . .

  And whatever had brought Whitby here, whatever he had going with Kay, what mattered more was that nobody knew where he was now. This information worked its way through Arkle, starting at his fingers and branching out into the usual parts. The big question mark over the money would be addressed in due course, and whatever Kay and this guy had been planning, well, Arkle would get round to that. But there was fun to be had first.

  Whitby said, ‘Let’s just stop this now, right? Before it goes any further.’

  st – st – stop: your genuine fear-stammer.

  ‘You reckon? What kind of brother would I be, I didn’t get upset about you hanging round some hotel with his wife? In Oxford, right? She was in Oxford?’

  ‘So was he.’

  ‘You saw him?’

  ‘I – no, but he was there, she said he was there –’

  ‘Oh, right. That’s what I’m supposed to believe, like I’m some fucking idiot or something. Bax takes his wife off for a weekend, then leaves her hanging round the hotel Satur
day evening. That sound remotely plausible to you?’

  ‘I –’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I never said what evening it was.’

  Arkle was about to reply, but wasn’t sure what to say, and if there was one thing Arkle didn’t like, it was being made stupid. So he decided to loose another bolt instead, glance one off Whitby’s shoe – well, glance: it would probably sting a bit. And he could see in Whitby’s eyes that Whitby knew it was coming; knew it as soon as Arkle raised the bow, and Arkle in turn knew Whitby was measuring the distance to the exit – call it five yards. He thought he could get five yards before Arkle shot his bolt? Let alone the extra seconds for fiddling with the lock, pulling the door open? There was positive thinking, then there was plain religion. But what option did Whitby have? I removed his options, Arkle thought. The pleasure he’d felt earlier crawled through him again, as something the size of a tennis ball sailed over the gate, over his head, and bounced ten yards distant, and he span just like that – like he was automatic; pivotal – and hit it on the bounce. The bolt carried it maybe ten yards, and buried it in a drift of sand.

  He said, ‘Fuck! Did you see that?’ but when he turned Whitby was gone, and the door was hanging open.

  Arkle walked over, but the street was empty.

  After a moment, he closed the door and crossed to where whatever it was had landed after he’d hit it on a reaction shot. He’d feel that one in his muscles forever – one perfect fluid moment in which target and bolt were connected; like there’d been an inevitable conjunction waiting to occur, which couldn’t have happened through anyone but Arkle. This was Olympic standard. Olympic, hell. Miracle standard. They should hand out the Nobel for a shot like that.

  Precisely what he’d hit, he didn’t know yet.

  The end of the bolt protruded from the sand an inch or two, and he pulled it clear like a sword from a stone. Brushed wet sand from the lump at the end, only now beginning to wonder who’d thrown it over the gate in the first place . . .

  A fucking apple.

  For no reason he could positively identify, the Lone Ranger tune started skipping through his head.