You set me up.
She took it like a slap. For the first time he could recall, he saw open hurt in her face. The sight of it licked the pit of his belly.
You fucking set me up, you bitch.
No. She was shaking her head. Chris, I don’t—
And then Mike was there, and they both slid their masks back on. Passion sheathed. There was control, there were words that meant something factual, there was the long, verbal comedown. Explanations, talk and shots of rough, blended whisky in Break Point to combat the shakes. Sanity leaking into the nightmare aftermath like blood across asphalt.
I just got a call. This guy said he worked Driver Control, he knew what really happened to Chris on the M11, did I want to know too? Meet him here. Five grand in cash.
She brandished the money out of her wallet. Like proof of innocence.
When Mike went to the bathroom, she reached out across the cheap plastic-topped table and took Chris’s hand in her own. No words, only a cabled look, eye to eye. Spinning sudden vertigo, and then the flush of the toilet through cardboard-thin walls, and their hands leapt apart like matched magnetic poles.
Louise Hewitt was talking to him, but he couldn’t make it matter. He levered himself to his feet, faced her disbelieving fury.
‘I’ve had enough of this shit, Louise. It’s pretty fucking clear what happened here.’
‘Sit down Faulkner, I haven’t—‘
‘Makin couldn’t hack the NAME account. I took it from him, and it hurt. He couldn’t take me on the road, so he hired a gangwit kid to do what he didn’t dare do himself. When that didn’t work—‘
‘I told you to sit dow—‘
He shouted her down. ‘When that didn’t fucking work, Louise, he hired some more sicarios and tried this. He couldn’t beat me playing by the Shorn rules, so he broke them. And now he’s dead. Everybody in fucking black.’
‘Chris.’ Notley’s voice didn’t seem to have raised much, but there was an edge on it that cut across the air like tyre screech. ‘You don’t talk to partnership like this. You’re overwrought, but that’s no excuse. Now get out.’
Chris met the senior partner’s eyes, and saw the man who had almost shot him dead in his own office a week ago. He nodded.
‘Fair enough.’
They watched him go in silence. Mike Bryant looked round the table again. He shook his head.
‘This isn’t right, Jack. I mean, it’s a fucking mess. But Makin called it. He’s been a fuck-up since he took over the NAME, he was way too impressed with himself from day one. I would have called him out myself, but what’s the point. Anyone could have seen he’d blink first.’
Hamilton blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You don’t have to drive against someone to know you’re better than they are, Phil. That’s crude. Sometimes you just know what the outcome’d be, and that’s enough. This kill-or-be-killed shit just gets in the way.’
The look ran between the partners like current. Up on the projector screen, the surveillance film had looped. The gun battle was starting again. Jack Notley cleared his throat.
‘Mike, perhaps you could give us some time to discuss this from a partner perspective. We’ll get back to you again on Monday morning.’
Bryant nodded. ‘Sure.’
When the door closed, Louise Hewitt spun on Notley.
‘Did you hear that? You know where that comes from, don’t you. That’s chess and bullshit neojap philosophy, courtesy of Chris bloody Faulkner. The man is a fucking toxin, Jack. He’s the real loose cannon around here.’
‘It doesn’t show up like that in the numbers, Louise.’
‘It’s not about the numbers.’
‘No?’ Notley raised an eyebrow. ‘Am I missing something here? Would you care to tell me what Shorn CI is about besides the numbers?’
‘Don’t be obtuse. It’s about an ethic. A corporate culture. A way of doing things. And if we let that go, this,’ she jabbed a finger at the surveillance film. Masked figures, collapsed like unstrung marionettes. Pools and snakes of blood. ‘Is what happens. Structural breakdown, anarchy in the streets. It’s axiomatic. Does anyone sitting round this table have any inkling why Nick Makin might have acted the way he did? Why he found it necessary, even believed perhaps that it would be acceptable, to breach Shorn etiquette like this? Think hard, Jack. Think about a certain major client, beaten to death in conference a week ago. Think about the way you rewarded Faulkner for that. Does anyone see a connection?’
For a fraction of a second, Jack Notley closed his eyes. When he spoke, there was a soft warning in his voice.
‘I don’t think we need to revisit that, Louise.’
‘I think we do, Jack. You gave Chris a green light for behaviour beyond any acceptable limits. And Makin learnt the lesson, resulting in this mess. And meanwhile we’ve got Bryant, our best driver, talking like a fucking ombudsman. Any way you look at it, Jack, you’ve destabilised what we’re about. And we can’t afford that.’
‘I wonder if Martin Page would see it that way?’
Hamilton and Hewitt traded a glance. Hewitt came to the table and seated herself carefully.
‘Is that some kind of accusation?’
Notley shrugged. ‘Let’s just say that your talk of loose cannons is selective, Louise. Page was a junior partner. What you did to him ran counter at least to an unspoken understanding of how partnership works here.’
‘I resent that, Jack. Page was a filed challenge.’
‘Yes, a challenge without a vacant post to justify it. Executive brawling at partnership level. An act of pure, equity share greed.’
‘Which you underwrote, as I recall.’
‘Retrospectively, yes. Because back then, Louise, you were the loose cannon, and I admired you for it.’
Hewitt smiled thinly. ‘Well, thank you. But I think there’s a limit—‘
‘Oh, shut up. Don’t talk to me about,’ Notley gestured impatiently, ‘destabilisation, as if it’s something we have some kind of choice about. As if it’s something we can avoid. What we do here is built on instability. It’s a fucking prerequisite.’
Philip Hamilton cleared his throat. ‘I think what Louise means is—‘
‘Yes, I thought it was about time you weighed in, you little sycophant. Christ, you’re beginning to sicken me, both of you.’
Notley stood up and strode to the head of the table. He stabbed the projector control with two folded fingers, and the wall behind him was abruptly blank. His voice was tight with leashed anger.
‘Louise, I helped you climb to the top of this pile, and now you’re up here all you want to do is surround yourself with low-threat colleagues like this bag of guts, and kick away the ladder in case anybody sharper gets to scramble up and destabilise things for you. Haven’t you learnt anything on the way up? Either of you? You can’t have stability and dynamic capital growth. It’s textbook truth. Come on. What transformed the stock market back in the last century? Volatility. Competition. Deregulation. The loosening of the ties, the removal of social security systems. What’s transformed foreign investment in the last thirty years? Volatility. Competition. Small wars. It’s the same pattern. And what ensures that we stay on top of it all? Volatility. Innovation. Rule-breaking. Loose cannons. Christ, why do you think I hired Faulkner in the first place? We need that factor. We have to keep topping up with it. Otherwise, we all just turn back into the same fat-fuck, complacent, country-club scum that nearly sank us last time around. Sure, men like Faulkner are unstable. Sure, they keep you looking in your rearview all the time. But that’s what keeps us hard.’
For a couple of beats, silence held the conference room. Nobody moved. Notley stared from Hewitt to Hamilton and back, daring them to dispute. Finally, Hewitt shook her head.
‘It may make you hard, Jack,’ she said with measured insolence. ‘But to me it’s just bad business. We have structures in place to ensure volatility and competition. I don’t think we need to go courting cha
os into the bargain. I’m making a recommendation this quarterly that we let Faulkner go.’
Notley nodded, almost affably.
‘Alright Louise. If that’s the way you want it. But understand this. We’ve been courting chaos since the day we signed on for Conflict Investment. All of us. It’s what drives us, it’s what gets results. And I’m not going to watch you sell that out, just because you’ve got comfortable. You go on record with that recommendation, I will find reasons to call you out. Do you understand me? I will drive you off the road.’
This time no one broke the silence. Notley leaned his neck hard to one side and they heard it click in the stillness.
‘That will be all.’
When he had gone, Hewitt got up and went to stare out of the window. Hamilton pushed out a long breath.
‘Do you think he means it?’
‘Of course he means it,’ said Hewitt irritably.
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know.’ She came back to sit on the edge of the table. She looked down into Hamilton’s face. ‘But I’m going to need your help.’
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Out in the corridor, Mike Bryant quizzed security. They told him Chris had taken a lift to the ground floor. Seemed pretty pissed off, admitted one of the guards. Mike called a lift of his own and bombed downward in pursuit.
He spotted Chris, already halfway across the sun-lit cathedral expanse of the lobby. The holos and fountains and subsonics were all switched off, and there was nobody about. In the Sunday afternoon emptiness that was left, the space felt suddenly steely and inhuman.
Mike cleared his throat and called across it.
‘Chris. Hey, Chris. Wait up a minute.’
‘Now’s not a good time, Mike.’ Chris flung it back over his shoulder, not stopping.
‘Okay.’ Mike jogged to catch up. Residual bruising across his chest made it painful. ‘You’re right, it’s not a good time. So why don’t we go and grab a drink somewhere.’
‘I’ve got to get my car back from Hawkspur Green. And then check into a hotel.’
‘You’re not going home?’
‘What do you think?’
Mike put out a hand, breathing heavily. ‘What I think is, you need to drink some of that seaweed-iodine shit you like, and talk about this. And, luckily, I’m here to listen to you spill. Alright? Come on, I saved your life out there, Chris. At least buy me a drink. Alright?’
Chris looked at him. An unwilling smile bent his mouth. Mike saw it and grinned back.
‘Alright. I’ll get the car.’
They found a tiny antique pub called The Grapes, tacked onto the Lime Street edge of Leadenhall Market, catering mainly to the insurance crowd and powered down to a single barwoman for the Sunday trade. Like most city-based hostelries, it opened seven days a week because the simple fact that it was always open was worth something in itself. Brokers knew they could get fed and watered there whatever day they were working, and the knowledge stuck. There was no room for five-day amateurs.
Three - or four? - whiskies in, Chris had drowned his fury and was slumped on a stool, watching dust motes dance in the streams of sunlight that fell in through the windows opposite the bar. A faint, pervasive odour of alcohol seeped up off the polished wood counter. The Laphroaig sat on top of the cheap three fingers he’d taken in Break Point, the codeine tabs and no food to speak of. He felt like a mud-smeared windscreen.
‘Look,’ Mike was saying. ‘It doesn’t matter what Hewitt thinks. You took Makin down. That’s what counts. Sure, it was unorthodox, but that’s the point isn’t it? It ups your don’t-fuck-with-me stock through the roof. Builds you the killer rep.’
‘Killer rep.’ Chris stared into his glass. He coughed up a laugh and shook his head. ‘You want to know something about me, Mike?’
‘Sure.’
‘My killer rep is a fucking accident.’
He saw how the other man’s gaze narrowed. He nodded, knocked back the rest of the Laphroaig. Grunted, like letting go.
“s right. I’m a fucking fake, Mike. Hewitt has me, cross-hairs and centred. She always did. She’s not wrong. I don’t belong here.’
Mike frowned, finished his vodka and gestured to the barwoman.
‘Same again. Chris, what are you talking about? You’ve been a fuel-injected killing machine since Quain, at least.’
‘Ah! Quain.’ Chris watched as the whisky rose two fingers in his glass. ‘Quain, Quain, Quain. You want to know about Quain?’
‘I already know about Quain. Chris, you left him smeared along thirty metres of asphalt. That’s pretty open and shut. You ran him over five fucking times, man.’
‘Yeah.’
He sat, remembering. Brilliant spring sunshine, and the crunching impact of his barely legal ten-year-old Volvo Injection against the smooth racing green flanks of Quain’s Audi. The light had gleamed so hard off the bodywork, he’d had to squint.
And Quain spinning out, finally, into the barrier, jammed onto a snapped section of uprights. What Chris had been trying for all through the difficult latter stages of the duel, well past the point when he’d actually won. Quain gaping, middle-aged and fearful, through the smashed-in driver-side window as the Volvo backed up, preliminary to ramming. Gaping as Chris killed the motor and got out.
He felt his face twitch with the memory.
He seemed to make the walk between the two cars at an immense distance from himself. The turnover of his pulse throbbed in his own ears. No Nemexes back then. He walked right up to the window and showed Quain the thing in his hand. The recycled raid bottle, the soaked rag. Perfume of petrol as he waved it back and forth. Snap of the lighter and the pale flame in the sunny air. Quain started babbling.
Get out, Chris told him, surprising himself. The plan had been to burn Quain alive. The plan had been to tell Quain why, and then throw the bottle with enough force to shatter on the floor between his feet. The plan had been to watch Quain turned into a shrieking, flailing, flame-armed thing, to listen to the screams and—
Get out and run, you fuck.
And Quain did.
Crazed, maybe, with fear of what he saw in Chris’s eyes, hypnotised by the blob of pale, dancing flame. Chris stood there and watched him go, groping about inside his own head for a reason. Something was happening in there, and he couldn’t make out what it was.
He threw the bottle into the Audi anyway, as much in frustration as anything else. It shattered on the dash and the flames sprang up. The sight seemed to switch something back on inside him. He sprinted back to the Volvo, kicked it alive and floored the accelerator. Fishtail waltz as he hauled the wheel over and his gaze sharpened on the portly, lumbering figure ahead on the road. Quain must have heard the engine and known what it meant. He was making for the central reservation as the Volvo came up on his heels. It wouldn’t have made any difference, Chris realised later. He would have driven straight through it to get to Quain.
He dropped a gear and the engine screamed. Quain looked back over his shoulder just before the Volvo hit. Chris saw his eyes. Then he was gone, a suddenly, impossibly aerodynamic body thudding and tumbling up off the hood, the windscreen, the roof. A flash of dark falling in the rearview as Chris braked the Volvo to a screeching halt.
It wasn’t enough.
He never knew if Quain was dead when he reversed back over him the first time. But he saw what emerged under the front wheels as he pulled up five metres back from the body.
It still wasn’t enough.
He did it again. And again.
Five times, before he realised it would never be enough.
‘He killed my father,’ he said.
And Mike Bryant, staring at him in the sifting dustlight. A look on his face Chris had never seen before. Stalled out, lost.
‘Your father?’
Chris sighed. Loading up for the long, tedious climb of explanation. ‘Not directly. Quain never met my father directly. My father worked for a reconstru
ction consultancy called IES — International Economic Solutions, but when you said it all together it sounded like Yes. Cute, huh? My mother said he used to.’
He clamped his mouth. Shook his head. Cleared his throat.
‘Uh, they modelled admin systems, infrastructure, things like that. They were into central Africa, the Middle East. Pretty small, but hungry and hard on the roads, as far as that went back then.’
Mike nodded. ‘Enough to just get there first, right?’
‘That’s what they say.’ Chris stared at a ray of dusty light falling across the bar top. A faint scarring of overlaid glass rings showed up in the wooden glow. ‘2018, Edward Quain was a hotshot young gun in Hammett McColl Emerging Markets. Couldn’t have been older than his early twenties. And he pulled off this cutting-edge piece of incursion for Hammett McColl in Ethiopia. Got backing for a major policy shift. Nothing dramatic by CI standards, this is more than thirty years ago, remember. But it was enough to bring down the government. A lot of high-ranking officials lost their jobs. And Quain’s new team publicly reneged on a stack of external contracts. Happened overnight, literally. IES couldn’t take the damage. They went under, bankrupted along with a dozen or so others, and about forty per cent of the low-end commercial sector in Ethiopia at the time. They say it precipitated the civil war.’
‘Ah yeah, I remember this.’ Mike snapped his fingers. ‘The Ayele Protocol, right? Read about it in Reed and Mason.’
‘Right. Quain walked away with a huge commission, Hammett McColl repositioned for regional dominance in the Red Sea zone, and my father woke up with a walletful of dead plastic he didn’t know about. He got shot the same day, arguing with a supermarket security guard. His card wouldn’t scan at checkout, they wouldn’t take him seriously and it got.’ Chris watched his knuckles whiten around the whisky glass with absent fascination, as if they belonged to someone else. ‘Out of hand. My mother says, said, if he’d been dressed better that day, it would never have happened. Hated suits apparently, my old man. Dressed scruffy as he could, outside the office. Maybe they thought he’d stolen the card or something. They tried to throw him out, it got rough. Blam. Some fat over-the-hill fuck with a dick extension blew his fucking head off’
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