The Smallest Of Things

by Ian Whates

  He had no idea what to do, but there was no point in letting Claire see that, so he did his best to sound confident, competent. “Where have you been since texting me?”

  She shrugged. “Nowhere, really. I thought about going home but I’ve been too scared to—what if they were lying in wait for me there? And I’m not due in at the shop today, so I’ve just been trying to keep out of sight, you know?”

  “Good.”

  He might not have formulated a strategy as yet, but there were all sorts of things back at his home that might prove useful. At least that gave them a purpose in the short term, and who knew? Inspiration might even strike en route.

  “Come on, you can stay at my place tonight.”

  Confirmation that he wasn’t about to abandon her. Claire’s relief was obvious. “Thank you.” She gave his hand another squeeze. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  Chris would love to claim that what happened next was down to a professional level of alertness or some uncanny sixth sense. The truth, however, is that he happened to be looking in the right direction at the right time; luck, in other words.

  As they left Gino’s, he glanced to the right and saw a man speaking into a mobile phone. The man was a short distance away and on the opposite side of the road, but his gaze followed them. He looked away again quickly but his eyes had lingered for a fraction too long. Chris felt certain the man had been watching Gino’s, waiting for them to emerge. He did have a hat on right enough, though not a fedora, a bobble hat by the look of it—perhaps they were learning—but he also wore a dark brown overcoat, buttoned up to the top.

  Chris didn’t say anything to Claire, not wanting to alarm her more than she already was, but he quickened his pace as they walked in the opposite direction towards Shaftesbury Avenue. She kept up without comment, presumably interpreting his haste as a simple desire to get on with things.

  All the while Chris was thinking furiously and resisting the temptation to look round. Perhaps Claire’s nervousness was catching. He didn’t need to glance back; he could feel the brown coat behind them and envisaged a net of similar figures closing in from all sides. The man’s eyes hadn’t seemed odd to him in that brief moment of contact, but lenses could easily account for that. After all, if they had caught on about the hats, why not the eyes as well?

  Chris was running through possibilities in his head: Who did he know in the area that he could trust? Who owed him a favour?

  Rashid, of course! Rashid worked in a vegetarian restaurant in Old Compton Street—a falafel bar, where they made the chickpea-based dish to order. At least he used to. Chris hadn’t seen him in a while, and people tended to move around in the catering industry.

  They entered Old Compton Street. Chris took hold of Claire’s arm and steered her to the right. He could see the falafel bar’s tacky bright green and red sign on the opposite side of the road, sandwiched between a noodle bar and an electronics shop. He just prayed that Rashid was still there.

  “Where are we going?” Claire asked at the change of direction.

  “To see an old friend,” he said. “It won’t take long.”

  He felt her stiffen. “You’ve seen something, haven’t you?”

  “Perhaps, but don’t stop walking, and whatever you do, don’t look back.”

  Potentially fatal advice. Human nature makes us want to react to a thought that has just been put into our head like that, whatever the instruction that comes with it. To Claire’s credit, she succeeded in resisting the temptation. She didn’t relax, but she managed to continue staring resolutely forward as they crossed the road.

  “It may be nothing,” he told her, keeping his voice calm, “but there’s no point in taking any chances.”

  The bar principally catered for the takeaway trade—a sort of kebab shop for vegetarians—but there were a few tables to the right of the doorway where customers could sit and eat their pittas stuffed with falafel and assorted salads without fear of dropping the contents all over the pavement. Most of the seats were occupied, and to Chris’s relief, Rashid stood behind the counter. He was busy serving a couple, expertly sliding slices of fried aubergine into pitta pockets presumably already loaded with falafel, but he finished swiftly and was directing the pair to the salad bar as they approached.

  “Chris! Good to see you, my friend, and with such a pretty lady! What can I get you both—two specials, my treat?”

  “That’s very kind, Rashid, and I’d love to take you up on it, but another time. Sorry, we can’t stop right now. Tell me, does this place have a back exit?”

  Rashid’s attitude changed instantly. Chris had helped him out of a tight spot a few months back, and as a result Rashid had some inkling of the world he operated in, if not full understanding. He accepted the situation without missing a beat, evidently recognising the urgency.

  His welcoming smile vanished. “Of course. Come with me.”

  Rashid stepped out from behind the counter and led the way to the back of the shop, past the couple choosing their salads, past the loos, to a door marked ‘Private’. This he pushed open, ushering Claire and Chris into what was clearly a storeroom. Boxes and cartons were stacked haphazardly and an old white fridge hummed merrily in one corner. Next to the fridge stood a small table, with papers strewn across it and a single chair pushed beneath. Some of the papers were wedged under a flexi-necked desk lamp in a half-hearted effort to keep them in place.

  The room was a small one, and Rashid wasted no time in striding across to a plain door on the far side, which he unlocked and opened, to reveal a narrow alleyway with a solid brick wall facing. There were bins and black bags and casually piled rubbish. Otherwise the alley was empty.

  “If you turn left it will bring you out into Dean Street, right for Wardour Street,” Rashid said.

  “Thank you, Rashid.” Chris didn’t add I owe you—he reckoned the scales were still tilted in his favour on that score.

  “No worries. Good luck, whatever is going on.”

  “Which way?” Claire asked as the door closed and Rashid vanished back to his customers.

  “Right,” Chris said without hesitation. That would put distance between them and the road they’d been on before.

  Later, Chris could only think that some sort of perception-distorting device was employed—hiding in plain sight, so to speak. If not that, he had no idea how it was done, but suddenly a man appeared in front of them. Chris could have sworn they were the only two in the alley, but there he was, brown coat and all. And he was holding what had to be a gun, pointed straight at them.

  Claire’s text messages had been light on details, so he hadn’t come to London anticipating anything specific. As a result, he hadn’t thought to bring a weapon. Oh, he was carrying a few useful gadgets in his pockets—he always did—but nothing that was likely to be of any help now. Not that it mattered. Even if he had been armed there probably wouldn’t have been enough time.

  It wasn’t as if he calmly considered the options and decided on the most appropriate response or anything, he simply saw a silver bulge with barrel-like tube in Brown Coat’s hand and reacted, flinging himself at the stranger. Stupid, in retrospect; if it was a gun and Brown Coat had fired, Chris would most likely have died there and then. But he didn’t fire, perhaps taken as much by surprise as Chris himself.

  He connected shoulder first, and his opponent felt solid, reassuringly human despite the unhealthy pallor he’d glimpsed and the bobble hat. What was it with these people and hats? What were they hiding under there? Still keenly aware that the other man was holding a gun, Chris started hitting him as soon as his shoulder connected, but there was little room to take a proper swing, and he knew that none of his punches were remotely effective.

  They stumbled and began to fall towards the ground. The brown coat started the fall beneath him, but somehow, as they grappled and twisted, they landed more or less side by side, and the brown coat quickly rolled so that he was the one on
top, despite Chris’s squirming and thrashing.

  For all his bravado it was pretty obvious that the other man was a hell of a lot better at this sort of thing than he was.

  Chris became dimly conscious of a dark shape rearing above Brown Coat and something hurtling through the air to connect with the side of his head. There was a sickening thud—a little like a bat striking a cricket ball but deeper, as if the sound had been slowed down by a special effects department. Brown Coat collapsed, sliding off to slump against the wall. Chris looked up to see Claire standing over him, glowering.

  “That was for Bartosz, you bastard!” she said, before tossing aside the length of wood she’d just clubbed him with. It looked like a piece of old doorframe or something.

  As Chris clambered gingerly to his feet Claire turned to him and said, “Now will you believe me?” which struck him as a little harsh. He’d never doubted her for a second.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “COME ON!”

  Chris couldn’t blame Claire in the slightest for her impatience; he himself wasn’t immune to a sense of urgency, not by a long shot, and he had no intention of hanging around any longer than necessary. It was difficult not to succumb to the mounting pressure—the prickly feeling that they were about to be discovered, that enemies were zeroing in on their location with each passing second, ready to pounce…So he worked quickly. But Chris refused to panic. He had always been a great believer in the old adage that knowledge is power. To date, he knew bugger all about those hunting Claire beyond their fetish for brown coats and hats, and here was one of the bastards unconscious at his feet and wholly at his mercy. It was too good an opportunity to pass up.

  “Be with you in a moment,” he muttered.

  Fishing out a small case from one of his coat’s many pockets, he squatted beside the sprawled figure. The brown coat was still out for the count from when Claire had hit him with her makeshift club and it seemed a good idea to keep him that way. The slim metallic holder was one item Chris always carried with him: a compact medikit produced in a technically advanced London—presented to him as part-payment for services rendered. Working quickly, he opened the case and peeled out a sedative patch, which he slapped onto the brown coat’s throat, making sure it covered the carotid artery. Physiology can vary alarmingly among humans from different realities, but the drugs loaded into the patch were supposed to be universal, and he’d never yet been given cause to doubt the claim. They would permeate the skin rapidly and be delivered directly to the brain.

  Taking the man’s limp hand, he then pulled back the coat sleeve and applied another patch to the prominent veins on his exposed wrist. Almost immediately the top of the small plaster-like circle started to expand, filling with blood and swelling into a small transparent bag.

  The process only took a handful of seconds, but given the heightened sense of anxiety, those seconds seemed interminable.

  “Chris…!”

  “I know, I know; I’m nearly done.” He carefully peeled the patch away, placing it in the cushioned housing of the medikit, which was specifically designed to keep blood at optimum temperature. The brown coat might experience a little irritation on his wrist when he came round, but it should be no more than a mild itch—nothing that was likely to alert him to what had happened. Chris then reclaimed the sedative patch from the man’s throat. A strong enough dose should already have entered his bloodstream to keep him under for a good hour or so, by which time they would be long gone. On impulse, Chris pulled off the incongruous bobble hat, curious to see what it was hiding. The result was something of a let-down; beneath lay close-cropped brown hair that looked disappointingly normal. So, why the need to cover up? Simple insulation, or some other physiological requirement he couldn’t fathom?

  A large lump had begun to rise where Claire had hit him, and it was bleeding a little, but the man would live.

  “One more thing and we then can go,” Chris assured Claire, who was pacing beside him like a caged tiger.

  Taking out his phone, he snapped a few images of both the man and his strange silver gun. Then, and not without reservation, he snatched the weapon up, relieved that it proved compact enough to slip into a coat pocket.

  “At last,” Claire said as Chris straightened.

  Given the direction they’d taken on leaving Gino’s, their logical destination would have been Leicester Square tube station or maybe Piccadilly, so for safety’s sake they doubled back, heading towards Tottenham Court Road. This might have been an unnecessary precaution, but Chris remembered the call their unconscious friend had made when he first spotted him outside the coffee bar.

  Paranoia or not, they didn’t encounter any more brown coats on the trip home. Maybe there weren’t any to encounter, or maybe the precaution simply worked.

  They stopped en route to buy a box from a stationer’s; nothing fancy, just a cardboard box for storing things in, which was precisely what Chris wanted it for. Claire hovered anxiously by the door, keeping an eye out as he paid.

  He was itching to examine Brown Coat’s gun, which was unlike anything he’d seen before: silver but with a matt finish rather than gleaming chrome; and Claire’s description of Bartosz simply vanishing made him wonder what the hell these things did. During the brief time he’d held it the gun had felt odd in the hand; surprisingly flimsy and lightweight, the shape intuitively wrong: bulbous, with a barrel that was snub-nosed and too wide. More like a kid’s toy from the innocent days of his own childhood than a real gun.

  However, despite this curiosity he was also wary. Whoever these brown coats might be, they were clearly technologically sophisticated. There seemed every chance that they had the means to track the gun and, by extension, anyone carrying it. So he decided to err on the side of caution, stashing the weapon for now to see if anyone came along to claim it.

  He had an arrangement with a hostel close to King’s Cross station, renting a luggage locker there—perfect for stowing small items. It wasn’t cheap, but had proved invaluable on more than one occasion.

  The place was imposing from the outside—a charcoal-grey façade framed in lime green with no windows whatsoever at street level. It looked efficient, neat, and modern, which offered a fair reflection of what waited beyond the front door. Chris had seen the rooms once—multiple-occupancy with bunk beds stacked three-high, storing people as effectively as the lockers on the ground floor stored guests’ luggage.

  The brown coat’s gun went into the just-purchased box, the box into the locker. Like the bunks, the lockers were stacked three high, with the uppermost one at around head height and each column painted in bold primary colours—alternating royal blue, bright red, and vivid green—presumably in an effort to distract folk from the utilitarian nature of their surroundings. His was a blue one.

  Claire kept watch while he pulled a chair across and climbed up to stick two minicams—each about the size of a nail head—into the corners formed by ceiling and walls. The first looked directly at the locker itself, the other he positioned to cover the door. If anyone came to reclaim the gun, he wanted to know about it.

  On the way out they passed a disinterested kid who sat slouched behind the reception desk and two teens with rucksacks and Eastern European accents, who were chatting to him about a room. No one spared them a second glance.

  Chris didn’t have the expertise to infer anything from the blood sample he’d taken from the brown coat, but he knew a man who did.

  Paul picked up on the second ring. “Chris?”

  “Hi Paul, how are you?”

  “Fine, thanks. What are you after?”

  “A favour, funnily enough.”

  “Naturally—why else would you be ringing me?”

  “Sorry, but this one is really important.”

  “Aren’t they always?” There followed a brief pause during which Chris had time to worry that Paul might refuse him, but at length he heard a sigh, and then, “Okay, bring it round. I should be home in about half an hour.”

>   In many ways that brief conversation summed up Chris’s life: calling in one favour in order to accrue another. Paul was a haematologist, who headed up a private forensics concern which had been doing rather well for itself since the government chose to shut down the Forensic Science Service and farm out the work they’d previously undertaken.

  Claire had perked up considerably and was now almost unrecognisable as the despondent woman Chris had met such a short time before at Gino’s, perhaps drawing strength from the thought that she was actually doing something, or maybe it was the simple fact that she wasn’t alone in this anymore. She still looked tired, and Chris worried that she might lose patience on hearing that they were taking a detour before going home. In the event she made no complaint. In fact, when he told her who they were meeting, she grinned and said, “Is there anyone you don’t know?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “I’m beginning to feel like a proper spy now.”

  Chris knew that feeling, the difference being that he didn’t have any inclination to smile about it.

  The first thing he noticed when they stepped out into the open was that it seemed colder here in North London suburbia. Paul lived in a mid-terraced house that was doubtless worth a fortune these days. Night had fallen while they were on the tube, enabling them to make the brief walk from the station to the haematologist’s home wrapped in the anonymity of darkness. They were just regular people, two among the many commuters dispersing to the suburbs after a hard day’s work.

  They arrived within the half-hour Paul had stipulated, as did he. No one pretended this was a social call—they weren’t offered drinks or invited to sit down, and Chris made no attempt to introduce Claire. They stayed just long enough to deliver the blood sample and for Chris to impress upon Paul once again how urgent this was. He was left in no doubt that Paul’s patience with him was wearing thin and sensed that this might be the last time he was able to call upon the haematologist’s skills. A shame, but these things happened.