by Mick Herron
‘. . . You okay yet?’
They were outside. She had no memory of the last minute.
‘Sarah?’
Deep breath. ‘Jack. Thank you. Yes, I’m okay now.’
Deep breath. ‘Jack. Thank you. Yes, I’m And she was – she more or less was.
They were on the wide apron of pavement on the cinema’s doorstep. Gerard, Harper and Wright were still inside. Part of her curdled with embarrassment at the thought that she hadn’t been able to hack it – already, she was starting to find her own fears ridiculous – but they’d been real at the time, and would be again, if she set foot in that place once more. A warmth at her elbow suggested that Jack’s hand had guided her out. She shut her eyes; made herself as aware as she could be of her body. And there was nothing there. She was nearly positive about this. No eight-legged passengers had smuggled themselves out in her folds or crevices – or if they had, they were keeping very still – NO! No. There was nothing there. She was spider-free, and staying that way. She opened her eyes and Jack quickly looked away, as if he’d just seen someone he knew crossing the bridge over the railway line.
‘Really,’ she said. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Not much of a place for a post-prandial wander.’
‘I’m not big on spiders.’
Gerard, she thought, would have jumped on that; twisted it round to place big and spiders next to each other.
‘Who is?’ He produced a packet of cigarettes. ‘Want one of these?’
She was tempted, but shook her head.
He said, ‘I shouldn’t either, you know? But once in a blue moon, what harm can it do?’
A small man-made cloud drifted down the road.
She looked behind her, at the door into the dark they’d just come through, and said, ‘A research facility?’
He said, ‘You’re seeing the cinema. The auditorium, the tapered floor. The rows of seats.’
‘I’m seeing the spiders.’
‘We’ll come to an arrangement with the spiders. What Gerard’s looking at, what Brian’s showing him, is square footage. Lots of space in there.’
‘The right kind of space?’
‘I’m not an expert. I think Brian’s got a few other places.’
Sarah nodded absently. A Metro was pulling up at the station. She said, ‘Your Mr Wright’s a strange one.’
‘Because he’s a scientist?’
‘Because he’s a strange one.’
‘He’s very focused.’
‘That’s one way of putting it.’
Jack smiled and blew out smoke. ‘He’s worked for years on his research. I think he tends to see things in terms of, will this help the project or not?’
‘Things?’
‘Okay. People.’
The Metro pulled away.
‘And he doesn’t go anywhere without you holding his hand?’
‘I’m not his keeper. But if Inchon’s going to invest in Wright’s research, then we’ll be partners, more or less. I’m just keeping an eye on what develops.’
‘But he’s only one plum in your pie.’
‘Ha! If you want to put it like that.’
Da-da da-dah da-da da-dah-dah He blinked.
‘My phone. Excuse me.’
Sarah took a step away from him to answer it, in line with the developing etiquette. It was Vicky, Zoë’s web-wizard – web: she shuddered. ‘Vicky. Hi.’
‘I got into her e-mails.’
‘Ah.’
‘You want to start with the earliest?’
She glanced at Jack. ‘Now’s not a great moment. Can I call you back?’
‘I suppose.’
‘It won’t be long. Thanks.’
Jack said, ‘Nice ringtone. The Jacksons?’
‘“I want you back”.’
‘Innocent days.’
For the world, or just for Michael, she wondered. ‘Motown fan?’
‘Used to be. Don’t listen to music much any more.’
Her hand had tightened round her mobile phone, and she deliberately relaxed it, so the whitening of her knuckles didn’t betray her tension.
Harper, Gerard and John M. Wright emerged from the cinema, and stood blinking for a moment in the cold air.
Gerard said, ‘Makes it feel like you’ve got them in your hair, doesn’t it? Place like that.’
Sarah said, ‘Those of us who’ve got hair, sure.’
Everyone laughed, and she pretended to join in. But she was thinking Motown fan.
Alan Talmadge was a Motown fan.
7
They took the Metro back into the city centre, and went their separate ways at Monument. Al-an Tal-madge had been the rattling of the rails all the way. Al-an Tal-madge Al-an Tal-madge. It rang so clearly through the carriage, Sarah was surprised no one remarked on it; she kept waiting for Jack Gannon’s reaction – except he couldn’t be Talmadge, could he? Talmadge had come from nowhere, and was no one. Zoë had said so: trying to get a handle on Talmadge had been like making a fist around smoke. He’d simply passed through various women’s lives, taking those lives with him when he left. If he’d come from anywhere real, Zoë would have tracked him down – if Talmadge hadn’t been smoke, she’d have had him. And Gannon wasn’t smoke. He had family. Roots. And lots of people liked Motown.
This was the point, and this calmed her down. Lots of people liked Motown. Once you removed that from the equation, there was nothing to link Gannon to Talmadge or to Zoë. Sarah had met him in the hotel Zoë had stayed in, and that was all. The Motown ringtone hadn’t even been his: it had been Sarah’s own, loaded by Russell. It made more sense to think Russ was Talmadge.
‘You weren’t really attacked by a spider, were you?’ Gerard asked her once they were alone.
‘No. But thanks for your concern.’
‘I think Gannon would have come to your rescue.’
That wasn’t a line she wanted him pursuing. ‘So long as I wasn’t depending on Wright.’
If Gerard had been drunk before, he was over it now. ‘Shall we walk down through town?’ he asked.
‘If you like. Where are we, exactly?’
He gave her a long-suffering look. ‘Don’t worry. We’re not lost.’
There were plenty of people around. There was no reason for this to surprise her – it was a big city – but her day had long passed normal: bodies, burglary, spiders . . . It would have felt fitting if the streets were deserted, in the aftermath of something namelessly huge. Also, it was cold. She checked her coat’s buttons. She loved its cut and its length, but today would be a good day for it to be longer, thicker, warmer.
She also hoped there was no spiderweb stuck to it.
She said, ‘A research facility?’, aware that it was the second time she’d framed that question.
Gerard said, ‘Time will tell.’
‘Bit out of your usual line, isn’t it?’
‘The usual lines in business,’ he told her, ‘come to sudden ends.’ He put a hand out to stop her crossing a road just as a car flashed past. ‘Nobody stays ahead without changing their game when it’s needed.’
‘It’s like listening to a motivational tape,’ she said. ‘What are your rules for success?’
‘Number one would be, don’t step into the road without looking.’
‘Are you really planning on investing in that man? Wright?’
‘Do I get the impression you don’t like him?’
‘It’s like he’s just visiting earth,’ Sarah said. ‘And hasn’t got the hang of it yet.’
‘I’m sure people said the same of Einstein.’
‘You don’t seriously put him in that league?’
‘No,’ said Gerard. ‘I just couldn’t think of any non-famous scientists.’
They’d walked down an impressive street: elegantly curved, with tall graceful buildings, but left it now for a side road. Gerard seemed to know where he was going. She wondered how much of this was natural sense of direction, and how much sitting down w
ith a map beforehand. That was the kind of preparation successful businessmen did, she supposed, although she couldn’t remember seeing a map in his room – a thought that struck her like a cartoon anvil, leaving a guilt-shaped dent in her head. She had been in Gerard’s room without his knowledge, and now was pretending to be his friend. Or not exactly pretending, perhaps, but this fact remained: he had one of Zoë’s business cards. There might be an innocent reason for this, but none sprang immediately to mind.
Gerard had spoken again, but she’d missed whatever it was, and made a non-committal noise. He looked at her strangely, but didn’t pursue it.
She should make an effort. Stay within the moment. They passed a cosmetics shop; then a clothes store with various brand names stencilled on its plate glass: Christian Dior all the way down to Diesel. A good example of bets being hedged, Sarah thought.
It caught Gerard’s attention too. ‘Clothing to die for,’ he said. ‘Dolce et Gabanna est pro mori.’
‘That’s not the first time you’ve said that, is it?’
‘It’s the first time anyone’s got it.’
There was a compliment in there, but it was aimed as much at himself as at her. ‘Does Paula take you shopping?’
‘From designer labels to my wife. What a seamless shift. You think she’s shallow, don’t you?’
That stung, largely because the answer was yes. ‘It was the Latin made me think of her. She has such classically good looks.’
‘Nice try.’
Sarah said, ‘I don’t feel I got to know her well.’
‘I don’t feel you made much of an effort.’
The shops dwindled into office blocks. They walked past the cathedral, then under a metal railway bridge and on to a cobbled square where the city keep stood. From there, Gerard led her down into a minor labyrinth of alleyways and stone steps and chunks of Hadrian’s Wall.
‘Is this a shortcut?’
‘It’s the scenic route.’
On a terrace overlooking the Tyne, in the shadow of the High Level, he stopped to gaze upriver at a bunch of grubby seagulls, fighting over scraps on the oil-flecked water.
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said. ‘About Paula. I’m sorry.’
He shrugged. ‘Nothing to be sorry about. It’s not like she craved your friendship.’
Sarah deserved that. She watched the seagulls for a while, wondering if their abrupt clattering had a personal aspect, born of gull-on-gull enmity rather than a straightforward tussling over food. Though if one bird didn’t like another, it could simply fly away . . . ‘The Trophy Wife’ was how she’d characterized Paula. Who was a decade younger than Gerard, and had been blonde when Sarah met her, with a figure loaded with natural advantage, but doubtless maintained in an expensive gym. And always draped, whenever Sarah had met her, in seriously costly threads. Even now, picturing her, it was with a copy of Hello! under one arm. I am woman, see me shop. What was that joke about a lifestyle being what the rich had, instead of a life?
But there she went again. Paula had a life. It was just that Sarah wasn’t privy to it.
Guilt, probably, led her to say, ‘She was adopted, wasn’t she?’
That hit a nerve. ‘Who on earth told you that?’
‘You did.’ He must have done. How else would she know?
‘Yes.’ The word came out grudgingly. ‘You paid some attention, then.’
Oh, for God’s sake. It wasn’t like he’d asked about her own life; her own partner. It made her wonder what was wrong. Touchiness suggested bruising. ‘You’re different when you’re with her, I noticed that much. You’d do anything for her, wouldn’t you?’
He said, ‘I’d kill for her, if that’s what you mean. Quite happily, as a matter of fact.’
She didn’t doubt it. When lists were compiled of motives for violence, love and money topped the list. Not hatred and money. ‘Did you ever think about children?’
‘There’s really no need, Sarah.’
‘I’m not sure I –’
‘All these questions. This interest. You’re feeling guilty about what I said earlier. About not making an effort. Well, I absolve you.’ He made a clumsy hand movement, and she remembered he was Catholic. ‘Let’s not talk about it any more.’
‘Okay.’
‘And she doesn’t, by the way. Take me shopping, I mean.’
‘No. That doesn’t surprise me, somehow.’
‘Men only shop twice a year,’ he said. ‘During sales.’
‘If women did the same, we’d have a migrant retail industry.’
He laughed, a short sharp bark. ‘I might borrow that.’
They moved on. She wasn’t sure where they were, exactly, but they were presumably closing in on the hotel. Where they might, for all she knew, be swept up into more impromptu networking, perhaps culminating in an expedition to – what – a deconsecrated church? A dried-out aquarium? If she wanted to tackle him on Zoë, now was the time.
Sometimes, the direct approach was best.
‘You never met Zoë, did you?’ she asked.
‘Your friend? The one who helped you that time?’
‘She saved my life,’ Sarah said.
‘Then it was a very good thing she did,’ Gerard said. He paused for a moment, perhaps unused to making such statements. Certainly unused to making them in Sarah’s hearing. ‘No. I never met her.’
A body on a slab: white face, dark hair. Bloated beyond recognition, unless you knew what you were looking for. Or expected to find it.
She said, ‘She was here.’
‘Newcastle?’
‘Yes. She stayed in the Bolbec.’
‘Ah. Is that why you chose it? Personal recommendation? Hmph.’ He produced a cigar from an inner pocket, and unwrapped it. ‘I applaud her feats of derring-do, obviously. But I don’t think much of her taste in accommodation.’
‘Do you mind not smoking?’
‘Not especially. I prefer smoking, though.’ He lit up. ‘For God’s sake, Sarah, we’re in the open air. I’ll bend to the legislation where it’s necessary, but . . .’
‘They’ll never take your freedom?’
‘Precisely.’
A waft of smoke drifted into Sarah’s face, here in the open air.
He said, ‘Wait one moment. What was her surname?’
‘Boehm.’
‘Boehm? Good lord!’
‘Boehm? Good ‘Gerard?’
‘I found her business card. On the mantelpiece in the bar. First night I was here.’
‘Zoë’s card?’
‘I put it in my pocket. Force of habit. Never made the connection, though. Don’t think I knew her surname. Did it say private eye on it? That’s what she is, yes? A consulting detective?’
‘That’s what she is, yes,’ Sarah said slowly, trying to slot this new information into what she already knew. Or subtract it, rather. Subtract this new information from what she’d thought she’d known. Which was like trying to remove an ingredient from a blender, once she’d flipped its switch.
‘Doesn’t say a lot for the staff, does it?’ Gerard mused. ‘Leaving former guests’ cards lying around the place. Still, makes you think, doesn’t it? Weird coincidence. Of all the gin-joints in all the cities in all the world. That sort of thing.’
She looked at him.
‘Casablanca,’ he said. ‘Sorry. Not Jane Austen.’
‘I got the reference,’ she said tightly.
He blew smoke. ‘So, what was she doing here?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sarah said.
‘I suppose we can rule out pleasure. On a case, was she?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sarah said again.
‘I thought you were friends.’
‘We weren’t in each other’s pockets.’
‘Has something happened to her?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because you’re here,’ Gerard said. ‘I assume that’s not coincidence.’
Coincidence, she thought. She might hav
e to revise her opinion on that subject.
They’d reached the railway arch, and turned left into it. Cars were parked along its length, in metered spaces. At the far end was the Big Issue seller, this time with an armful of his wares. Sarah recalled the use she’d made of him earlier, to distract Barry while she took Gerard’s key, and felt the need to make amends. Or make Gerard make them for her, which would suit her mood.
‘Buy your Big Issue, sir, lady? Yunno you wannoo.’
‘I already have,’ Sarah reminded him, though she appeared to ring none of his bells. ‘But my friend will take one.’
Gerard looked at her. ‘You’re referring to me?’
‘It’s cold, Gerard. And it’s already dark. Buy the magazine.’
‘I fail to see what the weather’s got to do with it.’
The homeless man looked at him, then at Sarah. He seemed about to say something, but thought better of it.
‘Because this man’s here until he’s sold all these copies.’
‘Lady’s correck.’ He obviously couldn’t help himself. ‘Need to sell the ress.’
‘Do you mind? This is a private discussion.’
‘Gerard! You can’t –’
‘Sarah. Do you understand the economics of homelessness? The cash-drink-drugs cycle? Now, I write cheques to various –’
It came on suddenly, born of everything the day had shovelled her way so far, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this angry. ‘Gerard. Stop talking right now. Buy the magazine. That’s not a suggestion.’
Gerard flashed his evil smile, the one that showed the points of his teeth. She was used to him getting a rise out of her – would maintain that it was water off a duck’s – but it was unforgivable to use this man for effect. ‘Oh, I see. We’re doing things your way, are we?’ He handed over a fiver, took a magazine, and waved away the change. ‘Don’t want to spoil the lady’s day.’ He gave Sarah the Big Issue.
‘Don’t drink, guvnor,’ the man said.
‘You really should give it a bash,’ Gerard assured him.
Magazine tucked under her arm, Sarah strode towards the hotel, not waiting to see if he was following.