The Final Hour (Victor The Assassin 7)

by Tom Wood

  Muir had been immune. In part, she knew, because of her natural aversion to parties, but she had never been easy to fool, even as a fresh-faced newbie. The Jedi mind trick only worked on the weak-willed, after all.

  ‘Ah, Janice, how lovely to see you again.’

  Air kisses were exchanged. After all these years, Muir still found such Europeanisms weird and awkward. She was good at hiding it, however.

  ‘And you, Donald. I like your tie pin.’

  ‘Oh, thank you. How charming of you to say so. It’s quite bourgeois, isn’t it? A gift, obviously. Do be a good chum and help us get through all this fizz. I’ve only gone and ordered too much again.’

  Again. She had heard that one before. She had heard all the lines before. She had a few of her own, of course, but she preferred to be the recipient of the lines. It told her far more about the speaker than they could ever hope to learn from her responses.

  She played the game a few more times. She did quite enjoy it, she had to admit. A form of dancing, she thought. The moves were well practised, rehearsed and implemented. But improvisation, rhythm, was everything.

  The US Embassy was the venue, even if the party was hosted by the Brits. The special relationship at work. The embassy was a monstrosity of blocky concrete in one of London’s most charming and beautiful neighbourhoods. It was almost as if it had been constructed as a deliberate insult to the surrounding buildings. There was a message in its ugliness, in its harsh lines and dark colouring. The building said: I’m strong and I don’t care that I don’t belong here.

  Muir didn’t like that. It was a bullying posture. Friendship was about respect, not power. But were allies anything more than friends of convenience?

  She had no more time to think about it because she saw Monique Leyland had entered the room. She couldn’t have been there long because she was hard to miss. London was a diverse city, but the intelligence community was not, despite recent initiatives to change that. Leyland stood out because she was one of the few people in the room who could not be described as pasty. She had dark skin and her impressive height was made taller still by lethal heels and a long evening gown that Muir would consider too risqué for the bedroom. Leyland somehow managed to stand both rigid and relaxed. Her neck was long, made longer by her black hair fixed up with clips and a backless dress.

  Muir felt shorter and more plodding just looking at her.

  She waited until the right moment and approached, wasting no time in an effort to look casual. If Alvarez had someone watching, there was no way to avoid that gaze, and any preamble only gave that watcher more opportunity to gain an advantageous position.

  Muir introduced herself, formal and full: ‘Janice Muir, CIA.’

  She offered her hand and the other woman took it. Her grip was light and their handshake fleeting.

  ‘Monique Leyland, Secret Intelligence Service.’

  Muir smiled to herself.

  Leyland asked, ‘What is it?’

  ‘I just wonder why I used the acronym while you used the full title?’

  ‘I wonder why too.’

  ‘It’s nice not to have to say Department of Justice or suchlike. What do you normally say, Ministry of Defence?’

  Leyland nodded and showed a small smile of her own. ‘It helps though, doesn’t it? To stay in practice. Lying, that is.’

  ‘It’s a skill like any other. Use it or lose it.’

  ‘How are you enjoying the party?’

  Muir held up her glass, untouched. ‘Trying not to get too drunk, you?’

  ‘I sip only if it seems impolite not to do so.’

  ‘I like the way you said that.’

  ‘I thought you might. I recognise your name, I think. A report on terrorist financiers in Europe, I believe.’

  ‘God, that was a long time ago. In my early days at the Agency. I’m amazed you remember it let alone who wrote it.’

  Leyland said, ‘I’m good with names. I’m even better at remembering those who impress me.’

  ‘I would have come over earlier if I’d known you would be this nice.’

  ‘And there was I, thinking this was simply happenstance.’

  ‘Is anything?’

  ‘In this business, probably not. But I can but hope that there is life outside of it.’

  ‘Do you see much of that?’ Muir asked. ‘If so, please tell me where it’s hiding.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want it any other way.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘So, given that we are both married to our work, and that this conversation is not mere chance, perhaps you could tell me what you’re after, Miss Muir?’

  ‘Please, call me Janice.’

  ‘Only if you call me Monique.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Then, Janice, what can I do for you?’

  Muir said, ‘I don’t suppose it would do much good to pretend this is just an informal chat?’

  ‘Not much,’ Leyland agreed.

  ‘I’m hoping we can work together,’ Muir said.

  ‘Of course. That’s what our agencies do on a daily basis. But as for you and I, I’m not sure how our responsibilities align.’

  ‘I’m talking personally.’

  Leyland positioned herself a little closer. ‘What sort of work?’

  ‘Data sharing, you could say.’

  ‘And what data would we share personally that our larger organisations do not?’

  Muir said, ‘Would not.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I need to know whether you’re in.’

  ‘The answer is no,’ Leyland said, ‘unless I know a lot more.’

  Muir said, ‘I can’t tell you any more unless you’re onside.’

  Leyland was silent for a moment. Muir said nothing further. Around them the party continued. Chatter. Laughter. Leyland looked at Muir with an analytical gaze. Muir let her.

  ‘Of course you won’t say more unless you have assurances from me,’ Leyland began. ‘I fully expected you to say that, and at the same time you must have known I couldn’t agree to what you asked of me. You’re hardly fresh out of the Farm. Which makes me wonder what possible reason you could have for asking. It’s a waste of time for both of us, but you’ve done it anyway. Which leads me to believe someone made you do it, which would have to be a superior, so they are hugely incompetent to force you into doing something you must have argued would be unsuccessful. But, as much as we Brits like to joke you guys are a bit dim, it’s no truer than the idea we all love fish and chips. And that leads me to think your superior sent you all the way here just to keep you out of the way. But that seems extreme, and again incompetent, because you would see through that in the same way I would, negating the rationale. Hence, there must be some other reason why you asked me a question when you already knew how I would answer.’ She thought for a moment. ‘You never expected me to say yes, which means you never needed me to say yes.’

  Leyland thought for a moment more.

  ‘But that doesn’t really ring true, does it? So, the only possible reason behind this charade is that it’s played out as you expected, as you wanted, which is meaningless unless that matters to someone other than me or you or your superior. We’re talking about someone else. Someone not here. Someone who is going to ask me about this conversation. They’re going to want to know what you asked and what I said, and you want them to hear the truth.’

  Muir produced her card and passed it to Leyland. As well as her formal contact details it had a phone number scrawled in pencil on the otherwise blank reverse side.

  Leyland said, ‘So this someone else is going to tell me what this is all about, and after they do I’m going to want to contact you. I see. Then this affects me as well as you, because why else would I want to call you?’

  Yes, Muir thought, it was exactly like dancing.

  She said, ‘Enjoy the rest of the party,’ and backed away into the crowd.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Yvette told people she was alive only be
cause she drank so much gin the alcohol in her blood killed off every microbe, virus or parasite before it could take hold and do any damage. She said it to make people laugh. At most, she drank a couple of glasses of Hendrick’s at the weekend, and always with plenty of tonic. Indian tonic, of course. And lime. Lots of lime. When she told the customer her joke, he smiled. Which was unusual. She told the gin joke so often she could say without hubris that she had mastered it. Everyone laughed. Maybe not always a gut-bursting roar, but at least a chuckle. Not this customer. No laugh. Just a wee smile.

  The customer was a short, sweaty man, overweight and ugly. An American in his forties, dressed smart, but in cheap clothes. Yvette could tell a suit with more polyester than wool just from the way the jacket hung from the shoulders. She could see the low thread count of the cotton shirt even without the semi-transparency caused by his perspiration.

  His smile was the sickeningly polite, fake smile people used. Yvette had been on this fair earth long enough to know how fake and phoney people could be to her, to one another, to themselves.

  A sweaty, phoney man. She disliked him immediately.

  Unlike him, Yvette could fake it. She was polite and courteous because she had good Scottish manners. She had been raised well, had lived well and was approaching her final years with that same wellness.

  Given the disappointing response to the gin joke, Yvette decided to put an end to the small talk and skip the conversation ahead to business. Not because she wanted to make a sale, but because she wanted to get rid of this sweaty man as soon as possible.

  ‘How may I help you today?’

  ‘I read a lot,’ he said. ‘I need some more books.’

  ‘Well,’ she began with just the right amount of sarcasm, ‘you’ve come to the right place.’

  Her little bookshop overlooked a wide swathe of Aberdeenshire greenery. It was called The Bookshop on the Green, which she had named after a long-ago holiday with Harry. They had visited a small town in rural France where they had been surprised to find a book store with that name, run by a retired English couple, who had named their shop in English just to annoy the patriotic French locals. After Harry died and Yvette sold up their marital home and downsized, the money she made on the sale was enough to start her own bookshop, which she named after the shop in that French village because Harry had found much humour in that small act of rebellion, of provocation. He had been English too. Maybe his only imperfection.

  Yvette sold used books and plenty of oddities too – maps and classic movie posters, decades’-old board games and forgotten collectables. The shop didn’t really make any money, but she owned it outright and her expenses were minimal. It generated some pocket money and kept her busy during her retirement. Except on Thursdays and Sundays, when the shop was closed. On Thursday she played cards and on Sunday she went to the local church, if not to pray – sorry, Lord – then to flirt with the widowers. Most of them were too prudish or too dim to realise, but persistence was a girl’s best friend. Faint heart never won fair gentleman, or whatnot.

  The sweaty American was no gentleman. He didn’t have that air. Yvette had learned over a long life that it was in how a man carried himself that she could read his personality. A man in a rush was unreliable, he was lacking in attention, he was unperceptive and often rude. A man who took his time was aware of himself and his surroundings and his place in the world. That was the man who made a good husband, as her Harry had been. He was never late. He was never impolite. He considered other people at all times.

  The customer couldn’t have been more different to Harry. This was a man who wasn’t polite, was in a hurry and lacked anything resembling class. She couldn’t help but notice the cheap suit jacket was too big for him too. She remembered her mother’s wisest of words: If you have any spare room you’re only going to end up filling it.

  ‘Like I say, I read a lot, but I don’t keep up to date with what’s new or good. I tend to go off recommendations. So, I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind picking some books out for me.’

  Yvette loved to recommend books, and in other circumstances would happily name some of her favourite authors or novels. But she did not waste her time or passion on this phoney man.

  She said, ‘How many would you like?’

  He shrugged. He hadn’t thought his request through.

  To expedite the process, she suggested, ‘How’s five sound?’

  ‘Perfect.’

  She shuffled from behind the counter and moved around the store to find the five books she hated the most. This took some time because Yvette had been putting her knees through their paces for pushing eight decades. The customer, as impolite as he was sweaty, didn’t offer any assistance.

  He said, ‘You know, my sister is the big reader in my family. She loves books, that girl. Always got her face buried in the pages of some story.’

  ‘Women read more than men, I’m sorry to say. Boys are missing out.’

  He nodded in quiet thought for a moment. ‘I expect you wouldn’t guess from my accent that I came from these parts, once upon a time. Moved to the States when I was a boy.’

  She didn’t care, but her manners meant she couldn’t be rude so she said, ‘I never would have guessed.’

  She rang up the purchases and he paid in cash. Everyone did because she had no electronic payment methods, but most folk these days wanted to pay with a card and were annoyed when they had to fish around in their pockets or purses for cash.

  ‘I was born over in the next town,’ he said as he took his change. ‘Haven’t been back for years though. I went to Saint Augustine’s Comprehensive. Truth be told, I’m hoping to bump into my high school sweetheart, Suzanne. Don’t suppose you know anyone of that name?’

  Why he insisted on making small talk was beyond her, but she decided it was his innate crudeness, his lack of manners, his lack of class. He was doing his best to imitate a gentleman, but failing miserably.

  Yvette hid her thoughts as she said, ‘I don’t know any Suzanne, but I know the school. I mean, you can’t miss it, can you? But I can’t say I’ve had much to do with it.’

  The customer’s sweaty face changed, as if that imitation was now too much effort to maintain in his disappointment. ‘Oh, I see.’

  Now it was Yvette’s turn to fail to hide her true feelings. She was agitated because he knew what she meant: she had no children. She did not like the sympathetic tone people were apt to use. She wanted no sympathy. God had chosen not to bless her in this way.

  There was an awkward silence.

  The customer said, ‘I’ll be on my way. Thank you for these.’

  She watched him leave and as she watched him stroll along the street some curiosity made her leave the counter to move to the window so she could continue to watch him.

  He reached a parked car – some showy thing that didn’t impress Yvette – and opened up a rear door to toss the books on to the back seat in a manner that showed no respect to literature and angered her more than his misplaced sympathy.

  Yvette hoped to never see him again. There was something about the man that she didn’t trust. It wasn’t just his fake smile or his cheap clothes. It wasn’t his sweatiness or his phoniness or his Americanness or even the misplaced sympathy or the way he treated his purchases. It wasn’t just that she disliked him.

  There was something about him that made her afraid.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Monique Leyland lived in that darkest of dark zones, known as South of the River. London was north of the Thames, according to Londoners who lived north of the Thames. On the other side was a no man’s land few dared venture into. A semi-civilised apocalypse, as one of her colleagues was keen on claiming. It was all bollocks, of course. Except that London, like the United Kingdom as a whole, was rooted in classism. Leyland came from a bad stretch of the south-east named Deptford. Her parents had moved there way back when there were only three channels on the television and some pubs still carried signs reading No Dogs, Blacks or
Irish. They had sweated and laboured with the odds stacked against them to give her and her siblings the best chance they could. She had resisted the teenage temptations that waylaid many of her classmates and charged through higher education with the fever of purpose that would not be bridled by money, background or skin tone. She still lived south of the river, but she had moved on from the crowded urban melting pot of Deptford to the leafier suburbs of Greenwich. A stone’s throw away, geographically, but a world apart otherwise.

  She had a terraced house that she couldn’t really afford, but her outgoings were small beyond the essentials, and with a steady government job she had been able to get a mortgage back in the days when London was still affordable to young singles. She couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. She loved her job, her family and the city.

  Except on days like today. A humid day in London was a hellish thing. The English, and their nation, were simply not designed for it. Air conditioning was some futuristic utopian dream impossible to realise. She sweated on the tube. She sweated on the overland train. She sweated on the bus. Sod the Indian summer.

  The walk up the hill from the railway station almost became a water slide back down.

  By the time Leyland had showered and dressed and cracked open that first bottle of beer the evening had cooled to something tolerable. She had her French doors open and along with the warm evening air, the occasional mosquito buzzed inside that she was happy to swat with bare hands. Her neighbour had a pond.

  She had a couple of pork chops frying on the stove next to a pan in which corn on the cob boiled. Sweet potato wedges roasted in the oven. It would have been easy, and satisfying, to ignore her ringing house phone, but she had been in the business too long to let a ring go unanswered for long.