by Adam Hamdy
He was bound to his chair, his arms and legs tied with electrical flex, and, when he looked up, he could see a figure moving between the server racks. The main lights were off, so the armoured figure was faintly illuminated by the blue and orange server LEDs; his shadow cast on Riley’s precious machines. Riley turned his head very slowly, wary of drawing attention to himself. His eyes stopped at his desk, and his mobile phone. He looked down at his legs. Straining, he could just about push them either side of the struts that kept the chair on its casters. Articulating his ankles allowed him to apply pressure with his toes and nudge himself slowly towards the desk. He was about three feet away and each movement brought him an inch closer. Riley focused on the phone and with each push rotated his body round so that he would be in the best possible position to reach it. The desk was almost level with his arms; the biggest challenge was going to be the fact that the phone was about a foot or so away from the edge of the desk.
‘Riley Cotton,’ a gravelly voice said softly. Riley stopped and turned to see the masked man standing behind him. ‘Where is John Wallace?’
The fearsome figure gestured towards the broken laptop on Riley’s desk. Riley’s mind whirred like the drives of the servers that surrounded him. He tried to compute the best way to handle his assailant and searched for anything that might give him an advantage. Nothing physical; the man was covered in dark body armour. His opaque goggles and mask betrayed nothing of his face. The accent was almost impossible to place; just an Anytown mid-Atlantic twang.
‘I don’t know,’ Riley answered honestly. ‘A friend brought it in. She wanted me to find out if someone had tampered with it.’ He guessed that he’d found the person responsible for the locator embedded in the machine – or rather, that person had found him. Riley shuddered as the masked man approached, but the figure continued on towards his desk and picked up his precious phone.
‘Name?’ the man asked.
‘Constance Jones,’ Riley replied. ‘My passcode is—’
But the mask cut him off, ‘I know your code. I know everything about you, Riley.’
The words cut into Riley with more violence than any pain caused by the after-effects of the tranquilliser. Information was his business, and his clients paid huge sums for the knowledge he gleaned from computers around the world, but they paid even more to ensure that their identities remained private. Riley had no doubt that the man in front of him could overcome any of his security measures, and realised that his entire operation was exposed.
‘I have money,’ he offered.
‘So do I,’ the mask replied, as he scrolled through the contact list on Riley’s phone. ‘Tell her the truth. Tell her you discovered evidence of tampering. Someone altered John Wallace’s Facebook page, then deleted all the changes. Tell her to come. Tell her to bring her friend.’
Riley knew better than to argue. This well-equipped, highly trained man would get what he wanted, so why risk making him angry with falsetto bravery? He smelled a strong synthetic aroma as the man drew close. It was coming from the man’s body armour. Riley felt his phone pressed up against his ear and heard the familiar sound of ringing at the other end.
‘Hello?’ Connie said. ‘Riley? Now’s not a good time. Can I call you back?’
Riley could hear the hubbub of a crowd so loud that it almost drowned out Connie’s words. She was somewhere busy; an airport or train station.
‘I found something,’ Riley replied, raising his voice. ‘The machine has been tampered with. Someone made changes to John Wallace’s Facebook page. I found a load of stuff I need to show you.’
There was a pause, and all Riley could hear was the sound of the crowd. ‘Is he with you?’ he asked. ‘You need to bring him. You need to—’ He broke off when he felt the sudden pressure of pain. The masked man was digging his gloved fingers into the flesh beneath Riley’s neck. Riley realised that he was coming on too strong. He looked up apologetically. The mask betrayed no emotion, but the talons loosened their grip and the pain subsided.
‘I’m in the middle of something right now,’ Connie replied. ‘I’ll come over later. Pay you a little midnight visit.’
‘Sounds good,’ Riley said. ‘I’ll see you later.’ He looked up at the mask and nodded, and his captor hung up. ‘She’s coming,’ Riley told the man. ‘Later.’
The mask looked down at him. ‘Then we have time to talk,’ he said. ‘You’re going to tell me everything you know about Constance Jones and her friend John Wallace.’
‘That was weird,’ Connie observed as she skipped to catch up with Wallace.
They were in front of Paddington Station on their way back to the Monkey Puzzle, and the late evening crowds swirled around them, with more than one traveller snarling at their cardinal sin of pausing in the middle of a busy London thoroughfare.
‘What?’ Wallace asked.
‘Riley says he’s found something,’ Connie replied. ‘But he was being very un-Riley. Normally he’d drag me through a round of questioning to make me feel small and stupid and then rub my face in his vastly superior intellect. He didn’t even take the bait when I said I was coming over for a midnight visit. He’d always have a smutty reply for a remark like that.’
Wallace’s face clouded over. ‘You think he was scared?’
‘Maybe,’ Connie replied. ‘It’s hard to tell. It’s so noisy here.’
‘Let’s do this and then figure out how we handle Riley,’ Wallace suggested.
Connie nodded, and the two of them set off for the Monkey Puzzle.
It was eight fifteen and the streets were thronging with Londoners freed from their daily toil. Crowds gathered outside pubs and the chill November air made it difficult to tell the hardcore smokers apart from the loyal friends keeping them company in the vapour-inducing cold.
The Monkey Puzzle cast a golden glow into the night. From a distance the soft light that spilled from the windows offered an inviting contrast to the harsh yellow street lights that surrounded the building. As they approached, Connie and Wallace saw that the pub was packed. They entered and pushed their way through the crowd, which was a real slice of London; labourers in their overalls stood in small groups alongside suited office workers. Connie and Wallace caught the edges of conversations as they moved towards the bar: the relentless rise of London property; the lameness of Doctor Who; whether the hottie in the corner was up for it.
When they reached the bar, Wallace saw three staff; all women. The barman who had served them earlier was nowhere to be seen. He scanned the crowded room and caught sight of a familiar, scarred face standing near a set of carpeted stairs, above which hung a sign that read Saloon Bar. The Scarred Man nodded at Wallace.
‘Come on,’ Wallace instructed Connie. They moved slowly round the bar, forcing their way into spaces that didn’t exist. After a minute, Wallace found himself level with the scarred face. The black, narrow eyes looked glassy, but the man didn’t have a drink in his hand. Maybe the glazed effect was permanent?
‘Keep an eye,’ the Scarred Man said to a skinny, rat-faced youth who stood on the other side of the staircase. The pockmarked face turned to Wallace, ‘Come on.’
The Scarred Man started up the stairs and Wallace and Connie followed. As they topped the first flight and turned to climb the second, Wallace saw that the rat-faced youth had moved and was now standing in the middle of the staircase, blocking the path of anyone foolish enough to attempt the climb.
At the top of the second flight of stairs stood one of the largest men Wallace had ever seen. At least six feet eight, it wasn’t just the man’s formidable height that struck Wallace; standing square on the top step, he eclipsed whatever lay behind him. The man was at least three feet wide. A tattoo of a red skull covered one side of a bulbous shaven head, which protruded from a pale blue hooded Adidas top. The matching blue jogging bottoms and navy trainers made Wallace think the man had modelled himself on a sky god whose mission was to guard the heavens. In truth, given his size, the guy probably
had limited wardrobe choices. As the Scarred Man neared the top of the stairs, Red Skull stood to one side, revealing a stained-glass door behind him. A brass plaque bore the words Saloon Bar. The Scarred Man pushed the door open, and Wallace and Connie passed through the shadow of the giant and followed him inside.
The saloon bar was a mirror image of the ground floor, except for the fact that it was almost empty. The tattooed barman who had been downstairs on their earlier visit leaned against the counter and watched Wallace and Connie as they entered. Seated at the far end of the room, next to one of the windows that overlooked the beer garden, was a thin man with short black hair and dark brown skin. Wallace guessed he was of Indian or Pakistani descent and put his age somewhere in his late twenties. The man wore dark blue jeans, weathered brown boots and a black hooded top. He typed busily on his iPhone and didn’t give Wallace or Connie a scrap of attention.
The Scarred Man rounded on Wallace and grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to a halt. Wallace felt huge, powerful hands lift his arms and turned to see Red Skull holding him for a search. The Scarred Man frisked Wallace, paying particular attention to his legs and torso. Satisfied there was no threat, the two men moved on to Connie. Wallace thought she looked tiny against the giant. The Scarred Man showed no embarrassment at laying his hands on a strange woman, and searched her with the same detached efficiency Wallace had experienced. Satisfied that Connie also posed no danger, the Scarred Man led them forward.
‘Come on,’ he instructed.
Wallace and Connie followed him towards the windows, where the man Wallace assumed was Salamander sat, engrossed in his phone.
‘Sal, these are the guys,’ the Scarred Man said, confirming their host’s identity before backing away to join Red Skull by the bar, where the barman served them both: a pint for the giant, a large measure of Scotch for him.
Salamander still hadn’t looked up.
‘DS Bailey sent us,’ Wallace tried.
Salamander’s only response was to hold up the index finger of his left hand in a dismissive gesture that signalled patience. Wallace looked at Connie, who shook her head ever so slightly.
Finally, Salamander looked up. Unlike the dull, dead eyes of his scarred associate, his brown eyes betrayed warmth and intelligence, which meant he was probably a lot more dangerous. ‘Haybale sent ya?’ he asked. ‘But he didn’t come himself, which means ya shady.’
‘He’s in hospital,’ Wallace said flatly. ‘In a coma.’
Salamander’s eyes narrowed as he absorbed the statement, and Wallace got the sense that he was trying to gauge the honesty of the man he’d only just met.
‘How?’ Salamander asked.
‘Shot,’ Wallace replied. ‘Trying to save me. He told me to find you.’
‘Was it that gunplay at the nuthouse?’ Salamander inquired.
Wallace nodded.
‘I heard about that, but I had no idea Haybale was caught up in it. Fuck.’ Salamander shook his head and looked down at the ground, but there was no hiding the fact that the news of Bailey’s shooting had affected him deeply. ‘Who was the shooter?’
‘I don’t know. He wears a mask. He’s killed at least six people now,’ Wallace replied.
‘We have no idea why,’ Connie added.
Salamander looked at Connie as though noticing her for the first time.
‘Are you a friend of DS Bailey?’ she asked.
‘Used to be, back in the day. Runnin’ round Streatham like a couple of fool kids,’ Salamander added. ‘Before he became a cop. We catch each other now and then, but it’s tough. Let’s just say we ain’t got the same interests. But he’s still my bro. Bring me a name and I’ll take care of it.’
‘OK,’ Wallace replied. He could feel Connie’s dismayed eyes on him.
‘John,’ she objected. ‘We need to go to the police.’
Salamander sucked his teeth and shook his head. ‘Ya know how many times I’ve been in jail?’ he asked. ‘None. Law’s for fools. Ya don’t go to the law, ya come to me. Bailey told you. He may be a cop, but he knows where ya get justice for something like this. Ya come to me, ya hear?’
‘OK,’ Wallace reiterated firmly, more for Connie’s benefit than the man seated opposite him.
‘You don’t know why Bailey sent you here,’ Connie objected. She eyed Salamander. ‘Does the name Kye Walters mean anything to you?’
Salamander looked blank.
‘Bailey had a file on him,’ Connie explained. ‘Maybe he thought you knew something about him. American boy. He killed himself.’
‘Never heard of him,’ Salamander replied. ‘Bailey sent ya here for one reason. Come back when ya got the name. Ted knows where I am.’ He nodded towards the Scarred Man at the bar. ‘You can go now,’ he added quietly.
Wallace backed towards the door and gently pulled Connie with him. Her face was still twisted in surprise and disgust, but she had the sense not to say anything until they were at the bottom of the stairs. The rat-faced youth stood aside and let them launch themselves into the sea of punters.
‘I know what you’ve been through,’ Connie chided as they pushed their way towards the door. ‘But this isn’t the right way to handle it. You’re not a killer.’
Wallace turned suddenly. ‘Now isn’t the time!’ he exclaimed in louder tones than he would have liked. He felt nearby eyes fall upon him and sensed a lull in adjacent conversations. ‘Let’s go!’
He grabbed Connie’s hand and pulled her through the crowd. They swept through the pub, the people ahead of them parting more readily in the face of a discordant couple. When they spilled out through the doors into the cold night air, Wallace turned to find Connie welling up.
‘It’s murder, John,’ she protested as she wiped her eyes.
‘It’s self-defence,’ Wallace countered. ‘Besides, it’s not our call. Bailey sent us to this guy, and he was police.’
‘He’d just been shot!’ Connie yelled. ‘You have no idea what he was thinking!’
‘Let’s get the name and then figure out what to do,’ Wallace suggested.
Connie looked into his eyes, searching for his true feelings.
‘Whatever happens,’ Wallace assured her, ‘I don’t want to lose you.’ He leaned down and kissed her, ignoring the dull ache of his collarbone and the more urgent pain of his shoulder wound as he pulled her close to him.
When they parted, Wallace saw that Connie was more at ease, and, as they turned towards the main road, she took out her phone and placed a call to Riley.
21
Summarising his relationship with Connie had been a brief affair. Riley had told the masked man that she had once been his boss on a dull programming project at the Suncert Corporation. He didn’t know anything about John Wallace; Connie kept her private life very much to herself. When he had run out of facts, he even confessed his romantic longings for Connie, but his captor seemed less than interested and returned his attention to the servers, so Riley relaxed a little. Sensing he was out of any immediate danger, Riley was more concerned about what the masked man was doing to his machines.
When Connie’s call came, the mask was deep in the coldest part of the server room, and it took him five rings to get back to Riley. The masked man picked up the phone and held it to Riley’s ear.
‘Connie,’ Riley said. ‘So, are you coming over or what?’ He smiled up at his captor, making a demonstrable effort to cooperate.
‘Give me the exec summary,’ Connie instructed.
‘No can do,’ Riley replied. ‘There’s a load of stuff I need to show you.’ For a few long moments he heard nothing but the sound of traffic passing at the other end of the line.
‘OK,’ Connie said at last. ‘We’re on our way.’
When the line went dead, Riley looked up at the masked man and said, ‘They’re coming.’
Wallace could see that Connie was troubled.
‘Problem?’ he asked, as she put the phone in her pocket.
‘Riley’s being strang
e,’ she replied.
‘Do you trust him?’ Wallace asked.
‘Not really,’ Connie answered honestly.
‘You think he could sell me out?’
‘Selling information is what he does,’ she told him.
Wallace looked around for inspiration and his eyes drifted back to the pub. ‘Wait here,’ he said and started towards the building, but Connie caught his arm.
‘No, John,’ she said. ‘I’m probably just being paranoid.’
‘We can’t be paranoid enough. I’m going back in. See if Salamander will sell us some protection,’ Wallace assured her. ‘Nothing more.’
‘I’m coming with you,’ Connie said firmly as she followed him.
Wallace almost walked into Salamander as he came through the exit, closely trailed by Red Skull and the rat-faced kid. Red Skull grabbed Wallace and swung him against the wall.
‘Let him go,’ Salamander ordered. ‘He’s not dangerous. Are you?’
The question was directed at Wallace, who shook his head. Red Skull released his steel grip and took a couple of steps back.
‘I want to buy protection,’ Wallace began. ‘I can give you a couple of hundred now.’
Salamander smiled and looked at his associates, who couldn’t help but smirk at Wallace’s naivety. ‘Ya gonna be a gangster now?’ he laughed.
‘No,’ Wallace replied.
‘Good,’ Salamander said. ‘Ya ain’t got what it takes. What d’ya need protection from?’
‘We’re going to see someone who may know the name of the man who shot Bailey,’ Wallace said. ‘But he’s not the most straightforward guy. He may have sold us out.’
Salamander looked at the rat-faced kid. ‘Take Danny,’ he said, before adding with a chuckle, ‘no charge.’