by Mick Herron
‘At the Abbey?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Anyone waves a gun near the Abbey today, they’ll be cat food twenty seconds later.’
Shirley said nothing.
The smallest key fitted. She opened the drawer, and found a shoebox.
Coe said, ‘Thing is, I don’t think they’re going to the Abbey.’
‘The others?’
‘The Abbotsfield crew.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because basically, they’re village cricket. And the Abbey’s a Test match.’
She removed the box’s lid. Nestled inside, head to toe, were a pair of guns. A Heckler & Koch she guessed was Lamb’s, and the Glock that had been Marcus’s.
‘And I don’t think these kids’ll go up against the best London can offer. I think they prefer a soft target.’
‘So why didn’t you say?’
‘No one’s listening to me right now.’
‘That’ll be because you killed Dennis Gimball.’
The Glock was loaded, which was nice. She didn’t check the other. Stealing Lamb’s gun, she thought, was worse than swiping his lunch, and nobody ever swiped Lamb’s lunch.
She removed the Glock, then replaced the lid on the shoebox and tucked it back in its drawer, which she locked.
‘If it makes you feel better,’ she said, ‘they should probably erect a statue to you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘But they’re not going to. They’re gonna put you in prison. Sorry.’
‘Got what you wanted?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘So now you’re off to the Abbey.’
It was where Louisa and River would be headed, without waiting for her, the bastards. And Coe was probably right about waving a gun around today, but she wasn’t going to be waving it, was she? It was a just-in-case. Next time somebody shot at her, she wouldn’t just drop behind a car.
‘I thought you’d have gone home by now,’ she said, getting to her feet.
‘Do you think I’m a psychopath?’
‘Hadn’t really thought about it,’ she lied. ‘Yeah, maybe. Why?’
‘Just wondered.’
‘I’m not, you know, a professional. That’s just my opinion.’
‘I know.’
‘You’re the one from Pysch Eval, come to think of it. What do you reckon?’
‘Not sure. I might be.’
‘You’re certainly a lot more talkative lately.’
‘That’s not necessarily an indicator.’
‘Suppose not.’ She felt a bit awkward holding a gun during this conversation. He might think she felt the need to defend herself.
It fitted unhappily into her jacket pocket. She was going to need a bag or something.
‘You haven’t asked where I think they’ll show up.’
‘Where do you think they’ll show up?’
‘Abbotsfield,’ Coe said.
‘… Seriously?’
‘There’s a memorial service there today. Same time as the Abbey. There’ll be a security presence, I expect, but nothing like London’s. And there’ll be media.’
‘Hit it twice?’
He said, ‘I’m not sure anyone’s done that before.’
‘Christ on a bike!’
‘Probably a tri—’
‘You need to tell someone!’
‘Nobody’s listening to me.’ He rubbed his nose, then said, ‘On account of what happened in Slough.’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘And I might be wrong.’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘So what I thought I’d do is head that way myself.’
‘… Seriously?’
‘It’s about three hours by car. Bit more than.’
He tossed keys in the air and caught them. Ho’s, she guessed.
‘And what if you’re right? What if they’re up there?’
‘You’ve got a gun now, haven’t you?’
She should stick to plan A, she thought. Everyone else was doing plan A. She didn’t want to be doing plan B if everyone else was having fun.
‘Or you could head for the Abbey. Join the crowds.’ He tossed the keys again. ‘Your choice.’
‘Why do you want me with you?’
‘Sidekick?’
He didn’t need a sidekick, she thought. He needed a dick whisperer. But same difference.
What would Marcus do? Abbey or Abbotsfield? Everyone was at the Abbey. Which meant, if there was glory going round, the shares would be measly, and no one would notice.
‘You coming, then?’
Marcus, she thought, would make sure all exits were covered.
‘… Yeah, all right.’
And now they were there.
They’d spent three and a half hours in the car. Not a lot of conversation involved. They’d swapped at the two-hour mark, and Shirley had driven the second leg, satnav chirping occasionally. The gun was still an awkward bulge in her pocket. In another pocket was the wrap of coke. It occurred to her that if they were stopped and searched, that combination wouldn’t make for much of a character reference. So it would be best, she decided, if they weren’t stopped and searched. Some problems were more easily solved than others.
The blood on Coe’s chin had dried, but he hadn’t wiped it away. Her ear felt unpleasantly warm, but the Sellotape ensured no dripping.
Every hour on the hour, they checked the news: nothing much. Dennis Gimball was still making headlines, his last-gasp bid for attention. And reports filtered in from round Westminster Abbey, where the streets were thronged with mourners.
‘This better not be a waste of time, dipshit,’ Shirley said, but not out loud. Not because Coe might be a psychopath, but in case he wasn’t. If he did have feelings, his future looked grim enough without Shirley hurting them.
In Derbyshire, they’d entered a different world. Hills rose all around, and trees shaded the roads. Hedgerows sprang up, sometimes giving way to ditches, and there were sheep and cows in all directions.
Last time she’d been in the country, she’d seen a peacock. It was one of the few living things she encountered there that probably hadn’t been a Russian spy.
Where the road took a dip, a signpost appeared: ABBOTSFIELD. ‘You have reached your destination,’ the satnav chipped in. Nice to have a consensus.
‘Hey,’ she said. She didn’t know what to call him: Coe? J. K.? You’d think that would have been settled one way or the other during the previous year. Whichever he preferred, he was asleep right now, or as good as. Shirley punched his shoulder: lightly, but not so lightly he could pretend to sleep through it, and he opened his eyes. ‘We’re here.’
Coe removed his earbuds and looked around.
There were police officers, quite a few of them; not armed, it didn’t appear, but flagging down traffic. Coe flashed his Service card, which earned him a pair of raised eyebrows. Cars were parked along one side of the main street, and on the other side two news crews were shooting to-camera pieces. More cars were parked along the three side streets, each of which puttered into nothingness after a hundred yards or so. The main street, meanwhile, looped around the church, squeezing between what Shirley wanted to call its back garden, though was full of headstones, and a high wall which probably guarded a manor house or something. The country had its own rules, and she wasn’t sure she understood them. But whatever they were, they originated behind that wall, or one like it.
There was a police van outside the church, near a porch-type arrangement which was garlanded with flowers and toys, and multicoloured scraps of paper, cut into shapes. Hearts and more flowers. Another van belonged to a third news crew, currently occupying the path leading to the church, which Shirley thought intrusive. On the other hand, she was turning up with a gun in her pocket. That too might seem a little uncalled for.
Now that she was here, she hoped it was.
She followed the loop round the church, found a space almost big enough for Ho’s car, and wedged it in. Engi
ne off, she patted her pocket automatically – gun still there: where else would it be? – then studied the area. Beyond the church was a row of cottages, splashes of colour dripping from window boxes; elsewhere, bunches of flowers were tied to lamp posts, and there was something chalked on the road too, a child’s drawing it looked like: more colour. More flowers, in fact, Shirley realised, and then: That was where one of the bodies fell. There’d be a war memorial: most villages had one. And now Abbotsfield had one everywhere you looked.
‘Why are you really doing this?’ she asked Coe.
Coe stared straight ahead for a while. ‘If they come for me, over Gimball?’ he said at last.
‘Which they will.’
‘It might be a good idea to have something my side of the ledger.’
So I killed an MP, she thought, but I drove all the way to Derbyshire on the off chance of catching some bad actors.
She really didn’t think the one would cancel the other out.
‘What now?’
He said, ‘The front street’s pretty well covered.’
‘With unarmed policemen.’
‘At least three of them have guns.’ He pointed. ‘Two round that corner. One further down the road. We passed him first, just after the village sign.’
She’d thought he’d been asleep. ‘Rifles?’
‘One. Two machine guns.’
‘You’re good at this.’
He said, ‘Bit paranoid. It helps.’
She wondered if that were a joke, then decided it didn’t matter.
‘So what do you suggest?’
He shrugged. ‘Getting here’s used up all my ideas.’
‘I might go in the church.’
‘You might not want to carry that thing in your pocket.’
She’d jam it down the back of her jeans. The jacket would cover it.
That’s what she did once they were out of the car. Coe nodded, presumably agreeing she was now less noticeably tooled up, then gestured down the road.
‘I’m gonna take a look down there.’
And once he’d done that, she thought, he could take a look the other way, and then they’d be more or less done.
She crossed the road alone. There’d been bells ringing when they drove into the village, but they’d stopped now. The TV crew were moving their equipment from the church path onto the pavement. They regarded her for a moment, but evidently decided her unnewsworthy.
‘Full house?’ she asked, meaning the church.
One of them, thirtyish, in a T-shirt that read ON YOUR CASE, checked her out briefly, then said, ‘Yep.’
‘Much TV here?’
He considered. ‘Four crews?’
Seize the media, thought Shirley.
‘And a couple from the radio doing vox pops by the shop,’ someone chipped in. She said ‘radio’ like she meant ‘measles’; one of those things you’d have thought had been cured by now.
They left her there, on a crazy-paved path through the graveyard that led to the church porch. More flowers had been piled here: an untended mass of bouquets that made Shirley wonder what the point was; fifteen or twenty quid on a gesture nobody would notice, except as part of a large, undifferentiated orgy of sentiment. The only person left feeling better was the florist. But the scent met her as she passed: hit her like a swinging door. At that same moment, her phone rang.
Like an idiot, her first reaction was to reach for the gun.
Luckily, there was nobody to notice. From inside the church came a communal mutter of ritualised response, and then a shuffling that could have been anything, but was, in fact, a large congregation reaching for its hymn books. Shirley got to her phone on the third ring. ‘Yeah. What?’
‘Where are you?’ Louisa asked.
‘Why, where are you?’
‘I’m at the Abbey, Shirl. With River. Are you not here too? We haven’t seen you.’
‘Well, yeah, that’s because I’m not there,’ she said. ‘Simples.’
Louisa stifled an exasperated sigh. ‘So where are you, then?’
‘I’m at Abbotsfield.’
‘You’re what?’
‘Me and Coe.’
‘What the hell are you doing there?’
Same as what Louisa and River were doing at the Abbey, Shirley thought. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Singing began. Something sacred, obviously, and freighted with sorrow. Shirley recognised the tune, but couldn’t think what it was.
‘Nothing much,’ she said. ‘What’s happening there?’
She waited, but Louisa didn’t reply. She’d lost the signal, she realised. Hick place like this, the wonder was her phone had rung in the first place.
Putting it away, she opened the door and slipped inside. The church was full, and everyone was standing, singing; the air was thick and warm; the light patterned with colour. A few people turned when she entered, but not many, and she closed the door behind her softly as she could. There were spaces on the back pews, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to stay, now she was here, though didn’t want to bow out immediately. It would be disrespectful. So she stood at the door and cast her eyes around. How long since she’d stepped inside a church? And did she have anything to say to God right now? She supposed she wanted to ask Him what made it all right to let those murderers intrude on this quiet place. But He’d been overseeing village massacres since time immemorial. Either He’d have a foolproof answer by now, or He didn’t give a damn either way.
The hymn swelled to a chorus, and the church filled with sound.
It was a good few minutes before anyone noticed the shooting.
When Chris saw the sign reading ABBOTSFIELD, which also suggested that visitors drive carefully, he increased speed to thirty, thirty-five.
‘Drive normally!’ Shin hissed behind him.
But An said, ‘No. This is good.’
There was blood on Shin’s shirt, not his own. It had sprayed from Danny when he died. There were other bits too, that looked like scrambled egg, and when he stepped into sunlight, he would look a fright.
But he would look a fright anyway, on Abbotsfield’s streets again.
‘There will be cameras,’ An said. ‘Our victory will be seen around the world.’
And then what? Shin had wondered. The Supreme Leader himself would see their victory, it was true. But then what?
‘We take the church,’ An said, as if answering Shin’s question. ‘That is where they are gathered now. They will be praying, but they will not get what they pray for.’
Thirty-five, forty.
‘We will seize their attention for all time.’
The van bumped and swayed on the imperfect road.
Up ahead, a police officer stepped out, and waved for them to stop.
When J. K. Coe saw the van approaching, he thought: this is not good.
Vehicles were weapons now. Everything was a weapon.
He had reached the far end of the village, the scene of the attack, before turning back towards the church. Outside the sole shop, on a forecourt boasting a row of newspapers in a plastic display unit, a pair of journalists had approached, one wielding a microphone, but he fended them off with an open palm. A little further on a police officer had stopped him and he’d shown ID once more, but offered no explanation for his presence. I’m here because if I go home, I’ll just be waiting for a knock on the door. The officer had examined his card as if it were the first time she’d seen one, which it probably was, then continued her slow patrol down the road. Half a minute later, having skirted the two TV crews, something made Coe look back. A van was approaching, moving fast.
This is not good.
The police officer stepped into the road to flag it down.
She was not armed. It would have made little difference if she had been: when the van clipped her she was thrown against the wall of the nearest cottage, where she hung for a fraction of a second before dropping to the ground. The van swerved in the aftermath of impact,
sideswiped a parked car with a tortured screech, then righted itself and continued up the road towards Coe.
Who also dropped, taking shelter behind a car.
There was shouting and sounds of running; someone yelling into a clipped-on radio. The journalists were running too, towards the fallen officer, but as the van passed them its back door swung open and Coe heard the pop-pop-pop of automatic gunfire. One of the journalists was hurled sideways and bounced off the bonnet of a car.
Somebody screamed.
As the van hurtled past, a police officer appeared from a side street, took aim and fired three times, each shot hitting the rear door, which had bounced on its hinges and swung shut again. And then reopened as the van kangaroo-hopped: from where he crouched, Coe caught a brief glimpse of a khaki-clad figure, upright, armed. He smelled fear and metal and joy, and saw the policeman attempt a pirouette, and give up halfway through. His rifle hit the ground a second after his body. Up ahead, the van skewed to a halt.
Behind him somebody shouted, ‘Are you getting this?’
The driver clambered from the van, raised a gun and died as two armed officers opened fire simultaneously.
Amid movement and confusion, Coe got to his feet. His body appeared to be making its own decisions, he was interested to learn. Was operating slowly, but efficiently. At least two figures had jumped from the back of the van, and one of the police officers had run through the lychgate into the church grounds and was firing from the shelter of the wall. The other had taken cover behind the abandoned van, and had dropped into firing stance, but wasn’t shooting; was shouting instructions at someone. Himself?
Coe crossed the road and bent by the fallen policeman. Would have checked for a pulse, but there seemed little point, as the officer’s throat was mostly missing. Coe wondered how he felt about this, and decided he didn’t feel anything yet. Except, perhaps, that he would rather not be here. All the same, he discovered he was picking up the fallen rifle.
‘Put that down! Put that weapon down!’
This time the instruction was pretty clearly aimed at himself so he did just that, put the rifle down, when more gunfire cut the instruction in half, Put that wea—
It was no longer clear to him where the gunmen were. He couldn’t see either, always supposing there were two, were only two. He could, though, see the police officer who’d been shouting at him a moment earlier: he was a heap on the road. So the gunmen were out of Coe’s field of vision; must be along the side of the church, on the road that looped round it, where Dander had parked. Their driver was still by the van, which was similarly riddled with bullets. Bonnie and Clyde, thought Coe.