by Mick Herron
He’s found a place to stand, she thought. He’s not going to be talked out of this. He’s found a place to stand.
Bettany put his cup down.
He said, “He was smoking a joint without having the means to light it. That means someone else was there.”
“It doesn’t mean he didn’t fall.”
“Maybe not. But someone was there when he did. So why haven’t they come forward?”
“Maybe they’re scared.”
“Scared? Because they were stoned at the time?”
“Yes.”
“What’s that amount to, a slap on the wrist? You said it yourself. It’s barely even against the law.”
“Still. He died. They must feel responsible.”
Those blue eyes were fixed on her.
“Don’t you think?”
She could hear her own voice faltering.
He said, “Was it you, Flea?”
“No.”
He didn’t repeat himself, didn’t ask if she was sure. But he kept looking at her for a full seven seconds before nodding.
“Okay.”
Flea found herself wanting to sit. Wondered if he was aware she was trembling.
“So,” she said. “What are you going to do?”
His gaze shifted to nowhere in particular, an unfocused moment of thought. But he was back almost immediately.
“I need to know who it was. Which means I need to know more about Liam’s life. The people he hung out with. His job.”
“Speaking of which, I’m late. For work, I mean.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “I’m coming with you.”
2.4
The alley fight hadn’t lasted long. The bouncers had been big and confident, but were used to this being enough and had come at him swinging like windmills. Bettany, in contrast, had been schooled to be precise and waste no effort. Only connect. The training stayed with you.
Afterwards, because they’d planned to break his kneecaps, he broke theirs. Then he’d wiped the baseball bat and dropped it by their feet.
Seven years out of circulation, but some things stayed in the blood. Walking back to Liam’s, he’d felt alive. He didn’t like to think it was the violence that had set him buzzing, but face facts. It hadn’t been the beers.
At Liam’s he’d searched the place the way he’d been taught. Bad didn’t equal clever. The same hiding places, envelopes taped to the underside of drawers, baggies in the cistern, the key sandwiched by a magnet to the back of a radiator, cropped up over and over. Liam hadn’t gone for any of these, though Bettany found his dope-stash without effort. But no lighter, no matches …
Confirmation acted on him like a drug. He’d barely managed to pull his boots off before collapsing on the bed and dropping into a dreamless state from which he awoke feeling fresher than in years, though only six hours older.
When he flexed his fingers he felt the action at his knuckles. They were grazed but just slightly. Months spent hefting meat hadn’t softened them up. Besides, he’d mostly used his feet.
After a long shower, he’d checked his finances. His stock had risen by the precise amount he’d found in the bouncers’ wallets, so he was now holding three hundred and seventy pounds, plus euros. There was more money, of course. Liam had a bank account, savings, maybe insurance, all of which would have to be dealt with, but not now. As for Liam himself, his ashes were on the kitchen table. He’d have to make a decision about that too, but first things first.
Liam’s phone was in the sitting room. Bettany plugged it into a charger then headed out to Flea Pointer’s, whose address he’d found pinned to the noticeboard in Liam’s kitchen.
On the way, he’d passed the same barber’s he’d seen last night, open early for the office trade, and had thought, High time.
And now they were walking towards the Angel, en route to Lunchbox, which was what Vincent Driscoll’s games company was called.
“It’s not far. A bus ride.”
“It’s a while since I’ve been on a London bus.”
She said, “I don’t suppose the experience has changed much.”
Little had. There’d been a sharp rise in the number of women reading bondage porn in public, but other than that, London had stayed London.
The bus stop had an LED display. Their bus was seven minutes away.
“I’m going to be really late. I’m usually there first, by miles.”
She was also going to be turning up with a dead colleague’s father. Bettany didn’t think her being late was going to bother anyone long.
The pavement was narrow, and the queue for the bus snaked down it. People walking past had to step onto the road.
Flea said, “He said some things about you. Liam did.”
“I expect so.”
She seemed ready to continue, but he gave her a hard look, and she refrained.
They’d been silent for a while by the time the bus arrived.
Flea led them upstairs. The bus moved slowly, negotiating what felt like endless roadworks. Rows of shops gave way to a railed-off patch of greenery, a church, a library. Ten minutes into the journey some kind of crunch point was reached, and most passengers departed.
She nudged him. “Move up.”
To the front seat, she meant.
He complied, and now they had a view of the road ahead. Fewer roadworks, but plenty of traffic lights. Bettany had forgotten that getting round London resembled descriptions of warfare. Long stretches of boredom interspersed with moments of panic.
That, too, summed up much of his own career.
She said, “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just thought … You didn’t talk for years. Maybe you should know some of the things he thought about.”
She was young enough to imagine words like closure had meaning.
He said, “You didn’t upset me.”
“You didn’t want me to go on.”
“Not right there, no.”
“We’re alone now.”
They weren’t. There were three others on the top deck, the nearest only three seats behind them. But it was clear Flea would think him pedantic if he pointed this out.
He said, “Liam needed someone to blame when his mother died. I was the obvious candidate.”
“How did you know what—”
“He didn’t exactly keep it a secret.”
“No. No. But what I was going to say, Liam knew it wasn’t really your fault, that he was just lashing out. Every time he talked about it, he got nearer to admitting it.”
The bus passed another church, and they were briefly level with stained glass.
She said, “It was as if he was having an argument with himself, and becoming less convinced he was right.”
The man three seats behind them stood and headed down the stairs, pressing the bell as he went.
“Liam said other things too.”
She waited for him to ask, but Bettany wasn’t rising.
“He said you used to be a spy.”
“How long’s this bus ride?”
“Our stop’s next.”
“Good,” he said.
He’d formed no mental picture of Lunchbox’s premises, but even so Bettany was mildly surprised when Flea led them onto the towpath towards what might have been a restaurant. The ground-floor was green-tinted glass with a logo of a child’s lunchbox, plastic catch unsnapped, something unseen glowing within.
The towpath was stony, uneven. Twenty yards ahead a bridge spanned the canal, its arch a mossy curve.
Approaching the door Flea said, “Everyone’s busy, you know. With Shades 3. I mean, everyone’s sympathetic, we all loved Liam, but …”
“But life goes on.”
“And it’s not like you’re police. We’ve already talked to the police.”
“If you didn’t want me to come, you should have said so back at the flat.”
“I didn’t think you’d take no for an answer.”
“You got that right. Will Driscoll b
e here?”
“I expect so. You’re not going to …”
She didn’t seem sure what she was asking.
“Tender plant, is he?”
“He’s a little sensitive.”
Bettany hadn’t had much practice lately at being around sensitive people.
He looked down at the canal’s oily surface, its miserable rainbows.
“There was a man at the crematorium,” he said. “Part of a group. They had flasks.”
“I saw them.”
“I don’t think they knew Liam. I think they were there for the entertainment. The way some people hang out at weddings.”
“Maybe. I guess.”
“I’m wondering what else I might have missed,” he said.
Flea said. “You didn’t answer my question. You’re not going to upset Vincent, are you?”
“I expect he’ll survive,” Bettany said, and stood aside as Flea opened the door.
2.5
Boo Berryman said, “Who’s that?” then, “From which publication?” then, “Concerning what, exactly?”
Then, “He’s not available now, but I’ll be sure to pass that on.”
He hung up and said, “A journalist. One of the gamer mags. Asking about Liam.”
Vincent Driscoll, upright on the sofa in a manner that suggested it was stuffed with bricks, shook his head.
Boo said, “Monthly publication. By the time they print the news pages, they might as well label them history.”
He’d been with Vincent six years, driver and general dogsbody. Before that he’d been a fitness instructor, but that came to an end when he landed badly from a climbing fall, cushioning the beginner whose fault it was. Who’d been grateful and mildly bruised. Boo still limped in damp weather.
But a bum knee didn’t mean he couldn’t take care of himself.
The car keys lived on a hook by the kitchen door. He let them slide onto his index finger like a set of knuckledusters.
“Ready to go, boss?”
Vincent nodded.
In the back seat, Vincent stared unseeingly out at boring streets, unremarkable events. Everything reminded him of everything else, because everything was all the same. He toyed with that thought for a moment, but it didn’t lead anywhere.
The back of Boo’s head was a bowling ball onto which some joker had pasted strands of human hair.
“What kind of name is Boo?” he’d asked, back when he’d interviewed Boo for the job. He couldn’t remember the answer.
That had been about eighteen months after Shades went big, and Vincent had been the subject of newspaper profiles. The proper press, not just gamer mags. Ridiculous sums of money had been mentioned, most of them off target, but it turned out that made no difference. People who were uptight enough about other people’s money to write ugly letters tended not to make fine distinctions. Add a zero, take one off, it was still an outrage. How could anyone get so rich off a game? Someone ought to teach him a lesson. Someone likely would.
Vincent had taken notice, taken advice, and found himself Boo Berryman.
Six years later he could count on one hand the days that had passed without Boo’s presence. On the other hand, whole weeks could pass without Vincent laying eyes on anybody else. Which, it turned out, was eccentric. Rumours grew about his remoteness, his aloofness, his “high-functioning autism.” But that was okay. People could say what they liked, provided they did it somewhere else, and didn’t bother him with the details.
They did sometimes, of course. That was what Boo Berryman was for.
Who pulled up outside Lunchbox now, the street side. Vincent got out while Boo went to park. He looked up at the building, which was three storeys high here, four round back, where the ground dropped to the towpath. Someone was watching from the upper window. Flea Pointer, but who was with her?
For one juddery moment he thought it was Liam Bettany.
The moment passed, and whoever it was stepped away from the window.
Vincent pushed the door, and entered his building.
2.6
Bettany’s first impression was that Vincent Driscoll didn’t look like a multi-millionaire. He looked like someone a multi-millionaire had picked from a crowd and dressed in expensive clothes.
When he said, “I’m sorry about your son,” it sounded to Bettany like he was reading off an autocue.
Which fitted the surroundings. Lunchbox was immaculate. Bettany’s experience of software-based, youth-oriented work spaces, absent anything in the way of heavy tools, was limited, but this felt familiar because he’d seen it in a dozen films. A big room, open-plan but with screens here and there, shiny metal furniture, abstract paintings on the walls, abstract chairs for sitting on, and a laptop on every surface. Vending machines were ranged along one wall, soft drinks and snacks, and someone was collecting a Coke without having fed the machine any coins.
A basketball net was fixed in a corner, and a soft orange ball lay on the floor beneath.
A whole bunch of people had read a whole bunch of magazines before kitting this place out.
Though Flea had worried they’d be late, they were still first to arrive. She’d made coffee, then showed him round—the open-plan downstairs area where Liam had worked with his immediate colleagues, the ground floor and the upstairs offices arranged around an atrium. It seemed a lot of building for a small company.
Flea said something about creative space, sounding like she was quoting someone.
“Why is nobody here yet?”
“It’s not a nine-to-five gig. People work the hours that suit them.”
It was nearly ten before they started to turn up.
If anyone recognised Bettany from yesterday’s service, they didn’t show it. If they minded his questions they hid that well too.
“We’re all really sorry about Liam.”
“We liked him.”
“Yeah, we’d hang out. Fridays, we all hit the local.”
“And sometimes a club afterwards.”
“Not to dance, specially. Just for the laughs.”
But when Bettany asked about Liam’s friends outside work, he drew a blank.
“Don’t remember any names.”
“He must have had some, but …”
“I think there was a Dave. Was there a Dave? Or was that his brother?”
Bettany said, “He didn’t have a brother.”
And the pub, the clubs, the after-work life, had all happened in the same tight circles.
“Never went to his flat.”
“Only ever saw him in a crowd.”
Bettany said, “What about drugs?”
“Drugs?”
“He was high when he fell,” Bettany said. “You must know that.”
“The police were asking about weed,” someone admitted.
“First I’d heard about it.”
“We all like a drink, but …”
With their open faces, their guileless youth, they were definitely lying. But probably only about the weed.
Already he was having trouble keeping names straight. Names like Kyle and Haydn, Eirlys and Luka. All round Liam’s age, though there was an older woman, a marketing rep. She touched his elbow, told him she couldn’t imagine how it must feel, not having children herself, never having married.
After he’d gleaned as much as he was likely to without dropping the friendly pretence, he let Flea lead him upstairs, where the windows were untinted, and the view was of rooftops across the canal. What had once been factories were now flats, though retained the outward appearance of industry. But an industry tamed, its corners waxed and polished.
She said, “I think they were starting to wonder. You know, where grieving parenthood ends and interrogation begins.”
“Trust me. When I cross that line, they’ll know about it.”
She led him into her office, which adjoined Vincent Driscoll’s. A lot of one wall was window. Down below, Driscoll was emerging from a car. When it left he stood looking up, a
s if he sensed that Bettany, or someone like him, was watching.
For a moment, Bettany thought he was going to turn and walk away. Instead he’d pushed through the door and entered the building.
More impressions. Mostly of someone very clean, very neat, who probably spent ninety minutes getting dressed. But that might be as much to put off stepping into the real world as to impress anyone he met there.
His fair hair bordered on translucent. His skin too was papery, thin, as though Bettany could poke a finger right through him if the urge demanded.
Which it might.
“Can you spare a few minutes?” Bettany said.
This was clearly disconcerting.
“I don’t usually see anyone without an appointment.”
Bettany waited.
Flea Pointer said, “Mr. Driscoll’s got quite a busy morning …”
There was a simple trick, one Bettany learned in his stint as a Dog. It was a matter of looking like you not only weren’t going anywhere but were incapable of forming the intention. Like forests might rise and mountains fall before you’d move a foot.
Flea, about to speak again, changed her mind.
Driscoll made the mistake of glancing towards his office. Nearest place of safety. Bettany latched onto it as if it came inscribed RSVP.
“In there’s fine.”
Driscoll said to Flea, “When Boo—when Mr. Berryman arrives, could you send him up?”
“Of course.”
Driscoll’s office, if Bettany had been asked to guess, would be devoid of anything personal—just the usual chair, desk, desk hardware—and he was largely right, though hadn’t banked on the big and vibrantly coloured poster boosting a movie called Shades. That aside, it was a room that looked easy to leave in a hurry.
Without waiting to be asked, he planted himself in the visitor’s chair.
“Smart building.”
“Thank you.”
“All this from writing games?”
“It turns out you only need to write one,” Driscoll said.
“The basketball hoop,” said Bettany.
Driscoll waited.
“You get that from a film? Or read about it in some effective management handbook? How to encourage ‘creative thinking’?”