Real Tigers

by Mick Herron

  “You seriously want to die?”

  “I seriously want that information out there in the light.”

  “Louisa?”

  She said, “If he won’t come willingly, none of us’ll make it.”

  “If we take the gun, he’s dead for sure. And if there’s anyone between us and the exit, they can’t be armed. Or they’d have made a play by now.”

  Louisa said, “There’ll be more of them up top.”

  “You think?”

  “Don’t you?”

  River said, “Yeah, probably. But they’re not all armed.”

  “They don’t all have to be,” she said. “One’ll do.”

  “Your call,” he said.

  She looked at Donovan, then back at River. “Oh, for Christ’s sake. Leave him the gun,” she said.

  “Prick.”

  “Thanks,” Nick Duffy said. “That makes it easier.”

  The windscreen of the van collapsed inwards in a storm of metal.

  Marcus arched his back and kicked out with both bound feet, catching Duffy mid-chest: he flew backwards into the van’s rear doors, which opened to spill him onto the ground. His gun disappeared in the dark just as the tumbling klieg light completed its bounce off the roof of the van. With a loud crash the floodlight shattered in a shower of glass. Marcus lay on his back, legs in the air, and tried to ease himself through the loop of his cuffed hands. It was like performing yoga on a bus. He focused on the mess on the sidepanels, the smear of brain matter oozing floorwards. Do this now, in the next three seconds, or that’s what your future looks like. It was all about taking control again, being in charge of the situation. But he couldn’t even take charge of his own damn legs, and he was still caught in that position, bound hands locked behind his arse, legs in the air like a chicken, when a figure leaped through the open back doors of the van, wielding a gun.

  He blinked, ready to die.

  “Found this,” Shirley said, her voice bright.

  Then she said, “Ha! What do you look like?”

  The domino-collapse of the shelves had been halted halfway, where the crates had blocked their fall. Getting that far was a scramble over tumbled boxes, files, a snowdrift of paper; not an easy journey to undertake without a lot of noise. When Louisa tripped on a length of wood River risked looking back. Their view of the doorway was obscured by the fallen cabinet, but Donovan had hauled himself upright, gun at the ready. Horatio at the bridge, River thought, pulling Louisa to her feet. He couldn’t remember what had happened to Horatio. He got to be a hero, but that was true of a lot of dead folk.

  “You okay?”

  “Yes.” Short sharp answer. “Run.”

  They’d reached the back half of the room, where the crates were still in ordered rows; crates containing God only knew what. More documents, more relics of a covert history. Conscious of being in a narrow aisle, a straightforward target for anyone at either end, they took it at a gallop, and had almost reached the far doors when they heard the first shots. River dived for cover; Louisa kept moving, throwing herself into a dive at the last moment, hitting the doors, sliding through them, head and shoulder first. The doors swung shut behind her. She rolled onto her back. A Black Arrow stood over her, a truncheon in his hand. He raised it to bring it down upon her. She, in turn, raised the gun in her hands, the gun she was only half-sure was empty, and pointed it at his face.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “. . . You don’t either.”

  “I won’t. So long as you drop that and go.”

  He hesitated a moment longer, probably weighing the truth of her words more than he was his own chances. Then he sagged at the knees slightly, let the truncheon drop to the floor, and made for the doors. He opened them just as River pushed through from the other side, and for a moment the two stared at each other in crazed horror. Then the Black Arrow was gone, back inside the chaos of the storage room.

  “I knew there was one behind us,” said River.

  “Yeah, well. You were right.”

  “Nice bluff.”

  “If I was bluffing,” she muttered, holding the possibly empty, possibly not gun two-handed as they headed down the corridor, towards Douglas’s room, and its hatchway to the world.

  “It was Duffy.”

  “Nick Duffy?”

  “Nick Duffy.”

  “Nick Duffy, Head Dog?”

  “Jesus, Shirley, how many ways you want to say it? It was Nick Duffy, Head Dog. Either he’s gone way off reservation, or we’ve walked into a mop-up.”

  She had severed his bonds with the jagged half of a CD (“Lucky you found that.” “Yeah. Lucky.”), and the first thing Marcus had done was grab his cap and peel his revolver free. He felt happier with a gun in his hand. Less happy thinking about the possibility this was a mop-up.

  Shirley said, “Those Black Arrows aren’t Service issue. They’re not trained and they don’t bounce.”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  They ran for the cover of the skip, ran in a half-crouch, expecting to be fired upon. But no shots came.

  “You tipped the light onto the van,” he said, stating the obvious.

  “It’s what Nelson would have done.”

  “That was smart.”

  “For a cokehead, you mean?”

  “Wanna bet?”

  She grinned.

  “That’s Duffy’s gun?” Marcus asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Which way did he go?”

  “Not sure. I was avoiding tumbling debris.”

  He peered round the edge of the skip, towards the block bordering the railway line.

  Shirley said, “If it’s a mop-up, it’s a half-arsed one. Like I said, these Arrows are strictly part-time. And they don’t have guns.”

  “Some do,” Marcus said. “Duffy did. And that kid in the van was shot.”

  “Well, okay, some do. But most of them have scattered. Should we take the other light down?”

  Marcus looked at it, twenty yards away. “It’s aimed at that building.” The factory. “At that hole in its wall.”

  “Must be where the entrance is. Wanna take a look?”

  “What I want,” Marcus said, “is to find Duffy.”

  “Separate ways?”

  “Be careful.”

  They bumped fists, and split.

  •••

  Lamb walked away from the pumps, round the side of the 24/7—DVDs, overpriced groceries, and pornographic magazines wrapped in coloured plastic—and lit his cigarette leaning against the free air dispenser. He checked his phone for messages: nothing. Which meant that whatever Cartwright and Guy were up to, either they hadn’t finished yet, or it had all gone fine, or it had all gone badly wrong.

  Gonna be a lot of empty desks at Slough House in that case.

  He was unsurprised when Catherine Standish appeared behind him.

  “They’ll be okay,” she said.

  He put his phone away. “Who will?”

  “Sean Donovan’s an angry man,” she said. “But it’s not us he’s angry with.”

  “Yeah, he’s already killed one man today. Remind me not to piss him off.” He dropped his cigarette and immediately produced another. “He gave you booze, didn’t he?”

  Catherine turned her gaze on him, her face expressionless.

  Lamb said, “I could smell it, soon as I came through the door.”

  “I’m surprised you can smell anything, the fags you get through.”

  “What can I tell you? I’m highly sensitive.” He leaned towards her, nostrils twitching, then pulled back. “Only I’m not getting anything now.”

  “Lucky you. When’s the last time you changed your shirt?”

  “No need to get personal. That’s typical of you spinsters. Once you’re past the
menopause, you think you can get away with saying anything.”

  She sighed. “Is there a point you’re trying to make, Jackson? Because what I really want to do is get home and have a bath.”

  “Did you drink it?”

  “Did I drink it? You’ve just finished telling me you’re ‘not getting anything.’ I took that to mean your highly developed sense of smell can detect no whiff of alcohol.”

  These last words delivered in a precise, schoolmistressy tone; a warning sign, if Lamb had cared to heed it.

  “Yes, well, maybe you stuck your head under a tap or something. You alcoholics can be cunning, I’ve learned that much.”

  “Anything you’ve learned about alcoholics is self-taught. Would you mind giving it a rest now? I’m tired.”

  “Only he was one of your drinking buddies back in the day, wasn’t he? Sean Donovan. That why he left you a bottle? Old times’ sake?”

  She said, “What are you after, Jackson?”

  “Just concerned you’re not about to have a relapse. Don’t want to arrive at the office to find you naked and covered in vomit. Which is what we were expecting when you didn’t show this morning, point of fact.”

  “Was it?” she said, in a voice that would cut glass.

  “Pretty much. First place we looked was the local park bench.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Second place was under it.”

  “Shut up now, Jackson.”

  “So why’d Donovan give you booze, if he’s such an honourable guy?”

  “Did I say anything about him being honourable?”

  “You seem pretty keen on painting him as a white knight. And this is all guesswork, remember? Could be, he’s exactly what he seems to be. A killer drunk driver who thinks the country’s run by lizard people.”

  “And this is because you think he left me a drink? Jesus.” Catherine Standish rarely swore. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

  Lamb curled his lip. “There’s a difference between offering you a glass and locking you in a room with the stuff.”

  “Well pardon me for not getting that. Besides which, it wasn’t Sean left me the drink. It was Bailey. I mean Dunn. Craig Dunn. And he thought he was being kind.”

  “Proper little gentleman. Good job I’d toughened you up, isn’t it?”

  “You did?” She laughed. Lamb had rarely heard Catherine Standish laugh. “Trust me, it was no thanks to you I kept sober. If I’ve anyone to thank for that it’s my old boss. Because unlike you, Charles trusted me. He showed me friendship, he believed in me, and he kept me on when anyone else would have thrown me to the wolves. So it was Charles Partner let me pour that wine down the sink instead of down my throat, and the only thing you did was turn up and batter that poor boy senseless, when he was going to let me go anyway. Now finish that filthy thing and get back in the car. I want to go home.”

  Lamb removed the cigarette from his mouth and studied it for a moment, as if concerned it was as dirty as Catherine had suggested. Then he replaced it, and gave her the same brutal stare. Out on the forecourt a car door slammed, and music briefly blared into life. Then the car departed, and Lamb was still staring, still smoking. At last he dropped it and, unusually for him, ground it out heavily; kept grinding until it was a smear underfoot. All this with his eyes still on Catherine.

  Only when she made a tchah sound and turned to go did he speak. His words stopped her in her tracks.

  “You really do pick ’em, don’t you? Your hero? Charles Partner? You want to know why he really kept you on?”

  “Don’t even dare, Lamb . . . ”

  “Charles Partner, your old boss and mine, spent the last ten years of his life passing secrets to the Russians. For the money. That was your hero, Standish. Your oh-so faithful friend. And he kept you on precisely because you’re an alcoholic. You think he wanted someone at his side alert enough, together enough, to pick up on what he was doing? Uh-uh. No, he trusted you all right. He knew he could rely on you to take life one day at a time, and never see beyond the given moment. Once a drunk, always a drunk.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Does it sound like a lie? Seriously? Or more like something you’ve known all along and never dared admit to yourself?”

  Catherine was frozen into place, looking beyond Lamb as if something monstrous lurked behind his shoulder. And then her gaze shifted, and she was staring straight at him, that sense of monstrosity still steady in her eyes. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.

  “I didn’t hear that.”

  “I said fuck you,” she said, in a voice scarcely louder than silence. “Fuck you, Jackson Lamb. I quit.”

  “Of course you do.”

  But she turned and walked away without replying.

  When he got back to the car, Roderick Ho pointed at the pedestrian bridge, on which Catherine had just crossed the motorway before vanishing from sight on the other side. “Where’s she going?”

  “She decided to walk.”

  Ho said, “It’s like, thirty miles . . . ?”

  “Thank you, Mr. TravelApp. Just drive the fucking car, will you?”

  Ho started the engine. “Where to?”

  “Where do you think?” Lamb snarled. “Slough House.”

  Halfway to the factory wall, Shirley took fire, two bullets ringing off the brickwork ahead, and she veered away, coming to a crouch underneath the surviving klieg light, whose frame afforded imperfect cover. For a minute she waited for another burst, and when it didn’t come she removed the silencer from Nick Duffy’s gun, rolled out into the dark, and fired at the sky.

  The shots that returned came from the pile of metal fencing to her left.

  Huddled on the ground she aimed, fired, three, four times. The bullets bounced off the fences with a firework display of noise, each ricochet a carillon . . . She paused then loosed another volley. When the noise at last faded, its echoes ringing off the walls around, she heard someone running for the safety of the nearest building.

  “Chicken,” she muttered.

  On her feet again, she ran for the factory, and the jagged tear in its corrugated-iron wall. Before going through, she turned for a moment, and surveyed the wasteground. Nothing moved, that she could see. However many Black Arrows there’d been, most were probably back out on the streets, hastily constructing alibis. There were only so many gunfights you could have in London before someone called the police. Sooner or later, there’d be sirens wracking the evening.

  She took a deep breath, smiled another secret smile, then froze as she felt a gun barrel pressing into her neck.

  Then: “Shirley?”

  “. . . Fuck.”

  The gun withdrew and Louisa came through the hole in the factory wall, followed by River.

  “Fuck,” Shirley said again. “You guys okay?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “This and that.”

  “Marcus with you?”

  “Well, duh. Yeah, he’s over there somewhere.” Shirley waved her gun at the building on the far side. “Chasing after Nick Duffy.”

  “After who?” Louisa said.

  But River was already away.

  A train hurtled past, headed for London, its passengers tired, hungry, irritable, alert, eager, excited or happy, depending, but none paying much attention to the derelict buildings briefly to their left, with dead windows, spray-tagged walls, and an armed man hunting another on its shadowy ground level.

  Marcus, arms rigid, sissy gun in a two-handed grip, and Nick Duffy nowhere to be seen.

  Grit underfoot betrayed every movement, but still he moved between the pillars with as light a tread as possible. From here he could see the breezeblock-and-wire wall keeping the railway line at bay, the yellow digger parked against it, but he couldn’t see Duffy. Duffy was either lighter of tread than he w
as, or stood stone still in the shadows. Or had doubled back, and was out on the streets; stuffing his fancy silk balaclava into a pocket and hailing a cab.

  The time for silence had probably passed.

  “Duffy?”

  No response.

  “I’m gonna make it easy for you, Duffy.”

  No response.

  Marcus could feel sweat on his neck, and tension in his thighs. It had been a long time since he’d been here: in the dark, expecting trouble. A long time since he’d been as near death as he had been three minutes ago. And he couldn’t remember death ever wearing the face of a former colleague.

  “Step out now, hands up, and I won’t shoot you dead.”

  No response.

  The sweat was welcome, and so was the tension, because they reminded him he was alive. All those days spent chasing money down various machines, across countless counters: cards and horses and numbers on a wheel. All he’d been doing was looking for a door to kick down. All he’d wanted was someone to be on the other side.

  “I’ll kick the living shit out of you, but I won’t shoot you dead.”

  Half a brick came out of nowhere, bounced off a pillar and spun into the dark.

  Marcus turned and nearly fired, but didn’t.

  Control.

  “That was fucking pitiful,” he said. Revolving slowly, covering all angles. “Makes a difference, doesn’t it? Me not being shackled on the floor, I mean.”

  No response.

  “Mind you, you couldn’t even manage that, could you?”

  This time, the brick hit his head.

  He staggered back, but kept his grip on the gun, and when Duffy hit him waist height, a classic rugby tackle, fired three times, each shot punishing the ceiling. Then he was on the ground, Duffy on top of him, Duffy’s fist about to pound his face.

  Marcus caught the blow with the open palm of his left hand, and with his right levelled the gun, but even as he squeezed the trigger again, Duffy’s elbow nudged his aim aside. And then there was a tight grip on his forearm, and Duffy was smashing his hand on the ground twice, three times, four, and the gun went skittering into the shadows. He was free suddenly, Duffy’s weight lifting from his chest, and he rolled and scrambled to his knees, lunged for Duffy’s feet before Duffy could reach the gun. He missed one, caught the other, and Duffy hit the ground flat, but a moment later his foot smashed into Marcus’s chin. Marcus bit the tip of his tongue off and his mouth swam with blood, but he didn’t let go of Duffy’s foot until the second kick arrived, this one catching him square on the nose. His eyes filled and the world went watery, and Duffy broke free. Everything slowed. Marcus was on his hands and knees, dripping blood onto the ground, and Nick Duffy, breathing heavily, was getting to his feet, the sissy gun in his hand. He looked down at Marcus, shaking his head. “You are too fucking old,” he said. “And too fucking dead.” But before he could shoot, a length of metal piping hit the side of his head, and he went down.