by Leigh Barker
Sir Richard jumped. “Valentin Tal? Where did you hear that name?”
“From Lupus,” Harry said. “When we had our little chat on the rooftop.”
Now it was Sir Richard’s turn to frown. “Tell me exactly what he said about Tal.”
“Not much to tell,” Harry said. “Asked me if I’d heard of him, like I would have. He told me to get to know him.”
Sir Richard stood up and walked to the armoured window overlooking the Thames. “Tal was good, back in the cold war days, better than just good.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “But he retired years ago. When the Soviet Union fell, men like him were seen as dinosaurs, a throwback to a darker time, redundant and useless.”
Harry knew he was talking about more than just Tal. The end of the cold war had changed everything. Given the bean counters a chance to cull those who were deemed unnecessary in the new enlightened age. Funny thing, irony.
“What I do not yet understand,” Sir Richard said, returning to his desk and sitting, “is why Tal is providing Lupus with a bioweapon?”
“Like you said,” Harry said, “he must think he can control him.”
“Then he is a fool.”
“Everybody gets to be one at least once,” Harry said, wondering how many times in the last months that had applied to him.
“Perhaps,” Sir Richard said, “but this foolishness may well exterminate us all.”
Okay then, Harry decided to help find this elusive Lupus — call it a sense of duty, but its real name is honour.
Harry walked the couple of miles or so to his father’s apartment, partly to exercise his leg, but mostly to have time to think in peace — which on the streets of central London at midday was a neat trick.
This Lupus guy, the terrorist, had let him go, which was a plus in anybody’s book, but he’d also killed Tom and BJ. Okay, they’d killed a whole lot more of the Taliban, but the Taliban weren’t his friends. He wasn’t just going to stand by and wait for the suits to come up with something for him to look at. You’re a trained recon expert, Harry, the only difference here is that this is a city, but terrain doesn’t matter, behaviour remains the same regardless. Is that true? He stopped and looked into a shop window selling women’s underwear. Does an enemy’s behaviour remain the same regardless of terrain? It was a good point, and one that the trainers back in Plymouth would be able to answer, but they’d just ask a string of questions first — like, why did you sell out your friends. Cheers, Sir Richard, for that. Okay, think it through. Terrain and location must change the way an enemy behaves; it has to. He left the underwear shop window without seeing the suspicious glances from passers-by, and walked down to Victoria Embankment, with no thought of where he was going, it was just somewhere else.
What would you do? he asked himself and stopped and looked out across the river at the London Eye. First off, he wouldn’t be operating in London. Don’t be a prat; think it through. He’d want to make the biggest splash possible, as it was highly likely that he would be caught pretty soon after any atrocity on the scale that a bioweapon could deliver. But this is London, there are hundreds of places. Trafalgar Square in the evening, or just about any time. But that wouldn’t do it, okay, it would kill a bunch of people, and it might even be a place to start transmitting the germ — or whatever it was. But as big bangs go, it was a bit of a fizzle. He walked on, still ticking off the potential targets, but getting nowhere, they were all too small, and there were so many.
He glanced up as a low-flying jumbo coming into land at Heathrow roared overhead. If Lupus released a bioweapon in Terminal 1, it would not only spread the virus to the UK, but to every flight destination from Heathrow, and that was plenty. He stepped over a homeless drunk lying on the path. That had to be it, then, that’s where he would deploy his bioweapon, if he had to.
So terrain does dictate tactics. But he knew that.
His subconscious snapped him out of his mental recon, and he recognised the tree-lined street. Home, or at least as much of a home as he’d seen in years. This time the concierge opened the door and smiled, which was an improvement.
The usual suspects were home, with Frank sitting in Harvey’s big chair in front of the television watching football, and Rocky practicing what was probably a guitar in his room, though it could have been a violin. Harvey was at work because someone had to pay for all of this.
“Would you like some lunch?” Frank asked as Harry closed the door. “They have really good grub here, bit expensive, but worth every penny.”
“I doubt it’s a penny,” Harry said. “No, thanks, I’ve had a crap day, and my leg is playing up.” That’ll be because you walked three miles. “I’ll lie down for a bit.”
“Okay,” Frank said, “but I don’t think you’ll be doing much resting until Rocky has finished torturing the cat.” He returned to the football, and his plate of sandwiches, and his beer, and… a table covered with plates of things delivered by the ever-grateful Serge.
The squealing stopped, and a moment later Rocky came into the sitting room. “Hey, bro, I thought I heard your dulcet tones.” He was beaming, but what was not to beam at? “Get you a drink or something?”
“No, thanks,” Harry said, “Gramps has already offered me Dad’s hospitality.
Frank smiled at him and raised his beer in salute.
“Hey,” Rocky said excitedly, “I’ve got a gig tonight! Want to come?”
You have got to be kidding. “Is that what you’re practicing?”
Rocky glanced back at his room — maybe he expected to see the moggy escaping. “Nah, that’s something new I’m working on.”
Keep working, brother. “Sounds… err… experimental.” Good catch. “Thanks for the offer, Warrington… Rocky,” he continued, “but I’m too knackered to do any nightclubbing.”
Rocky nodded. “Yeah, I can see that. You look like shit.”
“It has been said.” He headed for his room.
32
“Where the hell have you been?” Superintendent Baxter, clearly his usual happy self, was standing between the two desks in the small office as if he’d been waiting to pounce, but he hadn’t, he’d been going through the papers to see if they were up to anything he should know about.
Shaun smiled at him. “Well, sir, this morning I received a very nice bravery award from the chief constable’s ass-kisser.” He patted his pockets. “Which I seem to have lost.”
Danny pointed at his top pocket. “It’s in there,” he said, “with the mayo.”
Shaun pulled a face and left the gong where it was. “And this afternoon we proceeded, as per your orders, to interview one Tweetie Pie.” He smiled at the scowling super. “Who had been apprehended in possession of a shooter, to wit that being a Mini Uzi.”
Superintendent Baxter stood with hands on hips and listened to the drivel that was supposed to be a report.
“After interrogating the suspect, aka Tweetie Pie,” Shaun continued, “we proceeded to a club called Oscar’s Pussy Club, where we—”
“Shut up, O’Conner. Just shut that Irish yapping!”
Shaun feigned a shocked expression and looked at Danny, who had suddenly discovered something of gripping interest in the cold-case notes he’d found on his desk.
“I’ll have a full report, in writing,” Baxter said as he headed for the door. “In one hour.” He slammed the door behind him.
“That went well,” Shaun said and tore open a sachet of Nescafe, tapped it into a mug with a ‘World’s Best Dad’ logo, and poured in slightly warm water from the glass jug. No coffee stations here, just Nescafe and nuked milk in little foil cartons.
“Were you in the same bollocking as me?” Danny said, dumping the old notes into the trash.
“Well, we’re both still employed,” he said, tasting the coffee appreciatively and pointing at the jug. Danny nodded. “And hey, I’m still a sergeant.”
“Yeah, and after only twenty years. Aren’t you doing well?”
“Ca
n I help it if my betters don’t like me?” Shaun handed him a mug of something like coffee.
“You’re not going to write the report, are you?”
Shaun shrugged. “Nah, he won’t read it anyway.”
“There you go.”
Shaun looked puzzled. “What?”
“Teasing the pissed-off rattler, that’s what?”
“He loves me, really.” Shaun poured a slug of whiskey into his coffee and raised the hipflask, but Danny waved it away. Please yourself.
“So, what about this Junior Brown?” Danny asked, getting off the subject of their inevitable degrading dismissal from the boys in blue, the ultimate downward spiral to a booze-rotted brain and a lonely death in some homeless shelter after years living rough on the streets. He pulled himself out of that timeline before thinking it made it so.
“He’s a gun dealer,” Shaun said, tasting the coffee and adding another shot to sweeten it. “Sell anything to anybody. He’ll sell your baby sister a Kalashnikov if she saves her lunch money.”
“Charming.”
“Not a word I would use to describe this piece of shit.”
“But it’s still just the word of a bunch of trannies,” Danny said, waving away the flask again.
“Doesn’t matter, I’m not after him on this trip,” Shaun said.
“No, we both know who you’re after, and we also know if Baxter finds out, he’ll bounce us back to woodentops so fast we’ll leave skid marks.”
“You should stay out of this one. Truly.”
“Yeah, right. And how does that work exactly?” Danny shrugged, “We’re partners, right? Like Kurt Russell said, you go, we go.”
“Those movies will rot your brain, you know that?”
“Not possible, man.”
Shaun stood up, put the World’s Best Dad mug back on the shelf, and started for the door. “Okay, your funeral.” He stopped, turned round, and raised a finger. “Mayfair.”
“Yeah,” Danny said, “nice place to live, if you’ve got a few million.”
Shaun came back to Danny’s desk. “Those trannies said Patrick lives in Mayfair.” He tapped the computer monitor. “Do computer things, and see if we have anything on a gun runner in Mayfair.”
“Oh, right,” Danny said, waking up the computer. “The place is a den of thieves and gun runners.” He began to search the police database, grunting from time to time, and then stopped and shrugged. “Nope, the only vague connection is there’s a guy got fined for having an unlicensed gun, but it was just a pocket pistol.” He tapped the monitor with his finger, as if that would make everything clear. “Irish guy, apparently.”
Shaun frowned. “What was his name?” Like it would be Patrick O’Conner.
“Err… Michael Collins.” Danny shrugged. Not O’Conner, then.
“Ahh…” Shaun said, crouching beside the desk.
“What?” Danny asked.
“Your history’s not too hot, is it?”
“I know about Henry the Eighth,” Danny said. “Well, at least the stuff in the movies.”
Shaun gave him a long sad look. “Michael Collins was a famous Irish revolutionary leader killed in the civil war.”
“So you think—”
“I know,” Shaun said. “That’s just the sort of flash play Patrick would pull. Thinking he was giving the authorities the finger.”
“Let’s go get him, then?” Danny said, starting to get up.
“Now who’s running into the burning building? No, not yet. I’m not going to tip my hand and let the bastard get away, not when I’m this close.”
“Okay,” Danny said. “Then we need to get enough proof to bury him.”
Shaun got off the desk and headed for the door.
“Junior Brown?” Danny said, saving his search and logging out of the system.
Shaun nodded and opened the door a crack to check if Baxter was lurking. The hallway was clear, and he walked quickly and quietly to the stairs, followed by Danny on exaggerated tiptoe.
33
It was a classic London autumn, with the heavens having opened up and pretty much soaked any poor sod not indoors, which was good news for Oscar’s Pussy Club because passers-by had mistaken it for an oasis and were now trapped by the torrential rain. Simple choice really, tranny bar or soaked to the skin. Well, okay, no choice at all. Pink drinks in long glasses and sticky carpet it is.
Not that the crowds intimidated Rocky and the Pebbles, they lived to perform… well, actually, they’d lived to perform for about four weeks, but who’s counting? The drummer, the bass guitarist, and the keyboard player were playing more or less in tune with the singer, Shelly, a medical student in her final year. Rocky… well, he was doing his own thing; he just didn’t know it. At last they got to the big finish, much to the relief of pretty well everyone in the club. Rocky took a bow to the person applauding and headed for the bar.
“Cool,” he said as the others joined him. “We rocked the place.”
They looked at him much the same way as they would an idiot child, but let him have his moment. God knew there wouldn’t be any others. They ordered various drinks, and all got the same pink thing in long glasses. Same price as a bottle of wine, so a snip.
Rocky leaned on the bar and closed his eyes to let the adrenalin buzz fade. Man, this is the life. He opened them again to tell them exactly that, but he was now just Rocky — no Pebbles. Screw them, then, he’d be famous on his own.
It was too bright at the bar, and pretty soon crowds would be mobbing him for his autograph, so he took his pink drink and crossed the sticky carpet to an alcove table. It was occupied.
“Mind if I sit here for a mo?” he asked the occupier. “Was supposed to do another session, but the singer’s taken ill. You know how it is with women’s problems.”
“Tell me about it,” Tweetie Pie said, leaning on her elbows and snivelling.
“Hey,” Rocky said, sliding onto the bench seat opposite the poor boy. “Man trouble?”
“If only,” Tweetie said, blowing into the same handkerchief he’d blown into when that scary Irish policeman was talking to Curly Sue.
“Yeah,” Rocky said, looking out at the clientele that was exiting the building as fast as they could. Clearly the rain had stopped.
“Why’d they have to go and kill Talcum?” Tweetie asked his handkerchief.
Rocky frowned. “Who killed what?” Might as well talk, there’d be no more playing tonight, which was a pity — for him, not the audience.
“Not what,” Tweetie said, “who.”
No, Rocky didn’t get that. “Who what?” he tried.
“Talcum is a… was a boy. Oh, such a sweet, lovely boy.” Tweetie blubbered again. It was a bit… well, messy and bordering on gross.
“Oh,” Rocky said, wondering if he could just leave.
Tweetie reached over and took his arm. “He was my friend, did you know that?”
Rocky shook his head; he didn’t know that.
“Yes, such a sweet—”
“Lovely boy?” Rocky suggested.
“Yes,” Tweetie said, looking up with red-rimmed eyes. “Then you did know him?”
“I knew of him,” Rocky said. As of two minutes ago, though it seemed longer.
“They killed him,” Tweetie said, the sobs having subsided to a steady sniffle.
“Yes, I heard about that,” Rocky said, looking around for an exit strategy, but none presented itself.
“Oh, I could tell you were sensitive, as soon as you sat down.”
Oh, great. What the hell, though, he hadn’t been paid yet. “So, Mr…?”
Tweetie frowned and looked over his shoulder at the burgundy flock wallpaper, looked back, and gave a little start. “Oh, you mean me.” He shuddered for any number of reasons. “I’m not a Mr.” He smiled — it was pretty grim. “I’m Tweetie Pie, but you can call me Tweetie.”
Seemed sensible, that being his name. “So, okay, Mr Tweetie—”
“No,” Tweetie said.
“No Mr, just Tweetie. You know, like sweetie?”
Rocky wanted to run away screaming. “Okay then, Tweetie.” He would have smiled, but he was already in it up to his neck. “How did… the lovely boy get killed?”
“Talcum,” Tweetie corrected. “His name was Talcum, to his friends.” There was that pathetic smile again. “And I think he would’ve liked you, so you can call him that too.”
Okay, Rocky was back in the starting blocks again after three false starts. “So, how did Talcum get killed?” Though by now, he really didn’t care.
“The Jamaicans shot him.”
Okay, that got his attention. “Why?”
Tweetie shrugged, and the strap of his Chinese halter dress caught in his long blonde wig, pulling it to one side. Rocky looked out into the bar, not really to enjoy the sight of truckers with beer-guts in tight leather skirts, but anything was better than the view across the table.
“I keep asking myself that question you just asked myself,” Tweetie said.
Rocky looked back, he couldn’t help himself, but Tweetie had fixed the fashion faux pas and was looking as lovely as… well, a New Orleans hooker caught in arc lights. He looked away, but it was too late, the image was etched onto his retina like the circle of the sun.
Tweetie took a long drink of the awful pink stuff, illustrating that you can get used to anything, given time. He took a bottle out of an oversized white leather handbag and poured a long shot into his glass. “Medicinal,” he said and held up the bottle to Rocky.
He was tempted, but the thought of getting drunk in this place killed the temptation pretty quick. Could you imagine waking up in the morning to find—
“I tell you what I fink,” Tweetie said, leaning forward and looking both ways at the walls of the booth. “I think it was for those rifles.” He touched the side of his nose… well, that was the intended target, but he put his finger in his eye. “Ow! Ooh! Shit!” Which pretty much covered it.
“Rifles?” Rocky said, mirroring Tweetie’s lean forward. “What rifles?”
Tweetie’s hand moved towards his nose, but he noticed it and dropped it while he still had one eye working. “They fink I’m fick,” he said with the beginnings of a first-class slur.