Christopher Brookmyre - Parlabane 04 (32 page)

'Fuck me,' he gasped.

The man gave a roar in response, and began whirling the swords in his hands with an expertise that appeared as spectacular as its ramifications were dreadful. His wrists rotated like they were servo-assisted ball-joints, his fingers flashing like a speed-metal guitarist's as they altered their grip, interchanged, compensated. Parlabane felt a spasm in his guts as he thought of the damage one malnourished halfwit junkie had done him with a flimsy, planed-down measuring implement. He thought of Sir Lachlan's words about stone sharpened blades, cutting to the bone through the mere weight of being leaned against; he thought of poor, glaikit, shite-talking, gormless Grieg's head, wherever the hell it was; and he thought of a dozen scared eejits trying to fight this off with a few Kitchen Devils and a reproduction targe from Ikea. The invader ended the display of flailing steel with the swords crossed in front of his camouflage-jacketed chest.

'Right, come on,' the man growled, stepping forward along the snooker table, eyes focused on Toby, who was paralysed by shock and disbelief. If Parlabane felt time had stood still during the swordsman's display, then it seemed to accelerate in that moment as the intruder lifted his foot to advance. He too had been transfixed by the sight, this terrifying demonstration of portentous proficiency, and the spell seemed only to be broken in that microsecond when the swordsman made to move towards his victim, at which point 194

it was too late to intervene, even if there had been any way of doing so. Toby was isolated, closer to the table than to Parlabane. There was no way of getting to him before this assassin, whose first, decisive step signalled death as surely as any signed order of execution.

It was over in less than a second.

The intruder's eyes fixing on Toby, his black-booted right foot came down on the blue as his other foot left the table. His momentum brought the ball of his left foot down on the pink and the first of the reds, which rolled away instantly and whipped his leg out backwards from under him. He fell forward, his hands thrust out, still gripping the crossed swords as his considerable bodyweight fell towards them. The hilts landed simultaneously on the baize about half a metre apart, either side of the upright wooden triangle. Acting as a fulcrum, the frame forced the ends together in a scissor effect and most efficiently cut off his head. It bounced once and doubled against the black, knocking it off the jaws of the corner pocket as the head came to rest against the bottom cushion.

There was a moment of total stillness, no words, no breathing, just the whir of a convection heater and in Parlabane's head the repeated sound of metal on metal together with the snicking noise that had accompanied it. He stared at the body on the baize, the head lying a foot or so distant, the image of how it got there looping in his mind. It had been so spectacular, he was half expecting the corpse to kneel up, arms out and the head to go: 'Ta-daaaaa!

Ayyy thangew!'

Toby looked to Parlabane and then to Max, glances traded all around as though seeking confirmation from an independent source that what they'd just seen
did
actually happen. Parlabane, realising time was still a major factor, decided to provide it.

'Well, are you not going to give the man a round of applause?' he asked. 'I mean, that was fucking amazing, didn't you think? Honestly, if you'd asked me ten minutes ago, hypothetically, if it was possible to cut your own head off, I'd have said unequivocally no. You've really got to hand it to the bloke -

though it's fair to say luck was involved. I mean, there's no way he could do it again.'

Max looked at Parlabane as though he'd grown a second head, perhaps in compensation for their visitor losing his. 'What in the name of God is going on?'

'We're in a lot of trouble, guys, that's what's going on. We're two men down already, though I suppose you could say we've now pulled one back; not that it was down to our efforts. I haven't seen an own goal of that calibre since Terry Butcher retired.'

195

Repulsion

What a mess, what a bloody mess. It was just plain wrong, like the editor of his personal biopic had accidentally spliced in footage from the life of some poor fucker in Somalia or Rwanda. 'Nightmare' was the word everyone else seemed to be muttering to express their mixture of horror and violently enforced credulity, but that didn't cover it for Rory. A nightmare was some girl you'd brought home browsing on your PC and accidentally opening your history folder. A nightmare was his candidly snapped nude pictures of June Shelley finding their way on to the internet. A nightmare was your business partner telling a room full of near strangers how you'd asked a B-list model to feign a desire to be anally penetrated. Besides, actual nightmares were unreal terrors in your sleeping state. The sleeping state tonight had been where they were all safe and comfortable, two days into a jolly where the only fears were a controlled part of the entertainment and the only danger was that the wine might run out. No, this was not a nightmare. This was waking up to find your sheets soaking wet and realising you'd only
dreamt
you'd got up and gone for a slash.

He was supposed to be back in the lounge bar at this point, sipping single malts and trading tales, maybe even catching that one extra smile, that sly, shared secret one, from Emily, with whom he'd begun to build up some quality rapport. Not that he'd have been in with a shout of anything like
that
, nor even necessarily looking for it. They'd been getting on kind of like. . . well, like he'd have expected to get on with one of the blokes on this trip, just somebody you sparked it off and wanted to jaw with. Somebody whose take on things you wanted to listen to, whom you most wanted to hear laugh when you told a story, whose face you looked to for a shared reaction when someone did or said something you both knew the other would find entertainingly stupid. What had been most surprising was that there was no hangover from the previous night's hostilities, as though neither felt there was anything to forgive or even get hung up about. He'd expected that, between the politics and Liz's revelations, he'd be doing well to get a civil word out of her, as in his experience lefties bore grudges and did not consort with the enemy lest it be interpreted as tacitly condoning their atrocities. Instead, she'd seemed to find 197

him funny, and any digs she made had been either good-natured or almost daring him to transgress her perceived lines of political acceptability. She'd been taking the piss, and he liked that. The banter should have been flowing along with the wine and the whisky, but instead. . .

Fucking hell.

Rory had had it good in life so far. He knew that; in fact considered it important to acknowledge. You've got to appreciate when you're having a good time
at
the time, so that you didn't end up a miserable old sod in an armchair wishing for days that weren't coming back. He'd been dealt a good hand, been given plenty, and taken more than was rightly offered at times (his personal Christmas morning ritual of earlier years being a case in point). He saw that as a mark of character rather than a flaw. Life was for living, and it was the people who were prepared to reach out and take more than their allotted portion who drove civilisation forward. Not all progress was down to altruistic motives, however we liked to romanticise ourselves. Truth was, if we weren't greedy, selfish and hedonistic, we'd be without most of the things that made life worth living. However, somewhere in his mind there had always lurked a fear that one day the bill was going to arrive. This wasn't a sign of a guilty conscience - Rory didn't spend many nights awake weeping for the little children - but just a symptom of realising that what you've taken for yourself can be taken back. One day, he'd always worried, life might find its way of exacting dues and exerting a kind of balance. Bereavement, injury, disease, June Shelley's pics going public and the bitch suing him for every penny he had. That kind of thing.

Not this. No chance. For one thing, that bill was to be marked for the exclusive attention of Rory Glen, Esq, and no karmic sin he'd committed could possibly justify what was being exacted from all these people. They were assembled around the grand staircase, a ragged and sorry bunch. Joanna was sitting on a sofa adjacent to the front desk, Baxter next to her with an arm around her shoulders. Her eyes were red but she looked too shocked to really cry, too numb to feel the things that would course through her when she was able to let go. She wasn't the only one to look numb, though if the others were like Rory, it had to be a defence mechanism: the mind anaesthetising itself against the effects of the single, dominant emotion that might otherwise paralyse them or turn them into quivering wrecks.

Toby was a sight to behold, his white shirt soaked with blood, his face smeared, hair stuck by it where he'd run his fingers through. He'd been

'hosed', according to his own description, being caught right in the firing line of the intruder's secondary but non-lethal weapon: carotid arterial spray. Sir Lachlan had a few dark, damp patches too, sustained while retrieving two of his heirlooms from the gatecrasher's still-twitching hands. 198

Emily and Kathy sat together on the stairs, the latter sporting some quality pokiosity that now seemed so irrelevant as to be barely worth noticing. Having been called from her bed, she'd grabbed a pair of jeans and her shoes, leaving herself braless under the grey sweatshirt she'd been wearing as a nightie. Actually, there'd been plenty of visual goodies on offer when it meant nothing and he was in no position to enjoy it. He'd accompanied Emily to rouse their respective colleagues, and though he'd stayed at their bedroom doors, the hour of the night and the urgency of the situation had afforded glimpses that would otherwise have been treasured. Tonight they felt like the nude scenes in
Schindler's List
. Liz had hurriedly answered the door in a towelling dressing-gown that she hadn't quite pulled across, and seemed thereafter less concerned about her modesty than by haste to pull on some clothes. Hadn't it been one of his admitted wishes for the weekend to see Liz in something more revealing? Wish granted. Whoop-dee-doo. Next time wish for a fucking machine gun, you tool.

Standing in the centre, of course, all eyes upon him, was Vale. That quiet little man, fading into the shadows for two days, but decisive whenever he stepped out from cover. Rory had all but forgotten he was on their team during the CTF match, as he'd been anonymous, invisible, until emerging to make the crucial contribution of taking out Parlabane when it was all or nothing. Politely enduring their half-cut bluster like he was too shy to speak, then cutting through the posturing and histrionics to the inalienable truth. Nothing to look at on the surface but a nimble elegance and modest charm, hinting at no greater hidden qualities than the old guy at the wedding who has the ladies queuing for a dance because he still cuts a rug better than the young bucks could ever hope to.

Talk about keeping your powder dry. Throughout all the phoney wars and team-building charades, where leadership, character and other such qualities were supposed to emerge, he'd kept his head down and let everyone else get on with it, clearly aware it was all just a game. Then the minute it became real, he had been the one to stand up, hold the centre and tell the others what to do. Nor had Rory missed the significance of Parlabane's conduct, looking to Vale for instruction with implicit trust. Parlabane was the type of guy who instantly derided pretensions towards authority, as well as someone who'd come through plenty of scrapes himself, and yet he was regarding Vale like he was his commanding officer. Photographer? Yeah maybe, if it was a hobby in semi-retirement. But civil servant? Your arse. There was more to know than Vale was owning up to. In that respect he wasn't alone, though at least Vale's secrets were likely to be of use and of relevance.

The bloody Toby kept sending meaningful glances Rory's way, as he had done once or twice the night before, when Rory had been crapping it that the 199

wet and woolly bastard would decide he needed to unburden himself before the gathering. It would have been far worse than anything Liz could contrive to reveal. He knew Toby was just seeking an unnecessary acknowledgement of the perspective their shared past afforded upon the excesses of the discussion, but at least last night it would have been pertinent. Right now it had fuckall to do with anything, and opting to blurt it out would contribute nothing to their situation apart from perhaps making everybody else hate the pair of them. To avert that end, Rory had returned Toby's glances with a look that said: 'Keep it shut.'

Vale recapped the situation for the newly arrived and newly bereaved.

'We are isolated with no means of communication or transport. There is no way of crossing the river other than how we did so earlier today, which I would file under "suicide" as it would involve going out there into the darkness on foot. It would also be pointless, as it strikes me as unlikely that the cars on the other side of the river would have escaped the same attentions suffered by those outside the front door, and it's fourteen miles from that car park to Auchterbuie. Our adversaries, having engineered this situation and having thus flaunted their deeds so far, can only be assumed to intend the same fate for all of us.'

'Killing every witness means never having to say you're sorry,' offered Parlabane.

'Or indeed having to explain your actions and motivations, never mind being caught,' Vale resumed. 'Happily, one of them has fallen on his sword, though not, it would have to be said, out of honour or conscience. We can assume that there are more - many more, given the confidence implied by their actions and by their choice of weapons. Men with the wherewithal to blow up a bridge could be reasonably expected to lay hands on firearms if required, and yet they come at us with blades: butcher one and decapitate another. As to why, my only guess is sadistic pleasure. It doesn't matter. What does is that until or unless we can find a way of raising the alarm, we have to do whatever is in our power to fend off further incursions.'