Christopher Brookmyre - Parlabane 04 (38 page)

It wasn't what she'd feared. Under the circumstances, there was hardly such a thing as a false alarm, but it was, this time at least, not the bad guys who were lobbing dead bodies through the windows. Vale, Ger and Sir Lachlan stood at the front platform of the gallery, above the main doors and their flanking windows, each before a now pane-less frame.

She understood. This was what Vale had meant about wannabe-warriors and their appetite for horror. All of the enemy's attention would surely now be focused upon the front of the house, where three of their own had been thrown down to the monobloc: hacked, skewered, headless, dead. How's your stomach for the fight now, boys?

The message was clear: come and have a go if you think you're hard enough. She just hoped it wasn't equally clear that they were bluffing. As many as sixteen left, Vale had said: homicidal, pissed off and already committed to a task they now could not afford to leave unfinished. A besieging force, superior in number, tightening its grip on a less-than-impregnable fortress, while inside they were scrabbling to furnish means of resistance from anything that came to hand. The grand piano had been disembowelled and its wires were being fastened by Baxter at neck-height across every inwardsopening ground-floor doorway. The resistance machines had been carried down from the fitness room and were having their cables restrung by Toby, more piano wire attached to their weight pegs. Emily was sharpening the end of a broomhandle with a kitchen knife. Crockery and cutlery were being stockpiled at those now glassless upstairs windows. Sir Lachlan was soaking bedsheet rags with spirits from the bar then twisting them into the necks of the bottles to furnish extremely upmarket Molotov cocktails. And Alison was bottling 'ocular marinade' for Vale. It was
Zulu
against
Home Alone
. Vale knew it, too. He was readying them for resistance, nothing more. When battle came, he did not expect victory. He had asked Sir Lachlan whether, when it came to it, there was somewhere to which they could fall back, some place where they could make a final stand. The only options Sir Lachlan could offer were barricading themselves in the tower, behind its heavy oak door, which carried the risk of the invaders simply burning the place down around them; or to descend into the chambers and passageways beneath the building. This had the advantage of its entrance being concealed and therefore buying some time before the enemy discovered them, but Alison liked the sound of hiding out down there even less than the tower. Those chambers 233

were the places excavated by Willcraft for the remnants of past slaughter, site of his own evil dabblings. With death beckoning them to come on down and join the party, it would be like sealing themselves inside their own tomb. The sound of synchronised freestyle deid-bampot window-plummeting was Parlabane's cue. It would draw maximum attention to the front of the building and thus lessen the chances of his being spotted scrambling above the rafters at the rear, where he was reaping the whirlwind sown by a lifetime of misspent agility. He kept telling himself that Vale wouldn't have sent him out to do this if they had any alternative, which was undeniably true, but there was no way the swine hadn't enjoyed landing Parlabane with this just a tiny little bit. Access to the roof was via a window halfway up the tower, above which was the turret from where Campbell and Baxter had observed their game of Capture the Flag. There wouldn't be much to observe tonight without the aid of infrared, which made him further regret that his wife Sarah had made him ceremonially dispose of his Jaguar Nightscope a few years back, amid other accoutrements of his less orthodox journalistic methods. (The explained monetary value of the device had almost won it a temporary reprieve until she had a peep through it at a less than serendipitous moment and saw the couple in the ground floor flat across the street having a shag on their settee, behind the normally reliable cover of closed Venetian blinds. Copulating blurry white blobs weren't exactly hand-shandy material, but the damage was done.) Down below, there was blackness beyond the short reach of the hotel's exterior lamps, no moon or starlight above due to the cloud cover. He could picture how black it would be if the power went out, which concentrated his efforts on picking his way across the roof to where the telephone cable was terminated. The rain had stopped at least, but the tiles were still slippy, and his balance had to compensate for the canvas bag on his back, the handstraps encircling his shoulders schoolboy-fashion.

If he moved too sharply, he could feel the weight in the bag shift in a revoltingly languid way. It didn't smell quite so strong now he was outside, but still the slightest whiff prompted his sensory memory to fill in the rest. There was no rope. Ordinarily, that wouldn't have been a major concern, as it would be accurate to say that scaling rockfaces and man-made edifices with his bare hands
was
Parlabane's idea of a good time. Climbing along an inch thick cable thirty feet above the ground was not a daunting prospect, nor would have been shinning down and then back up a telephone pole, even with a tin of petrol in a bag on his back. The problem was that the said telephone pole was close to a hundred yards past the targeted outbuilding, and the avoidance of traipsing across sword-wielding-nutter-infested territory was the very reason he was taking the elevated route. He needed a means of 234

getting down and up again at the point where the cable overhung his destination. Unfortunately, the piece of kit he'd spied some hours back that was ideal, indeed designed for just such a purpose, was probably several miles downstream by now, having been swept away during Baxter's fake demise. Bedclothes were out, despite being in abundant supply. A figure dressed in black, his face darkened with beef-stock powder that the chef only reluctantly owned up to being in possession of, could plausibly make his way across the moonless night sky without being detected. Start hanging white sheets down from the phone-line and you might as well be banging cymbals and playing a kazoo.

That was when Vale came up with a solution. Parlabane supposed it was in keeping with the group's necessary efforts to make use of whatever was to hand, but you never saw shit like this on
MacGyver
. The only practical resource they had passed up was the headsets from yesterday's headgames, on the grounds that Campbell had been monitoring then and so would plausibly be monitoring now. The chance to eavesdrop might even be why he hadn't removed or destroyed them.

'Yeah, but can't we use them to mislead, the way we did in the game?'

Parlabane asked.

'Not if he knows we know he's listening. Betting on a bluff is dangerous enough, but betting on a double-bluff is like playing Russian Roulette with three chambers loaded.'

Parlabane conceded the point, but mourned the passing of the principle. It had been encouraging to briefly imagine making the bad guys look one way while they snuck out the other, but it failed to address the next, larger question of where the bloody hell he thought they could sneak out to. Defending the house at least gave them somewhere to make a stand - as long as the lights stayed on.

'Still bored, Jack?' Vale had asked, as Parlabane prepared to embark on his mission. 'Or is the day job looking a bit more attractive right now?'

'Jury's still out, Tim. I mean, do you know how many times I've sat in a press conference and heard Nicola Sturgeon say the minister should resign? I think she must say it in her sleep.'

'Still, a fine mess old chap, eh? Gives a rather vivid perspective regarding what Kipling was on about.'

'Kipling?

'Yes. If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs. . . '

'Indeed. And I'd have to say that between them, Campbell and Baxter have really dropped us--'

'We've been friends a long time, Jack,' Vale interrupted. 'I adore your wife and I know what you mean to her, so I have to warn you that if you attempt 235

to finish that sentence I shall feel compelled and justified in killing you.'

'Come on, I let the "heads you lose" remark go. And the Kipling.'

'Get busy, Jack. And remember. . . '

'Yeah, yeah. No guts, no glory. Very fucking funny.'

The cable was terminated a foot or so below the eaves at the westernmost end of the building. It was damp and therefore a little slick, but consisted of a reassuringly thick interwoven spiral, supplying the two dozen or so connections the hotel employed. Parlabane reached down with his left leg and hooked his foot around the line, giving it a tug to make sure it wasn't going to rip from the wall when he applied his weight. He leaned out to grip it with his left hand, but couldn't reach without committing his balance beyond the point where he could still keep hold of the eaves. Breathing in, he loosed the fingers of his right hand and let himself drop that last few degrees, crossing both feet around the cable. It held. Gripping with both hands, he pulled himself tight against it, the weight in the bag shifting to the centre, rugging at his oxters. He felt a sharp pain in the left side of his chest, but knew despite the multiplicity of anxieties and physical demands being brought to bear upon it that it couldn't be a heart attack, as the said organ was still pounding away like the bass inside a ned-driven Fiesta at traffic lights. Before an exploratory hand could reach the spot, he realised that the pain was being caused by the cable pressing upon the stupid UML 'campaign medal' he was still wearing. He unhooked it and let it drop into the darkness, thinking once again of the man who had pinned it there, smiling, looking him in the face, looking
every-
one
in the face. What a piece of work. As he had mused earlier, they could only guess at how far back the beginnings of this thing lay. This guy, whatever his real name was, had to be an accomplished infiltrator: experienced and adept at the exhaustive duplicity of deep cover. The level of patience, planning, anticipation, calculation and contingency was soberly cold-blooded. He was a professional, all right, but a professional what?

Whoever, whatever he was, he wanted Parlabane dead himself and several named others - even though Parlabane had never seen him before. In fact, he had never seen any of these people before. The only person he knew on the UML jaunt was Vale, and he was present at Parlabane's own invitation. Who were they? What connected them? Maybe there were no connections, except the one they each unknowingly had to whoever was behind it, and perhaps that was the perverse genius of it, of a mass hit. You invite the victims to their own murder, hand-picked: disparate, unconnected people you wanted dead for disparate, unconnected reasons. Perhaps, even, it was disparate, unconnected people who wanted them dead, too. A job lot of contract kills, erasing any apparent individual motive as the authorities searched for a collective one.

236

Wouldn't that be worth months of preparation and an investment outlay?

For what kind of 'team' could they be putting together but an assassination squad? Sure, between the sick thrillseekers and the testosterone-pumped thugs, the organisers knew they might not get many decent recruits, same as many of the participants knew they'd no chance of making the team. But that was about money: stake money for the future of Assassinations Inc. They were here, the prisoner had said, to wipe out threats. Clearly, someone somewhere still had a higher opinion of Parlabane's influence and abilities than he did these days, but at least there was a precedent for people wanting him dead. Who the hell was Joanna Wiggins a threat to? Or Uptight Emily, or an amiable eejit like Rory fucking Glen?

237

Night of the Eighties Undead 2

Rory looked at Emily again, each offering the other unconvincing but sincerely meant attempts at reassuring expressions. They stood side by side at the barricade, rapier and Sabatier.

'I like a girl who's handy with a kitchen knife,' he wanted to say, but couldn't bring himself. The self-aware chauvinistic double-entendre was the kind of patter that was sparking between them earlier, but while doing so now might offer a bit of laughter in the dark, for him it would only serve to underline what he was about to lose, even if they did get out of here alive. They had relieved Toby and Sir Lachlan when Vale required them elsewhere, Toby being belatedly offered the chance to put his engineering degree to some practical application: something to do with gym equipment. Sir Lachlan was being ostensibly sought for his knowledge of the house, though Rory suspected he was being relieved from the barricade as much because he was in an increasingly bad way, losing blood despite Kathy's bandaging. Rory's own injury wasn't causing him too much discomfort, certainly not that he'd complain about for fear they'd threaten to pour more whisky on it. But he wasn't without his pain.

He and Toby had stood saying nothing for a moment as Toby prepared to leave the barricade, each knowing what the other wasn't talking about. Rory broke the silence, because he knew Toby wouldn't, not this silence nor the other one, without his consent. He was a good man, a far better man than Rory could ever hope to be. He was loyal, considerate, conscientious and utterly selfless. Toby had been young and stupid once too, but the difference was that one of them had grown up.

'Toby, it's time to tell them,' he said. 'For whatever it's worth.'

Toby had put a hand on Rory's shoulder for a second, then gone off to whatever Vale required of him.

'Tell them what?' Emily asked.

He wanted to put this off, and he did for a while. It was easy for them both to let the question slide, unanswered, amidst the kind of distraction that was around them: people hauling things about, nailing wire to doorframes; Ger and Vale coming by to collect the corpse that was lying in the hall outside. 239

Rory moved in a world where women were impossibly beautiful, rendered thus with the aid of digital manipulation, surgery or the regular application of two fingers towards the oesophagus. It set a benchmark that was so high as to be beyond even a natural ideal. Emily didn't resemble those women, and yet it felt a greater pleasure to look at her. Nobody would say she wasn't pretty, but it was something beyond the aesthetic and the physical that was touching him. Extreme circumstances like this could sell your emotions a dummy, he knew, but he honestly couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this way when looking at a girl.