Down into Darkness (31 page)

‘You're asking me to let you go alone. We go back to your house. You visit your friend.'

‘Is that all right?'

‘No, I'm afraid not, sir. It's our job to offer you protection. Not possible to do that unless we're with you.'

Morgan shook his head, irritated. ‘Put it this way, officer – I'm telling you to.'

‘Put it this way, sir – fuck off.'

Morgan got into his car, made an illegal U-turn and headed home. He overtook when he could, just for the hell of it. On his way up Kensington Church Street he passed a bus, then cut in hard, unsighting his followers, and swung into a side street, emerging at the top of Holland Park Avenue. The smile was still on his face when the Honda cruised up alongside, the man in the leather jacket wearing a smile that was broader than Morgan's and had about it a hint of malice.

Morgan's mobile rang. He let it.

Abigail and Bowman sat in her apartment and watched the clock.

‘He'll call,' Abigail said.

Bowman nodded. ‘I expect he will. In fact that's what I'm waiting for.'

‘He's sometimes late. Often late. Things happen.'

‘I'm sure.'

She didn't like him: the soft voice, the glint of ice in the
eye. He switched on the TV without asking and watched a football match for ten minutes. Without looking at her he said, ‘Get me a drink, sweetie, will you? Scotch and water would be acceptable.'

She brought him the drink and he closed his hand over hers, briefly, before taking the glass. His fingers were dry. He gave her knuckles a little squeeze and she felt a moment's pain. He continued to watch the match, which was winding down to a goalless draw. He sighed, as if that dull result was one more thing to contend with.

When the phone rang, he didn't look up. Abigail answered it, listened, then handed it to Bowman.

Morgan said, ‘None of this to her. She knows nothing about it – our connection, the police surveillance… All right?'

‘Where are you?'

‘I couldn't shake them. These guys are professionals.'

Bowman clicked his tongue. ‘All this fuss. I'll come to you.'

‘No.'

‘I'll come now.'

‘No, listen, it's too late. They ask me about visitors. This time of night… it's nearly eleven. A business meeting doesn't take place this late.'

‘Mine do.'

‘Come tomorrow… If you must come. Look, why come at all? I know what's needed, I know what they want. I've told you, it can't be done.'

‘Well, that's why we need a meeting, Neil. We have to talk it through. Ideas going back and forth, time to think, a glass or two… Are you in tomorrow?'

‘It's pointless.'

‘Tomorrow.'

‘I'm not sure. I have meetings. I might not be here.'

‘I'll come late,' Bowman said. His voice was even softer. ‘Be there.' He hung up the phone and walked towards the door, then paused, as if struck by an afterthought. He went to Abigail and put his hand under her chin, squeezing slightly, lifting slightly, enough to give a little pain, enough to bring her up on to her toes.

He said, ‘Tell him to be there.'

People waking with people…

Pete Harriman opened his eyes and knew he felt happy, but couldn't remember why. Then he remembered Gloria, sleeping next to him, and the happiness was coloured by the merest touch of anxiety. Suppose he always felt this way? God knows what that might lead to. He resolved to make a call as soon as he could; he hadn't seen another woman for more than a fortnight. Gloria was becoming a pattern; a fixture.

He went to the kitchen and made coffee, then took it into the bedroom. Gloria was sitting up in bed and looking at him, a smile on her face that made his head swim.

The window partly open, the curtain drifting and sending swathes of sunlight round the walls, a traffic hum from Ladbroke Grove, someone shouting in the street outside.

Aimée watched the movement of light for a while, half asleep, flooded by his warmth. She took his hand and slipped it between her legs. He stirred and turned, eyes opening, then closing again.

She whispered, ‘I love you,' and he nodded, smiling. She shrugged the covers away and reached for him, the breeze cool on her back, the clean line of his limbs, her lips on his, his hands moving, her hands moving, the sunlight on the walls, life going on outside.

She thought she would sacrifice anything for this.

*

Delaney was sleeping face down. Stella slid across him, letting her body rest on his a moment, then nipping the skin by his neck with her teeth before moving away. His arm came round to catch her, but she'd gone.

She stood in front of the home-made white-board and tried to find a pattern, as if a mind still fuzzy with sleep might be a better receptor. Shreds of dream came back to her: an encounter with her mother who somehow became Monica Hartley… Delaney on the ship again, shouting words into the wind… voices echoing in the disused hospital. The white-board's deaths – details of deaths, depictions of deaths – added up to nothing. Separately, they were tragedies; collectively, a riddle.

Delaney appeared and opened the fridge. He said, ‘My morning starts with orange juice and snapshots of the dead.'

‘It helps me think.'

‘And you're thinking of…?'

‘Him. The killer. Waking up, drinking orange juice, thinking of dead people, people he's killed.'

‘People he's going to kill.'

‘Exactly.'

‘Got a picture of him? In your head, I mean.'

‘Oh, yes… You wouldn't pick him out in a crowd. Someone like you, someone like me.'

The Beamer Boys were out cold. They were KO'd. They were in the substrata. A night of booze, dope and clubbing will do it to you every time. They didn't live together, but they often woke up together after such a night when they'd been too bombed to make a move.

They were in a flat in Kilburn that belonged to a girl who thought of herself as the girlfriend of one of them, and so she was. Nominally. Loosely speaking. More or less. Her name was Toni.

Toni woke up, drank a pint of water, threw up, had a flash-memory of last night's activities, got dressed and went out to buy the morning-after pill. In Kilburn High Road exhaust gases rose in columns of murky sunlight.

Harriman and Stella met by chance in Coffee Republic: a two-shot Americano for her, an espresso for him. They walked past Notting Dene nick, sipping, Stella doing all the talking.

Harriman said, ‘I've got a problem.'

‘A woman.'

‘Yes.'

Stella laughed. ‘What's new?' Then: ‘She's pregnant?'

‘No.'

‘She's possessive.'

‘No.'

‘So you tell me.'

‘I think about her when she's not around. I miss her. I'm missing her now.'

Stella stopped in her tracks and looked at him. She said, ‘You're in trouble.'

Delaney made himself some eggs he didn't really want. He walked round the apartment as if he were looking for something. He sat at the keyboard and couldn't think of a thing to say. He switched on the TV – war and rumours of war.

He made a phone call. Martin Turner wasn't the only editor he'd worked with.

Sekker called early. He had the sun at his back when Tina Mooney answered the door, and she shielded her eyes to see who it was. A bad start to the day. He was carrying a Grolsch six-pack, the dew from the chill cabinet still on it. He looked past Tina to where Ricardo was standing a little further down the hall.

Entering, he nudged Tina aside. He said, ‘I expect you've got things to do.'

They sat either side of a formica table in the sunless kitchen and talked things through. Sekker reminded Ricardo of his obligations.

He said, ‘We don't really need your connections, we don't want to put you out of business. Just this: whoever you're dealing with, whatever you're doing, you're doing it for us. It's a takeover. So we need to see throughput, and we need to see a paper trail. No freelance any more, okay? Nothing on the side, nothing under the wire, because we'll get to hear about it. You can have the action on Harefield, except anything over a hundredk you hand over to us. Smaller amounts go sixty-forty in our favour. In return for this – and as long as you don't try to deal on the side – you keep your fingers, your nose and your ears. When can we expect the first payments?'

Ricardo was looking at the table, a small chip in the formica, a food stain, a loose section of edging. He said, ‘It takes time. Your man will know. He'll understand. The money has to move.'

‘Sure. So, when?'

‘I haven't got anything running. People have to come to me…'

‘We know you've been busy, Ricardo, there's no shortage. Jonah was putting work your way, so here's your chance to cut out the middle man. Put yourself about a bit. Talk to the dealers. It's where the money comes from, yeah?' Ricardo nodded. ‘There's gear being sold on this estate every hour of every fucking day, Ricardo. There's a whassname…' Sekker made a gesture: everything in one place.

‘Clearing house,' Ricardo offered.

‘Yeah. And the people that run it haven't got a fuck of a lot of leeway. They have to be careful about money. We know that, you know that. They can't walk into Barclays with a bin liner full of used notes, now can they? You probably know that Jonah's out of commission; he's not well. He used to deal through us. Now it's you dealing through us, except we're leaving the arrangements up to you.' Sekker smiled and cracked his third can. ‘Since you're so fucking good at it.' He took a long pull. ‘So all that money – all that
dirty
money – is sitting around the place making people nervous. I don't think you'll have any trouble drumming up a bit of business. Give it a couple of days, yeah? To get something moving. To get something
in train
.'

He stood up, taking his beer with him. Ricardo hadn't touched a drop.

Woolf sat in his operator's chair in the scorched room and played the
Silent Wolf
game. The streets were dark. White lines slashing the screen were rainfall. The Wolf's enemies were shadows flickering in alleyways, in doorways, on rooftops. They came at him, and he killed them.

While he played the game, he heard only rain, saw only shadows. When the last antagonist was dead, Woolf looked
up and saw sunlight streaming in through the closed window, refracted on to the ceiling, splashing the walls. He drew the curtains and lay on the bed. The TV was on, as always, but soundless: a 24/7 news channel showing flame bursts and pillars of smoke in hill country, attack helicopters tilting, tail up.

He closed his eyes, but the image stayed as if the screen was in his head. It changed as he drifted along the edge of sleep, the colours brighter, the sounds leaking in.

A road, white under a layer of dust. A patrol: five men. They seem alert but relaxed, because they've done this before. Although this is a designated combat zone, things have been quiet for a while, and the men are wearing berets, not helmets. Their weapons are held low, fingers along the trigger-guard. The houses in the street show signs of shell damage: some have burned and look ready to fall; others seem virtually untouched. A dog barking in one of the back streets. Radio music.

A girl is walking up the street. She seems to be moving in slow motion. Although she's a way off, Woolf can hear her talking, and he knows she's talking to him. He also knows that this is an image from sleep's borderland, because she was never there, not at that time.

A flicker of light at the corner of his vision is neither the sun reflecting off glass nor a trick of the heat-haze, though in the instant he takes it to be one or the other. Then he hears the shot and, with the shot, the cry.

He is in a room with the girl, and now he knows he is dreaming. These events are shuffling like a pack of cards. She is loading a bong with raw opium, and he is smiling, because, pretty soon, he'll forget about what lies outside the room: the conflict and chaos and fear.

After a while the images blur. It seems she is naked. It seems
they are making love. He feels good; he no longer feels afraid. They lie together and talk. He answers all her questions.

The men walking in single file, the road white, no sound save for the radio music, a long melodic line that lifts and curls like a blown scarf.

The girl walking towards him. The gun-flash.

He came to, his face damp with sweat: with sweat or tears. He stripped and stood under a lukewarm shower. He knew the dream was really a jumbled memory. He thought about the girl. He thought about the girl he'd killed. He thought about Aimée and the way her look struck through him. He thought about Neil Morgan, who would be the next to die.

He sat in the operator's chair and played the
Silent Wolf
game from the beginning. He was waiting for the night.

Maxine Hewitt felt a weird sense of unease. She and Frank Silano were walking through school corridors towards the headmaster's office. She said, ‘I feel threatened. I know it's stupid.'

‘Going to the headmaster's office,' Silano suggested.

‘School. Just school.'

‘You weren't happy. Bad girl, bad reports –'

‘Fuck off. I had great reports.'

‘So your problem was…?'

‘I'm gay, Frank.'

He shrugged. ‘I know that.'

‘I was gay then.'

‘People knew?'

‘People suspected.'

‘Which meant?'

‘Taunts, kicks, graffiti on the wall. Maxine Hewitt eats pussy.'

‘Kids can be cruel,' Silano observed.

‘Kids?'

‘Okay, people.'

‘Which is why school makes me shivery.'

They were almost there. Richard Forester was standing at his office door to greet them. He looked every inch a headmaster.