Fitzrovia Twilight (Nick Valentine Book 1) (21 page)

              After a time, he carefully folded it and placed it in an inner pocket of his wallet. It was something to hold on to – all he had to hold on to. He dabbed at his eyes and stood. He’d figured his next move. Time to clear up the loose ends and see where it led him.

CHAPTER 21

Before he’d even made The Blue Rose, the big black sedan had growled to a stop alongside him and once again the gorilla in the suit had ushered him in. Nick idly wondered just how closely Richardson was watching him.

              “Nick, I was hoping you’d have some news for me by now.” Richardson blew out a curl of blue cigar smoke.

              “That makes two of us, but I’m close now. You know they killed Stephen?”

              A flicker crossed Richardson’s face. “I’m sorry to hear that, Nick. Really I am. Family is important.” There was a minute’s silence before Richardson cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose I have to worry then?”

              “Worry?”

              “About you seeing this through, not if it’s personal now.”

              “Oh, it’s personal all right. No, you don’t need to worry,” Nick said wearily.

              “Good. Only I was starting to. I want this cleared up. I just need a name.”

              Nick fixed Richardson with his pale blue eyes and stared intently at the older man. He leaned close. “You’ll get more than a name.”

              “A name is fine, Nick. I like to take care of my business myself.”

              “There’s more to this than your business now, more to it than Stephen’s murder. There’s information of national importance being passed through the wrong hands and the future of this country being put at risk.”

              “I know.”

              Nick started. “You know?” he repeated incredulously.

              “Heard a whisper.” Richardson leaned back and looked out of his window. “I know you don’t think highly of me, Nick, that I’m just a businessman with menaces. Well, maybe I am, maybe I’m not, but I’m a patriot, too. I don’t like what I see and what I hear these days, with Germany, Italy, Spain, now the British Union of Fascists. Some of my boys even thought about joining until I put them right. You see, I don’t need a new order, I like the status quo. It’s good for business. What you’ve got now is politics mixing with crime on the streets and I don’t like it, any more than I like the idea of enemies of this country getting their hands on things they oughtn’t to.”

              “Well, well, who’d have thought? Maybe I should be asking you for leads.”

              Richardson gave a smile. “Like I said, I only heard whispers, but a man like you can get to the truth, and when you do…” He pushed a stubby finger into Nick’s chest. “You tell me and I’ll take care of it.”

              “Sure. You know why I was sent away from the front in the war and redeployed into Intelligence?” Nick didn’t wait for an answer. “I was sick of seeing people die around me. Imagine, you’re talking to someone, someone with a sense of humour, a life, stories, and a split second later they’re gone. You’re wearing them, their blood on your clothes, in your eyes, their tattered flesh clinging to you. Day after day.”

Richardson paled slightly and the heavy shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“One day we get sent to a section of the line where there’s an active sniper. He’s so active we lose nine men in the first five days. One of the men I’m talking to when the top of his head gets taken off and I’m tasting his brains.”

Richardson now looked equally horrified and enthralled.

“So, that night I crawl into No Man’s Land and I spend the night sliding on my belly through the mud, trying to find him, only I don’t. I lie there among the decaying bodies under the sun all the next day and I spot him. I spot him when he shoots and takes two more of our lads, and I’m less than sixty feet from him, but I can’t do a damn thing until dark, which can’t come soon enough.”

              “As soon as the sun is down, I’m slipping my way over to him. He’s lying still, waiting for a little more darkness to slip back to his lines and his medals and his rum ration.” Nick stopped abruptly and looked away from the men, into the shining lights of the cafes and the smiling people gaily going about their business. He turned slowly back to Richardson, who swallowed heavily, his eyes not leaving Nick’s.

“When I was done, I slipped back to my trench, covered in mud and slime and blood. My men look at me horrified; they’re convinced I’d died out there. Then I tell them, ‘I got him,’ and they congratulate me, and word gets back up the line and the phone rings and everyone’s telling me ‘Well done’.” Nick gave a snort. “They let me sleep in past stand-to, but when I get up in the morning, no one will look at me, meet my eyes. You see, they’ve seen it, just like the Germans have seen it, and the line is totally silent in our section. Then the phone goes and I’m told to report back to rear HQ and from there, I’m away from the front for evaluation and ultimately into a new role as an assassin for HMG. What I did showed I had the right stuff apparently, even if it wasn’t the done thing. Even in that war, with everything else that went on…” Nick shook his head and gave a wry smile. “You see, I solved the problem of the sniper. That section of line stayed quiet for weeks afterwards.”

              “What did you do?” Richardson asked in little more than a whisper.

              “When the sun came up, not twenty feet from the German’s front trench, was the sniper’s rifle, upright with the barrel stuck down in the mud. I stuck his head on top, facing his own lines.”

              There was a moment’s stunned silence. Nick reached for the door handle and the heavy actually recoiled from him.

Nick turned to Richardson, “So, don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.” Nick opened the door and hopped out.

Richardson looked very worried indeed.

He’d seen more of The Blue Rose in the last three days than he had done in weeks, and that hadn’t proved to be a cause for celebration. Nick negotiated the stairs wearily, lighting a cigarette as he slipped down into the dark embrace of the club. He had the pictures, but he’d lost the woman he loved and killed three men in one night. He ordered two martinis with a twist and finished the first in one gulp then he sat at the bar sipping the next. He stared at the blurred reflection of himself in the bottle-crowded mirror behind the bar, looking right through his own somehow unfamiliar image into nothingness. He took out his wallet and looked at Clara’s note again. A hand draped on his shoulder. He smelt her before he looked around. Lucia was stood at this side, a sad smile on her face.

              “Rough night?”

              “You could say that. Drink?”

She looked at his martini. “Sure, I’ll have one of those.” She slid onto the barstool next to him as Nick signalled from two more drinks, but the two of them remained silent for a while, as if nether quite knew what to say. After a sip of her drink, it was Lucia who spoke first.

“I’m sorry.”

              Nick looked at her blankly.

              “Clara. I’m sorry.”

              Nick raised an eyebrow. “About me and her, or about her day job?” he asked bitterly.

              “Both.” Lucia took a sip of her drink and avoided his gaze.

              Nick studied her carefully. “You knew didn’t you?”

              “I suspected. I thought about telling you, but…” The words died.

              Nick nodded and took another sip of his drink. “So what would you do now?”

              “You’re asking me?”

              “I am.”

              “I’d go home, lick my wounds and try to put all this behind me.”

              “I can’t.”

              “Why not?”

              “Because I don’t like loose ends, because of Clara; I won’t let it end like this.”

              Lucia twirled her glass idly and gave a sigh. “Nick, really, you should leave this–”

              “Tell me what you know.”

              Lucia stared at her glass for a few seconds before turning to meet Nick’s eyes. “You’re a smart guy; I’m sure you’ve already figured most of it out.”

              “Still, I’d like to hear it from you. Seems I’ve been in the dark all the way along.”

              “That was the idea wasn’t it?” Lucia said sadly. “You were underestimated.”

              “What do you mean?”

              “I think we need more drinks.” She drained the last of her glass and signalled for two more martinis. “Carruthers, he got you into this, didn’t he?”

              “Yes. Well, no, I guess Ramona’s murder did. The night I heard the shot, found her and ended up in the police station.” Nick stared into the middle distance. “That seems like a lifetime ago. It was only days.” He looked around the bar and gave a wry smile. “All this, it doesn’t change does it? The world goes on.”

              “The world always goes on, Nick. You should know that.”

              “Yeah,” he said bitterly, “until you die, then it all stops.” He took a sip of his drink. “So, Ramona’s murdered, practically right outside my flat. She just happens to have my name and address in her pocket – a stupid coincidence that really brought me into all this. Clara had given it to her, said that she had a friend who needed helping out. I guess she was on her way to see me.”

              “If only she’d made it. She was never going to, though. Just like you were never meant to find her killer. You shouldn’t believe in coincidences in our line of work.”

              Nick looked at her sharply. “What do you mean?”

              “Come on, Nick. Who put you up to all this? Who’s been leading you in circles, getting you to do his dirty work?” Her eyes held the question.

              “Carruthers?”

              Lucia nodded. “You don’t think it was odd that he got involved in what was a police matter, and got you on the trail?”

              “He’d been watching Ramona. They knew what she was up to.”

              “But did they? What was she really up to, Nick? Sure, she was screwing the Brigadier, looking for secrets. She was meant to be passing them onto Jurgen to clear the debts she’d run up, but she got greedy, started thinking about playing both sides of the game. She was holding out for more money, passing duff notation, Jurgen even thought she might have been compromised.”

              Nick nodded. “So they killed her?”

              “No. They had something better. Once he was onto her, rather than just watch her, Carruthers couldn’t resist making contact, playing the big spy. He’s a young guy, not clever, promoted because he went to the right school and the correct college rather than any actual aptitude. He has his nice little wife and kids in the suburbs, but suddenly he’s this spy and he’s got this sultry Spanish spy in his sights. Someone exotic, dangerous. He couldn’t help himself and Ramona played him like a puppy.”

              “Jurgen was going to blackmail Carruthers into passing secrets. I know that’s why Carruthers put me on the scent of the whole thing, to get the incriminating pictures back, bum Jurgen off and close down their network. I know all that.”

              Lucia nodded. “And you’re right, but there’s more. Don’t tell me you really don’t see it?”

              “What?”

              “Carruthers was a lovelorn, or I should rather say passion-consumed puppy in Ramona’s hands, but sometimes a puppy can bite.”

She held Nick’s gaze as realisation washed over him.

“Exactly,” she said, recognising the look in his eyes.

              “Carruthers killed Ramona,” Nick said in wonder.

              “She thought she could play this better than Jurgen, put herself in a real position of power and make even more money. Rather than let Jurgen do the blackmailing, she decided that she’d do it herself. Cut out the middleman and cream the profit. She threatened to go to his wife and tell her everything. He could never have that. Sadly for Ramona, it broke the spell she’d had over him. He got suspicious. That’s when he realised that she’d already had the chance to lift some information from him – important information that he never should have had out of the office or lying around.”

              Nick knew what she was talking about but he kept quiet. He could almost feel the pictures weighing heavy in his pocket as she studied his face.

              She smiled. “I can see you know what I’m talking about. My job was to help Jurgen get the plans and get them out of the country. Not the ones from Carruthers, but the ones Ramona got from the Brigadier. They were planted with him anyway. That old duffer could never be trusted with really important stuff. We knew he was a potential weakness, so we primed him with false information and let it happen. I was helping Jurgen escape with worthless information and getting to know the network.”

              “We?”

              Lucia looked at him coyly. “I am Argentinean, parent second generation German, third generation Welsh and some Spanish in there along with some other things.” She laughed. “I’m freelance, Nick, but I was working with your government on this case. They saw I could be useful, I had the contacts and background to appear and make myself useful and trusted to Jurgen’s people straight away.” She shrugged. “It’s a funny game we’re in.”

              “I’m not in it,” Nick said coldly. “It ended badly last time I played.”