Last Line (19 page)

“I know that. Just…just go.”

* * *

The Kennington B&B and John’s loft apartment existed in two different worlds. Catching sight of himself in the silver-framed mirror he’d hung in the living room to gather and amplify the morning light, John checked the impulse to reach for his gun. It looked as though a tramp had broken into his starkly elegant home. He stripped off his clothing where he stood and walked, oblivious to the people who paid an equal fortune for an equal lack of privacy in the lofts all around him, into the shower.

Emerging, scrubbing his hair with a towel, he looked for a place where he could curl up and consider his wounds, if not actively lick them. Mike’s flat—the farmhouse too—had an abundance of such corners. Sofas you could sink into, thick-walled rooms where you could close the curtains and sleep off a night’s excesses in peace. John had seldom been around here much during the day. His bed, behind its Japanese-paper partition, lay bathed in dazzling June light, impossible to block out. All the expensive surfaces John had chosen with such care gave back the brilliance too.

He had no idea why he’d chosen the place or what had charmed him about it. He got dressed quickly, skin scrubbed clean now but crawling with the sense of exposure. He glanced at the kettle, but it gave a warning crackle at the very sight of him, and he boiled up the water in a pan on the gas hob instead.

He took his coffee into the living…space, really; it didn’t qualify as a room. He perched on the edge of the chilly, gorgeous Krefeld chair Mike had bought him last Christmas, not understanding his tastes but always happy to indulge them. It came as an odd comfort to him to reflect that, in his new circumstances, he wouldn’t have to worry about the loft or its contents for very much longer at all. He’d never saved a penny out of his salary and could coast here for a fortnight tops until his next rent payment fell due.

John supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised at the view his boss had taken. Webb hadn’t let him get as far as his concerns about Michael, and in the familiar office, facing the hurricane of the old man’s wrath, hypnotic songs and mysterious conditioning had begun to seem like a fairytale to John too. Webb hadn’t given a damn about his agent’s reasons for abandoning the op. The fact that he had done so—that he had broken Last Line’s first law and abandoned his partner—had been enough. John was suspended, indefinitely and without pay, and could consider himself lucky he hadn’t been sacked outright, though Webb would arrange for this as soon as he could coordinate the paperwork.

John’s hands shook. He splashed black coffee onto the pale merino rug and didn’t care. He’d been stupid ever to mistake the old man’s willingness to sacrifice his men for a lack of care about them. The usual terms applied to the Oriel op, he had reminded John ferociously, and if Michael South ended up as the price, so be it. But until and unless such desperate circumstances arose, Agent South’s life was precious to Webb as a son’s. As all his agents’ lives were precious, even that of the errant one in front of him. You never abandoned your partner.

Drawing a breath, John sat up straight. He knew that. He
knew
that. He’d put it into practice every single working day for the last three years. What did it matter if Mike was screwing someone else, or if that someone had some fucked-up gift for turning the man John loved into a stranger? He was John’s partner still, and John had shattered the first law.

He jumped to his feet, knocking the coffee over. He couldn’t take time to resume his street disguise and simply threw on the threadbare old coat over his clean clothes. And he sure as hell couldn’t take the Jag roaring into the middle of Mike’s undercover, much as he might have wanted to, the modern equivalent of riding his charger onto the battlefield and snatching his partner up out of the fight. On the street, he settled for a taxi instead, tersely informing the cabbie he’d pay double for silence and a record-breaking ride back to Kennington.

But Michael was gone. Anzhel too, and the tired-looking hostel clerk had somehow missed the exit of a six-foot, fair-haired demigod when they checked out. John ran up the stairs to be sure, but Mike’s room was standing empty, the bunk stripped down.

He made his way blindly back out into the sunlight. Halfway down the hostel’s steps, his legs folded and he sank down. No one gave him a second glance. Worn-out junkies and men of the road wound up here all the time, he supposed, too lost to make the journey between their night and daytime worlds.

He tried Michael’s phone. No answer, of course. Mike took his undercovers seriously, and for all John knew might have left it in his locker together with his badge. Propping his brow on one hand, John let his own phone dangle from the other and allowed himself one of those dangerous human moments of reflecting that at least things couldn’t get any worse.

The phone buzzed. John snatched it up, hope flaring.
Prince William
, the screen said, and for a moment it meant nothing to him except a vague apprehension that he’d somehow pissed off the nation’s heir. Then he remembered. Swallowing a scald of bitter laughter—
Quin, of course! Why the hell not
?—he picked up the call.

Chapter Thirteen

“Hello? Uncle Mike?”

Pressing the phone to his ear in the noisy Hounslow cafe, Michael smiled.
Uncle
had gone out the window a long time ago, together with other childish failings. The kid must really want something. “Morning, Quin. Where are you?”

“Um… On a train to London.”

“On a school trip, right? Off to see the crocodiles in Regents Park Zoo?”

A pause, during which Michael could hear distinctly the silvery hiss of a speeding Intercity. “You know it’s not that.”

The exact echo of his brother, when John was caught short and about to confess. Mike’s smile broadened. This was very serious, he knew, but at the moment he couldn’t seem to worry about it. It was just nice to hear from the boy he’d grown to think of as more of a son than a borrowed nephew. Across the table, nursing his coffee, Anzhel Mattvei smiled too, as if he understood. “What’s up, then?”

“Please don’t tell John yet. Please don’t tell the school.”

That was a tall order. Not about the school; if they couldn’t find a way to contain their rebellious inmates, that was their own lookout. But the one thing Michael had never done was allow Quin to divide and conquer as far as he and John were concerned. “No promises about your brother, sunbeam. Still, I don’t know what I’m not meant to be telling him yet, do I?”

“I can’t face another bloody day there. They got a bloody doctor in. Told me I was bloody autistic.”

“Really? I’d never have said that. Tourette’s, maybe, but—”

“They’ve got me counting grains of rice and playing the piano to see what kind of idiot I am.”

Mike snorted. He laid a hand over the receiver until he could steady his voice. “Do you maybe mean what kind of savant?”

“Whatever. I can’t cope with it anymore. Can I come and stay with you for a few days? Please?”

Please
was an echo from the past, as well, at least delivered with that kind of sincerity. A right little pain in the arse, Quin had been over the past year or so, adolescence knocking out his sweet childhood manners. The answer was still no. Michael and John had stood shoulder to shoulder in their efforts to deal with him. No way would Michael ever give him refuge, hide him from poor John’s unwilling efforts at parental authority. “Don’t ask me that. You know the answer.”

“I can stay if John says so. Shit.” A brief silence, broken by the rattle of a drinks trolley, then Quin’s voice returned, ragged with the edge of rare tears. “I know why you do that. I do. But it doesn’t always
help
me.”

“No, I know. Look, I’ll talk to him if I get the…”

Michael broke off. Anzhel’s hand had come down on his. He was a fearless sod, Michael would give him that. Even he and John would hardly sit caressing one another’s hands in the middle of a café full of building-site workers and truck drivers. But no one seemed to be taking any notice. Maybe times were changing. A gentler world. Even the music thudding out of the radio seemed to have changed from Capital FM to some kind of instrumental. Like nothing so much as a Russian melody he had once known…

“Uncle Mike? Are you still there?”

Michael glanced up. Anhzel’s hand was still on his, an undemanding caress. His smile was very sweet.
Kids
, it said. Helplessly Michael returned it.

“Yes, I’m here. You don’t have to call me uncle, you know.”

“No, I know! But I will if you like it. I—”

“Quin, stop trying to
bribe
me. Is it really that bad?”

“I think they want to dissect me. I know John paid a lot for it, but this school’s worse than—”

“All right, all right. God knows I don’t want you going to live in the forest again. But I’m not at home at the moment. I…”

“Oh. Are you out on an op?”

Michael bit his lip at the breathless excitement. Not too old to be blasé about everything, then. “No. It’s surveillance, that’s all. You’re going to have to come and meet me.”

“I can join you on an op?”

Well, maybe it was the line or maybe the selective hearing of youthful hope. “Not a bloody chance. You can come and get my keys and go home to my flat. Tell me, do you look like a little rich kid today?”

“Of course not!”

Quin sounded offended. But he was very like his brother in some ways, and Michael knew his intentionally faded jeans and cut-off little surfer-style Ts cost a fortune. “Well, do something for me anyway. Stick your expensive bag into a plastic carrier and mess up your hair. And if you can pick up a scabby parka from a charity shop on your way, we’ll be sorted.”

* * *

Michael watched him approach from the window of the rent-by-the-week flat he and Anzhel had taken on Lampton Road. Quin had obeyed his instructions to the letter. The sight of him made Michael want to cry with laughter—or just cry; his throat felt strange and tight, and his sinuses hurt.

“Is that our boy?”

Michael nodded without turning. He didn’t want to see Anzhel just now, didn’t want to know how he was leaning over his shoulder and staring out into the street.

“He’s very like the other one.”

Yes. The resemblance was strong. Michael had seen photos of the Griffin parents and wondered how they’d managed to produce such striking sons, but Quin was as like his brother as if God had been unable to get John’s melody out of his head. And every line of Quin—his skinny, long-limbed frame, his tumble of otter brown hair curling out from under the dreadful woolly hat he’d acquired from somewhere—reminded Michael of how much he loved his partner.

A faint moan escaped him, and he leaned his brow on the window frame. Anzhel’s fingers pressed into the back of his neck, rubbing, insinuating. “It’s all right. You know everything’s going to be all right now. You’d better go and let him in.”

Slowly Michael went down the stairs and opened the crumbling redbrick’s front door. He stepped outside and leaned on the wall, folding his arms. Quin didn’t notice. He was too busy ducking into a doorway to check that he wasn’t being followed, and once more Michael fought laughter. Now the kid was reminding him of John by contrasts. John, if he wanted, could pull down invisible veils of anonymity and stroll down the middle of a street like this unseen, but Quin was behaving exactly like his own romantic idea of a secret agent—hugging the shadows, constantly checking over his shoulder. He stopped on the far side of the road, scanning the terrace for the number Michael had given him.

Michael stayed quite still until Quin was standing three feet away from him, clearly debating whether or not to go in uninvited. Not shifting a muscle or raising his head, he said, “Let us have a ciggy, then, son.”

Quin blinked. “Sorry. I don’t… Oh my
God
. Mike!”

“
Ssh
. Don’t tell the whole street.” Unfolding himself, Michael directed the startled kid into the shadowy hall and closed the door behind them. “You okay?”

“Yeah, but…” Quin turned, surveying him. “How do you do that? You’re really good at it. I never even saw you. How do you—”

“
Hush
,” Michael told him again, voice unsteady with laughter. Once Quin had new knowledge in his sights, some talent or gift he hadn’t yet mastered, he would pursue it without mercy, suck its possessor dry. “You just think yourself into the brickwork. I’ll teach you, but not now. This coat is very good. The hat too.”

“Oh.” Quin gave a half-pleased, half-embarrassed glance downward at the horrible brown parka. “Is that the kind of thing?”

“Exactly. But, um…you’d be London’s most intellectual little tramp this afternoon, then?”

“What?”

“The accessories.”

Quin frowned. He’d done as he was bidden and concealed his satchel in a plastic bag, but the bag came from Oxford’s leading academic bookstore. He lifted it and looked at it. “Shit,” he said. “I had it in my satchel, and I just…”

“Maybe they
should
be testing to see what kind of idiot you are.”

Quin looked up. He was at that stage of youth where straight-faced adult jokes could pass him by—then his smile flashed out, a great incandescent grin just like John’s, and Michael knew that stage was over. That somehow, despite all the rigid schooling and lack of family life, he’d grown into a sense of the ridiculous. He put his head back and burst into laughter. “I’m sorry!”

“No. Don’t be. I’m glad you’re not entirely a natural at this. Come on upstairs and—”

“Uncle Mike, I…”

What is it
, Michael would have asked, but he didn’t get time. And then he was too breathless with astonishment. The stiff-necked, awkward kid had walked into his arms. He stayed there just long enough for Michael to return his fierce squeeze, then stepped back, plainly bewildered at himself. Michael too was thrown—by a mile. Quin never hugged. Frowning to disguise the pang the gesture had sent through him, Michael let him go. “What’s that about?”

“I don’t…I don’t bloody know.” Quin looked at his feet, blushing. “I’m just sick of being at boarding schools. Of being by myself or just with other kids and teachers, not having anybody to…”