Nobody Walks (11 page)

It had been a policy used in the worst of times, and he supposed it was used still.

Not his world any more.

It was early but dark already, and Bettany had plenty of sleep owing. On the sofa still, he collected on the debt.

His dreams were small, and tightly enclosed.

But he slept a long time, and didn’t wake until his phone rang.

A pair of police
horses clop-clopped past the following morning, their riders’ heads on a level with JK Coe’s, who sat on the steps of the National Gallery watching crowds throng Trafalgar Square. He waved a vague salute and the nearest cop, a blonde with her hair tied to match her mount’s tail, nodded severely. Thinks I’m a civilian, thought Coe.

Even cold, damp, 11
A.M.
, the square was awash, rival groups of tourists kitted like football fans, sporting red cagoules or yellow sweatshirts. Their team leaders had umbrellas or sticks with bright pennants to raise whenever movement was called for or a headcount necessary, but until they were summoned the flocks swarmed at will, painting the air with their chatter.

“Meet him somewhere public,” Tearney had said.

“Of course.”

“And don’t let him walk all over you. We’re doing him a favour.”

A regal sniff.

“I don’t expect gratitude, but I do expect him to observe the decencies.”

This, his second encounter with Dame Ingrid, had taken place earlier that morning. Instead of the office, the view, the mahogany furniture, he’d been instructed to wait near her tube exit, carrying an almond croissant in a Carluccio’s bag. For identification? Surely she’d remember what he looked like? He hadn’t dared ask.

The rest of yesterday he’d done legwork, or what passed for legwork in the age of Google. Interesting fact number one, a couple of bouncers had been scraped from an alley floor in N1 Tuesday night, kneecaps remodelled. “Slipped while moving a wheelie bin.” But it wasn’t far from where Liam Bettany had lived, and bang in the heartland of where you might go if you were looking for a score.

Interesting fact number two … Actually, fact one was as far as he’d got. The rest was static, the white noise you heard when you were looking for something but didn’t know what it was. Coe wanted a bone to drop at Tearney’s feet. Show her his quality. But bouncers aside, all he really knew was that Bettany was active, had spoken to a policeman, and was staying in his dead son’s flat.

Tearney had emerged from the tube station a pulse behind a commuter surge.

“Walk with me,” she said.

The morning traffic did what morning traffic did. Rain threatened, but kept changing its mind.

Dame Ingrid said, “What news of our friend?”

This was a test. If Tearney wanted to know what Bettany had been up to, she’d have had a three-inch thick dossier waiting on her desk. 10:03:02
P.M.
, Subject blew his nose. 10:03:04
P.M.
, Subject returned handkerchief to left trouser pocket.

He said, “He’s doing what I said he would. Well, he’d already started doing it by then.”

“Elaborate.”

Coe told her about the bouncers.

“So he’s looking for the drug connection.”

“… Yes.”

Tearney halted by the pedestrian lights. She was wearing a different outfit this morning. Coe himself changed his shirt more or less daily, his trousers twice a week, his jacket seasonally, but First Desk had to make an effort. Her raincoat was black, belted and reached to her knees, and Coe had no hope in hell of identifying it by label, but it looked expensive. Beneath it she wore a pale suit and neat black boots with a red buckle. That her hair today was a tight crown of black curls, Coe knew enough not to comment on. On her raincoat’s collar a seam had pulled loose. He’d have pointed this out, but valued his prospects.

She said, “That didn’t sound convinced.”

The lights changed, and the green man beckoned. They crossed the road in step.

Coe said, “He didn’t kill them.”

“You’re unhappy about that?”

“It strikes me as strange.”

“Explain.”

“Maybe they sold Bettany’s son his dope, and maybe they didn’t. I don’t see that it matters either way. They were probably selling
somebody
dope, and that’s all Bettany needed. This was never a job for Hercule Poirot. He went looking for pushers and he found a pair. So given who he is, what he can do, I don’t see what kept him from killing them.”

They weren’t far from Regent’s Park. Tearney wasn’t leading them that way, though. Whatever this meeting’s about, thought Coe, it’ll be over before she heads for her desk.

Now she said, “Perhaps you’re doing him an injustice. He
might be more targeted than you suggest. More focused. Less inclined to settle for a token victim.”

“If he wants to find the actual dealer who sold Liam the actual dope he was smoking, he’s going to have to dig around in his son’s life.”

Tearney said, “That does present a slight problem.”

And Coe sensed they were arriving at the point.

The horses
were past him now, leaving JK Coe with a view of their fine hindquarters. Animals built for dumping from a great height. Not for being dumped on.

A bus backfired and a clatter of pigeons took flight. Coe followed their progress into the grey mid-air, where they wheeled figure eights before settling back on the square and resuming their mindless milling.

And just like that he wasn’t alone any more. Tom Bettany sat next to him, calmly watching pigeons and tourists, as if he’d been occupying that same spot for half an hour.

Coe said, “I don’t need to ask who you are.”

“I don’t expect you do.”

But then, he’d seen Bettany’s Service photo. Bettany had put on a few miles, but fundamentally he looked the same.

His eyes were unnaturally bright, though. Coe wondered if he were on anything, and immediately answered himself,
No.
He was high on the task in hand, that was all. The same energy pulsing through him as in that alley, when he took apart the bouncers.

The thought unnerved him, bringing to mind Dame Ingrid’s instruction.
Meet him somewhere public.

He noticed Bettany’s crooked smile.

“What?”

“You’re thinking I’d better behave. Given how public we are.
All the good little tourists, mobiles at the ready. We’re already on a hundred holiday movies.”

“I’ve no reason for thinking you’re a threat.”

Bettany looked at him, still smiling. “Seriously?”

“To me, I mean. I’m here to do you a favour.”

The ex-spook raised an eyebrow.

“This I’ve got to hear.”

This is what Tearney
had told Coe earlier.

“Bettany’s son worked for a person of interest.”

Person of interest ran the whole rainbow, from potential asset to suspected terrorist.

Coe said, “He’s on a watch list?”

“No. But he’s been vetted for a gong. Services to British software industry, or something. I don’t recall the details.”

The details, surmised Coe, were packed tightly in her head, and could be unfurled at a moment’s notice, like ticker tape, or a till receipt.

“In addition to which he’s being actively wooed by both HMG and the Loyal Opposition. Vincent Driscoll might not have much in the way of politics, but he’s very much a British success story.”

So nobody wants Bettany sticking his oar in, Coe thought.

“Of course,” Tearney said, “there’s no earthly reason why Thomas Bettany should want to make life difficult for Driscoll. But he’s a loose cannon. And if, as you say, he’s decided his son’s
death warrants investigation, and he starts poking around Liam’s life, well, he’s going to make himself unpopular.”

“I’m not sure that’ll worry him.”

Tearney gave him a look.

“I hope you’re not finding this amusing.”

“No.”

“Good. Because what I’d like you to do, dear boy, is have a word with him.”

Was there ever a more transparent ploy than
dear boy
? And yet he couldn’t say it didn’t work. Here he was, walking the pavement with the head of the Service, and she was coming over all grandmotherly.

It made him want to genuflect.

“Meet him somewhere public.”

“What if he doesn’t—”

“Oh, he will. Once a Dog, always a Dog. He’ll respond to a tug on the leash.”

“And what do I tell him?”

“That Vincent Driscoll’s out of bounds. Might as well have a Do Not Disturb notice round his neck.”

She came to a sudden halt, and Coe marched a pace onward before noticing. He stopped and looked back.

“But be subtle about it.”

He nodded thoughtfully, as if mentally working out the sly way he’d go about planting this idea in Thomas Bettany’s head without Bettany being aware of it.

Dame Ingrid reached into her bag, and Coe was cast back decades, waiting dutifully while his nan dug about for a small treat, a coin or bar of chocolate.

What she came up with instead was an envelope. She handed it to him.

“And in return for being a good boy, Bettany gets what he wants. No need for him to wear out shoe leather turning over every stone in N1. Liam Bettany was smoking muskrat when he died. It’s a new strain, which, luckily for us, means a restricted point of retail. The gentleman whose name’s in that envelope imports all the muskrat smoked in Greater London.”

Coe felt the envelope gain weight as he caught her drift.

He said, “Just so we’re clear …”

“Yes?”

“Bettany gets a white card on dealing with this guy?”

Dame Ingrid said, “Oh, I think we can allow him a little latitude. And unless he’s forgotten everything we taught him, he’s not going to be caught afterwards, is he?”

A little latitude, thought Coe, adding it to his bank of euphemisms.

“But if he gets a bee in his bonnet about Driscoll, that’s a different story. He’ll be dealt with.”

“Should I tell him that too?”

“Oh, he’ll grasp the idea. And I’m sure you’ll keep me abreast of things.”

He was being dismissed. But there was one more thing he wondered about.

“Why has Bettany been taken off the Zombie List?”

“Error? You know what records are like,” said Tearney. “But that suits us fine. We don’t need him setting off unnecessary alarm bells. He’ll want to keep a low profile too, come to think of it. London’s not exactly packed with his old friends.”

And now she was holding her hand out expectantly.

For a moment, Coe thought she wanted the envelope back. Evidence. Destroy after reading. But that wasn’t what she was after.

She said, “My pastry?”

Dumbly, he handed the bag over.

“Thank you.”

Tucking it under her arm, she headed off towards her kingdom, a short stout woman few would give a second glance.

Despite the chill, Coe found he was sweating.

Compared to Dame Ingrid, he thought, Bettany should be a breeze.

And now
here he was, following instructions. Meet him in a public place. Let him know who’s in charge.

The public place bit had been straightforward enough. Convincing Bettany he was in charge might prove more challenging.

Testing the waters, he said, “I’m from the Park.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Ingrid Tearney.”

“She still First Desk?”

“They’ll have to chisel it from her grip.”

“And you’re her messenger boy.”

So much for being in charge.

Bettany said, “Thing is, I haven’t actually done anything, other than ask a few questions. Unless you think messing up a couple of bouncers calls for a slap on the wrist. But even if you did, know who I think wouldn’t?”

Coe was already regretting using her name.

“I can’t see it crossing Ingrid Tearney’s desk, let alone her mind. So what’s going on?”

Coe said, “We’re sorry about your boy.”

“Is that a confession?”

He was already surrendering. “No no no no no. All I meant was, you have our commiserations.”

“Why? It’s seven years since I left the Service.”

“Still …”

From here they had a view of the Mall, where something was happening now, a black limousine appearing, flanked by police motorbikes. As one, the tourists turned to check it out. It was like watching wind sweep through a field of corn. Mobiles whirred and cameras popped.

Despite himself, Coe wondered who it was, and decided it was probably a prince. One of the older, useless ones nobody liked.

When he turned back, Bettany was studying him.

“You’re not Ops,” he said. “An agent wouldn’t have sat here, and wouldn’t have been ogling a cop while waiting for a hostile.”

“You’re not a—”

“An agent treats any unknown as a potential hostile. So you’re virgin, or as good as. And you’re what, thirty-five? Four?”

Coe didn’t dignify that.

“So you’re a desk jockey, but if you were a Park desk jockey that would make you Strategy or Policy or whatever they’re calling it now, and they don’t let those guys make appointments with strange men in public places. That’s the last thing they let them do.”

Bettany paused. The car with its prince or whoever had vanished. The crowds had reconfigured, or maybe were different crowds. The pigeons were almost certainly the same ones, though.

“So if you’re not Park you’re from over the river, which is where they keep the pointy heads, the ones who do the touchy-feely stuff, like work out who’s stressed, and how much time off they should get. Stop me if I’m hurting your feelings.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“So why do I get a phone call from an over-the-river virgin, summoning me to a heads-up? That’s what you called it, right? A heads-up.”

Of the possible outcomes Coe had pondered, being laughed at hadn’t figured.

“Finished?” he asked.

Bettany wasn’t.

“Know how many times I encountered Dame Ingrid, back in the day?”

He made a circle with finger and thumb.

“This isn’t because she has fond memories of you.”

“Yes, I got that. It’s because she’s worried I’ll step on the wrong toes. And I can guess whose. Not like I’ve been mixing with more than one millionaire lately.”