Shredder (2 page)

“So what did happen to your face, Finn? Was it something to do with that phone?”

She'd hacked someone's smartphone for me recently; someone I'd needed to find. It had been weird, me coming to her for help—when we'd first met she'd been a stoned school dropout whose greatest achievement had been to star in a raunchy movie. Since then she'd cleaned up her act and won some amazing scholarship to study IT at York—the youngest-ever candidate with the highest-ever marks, I'd heard, though not from her. I was the only part of her old life she hadn't tried to wipe from the records, and I hoped that meant something.

She slid a cracked mug of hot coffee across the greasy table, and I sat down and told her what had happened since I'd seen her last, and how I'd tangled
with the Turk. And I told her what the Turk wanted me to do, and why I had to do it.

“Did he say what he was going to do? To me, I mean?”

“He didn't have to.” I spared her my knowledge of the Turk's methods. She didn't need to know how that loan shark got disemboweled, or how Winnie and Delroy, the old couple who'd cared for me, got run down like dogs in the street. “The real problem,” I said, “is that I don't know where to find McGovern. Last I heard he was in Eastern Europe somewhere, hanging out with the Russian mafia.”

“How long did the Turk give you?” asked Zoe.

“A week. That was last Sunday.”

“Jesus Christ, Finn, what the hell have you been doing?”

“Bleeding,” I said.

“God…” She tugged at her spiky black hair. “Why did you have to tell me all this?” She looked up again, glaring now, her green eyes full of anger.

I wasn't just a shadow from the past—I was a shadow on an X-ray. I wondered again why I had come up here. Was it really to warn her, or deep down did I resent her new life? Did I envy perfect Patrick upstairs, primping in front of a mirror right now, I
imagined, tousling his own lovely blond locks? Was I trying to drag Zoe away from him, down into this stinking pit I seemed to be trapped in, so she could keep me company?

“I thought you should know,” I said. “I thought you deserved to know. So you could decide for yourself what to do.”

“What? What am I going to do? What can I do?”

“Go to the cops,” I said. “Tell them you've been threatened, ask for protection.”

“Oh, for Christ's sake, Finn…” She didn't need to finish. She trusted cops even less than I did. Her father had been a cop—the crooked one who had got shot working for the Guvnor. After his death the Metropolitan police had closed ranks the way they always did and sold the public a fairy story about the brave undercover detective who'd died in the line of duty.

Even though Zoe was his daughter, they wouldn't believe her story about needing protection unless I backed her up. And I couldn't do that. It would mean confessing everything I'd done, and in the last month I'd done plenty, from perverting the course of justice to murder. And even if the prosecutors offered me immunity for testifying against the Guvnor
and the Turk, I'd never make it to the courtroom—the Guvnor had too much influence. I might get as far as a remand cell, but when the screws opened the door in the morning they'd find nothing but a heap of broken teeth.

“Run,” I said to Zoe. “Leave.”

“Where the hell would I run to? And why the hell
should
I? I have a life here, Finn—your problems have nothing to do with me.”

“I know,” I said. “I'm sorry.” That was true, but I was indignant too—did she think life was fair? Did she think shit only happened to people who deserved it? Those people in London the other day, caught by that suicide bomber, blinded and maimed and burned alive in a storm of fire and flying glass—they hadn't deserved what had happened to them, but it had still happened.

But I didn't say that, because Zoe's being singled out wasn't simple bad luck. It was because of me, because of the way I felt about her. I'd never been in love—I didn't even know what it felt like—but I knew that just being close to Zoe my heart flew, and the thought of her getting hurt felt like being burned alive. I was pretty sure that meant I loved her. And then I understood that loving anyone is
stupid and weak and dangerous because it makes you vulnerable.

I might suffer for that weakness, but Zoe might die.

“Amobi,” I said.

“What about him?”

I wasn't sure why that name had popped into my head. Amobi was the one cop I'd ever respected, the only one who'd ever treated me as anything other than a pain in the ass who needed a good Tasering. Amobi had worked with Zoe's dad, but as far as I knew he'd been clean.

“I don't even know if he's still a cop, but maybe if we contacted him…”

“Of course he's still a cop,” Zoe almost snapped. “He's with the NCA now.”

“NCA?” I said.

“The National Crime Agency. Basically SOCA, with a new name.”

That figured. I'd assumed Amobi had quit the force—any copper with brains and black skin was at a double disadvantage—but instead he'd transferred to the Serious Organized Crime Agency. Glutton for punishment, obviously.

“Then he's the one we should talk to,” I said.

“You talk to him,” said Zoe. She stood up and tossed what was left of her coffee down the sink, or in its general direction anyhow—some of it hit the window and dribbled down in brown streaks.

“Zoe—”

“Finn, I'm in the middle of a really tough assignment and I can't think about this right now. And where the hell would we go? Where would we stay? I sold my dad's house, and the place you're living in isn't even yours, and it's not exactly safe….”

She seemed to realize how shrill and angry she sounded, and stopped, and took a deep breath.

“Look,” she said. “Thanks for coming up. It was good to see you. But I really wish you hadn't. I don't want to go into hiding for the rest of my life over something I didn't do and know nothing about. If you'd never told me, if you'd just found McGovern, I would have been fine, so…why don't you just go home and do that?”

Of course I should never have come up here. I'd made everything worse, not better—and I'd fooled myself that I was being noble and righteous. A trouble shared is a trouble doubled, my dad used to sigh, and I'd never known what he'd meant, till now, when I had tainted Zoe's perfect life. I'd screwed up my own a little more too: from now on I'd never be
able to think of Zoe without seeing Patrick's glinting smile and golden tresses, and hearing Zoe's moan as he slipped her bra straps off her shoulders.

I hadn't been the only one living in blissful ignorance.

“Fine.” I stood up. “I'll…”
See you around
, I wanted to finish, all casual and cool, but the words were so feeble they died in my throat. Restraining my polite impulse to rinse my cup out in the sink, I plonked it on the table and headed for the door. “Bye,” I said. Maybe it looked like I was flouncing out, but I couldn't say any more—I'd already said too much.

Our parting had been pretty final, I realized as I crossed the road outside and strode back towards the station. But maybe that was for the best. What had I to offer Zoe except bad associations? She was right to try to ignore me, to forget about me. If she carried on with her life and pretended I'd never been here, the Turk would have no need to act against her—he couldn't, in fact, without jeopardizing the only hold he had over me. No, Zoe would be safe if she stayed put and I did what I was told. All I had achieved with this visit was to give Zoe nightmares, and to mess up the only real friendship I had.

I was five minutes from the station, and the next
train left in eight minutes, so two hours from now I would be back in London. I would try, somehow, to find the Guvnor, or at least get a message to him. Then the Turk would forget about me and Zoe, and let us go back to our ordinary lives…wouldn't he?

I suddenly remembered Geronimo, the young cat my parents had adopted when I was little. She'd bring mice into the kitchen from the garden, and let them go, and catch them again, and let them go, and do that all morning, until she got bored. Then she'd rip their heads off for the fun of watching the blood spurt and their bodies twitch.

The next train back to London was the last one before peak hours, and it was crowded with cheapskate travelers like me on discount tickets. All the table seats were taken, and I had to wedge myself into one of the rigid cramped single seats facing backwards, cursing at the pain from my kneecaps where the Turk's playmates had stamped on them. Though the window seat was empty I took the aisle, hoping size and surliness would put anyone off the idea of clambering over me to get to the empty one. It would give me a little space to stretch out later. And the ploy worked, right up until the last minute.

Through the thick tinted train window I saw the
platform supervisor blow her whistle and wave her ping-pong bat at the driver, and the train jolted gently into motion, and at that moment I felt someone waiting at my elbow. I smelled her scent before I turned round, so I knew it was Zoe before I looked up; but when I did, I saw that her eyes were filled with tears of anger.

“Move,” she said.

“Take a seat. Can I get you anything? Coffee, glass of water?”

“Thanks, I'm good,” I said. Zoe just shook her head. The young Chinese bloke in the lightweight suit nodded and shut the door as he left the conference room.

Zoe had barely said a word to me on the train down, even when I'd dug out Amobi's number on my mobile phone and called him to ask for help. To my surprise he'd agreed to see us thirty minutes after the train got in, at an address in Victoria not far from New Scotland Yard.

I knew Scotland Yard itself was not what most tourists expected—they looked for some Victorian palace and found a bland and ugly office block built in the 1960s—but I thought the new National Crime
Agency headquarters might be exciting, with blast-proof walls maybe and full-body scanners at the door. But the address Amobi had given me turned out to be yet another bland office building with a fat, bored security man in the lobby who wafted a metal wand in our general direction. The working day was nearly over, and we passed a lot of empty desks as the young Chinese copper led us through into this conference room, with its long polished beech table, wipe-clean presentation board and sealed windows overlooking a poky south-facing courtyard densely planted with shiny green bushes. Even now it probably felt like the Congo down there, but here in the conference room it was pleasantly cool, thanks to air-conditioning that throbbed away quietly out of sight.

Zoe was staring out the window at nothing much, radiating resentment and indignation. I realized she hadn't brought so much as a toothbrush with her, or a change of clothes, and felt again a sharp stab of guilt. I must have frightened her into panicking; but there was no point in apologizing yet again. I'd given her the information, and she'd made her own choice.

As if it had been much of a choice.

Amobi entered briskly, alone. “Finn, hello.” He'd always been a snappy dresser, I remembered, but now there were some creases here and there on his smart suit that made him look less like a model from a menswear catalog and more like flesh and blood. There were creases on his face too, faint lines of age; his skin was still so black it shone, and his head was still shaved bald, but I thought I caught a glint of gray from the stubble on his skull. He's barely thirty, I thought. How much stress is he under? Then I remembered I was here to stress him out some more.

Amobi's handshake was cool and light, as if he didn't want to really connect. He glanced over at Zoe and flashed her a huge grin; a genuine one, I saw.

“Zoe, hey—long time no see.” He actually went over and hugged her, and she actually hugged him back. He'd helped her a lot after her father had been killed, I recalled. She'd wanted to know what had really happened to her dad, and he'd sent her to me, because he knew I knew. He was shrewd and sharp and subtle; that was why I'd called him.

“Please, take a seat,” he said. He folded himself into a chair and leaned back, like a sympathetic copper with all the time in the world.

“Tell me these aren't your offices,” I said. “You're not fighting organized crime from this dump?”

Amobi smiled. “This is just an admin building for the Met,” he said. “They lend us space when we need it. So what's the story with you two?”

Zoe shot me a look: Tell him what you told me. So I did.

Amobi's face throughout was thoughtful and impassive. He took no notes, but that didn't bother me, because I knew he was listening. All the same, I began to get a weird feeling that not much of my story came as a surprise to him, and that he even knew about the stuff I was leaving out—the stuff I had pulled myself, mostly in self-defense, but not always.

“So this man you call the Turk,” Amobi summed up. “He threatened Zoe, to force you to get in touch with McGovern?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Amobi nodded. He glanced over at Zoe, who still hadn't sat down, but was leaning against the far wall with her arms folded. It wouldn't have taken a mind reader to see that she was furious and didn't want to be there but didn't know what else to do. And suddenly I felt angry too, at Amobi's bland façade, at how much he was hiding from us.

“You know this guy, don't you?” I said. “The Turk.”

Amobi blinked. “If it's the same guy, yes, we know him,” he said. “Describe him for me.”

“One meter eighty, slight build, very fit, seventy-five kilos, midtwenties, dark Mediterranean complexion, brown eyes, black hair kept short, and he'd feed you your own liver,” I said.

“Any distinguishing features, birthmarks?”

“Not that I saw.” Amobi had taken out a notebook and pen and was scribbling rapidly.