The Clown Service (11 page)

‘It’s not there August, darling,’ she said. ‘I got bored hanging around so it gave me something to do.’ She handed him the packet. It was a narrow manila envelope containing a couple of sheets of paper. The envelope was unsealed.

‘You opened it?’

‘Of course I opened it, I could hardly pass the time just looking at the envelope could I? It’s not very interesting I’m afraid, just a lot of nonsense about portents. You know what he’s like.’

‘An incredibly gifted seer?’

‘A tubby old astrologist who should stick to writing waffle for local newspapers: “Darkness ascending through the House of Mercury bodes ill for financial matters in the East.” He laughs at you, I’m sure of it.’

Shining stared at the old woman and sighed. ‘You really shouldn’t stick your nose in, April, dear. I’d hate to regard you as a security risk.’

‘A security risk?’ she laughed, pulling a cigarette case from out of the pocket of her heavy woollen jacket. ‘Me? Darling boy, you know I’m only after your best interests – what else are big sisters for?’

‘Fading into dementia and leaving their brothers to get on with their job?’

‘Cheeky bugger. My mind’s as sharp as it ever was.’ She looked around, sneering at a pair of cyclists as they rode past.
‘This place has gone to the dogs, no character anymore. It’s all Lycra and kites. Once upon a time you could walk up here and rest assured that everyone you saw was about important business, spies doing dead letter drops, cabinet ministers shuffling off into the bushes to get their bottoms filled.’

‘I’m fairly sure that’s still a constant.’

‘Nonsense, it’s all boy bands and soap stars these days.’ She patted him on the arm. ‘There’s not an inch of quality cock left in this city.’

‘As if you’d know.’

‘True. My groin withers into memory, a place of youthful dreams now barren and lost.’

‘Can we please change the subject?’

‘With pleasure. Got anything interesting on?’

‘As if I’d tell you.’

‘Oh, don’t be such a stick in the mud. I’d only hear it from someone else anyway. Nobody minds their tongue around silly old biddies like me – we might as well be invisible.’

‘Nobody who has met you would agree with that.’

She smiled. ‘You’re so lovely. What’s this I hear about a new boy in the office?’

Shining sighed. ‘How could you possibly know about that already?’

It was always a source of exasperation. Having spent most of her life working for one governmental department or another, April had got to the position where she had everyone’s ear.

‘I told you, darling, I know everything. What’s he like?’

‘
You
tell me, if you’re so well-informed.’

‘Well, his record’s a bit patchy. Some fuss in the Middle East, suggestions of incompetence.’

‘He’s not incompetent.’

She laughed. ‘Oh you’re such a sweetie. He’s only been with you five minutes and you’re fighting his corner. I do love a man of honour. And your chap was also flagged up as suffering from shell shock.’

‘PTSD, dear. Nobody says shell shock anymore.’

‘Don’t pick hairs, darling. My point is: the poor boy’s broken.’

‘Aren’t we all in one way or another? We are all sticks, whittled away by our experiences, some of us just get whittled more than others. He’s stronger than you think.’

‘As ever, I’ll trust your judgement. I’ll pop in and see you both tomorrow.’

‘Please don’t. I’d rather you didn’t scare him off.’

‘Scare him? Me? If he can stomach your ghosts and ghoulies, he can certainly tolerate a harmless old lady.’

‘No doubt, but can he tolerate
you
?’

‘I don’t know why I love you.’

‘It’s certainly not through encouragement on my part.’

They sat in silence for a few moments, April Shining sending delicate clouds of menthol cigarette smoke out onto the breeze. ‘Things feel …’ she paused, ‘
important
at the moment.’

‘Don’t they always?’

‘No, they don’t. You know what I mean. Years of messing around, chasing concepts and filling your days with trivial concerns …’

‘My work is important.’

‘Oh darling, I know that, but when was the last time something truly catastrophic happened? How long has it been since you held the world in your hands?’

Shining sighed. ‘A few years.’

‘And now you have someone new.’ She folded her arm around his. ‘It’s not a moment too soon if you ask me. The air’s electric, the wind’s changing. You’re about to be a very busy boy.’

Toby made a point of being early. He was less interested in the person who had left the note seeing
him
than he was in seeing
them
. It might be his best hope of staying ahead of the game.

He had raided his wardrobe for clothing that was neither conspicuous nor something he would frequently wear. He knew disguise wasn’t a matter of false beards and make-up, but rather a step away from the norm. So, he put aside his regular clothes, the work suits and the favoured shirts. He picked out a stained hoodie that he’d used for painting, a pair of tracksuit bottoms (bought for the gym but never actually used) and a baseball cap he’d picked up in Dubai, desperate to cover a sunburned head. He knew he wouldn’t bear close inspection but, if he kept his head low, his walk casual, he would blend in.

On the off chance that whoever had sent the note was sufficiently organised to have someone watching his front door – certainly what he would have done – Toby went out the back way, past the large rubbish dumpsters and through the rear gate. It was supposed to be kept locked at all times, but it was a rare day the caretaker remembered his keys. Most residents complained about it; Toby had just filed it away as useful.

Cutting through to Euston Road, Toby thought of an extra bit of cover, and darted into the twenty-four hour grocery store to buy himself a pack of low-tar cigarettes and a lighter. He hadn’t smoked since he’d left school, but he’d made a point of being
able to feign doing so. Another bit of window dressing to differentiate himself from Toby Greene.

The front of Euston Station was a good choice for a meet. It was enclosed and congested, a concourse of takeaway outlets boxed in by the bus station on one side and the entrance to the train station and Underground on the other. There was nowhere he could stand maintaining a distance while reliably keeping an eye on the whole area. He went into the small supermarket, bought himself a can of lager and took up residence at one of the outside tables. He opened the lager, lit a cigarette and began to watch.

It was half an hour before he was supposed to meet whoever had left the note, but he was sure they’d be early. It was as quiet as the area ever got – in that hinterland between going out and coming home. He hoped the restricted visibility would affect both of them equally. The person meeting him could no more stand back and observe than he could. They would have to be here, moving amongst the listless shoppers, the residents picking up forgotten milk, and the tourists between trains – eating takeaways from Nando’s and topping up on caffeine.

He looked around the quad, assessing the people. A middle-aged man in a cheap suit stood to one side of the automatic doors, sucking on a cigarette as if it were keeping him alive. A young woman paced nervously, obviously fighting the urge to check her watch.
If she doesn’t know how late they are
, thought Toby,
she can still pretend they’re coming.
A pair of Japanese students were laughing over a pasty bought from a takeaway stall, pulling it apart gingerly and giggling at the sharp bite of the steam nipping at their fingers. Four girls overfilled a coffee shop table, checking their lives on their mobiles and sharing the results. A
pair of bus drivers worked their way through sandwiches with no love in them, just limp ham and wilted lettuce, suffocated by cling film and neglect. An ageing soak sucked enthusiastically at the hole in his can of beer, every mouthful leaking, demanding a wipe from the back of a woolly, gloved hand. A burst of music washed out of the automatic doors as they hissed open to expel a man wearing his headphones loose around his neck. He seemed disappointed when nobody turned to look at him. An elderly couple shared custody of a shopping basket that fought to be free of them as they aimed it towards the entrance to the Underground.

Toby discounted them all.

A young man in a business suit styled in ‘flashy off-thepeg’ made a show of his phone call, a one-sided affair ripping verbal chunks from a mutual work colleague. Toby gave him special attention. A phone call was easy to fake. The man went on Toby’s list of possible targets. He was joined there by a quiet woman who studiously pushed her way through documents on her iPad, scrutinising everything as if it were a revelation. A man in a heavy anorak sat at another table, taking out serious frustration on a paperback thriller. He throttled it in his hands, snapping the spine back with every turn of a page. Toby couldn’t decide if the book’s violence was infecting him or he just hated it. Either that or he was playing too hard at being ‘a man reading a book in public’.

Toby checked his watch. Only five minutes to go before the planned meeting.

He took another sip of the lager and lit one more cigarette, gathering his cover around him as the clock ticked closer to his rendezvous.

A woman entered the quad dressed in standard office uniform, a light raincoat, dark blue skirt and matching jacket. Toby pegged her as a civil servant and immediately focused all his attention on her. She loitered by a takeaway baguette kiosk, glanced at her watch and looked out over the people around her, clearly searching for someone she was due to meet. As her attention swept over him Toby lifted his lager can to his mouth, blocking what little view of his face she might have had. Her gaze passed by him and she looked towards the entrance from Euston Road. She seemed innocuous enough, skin pale from too much office strip lighting and not enough sun. Her brown hair came from a supermarket shelf, and she wore no discernible jewellery. Probably born blonde, Toby decided she was a woman on the defensive in an aggressively male environment, trying to avoid preconceptions. London was full of such women, trying to dismiss their femininity in an environment that might see it as weakness. She certainly
could
be in intelligence. Despite a series of successful female operatives, the old guard could be a bigoted, patriarchal lot. The only thing that concerned him was that she seemed …

‘Far too obvious?’

He turned to find a woman had joined him at his table. She could hardly have been more different from the one he had been watching: brash in appearance, her hair a violent shade of red with streaks of white, face heavy with make-up and a neck laden down with so many bead necklaces she could have substituted for a grocer’s curtain. Toby placed her in her late forties.

‘Sorry to sneak up on you,’ she said and reached for his pack of cigarettes. She paused while withdrawing one, raising an eyebrow by way of asking permission.

‘Help yourself,’ he said, ‘they’re obviously no use to me.’

‘Now don’t be like that, they were a nice touch. I’m just exceptionally good at finding the people I want to find.’

Patronising bitch
, he thought and scooted the lighter across the table to her with a flick of his fingers. He looked over at the civil servant that had caught his eye, watched her greet a man with little enthusiasm – a colleague not a friend – and vanish into the station with him.

‘Thanks for coming to meet me,’ the woman said after lighting her cigarette, ‘I felt sure you would. After a day in Section 37 you’re bound to be curious. It’s not the world you’re used to, is it?’

Toby shrugged. He had already decided to say as little as possible, let her do all the talking.

‘And Shining is hardly the most conventional section head in the Service, though he may well be the oldest …’

The table of girls with smartphones erupted into a brief and universally fake explosion of laughter at a YouTube video.

‘Have you considered applying for another transfer yet?’ the woman continued. ‘You might think that they won’t grant you one but don’t discount it. There are those in the Service who are far from happy to see Section 37 allocated an extra man; you might be surprised at how easily you could be elsewhere.’

Toby remained silent.

‘I see, you want me to do all the talking.’ She smiled. ‘You young officers are so charming; every move comes straight from a manual.’

‘Perhaps I just don’t like being played?’ he replied, his anger finally coming to the surface. ‘If you have an issue with Shining might I suggest you take it up with him direct? Given how few people take him seriously I’m surprised he’s worth this bother.’

‘I take him seriously,’ she said. ‘You’re quite wrong about that. This isn’t about petty, inter-departmental politics, this is about people who stick their noses where they’re not welcome. I met you as a point of courtesy, a polite opportunity for you to step off the field.’

‘Really? In my experience there is very little courtesy in our line of work. If you want me gone then it’s because I’m an inconvenience to you.’

Her smile switched to a sneer. ‘Get over yourself.’ She stubbed the cigarette out on the surface of the table. ‘You’re nothing to us. You’re a silly little child that’s about to get caught up in matters he has no hope of understanding.’

Toby felt his anger suddenly dissipate. ‘If I was nothing you wouldn’t be wasting your time here. You may be good at finding people but you’re a lousy liar. Perhaps it’s you that needs to rethink your career.’

She stared at him for a moment and then stood up and walked away.

Well now
, Toby thought,
this transfer might be interesting after all.

‘You know,’ said Toby on meeting Shining the next day, ‘I was thinking of offering my resignation this morning.’

‘Really?’ Shining’s face fell. ‘It would hardly have been the first time, but I had hoped you’d stay a little longer.’