Adrian McKinty - The Dead Yard

“Keep it,” I said.

Samantha appeared outside and my mood flipped yet again.

From mousy Diana Prince to Wonder Woman. Green eyes, Roman nose, crimson lipstick, acherontic hair tied in a severe plait behind her head. A sharp black business suit, pumps, powerful hips; she seemed slimmer, ten years younger, and the heels brought her up to about five nine. She looked corporate, competent, professional.

“Do you like the car?” she asked.

“It’s a bit bold, don’t you think?”

“Not really. I’m Pitt’s rich country cousin. Of course I would drive a classic car. It’s part of my character,” she said.

I didn’t say anything.

I got in the passenger’s side.

Jeremy slid into the back next to a sallow-faced, bald man called Harrington, who was to be the FBI liaison. They didn’t exactly inspire confidence either. Harrington was listening to a Walkman, Jeremy staring gormlessly into space.

“So basically there’s only going to be four people watching me,” I said to Samantha while she fiddled with the radio.

“Who’s the fourth?” she asked breezily.

“Simon. The guy in Salisbury.”

“Oh, he’ll be flying back to England as you soon as you make contact with the Sons of Cuchulainn.”

“So, the three people in this car,” I said in as neutral a voice as I could.

Samantha sighed.

“I have to warn you, Michael. We are here under sufferance. You can’t just go around running foreign agents in a host country without conditions. This has to be a low-key affair.

And there’s also Dan, I thought to myself. Dan says he’ll keep an eye on things.

“You should give him the speech, Samantha,” Jeremy said from the backseat.

Samantha nodded at him in the mirror.

“In your case, Michael, it probably won’t be necessary. But sometimes I’ve had to restrain my more enthused agents,” she said.

“Oh no, I’d love to fucking hear it,” I said.

“Well, maybe I’ll give you a précis, Michael. Basically, I tell anyone I’m running that there’s to be no silly heroics. No theatrics, no diminishing of the problems. You see, some people can get carried away, they don’t want to let me down, let the side down.”

“So what does that entail?”

“At the first sign of trouble, darling, you really have to let me know. You should remember it’s my safety too. God forbid they suss you, grab you. They’ll make you talk. They’ll make you talk and then they’ll come for me. So at the first inkling that you may have slipped or done something, or someone has rumbled you, you come to me, we’ll talk it over. And if things haven’t gone as planned I’ll make sure you’re out with an honorable discharge and all threats dropped.”

“No extradition?” I asked.

She nodded. Maybe she wasn’t such a cold-hearted cat after all. And I found myself fighting two contradictory impulses. The first, to find a way out of the assignment and my association with these people. And the second, a desire to do the job, to get it right, to please Jeremy and Samantha and Dan. The second I had to battle against.

In Cambridge we dropped Harrington and Jeremy at another nondescript FBI safehouse on Harvard Square, and after an enormous traffic jam on 98 we didn’t get into New-buryport until close to midnight.

We quickly found the All Things Brit store on State Street.

A twee, quaint, touristy street with a Celtic imports store, a sewing shop, a chocolate shop, an antique maps store, and three ice-cream parlors.

The place was quiet. The kids were in Boston and the tourists were in bed.

“We shouldn’t really be seen together, darling, but it looks as if there are no witnesses. Come on in and I’ll show you the shop,” Samantha said.

She parked the Jag and found the keys to All Things Brit. We went inside. It was the usual collection of tat. British foods, Barbour jackets, pipes, hats, damp-looking woolen things. The decor that of an old vicarage that would appear complete only with a spinster lady shrieking over the body of a poisoned industrialist.

I thumbed through a selection of Masterpiece Theatre videotapes while Samantha hung up her coat.

“Let me show you the upstairs and then I’ll drive you up to Salisbury, it’s only about fifteen minutes away. McCaghan takes his family up to Salisbury Beach every Friday night in summer. They have a fireworks show just over the state line. That’s why we picked it as a place for you to be. You’re not following him to his home on Plum Island, you’re not showing up on his doorstep asking him for a job. You’re just accidentally bumping into Kit at the fireworks display. It won’t seem strange at all. I expect Kit will be happy to see you.”

“I expect so,” I said sourly.

“Hopefully, Touched will have you checked out and they’ll ask you to join them down at their rather palatial home on Plum Island, which is only a mile or so from here. It’s an actual island, by the way-a barrier island, quite nice, I went there bird-watching with Pitt, the whole bottom two-thirds is a wildlife reserve. I think we saw plovers, egrets, that kind of thing.”

“Fascinating.”

She led me upstairs to Pitt’s flat. A poky affair. On one side of the stairs, a bathroom and a den that barely had room to squeeze in a sofa, drinks cabinet, and bookcase. On the street side, a tiny kitchen and a bedroom dominated by a big cast-iron bed with red silk sheets and pillows. Above it, an enormous skylight that let in the heavens.

“I am going to have this completely redecorated. I think a Mediterranean theme will work very well here. We’re near the sea and this is a working fishing port. What do you think?” Samantha asked.

“You think we’ll be here long enough to bother about that?”

“Oh good Lord, I have no idea. Could be weeks, could be months. Would you like a drink? Pitt’s got an excellent Scotch collection. All island single malts, wonderful, I promise. And the brandy is to die for. He really is a very resourceful and charming man.”

She went into the den.

“He used to be in the civil service or the Foreign Office or something, did I tell you that?” she shouted in.

“You told me that,” I said, unable to shake the somber feeling that had been following me round all day. The feeling that Death was making his way back into my life again after five long, lean years.

She came back with the drinks. I sat on an ottoman and she sat on the bed. She kicked her shoes off and let her hair down. She had poured two generous glasses of a sixteen-year-old Bowmore and brought the bottle, too. She knocked hers back in one. I followed suit and she poured us both another. Again she scooted her drink. This time I sipped mine.

She undid the top button of her blouse.

“How nervous are you, on a scale of one to ten?” she asked. I held up five fingers.

“That sounds about right. The Greeks tell us… well, never mind what the Greeks tell us. Finish that and let me go to the loo and I’ll drive you up to Salisbury. Simon will be dying to meet you.”

I finished my glass of whisky. She retired to the bathroom.

“I’ve been thinking. You know what your problem is,

Michael?” she said through the bathroom door.

“No. What?”

“Men will always hate you and women will always love you.”

“Is that a fact?”

“Pour me another drink,” she said.

“I thought you were going to drive me.”

“Pour me another drink,” she insisted.

I poured two more whiskies. She came out of the bathroom a little unshaky on her feet, with her blouse completely off and draped over her shoulders and her beautiful, voluptuous body stunning me under the stars. She took the glass and drank the whisky and lay down on the bed.