Stephen Leather - Once bitten

The gum-chewer shifted his shoulders in his jacket as if it was uncomfortable. "We'd like you to come with us, sir," he said.

"Where?"

"The precinct, Sir."

"Is it a case?"

"All we know is that you are to come with us, Sir." The "Sir" always seemed to come as an after-thought.

"Hang on while I dress and get my computer." I made to close the door but he stabbed his foot against it.

"If you don't mind we'd like to wait inside while you get dressed, Sir. And you won't need the computer. Our orders are to get you downtown as quickly as possible."

Behind him the other officer's hand tightened on the butt of his gun. I didn't like this, I didn't like this one bit. For once I'd have been grateful if they'd cracked a vampire joke or made the sign of the cross, anything to break the tension. "And if I refuse?" I asked.

"Then we'll still come in, Sir," he said.

Defeated, I turned my back on them and headed for the bedroom. The gum-chewer followed me and watched as I picked out a suit. I figured if it was trouble I might as well look the part. "Do I have time to shower and shave?" I asked him.

"You can do that down at the precinct, Sir," he said. Oh yeah, I thought, happens all the time.

The nice kind police officers downtown always allow the poor misunderstood felons a wash and brush up before they got down to the third degree. I dressed and knotted on a red power tie and then went with them to the car. They said not one word to me all the way to the precinct, not one lousy word. Other than a couple of speeding tickets it was my first ever taste of the wrong side of the law, and I could appreciate why so many of the men and women I had to interview looked so nervous. It was the not knowing that was so worrying. The uncertainty. At least I knew what police procedure was and that I had an expensive lawyer to call on if I had to, but even so I was scared shitless. They took me in, walking either side of me as if escorting a mass murderer, and led me through the reception area. There were several officers there that I recognised but they all avoided looking at me. We went through Homicide and I kept looking for De'Ath but there was no sign of him. Captain Canonico was there, though, standing by the water cooler and filling a coneshaped paper cup. He saw me as he straightened up and grinned evilly.

"Looks like you're up to your neck in shit this time, Beaverbrook," he said.

"What's going on, Captain?" I asked him.

"A couple of heavyweights from Washington want a word in your shell-like ear." He emptied the water into his mouth, wiped his lips with the back of his hand and nodded at the gum-chewer.

"They want to see him in my office." Then he turned his back on me and refilled his cup. The fact that whoever it was had swung enough weight to commandeer Canonico's office made me feel even more nervous and my stomach grumbled acidly as they took me to the room and knocked.

A man in a grey suit opened it, looked at the uniformed officer and then looked at me. He opened the door wider. I saw Rivron get up from a chair. He avoided my eyes as he walked by me. To my mind he looked guilty, but then I probably did, too.

The door clicked closed. There were two men, and both of them were wearing grey suits, shiny black shoes and crisp white shirts. There the resemblance ended. The one who'd opened the door was tall and thin and had a sallow, almost funereal complexion, pale lips and eyes that were a surprising shade of green, totally out of character with the rest of his colourless features. The other was just as tall, a shade over six feet, but he had thick sandy hair and a rash of freckles across a snub nose and plump cheeks. He was broad-shouldered and had obviously been a football player in his college days but still had a few years to go yet before he went to seed. Both were in their early thirties but had eyes that seemed much older, as if they'd spent most of their working lives being bored. Neither of them offered to shake my hand but they both introduced themselves. The thin one was called Hooper, the football player was Sugar. That was it. No first names, no rank. I asked to see their identification and they smiled the smile of predators scenting prey.

"No ID," said Hooper.

"Not as such," said Sugar.

"What do you mean, not as such?" I asked.

"Well," said Sugar, "if you were to come up with a real fancy lawyer who could get the backing of a very important judge, then maybe, just maybe, we might come up with a Washington telephone number that he could call. And then the judge would speak to your lawyer and your lawyer would speak to you and then you'd be speaking to us again."

"At the moment it's just you and the good Captain and a couple of members of the department here who know that we are involved," said Hooper.

"And frankly," said Sugar, "that's how we'd rather keep it, for the moment at least."

"The fewer people who know, the better," added Hooper.

"Know what?" I asked.

"That is, as they say, the $64,000 question," said Sugar.

"Why don't you sit down," said Hooper. He walked by me and rested his hand on the back of the chair in front of Canonico's desk.

"Then we can shoot the breeze," said Sugar, leaning back in Canonico's chair.

"Chew the fat," added Hooper.

"Have you two been working together long?" I asked.

They smiled. "A while," said Hooper.

"Does it show?" asked Sugar.

I sat down and Hooper went around the desk and stood next to Sugar. He put his hands behind his back and looked for all the world like an undertaker paying his respects. He looked at me with his green eyes like a cat wondering whether to eat a mouse or toy with it for a while. "We, Mr Sugar and I, work for an agency in Washington which is connected, you could say, with national security. But we also liaise closely with our equivalents in other countries. Our task is to spot individuals who may at some point pose a threat to national security."

"To nip them in the bud, as it were," said Sugar.

"I still don't follow you," I said, but I had a pretty good idea where they were heading.

"Terry Ferriman," said Hooper.

"Terry Ferriman," repeated Sugar.

"Ah," I said.

The three of us said nothing for almost a full minute and it was Sugar who eventually broke the silence.

"What can you tell us about her?" he asked.

"In what way?" I replied.

"You've been making a number of enquiries about the lady. About her background, finances, circumstances. We'd like to know what conclusion you've reached."

I nodded. "She was originally brought in as a suspect in a murder enquiry. She was bailed and as far as I know there isn't much of a case against her," I lied. After last night's conversation with her I knew exactly how much of a case there was against her and her friend. Had she told me his name? I couldn't remember, she'd given me far too much information to digest at one sitting. I needed to talk to her again.

"We know that," said Sugar patiently.

"You extended your own enquiry beyond a simple grading of her mental state?" asked Hooper.

"Yes, that's true."

"Would you mind telling us why," said Sugar, smiling.

"She intrigued me."

"There was something unusual about her grading, something shown up by the Beaverbrook Program?" asked Hooper.

"No, it was personal."

"Personal?" asked Sugar.

I had the impression that the two men in suits knew exactly what my feelings for Terry were, and what I'd found out. They knew and they were testing me, probably to ascertain whether I was with them or against them. What I wanted to know was who the hell were these two men from Washington and how they knew that I'd been investigating Terry Ferriman. De'Ath maybe, or perhaps Rivron. Or maybe the data bases De'Ath had been accessing had triggered something in Washington. But why?