Gavin Smith - The Age of Scorpio

It took Ted a while to realise that the prickling sensation he was feeling in his spine was fear. He put off saying anything by lighting another cigarette. She shook her head when he offered her one.

‘What about me? He’s a tasty geezer. Beth, I like you but I don’t know you. We’re not close and I don’t owe you anything.’ Beth stared at him. He saw her knuckles whiten around the hilt of her bayonet as disgust crept across her face. He sagged in his seat and told her what she wanted to know. Beth turned and looked out the window. It wasn’t even far away.

Du Bois hated eating in the car. It wasn’t just the crumbs; it made the car smell as well. He was parked on Broad Street in Old Portsmouth looking at the old defensive wall on the waterfront. It amused du Bois that this area, now so desirable, had once been known as Spice Island and been a hotbed of vice. Some things just didn’t change that much, he decided, bearing in mind what he was here to do.

There was still a huge police and military presence in the city, though the latter had been played down. The roadblocks and some of the other more draconian precautions that had been taken had been relaxed. It seemed that the authorities knew they were little more than window-dressing.

He was still injured, slow and weak. There was new-growth skin where the bag lady had partially flayed him, hence the eating. He did not feel anything like at his peak.

He had reviewed McGurk’s file. He seemed to be a particularly nasty version of your standard provincial UK gangster: small-minded, short-sighted and vicious . So where had he got the servitor from?

His ability to think was being severely hampered by loud bass-heavy music. On the other side of the road a little further up, a van was parked, its side door open, a large sound system pointing out of it. There were four men in hoodies and clown masks putting on what du Bois could only speculate was some kind of dance exhibition. Though what the gyrations, gymnastics and spinning on their backs had to do with dancing was beyond him. He’d only worked out it was supposed to be dancing by the music. A surprisingly large group of tourists had gathered around the dancers – so large they were starting to block the road to the most westerly point of Old Portsmouth. Du Bois felt like calling the police but decided that he was being petty.

Elizabeth Luckwicke passed along the walkway on the top of the wall. Du Bois was not pleased to see her and had hoped that she would stay in Bradford. What really surprised him was that she appeared to have a blood-screen, and a powerful one. He could make out the representation of augmentation in his vision. He could see fire burning through her veins.

He dropped the baguette he was eating and climbed out of the Range Rover. He didn’t like where she was heading, either. He thought about calling out to her but decided against it. She was an unknown factor now. He wondered how much she’d pulled the wool over his eyes. Instead he headed after her.

Beth hurried along the wall ignoring the pounding beat of the breakdancing crew entertaining the tourists. Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of the clown-masked dancers, standing on top of the van, throw a handful of glitter into the air. They were dancing to a hip-hop tune that sampled the old ‘Mr Sandman’ song.

Looking along Broad Street, she could make out the pubs ahead, the water and then Gosport. To her left the white sail-like Spinnaker Tower rose above Gunwharf. Beth came to a squat square tower attached to the defensive wall. She took the narrow steps down to street level.

It was called the Lighthouse and it was on the waterfront on Tower Street, which ran parallel with Broad Street. Du Bois stood on the Round Tower, which overlooked the Lighthouse. It was a large, four-storey, pseudo-art-deco luxury home with a small observation tower. A spiral staircase with large windows stuck out of the side of the house. He watched Beth hammer on the door at the bottom of the staircase. He watched a thug come out of the door to the third floor and head down the stairs.

The heavy opened the door an inch. Beth kicked it completely open with surprising strength, knocking him back, and then preceded to beat him with what looked like a pickaxe handle with a bike chain wrapped around it until he stopped moving.

Above Beth, du Bois watched another two of McGurk’s thugs appear on the staircase, one from the second floor, another from the third carrying a snooker cue. Both were wearing suits. Du Bois had to admit that for a shell-suit-wearing toerag, McGurk seemed to expect surprisingly high levels of sartorial elegance from his lackeys.

Beth could already hear the feet on the stairs thundering towards her. She was pretty sure that the guy who had answered the door was still alive as she stepped over him. She sprinted up the stairs, meeting the first guy immediately. He kicked out at her head. She ducked and swung the pickaxe handle at his supporting leg. She had hoped to hurt him enough to knock him off balance. Instead she heard the crack as bones fractured under the surprising force of her blow. He cried out as his leg collapsed. Beth grabbed his hair, dragged him out of the way and then continued up the stairs.

She ducked as someone swung a snooker cue at her so hard it broke when it hit the wall. Moving quickly up the stairs, she punched with her left. She was surprised when he doubled over. Even though she was wearing her brass knuckles, her left hand had always been the weaker one. She dragged him forward so he fell face first on the stairs. There was shouting above her. The heavy was still moving. She turned around, grabbed the railings for support and put the boot in until he lost interest in fighting.

First floor, open-plan kitchen, empty. Second floor, lounge area, nice view of a passing ferry, empty. Third floor, games room, snooker table, bar, another big window and McGurk with two of his boys on either side of him pointing guns at her. There were three more muscle in there: one had a snooker cue, one was using his thumb to open a folding knife, the third was unarmed. The black holes of the gun barrels brought her up short.

‘My fucking house! You come into my fucking home!’ The only emotion Beth could muster was disgust. McGurk was screaming so loudly he was drooling.

‘You came into mine,’ Beth told him, angry he was hiding behind guns.

‘I’m allowed to. I can do what I want in Pompey! You are fucking nothing!’

It seemed to Beth that people had been saying something similar to her all her life. She was starting to think it had more to do with them than her.

‘Where’s my sister?’ she said, quietly but unable to mask her distaste.

‘Do you know what I’m going to do?!’ he screamed.

‘Make an outlandish threat that you’ll never live up to?’ du Bois asked as he stepped into the room.

‘Shit!’ Beth said quietly and then moved to the side. The guns were suddenly pointed at du Bois, who raised his arms.

‘I’m just here to talk.’

McGurk looked du Bois up and down, taking in the raw patches of skin.

‘What happened to you? Disagreement with a strimmer?’ The laughter from McGurk’s cronies was forced. They knew their cues well. Du Bois looked a little apologetic. ‘You’re the plod that talked to Arbogast?’ McGurk said suspiciously. Du Bois nodded. ‘You armed?’ Du Bois nodded. ‘We’ll be having that, then. Markus.’ The unarmed guy that Beth recognised from her kidnapping, the one she’d stabbed in the leg, went over to search du Bois, who held his arms up higher to make it easier for the bodyguard to search him. Markus took the .45 and the tanto off him.

‘Careful with that,’ du Bois said, nodding at the .45. ‘Gift from a very grateful lieutenant in Delta Force.’