Dan Abnett - Border Princes

‘I heard that,’ said Jack. ‘What did she say, James?’

‘I was saying,’ said Gwen, ‘my paperwork’s all done, so I’m a free woman. Besides, I’m here as a foil.’

‘A foil?’ asked Jack.

‘James reckoned you were so wound up about catching this bloke, you’d be a pain in the arse to be around all day.’

‘He said that?’

James raised his hands. ‘Don’t bring me into this.’

‘I’m here to make it more fun,’ said Gwen.

‘Kudos on that, so far,’ replied Jack. He walked up and down, looking around. Traffic droned past. Somewhere, an ice-cream van tinkled its tune.

‘OK, we’ve been here long enough,’ Jack decided. ‘Nothing going on. Let’s ride around a little more.’

‘What about him?’ asked Gwen, pointing down the street.

Jack looked where she was pointing. ‘He’s from the cable company.’

‘But is he?’ she asked.

‘He’s got a cable company van, Gwen.’

‘But has he?’

‘He’s not the guy, dammit,’ said Jack.

‘It could be an elaborate hypnotic cover,’ said Gwen. ‘James was telling me this bloke has the power to make anything look like anything he bloody wants. Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example.’

Jack glowered. ‘All right. All right. Just hold on.’

He set off down the street. They watched him have a conversation with the cable man. The cable man looked at Jack oddly. He said something to Jack. Jack walked back to join them.

‘Don’t make me do that again,’ said Jack. ‘Ever.’

‘Was it not the guy?’ asked Gwen innocently.

‘It was not the guy.’

‘Just as you thought?’

‘Just as I thought.’

‘Did he tell you to piss off?’

‘He told me to piss off.’

‘From which remark you deduced…?’

‘That it wasn’t the guy we are looking for, a fact I was pretty sure of before I went over.’ Jack walked around to the driver’s side door of the SUV. ‘Come on.’

Gwen and James followed him to the car. ‘How good at lip-reading am I, then?’ she said. ‘“Piss off” from a whole twenty yards?’

James shrugged. ‘I thought the hand gesture pretty much gave it away.’

On Tovey Street, Dean Simms said goodbye to Mr Robbins, and Mr Robbins said goodbye to six hundred pounds of the Darts Club raffle money. Mr Robbins was Darts Club treasurer, though Dean was fairly confident Mr Robbins wouldn’t remain in that post for very much longer.

Thirty-eight minutes. Excellent result to start the day. In and out, no messing around, clean close. No heavy punting required.

He walked back to his vehicle. Dean had been intending to do another two visits on Tovey Street but on the way over he’d spotted a couple of choice-looking places. Double garages, bay windows, Dunroamin’-esque house names on cedar plaques. To Dean, that said money. That said bored wives of a certain age taking the odd nip of sherry while they Mr Sheened the giant plasma TV for the umpteenth time. Game on.

He patted his briefcase and turned the key in the ignition.

‘This is dull,’ said Gwen. ‘This is… starting to make paperwork seem attractive. Are we going to do any running about at all?’

James yawned and leaned back in the SUV’s passenger seat. ‘With any luck, no.’

Gwen fidgeted in the back seat. She glanced out of the tinted windows to see what was keeping Jack.

James yawned again.

‘You tired?’

He nodded.

‘You had weird dreams again, didn’t you? I remember you waking up.’

‘Yeah. Very strange stuff.’

‘About what?’

James shook his head. ‘Still can’t actually recall anything.’ He stifled another yawn.

‘But they’re bothering you? These dreams?’

‘Doing my nana.’

Gwen eyes widened. ‘You were doing what? Oooh, I don’t wanna know!’

He looked around at her. ‘No, “banana”. Like doing my head in. It’s an expression.’

‘Sounds more like a radical lifestyle choice to me.’

‘I was not dreaming about my grandmother, Gwen.’

James seemed particularly sharp. She leant forwards.

‘OK, keep your lovely hair on. I was only playing. God, it’s really got to you, hasn’t it?’

He hesitated. ‘The thing is…’

‘What?’

‘Usually, I don’t dream.’

Gwen frowned. ‘That’s silly. Of course you do.’

‘I don’t. I never have. Don’t dream. Ever.’

‘You’re having me on, Mayer.’

He looked around at her again. ‘Honestly. I don’t. Maybe I’m not having weird dreams at all. Maybe I’m having normal dreams and they seem weird because I haven’t had them before.’

She thought for a moment. ‘I tell you what is weird.’

‘What?’

‘You.’

The driver’s door opened and Jack climbed in.

‘So?’ asked James.

‘His name was Colin,’ said Jack. ‘He was very polite, a bit of a floating voter sexually, as far as I could tell. He was collecting for Age Concern.’

‘Not our guy then?’

Jack sighed. He pulled out his phone and dialled. ‘Tosh? This is becoming tedious. Got anything interesting?’

At her work station in the Hub, Toshiko sat with her chin on her hand, idly clicking her mouse to play Solitaire on screen. ‘Nope,’ she replied.

Jack hung up. He wound down his window and let in the outdoor smell of wet road and cold exhaust. ‘Shall we just leave this?’ he asked.

In the distance, an ice-cream van played its plinky-plonky tune.

Gwen looked up. ‘Oooh, I could just go a choc ice now.’

Jack stared at her. ‘On top of the fats you guzzled for breakfast?’

Gwen pouted. ‘Just saying.’

Jack sat for a moment. His brow furrowed slightly. He looked back at her. ‘Gwen… would you consider your appetite choices to be in any way freakish?’

‘Freakish?’ she asked.

‘Unusual, then.’

‘Generally, or by Welsh standards?’

Jack stared at them both and jerked his thumb in the direction of the open window. He had a certain look in his eyes. ‘It’s October,’ he said. ‘It’s cold. School’s in. And we can hear an ice-cream van at ten thirty in the morning?’

Toshiko’s screen suddenly blipped. Solitaire folded up into the drag bar. A new window opened.

She sat up. ‘He-llo,’ she said.

She began to type.

‘Owen!’

He was shooting hoops with Ianto down by the cog-door.

‘Owen!’

‘What?’ he yelled back. ‘I said you could play the winner.’

‘Get here.’

He jogged up to join her at her station.

‘What?’

She pointed at her screen. ‘Say hello to my little friend.’

He squinted. ‘Blimey,’ he said. ‘That’s different.’

They slammed the doors of the SUV. Jack led them across the street, his hands in his coat pockets.

The van had been parked on a meter between a Volvo and a Mondeo. Trees overhung from behind garden walls, and the broad pavement was slick with dead leaves.

‘Mr Swirly,’ Gwen read. The van was old, an old Commer, its paint job fading and peeling in places: decals of ice-cream cones and space-rocket ice lollies pasted over a pink and cream background. James pressed his hand against the back panel grille.

‘Still warm.’

Cupping his hands around his eyes, Jack peered in through the hatch window. The interior was gloomy, but it was reasonable to conclude that Mr Swirly hadn’t dispensed ice-cream products for a fair number of years.

‘Look around,’ Jack instructed, rotating his hand. ‘He’s got to be close.’

Jack went one way, Gwen and James the other. They walked along the damp pathway, past the raw smells of cyanothus and creosote-drenched fencing.