Ник Харкуэй - Tigerman

She made a non-committal noise, and he realised she did not wish to consider that a proper scientist, even a politically motivated one, would do such a thing. ‘No,’ she said finally. ‘Granting that it is a real possibility, which I must because the world is full of bad people and many of them are here: there is nothing to be gained, at least not for a long time, and much to lose. It would be wasteful and there would be no way to get another subject.’

Unless you were prepared to make more like her by hand, as it were, by exposing people to the Clouds at close range. But if you were prepared to do that, and if you could, there was no need to take Sandrine in the first place. Inoue’s instinct said no. ‘Do you know where the tame team is?’

‘Fleet,’ she said. ‘Of course.’

‘Of course,’ he echoed.

‘You are investigating this?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good,’ she said stoutly. ‘They are assholes. Go get ’em, Tiger.’

He felt the bottom drop out of his world, felt his knees turn to jelly and his feet to water, and realised before saying something totally insane that she had no idea, that she was just using a common idiom. ‘Thanks,’ he replied.

‘And after, come and have cookies. I may even make actual food.’

‘How’s your cooking?’

‘If I answer that, Lester, I have to use the forgetting button or you won’t come. Go now. I am a very important director scientist, and my minions get confused if I do not oversee their every action.’

‘Goodbye, Kaiko.’

‘ Au revoir , Lester.’

He dialled again.

‘Jed, it’s me.’

‘Hi there, Lester.’

‘I’m sorry I shouted.’

‘So am I. Shall we hug?’

‘Fortunately, the telephone does not yet afford us that option.’

‘I’m going to come up there and hug you.’

‘I would very much prefer not.’

‘You stone-faced British jackass! I am calling the car and I’m going to come up there and hug you until you squeak like a giant puppy!’

‘This is a consulate, Jed, you can’t come in unless I give you permission.’

Laughter. Then: ‘It’s possible that I got a little pissy back there, under stress. I can completely see where you were coming from. But you see what I was worried about, too.’

‘I do.’ I think you were wrong, but I do . He wondered what unsaid words were hanging in the air on Kershaw’s end.

‘I hear,’ Kershaw cleared his throat, ‘I hear you pretty much picked up our slack. Took in the wounded, that stuff.’

‘It was Dirac’s idea.’

‘I heard that, too. But it was a good thing, Lester. I can see all the politics of it. You could have sent them away. That would have played, too, in the long run. No one would have blamed you.’

‘Jed, I have a question. Feel free to tell me to get lost.’

‘Shoot.’

‘Who took the girl?’

‘What girl?’

‘In all the world, Jed, there is only one girl today.’

Kershaw didn’t respond immediately. The Sergeant thought he was probably nodding glumly, or pressing the heel of one hand against the middle of his head to ease a headache. ‘I don’t know, Lester.’

‘Off the record, between you and me? Not even a whisper?’

‘Cross my heart. It’s a mystery. It’s like all of a sudden there are these ghosts in the system, these crazy fucking events which are part of someone else’s shit and they are playing out in our town. The Tiger Man, for Christ’s sake! I’m living in a comic book. It was bad when he just uncovered drugs and beat up soldiers, then it was fine because he went away, then suddenly he’s chasing cars full of secret agents through a riot and then he fucking Gandhis the whole thing and everyone goes home! NatProMan is basically a primal-screaming therapy group right now. The Dutch called me this morning to yell at me. The Dutch! Do you have any idea how bad it has to get before the Dutch are pissed?’

‘Arno must be doing his nut.’

‘If that means what I think it means then yes, he is. All of a sudden no one’s taking his calls. He says they’re all worried they’re part of it and they haven’t realised. They’re scared they’re being manipulated, and they’re even more scared he’s part of the con.’

‘He released Pechorin. I thought that was odd.’

‘It was odder than fuck, Lester, and we had words about it, but he made funny faces at me which I assume were supposed to mean that Pechorin is either some kind of secret squirrel from Interpol or the King of Jackassistan’s one begotten son.’

‘He hardly seems the type.’ Please, oh, please let me not have beaten seven bells out of a policeman undercover.

‘I know, all right? It’s post-Sov stuff,’ Kershaw grumbled. ‘There’s a real fine line between government and crooks over there at the best of times, and you did not hear me say that because I greatly respect my colleagues from Kiev and their massive integrity, even if they do occasionally poison the shit out of one another as part of the natural flow of democratic give and take. If there is anyone in the world more fucked in the head than you Brits, which I doubt, it’s those assholes. They would totally send a guy like that out into the real world. Although the other thing is, maybe Arno just didn’t want someone to blow up the hospital. And I would be totally fine with that logic right now.’

That was something the Sergeant had not even considered. Pechorin might be a target. He knew things, for sure, that the Sergeant wanted to know. I should have kept hold of him. But if he was disposed to tell me he would have, and if he wasn’t I’d be abducting an officer of NatProMan for a hostile interrogation, and London would not be standing foursquare behind me on that decision. Above my paygrade, outside my need to know.

He was really tired now. How long had it been since he’d slept through the night without fresh bruises? Since he’d just had a cup of tea and a slice of cake?

Kershaw’s tone changed, warmed. ‘You did good these nights, Lester. Really good. I’m writing a report. You know what Dirac did after he came to you?’

‘Sat around and drank booze, I think.’

‘Jesus, that guy. He’s like a rescue dog in reverse. Okay, I’ll put “probably stinko”.’

‘All right, Jed. I’ve got to go. Tell Arno I’m still around to consult if he’s got time. And thank him for me.’

‘Thank him?’

‘He did me a favour. Personal thing, but it meant a lot.’

‘I will. Oh, Lester?’

‘Yes?’

‘Is it possible that you are schtupping Kaiko Inoue?’

‘You mean Doctor Inoue?’

‘Oh, fine, be like that.’

The red phone rang just as he was getting up. He lifted it and the secretary said ‘Hold for Africa’ in a voice which suggested ‘Into Thy hands, O Lord’.

The Sergeant said, ‘Okay.’

Africa said: ‘Ferris.’

‘Here.’

‘Why have you pissed in my mead bowl?’

He had never heard this expression. ‘What?’

‘My mead bowl. My sweet ambrosia, if you prefer. My wine glass. It doesn’t really matter, Lester: what I want to know is why you have got up on the table, dropped your trousers, and pissed in it in front of my fucking face?’ He found it hard to understand that she had sworn at him. She was not that person. She must know those words, but that she might use them in anger had never occurred to him.

But there was no question that she had. Fury bubbled in her as she went on. ‘If that doesn’t clarify matters, let me rephrase the question: did I tell you not to talk to reporters?’

Oh.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘And did you happen, in spite of this, to give an interview to an eel-faced little bitch called Hasp? About, I would imagine, twenty minutes ago? So it can’t have slipped your mind.’