Mike Carey - Vicious Circle

‘Well, you said you were happy to help. I’m just taking you at your word.’

‘Okay. I think we helped you enough now. So my new word is sod off out of it.’

‘That’s more of a phrase,’ I pointed out, reasonably. ‘I’m not a cop, Reggie.’

‘You think I’m simple? I said you were acting like one.’

‘Not even that. A cop would be picking up on all your bullshit and shoving it back in your face to see if you blink.’

There was a moment’s – or maybe just half a moment’s – tense silence. ‘What bullshit?’ Reggie demanded.

‘Well, let’s see. You’re a Buddhist, but when I come in you’re sitting in front of a plate full of sausage, eggs and bacon. You can’t bring yourself to actually touch the stuff, but you do your best to pretend it’s yours. And Mister Potato Face over there had the same problem with the fag, so it’s fair to assume that somewhere nearby there’s a chain-smoking carnivorous mate of yours who doesn’t want to be introduced to me for some inexplicable—’

It was just as well that Reggie’s eyes flicked upwards. Like an idiot, I’d been watching the door at the back of the galley, but seeing that tell-tale glance I rolled off the couch a split-second before a burly form crashed down feet first from above and two size-ten boots thumped into the space where I’d just been sitting.

I hit the floor and rolled, fetching up against Reggie’s feet. He jumped back hastily, proving that his Bruce Lee looks were all window dressing, but the guy with the roomy footwear was a bit more aggressive. He strode across to me, lifted me up by my lapels with surprisingly little effort and slammed me into the wall.

‘Hold on to him!’ he bellowed.

Reggie and Greg rushed to comply, taking an arm each. I could have fought back, but only at the expense of a few more hard knocks. I figured the time for that would come.

The man standing in front of me, rubbing right fist into left palm, looked like hard knocks were a daily fact of life for him. He was big enough to be covered by building regulations, and his hard, craggy face bore a couple of days’ growth of stubble. His hair was sand-blond, his complexion sandpaper-rough. There were deep shadows under his eyes, as dark as bruises. He must have been fairly handsome once, in a weather-beaten, roughly chiselled out, oversized kind of way. Now, in middle age, he looked like someone who was just starting to feel the pull of gravity and letting it get to him – psychologically, if not physically. He was wearing one of those shades-of-grey urban combat jackets over a green turtleneck sweater and olive-drab trousers tucked into those intimidating Dixon of Dock Green boots. An incongruous flash of gold from his wrist caught my eye: he was wearing a bracelet. But before I could take in the details he reached out and grasped my cheeks in his hand, tilting my head up so our stares met.

He glared at me – a warning glare.

‘I got your message,’ he said. ‘That was you, yeah? At the Oriflamme? So you wanted to talk to me. Well, here I am. What do you want to talk about?’

‘Abbie Torrington,’ I suggested.

That was meant to be an opening gambit, but it got a more spectacular reaction than I was expecting. Dennis Peace gave a wordless roar and punched me in the stomach. I saw the punch coming and threw myself backwards as far as I could into Reggie and Greg, trying to ride with it. Even so, it was like standing in the path of a cannon ball. The pain was incredible, and I folded up with a feeble hiccup of displaced air. I sagged, but Reggie and Greg held on so I didn’t actually fall.

‘You don’t – you don’t even talk about her!’ Peace bellowed. ‘You don’t even – you bastard, you think I’m going to let you—? Who’s paying you? Who’s fucking sent you here?’

He grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked my head up again – but not before I took a closer look at that bracelet and saw it for what it was: a heart-shaped locket on a golden chain, wrapped twice around his muscular wrist.

‘Who sent you?’ he asked again.

‘Her – her mother,’ I wheezed.

‘Well, you tell that bitch she’s never seeing Abbie again in this world or any fucking other. That’s over. It’s over! I would’ve – I would’ve – I’ll kill before I let that coldhearted bastard—’

He ran out of words, his face flushed so deep a red it looked like he was about to bust a major artery. He brandished his fist at me again, but didn’t go for a second punch. He took a long, shuddering breath, visibly struggling to get himself back under some kind of control. I remembered that he was popping speed: that’s not generally conducive to moments of calm reflection.

Then things took a turn for the worse. Peace flicked his jacket away from his body on the left-hand side and pulled a handgun out of his belt. He shoved it hard up against my cheek.

‘Take it easy, Den,’ Reggie Tang murmured anxiously.

‘Shut up, Reggie,’ Peace growled. He looked at me with a sort of agonised hatred. He seemed to be working himself up to something, and I opened my mouth to try to head it off. Before I could speak, his free hand shot forward, balled into a fist. I didn’t have time to move – just to close my eyes. A splintering, rending sound came from just to my left. Opening my eyes, I turned my head a fraction and saw the gaping hole that Peace had just punched in the decorative fascia above the breakfast bar. He curled and unfolded his fingers three times: as far as I could see, he hadn’t even broken any skin.

‘If I ever see you again,’ he said to me, a fraction calmer now, ‘I’ll kill you. I mean it. I’ll kill you. Don’t come looking for me unless you’re ready to cut my throat while I’m asleep, because that’s the only way you’re getting her. And don’t assume I’m asleep just because I’ve got my fucking – eyes – closed.’

He punctuated these last three words with three sharp jabs of the gun barrel into my face. He flicked a glance at Reggie, and then at Greg. ‘Give me five minutes,’ he said, ‘and then let him go.’

Reggie nodded. Greg just blinked. Peace was already heading for the wide-open spaces in any case, tucking the gun back into his belt, and he didn’t look back as he ducked to clear the low door.

Well, now. I liked these odds better.

I drooped a little in Reggie and Greg’s grip, making them take a little more of my weight. Irritably they hauled me upright, which meant that they were off balance when I came up with them and shoved backwards. We all lurched against the bulkhead together. I dragged my arm clear of Greg’s grip and punched Reggie hard in the throat. He gave a choking gurgle and staggered sideways into the breakfast bar, letting go his hold on my other arm as both his hands flew to his neck. I didn’t need the arm, though, because I was already taking Greg out with a sharp butt to the bridge of the nose.

I was out through the door before either of them could recover enough to mount a counter-attack, but by the time I got up the stairs and out into the companionway Peace was already legging it down the gangplank. He turned on the quayside and looked back at me.

He kicked the gangplank away just as I got to it, and it tumbled end over end into the Thames, hitting the Collective ’s hull with a series of hollow metallic booms like a clock chiming the hour inside a coffin. The distance to the shore was only ten feet or so, but I had to back a few steps to get a run-up, and meanwhile the guy was already having it away on his toes.

I made the jump, and I landed with both feet under me – but then a moment’s dizziness, coming out of nowhere, made me stagger and almost fall backwards into the river. I pulled myself together and took off after my quarry, who’d reached the pier’s gate by now and was hauling it open.