Mike Carey - Vicious Circle

Time to hit the road, and more than. This time around I wasn’t deterred by the padlock at the bottom of the stairs, because this time around I had Sallis’s gun. I missed with the first shot, severed the chain very effectively with the second and kicked the doors open.

I was back in the car park, and it was empty. In case the indecently loud noise of the gunshots brought werewolves or security guards running to see what was what, I quickened my steps as I climbed the shallow ramp that led towards what I hoped was the exit. Halfway up there was a motorbike, leaning drunkenly against the wall in a way that suggested a broken kickstand. At the top there was a closed security grille. On the far side of the grille were light and sound and life: theatregoers and late-night revellers walked past, happily oblivious of the dark worlds that glided past theirs on sly, crazy tangents. The same night, or the next? How long had I been out after Gwillam slipped me the truth drug? The answer came pat: if I’d been unconscious for twenty-four hours I’d be a Hell of a lot more seriously dehydrated than I was. It was still Thursday, and I was still in with a chance.

For a moment, I almost resented the people filtering past in the unrelenting slipstream of normality – not just for their happy or indifferent faces and their carefree conversations but because their presence right there, right then, meant I couldn’t use the gun again. I tried the grille. It wasn’t locked: it slid up as I hauled on it, with a stuck-pig squeal.

Then I did a double take which in other circumstances might have been comic. I went back down to where the bike was parked and took a closer look at it. The logo above the front headlight was the three-diamonds-makinga-triangle of the Mitsubishi company. The bike also had a pair of panniers at the back like a courier’s bike.

I experienced a momentary qualm of near-panic as I fished Sallis’s keys out of the pocket of Sallis’s jacket. If this worked I had to be using up someone else’s luck, because this sure as hell didn’t feel like mine.

Trying to look casual for the benefit of anyone who might glance in from the street, I slid the film canisters into the panniers, three to each side, and climbed on board. There were running footsteps coming up the ramp now, and I heard a shout from behind me. I didn’t turn around: turning around at the sound of a shout just makes you look guilty.

The key fitted, and the engine roared into noisy, over-emphatic life on the first turn. Now I did look back, and was on the whole relieved to find that the pursuit was wearing uniform – and flesh that was entirely human.

They were still fifty feet behind, giving me just about enough time to slip the helmet that was dangling from the handlebars – dark red, like the bike, and emblazoned with a winged-skull motif – over my head. Safety first. Then I burned rubber, leaving the three yelling security guards to share my exhaust between them.

I wasn’t sure how to go in at the Stanger Care Home. Was I a wanted felon now? The ram raid on a North London hospital had to have made the news: the question was whether they’d sorted through the debris yet and ascertained that I wasn’t in it – and if so, whether they’d put out any kind of a public warning alongside the inevitable APB.

If they had, walking into the Stanger like it was all business as usual might mean walking straight back into police custody. On the other hand, there was something inside that I needed, and I couldn’t see any other way of getting it.

But while I was still sitting astride the bike in the darkened car park, irresolute, providence reached out to me in the shape of Paul. He came lumbering out through the main doors, leaned against the side of the ambulance where we’d had our talk a few days before, and lit up. He blew a plume of smoke out through his nostrils, and it hung in faint lines in the still air like a runic inscription carved into the flesh of the night.

As I got off the bike and walked towards him, he glanced in my direction and then took a longer, harder look. Because of the bike he’d had me pegged as a stranger, but I saw the doubt appear in his face and I saw him tense. By that time I was close enough for him to hear me without me having to raise my voice too much. I took the helmet off and kept on walking.

‘Hey, Paul,’ I offered.

He thrust out his lower lip in a look of truculent puzzlement. ‘Hey, Castor. I thought you were meant to be on the run from the police.’

I nodded easily, strolling up beside him and resting one shoulder against the ambulance, the helmet tucked casually under my arm and my free hand thrust into the pocket of Sallis’s leather jacket. ‘That’s right,’ I said, flicking the helmet with the tip of my thumb. ‘Hence the cunning disguise.’

‘Armed and dangerous, is what I heard.’

‘Armed, yes.’ I showed him the handgun and put it away again fast. ‘I’d only be dangerous if I was organised. How’s Rafi?’

Paul took a drag on his cigarette and blew out some more smoke. The gun had brought a pained look to his face, but he wasn’t surprised or intimidated by it. ‘He’s good,’ he said. ‘Rafael is good. Best he’s ever been. You want to know the truth, I can hardly believe he’s the same fucking person.’

‘You want to know the truth, he isn’t. Paul, I need to get in and see him.’

He chuckled softly and shook his head, grinning as if in appreciation of a good joke. ‘Not gonna happen, man,’ he said. ‘They got your face on the TV – everyone inside is talking about it. The ones who reckon you always had shifty eyes are kind of winning right now.’

‘They don’t have to see my face.’ I held up the motorcycle helmet. ‘Just get me inside, Paul. It’s important. And afterwards you can say I had a gun on you.’

‘Have you, Castor?’

‘Have I what?’

Paul looked me in the eye, calm and cold. ‘Got a gun on me?’

I winced. ‘Fuck, no. I didn’t kill anyone, Paul, and I’m not planning to start now. But I need to speak to Rafi, and I thought you could help. If you don’t want to, then I guess all I can ask you to do is to hold off on raising the alarm for a while.’

He dropped the last inch of his cigarette onto the asphalt and trod it out. ‘This is going to upset Doctor Webb,’ he observed. ‘Make him look all kinds of stupid.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I guess.’ I was working out distances and odds. If I just walked in off the street and headed for the annexe where Rafi’s cell was without going through reception first, the nurse on duty would hit an alarm. I could get to Rafi, but could I get into the cell without a key? And could I get out again afterwards?

‘Bound to,’ Paul pursued, meditatively. ‘Bound to ruin his day. A wanted man walks in off the street, gets through all his security and then walks out again. That kind of thing is real hard to explain to the board of trustees.’

He squared his shoulders, like a man walking back into the fray after a short, well-needed rest.

‘So let’s do it,’ he said.

Paul went first, hands swinging at his sides, looking bored and indifferent. I followed, helmet on and visor down, holding one of the film canisters because it was the only prop I had to hand.

The nurse on reception looked up and saw that it was Paul. Then, as she was about to return to her novel, she saw the other, unfamiliar figure looming behind him. She stared at me, and at what I was holding, with a quickening of interest.

‘Where’s Doctor Webb, Lizzie?’ Paul asked her. ‘This guy – ’hooking a thumb over his shoulder ‘—needs a signature for something, and it’s got to be the boss man’s.’

‘I think he’s in his office,’ the nurse said, glancing back to Paul again. ‘Shall I page him?’