Nick Harkaway - Tigerman

‘Okay.’

‘You’re an idiot. Tell me there was at least a puppy in a tree.’

‘Just grass. My fault. Having my annual fag. Cigarette. Dropped it in the wrong place.’

He offered her tea, but she had business elsewhere, so he sat on the low red-brick wall and watched her depart. She had a workmanlike stride which spoke of important things to do. He still found her admirable, but his lust had evaporated. He liked her, and he respected the scrivener — insofar as he knew him at all — and he would not for worlds interfere with what they had, which was something he had heard about but never tasted and which he felt the world ought to respect more than it did. The world respected nothing, and in most cases that was fine because not much was worth respect the way some people believed. But love of the sort that uplifted he regarded with something close to religious fervour. The love of family. The love which builds.

He moved his shoulders cautiously, felt the slickness of her creams between his skin and the bandages.

A little while later he realised that he was not alone.

‘Well done with the car,’ he said. ‘And the story. That was sharp.’

The boy sat down. As always when they were close together, the Sergeant felt conscious of his own bigness.

‘It was okay?’

The Sergeant contemplated last night’s events. ‘Yes. It was good work.’

‘You are not arrested.’

‘No. I think. . the longer I am not arrested, the less likely it is that I will be. Or killed. I suppose that’s the other thing.’

The small head came up fiercely. ‘They had better not!’

‘You’ll sort them out for me, Tigerboy?’ Something flickered in the boy’s face. The question was suddenly unfunny. There were plenty of places where someone his age would be quite old enough to do that. The best guerrilla fighters and commandos in many wars were children this age: small, quick, and desperately loyal. And ruthless, with the clarity of childhood. There were warlords not much older.

‘Joking,’ the Sergeant said quietly. ‘In bad taste, I s’pose. Sorry.’

The boy hung his head. ‘I should have known what was in the cave.’

‘No.’

‘Yes! I totally screwed up.’ Pride. If the car was his own good work, then the cave was also his, with what that entailed. No day without night. No glory without responsibility.

‘All right,’ the Sergeant agreed. ‘Yes. We should have done more work up front. We were sloppy and we screwed up. You and me both. But we didn’t die and, fingers crossed, we got away with it. We just have to be smart. It’s like. .’ He cast around. ‘It’s like after a bank robbery in the movies. They always get away clean and then someone buys a new car when they shouldn’t.’

‘Yes. That is dumb.’

‘It is. So we go through it. Tell me what you saw last night.’

The boy shrugged. ‘You went into the cave. A few minutes later there was a huge bang, and smoke. I vamoose! Watch from a little way. You — Tigerman — come out. Look strange and scary. (Great mask!) They follow you, very angry. You run. I take the car and dump it where you will find it. Then I re-moose. I go home, erase the video footage.’ Oh, yes. The boy’s video. ‘Which is a shame, because it is the shizzle. Simpson Bruckheimer himself has no shizzle like this shizzle.’

‘Erase how?’

‘Tell the computer to write stuff over — random numbers again and again. Takes a long time. Better-than-DoD-standard.’ This last had the feel of a direct quote from the manual. ‘I was careful all the time. I looked up high for the eyes in the sky! But there was cloud, like this way then that, all the time. I think they can see one minute in every five.’

Let us devoutly hope.

The Sergeant nodded and fell silent. He did not know how to ask his next question, but he did not have the option to put it aside. It had become his habit when talking to the boy. He avoided the things which might cause friction between them, treating their friendship like something very fragile because precious things were, to his mind, always so. But not this one, not today.

‘How did you find out about the cave?’

The boy looked away. ‘It is known.’

‘By who?’

‘Many people. It is not a secret. And in the past it has absolutely been a clubhouse.’

‘Have you been there?’

‘I? No.’

‘Who, then?’

‘Some people.’

‘What people?’

‘Some people that I know.’

They glared at one another. Finally the Sergeant said: ‘Have you spoken to any of these people recently? About the cave?’

‘You wish to know if someone lied?’

‘No.’ Although now that you say it I’m worried about it. Who? And why?

The boy scowled for a moment, and then he brightened. ‘You worry that this person will give us away!’

‘Yes.’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘She would not.’ With absolute certainty.

She , the Sergeant heard. Not anonymous people any more. One person. A woman who would never, ever give him away. Someone who for whatever reason would not, could not change her allegiances. Someone bound to him to the point of destruction. Squadmate, family, lover, debtor.

Family.

He nodded acceptance, and made sure it was respectful. They had clashed, and they were still friends. It was only polite to acknowledge it.

The boy saw that his debrief was over. He nodded in return.

‘I am going to the lake,’ he said carelessly.

‘Have fun.’

‘There will be good water.’

‘I’m not allowed to swim. The Witch said.’

The boy nodded acceptance of this overriding command.

‘But,’ the Sergeant added, ‘I might eat later. Maybe at the café. Kswah swah .’

Laughter. ‘ Kswah swah .’ Then: ‘Will you burn the suit?’

The Sergeant nodded. ‘I should.’

‘Now?’

‘Yes.’

The boy seemed to concede this, then shook his head. ‘But you may need it. To prove that you are helping. And if you find it then your DNA can be on it when they test. It is natural. Your fingerprints, the same.’

The Sergeant recognised this as special pleading, and he mistrusted how much he wanted to agree. He did not relish the idea of destroying the suit — it was something they had done together — but it was evidence that could hang him. But then again, yes: what the boy said was true. He might need, down the line, to produce some sort of coup to demonstrate his commitment to good order on Mancreu and to the search for the terrorist in the funny outfit. Assuming such a search ever took place.

‘There is a burn bag,’ he said at last. The boy blinked at him owlishly. He never said, ‘I do not know what that means.’ He just waited until you said it another way. ‘A metal container for the storage of sensitive documents. It is a diplomatic bag, but it has a small bomb inside it. If the wrong combination is used, the contents of the bag are destroyed.’

The boy nodded. ‘The suit goes in the bag.’

‘And then at least only London can find it.’

‘And you are London. In all Mancreu, only you are London.’

True. He would keep the suit, for now. If things got hot, he could always destroy it later. He tried not to feel glad at this decision. It was perfectly rational.

He waited until the boy had gone before he moved the suit. He wasn’t sure why; it wasn’t as if they would somehow be overcome by it and rush out again to foil a bank robbery, but he could not shake the feeling that it was a temptation, somehow, that he should not extend. When he picked the pieces up in his hands, he felt like a man engaged in an illicit affair with someone else’s wife.

He put the whole suit in the burn bag and put the burn bag in the armoury. As soon as he closed the door he remembered the photograph of Shola he had found in the cave. Theoretically there might be fingerprints on it. He might even be able to lift them with talc. Tomorrow. It would have to be tomorrow. He was exhausted, which was natural, and he was aching. A nap would be ideal.