Мик Херрон - Real Tigers

Why the hell would anyone take Catherine?

Pedestrian bridge.

Now.

There was only one pedestrian bridge it could be; not a dozen yards away, spanning the road between the tube station and the Barbican. And before checking it out there were alarm bells to ring: slow horse or not Catherine was an agent of the security service, and Regent’s Park ran a full-court press when one of their own came under threat . . . As for Lamb, he’d hang River out to dry if he took another step without putting him in the picture. That was something to think about, so River thought about it as he stuffed the phone away, and took the rest of the stairs three at a time.

It was already stifling outside, the heat much worse in the mouldy backyard. Round the alley and out on the street, and there was a man on the bridge, looking down on the traffic like all this activity amused him . . . Too far away to make out his face, but that was the impression River gained, as he ran up the road, through the station entrance, up the stairs and onto the bridge.

One hand on its railing, the man was waiting for him, and River had been right: he did look kind of amused. He was fiftyish, lean, in a suit the colour of early mist; his dark hair tinged with silver. His yellow tie might have come from a club; his superior smirk, he’d have had drummed into him about halfway through Eton or wherever. And he wore rings on both little fingers, confirming one of River’s deepest prejudices.

At River’s approach, he removed his hand from the railing. Extended it, as if expecting a handshake.

Instead, River took him by the lapels. “Where’s Catherine?”

“She’s perfectly safe.”

“Not what I asked you.” River drew him closer. “Answer carefully. Speak slowly.”

“She’s. Perfectly. Safe.”

Making a joke of it; in vowels, if not cut glass, at least precision-tooled.

River shook him like a stick. “The photo showed her handcuffed. With a rag in her mouth.”

“To get your attention. You’re here, aren’t you?”

“On a bridge above a busy road, yes. You want to go over that railing?”

That earned a broader smirk. “You’re not going to tell me you don’t know how this works, are you? Ms. Standish is safe and will continue to be so provided I make a phone call within the next thirty seconds. So I rather think you’d better stand back, don’t you?”

Over grey-suit’s shoulder, River saw a couple on the street below pause, and one of them point their way.

He loosened his grip.

“That’s better. Much more civilised.”

“Don’t push it.”

The man produced a phone and exchanged a few brief words with someone. That done, he put the phone away and said, “So you’re River Cartwright. Unusual name.”

“It means someone who makes carts.”

“Ms. Standish said she trusted you. With her life , as it happens.”

“Where is she?”

A mock-sad shake of the head. “Let’s move on to how you get her back, shall we?”

He was enjoying this too much, River thought. As if whatever it was he wanted was secondary to the method of acquiring it.

“What are you after?”

“Information.”

“About what?”

“You don’t need to know about what. You simply have to steal it.”

“Or?”

“Do you really want me to go into details? Very well . . . ”

He paused and River knew, without turning, that someone was behind him. It turned out to be the couple who’d pointed up at them a minute ago. They walked past, trying not to appear curious; maybe civic-minded types who wanted to be sure a violent assault wasn’t underway; maybe locals who were hoping one was. When they reached the Barbican side they looked back, but only once, and then were gone.

“The men holding her have . . . poor impulse control.”

“Impulse control,” River repeated.

“Poor impulse control, yes. I’d say about eighty minutes short of going critical, in fact. If you wanted to put a figure on it.”

River reached out and smoothed down the man’s lapels where his two-fisted grip had crumpled them. “You might want to remember this later,” he said. “That you once found all this funny.”

“Can’t wait. Meanwhile, you have an errand to run. And,” and he looked at his watch, “seventy-nine minutes before those men I mentioned start loosening their belts. Do you want to waste any more of them threatening me?”

“What do you want?” River said.

The man told him.

Two minutesafter River left the bridge at a run, Marcus Longridge and Shirley Dander emerged from the alley onto Aldersgate Street. Marcus looked one way and Shirley the other. Pedestrians, freshly released from the underground, were trooping across the road at the lights, and more were clustered round the entrance to the gym on the corner. There were buses heading in both directions, and a cyclist who, judging by his disregard for other vehicles, had an organ donor card and was in a hurry to use it; there was a woman in Council livery pushing a dustcart their way, and a man in a grey suit observing all this from the pedestrian bridge into the Barbican. But there was no sign of River Cartwright.

“See him?” Marcus asked.

“Nope,” said Shirley. “You?”

“Nope.” He paused, allowing River one last opportunity to reveal himself, then said, “Fancy an ice cream?”

“Yeah, all right,” Shirley said.

They headed off towards Smithfield, where they were less likely to be spotted.

The man on the bridge had disappeared from sight.

C atherine kept a spareset of doorkeys in a matchbox taped to the underside of her desk, where Louisa had stumbled upon them quite early in her Slough House career. She collected them now, and headed off to St. John’s Wood by cab. It was into the twenties already, bright sunlight blindly bouncing off glass and metal surfaces: enough to make you want to sit in a dark room, even if you didn’t want to do that anyway. She’d never been to Catherine’s flat before. For a while she wondered what that said about her, about the whole of the Slough House crew, and the paper-thin friendships their daily lives were scribbled on, but mostly she concentrated on not thinking; on simply moving in a bubble through London; not being at her desk, not filling the space left by Min.

The flat was in an art deco block, shielded at the front by a well-maintained hedge. Louisa paid the taxi and pocketed the receipt. The block’s rounded edges and metal-framed windows lent it a science-fiction air: this had once been how the future would look. Its tiled and shiny lobby made her sandals clack, but that was the only obvious noise. The whole block seemed unnaturally quiet, as if Catherine weren’t the only occupant to have gone missing. It was a fate Louisa would cheerfully have wished on her own neighbours. Unnatural quiet wasn’t so much of a thing around her way.

Catherine lived on the topmost floor. Louisa rang the bell and waited a full minute before letting herself in, calling Catherine’s name as she did so. No reply. She did a quick scoot through, making sure the place was empty. The bed was made, but that was no surprise—Catherine made a place look neater just by being in it. She was never likely to leave havoc in her wake. There was a landline in the sitting room, but no pad for taking messages; a calendar on the kitchen wall, but nothing marked for the month save a hairdresser’s appointment two weeks hence. A shopping list on the fridge door gave nothing away, and while a pile of books four deep on the bedside table suggested Catherine was a restless reader, none of the scraps used as bookmarks taught Louisa anything. It wasn’t a sterile environment—was a lived-in space—but it held no clues as to where its occupant might have gone. The wardrobe was full, resembling a dresser’s rack from a Merchant-Ivory production, and there was an empty suitcase in the hall closet. Nor was there any sign of those things Catherine might be expected to carry round with her: purse, phone, sunglasses, travel pass. At first glance, it looked like Catherine had had an ordinary morning: had got up and left for work as usual, and whatever had kept her from arriving there had happened en route. But when Louisa checked the dishwasher, she found it full of clean dry crockery long since cooled to normal, and there were no breakfast dishes stacked and ready for the next loading. A palm on the kettle came away stone cold. Either Catherine had left without breakfast, or she hadn’t been here last night.