Мик Херрон - Real Tigers

“We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year.”

Not the most musical rendering ever, but, all things considered, not a bad stab at the melody.

Then he rattled the cup in his hand.

“It’s for the kiddies and orphans,” he explained. “Early, I know, but I like to beat the rush.”

The man said, “What the fuck ?”

C atherine Standish admired theempty bottle.

They were undervalued objects, empty bottles. In her time, she’d wasted fond glances on full ones, regarding the empties as little more than markers on a journey to oblivion: either the dark, dreamless cellar of sleep, or the labyrinth of alcoholic blackout, where hours were peeled invisibly away. Afterwards, you could examine yourself for clues to where you’d been and what you’d done there, but there was no retracing your steps through that maze. And empty bottles held no messages. Spin them any way you liked, they always pointed in the same direction: back into the darkness, to the discarded hours.

But this one she held now had a peculiar beauty of form. She knew it had rolled off a production line somewhere, that no glassworker had ever cradled its new-crafted shape in his hands; but still, looking at it, feeling it, enjoying its lightness in her grasp, she thought that of all the bottles she’d emptied in her life, she’d never encountered one with quite this much amiability— that was the word she’d been hunting. Amiability. Through all the afternoon’s struggles, ever since Bailey had appeared with the tray, she had been thinking of this bottle as her enemy; something to be overcome, the way you would a snake in your garden. She hadn’t appreciated that they were on the same side; that it had desired emptiness the same way she had wanted to empty it. Desire lies at the heart of all that’s made of glass, she decided; glass is simply need given substance. You blow into it, and it assumes new shapes. Strike it in the wrong place, it shatters.

Well, she had fulfilled this one’s secret desire, she thought. Its contents were now history.

A moment ago, she had thought she’d heard singing—you could almost call it singing; it had sounded like a Yuletide brawl—and wondered if this heralded the return of the voices. But all in all, Catherine decided, it didn’t seem likely: a single day spent locked in an attic wasn’t enough to send her spiralling back into the depths she’d spent years emerging from. And she had, after all, just poured the fucking Pinot down the sink. After a triumph like that, she was due a victory parade, not a relapse.

So she refilled the bottle with water and screwed its cap on tight. It balanced nicely in her hand, felt reasonably weighty. Bailey was young and fit, but Catherine Standish had wielded bottles before, and knew that an unexpected tap with even a small one could stop a fight before it started.

And next time he came through that door, gracious host or not, she’d show him what a journey into oblivion felt like.

Heading west,free of city traffic but snarled up among the heading-out-of-town kind, Marcus had slowed to a crawl. Another hold-up ahead. When they reached it, it would turn out to be nothing—a grease-spot on the tarmac; a balloon tied to a railing—but until then they’d shunt and curse like everybody else, which at least gave them time to argue about the significance of Shirley’s discovery.

Marcus said, “It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

“You reckon?”

“They’d known each other a long time. They’re soldier buddies. That’s not the kind you break with easily, not after you’ve been in combat.”

“Donovan killed Traynor’s wife-to-be, Marcus. That’s hardly the same league as, I dunno, crashing his car.”

“Some men get very attached to their cars. But either way, she died in an accident. Maybe Traynor’s got a forgiving nature.”

“He fought in Afghanistan,” Shirley said. “I don’t think turning the other cheek was a big part of their training.” She was still looking at her smartphone, tracking Alison Dunn through Service records. “She sat on that UN committee with Donovan,” she went on.

“Do they even let soldiers marry each other?” Marcus wondered.

“There’s a redacted bit here.”

“Saying what?”

“It’s redacted, stupid.”

“I heard you the first time, dummy. But which bit precisely is redacted?”

Shirley said, “Right after she got back to the UK, after the UN thing I mean, she filed some kind of report. Whatever it said got stamped on from on high.”

“Huh,” said Marcus.

“Huh,” Shirley repeated. “Very illuminating. What does ‘huh’ mean exactly?”

“In this context,” Marcus said, “‘huh’ means, sounds like political bullshit. And a good kind of bullshit not to get mixed up in is the political kind.”

For no obvious reason, the traffic started to move more freely.

Shirley said, “So what’s the new plan, you gonna turn around and drive us home?”

“No, I figure we’d better catch up with Louisa and Cartwright fast as we can.”

“Why so?” Shirley asked, looking up from her screen.

“Because you see that black van up ahead?”

Shirley did.

“It says Black Arrow on the side,” said Marcus. “And it looks like it’s heading for the same place we are.”

•••

“Fuck off,”said the man.

That was all, but he seemed to think it enough. He moved back, the better to slam the door in Lamb’s face, but Lamb could move fast when he wanted, and a scuffed leather brogue, battle-hardened by years of contact with Lamb’s foot, wedged itself into the gap before the wood hit the jamb.

“Not even a thruppeny bit?” he said. “It’s in a good cause.”

“Move your feet, old man.”

“Sorry. Dancing’s extra.” Lamb pushed, his opponent stumbled backwards, and Lamb was inside, kicking the door shut behind him. In the same movement, he tossed the polystyrene cup at the man’s face, relying on an instinctive reaction, and was rewarded by the man catching it neatly, leaving his stomach wide open . . . Lamb had no desire to embroil himself in hand-to-hand combat. Make it quick, then. Swinging his fist sideways, like he was ringing a bell, Lamb buried it in the man’s midriff, and when he folded in half Lamb slapped both palms against his ears, almost hearing the explosion that must have caused inside his head. And there was always the possibility, he reminded himself as he brought his knee up into the waiting face, that he had the wrong house, so he went easier than he ought to have done; kept his hands on the man’s ears and lowered him to the floor reasonably gently, then stepped back sharpish as blood poured from a broken face.

“That takes me back,” Lamb said, though it was doubtful the man could hear him.

Rolling his victim over, Lamb found a gun in the waistband of his trousers. Well, that solved the problem of whether this was the right house, or at least excused the violence he’d just done the householder if it turned out not to be. Anyone who answered the door to a carol singer armed deserved all he got, thought Lamb piously. Ejecting the magazine, he slipped it into a pocket, and tossed the gun through the nearest doorway. There was nobody else here, Standish aside. He’d have been shot by now otherwise.

He cleared his throat noisily, and glanced around as if for a spittoon. Then swallowed instead: good manners, as he was fond of explaining to his slow horses, cost nothing. There were stairs to the left, and several doorways other than the one he’d just tossed the gun through, but he’d almost certainly end up climbing the bloody stairs, so might as well get to it. He paused on the first landing to light a cigarette, but before doing so sniffed sharply. Why did this place smell of cheese, he wondered.