Мик Херрон - Real Tigers

Not important. Cigarette in mouth, Lamb stomped his way upstairs.

River said,“So what’s your bag, exactly?”

Traynor threw him a sardonic look, but didn’t reply.

River was on the floor, back against the wall, a position which offered his sore stomach muscles some relief, though not so much that he was likely to think of Nick Duffy with fondness in the foreseeable future. Douglas, a yard or two away, looked like he was trying to will himself into a different universe; one in which he hadn’t allowed River and Louisa through the hatch. That, or he was trying not to burst into angry tears. As for Louisa, she had disappeared into what River had come to recognise as her silent space: the one into which she wandered whenever her presence was unavoidable, but her full attention wasn’t required. It was somewhere she’d spent a lot of time when she’d first been exiled to Slough House; now, since Min’s death, it looked like she was planning on moving back there. Like revisiting a flat you’d once lived in, River thought: certain it was pokier than you remembered, but give it a day or two, it would be like you’d never left.

Above their heads, the CCTV monitors continued their automatic surveillance; blinking from coverage of the derelict estate through a montage of the empty corridors and rooms that stretched a mile beneath the western fringe of the capital. Traynor kept glancing at these, presumably checking on Donovan’s progress.

He tried again. “UFOs? Most of the people who’ve had alien encounters, it’s amazing they can spell ‘UFO.’ That your thing, Traynor? Or no, let me guess, it’s Lady Di. You’re one of those idiots thinks the Secret Service had her taken care of, on the orders of the Lizard Duke.”

This time Traynor didn’t even use the look. He just stared at River, unblinking, as if River were a buzzing insect: not worth the effort of getting up to squash.

“Because I’ve got to tell you,” River said, “of all the sad-arsed nutjob theories out there, that one’s got to be the saddest. You think word wouldn’t have got out around the Service if that had been a hit?”

Traynor said, “From what I hear, you wouldn’t get to know about it if the Service decided to put vinegar on its chips.”

And then, just as River was congratulating himself on having provoked a rise out of him, Traynor’s expression changed, and he gave his full attention to the monitors. At the same moment Louisa came back from her silent space; she was up in a moment, staring at the screens.

“Who the hell are they?” she asked.

Only Douglas remained sitting. The other three were on their feet, watching the monitors; specifically the one showing a corridor that had previously been empty but was now swarming with black-clad figures, masked and utility-belted, moving at a clip in what River could only assume was their direction.

After theyleft the main road the streets became narrower; tree-lined at first, giving way to rows of terraced housing, and then, as they approached the railway lines, increasingly run-down storage depots, warehouses, vacant yards. Traffic dwindled, and Marcus kept well back. When the Black Arrow van disappeared between a pair of darkened buildings, he carried straight on while Shirley twisted in her seat to observe its departure. “Some kind of industrial estate. That must be where the off-site facility is.”

Marcus grunted, turned at the next corner, and parked in front of garage doors marked constantly in use. “Wait here.”

“Where—”

“I need something from the boot.”

He got out and went round the back of the car. Shirley, about to follow, thought better of it, and sat pillaging her pockets instead, suddenly certain there was hidden treasure on her person—an overlooked wrap of coke was aiming high, but she’d been wearing the same jeans for a few days, and it wasn’t unusual to come across the odd crumb of hash in its crevices, picked up on her night-time travels, and forgotten about in the heat of the . . . heat. But there was nothing. She reached for her jacket, ran her fingers down its seams—sometimes a pill could slip through to the lining. Nothing. Fuck. But it didn’t matter. She was fine. Maybe Marcus kept something in the glove compartment—Jesus, aspirin, anything—but a quick rummage produced nothing more useful than an ancient roll of Polo mints and a few CDs that had lost their cases.

But she was fine, and didn’t need a pick-me-up. Adrenalin would see her through. She didn’t need Marcus telling her that; didn’t even need the lecture from herself. So she flipped through the CDs as a way of clamping down on jittery feelings, and found an Arcade Fire bootleg from last year’s Hyde Park show: way too cool for Marcus, so presumably one of his kids’, which meant asking permission to borrow would result in tedious negotiation. On the other hand, it was a bootleg: the kid obviously had no copyright issues, rendering the ‘property’ thing moot. She wasn’t feeling jittery at all now, she noted, slipping the CD into her jacket pocket, and nearly jumped out of her skin when Marcus reappeared at the window.

“Don’t do that.”

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. Jesus.” She squinted up at him. “You seriously planning on wearing that?”

That was a black baseball cap of the kind Marcus had worn in the crash squad, though without the skinny comms mic. He had it low over his brow, but with the peak upturned.

“It’s what I’m used to.”

“It keeps the light reflecting off your bald patch, you mean.” Shirley dumped her jacket on the seat behind, and clambered out of the car.

“You should put that on,” Marcus told her.

“It’s hot.”

“A white T-shirt? You seriously want to do this wearing—”

“O- kay , okay.” She grabbed the jacket and pulled it on. “Just because you’re old enough to be my dad, you don’t have to act like him.”

“I am not old enough—forget it. You sure you’re ready for this?”

“They’re just a bunch of Saturday soldiers.”

“Never underestimate your opponent. Especially when you don’t know how many of them there are.”

“It was a big van,” Shirley admitted. “What do you reckon they’re here for?”

“They’re Donovan’s crew. Or they were until he killed Monteith this afternoon. So maybe they’re cool with that, and are here to help him with whatever it is he’s doing. Or else—”

“Or else they’re narked he whacked their boss and they’re here to piss in his whisky.”

“Yeah, something like that. Are you armed?”

“No. Are you?”

“No,” said Marcus. “Well, a gun.”

“That’s kind of armed.”

“It’s not a big gun.”

“You bring a spare?”

“What am I, your nanny? No I didn’t bring a spare. This is a family car, not a roving arsenal. Now do your buttons up. Your T-shirt’s showing.”

Shirley did her buttons up, and the pair of them set off round the corner.

Nick Duffychecked his watch, wondered again where the hell the Black Arrow crew were, then exhaled when he saw the van appear below, coming to a halt with an unnecessary squeal of brakes near the pile of mesh fencing. Amateurs: they spilled out the back the way they’d seen it done in Vietnam movies, as if they’d set down in a chopper, and Charlie was lurking in the reeds.

But they didn’t need to be good at what they did. They only had to be there, in large numbers.

Duffy counted a dozen before letting the binoculars fall to his chest. They were in full-on Cowboys and Indians mode, peeping out from behind whatever shelter they could find: the van itself, the skip, that pile of fencing. The Slough House crew’s vehicle was available too: Cartwright and Guy were that keyed into undercover work, they’d parked it in full view of the slowly appearing stars. In a sense, he’d be doing everyone a favour, taking them off the board. And even as he had the thought, he was aware that this was the mood required for this kind of job: you had to be clear that what you were doing was for the common good, even of those you were doing it to.