Мик Херрон - Real Tigers

She took a deep breath, smiled another secret smile, then froze as she felt a gun barrel pressing into her neck.

Then: “Shirley?”

“. . . Fuck.”

The gun withdrew and Louisa came through the hole in the factory wall, followed by River.

“Fuck,” Shirley said again. “You guys okay?”

“What are you doing here?”

“This and that.”

“Marcus with you?”

“Well, duh. Yeah, he’s over there somewhere.” Shirley waved her gun at the building on the far side. “Chasing after Nick Duffy.”

“After who?” Louisa said.

But River was already away.

A trainhurtled past, headed for London, its passengers tired, hungry, irritable, alert, eager, excited or happy, depending, but none paying much attention to the derelict buildings briefly to their left, with dead windows, spray-tagged walls, and an armed man hunting another on its shadowy ground level.

Marcus, arms rigid, sissy gun in a two-handed grip, and Nick Duffy nowhere to be seen.

Grit underfoot betrayed every movement, but still he moved between the pillars with as light a tread as possible. From here he could see the breezeblock-and-wire wall keeping the railway line at bay, the yellow digger parked against it, but he couldn’t see Duffy. Duffy was either lighter of tread than he was, or stood stone still in the shadows. Or had doubled back, and was out on the streets; stuffing his fancy silk balaclava into a pocket and hailing a cab.

The time for silence had probably passed.

“Duffy?”

No response.

“I’m gonna make it easy for you, Duffy.”

No response.

Marcus could feel sweat on his neck, and tension in his thighs. It had been a long time since he’d been here: in the dark, expecting trouble. A long time since he’d been as near death as he had been three minutes ago. And he couldn’t remember death ever wearing the face of a former colleague.

“Step out now, hands up, and I won’t shoot you dead.”

No response.

The sweat was welcome, and so was the tension, because they reminded him he was alive. All those days spent chasing money down various machines, across countless counters: cards and horses and numbers on a wheel. All he’d been doing was looking for a door to kick down. All he’d wanted was someone to be on the other side.

“I’ll kick the living shit out of you, but I won’t shoot you dead.”

Half a brick came out of nowhere, bounced off a pillar and spun into the dark.

Marcus turned and nearly fired, but didn’t.

Control.

“That was fucking pitiful,” he said. Revolving slowly, covering all angles. “Makes a difference, doesn’t it? Me not being shackled on the floor, I mean.”

No response.

“Mind you, you couldn’t even manage that, could you?”

This time, the brick hit his head.

He staggered back, but kept his grip on the gun, and when Duffy hit him waist height, a classic rugby tackle, fired three times, each shot punishing the ceiling. Then he was on the ground, Duffy on top of him, Duffy’s fist about to pound his face.

Marcus caught the blow with the open palm of his left hand, and with his right levelled the gun, but even as he squeezed the trigger again, Duffy’s elbow nudged his aim aside. And then there was a tight grip on his forearm, and Duffy was smashing his hand on the ground twice, three times, four, and the gun went skittering into the shadows. He was free suddenly, Duffy’s weight lifting from his chest, and he rolled and scrambled to his knees, lunged for Duffy’s feet before Duffy could reach the gun. He missed one, caught the other, and Duffy hit the ground flat, but a moment later his foot smashed into Marcus’s chin. Marcus bit the tip of his tongue off and his mouth swam with blood, but he didn’t let go of Duffy’s foot until the second kick arrived, this one catching him square on the nose. His eyes filled and the world went watery, and Duffy broke free. Everything slowed. Marcus was on his hands and knees, dripping blood onto the ground, and Nick Duffy, breathing heavily, was getting to his feet, the sissy gun in his hand. He looked down at Marcus, shaking his head. “You are too fucking old,” he said. “And too fucking dead.” But before he could shoot, a length of metal piping hit the side of his head, and he went down.

River dropped the pipe and bent over, panting. “I’m gonna pin a note to his jacket,” he said, “so when he wakes up he’ll know it was me did that.”

“If he wakes up,” Marcus said thickly. He spat a huge red gobbet, but his mouth immediately filled again. “You hit him kind of hard.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Any more around?”

“I think they mostly ran away,” River said.

“Huh.”

“Louisa shot a few.”

“Good.” He spat again. His tongue was numb. He had a sudden memory of eating ice cream that morning—strawberry and pistachio—and wondered if he’d ever know flavour again.

River prodded Nick Duffy with his foot, to see if he was conscious or alive, and then kicked him very hard for no special reason. It had been a long day.

“Is he breathing?” Marcus asked.

“Fuck knows. Don’t care.”

“A hand here?”

River helped him up, and they stood for a moment, breathing hard, as yet another train went past, casting brief slices of light through the gaps in the breeze-block wall, and rustling through the litter with its draught. And then it was dark once more, and the air hung heavy with heat, and the distant wail of the city throbbed and stammered. Marcus collected his gun, spat again, and shook his head.

“I’m kind of disappointed nobody went under a train.”

“Yeah, you’d expect that, wouldn’t you?” River said. “Place like this.”

Then they walked back across the wasteground to where the others were waiting.

I t was the hourafter lunchtime, and the heat had changed its tune; a subtle variation that brought the promise of release, if only because it seemed unlikely it could keep up this tempo forever. In the mis-shaped square near Paddington the trees hung listlessly over desiccated garden beds, and pigeons hunkered in their shade, more like stones than birds. They barely fluttered when a dog barked in the road, and didn’t stir at all when Jackson Lamb stomped down the path, his shirt untucked, one shoelace undone. He wore a pair of plastic sunglasses and carried a manila folder, tied shut with a length of pink ribbon. Anyone else would have been taken for a lawyer. Lamb looked like he’d just lifted it from a bin.

He slumped heavily onto the bench next to Diana Taverner, who herself looked like she’d wandered in from the right side of town; her blouse hanger fresh, her grey linen trousers immaculate. Only her eyes, when she looked at him over the top of her Gucci shades, betrayed any hint of misplaced cool.

“Jackson.”

“You couldn’t have picked a bar? Somewhere air-conned?”

“It seemed best to be somewhere we won’t be overheard.”

“So thanks to your guilty conscience, I’m damp as a bimbo’s cleavage.” He slumped back, and fanned himself with the folder. “Gets any hotter, I’m going topless.”

Taverner suppressed a shudder and said, “So. It seems your crew had themselves quite the little party yesterday.”

“You know what it’s like. Sun’s shining, school’s out. Seemed a shame to keep them cooped up inside.”

“Quite a lot of bodies littering our facility near Hayes.”

“Sounds like my local,” Lamb said. “Saturday nights get a bit hectic.”

“Can we be serious for a minute?”

Lamb made an expansive gesture with his free hand.

“Traynor dead, Donovan dead. He took quite a few Black Arrows with him, it seems, along with two of Nick Duffy’s men. And as for Duffy himself . . . ”