End of the World Blues (32 page)

Kit nodded, catching her gaze in the rearview mirror.

“You’re certain about that?”

“Yes,” said Kit, “I’m certain.”

“Interesting,” said the Brigadier, turning her attention back to the road. Hanging a quick left, the woman filtered right at the lights and checked her mirror; whatever she saw satisfied her.

“Got a lighter?” she asked Kit.

He shook his head.

“Use this one,” she said, passing him something cheap and disposable, then followed it with a packet of Lucky Strikes. “I need a cigarette,” she added, when he just looked at her.

By the time the Volvo had put Piccadilly behind them and the city’s open spaces had switched from Green Park on the left to Hyde Park on the right, the car was filled with smoke and Kit had worked out that the Suzuki up ahead and the Merc two vehicles behind were part of an escort.

As the Suzuki peeled off, to be replaced almost instantly by a different bike, and the Merc fell back a place to allow another car in, before peeling off itself, he realised that at least four vehicles were shadowing this one and that a traffic helicopter overhead seemed to be paying close attention to their route.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“To have a quiet talk,” said Brigadier Miles, and left Kit wondering why Amy refused to meet his eye.

“Used to be bigger,” the old woman announced, a while later.

“What did?”

“Those.” She pointed at plastic cows on a distant roof. “Used to be life size, only they kept causing crashes and had to be changed. Pity really.” Sliding down a side road, she took a roundabout rather too fast and roared back the way she’d come, leaving the cows a vanishing memory on the far side of a divided highway. “It’s about half an hour from here,” she said.

“What is?”

“Boxbridge…”

A Lutyens copy of a small Elizabethan manor, Boxbridge House was built from red brick that had weathered to a shade of pink. Ivy softened its stark façade and its gravel had been raked to Zen-garden smoothness in front of the main door. It was the house that Seven Chimneys would love to be, and maybe would become if Kate O’Mally’s home survived long enough to avoid developers and find its own soul.

But before Kit, the old woman, or Amy could reach Boxbridge they had to clear the gate house. Also designed by Edwin Lutyens, this featured a pantiled roof and a central arch under which visitors must pass. The gun slit cut into the arch was definitely not in Lutyens’s original plan, nor was the steel hut hidden beneath camouflage netting a hundred paces beyond.

Dipping his head, a soldier with a sub-machine gun took a good look inside the Volvo, before nodding. “Madame,” he said.

Brigadier Miles nodded back.

Two more soldiers waited at the front door and both carried H&K assault weapons and wore body armour. Kit was beginning to understand why flack jackets had been such a topic of conversation.

“Welcome to HQ Organised and Serious,” the Brigadier said.

The entrance hall was panelled in oak and its floor was marble, not large slabs but tiny black and white tiles set into patterns that looked Greek. A corridor led off the hall and it was down this that Brigadier Miles led Kit, with Amy following behind.

“My office,” the Brigadier said.

A small library from the look of it. Cloth-bound books ringed all four walls in faded shades of red and blue. A dark and over-varnished
Stag at Bay
above the marble fireplace shed gilt like dandruff onto a mantelpiece below. A desk in the corner was buried under paperwork and old coffee cups. It looked too structured in its chaos to be entirely real.

“Please take a seat.”

Brigadier Miles indicated a wooden chair, so Kit chose a battered leather one instead, which was a mistake because it immediately put Kit lower than either of the others.

The old woman sighed.

“We have a problem,” she said. “One that you can help us solve.” Glancing towards a collection of files, Brigadier Miles considered something and then pulled a packet of cigarettes from her jacket pocket, lighting one with an ormolu desk lighter. “The police photographs are ugly,” she said, exhaling smoke at a nicotine-yellow ceiling. “So we’ll spare you those…”

Amy nodded.

“Let’s start at the top,” said the Brigadier. “Six months ago a corpse was found beside the M25. The body was male, aged somewhere between thirty and forty and had been badly mutilated. Its fingers were missing, someone had cut away the face and broken the lower jaw to make it easier to extract teeth. Scotland Yard tried for a DNA match but came up blank.”

“Ben Flyte,” said Kit.

“We think so. Actually,” said the Brigadier, “we know, because seven weeks ago Scotland Yard finally asked a member of Flyte’s family for DNA to help make a match. My problem is I thought he’d been killed by the man who telephoned you.”

Kit looked up. “You know who that is?”

“Oh yes,” said the Brigadier. “We know. And the fact he thinks Mr. Flyte is still alive is extremely convenient. Now, Inspector Avenden tells me this child is being held somewhere in South London, in a club—at least, so you believe. Do you want to tell me how you reached that conclusion?”

Kit scowled at Amy.

“What did you expect me to do?” she said.

Raising her eyebrows, the Brigadier asked, “Is there anything about you two I should know?” It probably didn’t help that Kit and Amy shook their heads at exactly the same time.

“Neku’s photograph was packed in pages from last week’s
South London Gazette,
” said Kit. “The Lambeth edition. The box in which it came originally contained Walkers Crisps, 144 packets. When I took the call I could hear music and the sound of crates being shifted…”

“He’s good,” said the Brigadier.

Amy’s smile was sour. “Yes, so I said.”

“We run a program,” said Brigadier Miles. “It identifies someone who knows someone who knows someone we need to contact. It works by weighting age, location, schooling, and background and then assigning a score. Amy came out on top. So we borrowed her…”

Kit blinked. “From the police?”

Amy bit her lip. “From Ceausescu Towers. I’m a recruiter on the university milk run. ‘Come and work for Mi6, it’s not dangerous and the perks are great. Olympic size swimming pool, gym, discount shopping mall. Join us and you’ll never need to leave the office again.’”

She didn’t sound too impressed by her job.

“Why not just call me yourself?” asked Kit, looking at the Brigadier, who ground out her cigarette and immediately lit another. Her smile made Amy’s look positively sweet.

“You’re a deserter,” she said. “A known link to the
Yakuza
. You returned to Britain alongside last season’s version of the Kray Twins. A woman the
Sun
has managed to turn into the UK’s most unlikely cultural icon. Just imagine your reaction if we’d called by Hogarth Mews suggesting a chat.”

“So you sent Sergeant Samson instead?”

“We’ll get to him in a minute. But first, would you like some tea or coffee?”

“No,” said Kit, “I’d like to know what you’re doing about Neku.”

“Nothing,” said the Brigadier.

Kit stared at her.

“We know your friend is still alive,” said Brigadier Miles. “And I’ve borrowed a pair of SBS to watch the club. If things look risky I’ll have them extract her.”

“What are their chances of getting Neku out alive?”

Beside him, Amy winced.

“They’re the best,” the Brigadier said. “Statistically, the SBS extract more hostages with fewer casualties than any other European force. You really want that child in danger, I’ll have them withdraw.”

He’d offended her.

Damn it.
Kit sat back in his chair.
Walk with a man a hundred paces and he’ll tell you at least seven lies.
“You know who Neku is, of course?” His voice was sharp enough to make both Brigadier Miles and Amy glance up.

“Who?” demanded Amy.

“Kate O’Mally’s granddaughter.”

The Brigadier ground her cigarette against the bottom of a glass ashtray, until it was almost flat. “For real?”

“Oh yes,” said Kit. “I can just see it,” he said. “If it all goes wrong. Kate O’Mally on the news, raging about her injured granddaughter and talking about how today’s authorities aren’t up to the job.”

Amy looked slightly sick. “That’s why Mrs. O’Mally was in Tokyo?”

“Of course,” said Kit, meeting her gaze. “She wanted to meet Neku.” It was all he could do not to cross his fingers behind his back.

“But she’s…” Amy was about to say
Japanese
. Only she put one hand to her mouth instead. “Oh, fuck,” said Amy. “We all got it wrong, didn’t we? It wasn’t you at all. Neku is Josh’s kid.”

Kit smiled. He’d been dealt the weakest hand of cards possible, only to discover what actually counted was the pattern on the back.

Lighting a cigarette, Brigadier Miles threw her dead lighter and now-empty packet into a metal bin, ignoring the noise this made. A cup of Earl Grey tea sat on a desk in front of her, beside two biscuits so dry they might as well be made from cardboard. She seemed to be waiting for something.

After a while Kit realised it was his full attention.

The basic rule seemed to be that the Brigadier ran the operation and Kit did what he was told. Since this involved being fitted with a body mic and wheeling sixty kilograms of recently confiscated heroin into a lap dancing club owned by a murderous gangster, he was less than happy with the Brigadier’s take on this.

“It’s not going to happen,” Kit said.

“Why not?” The old woman sounded genuinely surprised.

“Because I won’t do it.”

Beyond the window a soldier mowed grass and beyond that a row of young oaks screened a high mesh fence, with rolls of razor wire along its top. A small Victorian folly behind the wire had been turned into a guard tower. Kit doubted very much if Boxbridge appeared on any of the official lists of government property or supported itself from a declared budget.

“You don’t have much choice,” said Amy. “Given that Brigadier Miles is all that stands between you and arrest for desertion. The Ministry of Defence isn’t wild about people who run away.”

“I didn’t run,” said Kit. “And they’ll be even less happy when I’ve talked to the press.”

“No.” Brigadier Miles shook her head. “Don’t do that. The court will just double your sentence. I’ve seen it happen,” she added. “Help me and we’ll arrange an honourable discharge.”

“And if I refuse?”

“I talked to Whitehall this morning,” said the Brigadier. “Desertion in war is a capital offence.”

Kit snorted. “That wasn’t a war,” he said. “It was three weeks of televised bullshit, followed by as many years of avoidable chaos. More of us got killed by our own side or accident than by Iraqis. The real casualties came after the conflict supposedly ended.”

The Brigadier looked surprised. “I didn’t have you pegged as a pacifist.”

“I’m not,” said Kit. “I just like my wars to have two sides and an adequate reason.” He was perched at the edge of his chair, fingers twisted so tight it felt like he might snap his own bones.
Sit back,
Kit told himself, but his body refused the command.

“Madame,” said Amy, “do you think this is a good idea?”

“No,” she said. “But he’s the only chance we’ve got, and short of blowing down the door, Kit’s our best way into the club. But if you want your doubts made formal, I’ll have them noted.”

Amy shook her head.

“We need the owner to admit he’s dealing drugs,” said Brigadier Miles, stubbing out her cigarette. “Without that we’re helpless. You have to get him on tape.”

“Why not just bug the place?” asked Kit.

“It’s swept, the phone lines tested for central station taps. He’s got fooler loops on every window and wall. Even if he didn’t, the bloody music is so loud we’d have trouble isolating speech to a standard acceptable in courts.” Brigadier Miles sounded more irritated than angry. “It’s got to be taped in situ.”

“All I want,” said Kit, “is Neku out of there.”

“You don’t care about someone dealing heroin?”

Kit shook his head.

“We’re still your best bet,” said Amy. “The Brigadier knows this man. He’s never left a witness alive in his life. That’s why he’s still jetting round Europe and she’s here talking to you.”

Shutting his eyes, Kit tried to work things through. Four dice, a hundred throws, surely he had to hit four sixes soon?

What should I do?

“If you don’t know,” said the Brigadier, “I can’t tell you.”

So Kit told her about his history of wrong calls. He really didn’t mean to, it just happened. He started with the difference between an M24 weapons system and the earlier M21; both being bolt action, five shots in the magazine and one in the chamber.

The M24 came with a choice of sights, a night scope, and the one he’d been issued, the basic 10x42 Leupold M3A, with adjustment dials for elevation, focus, and wind. Kit’s voice was so matter of fact he could have been discussing the man mowing the lawns outside.

“There are only a few things I’m good at,” said Kit, “and running a bar and hitting targets top the list. I can take out a man’s brain stem at five hundred paces, while he’s still scratching his balls. Take out a child’s too…”

“A child?”

Kit nodded, then described his tenth kill. Exactly half way down his second clip, ten hits in three days and not a shot wasted. A burning truck, with a boy at the wheel and the clown-faced corpse of a small girl beside him. Clown faced because fire does that, it pulls back the face into a rictus grin.

He talked about the flames, the acrid smoke that hugged itself to a dip in the dunes and closed his throat. How a two-man patrol had found him blackened and voiceless, trying to pull corpses from the truck. It wasn’t their fault they thought he was Iraqi.

“Were they British?” Amy asked.

Kit shook his head.

“American?” The Brigadier sounded worried.

“Not that either,” said Kit. “I don’t know what they were…” He shrugged. “Azeri, maybe; perhaps Georgian.” Kit felt ashamed, as if he should have known the nationality of the soldiers he killed.