The Scioneer (22 page)

***

Queen’s
Circus
was deserted. The
chilling silence was fractured by the sound of a siren to the east.
The only evidence of the all-out war which had been raging not
fifteen minutes earlier was the smouldering recyclo-bins, smashed
glass and burnt out Credibus shelters. All the bodies had been
removed, either carried off by the gangs themselves, or taken away
by the authorities who had appeared as if by magic when the
violence ended and the cease-fire was called. The only figure still
on the scene as Lek and Crystal made their way over the roundabout
was a young black kid, sitting on the kerb with his head in his
hands.

‘We’re
not going to make it,
’
Crystal said despondently.

‘We have
to,’ Lek snapped, ‘we’ve come too far to give up now. We’ve got
seventeen minutes to make it to Victoria before that Smarte Locker
opens.’

‘Forget the
money Lek. I’m thinking about the train.’

‘Forget the
money? Are you kidding? That’s our ticket out of here.’

‘A hundred
grand? How long do you think we can survive on that?’

‘It’s
enough to keep us under the radar while we make our escape.
Besides, Pechev controls all my money. I just used to send him the
bills.’

‘He
really did have you in his pocket,’ Crystal said with a touch of
animosity.

‘And I
suppose your lap-dancing for Calabas paid well?’

Crystal
lowered her eyes and said nothing.

‘I’m
sorry,’ said Lek, ‘that was a cheap shot.’

‘I worked
hard Lek. And I never complained. Even though I hated every single
minute of my life in that shithole, did you ever hear me
complain?’

‘I’m
sorry. I was out of order. I suppose I’m just feeling a bit...
grizzly.’

Crystal
tried not to smile, but she couldn’t help herself. ‘You’re an
idiot,’ she laughed, but Lek’s mood had darkened once again.
‘What’s wrong?’

‘That girl in
the alley. Do you think I...? Was she...?’

‘Listen,
it was either her or us - she was going to kill us. Pure and
simple. You did what you had to do and baby, I for one am glad. You
can’t think about it now. Come on, let’s just get
there.’

Lek
ignored the pain in his leg and manage
d to maintain a steady pace through Battersea. The
flagship Dynagym, which had once been a power-plant before the turn
of the Millennium, shone like a lighthouse in the darkness, as
gym-junkies worked through their share of the nation’s energy debt,
with digi-boxing mitts clocking each of their jabs and dyna-rowers
monitoring their every stroke. Lek looked at the palm trees planted
in each of the four chimneys and gave a hollow laugh. How long
could the UK survive like this? Hiding behind this facade of
success? On the surface, everything seemed to be working well, the
population was thriving, the engine was still ticking over; but
scratch beneath that surface and you saw a Government which was at
best inept, their public services failing to meet the low standards
which they had set themselves. The United Kingdom had become a
rusting infrastructure which could not cope with its own heaving
masses, the violence on the streets, the drugs...

‘Whatever
happens,’ said Lek, ‘we have to catch that train.’

They
hurried over Chelsea Bridge, while a coal-barge slipped silently
through the slick green waters beneath them. It felt like a huge
weight had been lifted from their shoulders when they reached the
other side. The nightmare of the full moon rumble was behind them,
but Lek was suffering badly with the pain
in his leg and the debilitating effects of the
come-down from his own drugs. He leant against a wall and vomited
weakly. Crystal had never seen him in this state and she began to
have her doubts about his chances of making it to the station at
all.

‘I’ll be
fine,’ said Lek, sensing her tension, ’I just needed a moment.’ And
he staggered to the nearest water fountain and drank deeply. ‘Let’s
keep moving.’

He had
lost a lot of blood and was deathly pale. ‘We’re nearly there.
We’ve only got to get along this street and we’re there. Victoria’s
five minutes away, max.’

‘Let’s
nab a taxi? Or a rickshaw?’

‘I doubt
anybody’s going to
...
pick me up... in this state.’ Lek was slurring his words. Suddenly,
Crystal lost her grip on his waist as he slipped away from her and
swayed precariously towards the kerb. She screamed his name and
tried to grab on to his wrist, but his weight pulled him away from
her and he fell like a drunkard into the path of an oncoming car.
Lek whirled around trying to maintain his balance, but he could
tell neither up nor down and could hear Crystal calling his name
from the bottom of a well. The car screeched to a halt on
Buckingham Palace Road and the driver leaned on his horn as Lek
spun one-hundred and eighty degrees once more and rested his hands
on the bonnet. The driver, a short Asiano wearing a lot of
jewellery, jumped out and began swearing furiously in his own
language. As Lek raised his hands and stepped away from the car,
the driver noticed his injuries in the light from the headlamps and
switched to English.

‘Ringo
Starr, brother! What happened to you? I didn’t do that to you, did
I?’ he looked around and shouted louder, ‘I didn’t do that to
you!’

‘No, no,’
said Lek. ‘It’s ok. Me and my lady were attacked on the other side
of the bridge.’

‘Man, you’ve
got to get to a hospital or something.’

‘Actually,
we’re just trying to make it to the police station in Victoria. We
want to report it first. Do you think you could help us out?’

‘Shit man,
course I can!’ said the driver with visible relief, ‘just don’t
bleed on my seats.’

He helped
Lek into the back, and even ran around the other side to hold the
door open for Crystal, while behind him, a string of cars blared
their horns at the delay.

He swore
again in his own tongue, made a gesture which would have been
understood in any language, before jumping in and gunning the
engine.

On the
back seat, Crystal turned to Lek to
see if he was feeling alright.

‘Never better,’
he replied with a sly wink. ‘I told you I’ve got a few tricks up my
sleeve.’

In a
matter of moments, they pulled up outside the station. Lek
gave the driver the last of the
cash which Roma’s gang had missed, ‘for his troubles,’ and thanked
him.

They
stumbled up
the steps to the IKEA Victoria International Station at ten minutes
to ten. The beggar that Lek had seen that morning, exactly ten
hours earlier, was still sitting in the same place, still holding
out his paper-cup for spare change.

‘We’ve
even got time for a coffee,’ joked Crystal, pointing at the
LED.

‘Money
first...’ said Lek and with an arm around her shoulder he limped
towards the bank of Smarte Lockers on the far side of the
concourse. Halfway across the empty hall, Lek suddenly made a sound
like he had been stabbed in the lung and the life seemed to drain
out of him. Crystal struggled to hold him up. ‘John Lennon, Lek,
don’t die on me now!’ she gasped.

‘It’s not
that,’ said Lek, ‘It’s him. On the benches over there. It’s Delić.’
And in that moment, the skin-head in the raincoat turned and looked
into the eyes of a man he had killed earlier that
afternoon.

Chapter
31

Delić
thought he
was seeing a ghost, and his stomach rolled over. The man before him
was Gorski, it had to be - something about the set of his shoulders
and those high cheekbones - but he looked like he had been attacked
by a crazed beautox therapist and her dog. And his woman was next
to him – it had to be them – she was sporting a pink wig and a
black eye. So many questions fired in the slow synapses of Delić’s
brain: how is Gorski still alive? Who did I shoot dead in The
Shangri-La? Are they her real tits? What the fuck is going on?
Without an answer to any of them, Delić did what he did best.
Instinctively, he stood up, crossed his arms over his torso and
drew his weapons like a Wild West gunslinger.

‘It’s all
over,’ said Lek, and in spite of the multitude of adversities he
had managed to overcome that day, his only thought was of the
embarrassment of being shot dead in a XXL sports suit. He briefly
considered making a run for it, but the concourse was empty and
there was no chance of making cover. ‘No more tricks left.’ His
eyes flicked to the lockers, and Delić saw Lek’s expression change
to one of surprise and horror as the cred limit on the storage
expired and the small door sprung open with a satisfying clatter of
metal on metal. Delić turned and ran, and in spite of his wounded
leg, Lek sprinted after him, unsure of what he was hoping to
achieve. Delić was still sluggish from the sloth-extract – he felt
like he was running through treacle - but he was first to the open
locker. His eyes darted over the contents in a split second. He saw
the doctor’s bag full of money stuffed in tight at the back, he saw
the stack of old bills and papers, but there, sitting right in
front of him was a battered black spiralled notepad – it had to be
the recipe book. He grabbed it with his right hand and spun around
to point the gun in his left on Lek, but instead he met the charge
of a wild-eyed tramp, who had covered the distance from the
Starbucks picket lines in a flash. The tramp flung himself into
Delić’s naked midriff, driving the wind out of his lungs and
sending him skidding across the polished floor, the pistol flying
from his hand. Before Delić had a chance to get to his feet, he was
mobbed by the same vagabonds he had abused earlier that evening,
and they stood over him and kicked him viciously with their bare
feet, raining heavy fists down on his unprotected face. Delić tried
to defend himself by curling into a tight ball, but there was no
escape from the punishment. He clung on desperately to the recipe
book, until somebody tore it from his grip and ripped it into
pieces out of spite. ‘NOOO!’ screamed Delić, but his cry was cut
short as another of his attackers smashed an empty Juniperus bottle
over his head. The pigeon-eater stole his shoes and an open packet
of goji-berries.

During
the melee, Lek calmly pulled the doctor’s bag from the locker and
closed the door. He looked inside the bag, just to be sure, and
breathed a sigh of relief. When he looked up, his eyes met those of
a tramp, but Lek merely pointed to the bag in his hand and then
pointed to his own chest. The tramp nodded his assent. ‘Finders,
keepers,’ was the only law of the popped lockers the tramps
understood.

Crystal
ran to his side and kissed him full on the lips. ‘I thought you
were a dead man!’ she breathed, when she let him up for
air.

‘So did
I,’ said Lek, clutching the bag to his chest as though his life
depended on it. ‘If I’m honest, I never thought I would see this
again,’ he smiled.

‘So this
is us. We’re home free?’
said Crystal, beaming.

‘Looks like it.
Just got to catch that train.’

A couple
of stern-faced Terror-Guards arrived from a steel portacabin near
the platforms to investigate the commotion. They sent the tramps
off with threats of eviction from the shelter of the station and
turned their attention to the unconscious man lying face down on
the floor. One of the guards rolled him over with the toe of his
boot and noticed the holsters strapped to his chest. A quick search
of his pockets uncovered som
e drugs, two knives, another gun and most interestingly, a
severed thumb.

‘You know
anything about this?’ the second guard asked Lek gruffly, when he
noticed him staring.

‘No
officer,’ Lek said emphatically, shaking his head and feigning
wide-eyed innocence.

‘What’s your
story then?’ the guard replied, unconvinced.

‘We got
caught in the middle of the wolf-hyena rumble in Battersea. They
beat us up pretty bad just for being there. We’re just trying to
catch a train.’

‘Fucking
idiot kids,’ he cursed. ‘Come with me, Mr...?’

‘Gorski.
I’m afraid I can’t, officer. The train’s leaving any minute. I
don’t really have time to make a statement.’

‘Just come with
me sir.’

Lek
reluctantly agreed,
walked over to the portacabin and waited outside as
instructed. The guard emerged a few seconds later with some black
overalls and a small disposable first aid kit.

‘You look like
you need these.’

‘Ah officer,
you’re a lifesaver. Thank you.’

The
Terror-Guard nodded curtly and returned to his work. Lek thought
better of saluting.

Crystal
and Lek
made their way
hand in hand to the Europatrans terminal, smiling and laughing like
a pair of honeymooners but looking like a couple of violent
offenders. They thumbprinted through the security checks, drawing
some odd looks from the staff members and passport control officers
and made their way towards the International platforms. The Europa
Silver Bullet, the 22.05 to Paris, was humming gently when they
stepped aboard and found their table-seats.

‘You bought
these tickets this morning?’ asked Crystal.

‘Yes.’

‘What made you
think I would join you?’