Vicious Circle (21 page)

“Any clues as to where he was going? Or did anyone ever visit him while he was here? Anyone who might have put him up afterwards, I mean?”

He looked out of the window again, as if checking an Autocue, then back at me. “No.”

I turned my attention back to Tang. “Who else is staying here, Reggie?” I asked. “I mean, besides you two?”

Reggie folded his arms. “Nobody.”

“And you’ve been staying here since—?”

“Castor, you said you came here looking for advice. You really think acting like a cop is going to get you any?”

“Well, you said you were happy to help. I’m just taking you at your word.”

“Okay. I think we helped you enough now. So my new word is sod off out of it.”

“That’s more of a phrase,” I pointed out, reasonably. “I’m not a cop, Reggie.”

“You think I’m simple? I said you were acting like one.”

“Not even that. A cop would be picking up on all your bullshit and shoving it back in your face to see if you blink.”

There was a moment’s—or maybe just half a moment’s—tense silence. “What bullshit?” Reggie demanded.

“Well, let’s see. You’re a Buddhist, but when I come in you’re sitting in front of a plate full of sausage, eggs, and bacon. You can’t bring yourself to actually touch the stuff, but you do your best to pretend it’s yours. And Mr. Potato Face over there had the same problem with the fag, so it’s fair to assume that somewhere nearby there’s a chain-smoking, carnivorous mate of yours who doesn’t want to be introduced to me for some inexplicable—”

It was just as well that Reggie’s eyes flicked upward. Like an idiot, I’d been watching the door at the back of the galley, but seeing that telltale glance I rolled off the couch a split second before a burly form crashed down feetfirst from above, and two size-ten boots thumped into the space where I’d just been sitting.

I hit the floor and rolled, fetching up against Reggie’s feet. He jumped back hastily, proving that his Bruce Lee looks were all window dressing, but the guy with the roomy footwear was a bit more aggressive. He strode across to me, lifted me up by my lapels with surprisingly little effort, and slammed me into the wall.

“Hold on to him!” he bellowed.

Reggie and Greg rushed to comply, taking an arm each. I could have fought back, but only at the expense of a few more hard knocks. I figured the time for that would come.

The man standing in front of me, rubbing right fist into left palm, looked like hard knocks were a daily fact of life for him. He was big enough to be covered by building regulations, and his hard, craggy face bore a couple of days’ growth of stubble. His hair was sand-blond, his complexion sandpaper-rough. There were deep shadows under his eyes, as dark as bruises. He must have been fairly handsome once, in a weather-beaten, roughly chiseled out, oversize kind of way. Now, in middle age, he looked like someone who was just starting to feel the pull of gravity and letting it get to him—psychologically, if not physically. He was wearing one of those shades-of-gray urban combat jackets over a green turtleneck sweater and olive-drab trousers tucked into those intimidating
Dixon of Dock Green
boots. An incongruous flash of gold from his wrist caught my eye: he was wearing a bracelet. But before I could take in the details he reached out and grasped my cheeks in his hand, tilting my head up so our eyes met.

He glared at me—a warning glare.

“I got your message,” he said. “That was you, yeah? At the Oriflamme? So you wanted to talk to me. Well, here I am. What do you want to talk about?”

“Abbie Torrington,” I suggested.

That was meant to be an opening gambit, but it got a more spectacular reaction than I was expecting. Peace gave a wordless roar and punched me in the stomach. I saw the punch coming and threw myself backward as far as I could into Reggie and Greg, trying to ride with it. Even so, it was like standing in the path of a cannonball. The pain was incredible, and I folded up with a feeble hiccup of displaced air. I sagged, but Reggie and Greg held on so I didn’t actually fall.

“You don’t—you don’t even talk about her!” Peace bellowed. “You don’t even—you bastard, you think I’m going to let you—? Who’s paying you? Who’s fucking sent you here?”

He grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked my head up again—but not before I took a closer look at that bracelet and saw it for what it was: a heart-shaped locket on a golden chain, wrapped twice around his muscular wrist.

“Who sent you?” he asked again.

“Her—her mother,” I wheezed.

“Well you tell that bitch she’s never seeing Abbie again in this world or any fucking other. That’s over. It’s over! I would’ve—I would’ve—I’ll kill before I let that coldhearted bastard—”

He ran out of words, his face flushed so deep a red it looked like he was about to bust a major artery. He brandished his fist at me again, but didn’t go for a second punch. He took a long, shuddering breath, visibly struggling to get himself back under some kind of control. I remembered that he was popping speed; that’s not generally conducive to moments of calm reflection.

Then things took a turn for the worse. Peace flicked his jacket away from his body on the left-hand side and pulled a handgun out of his belt. He shoved it hard up against my cheek.

“Take it easy, Den,” Reggie Tang murmured anxiously.

“Shut up, Reggie,” Peace growled. He looked at me with a sort of agonized hatred. He seemed to be working himself up to something, and I opened my mouth to try to head it off. Before I could speak, his free hand shot forward, balled into a fist. I didn’t have time to move—just to close my eyes. A splintering, rending sound came from just to my left. Opening my eyes, I turned my head a fraction and saw the gaping hole that Peace had just punched in the decorative fascia above the breakfast bar. He curled and unfolded his fingers three times: as far as I could see, he hadn’t even broken any skin.

“If I ever see you again,” he said to me, a fraction calmer now, “I’ll kill you. I mean it. I’ll kill you. Don’t come looking for me unless you’re ready to cut my throat while I’m asleep, because that’s the only way you’re getting her. And don’t assume I’m asleep just because I’ve got my fucking—eyes—closed.”

He punctuated these last three words with three sharp jabs of the gun barrel into my face. He flicked a glance at Reggie, and then at Greg. “Give me five minutes,” he said, “and then let him go.”

Reggie nodded. Greg just blinked. Peace was already heading for the wide open spaces in any case, tucking the gun back into his belt, and he didn’t look back as he ducked to clear the low door.

Well now. I liked these odds better.

I drooped a little in Reggie and Greg’s grip, making them take a little more of my weight. Irritably they hauled me upright, which meant that they were off balance when I came up with them and shoved backward. We all lurched against the bulkhead together. I dragged my arm clear of Greg’s grip and punched Reggie hard in the throat. He gave a choking gurgle and staggered sideways into the breakfast bar, letting go his hold on my other arm as both of his hands flew to his neck. I didn’t need the arm, though, because I was already taking Greg out with a sharp butt to the bridge of the nose.

I was out through the door before either of them could recover enough to mount a counterattack, but by the time I got up the stairs and out into the companionway, Peace was already legging it down the gangplank. He turned on the quayside and looked back at me.

He kicked the gangplank away just as I got to it, and it tumbled end over end into the Thames, hitting the
Collective
‘s hull with a series of hollow metallic booms like a clock chiming the hour inside a coffin. The distance to the shore was only ten feet or so, but I had to back a few steps to get a run-up, and meanwhile the guy was already having it away on his toes.

I made the jump, and I landed with both feet under me—but then a moment’s dizziness, coming out of nowhere, made me stagger and almost fall backward into the river. I pulled myself together and took off after my quarry, who’d reached the pier’s gate by now and was hauling it open.

To my horror I saw him take the key out of the near side of the lock and throw it toward the water. Then he was through and slamming the gate shut behind him a second before I reached it. I dragged down on the handle but the damn thing didn’t budge.

Damn damn damn damn damn! No lockpicks, no time, and the razor wire on top of the gate looked like the most serious kind of bad news. I cast around for some object I could use to smash the lock, and saw the key: it had landed on the edge of the pier, a couple of inches short of the water.

I snatched it up, put it in the lock, and turned. Running out onto the street, I looked left just in time to see Peace’s burly figure disappear around a corner fifty yards away. As I started in pursuit, a car roared past me, heading in the same direction and accelerating: it was a battered-looking Grand Cherokee, sheathed in dried mud and looking faintly military. With a jolt of alarm, I saw that there were two men in the front seats, the passenger a man so tall that he was folded over on himself, his raised knees showing in the window. Even from a single high-speed glimpse, Po was unmistakeable.

I put on a fresh spurt of speed, but they still reached the corner well before me and disappeared around it with a
whump-chunk
sound as the car rocked and yawed on its wheelbase. When I got there, I saw Peace running hell for leather along a narrow stretch of road where the pavement all but vanished. Faceless low-rise office blocks hemmed him in on both sides, with no alleys or breaks that he could duck into. Up ahead of him, though, the street opened out on one side onto the broad, asphalted plain of a car park. It was laid out as a mazelike grid of two-foot-high concrete bollards, some of which were linked by chains.

The Jeep was only a few feet behind Peace when he reached the first of the bollards. He jumped right over it like a hurdler and kept on going: the Jeep was forced to swerve wide, back out onto the street, first of all keeping pace with him and then accelerating past him. When it got to the far end of the open space it swerved to a pinwheeling halt and the passenger door was thrown open.

Po clambered out, at first human but unfolding as he moved into something that looked like it never had a mother. His arms elongated and thickened and he bent from the waist to lay them on the ground. His mouth gaped, and kept on gaping, deforming into a fang-ringed muzzle like the maw of a shark. I’d been right after all about him being an exotic, but he was no gorilla. He was a hyena, or something that had been a hyena once, and even on all fours like this he was as high at the shoulder as a man.

Peace saw that he’d been outflanked, stopped at a skid, turned, and went into full reverse, his arms and legs pumping. Po loped after him, slow at first but gathering speed. Meanwhile the Jeep heeled around, passenger door still flapping and banging, and headed back down the street toward me. Again it came alongside Peace and then accelerated past him. If it hadn’t been for the bollards it could have just moved in and cut him off. As it was, the driver had to brake again and jump out himself. It was the other man I’d met last night—Zucker, the one with the deep, growly voice and the fondness for sharp edges. I was barely twenty yards away now, and running toward him, but he only had eyes for his quarry. He jogged forward to meet Peace, completing the pincer movement.

But Peace turned in a wide arc, heading for the back of the car park where a high wooden fence separated it from the watersports dealership it presumably served. The fence looked too high to climb, but Peace’s two pursuers saw the danger that he might somehow slip away from them and pushed themselves harder, narrowing his lead.

I reached the Jeep, and saw from the slight vibration of the bonnet that the engine was still running. Without even thinking about what I was doing, I jumped in and backed it out onto the street.

Peace was almost at the fence, the two were-kin were only a few yards behind him. I gunned the engine, slammed it into second, and roared forward. The two bollards directly in front of me were linked by one of the chains: I hit it full-on and it parted with a crunch, the loose ends snapping away like steel whips to either side. I kept on going, swerving to avoid the barriers where I could, smashing straight through them when I had to. Something caught in one of the front wheels and the Jeep started to lean to the right; I turned the wheel frantically to compensate.

Up ahead of me, Peace had reached the fence, and he tensed for a leap that would take him some of the way up the side of it. Before he could, Po closed the last few yards and was on him in a frenzy of claws. They both went down. There were two gunshots, so close together that the second sounded like the echo of the first. Peace kicked Po away from him—a pretty amazing feat in itself—and scrambled up again. The were-thing was hurt, blood on its face seeming to blind it so that although it swiped out with one obscenely long, clawed forelimb, it missed Peace by a good few inches.

Zucker was closing fast. Seeing how bad the odds were about to get, Peace turned and made a powerful leap, hitting the fence about four feet off the ground and hauling himself up with his hands. Close behind, Po gathered himself on his haunches to do the same thing—but his leap would bring Peace off the wall in the way a cat would claw down a low-flying bird. At the same time, Zucker was groping in his pocket, probably for his knife. One way or another, Peace didn’t have a chance in hell of making it to the top.

I clamped my hand down on the horn. The harsh, diminuendo [_blat _]of sound made the loup-garous turn, and they saw their own car bearing down on them: four thousand pounds of metal, give or take, tearing out its engine as I pushed it up to fifty in second gear.

It was too late now for Po to tackle Peace. Instead, he and Zucker grabbed tarmac on either side as I accelerated past them. At the last moment, I pulled the wheel hard over. I hit the fence full-on, about ten feet to the left of where Peace was still scrambling up: hit it, and went straight through it onto a paved forecourt where the remains of the fence rained down around me as splintered flotsam.