In her high heels, she clicked hurriedly along the empty street. For the love of God she needed a cigarette. If there was ever a night to break the regime it was tonight.
As she reached the end of the street a car drew slowly to the curb and stopped ten yards in front of her. No one got out. She paused, suddenly dubious. There was no light on the roof, no licence over the plate. It was not a taxi.
Edging forwards, she moved closer to the fence, eyes trained on the mysterious car. Five yards away, four…
It might just be somebody after directions, but something about it felt wrong. She couldn’t explain why.
Three yards, two…
The passenger door burst open and a figure charged her. Instinct taking over, she turned to bolt but she barely made it off the spot. Strong hands caught her from behind and pulled her roughly backwards. She flailed her arms, kicking, punching. She tried to scream but a large hand gripped her mouth, cut off her vocals. A second arm tightened around her throat, lifting her from the ground.
Consciousness began slipping; she could feel the darkness creeping in. Where the hell was everybody? Please, this couldn’t be happening.
The last thing she felt was the hot tears running down her face. Then she faded away, the misty street swallowed up.
21
Standing beneath a flickering tube York dropped the receiver. As the strange woman’s voice reverberated he tried to piece together the five syllables:
Your son is alive…
He’d asked her to repeat it.
There had been no mistake.
Back to the wall he slid to his haunches and removed his hat, running moist fingers through his thick hair. ‘What’re you looking at!’ he snapped at the curious desk clerk. The young officer turned coyly away and went back to the raving woman going on about squatters next door. A giant of a man with what looked like a vandalized pot plant under his arm had joined the queue.
York picked himself gingerly up and left the reception desk circus. Heading straight through the Pit, he avoided eye contact with everyone and shut himself in his office with the familiar stuffy odour. He stood with his back to the door and took several deep breaths. What the fuck was going on? For a man whose emotions changed like the weather, the most frequent being rain, he couldn’t quite dispel the tingling in his gut. Was this what sunshine felt like? Could it be true, could Frasier be alive?
In front of him were the two facing armchairs, battered and scuffed. He’d bought them for his living room, but they’d never made it further than his office.
Falling into the left-hand chair, he stared solemnly at the empty one, the bustle outside the door stepping into his silence. It took him a moment to shut it out.
‘Here we are again,’ he said aloud.
Slowly he moved into the opposite chair. ‘Yeah,’ he muted. ‘Been a while. You missed me?’
He moved back to the first chair, didn’t answer.
He knew if anybody ever caught him using the chairs this way, effectively talking to himself, there’d be questions. Some coppers already thought he was nuts.
Come on, Nick, let the nice men take you away...
‘I don’t get it,’ he said at last. ‘It just doesn’t click.’
‘What’s to get?’ he questioned himself, moving into the opposite chair.
He hopped instantly back. ‘Why send a messenger to pick up the package when he could’ve just as easily come himself? It doesn’t add up.'
'He likes playing games, we know that. Coming himself would have made him feel powerful, even more in control than he does already. And he knew we couldn’t chance nicking him. If he wasn't our guy, both targets would have been murdered. That would have been considered tampering, wouldn't it?’
He moved quickly back to the opposing chair. ‘Whichever it is, he didn’t want to be followed. He made a break for it.’
‘Yes,’ he acknowledged. ‘But where was he going? This guy is organised, calculated. He’s somebody’s next door neighbour, somebody’s friend, probably charismatic. Most likely has a job, colleagues that have no idea who he is.’
‘Married?’
‘Don’t know, possibly.’
‘So how do you keep that kind of thing hidden from relatives?’
‘You don’t, it’s impossible.’
‘So he’s not doing all this from home. To keep it hidden from his family, he’d have to have a separate life away from home, one that his significant others know nothing about.’
Pause.
Switching back and forth in the chairs was making him dizzy. ‘Agreed. I’d say he has a lair away from home, some address he can give his messenger. An empty house. That way he can come and go and no one will question him. Probably turns up dressed like a maintenance man, or something.’
‘That doesn’t make sense!’ he mused. ‘We’re determining that he has a lair away from home, somewhere away from watchful eyes. But somebody’s got to notice. If the messenger is a whole other person, then two bodies are coming and going? Come on, that’s got to raise question marks.’
He rose slowly from his seat. Something was nagging him. ‘You’re right, somebody would definitely see him. He’s a stranger in a strange street, an unknown. Surely someone coming and going from an empty house would raise some suspicion, no matter how much you dressed it up.’
Moving back to the first seat, he clammed up, bugged to death.
Then it came.
Springing from his seat, he bolted from his office and back through the Pit, wary eyes tracking his frantic path. Without question, Newport sprang from her chair and pursued.
Back in the foyer the giant with botany issues
