No answer.
‘If so, we’ve got the same employer. Unless you’ve gone over to the other side.’ Stanbridge said nothing, but the way his eyes jumped told Harry that that wasn’t the case. ‘Well, good for you.’
He finished his coffee and dribbled the dregs on to the tiled floor. The smell lifted in the cold air, heavy and tantalizing. It would remain under Stanbridge’s nose for a long time, an irritating reminder of the creature comforts he was missing.
‘Problem is, what do I do about you? If I let you go, you’ll come back. Probably with your mates.’
He stood up. He was wasting his time. Short of outright torture, he couldn’t force the man to talk. And he wasn’t about to get the contents of the cutlery drawer in here just to wind the man up. If you intend to bluff someone, you have to at least have the intention of carrying that bluff to reasonable lengths.
As he turned away, his mobile buzzed.
‘Tate?’ It was Clare Jardine. ‘Have you got company?’ Maybe she was calling to ask him round; vodka and olives between colleagues. Somehow he doubted it.
‘I have, actually. Why?’
‘Three of the Clones are parked in the street outside my place. I wondered if the fourth was on your place.’
‘What are they doing?’ Harry let out his breath slowly. They were sticking close. Was it a precursor to something else? If so, what?
‘No. Just sitting there.’
Harry felt the pull of tension in his gut. They might be waiting to hear from Stanbridge. It wasn’t a good sign.
Jardine said, ‘If they’re security police, they might be planning to pick us up — starting with me.’
Harry debated telling her about Stanbridge. If she was the Clones’ inside source of information, she would already know if they were planning something. But if so, why would she be ringing him?
‘They’re not secret police,’ he told her at last.
‘How do you know that?’
‘They’re British.’
‘That’s absurd!’ She was scornful, snappy. ‘Are we talking about the same men?’
‘Yes. I’ve got their number four in my bathroom. His name’s Stanbridge, he’s former British army and he comes from somewhere near Coventry.’
THIRTY-EIGHT
Silence. Bloody miracles do happen, thought Harry. ‘You there?’
‘I don’t get it. Why would a Brit be watching us?’
‘My guess?’ Stanbridge was pretending not to listen, and Harry took a leap in the dark. ‘London thinks we’re a security risk. This is their way of making sure we don’t jump the reservation. Unfortunately, the only way number four is going to tell me exactly what they’re doing is when I start cutting off his fingers.’
‘What?’ Jardine’s voice went off the scale, and Stanbridge’s face went pale.
‘Sure, why not? At least we’ll find out what’s going on. I’ll tell you how it went in the morning-’
‘Wait… wait!’ Clare interrupted quickly. ‘Don’t. There’s something else I didn’t mention. The men outside… they’re armed.’
That brought him up short. Stanbridge wasn’t armed — he’d have found the weapon otherwise. So why were the others? Did they have another purpose other than watching?
Maybe it was time to discourage them. And to see how serious they were.
‘Stay away from the windows,’ he told her, ‘and keep your door locked. Don’t answer if anyone knocks.’
‘Why, what are you going to do?’
‘I want to take a look at the three on your place. What’s your address?’ He reckoned it would take ten to fifteen minutes to reach her place on foot. More if he had to avoid any armed patrols.
She gave him directions to an apartment block not far away. ‘Don’t come to my door, though. My neighbours are jumpy already. They’ve had trouble with drunken militia and call the police at the slightest noise.’
‘OK. I’ll see you later.’
‘But what if you’re wrong? What if-?’
He cut her off in midstream and took out Stanbridge’s mobile. Then he left the flat and went downstairs.
Like the back passage, the stairs to the basement were covered with accumulated junk. He switched on the light and looked around. Most of it was a jumble of damaged furniture and discarded boxes, all beyond salvage and covered in mouse droppings. An ancient moped stood against one wall, the rubber grips perished with age. He shook it and heard liquid sloshing about in the pear-drop tank.
It was a start.
He searched through a pile of cardboard cartons and found a bathroom cabinet with broken mirrors. One side contained an empty toothpaste tin, several rusty razor blades, some dried soap and a half-empty tube of shower gel. Whoever had owned this was unlikely to be coming back for it. The other side held two shower caps and a box of foil-wrapped condoms. He opened one of the packs. The rubber looked in good condition; not that he’d chance using one of them as the makers intended, but for his purposes, they would do fine.
He emptied the petrol out of the moped’s tank into a discarded wine bottle, then squirted the shower gel in after it and gently shook the contents for a few seconds before stuffing the neck of the bottle with a piece of rag. He placed the condoms and bottle in his pocket. If he got stopped carrying this lot, he might try claiming he was going round to warm up a girlfriend’s flat and fuel her car, but he doubted anyone would believe him.
He turned off the light and left the building by the back door.
The walk to Jardine’s flat took twelve minutes, using narrow alleys and back streets. He relied on his inner navigator to stay on the correct heading in the direction Rik had given him. Street lights were intermittent and weak, but provided enough ambient light for him to negotiate the route without incident. He saw neither military nor police patrols, but didn’t argue with his luck. The further they stayed away, the better he liked it.
When he arrived at the end of Clare’s street, he peered round the corner. A plain saloon was parked fifty yards away, facing the other way. The windows were misted over, but he could just make out a vague shape shifting on the passenger side.
He retreated and circled the block. He found an alleyway similar to the one behind his own flat, and counted doorways until he reached the building next to Clare’s. The back door opened with a faint creak, and he made his way up the stairs to the roof. The muffled sound of voices and music came from behind the doors as he passed, but he encountered nobody.
At the top a small door opened on to a flat area littered with flowerpots and tubs. Doves or pigeons in a succession of wire cages cooed gently as he passed, and a web of clotheslines and aerial wires brushed his head. He ducked beneath them and padded quietly to the front of the building.
He peered over the parapet. The car with the Clones inside was directly beneath him. The windows were up, but the angle prevented him seeing any detail of the men inside. Taking out the condoms, he opened three of them, unrolling the rubber to the fullest extent. Removing the rag stopper from the bottle, he fitted a condom over the neck of the bottle and tilted it, filling the sheath with the mix of petrol and gel. Then he knotted the condom and placed it carefully on the floor before repeating the exercise.
When he had his three devices ready, he looked over the edge of the roof and took out Stanbridge’s mobile phone.
He pressed the re-dial button.
THIRTY-NINE
The atmosphere inside the car was foetid. Two of the men were snoring gently, the third was keeping watch
