Down Cemetery Road Part 6

After she'd found the one she was looking for now.

V.

Roughly sixty miles east of where Sarah was finishing her drink, on the fourth (and top) floor of a 1920s office block, the rest of which housed an overflow from the Ministry for Urban Development, a man stood looking down through an office window at the traffic snarled below: a belching snake of hot metal, strangely silent at this remove. He was a tall man with patrician features, and a full head of steel grey hair he wore swept back, to emphasize its weight. His suit was grey too, though more discreetly so, and the frame it covered lean and healthy-looking. His hands were long and his fingers thin; his nails clipped neatly just that morning. He appeared to be in his late fifties, though in fact had recently entered his eighth decade. Of this, too, he was proud, and while publicly ascribing his physical fortune to good genes, remained secretly convinced that strength of character held the key.

It was just a shame this was so rare.

The office he occupied was spa.r.s.ely furnished. A metal desk, lower-orders-issue; an ungainly shredder he referred to as The Dalek. A calendar on the wall seemed to think it was 1994. There were two chairs, which matched neither each other nor the desk, and a few oddments desk lamp, hat stand, mirror which looked as if they'd found their way here from different collections. Indeed, the office as a whole felt made up of leftover s.p.a.ces, like a priesthole or a butler's mezzanine. As if its existence were being tactfully pa.s.sed over, and the business conducted between its walls allowed to remain a secret.

There was a knock at the door, and after a moment or two, a new man entered. His name was Howard. A lot younger than the room's original occupant, he hid it well: spa.r.s.e hair, stressed features he looked as if he'd unexpectedly been made leader of the Conservative Party, and hadn't yet found a way of pa.s.sing the buck. And now was made to stand and wait while the man who'd summoned him the man for whom Howard worked, or to whom he reported, though Howard had never discovered his name stood looking out of the window: working up, no doubt, some piece of c.r.a.p Howard would have to pretend he enjoyed. Or deserved. One or the other.

Howard often thought of his boss as C. Not because it was traditional in their field, but because it stood for a very short word that seemed to fit.

When C spoke at last, it was to say, 'Made a right b.o.l.l.o.c.ks of this one, haven't you, Howard?'

Howard didn't answer.

'I don't remember you receiving permission to start a war.'

'The Department was given carte blanche, sir.'

'That's very pretty, Howard. French, isn't it? And it implies pretty wide parameters, I'll grant you, but not wide enough to cover barely controlled explosions in densely populated suburban areas. Who did you have running this one? Wile E Coyote?'

'Crane, sir.'

'Oh G.o.d. That's almost as bad.'

Though he hadn't asked which Crane, and everybody knew there were two.

C sighed. It was a theatrical sigh: sounded rehea.r.s.ed. He waved a hand at a chair, so Howard sat, though C remained standing. But he turned from the window at last. Looked down at Howard like a disappointed headmaster. 'And Crane thought a bomb would do the trick? I suppose we should be grateful he didn't go after him in a tank.'

'It came out looking like an accident, sir. And there was the problem of the body, too. Crane thought taking him out solo would have caused more problems than it solved. I mean, the target was already dead, sir. Technically.'

'But his wife wasn't. Crane happy with that on his conscience, is he?'

Crane hasn't got a conscience, thought Howard.

'What about the locals? They've been pacified?'

'It was a gas leak. We're all square on that one.'

'No hungry journos looking for their name in bright lights?'

'It was a gas leak, sir,' Howard repeated. 'The story will hold.'

'I'm delighted you're confident. What about the child? Crane hasn't had her shot or anything, has he?'

'She's fine.'

'She had f.u.c.king better be fine, Howard. Dead babies sell newspapers. Dead babies blown up in cack-handed covert operations run by psychopathic idiots get entire doc.u.mentaries dedicated to their short, wasted lives. Now which of the blasted Crane brothers masterminded this b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, and what's he planning on doing for an encore?'

'Axel, sir.'

'Axel shouldn't be let out on his own. He's a danger to the public. As I'm sure the public will all too readily agree after this fiasco. What's his next move? A small nuclear device in a crowded shopping centre?'

'Downey's still running loose.'

'And what are the bets on his suspicions having been aroused, Howard? You think he'll write it off to a faulty gas main? Luck of the draw? Or might he be a little bit jumpy?'

'Crane says '

'Axel?'

'Amos. He's holding the reins on this.'

'So the bomb was his idea?'

'Axel's. It was a field decision, sir. He was given carte blanche '

C waved his hand so Howard shut up. Axel Crane, Amos Crane: they were each as bad as the other. This time round, Amos Crane was home in the bunker, calling the shots; Axel who was generally agreed to be a mad b.u.g.g.e.r was out in the open, ignoring them. And civilians were being smeared across the landscape.

The older man said, 'Jesus wept. The lunatics are running the asylum. What does he say then, Amos Crane?'

'That it doesn't matter what Downey thinks or knows. Or thinks he knows. If we've got the child, he'll come looking for her.'

'This is what pa.s.ses for a strategy?'

'He's gamed it every which way. There's a lot of things Downey might do, but not if we've got the child. He'll put her first. Until he's found her, he won't even think about going '

Oh, f.u.c.k.

Going what?' C asked politely.

'Public.'

'Public. Fine.' C pulled his chair out and sat down. 'Read the papers this morning, Howard?'

'Glanced at them, sir. Been a bit busy.'

'Anything grab your attention especially? Any minor events worth musing over? Like an impending f.u.c.king war, for instance?'

'Sir.'

'Fasten your mind on this, Howard. The country is prepared to take up arms to prevent Downey from going public. That isn't an option. If you're expecting your career to last longer than your hair did, don't even think about mentioning the possibility. Got that?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Right. What are you doing with the child?'

'We're working on it.'

'Well, work faster. Is Axel staying out in the open?'

'For the time being.'

'Good. Maybe we'll all get lucky and he'll be hit by a truck. After he's sorted out Downey.' C stood up again. 'Are you still here?'

Howard crawled to the door.

'And, Howard? Remind Crane he's not running a private war out there. If he can't keep his brother on a leash, maybe it's time you found him a job he can manage. Like checking ID at the car pool. Tell him that, will you?'

Howard closed the door behind him without a sound, then ran a finger round his shirt collar. The finger came away wet.

Waiting for the lift he swore fluently, obscenely and without repeating himself for just over a minute, not a single emotion showing on his face. There was a price to be paid for this, though at that moment Howard couldn't recall if it were cancer or heart disease. One of those. You couldn't bottle such fluency up and not have it go rotten. On the ground floor he smiled politely at the woman on Reception, who thought him something in forensic accounting, and walked out into groggy sunshine still harbouring violence in his heart. Made a right b.o.l.l.o.c.ks of this one, haven't you? Yes, sure, fine. From an office high above the mess, it all looked pretty easy. Down at street level, you worked with what you had. And if that included the Crane brothers, you thanked Christ they were on your side, and let them get on with it.

He would walk back across the park, he decided. If he could just cross the road in one piece, he'd walk across the park.

Howard hated being in this position, of having to defend the indefensible. The first he'd known of Crane's explosion, it was already over. And putting the fix in after the event was like making jelly in a sieve, so maybe that b.a.s.t.a.r.d with the view should come down here and see what real life looked like. A lot of traffic, all trying to go different places at once. All of it meeting in the middle, so what you got was smoke and noise.

At the corner, the green man told Howard it was safe to cross. Howard trusted green men about as much as he did any other kind, but crossed anyway. In the park it was a little cooler, a little calmer: there was a whisper of wind tasting less like exhaust fumes and more like something born of nature. Howard walked between flowerbeds Londoners had used as litter bins, past litter bins in which Londoners had been sick, and wondered again what to do about the girl.

It shouldn't have happened this way. Even Amos Crane wolfishly protective of his younger sibling admitted that, in a field situation, he'd not have chosen Axel's method. It hadn't allowed for total control. It demanded too much of a fix. But Amos believed in fate, too, and in the girl's survival saw something that went beyond tabloid whimsy: he saw the makings of a game plan. The girl, as he put it, was still on the board. It was up to them to use her with care.

But Howard, without being sentimental about it, wasn't sure this was a good idea. The trouble with infants was, you couldn't be sure people would forget about them. Everyone could lose an adult or two, and a.s.sume their life just took a different direction: they'd moved or got in with a new crowd people were always prepared to write their own backstory to explain away a casual friend's disappearance. But with an infant, you didn't a.s.sume they'd made their own choices, changed their own lifestyle. With infants, the most unlikely types might get it in their heads to come looking.

The fix seemed solid: the police, the local press. The inquest should ring down the curtain. n.o.body liked it much, but in the name of national security, a lot of s.h.i.t got swallowed. Still, things needed checking. That was the trouble with cowboys like Axel, thought Howard: they pulled off whatever wacky stunt felt good at the time, and muggins here was left to make sure n.o.body got curious after the event. It could be a problem if anyone other than Michael Downey took the bait. Especially with Axel Crane running wild, morally certain the fastest solution to most problems was a shallow grave.

So Howard made a mental list (Howard made a lot of mental lists). 1: Check on the child. 2: Hang up some alarm bells it would be nice to have warning if things went wonky. 3: Remind Crane he wasn't running a private war out there. If he couldn't keep his brother on a leash, maybe he'd like checking ID at the car pool.

He almost smiled at the thought of pa.s.sing that last item on.

Amos Crane, though, was a truly creepy motherf.u.c.ker, and Howard didn't think he'd be telling him anything of the sort very soon.

Chapter Two.

Dead Soldiers I.

It was over a week before Sarah heard from Silvermann again, a week in which the debris was sifted and cleared at the broken house, and scaffolding erected to prevent what was left of it sliding into the river. The police presence became nominal and eventually disappeared, and the absence of obvious developments led to the falling off of newspaper coverage in proportion to increased speculation in the neighbourhood. No husbands were reported missing. Dinah's disappearance received no coverage. Either it wasn't newsworthy, it wasn't known about, or it wasn't a real disappearance. Maybe Silvermann would let her know which, if he ever got in touch. One night Sarah awoke sure she could hear a child crying in the street, but saw nothing human through the window. Mark slept through it, even when the streetlight's glow fell on his face as she drew aside the curtain. He looked much younger sleeping, Sarah thought. Probably everyone did. But it kept alive in her a tenderness harder to maintain in the daylight hours.

Harder to maintain, too, was a sense of exactly why she'd hired Joe in the first place. The image of Dinah that had latched on to her mind had grown paler with the pa.s.sage of time, as if, mission completed, it could fade away into the light. The overalls, the yellow jellies, remained, but they too seemed less substantial, as if their memory had grown confused with that of the dolls' accessories Sarah played with as a child. She was starting to wonder if her own subconscious weren't playing treacherous games, luring her into a state of maternal concern that would leave her prey to Mark's powers of persuasion. And Silvermann's silence also gave her unease; nor could she recall the details of their contract. He'd said two days, and taken eight so far: would he charge for those? Several times she'd dialled his number but hung up before making the connection, unready, yet, to call him off before knowing what had happened. At this point, of course, she believed it was possible to halt events.

When he called at last, he called mid-morning. Sarah, inevitably, was involved with housework. At least once a week she found a corner the cupboard in the spare bedroom today she'd somehow overlooked until that moment; cleaning it thereafter became a weekly fixture, another item tagged on to a list of ch.o.r.es that threatened to last forever. What had been a weekly routine was becoming an eight-day cycle; she was torn between needing it and wanting to walk away. So Silvermann's call sounded like chimes of freedom, though it contained less information than you'd find on a postcard, or even a postage stamp. 'Have you found her?' she asked him.

'Are you free?'

'Right now?'

'Right now, yes.'

Because he never gave out important stuff over the phone. That was what he told her later, along with what he'd found out.

So she was free, yes, or at least released on licence. He suggested Modern Art Oxford: not the gallery, but the cafe, which met with Sarah's approval. While she couldn't always admire what the gallery chose to exhibit as art, she'd endorse its cakes any day of the week. But Silvermann was there first, and his offer to pay for coffee left her unable to ask for cake. Imposed virtue is not the sweetest, but she supposed she'd live. Joe Silvermann, meanwhile, steered them to a table by the wall where he could sit with one eye on the exit. It was hard to gauge whether this was professional paranoia or juvenile posing. For the moment, Sarah wasn't ruling out a bit of both.

'I spend half my life in places like this,' he said.

'Galleries?'

'Cafes. But also galleries, yes, and pubs and clubs. Anywhere people meet people, you know? Museums. Railway stations.'

'You must have a lot of friends.'

A hint of a smile swept across his mournful face: it was like watching somebody remembering a joke at a funeral. 'Strictly business. This is where a lot of cases start. Strangers meeting. Then wanting to know more before taking it further.' He picked up his coffee cup, sniffed suspiciously, then put it down. 'Maybe ten, twelve times a year I get jobs like this. It's always an older woman, she's met a younger man. And what she wants to know is, is he all right. You know?'

'Is he safe.'

'Is he safe. Times used to be, you met someone, you liked them, you got married. Now you need a credit check and deep background before the second date. n.o.body wants to get married to Frederick West.'

'Or his wife.'

'But men mostly trust their judgement. I don't know why. A woman can fool a man. The other way round, it's not so easy. So I've always believed.'

'But maybe your judgement is suspect.'

'You're laughing at me. I don't mind.' He picked up his coffee again. 'I had a case once, a woman, she has this new boyfriend. And she wants to know, can I take a blood test from him without him knowing? I ask her, what am I, a vampire? But that's what she's hiring me for. She wants to know if he's got Aids, if he's HIV, without him knowing she's finding out.'

'How did you manage that?'

'Something you should understand, when a woman wants a man checked out, ninety-nine times in a hundred, she's got good cause. Her instincts have already told her what she needs to know, she's just looking for confirmation. So that's what I supplied in this particular case.'

'You told her he had Aids?'

'I told her he was already married. It was just as effective, and a lot less messy.' He drank from his coffee cup at last. 'So. Dinah Singleton.'

'You've been to the hospital.'

'I've been to the pub,' he corrected her. 'Just down the road, the White Horse? Very popular with medical staff.'

'Is that your usual procedure?'

'It's the human touch. So I'm at the White Horse, and I see some familiar faces. I've done work there before. One time I bribed a nurse to add bandages to a car-crash vic. It upped the settlement twenty, maybe thirty per cent.'