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| Harry Smith likes playing dress-up too. |
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| The Last of England, Ford Madox Brown |
A week later and the flags still at half-mast. No-one wants to break ranks, to be the first to interrupt the public mourning. It reminds her of the response to the death of Prince Dai, but this is enervated and strung out, collective grief and shock with no outlet to flow into, no revolution to enable. A world holding its breath and waiting for America’s response, for the result of the Zyuganov-Gore summit. And meanwhile, here she is, hunting down a Windsor loyalist black magic ring, McAlpine’s mob, killing little black boys in the name of the beast that squats in Jersey, the plan to blame it all on muti rituals, an old Belfast strategy, Protestants awake! , the usual bullshit to cover their trail.
She boymodes her way into the Marble Arch pissoirs, flutters her eyes at some public school punk whose cop-ass shoes give the lie to his mohican, walks him to the subway and shoves the barrel of her pistol into his kidneys. He tries to play it tough, kill me and you don’t get your information, like they teach them how to play it in their schools, so she kicks him in the back of the knee and shoves his head into the concrete wall to let him know that she means business. I don’t need your words, chum, I just need your wallet. Caught the Tube today, have you?
He scrabbles to his feet as if he thinks he can run, so Angel wraps one arm around his throat, grabs her opposite bicep until he goes limp, goes through his pockets, pulls a wallet and a phone, then leaves. She has people watching the subway exits: they’ll tell her where he goes when he wakes up.
The phone is a burner with no numbers programmed, but a slip of paper in the wallet begins 079. She doesn’t dial it just yet. She’s not massively shocked to find a train ticket from Hereford in the fake punk’s billfold. We oughtta just My Lai that whole fucking town, she mutters to herself. Still, at least now we know who they’ve got doing their doors. And what’s this? A cloakroom ticket, St Ermin’s Hotel. My God, they really are creatures of habit…
Her earpiece crackles alive. Got eyes on their boy, boss. She asks what he’s doing. Just hanging around.
…or that’s what they want us to think.
‘Okay. Turner, isn’t it?’ She doesn’t wait for confirmation. ‘Has he made you?’
‘No, boss.’
‘Has he made Williams?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Turner, I need you to give yourself away, okay? Look at him. Make sure he sees you. Does he? Good. Now, I need you to make sure he hears you say two words…’
One good thing about disguising yourself as a crust punk is nobody bats an eyelid if they see you walking down Park Lane with blood spilling down your forehead. Mind you, there were some funny looks in the Dorchester lobby when I walked in after giving the square-basher in the top hat the nod. I rode the lift up to the Audley, stepped out and saw that smug bald fucker with the wife. The one we call Bowel Syndrome behind his back. Personally I wouldn’t have let him anywhere near this op but ours not to reason why et cetera. Plus it wasn’t like we had much depth in our benches lately.
‘Were you followed?’ Bowel Syndrome barks at me.
‘Nope. Made one of them back at the Arch though. They’ve taken the bait.’
His thin lips worked themselves into a smirk. ‘Good. Good. And right on time too, just about! Do you want to come through? The Master is just about ready to begin…’
‘No thanks, Sir. I saw enough of that kind of thing at Winchester, frankly.’
He scowled. ‘Not having second thoughts, I trust?’
I was about to explain to him that my objections to this Dennis Wheatley bullshit were entirely aesthetic when his phone went off.
‘Oh that’s interesting. It’s your number.’ He grinned. ‘Do you want to take it, or shall I?’
‘Wouldn’t dream of depriving you, Sir.’
He made a noise that was probably what counted as a laugh, for him, then pressed the green button. ‘Ah, Mr McKenna, I take it? I assume you’re phoning to tell me you’re…now come come, there’s no need for that kind of language…what…’
There was a noise on the other side of the door. A thump. A thud. The sound of people running.
‘...oh well dear me, you really do seem to have figured out where we are. Whatever shall we…I beg your fucking pardon?’
Screaming. One scream in particular. A voice I’d heard chanting last night, when the first preparations were made.
A scream that echoed from Bowel Syndrome’s phone.
‘You want me to what? Tell him…sh…he says we can come in…’
I heard the doorlock click.
‘...the door’s open. Yes. Yes. I see.’
I shouldn’t have pushed the door open, really, but I couldn’t help myself. There was a narrative pull to my actions, as if I was performing in a script that she had written. I opened the door, and a bullet came through and turned Bowel Syndrome’s face into meat.
‘And that’s what you get for misgendering me, you stuck-up Tory cunt,’ she said, shifting the pistol in my direction. ‘Ah, and there you are, clever boy. Do you want to join him?’
‘No! No, Jesus, no…’
‘Then put your hands on your head where I can see them, and come in. There’s a kid in here you’re going to apologise to, and if you make it convincing enough I might decide not to have you shoved in the same hole as this Tory nonce.’ She pistol-whipped McAlpine. ‘It’s your choice, babe. Just remember…’
One of her team emerged from the bathroom, leading out the boy. That was when it hit me. The enormity of what we’d done. Our certainty that we would get away with it. Our arrogance. Our presumption. Our hubris. I dropped to my knees then, and started crying.
‘Shoot me. Just fucking shoot me. I fucking deserve it.’
‘Well well well,’ she said, as she holstered her pistol, and I felt hands take my arms from behind, cuff my wrists, ‘how about that, clever boy. There might just be hope for you yet.’
