He poked his finger hard against the centre of Elder's chest.
Repton chortling in the car, enjoying the show, the boss going off on a rant. Ian Dury crossed with Laurence fucking Olivier. Sir Larry to you. Poor old bastard turning in his grave. Both of them, come to think of it.
Mallory wasn't through. Home-going commuters stepped round them with no more than the odd word, the odd glance.
'Going back through my records, Frank, past arrests. Villains I've put down. Those that've walked away. That fucking anorak Sheridan. Searching for a pattern. Something to hang me with, hang me out to dry. Maddy Birch, you even figured me for that. Come on, Frank, don't deny it, don't be shy. What did you think? I'd climbed into my Ripper kit one night, just for the fun or it? Just for the crack? How you must have been disappointed now it's turned out to be someone else. Wouldn't have been winding young Loftus up this morning, else.'
Mallory took a step closer: no further to go without Elder stepping aside.
'No, Frank. Not my style, that kind of thing. Messy. Too much risk. Here…' He pressed his index finger, once, twice, against Elder's body. 'Head and heart, Frank, head and heart. Ask Grant. He'd tell you if he could.'
Mallory laughed in Elder's face, mint and garlic on his breath. 'You've got a daughter, Frank. Up north. No better than she should be, by all accounts. Drugs, wasn't it? Heroin? Cocaine? I'd look to her, if I were you. Something nasty happened to her once. A shame for it to happen again.'
Elder leaned back and punched him in the face, Mallory forewarned enough to turn his head aside and ride with the blow. A stumble back and blood at the side of his mouth, a smile alive in his eyes.
Repton was out of the car.
'A mistake, Frank,' Mallory said. 'When you look back, if you can, that's what you'll think.'
He spat at the ground between Elder's feet and turned away again.
Moments later, smooth as grease, the Mercedes slid out into the traffic and away.
'Beautiful, Frank,' Framlingham said, when Elder told him. 'Beautiful. Didn't I tell you we were getting close?'
Elder could still feel the hard bone of Mallory's jaw against his knuckles.
'Repton, that's who we'll go for,' Framlingham said. 'That's the route we'll take.'
'We?' Elder queried.
'Not going to let you have all the fun, Frank. Meetings with the junior Home Office minister or no. Time, I think, for a convenient bout of flu.'
Even down the phone, Elder could sense the broadness of Framlingham's smile.
49
Repton was wearing a three-button charcoal grey suit with a faint red stripe, narrow lapels and a single vent at the back; seven years old now and just beginning to take on a little surface shine around the elbows and the behind. His black Oxfords he'd buffed for fully five minutes while listening to yet another foolish politician digging the ground from under himself about Iraq. Why hadn't Blair and his cronies realised all they had to do was say we want to go in with the Yanks, kick the shit out of Saddam, secure the oil, and give our boys a good workout into the bargain. Sixty per cent of the population would have said fine; a few thousand others would have marched up and down waving banners, but no more than did anyway, and once the initial push was over and we were in without too many casualties, that sixty per cent would be up around seventy.
Of course, he thought now, lighting a Benson's for his trudge across the car park, go in alone next time, instead of waiting for the bloody Americans, and the number of our casualties would be cut by more than half.
Friendly fucking fire!
At the door, he nipped the half-smoked cigarette, blew on the end carefully, and dropped it down into his side pocket for later. Waste not, want not. Any luck he'd be at his desk before George put in an appearance. Stuff been hanging around his in-tray long enough to have grown whiskers.
As soon as he pushed open the door to the long, open-plan office, he saw his luck was in. And out. No George Mallory, but that long streak of piss Framlingham and Frank Elder along with him.
What the fuck was this all about? Payback for last night?
'Maurice, good to see you.' Framlingham's voice could have been heard three fields away, never mind between those walls. 'Frank and I thought it was time for a little chat.'
'What about?'
'Oh, you know, this and that. Loose ends. I don't doubt we'll go into details later.'
'Bollocks,' Repton said, shaking his head. 'I'm not going anywhere. You've got no jurisdiction. You -'
Framlingham lowered a friendly hand on to Repton's shoulder. 'Maurice, Maurice. No need to be hostile. Whatever this is, I'm sure we can work it out to the best of your advantage.' He gave the shoulder a squeeze. 'Yours at least.'
Repton glanced around: several heads turned in their direction, others bent judiciously over their desks. everyone listening.
'Come on, Maurice. We'll take my car, what do you say?' And then, as they were walking towards the door. 'Nice suit, Maurice. Good cut. You must let me have the name of your tailor.'
Up in Nottingham, Dave Eaglin was still stonewalling like a tail-ender facing up to Australians at Trent Bridge. Stubbornness, grit, and a dodgy technique. Self-preservation uppermost in his mind. Sooner or later, his interrogators would slip one through his defences and that would be that. Game over.
In another similarly airless and anonymous room, Ricky Bland was playing a different game. More attacking, more imaginative but mired in risk. Ian Botham. Andrew Flintoff. You scored your ton against the odds or went down fighting.
'Wait, wait a minute, Charlie. Wait. That tape, the conversation you claim I had with Summers -'
'Claim? It's your voice, Ricky, clear as day.'
'Maybe, maybe.'
'No maybes about it.'
'Okay, for the sake of argument, let's say it could be me.'
'Ricky.'
'Could be, okay?'
'We've got photographs of you and Summers talking, timed. We've got the tape, timed. What do you think? Right. They coincide. It's you on the tape, tapping Summers for information, offering him a deal.'
'Come on, Charlie. Wise up. Get your head out the sand. What d'you think? We get what we need out of this scum without offering them something in return? What d'you think's going on out there, Charlie? It's not helping old ladies across the fucking road. There's a serious fucking drug problem that we're just about keeping the lid on. Just. And never mind the odd handgun, there's thirteen-year-old kids out there riding round with grenades and fucking rocket launchers. It's a war, Charlie, a fucking war.'
'With rules.'
'Fuck the rules!'
'Exactly.'
'Fuck the fucking rules!'
'Exactly.'
Bland lurched forward. 'Okay, listen. You know how long I've been out there, on the streets? Down in the smoke and then up here. You know how long?'