Really should have given serious thought to being a stunt-man.
Because he was getting into the groove now, and it felt kind of wild. Okay, not doing the suspension any favours, but face it: a hot rod belonging to Hot Rod was going to have its suspension put through its paces sooner or later. As for the scene he was leaving behind, yeah, things had got messed up, but what could you expect with Shirley Dander providing distraction? Any job involving that mad chick was bound to go fruit-shaped. Enough to make you wonder whose side she was on. But that didn’t matter right now.
What mattered right now was: on the passenger seat lay his phone, screen upwards, dumped there by Shirley when she left to kill the bus.
And what mattered was: the pulsing dot that was Louisa’s phone was getting nearer. Or rather, Roddy was getting nearer the pulsing dot.
Which had been the mission all along, and he was the only one out here completing it.
The only one bar Lech, that was, though Roddy didn’t know Lech was on the common. For his part, that he was on the common was about the only thing Lech did know, as far as his whereabouts went. Until the commotion following Shirley’s shattering of the coach windscreen, he’d been striding in what he hoped was a straight line, this seeming a more sensible option than wandering in circles, though neither amounted to what could be called a plan. Odd sounds had drifted his way—sighs and mutterings—but it was possible, he thought, that the ground had stored away these daytime whispers; was softly releasing them, now night had fallen, like so many pockets of gas. But the noise that erupted after Shirley’s party trick blew past him like hot air. He turned, and saw the distant chaos as if it were a rock concert viewed from afar: all the light and sound focused on one corner of the darkness. But even as he had that thought, something broke away from the stage; a pair of headlights had come loose, to make their bumpy way across the common. Had to be some kind of idiot, thought Lech. But given that the vehicle was heading more or less in his direction, it at least provided illumination of sorts; when its twin cones of light weren’t pointing at the sky, they were throwing themselves haphazardly onto the common, and picking out movement somewhere not far ahead.
Some of this was Louisa, dodging another kick thrown by Number Eleven.
It was a favourite gambit of his, despite its lack of success so far. Perhaps he’d watched it done on screen; perhaps he thought he was doing it right. A good talking to would have put him straight, but Louisa was saving her breath for where it would do most good, this being keeping on her feet and moving about enough that neither man could land a blow. Her main problem was that there were two of them. Neither on his own would scare her much, but one mistake on her part would leave her open to being stomped on, and worse. So when Roddy’s headlights made themselves known she felt her spirits lift; not enough to distract her from her current vigilance, but more than they would have done had she been aware they were Roddy’s.
“Company’s coming,” she said.
Eleven’s reply was another kick, which he signalled enough that she had no trouble dodging.
Green Trainers was more of an issue. Bald, bearded and sleeve-tattooed, he was less inclined to use his feet as weapons, but nimbler on them than his companion. And while he was enjoying himself just as much—his small, even teeth bared in a grin—there was calculation too. He was letting Eleven wear Louisa out. When she made a mistake, he’d drop on her like a raptor . . . But she had something this pair didn’t, she’d walked away from gunfights, and that thought sparked a gallery of images: of being shot at way above London by a Russian hood; of waging a small war underground, River at her side; of decking a mercenary with a monkey wrench on a snow-covered lane in Wales. All that and more. Others, true, had died, but Louisa was still standing. And these guys were amateurs. So when Number Eleven aimed his latest kick—yawn—instead of dancing back she moved sideways, grabbed his ankle and twisted. Threw him away. She didn’t break anything—she would if he tried it again—but he gave a satisfying yelp all the same.
But while Eleven was briefly airborne, Trainers made his move: nipping in, throwing a punch. It contained more energy than finesse but caught her on the shoulder all the same, and as she quick-stepped backwards, the ground disappeared beneath her foot—only a two-inch depression; the scrabbling of a fox or a dog, but enough to rob her of balance. Bad shit happened in the dark: next moment she was on her back, Green Trainers on top of her, his hands on her throat, his face too close. He snarled something, its gist clear. Those headlights weren’t arriving fast enough, and she was dimly aware that Number Eleven was getting to his feet; soon they’d both be on her, and that would be that. She tried battering Trainers’s head, but made no impact: his hands were squeezing, hard. Stars popped in her eyes as her left hand went scrabbling for something—anything—that would work as a weapon. A gun would be nice. An event took place out of sight, a thud followed by a sigh and a slump, and meanwhile her hand, bless it, found an object, plastic, hard, her headtorch? Her headtorch. She mashed it, bright and hot, into Green Trainers’s left eye. This did the trick. He screamed, though he’d have a more macho word for it, and pulled back, allowing her to breathe once more. The night air tasted of blood. While she sucked in as much of it as she could Green Trainers slid sideways, all cohesion leaving his features. She must remember how she did that. And then a goggle-faced blonde woman was crouching beside her. “Are you all right?”
“. . . I think so.”
Though she felt like a jellyfish must feeclass="underline" all nerves on high alert, but a distinct absence of muscle-tone.
Doctor de Greer was holding a brick. Where had Dr. de Greer found a brick? Maybe she’d ordered it from somewhere, Louisa’s jangled brain suggested. It was, after all, just what the doctor—
To her left, Green Trainers was struggling to his feet. She pushed herself upright, ready to kick his teeth in, but this proved unnecessary. He stumbled away into the dark. Number Eleven had already made tracks. As double dates went, you couldn’t call it a big hit.
De Greer started to say something, but at precisely that moment the approaching car hit level ground, allowing its headlights to stare directly at them, and as she raised a hand against the glare, Louisa caught sight—like an image from a pinhole camera—of a stick-like character trapped in the twin beams. It had its arms raised, as if alerting the oncoming driver to its presence, an action it seemed to undertake in slow motion though in actual fact happened at the speed of reality, which in this case was about twelve miles an hour. Which felt a lot faster to Roddy, attempting to steer his bouncing bronco over the dark common, and an awful lot faster to Lech, whom Roddy clipped on his way past. For a second Lech was a blur in his own mind, his sense of self dissolving like the wisp of a dream upon waking, but shortly afterwards he was definitely corporeal once again, and every square inch hurting. Roddy wasn’t aware he’d hit anything, because one bump feels much like another. Besides, he could make out two waiting figures at the far reach of his headlights, and was pretty certain one of them was Louisa. The second was also a woman, which was fine by him. There was nothing like making a good first impression, and who wouldn’t want to see Roddy Ho turning up in the nick of time, dispensing whatever justice was required?
Louisa, realising it was Roddy, and who he must just have run over, said to de Greer, “Still got that brick?”
“Are you a spook?”
“What’s a spook?”
“That’s right,” de Greer replied. “I thought you probably were.”