. . . instead of, like now, finding some makeweight mission that had them feeling still in the game, but she could sit and bemoan her fate or find a way into this building, so she skipped down the alley, ignoring the first door because it would clearly be locked, turning the corner at the end, passing a double door secured by padlock and chain, and came to a fire escape, its metal struts and handrails a Meccano construction in the fading light, but presumably these things were assessed by Health and Safety so up she went, the structure creaking under her weight, which was a cheek—she wasn’t a hippo—and debris on every landing suggesting the stairs were used as a breakout space, cigarette ends, empty vape tubes, the scraggy end of joints, plastic cups, a pair of boxer shorts, and a stray lyric swam into her mind, something about smoking cigarettes and staring at the moon, and then she was focused again, checking each door until she came to one that opened, that had had its tenon taped over to prevent it locking, which was maybe a clue as to why the club had folded, and she slipped through this door and was inside the building . . .
While Lech and the others went round the far side, River and Sid followed Louisa down the alley. She hurtled past the first door they reached, which, when Sid tried it, proved unlocked: It gave onto an upwards-inclined corridor. The lighting was harsh—an unshaded bulb—and a door at the far end was ajar, suggesting a large dark space beyond. Someone should have put up a sign reading trap, River thought.
“Maybe going straight through isn’t the best idea.”
“What, suddenly you’re Mr. Discretion?”
They spoke in whispers.
“Well, it’s been a long day.”
“You mean, you’re being cautious because I’m with you. You think CC’s through there with a gun?”
“I’m still thinking of him as Stam, actually.”
“Because even if he is, he’s not likely to shoot us.” She amended this. “Or not me, anyway. I think he quite likes me.”
“Why were you in Oxford?”
“I had a good reason.”
“Like getting your job back?”
“Shall we focus on whether CC, Stam, whatever, is here to kill Judd? That’s probably more urgent.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“I lost my phone, that’s all. Are we going through that door?”
“Me first.”
“Fuck off you first. I’m smaller. Less of a target.”
“Thought you said he wouldn’t shoot you.”
“It was a joke. Lighten up.”
She led the way through the half-open door into the club.
When walking a city, look up.
Something Big Dog’s dad had said to him when he was a pup, meaning there were things you missed if you didn’t: the skyline, clocks on corners, the unexpected niches in which statues sat. A bit of a poet, the old man, who’d spent his life advising people on the best kind of mortgage to take out, or at least, the best kind the building society he worked for offered. Big Dog didn’t know whether his lyrical tendencies were a reaction against his day job or in some incomprehensible way an extension of it, but he did know that every time he remembered the old man saying this, he looked up. Which was how come he saw someone climbing the fire escape of the nightclub on the corner; someone who looked like a slow horse, the one who’d been with Cartwright in Oxford this morning.
Nursing a smile, he headed towards the alley.
Lech and Ash were by the padlocked doors. Louisa had disappeared up the fire escape. Shirley and Roddy had carried on round the corner, where Lech figured their next move would be for Shirley to hit some coke while Roddy mentioned his tattoo.
“It’s a combination lock?” said Ash.
“I can see that.”
“With like four numbers. So how many possibilities is that? A million?”
“Well, nine thousand nine hundred and—”
“Which might as well be a million.”
Lech thought: Yes, but do they make everyone who works here learn a number? He had the feeling it was the sort of place, if you could do numbers, you’d get a job somewhere else. Though saying that in front of Ash would earn him a black mark.
“Except,” said Ash, “they probably don’t make the dorks who work here memorise numbers.”
“. . . Woke, much?”
“I’m woke.” She glanced around at takeaway cartons, vape cartridges, broken bottles. “I’m not, like, insomniac.”
So they were on the same wavelength as far as combination padlocks went, which—short version—was: Instead of being asked to remember a number, those with responsibility for locking or unlocking these doors would probably be expected to remember one other simple action instead, like moving the final dial up one (no) or down one (no) or just the first dial up one (no) or down one (no) or all the dials up one (no) or down one (no), or—
“Fuck’s sake,” said Ash. “Give it here.”
“Oh, you can pick locks?”
As it turned out, (yes), if by picking locks you meant inserting a screwdriver and prising one apart. The padlock offered little resistance, being more of a disincentive to loiterers than an actual security device. Ash smirked as she pocketed her tool, unhooked the chain and pushed the doors open.
“You always carry a screwdriver?”
“Girl about town,” she said, slipping inside before him.
. . . where it was dark, so Louisa headed down the stairs to the next landing to find two more doors, one locked and the other revealing, by the light of her silvery phone, a jungle gym of stacked chairs and electrical equipment, and on she went, down a stairwell on which posters for expired events had been tacked in a spirit of triumph or nostalgia, or possibly neglect, and she couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that this was displacement activity, another idiot’s errand for the slow horses to pursue, this one River’s fault, because River had never been one to sit quietly when he could be making a fool of himself instead, which was harsh but true, and maybe the harshness was because River and Sid were together now, but it was way too late to be having thoughts like that so she went down the next flight and this time found herself pushing through a swing door onto what appeared to be a balcony . . .
“That’s open.”
“. . . So what?”
“So you could fit through it.”
Under discussion was a sash window: a metre wide, fifteen centimetres high, it was fuzzy glass and sat above a larger pane, similarly opaque. A toilet, obvs. Ideal for passing contraband through, the stuff bouncers confiscated at the door—bottles of vodka, more bottles of vodka—but also, it occurred to Shirley, Roddy Hos, if you bundled them small.
“There is no way I’m fitting through that. It’s the size of a letterbox!”
“Your trouble is, you’re all about the problems.”
Plus, if you were stuck with him as your partner, you were coming last. Louisa had disappeared, and Shirley could hear Lech and Ash round the corner, rattling a chain like Houdini shedding a skin. River and Sid had gone the other way, and had probably found an open door. So she and Roddy would be out here arguing about a window while the action, whatever that was, happened elsewhere. Grim fucking outcome. As usual.
And who was this?
Who not what, because Shirley could spot a Dog at the usual distance: a mile off. Everyone here was way outside their ground—with the notable exception of Shirley herself, because nowhere was offbeat to Shirley—and all of them scuffling about because River thought a black-bag op was going down, and if Shirley had her doubts about this at least some of them dispersed then and there, because why would a Dog be here unless bad shit was suspected?