Movement behind the door. He shouldered the set and tried to look like a cameraman.
‘You know what fucking time it is?’ said a female voice from the speaker grille. ‘This had better be fucking important.’
Mike pitched his voice media bouncy. ‘Ah, Mrs Dixon? This is Gavin Wallace from Powerful People. Is your husband home?’
A silence. Chris imagined her peering into the securicam screen at the two expensively-dressed men on her doorstep. The voice came, tinged with suspicion.
‘You from TV?’
‘Yes, Mrs Dixon, that’s what I said. Your husband has been selected from—‘
A second voice, male and further from the speaker pick-up. The woman’s voice faded as she turned away from the door.
‘Griff, it’s the TV. Powerful People.’
Another pause, laced with muffled voices. Someone had a hand over the pick-up. Mike looked at Chris, shrugged and put on the media voice again.
‘Mr Dixon, if you’re there. We don’t have a lot of time. The helicopter has already left Blackfriars, and we need to get through the preliminaries before it arrives. We’re on a very tight schedule.’
It was the right chord. Half the draw of Powerful People derived from the breakneck pace the programme sustained from the moment the names came out of the studio computer. There was much aerial footage, cityscapes tilting away beneath the swift-flying pick-up copters, locator teams sprinting through the zones in search of the night’s contestants—
The door cracked open the width of a heavy-duty security chain. A lean, pale face appeared in the gap, blinking in the light from the shoulder set. There was a thin pink streak of artiflesh smeared over a cut on one temple.
‘Mr Dixon. Good.’ Mike leaned in, beaming. ‘Gavin Wallace. Powerful People. Pleased to. Oh. That looks nasty, that cut. Make-up’ll need to see that. In fact, I hate to say this but in all conscience—‘
It was a stroke of genius. Powerful People’s selection teams had been known to pass over a candidate for as little as recent dental surgery. The door hinged in, the chain came off. Griff Dixon stood before them in all his midnight glory.
‘It’s just a scratch,’ he said. ‘Honest. I’ll be fine. I’m fighting fit.’
It was an appropriate expression, Chris thought. Dixon was stripped to the waist, taut-muscled torso rising from a pair of jeans with real stains on them. His hair was a razored single centimetre all over, there were heavy black boots on his feet and in his hand was a crumpled-up white T-shirt that Chris somehow knew he had just tugged off.
‘Well,’ said Mike richly. ‘If you’re quite sure you—‘
‘I’m fine, I’m fine. Look, you want to come in, right.’
‘Well, alright.’ Mike made a show of wiping his shoes on the doorstep and walked into the threadbare hall, smiling a big TV smile. ‘Hello, Mrs Dixon.’
A thin, worn-looking woman about Carla’s age stood behind Dixon’s sculpted musculature, one thin-boned hand resting on his shoulder. She squinted into the camera light and brushed vaguely at her shoulder-length brown hair.
‘This is my colleague Christopher Mitchell. I’m sorry. Could we maybe film this in the living room?’
‘Yeah, yeah. Sure.’ Dixon’s eagerness was almost pitiful. ‘Jazz, make some tea, will you. Or would you like coffee?’
Bryant glanced round. ‘Christopher?’
‘Uhh, yeah.’ Chris fumbled the question. ‘Coffee. White, no sugar.’
‘And black for me,’ said Mike. ‘One sugar, please. Thank you.’
The woman disappeared up the hall, while Dixon let them pass and closed the door behind them. In his excitement, he forgot the chain. They went left into a small living room dominated by a huge Audi entertainment deck set against one wall. The system didn’t look any older than the securicam in the door.
‘Ah, that corner, I think,’ said Mike, nodding at Chris. ‘I’ll sit here and Griff, do you mind if I call you Griff, if you could sit here.’
Dixon lowered himself onto the edge of the armchair. There was something painfully vulnerable in the expression on his face as he looked at Bryant.
‘You’ll need to get dressed,’ said Mike gently.
‘Huh?’
‘The T-shirt?’
‘Oh. Oh, no, it’s. Filthy.’ He compressed the already crumpled piece of clothing in his hands. ‘Been working on my bike. I’ll go up and get another one.’
‘Well.’ Bryant lifted a forestalling hand. ‘Perhaps in a moment. But we really need to get these questions sorted out. Uhm. You have a child, don’t you?’
‘Yeah.’ Dixon grinned happily. ‘Joe. He’s three.’
‘And he’s,’ Mike gestured at the ceiling. ‘Upstairs asleep, I suppose.’
‘Well, yeah.’
‘Good, good. Alright, now the official questions,’ Bryant reached into his jacket. ‘Where are we, ah. Yes.’
The Nemex.
Even for Chris, the transition was an almost electrical jolt. Mike transformed in a single motion from beaming, chocolate-voiced media host to a man with a levelled gun.
For Dixon, it was clearly beyond the realms of comprehension.
‘What’s,’ he shook his head, grin still licking around his lips. ‘What’s, what’re you doing?’
‘Chris.’ Mike didn’t look round. ‘Close the door.’
Dixon still hadn’t got it. ‘Is this part of—‘
‘Show us the T-shirt.’
‘Wha—‘
‘Show me the motherfucking T-shirt, you piece of shit!’
‘Mike?’
‘Just relax, Chris. Everything’s under control. When Jazz comes back, you just keep her out of the way. We’re not here for her.’
Dixon stirred. ‘Listen—‘
‘No, you listen.’ Bryant took a step forward and drew a fresh downward bead on Dixon’s face. ‘Throw the T-shirt on the floor. Now.’
‘No.’
‘I’m not going to ask you again. Show me the fucking T-shirt.’
‘No.’ It was like talking to a cornered child.
Bryant moved faster than Chris had ever seen another human being move. From standing, he was suddenly at Dixon’s chair. The Nemex whipped out sideways and Dixon was reeling back, clutching at his head with both hands. The T-shirt fell to the threadbare carpet and Bryant scooped it up left-handed. Blood splintered bright through Dixon’s fingers.
‘You’re not on TV, Griff.’ Mike’s tone had gone back to conversational. He crouched to Dixon’s level. ‘There’s no need to be shy.’
He shook the T-shirt out and laid it on the floor, face up. It was clean and freshly ironed, black lettering on soft white cotton.
White Aryan Resistance.
The words were printed horizontally, one under the other, the first letter of each limned in red in case someone didn’t get the message.
The door swung open and Jazz backed into the room, still crouching from the contortion necessary to depress the handle without putting down the tray in her hands.
‘I brought some—‘
Turning, she saw Griff cringing and bleeding in the chair, saw the gun in Mike Bryant’s hand. She dropped the tray and shrieked. The coffee leapt sideways, broad swipes of liquid on its way to the floor. Cheap crockery scattered and broke amidst something else. Biscuits, Chris saw. She’d brought biscuits.
‘Be quiet,’ snapped Bryant. ‘You’re going to wake Joe up.’
Naming the child seemed to do something to Griff Dixon. He dropped his hands from his face. The gouge that the forward sight of the Nemex had opened in his scalp showed clearly through his razored hair, and blood was running down his face into one eye.
‘You fucking listen to me. Whoever you are, I know people. You touch any of us, I’ll—‘
‘You’ll do nothing, Griff. You’ll sit there and fucking bleed, and you’ll listen to me, and you’ll do nothing. Jazz, will you shut up. Chris, for Christ’s sake make her sit down or something.’
Chris got hold of the woman and forced her onto the sofa. She was trembling and making a high keening sound that might have had the words my baby in it somewhere.