At the window, Erik Nyquist made a noise in his throat. Chris glanced across at him.
‘Hey, I’m sorry if that upsets your sensibilities, Erik. But this is the way the world is run.’
‘Yes. I know that.’
fucking bastard screamed the woman next door. The baby was crying again. Chris frowned into his drink.
‘Well, Erik, maybe you’d prefer it if we left these generals with their skulls intact, and then they could roll their tanks out to play in the streets of Phnom Penh and slaughter a few thousand people.’
‘The way Khieu Sary is going to, you mean?’
‘That’s not the way we’ve modelled it.’
‘Oh, good:
Again, Vasvik said something in Norwegian, and Erik looked back out at the night. He seemed to see something of interest down below.
‘Your friends are leaving,’ he said flatly. ‘That’s obviously enough law enforcement for this month. We must have used up our credit.’
‘Hey, not my friends, Erik.’ Chris grinned at the older man. ‘I just paid them off, that’s all. Just because I give someone money, doesn’t mean I like them. You should know that.’
‘The point,’ said Vasvik sharply, ‘is that we would like you to remain in position until the Nakamura move is completed one way or another. The Cambodian EZs are under investigation—‘
Chris hissed through his teeth. ‘Yeah, so what else is new. Don’t tell me you’re actually getting ready to take someone to that joke court of yours.’
Something smashed against the wall in the next flat. The male voice was back, competing for air time with the woman. The baby’s crying scaled up a couple of notches, maybe in an attempt to be heard over all the yelling. Chris raised an eyebrow and drank some more Clan Scott.
‘We need inside information from after any move by the Cambodian military.’ For all the change in Vasvik’s voice, the fight going on next door could have been on TV. ‘I don’t want to disclose details but if we don’t have clear data then a number of the people we’ve got our eye on will be able to use the confusion of the coup to muddy the waters over their own actions. They’ll get through the reasonable doubt loophole and they’ll walk. We’ll lose the whole case.’
‘Don’t you usually?’
cunt, cunt, cunt screamed the guy next door. Fucking CUNT
A blow, and someone falling. A broken shriek.
The baby, wailing.
Carla came out of the kitchen, as if fired from a gun.
‘Dad, what the fuck is he doing to—‘
‘I know.’ Erik came to take his daughter’s hands. He looked suddenly very old. ‘It’s, he’s. It happens a lot. There’s nothing you can—‘
Vasvik stared into the middle distance with no more emotion than a cat.
Another shriek. A meaty thump. Chris stared around and coughed out a laugh.
‘You guys are fucking hysterical, you know that. Erik, with your fucking writing, and the fucking ombudsman here. All going to change the fucking world for the better.’ Suddenly he was yelling himself. ‘Look at yourselves. You’re fucking paralysed, all of you.’
Something hit the wall, big enough to be a body. Blows followed, regular, spaced. Chanting.
you cunt, like that? you cunt, like that? you fucking like that cunt?
He was in motion, and it was like the Saab ride home all over again. Embodied purpose, unstoppable. He went out, along the tiny entry hall, out the front door, left, along to the next door. He kicked it in. Cheap wood splintered in the frame, the door flew back. Slammed into the wall, rebounded. He kicked again and erupted into the space beyond, through the hall and into the lounge.
They’d heard him come in. The woman was sprawled across the carpet, dressed in a short, moth-eaten, grey towelling robe and moving weakly like an injured soldier trying to crawl to cover. She was bleeding from the mouth. Below the hem of the robe, her thighs were mottled with old bruises. The baby was in a plastic carry chair, marooned atop a cheap entertainment stack near the kitchen door, mouth open wide as if in surprise. The father was turning, garish purple shellsuit bottoms and a red sleeveless T-shirt tight across a boxer’s physique. MEAT THE RICH was inked across his chest in white capitals stretched wide. His eyes were defocused with fury and his fists were clenched. Blood on the knuckles of the right hand.
‘You’re making too much noise,’ said Chris.
‘What?’ The man blinked. The lack of uniform registered. Maybe the cut of Chris’s clothes too. ‘Fuck are you doing in my house, cunt? You looking for a fucking fight?’
‘Yeah.’
Another blink. ‘You fucking what?
‘Yeah. I’m looking for a fight.’
For some reason, the answer seemed to stall the other man. Chris, who’d been worried about the baby, used the moment to take two neat steps sideways and give himself a clear field of fire. The other man gaped as if the executive in front of him had just done a pirouette. Chris cleared the Nemex and pointed the weapon in a single fluid move that he reckoned Louise Hewitt would have been proud of. The man gaped some more.
‘Never mind.’
Bang
Chris shot as low down the thigh as he trusted himself to hit. The target screamed and collapsed, clutching at his leg. Chris reversed his grip on the gun, stepped in close and clubbed the man hard, sideways across the head. He went down, eyes rolled up. The woman on the floor shrieked and scuttled backwards into a corner.
‘It’s okay,’ Chris said absently. ‘I won’t hurt you.’
‘Chris!’
Carla stood in the doorway, face ashen. Staring at him.
‘It’s okay, he’s not dead.’ Chris thought about it for a moment, then put the Nemex to the man’s knee, just below the first wound, and pulled the trigger. The man jerked with the impact, but didn’t come round. Carla and the other woman’s screams seemed to blend in the wake of the shot. The baby started wailing again. He looked across at the woman, whose left eye was rapidly swelling closed. Thought some more. He placed the Nemex muzzle on the man’s right elbow—
‘Chris -don’t.’
—and pulled the trigger again.
Carla jerked back as if it was her he’d shot.
He put the Nemex away and crossed to where the woman was crouched in the corner. He took out his wallet and gave her about half of the cash he was carrying.
‘Listen,’ he said, pressing it into her hand. ‘Pay attention, listen. This is for you. Call him an ambulance if you like, but don’t let them take him in. They’ll try to. It’s what they’re paid to do, that’s how they make the big money. Don’t let them. They’ll dress the wounds here if you ask them to. It’s cheaper and it’s all he needs. He’s not in any danger. He won’t die. Do you understand?’
She just stared at him.
He sighed and folded her hand around the money. She flinched as he touched her. He sighed again and got up. Looked at the baby. The mess around him. He shook his head and turned away.
They were all there now. Erik Nyquist, features tight with disgust. Carla, hugged in her father’s arms, face buried in his chest. Vasvik silent and impassive.
‘What?’ he asked them. ‘What?’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The Landrover jolted over another pothole, hard and too fast. Coins and other dashboard detritus cascaded onto the floor. Chris swayed in the grip of his seatbelt. He glanced across at Carla.
‘You want to slow down a bit?’
She looked back at him, then away. Said nothing. The Landrover bounced again. High beams splashed jerkily across the curve of the unlit street and a ravaged concrete structure that looked as if it might once have been the back end of an arena. Dead street lamps stood at intervals, most of them remarkably intact and upright.
‘For Christ’s sake, Carla, this is the zones. You really want to have to stop and change a flat tyre around here?’
She shrugged. ‘You’ve got a gun. I’m sure you can cripple anyone who gives us a hard time.’