Louisa would have been off already, but Marcus caught her by the arm. Anyone else and she’d have broken his elbow—she was in the mood. But Marcus didn’t break easily, and had a message to impart.
“There’s someone else. After Chapman.”
“Who?”
“A pro.”
He released her.
And now she was away, faster than Marcus, who was getting a little heavy, frankly. A police car was coming; as she turned the corner it pulled up by the library, its blue light throwing ghosts onto wet surfaces. This new street was narrower, and right-angled a few hundred yards on; a figure was disappearing round the corner. Could be Chapman. Back at Slough House Ho was tracking his movements, relaying them to Marcus, but Louisa was offline.
She glanced behind. Marcus was following, his features set in a grimace.
At the corner, she turned left. The road ahead forked, one tine winding under a railway bridge where a pair of youngsters were sheltering, hand in hand. A woman was approaching, dragging a basket on wheels; beyond her, heading away, a figure in a raincoat was hustling along. On the opposite pavement a younger man, leather jacket, shoulders hunched, was moving fast.
Marcus caught her, one finger holding his earpiece in place. “He’s ahead of us. Two hundred yards?”
“Wearing a raincoat,” she said. “And there’s the pro. Leather jacket.”
“He see you?”
She wasn’t sure. She didn’t think so.
Marcus said, “Loop round at this next junction. If you’re fast enough, you’ll overtake him before he hits the main road.”
Making it sound like a challenge, which was probably deliberate.
She nodded and took off, breaking into a run once she’d rounded the corner.
Two of them, thought Patrice. The target was ahead, walking briskly, and there were two behind him: a suspicion confirmed by a reflection in a ground-floor window, cracked open to release a veil of blue smoke. If they knew what they were doing they would separate soon, though if they knew what they were doing, they wouldn’t have let him spot them so easily.
They might come to regret that.
His hands were bunched inside his pockets. Rain slid down his neck. But the rain was his friend, keeping the backstreets clear, and people’s attention elsewhere. The target had turned another corner, but that was fine. There were only so many corners left.
Have to lose some weight.
That wasn’t so much Marcus’s own mind forming thoughts as a small version of Cassie, his wife, making a guest appearance in his head.
Then Shirley’s voice was in his ear, completing the duet: “He’s ahead of you. Why aren’t you running?”
“. . . Sort of am,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Why aren’t you running faster?”
He was tempted to toss the earpiece, but going dark was frowned upon, midway through an op.
The man in the leather jacket had turned the corner after Chapman, and any doubt he was following had dispersed now. True, there were only so many routes, and everyone looked furtive in the rain, but stilclass="underline" there was something about the way the man moved. He didn’t break stride to avoid puddles, but didn’t splash through them either. Handy gift to have. Marcus bet his feet were grateful.
Shirley said, “Chapman’s stopping.”
“Where?”
“Next left, then right. Taking shelter?”
“Taking guard, more like,” Marcus said, and felt something tighten in his chest; the same feeling he got playing blackjack, watching the dealer deal. Knowing, always, that he couldn’t lose, whatever experience might suggest to the contrary.
The extra pound or two didn’t fall away, but stilclass="underline" Marcus felt lighter as he picked up his pace, following the spook on Chapman’s tail.
Another bridge over the road, this one with a train crossing. Its thunder filled the world for a moment, and then it was gone, and the rain was heavier, pounding the pavements ahead.
It seemed to Bad Sam Chapman that everything had grown darker.
His breathing was rough, and his thigh muscles aching: this without breaking into a trot. What age did to you, and late-night drinking. But age was inevitable, up to a point; as for late-night drinking, this was not easily avoided either. All political lives end in failure, someone once said. Spooks’ lives, too, held more to regret than to cherish, a conclusion it was hard to ignore once the light drained from the day. You could stay up late brooding, or you could stay up late brooding drunk. There weren’t many other options.
Bad Sam hoped like hell he’d find Chelsea Barker. He hated to leave things unfinished.
He crossed the road into a sidestreet and passed a pair of wooden gates, chained closed, but loosely enough to allow for a gap. For the first time, he looked behind. His follower wasn’t in sight; was leaving enough space between them to give Chapman the illusion of safety. Here it was, then. He took hold of one gate, pushed at the other, and ducked under the chain. He was in a garage forecourt: two black cabs parked against one wall; a workshop with its doors concertinaed open, a naked bulb glowing, but nobody in evidence. There’d be a hammer, a monkey wrench, something. Just give me a minute, Sam thought. Give me two. Time to catch my breath. He didn’t even know why this was happening, but that hardly mattered: this, or something like it, had always been on the cards. He wasn’t the only one who hated unfinished business. It went with the territory.
Patrice almost walked straight past, but there was that odd hint of movement; the suggestion that the gates were trembling in the rain. Chapman must be past the point of pretence—when you found yourself hiding in back yards, you were beyond caution and into the fear. Now was as good a time as any. His own pursuers had yet to show themselves; if he moved quickly, he and Chapman might finish their mission without interruption. Because it was a joint mission. Chapman had a significant role to play in its fulfillment. A murder is nothing without a victim.
Overhead, an airliner on the Heathrow approach was briefly visible below cloud, and then was gone.
Patrice slipped under the chain, one hand on the gate to prevent it wobbling. The yard seemed empty, though a light glimmered in the workshop. From his pocket he took a pair of thin leather gloves. When he snapped the poppers to tighten them at the wrist, the sound was the loudest thing on the planet.
When Louisa reached the junction the street was empty except for a fat woman, barrelling along like a boat in turbulent water. Louisa swore under her breath and did a quick 360-degree scan: there was nowhere for them to have gone. There hadn’t been time. Which meant they’d left the street altogether: entered a building, a shop, something . . .
There were no shops. A wall this side of the railway bridge was so plastered in graffiti it looked camouflaged, ready to be dropped unnoticed into someone’s acid trip; on the other side was a former gym, forfeiture notices pasted to its whitewashed windows. She glanced up at the bridge, but they’d have to be Spider-Man to have got up there. Spider-Men. And it wasn’t like they’d be working in concert.
A pro, Marcus had said. The way Chapman had ducked for cover, he’d known there was someone on his tail. So he’d have gone to ground first chance he got . . .
Beyond the bridge, set back from the road, was a pair of wooden gates: a garage perhaps, closed at the moment, a loose chain dangling from slack brackets.
Through there.
She should wait for Marcus who wouldn’t be more than a minute—make that a minute and a half. But a minute and a half was a long time for a pro; long enough to do anything he wanted.
A sudden squall of wind chased a curtain of rain down the road. It had a bracing effect. She had a task in hand: take Bad Sam Chapman to Slough House. A taxi was approaching, slowing down for her, but Louisa was nobody’s fare today. She trotted towards the gates, pushed them as wide as the chain would allow, and slipped into the yard in time to see a crowbar come hurtling at her head.