Which left Beneseffe. A bribe might be out of the question now, he might just have to go in there and stare him down. What if Beneseffe regarded his job as a sacred trust, or if he was more frightened of the Fleet than he was of Tigerman?
Will you make him afraid? And then trust him not to betray you when you have gone? Or will you tell him everything and hope he doesn’t sell you to Kershaw or Hasp?
Gravel crunched under the Land Rover’s wheels, and he put the handbrake on too hard, felt it complain and shudder, released the brake a little and ran for the door.
Inside the door he stopped cold. There was someone waiting for him, and it wasn’t the boy. He could tell from the feel of the place, the nature of the quiet. The refugees had moved to the far wings, and the house murmured with them, but his little space was still his own. None of them came here without asking. The boy did, but he was at home here and his presence was calm and unobtrusive. This was not him. It wasn’t soldiers, either, with an arrest warrant, or Kathy Hasp hoping for more indiscretions.
For one moment, the Sergeant thought it must be Jack, then he hoped it was Inoue, and then he was terrified it might be Inoue, because he would have to get rid of her or tell her everything and he could not get rid of her. Could not. If she was here she had chosen to miss her flight out, and something in him would not permit the vandalism in turning her away. It would – he was amazed and delighted to find – break his heart.
He had given himself most improvidently in these last weeks.
It was neither of them. He knew as soon as the other man moved. He could hear the breathing, the sigh of effort with each step.
White Raoul.
He was alone, and he had abandoned his crutch. Perhaps he no longer needed it, or perhaps for moments of great significance he rejected it. The Sergeant was amazed by the force of certainty that he carried. It was like meeting a general in your living room, an unexpected eminence too big for the space. He wondered how much courage it took for the man to stand there. The scrivener could tell the world, if he chose, who had made the Tigerman stele – and for whom. Was it courage or trust that let him stand there unafraid of the man who wore it and did mad things? Because surely men had been murdered for less dangerous knowledge.
There was no time for whatever this was, but the Sergeant was caught in it, and somehow it was of a piece, it was important.
‘I ain’t here to stop you, Honest,’ White Raoul said. ‘I think you’re crazy, but I ain’t going to tell you to stop. You done well enough, I guess.’
The Sergeant nodded.
‘And now you goin’ to do some other fool thing for that boy.’
‘Yes.’
‘Honest, you are a very strange man. You ever consider just telling him you love him like a son?’
Considered it every day. But never done it, and it was hard to say exactly why. Well, no, it wasn’t. ‘Too scared, I think.’
White Raoul snorted. ‘Face down guns. Can’t talk to a boy.’
‘Seems funny when you put it that way.’
‘You need practice, is all.’ White Raoul eyed him. ‘Why don’t you tell me now? What you’d say to him if you weren’t too chicken. I’m his grandpappy, after all. If you die out there, someone oughta know.’
‘Not planning on it.’
‘Tcha. Whoever does?’
And this logic seemed abruptly unassailable. ‘I’d say… what would I say? I’d say he’s my friend. He’s not the sort needs a dad like a straightforward sort of dad, not any more. But he needs a place to hang his hat. He needs a bed and a roof and someone to dust him off when he falls, take him out for his first beer. He’s probably had his first beer, I suppose. But his first beer as a man. You know what I mean. And sort him out when he gets in a tangle over a girl. And teach him how to change a tyre, or… well, I suppose he can do that already too. And he knows computers, which I don’t.’ He was drying up. What exactly could he do that the boy couldn’t do for himself? Not much. ‘I can show him how to be the right sort of stupid. How to put your hand in the fire for someone you love. I can do that.’ I do that quite well, it turns out. ‘But I think I just want him to know he doesn’t have to be alone. I don’t want to buy him, I want to give him whatever I can. Me. For a dad. For however much he needs me.’ He hung his head. It sounded very small. ‘I just want to be there to help. To be who we are. I don’t care where. Mancreu. London. Japan, even. I do wonder about Japan. He’d like Japan. They have ninjas there, and crazy blokes who go scuba diving to rescue their mothers-in-law, and temples and Zen and that. It’s been amazing being a superhero, by the way. It’s totally mad. But I don’t need it. I don’t want to be this… character. Not much. What I want… I want to be his dad. And that’s all.’
White Raoul gazed at him, then walked wordlessly past him to the front door. Shuffle, clump. Shuffle, clump.
‘Well?’ the Sergeant demanded. ‘You wanted to hear it. You said I needed practice. How did I do?’
White Raoul shrugged. ‘Lied about that,’ he said.
The Sergeant had no idea what he might mean. Lied about what? And then he felt his stomach vanish into his boots, felt an explosion pass through him from his chest to his fingertips, and, turning, saw the boy in the doorway of his room.
They stared at one another. How did I do?
The boy swallowed. ‘The storm,’ he said. ‘You need to talk to Jack.’ He ran forward then, slammed into the Sergeant and embraced him. ‘You need to talk to Jack. Promise me!’ He pressed a square of paper into the Sergeant’s hand, then unwrapped his arms and stared in what looked like absolute despair at the man who said he wanted to be his father, and ran pell-mell from the house.
‘Follow him,’ White Raoul said.
But there was no time. Somehow, recently, there never was.
In preparation, the Sergeant put the gear in the back of the Land Rover and prayed with foxhole devotion that the car would not be struck by an errant bolt of lightning. Between the phosphorous flares, the gas and fuel for the inflatables and the box of ammunition and flashbangs he proposed to use to create a credible threat, he reckoned they’d maybe find the roll cage and the engine. But a human body at the heart of the fire would to all intents and purposes cease to exist.
He realised that not long ago the idea would have seemed almost restful. He had not wanted to die – very much not – but the notion of being smoke, blowing over the island and chasing the wind, would have appealed to him in those strange endless days when he had been somehow absent from himself.
He placed his call to Kershaw, dropped hints about ‘possible non-allied East Asian involvement in the Mancreu theatre through proxies under cover of existing and legitimate false-flag water-based operations’ and hoped the intelligence analysts at NatProMan were creative enough and nervous enough to decide it was something to worry about. When they asked later, he thought, he could claim he had received information from a local source acquainted with activities in Mancreu’s shadow world – that would be Jack – and passed it on. If the tip was bad, well, that was informers for you.
Which meant he was as ready as he could be. Gear, diversion, storm, exit strategy. As long as Jack had good things to say about it all, even in a hurry.
Bad Jack, Bad Jack.
Jack is analogue.
Bad Jack. Jack Jack Jack. He muttered it over and over as he drove, glanced down at the paper in his hand. An address. A bad address, for Bad Jack.