Clown Town полностью

But she’d keep in touch with River, if only to piss him off, a process that would almost certainly be brewing again this afternoon—whatever he was up to, he didn’t want Louisa to be part of it, that was clear. And while this was true, what was mostly pissing River off right then was the traffic snarling up the road in front of him, caused by another set of temporary lights. Cars harrumphed and spluttered like retired colonels. River had a headache coming on: not a symptom—he was fine—just a reaction to road hassle. Satnav showed the safe house on the left, a few hundred yards away; before he reached it there was a turn-off where there might be somewhere to park, so as soon as the traffic allowed he pulled into it. It turned out to be a lane running past a children’s playground towards tennis courts, and had bollards in place and stern warnings posted. He parked, thought about leaving a note under his wiper—Spy on call—and headed round the corner on foot. The safe house was one of a row of cottages weirdly placed on this main road; cars were crawling past it like a rolling surveillance mission. Little point doing a walk-by, he’d only draw attention to himself, so River ignored the drivers, stopped at the door and rang the bell. For the moments that followed he had the strange sensation of everything coming to a halt—that he’d been part of a busy flow and was now outside it; that something had happened before he’d arrived—but whatever that was about, it dissolved inside a greater frustration: that nobody came to answer the door. He rang again, then knocked loudly. Same response. He dropped to a knee and peered through the letterbox, but all he could see was a small empty hallway, and a half-open door leading into the front room. He caught no sense of movement, no trace of sound. The house felt vacant.

River stood, turned and faced the traffic. Faces stared back: Of course they did. Where else were people going to look, stuck in a queue of cars? He pulled his phone out, called Stamoran, then held the phone away from his ear, straining to catch a telltale ringing inside the house, but there was nothing, and when he put the phone to his ear the silence was dead and echoey, as if he’d stuck his head inside a dustbin. He had the feeling he was running out of options, with a long drive home ahead, and no answers found. Automatically—his fingers doing the work by themselves—he called Sid again. Now might not be the time to explain where he was, but now was definitely the time to hear her voice. The numbers did what numbers do; they reached out and rang bells in someone else’s life. In between one breath and the next a connection was made, and Sid’s phone rang. Soon it would go to voicemail again. But until it did, he could hear it twice; once in his ear, and once behind the door he was standing by. And because this made no sense at all, he disconnected, then did it again, and then did it again, each time expecting a different result.

But the ringing didn’t stop.

Louisa, on the phone, behind the wheel, said, “Can we get in the back?”

“We’d have to go through three gardens, all with high walls. We’d be spotted.”

“And we can’t wait for dark.”

“And it’s on a main road. Did I mention the traffic lights?”

“You’re right, we’re fucked. Shall we go for a drink instead?”

River didn’t laugh. “Are you with me?”

“You know it.”

His next question—did she have a crowbar?—indicated both that he had a plan and that it wasn’t subtle.

There were hardware places off Oxford’s ring road. She swung into one, made the purchase and swung out again inside eight minutes, River still on the line, his voice cold as bricks. He had gone to Oxford looking for a former colleague of his grandfather’s and had found Sid’s phone instead, behind a safe house door. She’d left a note that morning, See you later. Now he’d thought about it, this left a lot unsaid.

Louisa tried for reassuring. “Look, so her phone’s in there but that’s all we know. She’s probably fine. Trust me.”

“There are so many things wrong with that, I’m not even going to start. How far away are you?”

Not very.

When she pulled up he was leaning against his car, his face taut. “Did you get the crowbar?”

“I already told you. Do you want to slow down a second?”

“No.”