Clown Town полностью

“Fly, my little ones. Fly.” He made an ushering motion with both hands. There were people nearby, total strangers, who thought they were watching a rep company go its separate ways.

Daisy gave CC a hug, and Avril did the same, and then Al, and the fact that he muttered “You mad bastard” while doing so didn’t make it less genuine. Then the three of them watched while CC got back in the car, sounded the horn twice, and pulled out into traffic. To stand watching until he was gone from sight would have swallowed what was left of the afternoon, so they turned and walked towards the station entrance, bags in hand.

“And that’s that,” said Al.

Avril gave him a look.

“Yes, I know. Of course it bloody isn’t. What did you use?”

“My watch.”

“And that has a tracker on it?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, Al. Every five minutes it launches a barrage balloon. Yes it has a tracker on it. Like everyone else who ever worked at the Park, I pinched a few toys before they showed me the door.”

“Wish I had.”

“At least you have your gun.”

“Bought that with my own money.” He was flexing his arm as he spoke, raising his bag, gauging its weight. “And I’ll tell you what. CC’s taken it. When he put this in the boot.”

“Figures.” Avril had put her own case down and was checking her phone. “Wouldn’t have minded hearing that chat he had with First Desk.”

Daisy said, “You think he plans to shoot her?” She might have been asking about CC’s dining plans.

“That’d be extreme,” said Al. “It’s never a good idea to jump straight to the endgame before considering all possibilities.”

“You think?” said Avril. “And here’s me imagining that’s been our signature move all these years.”

They stood in a huddle while she began tracking the watch she’d left in CC’s car.

Molly Doran said: “Name a weed and you find it growing everywhere.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Charles Cornell Stamoran. You asking about him, that’s not the first time his name’s come up this week. Can’t tell you how often that happens.”

About as often as any other coincidence, Catherine thought.

Calling the Park’s archivist had required mental prep. Catherine’s relationship with Molly was not uncomplicated. She knew—suspected—no, knew—that the woman had shared secret hours with Jackson Lamb, a history neither would speak of. But that there was a bond was clear, and if its existence meant that they couldn’t quite be friends, it also meant that when Catherine needed a favour, Molly was prepared to supply it.

At a price.

“He was the handler on Pitchfork. That was the IRA operation, remember?”

Catherine did. Every so often the story cropped up in the Sundays, only for the Service to deny it had made an asset of a murdering sadist.

She said, “Pitchfork, that’s surely in the digital archive.”

Which covered anything that had happened in the last several decades. Molly’s domain stretched back further, and there were those who’d like to see it reactivated. Its digital counterpart was available to anyone with Service ID and the sign-in code, which didn’t always limit access to Park operatives in good standing. Molly’s archive, on the other hand, was the real thing: shelves of paperwork, vulnerable to any number of threats—fire and water damage, termites, mould—but to steal from it, you had to make an effort. Slackers with laptops from Moscow to Miami might troll the world’s virtual corridors at will, but Molly Doran’s fortress was outside their reach.

“Yes, but there’s a hard copy file overlap,” she told Catherine. “The personnel records of the operatives involved predate the birth of the beast.” Which was her designation for the Service database, possibly because she regarded it as one of the signs of approaching Armageddon. “So the source records are down here with me, even if updates aren’t.”

“And that would include Stamoran’s crew.”

“The Brains Trust,” Molly said. “There were three of them. Avril Potts was a bright spark. Probably still is. Al Hawke, too. And Daisy Wessex.” Molly paused. “They’re long off-book now. But what happened to Daisy still gets talked about.”

“She’s the one who dropped off the map,” Catherine said, the detail swimming up out of nowhere. Some had a way of clinging on; the ones that said There but for the grace.

“Eighteen months or more. Until her crew found her and brought her back.”

Her crew, thought Catherine. Not the Park. The Park had washed its hands.

Molly said, “I doubt there’s an official record of that, but everything else, you’ll find on the beast.” She paused. “I realise you’re not in good standing over there, but I presume Roderick Ho doesn’t let a detail like that get in the way.”

“Roddy does wander where he will,” Catherine agreed, “when it comes to digital footpaths. On the other hand . . .”

One of the prices Molly demanded was that things be spelt out. No trailing away into ellipses allowed.

“On the other hand,” she finished, “Jackson was wondering what you might have that never found its way upstairs.”

“Was he now?”