Dead Lions полностью

The dark dispersed, as if a switch had been thrown. A shining ball burst into being overhead with a noise like tearing paper. It hovered in the sky, casting unearthly light, and instantly made the landscape strange—the battered houses with their intruder trees, the pocked and hillocked ground; all became alien, another planet. The light was orange, edged with green. The noise faded. What the hell? River spun round as another noise ripped the world apart, a banshee scream so loud he had to slap hands to his ears. It ended in a crash he couldn’t tell how far away, and before its echoes died another erupted into the night, and this time he saw in its wake a red-hot scar that burnt its shape into his eyes. And then another. And another. The first explosion shook the ground, and warm wind blasted past him; the second, third, fourth turned him on his heels. The blasted ruins were no shelter, but they were all there was.

River leapt a ruined fragment of wall and landed on a strew of broken tiles. And then he was sprawling on the ground as furious noises crashed nearby, and he had to crawl for the shelter of the tree—the nearest thing to safety he could currently imagine. He closed his eyes, made himself small as possible. Way over his head, the night sky fizzed and boiled with angry lights.

Jesus wept, he thought, with that part of his mind not screaming in terror. Of all the nights to pick, he’d chosen one when the range was in use …

Another explosion took his breath away, and he thought no more.

Tonight, he’d be breaking hearts.

This was new territory. Roderick Ho wasn’t without experience in the gentle art of trashing stuff: he’d wrecked credit ratings, disassembled CVs, altered Facebook statuses and cancelled standing orders. He had systematically dismantled the offshore tax arrangements of a couple of old school chums—who’s the dweeb now, dickheads?—and once had broken an arm—she’d been six; he’d been eight; it was almost certainly an accident. But hearts, no, he’d broken no hearts yet. Tonight would put that right.

Roddy had first met Shana—let’s be precise; first encountered Shana—on Aldersgate Street: they were heading for their respective offices, and she’d barely noticed him. Well: “barely” might not be the word. “Not” might be the word. But he’d noticed her, enough that the second time they passed he was half-looking out for her, and on the third was actually waiting for her, though nowhere she’d see him. He’d tailed her to her office, which turned out to be a temping agency near Smithfield. Back at Slough House, it hadn’t proved much of a stretch to take a peek at its intranet, check out staff listings, and there she was: beaming photo and all. Shana Bellman. After that, it was a hop-and-a-skip to Facebook where, among other things, Roddy found Shana to be a workout addict, so next up was a wander round the membership files of the local gyms. The third one he tried, he found her address. Couple of hours later they were best friends, which is to say that Roddy Ho now knew everything there was to know about Shana, up to and including the name of her boyfriend.

Which is where the heartbreak came in. The boyfriend had to go.

He smiled at her image, a wistful smile acknowledging the pain that precedes happiness, and downsized her photo into the tab at the foot of his screen. Then flexed his fingers, making a satisfying crack. Down to business.

And it’s going to work like this. Shana’s boyfriend is going to strike up a friendship with a couple of skanks on an internet chatsite, a conversation which is going to move from inappropriate to downright graphic within the space of half a dozen exchanges, at which point, with the kind of fat-finger error it’s almost impossible not to see as willed, as if the cheating bastard actually wants to be caught, he’s going to accidentally copy Shana in on the entire thread. And sayonara, boyfriend.

After that, it was gravy. Tomorrow morning—make it the day after; let the dust settle—all Roddy would have to do, passing Shana on her way to Smithfield, would be to make some friendly observation; Hey beautiful, why so sad? And then, Hey, men are jerks. Tell me about it. And then, after she’d gratefully been taken to dinner or a movie or whatever, Hey baby, you want to take this in your—

“Roddy?”

“Crawk!”

Catherine Standish made less noise than a draught. “I hate to bother you when you’ve got your hands full,” she said. “But there’s something I need you to do.”