Joe Country полностью

Shirley was glad to be alone after a day and a half in company. J.K. Coe was okay, because he could go hours without speaking, and was interesting on account of being on the freaky side. River Cartwright, though, was seven blends of vanilla. When she was bored at work, which was most of the time, she replayed Bourne or Bond scenes, with Cartwright bringing his own special talents to the role. Like the bit in The Spy Who Loved Me, when Bond skis over a cliff, and drops for what feels like forever before his Union-Jack parachute opens. Cartwright would drop forever too, before his lunch came flying out of a wrongly-packed bag. Bit cruel, but hell: it was the Secret Service, not Secret Santa. Lamb had explained that when making them work late Christmas Eve.

With this on her mind, she almost didn’t see the turn-off until too late. The usual markers had been obliterated, but the fenceposts whose tips punctuated the snow broke rhythm abruptly, leaving a gap, so she swung Ho’s newly branded ATV ninety degrees onto an upward-inclined lane which hadn’t been used since the first snow fell, judging by the lack of tracks. Or that was the plan. Fucking Ho’s car, though: as reliable as its owner. Instead of following the lane upwards it basically ploughed into a snowdrift, and if it hadn’t been for the airbag she’d have cracked her head on the windscreen.

There was a possibility, too, that she’d just driven into a ditch.

She sat for five minutes then wrestled her way free, which was an adventure in itself. The snow came past her knees, and the air was biting cold. Her footwear was sturdy—Shirley was a Doc Martens girl—and her jeans were actual proper jeans, without stupid designer rips, but her anorak’s skin was plucked and pitted from a recent encounter outside a nightclub, when a stuccoed wall had been used as a vertical mattress . . . She wondered about going through Ho’s boot, maybe hoisting an accident triangle on the road, or planting it on the car roof like a birthday candle, but in the end settled for sending the Metal for Muthas cd flying across the snow-covered field like a frisbee, before slamming the door shut.

This might not be the right lane, or even a lane at all, but she was on it now. Might as well follow the incline to the crest, and see if she could spot Coe’s farm buildings from up there.

So off she plodded, a short dark figure on a big white canvas, leaving a trail behind her that was slowly swallowed as snow continued to fall.

J.K. Coe was cold, but preferred it that way. Warm was sleepy; warm was soft. Warm lost you focus, then bad things happened. He still remembered the person he’d once been, who had returned home after a normal day to find himself a sudden prisoner, fastened to a chair in a plastic-clad room, while a naked man threatened to unzip him with a carving knife. His worst moment, one that hadn’t actually happened, was hearing the wet slap of his organs hitting the floor. That’s what you could expect when warm and comfortable. In the cold, he was sharp as a blade. And his hand dropped to his pocket with the word, reminding him of the short sweet knife it carried.

He checked the map on his phone. Dotted lines and blank white spaces: for once, the diagram matched the reality, which was open spaces with a faint grid laid over it; wire strung between fence posts, marking boundaries. Leafless trees like holocaust sculptures. Behind him, on the main road and coastward-bound, a small figure that was River Cartwright. Cartwright, Coe thought, had twofold motivation today. Find his friend, and find Frank Harkness. Well, “find.” He wanted to kill Harkness. He didn’t know whether Cartwright realised that himself yet, but it was clear as daylight to Coe.

Not that he cared. There’d been a time when he’d have resisted leaving Slough House. Would have clung to his desk: staring at a screen, out of a window—didn’t matter. Time was what you were up against, and J.K. Coe had a strategy: you just coasted through it—ignored its bumps, all the wayward topography it hurled at you in the shape of other people, random events, bad memory. You kept your gaze blank, paid as little attention as was compatible with functioning, and the world moved on. Sooner or later, you got to the end of the day. Then you could manage the dark for a while, breathe slowly, and prepare for it all to start again.

But he’d come to realise that surrender was also an option. If you went along with whatever was expected—got in the car; marched where you were pointed—time passed just as quickly. It didn’t matter, in the end, whether Coe was at his desk in Slough House or on an all-but-invisible track leading to a barn on a snowy Welsh hillside. Just so long as he wasn’t strapped to a kitchen chair, waiting for the splash as his innards met a plastic-wrapped surface.

He stopped, shook his head. The image cleared.