Joe Country полностью

Best all round would be if he left now and regrouped with the others, but that option had been removed from the table. There was no way this guy was going to let Coe walk away, ridiculous boots or not.

The real question was whether he had a gun.

Well, thought Coe, maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. The answer wouldn’t be long in coming. And some moments you just arrived at, he supposed. His desk in Slough House seemed very far away. But sitting there would be another route to the same destination in the long run.

He rubbed a cheek grown numb in the cold and said, “You’re Cyril, right?”

“I’m not wearing that scuzzy thing,” Emma Flyte had said, and meant it. A white puffa jacket, visibly torn at the breast, and overdue a launder. “Why would you think I would?”

“Because they’re looking for a blonde in a dark overcoat.”

Emma wasn’t convinced a swap would help, though conceded that her disinclination to wear white came into it.

Whatever: more important things.

She left Louisa at the shed and headed towards the town, creaky at the joints. She hadn’t slept more than ten minutes, and was reminded of her early days in the Met, when a shift-change would skew her rhythms. But that hadn’t killed her. Then again, she hadn’t been evading armed men, or not often. The track wasn’t wide, and she kept to the middle to avoid snagging on upright brambles. To her left, through the trees, she caught glimpses of the estuary, slowly blanketing under snow. And then the track swung through a thicker patch of trees, and she lost it.

The road wasn’t far. Five minutes? But she hadn’t encountered anyone yet, the snow keeping people indoors.

She’d need to find someone, though; ask where the police station was, unless she got lucky, and it was bang in the middle of the High Street. Failing that, she could revisit the graveyard and retrieve her mobile. Even if the Park had thrown a towel over the birdcage, Devon Welles would take her calls . . . That’s what it had come to, she reminded herself. Jobless, out of favour, and relying on Mates’ Rules for back-up. Something Louisa had said came to mind.

Like it or not, you’re a slow horse now.

Yes, well. We’ll see about that.

A man rounded the corner ten yards ahead, coming her way.

One of the bad guys.

She kept walking, because the alternative was to turn and run, or plough through the undergrowth and end up draped across a bush like so much laundry. Besides, this one hadn’t laid eyes on her before; would be working from whatever description the man she’d put down last night had fed him, but already his eyes were narrowing, and it might just be that he had a thing for blondes, or he might be computing information. Either way, it was best to derail him.

She slapped her hand on her thigh and whistled so loudly he flinched.

“Seen my dog?”

“What kind?” he asked, closing the gap between them, but before she could invent a breed his fist slammed into her cheek.

Emma’s head filled with static.

The ground was harder than it looked.

Frank said, “So you found me.”

“Looks like.”

“Not that I made it difficult. A hire car? I mean, Jesus, son. Did you wonder why I didn’t just get hold of a biplane and drag a banner behind me?”

River said, “Every time I get one up on you, you make it sound like that was your plan all along.”

“It’s called parenting.”

Even in the snow, the whitewashed backdrop of the coastal sky, River could see Frank’s grin; his American teeth just another shade of white.

He gestured in the direction Frank had come. “Louisa’s not back there, then,” he said. “In whatever it is. A shed?”

“A byre, I think they call it.”

“Whatever, you’re still looking for her. And the boy.”

“Unless I left them dead. You want to go check?”

River shook his head. “If you’d killed them, you’d not come back the same way. Bad tradecraft.”

“Ah, that’s adorable. Listening to words like that in your mouth, it makes up for everything I missed when you were a kid. Like hearing you go brrm brrm when you played with a car.”

River ended up in the Thames last time Frank got him mad. Probably best not to get riled now.

He said, “I thought you had principles. Stupid, misguided, lunatic principles, but still. But now you’re a hired gun, right? The kid Louisa was looking for, you’re looking for him too. What did he see?”

Frank laughed. “What he saw, River, he was asking fifty grand to keep quiet about. You think I’m gonna tell you for free?”

“So that’s your job. You’re saving someone fifty thousand pounds.”

“Jesus, listen to yourself. I cost more than that, son. I’m not saving anyone anything. Except the trouble of doing this themselves.” He crossed his gloved hands across his chest and slapped himself, scattering snowflakes. “Don’t ever let anyone take a piece of what’s yours, because they’ll always come back for the rest. Basic rule of business.”

“And that’s what you are now? A businessman?”