Well, he thought, given what else he kept quiet about, what did the odd cigarette matter? And just to prove that comforting thought true, he lit another from the stub in his hand, and drew deeply on it while gazing up at what could be seen of the sky through the trapezoids of scaffolding, and then down again, along the alley, at the threatening shape heading his way.
Shirley stood with the takeaway wrappings spread out on the car roof, thoughtfully eating, making sure nothing suggested she was on sentry duty. The van was parked so its rear faced her way, and nobody had emerged from it, though Shirley thought she’d detected a rocking motion, as if somebody – some somebodies – were shuffling about inside. But hard to tell. A latecomer hurried past, heels clacking on the pavement, and disappeared inside the library. When the door opened, a brief exhalation of laughter floated out. The local pol, amusing his masses.
The van was grey with lighter patches, as if recently sprayed and some bits missed, and its registration plate was below her sight line. She considered taking its photo, but decided she might as well raise a big red flag at the same time, and jump up and down with her arms in the air. Maintain a nonchalant awareness, she warned herself. Gaze around at things in general; don’t stare at the van. You’re eating fish and chips on an early summer evening. Things like this happen – they happen all the time.
Other things happened too. Last night, she’d been sprawled outside Ho’s house, while somebody, maybe one of the somebodies in that van, fired a gun at her. She’d found brick dust in her hair this morning, proof that it had happened. At the same time, bruised cheek apart, it felt like a chapter from someone else’s memoirs. Marcus had told her about this phenomenon – the way remembered excitement has a distancing effect, so you view action you were involved in as if through a TV screen. This was one of the reasons you kept going back for more. Like any other high, he’d said, an adrenalin rush couldn’t be faked.
Marcus had known about stuff like that, and if he’d been standing here instead of Shirley, he’d be coming up with a plan.
Which would involve assuming the worst. There was no point treating the van as innocent, because being wrong could prove a disaster. So: would they recognise her, that was the first question. Were they watching her through a peephole, planning to whack her before heading into the library? Or had it been too dark last night, and Shirley just a moving target in the chaos? Their bullets had gone high – was that because they’d been aiming to miss, or were they lousy shots? She had a low centre of gravity, of course – in layman’s terms, was ‘short’ – and that might have thrown their aim off. Being a non-traditional shape had its advantages.
None of which would count for much if they emerged from the van, guns blazing.
She ate a chip, nodded as if in appreciation – every move she made now, she had an audience – and then, still nodding, moved round the car and opened the boot. Watching or not, they couldn’t see through metal, so wouldn’t have been able to observe as she rummaged about in Louisa’s detritus – an old blanket, a wine cooler, trainers – until she found, tucked under the blanket, the monkey wrench, and slid it up her right sleeve. Then, her arm ramrod straight, she closed the boot and returned to her meal, her right hand hooked into her jeans pocket, her left plucking chips and lumps of fish from the mound of paper and steering them mouthwards. Watch me now, Marcus, she thought, and imagined him saying
And she would.
She was just waiting for her moment.
He had no clue where Coe had got to, and when he tried calling got no response. This probably meant the dickhead wasn’t answering, rather than – say – that the dickhead had cornered a hit squad and had his hands full, so River couldn’t get too worked up about it, except for Coe being a dickhead: that never got old. The meeting hall was full now, an air of expectation hanging like fruit. Dennis Gimball, River gathered, was set to make some grand pronouncement: a declaration that he was about to rejoin the party he’d once defected from, a return trip across the Rubicon which many expected would end in his contesting the leadership. That would make as much difference to the ship of state as a koala taking over from a wombat, River thought, though he accepted he wasn’t a political expert. If he were he’d be looking for honest work, like every expert since 2016 should have been.
