London Rules полностью

The man plucked the phone from his grasp and threw it at the wall, where it shattered.

‘Now now now now now …’

‘Now nothing. You listen to me.’

‘Now now now …’

The man grabbed Gimball by the lapel one-fisted, and pulled him close.

Oh Christ, thought J. K. Coe.

River scrambled to his feet.

‘Now now now …’

‘Shut the fuck up.’

River seized the man by the shoulders, and the man released Gimball and turned, ready to plant a heavy fist in River’s face, but River drove his elbow into the man’s nose first. Blood flew, but the man blocked the follow-up punch with a forearm and lunged forward. The pair went crashing into a wheelie bin, then slid to the ground, the man on top. He raised his fist again, but River was already twisting free: he grabbed the man’s wrist, aborting the punch, and at the same time headbutted him in his already damaged nose while Gimball watched in horror.

‘Let me by!’

But he trembled on the spot like a man at a dogfight, worried that if he tried to pass, one or the other would turn on him.

River was on his feet now, and planted a kick which caught the man on the shoulder, though Coe assumed he’d been aiming for his head. This produced a grunt but no serious damage, and then the man was upright too, bobbing and weaving, muttering words: come on then, come on. He dodged River’s next punch, and the one after, then threw one of his own, aiming for the throat: if it had connected, River would have been all messed up. But he’d pulled back and the jab kissed air: from where Coe was watching, it looked choreographed, deliberate. Gimball was wedged against one of the bins, and might possibly climb inside it soon, if assistance didn’t show up; River and his opponent seemed to have forgotten he was there. It was all about the fight, now. It was all about being top dog. Coe checked his options again, and they hadn’t changed: fight or flight. River didn’t even know he was here, for God’s sake. He could force a window, clamber through and make his way to the street. Go back and scrape River off the ground later. Except …

Except if it was him down there and River up here, River would come to his aid.

He thought about that for a moment, long enough to see the next two seconds of action, neither of which were much fun for River, who caught a blow on the side of the head which would have him hearing bells for a while. Helping River, it occurred to Coe, would involve getting in the way of such moments: giving the man another target to bounce his fists off while River caught his breath. So okay, a window it was, and Coe turned to retrace his steps, but as he did so his foot caught that stray tin of paint, knocking it from its perch; sending it swirling, lid over base, thirty feet down to the alley below.

Oh shit, he thought.

Five minutes later, miles away, Shirley finished her chips and the streetlights flickered on, making the world subtly different. It was time, she thought. Whatever was going on with that van: it was time for her to make a move. Because if anything was going to happen, shadow-time was its cue.

She should fetch Louisa, really, but what good would that do? Two of them and just one weapon: if there were bad actors in the van, bringing Louisa would double their targets. She crumpled the fish-and-chip paper, wrapped it round the empty polystyrene carton, and left the resulting brick-shaped wedge on the car roof. She could feel the wrench up her right sleeve, its head digging into her palm. When she loosed her grip it would drop into her hand seamlessly, or that was the idea. In an ideal world, she’d have got to practise the move.

Marcus? she thought.

You go, girl.

She went.

Shin was staring at his phone. ‘There is something,’ he began.

‘She’s coming.’

‘What?’

‘The woman,’ An said. He had taken over the watcher’s role; had his eye pressed to the peephole in the van’s back door. ‘She is approaching.’

‘Then we move,’ Danny said.

He was holding a semi-automatic weapon, nursing it as if it were his newborn.

‘We move,’ he repeated. ‘I’ll take the woman, then we go in.’

It would not be like Abbotsfield, Danny knew. There they were uniformed, and in the open air: blue skies above, and old stone buildings echoing to their presence. There had been water babbling nearby, and deeply rooted trees bearing witness. It was as though they had stepped through the centuries, bringing warfare to a world that thought itself free of bloodshed. Here, there were no hills to scream down from, and no birds to take flight. There would be walls and windows, that was all, and the dying would know themselves deep in the heart of their city: but they’d still die. It was the final, necessary lesson. That they’d die.

And first among them would be that woman with her stiff-armed walk; approaching them now, An said; walking towards them with intent.

Danny reached for the handle on the back door.

‘No. Wait.’