London Rules полностью

Before getting into the car Coe had called a news site: anonymously, from his pay-as-you-go. An alley in Slough; a man dead. Then he’d dismantled the set, tossing battery, phone and mangled SIM card onto the hard shoulder once they were under way.

‘That was a serious question,’ River said. ‘Are you insane?’

‘They used the word “troubled”. And “distressed”. Nobody ever said “insane”.’ Coe pursed his lips at the memory. ‘And these were experts,’ he said.

‘Because you not only act like a fucking psycho, you’re starting to rack up a score. What do we do now?’

‘I think we stay on the motorway.’

‘… Are you finding this funny?’

‘No,’ said Coe, though his tone suggested: Well, maybe a bit.

A police car flashed past in the opposite direction; then another, and another. River had the feeling he was driving into the heart of a storm, from which these vehicles were being hurled at great speed. The thought of what awaited them at journey’s end made him want to slam the brakes on. On the other hand, what lay behind needed intervening distance, fast.

It might be wise, he thought, to concentrate on driving for the time being.

‘See your phone?’ said Coe.

‘Why?’

‘News.’

River fished it from his pocket and tossed it at Coe, hoping it might take his eye out or something.

‘PIN?’

River told him.

Coe went online and looked at Twitter. ‘There you go.’

There were already seven tweets hazarding, announcing, speculating about what had happened in Slough. An eighth appeared. Then more. It seemed a self-propelled process, like watching facts being established through sheer weight of numbers.

‘And how does that help?’

‘I think the more confusion the better, don’t you?’

As a guiding principle, thought River, not necessarily. Though under the circumstances, maybe it was for the best.

Coe had more colour in his cheeks than River remembered seeing before; the hood of his hoodie was pooled around his shoulders and his earbuds were loose round his neck. Once before he’d killed someone: had the same thing happened then? River had the horrible feeling it might have.

He said, ‘We talked about this. Didn’t we? You said you weren’t going to kill anyone.’

‘I said I wasn’t going to shoot them.’

‘This isn’t the time to split hairs.’

Coe said, ‘I didn’t do it on purpose.’

‘You dropped a tin of paint—’

‘Knocked.’

‘—must weigh God knows how much—’

‘It shouldn’t have been left on the scaffolding.’

‘—from a height of like forty feet—’

‘I’d say thirty.’

‘—onto a man’s head.’

‘In my defence,’ said Coe, ‘if I’d been aiming for him, I’d have missed.’

‘That’s not really a defence, though, is it? More an admission of guilt.’

‘Well, it’s not like he’s a huge loss,’ said Coe.

‘Again, not helping.’ River realised he was starting to accelerate, and forced himself to ease up on the pedal. ‘Cast your mind back. The whole point was to foil the bad guys. Not do their job for them.’

‘Well, mission creep—’

‘Don’t,’ said River. ‘Just don’t.’

If he wasn’t driving he’d sink back in his seat and close his eyes, but if he closed his eyes he’d see it again: that tin of paint hurtling out of nowhere and damn near taking Gimball’s head off. One moment he was stuttering a single word over and over, now now now, and the next he was bouncing off a wheelie bin like a discarded puppet. The tin meanwhile hit the ground, leaped into the air and struck the black guy River was wrestling: he’d yelped – a high-pitched note; strangely feminine for someone who seemed, just River’s opinion, to be made of rubberised concrete – then taken off when he’d seen Gimball’s body. And still the tin’s lid remained tightly in place: they could have used that in their advertising, thought River irrelevantly. The paint manufacturers. Although it wasn’t necessarily a point in its favour, as presumably there’d be moments when you’d want the lid to come off without hassle. When you were painting a wall, for instance, rather than killing a politician. So probably not the hook for an advertising campaign. Anyway: not an important issue.

What was important was, they’d left the scene.

He’d got to his feet. His assailant was gone; River was left staring in fear and astonishment, and J. K. Coe had appeared. We’d better go, he’d said, and then he was hustling River out of the alley, leaving a scene of quiet destruction behind them: one dead Gimball, one tin of paint. All those wheelie bins, clustered round like mourners.

‘We shouldn’t have left,’ he said now.

‘Yes we should,’ said Coe.

‘You said it was an accident. So—’

‘It was.’

‘—so why did we leave? It only makes us look—’

‘We had to.’

‘—like we’re guilty of something, like it was a hit.’

‘We had to,’ Coe repeated. He glanced across at River, then back at the road unfurling in front of them, all its marginal twinklings, its brief reflections, amped up to maximum. ‘Think about it. We were there unofficially—’

‘Lamb sent us.’

‘—because we’re Slough House, not Regent’s Park, and Slough House doesn’t get sent anywhere, doesn’t matter what Lamb says.’