Which was an end Sid knew about. She’d found her own on a rainy pavement in London, years ago; had nearly found it again last night, hiding in this very room while the couple she and River later killed had rattled the doorknob at the front, tapped the glass round back, like evil figures in an adult fairy tale. Then spirited Sid away.
She uncurled from the O.B.’s chair and stretched. A gust of wind shook the windowpane, and she startled at the interruption, an echo of last night’s haunting. The bell had rung, and then once more. And the flap on the letterbox had jangled, and Sid had imagined the pair taking it in turns to drop to one knee and peer into the hallway.
The thought broke the morning in two.
Rattling the doorknob …
Where was River?
There was a traffic jam, because there were always traffic jams, because this was London; a thought so familiar that someone might already have had it this morning. Cantor was lying flat on the back seat, being driven by the nameless man whose cheeks were ribboned with scars, a walking indication that bad choices produce bad outcomes.
A hooting horn provoked more hooting horns. This too was London: everyone wanting to be heard, even when they had nothing to say.
‘Are we being followed?’ he asked. The man made a foreign noise in reply, so he said it again. ‘Are we being followed?’
‘… Nyet.’
‘Who was she?’
He knew the answer, but needed to hear it anyway.
‘From Regent’s Park.’
So Taverner had sent someone to collect him.
It was possible he’d made a tactical error.
The woman at the Needle couldn’t cross the road for traffic, and the scarred man had used the delay to hustle Cantor round the corner and push him into this car. Things could happen so quickly, they felt like a good idea. And now they were on the move again, albeit in a jerky, arrhythmical manner, Cantor’s head banging against the seat while he tried to reconstruct his earlier frame of mind: Taverner was throwing a scare, hoping he’d jump at shadows. But the shadows seemed solider now, and here he was, jumping at them.
A sharp corner, and a guttural apology from the front: ‘Excuse.’
Cantor said, ‘Where are you taking me?’
An audible shrug from the front seat. ‘Somewhere safe.’
‘Why?’
‘You help us. We help you.’
But I didn’t mean to help you, thought Cantor. I was just trading favours. I didn’t mean to end up hiding in a car, evading capture by the British Secret Service.
Bad choices produce bad outcomes …
The man spoke again. ‘There are no worries. My people and your people, they’ll iron out their difficulties. And then you’ll go back to making your news programmes, and helping my people too, yes? No harm done.’
‘I’m not … I don’t work for your people. I was doing a favour for a contact, that’s all.’
‘So you do more favours.’
‘No, that’s not … This has all been a misunderstanding. I’m not going to be doing any favours.’
There was silence. Then: ‘It’s not a good time to be telling me this. Not when I’m helping you.’
The car jerked to a halt. When Cantor peeped through the window a young Chinese man was hopping onto the pavement, as if he’d been safeguarding a parking space. ‘We’re here,’ the driver said. Here was Soho, a familiar street whose name evaded Cantor right that moment, his mind still reeling. He clambered out. There were people everywhere – London, London – but nobody was paying attention, or if they were, were doing so in a successfully covert way. There was an open door, leading into an apparently abandoned shop. ‘Quickly.’ So quickly it was: through the door, into an empty retail space. The young Chinese man had disappeared, but in front of Cantor stood a short, wide woman. ‘Upstairs,’ she said, in what sounded to Cantor like a bad-movie German accent.
In a similarly bad-movie way, he was getting a bad feeling about this.
‘What’s upstairs?’
‘No time for questions. They’re looking for you.’
The driver had closed the shop door and was leaning against it.
‘I just—’
‘Now.’
The stairs creaked. There was a small landing at the top: a toilet, two other rooms. The woman nudged him towards the back one.
‘A safe house,’ she said.
The scarred man had come up with them. ‘Yes. You’ll be safe here.’
Cantor said, ‘I need to make some calls. Just ten minutes to make some calls, and I’ll be on my way.’
He had his phone out before he’d finished speaking, but it was snatched by the square-shaped woman.
‘No.’
‘But I—’
‘No.’
He looked around. The floor was uncarpeted, and the window covered by a steel shutter. The only light was a bare bulb, swinging on a cord. No heating, no furniture.
