But what they meant was: unless your uncle pays the ransom.
Hassan had seen enough movies to know what this meant; the opportunities the police would have to follow the money; the helicopter surveillance. The low-key tracking, followed by a burst of action: shouting and flashing lights. And then the cellar door would open, and a torch-beam light the way down the stairs …
He thought: No. Give up. That’s not going to happen.
And then thought: But what’s the harm in thinking it? How else should he pass the time while waiting for the axe to fall?
And even as these thoughts fought like butterflies in his crowded head, something thumped on the ceiling above him, and voices cried out in anger or surprise—was that violence he heard? He thought it was violence. A brief outburst ending with another thump, while in his head new pictures painted themselves—
A SWAT team had come crashing in
Armed police had stormed the house
His uncle, the soldier, had tracked him down
Any of the above …
And Hassan allowed himself to hope.
Traffic was light, mostly taxis and night-buses. London was a twenty-four-hour city, but only if you counted the things nobody wanted to do, like find a way home in the middle of the night, or head out for a cleaning job in the pitch-dark cold of the morning. Watching through the window, River was trying to get his head round what Lamb had told them before they’d piled into separate cars: that there were three kidnappers. That one was a friendly, but it was anybody’s guess which, or how he’d react.
‘Are they armed?’
‘I’m guessing they’ve got an edged weapon of some sort. They’d look bloody stupid trying to take the kid’s head off with a gherkin.’
‘So why us?’ River asked. ‘Why not a SWAT team? Why not the achievers?’
Lamb didn’t answer.
Through the passenger window River saw a figure curled in a shop doorway under a pyramid of cardboard, but it was gone already; not even a memory. River refocused on his own reflection. His hair was shaggy, and a day’s worth of beard graced his chin. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to a barber’s. He supposed they’d have shaved Sid’s head first thing. Her head must seem tiny without her hair. She’d look like a Hollywood alien.
His reflection dissolved, and came back when he blinked.
It was all part of the same thing. Hobden, Moody, Hassan Ahmed, Sid being shot—it was all part of somebody else’s game, whose pieces seemed to have fallen into place for Lamb. It had been Lady Di he’d gone out to meet. He hadn’t said so, but who else could it have been? River himself hadn’t laid eyes on Diana Taverner since spending two days tailing her, all those months ago. But Lamb, slow horse or not, had middle-of-the-night parleys with her …
They passed a stationer’s, its familiar logo lit in blue and white, and a connection he’d fumbled for earlier was made.
‘It’s money, isn’t it?’ he said.
‘What is?’
‘In that envelope. The one Moody took from your office. It’s money. It’s your flight fund.’
Lamb raised an eyebrow. ‘Flight fund? Haven’t heard that in a while.’
‘But that’s what it is.’
Lamb said, ‘Oh, right. Your grandfather. That’s where you got it from.’
He nodded to himself, as if that were a problem solved.
And he was right, of course; that’s where River had heard it.
River could still remember the thrill that had gone through a twelve-year-old boy, hearing that. Not because of the f-word, but because his grandfather could say
A flight fund was what you needed when you lived on the edge, and might slip off any moment. Something to feather your fall. To give you the means to walk away.
‘Yes,’ Lamb said, surprising River. ‘It’s a flight fund.’
‘Right.’
‘Not a fortune, if you’re thinking your ship’s come in.’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘Fifteen hundred, a passport, and a key to a box.’
‘Switzerland?’
‘Fuck you Switzerland. A bank in a two-donkey French town, four hours’ drive from Paris.’
‘Four hours,’ River repeated.
‘Why am I telling you this?’
‘So you’ll have an excuse to kill me?’
‘That’s probably it.’
