And because she wasn’t, he pulled open his desk drawer and stared down into it again. The one thing he could sell, get serious money for—a couple of ton at least—without Carrie knowing. He’d brought it in that morning, carried it through the rush-hour crush in his raincoat pocket; had half-expected Lamb to have found it by now—creepy, the way that man knew what was going on around him without appearing to open his eyes. And this evening, when he left, he’d take it with him, though he wouldn’t be heading straight home. There was a place round by St. Paul’s, a stationer’s shop, except it wasn’t. It had a back office where a man who looked like a hobbit kept court: Dancer, his name was, and Dancer bought guns, and sold them on again to people whose motives it was best not to inquire into.
Putting a gun on the street—can I really do that, Marcus wondered?
But I need the money.
He needed the money and he’d always need the money, the same way Catherine would always need a drink. Except Catherine needed a drink without taking one. Marcus looked down at the gun in his drawer and thought of all the uses it could be put to once it was out of his possession. Uses he’d never know about, though he’d never stop wondering. But meanwhile, he’d have a couple of hundred and could pay some bills; pay more than a few if he did the clever thing, and used the money to stake himself a bigger win . . .
Or I could go upstairs right now and talk to Catherine. She’d listen. Help.
Yeah, he thought. I should do that . . . Except no, not really. Because he didn’t have a problem. What he had was a run of bad luck, and the thing about runs was, they came to an end.
A couple of hundred in hand. All he’d need was one glimmer of light and he could turn his whole situation round. Then buy the gun back off Dancer before any harm was done. He smiled to himself at the thought of this happening, soon.
Then he wondered who that was, out on the staircase.
Bad Sam’s knee still hurt, for all the anaesthetising effects of Lamb’s bottle, but he had to stand anyway, and leave the office. Volkswagon had nothing on Lamb when it came to unfiltered emissions . . . Letting the ice pack slump to the floor, he tried a little weight on his leg and found it more or less bearable.
Half-hopping down to the next level, where the kitchen was, he found Catherine Standish and another woman—Shirley? Shirley—the former busying herself with the kettle while the latter watched. Shirley was short with suede-cut dark hair; broad at the shoulders, but not without a certain appeal, provided you were a lot younger than Bad Sam, and didn’t mind things getting edgy. That was a lot to read into a brief acquaintance, but she had a legible face. She said nothing when Bad Sam arrived, but watched him closely.
Well, he thought. It was a good thing someone round here was reasonably alert.
He said to Catherine, “I’m sorry.”
A lesser woman would have raised an eyebrow. She simply looked at him.
“For after Partner died. The interrogation.”
She nodded.
“But it had to be done.”
She nodded again.
Shirley was looking from one to the other, like a cat at a tennis match.
Catherine said, “He’s gone for some more alcohol. But I’m making tea.”
“That would be great.”
Sam felt released from something; he wasn’t sure what. Like he’d said, the interrogation had to be done; if it hadn’t been him, it would have been someone else. And he hadn’t given it a moment’s thought in years. But still, in this woman’s company, he couldn’t help feeling he’d done her a wrong, and was glad to be forgiven. If that’s what this was. And he—
A gunshot cut the thought off.
Two gunshots, rather; one following the other so swiftly, they might have been two halves of a single sound.
Sam said, “Is there a—”
“Lamb’s desk.”
“Get it.”
She vanished up the stairs while Shirley rattled open a drawer, finding only a corkscrew she gripped in her right fist, its twirly point becoming a wicked extra finger.
“Upstairs,” he told her.
“And then what?”
JK Coe appeared in his doorway, his hood puddled around his shoulders, his blade in hand. He looked at Shirley. “What was that?”
The light on the lower landing went out.
Bad Sam said, “Get behind that door. Barricade it.” He was reaching for the kettle as he spoke; it was still grumbling to itself, steam gusting ceilingwards. “Now.”
He pushed past them, bad knee forgotten, and leant over the banister. As a dark figure appeared on the next flight down, Sam dropped the kettle onto its head.
