6.35am. Monday, 13th November
Hunger finally drove him from the room. Light-headed, limping, his leg still stiff and drawing shallow breaths courtesy of the broken ribs, he passed through an empty reception out on to the streets. It was sheeting with rain and too early for the hurly-burly of commuters but even so, it was too busy for his taste. Nervous and dry-mouthed, he slunk along the crowded pavements. He wondered about the bullet – whether it had moved with the force of the pressure waves, how long he had until it killed him, thought about the fact no one would mourn him when it did. He caught a glimpse of a smashed-up face moving alongside, the temple raised and purple with bruising, the lips pulped and swollen, his heart pounding then realised it was his own reflection trapped in the plate-glass of a down-at-heel cafe.
Frankie’s Diner was as good a destination as any. Once upon a time Frankie nailed photographs of the Coliseum and the Trevi Fountain above the red plastic vinyl banquettes.
These days the photos were foxed, foam guts spilled from the ripped plastic, and the only atmosphere came from a heady mix of rancid chip fat and the stale bodies of the clientele. A tramp sat hunched in the corner, his filthy, shaking hands with their blackened ridged nails hugging a mug of tea, two skinny white slices of bread and spread on a plate in front of him. The vagrant didn’t want the bread – he wanted a cheap bottle of spirits that would kill him before his time – North knew the feeling.
North sat with a clear view of the door, the back of his head against the cold wall, the window to his left – condensation over the glass, black mould running the length of the sill. He kept his head down as he ordered, his voice rusty with disuse, his elbow on the table, a hand obscuring his battered face but the greasy-haired waitress didn’t notice or didn’t care about the damage. He couldn’t decide which.
The tea was stewed but the all-day breakfast of eggs and sausages, bacon and beans, was piping hot. North ordered another tea when he’d done and the waitress graced him with contempt and a steady pour of brown gunge, slopping over the top and filling the chipped saucer, before she clattered away with the dirty plate.
The bell over the door tinkled – fresh cold air, the smell of rain and the hum of building traffic, there, and then gone again, as the door swung shut. Shaking out a black umbrella, furling it before he hung it on one of three button pegs, a lanky man in a long coat approached the counter. A mug of tea and apple pie à la mode, Frankie, he instructed the elderly owner at the till, his back to the tables. Shocking morning out there.
North rubbed at his temples. The fatty protein-heavy meal was reviving him and he wasn’t convinced that was a good thing. If he revived, he’d start to feel and he was getting used to the emptiness inside – it was safer that way. He could live with being nothing. Feeling nothing. Having nothing, though now he considered the matter of the opiate stash, he wanted more. He was in the process of running through how to access purple pills when company slid over the vinyl bench and into the seat opposite him.
North calculated it would take him 7 seconds to reach the door – 12 if he hit the one-eyed man first, longer if the one-eyed man had a gun.
The question was, did he have a gun?
His companion leaned back against the bench, revealing the silencer.
The answer, then, was Yes.
The one-eyed man thanked the waitress as she neared the table, and the girl slowed her approach at the sight of the jagged purple scar that ran through the dark, empty socket and down the cheek. Gawking, she placed the mug and pie down on the melamine with due reverence, and clacking on her white plastic heels backed away from the table, step by step, her mouth open all the while.
“Some women rather like it,” the one-eyed man said, apparently to North, as he picked up the fork, polishing the tines on the paper napkin he had pulled from under the plate.
“You’re good, Mr North. I’ve only ever chased one man longer than I’ve chased you. Which is impressive.” The one-eyed man forked a piece of pie into his mouth, the gelatinous apple almost falling to the plate from the thickly sugared crust.
“And what happened when you found him?”
The one-eyed man chewed and North forced himself to look into the solitary eye rather than be drawn into the black socket.
“He took out my eye, and I killed him.” The accent was Belfast. “But I like to think we both enjoyed the course.”
North’s ribs were healing but they would slow him. The waitress cleared his dirty plate when she topped up his tea and he wished she hadn’t. The cheap knife had been blunt but it would have been better than nothing. The table was screwed into the linoleum floor – too many late-night drunks. Perhaps he could wrest the man’s fork from his grasp and stab him through the other eye? But somehow he doubted it.
North wished he’d eaten a better meal if it was to be his last one. At the very least, he should have ordered dessert and died with sugar on his lips.
“Rest easy, Mr North, I’m not going to shoot you.” The one-eyed man brought his right hand up, showing him the palm, and laid it on the table – he was a southpaw, the left still held the gun in his lap. “I’m here to offer you an opportunity.”
“You killed Bannerman.” It was neither a question nor an accusation. It wasn’t North and it wasn’t the Board. It was why Hardman asked if he was right handed or left.
An almost imperceptible nod from his companion.
“Why?”
“The greatest question of all. I took you for a warrior rather than a philosopher, North.”
The astronomer’s smooth crimson smile, the sheet of blood down the shirt front. An execution. Professional. Clean. A kind of justice.
His companion used the paper napkin to catch non-existent crumbs at the corner of his thin-lipped mouth, then unfolded it with a small flourish to spread it neatly over the remains of his plate like a linen sheet over the dead, before using his index finger to push the shrouded remains to one side. The table between the two men was clear and empty of distraction.
“Let’s say he wasn’t on my team. Peggy, however, is one of mine. I’m responsible for her.”
Honor’s friend was supposed to be an unworldly academic. Not someone working in the darkness alongside one-eyed men who talked so easily of slitting throats over apple pie a la mode.
“Bannerman’s death will buy Peggy a little more time. He allowed them to use him. Welcomed it and profited from it. If she’s still alive, his death might keep her that way a while longer. ”
“And is she still alive?”
“I’m an optimist, as is Peggy. An optimist ready to serve her country. Two years ago we approached her and explained our problem with Armitage – that he was immoral, disreputable, and a member of the Board. We asked her to reach out as a way to get to Tarn. The science was already there for her noise cancelling, the energy-efficient smart chip that would save governments and companies millions of pounds. China’s been working on something similar for decades, but Peggy beat them to it. We knew the access it provided would be catnip to the Board – that they wouldn’t be able to resist harnessing it for their own nefarious ends – and so it proved. She wanted to destroy it, write its own destruction into the program, but it had to be credible. We couldn’t take the risk because it was the best chance we’ve had in a generation to bring down Tarn. We thought we could pull her out before it unwound, but the Board moved too fast for us.”
The Board used Peggy like they used North. The one-eyed man used her like he doubtless wanted to use him.
“In return she asked us to keep Honor Jones safe. We moved one of our best men in to keep her close.”
The banker who wasn’t a banker. The banker with the broken finger who stared after her, watching her walk away. Hugh, who was set to guard her and who ended up dead and drowned in the North Sea. The man opposite him, crouched and vengeful over the body of his operative.
“We’ve known about you for a long time, Mr North. Watched you – kept count. We were ready to kill you that morning when you followed Honor Jones into the park, but then you didn’t do as you’d been told, did you?”
North closed his eyes. The park. The smell of wet foliage. Dampness on his face. Geese rising into the air. Was he in someone’s sights even then. Hugh’s? Even as his hand grasped the knife. As he heard her speak. Heard her question. Where’s Peggy?
“To our astonishment, you even went so far as to try and save her. And we saw something bright begin to shine in the darkness that is Michael North.”
Peggy didn’t tell Honor what she was doing because it was safer that way. She was unravelling Armitage, a man she never liked, not for reasons of patriotism, but to protect Honor from him. Or, for reasons of patriotism, and to protect Honor Jones from him? Her reasons had ceased to matter.
Where’s Peggy? Honor asked, a lifetime ago, and he sensed the need in her, the love and loyalty. Did Peggy feel the same way? The compulsion to drag her friend out from the vortex that was JP Armitage. A need which the man sitting in front of him exploited for his own ends.
“The bombings were always going to happen. Tarn wants his toy soldiers on the street. These recent deaths were just the start if he has any say in it.”
“And the camp?”
“The press know all about the camp – there’s a D-notice banning all mention. They’re not happy but they can’t write about it because they understand internment is necessary – that ‘enemies of the state’ don’t goose-step across borders all dressed up in pretty uniforms any more.”
North was in no doubt Tarn used a handful of their more disposable hostages to pump-prime the bombs. Anthony Walsh would die of natural causes if he wasn’t dead already. His remains discovered by a dog-walker months from now. Others would never talk of what happened for fear of the consequences which would be explained in vivid detail. When their family members co-operated with the conspiracy, they became guilty men and women themselves. They were trapped in Tarn’s web.
“Do you have a name?”
“Edmund Hone.”
Was it a real name? North doubted it. “And who is Edmund Hone?”
“I’m sure you ask yourself the same question every dawn. ‘Who is Michael North?’ Is he a loyal soldier? Or a psychopathic killer? Hero or villain?”
“You’re not police.”
Because police don’t slit throats.
“Are you MI5?”
“Lately, my colleagues have taken to calling themselves the Friends of Cyclops. I can’t think why – I don’t have any friends.”
Hone allowed himself a tight, cold smile transforming his scarred face into a thing of nightmares. “Nature must have its balance, Mr North. Good, bad. Black, white. Positive, negative. The Board and Us. Let’s settle on the idea that we’re a branch of MI5. Select and working under my direction. Deniable and kept apart for just this moment. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? We ‘guard the guardians’, Mr North. Whereas the Board is secretive, we are accountable. The Board has its rituals and history, we have civil service pensions. The Board, and Lucien Tarn in particular, believe they know what is best for this country: we have no agenda other than the security of this democratic state. Its genuine security. Its genuine democracy. The Board is effecting a coup and ‘we’ are going to stop it.”
North kept silent. Tarn had his own Army, the technology and enough hostages to control the country’s infrastructure. Tarn was responsible for all of it – the bomb blasts. Dead. Injured. The disappearance of a scientist, and the corruption of Honor Jones, MP.
“The Board has always had its own role to play, and we were neutral regarding their activities, including your own. But Lucien Tarn is a wild card and we have ceased to be a neutral party. Which is where you come in Mr North. Because what he is doing has nothing to do with the greater good and everything to do with power. You are awake to that fact. Lucien Tarn believes he answers to no one. But he is wrong, because he answers to me and to you, Mr North.”
North forgot the other man’s gun till he tried to rise from the chair.
“We gave you time to recover physically. But you have committed crimes, North – this is the moment to make reparation.”
North regarded the cavern where the other man’s eye had been, the purple-ridged scar left by a man long since dead.
“We understand you’re upset about Honor Jones.”
North’s fists clenched.
“She’s a lucky woman. If JP Armitage had made it, Tarn would have killed her. Armitage was, above all, an adaptable creature, he would’ve coped. His death – which I imagine you to be responsible for – gave her a chance in the same way I’ve tried to give Peggy a chance. They had to improvise – they need a communicator, a plausible rallying point in these dangerous times and Honor Jones fitted the bill. Don’t take it to heart. You were trying to keep her alive, weren’t you? Mission accomplished. She’s on the verge of great things. Don’t begrudge her Willie Wonka’s golden ticket.”
North filtered the information, tasting the irony in it. The Board meant JP Armitage to fill the vacuum when they took out the country’s political leadership. Charismatic, tough talking, straight dealing, traitorous to a fault JP Armitage. Instead they had the charismatic, persuasive Honor Jones.
“The suicide bid?”
“They’ve changed the story. The media got it wrong – it wasn’t suicide. It was a miscarriage. They were about to be married when she lost JP Armitage’s baby, and now worse yet, she’s lost Armitage as well. Tragic eh? Pulls at your heartstrings, doesn’t it? And it makes it all the harder to challenge her when she demands change.
“This won’t do, Mr North. Your inertia. Make no mistake democracy is dying out there. Tarn has his people everywhere. The Army is already his. Key figures in the police are his. The secret service.” He paused as if to acknowledge the seriousness of what he was saying. “The Government is passing an Executive Order to arrest whomsoever they please – the camp you were so concerned with is legal. Among the detainees are enough Britons home from fighting holy wars in messy places to make sure nobody cares about who else is there or when they arrived. Internment after all has a great and glorious tradition – the Boers, World War I, World War II, Ireland. And the bombings were just the start, Tarn has something bigger in mind. The strongest of governments. A militarised society at war with liberal values. When Trump’s America stepped away from its defence commitments in Europe, the US gave up all influence here along with its military bases. We chose to walk away from the European Union and all that goes with it. This, right here, is our new world order. In any event, no foreign power will speak for us because they will all too soon be preoccupied with the consequences of Dr Boland’s smart chip. Tarn is imposing a regime of his own choosing, and one from which there is no rowing back.”
“But why now?”
“Because they have an Army. Because there is fear on the street. Because Trump got elected. Because it was always going to be sometime, and most of all because Tarn is an angry old man who is tired of waiting.”
North shrugged, feigning indifference. He was done with it all, with fighting an enemy bigger than him.
“This is a revolution, Mr North. You’ve been that man’s creature for a long time. I despise who you are and what you represent. But I need you, and you have no choice. Did I mention that? I say this with a degree of reluctance, because we have no time for dialectics. We’ll kill Honor Jones. We will find and kill everyone you ever met – a massacre of the innocents. Sweet and luscious Jess. The gifted Fangfang Yu – which would be a shame because GCHQ would love her. Your old Army buddies. Their pretty wives and adorable children. You can go to their funerals. Each of them – one by one, young and old. Until you agree to do what we want.”
“Don’t threaten me.”
“I don’t make threats. I haven’t the time. This is the end of days, Mr North.”
Honor Jones made him believe he was better than a killing machine. To rejoin the fight now would put them on opposite sides. Would make her his enemy. It would take them right back to the start. Him on one side. Her on the other.
“You can get close enough to take off the monster’s head. Tarn chairs the Board. He values you. He’ll welcome you back – the prodigal son.”
“I doubt that.”
“Maybe not. But you’re uniquely placed – you can get close enough to one man and that may be enough.”
This time he was expected to kill not Honor, but Tarn. Who began it all and who intended to change the world to something that suited him better.Tarn ordered the deaths of his adversaries, interned the innocent, and set a bomb in the heart of government. He used North till North wouldn’t be used, and then threw him away like he had only ever been nothing. Because Tarn wanted society remade in his own image and that could only ever be a darker, greedier, more violent place.
The picture of a ketch. The name Liberty painted on her side came to mind. Gentle waves against the clean lines of her hull. A soft breeze as he cast a line into the azure sea – an ice-cold beer at his bare feet warm against the polished deck. A tug on the hook bending the rod.
It would never happen. He would never fish off the stern of a boat as it sailed warm and foreign seas.
He let it go.
North didn’t have a choice.
Tarn was guilty. And killing people was what North did.
Hone pushed across a folded piece of paper. “A more salubrious address. Its former occupant wasn’t on my team either. An elderly Serb – she too is keen to make reparations for her sins. It’s a place where you can arm yourself, and you’ll need help. Prepare yourself, Mr North, for battle is upon you. You’re one of the good guys now.”