Edge. Part 15

TELL YOUR GIRLFRIEND.

Slipping the phone into his pocket, he headedoutside, walked the single block to the red brick cathedral, and went inside. Heavy darkness seemed a permanent denizen in here. In a pew at the back, he sat down, then knelt, cupping his phone again to read the words in full.

TELL YOUR GIRLFRIEND TO LEAVE HERPHONE AT HOME. BIG EARS EVERYWHERE.

Getting to his feet, he crossed to one of the shadowed side-chapels, and stopped at a metal stand bearing rows of candle holders, some two-thirds in use. He used cash, bought a candle and lit it, then pressed it into place. Call it cover, acting like the real wors.h.i.+ppers. Or call it a prayer to an imaginary ent.i.ty he had no belief in: a plea to the universe for a miracle, for Sophie's sake.

Get out of here.

Leaving, he kept his head down, using natural movement to disguise the way he scanned the environment, checking everyone, detecting no patterns, knowing that the real watchers were everywhere: lenses ranging in size from pinholes to golf b.a.l.l.s, overtly on posts and hidden in nooks, outside and inside the buildings, reporting every second of every day on the ant-like behaviour sweeping through their fields of view. A camera does not blink; a server does not sleep.

Why was someone eavesdropping on Suzanne? And who was the helpful message from, if it was real?

He wandered into Stag Place, buffeted by wind some kind of tunnel effect produced by the gla.s.s buildings and found Elliptical House, its outline living up to its name. Inside, a receptionist with weightlifter muscles nodded at Josh's name, and said he was on the visitor's list.

"Fourth floor. Lift is over there."

"Thanks."There was a mutual nod, a recognition of physical potential; then Josh made his way to the lift, wondering what Richard Broomhall had thought as he made this journey, and what had flipped inside his head to make him act so differently afterwards. On the fourth floor, he found a mother-and-daughter pair just leaving Suzanne's office. Consulting room. Whatever.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey." Suzanne watched her clients go, then: "Come in while I grab my things."

A smart remark rose up inside him, about grabbing her things, and he pushed it back down. As he followed her inside, he checked the observation vectors the placement of the four internal office cameras was obvious then turned his phone towards her, its screen hidden from surveillance.

LEAVE YOUR PHONE HERE A blink of polished-chestnut eyes; a raised eyebrow. "Least I can do is buy you a sandwich," he said. "A sandwich? Is that all you're offering?" "I could have made cheese sarnies in my hotel, brought them along in a plastic box." A blink of polished-chestnut eyes; a raised eyebrow. "Least I can do is buy you a sandwich," he said. "A sandwich? Is that all you're offering?" "I could have made cheese sarnies in my hotel, brought them along in a plastic box."

"Lucky escape for me, then."By this time they were out in the fourth-floor lobby, and Suzanne was checking that her door was shut, while her phone remained inside atop her desk. She looked at Josh; he dipped his chin, then asked her about the rubbish strike, whether she thought the dustbin collections might restart any time soon, and if she had seen any rats around where she lived.

"Not as yet, but I'm hoping," she said inside the lift. "Think of all those phobic patients I'll be gaining."

"All coughing at you and spreading their bubonic plague."

"There is that."

Outside, they strolled past the mall, then Josh pointed as if suggesting a place to eat, and led her between a gla.s.s pillar and the main exterior wall.

"Dead zone," he said. "Your phone is compromised, or so I've been told."

"Compromised?" Her expression looked like the beginning of a smile; then she glanced to her left. "The police gave me a replacement handset."

"We're on the same side."

Except that my search methods are illegal.

"So what now?"

"We go to lunch. I'm going to ask you to come somewhere with me tonight, and we can talk about that openly. If you do say yes, can you remember to forget your phone?"

Her smile was unrestrained.

"Josh c.u.mberland, you have a way with hypnotic language."

"Er..."

Some ninety minutes later, in another dead zone free from surveillance, Josh made a call.

"Tony? How're you doing?"

"OK. Just on a break."

"Good guess on my part."

"Guess, my a.r.s.e. Some of us are organised, stick to a timetable."

"Uh-huh. Does Terry B still have his black cab?"

"Big Tel? Course he does. Want me to have a word with him?"

"I was hoping to book a taxi for, say, six tonight."

"Christ, leave things till the last minute, why don't you? This job working out, is it?"

"Keeping me busy."

"And you need Tel? It's that sort of gig?"

"Just for the wheels."

"Huh. Call you right back."

"OK.".

At twenty past six, Suzanne stepped from a doorway in a Bloomsbury sidestreet, and slid into the black cab that had just pulled up. Josh, on the bench-seat beside her, smiled at her.

"We can talk." He pointed at the ceiling-mounted cam. "We won't be recorded."

"Is that legal?"

"Not in the slightest."

From the driver's seat in front of the plexigla.s.s part.i.tion, a big hand waved in greeting.

"He's a friend," Josh added.

"If the police check his video log," said Suzanne, "he'll be in trouble."

"Actually, there'll be a perfectly good-looking record of someone making this journey, with the correct background showing through the windows and all, but it won't be us. Two other people, having a harmless conversation, and the lighting on their faces just right, matching the light from outside."

She did not really know this man. Perhaps it was worth remembering that.

"So are we going to see someone called Petra, or is that more subterfuge?"

"That's real. She's a police officer, and she can help us. But not by staying inside the rules."

"Oh."

"Her being a career police officer and all, she might be reluctant. Maybe someone who understands people really well can persuade her to slip a querybot into the system."

"Was that persuade persuade as in as in manipulate manipulate?"

"Surely you wouldn't act unethically, Dr d.u.c.h.esne."

"Huh. So that's the only reason you wanted me along."

"Well." There was something about the muscles in Josh's face that made his smile compelling. "What other reason could there be?"

She smiled back.

It was half an hour and one traffic jam later when they stood outside the railway arches, watching the taxi drive off. Rain from an earlier shower was dripping from Victorian archways; their brickwork thrumming with the sound of electromag trains sliding overhead. Broken furniture, rusted junk, and dark-stained weeds were prevalent. Welcome to Wandsworth: so near to MI6 HQ, that severe and glistening fortress, and yet a world away.

Perhaps it was Josh's past that had her thinking about the intelligence services; in any case, when he knocked four times on a metal door thump, thumpthump, thump she had to fight down a giggle.

"Don't tell me it's a secret signal."

"Just don't knock it."

Was that a pun? She might have asked, but a small hatch sc.r.a.ped back, something silver shone checking out with a mirror, not exposing an eyeball then the hatch clunked shut, and the door swung inward.

"Petra teaches paranoia." Josh's tone lightened, but not in humour. "The kind that keeps you alive when they're really out to get you."

"Oh. That kind."Inside, old khaki mats stretched across a stone floor. Battered-looking punchbags hung from chains. In front of the cla.s.s stood a lean, fit-looking woman wearing old sweats, her hands wrapped in stained pink bandages.

"See Petra's hand wraps?" Josh kept his voice low. "As dainty she gets."

The stains looked to be old blood. Petra's, or other people's? Petra's, or other people's? Two rows of men and women in pyjama-like white outfits stood ready, intent on Petra. Two rows of men and women in pyjama-like white outfits stood ready, intent on Petra.

"Why isn't she dressed like her students?"

"Actually" Josh pointed to one corner where a smaller number waited, in tattered shorts and T-s.h.i.+rts "they're the regulars."

Also, they were smiling. In front of the others, Petra was talking with hands clasped behind her back.

"So in your dojo" she nodded to the black belts in the group "you teach, what do you call it, focused awareness."

"Zans.h.i.+n."

"Right. While on the street, awareness is your first weapon. Run if you can, fight if you have to, in which case fight to win."

The black belts nodded first, then the others. Beside Suzanne, Josh was failing to stop his grin widening.

"And then there's distancing and timing, right? What do you guys call them?"

"Ma-ai and" and"

"YAAHHH!" She whipped something silver against a black belt's throat. "You're f.u.c.king dead."

Then she had spun away and was standing beyond kicking range, blade held high.

Baise-moi.

It was rare for Suzanne's thinking to be shocked back into French.

"Ah, Petra." Josh shook his head, teeth bared in a fighter's smile. "You're good."

The karate guys looked pale.

"We do street shotokan," said Petra. "No white gis gis, no tag-you're-it play-sparring. This is the real tradition, people." She threw the knife thunk thunk into pockmarked chipboard. "And next time someone's holding a weapon and giving you the soothing verbals, you'll know precisely what they're f.u.c.king up to, won't you?" into pockmarked chipboard. "And next time someone's holding a weapon and giving you the soothing verbals, you'll know precisely what they're f.u.c.king up to, won't you?"

Nods, and acknowledgements sounding like "Uss." Another j.a.panese word.

"All right, partner up." Petra pointed. "Every visitor with one of my gang. One-step drills, coming up. And... go."