Lifeless

THIRTY-SIX

He heard the man coming long before he saw him. The footsteps sounded hesitant; he could recog nize the tread of someone unfamiliar within the network of tunnels from a mile away. He’d heard such echoes many times before: the click – clack of heels slowing, then speeding up again as confidence comes and goes; the scrape of a leather sole against the concrete as the wearer turns to get their bearings, or decides in which direction to proceed. Or whether to proceed at all…

When he finally saw the man rounding the corner,

Spike stood. He leaned back against the wall and waited; tried to look unconcerned as the distance between the two of them shortened, as the man moved toward him through puddles of water and deeper pools of shadow.

“Am I in the right place?” the man said. Still twenty feet or more away.

The fear would have killed any strength in his voice anyway, but with the sound moving effortlessly, as it did through the air underground, Spike had no need to speak much above a whisper. “Depends,” he said, “on if you’ve got shitloads of cash in one of those pockets…”

When the man stopped, it was three or four arms’ lengths away from Spike. He looked around quickly. Took in his immediate surroundings. “This is nice,” he said.

Spike said nothing.

The man nodded toward the large cardboard box behind, and to Spike’s right, against the wall. “That where you sleep?”

“It’s a lot better than some places,” Spike said. The corners of the man’s mouth turned up, but it could hardly have been called a smile. “Tell me how you got the tape.” It seemed that the small talk was at an end.

“I told you when I called…”

“You told me fuck-all,” the man said. “You talked a lot of crap and I’ve had a few days to think about it since then.”

“What’s the matter? Don’t you want it? That’s fine with me, like. Only you seemed keen enough on the phone…”

“Tell me.”

It was never really silent down in the subways.

There was always the muffled roar of the traffic overhead, the buzz of the strip lights, the eerie beat of dripping water. These were the only sounds for several seconds.

Spike rubbed his hands across his face. Through his hair. “What d’you want me to say?” His voice was hoarse; cracked with nerves and desire. “You want me to tell you I’m a fucked-up junkie? Do anything to score? Desperate enough for money to shit on a mate?”

“Now you’re starting to persuade me,” the man said.

“Thorne told me he was a copper, like. That he’d been working undercover because of these murders.

He told me about the case, about why everyone had been killed.”

The man didn’t blink.

“He talked about everything,” Spike said. “What happened all them years ago in the fucking desert.

He told me who you were and he told me about the tape.”

“Why?”

Spike shrugged. “Fuck knows. Because it was his last night, I suppose, and the stupid bastard thought it didn’t matter. He said that the bloke who did the actual killing had legged it and there wasn’t anything else anyone could do…”

The man thrust his hands into the pocket of a long leather coat and pressed his arms close to his body. It was getting very cold in the early hours. “So, you just sat there, took all that in, and saw an easy way to make a few quid?”

“More than a few, mate…”

“Don’t try to be clever.” It was a simple directive.

Spoken quietly, with the cold confidence that comes from being used to having such instructions followed.

“Look… I was fucked off with him,” Spike said.

“For bullshitting me all that time. For making me and my girlfriend and all the rest of us look like idiots. It was a good way to get my own back.” The man looked unconvinced. “It was a good way to make some money.”

“Yeah, all right. ’Course it was. Obviously, after what he told me, I knew that the tape was valuable.

That you’d probably pay a fair bit to get it back.

When he said he had the tape on him, I started to think about it, you know? I was thinking about a shedload of smack and that. And a flat for me and my girlfriend.” Spike grinned, bounced a fist against his leg, as he thought about those things again. “She wants us to get a place together, you know?” “You just took it?”

“When he was asleep, I grabbed his stuff and fucked off. I know he’s looking for me, but I’m pretty good at keeping out of people’s way, you know?” “He said this was the only copy?”

Spike widened his eyes. “Thorne’s fucking mental.

I told you. I reckon being on the street has made him go funny, made him see things a bit twisted, like. He more or less nicked it, from what he was saying. Got some other copper he knew to hand it over to him on the quiet.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Don’t ask me. He was ranting about showing it to somebody. About using it for something.” The man seemed to think about this.

“Listen,” Spike said. “I don’t really want to know about any of it, all right? Like you said, I’m just doing this for the money.”

“Now, that I do understand,” the man said. “It’s what started all this in the first place.”

Spike lifted a sleeve and rubbed the sweat away.

“Starts everything, mate. Only some of us need it a bit more than others…”

The man peered at Spike with curiosity and disgust, as though the wreckage of an accident had been taken away and he was staring at a bloodstain on the road. “My good fortune in this case,” he said.

Spike reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, pulled out a plastic carrier bag, and wrapped it around whatever was inside. “Tape’s in here,” he said.

The man made no move to take it. “You know that if you’re fucking me about, I’ll find you,” he said. “However good you think you are at keeping out of people’s way. I’ll pay someone to find you.” “Thorne told me what’s on here.” Spike shook the package. The tape rattled inside. “I haven’t watched it, but I know what you did. I know what happened back then, and what happened later on with cars and tablets and with army boots, so I know what you’re capable of.” He looked across at the man and held his stare. “I’m a junkie, and a liar, and a fuck ing thief. But I’m not stupid…”

The man seemed impressed by this. When his hand came out of his pocket it was holding a bulging, brown A3 envelope.

“How do we do this, then?” Spike held out the plastic bag at arm’s length. It shook in his hand. He dropped the arm and took a breath; tried to sound casual. “You want me to chuck it over or what?” The man stepped forward suddenly, and kept coming as Spike moved backward away from him. When

Spike was against the wall, the man gently lifted the package from his hand. Six inches taller than Spike, he looked down and pressed the envelope against the boy’s chest. “Quite a bit in here,” he said. “Quite a lot of shit to put in your arm…”

The man’s eyes swiveled in an instant to the cardboard box and at the same moment he took a step back. At the sudden noise; at the movement… A week before, back at the Lift, when they’d been playing pool and talking about how it might work, this had been the moment that had caused Spike to laugh out loud. Back before Thorne had gone to

Brigstocke or Brigstocke to Jesmond. Before Jesmond had gone higher to wherever the buck stopped. This had been what they’d called the “rat” moment.

“He’ll probably think it’s a rat,” Spike had said.

“A fucking big one, like. He’ll probably shit himself…”

The man’s reaction when Thorne appeared from inside the box-sitting and then standing up in one smooth movement-was less dramatic than Spike had predicted, but Thorne could certainly see that he’d sprung a powerful surprise. “I’m guessing those football tickets are out of the question now,” he said.