Ordinary Thunderstorms

23

DARREN BROUGHT THEIR PINTS over and set them down on the table. They were in a large, loud bar off Leicester Square — the place was full of foreigners, all chatting away in their incomprehensible foreign languages, Jonjo thought, looking around him. Even the bar staff were foreign. He, Darren and this other bloke who’d been introduced as ‘Bob’ seemed to be the only true-blue English present. This Bob was another soldier, Jonjo had recognised instantly, though of higher rank — an officer, a ‘Rupert’—but a Rupert who had seen some nasty business: two fingers were missing on his left hand and he had a fairly recent, wealed, crescent-shaped scar four inches long on his jaw.

“Cheers, dears,” Jonjo said and glugged three big mouthfuls of fizzy beer. He was in for a bollocking, or worse — might as well enjoy the free drink.

“You fucked up, Jonjo,” Bob said quietly, when he’d set his glass down. “Big time. Do you know what we had to do to get you out? Any idea who we had to call? The special favours we had to ask of very important people? What favours we now owe?”

Jonjo didn’t really care. Darren had told him he had every resource available so when he’d been arrested he made the call. What else was he meant to do? He smiled emptily back at ‘Bob’ and measured an inch of air between his thumb and forefinger. “I was that close,” he said. “I’d tracked Kindred down. I had him. Until that fucking policewoman showed up.”

“Malign fate,” Bob said. “The one thing you can’t calculate for.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Darren said nothing, concentrating on drinking his beer — the message-boy.

“Trouble is,” Bob went on, “now we can’t even tell the police you almost had him. That would tie us in to the Wang hit — so we’re taking it in every orifice.”

Jonjo ignored him. The worst was over. “I know what Kindred’s doing,” he said calmly, evenly, sitting back in his chair. “I figured it out while I was waiting for him. He’s been living there, by that bridge, for weeks…Just lying low. He’s not stupid: he doesn’t do anything, so there’s no trail. No cheques, no bills, no references, no mobile phone calls — only payphones — no credit cards, only cash — nothing. That’s how you disappear in the twenty-first century — you just refuse to take part in it. You live like a medieval peasant: you scrounge, you steal, you sleep under hedges. That’s why no one could find him — not even the whole fucking Metropolitan Police murder squad. He could be showing up on 30 °CCTV cameras a day but we don’t know. We don’t even know what he looks like any more, we don’t know where he goes, what he does. He’s just a man walking on a city street. Big deal. Free as a bird.”

Jonjo paused, a little taken aback at his own eloquence. He decided that continued unapologetic belligerence was his best defence.

“But,” he said, “but I found him. Me — Jonjo Case. I tracked him down. Not the police. Not your hundred grand reward advert. I had him — but fucking bad luck got in the way. So don’t give me no bullshit about having to call in favours.” He measured his airy inch with his two fingers again. “Nobody else got within a country mile.”

“You may well have a point,” Bob said. “But one thing’s for sure now — he’s well and truly gone.”

“I’ll get him, don’t you worry,”Jonjo said, with more confidence than he felt. “I got leads now — just give me a bit of time.”

“The one commodity we don’t have in large supply, Mr Case,” Rupert-Bob said, his voice heavy with cynicism. Jonjo surmised that he’d been a smart-arsed sergeant with a clever tongue who’d been promoted. It made him relax a bit: he knew what these guys were like, knew their deep insecurities. He’d wager the accent was fake too — there was something Scouse, something North about him — the Wirral, Cheshire…

“That’s not my problem, mate,”Jonjo said, fixing him with dead eyes.

“Yes, it fucking is. Time is short. You don’t have much time. Got it?” He stood up. “Come on, Darren.”

Darren drained his pint and gave Jonjo a wink round the side of his upended glass. What’s that meant to mean? Jonjo wondered. He saw Bob hit his mobile as he left the pub — calling in, reporting back on the Jonjo Case meeting. Who could he be calling, Jonjo asked himself, who was higher up this chain?…

He wandered over to the bar, feeling disgruntled, put-upon, undervalued, and ordered another pint from a girl called Carmencita. What are they getting so excited about? he pondered as he stood there, sipping his beer. They now knew Kindred was alive and living somewhere in London. It was, in the end, as he had said, purely a matter of time. Time was Kindred’s enemy. Time was Jonjo’s friend, time was onjonjo’s side.