The Darkest Day

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The hotel bar was about thirty metres square. The thick grey carpet in the centre of the floor was ringed with limestone tiles. Leather chairs, sofas and stools surrounded glass tables. Against one wall sat a woman playing an ornate sandalwood harp. Her hair was red and straight, and so long it hung past her waist. The graceful, dextrous movements of her fingers impressed Victor as much as the music soothed him. She never opened her eyes, lost in the concentrated rhythm, and Victor fought to remember the last time he had chosen to impede his own sight in public and found pleasure in the experience. No memory came to him.

Behind her, the wall was covered in glass, behind which blue lights cast her in a soft, almost metallic glow. Waitresses wearing red dresses drifted around the room, taking table orders or delivering drinks and snacks. Their movements were as effortless as the harpist’s. Bartenders wearing waistcoats and bow ties mixed cocktails, their faces etched with focus. They looked like men who would refuse to pour Scotch over ice or mix bourbon with soft drinks.

‘Woodford Reserve,’ Victor said to one, who looked old before his time.

The bartender poured a double measure of the bourbon into a tumbler as he said, ‘Singles are for daylight only.’

Victor took a seat at the bar and ignored the noise of chatter and merriment to listen to the harpist.

He had fled Floyd Bennett Field long before the first responders had shown up and sealed off the area. Using the chaos of the blackout, he had slipped out of the city and headed across the border into Canada.

After lying low in Nova Scotia for a week, he had contacted Muir. She had heard nothing of the incident at the airfield, despite rumours of gunfire and an explosion. The Consensus at work, Victor assumed. He was still a wanted man, but as an assassin, not a terrorist. No terrorist attack had been committed. Halleck’s death had been recorded as a suicide. He was suspected of killing Guerrero.

Victor had neither seen nor heard anything from Raven until she appeared alongside him at the bar.

‘Ten thousand hours,’ she said, looking at the harpist. ‘That’s how long they say it takes to master a skill like that.’

Victor sipped the whisky. ‘I’ve heard the same.’

‘Sounds about right to me,’ Raven said. ‘Do you play any instruments?’

‘Like that? No.’ Victor gestured to the harpist. ‘But I know my way around the piano. Well, used to.’

‘Why the past tense?’

‘A piano needs a home.’

She turned to face him, leaning one elbow on the bar. ‘And you’re homeless? Poor baby.’

‘I prefer to think of myself as a nomad.’

The old-before-his-time barman approached. ‘What can I get for you, ma’am?’

She pointed at Victor’s glass. ‘What’s he drinking?’

The barman said, ‘Woodford.’

‘Bourbon?’ She frowned at Victor, then looked back to the barman. ‘No, no, no. Scotch, please. An Islay. Caol Ila, if you have it.’

The barman nodded. ‘We do.’

‘But don’t even think about putting ice in that glass.’

The barman smiled and looked young again. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

‘What are you doing here?’ Victor asked.

‘Maybe I just wanted to see you.’

Victor raised an eyebrow.

‘What?’ Raven said. ‘Why is that so impossible to believe?’

‘Because you deserted me at the airfield,’ Victor said.

She shrugged. ‘Don’t forget you’re the one who said we weren’t a team.’ She smiled. ‘That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.’

‘I haven’t had too many friends,’ Victor began, ‘but I’m pretty sure trying to kill one’s friends is the antithesis of friendship.’

‘Ah, but that was then. That was before. Now that’s all out of the way, we can be friends.’

‘Can it ever truly be out of the way for people like us?’

She regarded him, acting as if she was only thinking about it now in this moment, but he knew she must have thought about it countless times. As he had.

The barman returned with Raven’s drink and placed it down before her. She smiled at him and looked at Victor.

‘Aren’t you going to offer to buy it for me?’

Victor held her gaze and allowed her to play her game with him.

He nodded to the barman. ‘Please put the lady’s drink on my tab.’

‘Certainly, sir.’

Raven beamed. ‘You called me a lady. How nice of you, Jonathan.’

‘My name isn’t Jonathan.’

She lifted her glass to smell the whisky. ‘It will be unless I know your real name.’

‘Then I guess I’m Jonathan.’

She winked. ‘I knew you would see it my way. What shall we drink to?’

‘World peace.’

She laughed. ‘Then we’ll both be out of business.’

‘Would that be so bad? Retirement sounds like fun from where I’m sitting.’

‘Now I know you’re joking. You’re never going to retire, Jonathan. You’ll be the world’s only ninety-year-old hitman.’

He frowned. ‘I really don’t like that word.’

She grinned. ‘I really don’t care. Don’t be a bore, Jonathan. Come on, clinky clink.’

They touched glasses and sipped their drinks. Raven closed her eyes to savour hers.

When she opened them, she said, ‘Try some. You’ll never go back to that junk again.’

She held out her drink. He looked at the smudge of lipstick on the glass.

‘I’ll stick with this, thanks.’

She saw that he had looked and sighed. ‘That offends me. We’re past all that. As I said, we’re friends now.’

‘If we’re friends then you won’t be offended accommodating my precautionary nature.’

Her eyes narrowed, but she smiled. ‘Slippery. But I like it.’

They held each other’s gaze.

‘So,’ she said, using her chin to gesture at Victor’s drink. ‘How many of those do you need inside you before you invite me up to your room?’