The Driver

#3 MILEY VAN DYKEN

Miley Van Dyken had been having second thoughts about how she had chosen to live her life. She’d told friends about them, how she was thinking about getting out. She knew that turning tricks could be a dangerous business but it seemed to her that there had been more stories of psychos preying on working girls recently. There had been all those poor girls down on the beach in New Jersey, for one, and the police still had no idea who was responsible for their deaths. There were plenty of benefits that came from doing what she did — they money, obviously, but the freedom of working to your own schedule was another that other girls often overlooked — but it had been getting to the stage that her doubts and fears were starting to get so bad that she couldn’t ignore them. She had nightmares and premonitions about running into a murderous john and she had suffered with a really bad one the night before. She had recorded it on her Facebook page, telling her friends in vague terms (since not many of them knew what she did) that she was having serial killer dreams that were more and more vivid each time they came around.

The john had hired a room in The Tuscan on North Point Street in North Beach, five minutes from Pier 39. Miley usually preferred to sort the room herself, charging a little extra as expenses so that she still cleared her two hundred per hour, but the guy had apologised that he couldn’t very easily leave the hotel and, when he had sensed her reluctance, had offered to pay a further fifty bucks on top to “make up for her inconvenience.” He sounded nice enough kind, speaking with a lilting southern accent that put her in mind of that guy Kevin Spacey played in the Netflix thing, and even though she had initially turned him down and hung up she stewed on it for fifteen minutes and changed her mind. She didn’t have another job booked, he had been polite on the phone and, most importantly, she needed the money. Craigslist had started charging $5 per advert and that had made it difficult to stay at the top of the list. Miley had used a JavaScript program that kept posting and reposting her ad so it was always on the first page but the new charges meant that that wasn’t an option any more. The cost of advertising was higher and the competition was tougher. She worried about all of that as she rode the bus. The driver smiled at her as she disembarked outside the hotel.

He was the last person to see her alive.

It was a small hotel that catered to travelling business people. It was a two-storey building surrounded by a parking lot. It didn’t appear to be very busy; the lot was almost empty, save for a couple of rentals and a beaten-up Cadillac Eldorado. She went around the car on the way to the lobby when the driver’s side door opened and a man got out. He was tall and skinny, dressed in a white t-shirt, jeans and a pair of cowboy boots. He said her name. She recognised his voice.

30

Cotton and Webster didn’t sit and so neither did Milton. Webster wandered absently to the window and looked down onto the street below. Cotton took a book from the shelf — it was The Unbearable Lightness of Being — made a desultory show of flicking through the pages and then put it back again. He looked around, his face marked by a lazy sneer.

“Nice place you got here,” he said.

“It suits me very well.”

“I don’t know, Mr. Smith. We get called out to places like this all the time. Don’t you find it a bit tawdry?”

“You didn’t come here to critique my accommodation.”

“No.”

“And I have things to do. What do you want? If you’ve got questions, ask them.”

The cop took out his phone and selected a picture. He slid it across the table. Milton looked at it: it was a picture of a woman, white, slender with a short cropped Elfin hairstyle. Very pretty. “Recognise her?”

Milton looked at the picture. “No.”

“You sure about that? Scroll right for the next one.”

Milton did as he was told. It was the same girl, this time in some sort of prom dress. She looked young. “No,” he said. “I’ve never seen her before. Who is she?”

“Her name is Miley Van Dyken.”

“I don’t know her, detective.”

“Where were you three weeks ago last Wednesday?”

“I’d have to check.”

“Like I say, it’s a Wednesday. Think.”

Milton sighed exasperatedly. “I would’ve gone to work in the afternoon and driven my car at night.”

“We can check the afternoon. What about the night — can anyone prove you were driving?”

“If my calls were from the agency, then maybe. If they came straight through to me, then no, probably not.” He slid the phone back across the table to him. “Who is she? Number three?”

“That’s right, Mr. Smith. We found her this morning. Same place as the other two.”

“There’s only so many times I can say it — I’ve got nothing to do with this.”

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Please do.”

“You own any firearms?”

Milton felt his skin prickle. “No,” he said.

“So if we looked around, we wouldn’t find anything?”

“Help yourself. I don’t have anything to hide.”

“Reason I’m asking, that guard at the party you put on the ground, he said you took his gun from him. Smith & Wesson. The Pro Series, 9mm — very nice gun. Then, yesterday, we found a couple of shell casings outside the gate for Pine Shores. Looks like the electricity was shot out. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Milton concentrated on projecting a calm exterior. He had left the gun under the bed. It wasn’t even well hidden: all they would need to do would be to duck down and look. “No,” he said. “I don’t know anything about it. I don’t own a gun. To be honest, I doubt I’d even know what to do with one.”

“Alright, then.”

“Is that it?”

“No,” Webster said from the window. “There is one more thing you can help us with.”

“Please.”

“When we spoke to you before you said you came across the border from Mexico. Six months ago. July. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you cross?”

Milton started to feel uncomfortable. “Juárez into El Paso.”

“That’s weird,” Webster said. “You know, there are forty-six places where you can legally cross over from Mexico. We spoke with Immigration. We checked El Paso, Otay Mesa, Tecate, Nogales. Hell, we even tried Lukeville and Antelope Wells. We found a handful of John Smiths who came across the border around about then. That’s no surprise, really, a common name like that — but the thing is, the thing I just can’t get my head around, is that when we looked at their pictures none of them looked anything like you.”

That, Milton thought, was hardly surprising. He had crossed the border illegally, trekking across country east of Juárez into the Chisos Mountains and then Big Bear National Park. The last thing he had wanted to do was leave a record that would show where he had entered the country. He had not been minded to give the agents pursuing him any clue at all as to his location.

“Mr. Smith?” Webster and Cotton were eyeing him critically.

Milton shrugged. “What do you want me to say to that?”

“Can you explain it?”

“I was working in Juárez. I crossed into El Paso. I can’t explain why there’s no record of it.”

“Do you mind if we take your passport for a couple of days?”

“Why?”

“We’d just like to have a look at it.”

Milton went over to the bedside table and took his passport from the drawer. He could see the dull glint of the brushed steel on the handgun, an inch from his toe. He handed the passport to Webster. “There you are,” he said. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“Thank you.”

“Anything else?”

“Nah,” Cotton said. “We got nothing more for you now.”

“But don’t leave town without telling us,” Webster advised. “I’m pretty sure we’ll want to talk to you again.”

31

Milton had a lock-up at Extra Space Storage at 1400 Folsom Street. He had hired it within a couple of days of arriving in San Francisco and deciding that it was the kind of town he could stay in for a few months. The lock-up was an anonymous place, a collection of industrial cargo crates that had been arranged in several rows. Each crate had been divided into two or four separate compartments and each was secured with a thick metal door padlocked top and bottom. It cost Milton twenty bucks a week and it was easily worth that for the peace of mind that it bought. He knew, eventually, that Control would locate him again and send his agents to hunt him down. He didn’t know how he would react to that, when it happened — he had been ready to surrender in Mexico — but he wanted the ability to resist them if that was what he chose to do. More to the point, he knew that his assassination of El Patrón and the capture of his son would not be forgotten by La Frontera. There would be a successor to the old man’s crown, a brother or another son, and then there would be vengeance. They would have put an enormous price on his head. If they managed to find him, he certainly did not want to be unprepared.

Milton took out his key and unfastened the locks. He checked again that he was alone in the facility and, satisfied that he was, opened the door. He had stocked the storage crate with everything he would need in an emergency. There was a change of clothes, a cap, a packet of hair dye and a pair of clear lensed spectacles. There was a go bag with three false passports and the money he had found at El Patrón’s superlab before he had torched it. Five thousand dollars, various denominations, all used notes. At the back of the crate, hidden beneath a blanket, was a Desert Eagle .50 Action Express with a picatinny rail. It had been El Patrón’s weapon and, like everything else in his comic-book life, it had been tricked out to clichéd excess: the gun was gold-plated with diamonds set into the butt. Milton had no idea how much it was worth — thousands, obviously — but he didn’t really care about that. The semi-automatic was one of Milton’s favourite weapons. It was gas-operated with a firing mechanism usually found in rifles as opposed to the more common short recoil or blowback designs. The mechanism allowed for far more powerful cartridges and he had purchased a box of Speer 325-grain .50 AE ammunition for it the day after he arrived in town. He tore back the cardboard and tipped the bullets onto the floor of the unit; they glittered in the light of the single naked bulb that had been fitted to the roof of the crate. Lethal little golden slugs.

Milton detached the magazine and thumbed seven into the slot.

He slid the Desert Eagle into his jeans, his belt pressing it against his skin. The golden barrel was icy cold, the frame flat against his coccyx. He filled his pockets with the rest of the bullets. He dropped the Smith & Wesson 9mm into the go bag and slung it over his shoulder.

He shut and locked the crate.

He wouldn’t be coming back again.

Things were already too hot for him in San Francisco. He hadn’t been named in any of the newspaper reports that he had read about the missing girls but that was probably just a matter of time. It was a little irrelevant, too; his name would have been recorded by the police and Control would sniff that out soon enough. They could be here tomorrow or next week; there was no way of knowing when, except that they were coming. Under normal circumstances, he would have moved on already, but he didn’t feel able to leave until he had tried a little harder to find Madison. Trip would have no chance without him and, besides, he had a lead now. He would find out what he could and then disappear beneath the surface again.

The Explorer was parked close to the entrance of the facility.

He nodded to the attendant and made his way out to his car.

A short detour first. Manny Martinez ran his operation out of a grocery shop in the Mission District, not far from Milton’s place. Milton had called ahead to make an appointment and, when he arrived, he was ushered all the way to the back of the store. There was a small office with a desk and a computer. A clock on the wall. Ramirez was a big man, wearing an old pair of cargo pants and a muscle top that showed off impressively muscled biceps and sleeves of tattoos on both arms. His head was shaved to a furze of rough hair and he had a tattoo of a tear beneath his right eye. Prison ink. Milton checked the office: his eye fell on the cudgel with a leather strap that was hanging from a hook on the wall.

“You Smith?”

“That’s right. Thank you for seeing me.”

“How much you want?”

“I don’t want anything.”

“You said—”

“Yes, I know — and I’m sorry about that. It’s something else.”

He sat up, flexing his big shoulders. “That right?”

“One of your customers — Richie Grimes?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I know Richie. Fucking reprobate. Drunk.”

“How much does he owe you?”

“What’s it got to do with you?”

“I’d like to buy his debt.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“What if I don’t wanna sell?”

“Let me make you an offer — if you don’t want to sell after that, that’s fair enough.”

Ramirez swivelled the chair so that he was facing the computer and clicked through a series of files until he found the one he wanted. “He’s in the hole for fifty-eight hundred. He wanted four and the vig was ten per cent.”

“How’d you get to fifty-eight from there?”

“Compound interest, buddy. Interest on top of interest.”

“Hardly ethical.”

“Ethical? These are the streets, buddy. Ethics don’t get much play here.”

“I’ll give you five.”

Ramirez shook his head. “No.”

“Debt’s only worth what someone’ll pay for it.”

“What are you? An economist?”

“Five. That’s a grand clear profit.”

“I can get seven.”

“Not from him.”

“Don’t have to be from him, does it?”

The second hand on the clock swept around the dial. Milton opened his bag and reached into the stolen drug money inside. He would put it to good use. He took out the five bundles, each secured by an elastic band around twenty fifties, and put them on the desk.

“Five thousand. Come on, Mr. Ramirez — it’s right there.”

Ramirez looked up at him with an amused cast to his face. “I said no.”

“What’s the point in dragging this out? He’s got nothing.”

“He told you that? Guy’s an addict, like I said. You can’t believe a thing they say.”

“I believe him,” Milton said. “He can’t pay.”

“Then he’s got a problem.”

“Is that your final word?”

“That’s right.”

Milton nodded. He picked up the money and put it back into his bag.

“Come back with seven, maybe we can talk.”

Milton looked at him, then the cudgel. He was a big man but he was lounging back in his chair. He was relaxed. He didn’t see Milton as a threat but Milton could have killed him, right there and then. He could have done it before the second hand on the clock had skirted another semi-circle between the nine and twelve. Fifteen seconds. He thought about it for a moment but that wouldn’t solve Richie’s problems. The debts would be taken over by someone else, and that person might be worse. There would have to be another way.

“See you around,” Martinez said. A gold tooth in his mouth glittered as he grinned at him.

“You will,” Milton said.

Milton called Beau Baxter as he drove to the airport.

“Morning, English. What can I do for you?”

“Did you get a name for me?”

“I did. You got a pen and paper?”

“Go on.”

“You want to speak to Jarad Efron. You know who that is?”

“I’ve heard it before.”

“Not surprising. He’s a big noise on the tech scene.”

“Thanks. I’ll find him.”

“Goes without saying that you need to leave the Italians out of this.”

“Of course. Thanks, Beau. I appreciate it.”

“Anything else?”

“There is, actually. One other thing.”

“Shoot.”

“Do our friends have an interest in the lending business?”

“They have interests in lots of things.”

“So I’ll assume that they do. There’s a loan shark in the Mission District. A friend of mine owes him money. I just made him a very generous offer to buy the debt.”

“And he turned you down?

“Thinks he can get more.”

“And how could our friends help?”

“I get the impression that this guy’s out there all on his own. A lone operator. I wondered, if that’s something they’re involved in, whether the competition is something they’d be happy about. You think you could look into it for me?”

“What’s this dude’s name?”

“Manny Martinez.”

“Never heard of him. I can ask around, see what gives. I’ll let you know.”

Milton thanked him and said goodbye, ended the call and parked the Explorer. He took his go bag and went into the terminal building. He found the Hertz desk and hired a Dodge Charger, using one of the false passports and paying the three hundred bucks in cash. He drove it into the long-stay car park, put the go bag in the trunk, locked it, and then found his way back to the Explorer.

He felt better for the preparation. If he needed to get out of town on short notice, he could.

He put the car into gear and drove away.

There was someone he wanted to see.

32

The man was in his early forties, in decent shape, just a little under six foot tall and with the kind of naturally lean frame that has gone a little soft with the onset of middle age. He had dark hair with flecks of grey throughout it and the expensive glasses he wore were borne a little uncomfortably. His clothes were neat and tidy — a crisp polo shirt, chinos and deck shoes — the whole ensemble marking him out as a little vain. Milton had parked in the lot for thirty minutes, the angle good enough for him to see the place side on, and to see all the comings and goings. It was more like a campus than an office. It looked like a busy place. The lot was full and there had been a steady stream of people going in to start their working day. He had been waiting for one man in particular and, now, here he was. Milton eyed him as he opened the passenger door of his red Ferrari Enzo and took out a rucksack.

Milton looked at the scrap of paper that he had stuck to the windshield of the Explorer.

It was a picture.

The man in the Ferrari and the man in the picture were the same.

Jarad Efron.

Milton got out of his car, locked the door and followed the man as he exited the parking lot and started towards the office. The campus was out in the hills outside Palo Alto, surrounded by a lush forest bisected by streams, hiking paths and mountain bike trails. The wildness of the landscape had been transplanted here, too, with grasses and wildflowers allowed to grow naturally; purple heather clustered around the paths and coneflowers, evening primroses and asters sprouted from natural rock gardens. Milton quickened his pace so that he caught up with Efron and then overtook him. He gave him a quick sidelong glance: he had white iPhone earbuds pressed into his ears, something upbeat playing; his skin was tanned; his forehead was suspiciously plump and firm; there was good muscle tone on his arms. He was gym fit.

Milton slowed a little and followed into the lobby just behind him.

After he had spoken with Beau yesterday morning he had spent the afternoon doing research. Three hours at the local library. They had free internet and cheap coffee there and he had had plenty of things that he wanted to check.

Jarad Efron was familiar to him from the news and a quick Google search filled in the details: the man was CEO of StrongBox, one of the survivors of the first dotcom bubble that had since staked a claim in the cloud storage market. He was a pioneer. The company owned a couple of massive data farms in South Carolina, acres of deserted farmland rammed full of servers that they rented out to consumers, and, increasingly, to big tech companies who didn’t want to build facilities of their own. They offered space to Netflix and Amazon, among others. The company was listed on the NASDAQ with a price of $54 per share. Another search revealed that Efron had recently divested himself of five per cent of the company, pocketing thirty million bucks. He still owned another 2,000,000 shares.

A paper fortune of $108,000,000.

Efron was born and raised in Serbia, buying his first computer at the age of ten. He taught himself how to program, and, when he was twelve, he sold his first piece of software: a game he created called Battlestation Alpha. At the age of seventeen, he moved to Canada to attend Queen’s College, but he left to study business and physics at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated with an undergraduate degree in economics and stayed for a second bachelor’s degree in physics. After leaving Penn, he moved to Stanford to pursue a PhD in energy physics. The move was perfectly timed with the first Internet boom, and he dropped out after just two days to become a part of it, launching his first company. He sold that for $100 million and set up StrongBox with the proceeds.

Milton looked around quickly, taking everything in. The lobby was furnished sparsely, minimally, but every piece of furniture — the leather sofas, the coffee table — looked exceedingly expensive. Two security guards in light blue uniforms and well shined shoes, big boys with a stiff posture. They both had holstered .45s hanging from their belts. The staff behind the reception desk looked like models from a high-end catalogue, with glossy, air-brushed skin and preternaturally bright eyes. Milton knew he only had one opportunity at this and, straightening his back and squaring off his shoulders, he followed right alongside Efron as the man beamed a bright smile of greeting to the girls and headed for the elevators. One of the girls looked past him at Milton, a moment of confusion breaking across her immaculate face, but Milton anticipated it and shone out a smile that matched Efron’s for brightness and confidence. Her concern faded and, even if it was with a little uncertainty, she smiled right back at him.

Milton dropped back again and let Efron summon an elevator. There were six doors: one of the middle ones opened with a pleasant chime and he went inside.

Milton stepped forwards sharply and entered the car as the doors were starting to close.

“Which floor?” Efron asked him absently.

Milton looked: ten floors, and Efron had hit the button for the tenth.

“Five, please.”

Efron pressed the button and stood back against the wall, leaving plenty of space between them.

The doors closed quietly and the elevator began to ascend.

Milton waited until they were between the second and third floors and hit the emergency stop.

The elevator shuddered and came to a halt.

“What are you doing?” Efron protested.

“I’ve got a few questions. Answer them honestly.”

“Who are you?”

Efron’s arm came up and made a sudden stab towards the button for the intercom. Milton anticipated it, blocked his hand away with his right and then, in the same circular motion, jackhammered his elbow backwards into Efron’s gut. It was a direct hit, just at the right spot to punch out all the air in his lungs, and he staggered back against the wall of the car with his hands clasped impotently to his sternum, gasping for breath. Milton grabbed the lapels of his jacket, knotted his fists into the fabric and heaved him backwards and up, slamming him into the wall so that his feet were momentarily off the ground. Then he dropped him.

“Hello?” said a voice through the intercom speakers.

Efron landed on his behind, gasping. Milton lowered himself to the same height, barred his forearm across the man’s throat and pressed, gently.

“It’s in your best interests to talk to me.”

“They’ll call … the police.”

“Probably better for you if they didn’t. The police are going to want to talk to you soon anyway, but you’ll do better with a little time to prepare. If they show up now, they’ll ask me what I was doing here. And I’m going to tell them all about the party you had in Pine Shore.”

“What party?”

“I was there, Mr. Efron. I drove Madison Clarke. You remember — the missing girl? I went inside. I saw it all. The people. I recognised some of them. The drugs. I have an eye for detail, Mr. Efron, and I have a very good memory. You want the police to know that? The press? I know a man like you, in your position, you definitely don’t want this in the papers. Bad publicity. It’d be a scandal, wouldn’t it? So we can speak to them if you want — go right ahead. I’ll wait.”

Milton could see him working out the angles, a frown settling over his handsome face. “Fuck,” he cursed angrily, but it was from frustration, backed by resignation; there was no fight there.

“Better sort that out.” Milton indicated the intercom. “You hit the button by mistake. Tell them it’s alright.”

He stood aside.

Efron’s breath was still a little ragged. He pushed the button to speak. “It’s Jarad,” he said. “I pressed the wrong button. Sorry. Can you reset it, please?”

“Yes, sir,” the girl said.

The elevator started to rise again.

It reached the fifth floor. The doors opened, no-one got on, the doors closed and the car continued upwards.

“Is your office on the tenth?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll go inside and shut the door. Don’t do anything stupid and I’ll be gone in five minutes.”

They reached the tenth floor and the doors opened again. Efron stepped out first and Milton followed. The floor must have been reserved for StrongBox’s executive team. Milton looked around. The big lobby was bright, daylight streaming in through huge floor to ceiling windows. One of the windows was open, leading out to a terrace area. The room was airy and fresh, very clean, the furniture and décor obviously chosen with great care and a generous budget. Efron led the way to a office with a wide picture window that framed the gorgeous landscape beyond: the deep green of the vegetation, the brown flanks of the distant mountains, infinite blue sky, crisp white clouds. There was a leather sofa and Milton indicated that Efron should sit. He did as he was told. Milton shut the office door and sat on the edge of the desk.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” Efron said. “You’re not staying.”

“You better hope so. Tell me what I want to know and I’ll be on my way.”

“What’s your name?”

“You can call me Smith.”

“So what do you want, Mr. Smith?”

“Just to find the girl.”

“What girl?”

“The girl who went missing after the party.”

“I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Playing dumb is just going to mean this takes longer, Mr. Efron. And I’m not the most patient man in the world.”

“What’s her name?”

“Madison Clarke.”

His shrug didn’t quite mask a flicker of disquiet. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“But you own a house in Pine Shore.”

“No, I don’t. The company owns it. We’re expanding. Hiring a lot of new talent. Time to time, we have new executives stay there while they’re looking for places of their own. It’s not mine.”

“There was a party there.”

“Okay. So there was a party there. Your point?”

“Madison is a prostitute. She was hired to be there.”

“You’re fucking crazy. We’re gearing up for an IPO. Do you know how stupid it’d be to invite a hooker onto company property?”

“You weren’t there?”

“I was in Boston.”

“That’s strange.”

“Come on, man. Enough with this shit!”

“No, it’s strange, Mr. Efron, because you hired her.”

“What?”

Milton saw him swallow.

“I didn’t!”

“You’ve never used Fallen Angelz?”

“No.”

“Yes you have. You paid, in advance, with a credit card registered to your company.”

He was starting to panic. “Someone used a StrongBox credit card?” he grasped. “So? Maybe they did. Lots of people have a company card.”

“Including you?”

“Of course. I’m the CEO. But it wasn’t me.”

“I thought you might say that, Mr. Efron, so I did a little extra checking. The things you find out when you speak to the right people, know what I mean? Here’s what I know: I know it’s not the first time you’ve used that agency. I know you’re a valued customer. One of the regulars. I know the girls speak highly of you. A good payer, they said. A nice guy.”

He swallowed again, harder.

It was a bluff. Milton looked at Efron, setting aside the bland mask and letting him see him as he really was: a seasoned, iron-willed operative. “Now,” he said. “Bearing that all in mind: you want to reconsider?”

“Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“Okay, yes. I hired her. Alright?”

“Better. Keep going. And you were there.”

“Yes.”

“You saw her.”

“Only briefly. I was hosting.”

“What happened to make her so upset?”

“I didn’t know she was — not until afterwards.”

“You know she hasn’t been seen since the party?”

“Yes — but only because the police said.”

“Have they spoken to you?”

“Not to me, but to a couple of guys who work for me. We said it was their party and that’s how it needs to stay. The IPO is everything, man. I got three hundred people working here. Their jobs depend on getting it right. I get involved in a scandal now, we’ll have to pull it.”

“I don’t care about that, Mr. Efron. I just want to find out what happened to Madison.”

“And I told you: I don’t know.”

“Someone who was there does know.”

“Maybe it was nothing to do with the party at all.”

“Give me a list of the people who were there.”

“You’re kidding?” He shook his head. “No way.”

“Last chance. Don’t make me ask you again.”

“I can’t do that.”

Milton got up and walked straight at Efron. The man scrabbled backwards, into the chair, and held up his hands to ward him away. Milton swatted them aside, hauled him out of the chair and dragged him across the room to the terrace. He struggled, guessing what Milton had in mind, but his right arm was jacked up behind his back with the fingers splayed, almost pointing all the way up. The more he tried to free himself, the harder Milton pushed his palm, flattening it, each added ounce of pressure closer to breaking Efron’s wrist and fingers.

“Last chance.”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Your choice.”

Milton shoved him up against the wooden balustrades, the rail up at waist height, then forced him over it until his feet were raised off the floor. He fixed his right hand in the waistband of his trousers, locking his bicep to bear the weight, and used his left to press him down. Efron’s head went almost vertical, looking straight into the ten-story drop.

Milton kept his voice calm. “Who was there?”

“Jesus!”

“Who was there, Jarad?”

“Shit, man, please! I’ll tell you, I’ll fucking tell you!”

Milton took the elevator back down to the ground floor. He had a sheet of A4 paper that Efron had printed for him; he halved it, then quartered it, and slipped it into his inside pocket. He waited patiently as the car descended, the floors ticking off with the same pleasant chime as before. He reached the ground floor and the doors parted. He wasn’t particularly surprised to see the two security guards waiting for him.

“It’s alright, boys,” he said. “No need for any trouble. Your boss is fine and I’m leaving.”

They each had their hands resting on the butts of their identical Colt .45s.

“Don’t move,” the nearest one ordered. He was a big boy — bigger than Milton — and stood with the kind of lazy confidence that a guy gets from being young, a little stupid, six-three and two-ten. The other one had a similar stance: quarterback type, jock, used to getting whatever he wanted. That age, Milton thought, they’d probably tried out for the police but been shitcanned because they weren’t bright enough. They didn’t fancy shipping out to the desert in the Army and so private security was their best chance to wear a uniform — they probably thought they looked cute doing it — and wield a little authority.

“You sure you want to do this?”

“Turn around.”

Milton shrugged, made it look like he was resigned to doing as they asked, but as he turned he flung out his right hand in a streaked blur of motion, his fingers held straight with his thumb supporting them beneath. The jab caught the first guard above the larynx, hard and sharp enough to dent his windpipe; he fell backwards, his mouth open in a wide O of surprise, his hands flapping impotently, gasping for breath that wasn’t getting into his lungs as easily as it had done before. The second man went for his holstered .45. Milton hit him high on the cheekbone with his right fist, rocking him back, fired in a left jab, then shoved the guy in the chest to bounce him off the wall, and as he came back toward him he delivered a head butt straight to his nose. He caught the man’s wrist in his hand, yanked his arm around and pivoted so that all of his weight propelled him back into the elevator. He bounced face-first off the wall of the elevator car and landed on his knees. Milton caught the second man by the belt and collar and boosted him into the elevator after him, reaching around the corner and slapping the button for the tenth floor.

“Tell your boss if he does anything stupid like that again I’ll be back.”

He stepped back as the doors closed and the car began to ascend.

Then he turned. The two receptionists and the handful of staff in the lobby were all gawping helplessly at him. He pulled at his jacket to straighten it out, squared his shoulders again, wished them all a good morning and then walked calmly and purposefully into the parking and lot and to his car.

33

Arlen Crawford sat at the desk in the hotel room with policy papers scattered around him. There was a stack on the desk, three distinct piles on the carpet by his feet, and a pile — ready to be read, digested and sorted — spread out across the bed. The speech at the Moscone Centre that afternoon was starting to look a whole lot like a coronation and he wanted to make sure that everything about it was perfect. He had CNN on the flatscreen TV that had been fixed to the wall inside a frame to make it look like a painting — it didn’t work — and he was drinking from a glass of orange juice, staining a paper on fiscal prudence with wet, concentric circles.

He looked up at the TV. The newscaster was introducing a panel discussion on the San Francisco killings. A third girl had been found and they were describing the perpetrator as a serial killer. The producers had a stable of pundits for the big crime stories — medical examiners, criminologists, forensic scientists, former prosecutors — and the serial-killer category had its own roster of subspecialists. Three had been deputed to discuss the case. They opined upon what could be discerned from bones that had been left outside and exposed to weather. They considered what the location of the bodies might say about the killer’s signature. They made comparisons with the Green River Killer, explaining how Gary Ridgway had acquired his nickname after burying his victims near the river of the same name in Washington. They discussed methodology, and how Denis Rader had been dubbed B.T.K. after his modus operandi of binding, torturing and killing had been made public. Then they focused on how the most pertinent recent historical analogue, the Zodiac Killer, had never been caught. One enterprising expert even swung for the fences by suggesting that this new killer might even be Zodiac. That hypothesis was quickly rubbished — if he was still alive, Zodiac would have been at least seventy by now — but the discussion was feverish and excited and that, Crawford knew, could only be good for ratings. The discussion moved onto what the newcomer should be called.

The consensus seemed to settle on The Headlands Lookout Killer.

He was roused from his distraction by a soft knocking at the door.

Crawford got up, took a sip of the OJ and padded across the room in his stockinged feet. It was just after breakfast and he wasn’t expecting anyone.

He opened the door. Karly Hammil, the young female staffer who had been with Robinson after the speech in Woodside, was on the other side.

“What is it, Karly?”

She was anxiously chewing her bottom lip. “Could I have a word?”

“Yes, of course. Come in.”

He stood back and she came into the room, closing the door behind her.

“What is it?”

“This is difficult, Mr. Crawford.”

“Call me Arlen.” He felt a moment of apprehension. He pointed to the opened minibar. “You want anything? Water?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Want to sit?”

“I’d rather stand if that’s alright.”

“Well, I’m going to sit.”

She stammered. “I–I—”

She was nervous and that made him nervous, too.

“You better tell me what it is.”

She drew a breath. “There’s no point sugar-coating this, I guess. Alright, then. Okay.” Another breath. “Okay. I guess you know some of this already. Five weeks ago, the governor made a sexual advance to me. I know he has a reputation, everyone knows that, but I couldn’t believe it. And I resisted it at first, I told him to forget about it, it was a crazy idea, but then he tried again the day after that. I told him no again but he was more persistent. You know what he can be like, so persuasive, that feeling you get when he fixes his attention on you, like you’re the most important person in the world. Well, that’s what he made me feel like and he persuaded me that he really meant all those things he was telling me.”

Crawford felt himself deflate, the air running from his lungs.

“We’ve been sleeping together once or twice a week ever since.”

“You have been — this is past tense?”

“He’s stopped it. I saw him last night, after the speech. He said he couldn’t do it anymore. Something about his wife. It’s bullshit, obviously. I guess he’s just had what he wanted. He doesn’t need me anymore. He’s probably already onto the next one.”

Crawford tried to marshal himself. He needed to deal with this. He needed to be diplomatic. He needed her to think that he was sympathetic and understanding. He had experience of this kind of motherfucking nonsense — plenty of experience — and he knew what he needed to do. “I’m sure it isn’t like that, Karly. You know what he’s like.”

“He’s unsafe for a woman to work around is what he is,” she said angrily.

“Why are you telling me? What do you want me to do?”

She looked at him as if he was stupid. “Seriously?”

“Tell me.”

“You need to look after me.”

“Of course you’ll be looked after. I’ll make sure you get an apology. And it’ll never happen again.”

“Not like that.”

“Then like what?”

“Come on, Mr. Crawford. You want me to spell it out?”

“Money?”

“Maybe I should sit tight, wait until he’s better known. A story like this, what kind of book deal you reckon I’d get if I waited until later? His inauguration, maybe? The day before the election?”

Crawford felt the familiar, cold knot of anger tightening in his gut. “Alright, I get it. I get it. How much do you want?”

“I don’t know.”

“You have to give me a number.”

“Okay. Fifty thousand — that’s what I would’ve earned this year.”

“Fifty.” He felt his temperature rising.

She hesitated, uncertainly. “What do we do now?”

“First time you’ve shaken somebody down?” he spat sarcastically.

Her eyes flashed. “You’re angry with me? Maybe you ought to think a little about him, Mr. Crawford.”

He tried to defuse the tension. “Arlen — call me Arlen, please.”

She ignored the attempt at conciliation. “You don’t know how close I was to putting this out there. A man like him, a weak man, how is that good for our country to have him in high office?”

He forced himself to take a breath, to regain a little composure. “No, you’re right. Quite right. I’m sorry, Karly. It’ll take me a little while to sort this out. It’s not quite as straightforward as you think, that much money. It needs to be done quietly. Is that alright?”

“Of course.”

She exhaled.

He had a moment of empathy: it had probably been one of the most difficult conversations she had ever had. She didn’t deserve his anger. It wasn’t her fault. Robinson, on the other hand, did deserve it. His behaviour kept putting him in intolerable situations. He was irresponsible and childish, ignoring his clear instructions that he had to put this behind him and keep it zipped. Cleaning up the mess that he left in his wake was becoming a full-time job. An expensive full-time job.

Crawford told the girl that she just had to be patient, that he would sort it all out for her, and then he showed her to the door of his room. He switched channels on the television, laid back on his bed and stared at the ball game that was playing on repeat for five minutes, not paying any attention to it, running the situation around in his head and wondering if there was any other way it could be resolved.

He decided that there was not.

He picked up his cellphone from the bedside table and called the usual number.

34

Milton was headed to the Moscone Centre when his cellphone buzzed in its cradle. He glanced at the display: Trip Macklemore was calling. He pulled out of the traffic, parked and called him back.

“Have you heard?” Trip said as soon as he accepted the call.

“Heard what?”

“They’ve found another body — it’s on the news.”

“It isn’t Madison.”

“How do you know that?”

“The police brought me in again.”

“You’re kidding?”

“It’s just routine. It’s nothing.”

“It might not be her now but it’s just a matter of time, isn’t it? You know that — she’ll be next.”

“We don’t know that.”

“I do.”

Milton thought he could hear traffic on the call. “Where are you?”

“In a taxi. I’m going up there.”

“What for?”

“To see Brady.”

“No, Trip—”

“Yes, Mr. Smith. He did it. It’s fucking obvious. It’s him. We know he’s been lying to us, right from the start. What else has he been lying about? I’m gonna make him admit it.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“It’s alright. I’ll take it from here.”

Milton gripped the wheel. “Don’t,” he said. “Turn around and come back. We just need to wait. Getting into an argument up there will make things worse.”

“I’m sick of waiting. Nothing’s happening. They’re not doing shit.”

Milton was about to tell him about Efron and what he had learned but the call went dead.

He redialled but there was no answer.

Dammit.

The boy had sounded terrible: wired, his voice straining with stress, as if at his breaking point. Milton had to stop him before he did something stupid, something that would wreck his life. He put the Explorer into gear, pulled out into the traffic and swung around. He drove as fast as he dared. Trip was already on the way. Where was he? The traffic was mercifully light as he accelerated across the Golden Gate Bridge and it stayed clear all the way to the turning onto Tiburon Boulevard. He swung to the south, still clear, and reached Pine Shore without seeing the boy. He drove inside the gates: there was an outside broadcast truck parked across the sidewalk and a reporter delivering a piece to camera. Great, Milton thought. He was hoping the media would all have moved on by now but the new body had juiced the story again and, with the police still floundering, they were going to focus on the place where the next presumed victim went missing. There was nothing else for them to go on.

An empty San Francisco cab was coming the other way.

Too late?

Milton parked outside Brady’s cottage and hurried up the steps. The door was ajar and he could hear raised voices from inside.

He made out two bellowed words: “Tell me!”

He pushed the door and quickly followed the corridor through into the living room. Brady was on one side of the room, next to the wide window with the view down to the Bay. Trip was opposite him.

“I know she was in here!” Trip said, angrily stabbing a finger at the doctor.

“No, she wasn’t.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me!”

“Get out of my house!”

“I’m not going anywhere. What did you do to her?”

Milton was behind Trip and it was Brady who noticed him first. “Get this meathead out of here,” he ordered. “You got ten seconds or I’m calling the cops.”

“Go and ahead and call them,” Trip thundered back at him. “Maybe they’ll finally ask you some questions.”

“I’ve told you — I had nothing to do with whatever it was that happened to you girlfriend. You know what? Maybe you want to stop harassing me and start thinking that maybe if you’d done something to stop her from going out hooking then none of this would have happened.”

That really pushed Trip’s buttons: he surged forward, knocking a chair out of the way. Brady’s face registered stark fear as Trip raised his fist and drilled him in the mouth. The doctor stumbled backwards, and, forced to compensate on his prosthetic leg, overbalanced and slammed against the low wooden coffee table, the impact snapping one table leg and tipping a fruit bowl onto the floor.

“Where is she?” Trip yelled.

Brady shuffled away from him on the seat of his pants. “I don’t know,” he stammered, blood dribbling out of the corner of his mouth.

“Trip!” Milton said. “Calm down.”

“Fuck that. What’s that got us so far? Nothing. We need to do something.”

“We are doing something.”

“Yeah? What are you doing? I don’t see anything happening. Doing things your way hasn’t got us anywhere, has it? It’s my turn now. I’m telling you, man, this piece of shit is going to tell me what happened to my girl.”

The boy reached down with his right hand and Milton saw, just in time, the glint of silver that emerged from the darkness of his half-open jacket. He thrust his own arm out, his hand fastening around Trip’s wrist. “No,” the boy said, struggling, and he was young and strong, but Milton knew all kind of things that the boy could only dream about and he slid his index and forefinger around to the inside of his arm, down until it was two fingers up from the crease of his wrist, and squeezed. The pressure point was above the median nerve and Milton applied just enough torque to buckle the boy’s knees with the unexpected shock. “Don’t,” Milton said, looking at him with sudden, narrow-eyed aggression.

Trip gritted his teeth through the blare of pain. “He did it.”

Milton kept the pressure on, impelling Trip back towards the hallway. “No he didn’t.”

He looked at Milton in fuming, helpless entreaty. “Then who did?”

“I have a better idea,” he said.

Confusion broke through the pain on the boy’s face. “Who?”

“You’re going to go outside now,” Milton said in a firm voice that did not brook disobedience. “There’s a reporter out there, down the road, so you need to be calm, like nothing’s going on — we don’t want there to be a scene. Understand?”

“Who is it?”

“I’ll tell you on the way back. But you have to tell me you understand. Do you understand?”

Trip’s eyes were red-raw, scoured and agitated. He looked as if he had gone without sleep. “Fine.”

Milton gave him the keys to the car. “I’ll be right after you,” he said.

“What are you going to do?”

“Just go.”

Milton waited until he heard the squeak of the front door as Trip opened it.

He went across the room and offered a hand to Brady. The man took it and Milton helped him back to his feet.

Brady went to the galley kitchen, picked up a tea cloth and mopped the blood from his face. “If you think that’s the end of this you’re out of your mind.”

“It is the end of it,” Milton said.

“You saw — he sucker punched me!”

“I know and he’s sorry he did that. So am I. I know you’ve got nothing to do with what happened to Madison.”

“Damn straight I don’t.”

“But I also know that it’s better for you to forget that just happened and move on.”

“You reckon? I don’t think so.”

“I do. A friend of mine works for St Francis. Legal department. You said you used to work down there so once I found out that you were lying about what happened to your leg I thought maybe it was worth getting her to have a look into your record, see if it stacked up like you said that it did. And it turns out you have a pretty thick personnel file there.”

“How dare you—”

“Here’s what I know: you didn’t choose to leave, you were asked to go. Two sexual harassment cases. The first one was a nurse, right?”

Brady scowled at him, but said nothing.

“And the second one was a technician. She had to be persuaded from going to the police. You had to pay her a lot of money, didn’t you?” Milton was next to the picture of Brady in the desert; he picked it up and made a show of examining it. “It was an interesting read, Dr. Brady. You want me to go on?”

“Get out,” Brady said.

Trip was waiting in the car. Milton leant across towards him and used his right hand to reach inside his coat. His fingers touched the butt of a small gun. He pulled it out. It was a small .25 calibre semi-auto, a Saturday Night Special. Milton slipped the gun into his own pocket.

“You’re an idiot,” Milton said. “What were you thinking?”

He stared out of the window. “I had to do something,” he said with a surly inflection that made Milton think how young he really was. “Someone had to do something.”

“And so you were going to threaten him with a gun?”

“You got a better plan?”

“You would’ve gone to prison.”

“I don’t care.”

“Yes, you do. And so do I. And, anyway, it would all have been for nothing: he didn’t do it.”

The boy frowned, confused. “How do you know that?”

“Brady is a talker. He likes to be the centre of attention. He has enemies in the neighbourhood, too, and maybe those enemies like other people to believe that he’s up to no good. Victor Leonard and Brady hate each other. If you ask me, Leonard put us onto Brady because he wants to see him in trouble. But he’s got nothing to do with this. If he’s guilty of anything, it’s being a fantasist and a braggart.”

“I don’t buy that,” he said, although Milton could see that he was getting through to him.

“So are you going to let me drive you back into town?”

“You said you had something”

“I do. I have a very good lead.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think I know what happened to Madison.”

35

Arlen Crawford drove around the block three times until he was sure that he was not being followed. It was an abundance of caution, perhaps, but Crawford was an operator, experienced enough to know all the tricks. He knew staffers who had been tailed before, heading to meet a friendly journalist to leak something explosive, only to find that their meeting was photographed and reported and, before they knew it, they were the story and not the leak. There was no way that he was going to let that happen to him. He was too good. And the consequences didn’t bear thinking about.

Not for this.

The guys operated out of a warehouse in Potrero Hill. It was a low-slung building in the centre of a wide compound surrounded by a perimeter of ten foot high wire. Floodlights stood on pylons and there were security cameras all over. The warehouse was owned by a company that distributed beer and the compound housed three trucks. Empty kegs had been stacked against the wall of the warehouse and, next to that, five big motorcycles had been parked. An old Cadillac Eldorado had been slotted alongside the bikes.

Crawford drew up against the compound gate and sounded his horn. The single black eye of the security camera gleamed down at him, regarding him, and then there was the buzz of a motor and a rusty scrape as the gate slid aside. Crawford put the car into gear and edged inside. He parked next to the Caddy and went into the warehouse. The main room had been fitted with comfortable chairs, a large television and a sound system that was playing stoner rock. The place smelt powerfully of stale beer; it was strong enough that Crawford felt like gagging.

The five men were arranged around the room. Their leader was a tall, skinny man with prison tattoos visible on every inch of exposed skin. There was a swastika etched onto the nape of his neck, just below the line of his scalp. His name was Jack Kerrigan but they all referred to him as Smokey. Crawford had been introduced to him by Scott Klein, their head of security. He had recommended him and his boys as a solution for problems that could only be solved with the radical measures that they could implement. Strongarm jobs, pressure that needed exerting to shut people up or to get them to do things they didn’t naturally want to do. The others were cut from the same cloth as Kerrigan: tattoos; lank hair worn long; a lot of greasy denim.

Kerrigan got up and stretched, leonine, before sauntering across to him.

“Mr. Crawford,” he said, a low Southern drawl.

“Jack.”

The air was heady with dope smoke; Crawford noticed a large glass bong on the table.

“How’s our boy doing?”

“He’s doing good.”

“Good enough to get it done?”

“He’ll win,” Crawford said. “Provided we keep him on the right track.”

“That’s all that matters.”

Crawford nodded at that, then scowled a little; he had forgotten the headache he had developed the last time they had dragged him out here. It was the dope, the droning music, the dull grind of necessity of making sure the dumbfuck rednecks stayed on the right path.

“Wanna beer?”

“No thanks.”

He nodded at the bong. “Smoke?”

“What do you think?”

“Nah, not your scene. All business today, then. I can work with that. What’s up?”

“We’ve got a problem.”

“If you mean the girls — I told you, you need to stop worrying.”

“That’s easy for you to say.”

“I have a little update on that, something that’ll make you feel better.” He stooped to a fridge and took out a bottle of beer. He offered it to Crawford. “You sure?”

“No,” he said impatiently. “What update?”

Jack popped the top with an opener fixed to his keychain and took a long swig.

“What is it, Jack?”

“Got someone who knows someone in the police. Friend of our persuasion, you know what I mean. Fellow soldier. This guy says that they have no clue. Those girls have been out there a long time — all that salty air, the animals, all that shit — there’s nothing left of them except bones.”

“Clothes?”

“Sure, but there’s nothing that would give them any idea who they were.”

“I wish I shared your confidence, Jack. What about the others?”

“You know, I can’t rightly recall how many there were and I ain’t kidding about that.”

“Four.”

“It’ll be the same. You might not believe it, but we were careful.”

“They’re all in the same place.”

“Give or take.”

“You think that’s careful?”

“The way I see it, the way we left them girls, all in that spot and all done up the same way, police are gonna put two and two together and say that there’s one of them serial killers around and about, doing his business.”

“I heard that on the TV already,” one of the other man, Jesse, chimed in. “They had experts on, pontificating types. They said they was sure. Serial killer. They was saying Zodiac’s come back.”

“Son of Zodiac,” Jack corrected.

Crawford sighed.

“They’re gonna say it’s some john from the city, someone the girls all knew.”

“The Headlands Lookout Killer. That’s what they’re saying.”

“Exactly,” Jack said with evident satisfaction. “And that’s what we want them to think.” He took a cigarette from a pack on the table and lit it. “It’s unfortunate about our boy’s habits, but if there’s one thing we got lucky on, it’s who they all were. What they did. In my experience, most hookers don’t have anyone waiting for them at home to report them missing. They’re in the shadows. Chances are, whoever those girls were, no-one’s even noticed that they’re gone. How are the police going to identify people that they don’t know is missing? They ain’t. No way on earth. And if they can’t identify them, how the hell they gonna tie ‘em all back to our boy?”

“I don’t know,” he said impatiently.

“I do — I do know. They ain’t.” Jack said it with a sly leer. “Make you feel any better?”

“Oh yes,” he said, making no effort to hide his sarcasm. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am. I would’ve felt even better if you’d done what I asked you to and made them all disappear.”

“What happened to them, Mr. Crawford, it’s the same thing. They are disappeared. You’ve got to relax, man. You’re gonna give yourself a coronary you keep worrying about stuff that don’t warrant no worrying about.”

“Someone has to.”

“Fine.” He took another long pull of his beer. “You worry about it as much as you want, but, I’m telling you, there ain’t no need for it.” He finished the beer and tossed it into an open bin. “Now then — you didn’t come here to bitch and moan at us. What can we do for you?”

“There’s another problem.”

“Same kind of problem as before?”

“The exact same kind.”

He shook his head. “Seriously? Number five? You want to get our boy to keep his little man in his trousers.”

“You think I haven’t tried? It’s not as easy as you think.”

“Who is it? Another hooker?”

“No, not this time. Worse. She’s on staff. He’s been schtupping her for a month and now she’s trying to shake us down. We either pay up or she goes public. One or the other. It couldn’t be any more damaging.”

“And paying her wouldn’t work?”

“What do you think?”

His greasy hair flicked as he shook his head. “Nah — that ain’t the best outcome. She might get a taste for it. You want her gone?”

There it was: the power of life and death in the palm of his hand. It still gave him chills. And what choice did he have? Joseph Jack Robinson II, for all his faults, was still the medicine that America needed. He was the best chance of correcting the god almighty mess that had become of the country and if that meant that they had to clean up his own messes to keep him aimed in the right direction, then that was what they would have to do. It was distasteful but it was for the greater good. The needs of the many against the needs of the few.

“Sort it,” he said.

“Same as before. No problem.”

“No, Jack. Not the same as before. Make it so she disappears. Properly disappears. This stuff on the news—”

“I’m telling you, that was just bad luck is what that was.”

“No, Jack, it’s fucking amateur hour, that’s what it was. I never want to hear about her again. Not next week. Not next month. Not when some mutt puts its snout into a bush on the beach next fucking year. You get me? Never.”

“Sure I do.” Jack fixed him with gimlet eyes and Crawford remembered what the man was capable of; the man was a snake — venomous, lethal — and, like a snake, he needed careful handling. “You got her details? We’ll get looking into it right away.”

36

“Thank you so much. Thank you all very, very much. Thank you all. I can’t tell you how wonderful that makes me feel. Now, I want to tell you who we all are in this room. We’ve not done a good enough job of just laying out who we are because we make the mistake of assuming people already know. But they don’t. What they know is based on the way we are portrayed in pop culture, in the media and by our opponents. And we need to do better than that. We are patriots, ladies and gentlemen, that’s what we are, and like good patriots, we love our country.” Applause. “We love all of it and everyone in it, from the mom and pop business on Main Street to the hard-working man trying to establish himself as a tradesman, to the mom who stays home to bring up the kids and the student who works a bar so that she can afford her college tuition. We see potential, ladies and gentlemen. Unlimited potential. In all of these people, and everyone else, we see the average American, the person who makes this great country tick. We know that these people can fulfil their dreams and be everything that they want to be if we just remove certain things from their path. You know the things I mean: excessive taxes that mean a business owner can’t afford to take on new staff and regulations that make it too difficult to break into new areas. Too much government. We look at some of the things that are happening today — like those poor girls who have been found up there on the Headlands — and we know that although our culture is sick, it can be healed. We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.” Applause. “We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life.” Applause. “Liberty, Freedom.” Applause. “And the pursuit of happiness.” Applause. “And I’m here to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, that all three of these are under assault. And I promise to you, I guarantee with my hand on my heart, that if I am nominated for the office of President, then I will defend those great principles with my dying breath. Thank you for coming, thank you for your support, God bless you and God bless America!”

Robinson took the applause, raising his arm above his head and waving broadly, shining his high beam smile out over the adoring crowd. He walked across to the right hand side of the stage, paused to bask in the acclaim — occasionally pointing out people in the crowd who he recognised, or those who he wanted to give the impression that he recognised — and then came back to the left, repeating the trick.

Milton was almost entirely apolitical, a personal choice he had made so that he was able to carry out his orders dispassionately and without regard to the colour of the government that he was serving, but even he could feel the electricity in the air. The woman next to him was glass-eyed and a little unsteady on her feet. The man at her side was booming out the three syllables of Robinson’s name with no regard to what the others around him might think (not that it mattered; they were just as fervent as he was). The air thrummed with excitement. It was close to mania.

Robinson came down the steps. A path had been arranged right down the centre of the hall, maintained on either side by metal railings that slotted together to form a barrier. There were photographers there, their cameras ready to take a thousand snaps of the Governor in the midst of his people.

Milton knew he would only have one chance to get at him and he had to move fast. He pushed his way to the front of the crowd, muscling through the throng until he was pressed up against the barrier. Robinson was ten feet away, the crowd swelling until Milton was squeezed even tighter against the metal. He thrust his elbow back to free his right arm and extended it out, over the guardrail, bending his usually inexpressive face into a smile. “Great speech, Governor,” he said.

“Thank you, sir.”

Robinson bathed him in that brilliant smile and took his hand, emphasising the gesture by placing his left on top of Milton’s right. A nearby camera flashed, white streaks blasting across his eyes.

Milton maintained his own smile.

He tightened his grip.

He leant in even closer.

“I need to speak to you, Governor.”

A flicker of concern. “I’m afraid I’m a little busy.”

Milton didn’t release his hand.

“And you need to talk to me. It’s very important.”

Robinson tried to pull his hand away but Milton just tightened his grip, taking the strain easily.

Robinson took his left hand away and tugged again with his right. “Let go.”

Milton did not. The Governor’s expression mutated: the fixed grin and the sparkle in his eyes were both washed away by a sudden flush of fear. The security man in the suit, less than five paces away, had noticed what was happening. He started to close in. Milton guessed he had a couple of seconds.

“I know about you and Madison Clarke.”

The fear in Robinson’s eyes was subtly altered. It graduated from an immediate fear, a response to the physical threat of the smiling man with the cold eyes who wouldn’t let go of his hand, to a deeper fear, more primal, more fundamental, one that required calculation to properly assess.

Milton could see him begin to make that calculation.

“Let go of the Governor’s hand,” the man in the suit said.

Milton held on.

His mouth was inches from Robinson’s ear.

“I know about you both, Governor. You need to talk to me. Your campaign is going to end tomorrow if you don’t.”

37

Arlen Crawford followed the Governor into the back of the building. He was worried. He had seen the man to whom Robinson had been speaking. It could only have been a short conversation, a handful of words, but whatever had been said had spooked Robinson badly. Normally, after a speech that had been as well received as that one had been, the Governor would have been exhilarated, anxiously seeking the redundant confirmation from Crawford that it had gone as well as it had appeared. He would have soaked up the acclaim. This was different: his eyes were haunted, there was a sheen of light sweat across his brow and the tic in his cheek that was only noticeable when he was nervous had started to twitch uncontrollably.

Crawford hurried to catch up. “What did he say?”

“Something about me and Madison.”

“What about her?”

“That he knows, Arlen. He knows about me and her. He said I needed to talk to him and, if I don’t, he’ll end the campaign.”

Crawford’s stomach immediately felt empty. “Let me handle it.”

“No. Not this time.”

Robinson walked quickly through a service corridor. Crawford had trouble keeping up with him.

“He’s a crank. We’ve had them before and there’ll be more and more of them the better we’re doing. Please, sir — let me speak to him first. If it’s anything we need to worry about, I’ll let you know. You speaking to him now is just asking for trouble.”

“No, Arlen.”

“We don’t even know who he is!”

“We’ll do it in private, out back. I want to hear what he has to say. I don’t want you reporting it back to me, pulling your punches — you do that all the time.”

Crawford trailed after him. “I don’t understand. Why are you so worried about him?”

“I told you before — I still don’t know what happened with me and Madison.”

“It was nothing.”

“No, Arlen, it was. She just stopped taking my calls. One day, it was great, the next, nothing. It was out of character. I never got an explanation.”

“We spoke about that. It was for the best. If it came out… you and her… a prostitute… Jesus, J.J., that would sink us for good. There’s no coming back from a story like that.”

He stopped abruptly and turned to him. “Do you know what happened to her?”

Crawford took a quick breath and covered his discomfort with a vigorous shake of his head. “No, sir, I don’t. But we’ve been lucky so far. No-one has said anything about the two of you. I just don’t see the point in pushing it.”

“Noted.”

“So you’ll let me handle this?”

“No. I want to speak to him.”

He pushed through wide double doors and into the kitchen that served the conference centre. The doors banged back against Crawford’s shoulders as he followed in his wake. It was a large space, full of scratched and dented metallic work surfaces, large industrial ovens and burners, walk-in fridges and freezers, dinged pots and pans hanging down on racks suspended from the ceiling. Chefs in grubby white jackets were preparing the lunch that would be enjoyed by the Governor’s guests. The space was filled with noise, warm aromas and clouds of steam. Robinson walked right into the middle of the busy chaos; the man to whom he had been speaking was waiting for them at the edge of the room, standing next to the two security guards who had brought him back here. Crawford hurried in his wake, straining for a better glimpse of his interlocutor.

He didn’t recognise the man. He was a little over six feet tall and slender, at least when compared to the muscular security on either side of him. He had dark hair and a scar across his face. A cruel mouth. His eyes were blue, crystal blue, and they were cold and calm. There was something unsettling about him. He looked perfectly composed, a centre of calm in the frantic activity that clattered and whirled around him. He wasn’t fazed by the guards. He wasn’t fazed by the Governor, either.

“What’s your name, sir?” Robinson asked him.

“John Smith.”

“Let’s get this over with as quickly as we can.”

“I think that would be best.”

“So — what is it you want to say?”

“Wouldn’t you prefer this to be in private?”

Robinson told the security guards to stand aside.

“Who’s this?” Smith asked, indicating Crawford.

“This is my Chief of Staff. I have no secrets from him. Now — please — what do you want to tell me?”

“I know that you were having an affair with her.”

“How do you know that?”

“There was a party in Pine Shore. A fund-raiser for your campaign. Jarad Efron hosted it.”

He frowned. “And? How is that relevant?”

“Madison Clarke was there. Obviously, you know she was an escort.”

“The Governor doesn’t know that,” Crawford interposed hurriedly. “And he doesn’t know who the girl is, either.”

“It would be better if we didn’t waste time,” he said, looking straight at Robinson rather than Crawford. “I spoke to Mr. Efron. He said you were at the party. And he said that you and Madison were seeing each other. I understand that he introduced the two of you — he said that he was a client of hers and then you took a shine to her. I believe you had been seeing her for several weeks. He arranged for her to be there.”

Crawford felt a red-hot scorch of anger. Why had Efron said that? What was he thinking? And, then, a flash of divination: there was something about Smith. It was self-evident what had happened. There was a deadness in the man’s eyes. It was unnerving, a little menacing. Crawford guessed that he could be very persuasive.

“You were seeing her, weren’t you?”

“I was,” Robinson confirmed quietly. “She’s special. I’m very fond of her.”

“Did you see her at the party?”

“The Governor wasn’t at the party.”

“Arlen—”

“You know she went missing afterwards?”

Robinson looked at Crawford then back at Smith. “I had no idea.”

Crawford felt a shiver of anxiety.

“She hasn’t been seen since.”

Crawford stepped forwards. “What does this have to do with you, Mr. Smith?”

“I drove her to the party.”

“So, what — you’re her friend? Her agent?

“I’m a driver.”

“And so what’s this about? What’s it really about? You want money or you’re going to the papers? They won’t believe you, Mr. Smith—”

“I don’t want money,” he interrupted. “I want to know what happened to her.”

“Arlen—”

Crawford ignored the Governor. “Let’s say he did know her, just for the sake of argument. She was a prostitute, Mr. Smith. You said so yourself. Maybe she had money problems? Maybe she’s hiding from someone? Maybe she had an issue with drugs? There could be any number of reasons.”

“Arlen—”

Smith pressed ahead. “Those things are all possible, but unlikely, considering the circumstances. I waited for her that night. I was going to drive her back into the city again. But then I heard her screaming.”

“It was that party?” Robinson said to Crawford. “I remember. You dragged me away? She was there?”

Crawford clenched his teeth.

“I went into the house to get her out,” Smith said. “She was in a terrible state — panicking, she said someone had threatened to kill her.”

“Arlen?”

“This is news to me.”

“She ran away and disappeared.”

“So she’s hiding somewhere,” Crawford said sharply. “Report it to the police.”

“I did that. But now I think she might not be missing. I think she’s been murdered. The bodies that have been turning up along the coast road—”

“How on earth is that relevant—”

“—up on the Headland?” Robinson interrupted.

“Yes. You know about that?”

“Only vaguely.”

“But your speech tonight?”

“I didn’t write it,” he said, as if the man was stupid. “I just say what they tell me to say.”

“I think her disappearance might be connected.”

“You think the Governor has something to do with that?” Crawford managed to splutter.

“I didn’t say that. But he might know something that could help find her, one way or another.”

Crawford felt like he was losing control of the conversation, and, beyond that, his tenuous grip on the whole situation. “That is all speculation,” he protested. “Dangerous speculation with no basis in fact. And it has nothing to do with the Governor.”

“Of course it does, Arlen! I was seeing her and then she disappears. Maybe something has happened to her. Of course it’s relevant. At the very least, I need to speak to the police. Maybe I can help.”

Smith pressed. “You’ve no idea what happened?”

“Of course he doesn’t know!”

Smith ignored him; he moved around slightly so that he was facing away from him, placing his shoulder between himself and Robinson so that Crawford was temporarily boxed out of the conversation. “If there’s anything you can tell me, sir, I would appreciate it.”

“I can’t think of anything. Really — I can’t.”

Crawford pressed himself back into the conversation. “What are you going to do?” he asked him.

“That depends. You need to speak to the police. I think you should do it right away. I’m not an expert at these things — crisis management, I suppose you’d call it — but it would probably be best for you and your campaign if you’re seen to be volunteering information. Maybe they can keep it confidential, I don’t know. But you have to speak to them. I’ll wait until tomorrow and then I’ll tell them what I know.”

“We’ll tell them,” Robinson said. “Right away. Thank you for speaking to me, Mr. Smith. I really do appreciate it.”

The Governor had a dazed look on his face. He shook the man’s hand, an automatic reaction after these long months of campaigning, and made his way out of the kitchen. Crawford turned to follow, then paused, turning halfway back again, wanting to say something to the man, something that might make the problem go away, but he didn’t look like the kind of person who could be intimidated or bought off or deflected from his course in any way whatsoever. His posture was loose and easy and he returned Crawford’s angry stare with implacable cool. It was unnerving.

Crawford turned back to the door again and hurried after the Governor.

He was waiting for him in the service corridor.

“We need to think about this, sir.”

“What’s there to think about? It’s obvious what we have to do.”

“We mustn’t act hastily. Everything is at stake.”

“I have to speak to the police.”

“That’s a bad idea. A terrible idea.”

“No, Arlen. It’s the right thing to do.”

“Jack, please — this doesn’t have to be a threat. All he has is what Efron told him.”

“But it’s true.”

“All he can say is that you were at the same party as she was.”

“And I was seeing her.”

“No-one can prove that.”

“It doesn’t matter if they can or they can’t. She’s missing. Those girls have turned up not five miles from there. Maybe this is connected. And maybe there is something that I can help the police with. Don’t you think it’s possible?”

“No, I don’t. But if you are determined, then, alright, fine — but let me speak to them.”

“No,” he said. “It has to be me.”

38

Milton got into his car and drove. He wasn’t sure how to assess the meeting. Had he scared Robinson enough? He was confident that he had. The Governor had gotten the message but it was obvious that Crawford held significant influence over him. There was a base cunning there, Milton had seen it clearly, and he could see that he would try and limit the Governor’s exposure. How would he do that? Milton wasn’t sure. Would he be able to stop him from going to the police? Perhaps. All he had were guesses about what would happen next. Milton had meant what he said, though: he would give them until tomorrow to do the right thing. If they did not, he would take matters into his own hands and go to the police himself.

He checked his watch: six. He was late for his next appointment. He drove quickly across town to Pacific Heights and parked in a lot near to the Hotel Drisco. It was a boutique place, obviously expensive, everything understated and minimal. Milton climbed the steps to the smart lobby, all oak panelling and thick carpet, a little out of place in his scruffy jeans, dirty shirt and scuffed boots. The doorman gave him a disapproving look but Milton stared him down, daring him to say anything, then walked past him and into the bar.

Beau was sitting at a table beneath an ornate light fixture, a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle spread out on the table before him. His glass was empty and so Milton diverted to the bar, paid for a beer and an orange juice and ferried them across.

“Evening,” Milton said, sitting down.

“Evening, English.”

Milton pushed the beer across the table.

Beau thanked him and drank down the first quarter of the glass. “That name you got from the Lucianos — you do what you needed to do?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And thanks for your help.”

“I should know better than to ask what it was all for?”

“Probably best.”

“You’re a secretive fella, ain’t you?”

Beau folded the paper but not before Milton saw the news on the front page: an article on the bodies that had been dug up on the Headland. He said nothing and watched as Beau drank off another measure of the beer. “How long are you here for?” he asked him.

“Couple days. I’ve got some work to attend to.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Not particularly. I ever tell you about my other business?”

“I don’t think we ever had the chance.”

Beau put the glass on the table. “I’m a bail bondsman — well, least I used to be. You have them in England?”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“Guess the whole thing is a little Wild West. I got into it when I got out of the Border Patrol. Probably why I used to like it so much. I don’t do so much of that no more though but it’s still my good name above the door, still my reputation on the line. An old friend of mine who runs the show while I’m away got shot trying to bring a fellow back to San Diego to answer his obligations. This fellow’s got family up here and the word is that he’s hiding out with them. Sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, he’s coming back down south with me. You calling was good timing — I was going to have to come up here anyways. Two birds with one stone. Now I’m going to have a look and see if I can find him.”

Milton sipped his orange juice. Time to change the subject. “So — did you speak to the Italians?”

“About the other thing? The loan shark? I did.”

“And?”

“They did a little looking into it. Like you thought — your Mr. Ramirez has been running his operation without cutting them in. Strictly small-time, just a local neighbourhood kind of deal, but that ain’t clever on his part. You want to play in that particular game, you got to pay your taxes, and he ain’t been paying. They were unhappy about it.”

“Unhappy enough to do something about it?”

“Oh, sure.”

“What are they going to do?”

“Let’s call it a hostile takeover. You just need to tell me where he’s at and I’ll see that it gets sorted.”

“I can do that. What about my friend?”

“They’ll wipe out the debt.”

“How much do they want for it?”

Beau held up his hands. “No charge. They’ll be taking over his book — that’s worth plenty to them. His debt can be your finder’s fee. They’ll give it to you.”

Milton took his orange juice and touched it against the side of Beau’s beer. “Thanks, Beau,” he said. “I owe you.”

“Yeah, well, about that. There’s maybe something we can do to square that away. This fellow I’ve come to take back down to San Diego, there’s no way he’s going to play nice. Some of the runners we go after, they’re real bad-ass until it comes down to the nut-cutting, and then, when the moment of true balls comes around, most of them capitulate. This guy, though? There’s always one asshole in the crowd who has to be different and I’m not getting any younger. I was thinking maybe I could use a hand.”

“When?”

Beau finished his beer. “You doing anything now?”

39

The place was in the hills outside Vallejo. It was a clear evening and, for once, there was a perfect view all the way down to the Golden Gate Bridge and the lights of the city beyond. Beau could see returning saltwater fisherman out in their boats on the San Pablo Bay and the wide, leafy streets of the town. Beyond it, and across the straits, you could see the big iron derricks, the rotting piers, the grey hulks of battleships, the brick smoke-stacks and derelict warehouses of Mare Island. It had been a pleasant place, once — Beau remembered coming here with his father when he was travelling on business — but the cheap housing units of plasterboard and plywood that had been thrown up to accommodate the boom years after the end of the second world war had fallen quickly into disrepair. The seventies had seen the place struggle with race hatred that begat violence and unrest; the stain was only now being washed away.

Beau drove along Daniels Avenue until he found number 225. Hank had given him the address and Beau had had it checked with an investigator they sometimes used when they had runners in Northern California. It was a small, two-storey house painted in eggshell blue. There was a line of red brick steps that led up from a carport to the first-floor entrance. The brick wall was topped with imitation lanterns on the corners, the garden was overgrown and scruffy and the car in the driveway was up on bricks. It was down-at-heel, the worst house on the street, and, tonight, it looked like it was hosting a party. A couple of men in thick warm-up coats were smoking in the garden and loud music was coming from inside.

“That the place?”

“It is.” Beau drove on and parked out of sight.

“A busy place, drink, maybe drugs? That’ll make things more difficult.”

“I know.”

“Still want to do it?”

“I’m picking him up come hell or high water. You don’t ride your horse into a canyon you ain’t willing to walk out of.”

“How do you want play it?”

Beau looked at the house, assessing it. “You got a preference?”

Milton looked at him with a smile. “Old man like you?” he said. “You go around the back and get ready if he runs. I’ll go in and flush him out.”

“Alright,” he said. “You know what he looks like?”

Smith had studied Beau’s photograph on the drive north from San Francisco. “Big. Nasty looking. I’ll recognise him.”

“Goes by the name of Ordell,” Beau reminded him.

“Don’t worry, I got it.”

Beau held up the cosh. “Want this?”

“Keep it. I’ll give you ten minutes to get yourself around the back and then I’ll go in.”

Beau rolled the car around the block until he found an access road that ran between the back gardens of Daniels Avenue. It was a narrow street that climbed a hill with broken fencing on both sides, wooden garages that were barely standing and unkempt trees that spread their boughs overhead. A row of cars, covered over with tarps, was parked along one side of the road. He recognised number 225 from the peeling blue paint and settled into place to wait behind the wing of a battered old Ford Taurus.

He had barely been there a minute when he heard the sound of raised voices and then crashing furniture.

He rose up quickly.

The back door exploded outwards, the limp body of a man tumbling through the splintered shards.

He took a step forward just in time to intercept the big, angry-looking man who was barrelling out of the shattered doorway. He looked madder than a wet hen. He held one hand to his nose, trying unsuccessfully to stem the flow of blood that was running down his lip, into his mouth and across his chin.

Beau stepped into his path.

“Oh shit,” Ordell Leonard said.

Beau swung the cosh and caught him flush on the side of the head. He went jelly-legged and tripped, Beau snagging the lapels of his shirt as he went stumbling past him, heaving his unsupported weight and lowering him down to the road.

He was out cold before his chin hit the asphalt.

Smith came out of the house, shaking the sting out of his right fist.

“That was easy,” he said.

40

Arlen Crawford was working on the preparation for the next debate. They were in Oakland, another anonymous hotel that was the same as all the others. They were all high-end, all luxury. All the same, one after another after another, a never-ending line of them. The sheets on the bed were always fine Egyptian cotton, the bathrooms were always Italian marble, the carpets were always luxuriously deep. They were all interchangeable. It was easy to forget where you were.

He put down his pen and leaned back in his chair. He thought of John Smith and his threats. That certainly was a problem and, if had been left to metastasise, it would have grown into something much, much worse. But Crawford had it under control. He had been with Robinson when he reported his connection to the girl to the police. They had done it yesterday evening. He had called in a whole series of favours to arrange for a friendly detective to take the statement. The detective had come to them to avoid any whiff of it getting to the press. There would be no shots of the Governor on the steps of a police precinct house. The process of the interview looked official, just as it should, but the statement would never see the light of day. It would never be transcribed and the tapes onto which it had been recorded had already been shredded.

The detective had reassured Robinson that there was little chance that his liaison with Madison had anything to do with her disappearance. He went further, just as Crawford had suggested, saying that there was no evidence to suggest she had anything to do with the dead girls. The Governor’s conscience was salved and now they would be able to get back to the business of winning an election.

Some things were just too important to be derailed.

There was Smith himself, of course. He would need to be dealt with but that was already in hand. The background checks had turned up very little. He wasn’t registered to vote. He didn’t appear to pay any taxes. A shitty place in an SRO in the Mission District. He worked nights as a taxi driver and worked days hauling blocks of ice. He was a nobody. Practically a vagrant. They had two good men on his case now. Good men, solid tails, both with surveillance experience, the sort who could drift in and out of a crowd without being spotted. They had already got some good stuff. The man went to meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. That was useful to know. There was no family but it looked like there was a girl.

That, too, might be helpful.

Leverage.

He turned his attention back to his work. Crawford had just been emailed the latest polling numbers and the news was good. They were tracking nicely ahead of the pack and the last debate ought to be enough to nail the lead down. They had blocked out the weekend for preparation. Crawford was going to be playing the role of Robinson’s most likely rival and he was putting together a list of the questions that he knew would be difficult if they came up. Forewarned was forearmed, and all that. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. Crawford knew all the questions, drilled them into the rest of the team, drilled them into the Governor. That was a difficult proposition given his propensity to shy away from preparation and rely upon his instinct. Crawford preferred a balance, but…

There was a fierce knocking on the door of his hotel room.

He put his pen down. “What is it?” he called.

“Arlen!”

The banging resumed, louder.

He padded across the carpet and opened the door.

It was Robinson.

“Have you seen the news?”

He looked terrible: his face was deathly pale.

“No,” Crawford said. “I’ve been working on the debate.”

“Put it on. CNN.”

Crawford rescued the remote from the debris on the desk and flipped channels to CNN. It was an outside broadcast. The presenter was standing on the margin of a road with scrub and trees. It was heavy with fog, a heavy grey curtain that closed everything in. The ticker at the bottom of the screen announced that the police had finally identified all three sets of remains that had been found at Headlands Lookout.

“Turn it up,” Robinson demanded.

Crawford did as he was told.

“…the bodies of three women found near Headlands Lookout, just behind me here. The victims are 31-year old Tabitha Wilson of Palo Alto, 25-year old Megan Gabert of San Francisco and 21-year old Miley Van Dyken of Vallejo. A police official has revealed to me that there were substantial similarities in how the women died but declined to reveal their causes of death. The same source suggested that the police believe that the three women were killed at a different location but then their bodies were dumped here. Lorraine Young, Tabitha’s mother, has said that police forensic tests, including DNA, had confirmed that one of the bodies belonged to her daughter. The bodies were found within fifty feet of each other in this stretch of rocky grasslands, hidden by overgrown shrubbery and sea grass.”

Crawford felt his knees buckle, just a little.

“What the fuck, Arlen? What the fuck?”

Crawford muted the TV.

The muscles in his jaw bunched as he considered all the possible next moves.

None of them were any good.

“Arlen! Don’t play dumb with me.” He stabbed a finger at the screen. “What the fuck!”

“Calm down, sir.”

“Calm down? Are you kidding? Seriously? Those girls — you know who they are. Jesus Christ, Arlen, you remember, I know you do.”

Yes, he thought bitterly, I do remember. There were no next moves now. Check and mate. End of the line. The situation was all the way out of control and it could only get worse before it got better. He had been managing it, carefully and diligently, nudging events in the best direction and very discreetly burying all of this so deep that it would never be disturbed. That, at least, had been his intention. The girls were never supposed to have been seen again.

“I do remember,” he said.

And then came the recrimination. He should have seen to this himself rather than trusting others; that was his fault, and now he would have to live with it. He had been naïve to think that those dumbass rednecks could be expected to handle something so sensitive the way it needed to be handled. The brakes were off now and momentum was gathering. There was little to be done and, knowing that, Crawford almost felt able to relax. The sense of fatalism was strangely comforting. He had, he realised, been so intent on keeping a lid on events that he had neglected to notice the pressure that was building inside him. The stress and the constant worry. The campaign, twice-daily polling numbers, the places they were strong and the places they were weak, the Governor’s appeal across different demographics, how was he playing with the party, how would the Democrats go after him?

His erratic behaviour.

The suicidal appetite that he couldn’t sate.

Timebombs.

He had done his best for as long as he could but it was too much for one man to handle.

And he didn’t have to handle it anymore.

Maybe this had always been inevitable.

Robinson gaped as if the enormity of what he was discovering had struck him dumb. “And — I—”

“Yes, Governor. That’s right.

“I—”

“You were seeing them all.”

“But—”

“That’ll have to come out now, of course. There will be something that ties them to you, something we couldn’t clean up: a text message, a diary entry, anything, really. Nothing we can do about that, not now. That boat has sailed.”

The Governor put a hand down against the mattress to steady himself. He looked as if he was just about ready to swoon. “What happened?”

“You don’t recall?”

“What’s going on, Arlen?”

“You had your way with them for as long as it suited you and then you put them aside, moved on to whoever you wanted next. The same way you always do. They all came to me. They were hurt and angry and they wanted revenge. They threatened to go to the press. They asked for money. The problem with that, though, is that you can’t ever be sure that they won’t come back for more. They get their snouts in the trough, they’re going to think that it’s always going to be there. It’s not hard to see why they might think that, is it? I would. They still have the story to sell. We can’t run a campaign with that hanging over us, let alone a Presidency.”

“You did this?”

“I arranged for things to be sorted.”

“‘Sorted?’”

“That’s right.”

“You murdered them?”

Robinson slumped.

“No, sir. You did.”

“Don’t be—”

“I arranged for things to be sorted. What else could I have done?”

“And Madison?”

He shrugged. “I shouldn’t think it’ll be long until she turns up.”

“Oh, Jesus…”

“It’s a bit late for that.”

“Who did it?”

“Friends who share our cause. It doesn’t matter who they are. There are some things that are more important than others, Governor. Country, for one. I love this country, sir. But I look at it and I can see everything that’s wrong with it. Immigration out of control, drugs, a government with its hand in everything, the way standards have been allowed to fall, weak foreign policy, the Chinese and the Russians making us look like fools at every turn. That’s not what this country was founded to be. We haven’t lived up to our potential for years. Decades. You were the best chance of making this country great again. You are…no” — he corrected himself, a bitter laugh — “you were…very electable. We would have won, Governor. The nomination, the Presidency and then whatever we wanted after that. We could’ve started the work that needs to be done.”

He was hardly even listening to him. “You killed them.”

There was no anger there, not yet, although that would come. He had been stunned into a stupor. The life had been sucked from him. It was a depressing thing to see; the sight of him on a stage, in full flow, railing against the state of the world and promising that he would make things right, that, Crawford thought, that was something special. Something to experience. But it was also a mirage. The man was a fraud. No sense pretending otherwise. A snake-oil salesman. Joseph Jack Robinson II, the most inspirational politician that Arlen Crawford had ever seen, was just another man selling moonshine.

He went over to his suitcase and opened it.

“Why did you do it, Arlen?”

“What happened was necessary for the greater good, sir. It’s regrettable, of course, but what were they? Three prostitutes and an intern. They were expendable.”

“An intern? Karly?”

“That’s in hand.”

Robinson jacknifed over the edge of the bed and, suddenly and explosively, voided his guts. He straightened up, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

“It’s all over now, sir. You had everything. The charisma, the way you command a room, the good sense to know when to listen and adopt the right ideas. You would have been perfect. Perfect, Governor, if it wasn’t for the fact that you’re weak. No discipline. I should have realised that months ago. There was always only ever going to be so much that I could do for you and now, after this” — he pointed to the TV — “we’ve gone past the limit. The only thing we can do now is try and limit the damage.”

The smell of his vomit was strong, acrid and cloying.

Crawford took out a gun with a silencer and pointed it at Robinson.

“Arlen—”

“I’m sorry it’s come to this, sir, but I don’t see any other way.”