Authors: Mick Herron
“What made it such a hit?”
Flea Pointer sipped her wine. The time it had taken her to get round to this, Bettany had finished his Guinness.
“What was good was, it was totally unexpected. It looked like an arcade game, you know? The kind where you have an animated character doing the same thing over and over. Like collect all the bananas a monkey throws before you end up completely covered in bananas … This doesn’t mean anything to you, does it?”
“Pretend it does.”
“Okay then. As you know, there are two kinds of game.”
She flashed him a look, saying this. He guessed she might be dangerous, in the right circumstances.
“There’s the kind we’ve just been talking about and there’s the adventure kind, the shoot-em-ups. Basically, in the shoot-em-ups, your character has a gun and you have to kill all the aliens or terrorists or whatever before they kill you.”
“I grasped the concept with the name.”
“Right. So at first glance
Shades
looked like one of the first kind, a low-spec affair. Except there was more to it. There was another game hidden underneath, and once you cracked how to get there, you were in a different place altogether. Suddenly …”
“You were in a shoot-em-up.”
“The premise was that the world you started out in, the one where the characters just shop and do other boring tasks, was being controlled by this lizard race, and perhaps I should stop there? You’re not looking convinced.”
“I’m not much for computer games.”
“No? Well. Enough people are to have made Vincent very rich. Like I say, he wrote
Shades
in his bedroom. He has staff now, and the company went public last year.
Shades 3
’s out in the autumn. That’s going to make a lot of people happy.”
“And make him even richer.”
Flea said, “Not really.”
Bettany raised an eyebrow.
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”
“How’d you end up working for him?”
“I answered an ad. Not everyone gets head-hunted.”
Bettany wasn’t sure what to make of that either.
She said, “You don’t know, do you?”
“Don’t know what?”
“It’s a famous story. In the gaming world … Liam didn’t apply for a job with Vincent. Vincent went looking for Liam.”
Bettany waited.
She said, “When I said
Shades
was a hidden game, I meant really. Hidden. There was no clue in the packaging or anywhere. It was up to someone to find it by accident. And that was Liam. Liam was the first to uncover the secret.”
“And that impressed Vincent.”
Flea began to speak, then changed her mind. She sipped wine. Her lips glistened red, until she ran her tongue round them.
“I guess … I think Vincent always knew someone would crack
Shades.
And that when it happened, it would be big news among gamers. So once he found that the guy who cracked it was here
in London, hiring him was too good a story to miss. And Vincent knows the value of a good story.”
“But if Liam had been in Taiwan, he wouldn’t have bothered.”
“I doubt it. Mr. Bettany—”
“Tom.”
“Tom, we’re all so sorry about Liam. Vincent too. He’d have told you that himself if he’d known you were there.”
Which sounded a polite lie.
“How close were you?” he asked.
“Me and Liam?”
He waited.
“We were friends. Not … We weren’t dating or anything. But we’d hang out.”
“You knew he smoked dope?”
To give her credit, she held his gaze. But instead of answering she took another sip of wine. At this rate, she’d be on her second by closing time.
At last she said, “Maybe.”
“How does that work? Maybe you knew and maybe you didn’t?”
“I meant …”
She trailed off.
“There’s an idea,” he said. “Tell me what you meant.”
The door opened and men in football kit came in, smelling of sweat and exercise, filling the pub with noise. Bettany didn’t take his eyes off Flea Pointer.
Who said, “… I only meant, look, I’m sorry, I know it’s hard to hear this, but Liam was twenty-six. If he smoked a little dope now and then, it doesn’t mean anything. He had a good job, and it’s not like he was a stoner, you know? He just used it to relax.”
“And how about you?”
“How about me what?”
“Did you get high with him? Was that one of the things you did when you ‘hung out’?”
“Mr. Bettany—”
“It’s just a question. Do I sound angry?”
He didn’t sound angry.
“So a simple yes or no will do.”
“Sometimes,” she said.
Bettany didn’t reply.
“Not often. Maybe three times?”
She made it a question, as if Bettany had been there, and counting.
“Okay,” he said. “So this dope, where did it come from?”
“… Mr. Bettany?”
“Liam get hold of it himself, or did he smoke yours?”
“I’m not sure I want to answer any more questions.”
“You probably didn’t want to see Liam cremated either. Life’s tough. You smoked his, didn’t you?”
She said, “Usually.”
“Usually?”
“Always. I’ve never … I wouldn’t know where to get hold of it.”
This seemed to embarrass her. It was as if she were confessing to never buying her round.
“And where did Liam get it?”
An eruption of noise from the bar signalled a successful joke. Glasses rang and money was slapped on wood. A coin dropped into a slot and buttons were punched and the jukebox came to life, its opening notes meeting groans and more laughter. Through all of which Bettany’s gaze remained steady.
Flea said, “Liam said he usually … scored at a local club. I
think he always went to the same guy, because it felt safer that way. But really, you know, it’s not like it’s … It’s barely even against the law any more. It’s not like we’re talking about, I don’t know, coke even.”
Yeah, because that stuff’ll kill you, Bettany thought.
Perhaps the same notion struck Flea Pointer, because she coloured.
The music was getting louder, making the pub seem twice as full. What had been a quiet corner would soon become a crush. This wasn’t a part of the city that saved itself for the weekend, if such parts existed any more.
Flea reached under the table.
“This … Here. This is yours.”
She pushed the bag across the table.
“I’m so sorry. About everything.”
He nodded.
“I don’t know whether you … I mean, there’s a garden of remembrance at the crematorium. Or maybe there’s somewhere special …”
He said, “Did he say which club?”
She didn’t pretend not to get his meaning.
“No,” she said. “He didn’t say which club.”
He nodded again, collected the tote bag, and left.
So now he was
perfectly balanced, Liam’s money in his pocket, Liam’s ashes in his hand. Bettany carried the bag by its handles, scrunching them to reduce their length. When he’d hung it from his shoulder, its cargo banged his hip.
He had more than enough cash to get drunk. He was out of practice at London drinking, but it wouldn’t be hard to pick up. It was dark, and the evening was swallowing landmarks. The city, like all cities, was offering anonymity.
Anonymity was what he’d need, in London.
So he walked the streets and checked what was on offer. It was early for clubs but pubs were available, and wine bars. Other places, he had no idea what they were. Literally. He passed a window through which white walls shone, art hung at well-lit intervals, and he’d have thought it a gallery if there hadn’t been people unfolding menus and laying tables. Every twenty paces, the world changed. Now he was passing a bookie’s and a boarded-up salesroom, now a string of takeaways, Bangladeshi, Japanese, Thai. A dentist’s surgery next to a sex shop. Down a sidestreet brickwork was festooned with graffiti, pop-lettering so stylized
he couldn’t make out what it spelt. Beyond that a six-storey building shrouded in canvas, presumably for construction purposes, though the resulting blue cube resembled an artwork.
You might wonder if this was a functioning district, or just put on for show.
Among the exhibits, a man wandering the streets, his son’s ashes in a bag.
Time was they must have walked hand in hand but that was so long ago it didn’t feel like history, more like scenes from a film watched late one night, not paying proper attention. By the time Hannah grew ill, Bettany’s relationship with Liam had fractured beyond repair. Afterwards, there was just the one argument. They had it many times but it was the same one, based on an equation Liam had discovered, tested, and found unanswerable. If Bettany had been a better husband, better father, better man, been around more, Hannah wouldn’t have died.
That was how the young saw things. If that, then this. If this, then the next thing. Life, to the inexperienced, happened in straight lines.
Besides, he had been there. His job over, he’d been there for Hannah, for Liam, was making a proper family the way Hannah wanted. But by then, it wasn’t just the three of them. It was four, the newcomer being the tumour in Hannah’s brain.
You might find her behaviour … erratic.
Always good to have advance warning.
What kind of erratic? he’d asked. As if there were an established procedure he could expect to unfold.
He was told paranoia was not uncommon.
As it turned out, advance warning was no help when Hannah ceased to be herself and became the voice of the tumour. Or was she simply venting long-suppressed feelings about his failures as
husband, father, man? And how often had Liam overheard her outbursts, which would spring from nowhere? Over breakfast, calm as Sunday morning, she’d look up from her paper and ask how long he’d been fucking Meryl Streep. Or talk about the real family she hoped to be reunited with one day. She’d had names for them, a husband and two daughters. Her proper life.
Assailed by these thoughts, he needed another drink fast.
He chose a bar rather than a pub. Laminate flooring and a circular staircase in a corner leading down to toilets. Behind the bar, bowls of lemons and limes next to a wooden chopping board.
With a frosted bottle of Mexican beer Bettany sat with his back to a wall and watched the crowd develop. The bar was on a main road, and traffic shunted past in stop-start rhythm. Young people drifted by, the girls displaying more leg than the weather warranted, the boys wearing saggy-crotched jeans, their underwear showing. A fashion first practised by someone taking the mick, not that Bettany was an expert, or even welcome here. When he’d ordered a drink the girl had glanced across the room, as if checking with someone before serving him. Whoever the someone was must have been elsewhere.
He wondered if Liam had come here, whether it was the sort of place Liam had liked. He had no idea of his son’s tastes. Late son. Whether he preferred beer, wine or spirits. Vodka and tequila seemed the current trends—had Liam swum with the tide, or followed his own inclinations? This gave Bettany something to think about while a young man approached. Black, smartly turned out, neat goatee so short it was near invisible. A nametag read
TOBIAS
.
“Enjoying your drink, sir?”
Bettany studied the bottle. It was kind of piss, to be honest. Maybe that showed on his face.
“So you’ll be leaving after this one then.”
“Is that a question?”
“We have a smart code, sir. I was round back when you arrived, or I’d have pointed that out.”
“So I don’t meet your standards.”
“Nobody wants trouble.”
Even for a mid-week evening that was taking a lot for granted, Bettany thought.
He said, “Mind if I ask you something?”
A raised eyebrow seemed to be acquiescence.
Bettany reached inside his coat, and the young man tensed. But when Bettany withdrew his hand, all it held was Liam’s photo.
“Ever seen this man before?”
He’d nearly said
boy.
But the boy was long gone, even more impossibly distant than the man.
“You a cop?”
“Don’t cops have a smart code too?”
Tobias glanced at the photo.
“He doesn’t look familiar.”
Bettany tucked it away.
“You work for the bar?”
“Can’t you tell?”
“I meant, this actual bar. Or do you come through an agency?”
“I work for the bar.”
“Only I thought that’s how it worked. That door staff, whatever you call yourselves, were supplied by agencies.”
“We get called lots of things. Some places use agencies, yes. But not us. Nearly finished?”
“Other places round here use them?”
“I’m sure some do. Looking for employment, sir?”
“Lately I’ve mostly worked with meat,” Bettany said.
“That’s perhaps as well. No offence, but we’re encouraged to maintain high standards of personal hygiene.”
“Got me there,” Bettany said.
He drank half of what remained in his bottle and stood.
“Is it still true that it’s bouncers push most of the drugs round the clubs?”
“I think you need to leave now.”
“Ever heard of muskrat?”
“Now.”
Bettany went.
The next bar had
a bouncer in place, Asian, a barrel of a man in black tie who barely spared Bettany a glance. Further on was a pub, which was more inviting—had a blackboard boasting, with a hint of desperation, of the plasma screen on offer, and the match now kicking off—but Bettany kept walking.
He was heading away from Liam’s flat. The streets were busier, people out to find a good time or leave a bad one behind, and the air was thickening with cigarettes and traffic and fast food. Smokers huddled round doorways, making stepping out of a modern pub like stepping into an old one.
Pasted to a bus stop window was a missing poster, a Chinese woman. She looked painfully young.
He stopped at the next bar, whose bouncer wore a T-shirt. When he showed him Liam’s photo the bouncer stared. At Bettany, not the photo.
Bettany said, “Do you recognise him?”
“Nah.”
“Have you looked?”
“Move on, yeah?”