Part 15 (1/2)
TELL YOUR GIRLFRIEND.
Slipping the phone into his pocket, he headedoutside, walked the single block to the red brick cathedral, and went inside. Heavy darkness seemed a permanent denizen in here. In a pew at the back, he sat down, then knelt, cupping his phone again to read the words in full.
TELL YOUR GIRLFRIEND TO LEAVE HERPHONE AT HOME. BIG EARS EVERYWHERE.
Getting to his feet, he crossed to one of the shadowed side-chapels, and stopped at a metal stand bearing rows of candle holders, some two-thirds in use. He used cash, bought a candle and lit it, then pressed it into place. Call it cover, acting like the real wors.h.i.+ppers. Or call it a prayer to an imaginary ent.i.ty he had no belief in: a plea to the universe for a miracle, for Sophie's sake.
Get out of here.
Leaving, he kept his head down, using natural movement to disguise the way he scanned the environment, checking everyone, detecting no patterns, knowing that the real watchers were everywhere: lenses ranging in size from pinholes to golf b.a.l.l.s, overtly on posts and hidden in nooks, outside and inside the buildings, reporting every second of every day on the ant-like behaviour sweeping through their fields of view. A camera does not blink; a server does not sleep.
Why was someone eavesdropping on Suzanne? And who was the helpful message from, if it was real?
He wandered into Stag Place, buffeted by wind some kind of tunnel effect produced by the gla.s.s buildings and found Elliptical House, its outline living up to its name. Inside, a receptionist with weightlifter muscles nodded at Josh's name, and said he was on the visitor's list.
”Fourth floor. Lift is over there.”
”Thanks.”There was a mutual nod, a recognition of physical potential; then Josh made his way to the lift, wondering what Richard Broomhall had thought as he made this journey, and what had flipped inside his head to make him act so differently afterwards. On the fourth floor, he found a mother-and-daughter pair just leaving Suzanne's office. Consulting room. Whatever.
”Hey,” he said.
”Hey.” Suzanne watched her clients go, then: ”Come in while I grab my things.”
A smart remark rose up inside him, about grabbing her things, and he pushed it back down. As he followed her inside, he checked the observation vectors the placement of the four internal office cameras was obvious then turned his phone towards her, its screen hidden from surveillance.
LEAVE YOUR PHONE HERE A blink of polished-chestnut eyes; a raised eyebrow. ”Least I can do is buy you a sandwich,” he said. ”A sandwich? Is that all you're offering?” ”I could have made cheese sarnies in my hotel, brought them along in a plastic box.” A blink of polished-chestnut eyes; a raised eyebrow. ”Least I can do is buy you a sandwich,” he said. ”A sandwich? Is that all you're offering?” ”I could have made cheese sarnies in my hotel, brought them along in a plastic box.”
”Lucky escape for me, then.”By this time they were out in the fourth-floor lobby, and Suzanne was checking that her door was shut, while her phone remained inside atop her desk. She looked at Josh; he dipped his chin, then asked her about the rubbish strike, whether she thought the dustbin collections might restart any time soon, and if she had seen any rats around where she lived.
”Not as yet, but I'm hoping,” she said inside the lift. ”Think of all those phobic patients I'll be gaining.”
”All coughing at you and spreading their bubonic plague.”
”There is that.”
Outside, they strolled past the mall, then Josh pointed as if suggesting a place to eat, and led her between a gla.s.s pillar and the main exterior wall.
”Dead zone,” he said. ”Your phone is compromised, or so I've been told.”
”Compromised?” Her expression looked like the beginning of a smile; then she glanced to her left. ”The police gave me a replacement handset.”
”We're on the same side.”
Except that my search methods are illegal.
”So what now?”
”We go to lunch. I'm going to ask you to come somewhere with me tonight, and we can talk about that openly. If you do say yes, can you remember to forget your phone?”
Her smile was unrestrained.
”Josh c.u.mberland, you have a way with hypnotic language.”
”Er...”
Some ninety minutes later, in another dead zone free from surveillance, Josh made a call.
”Tony? How're you doing?”
”OK. Just on a break.”
”Good guess on my part.”
”Guess, my a.r.s.e. Some of us are organised, stick to a timetable.”
”Uh-huh. Does Terry B still have his black cab?”
”Big Tel? Course he does. Want me to have a word with him?”
”I was hoping to book a taxi for, say, six tonight.”
”Christ, leave things till the last minute, why don't you? This job working out, is it?”
”Keeping me busy.”
”And you need Tel? It's that sort of gig?”
”Just for the wheels.”
”Huh. Call you right back.”
”OK.”.
At twenty past six, Suzanne stepped from a doorway in a Bloomsbury sidestreet, and slid into the black cab that had just pulled up. Josh, on the bench-seat beside her, smiled at her.
”We can talk.” He pointed at the ceiling-mounted cam. ”We won't be recorded.”