Part 8 (1/2)

It was a short five-minute walk along Calvert Avenue to get to Sh.o.r.editch High Street. The area had long since graduated from edgy to hip and was now so part of the establishment that the bars and eateries looked like they were trying too hard. Men and women were gathering, and the sound of music drifted out onto the street.

There was a twenty-four-hour convenience store on Old Street, and Milton went inside and bought the things that he thought they might need: shower gel, more coffee, a loaf of bread, croissants and jam for breakfast. He found the aisle with the alcohol and paused there uneasily. The hard stuff was with the cigarettes behind the Plexiglas screen that protected the owner, but Milton ran his finger across the bottle tops that stuck out of the cardboard packaging for a six-pack of Corona and knew that he could do plenty of damage to himself without needing gin or vodka. Just one beer would set back all of the progress he had made, all the days of sobriety that he had chalked up. He would be careful. He picked up the six-pack, put it into the basket and took it to the counter. He asked for a packet of Marlboro Lights and requested two fifty-pence pieces in the change.

He checked his watch. He had been out for ten minutes. He had just one more thing to do.

There was an old-fas.h.i.+oned telephone box on the corner of Hackney Road, outside Browns strip club and the Turkish kebab house. Milton went inside. The window had been smothered with calling cards for the prost.i.tutes that worked the area, a panoply of naked flesh and the promised satisfaction of practically any fetish. The booth was foul smelling and had, Milton guessed, most likely been used both as a toilet and a shooting gallery.

He picked up the handset and rested it between his shoulder and ear. He took out his own phone, navigated to the entry in his contacts book that he wanted, and dialled.

ALEX HICKS WAS SITTING with his wife, watching television. They were on the sofa, and Rachel was leaning against him. He had his arm around her and, as he squeezed her a little tighter, it seemed again as if she was more substantial than she had been even last week.

”You're putting on weight.”

”Thank you, darling,” she said, pretending to take offence and jabbing her elbow into his ribs. ”Feel free to go and get me another tub of Ben & Jerry's.”

”Don't you think so?”

She turned her head so that he could see her smile. ”Maybe.”

”How much?”

”Four pounds since last week.”

He squeezed her. ”That's great.”

”I haven't been sick for three days.”

”I know.”

”And I'm sleeping better.”

He squeezed her again. He knew how close he had been to losing her. The cancer had been aggressive and virulent, and her doctors had all but given up hope of stopping it. It had started with a melanoma on her back. They had gone to the doctor and she had ordered a biopsy; they had both known, when she was called and asked to make a quick appointment at the surgery, that the news would not be good. It was cancerous, the doctor said. They had to get rid of it. It was removed within a week, but the disease had already spread. The MRI revealed a five-centimetre growth under her left breast that had wormed its way into the wall of her chest. They took that out, too, and the growth on her right lung. They scanned again and found more. It was growing more quickly than they could take it out. The doctors were talking about more surgery and then a course of brutal chemotherapy, but Hicks and his wife had both realised that they were not hopeful of being able to do very much at all.

The news seemed to suck all the fight out of Rachel, but Hicks was determined that they would not give up. He had researched available treatments and had discovered one that seemed to offer the best chance. It was available at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. They were offering a targeted treatment involving two experimental drugs-Opdivo and Yervoy-that had demonstrated encouraging results in precisely the same kind of cancer that Rachel had developed. They had visited the clinic and started the program. That had been two months ago. The last MRI found no cancer anywhere in her body.

The drugs, while scouring it away, had inflicted the usual panoply of side effects. The Opdivo and Yervoy had caused colitis and pneumonitis. The additional chemotherapy she had undergone had meant that she had lost her hair, and, over the course of the program, a quarter of her body weight. But there was no doubt about it: her hair was regrowing and she was putting weight on again.

His phone was on the arm of the sofa. It started to vibrate.

Rachel looked over at it. ”Who's that?”

”I don't know.” He picked it up and looked at the screen. ”It's a London number.”

”You don't recognise it?”

”No.”

”Leave it.”

”No,” he said. ”I'd better answer it.”

He pressed to accept the call and put the phone to his ear.

”h.e.l.lo?”

”Hicks?”

”Yes. Who is this?”

”It's Milton.”

His wife looked over at him. ”Who?”

”Business,” he said, a little fl.u.s.tered.

”It's eight o'clock, Alex.”

”I know.” He disengaged himself from her and stood. ”I'll take it in the study.”

She nodded, unconcerned, collected the remote control and flicked between the channels. Hicks left the lounge and went into the room that they used as a study. He shut the door behind him and put the phone back against his ear.

”Milton?”

”h.e.l.lo, Hicks.”

”Is everything okay?”

”Everything's fine. How are you?”

”We're good.”

”Your wife?”

”She's better, thanks to you. What's going on? I didn't expect to hear from you.”

”I need a favour.”

Hicks felt a twist of anxiety. Milton was not the sort of man to ask for favours, and Hicks knew that he was in his debt. ”What do you need?”

”Don't worry. It's nothing. A surveillance job.”

”What? A person? A place?”

”A place. There's a block of flats in Wanstead. East London.”

”Okay,” he said. ”Anything else?”