‘You’re writing another book, right?’

She nodded.

‘So this is a whole chapter if you’re lucky.’ He hesitated at the edge, looking for something to fill the gap that had suddenly opened up between them. ‘You heard I was up against a no-namer last week?’

‘Yes. Inconclusive, I heard. Driver Control had to come in and mediate.’ She smiled, a little more warmly this time. ‘I’m sorry, Chris. I like you but I don’t shadow you through the net on a day-to-day basis. There was something about a software failure, the challenge didn’t register in the system or something?’

‘Yeah, that’s the official line.’

One eyebrow arched. He thought there was a little mockery in it. ‘And the unofficial line?’

‘The no-namer was never registered in the first place. Some zone kid jacked a battlewagon and tried to take me down in the rain. No challenge issued. And Driver Control didn’t mediate, they turned up with an enforcement copter after I drove the kid off the road and they fed him a couple of cans of gatling shells for breakfast.’

He saw, with some satisfaction, the way the shock went through her. How her carefully constructed cool fractured open. Her voice, when it came, was almost a whisper.

‘They killed him?’

‘Pretty conclusively, yeah.’

‘But haven’t they traced the car?’

Chris nodded. ‘To an unemployed datasystems consultant. He reported it stolen from outside his house in Harlesden about an hour after the duel.’

‘He must have known before that!’

‘Not necessarily. He hadn’t driven it for a while, apparently. Couldn’t afford to renew the licence this quarter.’

‘Do you believe that?’ Journalistic interest kindling.

‘From the look of him in the interview tape, he’d be hard-pushed to afford a full tank of fuel, let alone a licence to use it, so yes, I do. But in the end it doesn’t matter. Whoever set this up is a long way up the chain from either him or the kid who nicked the car. And whoever set this up also has their claws into Driver Control.’

‘Alright, I’ll buy that. What else do you have?’

‘That’s the lot.’ He wasn’t about to get into the Mandela estate connection. Troy Morris was already running down rumours across the southside, asking softly after Robbie Goodwin’s displaced family, trying to find a safe approach to Khalid Iarescu’s underworld machine. The last thing he’d need was a high-profile journalist crashing the zones and stirring things up. Liz Linshaw was most use where she already was - highly placed in the world of competition driving, reeking of cachet and connection.

She smiled, as if she could read his thoughts.

‘No, there’s more. You just don’t feel like telling me right now.’ She shrugged. ‘ ‘sokay, I can live with that. Sure, I’ll talk to some people I know. Shouldn’t take much leverage to see if something’s being covered up. I can take it from there.’ She picked up the pipe and drew on it. Inside the cage, the last of the embers flared. ‘You understand, this doesn’t come for free. I do it, and you’ll owe me, Chris. Big time.’

‘Like I said, it’ll make a chapter of—‘

‘No.’ She shook her head, and her hair fell across her face. It made him want to clear it away with one hand. ‘That’s not what I mean.’

‘So what do you mean?’

The corner of her mouth quirked and she looked away. ‘You know what I mean, Chris.’

That sat between them for a while, smouldering out like the pipe.

‘Listen,’ he said.

‘I know, Chris. I know. In fact, I’ve seen it all before. You’ve got some stuff you’ve got to work through. Don’t worry about it and. Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not short of male company, believe me.’

‘You seeing Mike again?’ It was out before he could stop himself.

She raked fingers into her own hair and grinned up at the corner of the room. ‘That really is none of your business, Chris.’

‘I’m not like him, Liz.’

‘No, you’re not.’

‘I don’t see the women around me as. Product.’ The images from the porn segment glowed in his head. Studded leather parting buttocks, encircling breasts impossibly full. Fully clothed, the Liz Linshaw sitting opposite him shrugged.

‘Alike Bryant knows what he wants, and he takes it and then he looks after it as best he can. I don’t think his morality stretches much further than that, but he does at least know what he wants.’

Her eyes flickered up to meet his. She was still smiling.

‘Listen, Liz. That night, I.’ He swallowed. ‘I’m having some problems with my marriage, but that doesn’t mean I—‘

‘Chris.’ He’d never in his life been interrupted so gently. ‘I don’t care. I want to fuck you, not replace your wife. But I’ll tell you something for nothing. You came home with me that night, and you grabbed hold of the merchandise when it was on display. Whatever’s going on in your relationship with Carla, you might as well have fucked me then. You’ve got the same guilt, and the same hard-on for me. The fact you didn’t do it is a technicality.’

‘You—‘

She waved it off. Getting up, shouldering her way into her jacket.

‘I’ll get back to you about Driver Control. But the next time you get a bed for the night at my place, you’ll work your passage.’

In the end, the pipe waitress came and told him he’d have to order something else if he wanted to sit there any longer.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Lopez routed Barranco’s flight plan through Atlanta and Montreal before a dawn arrival at Reagan International, New York, where a Shorn jet would pick the two of them up under paperwork that identified them as economic advisers for the Parana Emergency Council. Lopez spoke Brazilian Portuguese almost as well as his native Spanish, and Barranco, like most political figures in Latin America these days, had enough to get by. Lopez was betting security at Reagan International would neither know the difference nor care.

Apparently, his assessment was on the nail. The Shorn jet lifted without incident and touched down in London just after lunch. Chris rode the courtesy copter out to meet it.

‘Senor Barranco.’ He had to shout above the racket of the rotors and the unseasonally cold wind that came buffeting across the asphalt of the private carriers’ terminal. His grin felt sandblasted onto his face. Armed security stood around in suits, jackets whipping up constantly to reveal their shoulder holsters. ‘Welcome to England. How was your flight?’

Barranco grimaced. He looked good in the smart-casual mobile consultant wardrobe Lopez had disguised him with, but above the knitted wool jacket his face was smeared with jet lag.

‘Which flight do you mean? I seem to have been in transit for a week. And now a helicopter?’

‘Believe me, Senor Barranco, you wouldn’t want to drive through this part of London. Is Joaquin Lopez with you?’

Barranco jerked a thumb back at the Shorn jet. ‘He’s coming.’

Lopez appeared in the hatch and clambered down, followed by two more men with baggage. He grinned and waved at Chris. No sign of the weariness you could see on Barranco. Beneath his mobcon clothing, there was a prowling energy that Chris guessed was chemical. In the absence of any other escort, he’d been Barranco’s only security since leaving Panama City.

Chris ushered everybody aboard the copter and into seats. The door cranked itself closed and shut out the wind with an airtight clunk. The pilot turned to look at Chris.

‘Yeah, that’s it. Take us home.’

The copter drifted into the sky. They bent away over the city.

Barranco leaned across to the window and peered down at the sprawl below.

‘This doesn’t seem so terrible,’ he remarked.

‘No,’ Chris agreed. ‘From up here, it’s not.’

The tanned face turned to look at him. ‘I would not be safe walking in those streets?’

‘Depends on the exact neighbourhood. But as a general rule, no, you wouldn’t. You might be attacked and robbed, maybe just have stones thrown at you. At a minimum you’d be recognised as an outsider and followed. After that,’ Chris shrugged. ‘Depends on the kind of crowd you draw.’