CHAPTER 53 — Sunday Night, 1 July

Trying to ride a motorbike with an amputated finger was a bad idea. The actual practise was worse. Every gear change make Kit chew his lip and fight to keep his hand on the bars. He’d probably have been crying with frustration if the night wind hadn’t got to his eyes first.

The Suzuki belonged to Alfie and was the machine Kit would have expected. Cheap, flashy, and done up with after-market accessories. On the plus side, the tank was full, the machine was licenced, and Alfie had been pitifully willing to offer Kit its use.

It was the wrong side of midnight when Kit left the motorway. There was no need to kill the lights as he approached speed cameras but he did it anyway. Kit liked the way darkness turned the black top to an icy strip, lit by little more than the sodium glare of a village nearby.

At a service station south of the M25, he stopped to refill the bike and use the bathroom. As an afterthought, Kit asked Neku if she wanted a coffee. In return, she asked him a question of her own.

“Why did you kill him?”

So he told her.

Sitting next to a glass window, in a café deserted enough to have been ripped from an Edward Hopper painting, Kit explained about the debts he owed. How he’d never really fallen out of love with Mary and why he let Kate O’Mally drag him back from Tokyo.

Kit realised half way through his story that Neku knew none of this. And then he realised no one did, except No Neck, Micki, and that other girl the day Mary’s postcard arrived; and they didn’t count, because he’d been drunk and they’d been careful not to mention it again. Almost everything that mattered to Kit in the last fifteen years had happened inside his head.

Conversations with ghosts.

He’d kissed a girl and it was the wrong girl or the wrong time. He’d lived badly and lived well and neither felt more real than the other, because everything after Josh was counting bells. Like Mary, Kit had just been adding and subtracting to keep the devil at bay.

All those lives snuffed out in the cross-hairs of an M24 sniper rifle needed shifting up one, to make space for the truth. Josh killed himself but Kit had provided the reason.

“You’re sad.” Neku’s voice was matter of fact.

“I’m cold,” said Kit, taking the coffee she offered. It was sweet and still hot, bitter from having stewed in a glass flask on a ring for the previous hour.

“Losing a finger does that,” Neku said. “It’s the shock. My brother…” Whatever she was about to say got lost when Neku took herself to the restrooms. She was still wiping her mouth when she got back.

“How are you?” Neku asked Patrick Robbe-Duras, when Pat finally stopped fussing about the damp and cold and how Neku must feel after such a long ride in the middle of the night.

“I’m okay,” said Pat, sipping his whisky on the rocks.

Neku smiled. Their next discussion involved whether or not another coffee would keep Neku awake and her insistence that all Japanese girls hated hot milk, so that was out of the question.

“No tradition of keeping cows,” she said.

Pat nodded, doubtful.

After this, as the conversation turned to biscuits versus cake, Kate caught Kit’s eye and nodded towards the kitchen door.

“Good idea,” said Neku, hooking ice from Pat’s glass. “Chill your finger,” she told Kit. “Then cut back the knuckle and sew the flesh shut.”

Kit took the ice Neku offered. Smiling, when he realised Kate’s mouth had dropped open.

“I can do it later,” said Neku. “If you’d rather.”

Leading Kit along a corridor, Kate opened a heavy door to reveal a very traditional-looking study, lined with books Kit doubted she’d ever read and hung with a Gully Jimson nude probably chosen years before and barely looked at since. Cigarette smoke clung to a leather armchair, and a waste paper basket overflowed with newspapers. It looked like a room no one had bothered to clean in a very long time.

“You want me to do it?” Kate asked, nodding at Kit’s injured hand.

Kit nodded his head.

Kate O’Mally was surprisingly good with a knife. Well, surprising to Kit, who’d always assumed her nickname of butcher indicated clumsiness, not skill. All the same, it hurt like fuck and there was no other way of putting it. Slicing back flesh, Kate cut free gristle and bone, flicking the remains onto her desk. It looked like one of those chewy bits of chicken.

She let Kit sew the ends together.

“Pat arrived this afternoon,” said Kate. “Just turned up in a taxi, collected his cases, and told me to pay the driver. Said he’d come back for good if I’d accept that Mary was gone.”

“What about his own house?”

Shrugging, Kate said, “I hardly dare ask. You need a drink?”

Kit shook his head.

“Don’t suppose I should either.” Seating herself at the desk, Kate rummaged through a drawer until she found a Partegas box. “Want one of these instead?”

The cigars were dry and burned too quickly, but Kate and Kit still sat there and smoked them anyway, watching curls of smoke obscure the ceiling. Kit understood what Kate was doing. She was ensuring he understood this meeting was social. They were no longer enemies. In her own way, the rituals Kate O’Mally lived by were as rigid as those Yoshi had followed.

“People have been calling,” Kate said, finally coming to the point. Sucking in a final mouthful of smoke, she let it escape between her lips and ground her cigar stub into a glass ashtray. “A surprising number of people.” She smiled. “A man from the MOD, for a start.”

“What did you say?”

“Said I’d never heard of you. Anyway, you know Jimmy the Greek?”

Kit shook his head.

“That’s good,” said Kate. “You don’t want to know him. Anyway, Jimmy was also on the line. He runs an outfit in High Barnet. One of his boys is called Robbie. Nasty temper, but a good chemist. Anyway, Jimmy’s worried because he loaned Robbie to a Russian and now the Russian is dead and Robbie’s scared that he and I have unfinished business.”

“I told Robbie it was cool,” said Kit. “And the guy was Chechen.”

Kate reached for another cigar.

“Armand de Valois was Chechen,” said Kit. “Not Russian. Although he was pretending to be French…”

“You were there when he died?”

“I killed him.”

“You? A Chechen mafia leader. Feel like telling me why?”

He made the kid dance.

“Neku,” said Kit, and the old woman nodded. It was answer enough.

“The Greek wants a meeting.” Blowing fresh smoke towards the ceiling, Kate sat back in her chair. In anybody else this might be taken as a sign of relaxation, but Kit could tell Kate was worried about something.

“So send your nephew,” said Kit.

“That would make it business. I want you to go,” said Kate. “Sort out the problem…”

Maybe laughing wasn’t the right response. “Look,” said Kit, when Kate had stopped scowling. “I’ll call Jimmy.”

“Call him?”

“That’s my best offer.”

Kate pushed her mobile across the desk and waited while Kit punched in the number she gave him.

“Mr. Giangos?”

A sleepy grunt from the other end and a woman in the background, followed by a snapped instruction to be quiet. One didn’t need Greek to understand what was being said. “Yes?”

“I’m calling on behalf of Kate O’Mally.”

“What,” Jimmy Giangos said, “she can’t call me herself?”

“It’s about Robbie,” said Kit, ignoring the question. “Mrs. O’Mally wants you to know there is no problem. In fact, everything is fine. She will tell her nephew this.”

Kate raised her eyebrows.

“The problem was Mr. de Valois. This has now been solved.”

On the other side of the desk, Kate O’Mally actually began to smile. Although Kit’s next words knocked the smile from her face and reduced Kate to frozen silence.