80

Tom threw himself down onto the floor and frantically scrabbled across the hard stone surface with his hands, trying to find the cords. A torch beam stabbed the darkness; it briefly fell on Kellie, then on his face, then jigged against the wall, lighting up a row of chemical drums.

Including the one with its lid removed.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

He lay on his side, very still, holding-his-breath still, hands rigidly to his side, legs clamped together, dripping perspiration. He heard the clack, clack, clack of footsteps approaching. His heart was thudding, the roar in his ears of his blood coursing through his veins. The bitter bile of terror rose in his throat.

This was going to be the moment. As soon as he was discovered. Christ, maybe he had been stupid all over again? Stupid to have left the house, stupid to have let them into his car. And now, stupid, unbelievably stupid to have tried to escape.

Kellie was right, what she had said earlier. Calling him a failure.

For an instant he shut his eyes, praying, fighting down vomit. Was this how it was going to finish? All the dreams? Never seeing the children again? Never-

There was a loud clatter. He heard something rolling across the floor. Whatever it was, it hit him on the side of the head. A hard object, but light.

He turned, remembering to stay in his trussed-up position. The beam shone directly into his eyes for a moment, blinding him. Then he heard the same broken-English voice he’d heard a short while ago.

‘For urinate. No shit.’

The beam moved away from his face and onto an object lying on its side just a few feet away. It was an orange plastic bucket.

The footsteps receded. Tom turned to watch; he saw the flashlight beam swinging across the floor until the man reached the rectangle of light in the distance. He thought, fleetingly, that it did not seem to have occurred to the man how he was going to use the bucket with his hands trussed to his sides.

He heard the slam of a heavy-sounding metal door.

And then, once again, there was total darkness.

81

‘Are you out of your fucking mind?’ Carl Venner shouted, his face puce like his shirt with its buttons straining against his gut. Veins bulged at his temples. The scratch the young girl had made during his visitor’s last call was still very visible. ‘What do you think you are doing, coming here? I told you never, ever, ever to come here unless you are told. What part of don’t ever, ever come here unless you are told do you not fucking understand, John?’

Andy Gidney stared down at the cheap beige carpet, his eyes fixed on one tuft; he was trying to calculate how many strands of fibre might be in the tuft.

Venner brought his index finger to his mouth and began to tear at the skin around the nail. A cigar smouldered in the ashtray on his metal desk on the top floor of the warehouse. ‘And anyhow, just where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you for the past hour.’

‘Ummm, I’ve been on my way here.’

‘So why didn’t you answer your fucking phone?’

‘Because you told me never to bring it here.’

To the Weatherman’s quiet satisfaction, that temporarily silenced Venner, who continued working on his finger for some moments, examined it, then worked on it some more. ‘We have a major disaster on our hands, that’s why I was calling you.’

Actually you have two, the Weatherman thought. One you don’t know about – yet. Not that he cared. Carl Venner could have a thousand disasters and he wouldn’t care. He continued counting the fibres.

Venner picked up his cigar, stabbed it between his lips, and puffed it back into life, blowing the smoke out of the corner of his mouth. ‘A fucking disaster, OK?’

‘Cromarty, Forth, south-west veering north four or five, occasionally six in North Utsire,’ he informed Venner, still staring at the floor. ‘Rain at times. Moderate or good.’

‘What the fuck’s with this weather forecast crap?’

‘Ummm, actually – ummm – it’s the shipping forecast.’

Venner shook his head. ‘Jesus. One of our associates is in a coma and you’re giving me the goddamn shipping forecast?’

‘Umm, yes. Umm, that’s right.’

Venner stared at him. This fuckwit was really beyond him. ‘John, the disaster is that our associate had a laptop with him that he was using to upload our latest offering to our customers. The police have seized it. We need that laptop back.’

‘I have it,’ Gidney said. ‘And the clone the High Tech Crime Unit made of the hard disk.’

Venner looked astonished. ‘You have it?’

‘Umm. Yes. Sort of exactly.’

‘You have the laptop back?’

The Weatherman nodded.

The fat man’s whole demeanour changed. He heaved himself up and shook the surprised Gidney by the hand. ‘You are one smart motherfucker!’ Then he sat back down, as if exhausted by the effort, clamped his cigar back between his lips and held out his hand, greedily, like a fat schoolboy wanting more sweets. ‘So, gimme! You have it in your rucksack?’

‘Umm, no, that’s my sandwich.’

One of the two silent Russians entered the room; he was dressed as usual in a black suit over a black T-shirt. He stood a few feet behind Venner, silent and unsmiling.

The Weatherman stared back down at the tuft of carpet, ignoring the outstretched hand, trying to pluck up the courage to say what he had come here to say. He thought about Q in Star Trek again, and muttered the words silently to himself. If you can’t take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It’s not safe out here… it’s not for the timid.

The Man Who Was Not Timid took a deep breath and, stammering, his face reddening, he blurted, ‘I don’t actually have them with me.’

Venner’s face clouded over. ‘Where do you actually have them?’

Gidney sensed an almost silent footfall behind him. He detected the faintest shadow on the carpet. Venner bringing in his team, the Russian in front, the Albanian behind, to intimidate him. But today he was The Man Who Was Not Timid.

He would stand his ground.

He was shaking, his face burning, rivers of perspiration rolling down inside his white shirt. But he was standing his ground. ‘I have them in a safe place.’

‘Exactly how safe?’ Venner enquired coldly.

‘Very.’

‘Good. Sensible.’

‘If you want them back, you have to pay me what you promised. And-and-and I,’ he was blurting now, gabbling, ‘I-don’t-want-to-dothisanymore.’

Then he stared at the carpet, gulping down air.

‘Is that right, John?’ Venner said calmly. ‘You don’t want to work in our team any more?’

‘Ummm, no.’

‘I’m really hurt! I figured we all got along so well! You know, John, I thought you and I were becoming real good buddies. I’m really hurt. Of course, you want to leave, you want your money, that’s absolutely fine.’

The Weatherman was silent; he had not been expecting this reaction. He had expected Venner to explode.

‘So exactly where is this very safe place you have the laptop and the cloned disk?’

Smiling proudly, Gidney looked up. ‘You would never believe it. No one will look there; no one will find them in a thousand years!’

‘That so?’

The Weatherman nodded excitedly.

‘Not even the police?’

‘Absolutely not!’

Venner beamed happily at the Weatherman, then swung his left hand sharply through the air.

The movement puzzled the Weatherman. It appeared to be some coded signal. But he did not have long to fret about it.

‘Watch the birdie!’ Venner said.

The Weatherman felt increasingly confused. The Russian standing beside Venner was holding up a small video camera.

The Albanian, standing behind him, took two swift steps forward and, with one chop of the side of his hand, snapped the Weatherman’s neck and spinal cord in two.