Shrike (Book 2): Rampant (17 page)

I don't wait to see if he listens. Granger comes at me again, and I sidestep and lunge for the taser on the ground. Just as my fingers close around it, something smacks into my head with the force of a wrecking ball. I go down and get a mouthful of sod. My vision greys out for a split second, and then I'm rolling to my feet just as Granger leaps the fence. She throws something over it just as her legs clear the wood.

A grenade. 

Footsteps pound through the house. Winters must have obeyed me. I run toward them, into the house. 

"
GRENADE!" I bellow the word as loudly as I can and fling myself at the rushing constables, kicking what's left of the back door shut behind me. "Move!"

They scramble over themselves, and I herd them toward the front of the house, waiting, pushing them as fast as they can stumble through this stranger's lounge. We pour through the front door of the house just as a cataclysmic
boom
erupts behind us.

Someone trips right in front of me, and I stumble forward onto my knees, twisting around to see a cloud of smoke pouring upward.

My chest constricts.

I turn my head to see Raymond Winters, his suitcase on its side, forgotten. He's alive. Unbloodied.

I look back toward the column of smoke just as bits of dirt and wood start to rain down from the sky.

There were three constables in that garden.

Raymond Winters is alive, but they are not.

I don't get home again until after three. Trevor doesn't often hold me for debriefing, but with three constables dead, he sort of has to. I go into autopilot mode during the questioning, repeating what happened until finally, after the fourth hour down at St. Leonard's, Trevor nods to the investigator that I can go. He's stayed with me the entire time to make sure no one tries to forcibly remove my mask.

More for their benefit than for mine, I think. 

I wish I had some sort of answer. I see Raymond Winters, his giant suitcase next to him, in a neighbouring interrogation room. He's not being questioned, but he looks shaken anyway. I remember from the list that he's a member of the UK Independence Party. I wonder how he feels about Britannia coming after him.

I also wonder how he feels knowing that three constables gave their lives for him to sit there with that suitcase.

There are few people on this earth I envy less. 

Granger's pattern this far has been steady, just as Macy said. Murders in twos, retreat, repeat. Tonight's events more than anything else confirm the ever-growing feeling I have in my gut that Macy's right: Rosamund Granger is on a timeline, and she will do whatever it takes to meet it.

Tonight she was tactical. Deliberate. Fire a few shots a street away, get the neighbours to ring 999. Wait. Wait until the police arrive, until Shrike arrives, wait until she brings the target right out into range. She was prepared to take out whoever she needed to in order to get Winters, and as it was she did. She killed three constables, missed Winters because of me. Or maybe that grenade was actually meant for me.

As much as I would fear an erratic Granger, I think a deliberate one is worse. She has backup plans in place for when things go wrong. I'm not sure if she's getting desperate or just adapting like a fox evading a pack of bloodhounds.

At my flat, there's a note on the worktop from Magda inviting me for supper tomorrow night. I'll have to do that before I go to meet Macy. I haven't even seen Magda since the hospital, and I miss her. I could always go wake her up to say hello, but the idea just makes me feel silly, so instead I go upstairs to my empty bedroom, add another pin to my map for the failed assassination attempt on Raymond Winters, and climb out the window to go to Taog's.

He's asleep again, as he should be. He doesn't stir when I get into bed next to him, and I curl up against his back. His back is startlingly warm, but not damp.

Bugger. He's got a fever.

I get out of bed again and fetch a large bowl from his kitchen, fill it with ice, and rustle around in his bathroom until I find a clean hand towel and some clothespins. I fold some ice into the towel to make a compress, then bring my hand down hard to crush the ice. Back in his bedroom, I pin the compress shut and gently lay it over his forehead. My mum always used to do that for me when I had a fever. Taog's so dead asleep that he doesn't even wake, but I hope it helps.

Sleep is hard coming to me again tonight. For too long all that's been on my mind is death. Death in the past, death in the present, imminent death in the future.

I wonder when it will come for me.

There are days I have hated my job — most of them back when I worked for Annamaria de Fournay — and there are days when it brings me joy. Thursday is one of those days, and the joy has little to do with the work itself.

Maths always made sense to me. It's a universal language, from basic addition to physics and quantum mechanics. I never wanted to go the route of attempting to predict the trajectories of asteroids, but even on my less-involved level, I love that I can go to work, pick up the books, and treat them like a puzzle to be solved.

There's a certain amount of revenue in, a certain amount of expenses out. Ideally the former should outweigh the latter, and it's my job to see that it's as close to the truth as possible. I'm good at my job. I always have been, even when de Fournay gave me a daily dressing down and pointed out minute flaws that almost always had something to do with format or aesthetics instead of the actual meat of my work. 

So when Thursday brings with it a new account to reconcile, I dive into the project with as much fervour as I can muster. 

In the back of my mind I know it's only because the rest of my life is so out of control, this need to understand and put numbers in their perfectly-situated columns. It doesn't matter to me, because for the few hours I'm at my desk, I can escape Rosamund Granger. I can leave dead constables where they lie. I can forget about Anthony's welts.

I take solace in the numbers.

For the first time in years, my job is some sort of haven instead of a place I burn in hell.

I work past six o'clock, until most of my staff have already left. When my phone chirps with a message from Magda, I realise I'll have to go to the restaurant straightaway.

The place she's chosen is a pub just off Prince's Street, and I'm thankful she hasn't picked anything fancy. She's waiting for me with a pint of lager and a plate of chips and vinegar.

I kiss her on the cheek and hug her tightly. "I feel like I've not seen you in ages."

"I keep missing you when you go out," she says. "I come home, and you are gone, or I leave and you come home. I wanted to see you. I felt bad about the hospital."

Sitting down next to her, I pop one of the chips in my mouth. "What do you mean?"

"I remember you asked about John, and I had not seen him. I talked to Trevor. He says you think John Abbey gave us the drugs."

I close my eyes and inhale deeply. Instead of calming me, I just smell malt vinegar and spilt beer. Opening my eyes again, I frown. "I wish he hadn't said anything."

"He said he thinks you — what's the word? Imagined?"

"Hallucinated. He thinks I hallucinated seeing Abbey."

"And what do you think?"

As always, Magda knows exactly what to say. "I think he was there. He whispered in my ear and gestured at you right before you fell. It felt like he knew you would collapse."

She's silent for a long moment. "You think he invested in my fashion designs just to get close to you."

I wince. Gwen Maule, the egocentric solipsist, everyone. I remember the other deals Magda was offered prior to Abbey's. Any number of them would have been good, but she was holding out for something better. I hate the thought that her something better ended up being a psychopath. "I think that any idiot can see how talented you are. Getting close to me is probably just a bonus. He was probably hoping to cash in on your rise to fame."

Magda's smile says she thinks I'm full of shite, but she reaches out to pat my hand anyway. "He might not be in Britannia at all."

"Perhaps." I know the tiny grain of hope I attempt to inject into my voice sounds dubious at best, but I can't help it. "Have you heard from him?"

"No, but that is not unusual. He is the CEO of his company. They invest in many projects and do not watch over all of them every day." 

She's right. The barman comes by, and I order chicken and chips, determined to change the subject.

I ask Magda about the progress she's made on the label's first designs, and she launches into an explanation of everything she's doing to get things ready for fashion week. For that I'm thankful, because I don't want the subject to turn back to me.

All I have to talk about is death.

seventeen

Magda and I stay at the pub until half nine, and I insist on paying for the taxi home since she treated me to supper. 

She goes straight to the lavatory to shower, and I force myself to clamber back into my Shrike get up. One of these days, I'll be overwhelmingly thankful to not feel as if I'm constantly bouncing from one place to another. It makes me wish there were a volcano somewhere that just needed a hapless sacrifice to jump into it to save the world. I'd be that hapless sacrifice right now. 

Unfortunately, apocalyptic volcanoes are a wee bit thin on the ground in Scotland, and I've an informant to meet.

I check my email. No map yet.

It's almost ten-thirty now, and I'm not keen on the idea of sitting around my flat in spandex any longer than I have to.

I think back to our meeting yesterday — was it really just yesterday? — and I'm certain Macy said 2300 today. Unless I've been grossly wrong my entire life, 2300 is eleven at night.

Magda gets out of the shower and pops her head through my door, hair dripping on the parquet and her fluffy robe turning her into a white cloud with legs and a head. "What are you doing?"

"I was supposed to meet someone at eleven, but I've not heard from her."

"Are you sure it was today?"

"I'm sure."

Magda shrugs and pads into her room. 

I check my email every five minutes until eleven. Still naught. 

Replaying our short visit in my mind only makes me worry more. She was fidgety and sure she had something. If I were her, I wouldn't miss a meeting with a fellow paranoia-subscriber. I've a tinny taste in my mouth, and it's not from the chicken and chips down the pub.

I can't go to where she's supposed to be, because I haven't the faintest idea where she was going to suggest we meet.

Eleven-thirty arrives sluggishly, feeling like three hours after our meeting time lapsed instead of thirty minutes. I tell myself that if I've not heard from her by midnight, I'll do something.

One hour may sound like a reasonable amount of time to wait, but to someone who's been as close to ticking explosives as much as I have this year, it's excruciating.

At midnight on the button, I hop up from my bed. Magda's door is open, but I knock anyway.

"She never rang or emailed," I say. "I'm very worried something's happened to her, and I need to go look."

Magda's blue eyes immediately fill with apprehension. "You think she is hurt?"

"I don't know. I don't think she would be late without contacting me." I may not know where our meeting place was supposed to be, but I do know where her flat is.

By twelve-thirty, I'm in the close between buildings where I first saw the shrike stencil. The stencil is gone, painted over and vanished. Whether it's the chippie's doing or Macy's, I don't know. Either way, I know this is the place. The chip shop's bright red door almost shines in the light from the street lamps. I make my way to the roof the same way I did last time. I leap from the next building over, and again the sense of lightness and vertigo pervades my senses. I feel dizzy when I land and almost trip and stumble into the access door where Macy came out before.

It makes me nervous, this new sense. It's like my mind is trying to orient itself to being airborne, but my body hasn't gotten the memo that it can ignore gravity. Walking to the edge of the roof, I look down. Lately jumps have been easier, and my balance — apart from landing on solid ground — has been better. I'm going to need to test it, see what my body is doing. I can't afford variables right now, and falling on my face when Granger's throwing grenades is definitely a variable with too high a cost.

I try to picture the scene from the last time I was here. Macy came out every ten minutes to wave her wee Shrike flag around, and if I were her, I wouldn't have picked such a short amount of time between flag-waving if I had to walk two minutes down stairs to get to my flat and two minutes back up again. I test the access door, and it's open. I reckon no one's too fussed about the idea of intruders approaching from the roof.

It's only a short flight of stairs down to the corridor, and from what I can tell, there are only two flats here, one on either side. I've got a fifty-fifty chance of finding Macy's in one go. Even so, I'm not about to break down any doors. I knock at the first door and wait, knowing full well that it's nearly one in the morning. Only silence greets me.