199.

Thorpe shrugged and popped the proffered fag into his own mouth.

Too bad. Any other requests?'

Ray felt tears forming in his eyes as the question and the significance of the offered cigarette sank in. He wished he knew what he had done, wished he could get down on his knees and beg forgiveness before whoever had sanctioned this, promising any and every restitution within his ability. But most of all he wished he could see Kate and Martin one more time.

He swallowed, the tears running now, but he was determined that this time his voice wouldn't break.

'I suppose a wank's out of the question?' he said, managing just above a whisper.

'Fuck him,' Boyle said angrily. 'Let's do it.'

They both drew their automatics and simultaneously chambered their rounds before levelling the weapons at arm's length. Ray closed his eyes, his overfull bladder reflexively emptying through his trousers to splash on the floorboards below. He heard the clicks of triggers being cocked, then suffered an eternity of waiting, bracing, wincing, twitching, hyperventilating. It got to the point where he was willing the shots to come, but they never did.

He heard more clicks and opened his eyes to see them reholstering their guns, smirking to each other. The hood was placed over his head again and then they left the room without saying another word. Ray's panting turned into sobbing as he cried tears of relief, fear and utter humiliation, cathartically draining him of the tension that had built up since those two appeared in that corridor outside his classroom, three hours and a lifetime ago.

Mock execution, they called it, with the 'mock' meaning more than just pretend. Its purpose wasn't merely to 200.

frighten, but to debase and dehumanise, all the better to underline the present power balance. Ray was left tied there, dripping with his own urine, choking on snot and tears, aware that they could be returning any time for the real deal.

It was too early to feel anger or hatred. He was still shaking, still waiting for the bullets, still mourning the life that he thought was being taken away. He wanted to pace up and down the living room at two in the morning, holding Martin on his shoulder, his confused, colicky howls filling his ears. Under that hood, tied to that chair, he could now see what had been obscured by the fatigue and the stress, the sleepless nights, the hurried, solitary meals. He could see Martin a few months older, smiling, sitting up, crawling. He could see the look of recognition and excitement on his little face when his daddy walked in from school. He could see Fed Brown and Jason Murphy quietly getting on with some work once the new-teacher-baiting novelty had worn off. None of these things had been all that far from his grasp this morning, or last night at the airport, but he hadn't known what any of them were truly worth.

He did now.

LOADING MOD: STABLE CAREER.

LOADING MAP: COMFORTABLE HOME [comfho.bsp]

LOADING POWER-UPS: STEADY INCOME.

LOADING PLAYERS: LOVING WIFE.

LOADING PLAYERS: HEALTHY BABY SON.

CONNECTION INTERRUPTED.

THE CONNECTION TO THE REAL LIFE(tm) SERVER WAS UNEXPECTEDLY TERMINATED. DO YOU.

WISH TO RECONNECT?.

Yes/No.201.

deus nigellus ex machina.Simon stood at the door and looked in. Larry the little drummer boy was hunched over, lifeless on the seat, his hooded head slumped forward. It looked as though he'd been offed already, single tap to the base of the skull and a puddle under the chair. He should be so lucky, the cocky little prick. The puddle looked like it had been recently replenished, which was hardly surprising. They'd left him there a good couple of hours before the 'interrogation', and when he inevitably needed to go again, the poor diddums must have decided he'd nothing to lose. Not his dignity, anyway. Simon wished he could have been in on the grilling, but at this stage it would have jeopardised the mission. There'd be time for the satisfaction of a face-to-face revelation before the end. All good things to him who waits.

He heard footsteps at his back and looked round to see May standing at the end of the hallway, face tripping him. Simon sighed and closed the door. Have to keep the children happy.

'What?' he asked.

'A word,' May answered, nodding to the back door to indicate they should take it outside.

Please not technical problems, not at this stage.

Lydon and Matlock were near the door, standing next to Larry's car. They were arguing, each accusing the other of eating his lunch. It was a choice moment. Between them these two had killed more people than certain class-A drugs, and 202.

here they were trading abuse over a stolen Snickers. Nice to hear that they were still conducting it in English, right enough. It was good practice, though there was an element of self-protection about it, especially when tempers were raised. If someone was going to bear you a grudge, it didn't do to betray anything about your identity, and a hot-blooded resort to your native tongue could prove a costly giveaway.

May tramped past them, deliberately out of earshot. Not technical problems, then. Whine coming up. At such times, Simon found it wise to get his own question in first, start them off on the back foot.

'Is everything ready for the road?' he asked. If the answer was anything other than in the affirmative, May knew he could fuck off with his complaint, whatever it was.

'Packed, checked, good to go. Are you?'

'Ready? Yeah.'

'Sure? You don't want to look at our prisoner a little longer?'

Simon felt a chill pass through him like a rippling wave. He said nothing, opting instead for a hopefully inscrutable stare. Even a glib reply suddenly seemed interpretable as evasion.

'Who is he?'

'He's nobody.'

'So what are we doing with him?'

'You know what we're doing with him. The client has reason to believe that some information may have leaked. I thought we went over this.'

'That part, yes.'

'So what's your problem, Brian?'

'My problem, Freddie, is that there must be a simpler way of dealing with it. We seem to be taking a lot of unnecessary risks - all revolving around this Ash guy 203 and I'm starting to wonder where your head is.'

Simon gritted his teeth. A show of irritation with May would be less suspicious than overdoing the serene patience. 'My head's fine, how's yours?'

'Mine's exposed and I'm starting to wonder why. Ash can identify me and Taylor. The school secretary too; I spoke to her twice.'

'You had the fake 'tache and Gregories, didn't you? She'll give the sketch artist a description of Groucho Marx, on the off-chance they ever get round to asking her.'

'And what about him?'

'He's not going to live to tell the tale. You know that.'

'So why weren't you in on the interrogation? Why's he got a bag over his head? What don't you want him to see?'

'He had to see you two's faces when you picked him up. It would be "unnecessary risk" if we let him see anyone else, wouldn't it?'

May was shaking his head, simmering.

'Why him? Specifically?'

'For fuck's sake, there's no big reason. He's respectable, a schoolteacher. We couldn't use just any idiot off the street.'

'Bollocks.'

'I see you made it through the video-only episodes then?'

'Eh?'

'Brookside. Bad language, Brian. Not normally allowed.'

'Don't change the subject.'

Simon looked him hard in the eye. 'I answered your question.'

'I heard you. He's nobody special. So if I put a bullet in his head right now, it would just be a matter of finding ourselves a replacement, yeah? That wouldn't bother you at all?'

'Yes, it would bother me, because it would be a matter 204.

of great inconvenience and further unfuckingnecessary risk.'

'You know him, don't you?'

'Oh, I see we're finally getting around to saying what's really on our minds. Do you actually want me to answer that question?'

May paused, took a breath. He knew what Simon was saying, the ramifications it implied. Personal information was highly volatile, and thus not shared and definitely not sought. What you knew about someone else could compromise you as much as - if not more than - it compromised him, not least because it could earn you a bullet in the skull. May put his palms up.

'If I had a personal agenda, I'd declare it,' Simon said. 'I'd owe you that.'

'No you wouldn't,' May replied. 'You'd owe us that.'

They both smiled. Mutual mistrust had a stability to it, sometimes the only common ground you could rely on.

'One last question,' May said, just as Simon was about to walk away. 'He mentioned a name. Simon Darcourt. Does that mean anything?'

Simon blinked, hoping to obscure any involuntary ocular reaction, the rest of his features in practised neutral expression. Since the airport, there must have been all sorts of confused notions stoating around Larry's baffled wee brain, and it had always been a possibility that he'd mention the name as he fished for explanations, but hearing it spoken aloud was still a jolt, particularly coming from the mouth of a comrade. It had been over three years since Simon heard anyone say it, the last being the TV news reporter covering his memorial service, which he'd watched in a hotel room less than five miles from his former home after taking in the ceremony incognito.

205.

'Doesn't ring any bells. What did he say?'

'He asked if this had anything to do with Simon Darcourt.'

'Dunno. Maybe he's been fucking the guy's wife. What did you tell him?'

'Nothing.'

'Maybe you should have said yes - mess with his head all the more.'

'I'm not sure we could mess with his head any more without using a liquidiser.'

'Now there's a thought.'

They shared another smile. Crisis averted, boarders repelled.

'Come on, Brian, time for the soundcheck.'May sat silently in the passenger seat, staring blankly at the passing scenery like a kid the first time he's been allowed up front. If he'd been a dog, he'd have stuck his head out the window. The silence was starting to grate. There was never a lot of small talk between any of them, for obvious reasons (they were hardly going to ask each other where they were going for their holidays), but on this trip there seemed to be a tension about their mutual reticence, a hangover from their discussion at the farmhouse. Maybe he was imagining it, or maybe May was just a little wrapped up in himself because they were getting close to showtime on their biggest ever gig. That's what Simon should have been worrying about too, but instead he was still bouncing their discussion around his mind, the words 'Simon Darcourt' continuing to echo in May's fake- but-improving Scouse accent.

He tried to remember May's counter-reaction, whether it suggested he'd seen anything in Simon's eyes when he 206.

mentioned the name. It was impossible to know, but worth bearing in mind, particularly given May's evident suspicions surrounding the LDB. Once he got it into his head that there was a connection between them, there were plenty of dangerous extrapolations that might follow on.

It had been an indulgence, one he thought he could afford, and one that was now too late to abandon. Whether or not May was bluffing when he threatened to put a bullet in the prisoner's brain, the drummer boy was now an integral part of the set-up. With May having made his accusation, Simon was saddled with following it through, because if he suddenly drilled the prisoner and gave the order to find a replacement, it was as good as a signed admission that May's speculation was on the money.

'Aw, fuck off.'

May turned his head, shaken from his trance by Simon's ejaculation.

'Arr, 'ey,' May grumbled, noticing the problem.

Simon slowed the Espace as they drew up behind a long line of vehicles crawling its way up the steep incline. The queue was caused by temporary traffic lights about a quarter of a mile ahead, alternating the use of one lane while the other remained closed so that two guys in hard- hats could read The Sun and scratch their balls without fear of being run over.

'How can there be a traffic jam?' May asked. 'We're in the middle of fucking nowhere.'

Simon had to bite back a response. Any time he got caught in a tailback, he felt every nerve stretch, every fibre tighten; not merely because of the frustration, but because it so vividly reminded him of Aberdeen. Every fucking morning and every fucking night he'd pootled along, doing horrible things to his clutch as he attempted to maintain 207.

an optimum speed of less than one mile an hour, in the interminable procession of SSCs travelling to and from Bridge of Don.

Given that it was such a piddling little backwater with over-optimistic delusions of mediocrity, the town - sorry, 'city' - planners had to be applauded for their achievement in creating one aspect of the place that did resemble modern metropolitan living. Despite a population of less than a quarter mill, they had nonetheless managed to engineer commuter traffic conditions rivalling the most congested cities on earth. This had been achieved through the simple but ingenious device of building the largest commuter dormitory suburb in Europe on the other side of the River Don from where all the aforementioned commuters' jobs were located. Fortunately, no-one had been careless enough to spoil the resultant effect by building a few decent-sized modern bridges, so approximately half of the city's travelling workforce was channelled across two structures originally built to let sheep pass three abreast. There had been a third bridge that Simon only learned about the day it closed, when he turned on the car radio to find out why that morning's tailback began outside his front door, rather than on the dual carriageway as usual. This third bridge had been on private ground, but had been open to the public until the land was sold to a housing developer, whose offer to hand it over gratis to the council was declined. The official explanation was that the structure would incur maintenance costs, but Simon suspected the real reason was that the council's transport convener had some kind of contest going with his counterpart in Mexico City, and this was going to give him the edge.

That hour it took to travel five miles every morning and every night was the only thing worse than work itself.

208.

Every car was a hearse, stuck in that cortege, wending its way slowly towards the driver's own funeral. It was the time his circumstances most mercilessly mocked him, a perfect metaphor for this inescapable, lifeless, soulless, joyless procession. To work, from work, not only enslaved but tormented by this empty time when there was nothing to do but strain against the growing cramp and contemplate the nowhere your life was going.

Aberdeen, fucking Aberdeen - he just wasn't supposed to be there. He wasn't supposed to be doing this job, he wasn't supposed to be yoked with any of it. Aberdeen was for farmers and fishermen and fucking SSCs with no greater ambition for their lives than shiting out smaller versions of themselves and occasionally winning the Employee of the Month award at their mundane and meaningless jobs. It was the kind of place he was supposed to drive into, play a sell-out gig, go back to his hotel, get stocious, pick up one of the marginally less hefty local boilers, shove it in her mouth so he didn't have to listen to her stupid accent, kick her out, go to bed, get up and drive away again, all the time thanking fuck he was only passing through.

He was meant to be living in London; well, maybe New York, Berlin, Amsterdam or Paris by this time, but London was where he was supposed to finally get the right people together for his band. Down there he would have found people who were serious about their music, not a bunch of stupid wee boys wanting to play at pop stars in their dad's garage. University had been a major disappointment in that respect. Too many time-wasters, too many clowns who were more interested in grabbing a share of the limelight than playing a part in creating something special. Not one of them had the maturity to see past their own egos and notice true musical vision when it was right in front of them.

209.

Maybe it was just the wrong time. Musical scenes often developed in cities through a fertile cross-pollination of ideas, influences and personnel, such as the Madchester phenomenon of the early Nineties, or the Bromley contingent that was an incestuous nucleus for The Banshees, The Ants, The Cure, The Creatures, Gen X, PiL and others. It had been just his shite luck to be looking for musical soulmates in Glasgow in the mid-1980s, when the Pied Piper traded in the woodwind for a jangly guitar and led the weak- minded masses down the path of infantile mediocrity.

Nobody cared about musicianship, innovation, structure, experimentation or stagecraft: all it took was three chords and a cheery melody and these fucking morons were getting indie record deals. Half of them could hardly play, and even those that could weren't interested in pushing any boundaries, just treading the same worn-out turf and justifying it with the usual deluded bleating about 'songs' and 'tunes' being the important thing. Any idiot could do what they were doing. A cheap guitar from the Barras, a practice amp, a copy of The Best of The Byrds, three like-minded fuckwit mates and you were away.

Any idiot? Every idiot. There were hundreds of them, not one with the self-awareness to realise that they all sounded the same and nothing they were doing was remotely original. The Pastels. The Boy Hairdressers. The BMX Bandits. The Close Lobsters. The Vaselines. Primal Scream, before someone told Bobby Gillespie that rock was trendy this month. The Shop Assistants. The Woodentops. His Latest Flame. Fruits of Passion. God, there were so fucking many of them, like fucking lice. It was horrible. All wearing their anoraks, singing songs about sweeties and strawberries and Kylie cunting Minogue.

Awash on that ocean of twee and insipid three-chord 210.