Ivoria, Tanith Lee [popular ebook readers .TXT] 📗

he had tried to throw. The medics reckoned his heart had been stopped for approximately two minutes.. After that there must be inevitable mental problems, regardless of any physical flaws. When Laurence cried, Crang had patted him on the shoulder.

Though younger than Laurence, Crang acted towards him in a kind and fatherly way. Secretly, at least a secret from Laurence, Crang despised him. But Laurence was needed. Already Laurence’s testimony was in the electronic files, his voice and appearance there disguised further to protect him. And in less than another week, it was now nearly inevitable that The Man would be apprehended. After which the concrete identification could begin. In the bag, as they said. “Then you’ll be free, Laurence. Free to start over, any way you want.”

As Nick travels back across the island, a thick late afternoon gold soaks and pickles the landscape, making it like a painting, a total unreality.

The light, its effect, absorbs him for a minute. He gazes at the mountains, and the clutches of trees, the ramshackle road, the pleated faces of the old women on the bus, and a young man in American clothes, who for some reason holds a ruined black umbrella.

Then Nick loses the absorption. It flows from him, leaving him again like a stone, or a man whose mind has been harmed. He seems to be floating between the bus seat and the low roof. The rutted bumps and crunches of the vehicle are miles away. Or he is. His watch has stopped completely.

When Laurence’s brother, Nick, had begun himself to have a contact with Pond, Secops naturally took an added interest.

After the business with the homing device (the pin) they were already keeping an eye on the flat in the cul-de-sac. And almost instantly Grey had met a man who came out of the building. Grey had a story of some woman he knew who lived there, but she had been beaten up by some bugger who now lived in her apartment. She, it seemed, had run away. The bugger? “Oh, that top pad, one with the big window. Him.” They knew the pin was still in there, the one meant to let Laurence lead them to where The Man would move in for his kill. The one Laurence, (the fool) had hidden with Nick. By now the pin was dead. But that hardly cleared up the matter.

Why had Laurence left the pin with Nick? To Secops, anything not correspondingly explicable required at least a light investigation. And often the simplest way to uncover truths was merely to sow a little discord. Pull the rug - which way did the cat jump?

The guy who had come out of the flats was grumpy, his grouse genuine. Luck struck. Someone had stolen a drawer the flat-dweller had left out then forgotten in the foyer. “Lots of books that belong to my girl, and notepads for work - I was bringing it all up in this drawer from our other place, but it was heavy and I put it down. No elevator, right? And then, well, we forgot, you know… other stuff on our minds…” Grey had sniggered sympathetically. “When I look again, it’s gone.”

At this point Grey had no notion Nick had appropriated the drawer, but Grey still said he would not be surprised if that thieving violent bugger (the invented Nick) was the one who took it. Grey and the Drawer-man, united in complaint, went for a big drink. In a while it was agreed that the Drawer-man should start to bother the bugger (Nick) about the drawer. “Don’t accuse him or nothing. Just niggle. Maybe knock him up late at night. I’ve got a score to settle with that bloody Nicky.”

Drawer-man, a rather raddled opportunist, went along with the plan, and was a bit alarmed when Nick at once confessed to the theft. But primed by Grey, the Drawer-man kept up the charade, indeed knocking on Nick’s door quite late. Grey was by then slipping the Drawer-man a couple of twenties here and there. Secops’ hackles were high - for by then too Pond had paid Nick his first visit. Accordingly, the Secops team broke into Nick’s flat soon after, one night when he was out meeting a woman they would afterwards find was the psycho, Kitra.

They left the flat in deliberate mild disarray and the bed in great disarray. They also took care with the contents of the lifted drawer. All this to demonstrate to Nick that something threatening was going on. During that foray they located the homing device - the fake Roman pin. They put it back under the carpet. It was long dead. They had though, during their brief occupancy, installed a bug. In this instance, now they had their witness, it would be worth using a bug. They could be guided by, but never need reveal, what it told them. (Nick would be right when, a little later, he surmised no recognisable DNA was left behind. Secops was a unit whose internal files were its own, unless voluntarily shared. Nick, unsurprisingly, never spotted the bug either. That would have taken an expert.)

But, my God, it was dull listening in to Nick’s flat.

Of the occasional calls few were useful. They logged the ranting Angela, (this one incorporated the moment when Nick learned of his brother’s death, and after which Nick requested Pond’s number - which might later prove vital). Also the hysterical Serena, who indirectly offered them a nice opportunity… Otherwise… Nick, unlike many solitary people, old or young, seldom if ever talked to himself. His steps on the polished floor even made small sound. The flushing of a lavatory, the shower, the rattle of kettle or bottle’s chink, the TV, a CD played, were events.

However. Once the Nick-Pond connection seemed extant, whether on-going or not, the main event the team wished to trigger was enough unease or panic in Nick that it would force him to request from Pond the services of The