Dead Cat Bounce by Nic Bennett

Author:Nic Bennett [Bennett, Nic]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101588918
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2012-09-13T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 26

Once he was out of the Helsby Cattermole building, Jonah walked toward Cannon Street station intending to go home. That was before he realized that he couldn’t. To go to his house would mean seeing his father. He turned right at the end of New Change Street and left to cross the Millennium Bridge. From there he walked along the River Thames, past the Tate Modern and the Globe Theatre and onto London Bridge and Tower Bridge, great landmarks of the City of London. He shuddered—the city where he was now a pariah.

His phone rang incessantly as he walked, so he switched it off, recrossing the river at Tower Bridge and turning right toward Canary Wharf. The towering skyscrapers of London’s other financial district looked down and mocked him. “You can’t work here either,” they seemed to say. He was hungry, but he didn’t eat. Instead he turned and retraced his steps to Waterloo and Vauxhall, passing the MI6 building. At Westminster he crossed the river again, noticing that his feet were leading him home despite his mind’s protestations. He’d run this route a few times before he’d started working to see if he could use his commuting time as training time. It had become so familiar to him that he was now operating on autopilot.

He walked along the river through Chelsea and Fulham, thinking of Creedence as he did so. Well, that was blown too now. She wasn’t going to want to be associated with a loser. At Putney he crossed the river one final time, picking up the tow path that would take him to Barnes and his lockup garage. He would collect the Vespa and find a hotel for the night. The only one he could think of was the one at the top of Richmond Hill, by the gates to the Park.

He switched on his phone to get the number of the hotel. There were nine new messages, three of them voicemail. The first two were from his father. He deleted them. The third was from Pistol, requesting a meeting on Friday. It could wait. The fourth was a text from Creedence. He nearly deleted it, not wanting to see her cancel their date, but in the end read it anyway: She had heard what had happened; could he please call her? Maybe, he thought. The fifth was his father again. He deleted it. More messages from his father and Pistol followed. The last was a voicemail from Creedence, asking him to please, please call him. She was worried.

Jonah hesitated for a moment and then dialed Creedence’s number.

She picked up on the first ring. “You’re alive then?”

He felt guilty. “Yeah. Alive if not kicking.”

“Where are you?” she asked, her voice mixed with relief to be hearing from him and annoyance that he hadn’t called sooner.

“On my way to Richmond.”

“What’s in Richmond?”

“A hotel. I can’t go home. I can’t face my dad.” Jonah wondered if Creedence could tell that he was shaking his head from across the phone waves.

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