London in Black by Jack Lutz

Author:Jack Lutz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Published: 2022-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Lucy sat in the Brompton caff, staring down at her half-eaten veggie fry-up.

She took a sip of her drink. Rubbed her eyes. She’d been right. Nightmares last night were horrific. When the last one ended, when she screamed herself awake for good, she found she’d crawled into the space under her desk and was balled up, knees to chest, rocking. Panting. Drenched in sweat, cheeks tear-stained.

Her first thought: I’m in Hell.

The memory of Cox’s photo had come back in the shower. It popped into her mind as she was rinsing her hair, and seconds later she was out, grabbing her phone, dripping water on the tile floor as she tapped out a text to King: “Must speak. Asap. Lead. Caff. Meet me. Bring files. PS phone dying.”

Felt a twinge of guilt at the last bit. A lie: her phone was charged.

But I need you here, Ed. Face-to-face. Call won’t work. Too easy to get the lead then drop me, thanks Lucy, nice one, now piss off. And you wouldn’t just leave me sitting here forever, phone dead, would you, Ed?

Or would you?

Lucy pushed a cold mushroom around her plate. It was nine now. She’d left the flat at quarter to six, been at the caff since seven. King read the text at eight, started typing something, but then the ellipses disappeared. No reply. She pulled her phone from her hoodie pocket, checked for the thirtieth time. Still nothing. Took a deep breath. He’ll show up. Dead cert. Needs a lead. And I need to stay in it, need to help, else it doesn’t really count towards the Debt, does it? And besides, he doesn’t believe in the antidote, really, no one does, so without me—

A tinkle as the caff door swung open. King walked in. Olive rain jacket, plain black rucksack slung over one shoulder. He sat down across from her. Frowned.

“You’re fucking radioactive,” he said. “You know that, yeah?”

Well, good morning to you, too.

She shrugged. “Wilkes threw a bit of a wobbly last night, but I reckon—”

“Wilkes? It’s not just Wilkes, Lucy.” He put his big forearms on the table, leaned towards her. “Tried to tell you. Listen. The lab tour. The one yesterday, remember?”

A nod. Course I fucking remember, Ed. It was yesterday. This a lecture? Because only Ma’am gets to lecture…

“Right,” he said. “Well, I watched Hurst. Carefully. Actually sort of charming in an alpha-male, cheeky-bugger sort of way, but something about him just felt off. Little things. Took credit for everything: science stuff, stuff he didn’t even seem to understand. Anyone else tried to speak, he bulldozed them. Some poor sod in a lab coat tried to correct him once, Hurst bit his fucking head off. The DCs lapped it all up, but I knew straight away. Knew what he was.” Paused. “Man’s a total fucking narcissist.”

No shit.

“Clearly…” she said.

“Right, ‘clearly’, fine, but I mean, the real deal. Clinical. I’m positive. Had a DCI once, same thing. Fucking nightmare. Literally didn’t give a single solitary shit about anyone else.

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