Nobody Walks by Mick Herron

Author:Mick Herron [Herron, Mick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-61695-487-1
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2015-02-17T05:00:00+00:00

3.6

An hour and forty minutes later, Bettany stood in a well-recessed shop doorway near Embankment, rain cracking off the arcade roof overhead. In his hand a carrier bag, and in the bag a shoebox.

It weighed more than his son. This thought wouldn’t leave. It echoed to the patter of the raindrops.

There were bars along this stretch of road, and taxis cruising past. Not by any means a deserted part of the capital.

Dancer had given Mose whispered instructions, and sent him off to whatever lock-up, safe house or hole in the ground Dancer stashed his stock in. The shoebox he’d come back with held a Makarov, a Belgian model. Bettany had dry-fired it, there in Dancer’s office. It didn’t feel like it would blow his hand off when loaded.

He hadn’t thought he’d ever hold a gun again. Had thought that part of his life was over.

A woman walked past, gave him a quick look, and hurried on.

What would Liam have said if he’d seen him tonight? Stark naked, wielding a carving knife? Threatening to lop parts off a man who’d never been more than a messenger?

It didn’t matter. It wasn’t relevant.

Liam was in an urn, a mess of grit and clinker.

Liam weighed less than a loaded gun.

More footsteps.

Bettany placed the bag at his feet.

He’d paid Dancer and walked riverwards, taking the back lanes, passing rows of restaurants and empty offices. Mose, trailing in his wake, was easy to spot. The kid was an unfinished article. That, or Dancer was too cheap to pay for quality.

The footsteps wavered slightly, but didn’t stop.

He’d made no attempt to lose the boy until he’d reached Embankment station, slipping straight through from the riverside to the street beyond after a brief feint in the direction of the barriers. An amateur move, designed to make another amateur happy he’d not fallen for it. But Bettany had then immediately lost himself in a mid-evening jostle, leaving Mose at the station entrance, clueless.

Could have left it at that, thought Bettany. He could have faded away as promised. Mose wasn’t going to find him. Dancer could tell anyone he liked that Martin Boyd was in town, but they’d need serious luck to track him down before he left. So there was no real call to do what he did next.

Which was step aside from the crowd, allowing Mose to see him.

Mose did. Mose would have had to be blind, drunk or both not to.

Next moment Bettany was back inside the crowd, and the moment after was in this quiet shop doorway, still wondering whether he’d have hurt Coe, if circumstances had demanded.

It didn’t matter. Wasn’t worth asking. Scaring him had been enough.

When Mose drew level Bettany pulled him in with one quick yank on his arm, clamped his mouth shut with his free hand, and planted his knee firmly in the kid’s crotch. He mapped the course of the boy’s pain in the wide-open plains of his eyes, and waited until it reached its zenith before lowering him, quite gently, to the ground.

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