Quantum of menace, p.13
Quantum of Menace, page 13
But money attracted predators. And predators brought crime.
‘Penny for your thoughts?’ Bob was looking at her.
‘I was thinking about Pete Napier.’ Not quite true. She was thinking of Q. Which had led her to think of Pete. It bothered her that she hadn’t heard from the man. Well, she certainly wasn’t calling him, if that’s what he was waiting for.
‘He’s got under your skin, hasn’t he?’
Kathy frowned. ‘I knew Pete at school.’
‘I meant this new fella. Q. He’s stirred the pond.’
Kathy picked up a stapler. ‘He’s convinced himself there was more to Pete’s death than “misadventure”.’
Bob put down his sandwich. ‘OK. So let’s give him the benefit of the doubt . . . Why?’
‘When we were fifteen, Pete told us he was going to change the world. What fifteen year old says that?’
‘I wanted to be an astronaut,’ Bob said. ‘But my mum told me I was too fat. And stupid. She was a realist, my mum.’
‘My point is that I just can’t imagine Pete being careless enough to end up in that river. And there’s no way he would kill himself. Too much of a narcissist.’
‘We investigated it,’ said Bob, mildly. ‘Aren’t you the one always saying cops should never second-guess themselves?’
Kathy said nothing.
‘Do you remember why you wanted to be a cop?’
Kathy wanted to tell Bob that she had fallen in love with the idea when she was fourteen. A diet of cop shows. The thought of shoving a badge in a perp’s face and telling him to spread ’em. Of piecing together a case singlehandedly and smugly revealing the killer’s identity to an overbearing boss.
Policing hadn’t quite turned out to be like that. There was a lot more paperwork than she had anticipated. And a lot of sitting around while nothing happened.
Bob reached into his lunchbox, took out a pot of yoghurt. Kathy saw that it was the kind with crunchy chocolate balls. She wished she had one. Several.
‘Perhaps I’ll pay Zak another visit,’ said Bob. ‘See if he’s ready to tell us anything.’
‘Do you really think he knows something about Pete’s death?’
‘No. I think he knows he’s up to his eyeballs in it. He’s clutching at straws. But there’s no harm in finding out what he has to say.’
‘If he’ll talk to you.’
‘Let me work on him. The old Bob magic.’ A beat. ‘In the meantime, why don’t you have another chat with your pal? Q?’
Kathy snapped the stapler shut. A crumpled pin dropped out.
‘He wasn’t just a friend, back in school, was he?’
‘No.’ Kathy hesitated. Bob had always been more perceptive than he seemed. ‘We dated. And then we got engaged. And then he left me.’
Bob whistled. ‘And he’s still breathing?’
Kathy looked away.
‘Think you can be objective around him?’
‘I don’t need to be. He’s a civilian.’
‘Bit more than that. I googled him. Not much online. But there wouldn’t be. He worked for MI6. The man’s clearly no buffoon.’ A pause. ‘Why did he walk out on you? If you don’t mind me asking. I mean, his loss, et cetera.’
‘His mother died.’
‘That’s tragic. But hardly a reason to break off a perfectly good engagement.’
‘She killed herself. An overdose.’
‘Ah.’
‘Q found the body.’
31
T
HE HOUSE HADN’T CHANGED.
Why would it? Houses didn’t change. Not really. You could paint the exterior, add pebble dashing, a new front porch in uPVC and toughened glass. Posh things up a bit with a plaque bearing a fancy name. But ultimately, a home could no more change with age than a man’s persona.
The lights were on.
Q knew that Mort was inside. He had gone to the library and they had told him Mort had gone home. He had thought long and hard about coming here. Perhaps he should have waited? Cornered his father at the library tomorrow.
He forced his feet to move. One step in front of another.
The bell seemed to go on for a long time. A melodious tune. Bach.
When Mort finally opened the door, his expression was one of shock. He reasserted control, then said, ‘Come in.’
Q followed him along the corridor, weaving his way through a crowd of jostling memories. He remembered running up and down this corridor as a boy, a toy car in hand. He remembered sliding down the banisters, being shouted at by his mother.
The thought of her brought the memories to a standstill. They watched him solemnly, hands folded, as he made his way into the kitchen.
‘Tea?’ said Mort.
‘Yes.’ Q could think of nothing else to say.
He sat down awkwardly at the dining table.
The kitchen had been given a facelift. Gone were the Victorian tiles, his mother’s Aga, the tacky bread gondola, the sepia-toned picture of ducks on the wall. The new kitchen had a space-age feel. A brilliant speckled white countertop made of some indestructible material. A microwave-cum-oven. An American-style double-fridge.
Q watched his father go through the routine of boiling water, setting out two teacups, adding teabags, creating the necessary space for them both to adjust to the moment.
As Mort reached up to open a cupboard, Q glimpsed a bright yellow mug. A deformed thing with wavy words painted on by a child’s hand: WORLD’S GREATEST DAD.
Shock gripped him. How long had Mort held on to that? Why? The entire kitchen had been transformed, yet this single relic from Q’s childhood had survived . . . His feelings swarmed. Dark memories climbed out of the cellar.
Mort set down a bowl. ‘Three sugars, right?’
Q nodded. His voice box had seized.
He regarded his father. Mort was still dressed in his suit. Some things hadn’t changed. That same self-referential commitment to his own appearance. A preciseness that had impressed Q as a young man, so much so that he had adopted it in his own dress. Now it seemed forced. A battle against the inevitable.
His father was an old man.
The realisation was a hammer between the eyes.
Mort was old and Q had missed it. All those years, lost in grief, in anger. Blinding, white-hot anger. The thought cleaved him like a flaming sword. Time – and wisdom – had dampened the swirl of emotion. But you couldn’t regain what had been lost.
Soon Mort would be gone. And then Q would truly be alone.
His heart thrashed around inside his chest. He didn’t know how he should feel. His thoughts walked back along the corridor and tiptoed up the stairs. Into his mother’s old bedroom. That last day. Her body slumped in bed.
Q clutched at his tea. The cup was too hot, seared his palm.
The pain was welcome, returned him to the moment.
Finally, Mort spoke. ‘I’m glad you came.’
Silence.
‘I’m sorry about yesterday,’ continued Mort. ‘I was a little . . . abrupt.’
‘So was I.’
‘I’ve never been good at this sort of thing. People.’
‘Me neither.’
A movement beside his leg startled Q. He shot up, spilling his tea. ‘There’s something under the table.’
Mort leaned down and lifted a tortoise onto the tablecloth. ‘Meet George.’
‘You have a tortoise?’
‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’
George seemed impossibly ancient. He squinted myopically at Q, then began moving towards the edge of the table. Mort scooped him up before he could wander off into space. ‘He’s not the brightest.’
Mort cradled the animal.
Q was astounded. The idea of his father as a pet owner. A man who had banned animals in the house, had shut down Q’s earliest pleas for a dog. Not that Q had been surprised. Mort had never been that kind of father. No dressing up as Santa on Christmas. No weekend kickabouts in the park. The Mort Q remembered had been a man of rules. So many rules.
‘I have a dog,’ said Q. ‘His name is Bastard.’
Mort said nothing, reached for his tea.
Q took a deep breath. ‘I need your help. I deciphered the note Pete sent me.’ He reached into his pocket, set his translation down onto the table.
QUAERITE PRIMUM REGNUM DEI
SIC ITUR AD ASTRA
CAVEAT EMPTOR
HIC SUNT LEONES
‘Latin,’ said Mort.
‘Yes.’
‘And you couldn’t work this out by yourself?’
There was a flash of the old Mort. ‘I didn’t study Latin.’
‘No. You didn’t.’ Mort’s gaze was direct. And then his eyes dropped to the paper. He set George on the floor, then reached into his waistcoat, took out a gold-plated Montegrappa.
Q watched the precise, looping hand dance across the paper.
When he’d finished, Mort pushed the sheet back to him.
SEEK YE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD
THERE YOU SHALL GO TO THE STARS
LET THE BUYER BEWARE
HERE BE LIONS
‘What does it mean?’ Mort’s expression was unreadable.
‘Pete was trying to tell me something. To direct me towards something. In the event of his death.’
‘That’s your interpretation.’
‘Yes. But I think it’s a logical one.’
Mort picked up his tea, then set it down again. ‘Do you really want to pursue this?’
‘I’m here, aren’t I?’
‘No matter where it takes you? You might find out things you don’t want to know.’
‘I’m used to it.’
Mort stood up, walked to the fridge, took out a packet of lettuce. Q watched as he emptied the pack into a bowl. George began moving eagerly towards the bowl. As eagerly as a geriatric tortoise could move.
‘When Pete came back to Wickstone, did he – did he keep in touch with you?’
‘He did.’
A beat. A slither of emotion around his heart. ‘Did he ever talk to you about his work?’
‘Only in the most oblique terms. Hardly my area of expertise.’
Q thought about discussing his trip to UCL, tracking down what Pete’s lab might have been up to, but then changed his mind.
‘Let’s say you’re right,’ Mort went on. ‘Do you think Pete’s cipher was literally directing you to something?’
‘Yes. Or someone.’
‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God.’ Mort’s face became thoughtful. ‘Pete lived and worked in Wickstone. Whatever he wanted to guide you to has to be here . . . The kingdom of God . . .’
‘A church?’
‘No. That would be too literal. Pete was too smart for that.’ Mort’s expression changed. ‘What is the kingdom of God? Traditional ecumenical interpretation tells us that the “kingdom of God” is God’s Christian rule over all creation. The fulfilment of his will on earth. But it can also be equated to the “kingdom of heaven” in Matthew. If we follow that logic through, we can reduce this to simply “heaven”.’
‘Is there a heaven in Wickstone?’
‘No. But there is an Eden.’
After Q had left, Mort sat at the kitchen table and stared into his tea.
It had gone cold.
The boy’s presence had left an imprint in the room, a swirl in the very air. Boy? No. His son was no longer a boy. A major in the army. Head of Q Branch.
Mort wasn’t even sure what he should call him. By his name? That seemed too . . . intimate. After all that had happened between them. ‘Q’ would have to do for now. And Q had lived a whole life, a cloak-and-dagger existence that Mort could not begin to fathom.
Mort had always held a tight grip on his emotions. But now they were dragging him about by the coat-tails. Q’s return had been unexpected. Mort didn’t know if he should be helping him investigate Pete’s death. He was deathly afraid that his own secrets would surface.
But Pete had brought Q back. Mort couldn’t let the boy go. Not again.
George nudged his leg. Mort picked the tortoise up and set him on the table.
He hadn’t told anyone why he had named the tortoise George. The gang at the library had expected him to give George a grand Roman name. Cicero. Augustus. Caligula.
But George was named after Lonesome George, a Galapagos tortoise who had been the very last of his species, what the naturalists called an ‘endling’.
Mort felt an affinity with George. Other than Q, Mort had no living relatives. He and Bella had both been only children. Mort’s mother had died a long time ago. His father had been a troubled soul. He had served in the Second World War, discharged following a skirmish in France. A sniper’s bullet had taken out a testicle. What sort of war wound was that? You couldn’t spin tales of courage out of such an injury. Nurses didn’t fall for tortured souls whose claim to heroism was losing a testicle. An eye, yes. An arm, even. But a testicle?
His father had spent the rest of his life furiously embittered.
Mort had been determined to get away from that house, determined to put as much distance – physically and spiritually – between himself and his father.
Who knew better than a historian that history had a tendency to repeat itself?
For thirty years, Mort had lived in the mausoleum of his failed life.
He had lost a wife. He had lost his son.
He was alone. Utterly alone.
In a way, Mort too was the last of his kind.
32
T
HE NEXT MORNING, Q WIPED the steam from the bathroom mirror, picked up his razor.
He had spent a lifetime working with hi-tech gadgets but some things were best done the old-fashioned way. There was nothing like a hot shave with a good razor. Bond swore by it. As with so many things, Bond was right.
Routine. Human beings liked to pretend that they were spontaneous. Adventurous souls ever ready to leap out of aeroplanes or go off on romantic holidays with sexy Brazilian strangers. But research showed that most people preferred the predictability of an ordered life.
Q missed his routines. What was it Robert Duvall had said in Apocalypse Now? Something about enjoying the way explosives smelt in the morning. Well, Q loved the smell of his old life in the morning. And that smell was slowly fading.
He finished shaving, showered, dressed and went downstairs.
He made breakfast, then took it into the garden.
The garden was a metaphor for his life. Out of control, unruly, but with unexpected spots of colour. He smelled mint on the breeze. An early morning bee buzzed by his wicker-and-glass table.
Q relived the meeting with his father.
He was surprised that Mort had let him in the door. Even more surprised that Mort had chosen to help. The old man had mellowed.
Forgiveness. Could Q forgive? Forgiveness could be a deceitful bastard. He surely couldn’t forget. Finding his mother overdosed in bed, a drool of foam snaking from her lips. His shouts turning to screams. The call to 999. Sitting there, head in hands, until the paramedics arrived.
He had had good reason to blame Mort, hadn’t he? For years, Q had seen his father ignore his mother’s obvious needs. She had been bipolar. Q knew that, now. But back then all he saw was a woman who switched from sunshine to storm, a lost soul in need of someone to help her find her way through the dark.
But Mort had chosen to run away. Into his career. Into himself.
And his wife, left alone, had turned to drink. And worse.
A vicious cycle.
Q remembered the funeral. His father hadn’t cried. Q, then twenty, had torn into him. Had let him have it. Both barrels. After that, it was all a blur. He had packed his bags and returned to university. Finished his course and enrolled in the army, the Royal Engineers. He had worked on tanks and battlefield armour. By the time he was twenty-two he had been leading teams, a major at twenty-five.
And then MI6 had come calling.
All through those years, a part of Q had remained in that bedroom, holding his dead mother’s hand, hating his father with every fibre of his being. Q had surrendered to grief, dragged grief around like the carcass of a dead animal. Fashioned a Greek tragedy of his own making.
But now he was back. Full circle. Back to investigate Pete’s death, the son his father had wished he had had. Was that fair? What had fair got to do with anything, anyway?
Self-doubt sauntered out of the shadows, dressed in a long black coat, cigarette in hand, blowing smoke into his face . . . Who did Q think he was, anyway? He was an armourer. A man who had spent decades employing science in the service of death . . . No. That wasn’t right. Q Branch’s efforts were dedicated to saving lives, specifically the lives of MI6’s field agents. Q was an enabler. He helped the Double Os to achieve their goals. Need a special thingy to hack into an unbreakable safe? Talk to Q. Modified briefcase with concealed weaponry? No problem.
Miss Honeypenny trundled into the garden. ‘Q, you have an appointment at the Horse and Hound Veterinary Clinic at ten a.m.’
Q looked at his watch. ‘Thank you, Honeypenny.’
‘You’re welcome, Q.’
On the way to the vet, Q tried to organise his thoughts.
At Q Branch he had always worked with a notebook and pen, the notebook a Baron Fig Confidant, the kind with dotted grids in pale grey. Many Q Branch gadgets had begun life on the pages of a Baron Fig. Perhaps, hundreds of years from now, historians would pore over his Leonardo-like doodlings, murmuring at the genius of inventions that had failed to see the light of day, cut down by the short-sightedness of civil servants and the miserliness of government accountants.
Or perhaps not.
Q knew that he was out on a limb. The investigation was spiralling out of control. Variables swirled around him like maddened starlings. He was one man, on what amounted to little more than a personal crusade.
