The Naming of the Beasts

The two security men were leaning against the bonnet of the sleek black limo, looking like ugly and unlikely tumours that had grown out of its smooth lines. DeJong levered his arse off the metal and opened the door for me with ironic civility. I got in without looking at him, and he slammed it shut.

We did a tight little U-turn on the drive, rejoined the road and threaded our way back through the village. I thought we’d get back up to cruising speed as soon as we were on the open road, but Dicks held the car to a leisurely thirty-five miles an hour. ‘You want to pick up the pace a little?’ I suggested.

Dicks ignored the suggestion. ‘Learn anything?’ he asked over his shoulder as he drove.

I glanced up. He was staring at me via the medium of the rear-view mirror, his piggy eyes narrowed.

‘I learned it’s a good idea to watch the road,’ I said, deadpan. ‘But that was a while back.’

DeJong chuckled softly, and Dicks scowled. ‘Good idea to watch the road,’ DeJong repeated, savouring the joke a second time. ‘Oh, he got you, Linus. He got you there.’

Linus Dicks? What kind of a name was that to saddle a kid with? No wonder he’d become an over-muscled rent-a-cop; he’d started life with so much to prove.

‘I’m serious,’ Dicks pursued, his voice lowering to a growl. ‘Did you get anything worth having from that old fart? I’m supposed to ask you.’

‘Says who?’ I asked.

‘Says the professor.’

‘Well she told me to tell you to face front and shut up. Let’s wait till we see her, and then she can sort out the mix-up herself.’

The big man looked as though he had some further opinions to offer on the subject, but he was forestalled by a high-pitched beep-beep-beep like the sound a microwave oven uses to tell you that your food is ready. It was coming from me. I groped in my pocket and fished out the radio I’d taken from Gentle.

‘How does this thing work again?’ I asked DeJong. He made to take it from me and demonstrate, but I remembered what Gentle had told me and tapped the SEND button. ‘Castor,’ I said, and flicked over to RECEIVE.

The radios were good kit, worth every penny of what Jenna-Jane had spent on them. Without as much as a whisper of static, Gil McClennan’s voice came through loud and clear. Or rather soft and clear, because he seemed to be talking under his breath. ‘Don’t say a word just yet, Castor,’ he said. ‘Think of someone plausible I might be, and pretend that’s who you’re talking to. Do it now, before they get suspicious.’

‘How’d you get this frequency, Nicky?’ I improvised.

‘Good,’ McClennan said. ‘Is it just you and Dicks there, or did he bring some back-up? Say . . . I don’t know, say single if he’s alone.’

‘Double that,’ I said.

‘Shit. Okay, listen to me. They’re not bringing you home.’

‘What?’ I tried to keep my tone neutral, but it wasn’t easy. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘They’re not bringing you home. The professor wants you far away from what she’s doing here. She’s told them to hold you down there until—’

I missed the rest of the sentence because the car pulled off the road into a small lay-by at the same time as DeJong shoved the short, unlovely barrel of a handgun into my face.

‘Tell him you’ll get back to him later,’ he suggested, giving me a playful wink.

‘Sorry, Nicky,’ I said. ‘It’s hard for me to talk right now.’

‘The Mad Bishop and Bear, in Paddington station,’ McClennan said quickly. ‘I’ll wait for you. If you manage to get away from them, meet me here.’

He said something else, but Dicks pulled the radio from my grasp, tapped the OFF switch and stowed it away in the glove compartment. ‘Let’s go for a little walk,’ he suggested.

‘Fuck that,’ I counter-offered.

The pressure of the gun against my cheekbone increased perceptibly. ‘You get no penetrating power at all with nine-millimetre MagSafe,’ DeJong observed conversationally. ‘There’d be a lot of blood to clean up, but the bullet would stay inside your head. Spread out and make itself comfortable. ’

‘You’re going to kill me after you’ve both been seen with me?’ I demanded. ‘No offence, but you boys are something special in the way of stupid.’

‘Let’s go for a little walk,’ Dicks repeated, and DeJong thumbed off the safety on the gun. At least I assume that’s what he did: I’m far from an expert in these things. He moved his thumb, in any case, and the gun made a ratcheting sound that I didn’t like one bit.