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.Inside, he put some Monk on the gramophone.The music was as disjointed as his thoughts, raw and awkward and impossible to ignore.He began cooking a stew, adding sprigs of herbs and a little red wine before leaving it to cook on the gas ring.He felt like a man at the bottom of a deep pit, wondering if he’d be able to climb up out.As long as Carter had the Webley, he had power over him.Carter thought he’d won.He needed to let the man believe that.And then he needed to use all those skills the British Army had taught him.They were the ones who selected him for military intelligence.They’d shown him all the techniques and sent him over to Hamburg for the better part of two years.He was there while the Berlin crisis played out and everyone waited for the tanks that never rolled.He’d seen a city of rubble where the men and women came out every day to clear stone and metal.A country of spies.He’d worked with the Americans, vetting Germans for their Nazi pasts.He’d picked up Russian misinformation from safe drops and passed on plenty of his own.A game.And once his time was up he’d happily walked away from it all.Some, like Ged Jones, had stayed on made a career, but it wasn’t for him.Now he needed to remember it all.The Monk record finished and he replaced it with Charlie Parker.It was exciting, exhausting music.He played like a desperate man, the sax breathlessly chasing up and down the scales, seeming to leave the rest of the band behind.And it was fruitless.Whatever was in his mind, fuelling the frantic rush, he’d never manage to catch it.He’d never be satisfied.It was the sound of a man finely balanced on the edge, always in danger of toppling over into the abyss.There was nothing that could follow a disc like that, nothing that could keep his mind jangling.***He’d never been in the Eldon.It sat across from the university, but it wasn’t the kind of place likely to draw students.The paint had worn away to grey wood and the plasterwork was crumbling.It was dying on its feet, just like the rest of the area.A warren of cobblestoned streets lay a short way beyond it, decrepit back-to-back houses cascading down the hillside, still standing, still lived-in.He pushed open the door to the public bar.Glum men consumed their lunchtime pints as they glanced at newspapers.A pair long past retirement age were playing dominos, too focused on their game to even glance up as he walked in.He ordered an orange squash and asked the barman for Billy Harper.‘Who wants to know?’ he asked suspiciously.‘Do I look like a copper?’The man glanced over at a corner, waiting until he received a nod.‘There.’Harper folded his Express and studied Markham as he crossed the old, bare boards and sat down.‘I don’t know you.’ He was a small man, built like a jockey, dark hair Brylcreemed down flat.In his middle forties, Markham guessed, years of nicotine stains colouring his fingers.A Park Drive burned down in the ashtray and he picked another from the packet, lighting it from the nub.‘Dan Markham.’ He extended his hand.Harper didn’t take it, sitting back.He had a sour face with thin, miserly features and hard eyes.‘What do you want?’‘I might have some work for you.’‘Oh aye?’ He took a slow draw on the cigarette and gazed at the tip.‘We’ve never met but you know my line of work? Right bloody know-it-all, aren’t you?’‘It depends if Harry Dalton was telling me the truth.’Dalton knew people, and the ones he knew lived on the edge of the law or beyond it.That was his real business.Markham had rung him the day before at the second-hand shop the man kept on Hunslet Lane.He’d described the job and Dalton had answered without a moment’s hesitation,‘You want Billy Harper.He doesn’t look like much but he’s the best.Never been pinched.He won’t bugger you around.’‘Where do I find him?’‘In the Eldon.Regular as clockwork every lunchtime.That’s going to cost you a pound, Mr Markham [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]