The Walking Dead

Nothing proven, of course. A lad picked up by an off-duty dog-handler in an East Midlands park, and the initial report was of explosives traces believed to be on the lad's hands. Naylor had reacted. Three working days left to him, and in his mind he had wiped away the hesitations and lack of confirmation as yet. Wanted to believe it; So desperately chasing the Grail, willing it to be truth and linked to this last investigation of his career. So, pompously, he had telephoned Anne, had told her that 'Events are moving, my dear, cannot say more, moving at pace, also may not be back this evening, seems we're at the vortex of the storm…' The curtain was coming down on his career, and that career had been utterly unmemorable; three working days remained to right the wrong. He prayed that a dog-handler — one hundred and twenty miles from the capital — had turned up a diamond, not a cut-glass bauble.

He was at the hotel because the American's theme, the previous day, gave logic where there was as yet no proof. He went to the desk, and the lobby oozed understated comfort where his own club had none. When he had telephoned before he had been told that the room's occupant had ordered the switchboard to put no calls through. Face to face with the receptionist, his steely aggression won the day. The connection was made, he was handed the phone.

'Joe? Dickie here. What you said last evening about mistakes and luck, and an ability to exploit-well, with some confidence I think we might be getting there. I'm downstairs with a taxi. Quick as you can, please.' He was about to ring off, then thought. The man was blind, might take an age to dress, could need help. 'Do you need a hand? Shall I come up?'

He was told, and thought he heard a giggle, that a hand was not required. 'I'll be right down.'

Naylor checked his pager, then his mobile — no messages, no texts. He picked up a complimentary newspaper. He sat deep in an, armchair and started on the crossword, then that bloody numbers puzzle and gasped. He had not achieved more than half a dozen of the clues, or more than two lines of numbers…The breath whistled through his teeth. 'Damn me, the old goat,' he muttered.

Hegner came out of the lift and did not need his stick swaying in front of him to find obstacles. Mary Reakes had his arm and guided him. Hegner was dressed smartly: he had on a fresh laundered shirt and his tie nestled flush in the collar. Mary Reakes had on the same suit as the day before and the same blouse. He looked like a cat that had found a carton of cream; she looked as if she had been well and satisfactorily shagged. Naylor's jaw dropped. He would not have thought it possible…Those hands, badly blotched from little shrapnel shards and with the veins prominent, had been over the prim, preserved body of Mary Reakes — he knew they had; her eyes blazed defiance at him — always that way the morning after an office untouchable from Riverside Villas had been bedded overnight. Could recognize it a damn mile off. She seemed to challenge Naylor as she led the American close to him…He couldn't help himself, was wondering whether she kept spare smalls in her desk drawer, and spare— She fixed him, dared him. He crumpled. In all the years she had worked in the outer office beyond his cubicle door, he had never had a remotely personal conversation with her. He did not know what to say, so said nothing.

Hegner, without sight but with that increased intuitive understanding of atmosphere, grinned. 'Hope I haven't abused your hospitality, Dickie. I don't think so…Overpaid, over-sexed, and over here. Guess I scored two out of three…Shame the Bureau's salary levels don't match those of the private sector..' The grin settled to a laugh.

They went through the swing doors and out into the rain. Naylor saw the care she employed to get him down the steps, across the forecourt and into the taxi.

'So, what's this about? A mistake and luck?'

Naylor saw the American's hand rest on Mary Reakes's thigh as the taxi crawled away in the early traffic. He thought himself churlishly abrupt, to the point of surliness, as he briefed quietly, a short paraphrase of what he knew.

And Mary bloody Reakes did not remove the gnarled hand with the surgery scars on it and stared straight ahead at the back of the driver's neck.

The American said, 'I think that was worth getting out of my pit to hear…It figures, it's what I told you. Now, I have just two observations to make. First, you do not allow anyone, that is anyone, to shut me out, because I'll tell you, I've forgotten more than you'll ever know on these matters, and you'll learn damn quick that you depend on my instincts. Second, if you allow the law-enforcement process to crawl over this son-of-a-bitch, you will have made an error of seismic proportions, like pissing into the wind ain't too clever. Got me?'