Reeve blinked his eyes. The Tube compartment was full to bursting. He looked over his shoulder out of the grimy window and saw the station sign: Leicester Square. He got up and pushed his way out of the train, making for the Northern Line. Standing-room only for the first couple of stops. He stood next to a very beautiful young woman, and stared at her reflection in the glass, using her to take his mind off the past.
He alighted at Archway and, after a couple of questions, found Harrington Lane and Pete Cavendish’s house. Cavendish was still in bed, but remembered him. When Reeve apologized and said what he wanted, Cavendish gave him the key and told him to bring it back when he was finished. He didn’t need to ring the bell, just stick it through the mail slot.
“Thanks,” Reeve said. Cavendish nodded and closed the door again.
It took him a little while to figure out how to access the lane behind Cavendish’s street, but eventually he found a road in and walked down the lane until he saw what looked like the right garage, empty cans and bottles and all. He unlocked the garage door and pulled it up. It took him a few goes, and a few gentle applications of a half-brick on to the rollers, but eventually the garage was open. Dogs were barking in a couple of the walled back gardens, making as much noise as he’d done.
“Arnie! Shuddup!” someone yelled. They sounded fiercer than any dog.
Reeve unlocked the car, fixed the choke on, and turned the ignition. It took a while, reconditioned engine or not, but the car finally started, shuddering a little at first, then smoothing itself out. Reeve took it into the lane and kept it running while he went back to shut the garage door. This set the dogs off again, but he ignored them, relocked the garage, and got back into the Saab. He drove slowly to the end of the lane, avoiding glass and bricks and sacks of rubbish. A couple of lefts took him back into Cavendish’s street, and he left the car long enough to put the garage key through the mail slot.
He searched for a London street map, but didn’t find one. The glove compartment didn’t have one, and there was nothing under the seats. The car was what he’d call basic. Even the radio had been yanked out, leaving just wires and a connector. Basic maybe, but not as basic as his own Land Rover, its carcass somewhere in France. A lot had happened this past day and a half. He wanted to sit down and rest, but knew that was the last thing he should do. He could drive to Jim’s flat; maybe Fliss Hornby would be there. But he couldn’t do that. He didn’t want to put her in any danger, and he’d already seen what a visit from him could do to a woman on her own…
The tank was nearly empty, so he stopped in a gas station, filled up, and added a newspaper to his purchase. He sat flicking through, looking for a news story from France, finding nothing. He wondered how long it would take the French authorities to link the torched car to its owner. He guessed a couple of days max, which gave him today and maybe tomorrow. Maybe, but not for certain. He had to get moving.
He only had the one plan: advance. He’d tried a tactical retreat last night, and it had cost several lives, including, for all he knew, that of Marie Villambard. Now that he knew he was up against Jay, he didn’t want to hide anymore, and didn’t think he could hide-not forever. Not knowing Jay was out there. Therefore, the only tactic left was to advance. A suicide mission maybe, but at least it was a mission. He thought of Joan and Allan. He’d have to phone Joan; she’d be worried about him. Christ, what lies would he concoct this time? He couldn’t possibly tell her about Marie Villambard. But not to tell her might mean that the first she’d hear of it would be the police knocking at her sister’s door, asking his whereabouts. She’d hear their side of it, but not his.
Marie Villambard… Marie had said Jim would’ve kept copies of his working notes. He wouldn’t have entrusted all his information to disks alone. He wondered if Marie herself had kept an extra set, maybe with another journalist. Would someone else pick up her baton? A safe place, she’d said: maybe a friend’s flat or a bank vault. Reeve turned back and headed to Pete Cavendish’s. Cavendish couldn’t believe it.
“This is a nightmare,” he said. “I told you to stick the key through the letterbox.”
“I did that,” Reeve said, pointing to the spot on the floor where the key lay.
“What then?”
“It’s just, my brother trusted you with his car. I wondered if you were keeping anything else safe for him.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know. Some files, a folder, papers…?”
Cavendish shook his head.
“Maybe he told you not to tell anyone, Pete, but he’s dead and I’m his brother-”
“He didn’t give me anything, all right?”
Reeve stared into Cavendish’s eyes and believed him. “Okay, sorry,” he said starting back down the path.
“Hey!” Cavendish yelled after him.
Reeve turned. “What?”
“How’s the motor running?”
Reeve looked at the idling Saab. “Sweet as a nut,” he said, wondering how soon he could ditch it.
Tommy Halliday lived in Wales, because he thought the air and drinking water there were better; but he didn’t have much affection for the Welsh, so lived as close to the border with England as he could while remaining near a funny place-name. Halliday lived in Penycae; the funny place-name was Rhosllanerchrugog. On the map it looked like a bad batch of Scrabble tiles, except that there were way too many letters.
“You can’t miss it on the map,” Halliday had told Reeve, the first time Reeve was planning a visit. “They always like to put Rhosllanerchrugog in nice big bold letters, just to show what silly fuckers the Welsh are. In fact, everybody around here just calls it Rhos.”
“What does it mean?” Reeve had asked.
“What?”
“The word must mean something.”
“It’s a warning,” Halliday had said. “It says, the English are coming!”
Halliday had a point. Penycae was close to Wrexham, but it was also within commuting distance of Chester, Liverpool, even Stoke-on-Trent. Consequently, English settlers were arriving, leaving the grime and crime behind, sometimes bringing it with them.
All Halliday had brought with him were his drug deals, his video collection, and his reference books. Halliday hated films but was hooked on them. Actually, more than the films themselves he was hooked on the film critics. Barry Norman was god of this strange religion, but there were many other high priests: Maltin, Ebert, Kael; Empire, Premier, and Sight & Sound magazines. What got Reeve was that Halliday never went to a movie. He didn’t like being with other people, strangers, for two darkened hours. He rented and bought videos instead. There were probably six or seven hundred in his living room, more elsewhere in the semidetached house.
For Halliday, films were not entertainment. His tussle with the movie form was like a student tackling some problem of philosophy. It was as though, if Halliday could work out films-why some were good, others bad, a few works of genius-then he would have solved a major problem, something that would change his life for the better and for always. When Reeve turned up at the house, Halliday was in a tizzy. He’d just found an old Guardian review by Derek Malcolm panning Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.
“You should see the reviews in Empire and Premiere,” he said irritably. “They loved that film.”
“What did you think of it?” Reeve waited in the hall while Halliday triple-locked the reinforced front door. He knew Halliday’s neighbors thought the reason his curtains were always closed was that Halliday was busy watching films. There was a rumor Halliday was writing a film of his own. Or that he was some En-glish director who’d made a fortune in Hollywood and decided to retire young.