Shining was looking at the barricade that surrounded the construction of the Francis Crick Institute. He shook his head slowly. ‘We’ll have to deal with this one day,’ he said. ‘Mark my words, it’s a bomb waiting to go off right in the centre of the city.’
Toby looked at the proud posters that covered the barricade, filled – as all such things are – with words like ‘legacy’ and ‘future’ but singularly avoiding the now. ‘Just a research place, isn’t it?’
‘There’s no such thing as “just” research,’ Shining replied. ‘I’ve spent a lifetime tidying up the unwelcome answers to questions idiots should never have asked.’ He turned to smile at Toby. ‘Though I didn’t answer yours.’
Toby wondered for a moment whether Shining was suggesting he was an idiot.
‘We’re going to see a couple of agents of mine,’ said Shining as they moved on past the construction site and into the warren of apartment blocks and houses that lay beyond it. ‘And provide you with the first in a new career of bizarre experiences.’
Stopping at the gate of a courtyard block of flats he tapped a number into the entry pad for the lock and ushered Toby through. ‘I hope so, anyway,’ he added.
‘So you’re not sure if it’s going to be bizarre or not?’ Toby asked, confused.
‘Oh, no,’ Shining chuckled, ‘I have no doubt of that. I just don’t know if it will be the start of your career or the end of it. After all, it rather depends on whether you survive.’
Toby decided he was having his leg pulled. Rather than argue he gave a flat smile and followed Shining across the courtyard.
‘They’ve been at it again,’ came a voice from behind the row of bins. A West Indian woman loomed up from between a pair of brimming dumpsters and fixed Toby with a distinctly hostile look. ‘You know anything about that?’
‘What?’ he replied.
‘Scaring my Roberta,’ she replied, lifting up a tabby cat that had the good grace to look embarrassed. ‘They come here to sell their funny smokes and pills and they chase my Roberta all around the garden,’ she continued. ‘They want to watch I don’t catch them at it. I’d beat them within an inch of their lives, yes I would.’
‘And who would blame you?’ said Shining, offering his fingers for Roberta to sniff. Toby, impressed by his bravery, knew he would never have done such a thing in case Roberta chose to bite them off.
‘They think the police will protect them,’ the woman continued, ‘but I’ve not met a policeman I couldn’t talk down.’ She looked at them curiously. ‘You’re not policemen, are you?’
‘Far from it,’ said Shining, ‘we’re just visiting friends.’
‘Well, you mind you tell them too. I won’t have anyone disturbing my Roberta.’
They left her cooing over the cat and worked their way around the back of the building.
A small playground enclosed six youths in its tall cage. Two of them were swaying listlessly on the swings while the others talked to one another in a huddle by the merry-go-round.
‘Selling their funny smokes and pills,’ commented Shining with a smile.
The youths looked up as he and Toby passed but spared them little interest.
Heading up the rear stairwell, Toby was impressed again by the fitness of his superior. Shining took the steps two at a time, showing no shortness of breath as he reached the second floor and began to stroll out along the balcony.
‘Hello again,’ came a voice from one of the windows.
Shining stopped and smiled at the elderly gentleman beyond the glass. He was a small, rotund man, slowly working his way through a sideboard of washing up, his woollen tank-top damp with spilled suds.
‘Haven’t seen you along here in a few weeks,’ the man said. The English accent was impeccable but Toby’s ear was sharp enough to pick up the man’s Russian origin.
‘Things have been busy,’ said Shining. ‘You know how it can be.’
‘Oh, I remember – but that’s all in the past for me.’ The old man propped the window wide open and returned to his chores. ‘Nowadays this is as busy as I get. My daughter bought me a machine last year. I try to explain to her that I don’t want it. If the machines take over all my jobs what will I do with my days? Sit watching them as they go about the things I used to do myself? That seems like death to me.’
‘You may well be right,’ said Shining, ‘and we’ve both been dodging that for a long time.’
The man laughed and looked to Toby. ‘Who’s your friend?’
‘He’s working with me now.’
‘Still up to your usual tricks?’
‘You know better than to ask,’ Shining replied.
The man chuckled again. ‘Yes, I do,’ he admitted. ‘Well, get on your way, but stop by sometime and share a little of an old man’s time. Why don’t you? We can reminisce.’
‘Neither of our governments would allow it, Gavrill,’ said Shining, ‘and I’m too old to break their rules now.’
‘Like you ever stuck to them.’
Shining said nothing, just smiled and carried on his way. Toby gave the old Russian a half-hearted wave and followed on behind.
‘Who was that?’ he asked.
‘My opposite number in the KGB,’ said Shining, ‘many years ago. Glasnost melted his career away to a cool mist and he defected here. Or so he leads me to believe. I have no doubt someone, somewhere, will still be told I passed by.’
Toby couldn’t help his scepticism. Surely, even if Section 37’s remit was exactly as Shining had stated, nobody else would care? Wouldn’t they all think it as mad as he did?
‘And he lives a couple of doors away from one of your agents?’
Shining smiled. ‘I was the one who handled his defection. When I saw the flat was on the market I requisitioned it. Makes it easier to keep an eye on him – two birds with one train ticket. Why waste shoe-leather?’
Shining knocked on the door of number sixty-three. It was opened in no time at all by a man in the most exceptionally bright floral dress Toby had ever seen.
‘My God,’ the man shouted, ‘you took your time!’
He stepped back inside to let them both in.
‘Keith,’ said Shining, throwing a random cover name at Toby, ‘this is Alasdair – white witch, music blogger and the best female impersonator north of the river.’
From this angle, Toby had a definite issue with that bold claim but he was willing to accept that maybe Alasdair was having an off day. Certainly he was stressed beyond words.
‘Oh, Tim, I’ve been climbing up the walls. He’s been unconscious for hours,’ Alasdair was saying. ‘I popped my head in this morning to find him out for the count in a lump behind the sofa. The cat’s beside herself.’
The flat was dark and cosy, filled with wood and red fabric, the sort of place Edwardians liked to read improving books in.
They walked straight into the kitchen where Alasdair began wrestling with a kettle in an attempt to beat some drinks out of it. The kettle stood fast.
The kitchen cupboards were covered in small blackboards with scribbled grocery lists, doodles and threats to cut off tuna supply to the cat unless ‘it learned to keep a civil tongue in its pernicious head’.
‘Look!’ said Alasdair, taking a breather from the arduous battle with the kettle. ‘He left me a message at some point in the night, God knows when – he gets up at all hours, wandering around the place like a burglar. Though there’s nothing worth stealing unless you like Cava and Dorothy L. Sayers paperbacks.’ He grabbed hold of the worktop and sighed, a sudden burst of stressed panic dissipating into genuine fear and despair. ‘I can’t bear it,’ he said quietly. ‘Every time this happens I think he’s never coming back and it tears the very fucking heart out of me.’