Read Online A Good Day To Die by Simon Kernick - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Simon Kernick
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to talk too much, and that there was something to be said for brusqueness.
I hauled my case up two flights of very steep, narrow stairs to my room, and wasn't surprised to discover that it was small, bare, and not very warm either. The paintwork, done in a long-ago off-white, was dirty, nicotine-stained, and full of bumps where the roller had gone straight over the original wallpaper, and there were ancient cobwebs fluttering in each corner of the ceiling. From outside came the rhythmic clatter of a train entering Paddington station; the wooden window-frame rattling in unison. It might have worked out at less than twenty quid a night, but I didn't feel like I was getting good value for money, especially when I reminded myself of the fact that our place on the beach in the Philippines worked out at nearer ten. And you got breakfast and use of the pool there as well.
But by this point I was too tired and jetlagged to care. My journey, which had begun that morning in Manila, had taken me across eight time zones, and although it was now eight thirty in the evening in London, it was actually four thirty the following morning for me and I badly needed to sleep.
I chucked the case on the bed, switched on the radiator and slowly unpacked while I waited forthe room to heat up. As I did so, I tried to shut out the distinct feeling of anticlimax that had been slowly enveloping me ever since I'd been stuck in the taxi on the M4. For years this city had been my home. I'd worked, played and lived in it; had killed and made love here; seen much of the good but more of the bad. But always I'd felt that I belonged; that the city was a part of me. But tonight it was different. Tonight I felt like a stranger visiting for the first time. There was none of the familiarity I'd been expecting, no explosion of memories as the taxi crossed the boundaries and the familiar buildings sprang up like monoliths on either side of the road. Only the odd, unsettling sensation that my time here was something from another, barely remembered life.
I decided to have a shower and clean up a bit, then hit the sack and start everything tomorrow when I was more refreshed and less depressed. The city, I knew, would look a lot better in the morning.
I was halfway out of my clothes and waiting for the dilapidated shower unit to hit a temperature that neither burned strips off my back nor froze my balls off, when my mobile phone rang.
I strode into the bedroom, and pulled it out of the pocket of my jacket. I'd bought it the previous day in Manila, and only one person was aware of the number: Tomboy Darke. But as soon as I looked at the screen and saw that there was no incoming number showing, I knew it wasn't going to be him.
I pressed the Call Receive button and put the phone to my ear.
'Mr Kane, good evening.' The words were delivered slowly and with authority in an accent that was unmistakably middle-class London, and north of the river if memory served me right.
'Sorry, I think you've got the wrong number. I don't know a Mr Kane.'
'Really?' he said. 'Somehow I believe you do. My name's Pope. I think we should meet up. I've got a feeling we've got a lot to talk about. Don't you?'
'Let's make it tomorrow morning,' I said, pissed off that the element of surprise was gone, and way too tired to see him now. Tomboy must have talked, but why? Surely he'd have known he was putting me in potential danger.
'I'd prefer tonight. I don't want you to have to hurry tomorrow for the plane you've got to catch.'
'Which one's that?'
'The one taking you back to where you belong.'
I didn't bother rising to the bait. 'Well, tomorrow it's going to have to be. Take it or leave it.'
'In that case, I'll take it. There's a cafe in Islington, off the Pentonville Road. It's called the Lantern. Meet me there at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. I'll be sitting at the corner table on your left as you go in, next to the window.'
'What do you look like?'
'You'll know who I am,' he said,
I hauled my case up two flights of very steep, narrow stairs to my room, and wasn't surprised to discover that it was small, bare, and not very warm either. The paintwork, done in a long-ago off-white, was dirty, nicotine-stained, and full of bumps where the roller had gone straight over the original wallpaper, and there were ancient cobwebs fluttering in each corner of the ceiling. From outside came the rhythmic clatter of a train entering Paddington station; the wooden window-frame rattling in unison. It might have worked out at less than twenty quid a night, but I didn't feel like I was getting good value for money, especially when I reminded myself of the fact that our place on the beach in the Philippines worked out at nearer ten. And you got breakfast and use of the pool there as well.
But by this point I was too tired and jetlagged to care. My journey, which had begun that morning in Manila, had taken me across eight time zones, and although it was now eight thirty in the evening in London, it was actually four thirty the following morning for me and I badly needed to sleep.
I chucked the case on the bed, switched on the radiator and slowly unpacked while I waited forthe room to heat up. As I did so, I tried to shut out the distinct feeling of anticlimax that had been slowly enveloping me ever since I'd been stuck in the taxi on the M4. For years this city had been my home. I'd worked, played and lived in it; had killed and made love here; seen much of the good but more of the bad. But always I'd felt that I belonged; that the city was a part of me. But tonight it was different. Tonight I felt like a stranger visiting for the first time. There was none of the familiarity I'd been expecting, no explosion of memories as the taxi crossed the boundaries and the familiar buildings sprang up like monoliths on either side of the road. Only the odd, unsettling sensation that my time here was something from another, barely remembered life.
I decided to have a shower and clean up a bit, then hit the sack and start everything tomorrow when I was more refreshed and less depressed. The city, I knew, would look a lot better in the morning.
I was halfway out of my clothes and waiting for the dilapidated shower unit to hit a temperature that neither burned strips off my back nor froze my balls off, when my mobile phone rang.
I strode into the bedroom, and pulled it out of the pocket of my jacket. I'd bought it the previous day in Manila, and only one person was aware of the number: Tomboy Darke. But as soon as I looked at the screen and saw that there was no incoming number showing, I knew it wasn't going to be him.
I pressed the Call Receive button and put the phone to my ear.
'Mr Kane, good evening.' The words were delivered slowly and with authority in an accent that was unmistakably middle-class London, and north of the river if memory served me right.
'Sorry, I think you've got the wrong number. I don't know a Mr Kane.'
'Really?' he said. 'Somehow I believe you do. My name's Pope. I think we should meet up. I've got a feeling we've got a lot to talk about. Don't you?'
'Let's make it tomorrow morning,' I said, pissed off that the element of surprise was gone, and way too tired to see him now. Tomboy must have talked, but why? Surely he'd have known he was putting me in potential danger.
'I'd prefer tonight. I don't want you to have to hurry tomorrow for the plane you've got to catch.'
'Which one's that?'
'The one taking you back to where you belong.'
I didn't bother rising to the bait. 'Well, tomorrow it's going to have to be. Take it or leave it.'
'In that case, I'll take it. There's a cafe in Islington, off the Pentonville Road. It's called the Lantern. Meet me there at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. I'll be sitting at the corner table on your left as you go in, next to the window.'
'What do you look like?'
'You'll know who I am,' he said,
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