Complicity

He comes up to me, nods to the burly and unlocks the cuffs.

"Come here," he tells me, putting the handcuffs in his pocket. I wipe my lips and follow him to the door.

"What is it?" I ask him.

"It's for you," he says, striding across the hall towards the phone, where the handset's lying on the table and an officer is attaching a little device like a sucker to the phone; a wire leads from the sucker to a Pro Walkman. The officer starts the machine recording. McDu

He hands me the phone.

CHAPTER 11 — SLAB

"Andy?"

"Hello, Cameron."

It is his voice, urbane and controlled; until this moment some tiny part of me still believed he was dead. I get the shivers, and the hair on the nape of my neck prickles. I lean back against the wall, looking at McDu

I clear my throat. "What's going on, Andy?"

"Sorry to drop you in it, old son," he says in a conversational sort of way, as though apologising for some thoughtless remark or landing me with a mismatched blind date.

"Yeah? Are you?"

McDu

"Well, yes," Andy says, sounding as though he's a little surprised to find he actually is sorry, albeit only slightly. "I feel a bit bad about that, but at the same time I felt you deserved it. Not that I thought you'd go to prison for it; wouldn't inflict that on you, but… well, I wanted you to suffer for a while. I take it they found that card I left in the woods near Sir Rufus's place."

"Yes, they did. Thanks, Andy. Yeah; great. I thought we were friends?

"We were, Cameron," he says, reasonably. "But you did run away, twice."

I give a small, despairing laugh, glancing at McDu

"Yes, Cameron," he says, and his voice is smooth. "That's why you're still alive."

"Oh, thanks very much."

"But anyway, Cameron, you're still part of it. You've still played your part in it. Like me; like all of us. We're all guilty, don't you think?"

"What is this?" I ask, frowning. "Original sin? You becoming a Catholic or something?"

"Oh, no, Cameron; I believe we're born free of sin and free of guilt. It's just that we all catch it, eventually. There are no clean rooms for morality, Cameron, no boys in bubbles kept in a guilt-free sterile zone. There are monasteries and nu

I shake my head, staring at the little window in the Walkman where the tape spindles are patiently revolving. The strange thing is, it is like talking to a dead man, because he sounds like the Andy I used to know. Andy the mover and shaper, the Andy from before Clare's death, before he gave it all up and became a recluse; it's that voice, calm and untroubled, that I'm hearing now, not that of the man I knew from that dark, decaying hotel, flat with resignation or audibly sneering with a kind of cynical despair.

McDu

"Listen, Andy," I say, swallowing, mouth dry. "I told them about the guy in the woods; they've been down the air shaft. They found him."

"I know," he says. "I saw." He sounds almost regretful. I close my eyes. "They almost caught me, actually," he says conversationally. "That'll teach me to break my own rules and attend the funeral of one of my victims. But then it was supposed to be my own, after all. Anyway, you told them, did you? Kind of thought you might, one day. That a weight off your mind, is it, Cameron?"

I open my eyes as McDu

"Yes," I tell Andy. "Yes, it is a weight off my mind. Listen, Andy, they want to know what's happened to Halziel and Lingary."

"Oh, yes." He sounds amused. "That's why I called."

McDu

"Cameron, I've murdered a lot of people."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, and a lot more are terrified to open their doors, but the point is you've done it, man; I mean you might as well let these guys go, you know? Just… just let them go, and, and, and you know; I'm sure if we can just talk about this, you know, talk about —»

"Talk about this?" Andy says, laughing. "Oh, stop gibbering, Cameron." He sounds so relaxed. I can't believe he's talking this long. He must know they can trace calls really quickly these days. "What next?" he asks, sounding amused. "Are you going to suggest I give myself up and I'll get a fair trial?" He laughs again.

"Andy, all I'm saying is let those guys go and just fucking stop all this."

"All right."

"I mean… what?"

"I said all right."

"You'll let them go?" I look at McDu

"Yeah," Andy says. "They're a boring couple of farts and I guess they've suffered enough."

"Andy, are you being serious?"

"Of course!" he says. "You'll get them back unharmed. Can't vouch for their mental state, of course; with any luck the bastards'll have nightmares for the rest of their lives, but…"

McDu

"Listen, Andy; I mean, I guessed you were Mr Archer —»

"Yes, I used a voice synthesiser," Andy says patiently.

"But all that Ares stuff; was it all…?"

"A diversion, Cameron, that's all. Hey," he laughs, "maybe there was some heinous plot linking those five dead guys, but if so I've no idea what it was, and as far as I know there's no link between them and Smout and Azul. Pretty neat conspiracy theory, though, don't you think? I know you hacks just love that sort of thing."

"Oh, yeah, had me fooled." I smile weakly at McDu

"But how did you…?" I have to swallow again, fighting my nausea. I feel like I've got a coughing fit coming on, too. "How did you know those IRA code-words? I never told you."

"Your computer, Cameron; your PC. You had them in a file on your hard disk. Made everything a lot easier when you got that modem. Don't think I ever told you I'd become a bit of a hacker in my spare time, did I?"

Christ.

"And that time I rang the hotel and you phoned back, when you must have been in Wales…?"

"Yes, Cameron," he says, sounding indulgently amused. "Answer-machine at the hotel, linked to a pager; called up the machine, heard your message, rang you back. Easy-peasy."

"And you were on the same plane as me to Jersey?"

"Four rows back; in a wig, glasses and "tache. Got a taxi while you were still looking for the hire-car desk. Anyway," he says, and I imagine I can hear him sighing and stretching, "must dash; this technical stuff's all very fascinating but I do have a faint suspicion they're getting you to keep me talking. I'm on a mobile, which is why they haven't traced it yet; this is a biggish cell I'm in. Hey, that's a coincidence, isn't it, Cameron? You in a cell last week, me in one now… Well, maybe not. Anyway, as I say, it's a biggish cell but if I keep talking I'm sure they can find me here too, eventually, so —»