Killing State Read online

  North held the struggling nasty boy away by the lapels of his serge jacket. The outraged solider pushing in towards him keen to do violence, spitting, cursing, small eyes bulging either side like those of a reptile – primed to survive, threaten, intimidate.

  “You dropped something,” North said and spun him to one side, pushing the shaven head closer to the ground and raising his knee at the same moment to smash into the lad’s face. He brought him up again. From a distance it would look as if North steadied a drunk against the stonework of the bridge. Up close, he flattened one hand against the crushed wreckage of the cartilage and pressed hard. The nasty boy shrieked in a rising note of pain, his voice muffled by North’s other hand and blood spurted from between the fingers.

  He released the weeping nasty boy who reeled and staggered across the road, only stopping to spit and curse from the safety of the other side of the carriageway. And North admitted the truth to himself. Somewhere, the small print of his unwritten contract carried the warning that refusal was prejudicial not just to your career but to your own prospects of survival.

  Chapter 3

  LONDON

  5.50am. Sunday, 5th November

  The vintage Bentley moved alongside him like a shark scoping a surfer. Occasionally the driver revved the engine, once the car mounted the kerb behind him – its steel bumper almost catching his heels but North kept his pace steady. His trainer had a hole in the bottom – London rain filling the fabric shoe so fast he might have been barefoot in the roll and broil of the sea. He never gave much thought to his own physical comfort. If anything, he enjoyed the soft smack of the rain on his face – first this way, then that – puddle-damp feet, breathing in bus diesel and city dirt, the bite and push of the north-easterly bluff through his sodden hoody bringing him back to a sense of who he used to be, distracting him from the conviction that something bad was about to happen. He just wasn’t sure what – or whether it was going to happen to him.

  The Bentley bumped back on to the road.

  At ten to six in the morning, the shops along Marylebone High Street were still shuttered and dark inside; bundles of bulky Sunday newspapers tied up like prisoners outside the newsagent.

  Beside him, the rear nearside window cracked, and cigar smoke crawled out and up around the roof, eager to escape.

  “Come in from the rain,” said the voice.

  North stopped running, and turned on his heel towards the car.

  “We can’t have you catching a chill, darling boy.”

  A stranger might have termed the traveller’s voice engaging, but even a stranger would have recognised an order rather than an invitation.

  A tear-drop of rain trickled down North’s velvet nape, bumped along the bones of his spine before plunging into the warmth he’d been hoarding between hunched shoulder blades. Someone, somewhere, had been telling him what to do since he was born. A man could tire of it.

  “North,” the voice warned, and with a sigh, North reached for the handle of the Bentley.

  He hadn’t closed the door before the car set off, veering to the right. The door swung away from him, his body shifting outwards with the weight, dipping over the rapidly moving ground before he managed to pull himself upright again and slam it – his heart banging in his chest.

  In the front – the driver’s head almost touched the roof of the car; the back of a familiar fat neck, the folds of flesh red and hanging over the shirt collar. North found the rear-view mirror, a razor flick of the driver’s pouchy eyes rewarding him for his effort, before they went back to the road.

  “North, you look well.”

  Lord Lucien Tarn, former Justice of the Supreme Court, himself looked like nothing more than a death’s head.

  “Doesn’t he, Bruno?”

  “Peachy,” said the driver, loading the word with contempt and ill-will. There was the sound of rods tumbling into a lock and Tarn spoke again.

  “Not like a man with a bullet in his brain at all.” The judge sucked hard on the stub of a cigar as he regarded his reluctant passenger, its tuck flaring crimson and white, the acrid tang of it, hot and dry. “Good enough to eat.” Under the cheekbones, smoke and words, came out of the judge’s mouth, both together. “As Bruno says.”

  During the trial at Southwark Crown Court for the manslaughter which left his mother’s pimp dead, 13-year-old Michael North learned to be wary when the judge’s sunken gaze met his; when the lawyers argued self-defence and those gimlet eyes told the boy that he already knew his absolute guilt, presumed his murderous intention; understood, and didn’t blame him. North resisted the sudden smell of blood, the shattering of bones. The judge never saw him without thinking of who he was as a child and what he did. Or he never saw the judge without guilt – one or the other. He forced himself to stare back; the skin beneath the judge’s clipped hair on the skull so white, it was as if the stubble grew straight from the bone.

  “Your call last night hasn’t been well-received, darling boy.” The judge shook his head in fond rebuke.

  Bruno swung the car left on to Wigmore Street – clipping the pavement and North braced himself against the seat in front.

  “What can I say? It didn’t feel right.” How to begin to explain the deep sense of unease triggered when he stared at the photograph. His recognition that Honor Jones had survived who knows what. His sudden yearning for a life which was clean and free of the need to kill. It was a simple thing to write a name in green ink. It was altogether harder to draw a line through it.

  “Exactly who is the Board?” There were times when it was easier to attack rather than defend a position.

  Tarn frowned, and the atmosphere in the car chilled. A sudden memory came to North – one that was all his own. His mother drunk and shivering on a stained mattress. Gripping his hand. Blaming the future. Mortality. “Someone walked over my grave,” she said, blessing herself over and over. Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Before letting go, to reach for the nearest bottle.

  “Why ask?”

  “I woke up curious.”

  He’d always thought it better that he didn’t know. But who were these people who decided who should live and who should die, while other men did their killing?

  “I’m intrigued, Michael. Perhaps you consider you have the luxury of free will?” Bruno’s eyes met his. Envy. Anticipation. Loathing. An appetite to do bloody violence. The sound of the car locking as he climbed into it.

  “Because you made your choice when you signed up,” the judge spoke with deliberation – as if he were explaining due process to the accused child still standing in the dock. “You swore an oath to protect your country against its enemies, and it does have enemies. Are you paid enough for what you do? These questions, this virginal hesitation – is it a matter of money, dear-heart? Because as I understand it, you’ve already been paid?”

  The implication he could be bought devoured North – anger growing and writhing and filling the world, filling him, before he sensed Bruno move in his seat, two massive hands gripping the wheel going to one, the other sliding into his jacket pocket. What did the big man have? A gun? Bespoke knuckle-dusters for those immense hands?

  North exhaled, letting go the violence he wanted to do. The exchange was designed to provoke. He was back on trial.

  He didn’t do what he did for money. Never.

  As if he had been teasing all along, Lord Tarn laughed – his voice loud in the confines of the car and patted North’s knee with boney fingers. The flick-knife eyes in the rear-view mirror widened in surprise, but Bruno took his hand from his jacket pocket again and moved it back to the wheel, then the gearstick, taking the Bentley up to sixty in what had to be a restricted zone. The car hit a speedbump – lifting and dropping back on to the road, and the impact travelled up through North’s spine and into his head. Another razor flick – as Bruno acknowledged the punishment was intentional. Tarn didn’t seem to notice, his hand still on North’s knee. He moved, and the judge remembered the hand, removing it with
the kindest of smiles.

  “Without my intervention, the Army would never have taken you. I spoke for you on your release from custody, because I saw something of myself in you. I always have. I understood what you’d done as a child and the great man you could be. And five years ago, when you were wounded, I sat at your bedside every day willing you out of the grave. Your own father couldn’t have done more.”

  The memory of opening his eyes to the buzzing strip-lights of the military hospital, of crushing pain, and of the judge’s face leaning in towards him. The shock of the other man’s pity. The judge’s desire smashing its way into North’s own mind. Before he worked out what the bullet did to him.

  Tarn stared at the length of ash ready but not yet falling from the tip of his cigar. “Once you recovered, I assured people that you could be relied upon – and they took me at my word.” The Judge pushed out his pale lips in distaste. “You have a purpose, my darling – don’t throw it all away on a whim, because it could be the last thing you do.” His eyes met North’s. “And nobody wants that. I wouldn’t want that.”

  Rain skidded and careered down the passenger windows. The car slowed. Photographs of a woman burning in the sink. North knew London well, took a pride in it. Fire devouring the woman’s beautiful face, turning her to ash. And he knew where this journey was heading because he bought the ticket a long time ago. There was no going back. No freedom.

  But the judge was still talking.

  “You and I, North, we share a belief in real justice and in our sacred duty. Our political system is dying from the inside out. We can trust no one. We have no one. The Board is necessary – now more than ever – because we keep things safe.”

  “…Cannot be allowed to live…” he heard the judge as clearly as if he’d passed down a verdict in open court. “She’s dangerous and she’s too much of a risk to leave out there. Honor Jones threatens to bring down everything.”

  There it was. Whether he was mad or whether he had a skill he didn’t want. Here was the truth of it. The beating heart. This man he trusted – a judge who dedicated his own life to public service – believed Honor Jones had to die. Or, North’s own subconscious knew that as a fact.

  But it was hard. The taste of stale cigar smoke filled his mouth, furring his teeth as he made one last attempt at escape.

  “I’m tired, Tarn.” His voice came out louder than he expected. The car had stopped. A beat.

  “Aren’t we all? But we carry on. Regardless. The death of Honor Jones is regrettable, I agree, but it is necessary.” The judge reached out to a silver ashtray in his door and dropped the tiny body of the almost dead cigar in its belly, its ash finally breaking apart.

  “There’s a greater good,” the judge said as if it was the answer to everything.

  It was over. The endorphin release of his run gone, and North admitted the truth to himself – he wasn’t free. He would have to kill her. Honor Jones MP RIP. His gorge rose. Queasy from the cigar, the confinement, the job, he fought the urge to retch.

  The door on his side opened on to the backstreet. He was somewhere in the furthest stretches of South London. Bruno would have made sure it was as inconvenient as he could make it.

  “Don’t be distracted by a pretty face. Remember, without Eve, there would have been no Fall.”

  North climbed out – and, as he looked back into the car, Tarn took hold of a newspaper, settling in to his morning routine. “Latest hack embarrasses social media giant…”. He couldn’t read the rest of the headline.

  “You have till Tuesday. Let’s get it done.” Tarn’s teeth were blinding white, his smile charming. “You’re beloved by the gods, North, as well as me – few among us are given a second chance.”

  As the Bentley drove away, the dirty spray from a gutter puddle drenched him. He stepped back, but too late and swore. Through the side mirror, Bruno watched him, grinning.

  North hoped Honor Jones was ready to die.

  Chapter 4

  LONDON

  12.32am. Tuesday, 7th November

  The photograph was a good one, their hair everywhere in the wind, blonde and black mixing together, pink cheeks and noses, laughing. When she printed it out, she wrote a reminder on the back in pencil like her mother used to do – Hermitage Island, February.

  Bleeding cold!

  Honor slid it back under the Portcullis fridge magnet alongside the postcard quoting Winston Churchill – Never, never, never, never give up – and reached for the merlot to pour a glass. Still standing up, she drained it, before she checked the phone. Peggy’s last text from three weeks ago. “Working on something big sweetie. Need head-space. Will be in touch soon as I can. Peggyx.”

  Honor didn’t see it at first. She was too furious.

  She didn’t see it till she got home after meeting Ned Fellowes in the hotel foyer, and read it over.

  Peggy never called her “sweetie” only ever “sweetpea”.

  She’d never have used the term “head-space”.

  And she never signed off her messages “Peggy”. She signed them Px, or didn’t sign them at all.

  Despite the fact they lived in different cities, they talked every day without fail, sometimes two or three times. Things became real once she’d told Peggy. Events mattered more. Jokes were funnier. Most days they texted. Occasionally they emailed. At night, one or other would call and they’d talk through their day before sleep. Even on the nights she spent with her partner JP in Knightsbridge, she talked to Peggy at some point. JP sulking with silent fury till she wound up the call. Peggy maintaining it was good to make him wait.

  What they never did was go to radio silence.

  Honor checked the phone again, but there was nothing more from Peggy. No new email. No text. No call missed. By now, she’d have been surprised if there was.

  It took her a long time to get back to any sort of normality after her parents died. For the longest time afterwards, Honor jumped at the slightest noise. Insomnia, nausea, palpitations, flashbacks.

  They all came back sitting across from poor Ned Fellowes, the exact moment he told her that Peggy’s text message was a fake.

  Ned was one of Peggy’s misfits. Honor didn’t use the term misfit in a critical way. She was one herself, so how could she? He was on the spectrum which wasn’t unusual, Peggy said, for someone studying astronomy. It wasn’t the reason he had to drop out of the undergrad course at Newcastle. But despite living with family, he couldn’t cope. Too fragile, Peggy said. The last thing Honor heard was that Ned was working in a bar. Till he turned up in London last week telling her Peggy was missing and that he needed Honor’s help finding her. Honor was an MP, and that was “useful in the circumstances” he said, not least because he believed Peggy wasn’t the only person missing.

  Even as Honor heard herself reassuring him, her heart began to pound and she felt the old loneliness inside her open up and threaten to swallow her whole. Honor hadn’t believed a word about Ned’s conspiracy. But, the truth was, Ned got something right – Peggy would never disappear, because she knew what that would do to Honor.

  Honor prided herself on being a rational creature. Sitting at the kitchen table, she moved the vase of stocks to one side, and drew a piece of paper and pen towards her. These were the facts.

  1. Peggy had not communicated with her for three weeks.

  2. Ned said Peggy was in trouble. That she had disappeared and he didn’t know why or where.

  3. He said that he was looking for her.

  4. And that she wasn’t the only one to go missing.

  She’d been cleaning her teeth on Friday morning, her eyes still closed as she listened to the local radio news. The presenter made a misjudged remark about a Kamikaze Geordie killing a Japanese tourist on a dinner cruise. And now, the weather.

  She’d known in her bones it was Ned. Before she’d opened her eyes. Had thrown up before she’d even confirmed the details with the Metropolitan Police. A friend of the family. An MP. They’d been very helpful
. Ned Fellowes jumped to his death from Westminster Bridge less than an hour after Honor said goodbye to him. Did he seem upset about anything they’d asked, but she hadn’t answered.

  Honor wrote the number “5” and then the words “Ned” and “suicide” before surrounding the word suicide with question mark after question mark.

  She’d known about Ned for three years, she’d met him herself on trips to Newcastle, and she didn’t believe for one second that he killed himself.

  a. He wasn’t the type.

  The scratch of her pen was the only sound in the flat.

  b. She’d seen his return ticket to Newcastle Upon Tyne.

  c. She’d overheard him making plans to meet a girl called Jess the next day.

  And you don’t accidentally trip over a paving stone and plunge to your death from a London bridge. Which made it murder.

  She paused – her pen over the paper. Red ink bleeding into the white page. Was that possible? Honor ringed “murder” over and over till the point of her pen tore through the paper.

  Within the hour of hearing the radio report, she’d bought her own ticket to Newcastle. Checked Peggy’s home. Her work. Chased down contacts in the UK and abroad. Getting more frustrated – more desperate with every hour. A job in Chile, they said, but Honor didn’t believe it.

  She stopped writing. Her head in her hands. Fingers in her hair.

  She’d failed Ned – she admitted it. Utterly. Peggy would be furious. He came to her because she was Peggy’s best friend. Because, naively, he presumed she was important. And selfishly, she walked away – panicking and angry with him because he was saying the un-sayable. That something was wrong. But Honor would feel guilty about Ned later. Because one thing was for sure and certain, she wasn’t failing Peggy.

  She took the memory key in its plastic wallet from her handbag. She’d watched the video Ned had uploaded on to it as soon as she got back from Newcastle. Again and again. Surely he had it wrong? But he’d said hide it, and now he was dead. She slid it between the flower stems, hearing it clink as it hit the china base.