Spook Street / C08
Chapter 8
Summary
Bad Sam Chapman, once a Dog at Regent’s Park and now a private investigator at Elite Enquiries, has spent a third morning failing to find Chelsea Barker, a twelve-year-old runaway, and is plagued by itchy feelings. He has twice glimpsed the same young stranger; the day before he took evasive action. The stranger is Patrice, working under the passport name Paul Wayne, who has been ordered to kill Chapman and has decided to spook him deliberately so that he bolts, then take him in flight. Lamb has sent Louisa and Marcus to bring Chapman in, with Roderick Ho tagging Chapman’s mobile from Slough House; they stake out the tube station by his office without knowing which way he will come. Patrice is delayed in the library opposite by a drunk and then a traffic warden, whom he puts through a window, and by the time he reaches the street Chapman has turned down an alley not his own and cut through a café kitchen. Louisa chases; Marcus follows, learning from a bystander that a heavy man was thrown through glass, which tells him the pursuer is a pro. Chapman, knowing he has been flushed, works through backstreets to a garage forecourt and arms himself with a crowbar; Patrice follows him in. Louisa arrives, is nearly hit by the thrown crowbar, and fights; she and Chapman are both put down, Chapman’s knee broken, before Marcus drives a black cab through the gates and Patrice escapes.
Beats
- C08S01 · Bad Sam Chapman — Bad Sam Chapman dismisses itchy feelings as superstition but has a load of them, and they are telling him to watch his back. He has spent the previous morning trawling Brixton arcades for Chelsea Barker, a twelve-year-old runaway, and twice glimpsed the same young stranger. He took evasive action yesterday and could not place the face. Today, his third morning of not finding Chelsea, he pauses in the shelter of a tube station at a junction with a church and a building site before heading back to the office.
- C08S02 · Patrice — Patrice, who lives under the passport name Paul Wayne, is in London to take Sam Chapman off the board. He knows Chapman spotted him yesterday and made a two-second report: nobody at home, will attempt redelivery. Chapman’s evasive drill convinces Patrice he is a pro who will bolt if spooked, so the plan is to spook him deliberately and bring him down in flight.
- C08S03 · Louisa — Louisa and Marcus wait in Marcus’s car south of the Thames, watching the tube entrance while Ho works from Slough House; they know only that Chapman is out of his office, not which way he will arrive. Louisa recalls Lamb’s order to bring Chapman in — ask him nicely, or stuff him in a van — and the three-person agency, Elite Enquiries, where Chapman works after leaving the Park as Head Dog. Marcus raises River Cartwright’s silence; Louisa says she is not his keeper, and Marcus’s earpiece cuts him off.
- C08S04 · Roderick Ho — Ho has a satellite map of South London and a magnified view of the alley holding Elite Enquiries. He has jacked into the Park’s tracking system to tag Chapman’s mobile, but the phone is not showing, which could mean Chapman has gone dark or is in a signal dead spot. He broods about Kim, who does not know he is a spook, and about a fictional private-sector career in Canary Wharf, until a red dot appears.
- C08S05 · Patrice — Patrice has waited two hours in the public library opposite, nursing an Americano, and now steps out deliberately so that Chapman will see him and run. A drunk collides with him and Patrice puts the man on the floor in half a second, in full view of the issue desk. A wide, uniformed man appears in the doorway as Patrice tries to leave.
- C08S06 · Roderick Ho — Ho confirms the dot is Chapman’s mobile, and Shirley relays to Marcus that Chapman is heading down the High Street and will take the third left into an alley. Marcus reports they have him over the road. Louisa and Ho then see him turn off at the same moment, and Marcus and Louisa move.
- C08S07 · Bad Sam Chapman — A crash of glass makes Chapman abandon his turning and slip down a narrow alley, where Miguel is smoking a joint outside a café kitchen door. Chapman asks Miguel to say he was never there, cuts through the kitchen and comes out on a different street.
- C08S08 · Patrice — The uniform turns out to be only a traffic warden, whom Patrice puts through the library window in the two-second grace that follows unexpected violence. He turns his collar up and walks out to see the target turning down an alley that is not his own.
- C08S09 · Marcus — Louisa sprints across the road while Marcus locks his car first, then follows, nearly colliding with a crowd gathered round a large man lying in glass and books. The onlooker he grabs says the thrower did not look capable of it, which tells Marcus it was a pro. Louisa has already gone, so he runs across the road after her.
- C08S10 · Patrice — Patrice knows the alley leads nowhere but reasons that a former spook would not run down a blind alley two hundred yards from home, so he passes the entrance and takes the next left. From there he sees a woman following Chapman’s route. He works out that Chapman will zigzag through the backstreets and pass under a railway bridge, where a second or two will be enough.
- C08S11 · Roderick Ho — Ho watches the dot go through a building and Shirley relays it, twice, to Marcus. Louisa emerges from the alley and confirms it is a dead end, and works out the same thing. Shirley directs Marcus left, then left again.
- C08S12 · Bad Sam Chapman — Chapman knows the breaking glass flushed him and that he obeyed the reflex to fly, but reckons he has bought a small advantage provided he does not look back. He pushes on through streets that loop round Corporation housing and under bridges, hearing no footsteps, only rain and a distant police siren.
- C08S13 · Louisa — Marcus catches Louisa by the arm to tell her there is a pro after Chapman as well, then lets her go and she outruns him past a police car pulling up at the library. She sees a raincoated figure ahead and a younger man in a leather jacket on the opposite pavement. Marcus tells her to loop round at the next junction and overtake, and she runs.
- C08S14 · Patrice — Patrice confirms from a window reflection that there are two followers behind him as well as the target ahead, and notes that professionals would have separated by now. He keeps his hands in his pockets in the rain and counts the corners left, reckoning the weather keeps the backstreets clear.
- C08S15 · Marcus — Chivvied by Shirley in his ear and by an imaginary version of his wife Cassie, Marcus studies the leather-jacketed man’s unhurried, puddle-avoiding stride and concludes he is definitely on Chapman’s tail. Shirley reports that Chapman is stopping. Marcus says he is taking guard rather than shelter, and picks up his pace.
- C08S16 · Bad Sam Chapman — Chapman, breathless and aching, crosses into a sidestreet and looks behind for the first time, seeing no follower. He slips through the gap in a pair of chained wooden gates into a garage forecourt with two black cabs and an empty workshop, looking for a weapon and a minute to breathe. He does not know why this is happening, only that it was always on the cards.
- C08S17 · Patrice — Patrice nearly walks past, but the trembling of the gates tells him Chapman is past caution and into fear. He reflects that the murder is a joint mission and that a murder is nothing without a victim, then slips under the chain and pulls on thin leather gloves.
- C08S18 · Louisa — Louisa reaches an empty junction, scans it, and deduces that both men have gone to ground, then spots the wooden gates with the loose chain beyond the bridge. She decides not to wait a minute and a half for Marcus and slips into the yard. A crowbar comes hurtling at her head.
- C08S19 · Bad Sam Chapman — Chapman, armed with a crowbar from the toolboard, remembers the rule about jabbing rather than swinging and tries to take Patrice from behind. Patrice disarms him, puts him on his back and raises the crowbar, then throws it instead at the woman coming through the gates, inches from her head.
- C08S20 · Marcus — Marcus reaches the gates too late to see Louisa go in, but hears her shriek and the clatter of metal on wood. He rams the gates shoulder-first and gets some give but no way through, and through the gap sees Chapman prone and the leather-jacketed man standing over him.
- C08S21 · Louisa — Louisa picks up the crowbar and feints from hand to hand, but Patrice steps inside her swing, knocks her down and kicks her hip numb. She has no gun and the crowbar is gone.
- C08S22 · Patrice — Patrice collects the crowbar, and when Chapman scrambles up he swings it into Chapman’s knee and hears the joint pop. Louisa throws a metal can, then runs for the workshop, and Patrice skims the crowbar into her ankles. Marcus drives a black cab through the gates, sideswipes Patrice and throws him clear, and Patrice escapes while a cabbie shouts in the background.
People
- Sam Chapman — private investigator at Elite Enquiries, once a Dog at the Park, and the target of Patrice’s operation
- Patrice — operative travelling as Paul Wayne, sent to kill Chapman, whom he hunts through the backstreets
- Roderick Ho — tracks Chapman’s mobile from Slough House and relays his movements
- Shirley Dander — relays Ho’s tracking to Marcus by phone and chivvies him
Places
- Slough House — MI5’s dumping ground, where Ho runs the tracking and the team is based
- Regent’s Park — the Park, where Chapman was Head Dog before leaving under a cloud
- Les Arbres — where Patrice learned to shoot, in the fields round the house
Lines worth keeping
“Stuff him in the back of a van” — Jackson Lamb, his answer when Louisa asks what to do if Chapman refuses to come in
“Maybe so, but he’s a little prick. And I hate relying on a little prick to get the job done.” — Marcus Longridge, on Ho, while waiting in the car for the tracking to work
“You’re gunna let him go just ’cause I said to pick him up?” — Shirley Dander, needling Marcus after he questions her sudden authority
“A murder is nothing without a victim.” — Patrice, waiting outside the garage gates, thinking of Chapman’s role in the operation
Threads
- Plants: Patrice is on someone else’s orders and has a controller to report to; the reason for killing Chapman is not given.; Chapman half-recognises the stranger’s face — ‘a loose thread at the hem of his memory’ — suggesting a connection he cannot place.; Les Arbres is named as the place Patrice learned to shoot.; Chelsea Barker is left unfound, and Chapman’s dislike of leaving things unfinished is underlined.; Ho’s tagging of Chapman’s phone establishes the mobile-tracking method used again later.; Ho’s invented private-sector career in Canary Wharf, and Kim’s ignorance of his real job.
- Payoffs: Chapman’s itchy feelings are justified: the stranger he glimpsed the day before is hunting him today.; His evasive drill the previous day tells Patrice he is a professional, which produces the plan to spook him deliberately.
- Continuity: It is Chapman’s third morning looking for Chelsea Barker, in grey drizzle.; Chapman was Head Dog at the Park and left under a cloud; Elite Enquiries has a staff of three.; Louisa and Marcus do not know which direction Chapman will arrive from; Ho’s fix on the phone is their only lead.; Marcus’s own car is large but not a van; the black cab he uses at the end comes from the garage forecourt.; Chapman’s knee is broken at the end (‘the joint pop’); Louisa’s hip is kicked numb and her ankles are injured.; Patrice escapes; Chapman and Louisa are left in the yard.