Free Devil in the Wires by Tim Lees Page B

reader flickered. One column of light, rising, dropping. Gone again.
    â€œHe is Field Ops,” said Justine.
    â€œWas.”
    She chewed her lower lip, nodded to herself. She pushed her glasses up her nose.
    â€œField Ops—­you recruit unstable ­people. The English I think are the worst. You have too much . . . reserve.”
    â€œI’m Field Ops.”
    â€œI know. Forgive me if you can, but I must tell you what I see. With Dayling—­there will be signs. There will be clues. Things he’s said, things he’s done. Habits. You know him—­”
    â€œNo. I don’t know him. I hadn’t seen the guy in ten years.”
    At the same time, the bleached bulb of Sacré Coeur once more caught my eye. And if it had caught mine, then it had surely, beyond a doubt, caught Dayling’s.
    â€œChurch,” I said. I glanced around for a taxi. I told Justine, “Phone me. Now. So I’ve got your number. And let me know if anything happens. Phone me—­every fifteen minutes. To check in.”
    It took me half that time to find a cab. I had a feeling—­it was scarcely more—­that if Dayling had a flask, he’d want it in a place he thought appropriate. Suitably reverent. Sacred. And more than that: safe. Or so I reasoned it.
    In the job, I’d learned to trust my instincts, go with what I felt, even when it didn’t make much sense. But this wasn’t like that; now I was dealing with a human being, with a person, and they’d never been my strong suit. Ask my ex-­wife. As the cab turned, winding through the old streets, I had an awful doubt down in the pit of my stomach that I’d missed something somewhere, made a fatal move.
    I stepped out of the car, asked the driver to wait. A cold breeze blew around Sacré Coeur, and the view across the city didn’t make up for my lousy mood. The place was closing up. That didn’t stop me. I barged inside, almost running, checking the side chapels, pew after pew, alcove after alcove. It’s a hell of a size, this great bell of emptiness that hangs over the city, and I knew, before I’d even finished searching: Dayling wasn’t there.
    Justine called, the fourth or fifth time. They’d taken out the wounded kid. There had been a difficult exchange between Registry personnel and the police.
    I said, “I’m coming back.”
    I huddled in the back of the cab, feeling small and useless. The driver paid me no attention whatsoever, for which he had my gratitude. I’d screwed up, wasted time in a situation where time was crucial. I didn’t know what else to do, where else to look. But then, as we drew near the hotel, I saw something, and yelled for him to stop. Car horns honked behind us. I stuffed a wad of notes into the cabby’s hand, jumped out, and rushed across the road.
    From close up, it was nothing: just an old stone wall set with a single door. But from across the street, you saw what stood above: the tower, the peaked roof, the saints looking down like guardsmen from their niches in the masonry. It was a church, half swallowed by the houses all around it. The door was plain but for a metal crucifix at eye level, and an old black ring handle, which I turned. It opened easily. I stepped inside.
    The light was faint and smoky. Candles flickered as I shut the door. The traffic noises died. The air smelled sweet with wood polish and incense. Somebody was sitting in the third row from the front, head down—­though not, I thought, in prayer. Dayling.
    I moved along the center aisle till I could see him clearly. He had the flask on the floor between his feet and he was leaning over it, like a cold sufferer inhaling vapors. The clips on the flask were up, the plug partway unscrewed, but the core still hidden. Something was crusted on the rim. When I saw that, I realized what he’d hit the kid with.
    Dayling himself was simply