Free Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway Page A

darling, no!” Edie Banister says with manifest insincerity. She smiles broadly at George, who scowls at her and glances at his boss. But Edie is in motion.
Too slow, boys, far and away
. Bastion, unwelcome playmate, apparently decides that James has better legs. He lunges for them, and his single solid tooth makes an ugly hole in James’s calf.
I should think that’s jolly painful
, Edie reflects, as James swears. He lashes out with his foot, but Bastion knows this game well, and has latched onto the other leg. James would have to kick himself, and few people … no. No, James actually is that stupid. There’s a thud, and James goes a bit white. It’s amazing how much you can hurt yourself with your own toecap. Bastion, sensing victory, spins around several times and scents Mr. Biglandry.
No, darling. He’s out of your league
. But Bastion is game, and more than game. His performance so far has made Biglandry Père nervous enough that he backs up, glancing at Edie with the outrage of non-dog owners:
’Ere, lady, control this dog or I’ll ’ave the law on you!
    Like Hell you will
.
    Edie ducks into the bedroom, and lunges for her knicker drawer and Secret Weapon No. 2, amid the frills and bunting.
Yes, knickers! That’s what I shall need. And it bloody would have been, too, in fifty-nine. I could have changed into something more comfortable and they’d have carried me to the nick and handed themselves in
 … but honesty compels her to admit that even in fifty-nine it might not have been so.
Corset. Bloomers. Tights. Popsocks, how I loathe you. Woollen leggings—the shame. Edie Banister, toast of the Fighting 16th, swathed in bloody sheep’s fur and with all the allure of a toast rack. Hard times. Suspender belt, that’s more like it; garters, and stockings, and lace, oh my! And now I’ve thrown my memories on the floor, where the bloody hell is the item we came for? Because if I’ve put it in another drawer then we may assume I am about to die
. But the other belt is in her hands, cool and thick, brown leather and a strange, ancient smell. She cleans it once a month, checks it, the way most people do their accounts. And once—Edie Banister grins—once, she did actually wear thisoutfit as lingerie, to the absolute abandonment and lust of her lover and, she is forced to admit, herself.
    Mr. Biglandry shoves the door to Edie’s boudoir open with a very impatient hand. He has his hammer raised to crack her skull into as many pieces as he can.
Why a hammer?
Edie wonders.
Maybe because it’s so unprofessional, so thuggish. Everyone will look for a lunatic—and you can always find one, if you try hard enough
. “It’s fucking time, you crazy old bag,” Mr. Biglandry says, angry now at the delay. Perhaps he has somewhere to be. “It is fucking time.”
    “Yes,” Edie Banister says. “I believe it is.” And she turns around, holding the gun in the Weaver stance.
    Mr. Biglandry says “Fuck” again, but in a more impressed, appalled way. He drops the hammer and goes for his own gun (Edie guesses it will prove to be an automatic, unlike her own, which is a revolver). Edie shoots him in the head. The revolver makes an absolutely huge noise. To her relief, the back of Mr. Biglandry’s head stays on, although it’s clearly a close-run thing. She hears, in the other room, the sound of George saying “Fuck” as well, percussively, and trying to pull something from his waistband.
Idiot
. If George does not shoot himself in the penis in the next two seconds, he will get the gun out and start firing it, but anyone who sticks a gun in his jeans is probably not someone with surgical weapon skills. He will fire randomly. Edie’s neighbours might get hurt. Or Bastion. She turns, and fires three more times directly through the plasterboard wall, angling so that any misses will hit the bricks of the fireplace in the room beyond. The third shot makes a
splunch
noise, and George goes down. Edie moves, in case