Tactical Security is one of several self-contained facilities within the Basement labyrinth, with its own cafeteria, cloakrooms, and locker rooms. Frank shares a locker room with twenty other Ghosts, most of whom are present when he enters. They are men and women of nondescript appearance, indeterminate age, dressed smartly but far from showily. The women wear the minimum of make-up and all the men look as if, like Frank, they trim their hair themselves. Few of the women wear any jewellery, and those that do restrict themselves to plain gold ear-studs and simple finger-rings. There isn’t a wedding band in sight. The Ghosts avoid looking at each other, exchange no conversation, just quietly, imperturbably get ready for work. Frank, too.
He springs his locker open with a swipe of his Iridium, removes his overcoat and drapes it over the hanger inside, then shrugs off his jacket and hooks it over the corner of the door. Taking out his shoulder-holster, an infinity symbol of canvas webbing and soft leather, he puts it on and adjusts the buckles until the straps sit comfortably around his chest and the sagging planes of his shoulderblades.
He reaches into the locker again and removes a gleaming stainless steel .45-calibre automatic pistol from a velvet-lined case. He prefers the lightweight version of the reglation store-issue handgun because it doesn’t drag down on the holster like the heavier guns do. A lighter gun means a harder recoil, but that seems a fair price to pay in exchange for greater ease of carrying, given that he seldom actually fires the thing.
Drawing back the slide, he checks that the chamber is empty, even though he never leaves a round in the chamber unless he is about to fire the gun – the habit of checking is as much an act of ceremony as it is a safety procedure. Then he lets the slide snap back into place. He cleans the gun religiously once a month, so the slide action is oil-smooth.
On a shelf at eye-level inside the locker there is a rack holding three clips of thirteen bullets, each with its black teflon tip grooved as though a tiny cog-wheel has been removed, and each with the Days logo stamped into its brass shell casing. Two of the clips Frank slots into the holster’s double off-side ammo pouch under his right armpit; the third he thrusts into the grip of the gun, ramming it home with the heel of his palm. He uses his Iridium to take off the gun’s safety, running the card’s magnetic strip through a centimetre-deep groove in the underside of the barrel. A green LED next to the trigger guard winks alight as the decocking lever disengages. He runs the card through the groove again, the light goes out, and the decocking lever snicks back into place. He holsters the gun beneath his left armpit and puts his card away.
Next, he takes out his Eye-link, and having unravelled the fragile-looking tangle of surgical-pink wires and components, slots the fitted audio pick-up into his right ear then leads the attached wire back over the ear and down behind the lobe. At the other end of the wire is a wafer-thin short-wave receiver/transmitter which he pins inside his shirt collar. Running from this is another wire that ends in a tiny microphone, slender and curved like a fingernail, which he clips into place behind the top button of his shirt, tightening the knot of his tie so that the microphone presses snugly against his throat.
The only piece of equipment left in the locker is his Sphinx. He unplugs the slim black box from its recharging unit, switches it on, and as soon as the Days logo scrolls up on the screen, flicks the power button back to Off and slides the Sphinx into his trouser pocket.
Ready. Another ritual over and done with for the last time.
It is 8.43, and the morning briefing is imminent. Frank accompanies the other Ghosts as they drift out of the locker room, joining the rustling flow of bodies moving down the passageway which leads past the self-service cafeteria to the briefing room. One by one, without a word, eyes averted, the Ghosts glide through the briefing-room doors to take their places on the plastic chairs which are arranged in ten rows of ten, facing the podium at the far end. Sensibly they fill up the rows from the middle outwards, so that no one will have to step over another person’s legs, thus minimising the risk of accidental physical contact. They aren’t bothered whom they sit next to. Among Ghosts there are no friends, no favourites. All are equal in their lack of individuality.
Seated, the Ghosts adopt postures of nonchalance or self-absorption. Some gaze in fascination at the ceiling, as though they see the work of Michaelangelo up there rather than grey-painted plaster, while others gnaw at their cuticles or scratch repeatedly at nonexistent itches.
The last Ghosts enter, filling up all but a few of the chairs, and the briefing room whispers with the sifting-sand hiss that is the sound of almost a hundred pairs of lungs softly filling and emptying.
At 8.45 precisely Donald Bloom, the Head of Tactical Security, appears. He eases the doors shut behind him and strolls the length of the room to the podium. He is a short man, amiably portly, with close-cropped hair that, apart from a tuft that clings indomitably to the top of the forehead, is confined to the sides and back of his scalp. He sports a white carnation in his buttonhole which he buys fresh every morning from a flower stall on his way to work, and he is carrying a clipboard with a sheet of computer printout attached to it. A folded handkerchief pokes out from the breast pocket of his houndstooth-pattern tweed jacket.
The Ghosts focus their attention on Mr Bloom as he climbs onto the podium. Those at the rear lean forward in their seats in order to hear him better.
Mr Bloom begins the briefing with the traditional
bon mot
.
“Another day, another debt.”
There are smiles, smirks. Some shoulders twitch in amusement. Traditions, no matter how time-worn, how trite, are respected here.
Mr Bloom consults his clipboard.
“Right. Nothing much out of the ordinary going on today. Expect lightning sales at 10.00 in Dolls, 10.45 in Travel Goods, 11.30 in Farm Machinery, 12.00 in Ties, 2.00 in Third World Musical Instruments, 3.00 in Religious Paraphernalia, 4.00 in the Funeral Parlour – I can’t see that one being particularly popular, but you never know – 4.15 in Perennial Christmas, and 4.45 in Trusses And Supports.
“Next, those bogus spree cards we saw so many of last year are back. Technically this is Strategic Security’s problem, not ours, but if you see a customer using a spree card you might want to run a check on it. All spree cards issued since Monday have been tagged with new security codes which your Sphinxes have been reformatted to recognise, and everyone who has bought a spree card or won one in the lottery in the past six months has been contacted and asked to return it to us to be replaced, so anyone who isn’t using an up-to-date card probably isn’t on the level. Use your judgement, and don’t be afraid to err on the side of caution.
“Same goes for bogus ID badges. The police tell me they’ve just busted a forgery ring, but they haven’t yet established how long the forgers have been operating and how many of the fake badges, if any, have been sold. So keep an eye out for any employees who don’t look like employees. I’m aware that in some cases the badge is the only thing that tells you that an employee works here. You’re going to have to trust your instincts on this one.
“The good news is: arrests were up last month. Well done. The bad news is: shrinkage also went up. One’s immediate instinct, of course, is to blame shop-floor employees, and I fear a certain amount of pilfering does go on under the counter, despite the fact that we’re all account-holders here. I know it’s a cliché, but some people don’t seem to appreciate that stealing from the store is stealing from themselves.
“However, I have another theory about the shrinkage problem, and like it or not I’m going to share it with you. My theory is that bargain-hunters have learned to take advantage of the confusion of a lightning sale to slip items into their pockets or bags, which is why it’s all the more important that Ghosts be on hand during a sale to monitor the crowd. Remember, no matter how hard we try to make it for people to boost from us, they’ll always find a way. We are up against mankind’s greatest virtue and greatest vice: ingenuity.
“Lastly, I have it on good authority that the Books/Computers dispute is finally,
finally
coming up before the brothers today for arbitration. I know. Sighs of relief all round. It’s dragged on for, what, getting on for a year now?”
“A year and a half,” someone says.
“A year and a half, thank you. Well, the wheels of administration may turn slowly around here, but turn they do, so with any luck we can look forward to a swift resolution to that disagreeable little contretemps.”
Mr Bloom glances down the list on his clipboard, making sure he hasn’t missed anything. “Oh yes, Mr Greenaway’s greatly-deserved holiday began this morning, so I’m going to be minding the Strategic side of things until he comes back. Lucky me. I feel like I’ve been put in charge of the gorilla cage at the zoo.”
A ripple of laughter.
Mr Bloom consults his clipboard one last time. “And that really
is
it, ladies and gentlemen. Have a good day out there.” He concludes with the Ghosts’ motto: “Be Silent, Vigilant, Persistent, Intransigent. The Customer Is Not Always Right.”
The Ghosts intone the words along with him, a sibilant echo. Then they rise from their seats and begin filing out, shuffling in lines towards the exit, taking care not to touch one another. Mr Bloom steps down from the podium and makes for the doors too, moving slowly so that the Ghosts can assimilate him into their flow.
He is halfway to his office when he senses someone walking behind him at the very limit of his peripheral vision, in what the driver of a car would call the blind-spot. Knowing better than to stop and address the Ghost, Mr Bloom keeps going. It isn’t until he is actually sitting down behind the functional, Formica-topped desk in his cramped, windowless office that he looks up to see who has followed him in.
“Frank,” says Mr Bloom, both pleased and puzzled, and indicates that Frank should take a seat in the chair on the opposite side of the desk.
“No,” says Frank. “Thank you, I’m fine. I can’t stop for long. I’m here because I wanted to say –”
But Frank isn’t sure how to put it. He scratches the crown of his head and hums to himself.
“Go on, sit down,” Mr Bloom insists, but Frank shakes his head emphatically.
“I have to be out on the floor in a moment.”
Mr Bloom glances at his watch. “It’s 8.49, Frank. It surely can’t take more than eleven minutes to talk about whatever you want to talk about, and even if it does, I feel certain that the store will be able to manage without you for a brief while at the beginning of the least busy hour of the day.”
“Yes, well, it might, Donald.” Frank thinks of his superior as “Mr Bloom” and refers to him as such behind his back, but to his face it is always “Donald”. “Look, I’ll tell you what, can we do this a bit later? I mean, you’re busy right now.”
“Well, Greenaway’s lot
are
due for their pep-talk in a moment, then I’ve got to oversee a practice at the firing range, then I’ve got to brief a new bunch of sales assistants on the basics of security. But I’m never too busy to talk to you, Frank. What is it?”
Frank wants to tell him, but something prevents him, and he thinks it might be fear but he also thinks it might be guilt. He has known Donald Bloom for all of his thirty-three years at Days. There is a bond between them – he wouldn’t call it friendship, because the concept has as much meaning for him as the concept of air does for a goldfish in a bowl, but certainly they have developed a mutual respect over thirty-three years, and sometimes Frank has found himself thinking about Mr Bloom when Mr Bloom isn’t present, thinking it would be nice if they could perhaps go to a pub together after work and sit and have a drink and a chat, talk about things that have nothing to do with Days or shoplifters or Ghosts, the sort of things people normally talk about, whatever
they
are. He has never plucked up the courage to suggest the idea to Mr Bloom, and anyway, by closing time he is usually too exhausted to want to do anything except head straight home and go to bed, but the fact remains that he and Mr Bloom have a long history of acquaintance, and for some reason Frank feels sure that Mr Bloom is going to be upset by his decision to resign, and he is reluctant to deliver the blow.
The surge of bravado that carried him all the way into Mr Bloom’s office has lost momentum, receded, leaving him high and dry – hesitant, confused, embarrassed.
Mr Bloom, with a patient smile, is still waiting for him to say something.
His nerve cracking completely, Frank gets up to leave.
Mr Bloom sighs. “All right then, Frank. Have it your way. The door’s always open. OK?”
He gives one last enquiring look at the doorway through which Frank has just exited hastily.
Strange behaviour
, he thinks. Frank has always been one of the more level-headed Tactical Security operatives, not to mention one of the best. The constant lurking, the constant suspicion of others – has it finally got to him?
No
, Mr Bloom tells himself. He might expect that of any other Ghost, but not Frank. Never Frank.
9
The Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
: traditionally regarded as gifted or lucky.
8.51 a.m.
S
ONNY’S BED HAS
not been slept in. Perch would have been surprised if it had, but hope springs eternal. He tries the bathroom, and there he finds Septimus Day’s youngest son not, as expected, curled around the lavatory pedestal but stretched out in the bath, one leg hooked over the side, his head resting awkwardly against the taps. Dried vomit stains encrust the lavatory ring, but Sonny appears to have had the presence of mind to flush his spewings away before crawling, fully dressed, into the tub and passing out. Perch mentally applauds the young master’s self-control.
He bends down and rifles Sonny’s pockets until he finds his portable intercom. Flipping it open, he keys 4.