From the shadows deep in the room Reacher saw a truck nose through the trees and come out at the top of the driveway. Not a pick-up truck. It was a Chevy Suburban SUV, the large size. Black in colour, but caked red from the road. A basic specification. Cheap wheels, not much chrome. An aftermarket antenna, mounted in the centre of the roof.
It crunched over the dirt and came to a stop not far from Bramall’s Toyota. A guy got out. He was broad but not tall, maybe fifty-something, with a lot of hard miles on his clock. He was dressed in grey flannel pants and a tweed sport coat. He moved with a certain amount of grace. Maybe once an athlete. Given his shape, probably field not track. Maybe he had put the shot, or thrown the discus.
Now he worked for the government.
The pants and the coat and the truck made that clear.
‘Relax, guys,’ Reacher called. ‘Step down to Defcon Two.’
Mackenzie called back, ‘What does that mean?’
‘We’ll try talking to this guy. Before we do anything else.’
‘Is it Billy?’
‘I’m pretty sure not,’ Reacher said.
Out on the dirt the guy tweaked the tails of his coat and squared up his shoulders and headed for the porch. On the way he took out an ID wallet and held it ready. Reacher saw straps under his coat, for a shoulder holster.
They heard footsteps on the porch boards, and then a knock at the door.
TWENTY-THREE
BRAMALL OPENED UP. Reacher and Mackenzie stood behind him. The guy from the government car held up a federal ID. A worn gold badge, with a shield and an eagle, and a plastic card like a driver’s licence, except it said United States Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration. The photograph was the right guy, a little younger, with his hair brushed better and his tie knotted tighter. The writing said his name was Kirk Noble, and his rank was Special Agent.
Reacher couldn’t help it.
He said, ‘Sounds like a comic book. Kirk Noble, Boy Detective.’
No response.
‘I guess you never heard that before.’
Noble said, ‘Who are you?’
They all introduced themselves, names only.
Noble said, ‘What are you doing here?’
Reacher said, ‘We’re waiting for a guy named Billy. He lives here. We want to ask him a question.’
‘What question?’
‘We’re looking for a missing woman. We think he knows where she is.’
‘What woman?’
Reacher had no real sense that Noble could help. But he knew for sure he could hinder. If he wanted to. He worked for the government. He had a shield with an eagle. He had a thick book of rules.
So Reacher told the story fair and square. Maybe somewhat aware of his federal audience. Maybe nudging a little way towards a certain kind of circular argument, in which the participants’ professional backgrounds not only justified but actually required their involvement, while simultaneously absolving them of any kind of blame. Because of their status. As in, a retired military major, with a Silver Star and a Purple Heart, joined a near-forty-year veteran of the FBI, now a properly licensed private investigator in a populous state, to search for another retired military major, this one with a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart all her own. Feds couldn’t argue with stuff like that. Not without saying yeah, all our lives are bullshit.
And even if they did, there was the twin sister, right there, a connection so spectrally close it legitimized everything, in a blinding flash, like bleach thrown on a crime scene. Especially with the face and the hair. Noble was a guy. Deep down he wasn’t thinking legal technicalities. He was thinking: There are two like that?
Reacher kept it as subtle as he could.
Eventually he finished up.
Noble said, ‘You won’t get an answer to your question.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because Billy ain’t coming back.’
‘Why not?’
‘Long story.’
The guy moved in through the hallway and glanced up the stairs. He looked at the ceiling. He looked at the walls. He turned this way and that, craning his neck, like a contractor about to ballpark an estimate.
He said, ‘Did you check the refrigerator?’
Reacher said, ‘For what?’
‘Food.’
‘No.’
Noble moved to the kitchen. He looked at the dishes in the sink. He opened the refrigerator. He glanced back, as if counting heads.
He said, ‘We could share bacon and eggs. There’s beer to drink.’
Mackenzie said, ‘You’re going to eat Billy’s food?’
‘First of all, it ain’t Billy’s any more, and second of all, I have to. I can’t claim expenses if there’s food in the house.’
‘Expenses from who?’
‘You, in the end,’ Noble said. ‘The taxpayer. We’re saving you money.’
‘We make you eat dinner from the suspect’s refrigerator?’
‘It’s your refrigerator. And mine. This place became federal property at two o’clock this afternoon. Seized by the government.’
‘So where’s Billy?’
‘That’s the long part of the story,’ Noble said. ‘We should eat.’
At his age, after the things he’d done, Reacher would have said there wasn’t much coming, in terms of new and delightful experiences in his life. But strangely the bacon-and-egg dinner in Billy’s kitchen was one of them. They felt like conspirators. Or castaways. Like a random group, stranded overnight at the airport. They didn’t really know each other. Maybe the first-class cabin, taken by taxi to a country hotel. Mackenzie found candles and lit them. Which then made it feel like the start of a movie. The opening scenes. An innocent group gathers. Little do they know.
Noble cooked, and talked about heroin. It was both his pay cheque and his passion. He knew its history. Once upon a time it was a legal ingredient. It was in all kinds of stuff, branded with famous names still known today. There was heroin cough syrup. There was heroin cough syrup for children. Stronger, not weaker. Doctors prescribed heroin for fussy babies and bronchitis and insomnia and nerves and hysteria and all kinds of other vapours. The patients loved it. Best health care ever. Millions got addicted. Corporations made a lot of easy money. Then folks got wise, and by the start of World War One, legal heroin was history.
But the corporations never forgot. About the easy money. At that point in the story Noble was melting butter in the egg pan, and he paused the spoon mid-air, as if to emphasize his point. He said remember, this is an active-duty DEA agent saying this stuff. We know who causes our problems.