Glasshouse - Charles Stross [95]
“No killing,” I say, warningly.
He shudders. “No! Never. But—”
“Someone’s got to go find out if it’s true, or if it was just Mick making a joke in bad taste. Right?”
He nods. “Right. Who?”
“I’ll do it,” I say flatly. “Tonight. I’m going to get dressed. You get on the phone to people. Get them round here. I want to sort out what we’re doing before I go in, that way there won’t be any nasty surprises. All right?”
He nods then looks at me, an odd expression in his face. “Anything else?”
“Yes.” I lean forward and kiss him quickly on the lips. “Get moving.”
THREE hours later, we’re holed up in a vacant house on a quiet residential side street across the road from what we now know is Cass and Mick’s home, thanks to an obliging zombie taxi driver. This street is still three-quarters unoccupied. We pile out of our three taxis at five-minute intervals and go to ground. Fer was among the first to arrive. He got us into the empty house with a crowbar. There’s not a lot of furniture, and everything is dusty—not to mention dark, because we don’t want to turn on the lights and risk alerting Mick—but it’s better than trying to hide in the front garden for a couple of hours.
There are only five of us—me, Sam, Fer, Greg, and Greg’s spouse, Tammy. Tammy is determined and very quietly furious—I think it’s because she didn’t realize how bad things really were until Sam phoned Greg. It’s nearly midnight, and we’re all tired, but I run through the plan once again.
“Okay, one more time. I’m going to go across the road and ring the doorbell. I’ll ask to see Cass. Depending how Mick reacts, Sam and Fer, you’ll rush him or hang back. I’ve got the whistle. One whistle means come in and get me, I need help. Two means get Mick.” I stop. “Greg, Tammy, you take the stockings, pull them over your heads. We don’t want him to recognize you if you have to take Cass and look after her.”
“I hope you’re wrong about this,” Tammy says grimly.
“So do I, believe me. So do I.” I glance sidelong at Fer.
“Mick’s not been right in the head since I’ve known him,” Fer mutters.
“Anything else before we go?” I ask, standing up.
“Yes,” says Fer. “If you don’t whistle, and you don’t come out within ten minutes, I’m going in anyway.” He grips his crowbar.
“I should hope so.” I nod, then get up and head across the road.
Mick’s garden is overgrown with weeds, and the grass is long. There are no lights in the windows, but that doesn’t mean anything. Like our house, there’s a conservatory at the front. The door stands open. I step inside and look at the front door. There’s a new lock drilled into it, big and chunky-looking. I ring the doorbell. Nothing happens. I ring it again, and a light comes on in the hall. I tense up, ready for it as I hear a key turn in the lock, then another key, and the door opens.
“You.” It’s Mick. He belches at me, and I smell sour wine on his breath. He’s wearing a dirty T-shirt and boxers, and he’s clutching a metal canister with an open top. “What do you want?” He leers at me. “Din’t I tellya not to bug me?”
“I want to see Cass,” I say evenly. There’s stuff piled in the hall. Looks like empty food cartons, rubbish. It smells sickly sweet. “She wasn’t at Church on Sunday.”
“Yeah?” He raises the can and takes a drink from it, then looks at me slyly. “Come in.”
I step over the threshold as he backs into the house. It looks like it started out as a mirror image of the one Sam and I live in, but it’s been trashed. The hall is stacked with ripped boxes of ready meals and bits of decaying food. Something upstairs has leaked, and there’s a smelly stain spreading down one wall. “She’s upstairs, resting,” he says, gesturing at the staircase. “Whyn’t you go up an’ see her?”
I stare at him. “If you think she won’t mind.”
“She won’t.”
As I set foot on the staircase he sidles round below and closes the door, then twists both keys in the locks. “Go on,” he tells me, “nothin’ to worry about.” He giggles.
That does it. I’ve got the whistle on a cord round my neck, hidden under the