Nobody Walks

Zusatztext 73359727 Informationen zum Autor Mick Herron Klappentext Set in the same fictional London as his CWA Gold Dagger Award-winning Slough House spy series, Mick Herron now introduces Tom Bettany, a man with a violent past and only one thing to live for: Avenging his son's death. Tom Bettany is working at a meat processing plant in France when he gets a voicemail from an Englishwoman he doesn't know telling him that his estranged 26-year-old son is dead-Liam Bettany fell from his London balcony, where he was smoking pot. Now for the first time since he cut all ties years ago, Bettany returns home to London to find out the truth about his son's death. Maybe it's the guilt he feels about losing touch with Liam that's gnawing at him, or maybe he's actually put his finger on a labyrinthine plot, but either way he'll get to the bottom of the tragedy, no matter whose feathers he has to ruffle. But more than a few people are interested to hear Bettany is back in town, from incarcerated mob bosses to those in the highest echelons of MI5. He might have thought he'd left it all behind when he first skipped town, but nobody ever really walks away. 1.1     The news had come hundreds of miles to sit waiting for days in a mislaid phone. And there it lingered like a moth in a box, weightless, and aching for the light.     The street cleaners’ lorry woke Bettany. It was 4:25 am. He washed at the sink, dressed, turned the bed’s thin mattress, and rolled his sleeping bag into a tight package he leaned upright in a corner. 4:32.             Locking the door was an act of faith or satire—the lock would barely withstand a rattle—but the room wouldn’t be empty long, because someone else used it during the day. Bettany hadn’t met him, but they’d reached an accommodation. The daytime occupant respected Bettany’s possessions—his toothbrush, his sleeping bag, the dog-eared copy of Dubliners he’d found on a bus—and in return Bettany left untouched the clothing that hung from a hook on the door, three shirts and a pair of khakis.             His own spare clothing he kept in a duffel bag in a locker at the sheds. Passport and wallet he carried in a security belt with his mobile, until that got lost or stolen.             Outside was February cold, quiet enough that he could hear water rinsing the sewers. A bus grumbled past, windows fogged. Bettany nodded to the whore on the corner, whose territory was bounded by two streetlights. She was Senegalese, pre-op, currently a redhead, and he’d bought her a drink one night, God knew why. They had exile in common, but little else. Bettany’s French remained undistinguished, and the hooker’s English didn’t lend itself to small talk.             A taste of the sea hung in the air. This would burn off later, and be replaced by urban flavours.             He caught the next bus, a twenty-minute ride to the top of a lane which fell from the main road like an afterthought, and as he trudged downhill a truck passed, horn blaring, its headlights yellowing the sheds ahead, which were barn-sized constructions behind wire-topped fences. A wooden sign hung lopsided from the gates, one of its tethering chains longer than the other. The words were faded by weather. Bettany had never been able to make them out.             Audible now, the sound of cattle in distress.             He was waved through and fetched his apron from the locker room. A group of men were smoking by the door, and one grunted his name.             “Tonton.”             What they called him, for reasons lost in the mist of months.             He knotted his apron, which was stained so thick with blood and grease it felt plastic, and fumbled his gloves on.             Out in the yard the truck was impatient, its exhaust fumes spoiling out in thick black ropes. The noise from the nearest shed was mechanical, mostly, and ...

Product details

• Authors: Mick Herron
• Publisher: Soho Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.12.2015
• EAN: 9781616956196
• ISBN: 978-1-61695-619-6
• No. of pages: 336
• Dimensions: 140 mm x 211 mm x 23 mm
• Subject: Fiction > Suspense