C.A. Milverton is less and less sure by the second what he's doing here. 'Here' is Barnes Green, which is bad enough. Sitting by a bloody duck pond, first thing on a Sunday morning. There's a dog walker or two, a woman opening a stand that sells popcorn for the day. No one else, not really. The day is warm, and bright, the first real heat of the spring. Somewhere nearby is a church bell blithely ringing. Every toll that sounds and fades, he expects he'll burst into flames. A long time since he heard a church bell. Except at weddings, of course. Milverton gets invited to a lot of weddings. Somehow it doesn't count if it's work, though.
These are the mild, tangential thoughts that can distract him, if only for a moment at a time, from the fact that he is wasting a Sunday morning sitting by the duck pond at Barnes Green, waiting for someone he's not even sure he wants to meet and who in all likelihood is not coming. What disturbs him most is that he agreed to this.
Milverton, you see, does not attend meetings. He'll never have any need to keep a diary, or to have sticky notes next to the phone. No, you'll just meet him. You won't be aware of it, but you'll be at a very vulnerable time in your life. You'll have just had a windfall, or you'll be about to get engaged, or you'll have come by some very sensitive information about another party. And all of a sudden you find yourself with a new best friend. You can't remember how you ever got along without him. Meetings? No. Milverton's just there.
Well, right up to the point where he's not anymore, and all you're left with are demands and a hell of a lot of guilt and no choice but to pay.
It's working out for him too. It's working out very well. As he checks his watch for the fourth time, he's very aware that it's an up-to-the-minute Omega. Even his casual, Sunday morning suit, is elegantly tailored.
It's working out for him. Milverton is good at what he does. And he doesn't need anybody's help to get better at it. No, that's it. He's not having this. It's a waste of his time. He's going to stand up, he's going to walk away, and if his phone rings again with that number (he doubts it will), he's not going to answer it.
He is on the very point of all this, no more than a blade away from leaving all of this behind when, "Good morning, Mr Milverton."
Milverton looks over the back of the bench, to see another man standing behind him. At eye level, the first thing he sees, a brand new Breitling watch. He's looking up, through the trees into the blue sky, and Milverton gets the feeling this isn't someone who'd say 'good morning' if that wasn't exactly how he felt. The rest of him is just as honest. Jeans, but a tailored jacket; somebody too busy to get all dressed up for something as trivial as this. The voice, too, is a little bored. And slightly muffled; this new gentleman is holding a small box of popcorn from the stand in one hand.
Milverton recognizes the gambit; it's supposed to make him feel unimportant.
Recognizing the gambit doesn't mean it isn't working, just a little.
He stands, with a grace he doesn't have to think about anymore, holding his jacket. He makes his first mistake when he accepts the stranger's handshake; misjudging it, returning a firmer grip that was given. It makes him come across as needy or nervous or both. The stranger smiles, without cruelty or nastiness, but it's still not something Milverton wants to see. He inhales and fights for his recovery. "You must be Mr Moriarty."
"More so than I'd like sometimes." There is something congenial about him. Even after the unfortunate mix-up with his first impression, Milverton relaxes. Not much, granted, but enough to sit back down. Enough not to mind when Moriarty sits down next to him. "And you would be one Charles Augustus Milverton. Falsified records say Harrow followed by Cambridge, but the truth is it was a fancy name and you made yourself look fancy to match it."
Milverton's second mistake is trying too hard to smother his reaction. What he wants to do is whip round wide-eyed and bristling. What he should do is gently turn and say something flippant and standoffish. What happens, with trying too hard, is that he seizes, tight from the shoulders down, and says nothing at all.
"Ah, don't worry. I have to start out like that. Lets you know where you stand."
"And where exactly is that?"
"Right now? At our mercy. It's a harsh thing, but no less true for that. We know it all. Where you really went to school is just the very tip of the iceberg. I could sit here and list things at you, but I don't think I need to, do I?"
For a moment, there is nothing but the sound of him munching on popcorn, and the coo of pigeons gathering to pick up the scraps. Again, Milverton finds himself having to gear up, getting ready to start over. This time he tries a new tack. "You have a very strange approach to recruitment."
"Recruitment?" Moriarty scoffs, casting a handful of crushed corn to the pigeons. "Who said anything about recruitment? Although, this may yet turn into a headhunt."
"Ah. So this about our recent… schedule clash, as it were."
In a musing, thoughtful way, Moriarty recites the salient details of the case. Milverton already knows it all. So as not to make a third mistake by looking too worried, he looks instead at the latest customer at the popcorn stand. Tall and black, he has two little girls in tow, maybe twins. They're not his, though; they pay far too much attention to him to be his. They're nieces, perhaps, or he's a friend of the family. They like him, and hang on him, and he repays all their attention in kind. Whoever their parents are, they must be strict; he's unwilling to take his eyes off them.
Something about reading them, testing his powers, makes Milverton feel better. Which makes no sense whatsoever, because Mr Moriarty is still talking. The facts aren't important. A model married an indie rocker. Now they're no longer married and Milverton collects quite nicely from both parties on a monthly basis.
Unfortunately, the big messy divorce put them both very much in the public eye, making it too dangerous to have the model bumped off when she bored witness to a rather delicate exchange of…
Just rethinking the whole thing is making Milverton's head hurt. It was a long, long couple of weeks when all that came together. All anybody really needs to know is that Milverton is sitting next to someone very dangerous. He is coming to a slow appreciation of that fact. This very dangerous someone is sitting by his side and telling him in detail about how Milverton very recently tread on his toes.
The popcorn isn't for the little girls. They stand on the shore, feeding the ducks. Milverton hopes the ducks are hungry. The more innocent witnesses that are standing about, the safer he'll feel. Why did he agree to come here? He should have spotted this. It all sounded so much like flattery over the phone.
He needs to get away from here.
"Mr Moriarty, I had no way of knowing we would come into conflict on this."
"Conflict?" And a noise like the buzzer on Family Fortunes, "Uh-uh. Wrong again, Mr Milverton. The hell do I care if she stands up in court? No, my part of that job is done. If you spoiled it, you were an outside factor, and I have no responsibility for those."
He is utterly honest, utterly blasé, and Milverton is utterly baffled by it. This time, finally, he looks up. This solicits no greater reaction than the box of popcorn being turned towards him in offering. He declines, naturally enough. Something to do with the pigeons, maybe, screeching at each other as they fight over the scraps.
"Then with all due respect, if I'm to be neither recruited nor killed, why exactly are we here?"
The first hint of something – dislike, perhaps, or disappointment – ruffles Moriarty's expression for just a moment. "See, there you go. People always do that. We could have sat here and talked over the finer points of a very nice piece of work, but no, no, no… all business. Has to be all business… Don't get me wrong, I love business. But sometimes it would be nice to just chat about it and… Never mind. Look, if you need one clear, definite reason, I like you, and I feel like you need to be warned."
"Warned about what?"
"My client is not entirely on board with the part where I have no control over external factors like you. He may or may not choose to take matters into his own hands." A warning. A legitimate and entirely friendly warning. Is that all? Really? "And should you need any help dealing with him, I've found him to be a thoroughly unlikeable bastard who's only redeeming factor is that he paid up prompt. That's not much of a redeeming factor in the rich."
This last is too much. Milverton, on nothing but an instinct honed over time, recoils. Not physically, but something changes, a distance in him. Removing himself from the conversation even as he has it. Is there the ghost of a smile on Moriarty's face? Does he recognize the gambit?
Another time, other circumstances, they might have had a very amusing chat about a very nice piece of work.
"I'll probably be able to manage."
A shrug. "The offer stands." And so does Moriarty. Apparently they're finished. Milverton stays where he is. He turns his head only when Moriarty sets down the half-empty box, right where he was sitting before. He's not looking at Milverton, but past him at the squabbling pigeons.
They seem quieter than before, those birds.
By the pond, one of the little girls begins to cry. Her guardian picks her up and carries her sobbing into his shoulder. Leading her sister by the hand, he passes them at the bench saying, "Shh, it's alright. They're just sleepy. Ducks sleep on the water like that. They stayed up late watching cartoons. Hush now, sweetheart."
And her sister is lingering, pointing at the pigeons saying, "Look! They're sleeping too."
They're not, though. Milverton can see, quite clearly, that the pigeons are not falling asleep. The ducks floating limply on the pond are not dreaming sideways dreams. They're dying.
The shutters that went up so recently on the popcorn stand are slamming down, and the woman is leaving, with a long, meaningful glance in their direction.
This time, Milverton makes no effort to cover up, but looks in shock and awe at the man behind him. "Hang about a bit," he says. It's not a question, but an order, delivered in the nonchalant manner of one who is more than used to being obeyed. "Tell me if any squirrels come picking over the leftovers. Hate the little bleeders." Then he turns, and starts to walk away.
"Moriarty," Milverton calls.
He turns, but doesn't stop walking. "Jim."
"You were talking about a headhunt."
"Yeah. Hate the word 'recruitment' too. 'Recruitment' makes it sound like I need you. I don't. But I'm not averse to putting a bit of freelance your way, if you're up for it."
Moriarty takes his mobile from his pocket, gives it a little wave. No more than that is Milverton left with. No more than that, and another shrug. And a flock of teetering pigeons, a pond of poisoned ducks.
The church bells have stopped ringing. Milverton sits back, and settles in to watch for squirrels.
[For ResidentBunburyist, who might be the only one who gets the joke. I couldn't stop thinking of Jim, but couldn't think of a one-shot. Thanks for the trigger, hon.]