Malcolm inhabited the hire car. Brooding. Filling every crack of it with his noxious mood. His hands were knit together, fingertips pressing hard enough to make his digits white as ash. His breathing came as strangled growls reverberating against the air conditioning like a distant summer storm caressing a mountain range. Or the brimstone above a volcano.
Something annoying knocked on his window.
"Fuck off!" His snarl ricochetted off the glass.
It knocked again.
Tucker lowered the window and repeated the sentiment.
"Come on, Malcolm. I ran five blocks. There's ice and all kinds of Christmas shit about." Ollie was raining sweat from his limp locks. Some of it sprayed onto Malcolm's face making his skin twitch in fury. Eventually, with a little more begging in the face of abuse, Tucker unlocked the door. Ollie cautiously shuffled into the back seat next to the hostile civil servant.
"How are things at the office of Deliberately Offensive Shites and Cunts?"
Ollie had developed another nervous disorder and there mere mention of his workplace. Maybe Malcolm was right – before this was all over he'd be an emaciated corpse resurrected for festive events. "To be honest, Miller's a bit of a -"
"Twat. Several amino acids short of having an actual brain cell. I know. That's why he was picked for the job in the first place. He's fucking easy to blindfold and shift about, looks decent on camera – he'll say anything if you put it on a prompt card. He's a fucking cardboard cut-out complete with corrugated backing and permanent marker aftershave. Dan Miller is smoked salmon on a silver platter."
Ollie nodded. "Don't get me wrong, Nicola Murray was mental as a rabies-infested-squirrel but at least she came up with her own ways of getting into a mess. Dan sits in the meeting room with a vacant expression. It's like we've hired one of those village people from that horror movie – the one where they've all been replaced by alien downloads. That's what we've got. A Dan Miller alien droid."
Malcolm grinned at Ollie's sigh. He understood that it was poor form to take joy in the suffering of others but he did it anyway.
"Why are we in the hire car?" Ollie asked. "Are we going somewhere?" It started to snow outside. One of those passing clouds that had chased him down the street earlier must have finally caught up.
"Julius is in my office."
Ollie – frowned. Narrowed his eyes. "Wait so – we're banished to the car because you didn't know how to kick Julius out of your office?" It would have been funny if Malcolm wasn't so sombre about it. "I thought Julius was one of your specialities – something you skewered for weekend BBQ's with your hack friends?"
"That is a rumour. I don't have friends."
"Jamie..."
"Is there a point to you being here or are you only in it for the heater? Because that can be taken away like that." Tucker snapped his fingers savagely. There was no proof that Malcolm was a living creature – he might not need warmth. Ollie took him seriously and rustled through his satchel for paperwork.
"Well, my hack friend," Ollie wasn't afraid to admit he had human contact, "who only takes me out to coffee to extract state secrets, inadvertently let slip a few things about your current prey, Simon Weir."
That perked Malcolm up a bit.
"He's been getting all cosy up at The Times. It seems," Ollie continued, "that there's a story brewing in the press – a real exposé into the dark side of British politics with your face as the centrepiece."
"Normally I'd be flattered but I'm sensing a downside."
Ollie nodded. "Weir's going to nail you to the wall on this one – not just for Tickel's medical records – which we knew was coming but several other damaging spills in the last twenty years. They'll have enough detail to make the charges stick. He's squealing like a kitten. There's piss all over the papers and it's yours."
If Malcolm had looked unhappy before then this was apocalyptic. The safety glass windows were threatening to crack under his glare. There was something vulnerable about those eyes as they watched the snow fall with frightening intensity. For the first time, Malcolm Tucker knew that he was in too deep – that events had sailed over his head and spinning about, outside his control and he fucking resented those lazy cunts at the press office. Why'd they pick now to do some leg work and not with all the bent politicians he'd helped bury for the good of the country...
"Malcolm – are you all right?"
"Get out of my fucking car." The delivery was flat. Malcolm Tucker was not okay.
"Right... though technically it's a government car." Ollie replied quietly, leaving the information he'd gathered on the seat next to Tucker as he stepped into the light snow.
Instead of doing the sensible thing and returning to DoSAC, Ollie vanished straight into the building opposite and braved the halls of the dead. He paused in front of Sam's desk, not quite sure how he was going to have this conversation with Tucker's rather intimidating P.A.
"Mr Reeder...?" Sam returned carrying a tea, which she set down on her desk. "There something I can help you with? Tucker is not in, if you're looking for him."
"He's – in the car. Out front." Ollie replied, looking a bit lost.
Sam doesn't knock. Instead, she opened the car door and slipped into the other seat. Without a word she passed over a tall, skinny latte which Malcolm accepted. She'd wait for him to start speaking, it was usually best. She liked to think of him as a semi-tame creature – you had to handle those carefully – let them come to you on their own terms.
Eventually, he did just that.
"What do you think of my face on the cover of The Times?" he asked, in-between sips of his beverage. "Big – full colour fuck-up with witty headlines and several follow up pictures of me in various, progressively dark circumstances..."
"They're not going to go to print with it," Sam replied.
"Course they fucking are. I would. It's the perfect revenge – gift wrapped. It's that time of the year, isn' it? Presents and fucking feasts of washed-up cocks and skulls full of pudding."
There was a drawn out silence between them punctuated by the soft impact of snow on the glass. It was getting heavier. Maybe he could make snowmen out of political corpses. Julius would look fantastic with a carrot in his face.
"I think you'd look good on the cover," Sam eventually replied. "Shall I send over some of your best photos to make sure? I've got a collection."
"I bet you fucking have," he replied, too quickly. "Where's Jamie?"
"Screwing a few of his old press-friends in back alleys, I imagine." She waited, then broke into a smile making Malcolm ever so slightly uncomfortable. "He's gnawing a limb off the Prime Minister. Something about a disastrous quote from a school visit this morning. I believe our honourable PM stopped short of being openly racist but it was a close call between, 'could you repeat that name again' and 'maybe you could try writing it down'." She reached over and took his empty coffee cup away when he started to sink his teeth into the Styrofoam. "Malcolm – I know what you're thinking – don't do it. You'll only make things worse."
"Haven' got a fuckin' clue what yer on about."
"Yes you do. If you storm into the press offices and shout in all your favours they'll know that they're onto something. I hate to say it but we should take Terry's advice on this – and be beacons of silence."
"So what you're saying is don't paint the town red..."
"Not yet. You've got to pick your moment."
Another silence. They'd had a lot of those lately.
"Is Julius still in my fucking office?"
"You have to talk to him eventually."
"Fuck that. I'm going for a shout and a wank over at DoSAC. Apparently there's a zombie stumbling about that needs a bit of life threatened into them. I'm going to put ten thousands volts through the bolt in his head. Give it a bit of a twist." Sam was looking at him instead of leaving. "Unless you've got a better offer?"
She shook her head.
"...are you coming fucking with or fucking Julius off?"
Sam picked the Julius option – mind you, it wasn't very difficult. Julius was all talk and little more than a slight grumble when you pushed him. Sam lured him out of Malcolm's office and passed him straight into a micro-crisis. He flailed about a bit before vanishing (through the walls, probably) like all vacuous ghouls. Peace fell.
"Jeeezus, what's killed your first born?" Jamie stumbled in, looking suspiciously impeccable for someone that'd been on a murderous spree all day. He was carrying a small parcel under his arm, which Sam pointed to.
"Is that the PM's organs?"
Jamie winked good naturedly.
"It's my fucking Christmas cards. Look ah – you should head off home."
Sam – lifted her gaze darkly. Nobody save her boss told her what to do. "I – beg your pardon?"
"I'm not fuckin' about, lass. You should go."
"It's not even four o'clock," Sam eyed him suspiciously. "And the minute I start taking orders from you will be the first hour of the apocalypse."
Being moderately polite was a real struggle for him which manifested in the occasional spasm across his shoulders. He stalked forward, placed his hands on her desk and leaned down uncomfortably close. Sam was prepared to stab him with a pen if things got out of hand.
"The prelude to the Tucker blood-fest," Jamie whispered, careful that nobody else in the office could hear, "is a fictional slander." He didn't exactly say the words but Sam caught enough in his meaning.
"What?!" she hissed.
"They have to establish reasonable cause in your motivations, Sam. Can you guess what their pin-sized brains have come up with? Yeah – pre-fucking-cisely. You gotta go. Trust me, you don't wanna be here when the Vulcan gets back. He's fucking fuming. I've seen him upset before but -"
"Jesus..." she whispered, closing the lid on her laptop. He was right, she had to go.
Malcolm dealt with stress by expressing it in colourful verbatim. Seeing as he couldn't direct it at the vacuous press mosh-pit pressed against his office building it was left to the long suffering driver to ignore the violent prose.
He watched them for a while, scrambling about with their camera phones and oversized cameras. It was pointless trying to fight through their broken corpses. Tucker waved at the driver to take him home. Early mark. He should be pleased.
He lowered his gaze to the newspaper in his lap. There she was in a typically manipulative photo, standing beside him on the sidelines. They'd been at one of Dan's love-ups, waiting in the wings for him to finish a particularly vapid speech. Sam had a clipboard hugged to her chest. For the briefest moment, she'd lifted her gaze, tilted her head and smiled at him. He was smiling back – taking credit for a clever insult directed at Miller's over-gelled hair. It was the tiniest, fragment of a second.
Of course what it looked like instead was a torrid affair.
The short article suggested, in a rather fucking nasty way, that he'd manipulated his – and he had to quote this, 'young and impressionable assistant' into acquiring sensitive data. They'd stopped short of openly accusing her of theft.
In a way he wanted to laugh. There was nothing 'impressionable' about Sam. She could coax a black hole out of its gravitational pull if she wanted to. He couldn't even get biscuits out of her if she wasn't in the mood.
He caught himself looking at the photo again. There was something else about it that made him furious – something that took most of the ride home for him to understand. Happy. That's what it was. They looked happy.
Why did that make him so fucking furious?
Home. By the time he got there he was too exhausted to shout. Instead, he wandered around his townhouse in the semi-darkness. The room was lit by the streetlights. It was freezing so he flicked the switch on his gas fire. Now the light was warm, replaced by dancing flames, fighting silently behind the glass barrier.
Malcolm sank into the couch to watch the fire. Lost in thought. The newspaper beside him.
"Malcolm?"
He startled so fucking hard his heart nearly flew out of his rib cage. Sam was standing by the curtains, leaning against the folds of fabric. She stepped out of the shadows and drew the curtains across the windows. Sensible. The press were probably on their way over.
Malcolm knew that giving her a key would bite him in the arse eventually. Slowly, he calmed down, reclining against the cushions. Truth be fucking told, he didn't have a clue what to say to her. What could you say with a story like that on every street corner? It wasn't even bloody true. Was it? He wasn't sure. He needed a drink. Malcolm felt the vein on his forehead pulse. No. Best not.
Tucker lifted his grey eyes, softened by the flames. Sam was in his house... When she touched his things it was as if she stirred bits of his soul – whatever was left after all these decades. He felt oddly vulnerable as her fingertips reached his books.
Sam realised that Malcolm was a philanthropist – a philosopher, a humanist and dabbling scientist. There were entire collections of speculative fiction classics on his bookshelves and a romance novel or two – to her amusement. The longer she looked, the more he fidgeted until finally, he spoke.
"I thought you'd run away..."
A pause. She smiled, turning from the books. "I have."
Tucker frowned. Sam'd run here and he wasn't quite sure what to do about that. "Coffee?"
"Scotch."
Fuck.
Malcolm seemed thrilled with the opportunity to escape. While he fussed about, Sam took the liberty of exploring his living room. She'd never been here before – which was odd considering the nights he'd spent in hers. It was no secret that he frequently entertained nervous hacks and more than once Jamie had spoken about the towering monstrosity of brass resting beside the coffee table – which Sam found to be a saxophone.
"You play?" she asked, hearing him wander around the kitchen. The sound of cups and saucers clinked together. Bless. He'd made tea, not scotch. That's what she really wanted.
"What? Oh... Sometimes," he replied evasively.
Sam touched that too, resting her hand on the cool brass. "Is that what you and Jamie do? Bum around your flat and play at band camp?"
Malcolm came in carrying a tray of tea and – fucking hell one of them must be dying – biscuits. "Nah. We fuck from wall to floor till dawn. Haven't you heard the rumours? He's got an enormous cock."
Actually, that rumour was about Malcolm but never mind. "No one believes those rumours. Well, almost no one – except maybe Julius." The thought of two angry Scots playing sad jazz in his flat was almost sweet.
He fussed with the tray. "We mostly talk. Sometimes play. He smokes – I don't. There's nothing mysterious."
Tucker was a man wrapped in myth but at the end of all the stories and under the elaborations and woeful metaphors, he was human like the rest of them. Sam wasn't surprised. "It's okay. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. You're allowed your privacy especially in your own house."
"Sam – why are you here? It's not to pick me apart, I know that much."
"I couldn't go home." Sam admitted. "There's a small encampment of press at my door. It's stupid but – I just..."
"Don't worry about it," he finished for her. Malcolm didn't have the heart to tell her that she certainly shouldn't be fuckin' seen here, of all places.
"I thought about going to Jamie's."
"Don't ever think about doing that again."
"Jealous?"
Malcolm smirked and gave her a wink. "He's mine."
Sam laughed into her tea. Paused. Caught his steely look start to crack and fell straight back into indulgent laughter. He couldn't stand it any more and joined her.
"Sorry," he eventually managed, setting his cup down. "Most of the time I can't hear what I'm saying. It's just noise in a void."
"I hear you."
"You're paid to," he pointed out. Sam couldn't deny it and they found themselves laughing again.
"All right. All right – that's enough fucking gaiety in the corner," Jamie ranted, as he stormed out of Malcolm's kitchen, giving Malcolm a second fucking heart attack.
"What are you doing in my house?" Malcolm stood up and whirled around, suddenly very aware that he was wearing his comfy jumper.
"Um I'm meant to be in yer house. What are you doin' in yer house?" Jamie retaliated.
"My fucking house!"
"Yeah – but at the moment there's a press conference looking for a flamin' vigil and that's you. Instead here you are like a lost teddy bear fished out of landfill. What is that, a jumper? I thought you only owned capes?"
"Wha' fuckin' press conference?" Malcolm's eyebrows nearly met in the middle.
"The one the PM organised on your behalf half an hour ago. Something about a news article... Try checkin' your phone once in a balls-blue-moon. And for fuck's sake don't let anyone see her leave. If they didn' have a story this afternoon they'll fucking have a shocker in the morning."
Malcolm was swearing under his breath, stalking off to a corner of the room to check his messages. Jamie took his spot on the couch, chucking a pillow to the other side. They were only there a moment when someone knocked on the door.
"Shall I get that or do you wanna?" Jamie teased Sam, in rather poor taste. When he opened the door he was so surprised that he couldn't even form a suitable insult as Ollie slid past him into Malcolm's house. Tucker saw the snow-dusted imposter and shouted.
"Did I send out fucking invitations with one-eyed fucking carrier pigeons? What the hell is goin' on? Why are you all – Jesus Julius!" he added, when the bald man pushed by Jamie before he could close the door. "What did you do? Strap a leash on Ollie and toddle along behind – hey! Don't touch that, don't fucking touch that."
"Evening Sam," Ollie nodded politely.
Jamie was the worst fucking bouncer ever so Malcolm stalked over and slammed the door before anything else got in. He rounded up all his uninvited guests into his living room and loomed over them.
"Okay – what the fuck is going on?"