VALUES

Part One

00.00

He stands on the edge of a grim grey tower, looking out over the jagged, butchered skyline of the new London. The night is laced with ice, cold and harsh. Every breath is filled with brimstone.

It doesn't bother him. Tonight the lure of victory is in the air. Another target off his list.

Richard Irons, he thinks, with a small smirk. I remember him.

And he leaps off the edge of the building, into the dizzying lights and grey streets of the city.

00.30

The agent the Nose had sent down was called Pitt, and he'd been working in the forensic department since the Nose's formation. Since then he had grown ever more disillusioned with his choice of career. It seemed mostly to consist of investigating small-time terrorist rings with fertiliser bombs, or dead prostitutes, or political dissidents. And it always, always seemed to come back to the Party.

This, he thought, as he stared at the delicate pink rose through a magnifying glass, was at least different.

Mr Irons had called the Nose at a little after midnight. They found him sat outside his office, half-insane with terror. He'd calmed down a little now, but he'd stopped making sense completely. Wouldn't stop babbling about 'the dark man,' and 'the man in the flames,' and how 'he said he'd come back.' Pitt's partner, a young rookie called Neil Bond, was trying to get some sense out of him in the corridor.

It was the rose that had interested Pitt.

A variety that hadn't been seen since the war, it's very existence was enough of a surprise. How it had been left on this desk, seven storeys up in the Finger's Headquarters, without anyone passing by in the corridor, was an impossibility.

He'd have it sent to a botanist tomorrow. He'd have it dusted for fingerprints. But right now it made no sense. None at all.

"Mr Pitt?" Bond's soft voice, coming from behind.

"Yes, Neil?" Pitt replied, not turning round, still turning the rose around in his gloved hands.

"We're not getting anything out of Irons," he said glumly. "The man's half-hysterical. Best thing we can do is send him home till he gets his senses back together."

"That would be the sensible thing to do, wouldn't it?" Pitt said, barely hearing his partner.

"Of course, Detective," Neil said uneasily. He turned to walk out, then said, "Oh, and one more thing…"

"What, Pitt?"

Neil frowned, as if struggling with his own words, then said, "He thinks this rose is a warning of some sort. He thinks he's in danger."

"The man's delusional. Wouldn't you be? It's not an every day occurrence, this."

"He's not budging," Neil sighed. "He wants a Finger escort."

"Then give it to him!" Pitt snapped. "For god's sake, man!"

Neil flinched at his superior's outburst, attempted to say something, then thought better of it and turned back through the door.

Pitt stood for a few seconds, wondering what had made him snap, trying to cool the vein that throbbed fire through his mind. It all seemed too much, it was late at night, he hadn't slept. But there had been no need to shout at the kid, none at all.

Take your pills. Calm down.

Alan Pitt swallowed two capsules and stepped out of the office.

01.30

A battered red Vauxhall pulled up outside a modest semi-detached home in Camberwell. The blinds, lids over silent, dark windows, twitched briefly in the dim light of an orange streetlight.

Richard Irons stepped out of the car, into the silence of the street, into the chilled night air. His hands were still shaking.

He hadn't got his Finger escort, but the Department had promised to dispatch two men to keep an eye out tomorrow morning. Marvellous, he thought bitterly, as he wandered up the garden path in a semi-daze. Six years of loyal service, and military service before that, in the RAF, and this was how they bloody repay him. It was enough to make you sick.

He'd smuggled his gun out, though, tucked neatly in his jacket pocket, where it now banged gently against his chest. He'd seen the bastard move. Like a hawk, some awful black hawk from the mouth of hell itself, fleeing up the hill with the flames trailing behind him.

And he'd seen his eyes. Those awful, awful eyes.

Come on, man, he thought bitterly, fumbling through his jacket pocket. Whatever bogey man he may be, he's still a man. And a bullet through the heart is enough to kill any man, whatever karate tricks he thinks he can pull.

Richard Irons unlocked and opened his door, stepping into the grim, unwelcome silence of the Iron's family home. The streetlight cast a bleary orange eye on the worn red carpet through the door window, lighting the coat stand by the door on which Irons hung his jacket. Thinking quickly, he grabbed the gun and thrust it into the back of his jeans pocket, then headed upstairs.

Jean was still awake when he stepped into the bedroom, lit by a single light by the bed. Reading a book, some trashy paperback she'd picked up from the library, probably. Romantic nonsense.

"You're late," Jean said, as he stepped into the room.

"Shut up," Irons snapped, unbuttoning his jeans. "I'm not in the mood, Jean."

Jean looked down into her lap. "Ted was worried."

Something snapped in Irons. A raw flash of jealousy, maybe. Jealousy? he thought madly. Jealousy? She's my wife, for Christ's sake. And Ted's my son.

Groaning, he unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it to the bedroom floor. "As he should. I'm the boy's father. It's normal for a lad to miss his old dad when he's working late, isn't it?"

Jean shrugged. "Come on," she said weakly. "Come to bed. Relax."

Irons crashed down on the bedside and put his head in his hands, letting out a harsh sigh. Jean's hand gently came to rest on his tense shoulder, rubbing gently. Cool fingers, stroking his tight muscles. He began to loosen a little.

"Come on," she whispered. "What's the problem?"

And suddenly, uncontrollably, it all came crashing down into him again, and he was throwing her wrist down and screaming into her face, and he didn't even know what was taking over him.

Those eyes. Those awful eyes.

Jean's eyes, breaking into a sob.

"Oh, shut up," he mumbled, climbing into bed. "Please, will you for god's sake shut UP?"

Jean slid beneath the sheets, gripping them tightly, her back to her husband. With one hand she turned off the light and plunged the room into darkness.

To be continued…