Q and Money Penny pulled up outside an opulent London apartment draped in endless curtains of fairy lights that reminded Sam of glow worms fucking with cave flies. A sort of – forest of death but with pretty lights and faint festive music Any more and they might as well re-brand this a Christmas theme park.
Jamie squinted over her shoulder at the front doors. Nothing yet. The only movement was the occasional sway from a bored doorman. He muttered something and turned up the heating in her car – which made the windows mist up again. Next time he did that she was going to slam his hand in the glove box.
It was odd, to say the absolute sodding least, sitting in silence with the famous Scottish terrier on her arm. Sam wished that she'd invested in a carry cage or something for him to keep his paws and feet from marking the interior of her car. He was half an inch from chewing the seatbelt, lost in thought. The least Malcolm could have done was have him washed and clipped first. In fact, this was probably the longest stretch of time she'd spent with Jamie. Normally he bustled into a room, insulted everything with a pulse, then left in a cloud of smoke. He was effectively an ill-tempered stun grenade.
This was different.
This was actual Jamie and Sam didn't know what to make of it. Or what to say. The only silence she experienced with Malcolm was when he slipped into a coma. Weird. She wondered what they spent their time chatting about or if they simply practised insults on each other.
Sam frowned at herself. Why was she even curious about that?
"Oy, darlin'... We're supposed to be watching the house of Christmas cheer," Jamie pointed out, as he rifled through her glove box – bored and certainly not watching the house.
She did her absolute best not to slam it closed on him.
Besides, at the moment there was more going on with her hibernating phone. She'd been staring at it for longer than she'd care to admit. Things were quieter at work with the entire political elite on trial. It was as if everyone was too paranoid to use their phones. With good cause. There was practically a phone hacking app doing the rounds. She wondered if they'd ever get bored of reading everyone's mindless drivel from their phones... Evidently no one had been brave enough to tap Malcolm's phone. You might as well offer yourself up as lion fodder in a really fucking scary petting zoo.
"Classic fucking Stockholm this is," Jamie added, rolling his eyes at the frankly common sight of Sam and her phone. He knew somebody else with a mobile dependency. "Though I can't quite tell which of you did the abducting. You might be the sort of girl that keeps a set of hand cuffs. How elaborate is this little Bejerot fantasy of yours? Do you perch on his desk while he massacres ministers – fix him a cup of tea and wash the blood out of his jacket?"
"Fuck off, Jamie."
"Yeah. That's definitely some Malcolm rubbing off on you there. Did you bring any biscuits?"
"I'm not a bakery."
"Oh come on... It's a stake out."
"You and I are simply out for a drive," It was no use. Malcolm was probably stalking his own prey. "If I'd brought snacks it'd harm our defence. Don't ever call it a stake out again. We're not on some cheap crime show..."
Jamie grumbled something and flipped open his phone.
No bloody biscuits. The fuck?
Jamie
"Who are you txting?" Sam flinched at the sudden blue glow in the car. It was ruining their cover and if she was entirely honest, it made Jamie look like a demon. A small Scottish pixie.
"The great god Set – to see if he can do something about the sodding weather." His phone buzzed.
I have a date with a twenty-five year old bottle of scotch. Bugger off.
Malc
Jamie swore and hit the phone against the car a few times.
Sam hoped that he broke it. "Don't invoke any ancient gods," she begged. "It's bound to go badly with manners like yours."
Why am I babysitting him? Are you breaking into his office?
XS
"I happen to be on good terms with the gods, thank you very much," Jamie insisted. "I produce a blood offering every week to keep them onside. Where do you think all those nosey hacks end up?"
Can't talk. Burgling.
XM
"Who are you txting?" Jamie threw her question straight back at her.
"No one."
"That's who I'm txting," Jamie agreed. They locked eyes in disdain before Jamie tapped her on the shoulder and nodded at the window. "That the cunt we're waiting for?"
"Blimey!" Sam fumbled for her phone, opening the camera to start filming. "How does Malcolm know these things?"
No one really wanted to know the answer to that one.
"Got a Twix?"
"Jamie, get out of my glove box before you find something you'll regret." Like his own severed fucking hand.
The great lord Tucker collapsed behind his desk with a bottle of scotch and pile of freshly pilfered paperwork.
"Not so fucking smug now – are you?" he asked no one in particular, cracking his knuckles in victory. There was nothing wrong with a bit of casual blackmail among friends. "The waters below London are black. Black as fucking space. Not some galaxy-dense supercluster. No. Dense as the fucking voids where cosmic dust collects."
If he was perfectly honest with his malicious side, half this encyclopaedia of woe would have been enough to collapse every reputation on the inquiry but he was a firm believer in finishing a job. If you're gonna do it – do it properly. Malcolm wasn't Gandolf the vague, he was the whole flock of convenient eagles. Deus ex machina Tucker. He'd never been fucked but he spent a great deal of time fucking.
A few hours later, Malcolm learned the hard way that his citrus dependency kept his alcoholism at bay. Unable to eat any of the emoti-rins, he'd polished off half a bottle of scotch in their wake – more than enough to unravel him.
"Jesus – fuck..." his vision blurred and all at once Malcolm realised he was in trouble. He slumped in his chair, draped oddly over it with his feet up on the desk.
The light switch was all the way over beside the door. Defeated, Malcolm picked up yesterday's newspaper and placed it over his head to get rid of the light. Blissful darkness enveloped him. He sighed happily and hoped this wore off in the few hours he had before morning.
At least he'd chosen the privacy of his office and not the local like a certain DoSAC minister that had a date with the gallows tomorrow. He'd booked ahead to make sure there was a spot. Hopefully Ollie, the mostly useless twat, would sheppard his minister there on time. There was nothing he like more than to wake up to a good public execution.
That's not right, Sam thought, when she saw a light under her boss's door. Malcolm was on some kind of heist
Her her first thought was that Julius had made good on his threat and crept in. She steeled herself for a the bald wars and quietly opened it, intent on catching him. If nothing else, she was curious to know what he was after.
Malcolm didn't hear the office door creak open. One of his hands was still clutching a pen he was entirely unable to use. Indeed, keeping his breath steady and balance on the chair was consuming most of his available brain energy. He was going to make a note that drinking and blackmail don't mix as well as they used to.
Sam found what she presumed was her boss. She huffed at the items on his desk. Eventually she won an argument with her better judgement and stalked over to him. The click of her heels on the floor made him stir. Not that it was to much effect, considering his face was hidden under the paper.
"Did you really make out with Jamie at the Christmas party?" Malcolm asked, entirely out of the blue and muffled by the cheap, poorly edited print. "Because I've got some pretty weird flashes going on in my mind that I can't clear away with two pints of gin."
Well, there it was. Absolute proof that the rumours had made it to his desk, probably courtesy of the smug bastard himself. Leaky little... Regardless, Sam reached over Malcolm's desk and picked up the half-empty bottle, examining it.
"You're drinking scotch, not gin," she corrected boredly.
"Unacceptable..." he muttered through his paper.
Sam lofted her eyebrow, still holding the bottle. There was no way she was going to let him keep it. Instead, she untwisted the lid and took a swig. It'd been a long night. "What - the scotch or Jamie?" She wasn't given a reply.
She sighed. Without a word, Sam reached forward and tugged the newspaper off his face. There he was and by gods, he was paralytic. Honestly, she couldn't help herself. She reached out with her free hand, curling her fingers around the back of his chair for support as she leaned down, catching Malcolm entirely off guard with a sneaky brush of lips.
It was drunken. Chaste and more than required to prove a point.
Malcolm's feet slid off the desk and hit the ground with a loud clunk in surprise. The moment he pressed up toward her, Sam slipped away.
"There," she announced. "Now you're even." Sam held up the bottle of scotch, waving it in front of his face so that he'd know she was taking that with her. "Night."
"...night..." he managed to mutter, long after she'd left the room. He'd be so fucking annoyed at his brain if he forgot this in a haze of alcohol.