Read Department 19: Battle Lines for Free Online Page B

Supernova gave him a red-eyed look of disappointment that was infinitely more painful. “You’re the worst of them all,” he said, his eyes fixed on McKenna’s. “You could have been good. You could have
mattered
. But you’re just a whore like the rest of them.”
    They never spoke again.
    The phone on McKenna’s desk rang, making him jump. He had been lost in the past, drifting through the memories of a man he realised he had almost forgotten.
    He reached out and picked up the receiver.
    “Courier for you,” said the receptionist.
    “Send him up,” said McKenna.
    The courier arrived a minute later. Kevin signed for the package, thanked the man, and settled back in his chair to open it. He tore through the tape and the bubble wrap until he was looking at what Johnny Supernova had left him: an audio cassette, a thin folder and a sheet of thick creamy paper. McKenna placed the tape and the folder on his desk, lifted the sheet of paper, and read the short message that had been typed on it.
    Kevin,
    If there is still some tiny worm of integrity in that black void you call a soul, maybe this will give it something to chew on.
    Johnny
    McKenna couldn’t help but smile, despite the insult.
    As he read the words, he heard them spoken in Johnny Supernova’s thick Mancunian accent, spat out as if they tasted bitter. He realised it had been four years since he had last heard that voice, seen the gaunt, narrow face from which it emerged. Supernova had died three months ago, from a heroin overdose that had surprised precisely no one.
    McKenna had been too ashamed to go to the funeral.
    He put the note down on his desk, considered the cassette, then decided it would be too much trouble to find a player at this time of night and picked up the folder instead. Inside was a small sheaf of copier paper, almost transparent, with faded black ink punched almost all the way through it. McKenna lifted the first sheet and read the header.
    TRANSCRIPT
    INTERVIEW WITH ALBERT HARKER. JUNE 12 2002
    Barely a decade ago
, thought Kevin.
Jesus Christ, it seems so much longer
.
    In 2002 Johnny Supernova was past his prime: still famous, still infamous, still relevant, but fading fast, starting to realise, with disappointed bile in his heart, that his angry brand of burn-it-all-down cynicism was becoming a tougher and tougher sell in the New Labour wonderland. McKenna read the header again.
    Albert Harker. Never heard of him.
    He lifted another can of lager out of the bottom drawer of his desk, lit a new cigarette with the smouldering end of the last one, and began to read.
    A minute later he paused, his drink forgotten.
    “Jesus,” he muttered.
    Five minutes later his cigarette burned down to the filter and hung, dead, in the corner of his mouth, spilling ash on to his lap.
    McKenna didn’t even notice.

4
THE DESERT SHOULD BE NO PLACE FOR A VAMPIRE
LINCOLN COUNTY, NEVADA, USA,
YESTERDAY
    Donny Beltran leant back in his chair and stared up into the dark desert sky. Stars hung above his head, an infinite vista of flickering yellow and milky white that he could have watched for hours had Walt not announced that the burgers were ready, jerking him out of his awe and eliciting a loud rumble from his ample stomach.
    Donny picked his chair up, lumbered to his feet and made his way over to where Walt Beauford was plucking burgers from a metal grill and placing them on a plastic plate beside white buns and sachets of ketchup and mustard. He fished another beer out of the cool box as his friend approached; Donny took it, twisted off the cap, and took a long swallow. He belched loudly, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and grinned at his friend. The two men settled into their chairs and began to eat their supper; they were completely at ease in each other’s company, the result of two and a half decades of friendship that had started at college in California, and had survived the pleasant, unavoidable diversions of marriages and