Read Fletcher for Free Online Page B

listened closely.
    Sure enough, I picked up faint sounds of pain. I smiled, and struck the pipe with the handle of my knife.
    Tap. Tap-tap-tap.
    “nine-nine-nine...”
    Tap. Tap. Tap.
    “...ine-ni...”
    Tap. Tap. Tap.
    “...ne minutes... City rail apolo...”
    I stood in the door’s blind spot, and waited.
    “for the inconve...”
    Three minutes passed before a thin beam of light oozed through the keyhole. The lock clicked, but the door didn’t open. A silence followed.
    Inconvenient.
    I coughed before speaking. “I was really hoping to surprise you. This is just awkward.”
    The door pushed open, and Vincent regarded me coolly from the entrance. He was standing in a small room, in front of a flight of descending stairs.
    “K. Been well?”
    “As if you don’t know. I’m sure I’ve been keeping you busy. Also, in case no one told you, you have a fingernail in your hair.”
    He patted around for it and flicked the red speck into the dark. “Carried away. Don’t know how I missed that.”
    “Are you busy? You know I’d hate to spoil the mood.”
    “He can wait. Not going anywhere.”
    “What’s the occasion?”
    “The usual. National security. I’ve spent the last six months finding the leak in the company; now I need to find who he’s leaking to. Some of those numbers tie back to our players in the field; lots of sensitive stuff that the world isn’t ready for... Please, come in. Make yourself at home.”
    “How gentlemanly. Need any help?”
    “If that was supposed to be emasculating, it wasn’t. It wouldn’t matter if you spent your days braiding hair and wearing pink lace; you’ve got an edge I’ll never have.”
    “My talent?”
    “No. You’re completely insane.”
    I pouted as we walked down a flight of grimy stairs.
    “That’s not an advantage. It’s a lifestyle choice.”
    “You didn’t choose insanity, K. You only chose to embrace it.”
    I sulked until we reached the lower levels. He wasn’t right, but he had a smarmy, superior way of being wrong. The smell of must was residual here; a large area had been swept clean under the glow of a yellow bulb. Propped up next to a door was a bloody set of bolt cutters. I squinted through the dusty pane.
    “He’s definitely not going anywhere... I think he needs some time to adjust to having no toes.”
    Vincent didn’t speak; instead, he began to rinse his hands in the chipped basement sink.
    “Nothing? Tough crowd. Well, I got your message... You had a problem getting to the body?”
    “Getting there wasn’t an issue. I’ll tell you everything in a moment; right now I need you to repay the favour.”
    I nodded at the room behind me. “He won’t talk?”
    “No. Whoever he works for, they scare him more than I do. The only person I know who fits that bill is you.”
    “Hard to tell through the blood, but I don’t think I know him.”
    “You don’t. We started investigating this one in 2010. You were busy stirring up rebellion in North Africa that year, if I recall.”
    “Just during the winter. You know how my skin loves the sun.”
    “Regardless. I need you to break him.”
    I stared through the window for a long stretch of time. The huddled mass on the floor was barely moving, save for the occasional shudder of breath. I mentally patted down my pockets for an appropriate monologue.
    “Vince... Vincent? Torture—be it physical, mental, social—is not about what you do to a person. It’s all about making it clear that what you’ll do next will be worse. It’s not the pain that makes people break, since pain is just the body suffering for the past. Expectation... Expectation is what really destroys a man. Take his family, and he has nothing left. The pain he feels is only for the past. But take his least favourite child, and the pain serves as a signpost for the future. And because he knows that the pain is only a herald for things far worse, a Herald of Future Agonies, he will break. It’s inevitable.
    “You’ve