The car wash was in darkness, a low-slung chain blocking its entrance, and its three big blue brushes—two vertical; one horizontal—breathing out damp cold air. Shirley hurdled the chain and ran past a keypad at car-window height while something swiped at her back—fuck—and then a brush was offering protection; the pair crouched either side of it, making darting movements left and right, the biker’s blade whittling the air. When Shirley hurled her futile spork at him, it bounced off his helmet into the shadows.
Which were plentiful. While the structure had no walls—just a series of struts supporting a roof that was once clear plastic—it was thick with obstacles: the rails the brushes moved on, lengths of cable and hosepipe, a metal bucket padlocked to a standpipe. What Shirley needed was a weapon, ideally an assault rifle, though she’d have settled for the bucket, or that metal bar against the nearest upright, a yard away . . . She reached it only to find it welded in place, a discovery accompanied by another scorching sensation down her back, this one lighting up her whole body, and she screamed in outrage—chickenshit bastard!—and span and kicked, but he was out of range. Liquid ran down her spine. Keep moving, she warned herself, because the biker’s height and helmet were handicapping him, and the more he had to dodge and weave the more frustrated he’d get. Eyes fixed on him, she slipped round a metal box on a stand, its face a slanted panel with two spherical knobs: one red, the other green.
A Hollywood solution whispered in her ear.
Shirley dropped to a crouch and the biker moved forward, knife extended, between the two huge blue brushes. Behind his visor, she knew, he was grinning.
He’d stop grinning now.
“You’re all washed up, dickhead,” she said, slamming the green button with her palm.
Nothing happened.
She did it again.
Nothing happened.
Fuck.
He pushed his visor up. “Seriously?”
“。 . . What?”
“You think hitting that button’ll make the car wash start?”
Well, yeah. That’s what she’d been hoping.
“It’s not even switched on.”
“I thought that’s what I was doing.”
He was shaking his head. “There’s a code.” Even with his accent, she could tell he thought this ridiculous. “You buy a ticket at the counter, it’s got a code stamped on it, you key it into the pad at the entrance. Then the washer starts.”
“So what are these buttons for?”
“Might be a manual override,” he conceded. “But it won’t work when the whole thing’s powered down.”
“You know a lot about car washes.”
“I work at a car wash, man.” He dropped his visor. “Idiot.”
“What do you mean, you work at a car wash?” Shirley said, but he was already rushing her again, with his small but wicked knife.
Just wait.
He’d spent most of his life just waiting, and here he was, doing it still.
A car had arrived and its occupant had joined Sophie and Sparrow in the café: a hulking sort, looking like he’d be comfortable whacking a cleaver into sides of meat all day long. Bachelor could picture himself, almost, deciding this was a sinister development; deciding to intervene . . . All it would take was true grit, a smidgin of star quality, and the ability to step out from the wings and act like a hero.
He shivered, and wished he had a hip flask. Wished, while he was at it, he had ten years’ less bad luck behind him, or ten years’ more self-belief. Or even just ten minutes’ grace in which to summon up the qualities he needed, now, while the café door opened and the two men came out, Sophie sandwiched between them. She didn’t so much as glance in his direction, and afterwards he convinced himself that this was the reason he remained in the shadows; nothing to do with that new arrival, whose watchfulness as the trio crossed the road suggested professionalism, or at least experience. No: Bachelor made no move because all was evidently going according to Sophie’s plan. Which meant his role now was to just wait.
Every extra knows the show’s about him.
Every stand-in knows she’s the star.
But John Bachelor . . . Bachelor, watching the car ferry Sophie de Greer down Glasshouse Street, understood that his marquee moment was never going to happen. The car turned at the junction, and London’s backdrop came into focus once more: its shop windows tired and garish, like a peep-show worker going off shift; its soundtrack a distant medley of overlapping noise. He was part of it, but just a small part, mostly unnoticed. His star didn’t shine as brightly as it might. Though when you thought about it, that was true of everyone.