I clunked open the rear door and eased out onto the pavement. Bloody right foot ached, like the tip of a red-hot knife was being slowly driven through the bone. Thats what I got for sitting in the one position in a warm car for nearly two hours. The walking stick had to take a bit more weight than normal. What makes you think I wont just do a runner?
He buzzed down his window and winked at me. Honesty, integrity, and the fact that theres a GPS locator built into your ankle tag. He popped open the glove compartment again and came out with a little plastic box fitted with an antenna. Pressed a button on the matt black surface. It bleeped. There you go: all paired up. Now, if you try to tamper with the thing, or it registers a gap of more than one hundred yards between it and the one your sponsors wearing, all hell breaks loose.
Sponsor?
He chucked the remote into the glove compartment. Go inside and all will be revealed.
I closed the car door, limped away a couple of paces. Cooper indicated, pulled out from the kerb and drove off into the night. Leaving me all alone with my bin-bag. And my ankle monitor.
One hundred yards.
So what was to stop me going inside, battering my sponsor unconscious, hotwiring a car, chucking him in the boot, and heading off to pay Mrs Kerrigan the kind of late-night visit that wouldve given Jeffrey Dahmer nightmares? They could send me back to prison for as long as they liked after that. Whod care?
Not like Id have anything left out here
I creaked down and picked up the bin-bag, hoisted it over my shoulder.
The Postmans Head nestled between a closed-down carpet place and a vacant bookshop with FOR SALE OR LET signs in the window. Behind it, the granite blade of Castle Hill reared up into the dark-orange sky winding Victorian streets lit by period lanterns, the remains of the castle at the top bathed in harsh white spotlights. From down here the ruins looked like a bottom jaw, ripped from its skull.
An old-fashioned wooden sign hung outside the pub a severed head wearing a Postman-Pat-style hat. Sheets of plywood covered all of the windows. The paintwork was peeling off the door.
It sat opposite an abandoned building site, the chipboard barrier smeared with graffiti and warning notices. A sign with a faded artists impression of a block of flats: LEAFYBROOK SHELTERED ACCOMMODATION OPENING 2008! The padlock and chain dripped rust smears down the painted wooden gates. Probably hadnt been opened for years.
A spot of water landed on the back of my hand. Then another one. Not big drops, just tiny flecks. A prelude to drizzle. Cant remember the last time I actually felt the rain on my face I stared up into the sky. Clouds heavy and dark, reflecting the streetlights sodium glow, a faint mist of rain growing heavier with every passing second.
The wind got up too, whipping down the street, rattling the corrugated metal fence running down one side of the road, fluttering the CONDEMNED ~ WARNING KEEP OUT! notices stuck to it. Creaking the postmans severed head sign back and forth.
Sod this.
I hobbled across the road, grunting with every step, and tried the pubs door. It opened onto a small airlock. Light came through a pair of frosted glass panels in the inner doors. I pushed through.
God knew when I was last in the Postmans Head. Probably when we had to kick our way in to arrest Stanley-Knife Spencer. Took fifteen of us, six of whom spent the rest of the night in Accident and Emergency, getting their faces stitched back together.
Place was a hovel then and it was even worse now. Two walls were stripped to the bare brick, batons of wood bristling with rusty nail-heads some of them still clutching little chunks of plasterboard. The scarred bar stretched the length of the room, dotted with stacks of paper, the pump handles sticking up at random angles. A small pile of tools screwdrivers, spanners, a hammer lay next to a delicate china mug with the Rangers logo on it.
Someone had heaped up most of the old wooden chairs and tables in the corner by a dead fruit machine, leaving a handful of them behind arranged in a semicircle around a pair of easels. One held a whiteboard, the other a flipchart, both of which were covered in bullet-points and arrows.
Head-and-shoulder shots of all seven original victims were pinned up by the toilets. Above six of them was a grainy photocopy of a handwritten letter. No white on the sheets, just grey and gritty black. Theyd been copied so often that the handwriting was fuzzy, the letters bleeding into each other. A shiny flatscreen TV was mounted above the cigarette machine, little drifts of plaster dust on the floor below.
No sign of anyone.
I dumped my bin-bag on the nearest table. SHOP!
A voice rolled up from somewhere behind the bar, thick and plummy. Ah, perfect timing. Be a dear and pass me the adjustable spanner, would you?
A dear?
I stepped up to the bar and picked the spanner from the pile of tools. Hefted it in my right hand, smacking it against the palm of my left. Good as anything for giving someone a concussion. Have to get to him first though.
I put my good foot on the metal rail and levered myself up. Peered over the edge of the bar into the space behind.
A long man lay on his back on the floor, crisp white shirt rolled up to his elbows, pink tie tucked into the gap between two buttons. Dust smudged the black pinstripe trousers, took some of the shine off the leather brogues. He raised a hairy gunmetal eyebrow at me it went with the short-back-and-sides and military moustache. You must be the ex-Detective Inspector weve heard so much about. He sat up and brushed his hands together, then held one of them out. I believe youre the chap who let the Inside Man get away?
Cheeky bastard. I didnt shake it, stuck my chin out instead, pulled my shoulders back. Ive not crippled anyone for days, you volunteering?
Interesting A smile. They never said you were touchy. Tell me, were you always like this, or did losing your daughter to the Birthday Boy do it? Did you get worse every time another card plopped through the letterbox? Seeing him torture her to death, one photo at a time? Is that it?
I tightened my grip on the spanner. Forced the words out through a clenched jaw, tendons tight in my neck. You my sponsor?
Please say yes. It was going to be a pleasure caving his head in.
6
Your sponsor? He laughed, letting it fade into a chuckle. Oh, dear me, no. Tell me, ex-Detective Inspector, do you know anything about beer pumps?
So who is?
You see, Ive never really had much to do with them before more of a gin-and-tonic man myself but I like to think I can turn my hand to anything. So, did you let him go on purpose, or was it just a bit of incompetence?
Right, that was it.
And then a voice behind me: Ash?
Alice. Shed ditched the suit for a grey-and-black stripy top and black skinny jeans, a pair of bright red Converse trainers sticking out of the ends. A leather satchel, worn courier style, at her hip. Her curly brown hair, freed from its ponytail, bounced as she charged across the room and jumped at me. Wrapped her arms around my neck. Buried her face against my cheek. And squeezed. Oh, God, Ive missed you! Tears damp against my skin.
Her hair smelled of mandarins. Just like Katies used to
Her hair smelled of mandarins. Just like Katies used to
Something clicked deep beneath my ribs. I closed my eyes and hugged her back. And whatever clicked, spread out across my chest, making it swell.
The git in the shirt and tie tutted. You know, if youre going to fornicate Id really rather you didnt do it here. Nip upstairs and Ill get the video camera.
Alice pulled her head back, grinned at me. Ignore him, hes only trying to get a reaction. Best bet is to let him get on with it till he bores himself. She planted a huge kiss on my cheek. You look thinner. Do you want something to eat, I mean I could get something, like a takeaway, or we could go to a restaurant, oh no we cant, Bear wants us to wait here till he gets back from the press conference, Im so glad youre out! All done in a single breath.
She gave me one last squeeze, then let go. Pointed at the guy behind the bar. Ash, this is Professor Bernard Huntly, hes our physical evidence man.
Huntly stiffened. Physical evidence guru, I think youll find.
Her hand was warm against my cheek. Are you OK?
I spared Huntly a glare. Getting there.
He leaned on the bar. Mr Henderson and I were just enjoying a robust philosophical exchange about his daughters and the Birthday Boy.
Alices eyes went wide. Looked from Huntly to the spanner clenched in my fist, and back again. Oh No. Thats really not a good idea. Trust me, theres-
You never answered my question, Mr Henderson. The creases at the corners of his eyes deepened. Why did you let the Inside Man get away?
Alice prised the spanner from my hand and placed it on the bar. Professor Huntly thinks being rude to people makes them reveal their true selves, I mean its nonsense of course, but he refuses to accept that reactions under stress arent indicative of our inner cognitive-
Blah, blah, blah. Huntly disappeared back down behind the pumps again. Whats your opinion of psychology, Mr Henderson? Airy fairy nonsense, or load of old bunkum?
Bunkum?
Alice climbed onto a creaky barstool. Then pulled up the left leg of her jeans a couple of inches. A thick band of grey disappeared into a blocky plastic rectangle, about the same size as a pack of playing cards. My sponsor. Youll be staying with me, obviously, I mean it wouldnt really work if you had to live on the other side of the city, what with the hundred-yards thing. Ive got us a flat and its not great, but its OK and Im sure well be able to make it cosy
That complicated things a bit. No way I was going to crack her skull with a spanner. Why couldnt it have been Huntly?
The breath hissed out of me, and my chin dropped an inch.
Probably for the best. Keep a low profile. Be a team player. At least until Mrs Kerrigan was sprawled in a lake of her own blood.
Alice patted the seat next to her. Did Bear bring you up to speed on the details?
Who the hell is Bear?
A frown. Detective Superintendent Jacobson. I thought you knew.