by Jay Stringer
“You said it depends.”
“Yes. You can give us option A or B, and we’ll make you a deal. You can sit there with your thumb up your ass and say nothing, and then we’ll have to look at making the case against you, small potatoes or not, and you become just another statistic in the prison system.”
He cocked his head to one side and watched me for a long time. I hoped I was looking resilient, because I wasn’t feeling it.
“Eoin, we go back how many years? A lot, anyway. Best man at your wedding. You’re the only man I’ve ever let puke on my shoes.” His voice went to a softer place at that memory, before it came back stronger. “Am I still being an idiot in thinking I can bring you back?”
“I think maybe we should be taping this.”
“The information Henry’s been giving you? That’s just the start. We’ve been going over every document you or Gaines put your names on during the last two years. She’s been good, that I’ll say. Right now? You’re the best case we have. But if I lean on Laura, that might change, and all I need is Veronica Gaines’s name in the wrong place on one form, just one, and she’ll be in here, too.”
“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re on about.”
He slipped another piece of paper from the folder and passed it to me. I recognized the layout as a record from The Hound’s database. A booking on the night of the fire, under the name Linda Haines.
“Take this, for example. Someone booked into the hotel on the night of the fire. Wouldn’t mean much, just a normal person at a normal hotel, who ended up dealing with the hassle of a hotel fire.”
I shrugged.
“But the name sticks out to me. You know why?”
I had an idea. But I wasn’t going to let him know that.
He folded the paper and slipped it back in his pocket. “Because Ms. Haines also comes up on the database from my friends at Companies House as a director, owner, or shareholder in a number of small businesses in the area. Nail salons, tanning booths, some media company set up by our old friend Jellyfish and some radio station in Walsall that has turned a profit for three years now despite there not being a radio station in Walsall. Not one with a broadcast license, anyway.” He leaned in close. “Forensic accounting, they call it. Some piece of paper somewhere that can be used to show a pattern or a link between Linda Haines and Veronica Gaines. And now that I have my whole department looking for it, how long will it take?”
“No idea what you’re on about,” I said.
“You still think you have a chance with her, don’t you? You think this whole schoolboy thing you’ve got going on for your boss will have a happy ending? You think she’ll protect you the same way you’re protecting her?”
I stared at him and didn’t bite.
“I think we’d be doing her a favor, too,” he said. “Word from my colleagues in Birmingham is that this new kid, Dodge, has put a price on her head. Yours as well. He’s not going to sit still and behave like the old gang leaders did. He wants to come over here. I think we’re looking at the next Ransford Gaines or Channy Mann. You’ll all be much safer with us standing between you and Dodge, don’t you think?”
“Maybe you should build a wall, keep out all the people you don’t like. That always goes well.”
“Last chance, Eoin. After this you’re on your own.” He picked up the pen and rolled it around the palm of his hand for a moment before touching the tip back on to the desk.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
He then made a show of straightening his arm to pull his watch above his sleeve, looking at the time. “Four fifty-three. Remember that, mate. There’s not a lot of people can pinpoint the exact moment they blew it. You’ll be back in here in a day, maybe two. However long my forensic bean counters take. We’re going to tear everything down, and I’ll have the two of you back in here begging for a deal.”
He stood up, leaving the pen on the table. The absence of the tapping sound reverberated in the room and my head. Branko and the killer who’d murdered Tony and Jelly—and probably the Cartwrights—were both outside somewhere likely looking for me, and the cops in here were closing in just as fast.
As he opened the door I thought back on what he’d just said.
“Two?”
“Yes.” He gave me a Columbo smile of his very own. “You and Gaines. Laura’s already in the next room.”
Murray and Henry reconvened the meeting a few moments later. They were all smiles and politeness, maintaining the game that I was there to help pin the fire on Tony Keane in absentia. But both of their smiles were showing me the wider picture; they wanted me to know my place.
The three of us finished up the game for the digital recorder and I left. I paused in the hallway to look at Conference Room 2. The door was shut, and I couldn’t see if anyone was inside. Henry stepped in close behind to keep me moving. I signed out at the front desk, and they thanked me for my help.
Yeah, right.
The air was cold as I walked outside but the air pressure felt high, like a storm was waiting to break. A real April shower. A bunch of uniformed coppers were huddled at the bottom of the ramp, smoking. Some of them looked too young to have gone through puberty; some were older and I recognized them from my time in the force. As I walked past I heard the older ones call out, Gyppo.
Some things never change.
I walked to the taxi line and got a ride out to where I’d left my car. My blood raced. I had to get to Matt. I had to get to Gaines. At the sports hall I could hear a group of kids playing football, one of our part-time coaches putting them through their paces. I headed into the office to find Matt, but he wasn’t there. His computer was on and it was still humming away on whatever he’d left it doing. There was a half-empty cup of coffee gone cold on his desk. There was no sign of the hard drive. I remembered that I’d switched my phone off at the police station. I switched it back on and waited for it to find its network, then started getting hit with messages. Two texts from Matt, both saying he needed to speak to me. Then voicemails started landing.
I clicked on the first one. “Eoin, you need to see what’s on this drive. Call me back.”
The second one: “Shit, man, he’s here. He’s outside. Fuck.”
The third one: “Mr. Miller, I think you know who this is. I shall be seeing you soon. Unfortunately, young Matthew won’t.”
I stared at the phone as Branko’s words bounced around my head and cold apprehension ran down my spine. I slumped down into Matt’s chair and noticed for the first time an empty bottle of strawberry milk on the other side of the computer. Laid out in a row next to it were three adult teeth. There was no blood; they’d been wiped clean.
I headed out to my car in a daze. The clock was no longer ticking in my head. It was replaced by a static noise that started between my ears and seemed to invade my whole body. I’d heard it before. Some people will go their whole lives without ever finding out what their own limits are, but I’m not one of them. A few years before I’d had a nervous breakdown. Things had gotten too much for me one day, and the static had started, and I had drifted away from the world. It had been the easiest option. I realized I’d never made it all the way back. I’d simply filled in the gaps with pills and denial.
I shuffled in my seat so that I could reach into my jeans pocket, and pulled out Tony’s wallet. I felt things fade for a second; a familiar old feeling of the world going away, but this time it came without any pills. I flicked on the radio and looked for something to distract my brain. Anything would have done. Pop music, football talk, world news.
A news announcer spoke of a traffic diversion in Tipton after a large fire had taken hold of an apartment block on the Moat Farm estate. This segued into a reminder about the blaze at a Wolverhampton hotel two nights before. The announcer said police were still withholding the names of the two hotel victims, but the f
ire was being treated as suspicious.
Everything was going wrong.
Branko had Matt, and the information on the hard drive that would probably identify the leak. There was someone else out there with the same information, and they had killed Jelly and Tony. They’d killed Maria and her husband. Four deaths. I couldn’t run to the police because they were closing in on us for everything else.
Somewhere out there, Dodge was circling.
Dodge, yet another secret. Another lie that was catching up with me.
I reached into the glove box and pulled out a small leather bag. I pulled out two pink pills, slipped them onto my tongue, and swallowed. Impatient for an escape, I pulled out a different bag that had white powder, pinched a little between my thumb and forefinger, and snorted. This one hit instantly with a flash, and a warm embrace that took hold of my spine, and the sensations combined to gently lift my worries. I keyed the ignition and was only half aware of putting the car into gear as I pulled away from the curb.
I watched the white lines in the center of the road move.
Somewhere along the way I was walking. I had no idea where the car was or when I had gotten out of it. My leg seemed to be hurting even through my drugged numbness, but it wasn’t bad enough to stop me from walking. It was dark and everything around me was wet, so I guessed a thunderstorm must have passed through.
I got to my flat and had the keys in my hand. As I fumbled for the lock I heard a car door open and shut behind me. I was slow in turning around, but when I did Laura was standing behind me. She looked like hell, with her eyes dark from tears and her work clothes rumpled.
She offered me a weak smile. “How was your day?”
When I fumbled for a response she touched my arm and peered in close at my eyes. “You’re stoned.”
I didn’t answer.
Her shoulders moved slightly, like a shrug but without the effort. “Got any to share?”
I opened the door and led the way up the stairs, opening the door at the top to my own flat. I could feel the world seeping back into my bones. My clothes were leaden with water. I lifted a bottle of bourbon from the kitchen cupboard and set two glasses on the counter where we had shared breakfast that morning. Felt like a lifetime ago. Laura came around behind me and pulled my coat back off my shoulders.
“Your coat is soaked.” She bent down and pulled at my jeans. “Eoin, you’re bleeding.”
“Am I?” I could hear my own voice. It felt disconnected from me, bored and uninterested.
Laura pulled harder at my jeans, undoing them and working them down; it was a struggle because the rain had stuck them to my legs. There was a gash down my calf, about six inches long. It was surrounded by blood but it didn’t seem to be bleeding much anymore.
“What did you do?”
“I have no idea.”
“What did you take?”
“I have no idea.”
“This is your bad leg, right?”
“Yes.”
“You need to start injuring the other one, balance it out.”
She started the tap running and wiped at the wound with a dishcloth, scrubbing at it hard and making some fresh blood flow. I felt faint. The world went away for a second. I blinked a couple of times and I was on the sofa. Laura was handing me a glass of water. My leg had been cleaned and dressing applied, wrapped tight around it. I felt pins and needles tingling away at my foot. I took the water and downed it. Laura then handed me a large measure of bourbon, and I sipped at it. She slid onto the sofa next to me.
“I’ve been suspended.”
She stated it calmly, matter of fact, but the words wobbled a little at the edges, holding down a load of emotion. The force had been her life even after she’d started cheating it, and I knew how it felt to lose everything.
I opened my mouth, but she placed her finger on my lips to silence me. “I don’t want to talk,” she said.
She scooted over and kissed me, slowly at first, biting my lower lip and sucking. Then she built up to something harder and hungrier. Searching. She slipped her own top off and leaned in. I was slow to react, my brain still processing my missing car, let alone what had happened since.
She pulled away and looked at me as if to say, hurry up. “I just want to feel something else,” she said. “Something better.”
I leaned back. “Feel away.”
I lay awake in the darkness of the bedroom. The skylight above me usually let in some moonlight, but the storm clouds blotted it out. I had Laura asleep beside me and a load of ghosts surrounding the bed.
People I’d lied to.
People I’d let down.
In the corner I could picture Rachel. She had been a friend, very briefly. A recovering alcoholic and one of the last people to see any good in me. She’d gone out of her way to tell me I was worth something and that I should let up on myself, before she’d left town after her best friend had been killed. In the darkness of my room I felt her staring at me. I imagined she didn’t like what she saw.
I tried to shake the last drugs from my brain but I realized what was holding on to me now was guilt. I’d never found a simple fix for that.
Laura patted my chest. “Where are you?”
“What?”
“Right now, where are you? You used to do this all the time when we were together. One minute you were in the room with me. The next, you’d be all tense and I knew you were somewhere else. I can practically hear your brain working away.”
I rolled onto my side to face her and found her lips for a soft kiss. “I’m right here.”
“Liar. You weren’t in the room earlier, either. I was with you, but you were off with someone else. Does she know?”
“Who?”
I heard her laugh a little. “You know who.”
She ran her hand along my arm, and I felt something I’d not noticed before. When she took my fingers in her own I felt it again. I pulled my hand loose and ran my fingers over the back of her hand, to her knuckles and up to her fingers, and there it was.
“You’re wearing the wedding ring again.”
“Yes.” She stroked my arm. Then she rolled over onto her other side, away from me.
I stared up again into the darkness, seeing only the black void of the skylight. When I looked around the room again, we were almost alone. The only people left were Matt Doncaster and Veronica Gaines.
We both slept in. My excuse was drugs, alcohol, and blood loss. Laura’s was that she had no job to go to. I left her sleeping and took a quick shower before heading out.
I walked around the block, looking for my car, and then to some of the public car parks nearby. Wherever my car was, I hoped it was in better shape than I was. My leg didn’t want to take my weight, and it took me a lot longer than it should have to walk to Casa Mia.
I’d failed. There was no point in trying to find the leak or the information now, because Branko already had both. And the deadline was up today. I needed to talk to Gaines and get her clear of trouble. I let myself in through the back entrance. She was at her desk, sipping coffee and reading through a stack of documents when I leaned into the office. She looked up and nodded, waved for me to come in, and I settled into the chair opposite. She was back in businesswoman mode, with sharp and expensive clothes and a suit jacket hanging off the back of her chair. The simple look that Claire never managed to make work. My heart stretched, and I thought back to the conversation I’d had with Laura the night before.
Does she know?
Indeed. There were many things Gaines didn’t know. If the cartel were good to their word, she was on borrowed time, and it was my fault. I added it to the list of things I needed to say to her, things I couldn’t find the courage to deal with.
“You going to keep this place when you sell out to the cartel?”
She leaned back in her chair and sm
iled, because she knew better than to be surprised that I knew. It was the reason she’d hired me in the first place.
“Yes. This place, a couple of tanning salons, and the wine shop I’ve just opened in Solihull. I figure I’ll move over there, get out of the way. And we’ll keep the Oak in Chapel Ash. It was Daddy’s first pub, so he wants it to stay in the family.”
“And how is the old man?”
I wanted to see her reaction, see if she knew I’d met with him the day before last. “Same as ever, just watching TV and gambling.”
She didn’t know I’d seen him.
“We have a ton of problems. An actual metric ton,” I said.
“Such as?”
Where to start? I’d kept the death threat from her, and she might not forgive me for that. I wanted to stall, see if there was another way to tell her. I started with the least important bit of news. “Well, the police are investigating you. Us. Becker has a whole team looking for anything they can match to you, called it forensic accounting. He’s cottoned on to the name Linda Haines, and he thinks it’s going to lead him straight to you. Is it?”
A cloud bigger than anything the storm had offered up last night passed behind her eyes, but her expression didn’t change. “No. I already knew about Becker, don’t worry about it. More important than that, though, are you one of my problems?”
“What?”
She slipped her laptop out from beneath the paperwork and opened it up, staring at its screen for a second as the machine clicked and whirred. The light from the screen shone against her face, showing a few worry lines. She clicked the mouse pad a few times and typed something in before smiling at me—the look she liked to give me when she thought she knew a million things I didn’t.