by Michael Kerr
Lucy couldn’t think. The primary function of the weapon was to induce neuromuscular incapacitation, interrupting the ability of the brain to control the muscles of the body.
“I asked you a question,” John said to Rob as he knelt and removed the CS spray and baton from the holders on Lucy’s belt. “Being tight-lipped will only result in the others getting hurt or killed. There’s already one corpse buried under the bench.”
“Okay, okay,” Rob said. “We don’t have set times. We call in after we’ve cleared each address on our list. If we don’t call them, they’ll call us. And if they can’t make contact they’ll come running.”
John placed the Taser on the ground and approached Rob. Took the sergeant’s two-way radio from the clip on his belt and asked him how it worked. When he knew what buttons to press, he operated the radio and held it close to Rob’s mouth to let him report that they had just arrived at Forest View, and that they would be heading off to the next address as soon as they’d finished drinking the tea that Ruth Porter had made for them.
“How do I get away from here?” John said to Rob after withdrawing the radio.
“You don’t,” Rob said. “The whole area is ringed. There are road blocks, and even sniffer dogs that have your scent from clothing that your wife supplied.”
John wanted to blow his four hostages to hell, and had to step away and turn his back on them while he found some composure. There had to be a way for him to break through the cordon and make his escape. He let his mind spin like an old three-reel fruit machine whirring as it revolved in a blur before finally stopping on three lucky sevens, to pay out a jackpot by way of an answer to his current problems.
All he needed to do now was decide whether to kill Ruthie and Dougie or to just leave them cuffed up to something that they would not be able to escape from.
Turning back to face them, he noted that the female cop was recovering from the effects of being Tasered. All four of them were looking up at him with fear in their eyes, expecting the worst, tensing and drawing back against the wall as he raised the shotgun and pointed it at Rob’s face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
After fastidiously ensuring for the third time that not one microscopic particle of the mirror had been left on the floor, or on any other surface, Billy put the now washed and dried frame on the counter. He checked through the house; the state of paranoia after the first intrusion now going off the scale, especially after the beating he had sustained in the yard next door, and the theft of the gun with his prints on it. But he was almost certain that no one had entered this time. Nothing appeared to have been moved, and he knew exactly where and in what position he always left everything, right down to the TV and DVD remotes, which he always placed centred on top of the coffee table two centimetres apart. His need to be so methodical was obsessional, but gave order to his life. Chaos was a state that both agitated and dismayed him. Orderliness cost nothing but time, of which he had plenty.
The pain in his hand was intense. He dry swallowed four Nurofen tablets, and then placed a dozen ice cubes in a tea towel to gently hold against his swollen fingers, before leaving the house and walking to the A&E at the West Middlesex Hospital on Twickenham Road.
It was several hours’ later when Billy left the hospital with his arm in a sling and his hand heavily bandaged. They had taken X-rays, determined that two of his fingers had been fractured, and splinted them together. A young doctor advised him to make an appointment for two weeks hence, for more X-rays to be taken before it could be decided whether a surgical procedure would be necessary. He had also needed a couple of stitches in his ear, where the guy had pistol-whipped him.
Could have been much worse, Billy thought as he trudged home. At least it was his left hand that was out of action. He could still function. And if the gorilla that had hurt him and taken the gun and his money thought that it was over, then he was in for a very big and painful surprise.
His phone rang. It was Suzy. “Where are you, Billy, at home?” she said.
“Almost. Why, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just thought I’d stay the night at your place, if that’s okay.”
“What about your mother?”
“She’s totally wrecked. I helped her to bed after she threw up, and she’s spark out and snoring like a pig. I don’t see why I should babysit a drunk.”
“So come on round. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“Where have you been?”
“The hospital. I had an accident and broke a couple of fingers.”
“Oh my God. How did you do that?”
“I tripped on the cellar steps and stuck my hand out to break my fall.”
“Do you need anything?”
“Just you, Suzy. See you soon.”
He decided that it was nice to know that someone cared about him. No one else in the world did. He could almost imagine being with Suzy and living a normal life, but because of the things he had done it was a fantasy that he could not properly contemplate. Or perhaps he could. The thought of being a husband and maybe a father flitted through his mind. He had quite a lot of money and could always steal more. But how could he explain having it to Suzy? She would want to know. Maybe he could convince her that he was a professional gambler, which would explain why he didn’t have regular employment. She loved him, and so she would believe whatever he told her, if he was convincing enough. In his experience, most people wanted to believe what you told them, especially if they cared for you. And he was big on false sincerity.
When he arrived home, Suzy was standing outside the front door. She was wearing a scuffed old sheepskin coat that was mid-thigh length, showing lots of leg. He knew that she would be wearing a blouse and miniskirt beneath it, but imagined her body naked against the wool lining.
Unlocking the door, he stepped inside and as usual sniffed the air for any odour that did not belong, and listened intently to the sounds of the house before turning the hall light on.
Suzy followed him in, closed the door and unbuttoned her coat. He’d been wrong; she was wearing tight denim shorts and an old Blur T-shirt that she’d bought at a concert a couple of years back.
“I’ll make tea or coffee,” Suzy said. “Which do you fancy?”
“A large scotch would be nice.”
“You don’t drink it.”
“It’s never too late to start. I’ve had one of those days.”
Suzy wanted to hug him, but with his arm elevated across his chest in a sling it was impossible. Being almost his height, she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips as he craned his head slightly to facilitate the act. She slid her tongue into his mouth and jabbed it back and forth.
“You feeling frisky?” Billy said after she backed-up and smiled at him.
“Yeah, but it looks as if you’re out of commission for a while.”
Billy shook his head. “It’s my fingers that are broken, not my cock. You’ll still be able to sit on me.”
“Later,” Suzy said. “First I’ll go down to the Mini-mart and buy a bottle of scotch.”
“I don’t think―”
“Then don’t. You must be in agony. A few drinks won’t hurt.”
“Tell that to my late dad, or to your mum.”
“It isn’t mandatory to become an alcoholic, Billy.”
“Okay, fuck it,” he said, reaching into his pocket for his wallet, to flip it open one-handed and hold it out. “Take what you need.”
Suzy took a twenty, and frowned at the thick wedge of banknotes in the wallet. “Did you win the Lotto or something?” she asked.
“I’d have to buy a ticket to do that,” he said and grinned. “I just like to have a flutter on the dogs over at Romford.”
“You’ve never told me that.”
“It’s a recent thing, Suzy. I went with Sean, and just seemed to be able to pick out the winners more times than not. I must be lucky.”
“What about the future? You don’t work. How will you ever have
anything?”
“I own this house, Suzy. And I have you, and the future will take care of itself and both of us. What do you want me to do, hold down some crummy job in a warehouse or factory, or serve up burgers in a poxy Macs? I’ve got no qualifications, and the way things are these days, people like me can’t get work worth having. I can make serious money without busting a gut for minimum wages.”
“I’ll go and get the scotch,” Suzy said. “I won’t be long.”
It was only a two minute walk to the Mini-mart. Suzy bought a bottle of Johnny Walker and some ginger ale and stood outside the store for a while and thought things over. She loved Billy, she supposed, but didn’t know why. He was a little strange; always washing his hands and cleaning and being weird about how things had to be just so. And yet they could laugh together, and the sex was just amazing, and she knew that he cared for her more than anyone else on the planet. She was probably lucky to be in a relationship with him, because she knew that she wasn’t the brightest star in the sky by a long way. She truly believed that she was almost as thick as the proverbial plank. Being pretty and having a decent bod was all she felt she had going for her, and with time she’d get older and would be less attractive. She couldn’t even hold a decent conversation, unless it was about Eastenders or pop music. Wanting to be like Posh Beckham was a fantasy that wasn’t going to come true. You had to make the best of what you had, and apart from a one-legged, wheelchair-bound mother who seemed hell-bent on smoking and drinking herself to death, all she had was Billy.
When she got back to the house, Billy let her in and took her by the hand and led her through to the living room. There was a metal box with a key in its lock on the top of a gate leg table.
“Open it,” Billy said.
She frowned. What’s in it?”
“A surprise,” he said. “Look inside.”
Suzy placed the bag with the scotch and mixers on the floor next to the table and opened the lid of the box, only to take a step back as if it had given her an electric shock or contained a deadly snake poised to strike.
“Where did you get all that?” she asked.
“That’s my winnings,” Billy said. “I told you that I was lucky.”
Suzy looked into his gentle green eyes and saw nothing but sincerity. “It could just be beginner’s luck,” she said.
“You could be right. But if it holds out for a while we’ll have a lot of money. In these hard times you have to take what you can while it’s there. I want us to be together when…you know.”
“You mean when my mum dies, don’t you?” Suzy said.
“Well, yes, but I don’t wish her any harm. I’m just looking ahead. I don’t want to see you stuck in that council flat on your own and worrying about bills when your mum’s benefits have been stopped. I’m used to being by myself, Suzy, and I know I can come across as being a little withdrawn at times, but I…I love you. You’re the only person I feel comfortable being with.”
Suzy felt her eyes fill up, and she went to him. He held her hand and just gave her a cheeky smile that in some way incorporated melancholy; a smile that begged love and attention, which had attracted her to him in the first place. He could have been a young boy, guileless and in need of affection, just like a puppy that had been dumped at an animal shelter and wanted to be picked up and fussed and chosen to be the one that was taken away to be given a good home.
“I love you too, Billy,” she said. “I’ll pour us a drink, and you can tell me the truth about how you got hurt.”
Sitting on the settee with two tumblers of scotch, ginger ale and ice in front of them, on coasters that Billy had ensured were precisely the same distance from the edge of the coffee table, he constructed a simple lie that he knew Suzy would accept to be true, as he reached for his glass, raised it and said, “Cheers, darling. To us.”
Suzy picked up her glass and clinked it against his. “To us, Billy,” she said.
The scotch was pleasant. It warmed his stomach, and he could imagine why so many people became captivated by the golden spirit. He would not let that happen to him, ever. He knew that too much of it disrupted concentration. The effects of booze could be seen any evening outside pubs and clubs, as drunks of both sexes fought with each other, or staggered, swayed, threw up and collapsed in the street, totally out of it. He needed to always be in control of his thoughts and actions.
“I left Sean at the tube station and walked home, but I must’ve been followed from Romford,” he said. “Two guys attacked me in the alley and dragged me into the yard next door. I didn’t see it coming. They took my winnings and stomped on my hand. By the time I got up and went out into the alley there was no sign of them. I’ll have to be more careful in future.”
“They could have killed you, Billy. Did you call the police?”
“No, babe. I didn’t get to see their faces. It was dark and they said nothing.”
Suzy took another much larger sip of her scotch. “There are so many total scrotes out there,” she said. “I often dream that I live away from the city, in a really quaint village with a duck pond and a country pub.”
“Dreams can come true,” Billy said, now realising that the money he stole could buy a better future for Suzy and him. Property outside London, especially in the midlands and up north, was much cheaper to purchase, and with the sale of the terrace house and a few more ‘jobs’ from his list, they would be able to start over. By the time Suzy’s mother croaked he would probably be in a position to make Suzy’s dream come true. Having that aspiration gave him something important to aim for. He would have to be patient for a while, though: deal with the turd that had hurt him, and maybe the guy’s boss, and then wait for his hand to heal up before selecting the next rich fucker on his list, so that he could add a lot more money to what he now thought of as the ‘New Beginning Fund’.
When Matt woke up, Beth was not laid next to him. It was still grey outside. He looked at the bedside clock. It was only five a.m. He waited, thinking that she had just got up to go to the loo, but after a few minutes had elapsed and there was no flush of the toilet, he got up, pulled on a cotton robe and went downstairs. Large raindrops from a sudden heavy shower pattered against the windows as he entered the kitchen to see Beth standing at the sink, a glass in her hand and her head back. The sound of her gargling complimented the rhythm of the rain. He could smell the astringent odour of TCP. He said nothing, just walked over to the coffeemaker and switched it on: knew that her throat was still hurting from the pressure that the bastard at the nuthatch had applied to her neck. It was a miracle that she was alive. If her attacker had used his thumbs to fracture her larynx, then he would have killed her. He took deep breaths. He wanted to get his hands on the psycho for just a couple of minutes, but knew that if it had been possible to do so he would have gone too far.
Beth spat out the mix of warm water and antiseptic. “I’ll have tea with honey,” she said in a husky voice. “I feel as though I’ve got a cactus stuck in my throat.”
Matt switched on the kettle and searched the shelves of the wall units for a jar of honey. “You sure you don’t want to pack the job in and maybe go into private practise?” he said to her as he found a plastic bottle of Gales that had never been opened. “And you could go back on the consult list, without any risk of the criminals you profiled knowing that you were on their cases.”
“I’ll think about it,” Beth said. And she meant it. It struck her that being at Northfield was not something she needed to do for the rest of her working life. The attack on her by Mullins was yet another wakeup call that she should probably heed.
Matt made the tea with honey, and a black coffee for himself, and they sat in the nook to drink it.
“I’m being serious,” Matt said. “You should stop working in such a depressing and dangerous environment.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Beth said. “I’ll take a couple of days off and consider my options. Starting over is daunting. I’d lose a lot of my pension if I q
uit, and my golden handshake would be more like lead.”
“You could use the system. Take more than a few days off. You have good reason to put in for retirement based on medical grounds after what happened.”
“Retire, at my age?”
“From that career, yeah. The trauma of having a patient attempt to kill you is sufficient for you to be offered a good settlement.”
Beth let what he said sink in. The prospect of moving on was becoming more attractive by the minute. And she would not be letting the patients down. The case files that she was responsible for were in the main a catalogue of lost causes: men with no hope of ever being released, due to their serious, chronic mental disorders and the depraved acts that they had committed. Her work had in some ways become a less fulfilling task. Spending much of her time among homicidal psychopaths and sociopaths was not a challenge any more; just a thankless chore. Attempting to understand what had made them what they had become was of no practical value. Mental illness was not a virus that a vaccine could be found to facilitate a cure. It could not be predicted at birth which individuals would eventually mature into killing machines. Brain injury, unmanageable stress and childhood abuse were all triggers that could change an apparently well-balanced person into a monster.
Matt got up, went around the table to her and put his arm around her shoulder. “It’s your call,” he said. “You’ll do what you think is right for you. I’m going to grab a shower now and get an early start.”
When Matt left, Beth went to the counter next to the sink and used finger and thumb to fish her engagement ring out of the cup that she had put it in along with disinfectant and piping hot water. She had noticed specks of blood on it, round the gold claws that held the diamond in its setting. The token of love and commitment that Matt had given her had been temporarily sullied by her using it inadvertently as a weapon to cut open Mullins’s head. Rinsing the ring and drying it with kitchen towel, Beth slipped it back on her finger. This diamond had truly proved to be a girl’s best friend in a very practical sense.