by JL Merrow
“She wouldn’t,” Lilah repeated, but I reckoned she was wavering.
I fixed her straight in the eye. “Somebody did. And you might want to ask yourself if Axel’s in any danger from her too. Now he’s started telling people what happened. What if she panics?”
“But . . . he’s with his sister. And Darren.”
Tarbox snorted.
Lilah paled. “Oh, bloody hell. I’m going back to see my boy.”
“I’m coming with you,” Tarbox said, his face stony.
They reached for their coats, and I realised I’d better get out of the office sharpish, unless I wanted to be locked in for the night. Two minutes later, I was standing in the car park watching them drive off, Lilah in a racy and presumably specially adapted little Honda and Tarbox in an honest-to-God Rolls-Royce, the poser.
Great. I was on my own.
And where the bloody hell was Phil? I hated to say it, but he was usually quicker at working things out than I was. And even if he hadn’t, wouldn’t going to talk to Tallulah be an obvious step, seeing as how Axel had spent the day of his suicide attempt with her?
If he was with Tallulah . . . There had to be a reason he wasn’t answering his phone. And I didn’t like to think what it might be.
Fighting a sudden rush of nausea, I scrambled back into the van, made a last futile attempt to get Phil on his phone, and headed for the Smithy.
I know what you’re thinking. I should have called Dave, got some police backup. But the trouble was, all I had was guesswork. There wasn’t one shred of evidence against Tallulah, and if there’s one thing coppers don’t like, it’s going in mob-handed without at least some sort of evidence. In America, based on what I’ve seen on the telly, they’d call it probable cause. In this country, they’d call it Stop wasting our time, sonny-boy, or we’ll pull you in for looking at us funny. Oh, and while you’re there, do something useful and fix that bog in the station that’s been a no-go area since last week’s curry night.
While I was expanding my knowledge of the B-road network in Hertfordshire, I ran my theory through my head, desperately trying to convince myself I was wrong. But it all fit. The only reason me and Phil hadn’t taken more interest in Tallulah was that she hadn’t seemed to have a motive, but with Axel’s confession, everything made sense. She loved that lad. The thought of old Jonny-boy doing stuff he shouldn’t with the kid would’ve made her see red.
I wondered why she hadn’t talked to Tarbox about it, if they’d both been there. But maybe they weren’t that close anymore. Or maybe she had, and finding out the boy’s own dad hadn’t taken him seriously had only fuelled the outrage? The details didn’t matter, though. What mattered was making sure no one else got hurt.
The only thing I wasn’t sure about was what I’d do if I got to the Smithy to find Phil was nowhere to be seen. As it happened, though, I never had to make that decision. When I got there, Phil’s Golf was parked in the car park. There was only one other car there, which seemed like a pretty big clue the place wasn’t open. If, you know, the big Closed sign in the entrance hadn’t given it away.
I climbed out of the van and shut the door as quietly as I could. I was getting a bad feeling about this.
Okay, that’s a lie. I was getting a worse feeling about this. Because okay, Phil was twice Tallulah’s size—but Jonathan had been bigger than her too, and he’d still ended up floating facedown in the canal. What if Phil hadn’t fingered her for the killer yet? All she’d have to do was catch him in a moment of distraction and then . . . well, God knew what she’d do then, given the lack of any handy combined murder-weapon-slash-body-disposal transport networks. Unless she planned on tying him up and leaving him lying in the road like Penelope flippin’ Pitstop on a train track, and waiting for him to be flattened by a passing combine harvester or vintage steam roller.
My mind helpfully reminded me that another name for those traffic-calming speed bumps was sleeping policemen, and Phil was an ex-copper. I broke into a run.
Skidding to a halt just short of the door to the Smithy, I frantically tried to come up with a plan. Would it spook Tallulah into making a—possibly fatal—move if I went in all guns blazing? Figuratively speaking, obviously. I didn’t have a gun. Bloody hell, I hadn’t even thought to bring my pipe wrench. Christ, where was my brain when I needed it?
At any rate, it was killing me not knowing what was going on in there. For all I knew, it was killing Phil too. I wrenched open the door.
There was no one in sight. Were they upstairs? Was Phil about to take a faster-than-anticipated trip down the stairs? Would that be fatal?
Did I want to find out?
I stuck my head all around downstairs, but still no one. So I headed for the wooden staircase. I didn’t want to take off my work boots, in case anything violent kicked off, so I gave up on stealth and just trotted on up, my size nines hitting the steps with a clatter.
Phil was up there. So was Tallulah.
My blood turned to ice.
Phil was leaning over a laptop that was open on the counter. And, behind him, Tallulah was hefting one of those hammers we’d joked about the first time we visited the place, her arm raised like she was about to bring it down on Phil’s head.
They’d both turned to face me. It was like a snapshot, or a frozen TV screen. Murder, interrupted.
I didn’t even think—just grabbed the closest thing to hand and chucked it at her. It was a china teapot, and it hit her on the shoulder, bounced off, and shattered on the floor.
She screamed. Phil jolted back, then stared at me. “Tom? What the hell are you doing?”
“Saving your flippin’ life?”
He looked from me to Tallulah, and his eyes widened when he clocked the hammer now dangling from the end of her arm. “Jesus!”
“Guess you just came to talk to her about Axel’s day out, then?” I tried not to sound smug. “And, uh, Ms. Lovett? You mind putting the hammer down?”
Tallulah did her best to shrivel me with the force of her glare. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You attacked me.”
“What, and you were only planning to swat a fly with that hammer?”
She drew in a breath—and then her face closed off, and she didn’t speak.
Phil’s eyes widened. “Tom—”
“What’s going on here, then?” a voice cut him off right in my ear, and I wrenched my head round to see Brian Tarbox looming inches behind me. For a big bloke, he’d been scarily light on his feet coming up those stairs.
I was too glad to see him to moan about it out loud, though. “She was about to kill Phil!” It might have come out a bit high-pitched.
Tarbox shook his head. “Tallulah, Tallulah, Tallulah. What the bleedin’ hell do you think you’re doing?”
He strode past me, up to where Tallulah was standing, hammer still in her hand. As if he thought depressed skull fractures were something that only happened to other people. I wanted to yell at him to be careful, but the words stuck in my throat. Phil was there, though—he’d stop her killing Tarbox if it came down to it, right?
Right?
Tarbox raised a hand—and just as I was trying to work out what looked odd about it, he swung round faster than I could’ve believed possible. I don’t remember seeing the blow land, or hearing it, even. All I remember is Phil crumpling at the knees and dropping slowly to the floor.
Tarbox watched him fall, then gave a heavy sigh. “How many times do I have to tell you, babe? We don’t shit where we eat.” Then he looked straight at yours truly, standing there petrified like a rabbit in the headlights. “Your turn now, chum.”
Then he came towards me.
Weirdly, I wasn’t scared. I was fucking furious. Some of my anger was directed at Phil, both for coming here alone and for going down from a single punch to the jaw—for fuck’s sake, did he think he was me? But that paled into insignificance beside the incandescent fury I felt for Tarbox. “You lied to us!”
He actually chuckled,
the bastard. “Did I really? Well, fancy that. All goes to prove, you can’t trust anyone these days.”
I backed away from him, desperately hoping I wouldn’t trip and fall on my arse—or down those bloody stairs, Christ—before I had a chance to plant one on him. I didn’t dare dart a glance behind me. If I took my eyes off him for a second . . .
“God, I hate poofs,” Tarbox said conversationally. “Lilah, now, she’s always had a soft spot for the pansy parade, but if you ask me, the world would be a better place without the whole limp-wristed lot of you.”
“What about Axel?” I challenged. “Your son, remember? The one with a crush on a bloke?”
Tarbox sneered. “He’s just confused. We’ll get him straightened out, don’t you worry. Now that ponce is out of the way.”
He took another step forward—and then he swung for me.
I’d been waiting for him. I ducked under his arm and charged at the bastard, knocking him off-balance and into a display of fire irons that fell to the floor with a godalmighty clatter. I dived to grab a poker and then waggled it at him like a nervous fencer, as he clambered to his feet.
His bowler hat had fallen off, and yep, there was a bald patch. Hah.
I’d probably have enjoyed the discovery more if it hadn’t been for the slight matter of my impending doom.
“Now you’re pissing me off,” he growled, and kept coming—then a cry came from behind me and he changed course, dodging around me. “Oi! You leave her alone,” he yelled.
I spun to see Phil on his feet—thank God—if weaving a bit, holding a struggling Tallulah with one arm twisted high behind her back.
“Gerroff me,” Tallulah screeched, her middle-class veneer now wholly stripped away like it’d been doused in turpentine.
“You’d better let her go right now,” Tarbox snarled.
I realised no one was watching me and swung the poker as hard as I could into the back of Tarbox’s knees. He went down roaring, and I nipped back out of reach sharpish, into the wooden embrace of a hat stand.
I might have yelped a bit.
“Tom?” Phil said, his voice sounding weird and wrong. “Call the police.”
“I already called ’em,” Lilah’s voice rang out, clear and authoritative.
We all stared at her, standing at the top of the stairs like a lonely monk’s vision of a pint-size avenging angel.
She put her hands on her hips. “You’re going down, Brian Tarbox, for killing my man. Did you think I wasn’t going to notice you turning off on the way to the hospital? I ain’t daft. I knew I’d find you here.”
Tarbox stopped trying to get up and stared at her as if she’d insulted his mother. “Oi, I never touched the bastard. I was with you when he died, wasn’t I? That was your sister, that was. One swipe with the hammer and into the water he goes, nice and easy. And you reckoned she didn’t have the balls,” he added, his tone a mix of admiring and plain old smug.
Lilah looked stricken, despite this evidence of Tallulah’s hitherto unsuspected testicles. “Loos?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, he deserved it,” Tallulah snapped, and wrenched herself away from Phil’s hold. He didn’t try to stop her, which was worrying.
“Yeah, uh, opinions differ on that one,” I put in, taking a firmer hold of my poker and forcing myself to keep an eye on our middle-aged Bonnie and Clyde.
It wasn’t easy. Phil was hurt.
Tallulah shot me a filthy glare. “Shut up. Of course he deserved it. Taking advantage of an innocent young boy’s affections—I was doing you a favour, not that you’d ever care.” That last was to Lilah, whose face hardened.
“My Jonny would never do that. One kiss, that was all it was. You tell her, Brian.”
She was appealing to a flippin’ murderer for a character reference?
Tallulah’s colour deepened. “A kiss! That’s not what Axel said—”
“Does it matter now, what he did or didn’t do?” Tarbox’s voice had gone all calm and reasonable. I stared at him and finally realised what was weird about his left hand. He was wearing a set of dull-grey knuckle-dusters.
Christ. My fiancé’s face had been on the receiving end of those. I couldn’t stop myself giving him an anxious once-over. He was leaning on the counter, and I had a nasty feeling it was all that was holding him up.
When I turned back to Tarbox, he was on his feet. Bloody hell. Lucky all his focus was on Lilah right now.
Although maybe not so lucky for her. I wished she’d get away from the top of the stairs before any accidents might be induced to happen.
“Now,” Brian said, “I admit Tallulah here went off half-cocked, believing everything she heard, the daft cow.” He gave Tallulah an affectionate smile that turned my stomach. “You should’ve got me in from the start, babe. You’ve always been too soft on that lad. I could have told you he was telling porkies. Giving Parrot his marching orders, now, you were on the right lines there, but if I’d run him out of town, he wouldn’t have stopped at Camden, he’d still be bloody running. And we’d have saved a lot of unpleasantness, now wouldn’t we? You gotta get over this jealousy of your sister. Using her phone like that? That ain’t what family does, babe. Lilah’s on your side, ain’t you, love?” He turned back to Lilah and made an open-handed gesture.
My mind was reeling. Bloody hell. He hadn’t been involved from the start? So . . . it must have been Tallulah who’d overheard them, and not Tarbox after all? Axel had lied to me about it? I felt stupidly hurt. I’d thought we’d, you know. Had a moment.
“What matters is,” Tarbox was saying smoothly, “this is family. You ain’t gonna let me and your sister go down for getting rid of a couple of woofters, are you? All we gotta do is make sure we back each other’s stories up, and they won’t be able to prove a thing.”
I held my breath. Then I stopped holding it, because what with the shedload of adrenaline recently dumped in my system I was getting dangerously light-headed already.
“What about Tom and Phil?” Lilah asked. I wasn’t sure whether to kiss her for thinking about us or yell at her for drawing us back to Tarbox’s lethal attention.
He shrugged. “I’m sure we could come to some arrangement, couldn’t we, lads?”
“Is that what you said to Oliver?” I shot back. “Right before you tipped him over the wall and into the path of a flippin’ InterCity train? Lilah, don’t listen to him.”
“Did you kill that poor boy?” Lilah asked, stepping towards Tarbox.
He rolled his eyes. “What, Oliver? Why do you give a monkey’s? You know he was your precious husband’s bleedin’ bum-chum, don’t you? And he was blackmailing your sister. Threatened to tell the filth how that hammer went walkies from here the night Parrot got what was coming to him, and he knew why she done it, ’cos his ears never stopped bloody flapping. She was in tears, Tallulah was, when she told me what was up.” Tarbox laughed. “He was a greedy little bugger and all. I knock on his door and tell him she’s sent me with the money, and he lets me straight in, the stupid sod. He was asking for it. So don’t you go harping on at me for helping out your own flesh and blood.”
I’d known Brian had still had a soft spot for Tallulah. Okay, I hadn’t known it extended to murder.
“She wouldn’t have needed helping if she hadn’t murdered my poor Jonny!” Lilah turned on her sister. “How could you? You knew I loved him.”
“This is so bloody typical of you, Lilah,” Tallulah raged. “You never take my side. Not once. It’s always you, you, you. You even stole Brian from me.”
We all turned as one to look at the bloke in question. He shrugged and made a face, as if to say Women—what can you do?
“People see you,” Tallulah went on, “and it’s always, ‘Oh, she’s so larger-than-life’ and ‘Isn’t it amazing how well she’s done despite her disability?’ As if being born a little person ever made the slightest scrap of difference to you that you didn’t fully exploit, especially in your so-called career.” Her face twisted
in a sneer. “You’re just living the cliché—you know what they say about short women, don’t you?”
Never having been all that interested in the subject, I didn’t have a clue what they said about short women, unless it was that they wore short trousers, but I guessed if anyone knew, it had to be Lilah.
Who knows how long the family tiff might’ve gone on—or what might have been the outcome, with Brian still on the offensive and Phil clearly half-dead on his feet—but at that moment, we heard the door swing open, followed by the welcome cacophony of a bunch of flatfooted coppers piling up the stairs.
Thank God.
I dropped the poker and ran to Phil’s side. He blinked at me, his eyes unfocussed—and slid to the floor.
I suppose it made a change, me being the one sitting by the hospital bed waiting for his bloke to wake up. I was finding it anything but restful, although it was giving me a whole new perspective on his tendency to want to wrap me up in cotton wool. For Phil, I was thinking full riot gear and a three-mile exclusion zone.
Right now, Phil’s jaw was making a bid to fill that three-mile radius single-handed. It’d ballooned up until he was doing a good impersonation of a hamster with a whole winter’s worth of food stashed away in one cheek. The bruising was promising to be spectacular once it’d finished developing, and I wasn’t looking forward to breaking it to him that he’d be on a liquid diet for the next six weeks.
He’d been lucky. Knuckle-dusters can seriously rip up your face and leave you carrying half your teeth home in a bag, but Phil had got away with a jaw broken in two places and severe bruising. Oh, and a concussion from his brain rattling around inside that thick skull of his, but at least all the scans had come up clear of internal bleeding and other nasties.
Seeing him lying there in that daft hospital gown, his poor, swollen face pale where it wasn’t mottled with blood, I realised something. It didn’t matter if he was better at some stuff than I was. All right, not just some stuff. The sort of stuff that was traditionally viewed as manly, like fist fights, shooting a gun, and other acts of violence. So what? He still wasn’t infallible, and anyhow, that wasn’t the only stuff that was important. When was the last time he’d ever found something with the power of his mind, or put together a meal with more than five or six ingredients (and the ones listed on the jar don’t count)?