Jack's Back

by Mark Romain

  Jack was speechless as he shook their hands. To his amazement, both girls were tall, shapely and very easy on the eye! Nonetheless, he remained wary. There had to be a catch somewhere along the line if Dillon was involved. Fiona flashed him a dazzling smile, revealing perfectly aligned teeth. “It’s nice to meet you, Jack,” she said, with just a hint of shyness.

  He surreptitiously ran his eyes over her as they sat down, guessing that she was in her late twenties or early thirties. The easy way that she moved, and her deportment in general, made him wonder if she might be a dancer of some sort. “My pleasure entirely,” he responded. “Have you been coming here long?” Not a very original opening line, he realised, but he always felt awkward making small talk and it was literally all he could think of to say.

  “A while, but I haven’t seen you here before.”

  “There’d be no reason for you to remember me even if you had,” Jack said, wishing he had been able to come up with something wittier instead.

  “Oh, I’m fairly sure I’d have remembered you,” she purred, green eyes glinting mischievously.

  Jack swallowed, and felt his knees go weak. “I’d certainly have remembered you, too,” he stammered, giving her a goofy smile. He signalled to Dillon. “I believe it’s your round, Tony.” Perhaps coming to the gym hadn’t been such a bad idea after all he decided, returning his attention to Fiona.

  ◆◆◆

  Winston angrily pressed the off button on the remote and watched the TV screen flicker into blackness. He had propped himself up in his hospital bed to watch the late-night news, but the main story was the ‘dramatic car chase and shootout in Central London’, which had led to his earlier arrest. He was sick of hearing the actions of the police described as ‘brave’ and ‘courageous’. The bastards had beaten the crap out of him.

  His whole face was badly swollen and he could hardly see out of the left eye. The right eye was better, but not by much. His nose had been reset before he’d regained consciousness, and they had wired his broken jaw up tightly, making speech difficult. His cheekbone was badly bruised, but at least it wasn’t broken, as they had first feared. On top of everything else, he had a concussion, and his motor reflexes were all over the place.

  “Bullshit!” he shouted at the television set, and immediately winced at the pain the outburst caused him.

  “Shut it, scumbag,” the armed guard sitting in the corner warned. The officer had made his feelings for Winston clear from the start.

  “Fuck you, too!” Winston muttered, turning over to face the window. At least he had been given a private room so he didn’t have to suffer the noise and commotion of a general ward.

  His solicitor had visited him earlier. The news he’d brought had been grim. He had actually laughed when Winston enquired about the likelihood of bail. It transpired that the entire incident on the platform, where Claude ruthlessly gunned down the young transport officer, had been caught on video. The uncut drugs had been discovered at his flat, along with a few other illicit items he had forgotten about. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the bastards were trying to fit him up with the murder of Tracey Phillips.

  And they called him dishonest!

  He had told his brief that he hadn’t even known she was dead, that he had been looking for her when they pounced on him. To his amazement, his lawyer hadn’t even bothered to pretend that he believed him! Since when had solicitors started caring whether their clients were guilty or not? The soulless parasites were quick enough to take his money from him. He paid them for results, not excuses. He had told the skinny, turkey necked, four-eyed bookworm what he wanted in no uncertain terms. His demands got him precisely nowhere. Winston had finally kicked the man out in a fit of temper.

  The doctors said that he wouldn’t be fit enough to be discharged for a good few days, so at least he had some time to come up with a plan of escape. There was no way that he was going to go to prison. No way!

  ◆◆◆

  After Dillon excused himself and Karen, Jack Tyler had remained in the bar with Fiona until closing time. She turned out to be great company and, as he walked her to her car, he surprised himself by asking her to have dinner with him later in the week.

  “I’d love to,” she replied.

  “That’s great.” He smiled, although he was already half regretting the impulse. This was a dreadfully inconvenient time to start seeing someone, not that there was ever a good time for him. They might have cracked the Phillips’ case but there was still a hell of a lot of work to do before he could begin to relax.

  They exchanged mobile phone numbers and he promised to call her in a day or so. Feeling pleased and nervous at the same time, he tucked the piece of paper she’d given him into his warrant card as she drove off. Fiona Barton was undeniably stunning, and he knew he should be feeling pleased with himself. Trouble was, he doubted they had any sort of a future together. She didn’t seem the sort to sit around waiting for him to finish work, never knowing if he would get off on time or not.

  His job wasn’t exactly conducive to long-term relationships. Or was he using just work as an excuse to prevent himself from getting hurt all over again, the way he had with Jenny?

  Perhaps he should consider hooking up with someone in the job, someone who understood how the system fucked up your social life. He bet Kelly Flowers would understand.

  Jack scratched his head, wondering what had made him think about her in that way.

  Now that he had, he had to admit that there was something about her that he found alluring.

  In fact, since Dillon had pointed her out to him last night, as she walked past their car outside the hospital, he had started to become...

  He wasn’t really sure what he had started to become. Interested he supposed.

  Interested?

  Was that the right word to describe his feelings? Probably not, he thought cynically. Whatever, he had become aware of her, and he suddenly realised that he didn’t want Kelly to find out about his date with Fiona, although God alone knew why she should care.

  It was all Dillon’s fault. If the big lug hadn’t goaded him about Kelly last night, he wouldn’t be thinking along these lines now.

  Jack had been married once, but the relationship had lasted less than a year. He now accepted that the marriage had been completely wrong for them both. Of course, it was always easy to see such things clearly with hindsight. His wife detested his job; she liked the people he mixed with even less. She hated the frequency with which he phoned up to say that he’d be late home because he had ‘prisoners in the bin’.

  Most of all she hated the fact that he was independent.

  The arguments had been explosive, especially when he missed one of the numerous social functions that she had committed them to. They say that ‘make up’ sex is great, and it can be, but it wears thin when it’s the only kind of sex you ever have.

  Jenny had been a glamorous, charismatic career girl who put her social standing before their relationship. They had grown apart quickly once the first cracks had appeared in their marriage. Jack hadn’t been too surprised to discover that she had embarked on an affair with her boss. In one of their more heated arguments, he accused her of being willing to sleep with anyone who could advance her career prospects. She had sneered at him, spitefully admitting it was something she would willingly consider. The divorce had been rushed through after that, the split uncontested by either party. Jenny had remained in the matrimonial home, and he had gone his own way, tail between his legs, to begin life anew. At least there were no children to be harmed by the separation.

  Jack had remained on reasonably good terms with his ex-in-laws, Mr Justice Parker, QC and his wife, Elaine. They spoke infrequently but always sent each other birthday and Christmas cards. Jack occasionally drew Brendan Parker as the presiding Judge at one of his murder trials at the Bailey. It amused him that they acted like they didn’t know each other in public but sometimes shared an afternoon sherry in Brendan’s chambers after c
ourt.

  For a long time after the divorce, the wounds had remained raw. As a coping mechanism, Jack ploughed himself into his work and avoided any form of serious commitment. There had been girlfriends along the way, of course, and that was fine until they started wanting to get serious.

  He always made it clear that he wasn’t ready for another commitment. Having been hurt once he was in no rush to repeat the experience. Once bitten, twice shy. At least, that’s what they said.

  And yet, Jack had always believed in his heart that the right woman for him was out there somewhere. He would know her when he found her, he felt certain of that. Perhaps it was time to start looking for her in earnest, while he was still young enough to enjoy a family and all that it entailed.

  Jack was thirty-one years old and, while he wouldn’t go so far as to say he was becoming broody, he had to admit that he was disappointed to have reached that age without having any children to share his life with.

  Yes, he was close to his family, and he saw them regularly, but in general his life consisted of work, work-related piss ups with work-related friends and little else, unless you counted his thrice-weekly trips to the gym, which he often made with Tony Dillon, his work-related best mate. It was a sad and rather hollow existence if he was honest, and he would gladly have swapped the miserable freedom he had now for the joyful ball and chain of a loving wife and a couple of doting kids.

  Increasingly, Jack found himself wondering what it would be like to have a son that he could teach to play football, a son he could take to Highbury to watch his beloved Arsenal.

  He wanted a daughter, too. He wasn’t sure what little girls liked, but he figured it would probably include wearing pretty dresses and playing with dolls.

  Ideally, he would have one of each, which would be amazing. He could teach them both how to ride bicycles and fly kites, all kids loved that, and at weekends he could take them to the park, or the zoo. For family vacations, he could take them all to Disneyland in Florida, which was one of his favourite places in the whole world, and when they were old enough, he would teach them how to ski.

  He imagined the joy of hearing his toddler’s first words, especially if one of them were ‘dad’; the pride of witnessing their first steps; the satisfaction of reading his children bedtime stories, and the protective love of nursing them while they were poorly.

  Even the unpleasant aspects of parenthood, like changing dirty nappies and vomit stained clothing; or the lack of sleep most people he knew complained about while their kids were teething, didn’t seem so bad anymore.

  Yes, Jack had been – to coin a phrase – ‘job-pissed’ in his younger days, but now he realised that there were far more important things in life than work. He wanted these things, needed them. If only he could find someone to share them with.

  Dillon, who had just finished saying farewell to Karen, ambled over, mistaking the longing expression on Jack’s face for something else entirely.

  He sniggered like a schoolboy and nudged Tyler’s arm. “You sly old dog! I take it from the look on your face that things went well?”

  “It was okay,” Jack replied, giving nothing away. They crossed the nearly empty car park and stopped by Jack’s car, a ten-year-old silver Mercedes E Class.

  “Are you gonna see her again?” Dillon asked as he put his seatbelt on.

  Jack gave a non-committal shrug and turned the ignition. “Maybe. What about you?”

  “Of course!” Dillon seemed genuinely surprised that Jack should even ask him such a thing. “How could she resist me once I turned on the fabled Dillon charm?”

  Jack laughed fondly. “Well, she is only human, I suppose.”

  ◆◆◆

  At eleven-fifteen p.m. Geraldine Rye wearily locked the door to the Regency Enquiries Agency, a P.I. firm she had set up eighteen months ago following the unpleasantness that resulted in her being required to resign from the City of London Police.

  Despite its posh sounding title, Regency was a shyster outfit based in a two-room let above a garment manufacturer in Mansell Street, and it had one employee: her.

  Pushing her small brolly ahead of her like a shield, she gingerly stepped over the puddle that had formed a moat around the entrance step to her premises and emerged into the pelting rain.

  ◆◆◆

  Hands in pockets, and as motionless as a statue, The Disciple watched Rye from a darkened doorway that sheltered him from the downpour. The moment he spotted her, his stomach twisted with hatred, for this was the Blackmailer, the second of the three women who had ruined his life.

  In her early thirties, Geraldine Rye was of average height and build, with a plain but not unattractive face. Unaware that she was being observed, Rye gave the door handle a quick twist to make sure the latch had caught and then set off towards the Aldgate one-way system at a brisk pace.

  The Disciple remained stationary until she reached the subway. As soon as she committed, he pulled his collar up and sprinted back to his van, which was parked on a single yellow line nearby. The engine coughed once and then kicked into life. He slipped it into first and drove across the junction into Middlesex Street, coasting to a stop a few yards from the exit she should be appearing from at any moment. He switched on the hazard warning lights and waited impatiently.

  He was angry with her for taking the subway; most sane people avoided the place after dark, and while he would have been quite happy for her to become a crime statistic on any other occasion, it would fuck his plans up completely if she had her bag snatched or her tits groped tonight.

  The wipers jerked back and forth intermittently, struggling to clear a deluge that was leaving splash marks the size of fifty-pence pieces all over his windscreen. Normally, he found the pendulum-like movement quite soothing, but tonight it grated on him like nails down a blackboard.

  Eventually, Rye emerged from the subway, shoulders slumped miserably and head buried beneath her little umbrella. Intent on dodging puddles, she passed by the battered van without giving it a second glance. The Disciple studied her receding figure in a rain-streaked wing-mirror, and smiled triumphantly when she entered Petticoat Lane. She was sticking to the same route she had taken every time he had followed her. He knew where she was heading next, and he had already identified the perfect spot to intercept her. All he had to do was get there ahead of her and let her walk into his arms.

  ◆◆◆

  Geraldine Rye was running late due to a telephone conference with a pathetically needy client who wouldn’t get off the bloody phone, and now she was probably going to miss her train home. She cursed in a most unladylike fashion as her foot sank into a puddle she hadn’t spotted and cold water flooded into her shoe. The bottom half of her coat, and her legs, were already soaked through, and she wondered why she had bothered putting up the useless compact umbrella; a Kleenex would have done a better job of keeping the rain at bay. She decided that she needed a stiff drink. If she was going to have to wait for the next train anyway, she might as well take advantage of the situation and stop off for a little tipple at the Wetherspoons next to the railway station. There might even be a nice warm fire on the go, and a seat in which she could sit down and dry off a little.

  The door of a parked van slid open as she drew level with it, and the long-haired idiot who got out without looking nearly knocked her over. She stepped in yet another puddle as she sidestepped him. “Look out,” she yelled angrily.

  “Sorry,” he said grudgingly, hurriedly closing the door behind him.

  “Bloody idiot,” she mumbled under her breath. Her right foot was squelching with every step now, and she stared ruefully at her suede shoes, wondering if they were ruined. Great, that would be another outlay she didn’t need.

  As she reached the rear of the van, the base of her skull suddenly exploded with indescribable pain. Night transformed into brightest day, and she seemed to be staring directly into the noonday sun, but then the world spiralled into blackness and the floor rushed up to meet her.r />
  ◆◆◆

  The music in The Disciple’s head was becoming louder again as he drove into Mitre Street from Creechurch Lane. He already knew the Blackmailer was a Libra, which meant he would soon be devouring kidney. At least she wasn’t another Leo; he didn’t think his stomach could cope with eating heart twice in one night.

  He slowed on the approach to Mitre Square and pulled over against the kerb as soon as he cleared the junction. There was nothing behind him. Grinding the gears, he eventually found reverse and carefully backed the van into the square. The side mirrors were next to useless in the rain, and with all the condensation it was causing on his windows he was virtually driving blind. Moving at a crawl, he concentrated on keeping the van parallel to the school playground, aware that there was a row of bollards somewhere behind him that prevented vehicular access to St. James Passage.

  Thunk.

  The van jolted to an abrupt halt. He had found the bollards. He jumped out and ran around to the rear to check for damage. Luckily, he had only been doing about 5 MPH. Apart from a minor kink on the bumper, there was no harm done.