Inferno

by Jay Gill

  He opened its rear hatch; the only things in there were their small travel bags and Donny’s coat. Moving them aside, he lifted the mat to reveal the spare wheel. He took it out and stashed the bag. He tossed the tyre iron on top of the money and put the mat back in place. He straightened the travel bags and the coat, then closed the back of the car. Carrying the spare wheel a few car spaces down, he laid it flat and pushed it under one of the parked cars.

  Climbing back into driver’s seat of the Toyota, he looked over at the restaurant. Fischer had got up and was heading towards the back. Donny was still in his seat and was watching Fischer. He could see Donny was wondering what to do. What an amateur, thought Barton.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  “Moon,” said Fischer, “order some cakes for us all. I’ll be right back. I need to go to the men’s room. Can I borrow your cigarette lighter? I left mine in the car.”

  “Sure.” Moon reached into her jeans pocket and produced a plastic lighter with a picture of a Hawaiian dancer in a grass skirt and flowers in her hair. “Everything all right?”

  “Yeah.” Fischer looked behind him for the sign to the men’s room. “I’ll be right back. Carrot cake for me.”

  “I want my hula dancer lighter back,” Moon called after him. “She’s my lucky lighter.”

  Fischer walked to the rear of the restaurant. Passing a vacated table, he picked up a fork and slipped it into his front pocket. He followed the sign for the men’s room, pushed through a swing door and entered a short passageway with more two doors. The first door read Ladies; the second door read Gents. At the end of the passageway was the fire exit. Fischer looked back the way he’d come to see if he was being followed before he entered the men’s room.

  Just inside the door was a privacy wall, on the other side of which were two sinks, a pair of hand dryers and a row of four urinals. On the opposite side of the room were two stalls. Fischer went over to the stalls, pushed the doors open to be sure he was alone.

  Sorry, Jess and Moon. You’d better get your cake to go, thought Fischer. He pulled a large wad of toilet tissue from the dispenser and, moving to the middle of the room, held it to the flame of Moon’s cigarette lighter. The hula dancer’s face smiled at him as the lighter’s flame danced above her head.

  Fischer held the burning paper over his head, close to the smoke detector. The restaurant’s alarms immediately sounded. Fischer dropped the burning wad into the toilet and flushed it. He then moved out of sight behind the privacy wall beside the hand dryers.

  The door to the men’s room swung open and Fischer readied himself. His heart was booming to a beat similar to the throb of the smoke alarm shrieking in his ears. He took the fork from his pocket and held it up.

  The stick-like figure of the man appeared in front of him. As he bent over to check under the stalls, Fischer jumped out behind him and grabbed him. Wrapping his left arm around his head, he put the fork to the stick man’s throat and kicked at the back of his right leg, causing the stick man to go down hard onto his knees.

  “Who are you?” spat Fischer. He pressed the fork hard into the man’s neck.

  “No one.”

  Fischer used his fork hand to punch the stick man’s bandaged right ear. “Try again,” insisted Fischer.

  The stick man screamed. “Donny. My name’s Donny Dodd.”

  “Why are you following me, Donny?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Fischer rapped his ear again.

  Donny screeched. “Stop. I’m not following you, man. I came in here to make sure everyone had left the building. I used to be in the fire service.”

  “Bullshit. You were watching me in the restaurant.” Fischer pressed the fork hard into Donny’s neck. Spots of blood appeared at the tips of the prongs. “Are you police? This is your last chance. If you don’t start talking, your neck is going to leak like a sieve – you hear me?”

  “I was paid to find you,” said Donny.

  “Find me? Paid by who?” Fischer yanked Donny’s head back by his hair to expose more of his throat.

  “She’ll kill me if I tell you,” said Donny.”

  “I’ll kill you if you don’t.”

  “Her name’s—”

  The men’s room door opened. The restaurant manager appeared behind Fischer and Donny. “What the—?”

  Donny took his chance. He brought his elbow back swiftly, catching Fischer in the groin. Fischer grunted and doubled over. Donny twisted out of Fischer’s grasp and crawled away.

  Fischer spun around and, one hand on his groin, lunged for the door. He pushed past the restaurant manager, knocking him hard against the hand dryers and sending him awkwardly to the floor.

  Exiting the men’s room, Fischer turned left and took the emergency exit door to the outside. He ran around the building to the car, where he found Jess and Moon standing and looking at its broken window. “Get in,” insisted Fischer. “We have to go. Right now. We have to leave.”

  “What’s going on?” asked Jess.

  “I’m taking you home. You can’t be around me right now. It’s too risky.”

  Fischer reversed the car out of the space. The tyres screeched as he pulled out of the car park and onto the road.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  We were only a few miles from the home of Aunt Patti when Cotton got a call. A man matching the description of Edward Fischer was part of a disturbance at a restaurant called Coffee, Cake ’n’ Shakes. We changed course and headed straight there.

  The restaurant was swarming with police. Inside, the café’s manager, Perry Barnes, rested his leg up on a chair. Tea towels filled with ice rested on his ankle. His chubby face shook and his eyebrows bounced around as he spoke breathlessly about the incident. “I swear, they were going to kill each other. It was like something out of a movie. An execution. Right here in the men’s room of my restaurant. It happened so quick. Boom, boom, boom! I stepped in to break it up. That’s when I got slammed. Bam! I was down. Thought I was going to be executed myself. One to the body, one to the head – phut! phut! You know, a gun with a silencer, professional hitman style. Phut! phut!”

  “So, one of them had a gun?” said Cotton.

  “Well, no. Not exactly. At least I didn’t see one. But they looked the type,” said Barnes.

  “You’ve been through a lot, Mr Barnes; I appreciate that. If you can stick to the facts, it would be truly helpful. It’s important we find these men quickly, so nobody else goes through what you’ve endured,” said Cotton.

  I left Cotton to persevere with our imaginative witness.

  Next to the cash register, leaning against the counter, was a waitress who had been serving at the time of the incident. She looked to be in her late teens, wore little makeup and was naturally pretty. Her shoulder-length auburn hair was dyed with a lighter colour at the ends. She had a small, sparkling nose stud that matched a row of three studs in each ear.

  As I approached, I looked longingly at the cakes under their glass domes. “These cakes look amazing. Is there any chance at all I could get a piece of that apple cake and a cup of tea?”

  The waitress smiled and nodded. “Of course.” She picked up the apple cake and took down a clean plate.

  “Is that your real name?” I asked.

  The waitress touched her name badge. “My name’s Bryony. Everyone calls me Bee. Here you go.” She passed me a piece of cake and a fork wrapped in a napkin. Bee dropped a teabag in a pot and filled it with boiling water. Placing the pot in front me, along with a cup and a tiny pot of milk, she said, “It’s on the house. I’ll wrap a piece of cake for your friend.” Bee nodded towards Cotton.

  “That’s very kind. Unfortunately, I have to pay. Them’s the rules when you’re a police officer,” I joked. “How long have you worked here?”

  “Nearly six months. It’s only temporary. I’m going back to college next year.”

  “Really? Studying what?” I forked a piece of cake into my mouth.

  “
Film production and cinematography.”

  “That sounds interesting. Where are you hoping that’ll lead you?”

  “The dream is to be a film director. One day. Start at the bottom and work my way up. You know how it is.”

  “I do. It’s the best way to learn.” I pointed to the cake with the fork. “This is great cake. I’m not so sure that second slice will make it into the hands of DI Cotton over there.” I pretended to hide the cake under a few napkins.

  Bee laughed.

  “You must have met all the customers at the time of the incident,” I said. “How about the two men who got into the altercation? Do you remember them?”

  “I didn’t see the fight, but Mr Barnes told me which two men it was. They were both in my section. I served them both. One of them was on his own.” Bee pointed to the side of her head. “He had a bandage on his ear.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not really. He was a bit abrupt. Not very talkative. Only ordered coffee.”

  “Did he have a beard, or was he tall, short, young, old, overweight, muscular?”

  “No beard. He was tall. I nearly tripped over his feet a couple of times. Not fat. He was really skinny. His shirt collar looked big on him, like he needed a big shirt for the arm length but then the rest of the shirt was too big; does that make sense?”

  “Yes. I know exactly what you mean. How about the other man?”

  “He was with a girl I knew from school. They were really nice. Even though the smoke alarms went off, they left a big tip.”

  “That’s really nice of them. Can you describe them?”

  “The girl from school was Jessica Walker. I’ve got a selfie with her on my phone.” As she scrolled through her phone she added, “Jessica was with a woman and a man. The woman was pretty. I might be wrong, but I think the man was her dad. I heard them talking while I cleared the table behind them. He had lots of tattoos.” Bee showed me a photo of herself with Jessica Walker, the two of them smiling. She scrolled some more and then showed me a promotional picture of Jessica with her arms folded over a guitar. “She’s a really good singer. Songwriter too. I sent her a message and said I’d love to direct a music video for her one day.”

  “What makes you think he’s her father?”

  “He said he’d missed her growing up and regretted it. Wanted to see her perform. It was so sweet.”

  “Did you hear when she was going to perform?”

  “No. Sorry. I think it’s probably going to be soon, though, because he said he was leaving soon. Sounded like he was emigrating. He was going to live abroad. At least that’s what it sounded like. I shouldn’t have been listening, but I was cleaning the next table and couldn’t help overhearing.”

  “Jessica must live quite locally, I suppose?”

  “I don’t know where, exactly. Though it must be quite local to where we both went to school.”

  “If I can ask for the name of your school, I can check their records. They’ll have her address.”

  * * *

  I stepped outside to call the school, trying to figure out the quickest process for getting Jessica Walker’s current address.

  Cotton sidled up to me and could see the satisfied look on my face. “How did you get on with your witness?” I asked, knowing full well how she’d got on and trying not to laugh.

  “Yeah, yeah. Stop looking so smug. It’s all right for you. I’m pretty sure Perry Barnes thought he was caught up in an over-the-top action sequence in a Mission Impossible movie.”

  “Well, we got a lead, and it’s a belter, so let’s go.” I unlocked the car and threw Cotton the car keys. “Are you okay to drive? I need to make these calls. You know how it is when a witness delivers a first-class lead,” I said with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek.

  “Arsehole,” retorted Cotton. “Get in the car. Not another word. Not one word. You hear me?”

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Fischer and Moon said goodbye to Jessica two roads away from her house. On the way to their hotel they stopped to buy some booze, a pack of Pepsi and cigarettes at an off-licence. They then bought fish and chips and ate them in the car beside a small pond next to an industrial estate. The pond had two ducks. Mummy and Daddy duck, as Moon called them. A cat sat on the bank watching the birds. While they sipped their drinks and ate chips, Fischer and Moon discussed what the cat might be thinking and what the birds could be saying about the cat. Then Fischer told Moon the story of what had happened at the petrol station and how Trent had got himself killed by being stupid. He tried to make it sound like a lesson on knowing when to stand your ground and when to walk away. “The guy wouldn’t back down; he wouldn’t listen. If you look at it in context, he killed himself by trying to be a hero. I told him I wasn’t going back, but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “You gave him a chance,” agreed Moon. “You did all you could, Eddie. The fella didn’t listen. That’s not your fault.” Moon took their empties and threw them out the window.

  An hour later they pulled into the hotel car park. Fischer got out, opened the rear hatch, paused, then slammed it down again. He walked around in circles then kicked the car. “Shit, shit, shit.” He opened the back of the car again, took another look, then slammed the door down again. “Shit!”

  “You’ve said that,” said Moon, as she watched Fischer’s outburst. “Was the money definitely in the car?”

  Fischer placed both hands on the bonnet and leaned against it. “Yes, it was definitely in the bloody car.” He stared at the floor as he thought about what to do next. “Shit!”

  Moon didn’t like seeing him so upset, especially when she knew she was at least partly to blame. If she hadn’t bailed on him, they might be long gone by now. Out of the country, sitting on a beach sipping Bacardi and Coke. “Okay, so we get some more.”

  “How do you propose we do that? Go to a bank and ask for a loan? That money was supposed to set us up. It was our retirement fund.”

  “I don’t know the best way to get more cash. I do know there are a million ways we could do it. We could rob some pimp or dealer. You could break into some celebrity’s pad and pinch their jewellery – it’s what you were good at. Or do over a security van. Or rob some rich widow. Shake down or extort some businessman or politician who’s screwing their secretary. Kidnap another kid or grab a wife and get a ransom. There are loads of ways. We could even find out who took the money from the car and take it back.”

  “Hey, that’s a good idea,” he said acidly. “So who do you think it was that took it?”

  “I don’t know. We need to look for clues.”

  “Clues? So, suddenly you’re Miss Marple or that woman from Murder She Wrote or… or… or Helen Mirren, are you?”

  Moon mumbled something Fischer didn’t catch.

  “What?” said Fischer.

  Moon mumbled again.

  “What the hell are you muttering about?” barked Fischer.

  Moon lifted her head and spoke so Fischer could hear. “Helen Mirren isn’t a detective. She’s the actress. You probably mean Tennison. Tennison is the detective. Helen Mirren played Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect. She was really good.”

  Fischer stared at Moon open-mouthed. “Are you trying to wind me up?”

  “You asked,” said Moon. “Look, don’t get so testy. You’ll figure it out. You always do. You’ve got Jess’s gig coming up. If you’re all wound up you won’t enjoy it. After the gig we’ll work something out. Maybe I could ask Aunt Patti for a loan; she’s minted. We could tell her we’re getting married and need a deposit for a house. Anything will do; she liked you. You could flash your tattoos again. Horny old bag will love that.”

  Moon put her arms around Fischer’s shoulders and kissed him softly. She pressed her body against his and whispered, “I could tell Aunt Patti thought you were hot. Who’d have thought that uptight, wizened old bitch only ever needed a bit of rough like you to make her smile?”

  Moon moved her hips rhythmically against Fischer
. “Why don’t I see if I can ease some of that tension with some of my sweet Moon-love? What do you say?”

  Fischer scratched his head and sighed. He’d never met another woman like Moon; she was infuriating and intoxicating in equal measures. He tried to appear reluctant but knew he wasn’t very convincing. He put his hands on her hips. “It’s a good idea. I need to clear my head. I can’t think right now.”

  “So romantically put,” said Moon with a giggle. She took his hand and led the way.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Jessica Walker answered her front door on the first knock. Cotton and I showed our warrant cards and, reluctantly, she let us in. We followed her into a small study room at the front of the house.

  “I’m in the middle of rehearsing. I’ve got a big show coming up. I don’t really have time to talk now. Can we maybe do this another time?” She slumped into her chair; her guitar and notebook lay beside it. A battered guitar case rested on the floor next to her feet.