No Time to Die_a thrilling CSI mystery

by Andrew Barrett

  ‘I have the advantage there, then.’

  Jagger drove a blue pickup truck past them and out through the broken driveway gates. Gillon engaged gear and set off after it.

  After ten minutes, Gillon turned on the wipers as big fat lazy raindrops splattered onto the screen, to be replaced minutes later by a steady, lighter rain. He goaded Eddie all the way. After a further fifteen minutes, the streetlamps ran out, and they were heading away from town and up into the countryside somewhere approaching Otley, he guessed.

  All Eddie could see was one red tail light from the pickup and the fan of the Discovery’s headlamps in the hedges to his left, rushing by at a thousand miles an hour.

  ‘On a serious note,’ Gillon cleared his throat, and then lit a cigarette, ‘I always wondered about kneecapping. You’d hear all this shit on the news about the Irish doing it, and they say it’s really painful.’

  Eddie shook his head.

  ‘I might give that a try first.’

  ‘Put some Pink Floyd on, would ya.’

  ‘Making you nervous?’ Gillon stared at Eddie through the rear-view mirror, and Eddie could see his eyes squint up as he laughed.

  ‘Making me bored, you prick.’

  Gillon switched the cigarette to his left hand and pulled out a gun with his right, then he swung it backwards over the seat. ‘Still bored?’

  ‘Now I’m delighted. I’m sitting over the petrol tank, you wanker. I’d love you to join me in death.’ He saw the kid think about it, and then he laughed meekly and pulled the weapon back into his lap.

  They passed a sign for Bramham, and Eddie heard the kid curse. ‘The fuck are we going?’

  It didn’t stop the goading or the questions, but things calmed down a lot for Eddie over the next twenty minutes. The constant hum of the rain on the roof, the wheels turning through water, and the noisy wipers creaking their way across the screen, successfully combined to drowned out Gillon’s incessant bullshit. But even those sounds began to recede in layers as though Eddie were slowly unpacking the pass-the-parcel goodie. A numbing silence crushed him, and all that existed was the rocking of the Discovery.

  Eddie grew peaceful; sad, but peaceful. This was a horrible way to go, he thought, but at least it would be all over. No more fretting about work, no more worrying about money, or paying the bills, or getting the roof repaired; no more searching for teaspoons, convinced someone was just trying to piss him off all the time, with speed bumps and traffic cameras, and people like Benson who glared and stared and laughed at you behind your back. No more not punching Jeffery for being an arsehole, no more… And then he looked into Ros’s face before she disappeared up the path with Brian, and he saw fear in her eyes.

  Suddenly, all the noises from the road and the rain and the wipers and the arsehole at the wheel thundered home, and Eddie shook awake, eyes wide and scared. The calmness had gone, and now he was panicking, now he was looking at the cable ties, pulling at them, trying to get his teeth hooked into them until he saw blood appear on his wrists. And still Gillon yabbered about kneecapping, and all Eddie wanted to do was scream.

  But then the pickup truck’s red lights grew bright, and an amber turn signal flashed on and off. Gillon stopped talking, and Eddie swallowed hard. They were near.

  A road sign briefly proclaimed Dalton Lane before the vehicle lights washed across it. Eddie saw nothing but black fields to his left, black woodland to his right, and then burning red lights to the front as the pickup stopped.

  ‘Guess we’re here,’ Gillon laughed and jumped out of the Discovery, headed over to Jagger.

  The rain pounded on the roof, heavier now they’d stopped, it seemed, and in the headlamps, he could see Gillon and Jagger, collars up, shoulders hunched against the downpour conferring, nodding some agreement, and then Gillon headed back this way. Eddie’s heart sank, and he knew the end was coming. There would be no rescue, no cavalry suddenly appearing over the horizon. He trembled slightly.

  Gillon reached in, a pair of cutters in one hand, a gun in the other, and grinning a stupid idiot’s grin as widely as ever. He reached in and snipped the tie holding him to the seat belt anchor. Eddie’s arms fell into his lap and the blood rushed along them, pins and needles tingled in his fingertips. ‘Ready?’

  Eddie considered kicking out at him.

  ‘Don’t even think it.’

  Eddie slid along the seat and climbed out onto shaking legs. Rain drenched his hair; mud splashed up his jeans, and as soon as he began walking, pushed along from the back by Gillon, his legs felt wet and cold. Soon, his teeth were chattering. He walked slowly towards Jagger. Jagger didn’t smile.

  Beyond the pickup truck, its lights speared through the rain and shone into a niche in the trees where scrubby underbrush ran rampant in a deserted corner of woodland. There was no footpath, and Jagger led the way twenty yards through the clinging grass, limping through the sucking mud, pulling against the thorns that tugged at his jeans, rain dancing on his head.

  ‘Okay, lads,’ Eddie found himself saying. ‘Enough is enough. I’m suitably frightened, and I promise to pay for the gates.’

  It earned him a poke in the back and a grunt. But they walked into the niche where the falling rain seemed ever stronger, as though this was the focus of the storm. The truck’s lights showed Gillon’s shadow bouncing around at the side of Eddie’s own, lit up Jagger’s shiny jacket, shone through the drops of water falling from his gun.

  ‘Here,’ Jagger shouted.

  Gillon nudged Eddie to where Jagger pointed.

  ‘Shit,’ Jagger staggered past them, ‘spade,’ he said, and then, ‘not ’til I get back, Gillon.’

  The laughter seemed to have died in Gillon now, his giddiness at the prospect of joining the killing club had subsided because it had all become very real for him too. He still wore the sickly grin, Eddie noticed, but it was just a mask stuck in place for the benefit of street cred later. Gillon nodded. ‘Kneel down.’

  ‘Don’t I get a last request?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Gimme a cigarette.’

  ‘Ha, in this?’ Gillon came up close. ‘Maybe next time, mate.’ He winked. ‘Now kneel down.’

  ‘Fuck off. You do it the hard way.’

  ‘Turn around and kneel down or I’ll–’

  ‘You’re going to see my face when I die.’

  Gillon punched him in the stomach, and Eddie went down on his knees into the mud, panting hard. Then Gillon stepped behind him and brought the gun up to the back of his head.

  ‘You trust him?’

  ‘Gillon? Course I do.’

  ‘If he doesn’t die–’

  ‘Of course he’ll die. Do you think they’ve gone out for a fucking McDonald’s?’

  ‘If he lives, I’m ruined. If I’m ruined,’ she said, ‘you’re ruined too.’

  ‘That a threat?’

  ‘Don’t make me lose my temper, Slade.’ Lisa walked up and down the lounge wringing her hands together. Then she stopped, looked at him. ‘Well?’

  ‘I trust him. And I trust Jagger.’ Slade sighed, looked at Monty who merely shrugged and ate another digestive. ‘Gone are the days when we bring their heads back in a bag. What the hell do you want?’

  ‘I don’t know. And don’t mock me.’ She resumed her stroll around the coffee table. ‘Tell him to send you a picture.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A picture, by phone. I want a picture of him dead.’

  ‘You are crazy, you know that?’

  She stopped in front of Slade. ‘Please?’

  Jagger slid his gun into his jacket pocket and pulled back the tarp, poking his hand into the darkness searching for the spade. His hand brushed it and dragged it free as he cursed the weather, and suddenly, he felt a vibration against his leg and closed his eyes. He knew it was coming, and it came just at the right time. He limped back towards Gillon and Collins, pulling his phone out of wet jeans. The display flashed a number, but no name.

  He stepped to
one side so the headlamps from the truck shone directly on Eddie who was on the ground, head bowed forward, rain pouring off his hair, and he could also see Gillon, twitching, shifting his weight from one foot to the other like a golfer practising his swing, getting ready. Jagger’s eyes grew wide. He pressed OK and shouted, ‘What?’ He dropped the spade and took the gun out of his belt, hobbled through the mud as he saw Gillon stiffen, locking his arm, feet planted firmly. He didn’t listen to the phone, couldn’t have heard it properly over the pelting rain anyway; he aimed as he ran and saw in the minutest detail the tendons in Gillon’s arm grow tight, saw the trigger move, and then Jagger screamed, ‘No!’

  ‘Jagger?’ Slade stared into nothing. ‘Jagger?’ and then he heard someone shout, ‘no’ and Slade looked around the room as though someone here could tell him what the hell was going on.

  Lisa stopped pacing, Monty stopped eating, and even Tyler, dabbing his bust lip, stopped and stared at his father. Everyone heard a single sharp shot quickly followed by a second. Slade had a worried look on his face. ‘Jagger? Jagger! What happened?’

  And then Jagger came on the phone, and Slade’s eyes refocused. ‘He fucking shot him. Gillon.’

  ‘What? Gillon shot him, right?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘What do you mean, “no”? You’re not making any–’

  ‘He took Gillon’s gun and shot him!’

  ‘How the fuck–’

  ‘Because I wasn’t covering him.’

  ‘Why weren’t you–’

  ‘Because I was answering the fucking phone!’

  Lisa’s voice was high, reedy. ‘Is he dead?’

  The line died, and Slade looked at her.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Jagger stepped closer to them. Gillon was lying on his back, feet towards the truck’s lights, head in the shade, but it was easy to see the blood, it was a black sheet draped clumsily over the side of his face and neck; yet the rain pattering into it, bouncing up into the headlamp beam was scarlet. Gillon wasn’t moving.

  He looked across at Collins as his phone rang again. ‘What?’ No scream this time, just a resigned whisper barely audible. ‘Yes, Collins is dead. But so is Gillon.’ He listened. ‘Yes, I shot him. He’s dead!’ And then he listened closely, and he almost laughed, ‘What? Why do you want–’ he stared between the phone and Eddie Collins. ‘Okay,’ he said, and hung up.

  Collins had landed face first into the brambles and the rocks. The brambles had torn him up pretty badly, one thorn was embedded in his top lip drawing it back over his teeth in a macabre sneer, blood stained his teeth and part of his lower lip. Another thorn had pierced his eyelid, dragging it towards his eyebrow, showing the pale pink underside against the stark white of his eye. The eye did not move, and there was no blood flowing from the wound. His face was contorted further by a rock part-protruding from under his lower jaw and part pushing his cheek outwards. A slug edged its way over the rock.

  Jagger pressed buttons on his phone and then got down on his knees, pointed it at Collins’s face until a flash fired. He checked the picture, and then sent it to Slade.

  Slade opened the image and smiled. He didn’t look at the screen long before handing it over to Lisa. She took the phone eagerly, studied the bloody underside of Collins’s face, the shiny matted black hair on top, the twisted lip and the dead, staring eye. It looked evil; it looked like something a horror movie would have been proud of. The dead pupil, the red-eye, the barb sticking through the lid.

  ‘Happy?’

  Lisa nodded.

  ‘No way he could not be dead, is there?’

  She shrugged, thinking, ‘No, suppose not.’

  ‘So, are you happy?’

  ‘Yes, I said, yes, didn’t I?’

  ‘Good. Then you can take that back to your stores now?’

  Lisa took a deep breath, picked up the exhibit bag from the coffee table and headed for the door, Monty following her with her jacket.

  Jagger knelt by Collins, and the phone rang again.

  ‘Bury them both. Shift his car a mile or so away, then go home. Come and see me tomorrow at noon.’

  — Five —

  ‘Hey baby.’

  Ros held her breath, but she couldn’t stop shivering. Her shoes tapped the side of the bath making the water ripple as though there was an earth tremor, as though the big quake had already happened and this was the aftershock.

  She closed her eyes as the door squeaked open. She could pretend to be asleep, but the shivering would give it away. No way could you sleep while you were shivering.

  ‘I brought you some breakfast,’ he said, a kind of excitement in his voice as though it were her birthday and he was treating her to breakfast in bed with a red rose draped across the tray and a kiss-filled card propped up next to the teapot. He placed the tray on the shelf at the foot of the bath and then sat down on the toilet. She could hear him rubbing his hands together. ‘I want you to know something.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I want you to know that I forgive you, Ros.’

  She lay there motionless, trying to relax so she wouldn’t shiver; but failing because the shiver was long past being one caused by the cold. Now it was fear that made her shake.

  ‘Open your eyes, sweetheart.’

  She didn’t. She lay still, holding her breath, tiny fingers of wet hair shaking against her neck.

  ‘Open your fucking eyes!’

  Ros sucked in a huge breath, frightened by the echoing scream, and stared at him, trying to keep the shaking under control, but succeeding only in giving herself neck ache. She couldn’t feel her legs properly. She looked up at him as he wiped the spittle away from his lips.

  The lips smiled at her. Warm, pleasant, reassuring and gentle. ‘I love you,’ he whispered. And suddenly, he was at her side, on his knees, elbows on the edge of the tub, hands together, chin resting on them, smile balancing on the chin. She looked up him, could see the crumbs of toast from his own breakfast stuck in the stubble at the sides of his smile, a smear of butter on the round of his chin. And his eyes, eating her alive. ‘I loved you from the first moment I saw you.’ His eyes drifted away to a past only he seemed to enjoy. ‘Did I ever tell you that? I did,’ he whispered. ‘I loved you then, and I love you even more now.’

  ‘Brian–’

  ‘And I want you to know,’ His arms levelled out across the top of the bath, lowering his face until it, too, was on the top of the enamel, until it was closer to her, ‘that I’ve been thinking over what happened last night. And I’ve been thinking that some of it might have been my fault. I mean, if I hadn’t gone out, then…’ The smile re-emerged, and she could see grease on his lips too. ‘Well, no need to dwell on it.’

  And then he looked at her and saw she was shivering.

  ‘Cold?’

  No, she thought, I’m cleaning the bottom of the fucking bath! ‘A bit.’

  He reached over and pulled the plug, hung it over one of the taps and resumed his earlier position. The water, only about three inches deep, but plenty enough to keep her cold all night, more than plenty to make her limbs ache as it leached all warmth from them, squealed down the plughole, sounding like a cat caught in some machinery. He waited until the final gurgle passed, before saying, ‘I know this seemed like a lenient kind of punishment; I wouldn’t make a very good Nazi, would I, but you made me do it again,’ he laughed. ‘You brought this on yourself–’

  ‘I didn’t do anything to deserve–’

  He flicked an arm in the air, and Ros recoiled, bringing her hands up to her face, pulling her stiff legs up and screamed at the pain in them, as he only reached for the plug.

  ‘You want some more?’

  She was shaking her head, ‘No, please, Brian. I’m sorry, please, don’t do it again.’

  ‘Are you sorry? Really sorry?’

  She nodded vehemently, as though demonstrating that the harder she nodded, the sorrier she was. Her lips were numb, her nose was running, and the shivering had turned in
to waves of shaking. Perversely, the water, though cold, had kept some of the heat in, in the same way that swimming in the sea felt freezing, but as soon as you climbed out onto the beach, that’s when it got really cold.

  ‘Okay, then. Enough of this nonsense, Ros. You start behaving like a decent woman for a change. You start being a good wife for your hard-working husband, and there’ll be no more of these silly punishments.’ He took the weight on his hands and stood. ‘Fuck knows why I put up with all this shit from you.’ He reached for a towel. ‘Come on get up, get out of those wet clothes, and eat the breakfast I made for you.’

  Ros tried to move and couldn’t. She reached over the sides of the bath and pulled, but nothing happened. And then she cried, ‘I can’t move, Brian.’ She covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

  He stood there with hands on his hips and eventually the hard face softened and reached down to her. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘take my hand. Come on, take it. Take it!’

  Eventually she reached up to him, and he smiled as though helping the cat out of the machinery with a here I am, rescuing you again, but you know I can’t resist helping a loser look on his face.

  ‘See,’ he raised his eyebrows, ‘how silly you’ve been now?’

  She nodded as very slowly she stood, water draining from her clothes. And still she cried for the aches in her body, her locked limbs, her wrinkled skin, and the pain that drummed everywhere, and she breathed tiny breaths through blue trembling lips that clamped around a shivering jaw. Then he went and stood by the door. ‘I’ve helped you enough, Ros.’ He threw the towel at her. ‘Wise up or suffer.’

  34

  — One —

  When something in your life grows with each hour until it obliterates your horizon, until you can think of nothing else simply because you can neither see nor feel anything else, it becomes the sole point of your life until it’s dealt with; the entire focus of your waking hours. Like it or not. Life stays on hold until you grow a spine and sort things out.