The Third Rule (Eddie Collins Book 1)

by Andrew Barrett

  “What?”

  “A gun. A legal gun. Now stay here, and don’t do anything stupid. While you’re out with me, you abide by my rules – your father’s words – and if I have to, I’ll keep you in line by force.” He did not smile, nor did he thank Henry for flying Sirius Airways, the exits are here, here…

  Sirius climbed from the car, closed the door with a push rather than a slam, pulled his GoreTex on and then he crouched. The weather provided excellent cover; no noise, few people around; perfect for creeping up on some unsuspecting car thief. Sirius wasn’t fussy - this kid would do; a burglar would do, a shoplifter would do, anyone really, anyone who had that look of ‘bad’ about them; but of course this young fellow had more than the look, he had the deed as well.

  He ran across the road, crouched behind a car and assessed his prey. Church bells announced three pm, and Sirius never twitched.

  — Five —

  The diffuser snapped cleanly, leaving a sharp plastic triangle that only just fitted into the little slot in the black ignition barrel. He was indeed lucky, not only was the door unlocked, but the ignition had been previously attacked and exposed. He hadn’t even started the car before he was planning a drive-by of his old house. If there were no police around, he meant to retrieve some or all of his work, beginning with the woodland fairy. The thought of striding over Alice made him shudder.

  After that, he’d head to Scotland, as far north as you could get, where the Vidiscreens were infrequent and the friendships stronger. And who knows, he thought, maybe one day I’ll come back and I’ll find who killed her.

  As he turned the plastic diffuser in the ignition barrel, a violet flash of lightning ripped through the air above him, electrifying it, searing it. He screamed but the shatter of thunder, a crisp cleaving of the air around him, deafened him. He stared at the sky, marvelling at the rain.

  * * *

  Sirius watched from three cars back. The kid was fannying about with the ignition after having successfully blinded the interior light. The driver’s door was open, giving out onto the footpath, an escape for the would-be car thief if the owner happened to show up. He crept closer, could see the kid’s sneakered foot and soaked jeans, could make out his damp elbow as his arm worked away at something inside the car.

  Directly overhead a spear of ultra violet lightning, followed by a clap of thunder the volume of which he had never heard before, leapt through the air, sizzling raindrops, forming wisps of steam that melted quickly away.

  Closer. He was at the back of the car now, creeping silently nearer. The curtains to his right twitched and a smudged face appeared at the misted-up window. Then a hand cleared a circle and distinctive eyes peered directly at him.

  Sirius put one dead straight finger in front of his lips and blew a shush at the onlooker. Whether the onlooker thought Sirius was part of the crew about to nick his car or not, he didn’t know, but he banged on the window, rattled it, and he was shouting, screaming at the kid in the car.

  Closer.

  * * *

  Henry sat alone in the hire car wondering what would happen next. Was a gang of miscreants about to rip him from the car and beat him to death? What was going on?

  Sirius was between two parked cars a little further down the street, and envy tickled Henry Deacon as he peered through the back window. Watching a man crouched like that, pursuing his prey silently in difficult conditions took Henry into a daydream of donning webbing and camouflage, shouldering his M18a and going out to hunt the enemy.

  The lightning and the thunder wrenched Henry back into the car, misted up windows prevented him seeing clearly. He started the car, switched on the AC and the rear screen demister and gently, reassuringly, patted his own gun. Just a little insurance, daddy-o.

  And then he saw a little way down the hill, smoke spewed from the exhaust as a car started up.

  * * *

  He turned the plastic shard and the engine coughed but eventually started, registering its apparent wear by the noise from the valve train – a rattle like someone shaking a tin of nuts and bolts. At the house window, a man banged on the glass.

  As Christian reached out to close the door…

  * * *

  …and Sirius smacked the cuffs over the kid’s right wrist. The kid yelped like a girl and fell backwards into the car. Sirius growled and tried to haul the kid free, reached further in and when he did so, the kid tried to kick him off, his and shouts muffled by the noise of the rain bouncing on the car’s roof. Sirius yanked the cuffs, almost pulling the kid out into the wetness. Then he drew his fist back and punched at the kid’s face, but he moved aside unbelievably fast, replacing his whiskered face with a piece of sharp white plastic.

  The plastic sliced through the skin covering Sirius’s knuckles, glided under it, up the back of his hand. And then the kid’s kicking feet won their own battle, sending him back out onto the pavement screaming in agony. And furious that he was minus a prisoner, and minus a pair of cuffs. The car door slammed shut…

  * * *

  …and Christian crunched it into gear, and set off kangarooing down the street. He shook uncontrollably, and his mind worked fast, scattering its attention over everything. But it gathered nothing but hurriedly compiled inputs of the rain on the roof, of a man screaming at him from the gutter, of something hindering his right hand, of the squelching of water in his trainers, and the unforgiving pain in his left shoulder. A thousand things volleyed across Christian’s panicking mind. His heart beat as fast as the engine rattled. Lightning flicked the sky again and made him shriek as he pulled the old Ford up into second gear.

  He looked at the hindrance on his right wrist, saw the cuffs. Did that mean he’d just assaulted a copper – and you’re on what, a Rule One? Yup; a Rule One today, Rule Three tomorrow. Great, oh this would look good in court. The car gained speed and Christian scrabbled for the wiper switch; torrents of rain flowed down the screen and as his speed increased, the rain wavered in transparent curtains. Then he found the wipers. They didn’t work. And he was driving blind, couldn’t distinguish road from footpath. Christian screamed and slammed on the brakes.

  — Six —

  Sirius leapt to his feet, didn’t even notice the steady trickle of blood falling from his clenched fist as he broke into a run back across the street to his car. He ignored the shouts coming from a man in a vest who stood on his doorstep screaming curses at him. Henry had started the car already and Sirius didn’t even acknowledge him as he rammed it into reverse gear and sped down the street.

  “He wasn’t expecting us, then?”

  Sirius turned on the rear wiper and drove backwards with his left arm over the back of his seat. “Shut up!”

  “Didn’t seem overly pleased to see you.”

  “Last warning.”

  “Your hand’s bleeding everywhere!”

  He slapped Henry hard across the face. “Now shut up.”

  Henry looked aghast, and wiped his cheek as though the stinging would melt away. “How fucking dare you!”

  “Easy!” shouted Sirius over the scream of the engine and the roar of the rain. “And if you speak again, you’ll get another.”

  His face reddened and very serious now, Henry glanced in the wing mirror and screamed.

  The rental car smashed into the old Ford, and Sirius’s right foot never went near the brake pedal. The crunch of grating metal as the old Ford ploughed into a graffiti-covered wall was loud enough to get the curtains twitching right up the street.

  Sirius was out and running towards the wreck. It leaked orange water down into the gutter, but he concentrated on the driver’s door, wrenching it open with his injured hand. He winced at the pain, and fury made him ram the kid’s face into the steering wheel, pull it back, scream at him, and ram it again. The kid was a floppy mess, but Sirius’s fury was not easily appeased.

  “Kick me, would you,” he rammed the head, “stab me would you, you fucker,” he rammed it again. Blood splashed the windscreen and a
groan fell out of the kid’s mouth like the blood dripped from his nose. Still growling, Sirius grabbed a hold of the cuffs with his left hand and just pulled until the kid fell out of the car, and then dragged him through the rain, through the gutter coursing with water and litter up to the rear door of the rental. Then he let go and the kid flopped to the road like a discarded toy.

  “Oi!”

  The man in the string vest – now clothed in an old mac, waddled down the road in his slippers. “Henry,” he opened the rear door, “help me. Drag him in, quick!”

  Henry reached over his seat, gave Sirius a reproachful look for the red fingermarks on his cheek and then pulled the kid on board with the cuff; Sirius pushed from the back and then slammed the door. “Police business,” he shouted to the vest, “go back inside.”

  “But—”

  “Go back inside!”

  The string vest stopped and saw the blood dripping from the Sirius’s fist. He turned and waddled back up the street.

  — Seven —

  Henry’s hands shook and his face was pale as he stared fixedly through the windscreen. He didn’t speak for a long time, until they had made their way through the heart of the city and out the other side, heading east, and out of the rainstorm. “Who is he?”

  Sirius steered the car using his left hand only; his right was wedged into his crotch, trying to stem the flow of blood from the wound, a wound he still hadn’t examined.

  “Is he our appointment?”

  “Any scrote would have done; suppose it’s his lucky day.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Never seen him before. He’s a tea-leaf and that’s all that matters.”

  “Why does that matter?”

  Sirius turned the windscreen wipers off. “It matters because when the police find his blood and fingerprints inside your car, they’ll be able to pull his name right off the database – and nail him for your bad driving habits.” He wiped the moisture from his face, using his knees to steer. “If we used someone without a police record, it would make things very snaggy because they’d have no one to pin it on, except you of course.”

  Henry asked, “But what happens when the police find him, when they ask him about driving the Jag and he says…” he stopped talking. Sirius was looking at him as though he was an imbecile, as though he still hadn’t cottoned on to what was in store for the kid yet.

  Henry peered into the back seat. He looked dead. His eyes had swollen, his right was black already and was the size of a small plum, and his nose was unrecognisable, just a red mess somewhere in the centre of his face. He leaked blood into the upholstery. “You sure he’s up to whatever it is you have planned for him?”

  “It doesn’t matter; he’ll be dead by the end of today once we’re finished with him.” He smiled at Henry.

  “That’s why it doesn’t matter if the police find him?”

  “My, you’re bright aren’t you?”

  “No,” Henry said, “I really don’t think I am.”

  “Well maybe you’ll think twice before you—”

  “Yes, yes! I know how reckless I’ve been without you pointing it out to me!”

  “About time too,” Sirius winced at the pain in his knuckles. “Right; where is this place?”

  Tuesday 23rd June

  Chapter Thirty

  — One —

  “Hey, slow down,” she said, “plenty of time to build ourselves up, you know, the anticipation.” She rubbed her hands together.

  “Should be taking that statement first, really.”

  “Yeah,” she said, sliding closer to him, as close as the seat belt and her packed utility belt would allow, “should be really, shouldn’t we.” She laughed then, rubbed his thigh.

  “Glad you made the switch to my team.”

  “It wasn’t easy. Anderson put the block on my transfer for over two months. Bastard. Tried to keep me on his team.” And then she thought, “Hey, you don’t think he knows about us and he just tried to keep us apart, do you?”

  “Never mind, Launa, you’re here now. Let the good times roll.”

  She laughed and slapped his leg. The roar of the engine blotted out the police radio. Today, Launa intended getting laid and she didn’t want police business ruining it. And now that she was on Mark’s team, there was a whole shit-load of laying to be done.

  Great Preston called seductively. Launa grinned as he reached across, fingers walking northwards, and she slapped them away, laughing all the while.

  — Two —

  “So tell me where I’m going.”

  Henry sat forward again. He couldn’t help looking back at the kid all the time; he was what, twenty-five, twenty-six? It seemed a shame, and he felt guilt over the whole business for the first time. But the lad was a criminal, and his life was worth less than Henry’s. It wasn’t as though he had any great talent or would be a great loss to society; probably had no aspirations other than filling his veins with whatever foul substances they peddled these days. The lad ought to be grateful – they chose him to help his country! Henry managed a smile, but it withered quickly and fell off his face into the footwell. “Great Preston, near Garforth.”

  “That helps.”

  They continued east, outrunning the storm clouds, driving into intermittent sunshine diluted by white cloud. The ground was dry, the roads quick and within fifty minutes they turned onto a country lane and then time halted, suddenly. There was no other traffic around, a couple of tractors doing what tractors did in the fields left and right, but that was it. The place was idyllic, proper countryside, where birds made more noise than cars and where the only smell was methane from cows’ backsides rather than hydrocarbons from industry.

  Henry opened his window, choosing natural air over the climate-control and it felt good to have it blowing in his face. The tiny road got narrower the deeper into the country they went. The hedgerows became intrusive and the corners ever more acute. Another twenty minutes passed and Henry said, “Next right. About a hundred yards. You’ll see an old sign that used to say Norburn Site Office.”

  Sirius slowed but not enough. The junction slid past them and Henry shouted. Sirius stamped on the brakes and the kid behind them thudded onto the floor. They looked at each other. Sirius backed up and Henry tried to peer around his seat, to see what condition the kid was in, but couldn’t and so didn’t bother. It didn’t matter anyway, wasn’t worth the trouble.

  “I didn’t see a sign.”

  “I suppose you have to know what you’re looking for. Anyway, I think it actually now says Nob Shite Off, or something similar.” Henry wound his window back up.

  Sirius stopped the car, put it in first gear and crept between two rotten gateposts set back about thirty yards from the road and flanked by bushes that were more like small trees. A mix of overgrown blackthorn and red dogwood swallowed up the entrance. Guelder rose twisted upwards in an effort to meet those growing downward and it scraped along the underside of the car in protest as the hawthorn scraped along the sides and roof. This went on for fifty yards and only when it became increasingly dark inside the car and the noise of scraping paintwork became a worry, did it finally open out into a road wide enough for two cars to pass side by side. Not that there had been two cars up here – especially side by side – for decades. This was the original Land That Time Forgot.

  “How the fuck did you come by this place?”

  “Used to play around here as a kid; knew it like the back of my hand. There’s an old tower over there somewhere, where the slag heaps are, and then there’s—”

  “Okay, okay; it was only a simple question!”

  “Forgot you hated me there for a second.”

  “Don’t do it again. How much farther?”

  “Just keep going.” The driveway was rutted with potholes you could lose a child down, but its surface was smooth, hard and even a little dusty where the plants and creepers hadn’t reclaimed it yet. Only a minute or two passed before they rounded a right ha
nd bend and could see up ahead on the crest of the road, the remains of an old single storey hut at the side of the widest part of the road – wide enough to let the water bowsers turn around back in the old days. And as they drove nearer, the outline of the Jaguar grew clearer.

  “I’ll give you your dues, you picked a good spot to hide a car – bet no one’s been up here for years.”

  “It’s not a through road, you see. It ends in the old quarry about quarter a mile further on.”

  The car smacked a pothole, its chassis scraped the edges away and jolted the passengers hard enough to have the kid lying in the back groan.

  “Not dead then?” Henry said, almost optimistically.

  “Not yet.”

  They rolled up to the scratched and dust-covered Jaguar, and Sirius laughed as he turned the engine off.

  Henry smiled in return, but hadn’t a clue what was so funny and merely said, “What?” with a giggle running through it. “What’s funny?”

  “You tried to burn that thing, didn’t you?”

  “Stuffed a rag down the fuel pipe.”

  “You’d never get it to burn like that, you prick; it’s diesel!” Sirius used his left hand to open the door and then swung himself out, freeing his damp trousers from up the crack of his arse.

  Henry climbed out. “What difference does that make?”

  “You haven’t a clue, have you? Petrol will burn if you look at it wrong; diesel won’t burn if you put a fucking blow torch to it.”

  “Oh.”

  Sirius laughed again as he went to inspect the cat. “It’s a shame for everyone else that it wasn’t petrol, really.”

  Henry ignored the comment, “What are you going to do with him?”