The Third Rule (Eddie Collins Book 1)

by Andrew Barrett

  “You’re a lawyer, dammit, stop them.”

  “Cannot be done. And the on-line versions will be available soon anyway. You may be able to get one in time for tomorrow’s edition, but no chance for today’s. Sorry.”

  “Put the wheels in motion. And use as much grease as you need.”

  “What’s it about? And what newspaper is it?”

  “It’s The Yorkshire Echo—”

  “We’re off to a bad start already then; Alan Rochester is the editor, and he’s an old bulldog—”

  “Then get a wolf on the job—”

  “Who has access to Media Corporation’s lawyers… they play rough and can delay—”

  “Thomas. Stop there.” Deacon leaned back against the cold leather of his chair and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I want the stories they’re about to run killed. Dead.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “National security.”

  “You’ll need to be more specific, that’s a huge umbrella.”

  “Specific. Right. We have a drunken journalist and a drunken police employee running around the fucking country making stories up about my family and about the policies concerning the new Criminal Justice Act, which may bring it into disrepute, and which may damage my reputation and the Government’s reputation beyond repair.”

  “Don’t worry about reputation, we have tough libel laws.”

  “Fuck the libel laws, Thomas; I don’t want it even reaching the courts! Once it’s in the public domain it will never go away; even when I’m vindicated, my career and The Rules will be in tatters.”

  There was another considerable silence before, “I’ll get someone to visit Rochester in a few hours; maybe we can lean on him a little.”

  “Make it happen, Thomas. I can cover this morning’s headlines if I must, but God knows what’s coming my way tomorrow.”

  Deacon put down the phone, clasped his hands before him, and finished off the deep breath he’d promised himself.

  — Three —

  With the smell of freshly rained upon dust in the air, they walked in silence, slipping and tripping along the treacherous lane with feet made twice as wide and twice as heavy with clinging grey mud. Eventually, a compound came into view, blocked by metal gates that had perished over time. Mick cracked open the torch, and with ease they forced aside the corroded chain link fence at the gates’ side and climbed through, a gusting wind at their backs. Soon they were walking not on slippery grey muddy earth, but on slippery concrete. Ahead, the carcasses of abandoned machinery stood open to the elements like rows of slain giants and all they could hear was wind whistling among them, and incessant rain beating them.

  “Up there,” Eddie pointed off into the near distance. Silhouetted against the lighter sky was what looked like a Second World War aircraft control tower. It was a cold concrete structure high enough to have a pretty good view of the compound, and probably most of the opencast too. A plethora of other eerily dark buildings seemed to spread out to one side of the tower. Eddie rammed his wet hands deep into his wet pockets and trudged on towards the tower of dreams.

  * * *

  The door banged shut after them, and even Mick’s torchlight seemed reluctant to be here, its light as meagre as a candle flame. Wind rushed along the concrete staircase beside them, adding to the chill in their wet clothes. Outside in the dark yard, a door banged incessantly, and Eddie wondered if being tucked up in a police cell would be such a bad thing.

  Mick’s torchlight picked out the stairs and the debris crowded onto them, and then they were on a landing of sorts with doors left and right, all open, all willing to give up their innards to a curious eye. But none of them contained anything of note, just bare floors, massive spiders’ webs, smashed windows, and utter darkness.

  Their footfalls scuffed grit and echoed in this chasm that had stood abandoned perhaps thirty years. In one or two of the rooms, they found very old empty lager cans, discarded porn magazines, cigarette ends, even a couple of uninviting blankets complete with rat droppings. But nothing pertaining as yet to any kind of stick.

  “How are we going to find a frigging stick in here?” Eddie pushed open the door to a small toilet block. “It could be anywhere.”

  “I know. But what else can we do? Keep looking.”

  “I have no idea what we’re looking for though. Why send us out here for a fucking—”

  “Stick. Yes, I know. But maybe it’s a hollow stick, contains some important documents, maybe the stick is pointing to something, I don’t know, mate, just keep looking.”

  And keep looking they did. Through a warped wooden door, with the remnants of smashed glass inside a rotten frame, they entered the main part of the tower. Glassless windows peered out into a mess of turbulent clouds, and the rain flew in, propelled by a chill wind directly into Eddie’s eyes as he stood squinting out into the night, observing the black hole of the opencast some two hundred yards away, and closer, the dead diesel and water tanks on a light grey concrete hard-standing. The door out there continued to bang.

  “He’s been here, alright.” Mick shone his torch at the narrow strip of wall between the windows and the door they’d just entered through. Scratched into the remains of the damp plaster were the words Henry Deacon and a date below them read: 24/8/94. “Scruffy little bastard.”

  “I’m not seeing a stick, Mick.”

  “Me neither.”

  And then they both turned, almost simultaneously, towards each other, as though an idea had at last shared itself with them, and both said, “Memory stick!”

  “Of course, Christ’s sake!”

  “But that’s even worse,” Eddie said, “They’re tiny. I was imagining a two-foot length of wood, dammit. But a memory stick, Jesus, we could be here all night.”

  “Think about it though, what other clues has he given us?”

  Eddie folded his arms. “Well, this could be interesting.”

  “I’m thinking aloud here. Feel free to join in at any time.”

  “What a prick that guy was. I mean, we’re looking for something the size a of a fucking matchbox in a—”

  “Where would you hide it?”

  “Me?”

  “We’ve got to think like him.”

  “You mean go back to the car and run some people down?”

  “If you were him, where would you hide it?”

  “Behind a picture in the kitchen! I don’t know, but I wouldn’t—”

  “If you had to hide it here, where would you hide it? It would need to be out of sight of any kids who came here—”

  “It’d need to be waterproof,” Eddie said.

  “Right.”

  “Maybe higher than your average kid to keep it out of reach.”

  Mick shone the torch slowly around the room, shoulder high and above, looking for loose plaster, missing bricks or the like. Almost imperceptibly, the beam had grown fainter, yellower.

  “There.” Eddie pointed to the electrical conduit running between the light switch and a scattering of five or six ceiling lights. “Run the torch along its length.”

  Mick approached the switch, looked doubtfully at Eddie.

  “Seriously; it’s metal, it’s big enough… wait, shine your torch up there.” Eddie pointed to the dark stain of a junction box on the ceiling. Mick brought his light up, and they could see it was a shallow metal circular box attached to the ceiling. It had three tubular conduits leading away from it; its cover was a flat circular disc, rusty as hell and screwed to the box very loosely. And although the screw heads were also rusty, their threads were still a shiny silver, as though they had been recently unscrewed. Mick looked at Eddie; raised eyebrows said he could be on to something.

  Eddie reached up but the rusty screws were just out of reach.

  Friday 26th June

  Chapter Forty Seven

  — One —

  Under the cover of darkness, Christian decided to go south after all. There were moments during his four-hour stretc
h at the wheel where he almost felt happy, where his injured shoulder had settled to a tolerable throb. There were moments when he forgot about Alice, and even the loss of his paintings temporarily left him alone too.

  Christian felt a tinge of excitement as he headed towards the magnificent scenery of Penzance, where he could relax and allow his mind to wander. The visions awaiting him in Cornwall filled him with a fresh vigour and a new kind of hope, and it was these visions that would fuel new, more impressive paintings.

  The hum of the tyres on the road made him drowsy. The stereo didn’t work, and the window didn’t open. So his tiredness grew, amplified until he was only seeing glimpses of the road between bouts of eye-rolling drowsiness.

  Up ahead on the M5 was Sedgemoor services. His dream of getting all the way to the remotest part of Cornwall in one journey was proving too much. Almost without thinking, he slid his right hand across the steering wheel and flicked the indicator stalk down. Moments later he shut off the engine in the darkest corner of the car park he could find. Through he screen, and over the top of a hedge, he could see the silhouette of black trees against the mid- blue of the night sky. He took a long drink of water, climbed into the back seat, and was asleep in less than a minute.

  — Two —

  “Hurry up,” Mick said, “the fucking torch is dying.”

  They scavenged around the room for something screwdriver-shaped, and came up empty. And then Eddie stood up, wiped grimy fingers down his trousers and looked at the window. “Here, bring your candle over.”

  Eddie tiptoed to the rotten window frame and when Mick arrived with the torch, he saw the perfect tool. He grasped the rotten wood, and saw shards of glass break free; the larger pieces fell outside, but the wind hurled the sharp, powdery bits into their faces.

  “Nice,” Mick said, spitting glass. “I’m no mechanical genius here, but I suspect the window frame may be a tad too large to fit into the screw’s slot. Just an observation.”

  Squinting, Eddie yanked the frame, twisting it top and bottom until the spongy wood released the top hinge. He grabbed the frame at the top, eyes fully shut now, and twisted it out and down until the window broke free of its frame. Eddie hauled it inside and got upwind of it.

  “Okay, shine your light, need to see if we can get the hinges off.”

  Mick played the light at both hinges just as it faded and went out.

  “Fuck.”

  “Timing is just wonderful.”

  The room ceased to exist; all that did exist to them now was the noise of the wind and the stinging of the rain. “Well, at least we can get to work now.”

  “Using a fucking window frame?”

  “Watch and learn, watch and learn.” Eddie shuffled into the centre of the room. “Get your lighter out, up near the junction box.”

  “This I have to see.”

  “Me too, or else we’ll be here all night.”

  With wet fingers, Mick fumbled his lighter from his pocket, thumbed the flint. Nothing happened. No spark. “It’s wet through.”

  “You’re taking the piss.”

  “Yes I’m taking the piss, Eddie. I thought it would be fun to spend the night in a wind tunnel, freezing cold, starving, needing a shit, needing a drink, striking a dead lighter so you could work your magic on a junction box with a fucking window frame!”

  “You’re upset, aren’t you? Don’t deny it, I can read the signs.”

  “Stop it, Eddie, I’m not in the mood.”

  “Reach into my left jacket pocket, there’s a push button lighter in there. No flint, just piezoelectric quartz. Modern technology, it’s called.”

  Mick held the tiny light as high as he could, shielding the flame from the gusting wind long enough for Eddie to locate the edge of one of the stiff hinges into the slot of a screw in the junction box lid.

  The flame blew out several times, the hinge parted company with the slot just as many times, with progress being tediously slow. They had managed maybe two full turns of one of the screws. And then the flame blew out and no amount of furious button-pressing could coax it back into the life, the wind was too strong, the rain too persistent.

  Eddie screamed and threw the window frame aside, the remaining glass broke and joined the rest of the debris somewhere in the corner. “My arms are killing me.”

  “Why’s it so tight to unscrew? The threads look brand new.”

  “Stupid tosser got it cross-threaded. And instead of taking the screw out and starting again, he just tightened it and tightened it.”

  “Now what?”

  Eddie shrugged. “Can’t believe this,” he muttered, and crunched his way over to the window. “What time is it?”

  “Half four,” Mick said. “I need food, Eddie. I’m gonna fall over soon.”

  “Settle down for half an hour or so, and all will become clear.”

  “What you talking about?”

  “It’ll be dawn soon,” he said, peering into the eastern sky. “And then we won’t need a torch.” He stared to roughly the spot he thought Mick was, “I ought to just smash the thing to bits. It’d only take one or two good blows and the whole junction box would come down.”

  “Not worth the risk of damaging the memory stick.”

  “I have an LED torch on my phone.”

  “I thought I asked you to turn it off!”

  “I did turn it off, just saying, that’s all.”

  “Can’t risk it.”

  “It would take a minute, two at the most.”

  “Think about it. They think you killed Stuart and they’ve been all over your flat like a bad case of mould, so they’re looking hard for you.”

  “Not hard enough to warrant checking cell phone masts.”

  “You think? Course they will, you’re a Rule Three bad guy, and they’ll want you quick. This is all about drive-through justice now, Eddie. They want results and quick, they’re not so bothered about quality, they just want results.

  “They already know Henry Deacon is dead and no doubt your forensic buddies will have found our fingerprints in his house by now so we’ll be in the frame for topping him too.”

  Eddie shook his head, “No we won’t; he was dead hours before we got to him.”

  “If someone like your friend Benson is leading that enquiry, do you think that little bit of evidence will get in the way? You said yourself people interpret things how they want.” Mick rubbed a sleeve across his leaking nose. “Anyway, we can’t prove we were only in Deacon’s house ten minutes.”

  Eddie thought about it, sighed.

  “If they catch us now, we’ll be railroaded straight through court, a very brief Review Panel hearing and our feet won’t touch the fucking floor on our way to the slaughterhouse. Seven days from now, we’ll be cooling in the ground of some graveyard somewhere.” Mick touched the nearest wall, made sure it wasn’t wet, then turned and slowly slid down it into a crumpled position. Hands on his knees, he waited. “Maybe we wouldn’t even see a courtroom either. We’re very bad men, and if the police or someone else thought we were dangerous…”

  Eddie turned back to the window, bared his wet face to the wind, and watched the sky. “I’m fucking freezing.”

  “We already went to press with doubts over the Jag and the SOCO building burning down. Deacon knows we’re not on his side anymore; he’s after both of us. And logically, if he’s after us, he’ll want to silence us permanently.”

  Eddie turned into the room, his back to the wind now.

  “So no, I don’t think we can risk turning the phones back on even for a minute.”

  “I’ve never been hunted before,” Eddie whispered. “Kind of weird.”

  “Only kind of?”

  “It’s not how I imagined it to be.”

  “You imagined being hunted?” Mick laughed.

  “Well you know, it’s one of those things; you watch an action film or you read an espionage book, and you imagine what it would be like. Well, I did anyway.”

  “And how
did you imagine it to be?”

  “I thought I’d be fine, because the guy I just watched on the screen or the fella in the book always was. But it’s not really like that, is it? I couldn’t survive for long. Especially if they have technology on their side too. I’m absolutely knackered, struggling to keep my eyes open. But I’m hungry, thirsty—”

  “Scared?”

  Eddie was silent for a moment. “Yep, I’m scared too. Part of me wants to walk into Holbeck nick and just reason it out with Benson or Taylor or whoever. That part of me says all this is ridiculous, it’s just a misunderstanding, it’s just a misinterpretation of forensic evidence and it can easily be explained away. And when I’ve done that, Benson or Taylor or whoever, will look a bit sheepish, hold out their hand and offer an apology and we’ll all carry on as though nothing has happened, or we’ll skip down the beach holding hands, wind blowing in our hair,” Eddie laughed.

  Mick didn’t laugh. “Then you really should be scared. I don’t know what’s on that thing up there in the ceiling, but even the stuff I already have is enough to end Deacon’s career. Some of it, like Henry being worried his old man would kill him isn’t really printable because it’s conjecture unless we find some hard facts at Henry’s scene. But make no mistake here: if Deacon suspects I have any kind of damaging info on him or reads my story in the paper, it’ll be a straight battle between him and me. And that battle has already begun.”

  “You could take him out of the equation with what you know; he won’t have the power—”

  “Don’t be so naïve about politicians, Eddie. Even when they’re out of the job, they are fierce, and none more so than Deacon, he’s the king of retribution. And so in answer to the question you haven’t yet asked of me, I am scared too. Scared shitless, in fact.

  “I have enough ammunition to do irreparable damage to him and his mis-administration of The Rules. And hopefully enough up there in the ceiling to bury the fucker. And I will too, given the chance.”