The Third Rule (Eddie Collins Book 1)

by Andrew Barrett

  There was no reaction time for Eddie, he put conscious thought on standby, and a subconscious force took control over the levers and buttons inside Eddie’s mind. Eddie ducked as Sirius fired and for a brief moment he felt the heat of the shockwave pass by within an inch of his ear, felt red-hot particles of spent exhaust singe his skin, and heard the massive boom of the bullet leaving the muzzle.

  Eddie lunged and caught Sirius around the chest, forcing him backwards into Mick’s desk. The gun went off again, and Eddie screwed his eyes tight shut and kept on pushing forward with all the strength in his legs and crushed tight with all the strength in his arms. There was no screaming, there was grunting and sounds of exertion. Sirius swung around, managed to get his back to Eddie’s front and he turned with Eddie clinging to his back like a tortoise shell and heaved, Eddie’s feet left the ground and Sirius fell back against the wall, crushing him.

  But Eddie didn’t let go. He held on with his left arm and brought his right hand forward, furiously, frantically searching out Sirius’s face. Sirius whipped his head back and smashed Eddie’s nose. The pain was blinding and for a moment it almost cancelled Eddie’s auto-pilot, and that would have been the end.

  Eddie found Sirius’s chin. Then he found Sirius’s throat and he grabbed it. He tightened his grip on the windpipe. Sirius bucked, threw an elbow into Eddie’s abdomen, whipped his head back and forth trying to free Eddie’s grip. And then moved against the desk, trying to throw Eddie off, but Eddie clung on, sinking his fingers into the fleshy part. The noise of air grating through Sirius’s constricted throat gave him added strength, and he renewed his grip, tightened his fingers.

  Sirius began thrashing about. He hoisted the gun over his right shoulder. Eddie saw it coming and ducked left as Sirius pulled the trigger. That momentary lapse caused Eddie’s fingers to slacken and Sirius hooked his own fingers into Eddie’s and began pulling his hand away from his throat. Eddie punched Sirius in the temple hard enough to make him stumble. Eddie yanked him backwards, crushing his throat again as he pulled him off balance. Sirius staggered, this time brought the gun around his hip and fired upward. The sound was enormous and for a second, Eddie stopped. His eyes, not screwed shut anymore, widened as he felt something change inside.

  Sirius was off balance now, and they both fell to ground by Mick’s feet. Eddie pulled his head aside as they fell and butted Sirius’s head into the floor.

  And then it all stopped.

  The only sound was the rain against the window. That, and Eddie’s rapid breathing. He felt hot, and shaky, nauseous. Sirius’s eyes were closed and Eddie pulled his fingers out of his throat. They were covered in blood.

  He slid aside, freed himself and then sat against the far wall, panting. He held up his right hand, the one that had been embedded in Sirius’s throat, and the wet fingers shook hard enough to spray blood into his lap. He looked across to Sirius, a big man with broad muscular shoulders, a man who didn’t really have a neck to speak of, just a head and then a body; but somehow Eddie had found his throat, and there was nothing short of a bloody mess there now, a slow rivulet of blood trickling down and dripping onto the carpet.

  And beyond him was Mick’s computer. It too was silent now, not even a cooling fan running, no bright lights blinking. Eddie wondered if Mick had sent the email yet, or whether he was still too busy composing his story. He could see the USB ports from here, and in the uppermost one was a stub of the memory stick they had rescued from Henry Deacon’s watchtower. The smashed remains of it lay smeared across the floor at the computer’s base.

  — Three —

  “Kill the sirens,” Benson said. “Should be up here on the left somewhere.

  Two hundred yards later, it was; one left kink in the road and the sign for the farm was there instantly. The traffic officer braked hard and then steered onto the track. Benson reached over and cut the blue lights, and the traffic officer shut off the car lights too.

  “What’s the plan?” he asked.

  “I haven’t got a plan,” Benson said. And that was almost true. He couldn’t know what lay ahead, so he concentrated on what he anticipated Sirius was doing. Sirius had offered Eddie to Benson, which meant he wanted Mick; and if he wanted Mick, it meant he wanted whatever Mick had against him or his boss – whoever that may be. And if Eddie was there, what would Sirius do to him? And Benson wanted Eddie badly. “Making it up as I go along.”

  There was a silver car parked on a narrow lane to their right, between the trunks of two trees, and what Benson assumed to be Sirius’s car parked just ahead, its interior light glowing, no one inside it. The officer brought his car to a halt a few yards behind it.

  “Want me to come in with you or what?”

  “Fucking right I do.”

  “Well then, you tell me what’s going on.”

  Benson looked across, and saw the officer’s no-compromise look. “There’s a bad guy, probably armed, who works for the Government. I want him; he’s up for murder, Government man or not. Inside are two other men, one a journalist who hasn’t as far as I know done anything wrong, and the other is a renegade SOCO who is on a Rule Three for murder. He’s armed too.”

  “Fuck me.”

  Benson climbed out of the car and into the rain, and so did the traffic officer, checking his weapon, water running from the black peak of his cap.

  “So, what do you want me—”

  “I don’t fucking know!” It was a shout, but muffled between clenched teeth, and further drowned out by the rain. “Catch the bad guys, I guess.”

  “I feel uncomfortable about this.”

  “So stay here and polish your car, you fucking wimp.” Benson ran through the rain and the dancing puddles towards the cottage.

  Friday 26th June

  Chapter Fifty Five

  — One —

  Eddie’s eyes floated up towards Mick, then to the floor by Sirius. There was a thick red smear between Sirius’s part of the floor and his own part. And there was pain too, in his right side just below his ribs. Eddie wiped his fingers across the carpet until they were almost clean of Sirius’s blood, then found the source of pain under his shirt. Fresh warm blood coated his fingers.

  “Fucking great,” he whispered.

  The pain came on in slow rhythmical throbs that steadily increased in intensity. He wondered how much damage there was; he’d seen enough gunshot wounds to know that most of them, if not treated within an hour, could prove fatal, and those that weren’t fatal incapacitated the victim extensively. But here, in the middle of nowhere, only an air ambulance could get to him quickly enough. And the odds of anything flying in this weather were pretty slim.

  He’d been shot in the leg last year and the bullet had nicked his femoral artery. He would have bled to death if the police officer hadn’t parted Eddie’s legs like a pair of scissors, holding Eddie’s right foot up against his chest, and stood on his inner thigh just below his balls. It hurt like hell at the time, but it stopped him bleeding out.

  And then guilt turned his watering eyes back up to Mick, staring at his motionless back, at the lack of breathing, the lack of fidgeting. Mick was like a piece of furniture now. And he felt a great wash of sadness. All Mick had wanted to do was get the story into print, all he ever wanted to be was the best he could be, and now he was a piece of fucking furniture.

  Poor Mick.

  Had the story made it through to the newspaper?

  Eddie held his breath and tried to stand. The pain in his right side was excruciating, but he didn’t scream this time, made himself stay silent except for a hiss through clenched teeth, and slowly he staggered to Mick’s desk looking for his mobile phone. He could feel the blood oozing down his leg, soaking into his jeans and gradually cooling.

  Mick had told him to keep the phones switched off so the police couldn’t triangulate their signal and pin a location on them; but they were well past that now. He found Mick’s phone under a jotter, switched it on and waited for it to find a signal and
scroll through its starting-up procedure. Seeing all the blood across Sirius’s neck and face, as though a wild animal had ripped his throat out, made him retch. But the phone drew his attention: two messages.

  One was from someone called Rochester asking if he was okay, sent three hours ago. Eddie was puzzled at the name then remembered Rochester was Mick’s boss, the editor. The second message was from a Suzanne Child, sent an hour ago, and asking if he would mind her accessing his database.

  Mick selected Rochester and pressed call. It rang five or six times before it was answered, “Mick?”

  “No.”

  “Who is this? Where’s Mick?”

  “Mick’s dead.”

  There was a pause. “Who is this?”

  “My name’s Eddie Collins, I’m a friend of his.”

  — Two —

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  Ros, heart hammering in her chest, eyed the man. He was very short, maybe five-seven, but heavy, somewhere around sixteen stone. He was bald except for a narrow band of blonde hair than ran around the back of his head from ear to ear like a letter C that had fallen over. He wore crescent shaped glasses perched on the end of his large nose. He was smiling at her. “It is,” she said, “very.”

  “How much is it?” Chris asked.

  “Ah,” the man pointed a finger at the ceiling, “that all depends.”

  He wore a gold-coloured waistcoat. And smart shoes.

  “On what?”

  “You’ve seen the other paintings by the same artist,” he swept an arm aside, as though unveiling for the first time the paintings they had already admired, “and you’ve seen the price of them. Now,” he whispered, “how much are you in love with The Nymph?”

  “Beg your pardon?” Ros asked.

  “The Nymph; how much do you love that painting?”

  “You want us to make you an offer?”

  “I do, yes.”

  “It’s not even finished.”

  “Never will be. The artist is dead, unfortunately. But I like to think that detail adds a little something to the picture; it adds, as if one were needed, a talking point. But crucially, it adds an air of mystery too. You will spend hours, as have I, wondering how the artist would have finished it.”

  He shuffled back to where the smaller paintings were, to where light was better. “Look at it from here,” he said. “This is the spot from which I admire it the most.”

  For the first time, Ros was able to take note of his snooker player’s waistcoat. And she could see the shimmering golden threads, so thin you could see through a single one, only when they were together as a whole, could you appreciate the golden hue.

  “Come, come,” he said, “stand and fall in love.” The little man turned Chris abruptly, but with Ros he took a little more care and turned her slowly, almost as though he were smelling her perfume, as though he were scrutinising her.

  She turned, but before she had her back to him, she noticed in the golden threads up at the very top of the waistcoat, a smear. Chocolate or even gravy hastily wiped away, but its remnants remained visible only to an eye that searched for it.

  “How much do you love it?”

  “I couldn’t afford to love it as much as I’d like,” Chris said.

  The little man laughed. “I understand perfectly.” Behind their back, he stopped smiling. “I have one more thing to show you. Follow me.”

  — Three —

  “I need to get access to his informants.”

  Rochester sat behind his desk, contemplation on his face. He stared up at Suzanne Child, then nodded. “Okay, get into his database,” she had already turned away, “and check his emails while you’re there.” She nodded and closed the door, and Rochester resumed his earlier musing, thinking not only of Mick’s whereabouts and his safety – he hadn’t heard from him since Thursday morning – but also of the story he was working on, the one he promised was an exclusive, the one that went right to the top of Government. Of course he still had plenty of material to use, Mick had seen to it that Henry’s taped ‘confessions’ were available to him, but there was more; he had insinuated there was much more, and Rochester knew Mick wasn’t lying this time. He had a certain enthusiasm in his voice he hadn’t heard in years.

  And then Rochester’s mobile phone began to ring. It startled him out of his daydream, and read the screen: Mick Lyndon. “Mick?”

  “No.”

  “Who is this?” he asked. “Where’s Mick?” Rochester stood; ready to march out into the office to be at Mick’s station.

  “Mick’s dead.”

  Rochester’s fingertips touched his desk. “Who is this?”

  “My name’s Eddie Collins, I’m a friend of his.”

  Rochester tried to recall the name, but he was coming up blank.

  “Are you at his desk?”

  “What, no I’m… How did he die, what happened to him?”

  “He was shot. Ever heard the name Sirius?”

  Rochester eyes widened; oh yes, he’d heard that name before. “Sirius shot him? Are you serious? Why, what happened?”

  “Have at look at Mick’s emails, see if anything reached you.”

  Rochester somehow made it out into the office; the noise of people talking and of photocopiers and printers whirring didn’t exist; all he heard was this man called Eddie Collins breathing fast, as though he was under some kind of duress, “On my way,” he said. “Are you okay, Mr Collins?”

  “I’ve been shot too, don’t know how bad it is.”

  “Well—”

  “Hurry up, Rochester.”

  “Yes, yes.” He approached Mick’s desk where Suzanne looked up at him, saw the shock in her eyes, and wondered if he looked that bad. But Suzanne wasn’t shocked at the look in Rochester’s eyes, she was beckoning him over quickly. Rochester stared at the screen. “Oh my God,” he whispered.

  “What’s there?”

  “Erm, it’s linked to an audio file. It’s a transcript of an audio file.” He scrolled down the screen. “Mick’s put a story together around it.”

  “Is that everything?”

  “I’m not sure, hold on.”

  “Hurry, Rochester.”

  “There’s a crossword puzzle,” he looked up at Suzanne. “I don’t know what to make of it—”

  “Decipher it and print it. Print it all.”

  “I can’t just—”

  “You have to! There’s fucking people dying out here. Fucking idiots—”

  Rochester was about to reply, when he heard a sharp crack over the phone and a cluster of noises as though the phone had been dropped.

  * * *

  Eddie dropped the phone on the desk, and looked around, searching for his gun. The front doorknob banged against the hallway wall again. He heard the rain beating on the footpath outside the front door. He heard footsteps in the hallway. He saw the gun over in the corner. Footsteps on the stairs. He walked towards the gun, cringing at the pain. He could hear the rain louder, could even hear it dripping from the clothes of whoever was walking up the stairs.

  He reached the gun. He bent, clenching down on a scream, and grabbed it.

  Someone was out on the landing, very close. He could hear their laboured breathing, could still hear water from their clothes or their hair dripping onto the carpet. It reminded him of the moss in the back yard of his flat. Eddie squeezed himself up against the wall and brought the gun up to chest height.

  The breathing worsened, “Fuck me.” Then Benson strode into the room, handgun down by his side, relaxed as though he thought the house was clear now. He walked over to Sirius, bent and took hold of his right hand. There was a deep injury, just above the knuckles, healing it appeared, but very slowly.

  “Wondered when you’d show up,” Eddie said.

  Benson stopped dead. He stood up. He didn’t look around, but Eddie saw him tense slightly. “Quite the serial killer now, Eddie.”

  “Drop your gun and kick it over here.”

  Ben
son dropped it, back heeled it in Eddie’s direction. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you sober.”

  “There goes another rib.” Eddie nudged the gun across towards the skirting board, well out of the way. “Where’re your friends?”

  “On their way.”

  “Who did you arrive with?”

  Benson said nothing.

  “May as well tell me; don’t want any nasty surprises. They make my finger twitch.”

  “A traffic officer drove me.”

  “He round the back?”

  Benson nodded.

  “When he comes inside, tell him to go wait in the car, and when the rest get here, tell them the same. Okay?”

  “You know what they used to say in the old Westerns? You’ll never make it out of here alive,” Benson laughed and turned. His eyes immediately found the blood smeared against the wall behind Eddie. “Maybe sooner than I originally thought though. Shame, I wanted to kill you myself.”

  “Take your coat off.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “I’m on a Rule Three, Benson. You’re talking to a dead man.”

  Benson shrugged out of his jacket and let it fall to the floor. It thudded, the cuffs poking out of the inside pocket. “Now what, you want me to get down to my y-fronts?”

  “Put a pair of hand cuffs on. I see you brought plenty.”

  Benson ignored the ones in his jacket, instead he removed some from a small leather pouch on his belt, slipped them on his wrists and stared as if waiting for another order.

  Eddie stared too, but at the spare cuffs. “You were going to arrest him, weren’t you,” he nodded at Sirius.

  “He still alive?”

  Eddie shrugged, “Haven’t heard him breathing, but check for a pulse if it’ll make you happy.”

  “I’m not fussed. If he’s not dead yet, he soon will be; quite hard to live without a throat I should think.”