Strike closed both icebox and fridge door and turned to look at his captive.
Laing lay quiet now. Strike was sure that he was already using that devious fox-like brain to see how he could work this desperate situation to his advantage, how he would be able to argue that Strike had framed him, planted or contaminated evidence.
“Should’ve recognized you, shouldn’t I, Donnie?” said Strike, wrapping his right hand in toilet paper to stem the bleeding. Now, by the dim moonlight falling through the grubby window, Strike could just make out the features of Laing beneath the stones of extra weight that steroids and a lack of regular exercise had packed onto his once thickly muscled frame. His fatness, his dry, lined skin, the beard he had doubtless grown to hide his pockmarks, the carefully shaven head and the shuffling walk he had affected added up to a man at least ten years older than his real age. “Should’ve recognized you the moment you opened the front door to me at Hazel’s,” Strike said. “But you kept your face covered, dabbing away at your fucking tears, didn’t you? What had you done, rubbed something in them to make them swell up?”
Strike offered his pack to Shanker before lighting up.
“The Geordie accent was a bit overdone, now I think about it. You’ll have picked that up in Gateshead, did you? He’s always been a good mimic, our Donnie,” he told Shanker. “You should have heard his Corporal Oakley. Life and soul, Donnie was, apparently.”
Shanker was staring from Strike to Laing, apparently fascinated. Strike continued to smoke, looking down at Laing. His nose was stinging and throbbing so badly it was making his own eyes water. He wanted to hear the killer speak, once, before he rang the police.
“Beat up and robbed a demented old lady in Corby, didn’t you, Donnie? Poor old Mrs. Williams. You took her son’s award for bravery and I bet you got a good bit of old documentation of his as well. You knew he’d gone abroad. It’s not too hard to steal someone’s identity if you’ve got a bit of ID to start with. Easy to parlay that into enough current identification to hoodwink a lonely woman and a careless policeman or two.”
Laing lay silent on the dirty floor, but Strike could almost feel the frantic workings of his filthy, desperate mind.
“I found Accutane in the house,” Strike told Shanker. “It’s a drug for acne, but it’s for psoriatic arthritis too. I should’ve known then. He kept it hidden in Kelsey’s room. Ray Williams didn’t have arthritis.
“I bet you had lots of little secrets together, didn’t you, Donnie, you and Kelsey? Winding her up about me, getting her exactly where you wanted her? Taking her for motorbike rides to lurk near my office… pretending to post letters for her… bringing her my fake notes…”
“You sick bastard,” said the disgusted Shanker. He leaned over Laing with his cigarette tip close to Laing’s face, clearly yearning to hurt him.
“You’re not burning him either, Shanker,” said Strike, pulling out his mobile. “You’d better get out of here, I’m going to call the cops.”
He rang 999 and gave the address. His story would be that he had followed Laing to the club and back to his flat, that there had been an argument and that Laing had attacked him. Nobody needed to know that Shanker had been involved, nor that Strike had picked Laing’s locks. Of course, the stoned neighbor might talk, but Strike thought it likely that the young man might prefer to stay well out of it rather than have his sobriety and drug history assessed in a court of law.
“Take all this and get rid of it,” Strike told Shanker, peeling off the fluorescent jacket and handing it to him. “And the gas canister through there.”
“Right y’are, Bunsen. Sure you’re gonna be all right with him?” Shanker added, eyes on Strike’s broken nose, his bleeding ear and hand.
“Yeah, ’course I will,” said Strike, vaguely touched.
He heard Shanker picking up the metal canister in the next room and, shortly afterwards, saw him passing the kitchen window on the balcony outside.
“SHANKER!”
His old friend was back in the kitchen so fast that Strike knew he must have sprinted; the heavy gas canister was raised, but Laing still lay handcuffed and quiescent on the floor, and Strike stood smoking beside the cooker.
“Fuckin’ ’ell, Bunsen, I fort ’e’d jumped you!”
“Shanker, could you get hold of a car and drive me somewhere tomorrow morning? I’ll give you—”
Strike looked down at his bare wrist. He had sold his watch yesterday for the cash that had paid for Shanker’s help tonight. What else did he have to flog?
“Listen, Shanker, you know I’m going to make money out of this one. Give me a few months and I’ll have clients queuing up.”
“’S’all right, Bunsen,” said Shanker, after brief consideration. “You can owe me.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah,” said Shanker, turning to go. “Gimme a bell when you’re ready to leave. I’ll go get us a car.”