‘He’s a bent cop. Cops hate that more than they hate criminals. Even if he gets solitary confinement, they’ll pretend to forget to lock his door and let some animals at him. I give him a week in jail, and then he’ll be in a grave like his—’
‘Go pack a bag,’ she cut in. ‘We’re out of here until this mess is cleaned up.’ And she was off, past him, with a barge of her shoulder into his chest.
He rushed up the stairs in pursuit, pleading: calm down, let’s think, where would we go, we can’t hide away. She grabbed a double handful of his clothing from the wardrobe, tugged it out hard enough to snap the plastic coat hangers. Tossed them at him. ‘That’ll do you for being stupid.’
He tried to argue, but it did no good. A punch on his arm got him going. He crammed the clothing into a gym bag and took it outside where all was peaceful. This was daft. Mick wouldn’t try anything in such a nice area. Hell, he probably wouldn’t try anything at all. He had bigger fish to fry.
He threw the bag into their car. Back in the house, he saw Lucinda scooping up the money. She ordered him to grab her clothing and to use the two suitcases in the spare room. All this urgency, and she wanted to pack as if for a month’s holiday? He grabbed a double handful of gear from the wardrobe. ‘That’ll do you for being a bitch.’ And he didn’t bother with a bag.
He dumped the clothing in the back of the car in a big old mess. Then he heard an engine approaching and scanned the street. A white car with some emblem on the side was cruising down the road. Some tradesman probably. He relaxed. And remembered his bike – parked on the road, where some fool would vandalise it.
As he was wheeling the bike onto the pavement, ready to guide it up the driveway, the van, just thirty feet away, leaped forward with a screech of tyres. Dave turned his head. The vehicle was on the pavement, and you’d need to be pretty stupid to not realise what the plan was here. And to think it didn’t involve Mick.
The car hit the bike, forcing it into Dave, sending man and machine bouncing along the road. Dave rolled and stopped and immediately tried to rise, but he was wobbly and his left leg gave way beneath him.
A guy rushed out of the car’s passenger side. He wore a balaclava with strands of curly hair poking out from the bottom. Dave didn’t recognise him. But just in case there had still been doubt, the knife in the guy’s hands cleared away any confusion in Dave’s mind. He was done. End of the line. Good night.
The masked man stopped, stabbed and sprinted: two seconds, job done. The car leaped away again like a horse out of the gate, wheels splashing through the blood migrating from Dave’s body.
The driver stuck his head out the window as the vehicle roared past him. ‘That’s for Andy Jones!’ he bellowed, louder than the car’s engine, and louder than whoever was screaming – Dave’s wife, he now knew, because there she was at the door, clutching wads of cash – loud enough for any face that had been drawn to a window.
The realisation set in. Andy Jones. A guy Dave had put in hospital back in the day. Retaliation, the cops would say. What goes around comes around. Just another bad apple getting what he was due. And nothing to do with Mick McDevitt. Little did they know.
His final image before he slipped into another world, or just black oblivion if all that afterlife stuff was bullshit, was of Lucinda pelting towards him, and a swirl of giant snowflakes raining around him. No, not snowflakes, not at all. Money. All that money, blowing down the street because the silly girl had dropped it. A hell to collect.
His last thought: Good job we didn’t change it all into fives.
Seventy-Three
Karl
One time, when studying electronics at university, Karl and a pal went out for a drink, got drunk, got in a fight with two other guys, and got separated. Karl called hospitals, but they all refused to say whether or not they had his pal as a patient. A safety feature, probably born after some guy who cut someone up got a helpful ‘oh yes’ from a receptionist and strolled down there with a knife to finish the job. So, he knew he was wasting his time as he called around to try to find Katie. But he did it anyway, and clocked up a big number of polite professionals refusing to give anything away.
He had a list of police stations on Danny’s computer screen, too, but he didn’t dare risk calling those. At least hospitals didn’t trace the calls and wouldn’t come to get him with a screaming siren. Besides, he doubted Katie would be in custody. She was a victim, not a perpetrator.
Danny had gone to do something, and when he returned it was to see Karl’s shoulders slumped. ‘Anyone she could have gone to stay with?’ he asked. ‘Mum, dad, brother?’
As he said dad, Karl was already dialling Peter Davies. Katie’s dad was a formidable man, a theatre director and a former drill sergeant, which meant he could still roar like King Kong. Karl was not looking forward to this conversation.
He got an answer machine. For months, Peter had had the same message on his machine: Not in right now, obviously, so either call Pinnora Playhouse or leave your name and a number and your reason for calling. But now, the recording Karl got was: Call my mobile. And only if it’s urgent. Back soon. En route to pick someone up.
Karl had no doubt who that ‘someone’ was. He called the mobile, and Peter answered quickly.
‘Who’s this?’
‘It’s Karl.’
There was the honk of a car horn. Karl imagined the shock of his call almost making Peter crash his car. ‘What the hell is going on, Karl? Where are you?’
‘Is Katie with you?’
‘I just picked her up. Christ, what fun and games, right? Someone tried to kill her. There was a car crash.’
‘I know. I was in it. Is she okay?’
‘I don’t care if you’re innocent or guilty, Karl. Get yourself handed in to the police. Before more people get hurt.’
‘I am. Soon. But let me speak to Katie.’
‘You’re not speaking to her. She’s asleep in the back. And that’s good, seeing as how distraught she is. What the hell is going on, Karl? I’m hearing all this news about three dead people last night, some detective gone missing, another one who’s a criminal. No one will tell me anything, and Katie was too full of shock. What have you done, Karl?’ His tone was accusing, as if the aforementioned tales of terror were all his doing. Karl Seabury, in league with a bent detective, responsible for murder and mayhem.
‘I want to speak to my wife. You don’t have all the facts, Peter, and until you do, don’t make assumptions, okay? Where’s Katie?’
‘Katie herself said the police want you, possibly for murder. She claims you’re innocent, but a naive wife would say that, wouldn’t she?’
‘Katie’s not naive. I’m innocent and she knows it. Put her on the damn phone, Peter.’
A long pause as Peter considered his options. He decided on: ‘I’ll get her to call you. But when she gets up on her own. I’m not waking her. Not after this.’
And he hung up. Karl called back, but it went to voicemail. He’d turned off the phone.
‘We can’t go there yet,’ Danny said, as if reading Karl’s mind. Karl looked at him in defiance. Danny raised surrendering arms. ‘We don’t know what that McDevitt guy is doing. If the cops have him, lord knows what he’s telling them about you. The police will be watching your wife’s dad’s house. They’re probably following him right now, knowing you’ll try to contact your wife. It’s safer if you turn up there backed up by a solicitor. You need to just be patient. We all do. We wait for Mr Gold. That’s the plan, and if we stick to it, everything will work out okay.’
Karl’s glare challenged him. ‘My plan for tonight was to cuddle my pregnant wife in front of the TV.’
* * *