‘Zac!’ she screamed after him.
Etta sprang up, tipping her chair over, raced out. Saw him grab flat cap, jacket and an orange shoebox in the dim hallway before the front door slammed. Footsteps echoed on the tiles, fading to nothing. She stood there, suddenly feeling alone and scared and angry all at once. How dare he treat her like this? Nineteen years together and in that moment they were strangers. Her throat thickened, face tight as she held back tears. She turned to the photo of a young Zac in uniform staring out from the wall. Without thinking she lashed out at the frame, shattered the glass. Instantly regretted it and stooped to pick up the shards, grateful none had cut her.
She went back into the kitchen, took the tablet. Swiped till she found the Glympse tracker app. Eighteen months ago she’d made Zac install it after he misplaced his mobile twice. At the time he’d been embarrassed, claimed he didn’t need it. He hated any challenge to his practical skills. But she’d persisted, volunteering first then convincing him to follow with the argument that it would be useful in emergencies. This wasn’t what she’d had in mind, but it definitely qualified. She tapped the icon, scrolled through. There he was under ‘Favourites’, so the app was still on his phone. Since they were already connected, there was no need to send a location request. It’d be automatic if she selected his name. One tap would show exactly where he was.
She shut down the app, pushed the tablet aside. Maybe a part of her didn’t want to know, rejected stooping to tracking her own husband covertly. She just needed to talk to him. Etta massaged her eyes with the heels of her hands. Then topped up her wine glass and trudged to the living room to see what was on TV.
* * *
Wallace emerged from the trees, crept towards the cluster of headstones. Darkness in the countryside was deeper, blacker than the city. Fine by him, he needed cover. Not that it really mattered, there was no one within a mile and his only company was a hooting owl.
As night fell he’d taken a train from Waterloo to the village of Cobham in Surrey. Walked down lanes and across fields, finally reaching the specialist Silvermere cemetery through the woodland.
Didn’t take him long to find the grave. It looked like many others, the standard package. Small marble memorial stone and surround marking the plot, grass neatly tended. Eight hundred quid well spent. Given what had happened, it was one of the smartest investments he’d ever made. Wallace set down the holdall, removed a folding spade from inside and squatted down.
He traced his fingertips across the single word chiselled into the marble: BLAZE. At four quid a letter, that was all the information he needed. He’d been fond of the dog, got some wins with him on the track in racing days. Had his ear tattooed to stop anyone nicking him. But no way he’d have paid that kind of cash, not to bury an animal. It was unbelievable how much people spent on sticking their pets in the ground here. When you were dead you were dead, simple. In London, Wallace would’ve dropped Blaze in a canal with a sack full of stones when his time came. No big deal if the same thing happened to him. We were all worm food ultimately; it was your name that lived on. Or so he’d been telling himself for years. Prising the headstone up and hefting it aside, he drove the spade tip into soil, began digging.
Forty minutes later he struck the coffin. Sweeping the earth away, he saw its wood hadn’t degraded much. Probably couldn’t say the same for the corpse inside. Wallace took a screwdriver from his holdall and set to work. Recoiled as the lid came off: smelled like a kitchen bin left in a sauna. Fur had sloughed off the bones, most of it decayed but some still recognisable. He pulled on industrial rubber gloves, lifted limbs and ribcage out. A single bullet hole in the top of the skull. For a second he froze while a film played of the skeleton with its slow trigger action. Then he snapped back and dumped the skull to one side, peeling off the gloves. Unscrewed the coffin’s floor panels piece by piece. Removing them, he could just make out two slim, silver flight cases in the gloom.
Wallace reached down to the handles, hoisted them up. Laid the cases carefully on the grass, popped the combination locks and peered inside. Sealed cloth bags lay among foam padding. Reckoned each case was around half a million quid. Maybe more after a couple of years’ inflation. The other third of his share was in a backup spot; he’d get that tomorrow. He stuck both flight cases in the holdall, heaving it onto his shoulder. Considered putting the grave back together. Then decided against it; he was leaving anyway. Let the local feds work it out, see if any of them were sharp as Boateng. He snatched a final glance at the pile of bones and set off towards the trees.
* * *
Susanna Pym couldn’t sleep. She squinted to bring the alarm clock’s neon digits into focus: 01:03. None of the usual sources of night-time wakefulness were bothering her: no urban foxes screwing each other to death, no snoring from her flabby husband, no impending parliamentary debates. It was lack of results in the search for her pendant – memory stick, more precisely – that kept her brain whirring. Slipping out of bed, she grabbed a packet of cigarettes and some perfume and crept into the guest bathroom. Cracked the window and lit up. Her own bloody home and still she couldn’t smoke freely – other half would give her grief for it. Strange that although nicotine was a stimulant, it somehow soothed her. That was addiction, she supposed. The problem she’d never quite shaken. At least it wasn’t cocaine these days. Not often, anyway.
A whole week had passed since she’d met Tarquin Patey in the Oxford and Cambridge Club. His crack team of operatives had found bugger all in that time. Had it been a mistake to give the police officer’s number to Patey for his inside info? People like him probably had their own contacts. But it could help, and the officer would have no idea that they were searching for her memory stick; he didn’t even know it existed.
She needed that stick back. Her future hinged on it. The intention in recording her conversations with the police officer was to have some protection, some leverage should he try to expose her. He was a cocky sort and a few years ago – over several whiskies – she’d managed to get him talking about his ‘business’. Sidelines to his police work. With typically male bravado he’d shown off about his contact with a heroin importer, his ability to get hold of weapons, even a kidnap and ransom he’d organised. To Pym’s shame, her acquiescence to his demands over the years meant she might even have contributed to one or two of these awful exploits. But at least she had them on record.
Her thoughts travelled over the reason for all this nonsense. Would she be better off if the policeman were removed altogether? She would be free from his demands, from the risk of her career disintegrating, free to make her way to the top. It didn’t feel like being blackmailed, perhaps because he offered her favours as well. Things the police didn’t normally do. The embarrassment of a speeding ticket gone; a full and proper investigation when her home was burgled; a stalker warned off in no uncertain terms. She’d benefitted from her devil’s pact.
It was a chronic problem rather than an acute one. Sometimes those are the worst though, eating away at you slowly until it’s too late, and you haven’t even realised the end is coming. Did Patey’s firm offer that kind of service, removal of a tumour or tapeworm? She’d bet they did. But that was a different game altogether, one she wasn’t ready to play. Not yet. So, she’d just have to give them a little longer to find her memory stick. And hope that the police didn’t get there first.
Pym stubbed out the cigarette and sprayed herself with perfume. Then she went back to lying in bed, wide awake.
* * *