He could pull the trigger now, it would be so easy. Eye for an eye. This guy had helped Wallace take Amelia from him, from their family. Dimly aware he was shaking, Boateng found his breath quickening, limbs tensing. Just let go. Follow your instinct, to hell with the consequences. His forefinger tightened a fraction more.
Then it was like he came to, finger easing off the trigger. Boateng wound up and smashed the pistol butt into Mamba’s face with a satisfying crack. His left hand reached forward, took the money from Mamba’s pocket. ‘Give me your keys too.’ Keeping eyes and gun fixed on him, Boateng reached back, popped the door handle. Slid along until his shoes touched asphalt, stood and replaced the pistol in his jacket. Dropped the keys, turned and sprinted past the skatepark into the night. Didn’t stop running until his thighs ached and lungs burned. Only then did his tears come. He wiped them on trembling hands. Realised his entire body was shaking.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Tuesday, 27 June 2017
‘What’s wrong, Dad?’
‘Hm?’ Boateng looked up from the kitchen counter.
‘Are you cutting onions?’
‘No, I’m making your lunch. Come on, finish those cornflakes.’
‘Normally you cry when you cut onions.’
Boateng pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I’m not crying.’
Kofi giggled. ‘Liar.’
‘Oi!’ he snapped. ‘Don’t be so cheeky. Something went in my eye, that’s all.’
Boateng wiped both hands over his face. Last night’s encounter had left him a physical wreck. Hadn’t slept much, thoughts chasing each other, looping round, incessant. Now his body felt light, disconnected. Adrenalin-sapped yet still on high alert. Drawing the Glock on Mamba had been instinctive. In that moment, his desire for the truth had overpowered reason and once it happened, all bets were off. Ordinarily he’d trust his self-control, coolness under pressure that the Job trained you for, demanded. But he hadn’t been in control for those few seconds while his finger curled on the trigger. Like it wasn’t him pulling it. Knew that both he and Mamba were lucky to escape in one piece; he’d fired a shot in the struggle, for God’s sake.
Physical danger aside, there was Etta. If he’d woken her last night when he returned at three, she pretended to be asleep. They hadn’t touched in bed, an invisible barrier bisecting the mattress. She left for work early without speaking to him. Each new secret he kept from her – and every lie to cover them up – chipped away at the trust built in their relationship over almost two decades. There had to be a limit. Felt like either an explosion was coming or this slow, inexorable drift away from each other would continue past the point of no return. That didn’t bear thinking about.
But what could he tell her? He’d finally discovered who killed Amelia, after nearly five years? That he’d achieved this by breaking the law he was paid to uphold, behind his colleagues’ backs? Worse still, that at least one officer had impeded the original investigation. What would it do to her to know all that?
Of course, he was taking information at face value. Night Vision’s story about Draymond King, Mamba’s account of the shooting – either could be mistaken, lying or have a hidden agenda. And yet, it made sense. Facts that added up, had plausibility. Most murders in London were solved, so perhaps someone in the Met did help Wallace one way or another. And he’d never considered that Amelia’s killer would be in prison for a different crime. Maybe those two features explained the lack of new leads despite his regular inquiries, and the case ultimately being shelved. Then Harris had been murdered in Deptford and ten days later Boateng was here.
These logical operations of his brain were jabbed by raw emotion. Some of the helplessness he’d felt for years was gone, now he knew. But there was still unprocessed grief at Amelia’s loss. Flashbacks to her lying there, the red stain growing on her yellow dress as he tried and failed to revive her. Anger at the man who did this, murderous rage from a place deep within that most of us pretended didn’t exist. He’d experienced those sensations for years, ebbing and flowing, but the last ten days had brought them back centre stage. All of it could now be directed at Wallace.
Next question was what to do about it. For a few seconds last night, he’d considered pulling the trigger on Mamba. Something had stopped him, the last tendrils of self-control. But with each day that passed, pressure rising and sleep escaping him, that resistance was diminishing. If it was Wallace in his gun sights, would he give in to that brutal, base desire?
‘Are you going to be Batman again tonight, Dad?’
Zac started. ‘What?’
‘You know, when you go out at night to fight baddies. Like last night. And the other nights.’ Kofi’s eyes widened. ‘Must be a lot of bad guys out there.’
Looking at the boy, Boateng softened. ‘True. Sometimes they’re hard to find.’
‘But when you do find them…’ Small hands mimed shooting. ‘Po-pow!’
‘It’s not like that, Kof.’ Normally. His son was right about one thing though: he was going out again tonight. In the absence of legitimate channels, he had few intelligence-gathering options on Wallace. He needed to see Night Vision again.
* * *
‘Hang on, yeah?’
Three bolts scraped, two locks turned. Decent security measures; Wallace was pleased about that. Only last year a similar establishment in London had been robbed of a hundred grand’s worth of stock. This place was off the radar, but even so. His hostess took one confirmatory glance through the crack with large darting eyes. A chain fell slack, the door swung open and she walked away. The woman was mid twenties, petite, with bare sinewy arms and a shock of hair like Sideshow Bob. Wallace followed her inside, grimacing as the fetid odour of corpses hit him for the second time that day. He wasn’t squeamish, but decaying flesh still made him want to throw up; maybe she’d got used to it. Turning death into art was Stella Winberg’s business. At least, some people called it art. More like a horror show. Scanning the cluttered studio for his item, Wallace clocked some monstrous hybrids. An erect black cat with no forelimbs, crow wings spread from the flanks, a bird’s tail in place of its own. The four-headed white rat climbing out of a lab beaker. Most grotesque was a fox’s head mounted on four pairs of dog legs so it looked like some giant furry spider. Drawn closer, he gazed into the lifeless eyes.
‘Sorry it’s a bit like Fort Knox,’ called Winberg across the studio. ‘Gotta have bolts and stuff, otherwise the animal rights lot’d be in here torching the place.’
‘Wouldn’t want that.’
She noticed him staring at the creature. ‘If you like the Arachnofox, check out what I’m doing here.’ The young woman gestured to the bench behind her. ‘Working title’s “See No Evil”. What d’you think?’
Wallace stepped across. One squirrel had impaled another using a knitting needle while a bystander third theatrically shielded its eyes. In some ways, taxidermists saw life at its most honest: that any animal was nothing more than skin, bone and a ton of blood and internal organs. This woman was good at what she did. Twisted too, or maybe just immune to gore. Spotting a crucified bat up on a shelf, labelled ‘Stigmata’, its mouth contorted into a scream, Wallace began to feel creeped out. Wasn’t a pussy; just something about being surrounded by reanimated dead bodies that made him want to finish the transaction. Get back outside in the fresh air. He recalled his reason for coming here in the first place. Logistically it would’ve been simpler to go to London Taxidermy, round the corner from Wimbledon greyhound track, but they were pros running a business and the bullet hole in the dog’s head would have raised suspicion, not to mention the stuff he’d wanted put inside the animal. After a bit of searching he’d found Stella Winberg, an independent artist operating out of a unit behind the Bussey Building in Peckham, who referred to herself as a ‘rogue’ taxidermist. A recce of the studio had convinced him her morals were sufficiently flexible to accommodate his request. And her income sufficiently low to need his patronage.