by Wes Markin
This had happened at the same time every week for the previous two months. Not to the second, of course. Or even to the minute. But most definitely within a fifteen-minute window.
It wasn’t the most exciting way to spend the afternoon of your day off, but it paid very well.
However, during the past hour of sitting in the car awaiting this reoccurring event, Jake had reached some conclusions.
He wasn’t built to be a police officer.
He certainly wasn’t built to be a father, or a husband.
And he still believed - although evidence was building up to the contrary – that he wasn’t built to be a criminal.
After delivering these photographs today, he would be returning to his bedsit to retrieve the money he’d saved so far. Most of it he would push through Sheila’s letterbox. A small percentage he would take with him. It was time to start again.
He tailed the Russian family to their favourite bistro in town. Unfortunately for them, they were people of routine. This made it all the easier for his employers in their next step. Jake didn’t know what was planned for them, but he suspected that it wasn’t good. What had this man done so wrong in his past life to warrant such dangerous scrutiny?
Jake parked opposite the bistro and took photographs of them entering the restaurant. He wrote in his logbook again and looked back at the previous week. He could be waiting over two hours. He most certainly could slip away, and return nearer the time, but those weren’t his instructions. To deviate from what he’d been asked to do was dangerous.
So, he hunkered down, pulled out his mobile phone, went through to his personal photographs, and scrolled through his images of Frank.
Jake paused, every now and again, to wipe tears from his eyes.
16
IN A SHAKING hand, Firth held the framed photograph of his boy.
Banging the window … the trail of blood on the road … his fist through the glass … Patricia beside him … her hand still open … the hand she’d been holding his with only moments before ...
Firth put the photograph back on the desk.
Was that when I lost you too, Patricia? When I pulled my hand away? Did I sever the connection?
He sat beside his reading desk and ran his hand over the cover of Robinson Crusoe.
Self-awareness was important. It got Crusoe through his twenty-eight-year ordeal. Being aware helped you change and adapt. Potentially for the better. Crusoe had abandoned atheism to become a pious Christian. Throughout his entire life, his entire ordeal, Firth, too, had changed and adapted.
He stood up and walked over to Wheelhouse’s bed. He was currently sleeping. There was a moment, earlier in the library, when emotion had overwhelmed Wheelhouse, and the guards had given him permission to return to his bunk and take a prescription hypnotic.
Firth sat on the edge of the bed, stroking Wheelhouse’s hair, considering all these ways he’d changed and adapted.
The most important thing that he’d learned since the death of his only boy was that the scales had to balance. That you couldn’t have one thing without the other. The good came with the bad. To take you had to give. To love you had to hate.
The world was balanced and to tip it in one direction was a futile endeavour.
He leaned over and kissed Wheelhouse’s forehead. This old man had not learned this yet. This poor, sweet old man who the world had condemned.
‘Am I interrupting something?’ Harris said from behind him.
Wheelhouse turned to look at the guard. ‘Only something you could never understand.’
‘Oh, I understood alright.’ Harris said and smiled. ‘Anyway, good news ... it’s done.’
Firth looked back at Wheelhouse. You got what you wanted, Herb. I hope it makes you happy. But balance must, and will, be restored.
‘You also have a visitor.’
Firth stood up. ‘That didn’t take long.’
Harris smiled again. ‘It never really does, does it?’
Another guard escorted Firth to see his visitor. Harris chose to linger behind in his cell.
Wheelhouse snored gently from the bottom bunk as Harris worked his way around the confines, touching and prodding.
Books … photographs … letters … pens … notepaper … clothes …
It always fascinated Harris to see a life enclosed in such a small place. Minimalism in the extreme. Some of the happiest people he knew were convicts. He wondered if there really was truth to the philosophy that the less you owned, the happier you were.
He sat on the edge of Wheelhouse’s bed. In the same spot, Firth had been sitting moments ago.
Unlike Firth though, he opted not to pet Wheelhouse. Instead, he took his chewing gum out of his mouth, rolled it in a ball and pressed it into Wheelhouse’s wrinkled forehead. It didn’t really stick, but because the old man was on his back, it stayed in place.
Harris smiled, stood back up and looked down at the old man. ‘You’ve been a bad, bad boy, Reaper. You really have.’
Patricia unlocked their front door. Yorke came up alongside her and slipped an arm around her waist. ‘I’d carry you over the threshold, but I’m worried my final rib might give out.’
‘Never mind your rib,’ Ewan said from behind them both, ‘if you two carry on like this, my stomach is going to give out.’
Yorke heard Lexi whisper to Ewan, ‘Go easy. They’re just happy to see each other.’
‘This is Ewan taking it easy,’ Yorke said. ‘There’s a level of banter in this household that often soars way beyond acceptable levels.’
Patricia and Ewan helped Yorke to the couch. He settled into it with a groan. Patricia went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.
‘Would you like anything on the television, Mr Yorke?’ Lexi said.
‘Mike, please. And, no. I’ve had enough television in hospital to last me a lifetime. I’m just going to fiddle on my phone and surf the net. Maybe have a nap.’
‘We’re off upstairs. Enjoy your surf!’ Ewan made quotation marks around the word surf with his fingers.
‘What’s your point?’
‘Just not heard surf in a while.’
‘Okay, smartarse, if that’s so archaic, what term do you use?’
Ewan shrugged. ‘Browsing? Using?’
Yorke smiled. ‘Yawn. I definitely win points for trying to sound more interesting then.’
‘Whatever!’
‘Come on,’ Lexi said, taking his hand. ‘Let Mr … sorry … Mike rest.’
Yorke smiled again. ‘The child I never had.’
Ewan shook his head. ‘Everybody in this house is always telling you to rest and you never listen!’
‘True,’ Yorke said. ‘But I don’t think it’s ever been said with such sincerity. I thank you Lexi.’
She blushed.
As Ewan and Lexi wandered off upstairs, Yorke thought about his conversation with Patricia several days ago.
Don’t worry Mike, they’re not having sex … mother’s intuition.
Now, why did father’s intuition suggest otherwise?
There was probably a strong argument that father’s intuition was just paranoia, but it continued to bug him regardless.
His mobile buzzed in his jacket pocket.
Willows.
He went for his phone so quickly that his ribs sent a sharp reminder of their fragility. He groaned, and almost swore out-loud when he saw it was just a reminder from his bank that he’d just slipped into his overdraft again.
He sighed, closed his eyes, wondered if Willows was alright, and decided to phone her, but fell asleep before he had chance.
In Yorke’s dream, he was able to see his sister Danielle again, and apologise for the time it had taken him to discover the truth. ‘It just never seemed there to find. I searched so hard, and for so long.’
‘It’s what they do best. They lie … and they conceal.’
‘I know that … but I’ve always been so good at breaking down the wall. But not this time �
�� not the time it mattered the most for me … and for you.’
Danielle stood in the shadows, so he couldn’t see her face. She often did this in his dreams. The last time he’d ever seen her had been in the morgue with half her face burnt away.
It was hard enough to imagine her now without that damage, so the shadows were good. They helped him to remember the way she once was.
‘You’ve lost so much, Mike. A sister, a best friend. Even the people closest to you manoeuvred behind your back. But now you have the answers. Accept this peace. Move on.’
Despite this being a dream, Yorke felt the blow in his kidney. It knocked the wind out of him and propelled him forward into the shadows.
Thankfully, Danielle was gone before he could crash into her, and behold, yet again, her terrible injuries.
He swung to see who had kidney-punched him.
It was the giant.
Borya.
‘Time to move on, policeman?’ Borya smiled the same smile he’d used just before he’d split an innocent man in two. ‘Or time for one last dance?’ He extended the boxcutter.
Despite his monstrous size, he came fast, and gracefully, like a gazelle. Yorke closed his eyes, and felt his same cheek being slashed again. The pain was excruciating, but he stood his ground. If Borya wanted to dance again then he wouldn’t be doing it from a horizontal position this time.
He opened his eyes. The Russian was gone. Instead, Janice Edwards stood there. Her eyes and skin were grey, and part of her forehead was missing where the bullet had torn free. ‘They will forget about me.’
‘They won’t.’
‘I don’t matter. Just like Danielle didn’t matter. Just like you don’t matter.’
‘They’ll get Borya. They’ll get you justice.’
‘With what he knows, Michael? With everything he’s seen, and done for Article SE? You think they want him in prison or dead? A man like that is already gone. And under the ground, he offers nothing to SEROCU in the way of justice. There is no justice for any of us, Michael.’
‘It’s the same old story, Michael,’ Alfie said.
Yorke looked over at the old man’s kind face. He tried not to move his eyes downwards. He knew what was there. He knew that Alfie had been carved open like a pumpkin. It was one of the worst things that he’d ever seen. ‘Believe me, both of you, it will end. Everything ends. And when it does, you will have your justice.’
‘We don’t believe you, Michael,’ Janice said.
‘Well, you should do, because unlike some of my colleagues, I don’t lie. Never really have done.’
Yorke awoke sweating and clutching his ribs. His mouth was dry, so he reached over to the table where Patricia had left him a cup of tea. It was cold, but he drank it down anyway. It made him feel better.
Then he phoned Willows because, yes, everything did end, but Yorke really wanted to make sure it ended well.
Wheelhouse was awake when Firth returned.
‘Where have you been?’ He looked and sounded groggy.
‘The library,’ he lied, ‘To finish the job you started. Are you sure you only took one of those tablets, Herb?’
‘Yes, why do you ask?’
‘Several reasons. One of which is that both of your eyes seem to be pointing in different directions.’
‘Very funny. Sorry, Doug, for having another meltdown. Didn’t sleep last night. I feel better after that nap.’
‘Well, you could’ve fooled me, looking at the state of you,’ Firth said, sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘Listen Herb …’
‘It’s done, isn’t it?’
Firth sighed and nodded.
Wheelhouse looked away, chewing his lip, deep in thought. ‘Now that bastard will feel how I feel. He’ll understand what it’s like.’
Firth stood up and wandered over to the photograph of his late son. ‘I’m glad it’s given you some peace, Herb.’ He recalled the moment he pinned Geoff Stirling to the back of a stall with his father’s bayonet. It never gave me any peace.
‘She didn’t suffer, did she?’
Firth turned to look at Wheelhouse. The excitement on his old friend’s face was already waning.
‘I think so,’ Firth said. ‘If they did what I asked.’
‘Ahh.’ Herb said and looked down. ‘Closure, eh?’
Firth smiled at him. How little the poor man knew. ‘And then another door opens.’
‘Indeed,’ Wheelhouse said, lay back, put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.
Wearing gloves, Jake crammed the envelope containing the USB drive full of photographs and scanned logs through the letterbox of the derelict house in Tidworth.
The dereliction was a ruse. This place was very much in action.
Feeling sullied, but knowing now, without a shadow of a doubt, that this would be his last time, he breathed a sigh of relief.
There was still one thing he’d like to know though.
He drove around the block several times, and then returned to the same street. He parked three cars back from the front door of the derelict house. It was ajar. Someone had already watched him leave, and then entered the house to collect the drop.
He didn’t expect to recognise the person collecting these drops, and when they emerged, he wished he’d just let sleeping dogs lie.
Curiosity had led him to one hell of a shock.
‘Better out than fucking in,’ Jake said to himself, starting his car. ‘Time to take the money and run.’
17
FAMILY LIAISON OFFICER Bryan Kelly stood in DCI Yorke’s lounge with a worried expression on his face. ‘I wanted to see if you needed anything.’
‘Well, Bryan, I need you to knock that expression off your face for a start. I thought you’d come offering support, not paranoia.’
Bryan’s big cheeks flushed. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but you do look in a bad way.’
Yorke felt guilty. He didn’t usually bite people’s heads off. It didn’t suit him. ‘I look worse than I am, buddy. Thanks for calling by, but you don’t need to stay.’
Bryan, who meant well, but whose career to date was a curate’s egg, reached into his inside pocket. He pulled out a card. ‘I’ll get out your hair if you make me two promises.’
Wow, Yorke thought, those blemishes on your career really have strengthened your backbone.
‘Because you made the effort to see if I was alright, I’ll make you one of your promises.’
‘Two would be better, sir …’
‘Don’t push it, Bryan. One promise where you wouldn’t normally have any is actually a fantastic position to find yourself in.’
‘Okay … well, here it goes … a while ago I suffered from stress. After I buggered up on the Sarah Ray case. Do you remember?’
Yorke nodded. ‘She drugged you and ran.’
‘Yep. I thought she wouldn’t come back alive. When she did, I thought the anxiety would lift. It didn’t.’ He waved the card in his hand. ‘Michelle … my psychiatrist helped me accept the mistake I made. She helped me with the PTSD. What happened to you, sir … well, to be attacked in such a manner … to see what you saw …’
‘Yes, Bryan I get the picture.’
‘Well, please promise me that you’ll call her.’
Yorke reflected on the dream he’d had earlier where Borya had attacked him again, just before he exchanged pleasantries with the Russian’s two victims. Bryan was probably right. There could be some form of PTSD on the cards. Still …
‘And the other promise, Bryan?’
‘Let me come and check on you this evening. I’ve been here before … with victims who have experienced similar trauma. You may not want to talk to me now, sir, but by the evening, the picture may be different.’
‘I doubt this particular picture of me will be changing much,’ Yorke said, stretching himself out on the sofa with a grimace.
‘You said you’d make one of the two promises …’
‘Okay … okay … I’ll make the second promise.
I’d love to see you for a cup of tea this evening Bryan.’
‘Great, sir.’ Bryan held the card in the air. ‘And this? Michelle? Please think about it …’
Yorke smiled. ‘Pop it on the mantelpiece, Bryan, you never know. No doubt Pat will be badgering me into something similar over the next couple of weeks.’
‘It’s because we care, sir.’
‘I know you do, Bryan, and I’m grateful.’
They held hands, and Willows was grateful because she’d never seen anything like this before. Then, the mutilated accountant lurched forward, and Pemberton started to drag her away.
It seemed a lifetime since Mrs Johnson had opened the front door to Willows and Pemberton, and there’d been nothing in the elderly widow’s manner to suggest that this atrocity was awaiting them upstairs. Mrs Johnson was deaf. Fortunately, Pemberton had a sibling with hearing problems, so she was able to sign with George’s mum. Mrs Johnson revealed that he’d had had two visitors an hour before. ‘Clients,’ she signed. ‘I read their lips. They were very polite.’
In this instance, being deaf was a blessing. Mrs Johnson must have sat in ignorance throughout her son’s entire ordeal. Willows imagined her nonchalantly nursing a cup of tea while her middle-aged son was being ‘worked’ on upstairs.
Right now, Willows was thankful that Pemberton had signed to Mrs Johnson not to trouble herself, that there was no need to make them both a drink, and there was certainly no need to wear herself out escorting them up the stairs.
Because then she would have seen her son with his eyes cut out.
Hours of lifting weights had given Borya Turgenev an energy boost. Rather than drain him, punishing exercise always fuelled him. One of his fellow dancers, back in a life based around the frivolity of friendship, had said Borya was like a self-charging battery; the harder he danced, the more extreme his movements became, until he didn’t just outclass those around him, but defied reason in the patterns he wove together.
