by Ken Preston
“Oh, hey Joe, didn’t realise it was you,” the bouncer said.
He stepped back, eyes on the floor, like he didn’t know what to say next.
Coffin pushed past him and took the stairs two at a time.
Mortimer Craggs was in his office, sat behind his mahogany desk, in his oversized leather swivel chair, just like Coffin knew he would be. He had on a velvet dressing gown, and he was smoking a huge cigar. The old man looked like he had shrunk since Coffin last saw him, like he’d aged ten years in the last six months.
But when he saw Coffin, his eyes lit up, and he jumped to his feet and strode around his desk. He grabbed Coffin in a hug, slapping him on the back, and saying, “It’s good to see you, son, real good to see you.”
Coffin enveloped the old man in a hug.
Craggs stood back and slapped Coffin on the chest, and spoke to a blond woman sitting cross-legged in a chair, painting her toenails.
“Hey, Velvina, this boy here, he’s salt of the earth, he is. Bout the only fucker I can trust these days, that’s for sure. Hey, you listening to me?”
Velvina looked up from her toenails, her mouth moving like she was a cow chewing the cud. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused.
“Ah, forget about her,” Craggs said, waving his hand in dismissal, and turning his back on her. He put his arm around Coffin’s shoulders. He had to stretch, and it looked uncomfortable, but he did it, and he guided Coffin to a chair. “Let me get you a drink, what are you having?”
“Whisky,” Coffin said.
“Of course, whisky,” Craggs said. “That’s what you like, Joe, ain’t it? Listen, I’ve got something special for you, you’ve never had this before.”
The old man walked over to a huge globe atlas, like something out of an old movie about Victorian adventurers, and opened it up. Inside were several bottles and glasses. Craggs took a bottle and two whisky glasses and poured them both a drink.
“I’ve been saving this, Joe, for you.” Craggs handed Coffin a whisky glass, the amber liquid glowing in the soft light. “It’s a Glenfarclas, aged fifty years, would you believe it?”
Coffin sipped the whisky. It had a sweet sherry aftertaste and spread warmth from his gullet and through his chest.
“Poor bastards who barrelled this are probably dead now. Imagine that, Joe, being a part of making something so special, something that has to be left alone for time to do its work, for so long, that you know you won’t be alive to see the fruits of your labour. I wonder what that feels like.”
Craggs lifted the glass to his nose and breathed in the whisky aroma. Then he took a deep swallow and closed his eyes.
Coffin swigged his whisky back and placed the heavy cut glass on the desk.
Craggs opened his eyes, and Coffin realised he’d been wrong. Craggs hadn’t shrunk, he was still the man Coffin remembered. He’d lost some weight, maybe, and he was a little more stooped. But, looking into his eyes, Coffin could still see the man Craggs had always been. The killer, the head of the Slaughterhouse Mob, the most powerful criminal gang boss in the city.
“Tom told me he found the scumbags who killed poor Steffanie and Michael,” Craggs said. “Have you taken care of that, Joe?”
“Yeah, I took care of them this morning,” Coffin said.
Craggs nodded, appreciatively. “Good, I’m glad to hear it, Joe. Tom wanted to do it himself, while you were still locked up. I said no. I said, wait till Joe gets out, let him take care of it.”
Coffin looked over at the girl painting her toenails. “You, get out.”
The girl looked up at him and pouted. “Aww, do I have to?”
Without turning to look at her, his voice low, Craggs said, “Joe Coffin asked you to leave. Don’t make me have to ask, too.”
Pouting some more, the girl took her time replacing the brush in the nail varnish bottle. When she stood up, Coffin glimpsed silk red panties beneath the over-sized T-shirt. She padded barefoot across the office and left, closing the door softly behind her.
Craggs patted Coffin on the arm. “What’s wrong, Joe? You look tense, like you got something on your mind. Why don’t you come and sit down, we’ll talk about it?”
The two men sat down on leather sofas, facing each other.
Coffin leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “Those two kids, I killed them. The one, I blew his brains out. The other, I filled his chest with bullets, kept shooting until the gun was empty and he looked like a piece of bloody meat.”
Craggs nodded. “That’s good, Joe. That’s how it should be. They murdered your family, they had it coming.”
“No, I don’t think they did,” Coffin said.
The words hung in the silence between them for a long second.
“What do you mean, Joe?” Craggs said.
“I’m not sure those two kids had anything to do with the attack on my wife and son.”
Craggs stared at Coffin through eyes narrowed down to slits. “Why do you say that?”
“Tom said to me, he said, those two were members of a vampire cult, liked to pretend they were vampires, filed their teeth down to points, maybe even drank each other’s blood sometimes. He said they were wasted on drugs when they broke into our house, that they lost all control, and savaged my family.”
Craggs nodded slowly, leaning forward and tapping ash off his cigar into an ashtray. “That’s right, that’s what Tom told me.”
“Mort, those two kids? Steffanie would have dealt with them like two naughty schoolboys. The way I heard, Steffanie and Michael, they looked like they’d been attacked by a pack of wild animals.”
Craggs puffed on his cigar for a few moments, head tilted back while he thought about what Coffin had said.
“People exaggerate, you know?” he said, finally. “Tom told someone what he saw, he tells the next guy, with a few embellishments, and so on. What do you call it, there’s a term for it, right?”
“Chinese whispers.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Chinese whispers. By the time you got told the story, it probably looked nothing like the story Tom told that first guy, you know what I’m saying?”
“Yeah, I know what you’re saying,” Coffin said.
“This kind of thing, Joe, losing your family, it’ll eat away at you, like a fucking cancer, you let it. You took out their killers, you got your revenge, and they got what was coming to them. I know it’s early days Joe, Steffanie and Michael in freshly turned ground, but you got to start thinking about moving on at some point.”
Coffin cracked his knuckles, looked at the floor, the dark wood varnished and polished so much, he could almost see his face in it. “If there’s a chance I got it wrong, I took out those two kids for no reason, I’ve got to find out, Mort. I need to know, because if Steffanie and Michael’s killers are still out there, I need to spill more blood.”
The old man stood up and walked around the coffee table, stood by Coffin, and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I know that, Joe, I do. I’ll have another talk with Tom, find out where he got his information from. But right now, you need to go home, Joe, get some sleep. This has been a big day for you, first day out of prison, and all.”
Coffin looked up at the old man. How old was he now? Eighty? Eighty-one? Craggs had always been so powerful, so full of life and vitality. So strong. And that strength still lived inside him, Coffin could see that now. Despite the growing frailty of his ageing body, the fire still burned in his eyes.
“One more thing, Mort. Laura came to see me today, said her boy’s gone missing.”
Craggs nodded. “I know. I’ve had the guys out looking for him. Kid’s disappeared off the face of the fucking earth.”
“Laura doesn’t know you’ve got people looking for him. She thinks she’s on her own here.”
“I thought Tom would have told her. Those two are still together, right?”
“Yeah, they’re still together. Tom doesn’t care for them, though. Doesn’t care for either of them. I doubt he cares
one way or the other about Jacob, and if he comes back.”
Craggs sucked on his cigar, the end glowing bright orange, the crackle of burning tobacco loud in the silence of the vast office. “Don’t be too hard on Tom. He looked after Steffanie and Michael while you were inside. He’s a good man.”
Coffin shook his head. “How can you say that, after what he did to Laura?”
“He’s got a temper on him, especially when he’s drunk. But we had a chat about that, Joe, you remember. Hell, you were there. The drink takes him and turns him into something mean and nasty. That never happened to you, Joe?”
Coffin twisted his hands together, trying to ease the tension out. Trying to forget how he had used those hands sometimes. “I’ve done some bad things, stuff I regret when I’ve woken up in the morning, and I’ve been sober enough to remember. But Laura?”
“Let Tom be, Joe. He knows what he’s done. He won’t do it again.”
Coffin stood up. “I’m going to take your advice, old man. Go back to the flat, get some shuteye.”
Craggs punched him on the arm and grinned. “Less of the old man. It came right down to it, I could still drink you under the table.”
Coffin smiled. “Yeah, I bet you could.”
Coffin headed back outside. The misty night air had turned into a drizzle. Coffin pulled the collar of his jacket up around his neck and picked up his pace as he walked back to the Blockade.
The sound of his footsteps echoed through the empty streets. All the drinkers and clubbers had gone inside, and there were no cars on the road, and for a few moments he felt like he was the last man on earth, and he was destined to roam the empty streets alone, with nothing but painful memories to keep him company.
And that seemed a fitting penance.
emma on display
Despite the cold evening air, Tom Mills was burning hot. Parked outside his house, the engine off, he gripped the steering wheel, his teeth clenched, sweat running down his face.
How could he go inside and face Laura, after what he had seen? Stupid, fucking kid, why did he have to go and get himself involved? Tom closed his eyes, tired of looking at the rain-spattered windscreen, the streetlights refracted through the raindrops. He snapped them open again. In the darkness behind his eyelids all he could see was Jacob’s frail, tiny body, draped over that chair whilst Steffanie bandaged up his arm.
He had looked dead. Steffanie said he wasn’t, but the poor little bastard couldn’t be far off. And what about the other kid, what was his name? Jeremy? Peter? Yeah, that was it, Peter Marsden.
What had happened to him? Was he dead?
What had Abel and Steffanie been thinking? Fucking coppers were crawling all over the city looking for those two kids. Might as well put a fucking sign up over the house, in red, flashing neon, ‘HERE WE ARE, COME AND GET US. WE KIDNAP CHILDREN AND DRINK THEIR BLOOD’.
Tom wiped sweat off his forehead, his hand trembling slightly.
But then Abel didn’t strike Tom as being the sharpest tool in the box. Maybe that was typical of his kind. All fired up in the sex department, but not much going on upstairs.
The first time he’d met Abel, Tom had been falling down drunk, at the end of a long, long night. Craggs had warned him off the drink after that incident with Laura, backed up by his pet dog, Coffin, but sometimes Tom couldn’t resist. With a shitty life like his, who could blame him for the occasional binge? So he’d been out, drinking himself into a state of oblivion. Staggering back home at some unearthly hour in the morning, he’d needed a piss. He’d ducked down an alley, and done his business, and it was only when he was zippering himself back up he noticed the noises.
Sucking, slurping noises, like his old dad used to make, at the end of his life when the cancer had ravaged his body and taken all his teeth. All he could do was eat soup and suck on orange slices. The slurping and dribbling used to make Tom feel sick, but his mother never let up, said it was his duty to look after his dad after all he’d done for him. Fucking fifteen years old, he should’ve been out with his mates, not spoon feeding a toothless cripple, and wiping up his dribble and snot.
Tom had walked further into the dark alley, using the wall as support. Didn’t give a thought to what he might find, he was curious, that was all. Drunk and curious.
The alley was so dark, Tom almost tripped over the shadowed shape, huddled on the floor. It was a man, his back to Tom, holding something to his face, and sucking at it. The man hadn’t noticed he had company.
Tom pulled out his matches and struck a light. As he held up the lit match, the man turned, startled by the sudden noise. In the weak, flickering light, Tom saw the man’s mouth, turned down in a grimace, smeared with dark blood. In his hands, he held the butchered remains of a cat.
Tom’s first instinct was to run, but the beer had taken its toll, and his legs refused the impulse to flee back down the alley, and into the city centre where he might find normal people, not cat eating crazies.
The man dropped the cat and stood up, and when he rose to his full height, Tom could see he was powerful and lithe, a little like a cat himself. A part of Tom awakened at that moment, a door opened in the depths of his subconscious, into a room that Tom had never known existed before. And he found himself strangely attracted to this man and yet repulsed at the same time.
Now he feared he was in too deep, had involved himself in something he should have left alone. After what he had seen this afternoon, back at the house, Tom wished he had never set foot in that alley, never gone investigating those sounds. He should have just gone home, slept off the booze. Then, the following morning he’d have woken up with a killer hangover, and got on with his miserable shitty life, not realising how close he’d come to fucking it all up so completely.
But no. He had to play at being Lieutenant fucking Columbo, didn’t he?
Tom wiped his sleeve across his forehead. The car windows were all steamed up. Fucking hell, why was he so hot? Perhaps he had a fever, maybe he was coming down with something. Wouldn’t that be fucking great, coming down with flu, or some other shit, right now when he needed to be sharp?
Tom licked his lips. What he needed was a drink or two. Something to calm his nerves, try to take the edge off the image of his boy, so pale and weak, and that awful wound in his arm. He’d never had any time for the little weed, and he knew the kid hated him back.
So why the hell was Tom so bothered what happened to Jacob?
Why did he even give a shit?
* * *
Emma Wylde turned the car into her drive and parked in front of the house. The study light was on, the desk lamp illuminating Nick Archer at his desk, intently studying an open file. The rest of the house was in darkness, which meant that he had done nothing but work in the study since coming home.
Emma bipped the car locked and pulled her bag over her shoulder. With a story to write up about the two missing boys, to go with the interview she hoped to get tomorrow with Laura Mills, it didn’t look like Emma would see much of Nick tonight.
Just the same as any other night, then.
“Hello?” she called, as she dumped her bag in the hall, and hung her coat on the wooden coat stand Nick had bought from an antique shop in Ludlow last year. He loved collecting old things, and she sometimes teased him that he was an antique, too.
“Hi, Ems!” Nick called back. “There’s a fresh pot of coffee on the go in the kitchen.”
“Thanks.” Emma entered the kitchen and switched on the lights. Chrome units reflected the light, whilst the walnut-panelled doors softened the room, making a nice contrast with the ultra-modern style of the kitchen.
Emma and Nick lived in a Victorian, double fronted detached. The house had fallen into ruin over the years and was in a sorry state when they bought it. Emma had fallen in love with it on their first viewing. With her imagination and eye for style, and Nick’s salary as a DCI supplying the money, they transformed it into a modern, smart home, whilst still keeping many of the original featur
es.
Nick had left two mugs by the coffeemaker, and a chocolate truffle, wrapped in gift paper and tied with a little bow. Emma smiled. This was a tradition of his whenever he was home first. It had started not long after they moved in together, after a holiday in Paris. Each lunchtime, they had visited a tiny café on Boulevard St Germaine, where they had drunk coffee and eaten chocolate truffles.
Emma unwrapped the chocolate and popped it into her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully, enjoying the sensation and taste of the chocolate melting over her tongue. How many chocolate truffles did that make this week? Was this her third? Emma sighed. If she was going to keep her weight down, she would have to get home earlier.
She poured the coffee and took the steaming mugs into the study.
“Hey.” Emma placed the mugs on the study desk, bent down and kissed Nick on the lips.
“Hey, yourself,” Nick said, and licked his lips. “Hmm, chocolate.”
“As always, thank you.” Emma smiled. “I swear you’re trying to fatten me up.”
Nick took his reading glasses off and placed them on the open file. “Not a chance, not with all that running you do.”
Emma swivelled Nick’s chair around so that his back was to the desk and sat on his lap.
“How was your day?” she said, running her fingers gently down his cheek. “Catch any bad guys today?”
“Not today, but it was fine.” Nick wrapped his arms around her. “How about yours? Any major breaking news stories I need to know about?”
“As if I’d tell you,” she said, nuzzling her mouth up against his ear. “What about you? Any new leads on cases I can go public with?”
“You already know the answer to that one, Ems.” Nick ran his hands up inside Emma’s shirt, his fingers finding the hook on her bra strap.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be the first to know about it at the press conference.”
