The Final Minute

by Simon Kernick

  A woman of about forty, with curly shoulder-length hair and a kindly, attractive face, was bending over me. ‘Calm down, Roman,’ she said to the dog. Then to me, a not entirely unfriendly ‘Who are you?’

  I could see she didn’t look particularly scared or angry – but then she did have a big German Shepherd right next to her – so I gave her my best smile. ‘I’m sorry, I was taking a walk and I got a bit lost.’

  ‘Where are you heading to?’

  I rubbed my eyes. ‘Anywhere. I’ve just split up from my wife. It hasn’t been an easy few weeks. I just got on a bus and kept going. I guess I thought I’d keep walking until I found a place to stay.’ I was surprised at how easy the lies came, but then lying had been a part of my job description for most of my adult life, so I really shouldn’t have been. ‘Anyway, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to trespass.’ I slowly got to my feet, relieved that I’d covered the gun with some hay. ‘I’ll be on my way.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said, stepping back to give me some space. ‘No harm done.’

  I walked out of the barn and into the sunshine, and looked at my watch. It was almost 4.30. Jesus, I’d been out for hours. The woman and her dog followed me a few feet back.

  ‘It’s this way back to the road, right?’ I called over my shoulder, pointing in the general direction I’d come from, and thinking I’d wait a few minutes before I came back for the gun.

  ‘Hang on a moment,’ she called after me. ‘Do you want a drink of water or something before you go? You’ll need it in this heat.’

  I knew I shouldn’t. Far better just to keep walking and hoping she didn’t remember me, but that was the thing about being on the run. It was so damned uncomfortable, and the idea of an ice-cold glass of water, or even a cup of tea and a sit-down, was simply too good an opportunity to pass up. I think I must have been a very short-term, impulsive person in my pre-accident life because I turned round with another smile. ‘That would be great, thanks. I’m Matt, by the way.’

  We shook hands and the dog growled again, keeping his beady eyes on me and leaving me in no doubt that he wouldn’t hesitate to rip my throat out if given the order.

  ‘I’m Luda,’ she said.

  ‘That’s an unusual name,’ I said, thinking that she had lovely blue eyes.

  ‘It’s Russian. It means “love of the people”. A little bit ironic, given that I’m alone out here in the middle of nowhere.’

  I followed her round the other side of the barn, through a thin strip of woodland, and into a field where half a dozen goats grazed and made goat noises in one corner.

  ‘Is this all yours?’ I asked her.

  She nodded. ‘I’ve got five acres. Prices are a lot cheaper round here.’

  ‘It’s a nice place.’

  ‘Thank you. It’s very peaceful.’ She turned to me with a playful expression on her face. ‘I don’t usually do this, by the way. Offer strangers a glass of water, especially ones I find flat out in my barn.’

  ‘I’m a nice boy, I promise.’

  ‘Does your wife believe that?’

  ‘You know, I think she does. She wanted us to stay together. It’s me who wanted to split. She’s been having an affair. And not her first either.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  I was sorry too to have to spin her so many lies, but now that I was here it was essential I turned myself into a man she could sympathize with. At this point, I didn’t just want a glass of water. I wanted to sit down, have a cup of tea and, you know, maybe more …

  ‘It’s OK,’ I told her with a vaguely rueful expression. ‘These things happen.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It happened to me a long time ago. Once someone close to you does that, it’s hard to go back.’

  By this time we’d come to a spacious modern farmhouse, clearly built when architects still cared about creating character and charm, with a decent-sized chicken coop on one side and a series of raised vegetable beds on the other. I had another memory then from my old life – a realization that I’d always wanted to grow vegetables. I’d discussed it with someone once – a woman. I concentrated on trying to remember who, but nothing came.

  The farmhouse’s back door was open and I followed Luda and Roman inside, into a big, traditional kitchen with oak worktops and an Aga. Recipe books, some of them ancient-looking, lined the walls. I immediately felt at home but remained in the doorway, striking a formal, unthreatening pose with my hands behind my back as she filled a glass with water and handed it to me.

  She watched me as I downed it in one go, and I could tell she was pondering whether to invite me to stay a while. I had a feeling she was lonely out here and got very little company, particularly male. I wasn’t a bad-looking guy, and although my clothes were a little dishevelled courtesy of sleeping in a car followed by a barn, they were still obviously new. I asked Luda for another glass to give her a bit more time to make her decision and drank that one more slowly.

  Finally, she asked me if I’d like to stay for a cup of tea.

  ‘I’d love one,’ I said, and five minutes later we were sat at the kitchen table talking.

  We talked a long time, and, like everything else, I’d forgotten how interested I was in other people and their stories. Luda told me that her husband had died six years earlier, the victim of a street mugging that went wrong while they’d been living in London. He’d been stabbed once when one of the muggers either panicked or decided he wasn’t being compliant enough, and unfortunately the blade had pierced his heart. The story angered me. It seemed so unjust that a kind, young, attractive woman should have had her life snatched away from her like that, and it reminded me why I’d become a cop in the first place – to put away pieces of dirt like the one who’d killed her husband. Afterwards, with her dreams of starting a family with the man she loved in tatters, she’d been unable to stay in London, or in her job as a lawyer, and had sold up and moved out here to escape the memories. She’d been here ever since. Money, it seemed, wasn’t a problem, but loneliness was.

  ‘You won’t believe this but I was a hugely social person,’ she told me. ‘Dan and I used to go out all the time – restaurants, parties …’

  I asked her if she missed all that.

  She thought about that for a while before answering. ‘I miss company. I miss sharing things. When I came out here I was happy to be alone. I couldn’t imagine anyone replacing Dan. Sometimes I still can’t. But six years is a long time and I’ve been ready to meet someone for a while now. The problem is, there aren’t that many men out here. But I can’t really imagine living anywhere else.’

  ‘It’s pretty idyllic,’ I said, meaning it. ‘Growing your own food, breathing fresh air every day, a long way from all the crap.’

  Luda gave me what I can only describe as a deep, probing look. ‘How about you, Matt? What’s your story?’

  So I fed her a long, carefully embellished and perfectly believable lie about how I’d been a salesman in the IT industry for the best part of two decades (no one ever asks too many detailed questions about IT); how I’d married my childhood sweetheart, Sally; how things had been great until her first affair (which somewhat magnanimously I’d forgiven) before finally it had all fallen apart with her second, which had unfortunately coincided with me being made redundant, causing a perfect storm that had left me perilously close to coming off the rails. By the time I’d finished telling her all this, I was almost believing it myself.

  I knew what I was doing was repugnant, but the thing was, I was desperate for Luda to like me enough to let me stay the night. I genuinely liked her; I liked her home; most of all, I liked the new, invented me. The ordinary guy fallen on hard times who wasn’t a killer ex-con on the run. I also knew that the longer I stayed out of sight the more likely I was to get my memory back before the police got hold of me, and therefore potentially save myself from another much longer prison sentence. Because if I remembered what had happened to me before the accident, then I’d know why everyone
was after me, and maybe – just maybe – I could prove my innocence.

  ‘My God, it’s 6.15,’ said Luda, looking at her watch.

  ‘Really? I guess I’d better get going.’ I got to my feet, knowing this was the moment of truth. ‘Thanks ever so much for the tea, and for listening to me. I really appreciate it.’

  She didn’t get up. Instead she gave me a clearly flirtatious look. ‘Do you want to stay for supper?’

  I tried to appear surprised but happy. ‘Are you sure? I don’t want to impose.’

  She smiled. ‘Yes, I’m sure. You seem a nice guy. Sit down.’

  So I did.

  Thirty-seven

  Sheryl Warner was sitting in her front room watching Coronation Street and drinking a large vodka Red Bull to wake herself up when there was a knock on her door. She frowned, wondering who it was. She was meeting a couple of mates later at the All Bar One in Islington but that wasn’t until ten p.m.

  It immediately occurred to her that it might be Dylan. He knew where she lived and if he’d worked out that it had been her who’d spoken to Tina Boyd about Lauren and Jen, he might want to hurt her, although she wasn’t sure how he’d got through the front door, which was always locked.

  But when Sheryl looked through the spy hole, it wasn’t Dylan standing there but a good-looking blonde woman of about thirty wearing a dress with a cool-looking leather jacket on top. Sheryl wondered if she’d met the woman before somewhere, then decided to answer the door and find out who she was.

  It was a big mistake.

  As soon as the door opened, Pen de Souza smiled and punched Sheryl Warner in the throat, before forcing her way inside, followed by Tank.

  Sheryl was gasping for air but Pen knew the blow had only been enough to incapacitate her for a short while. For the moment, she and Tank needed her alive and conscious.

  Pen gave Sheryl a hard shove so she fell backwards on to her sofa, still clutching her injured throat, her eyes wide with shock. They got even wider when Pen produced the pistol from inside her jacket and screwed the suppressor on to the end of the barrel. At the same time, Tank walked round the back of the sofa so that he was standing directly behind her. As Sheryl followed him with her eyes, he flexed his gloved fingers menacingly. The look on his face was cold and merciless, and Pen almost felt sorry for Sheryl as she visibly recoiled.

  ‘Who are you?’ Sheryl croaked. ‘Did Dylan send you? I haven’t done anything, I promise.’ She was crying now.

  Pen put a gloved finger to her lips. ‘Calm down, Sheryl, and don’t ask questions. If you do what we say, we won’t hurt you.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Stop crying and I’ll tell you. If you continue to make a noise, though, my friend here will put a gag round your mouth and then things will get unpleasant.’

  Pen’s words were delivered in a calm, measured tone designed to put her victim at ease, and it seemed to work. Sheryl wiped away her tears, cleared her throat and sat up. She still looked scared, but healthily so.

  ‘That’s better. Do you think you can act?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I want you to phone Tina Boyd for me. I have a script for you to read. You have to convince her to come here. If you manage it, we’ll let you go as soon as she arrives. If you don’t, then we’re not going to be very happy at all. Do you understand?’

  ‘I don’t know—’

  Pen cut her off. ‘I don’t want any “I don’t knows”, Sheryl. You need to do this. For your own sake.’

  Sheryl nodded, finally understanding that this was life and death for her.

  Pen handed her the script.

  It was time to set the trap.

  Thirty-eight

  Tina’s meeting with Jeff Roubaix was always going to last longer than she’d wanted it to. He’d insisted on a few drinks in her local, saying he’d come a long way (which, to be fair, he had), and so for the last half an hour they’d been catching up on things, even though they’d never really been friends.

  Jeff, though, seemed genuinely happy to see her, and was already on his second pint of lager, while Tina was coming towards the end of her orange juice and soda water, and not planning on drinking another. It wasn’t that Jeff was bad company. He wasn’t, and to be fair, he still looked pretty good for a man in his forties who spent too long behind a desk (and she could tell he fancied her as well, since he was making very little effort to hide the fact). But she really wasn’t in the mood for chat, and the pub, with all its temptations, was making her feel uncomfortable. It was busy tonight, with laughing regulars packed round the bar, and the majority of tables taken up with diners. Out of the corner of her eye, Tina saw an older woman taking a sip from a big glass of red as she chatted to her husband, and the look of pleasure on the woman’s face as the wine went down made Tina desperate to snatch the glass from her hand and down its contents in one.

  Her phone rang.

  ‘Sorry, Jeff, I need to take this,’ she said, getting to her feet and heading for the door.

  It was Sheryl Warner, and she sounded upset.

  ‘What’s wrong, Sheryl?’ Tina asked, making her way into the car park.

  ‘Dylan came round. He beat me up.’

  Tina felt a rush of guilt and anger. ‘Do you need an ambulance? I can call you one.’

  ‘No, I’m OK … Can you come over? Dylan said something about Jen and Lauren. About the way they disappeared.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘I can’t talk about it over the phone. Can you come over?’

  The last thing on earth Tina wanted to do right now was drive to Camden but she felt obligated.

  ‘I think you’ll want to hear it,’ added Sheryl before Tina had a chance to answer.

  ‘Sure. I’ll be with you in about half an hour. Don’t let anyone else in.’

  ‘OK,’ said Sheryl, and ended the call.

  ‘Is she coming?’ Pen asked Sheryl.

  Sheryl nodded vigorously. ‘She says she’ll be here in half an hour.’

  ‘Good. You’ve done well.’ Pen smiled and leaned forward, brushing a lock of Sheryl’s hair away from her face.

  ‘What are you going to do to her?’

  Pen laughed. ‘What do they always say? If I tell you that, then I’ll have to kill you. Let me give you a piece of advice for the future, Sheryl. Keep out of matters that don’t concern you, and never ask awkward questions. That way you’ll live a long and happy life.’

  Sheryl managed a weak little smile and Pen could see the hope filling up in her eyes.

  Poor little bitch, she thought.

  For a good ten seconds after finishing the call, Tina stood in the car park staring down at the handset. Something about the conversation hadn’t felt right. In fact, several things hadn’t. Firstly, what information could Dylan have given Sheryl while beating her up? Surely the most he would have said was that if she wasn’t careful she’d end up like Jen and Lauren, or words to that effect, and if that was the case then she could easily have told Tina that over the phone rather than get her to drive for half an hour to hear it. The wording Sheryl had used also rang an alarm bell. When she’d said ‘I think you’ll want to hear it’, it hadn’t sounded like a natural thing for a girl like her to say.

  Tina pocketed the phone, wondering if she was just being paranoid. Probably, she concluded, although being paranoid had saved her life more than once. She went back inside and saw that Jeff had almost finished his pint.

  ‘Everything all right?’ he asked as she sat back down.

  ‘I’m going to have to go. I might have a lead on the case I’m working.’

  He smiled. ‘That’s not an excuse, is it? You know you can tell me if you just want to go home. I’d be disappointed, of course. I like your company.’

  Tina knew he was hitting on her. ‘No, Jeff, it’s not an excuse. I do actually have a lead that needs sorting now.’

  ‘Anything I can help with? I’m free all evening.’ He said it as if he was expe
cting a brush-off and was just trying his luck, and ordinarily Tina would have turned him down flat, but on this particular occasion a bit of back-up was no bad idea.

  ‘Well, now you mention it, I could actually use your services if you don’t mind. But it’s strictly gratis, right? I can’t afford to pay you.’

  Jeff didn’t look quite so happy now. ‘OK, but what is it you want me to do?’

  ‘Nothing strenuous. The girl who just called me wants me to go round to her flat in Camden. She says she’s got some information, but I think it might be a set-up.’

  ‘What kind of set-up?’

  ‘I had a run-in with a guy yesterday who’s connected to her and it’s possible he’s round there with a couple of friends looking to give me some payback. It’s unlikely, but I’d prefer to be on the safe side.’

  ‘So you want me to go in there with you?’

  ‘No. I’ll call you on your mobile before I go in, and we’ll keep the line open. You hang back, and if you hear down the phone that I’m in trouble, call 999, and maybe come to the door yelling “Armed police!” or something that scares them. I’ll have some spray on me and a Taser but, as I said, I’m almost certainly being overcautious.’

  ‘Can never be too overcautious. Sure I’ll come with you. You’re not going to be that long in there, are you?’

  Tina shook her head. ‘No. If it is legit, I’ll just get the information and leave.’

  ‘Maybe we can grab some dinner afterwards. I’m getting hungry, and there are a few good places round Camden.’

  Tina gave him the kind of look which said don’t push your luck, but she was smiling too. ‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘but don’t try to make any unwanted passes, not when I’m carrying a Taser and spray.’

  He winked at her. ‘I know you too well, Tina. I wouldn’t dare.’

  Thirty-nine

  At that time in the evening, the journey to Camden took twenty-five minutes. Tina drove, promising to give Jeff a lift back to his car later. On the way, they chatted about the old days at Islington nick, the people they’d known, and what had become of them. Tina had forgotten what good company Jeff could be. He was funny and open, and, philanderer or not, he came across as refreshingly honest. He was based out of Holborn nick these days and still just plodding along, investigating what he was told to investigate, and presumably just counting the days until his retirement.