I gave Akin the address of the hotel.
"Right. Stay put until you hear from me. If Gazza Wilson is in St. Ives it's probably not worth the risk of him spotting you."
As it turned out, Akin didn't make it until the next morning, so I spent the rest of the afternoon cooped up in my hotel room looking out over that strangely beautiful sea and daydreaming about the things Callum and I would get up to if he were there with me.
Akin was alone when he arrived. He sat down across from me in the hotel's small breakfast room where I was eating a plate of fruit and downing cup after cup of coffee.
"That any good?" He asked, eying my mug.
"Nope,” I responded, grinning.
“Well I better have some, then.”
He signaled the waiter for coffee. “The St. Ives police have been informed. They’re checking with the local hotels right now, so we just have to sit tight until we hear from them. I don't want to step on any toes. And they're in uniform so they may have better luck getting answers."
We chatted about the little details that would need to be taken care of if we did find Gazza, but there was something else I wanted to ask my boss and I had to be subtle about it. Eventually I felt like it was OK to bring the topic up.
"Have you spoken to Callum Cross again?"
"Yes. We let him go yesterday, actually. He's not a flight risk that I can see, and I made sure to tell him that if he did do a runner it would hurt your case."
"My case?"
"Yes, Morgan, your case. We couldn't hold him any longer without laying charges for the dust-up at the Streatham Club and I reckoned that would be pointless. We need him onside - we need him to stick around. And anyone with eyes in their head can see he's all wrapped up in you. He wouldn't stop asking me about you, actually.
"Really?" I asked, wincing slightly at the overexcited tone in my voice.
Akin smiled at my embarrassment. "Really, Morgan."
We spent the next couple of hours wandering up and down the beach until finally Akin's phone rang. I could see from the look on his face, even before he spoke, that it was important.
"Where? Right, OK. He's not there? Right. Right. We'll be right there, but if he shows up first just go ahead and make the arrest."
He turned to me, his eyes lit up. "They found him. Well, they found where he's staying - and we'd best get up there right now."
Gazza Wilson turned out to be staying in one of the fancy seaside hotels I'd already been to the previous day. When Akin and I arrived, three marked police cars were parked outside, all with their lights on, and a small group of local police were gathered on the pavement outside the hotel's front entrance. I looked at Akin, who was already staring at the scene angrily, and watched him approach the St. Ives officers.
"Who's in charge here?" He asked."Look, get these cars the fuck out of here, right now. And get off the street. You think this guy is just going to come strolling in with all these coppers hanging around?"
I could tell Akin was even more pissed off than he was letting on, but he knew we had to make an effort not to make the local police feel patronized. Tensions between big city cops and small town cops were real. And a serious pain in the ass. The local officer in charge was, as expected, unhappy.
"Superintendent Akin, I should remind you this isn't London. We know how our town works-"
"Yes, of course, yes," Akin cut him off, as diplomatically as possible. "It's just that this man knows he's being searched for. He's going to take one look at these cars and do a runner before we even get eyes on him. If you could just-"
"Sir, is it correct that this man is wanted for murder? That he left a five year old child orphaned?"
It was one of the local cops, a woman. I could see she knew what she was doing, and I shot her a brief, thankful smile. She’d given her superior a good reason to back off - specifically a reason given to him by one of his own team and not one of the arrogant city police. He looked around and nodded at his officers.
"Right, yes. Get the cars out of here," he said."We'll wait inside."
I glanced up the road, relieved we'd managed to sort out the problem without a major tantrum, and suddenly spotted a man with gray hair. He had Gazza's build. I looked harder and nudged Akin, pointing in the man’s direction.
"Is that him?" He asked sharply.
"I don't know, I can't tell from here, I think that's-"
Although the man was too far away to identify from sight alone, we both watched him come to an abrupt stop when he spotted us. Then he immediately turned around and ran.
"That's him, that's him!" I yelled, alerting the local cops. "Older white male, graying hair, blue shirt, jeans - he just saw us and legged it up the hill!
Two of the local St. Ives officers and I took off immediately, running up the pavement full-tilt to the place where I'd seen the man disappear down a sidestreet. Behind me I could hear Akin shouting instructions to the others who weren't already in pursuit. Almost at once the air was filled with the sound of sirens.
There was a single street, the only place Gazza could have gone. I didn't have a radio so I asked the female officer, the one who had smoothly prevented the blow-up between her colleagues and Akin, to radio them to block the street from the other end.
"How long is it? Are there other sidestreets?" I asked, panting and scanning the front gardens for any sign of movement.
"It's not long but there are sidestreets. I'll have them blocked as well."
I continued jogging along the road with her as she radioed the instructions back to her station. There was no sign of Gazza. Then her radio crackled again.
"Setchmore Road! Setchmore Road east end! He's on foot!"
I turned to the officer, waiting for her to tell me where the hell Setchmore Road was and she ran off ahead, turning back to yell at me:
"It's close! It's close, it's right here!"
The three of us soon got to Setchmore Road and started slowly making our way down it, checking front gardens and hedges. As we got closer to the end of the street I could see a squad car parked there, lights flashing. He had to be somewhere between where we were and where that car was.
"Opposite sides!" I shouted. I picked the left side for myself and prayed more officers were about to show up. There were a lot of heavy bushes in the front gardens and more than a few back gates leading to back gardens. If Gazza got over one of them, he could be on another street in thirty seconds.
"Radio for them to block off the parallel streets!"
The female St. Ives officer radioed in the command, and I was just starting to feel a little more secure that we had him when I felt a sudden sharp pain in my head. The bright sunny day suddenly went black.
I lost consciousness for a few seconds, and came to with the side of my face being ground into the pavement and a heavy weight on my back. Before I had time to think about escaping I felt myself being hauled to my feet, and then there was an awful, cold tickle against my throat. I didn't even have to look. I knew what it was. Everyone started shouting as I held my hands out on either side of me, trying to appear as unthreatening and passive as possible. Gazza breathed heavily in my ear as he dragged me back along the street, away from the squad car.
"Put the knife down, sir! Put the knife down!"
Fuck. I was fucked. The local cops were armed, but none of them had a clear shot. All they could do was watch as Gazza dragged me backwards, yanking me hard every few seconds so I kept stumbling and almost losing my balance.
"Stand up straight, bitch," he snarled into my ear."Fucking bitch! Fucking...bitch!"
Gazza's desperation was tangible, and I knew very well how desperation could affect a person's thinking. He knew there was no getting out of the situation in anything other than handcuffs. He didn't have a lot to lose from hurting me, at that point.
"We should talk about this," I panted. I forced my arms to stay where they were, even though every instinct screamed at me to grab his wrists or the knife itself, anything to get i
t away from my throat. "Gary, please. We should talk about this. Put the knife down, we can-"
"Shut the fuck UP!" he screamed, tightening his grip until I could feel the cold, sharp metal edge starting to cut into my skin.
"Put the knife down! Put it down!"
It was Akin's voice. He sounded panicked, and that made me panic. I lost control of my arms and started scrabbling at Gazza, managing to get my forefinger jammed under the blade. I let out a choked scream as I felt it slicing, painlessly at first, through my flesh.
There was a sudden loud bang, loud enough to make my ears feel like they were stuffed with cotton wool, and at once the weight of Gazza was gone. I spun around and saw him sprawled out on the road with blood pouring out of his neck. He was making a strange gargling sound.
"Morgan! Morgan!"
Akin ran to me, still holstering his gun. He'd shot Gazza. It took a few seconds to register. At first, I didn't understand his panic. Gazza was down. Not only was he down, he didn't look long for the world. It took a good twenty to thirty seconds for the pain in my finger and the warm, wet feeling trickling down my neck to wake me up. Akin and another person were lying me down on the road. I felt someone tying something very tight around my wrist as Akin knelt down beside me to put pressure on my neck. Absurdly, my main instinct was to reassure him.
"I'm OK. I'm OK," I babbled, "I'm conscious. If he'd hit anything important, I wouldn't be."
"Shut up, Morgan," Akin replied, his eyes darting from my neck down to my hand, which was being held in the air by the female officer. "Stop moving. The ambulance is on its way. Stop moving! Morgan!"
Akin was right next to me, but he was starting to sound faraway. I felt my eyes closing. Shit. I was going to pass out.
"Akin!"
I remember reaching up for him, panic setting in again as I realized what was happening, but that's the last thing I remember.
Chapter 24: Callum
I was sitting in the hotel room in Wembley when Lily's boss called me. As soon as I heard his voice, I knew something was up. I assumed he was going to ask me for something - he'd made it more than clear that although I was being let go, I wasn't anywhere near 'free' yet.
"I need you to come back into the station," he told me.
I sighed."Alright mate. But if you want me to come back in you're going to have to tell me what's going on with Lily - Lily Morgan. She hasn't contacted me in-"
"This is about Lily Morgan," Akin said, "she's been injured and she's in the hospital. I'm calling you as a courtesy to her, she's asked for you. So come into the station and I'll take you to see her. She's under guard so you won't be able to get in without me."
I felt all the blood draining out of me."Lily's in the hospital? Is she hurt? What happened? Where is-"
"Mr. Cross, just come into the station."
He hung up before I could ask anything further. I threw my clothes on in a daze and headed for the tube. The whole journey had a dreamlike quality, like one of those dreams where you're trying to run but your legs are in slow-motion. I arrived at the station breathless, my skin prickling with dread.
"Akin! Where the fuck is Superintendent Akin!" I shouted, swiveling my head around wildly and causing the receptionist to reach for her phone.
"It's alright," came a voice from behind me "I've got him."
I turned around to face Lily's boss. "Is she OK? Just - please tell me she's OK. Please."
"She's OK. I'm leaving now, so if you want to see her you better get a move on."
I didn't need to be told twice. Fucker could have told me on the phone that she was OK, though. I tried to get more information out of him on the drive to the hospital but he remained tight-lipped, just telling me I was going to have to ask Lily myself. When we got there, he stepped back at the entrance to her room and nodded for me to go first.
"She wants to see you. I'll be outside."
Maybe he wasn't a total fucker. I mean, he was, but he obviously cared about Lily and that made us allies, of sorts. I walked into the room and saw Lily lying in a hospital bed. My eyes roamed over her, taking note of bandages on her neck and her hand.
"Lily, what the fuck happened?"
She didn’t say anything, she just reached her arms out for me. Something about seeing her like that - so uncharacteristically vulnerable - made me shut up immediately. I ran to her, bending down so she could wrap her arms around me and press her face into my neck. It took a few minutes before she stopped breathing so quickly, but eventually I felt her calming down in my arms.
"Callum. I'm so..." She trailed off.
"Lily, are you OK? Just tell me you're OK."
She smiled weakly. She was very pale.
"I'm OK, Callum. I'm alright. I lost some blood but they stitched me back up. I'm good."
"What happened? Who did this?"
I sat down beside her on the bed and she ran her hands up my arms, shoulders and face, as if checking to see that I was actually there.
"Gazza's dead, Callum."
Nothing about Lily's statement changed what I felt, which was concern for her and nothing else. Gazza was dead? I didn't feel anything about that.
"Is he?"
She nodded. "He was shot. He was holding me at knifepoint - that's why I'm all cut up - but they got him. Akin got him, actually. He was dead before the ambulance got there."
"He - what? He held you at knifepoint? Where - Lily, where did you find him?"
She smiled again. "I'm so happy to see you, Callum. You're the only person in the whole world I wanted to see. I'll fill you in on the details later, if you don't mind. But yeah, we found him. We found him and now this is all done."
"Is it? Done?"
Well..." She chuckled, then started coughing a little. "It's not done-done, but it's done. We still need to get the DNA results back, but Ian flipped and told us everything anyway, so we don't even need them, really. You're still going to need to testify, but if you agree to that you're looking at a few months probation, if that."
I didn't even take in most of what Lily was saying about the case because I was too busy staring at her. I touched her very gently because she looked so broken. All that mattered was that she was OK. And she seemed to be.
"Callum?"
"What?"
"Don't you have anything to say?"
"About what? The case? Oh yeah, well, that's good. To be honest, Lily, I don't give a fuck about the case-"
"Well you should, Callum, you're still-"
I bent down and kissed her cracked lips. "Lily, shhh. I'm not one of your colleagues. I don't care about any of this. I care about you. I care that you're alright. That's it."
She ran her hand, which was so heavily bandaged it reminded me of a boxing glove, over my shoulder. "Don't kiss me. My lips are all dry."
"You're right, and it's disgusting. No more kisses until you get some moisturizer on there, you lazy slob."
She laughed at that. The sound of Lily laughing always made me want to laugh. It was idiotic, but I loved it.
"Will you take me home? Are you still staying in Wembley?" She asked. "Come stay with me, will you? I need someone to change my bandages and cook for me. You'll do."
"Mmm, I'll do, will I? You're damn right I'll do, woman."
As it turned out, she was free to leave the hospital. The protective guard was a precaution only. Everyone who was even remotely involved with the Linda Trout murder - Ian, Dave, Mick, Wayne Karswell and his son - was already under arrest. All Lily needed was someone to take her home and stay with her while she healed. And coincidentally, there was nothing else I wanted to do more than that. I left her in the hospital to go back to Wembley and check out of the hotel, and when I got back we took a black cab back to her flat.
"Don't worry," she said, grinning, "the Met's paying for the poncy cab." I winced at every bump in the road, worried it was going to hurt her.
When we got back to Lily's flat the first thing she did was announce that she was starving.
; "Want to get a pizza?" I asked her.
"YES. And then I need to have a shower. I feel gross. I'm not supposed to get my bandages wet, so I might need some help with that."
"If it involves seeing you naked, I'm in," I told her, bending down and kissing the top of her head.
She turned around and tried to look up at me."Ow. I can't really look up properly."
"Does it hurt? Did they give you anything for the pain?"
She reached up and ran one hand gingerly over her bandaged neck. "It hurts a little. It aches. So does my finger. They just gave me paracetamol and said I could call if I needed something stronger."
"Right. Well, just say something if it gets worse. I can go and pick up any meds you need."
She snuggled into my chest. I wasn't as surprised as I once had been at the protectiveness that Lily brought out in me. It wasn't strange anymore. Still, it was enough to make me shake my head.
"What?" She asked, pressing her face into my chest and taking a deep breath.
"I don't know, Lily. I hate seeing you like this. I hate that I wasn't there to protect you. I'm worried about you."
She put her arms around me. "You know I couldn't tell you where I was going, Callum. You would have gone mad. You would have showed up in the middle of our operation in St. Ives and gotten yourself into even more trouble than you were already in."
She wasn't wrong. If I'd known where Gazza was, I would have been there. And if I'd seen him with a knife to her throat...well, at least David Akin had finished the job.
"St. Ives?" I asked. "How did you find him there?"
"I'll tell you, Callum, but I need to eat first. And I really, really need to shower. I'm filthy."
I ordered a pizza and then followed Lily into the bathroom to help her undress. I was hard before she was even naked, in spite of my efforts to control it. She noticed, too.
"Callum, you animal," she teased, reaching down to run her fingers over my cock. I caught her non-injured wrist.
"Lily, stop. If you don't stop, you're not going to get your shower and I'm, uh, I'm a little..."
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