Fallen Idols

by Neil White

  I thought about that for a moment.

  ‘Okay, you’re right, Tony. Just wait a while.’

  ‘But you better go quickly,’ he said. ‘Go now.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me, Tony.’

  ‘It wasn’t you I was thinking about.’

  I was confused.

  ‘Whoever killed Rose Wood’, he continued, ‘went to her for the same reason you did, and whatever you got, I bet he got it too.’

  ‘Shit!’ I exclaimed, the connections fusing in my head. ‘He’s gone after Liza.’

  Nell clicked off her phone.

  ‘Any joy?’ asked Mike.

  She shook her head. ‘David Watts hasn’t been seen all night. We checked his apartment last night, but there was no one there.’

  ‘Has anyone spoken with his lawyer?’

  ‘I don’t know if he’s got one. They spoke with his agent this morning. Some cold fish, so they said, worried she might have lost a client.’

  ‘Had she seen him?’

  ‘She wouldn’t talk at first, but the rattle of the handcuffs changed that.’

  Mike exhaled. ‘What did she say?’

  Nell smiled. ‘She confirmed the phone calls, that someone was saying that unless he confessed to the murder of Annie Paxman, she would shoot more footballers.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘That detective was right.’

  ‘Shit!’ And then something occurred to Mike. ‘Where is DC McGanity?’

  At that, Nell didn’t look as happy. ‘As far as we can tell, she was last seen jumping out of a window, with someone firing shots at her.’

  David Watts was in the shower, washing himself down. He wasn’t sure he’d be any cleaner once he’d used the towels, but he had to wash her out of his hair. The water came out at barely a trickle, but at least it was warm.

  Once he’d dried himself off, he stepped back into the bedroom. He was surprised to see her still there. She was sitting on the end of the bed, looking at the floor.

  ‘I thought you’d taken your little girl to school.’

  ‘She went with a neighbour.’

  He dropped his towel and began to get dressed. ‘What’s up? Want some more?’ He pulled on his shirt and shook his head. ‘Sorry, sweetheart, no gas left in the tank.’

  She was on the bed. Her robe fell open. She was naked underneath. She looked at David, and reaching to her left she pulled out the bag of cocaine David had passed her the night before. She tipped a thin line onto her stomach, just a sliver, a white trail leading down to her pubic hair.

  He saw her and wanted to look away. He saw the powder and wanted to go to her.

  Then he thought about what lay ahead and realised he needed the kick-start.

  He went over to her and knelt down, his hands on her, his face getting down for the powder, Julie with her head back, her eyes closed.

  Then he saw it. Just a small red light, hidden behind some clothes.

  He jumped up and snatched the clothes away, throwing them around. A camcorder. Cheap, but good enough to record whatever had gone on in the room.

  He knew straight away what this was all about. Money. It was only ever about money. She was selling him. And he thought he had bought her. His mind flashed back to the few hours they’d just spent together. Cocaine. Sex. Images of Emma flashed through his head, pictures in magazines, gossip.

  He felt tears in his eyes, rage, anger. His nails cut into his palms as he looked at her. She was backing up on the bed, scared, crying.

  ‘How much were you going to get for this?’ he asked, barely able to speak, his mouth dry.

  She tried to cover herself. ‘I don’t know,’ she cried. ‘You came to me, remember. Maybe enough to give Abi a better life.’

  ‘I knew I was getting a whore,’ he said, his voice snapping the words out. ‘I just didn’t know I’d be paying for it.’ He went towards her, laughing, low and mean. ‘Because a brush with fame seems to be worth losing every bit of self-respect you have left.’

  ‘It’s easy for you,’ she said, her voice rising, getting angry. ‘You’ve got it all, always had it all. This is as good as I’m going to get, and you have no fucking idea.’

  ‘Well, maybe you’re right, because you live like a dog, and you look like a dog. Christ, you even fuck like one.’ He gripped her round the throat, his right hand squeezing, pushing her down. ‘Fucking me like that, doing all of that, with your precious baby asleep in the next room. And you say this is for her.’

  She gulped, tried to cry out. ‘Don’t, you’re hurting me.’

  He gripped her breast hard. ‘You still like it now?’

  She had her eyes shut, clamped tight, a tear squeezing out.

  He pushed her down onto the bed. He could feel himself against her, pushing, felt the excitement as she struggled. His knee nudged hers apart.

  One good thing about losing everything was that he had nothing left to lose.

  The American had been right about the lane. He had walked less than a mile when he’d reached the top of the rise and found himself looking down towards the cluster of trees that shielded the house from view. He stopped to check his weapons, coldly calm now. His knife was in its sheath on his leg. A new pepper-spray canister was in his pocket. The gun was in its holster at the small of his back.

  He was walking fast, anticipation making him smile. And he had something else: a short piece of nylon rope.

  If he had no choice, he would shoot her. If it came to hand-to-hand fighting, he would use the knife. But what he really wanted to use was the rope.

  She didn’t deserve quick and painless. As he walked along the fields, he’d started to imagine her with the rope around her neck, his hands making the circle, pulling tight. He could almost hear the bones creaking as he pulled, could almost feel her struggling and kicking and thrashing as she pleaded. He wanted to see the terror in her eyes. He wanted to feel her scratching at his arms, her legs banging on the floor as she tried to release his grip. She wouldn’t match his physical strength, so he could release and tighten it at will, prolong the moment, let her know that every last second of her life was just that, the end. When she did fade away, he wanted to be looking into her eyes, wanted to see the coldness creep in, wanted to make sure that the last moments she spent were bound up in terror.

  His cheeks flushed. He was erect. He was ready for this one.

  He approached the cluster of trees. It wasn’t thick woodland, just a thin screen, so he tried to keep low, his view of the house obscured, hoping her view of him would be obscured too. His eyes scanned the ground as he crept, looking out for tripwires or sensors, some way of knowing that someone was on the property. It seemed normal.

  He got in among the trees and knelt down. He got out his field glasses for another look at the house, to see if anything had changed. Whether any blinds were open, or whether the glass near the porch had moved.

  As far as he could tell, it was all the same.

  Showtime.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Laura was driving fast and I kept a lookout for police patrols. The roads were quiet, no one around, so she nudged the speed higher, the trees and lay-bys blurring past.

  I was looking at the map, trying to work out where we were going. We needed to be at a small village called Kirkby Askham. Liza Radley’s house was just beyond that.

  I started to get nervous. I was chewing my lip, thinking about what lay ahead. Laura interrupted my thoughts. ‘Where are we going?’

  I turned to look at her. She was staring straight ahead, concentrating on the road, as if it was just a thought spoken aloud.

  I returned my eyes to the road, realising that there was no way to dress it up.

  ‘We’re going to talk to the woman who has been shooting footballers.’

  My leg screamed with pain as the car screeched to a halt.

  ‘What!’

  I smiled through the pain, enjoying the effect.

  ‘You heard me,’ I said.

  ‘Who is she?’

&
nbsp; I watched her. Laura was a policewoman. Would she stop me if I told her? Then I thought about the night before. That wasn’t about the job.

  ‘She’s a woman from Turners Fold obsessed with Annie Paxman’s death. Called Liza Radley.’

  ‘That’s bullshit,’ she said, and then she paused. ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘Old photographs, guesswork, that kind of thing.’

  Laura stared straight ahead for a while, gathering her thoughts, before she said, ‘Jack, let me tell you one thing: people don’t just start killing footballers. They build up to killing footballers. A person’s first murder makes them pause, take stock, even panic a little. Sprees come later, much later.’

  ‘So you’re saying I’m wrong?’

  Laura looked at me, disappointment in her eyes. ‘I’m saying that you’re too wrapped up in the story to see the truth. And you’re not being fair to me, Jack. You knew all this last night, as we were making love, but you didn’t say anything. Maybe you’re thinking too much about the story and not enough about yourself. You’re putting yourself in danger.’ Laura clicked on her phone. ‘I’m calling it in.’

  I grabbed her wrist. ‘And maybe you’re thinking too much about an arrest? I’m thinking only of the story, and for that I need to do what I need to do. I’ll worry about me later.’

  Laura started to answer, but then she stopped. I could almost see the thoughts flashing across her eyes as she tried to decide whether she had the killer in sight. She tugged at her lip. ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Her father was James Radley, the policeman who arrived on the scene of Annie Paxman’s murder with my father.’

  ‘The other cop on the tape?’

  I nodded. ‘He knew and hated himself for it. He saw the same thing my father saw.’

  Laura exhaled. ‘And his daughter started hating him for it too?’

  ‘Something like that, I guess. I’ll let the head doctors sort that one out, but my take is that she hated the town and hated David Watts for what it did to her father. She puts her father out of his misery and then goes after David Watts.’

  ‘And when it all comes out, she’ll bring the town down with her.’

  ‘Seems that way. I’m guessing that she won’t mind an interview.’

  ‘I’m calling this in, Jack. Now.’

  I made a play of reaching for the door handle. ‘You can, but we aren’t far away now. I’ll walk. I just hope I don’t tip her off.’

  Laura grabbed at my hand. ‘You bastard, Jack Garrett,’ she snapped. ‘I’m a police officer. Are you trying to end my career?’

  I looked down and thought for a moment. When I looked again, I was steely and determined. ‘I’m doing this my way, because this story is going to be written. But Laura,’ and I put my hand over hers, ‘we’re past the cop–reporter thing now. We need to talk when this is all over.’

  Laura looked into my eyes and saw that I meant it.

  ‘You’ll cover for me, if I get in trouble?’ she asked.

  I smiled. ‘I’m making you the hero of the piece.’ And then I kissed her.

  I felt her move into the kiss, her hand falling away from mine. When I opened my eyes, she said softly, ‘Okay, you win.’ She paused, and then said, ‘But I’m calling it in as soon as we get there The reinforcements might just arrive before she kills us both.’

  ‘Do we tell her about Rose Wood?’

  Laura sighed. That was a tough one.

  ‘Maybe,’ was her reply, ‘but let’s not get her angry.’

  FORTY-EIGHT

  He walked quickly across the open land between the trees and the house. There was no sign of movement as he went, his footsteps silent. As he reached the house, his back flat against the gable, he listened out. There was nothing.

  He eased himself around the corner of the house and crawled to the first window, listening again, his ears cocked for any noise. Still nothing. He had a quick look into the window. He saw it was broken, shards of glass hanging down.

  He ducked back down again and pulled the gun out of its holster. She could surprise him, unless he got his shot in first. He walked along the front of the house, looking out for debris that might give him away. He made it without a sound. When he was at other end, he carried on down the side of the house, the side that looked down towards the cattle grid. He walked quickly to the back corner, trying to keep out of sight of anyone who came down the road.

  As he got to the corner of the house, he peered round. No one there. Just the car he’d seen earlier and a garden seat. He smiled. This was no farmhouse. It was just a house on its own, for people who wanted to be on their own.

  He walked to the door at the back of the house and looked through. He was looking into a kitchen, cast in semi-darkness by the closed blinds. He tried the door handle. It turned in his hand, no squeak, but when he pushed the door didn’t give. It was bolted.

  He cursed and walked over to the kitchen window. It was an old sash window. He put his gun away and pulled out his knife. He was able to get it between the two panes and ease the catch round until the two frames just settled in their runners. He started to ease up the bottom half of the window, pushing against it as he did it, not allowing it to move in the frame, until there was enough room to get his body through. He took a deep breath and let go of the window, holding his hand underneath, anxious that it would crash down and wake her. It held, decades of paint making the sash-rope tight and stiff.

  He put his head through and looked around. There was nothing in his way, so he put his knife on the sink and then put his shoulders through, grabbing the edge of the sink and slithering onto the floor. He listened out. There was nothing. Just the clunk of an old clock on a shelf by the door and the occasional creak of the house timbers. He looked around the kitchen. It was bare, nothing homely. No flowers or plants, no pictures on the wall. The house smelled cold and unwelcoming. It was as if no one lived there any more.

  He started when he heard the noise of a car engine. He moved against the wall and pulled his gun out of its holster again. His breaths matched the steady beat of the clock, but there wasn’t much else.

  Then he thought he heard something upstairs.

  We were squinting through the shadows, looking for the house, trying to drive normally, when suddenly we emerged into sunlight and were overlooking a low green valley and an isolated grey-stone house.

  ‘Is that it?’ asked Laura, as we began to descend the light slope towards a covered bridge.

  I looked ahead, holding my hand out for Laura to slow down. ‘I don’t know. We’ll need to check.’

  ‘I’m not stopping, it’ll be too obvious. We’ll drive past and then turn around further on.’

  We carried on down the hill, and then our tyres rattled noisily as we crossed the cattle grid, the engine noise bouncing around the early morning.

  Laura stopped the car, the tyres kicking up dust.

  I looked at Laura in surprise. ‘What’s going on?’

  Laura pointed ahead, tight-lipped. ‘We’ve run out of road.’

  I looked in front, and then saw that the road just turned into a track.

  ‘Shit, it’s just for this house,’ I hissed, angry with myself for not making us more careful. I looked up at the house. We couldn’t get any further.

  ‘This must be it,’ I said. ‘We just have to make like tourists. Get some maps out, point, that kind of thing. We’ll do that for a couple of minutes and then I’ll go up to the house. I’ll pretend to be lost, and then ask her questions when I’ve got her to the door.’

  ‘No more secrets.’ It was a command, not a question. I held up my hand in agreement.

  Laura turned to look at the house. ‘If we get out of this car so near to the house, she might just shoot us.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied, feeling the adrenalin beginning to pump, ‘and she might just blow my head off through the front door, but it’s a risk I’m prepared to take.’

  I grabbed the maps and stepped out. I walked round the car t
o put it between the house and us. I put a map on the car roof, drew a line with my finger, but all my attention was on the house. As I play-acted, I could feel the stares of every window on me, each one maybe hiding a rifle, pointing right at me.

  FORTY-NINE

  Liza Radley snapped awake.

  The room was in shadow, but she sensed something wasn’t right. She was in a bedroom at the front of the house, with a view over the approach road. She could hear something, an engine noise getting louder.

  She lay still, silent, trying to work out how far away it was. The engine got closer, the crunch of the tyres on the road outside, her road, and then she heard the car rattle over the grid.

  She sat bolt upright, and then looked towards the window. She could hear voices, hectic voices, whispering at her to get out, like mocking laughs, scratches at the door.

  She jumped out of bed and ran to the window. She was wearing her clothes from the previous night. She inched open the blind and looked out. Her eyes squinted against the sudden brightness, and then when she saw the car, she let the blind drop back into place.

  She turned back to the window and peered out again. They were getting out of the car. It was a young couple, a man and a woman. They didn’t look at the house.

  Liza watched them for a while, calming down. They seemed okay. People did get lost up here, and when they did, that’s all they did: they got out a map, pointed, sometimes argued, and then turned round and drove away. She looked around her land and then up the track, back towards the main road, but it all seemed the same. Maybe check the television, she thought. If the police were on to her, there were bound to be pictures of a stake-out. She looked again at the couple by the car. It didn’t seem like a stake-out.

  She turned around, thought she heard a whisper. Nothing there.

  She reached for the remote control for the television, the only one she had left, the set downstairs destroyed, and flicked it on. It went straight to the sports news channels. Nothing. The headlines were running across the bottom of the screen.