Fallen Idols

by Neil White

  His eyes started to get angry. I saw him flash a quick look to the cars parked not far away. I thought I could hear muffled warnings for him to put his gun down. I ignored them. My world was that spot near the aviary, a universe spinning in orbit around David Watts, Liza and me.

  ‘Remember Colin Wood? He’s the man in prison for what you did. Ten years of his life. What’s that worth to you? A month’s wage?’ I could have hit him, but I said instead, ‘I found out who his lawyer was. He’s going to get Colin’s DNA tested against the evidence from the scene.’ I stared at him. ‘It will match, won’t it?’

  I gripped the barrel of the gun, jabbed it into my chest. ‘Or maybe Glen swapped the bags? Maybe when he lifted him for being drunk, Glen Ross just put some DNA swabs from you in his bag, just so that it would catch up with him later?’

  David Watts pushed the gun into me, his jaw set, his eyes on fire, wanting to shoot.

  ‘I’ve got friends out there,’ I said. ‘She’s got a camera. If the police don’t get this on film, she will.’ I smiled down the barrel. ‘You’ll make the six o’clock headlines, whatever happens. It’s like catching OJ with the knife in his hand.’ I looked round the gun and at Liza. ‘She knows she’s caught, I can sense it in her. And she wants to tell the story. Whatever happens, the story is going to be told. Shooting me will nail it shut for you.’ I smiled again. ‘So go on, shoot me.’

  He strengthened his grip on the gun.

  I spread my arms out, put my head back. ‘Go on, David. Squeeze the trigger.’

  I saw the barrel lift, saw it move forward until I felt it pressing into my forehead. It was cold and hard, packed tight with menace.

  I saw a rush of film, like my life on fast-forward. My mother, laughing, loving. My dad, strong. School, work, home, Laura. It rushed through, and I felt the wind, like the memories were pushing me around, jostling me. I could feel my father, dead under my feet.

  There was shouting in the distance, hollering, screams to put down the gun. I thought I could hear Laura shouting my name. Or was it my father? The anger seeping out of David Watts smothered me. He was trapped, losing control, everything crumbling in front of him. He was about winning. No more. I could smell it on him: the defeat, the shame. The metal of the gun dug deeper. I could feel the tension in his arm as he pushed and pressed and fought his desire to pull the trigger.

  It came after a pause, like time had slowed down. I heard a scream, movement, saw a flash of colour from the corner of my eye. The gun just came off my forehead for a moment and I felt the breeze blow back onto my skin. Then there was a shot.

  The smell of gunpowder assaulted me and I felt a sprinkle of blood on my cheek, warm, thick. There was a noise, a gasp, a crumpled fall, and the cold metal fell away from my head.

  It was like the release of a pressure valve, a flood of light. I refocused and Liza was standing in front of me, a handgun clasped in her hand. She was staring wide-eyed, shaking. I looked down at the floor. I could hear shouts behind me. David Watts lay on his side, blood on his cheek, running from a star-shaped wound burnt into his temple. Then I saw the spread of blood from underneath his head, his life seeping out onto the grass.

  I looked at Liza. She looked at me, then down at her handgun. I looked down at David. I nodded at her, understanding. He was sinking, his life becoming part of the soil. I knelt down. I looked into his eyes. They were still open, but glassy and dead. But I thought I saw something in them. Confusion, doubt, despair, knowledge he had lost but didn’t know how.

  I stood up again. I looked at Liza, who was staring back at me, the gun still in her hand. Her mouth was open, as if she no longer knew what to do now it was over.

  ‘He’s dead.’

  She looked over to the people by the field. The police were still shouting, warning her to put down the gun. Tears started to run down her face and her mouth began to crease as her sobs came again.

  I held my hand out to her. She looked like she was about to drop the gun, her hand shaking. She glanced at me and shook her head. I knew then what was going to happen.

  I screamed, ‘No!’

  She flashed the gun to her head and jammed it into her temple. Her finger squeezed the trigger. She looked at me, her eyes wet and wild.

  ‘Don’t do it, Liza.’

  Her finger wavered.

  ‘Tell the story,’ I said, quieter now, pleading. ‘Tell everyone what he did.’ I pointed down at David’s body. ‘Think about Annie one last time. Think what she would have wanted. Think about what your mum and dad would have wanted, deep down, if they could go back and do it again.’ I shook my head. ‘You die and he’s just one more victim.’ I held my hand out. ‘You live, and you can tell everyone what he did to you.’

  She shook her head. Her finger was tense on the trigger, her teeth gritted, waiting for the shot.

  ‘It’s not just about Annie,’ I continued, taking a step closer, my eyes only on her, the shouts from the sidelines now fading away. ‘People need to know what he did.’ I shook my head. ‘He mustn’t die a hero, Liza.’

  I was right by her. I reached out my hand. Her hand began to waver, the gun moved away from her head. Then she seemed to break and the gun dropped to her waist. I looked at her. I reached out with my hand and placed it over the gun. I could feel her grip on it, soft and warm. I clasped her hand and felt my fingers touch the coolness of the gun.

  ‘Let me have it,’ I whispered.

  She hung her head and began to nod. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. I took hold of the gun and felt her fingers release it. I let it tumble onto the grass. I held her hand again. She hung her head and began to sob, her shoulders shaking, her head pressing into her chest.

  I put my arms around her and drew her close. She turned to me and put her head on my shoulder. Then her arms went around me and I felt her cries. I started to hear running behind me, pounding on the grass. I knew they were coming to get her. I put one hand behind her head and stroked her hair, whispered small words of comfort. She squeezed me and sobbed, said she was sorry. I told her there was no need.

  We stayed like that as I heard the police surround us. I opened my eyes and saw a woman in a smart grey suit. And behind her I saw Laura. There were tears. I could see them. And I had some too, warming my cheeks, mixing with Liza’s hair as she squeezed me hard.

  I looked up at the sky as I felt Liza taken away from me. I heard the metallic snap of handcuffs. I heard the police trying to speak to me but I didn’t listen. I turned and walked away instead, slowly across the park, not wanting to see any more of what they would do to her. I heard footsteps behind me and I felt Laura wrap her arm around my waist.

  We didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. We just walked past the police cars, and headed away from Victoria Park.

  FIFTY-NINE

  The Triumph Stag was running well. It would certainly get me as far as London.

  It was four weeks after the shooting of David Watts and I was back at my father’s house, clearing it out. The press frenzy had died down, put on hold until Liza Radley’s trial. I’d given my exclusive to the Star in the days afterwards and then gone back to work. If anything, it had been my way of saying thank you. They had promised me the syndication rights if I wrote them the story, but I hadn’t done it well. So I settled for an interview instead, my head too messed up to write clearly.

  My father’s funeral had been tough. Full police honours, a death in service. It had made me weep and it had made me angry, but it had also made me proud. His job had cost him his life, but he had tried to do the right thing in the end. That made me happy.

  I didn’t stay long afterwards. I said my farewells at the house, away from the huddle of seldom-seen relatives, and returned to the graveyard for my own private goodbye. I just stood and looked at the dirt, the hole freshly filled, and I felt lost, empty.

  Laura had been at the funeral, more for me than my father. She’s like that, I know that now. I’d seen her once as just a police officer, a
source, someone to flirt with, but then I realised after my father’s death that I had loved her for a long time, in my own way. I guess I just hadn’t known that she loved me back.

  Colin Wood was out of prison. At least one good thing had come from all this. He wasn’t cleared yet, but he had been granted bail until the formal appeal hearing. I had been to see him, but he didn’t look happy. He was a lot thinner than in the photographs on his mother’s fireplace, now gaunt and grey, and there was a haunted look in his eyes I couldn’t hope to make better, but at least he was free. He’ll stay in Turners Fold, but only because he has nowhere else to go.

  As I looked around my old house, I knew I wasn’t taking many things with me. I wanted the memory of my father, the things that mattered to him. So I was taking a large box of photographs, a collection of Johnny Cash albums, and my father’s 1973 Triumph Stag, gleaming in Calypso Red.

  I looked up when I heard a noise by the door. It was Laura. I was at the boot of the car, loading it with boxes. Not that there was any room. The rest would have to go into her car.

  ‘I’ve found some more photographs,’ she said, her fingers flicking through a box.

  I went towards her. ‘We’ll take them, sort them out later.’ I could see she had smudges of dirt on her nose from going through old cupboards. I wiped them away, and when she looked up at me, I felt my spirits lift.

  She picked one out, and I could see a picture of me in shorts, with pale skinny legs. ‘You were cute,’ she said.

  I leant forward and kissed her, and for a few moments I was lost. When we separated, I saw her eyes glistening, her mouth creased into a smile. I put my arms around her and pulled her into me.

  ‘You feel warm, Jack Garrett,’ she said.

  I agreed. I felt very warm. Blazing hot.

  ‘Where do we go from here,’ she asked, almost in a murmur.

  I thought about that, and all I knew was that it would be with Laura. I felt less eager to get back to London. I tried not to think about the days I had missed with my father, but I knew that I’d moved to London to escape. Now he was gone, I wondered whether I still had the same urge.

  Laura must have sensed my thoughts, because she said, ‘I like it up here.’

  I pushed her away from me, still holding on to her shoulders. ‘You do?’

  She nodded. ‘I haven’t run through long grass for years,’ she said. ‘And round here I get to see sheep and cows and real trees.’ She pulled me back to her again. ‘Bobby would like it.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ and then she laughed. ‘It must be the clean air. It won’t let me think straight.’

  But as I pulled her closer, I knew she was right. I was done with the city, done with all the noise and the rushing and the fumes. I needed to take some time out, to try to decide what I wanted to do with my life. And where I wanted to do it.

  I knew one thing, though: Laura was the person I wanted to do it with. And as I felt Laura’s arms close around me, I realised that it wouldn’t matter where we were.

  ‘What about Bobby?’ I said. ‘He won’t see his father as much. That’s not a good thing.’

  ‘We’ll work something out. Maybe he’ll get to be a proper dad, one who spends proper time with him, instead of just trips to the zoo.’

  ‘What about your job?’

  She shrugged. ‘I’ll think about that. I can apply to move up here.’ Then she gave me a hug, quick and playful. ‘And you like the idea, I can tell.’

  She was right. I did like the idea. Perhaps it was time to leave London for a while, take some time out in the north. I fancied the quiet life now.

  Read on for an exclusive extract from Neil White’s

  new novel, The Painter Man, coming in 2008.

  ONE

  The old man stood back and looked at the woman in front of him, tied to a chair, her wrists strapped tightly to the thin spindles. Blood covered her face and painted her shirt in splatter-patterns. He looked down at his hands. They were red and sticky.

  He turned away as he tried to shut out the images. Feeling scared, he began to pace, tried to compose himself. But every time he turned around she was still there.

  He took some deep breaths. The woman he wanted to remember was the one he had known in life. She had been fun, vibrant, with a face full of smiles. That was the image he wanted to keep, not the one in that room, her face a grotesque mask, nothing left of the person he’d known.

  He couldn’t shake the image away. He had seen her face in life. And now, he had seen it in death. He started to walk faster around the room, tears running down his face.

  And it was worse than that, because he had seen her die, her eyes wide open, in pain, in fear. She had known what lay ahead of her. She had known she was dying.

  He covered his ears as he walked round the room, tried to stifle the sounds crashing inside his head. He had heard her last word, forced out through clenched teeth. It had come out as a guttural moan, but he had known what it was. It was “no.” She had tried to say no.

  He took a deep breath and stopped pacing. He sobbed, and then sank to his knees.

  He stayed like that, rocking slightly as he sniffed back the last of the tears. He lifted his head to look at her. She hadn’t moved.

  After a few minutes, he stood up and slowly walked over to the chair. He put his hand on the woman’s cheek and stroked it, his touch gentle, her skin soft under his fingers. But she felt cold and slick with blood. He leant forward and kissed her softly on the top of her head.

  ‘I’m sorry, so very sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I tried to warn you. I really tried.’

  The old man stepped away and looked down at his feet. He could feel the tears trickle down his parchment-thin cheeks, and as he touched them, he felt her blood wash away from his fingertips. He muttered a few words to himself, a private prayer, before taking a deep breath and glancing around for the telephone. He dialled 999.

  ‘Police please.’

  He waited to be put through, and when he heard the voice at the other end of the line, calmly said, ‘My name is William Randle, and I want to report a murder.’

  TWO

  North or South, murders are the same.

  Laura McGanity blew into her frozen hands as she paced along the yellow crime scene tape. It snapped loudly as it blew in the cold morning wind and she shivered, tying her scarf tighter round her neck in an effort to keep warm.

  Just for a moment, she dreamed of London. Just two weeks ago, London had been her home, but it already seemed like years. She missed the lights, the buzz of the big city, even the noise. In comparison, Blackley seemed so quiet. And cold. She had only moved to Lancashire, a mere two hundred miles from London, but it felt like a foreign country as the frigid air blew in from the hills which surrounded the town.

  She dragged her thoughts back to why she was standing there, by an open-plan lawn in a neat suburban cul-de-sac. Her job transfer to the north had been a risk, and she didn’t want to destroy her new start so soon. She had to be alert, because there was no time for distraction. In any murder, the first twenty-four hours are the most important. After that, evidence on the killer is lost. Fingernails get scrubbed, hair gets cut, cars get burnt out.

  She looked up just as Pete Dawson, the other detective at the scene, approached her, wielding two steaming mugs of coffee.

  ‘You look like you need one of these,’ he said.

  It seemed to Laura like he barked the words at her, the staccato speech patterns all new to her, the vowel sounds short and blunt. The London rhythms she was used to had more swagger, more bounce.

  ‘You know how to treat a lady,’ she said as she took the coffee. ‘Where did you get it from?’

  He nodded over towards a house on the other side of the road, where Laura could just make out fingers on the edge of the net curtain, the light inside switched off so no-one could tell that she was watching. ‘She’s been twitching those for half an hour now. I
think she’s hoping for an update if she gives us drinks.’

  ‘Did you tell her anything?’

  Pete shook his head. ‘I’m holding out for a fry-up.’

  Laura smiled. She liked Pete. He was one of those necessary cops. She knew the police needed fine minds in their ranks, those who can dissect complex frauds, or see leads in cases that look like dead-ends. But sometimes you just need someone to kick down a door, or find a quick way to prise information out of someone. Laura reckoned Pete knew many quick ways. With his crew-cut, scowl and scruffy denims, he was normally on the drugs squad, more used to frisking dealers than loitering around murder scenes.

  She took a sip of the coffee and sighed. It was hot and strong, and she raised it in thanks to the parted curtains on the other side of the street.

  ‘You look like you expected more,’ he said, nodding towards the crime scene tape. ‘Not used to the quiet life yet?’

  A week before, Laura might have thought he was having a dig, the big-city girl out in the provinces, but she knew him better now. Pete’s smile softened his words, because when he smiled, his eyes changed. They became brighter, warmer, and she sensed mischief in them.

  But he was right. Laura had expected more activity, the usual commotion of lawns being combed by uniformed officers, or a squad of detectives knocking on doors. Today, there was none of that. The body had been taken away, but the first two cops on the scene were still there, an ashen-faced probationer and a police officer not far off retirement. Scenes of Crime Officers were inside, their white paper suits visible through the front window, but out in the street Laura felt like she was on sentry duty.

  ‘I just thought it might have been busier, that’s all,’ she replied.

  Pete shrugged. ‘So did I. But what can you expect when everyone is cashing in rest days from the abductions, or just using the overtime to buy themselves new cars? It must have been the same in London. When there’s no money left, there’s no people left.’