‘That him?’ asked Andy.
‘Could be,’ said Moir. ‘We’ll know for sure in a minute.’ His face was granite-set.
They sat there like rabbits in the headlights. A minute or so later, a transit van pulled off the motorway and parked next to the lorry. They couldn’t see the driver’s side from where they were parked, but they heard the door slam. The radio crackled again; Moir responded. The second van driver had followed the first into the cafe.
There was silence in the car once more. A Ford Scorpio pulled up, a fair distance away from the two vans; the driver turned off his lights, but didn’t get out. Probably a tired exec having a rest, Larkin surmised. He turned his attention back to the vans.
Then the static hissed out again. ‘Right,’ Moir said, excited. ‘The second driver’s swiped the keys from the first one’s table. Classic switch. Here he comes now!’
The transit driver made his way to the back of the artic, started to open the doors. Larkin’s heart did a double take.
‘I know him!’
‘What?’ said Moir.
‘Batman. One of Cain’s buddies.’
Moir picked up the radio. ‘Trap leader to all greyhounds. The deal is on. I repeat, the deal is going down now. Wait for my word, then go.’
They watched as Batman opened the big double doors of the artic. Robin emerged from the back of the transit; another man, who could have been their clone, joined them. They began transferring boxes from the lorry to the transit.
Moir bellowed into the radio. ‘Go! Go! Now! Get the fuckers!’
Suddenly the black, deserted car park sprang to life. Bushes, fences and walls spewed forth men. Moir was out of the car like an overweight whippet, followed by Larkin, and Andy, snapping away. Batman, Robin and their pal had time only to turn round and catch the merest glimpse of the police jumping them. Robin, nearest the van, tried to make a run for it; he was brought down by two cops who lost no time in educating him on the finer points of arrest procedure. It was the only time that Larkin had been glad to see evidence of police brutality. He hoped Robin wasn’t enjoying it too much.
The three were quickly overpowered. Larkin, since he could do nothing but observe, did a bit of observation and went over to the lorry. It was piled high with boxes; ripping the nearest one open, he discovered hundreds of shrink-wrapped Game Boys, all stamped MADE IN TAIWAN. He tore off the polythene on one of them, prised the casing apart. Inside the game was hollow, but not empty. It contained a small bag of white powder. Made in Taiwan, with coke from Columbia, and heroin from Turkey: a truly international set-up.
The three pushers were being bundled into the back of a police van; Larkin felt a high that wasn’t chemical at the sight. He walked back to the car. As he approached, he noticed that the quietly parked Scorpio was revving up, ready to leave. Larkin stared at the driver. Cain.
Without stopping to think, Larkin jumped behind the wheel of Moir’s Rover, found the keys, started it up. He briefly caught sight of Moir, swearing and shouting, as he sped out of the service station. Heading north. After Cain.
Once on the road it was clear that Cain didn’t have any idea where he was going, driving only to escape. Larkin clung to him with terrier-like tenacity, matching Cain’s every move, windsceen wipers working furiously, keeping the Scorpio in his sights. He quickly realised that Cain was heading for the minor roads in the hope of losing him; he couldn’t have bargained on Larkin’s local knowledge.
They went round a roundabout, up a steep bank, to Wrekenton, another ex-pit village. Past rows of stone houses, past a preserved mine-working and coal railway. Larkin dogged the Scorpio’s tracks until the road dead-ended into a cinderpath bridleway, and he found the car abandoned, the door swinging open, the motor chugging.
Larkin stopped the Rover and got out. He crossed to the Scorpio, hoping for a clue to the direction Cain had taken. The cindertrack bisected the overgrown remains of the railway line; it was a straight line down, exposed. No sign of Cain. Ahead were fields: again, no sign. Up the track to the right was a breaker’s yard, the rusting skeletons of dead cars piled up high, forming a jagged skyline visible even in the dark. It seemed the likeliest possibility. Larkin snatched the keys from the Rover and followed.
The yard had a padlocked gate and a chainlink fence, but there were no signs warning of guard dogs so Larkin thought it would be safe to enter. After all, what could be worse than the psychotic hiding inside? He pulled himself over the high fence, and fell hard to the ground on the other side; fortunately chemicals blunted the pain of the fall.
He moved cautiously, eyes darting left and right, ears listening for the slightest noise. All he heard was the wind whistling through the bones of cars, like old ghosts: towering piles of rust, waiting for a strong breeze to topple them. The place had been abandoned to decay.
Larkin tried to move as silently as he could, knowing Cain would be doing the same. He knew he was a sitting target. A noise of creaking and rending startled him; he turned round and saw a precariously balanced pile of cars rocking violently backwards and forwards, about to shed its top load. About to bury him. He froze for a few seconds, paralysed by the image of the avalanche of twisted metal; then he came to his senses and looked for somewhere to shelter. There was a gap between two stacks directly in front of him; he squeezed himself between them as the cars hit the ground in a wet cloud of rust flakes, missing him by inches.
He crawled out, sweating. He followed the course of the gap until he came out on the other side of the stack. No Cain. With his heart still racing and his breathing in overdrive, he planned his next move. His inner voice screamed at him to get out of there, leave it to the police. But another voice was telling him to stay and fight. The scrapyard was an arena – and Cain was another fear to conquer.
He needed a vantage point; but climbing would leave him vulnerable, so he would have to be careful. Getting a toe-hold on the nearest car, he hauled himself up. Halfway he looked at his hands, studded with rust, wet with rain and blood. The climb was more arduous than he had expected. There was no shortage of protrusions for him to grab on to, but they were so old they had a tendency to flake away in his hands. He clung on though and eventually he reached the summit.
After he’d got his breath back he looked around rapidly. Nothing. He looked harder. There! On the perimeter, trying to scale the chainlink fence. Larkin knew he’d have to move quickly. There was only one way – over the roofs of the cars, jumping from stack to stack, hoping his foot wouldn’t cave in on a pile of rust. Forsaking stealth for speed, he took a deep breath and jumped.
It was easier than he thought. He leapt from car to car, arriving on the final one, appropriately an Avenger, just in time to see Cain reach the top of the fence. Cain saw Larkin and started a desperate scramble; but Larkin was right behind him. There was a few feet between them, but Larkin had height on his side. He stood on the crumbling roof of the Avenger and savoured the moment.
‘Hello, Cain,’ said Larkin, his iceman cool giving way to lava behind his eyes. ‘Fancy meeting you here.’
As Cain turned his head, Larkin swung a kick at his face. The blow sent Cain’s head snapping back, but didn’t loosen him from the fence. Blood seeped from his nose; he shook his head to clear it, and went on climbing. Larkin swung his foot again, connecting this time with the side of Cain’s head. Cain’s grip almost gave way, but he recovered sufficiently to get his arm over the fence. Larkin chose his moment carefully. Ripping free a bumper that was loosly attached to the rusting Avenger, he raised it up and brought it down onto Cain’s arm. Cain screamed. He let go, flailing, wildly grabbing for the Avenger, losing the top layer of skin from his hand in the process. Somehow, he was still clinging on. Larkin felt the car shake, as if it were about to fall; he figured that his body-weight might be the only thing stopping it. He jumped onto the car behind, an old Zephyr; as he hit the roof, the impact of his jump caused the Avenger to dislodge. And, with rusted metal grinding in the rain, the car began to
topple.
Larkin could only watch helplessly as the car, with the battered, rain-lashed body of Cain clinging to it, gave way and fell with an almighty, industrial groan.
For a few seconds all was silence, broken only by the ghostly wind and the insistent rain. Larkin slowly descended. He looked down at the tangle of metal.
Cain, in falling, had tried to throw his body away from the vehicle. As a result he had hit the hard-packed earth with a thud, twisting his arm under him. Larkin found him lying motionless, legs pinned down by the Avenger’s empty bonnet.
Larkin crossed to the prone body of his victim, the corroded bumper still in his hand, consumed by rage, by a burning need for revenge. A momentary wave of panic passed through him; could he really allow himself to be responsible for another human being’s death? Would he find out what he needed to know? As he stood there, Cain slowly regained consciousness, whimpering. His face and head were bloody from Larkin’s kicks; his cheeks were cut and pockmarked from the gravel.
‘Help me,’ Cain cried. ‘I’m hurting.’
Larkin was thrown. He’d been expecting some big showdown, man against man, but he wasn’t prepared for this. Cain spoke again, his face contorted with terror.
‘Please! Please help me. I’m hurt. Please.’ He sounded like a wounded animal.
‘Can’t take the pain, eh?’ said Larkin. Now that he knew Cain was alive he felt his anger returning.
‘Just help me. I promise not to hurt you ever again. I promise. Just help me.’ He looked down at his body for the first time. ‘My legs! My legs …’
Larkin was relentless. ‘Bit late for that, isn’t it? The damage is done. It’s only right that you should get what you deserve.’ He moved in closer.
The pathetic wreck on the ground started howling, bestially rolling his upper torso backwards and forwards.
‘No! No, please …’ Then he saw Larkin’s eyes. He looked into them. And the howling started again.
Larkin stopped dead. He had wanted to hit him, cause him terrible pain, beat him to death if need be, pay him back – but the desperate pleading of the broken man touched him. Besides, he didn’t want to think how Cain thought, do the things Cain might have done.
He bent down. With a pitiful shriek, Cain wriggled painfully away, sobbing, eyeing Larkin with mistrust.
‘Come on, I’m going to help you. Come on,’ he coaxed.
Cain stared at him suspiciously; he looked like a rat in a hole.
‘Look, I won’t hurt you. I’ll help you. Yeah?’
Cain didn’t react.
‘OK?’ Larkin put on what he hoped was, under the circumstances, his most winning smile.
Cain stared at him, his eyes wide, childlike. ‘OK.’
‘That’s better! Now, you help me by telling me what I want to know, and I’ll …’ He paused. ‘I’ll help you out of there, yeah?’
Cain nodded his head.
Larkin looked down at the twisted wreck of the psychopath. Cain looked beyond saving. When he spoke, he kept his voice light. ‘Good. All right, then – you tell me this …’
24: Rumours Of Death
He stood in the freezing cold and the pouring rain. The Tyne was slapping angrily at the soaked wooden jetty on which he stood, all weather-eaten and mossed, its banks perilously close to breaking. He was in the shadows, looking out. He could hear the occasional car passing overhead, see right along the waterfront. Directly in front of him was the Tyne Bridge, with the floating nightclub moored beneath it; tonight it’s half-hearted disco lights seemed to cast a depressing pall on the mud-grey water. On the other side of the river the bars and buildings were in darkness; the last straggling Sunday drinkers had gone home hours ago.
He had figured that Cain would have set up a meet with his boss that night, after the drop; he’d wanted to find out the time and the place. It hadn’t been easy. The hardest part had been promising to help Cain, coaxing him into supplying the information – then walking away, leaving him there, his trapped howls piercing Larkin’s soul. He’d got the information, though. Half past midnight, the jetty underneath the Swing Bridge. How ironic.
Informing Moir had been a different matter altogether. He had put a call out over the air via Moir’s car radio, telling Moir where Cain was and that he needed urgent medical attention. He’d then appropriated Moir’s car for the final time – in for a penny, in for a pound – and driven to the rendezvous.
Now he stared at the water, tried to keep warm by stamping his feet. The pain was slowly seeping back into his body as the last of the chemicals dispersed. It was twenty-five to one. He didn’t think he’d have to wait much longer.
As if on cue, he heard movement on the steps above him. Someone had swung over the rail and was coming down. Whoever it was walked straight out onto the exposed part of the jetty as Larkin emerged from the shadows.
‘Hello, Charlotte.’
She turned. Surprise, terror and disbelief all crowded onto her face at once. She was dressed, bizarrely, for a rainy day in the country. ‘What … what …’ she began.
‘What am I doing here? Is that what you’re trying to ask?’
She stared dumbly.
‘Were you expecting someone else?’ Again, silence. ‘Look, Charlotte, I’ve got it all sussed. You don’t have to pretend anymore.’
She considered her options, then realised she had no choice. ‘Where’s Cain?’
‘He’s … incapacitated.’
‘Have the police got him?’
‘Probably, by now. Or the hospital.’
‘Why? What happened to him?’
‘A car fell on him.’
Her jaw dropped.
‘Oh, I’m pretty certain he’s not dead – but you’ll find he’s a changed person. Very much so.’
She sighed. ‘I suppose this is it, then. It’s all over.’
‘Looks like it.’
There was so much that Larkin wanted to say to her, it hurt. Half of him – more than half – wanted to grab her, tell her that everything was going to be all right again, that they would be together and the future would be filled with love. But freezing on the jetty, in the pouring rain, all he could manage was, ‘Remember the last time we were here?’
The slightest flicker of a smile crossed her features. ‘Yes.’
‘We were very drunk.’
‘You tried to throw me over.’
‘You started it!’
‘I didn’t! You did.’
Even at a moment like this, they could look back at the past with affection. But this was no time for nostalgia. Larkin looked into her eyes; they were red and sore, as if she’d been crying. He didn’t want to ask the next question but he knew he had to.
‘Where’s Charles?’
She paused. ‘He’s – actually, he’s dead.’
That came as no surprise to Larkin. ‘What happened?’
She looked straight at him, her eyes wide. He still wanted to drown in them. ‘I killed him.’
Even though he had been expecting it, it still cut him; he tried not to let it show. ‘I figured that.’
‘How much else did you work out?’
‘A fair bit.’
‘D’you want me to tell you all of it?’ Her eyes flickered away, then back again.
‘No, I’ll tell you. You can fill in the blanks.’
She looked up at him, imploring. ‘Before you say anything – don’t judge me. You’re a part of this too.’
Larkin’s physical pain had returned, and with it something deeper that stabbed him to the heart. He tried to blot it out, but it wasn’t possible.
‘Where should I start?’ he said. ‘How about, Charles? One of Thatcher’s children. Decided to move into property in the late eighties, lost everything in the recession. Not too bright, was he?’
Charlotte started to speak.
‘Don’t deny it. I went through his stuff at your place – it’s all there. All his debts. Including the ones he owed Lascelles, and he’s not backwa
rd in coming forward where money’s involved. Charles needed cash, and quick. That’s why he threw in his lot with Edgell and Danny Torrington.’
Charlotte flinched.
‘Yes,’ he continued, ‘I know about Danny Torrington. Charles had been staying with him; when Charles went off after a phone call and didn’t come back, Danny came looking for him at your place. He wasn’t there, of course … And neither were you. Danny and Charles were in love.’ He snorted. ‘He may have been a bastard, but at least somebody loved him.’
She started to say something, but he cut her off.
‘Don’t. Don’t make excuses. So how did you do it? Cain didn’t help you – he’d have told me. So how?’
She seemed to have shrunk visibly. When she spoke it was with a quiet emotionless monotone. ‘I did it. This morning, very early. I called him, said I had something very important to tell him, something I couldn’t say over the phone. He had to come straight away, and he couldn’t come to the house, because it wasn’t safe. The sort of thing Charles has been up to – it was plausible enough. So I told him where to meet me, insisted that he didn’t tell – Danny.’ She put her hand to her mouth; Larkin thought for a moment she was going to be sick. ‘So I – I lured him to his death. At the bottom of Forth Bank.’
The reality of her words hit Larkin like a blow. He swallowed. ‘Why – why there?’
‘I’d thought about it all very carefully. Forth Bank is steep and it goes straight into the Tyne. It’s a good place. And there’s never anyone around at that time in the morning. Charles drove there and parked his car at the bottom, where I’d told him. I rushed straight over to him. And as he opened his door, I hit him from behind with a wrench from the tool kit in the boot. He fell backwards, into the car. I don’t think he was dead, then, but he was certainly unconscious. I hit him again, just to make sure. I took his handbrake off, took the keys from the ignition, locked all the doors. Then I pushed the car down the Bank, into the river. That was the hardest part, especially at first. But once it had gathered momentum it went quite quickly. I threw the keys in after it. It was still dark.’ She looked over the water, in the direction of Forth Bank. ‘He’s still there now, I imagine.’ When she turned back again, tears had made silent tracks down her cheeks. Larkin chose to tell himself that it was only the rain.
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