The Rule

by David Jackson

  She had surprised him with that one, all right. He hadn’t realised how well connected she still was, how she had maintained a finger on the pulse. How dangerous she was. Behind the alcohol was a woman who still commanded respect.

  He wished that her recent actions could have been driven by love rather than ruthlessness. Joey was dead. She didn’t seem to realise that they would never share jokes and meals with him again. The only hole in her life was one that needed filling with money. Ronan found that disappointing and sad. He would do exactly what she told him to do – of course he would – but something about this rankled. It felt wrong.

  He decided it was better not to think about it too much. There was a job to be done.

  He watched the light from Scott’s torch as it arced over the stile and then glided towards him. Ronan switched on his own torch. What he saw shocked him.

  Scott was practically dragging himself up the hill. He was having trouble putting weight on one of his legs, and he was clutching his side as though in agony. He looked like a wounded animal.

  Jesus.

  ‘Okay, Scott. You can stop there.’ Ronan closed the gap himself. He shone his torch into Scott’s face and watched him recoil from the brightness. ‘What the fuck happened to you?’

  ‘Long story. I won’t bore you with the details.’

  ‘That’s fine. I can manage without the foreplay. Have you got the money?’

  Scott hesitated, and Ronan knew instantly that the news would be grim. He watched as Scott withdrew an envelope from his jacket.

  ‘Toss it over.’

  Scott did so, but grimaced with the pain of it.

  Ronan turned his torch on the envelope. It was smaller than the previous one. He picked it up, hefted it in his hand. It was far too light.

  ‘How much, Scott?’

  ‘A thousand.’

  Shit. One thousand. One measly thousand.

  ‘Why’d you even bother? This is an insult.’

  ‘It was the best I could do. It was this or nothing. I brought it to you because . . .’

  ‘Because what, Scott?’

  ‘Because I wanted to show good faith. Because we had an agreement.’

  ‘Our agreement was for you to get the rest of the twenty-five thousand. This is pitiful.’

  Scott raised a finger in dispute. ‘No. What I said was that I thought I could get more money. I kept my word.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Scott. What do you think this is? You think this is some kind of game? What you’ve given me here is a fucking slap in the face.’

  ‘It’s not meant to be. I swear. I nearly got killed getting you that money.’

  Ronan looked at the sorrowful wretch and felt a pang of sympathy.

  Stop it, he told himself. Remember what he did.

  ‘I don’t give a shit. What’s really getting me fucking annoyed, though, is you treating me like I’m some kind of joke.’

  ‘I’m not. I did my best. You have to believe me.’

  ‘I don’t have to believe nothing. This is it, Scott. You had your chance and you screwed up.’

  ‘What . . . what are you going to do?’

  Ronan reached to his waist and pulled out the Colt .45. He jacked a round into the chamber, saw how Scott flinched at the noise.

  ‘Don’t worry, Scott. I’m not going to kill you. Remember what I said last night about shooting you in the kneecap?’

  Scott backed away. ‘Please. Don’t.’

  ‘I won’t. Not one kneecap, anyway. This time it’s both of them. You know what a gun like this can do to someone’s knees, Scott? It’s not a pretty sight. You might never walk again.’

  ‘Please. I—’

  ‘So you don’t have to pick a kneecap. Your choice is different now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘After I shoot you, I’m going to take your phone. You’re going to have to drag yourself out of here. Even if you make it back to your car, you won’t be able to drive it with those crippled legs of yours. You’ll probably have to flag someone down, if anyone comes this way, and if they’re willing to stop. By then I’ll have paid a visit to your flat.’

  ‘My flat? Why? Why my flat?’

  ‘I told you, your choice is different now, Scott. You have to decide between your wife and your son. Which one do I kill?’

  Scott looked as though he’d already taken a bullet. ‘Kill? No. Why? Why do you have to kill one of them?’

  ‘An eye for an eye, Scott. You and your family are responsible for my brother’s death. It’s payback time. It was the money or a life, and you’ve chosen to give up a life.’

  ‘No. I . . . Then I choose me. Not my family. Please, not my family.’

  So, Ronan thought, the man’s got some balls after all.

  ‘Sorry, Scott. Doesn’t work that way. Make your choice.’

  ‘I can’t! How can I possibly choose who you should kill?’

  ‘Because if you don’t, I’ll waste both of them.’

  ‘Please! I can’t.’

  ‘Then say goodbye to your legs and your family. I’m sure you’ll miss them all.’

  Ronan marched forward, pointed his gun at Scott’s right knee.

  ‘NO! PLEASE! I’LL DO ANYTHING!’

  The magic words. Plan B – subtitled ‘The Pact with the Devil’ – was in effect. Ronan almost found a smile.

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Yes. Anything. Just . . . don’t hurt my family.’

  Ronan counted to five, to give the impression he was thinking it over.

  ‘There might be a way.’

  ‘Name it. I’ll do it. Whatever it is, I’ll do it.’

  Ronan relaxed his gun hand, dropping his arm back to his side. ‘It’ll be dangerous, but if you can pull it off, you should be able to pay me back with interest.’

  ‘I don’t care how dangerous it is. If it saves my family and gets you your money, I’ll do it.’

  Ronan nodded. He was getting all the right answers.

  ‘There’s a guy. A drug dealer. Tomorrow afternoon, between four and five, he’ll take possession of a bag of money – a white Adidas sports bag. Thing is, he’ll only have it for a short time. It’ll be picked up from him again at seven o’clock. You’ll need to get it from him before then.’

  ‘Get it from him? What do you mean?’

  Christ, thought Ronan. Why do I have to spell it out?

  ‘I mean take it. Steal it. You do whatever you have to do to get that money from him, and then you bring it here and give it to me.’

  ‘How much money will he have?’

  ‘Hard to say. Depends on how good a day it’s been. It’ll be a lot, though. Enough to cover my losses so far – the losses you caused. And, by the way, don’t get tempted to skim from the top. I’ll get accurate figures afterwards. I’ll know.’

  ‘I don’t want the money. I just want to put an end to this.’

  ‘Then you’ll do it?’

  ‘I . . . You said it’s dangerous. How dangerous?’

  ‘This guy, he’s not just going to hand over the money. You’ll need to go in hard and fast.’

  ‘And . . . if I fail? If I get killed trying?’

  ‘You can consider your debt paid. I won’t go after your family.’

  Ronan watched as Scott searched the sky for guidance.

  ‘It’s a deal. If you can promise me that my family will be safe, whatever the outcome, it’s a deal.’

  ‘I guarantee it. You get me the money or you die trying. Either way, your family will never hear from me again.’

  ‘Okay. Who’s the guy? Who am I stealing the money from?’

  ‘That’s the beauty of it. He lives in the same building as you. Goes by the name of Barrington Daley.’

  41

  Hannah desperately wanted in on the interview.

  She had been home – brushed her teeth and gargled, had a shower, brushed her teeth and gargled, got dressed, brushed her teeth and gargled – and now she was back at the station. She wa
nted to look her attacker in the eye as she asked him what had been going through his head. And, in return, she wanted to give him her side of the story.

  But it was against regulations. For one thing, she was still under the influence of alcohol. For another, she was the victim, and therefore it would be a conflict of interest for her to take part in the investigation. It wasn’t even a case for CID. She would just have to trust the pair of interviewing officers, while she made do with watching it all on a live camera feed.

  He had turned down the offer of legal representation. Said he had nothing to hide, that he was proud of what he did. ‘Bitch deserved it,’ he said. ‘What would you do if someone murdered your mother?’

  It was a one-sided interview. The doctor had inspected his wounds and given him the all-clear, and now he wanted to get it all off his chest. His hate for Hannah was the only fuel he needed to keep talking, the brief interjections from the officers serving only to keep him on track.

  ‘My mother was a good woman,’ he told them. ‘Okay, maybe she didn’t make the best decisions when it came to men, but that didn’t make her a criminal. Didn’t mean that your detective bitch friend had to make her so scared that she had to run away. Why didn’t she just let her go instead of chasing her right into the path of a train? My mum didn’t deserve that.’

  ‘That incident was investigated thoroughly, Shane,’ one of the officers said. ‘DI Washington was—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, don’t even go there, okay? You lot always close ranks. You cover it all up. Maybe if you’d done your jobs properly and punished that woman – fired her or something – then maybe none of this would’ve happened. But no. She was allowed to carry on as normal. Like my mum didn’t even count.’

  ‘And that made you angry enough to go after DI Washington?’

  ‘I hated her. Simple as. I wanted to hurt her. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I wanted revenge.’

  ‘So how did you go about it?’

  ‘I went back and read all the reports about my mum’s case. One of the papers mentioned the police station where Washington worked. I started parking up outside and waiting for her. It took me a while to figure out which car she used, and then I started following her. The first few times, I kept losing her in traffic. And whenever I managed to track her all the way, there’d always be other people there – other coppers. I had no chance to get near her. But then this one time she went into a block of flats.’

  ‘Erskine Court.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And what happened there?’

  ‘She and another copper talked to a gang of lads, but then the lads came out. When I walked towards the flats, I could see that she’d split up with the other detective and she was alone by the lift door. I had a piece of wood with me, under my coat, and I went inside. She didn’t see me, and I knew this was my chance. I started hitting her. She tried to get away, but I just kept hitting her, and then she went down. I . . . I don’t know what I was going to do then.’

  ‘Were you trying to kill her?’

  ‘No. Not kill her. I just wanted to hurt her. I needed to punish her. But then this bloke came into the building. He saw me and shouted something, and I ran out the back door. I didn’t know how bad her injuries were, but to be honest I didn’t really care. I did what I had to do. For my mum.’

  ‘So why wasn’t that enough for you?’

  ‘It was. I’d got it out of my system. I didn’t feel like I had to do any more to her. I didn’t follow her or anything. And then tonight . . .’

  ‘Tell us about tonight, Shane.’

  ‘She turned up again, didn’t she? Walked straight into my pub, my local boozer. Bold as brass. Like she was taunting me or something. I was in the bar, but I could see through into the lounge. She sat there with her bloke, eating and drinking and laughing, and I got madder and madder, and the more I drank, the worse it got. She had no right being there. Felt like she was taking the piss.’

  ‘So how did the fight start?’

  ‘She got up and came straight towards me. I thought she’d spotted me, but her eyes were all weird, like she was too bladdered to see straight. I watched her go up the stairs, and I should have gone home then, but I couldn’t. I was too angry. I went after her, and I saw that the door to the ladies’ toilet was open, and she was just standing there with her back to me, and there was nobody else around. Something snapped. I had to let her know that she couldn’t keep turning up on our doorstep and causing us grief. She needed to be taught a lesson.’

  Shane sat back in his chair. ‘I know you’re going to lock me up for this, but I don’t care. That bitch took my mother away from me, and there’s nothing you can do to me that’s worse. I might be going to prison, but she’s going to hell for what she did.’

  Hannah turned the volume down and stepped away from the monitor. She needed no further reminder of how she had ruined lives.

  Scott sat in his car and polished off the second of the two cans of lager he had purchased from a twenty-four-hour supermarket on the way home.

  He stared at Erskine Court. No signs of life in the lobby, but he didn’t really care. He wasn’t going to get into an argument with the youths. He couldn’t prove they’d mugged him. One of them probably had a scabby lip or a swollen cheek, but that wasn’t proof.

  Besides, he had only himself to blame. It had always been a risky gamble. Even if the drugs deal had run as advertised and he’d made some extra cash, Ronan probably wouldn’t have let him off. He needed an accomplice, and he’d already decided it would be Scott Timpson.

  There was no backing out now. If he didn’t try to get the money from Barrington Daley, Ronan would come after him and his family. If he did try, there was a good chance he would be killed, but at least Daniel and Gemma would be safe.

  That’s all that matters, he thought. That’s what this has been about all along.

  He climbed out of the car, entered the building and took the lift up to the top. Halfway up, he got the sudden impulse to press the button for the eighth floor. When it stopped there and the door opened, he stayed in the lift, staring at flat 801 opposite. Tomorrow, he would cross that threshold, and he might die for doing so.

  The lift closed off the view and took him to a safer, more familiar set of numbers. As he entered his own flat, he tried to straighten up and look as though he hadn’t been run over by a bus.

  Gemma was curled up on the sofa, drinking tea and watching an old film. As soon as she turned to him, he could tell that she saw through his deceit. He bent to kiss her, allowing the escape of alcohol fumes to add weight to his story, even though the simple act sent flashes of pain through his ribs.

  ‘Good time?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah, it made a nice change. Been a while since me and Gavin had a pint.’

  He came round to join her on the sofa, and could feel her eyes on him all the way.

  ‘What’s up with your leg?’ she asked.

  ‘I, er, I fell down some steps. I wasn’t even that drunk.’

  ‘You haven’t broken it, have you?’

  ‘No. Just a sprain, I think. Bashed my ribs a little, too.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Scott. You’ve only been gone for a couple of hours and you end up in this state.’

  He smiled, shrugged. That hurt too.

  ‘So what did he say?’ she asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Gavin.’

  ‘Nothing much. We talked about the footy, mostly.’

  ‘I meant what did he say about the money?’

  ‘Oh. Yeah. He was really good about it. Said he’s got plenty of work coming in if I want it. I’m starting tomorrow, in fact.’

  ‘Tomorrow? When tomorrow?’

  ‘I’ll stay at the garage a bit longer. Do a couple of extra hours. That’s okay, isn’t it?’

  She stared for an uncomfortably long time. ‘Sure,’ she said flatly. ‘No time like the present, I suppose.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

 
She turned back to her film and sipped her tea and left him in a silence that was drowning him. He watched with her for a while, but the black-and-white images felt alien. They were pictures from a long time ago, infused with an innocence and morality that didn’t fit into the world he now knew.

  After a few minutes he said, ‘I think I’ll turn in. Long day ahead tomorrow.’

  ‘Okay,’ she answered. ‘I’ll just watch the end of this.’

  He smiled, kissed her on the cheek, tried not to show his suffering as he rose from the sofa.

  In the bathroom, he decided on a shower rather than a bath. He stripped off slowly, each garment inducing its own particular form of pain. He looked at himself in the mirror, at the array of colours blemishing his body. He touched a particularly dark spot on his chest and winced, wondering if the rib might be broken.

  He turned on the shower and climbed in. Stood still while the needles of heat massaged him with simultaneous pain and relief.

  When he could take no more, he turned off the water and threw back the curtain. Through the clouds of steam he saw her.

  Gemma clamped a hand to her mouth, but a sob still spluttered through her fingers.

  ‘Look at you,’ she said quietly. ‘Look at you.’

  He climbed out of the tub and stood naked before her. There was no point trying to hide it now.

  ‘You should see the other fella,’ he said, but she didn’t laugh.

  She crossed the room. Stroked a finger across his mottled chest.

  ‘I came in here to have it out with you.’

  ‘Catch me when I’m naked and vulnerable, eh?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You still want to have a go at me?’

  ‘No. I want to hug you. But I’m afraid of breaking you.’

  ‘Just be gentle with me,’ he said with a smile.

  She put her arms around him, but with no pressure, her own flesh barely touching his. He felt a droplet run down his shoulder, and he wasn’t sure whether it was from the shower or Gemma.

  ‘We can’t go on like this,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘Lying to each other, I mean. Pretending. We’ve always been honest with each other. Always.’