The Rule

by David Jackson

  ‘I . . . I’m trying to protect you, Gem. You and Daniel.’

  ‘I know, I know. But look what it’s doing to you. They’ve got you now, haven’t they? You belong to them.’

  ‘Gem, I—’

  ‘It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me the details. I just don’t want it to change you. I don’t want it to come between us.’

  He pulled back and looked her in the eye. ‘It won’t. Here’s the truth, Gem. Tomorrow it will be over. When I come home tomorrow night, it’ll be done.’

  He saw her doubt, and it didn’t surprise him. He had developed a history of making unfulfilled promises recently.

  ‘I mean it,’ he continued. ‘No more lies. It ends tomorrow.’

  ‘But you will come home?’ She looked him up and down, waved her hand to indicate his battered form. ‘No more of this?’

  ‘No more of this.’ Which was the truth, whichever way it went. ‘They had to teach me a lesson, that’s all. Tomorrow, all I have to do is deliver a package.’

  ‘If it was as simple as that, they’d do it themselves. It’ll be dangerous, won’t it?’

  ‘Not if I play my cards right.’

  She searched his face. ‘You’re not lucky at cards. This family has never had much luck.’

  ‘Then maybe it’s about time things changed,’ he said.

  42

  Hannah was surprised to find that Ben was still up when she got home. For some reason she had expected him to be tucked up in bed, fast asleep after his earlier exertions.

  ‘Well hello, Bruce Wayne,’ she said as she entered the living room.

  Ben closed his book and got up from the sofa. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his dressing gown and shrugged.

  ‘Well, you know, I don’t like to brag . . .’

  ‘Talk about hiding your light under a bushel. Where the hell did that come from?’

  He looked suddenly guilty. ‘Did I go too far? Are you ashamed of me?’

  ‘Are you kidding? Come here.’

  She kissed him long and hard, then hugged him tight until her arms ached. Her head was aching too after the battering it had taken from alcohol, adrenaline and a toilet bowl.

  ‘You know how I hate violence,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I know that.’

  ‘It always has to be a last resort.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you’re my wife, and that little shit was hurting you. I couldn’t allow that.’

  ‘No. That’s very logical.’

  ‘I think so, too.’

  ‘But you also enjoyed it, right?’

  ‘Hell, yeah. It was a blast. In fact, I’m thinking of joining the police so I can beat up more people.’

  Hannah pulled away. ‘First of all, that’s not exactly a great summary of what we do in the police. In fact, it’s downright insulting. And secondly, you’d make a terrible copper.’

  ‘That’s also insulting.’

  ‘But true.’

  ‘Well, yeah, probably. I make great tea, though. You want some tea?’

  ‘I’d love one.’

  When he went out to the kitchen, Hannah sat down on the seat he had occupied. She glanced at the book he’d been reading. Harnessing Your Chi: Strategies for Focusing Your Internal Energy. She smiled. Copper, indeed.

  But that was why she loved him. Because he was all the things she wasn’t. His yin to her yang. Or vice versa. He’d know the answer to that one.

  He came back into the room a few minutes later. ‘One cup of builder’s brew extra strength and one cup of lapsang souchong. You can take your pick.’

  ‘Hmm, that’s a difficult choice. I’ll have the one I can spell.’

  ‘You’re not making it easy. I’ve seen your police reports.’ He handed her a mug and sat next to her. ‘How’d it go at the interview?’

  She quickly summarised, her mind already racing ahead to the next topic of conversation.

  ‘Ben,’ she said.

  ‘Hannah.’

  ‘I need to talk to you about something.’

  ‘Shit, I knew it. I’m in trouble, aren’t I? I did go too far, and now you’re going to arrest me or put me in a choke hold or something.’

  ‘It’s serious, Ben.’

  He paused. ‘Okay.’

  ‘It’s about Tilly.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘If you don’t want to talk about her, then I’ll stop right now.’

  ‘No. Go ahead. You obviously need to get it off your chest. You’re still seeing her, aren’t you?’

  She nodded. ‘More than ever. Only . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Now it’s starting to worry me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s happening at the weirdest of times.’

  ‘Weird in what way?’

  ‘I told you how I saw her just before the thing with Suzy Carling, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What I didn’t tell you is that I also saw her just before both attacks by her son.’

  ‘You saw her tonight, in the pub?’

  ‘Yes. She was standing in the doorway when you were paying the bill. I followed her upstairs.’

  ‘You didn’t say anything.’

  She frowned. ‘What was I going to say, especially with the waiter standing there? Excuse me while I just check on my dead daughter that nobody else can see?’

  ‘No, but . . .’

  She took his hand. ‘Ben, that’s not the point I’m trying to make. I’m not saying all this to upset you.’

  ‘I know that. But then what is it that’s bothering you?’

  ‘I . . .’ She had her words ready, but they seemed so ridiculous in her head. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Forget it. I’m just tired.’

  He squeezed her hand. ‘No. Please. You need to talk about it, and I need to know what it’s doing to you. What is it, Hannah?’

  ‘It’s just . . . Look, I know it’s all a figment of my imagination. My subconscious or whatever, playing tricks on me. I know all that. But . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘What if it’s something more?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘What if she’s trying to tell me something?’

  A longer pause now. ‘Hannah, are you talking about some kind of communication from the afterlife?’

  ‘I know, it sounds stupid. But think about those three events. Suzy Carling. The attacks. Tilly was there each time. I keep wondering whether . . . whether she was trying to hurt me.’

  ‘Hurt you! Why would she do that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Because she’s upset with me. Because I didn’t try hard enough to save her.’

  Ben shook his head vigorously. ‘You know she wouldn’t do that. She loved you. If she really was trying to communicate, it would have been to help you or to warn you that danger was nearby.’

  ‘Is that what you think – that she’s trying to help me?’

  He sighed heavily. ‘No, Hannah. I don’t. She’s not trying to hurt you and she’s not trying to help you. She’s not there at all. You know that as well as I do. The last time we spoke about this, you told me you’d seen her quite a few times, isn’t that right?’

  ‘Yes. Once at the supermarket. Again in the park . . .’

  ‘And did anything bad happen then? No. This is classic confirmation bias, Hannah. You’re focusing on the events that support your wonky hypothesis while conveniently ignoring the ones that don’t.’

  She considered this, and knew that he was right.

  ‘So what’s going on with me?’ she asked. ‘Should I see a doctor?’

  Ben folded her arms around her. ‘You don’t need a doctor. This is your way of coping with what happened to Tilly, and that’s perfectly okay.’

  ‘You think she’ll ever stop coming?’

  ‘When you’re ready, but I don’t think you need to push her away. She’ll go in her own good time.’

  ‘I’ll never forget her, though.’

  ‘No. I don’t
think either of us could ever do that. One way or another, she’ll always be with us.’

  Hannah woke with a start, convinced that someone had just prodded her through the duvet.

  She raised her head and blinked, but saw only patterns of darkness, black on grey. Next to her, no doubt dreaming about his heroic antics, Ben slept soundly.

  She checked the clock and saw that it was twenty past three in the morning. She turned over and closed her eyes again.

  Then she heard the footsteps.

  Here, in the bedroom.

  They were followed by a series of metallic pings, as though somebody was running a hand along the brass rails at the foot of the bed as they went past.

  Just as Tilly had always done.

  It was a thing of hers. Every time she walked past the foot of bed: slap, slap, slap, ping, ping, ping. The sound had always made Hannah smile.

  She sat up, alert now. Heard nothing more except a gentle murmur from Ben.

  A dream state, she told herself. You imagined it.

  But then her eyes caught movement. A dark shape, slipping through the doorway. A Tilly-sized shape.

  More footsteps, along the landing now, and then the creak of another door.

  The door to Tilly’s bedroom.

  Her heart pounding, Hannah slipped out of bed. She moved silently and swiftly out to the landing. It crossed her mind to put a light on, but she didn’t want to ruin things. If Tilly was here, she didn’t want to do anything that might frighten her away.

  She went to Tilly’s door. It was partly open, and Hannah couldn’t remember if it had been that way when she’d gone to bed.

  She opened it wider and stepped inside.

  Tilly’s curtains had not been drawn, and the streetlamps were casting a weak grey light into the room. Enough to see what was here.

  Enough to see Tilly.

  She was sitting on her bed, perfectly still. She was in her school uniform again. Shiny shoes pressed tightly together, inches above the floor. Her expression was unreadable. Was she happy to be here, or sad? Or was she simply here to deliver a message of some kind?

  ‘Tilly?’ Hannah whispered.

  Tilly didn’t move.

  Hannah started to head towards the bed, but stopped in her tracks when she saw how Tilly tensed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Please don’t go.’

  It doesn’t matter why she’s here, Hannah thought. I’m just happy that she is. Look how beautiful she is.

  Tears sprang from Hannah’s eyes. She wanted desperately to hold her daughter and never let her go. This vision of her wasn’t enough.

  ‘What is it, Tilly?’ she asked. ‘Are you missing me? Because I miss you so much.’

  The tears flowed more freely. Hannah wiped them away with the back of her hand to stop them blurring what little she could see of her daughter.

  ‘Talk to me, Tilly. Please, talk to me.’

  And then Tilly moved.

  She slid off the edge of the bed, but didn’t come towards her mother. Instead she walked across to the window and stood looking down at the large toy hamper.

  ‘What is it?’ Hannah asked.

  Tilly continued to stare at the hamper. Hannah took a few tentative steps towards it, and Tilly didn’t move.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked again.

  She knelt down in front of the hamper. Lifted its lid. The first thing she saw there was one of Tilly’s favourite teddy bears. She lifted it out and held it up in front of her.

  ‘This? You want Bramley?’

  But Tilly didn’t even give it a glance. Hannah looked again. On the top, where she had left them, were all the Adam-9 toys and comics and games that Tilly had once loved so much.

  She pulled out an Adam-9 action figure and a comic. ‘These?’

  And this time, Tilly looked her directly in the eye, and she knew she was right. What she couldn’t understand at first was why.

  But then it hit her.

  She pictured Daniel, her rescuer, sitting in his chair in exactly the same pose that Tilly used to adopt. Transfixed by his favourite television programme the way Tilly used to be.

  And she remembered her discussions with Ben.

  ‘You want me to let you go, don’t you? You’re not here because you want to be, but because I’m keeping you here. I’m stopping you leaving. That’s right, isn’t it?’ She looked into the hamper again and rummaged around. ‘All of these things – I keep them to remind me of you, but you’re telling me they would make somebody else so happy. You want me to—’

  Tilly was gone.

  Hannah jumped to her feet and scanned the room. But she knew she was alone again.

  Tilly had delivered her message, and Hannah had received and understood it.

  Time to move on.

  43

  Hannah had hoped that Friday morning would be different. After all she’d been through the previous night, she’d assumed that she was owed one to redress the balance, and that all the answers she needed for the Joey Cobb case would fall into her lap.

  It wasn’t like that.

  In fact, it felt as though she was nowhere nearer solving this case than she was at the beginning.

  What made it worse was that this wasn’t true. She had mountains of evidence and witness statements. She knew approximately where and when Cobb was murdered, where his body parts were deposited, and even the make and model of the car that was probably used to transport his remains. She had Cobb’s possessions – notably the drugs and money. She had the fingerprints and DNA found on the bin liners and the drug packets, and she had transcripts of interviews with nearly everyone Cobb had spoken to in the hours leading up to his death. She knew his enemies, and she knew every detail of their alibis.

  So why couldn’t she make that final step? Why wasn’t there enough in that huge mountain of material to establish the identity of the killer?

  She couldn’t blame her team. They had worked tirelessly. Done everything asked of them.

  So it must be me then, she decided. Devereux threw down the gauntlet, and I made the mistake of picking it up. I thought I could win. Was I too arrogant? Or just too lazy? Have I really done everything I could have done?

  She got out of her chair and left her office. Wandered into the squad room and went straight across to Marcel’s desk.

  ‘How are we doing with that list?’ she asked.

  ‘The Toyotas?’

  ‘Yes, the Toyotas.’

  Marcel held up a sheaf of printed papers annotated with lots of his scribbles.

  ‘Still working on them.’

  ‘Let me see.’

  He handed the list over. She flipped through the pages.

  ‘Not as many out there as I thought. Looks like you’ve done most of them.’

  Marcel picked up another, longer list from his desk. ‘We haven’t started on this lot yet.’

  Hannah blew air out the side of her mouth. ‘Shit. All right, give me a few pages.’

  ‘Boss?’

  ‘We need everyone we can get on this. The answer’s in there – I know it is. So gimme.’

  Marcel handed her a few pages from the top. She went straight back to her office and placed the list in front of her.

  ‘Right,’ she said to herself. ‘Here we go.’

  An hour later, she was starting to regret volunteering. It seemed that almost everyone she spoke to either didn’t understand what was being asked of them, or else led really complicated lives that they felt compelled to bring into the conversation.

  One more, she thought, and then I’m breaking for coffee.

  She picked up her phone and tapped in the last known number of the next car owner on the list. It rang for ages, and she was on the verge of giving up when it was answered.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello. Is that Mr Rodney Parkes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hello, Mr Parkes. This is Detective Inspector Hannah Washington of Stockford Police. I wonder if I might ask you a few que
stions?’

  ‘Police? Did you say police?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Nothing to worry about, but if I could just—’

  ‘Why would the police be calling me?’

  ‘It’s just routine, Mr Parkes. It’ll only take a couple of minutes of your time, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Well, okay, but I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of. Perhaps if you could just let me ask my questions?’

  ‘Okay. Sure. Go ahead.’

  ‘Our records show us that you’re the registered owner of a silver Toyota Avensis, is that right?’

  ‘Sheila.’

  ‘I’m sorry? Are you saying you’re not the owner?’

  ‘No. I mean yes, I am the owner, but I call my car Sheila. It’s my wife’s name.’

  ‘You call your car the same name as your wife?’

  ‘Yes. In her memory. She died three years ago, rest her soul. The big C. It’s a terrible illness, you know. Terrible.’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry to hear—’

  ‘Anyway, she loved our car. I often suggested getting something different, something newer, but she wouldn’t hear of it. So I’ve still got it. I look after it in the same way I looked after her. When she gets sick, I get her fixed. I wasn’t able to do that with my wife.’

  ‘No. Could I ask if—’

  ‘I never break the speed limit, if that’s why you’re calling. I don’t drink and drive, either. I also don’t park on yellow lines or in disabled parking bays. In fact, I’ve never had a fine or points on my licence.’

  Hannah wanted to tell him to shut up. If everyone on the list was like Mr Parkes then no wonder it was taking so long to work through them.

  ‘That’s very commendable,’ she said. ‘But if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you about last weekend.’

  ‘Last weekend? What about last weekend?’

  ‘Specifically Sunday. Did you drive last Sunday?’

  ‘Sunday? Let me think. Sunday. Yes, that’s right. I did. I went to the beach.’

  ‘You drove to the beach? Which beach would that be?’

  ‘It’s called Playa de El Palo. Do you know it?’

  ‘No, I can’t say I do. Where is that?’

  ‘Just outside Málaga.’

  ‘Málaga? Málaga in Spain?’

  ‘Is there another?’