The Edge

by Jessie Keane

  There was a long silence, broken only by the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. Romilly stood up and replaced the framed print up there. Then she turned to the old lady.

  ‘We have to talk to him, Mrs Dowling. And he’ll be here tomorrow, won’t he?’

  The old lady nodded. ‘He never misses.’

  ‘In that case I’ll be here too. And Mrs Dowling?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m sure you can see now that this is urgent. We have to stop him. We can’t let what happened to Crystal Rose ever happen to anybody else. So this has to be between us. A secret. All right?’

  The old woman sighed, and nodded. ‘Yeah. All right.’

  127

  On Saturday morning, the street outside Mrs Dowling’s house was staked out. To all appearances, it was just another Saturday, cars parked up, people walking their dogs, mowing their lawns, nothing to see. But in some of those cars there were police officers, and an innocent-looking van along the road was packed with the armed officers.

  ‘He comes around eleven and stays for lunch,’ Mrs Dowling had told Romilly the day before. Now it was eleven o’clock, and no John.

  Everyone was getting fidgety. Perhaps the old lady had tipped off the bastard? DC Phillips suggested as she sat in one of the yard’s rusty undercover cars with Romilly, both of them anxiously watching the house.

  ‘She wouldn’t,’ said Romilly, although she wasn’t entirely sure. ‘She thinks the bloke’s a creep like his dad and that’s he’s done Crystal Rose just like his dad did his mum. She was literally shuddering with disgust when we spoke to her, wasn’t she. No. She wouldn’t do it.’

  She wanted – so badly – to feel this bastard John Dowling’s collar, to haul him down to the nick and squeeze everything out of him, if it was the very last thing she ever did.

  Christ, maybe it does run in the family, she thought. Bill the father was bad, according to the old lady. And the son too.

  And as John Dowling had already killed more than once, well, didn’t they say it got easier? Thinking of that blank-eyed boy in the photograph, she knew that they had to shut him down, once and for all. She glanced at her watch. Fuck! Ten past eleven. Where the hell was he?

  ‘Ma’am,’ said Phillips.

  He was there.

  John Dowling had pulled up in a yellow VW Beetle and was now walking toward his gran’s property. Phillips was talking into the radio, telling everyone the target was here. Then Romilly and Phillips slumped down in their seats. John Dowling, triple murderer and sharpshooter. Fuck, this time they had to get him.

  Romilly watched him, thinking how strange it was, that a man so elegantly dressed, pin-neat, actually fairly attractive with his dark hair and eyes, could in fact be such a loathsome monster underneath it all.

  ‘We’d better . . .’ she started, and then something happened.

  There was the faintest of noises, and . . . ‘What the fuck . . .?’ asked Romilly.

  John Dowling flinched – and collapsed.

  128

  DC Phillips was yelling into the radio, police were pouring out of vans. Romilly was hardly aware of jumping out of the car and running full pelt with Phillips over to where John Dowling lay.

  Dowling was flat on his back and there was blood.

  But . . . it wasn’t on his chest. And there was only a little of it. Surprisingly little.

  She knelt on the pavement beside him. His eyes were wide open, staring in surprise at the sky. And there, neatly placed at the centre of his forehead, was a bullet hole.

  ‘Oh Christ . . .’ gasped Romilly as other officers crowded around the corpse.

  Somebody grabbed her arm and hauled her back to her feet.

  ‘We have to clear the area,’ someone said, and in a daze Romilly hurried back to the car.

  She couldn’t believe it.

  They’d almost had the bastard.

  And now someone had beaten them to it.

  129

  Two days after John Dowling breathed his last, Daniel drove Daisy down to Brayfield to collect the twins.

  ‘I’ve missed them so much,’ she told him as they turned into the gates, passing the disused gatehouse on their left. Daisy stared at it as they did so. ‘Ma and Pa gave me that gatehouse. I used it once, had a wild party there and ended up in hospital.’

  Daniel shot her a look.

  ‘I know. I was young and I was extremely stupid and I was in a bit of a mess.’

  ‘Like . . .?’

  ‘I’d found out that Ruby was my mother, not Vanessa. That my father’d had an affair with Ruby. And that I was one of twins and Kit was my brother. It was a lot to take in. Too much, I think. I reacted badly.’

  Daniel shot her another look. ‘What, you? Don’t believe it.’

  Daisy started to smile. ‘Are you mocking me?’

  ‘Maybe a bit.’

  ‘Well, don’t,’ said Daisy, but she was still smiling, when since Rob’s death she had never believed she would smile again. It was so good, having Daniel back at her side.

  The car shot on up the driveway. Daniel parked it beside the circular fountain of Neptune, and switched off the engine. Daisy got out, and so did he.

  ‘Can we walk for a bit? Would you mind?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said Daniel, and they set off down the meandering path that led to the mausoleum and the lake.

  On the way, they passed the bell tower. Daisy paused there, looking up, remembering that desperate struggle, remembering she had almost died that day. And instead, Leon had perished.

  ‘Can I ask . . .?’ she started, then hesitated.

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘I have to. What did you and Fats do with Leon?’

  ‘You really want to know? You sure?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ she said.

  Daniel walked on and Daisy fell into step with him. They went further, down to where it was mossy underfoot, where the cedars of Lebanon hung low over the pathway, forming a dark green tunnel that led to the family mausoleum. Daniel stopped there in front of it, gazing at the inscription over the pale marble doorway.

  Hodie mihi, cras tibi

  ‘What does it mean?’ he asked her. ‘Latin, is it?’

  Daisy nodded, thinking that Rob would not have asked, even if the ancient text was puzzling him. Too afraid of showing his ignorance. Whereas Daniel didn’t see anything wrong in admitting he didn’t know a word of Latin. He really was more solid than Rob, more stable, less easily intimidated by class barriers.

  ‘It means “Today me, tomorrow you”,’ she said, her face sad. ‘In other words, we’re all going to die. Those inside the crypt are dead now, but one day we will be, too.’

  ‘That’s fucking grim,’ he said.

  ‘It is. But it’s a reason to live life to the full, isn’t it. Grab it by the throat.’ Daisy paused. ‘Where is he, Daniel? Where is Leon?’

  Daniel thrust his hands into his pockets and looked at the ground. ‘You’re sure . . .?’ he asked.

  ‘I want to know.’

  Daniel nodded. Then he looked her in the eye. They were so like Rob’s eyes. The same khaki green. But they were also completely different. Calmer. More accepting. Daisy looked into those eyes and realized she could tell Daniel anything and it wouldn’t shake him. And that her wealthy background meant nothing to him. It neither worried nor enticed him, and that was so different to Rob’s reaction.

  ‘He always wanted to be part of Cornelius Bray’s family,’ said Daniel, his voice low. ‘So we granted him his wish. He’s sharing a coffin with his dad right now. In there.’

  ‘Oh God,’ said Daisy.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Yes. Fine.’

  Daniel’s eyes left her face, looked beyond her. ‘Vanessa’s spotted us. She’s in the garden and she’s got the kids with her. Jody too. You sure you’re all right?’

  Vanessa was calling her name. Daisy turned. Out there in the sunshine, beyond the shade of the darker borders, was Vanessa,
a twin tugging at each hand, Jody running behind. Daisy waved. They all waved back.

  ‘I’m OK,’ she told Daniel, and realized, for the first time since losing Rob, that she really was.

  ‘Good,’ said Daniel, and followed steadily behind her as she led the way out onto the lawn.

  130

  Kit was down The Grapes in one of the private dining rooms round the back. Fats was at the door, Ashok out in the bar. Within ten minutes, the man arrived. He was grizzle-haired, hook-nosed; an elderly gent with a stooped back and with a hearing aid big as a plum protruding from one ear.

  ‘Hiya,’ said Fats, and ushered him into the room, moving back outside and closing the door behind him.

  Kit stood up and walked over when the man came in. He shook his hand.

  ‘All right, Peach?’

  ‘Fine, fine,’ said Peachy. Aside from loving Sinatra and collecting small arms and having once been an ace safe-cracker, Peachy was also ex-army, where he had been employed as a sniper. He might be deaf as a post now – as his wife Lil told anyone who would listen – but his hands were steady as rock, and his eyes were still sharp as an eagle’s.

  ‘Take a seat, Peach,’ said Kit, and they sat down. ‘Get you a drink?’

  ‘Nah, too late in the evening for me, Mr Miller. Don’t want to be up pissin’ half the night.’

  ‘OK, Peach. I just want to say, you done good. And thank you.’

  ‘Scum like that, walkin’ about,’ said Peach in disgust. ‘Old Bill gets them and then you have to keep the rotten twisted bastards in comfort for the rest of their natural? I don’t see it, do you?’

  ‘No,’ said Kit. ‘I don’t.’

  He pulled a brown envelope out of his jacket pocket.

  ‘Five grand, as agreed. Plus a bonus.’ He pushed the envelope over the table to Peachy.

  ‘No need for that.’ Peachy frowned as he picked up his payment.

  ‘There’s every need,’ said Kit. ‘Rob was my brother. My comrade. You understand that, I know you do. No one gets to wipe him out like that, and live.’

  Peachy nodded. ‘I’m grateful to you, Mr Miller.’

  ‘Get Lil something nice, yeah?’ Kit smiled.

  ‘I’ll get her a new bog, I reckon. She wants one of them “en suite” efforts put in. This’ll cover it and some spare left over. Thanks.’

  ‘No problems then?’ asked Kit.

  ‘It was a piece of piss,’ said Peachy.

  131

  It wasn’t exactly a perfect ending to proceedings, but it was neat so you couldn’t complain.

  ‘So that’s that,’ said Harman, sitting in Romilly’s office, twirling back and forth on the swivel chair.

  ‘Nearly,’ said Romilly.

  She was still royally pissed off about this. No prizes for guessing who’d beaten her to the draw on John Dowling. She’d almost handed it to Kit Miller on a plate; that was the most galling thing about it. She’d told him when the perp was going to be at his gran’s place, and he had picked him off like something in a turkey shoot.

  ‘We got Patrick Dowling,’ said Harman, ticking items off on his stubby fingers. ‘Several of the warehouse gang too. The money? Some of it, and there’s more to come, more arrests to be made. That’s ongoing, but it should be doable. We got our triple killer red-handed, with the gun tucked away in the back of that hired VW. All right, someone got him, but what the fuck, he’s done for and that’s a fucking relief to all concerned.’

  Romilly nodded, doodling on a notepad, turning it all over in her head. Something about the whole thing was still bugging her, she didn’t know what. She didn’t like loose ends. She kept thinking of Patrick Dowling and his brother Bill, who the killer John had sometimes got in touch with. Bill the drunken wife-beater. Then her thoughts turned to her own father, out in the garden, planting seeds in the greenhouse.

  What is it? What’s missing?

  She couldn’t get it, not yet. Irritating.

  The phone rang, and she snatched it up. She listened, said, ‘OK, sir,’ and replaced the handset.

  ‘DCI wants a word with us both,’ she told Harman.

  ‘Right,’ said Harman, and they left her office and went off along the corridor, past the bigger open office where Phillips and Barry Jones and the others worked, and into the DCI’s.

  ‘Take a seat,’ said James Barrow, ushering them in and going behind his desk. Romilly and Harman sat down. So did Barrow. Then he said: ‘We’re starting to wrap this up now. We want to find the shooter who wiped out our shooter, of course. Evidential checks are done on the Patrick Dowling case, and Crown Prosecution’s happy to go ahead. And now – Harman – it’s time we had a chat.’

  132

  Harman started in surprise at that last bit. ‘What about?’ he said.

  ‘There’s nothing worse than a bent copper,’ said James Barrow, his eyes hard as they rested on Harman’s face. ‘And that’s what you are. Isn’t it?’

  ‘What? I don’t know—’ said Harman.

  ‘Spare me that,’ snapped James, his voice rising to a shout. ‘You hand in your warrant card today and clear your desk and then you fuck off out of it. You’re off the force, pending enquiries. Now go home, out of my sight.’

  ‘What the fuck . . .?’ Harman’s face was a picture of surprised dismay.

  ‘You’ve been working as an informant for a criminal gang,’ said James. ‘And I’m not having it. Get out.’

  Harman got to his feet; he looked almost dazed. Then he went out the door, slamming it closed behind him. In the silence that followed, James and Romilly exchanged a long look.

  ‘Kit Miller will plant someone else in here if Harman’s gone,’ said Romilly.

  ‘I know that.’ He stared at her. ‘I’m wondering who it will be.’

  What the DCI didn’t know was that she was indirectly responsible for John Dowling’s death because she had told Kit he’d be there on his gran’s birthday. And she wasn’t going to tell him.

  Christ, she’d been getting too close to Kit Miller. Far too close. She knew it.

  ‘If there’s nothing else, sir . . .?’ she said uncomfortably. Had he heard something about her and Kit?

  Barrow eyed her beadily. Then he said: ‘Not right now, no. Off you go.’

  133

  Later that day, Romilly got home and found the post on the mat. A decree nisi was there – Hugh was suing her for divorce. The cheeky sod. Unreasonable behaviour. Well, good. She’d already decided that tomorrow she would wrap this up, phone the estate agent. Time to put the house on the market and move on. She’d never much liked it, anyway.

  In the evening, she went down to her local and into the snug and rang the little bell on the bar top.

  Kevin the landlord came through.

  ‘Is Sally about?’ asked Romilly. ‘I’d like a word.’

  ‘I’ll get her,’ said Kevin.

  Sally came through, saw Romilly, and stopped dead. Her face hardened.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, I’d like you to stop trying to run me over, for a start,’ said Romilly.

  ‘What?’ Sally’s face went bright red.

  ‘Christ, never go into crime in a big way, will you? You haven’t got the face for it. You look guilty as sin. And you are, aren’t you?’ Romilly shook her head and stared at Sally in disgust. ‘I thought Kit Miller was the target that day at the crem, but he wasn’t, was he? The target was me, and you got me.’

  Sally was chewing her lip and looking desperate.

  ‘Don’t bother denying anything,’ said Romilly. ‘I clocked the car and the reg number before I passed out cold. Force of habit. And I came round the car park last week to check out the motor. BMW. Tinted windows. It belongs to Kevin, and he lets you use it sometimes. He let you use it on the day of Clive Lewis’s funeral at the crem. You’re not fucking Kevin as well as Hugh, are you? No, scrub that question. I’m not even interested.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that to Hugh,’ said Sally, her mo
uth trembling. ‘I’m not cold like you are.’

  ‘Cold? Honey, you don’t know me so don’t even pretend you do.’ Romilly leaned on the bar. Sally moved sharply back, away from her. ‘I got the decree nisi in the post today, so pretty soon Hugh is going to be free as a bird. But do yourself a big favour and don’t hold your breath waiting for commitment from him, because he hasn’t got the balls for that.’

  ‘Are you . . . are you going to . . .?’ Sally couldn’t even get the words out.

  ‘What? Am I going to feel your collar? Drag you off down the nick?’ Romilly cocked her head to one side and eyed Sally speculatively. ‘You’re not worth the paperwork. But do anything like that, ever again, and your shapely little arse is going to get fried. You hear me?’ Sally nodded.

  ‘Good,’ said Romilly, and left.

  134

  Rather than go home to her empty house and yet another crappy TV dinner, Romilly drove on over to her folks’ place. Dad answered the door.

  ‘Hello, lovey,’ he said. ‘What a nice surprise.’

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ said Romilly, giving him a peck on the cheek and a hug, inhaling the familiar comforting scents of tobacco and Old Spice aftershave. ‘Thought you’d be out in the garden.’

  The days were getting lighter. Her dad always got into a panic at this time of year, planting seedlings, potting plants on. The garden became a hive of activity.

  ‘I was. Just came in to wash my hands and grab a drink, and I heard the bell. Mum’s down the bingo.’

  ‘How’s it all going out there?’ asked Romilly as he led the way through to the kitchen.