The Third Rule (Eddie Collins Book 1)

by Andrew Barrett

  This reporter had intended asking Mr Farrier his views on The Rules. Those now will never be known, but his honest lifestyle and the neat and orderly way in which he kept his life, indicates his wholehearted support for decency, and for The Rules.

  Would it be wrong to assume that if they had existed prior to his son’s house being burgled, the burglar – who has been free for some time (presumably to burgle again) would have been on a Rule One already, and that alone may have deterred him from committing crime again. That in turn would have left this wonderful old man and his son united, and of course, wouldn’t have seen such a tragic end to a proud man’s life.

  This reporter hopes those bureaucrats responsible for this horrendous slant on British Justice, rethink their policy on those defending their right to enjoy their own possessions and property, and comes down hard on those who would steal it.

  The Ministry of Justice refused to comment this morning, claiming individual cases are for the relevant authorities to deal with. Surely, that relevant authority is they. Is this another case of the blind leading the blind, or of simply shifting the responsibility? We have The Rules, why don’t we use them?

  By Michael Lyndon

  Tuesday 23rd June

  Chapter Twenty One

  — One —

  Alice sank a little further into the stained duvet, pulled it around her bare legs and shivered some more. The pains had started already. She was due another fix, just enough to take the aches away before they became intolerable.

  She deserved more than this. And she knew how to get it.

  He would thank her one day, absolutely no fucking doubt about it. He would get down on his knees and look at her with eyes full of gratitude and sorrow: gratitude that she had faith, and sorrow that he didn’t. Anyway, poor old Christian wouldn’t get a chance to show her the gratitude she deserved, because she’d be long gone by then, living in a house – get it, Christian – a house, with running water and a toilet.

  — Two —

  A little bell tinkled over the door when she opened it. She stepped in, intimidated, a little afraid of being here, and more than a little afraid of being in the city, especially without Christian by her side. It was something she could never recall doing before. He was protective, always had an arm around her, always on the lookout for trouble and guiding her away from it. She suffered panic attacks wherever there was a crowd, and that, she supposed, was the drugs’ fault. But today, necessity overcame panic and she had trailed bravely through Leeds for two and a half hours by herself, feeling the sweat trickle down her back, watching them, the crowd of people who stared at her like she was some fucking freak in a sideshow, making sure they kept their distance. She should never go out alone, he said. The world is a bad place, he said. And she believed him; why wouldn’t she?

  The door closed and the calming silence welcomed her. The shop was stuffy; it was crowded with objets d’art, or whatever they called this crap. Her eyes floated around and her feet slowly edged their way over the shiny wooden floorboards. There were globes of all descriptions: etched, gold, silver, porcelain, standing on intricately carved legs, some doubling as drinks cabinets, others having a more aesthetic appearance. There was a shelf of cameos, another of miniature paintings in tiny gold frames, there were countless clocks – none ticking – stuffed animals, and books everywhere. There was furniture scattered around the place, at one time arranged deliberately, she supposed, but now, shuffled backwards, forwards or just out of the way so the owner could cram more crap onto the overburdened floor. Lights, they were everywhere, dangling from black cast iron hooks in the ceiling.

  But what took her eye more than any of this collection of dust-gatherers, were the pictures. They were everywhere, popping up between each piece, standing on the floor, leaning against the walls and against chairs, against tables trimmed with lace, bearing carriage clocks and ornamental trinket boxes. And across the walls, too; wherever there could have been a spare patch of wall, there was a painting. No prints, just original paintings.

  Alice stepped around a rocking chair, slid sideways towards the near wall and let her eyes roam freely over the framed colours, the work of a painter who drew air sometime last century.

  Oh boy, was she in the wrong shop – again. This was her sixth, and she couldn’t grasp how difficult it was to place modern art - no, not ‘modern’ art, but ‘recent’ art, you know, where the artist is still actually alive. So far, most of the shops had suggested car boot sales and hockshops, they didn’t even want to see the sample she had brought with her. Wrapped in this bin bag was fine art, dammit, ‘but this is an antique shop’, they all said. Wankers. What did they know?

  “Ahem.”

  Alice gasped. She turned, almost knocking the carriage clock onto the floor, catching it with her spare hand just in time. The little balls smacked noisily against their glass dome. Eyes still closed, she steadied the clock, and then, with an apologetic smile on her face, looked up into the eyes of a weirdo. Across the shop floor, standing beneath an arch she had failed to see before, was a strange little man wearing a bright yellow waistcoat and tiny round spectacles that hung on the end of his nose. He had no neck, his head fitted directly onto his round shoulders. Alice stifled a laugh. “You made me jump.”

  He stared at her, made her feel uncomfortable; the way he eyed her almost slyly as though weighing her up and categorising her, reading her date stamp and hallmark in the blink of a well-experienced eye.

  “May I help you, madam?” His hands were laced daintily in front of him, and he wore only the merest hint of a welcoming smile. More a cautious sneer.

  “Sorry,” she said, “I er…” she sidled her way back into the main aisle, a section of bare floorboard about eighteen inches wide that had nothing on offer except a scratched shine. “I was wondering how interested you might be in purchasing something.”

  Alice, don’t you do this, girl. Get outta here now. You’ll ruin it all.

  His little eyebrows rose slightly and the portly fellow stepped out from beneath the archway and into the comparative brightness of the main shop. “May I ask what you have there?” He held his chubby hands together tightly, rubbing them.

  “Yes, yes,” she said, “this is what I have for sale.” Alice yanked off the plastic bag. “It’s a—”

  “Ssshh,” he said, placing a stubby finger across his pink lips. “I like to try and guess.”

  “Oh, I see.” Alice wondered whether to tell him he would not guess the piece or the artist unless he had a degree in psychic ability. But she thought that pissing on his bonfire might not be the best way to go.

  The man took the picture, stepped back and held it an angle to catch the light from a chandelier. His face creased, and then he smiled, looked at her and said, “I have to admit, my dear, I’m not totally familiar with the work,” and then he looked back at the painting, “though it has certain connotations of, er, of,” he clicked his fingers, “Ralph Shephard.”

  “Really?”

  “You don’t agree?”

  She shrugged.

  He looked back the painting. “Oh yes,” he said, forming a greater interest now, studying it with an ever more inspective eye. “Very similar anyway,” he mused. “Maybe James Preston.”

  “It does?”

  “Fine Realism artists.”

  Realism. That’s what Christian had called them. Beyond Realism.

  Oh yes, he did, girl. And you know, he also said he loved you and he said he cared for you, and what you gonna do for him in return, huh? You gonna stab him right between the shoulder blades.

  I am not!

  How much thought you given to handing the cash over to him? How many times have you told him in your imagination that you found a buyer and by Christmas you’ll be in an apartment where he can paint in comfort? None. You outta your mind, girl. You a traitor.

  “It does indeed.” He looked up, Alice blinked and stepped back. “It has a clever play with light.”

  “Y
ou sound very knowledgeable.”

  “What can I say; I like paintings, my dear. But this is no painter I ever saw before.” He looked at her, knowingly yet ignorant, hoping for a clue. “It’s modern, isn’t it?”

  “You could say that, alright.”

  “Well,” he said, “I can’t deny it, young lady, you have me at a disadvantage.” He appraised her again now instead of the picture, and she could see the figure he had in mind dip by around ten percent. She wasn’t his usual kind of customer; a little more rough and ready, and clearly a little more desperate. He smiled, almost friendly. “Who painted this?”

  Alice played it cool, which for someone who was as desperate as she, was something of a risk. “You like it?”

  “Take a look around my emporium, dear.” He waved an arm across his fine treasures like a magician about to say ‘voila!’ “I like paintings, all different kinds,” and then his smile faded, “except abstract expressionism – I hate that shit,” he looked to see if she was offended by the word – she hadn’t even noticed it. “I have lots of paintings, and I can tell that you have no experience of trying to sell them. Let me be honest, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t need the picture as much as you need to off-load it. Am I making myself clear?”

  “Erm, no, not really.”

  “Where did you get this picture from?”

  “My boyfriend.”

  “Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.” He stepped closer. “And er, where did he get it from?” He winked at her.

  Alice narrowed the gap even further, aware now that he thought it was stolen and okay, yeah she was walking around inside a skin with a complexion that shouted JUNKIE. And so he thought she’d be glad to settle for next to nothing; just enough for the next fix, just enough for the boyfriend to ‘find’ more of these pictures and build some kind of underworld relationship, a mutualistic parasite-host bond. “Do you like it?”

  “Well, of course I like it. And if I like it, I know others who will like it. I won’t ask if you have come by this art legally or not,” he held up a hand, looked away and closed his eyes, “that is none of my business. But what I will ask is that—”

  “That’s enough.”

  He looked at her through the corner of his eye.

  “I can see you think this is stolen so forget the whole thing!” Alice snatched at the bin bag, pulling it over the painting.

  “Now wait a minute, dear; let’s not be so hasty.”

  She stopped trying to get the torn bag around the rough edges of the canvas and looked him straight in the eye, jaw pronounced, eyes half closed. “The picture is not stolen. My boyfriend painted it.”

  The man stopped as though slapped by an invisible hand. “He did?”

  Alice nodded.

  “What’s your name, my dear?”

  “Why? Do I need to fill in a form or something?”

  The man laughed. “No, no. I just wondered. My name is Max; and I own this fine emporium.” He smiled the smile of an old friend.

  “My name’s Alice.”

  “It’s funny,” he said, “I always imagine girls called Alice to wear a bright blue hair band and an old fashioned blue dress with white stockings.” His eyes slipped to her bare arms and the track marks in the crook of her elbow. A far cry from Carroll’s novel. “Is it yours to sell, Alice, is all I want to know?”

  “Yes it is. And what if it wasn’t?”

  “If it’s yours to sell, then we don’t need to consider that question, do we? Now, let me see it again.”

  Alice pulled away the wrapping and handed the painting back to Max. He pulled off his spectacles, and from his waistcoat pocket pulled out a pair of delicate-looking rimless glasses and pinched them onto the end of his large nose. He stared at the painting, bypassing the picture now, getting deeper beyond the subject and delving into the technique. His eyes followed the brush-strokes, followed the darkness into the light to see the blend, to feel the scrape of knife on canvas, never exhausting his curiosity.

  He looked up at her only once, as if to confirm that it was real, that it wasn’t some hoax or practical joke. And then he became lost within the painting’s beauty again, saying nothing for a long time. He followed the picture through its myriad tales; he saw the lake and the forest, the jetty poking out into the shimmering water like a finger, and the figure standing upon that jetty in a lacy gown, and his eyes stayed there a while and he wondered what she was thinking as she bathed in the vastness of the Technicolor universe only a couple of strides from her waterside cottage.

  She shuffled about on the dusty wooden floorboards and just as the nerves were beginning to bite, he set the picture on the armchair and removed his spring-loaded eyeglasses. She waited.

  “Are there more of these?”

  Alice’s heart stopped. “Lots more.”

  Max extended a hand, “Then we are in business.”

  Tuesday 23rd June

  Chapter Twenty Two

  — One —

  Rochester shuffled in his creaking leather chair as though unaware Mick was even in the same office. His shadow draped across the front of the desk and onto the floor, next to Mick’s foot. He scrubbed at it like stubbing a cigarette out. Yeah, it was a kid’s thing to do, but it made him smile.

  Rochester’s nostrils twitched and flared, and he looked up from the scattering of papers on his desk. “Michael, that smell…”

  “Ah yes, sir; that would be my tie, I’m afraid.”

  “Why can’t you take up chess for a hobby instead of drinking and seeing how far you can throw up?”

  “I threw up on it after seeing a dead body!” He stood there feeling the air turn slightly noxious – nothing to do with the tie – and feeling ever so slightly embarrassed that he stepped on Rochester with such ferocity. “It’s nothing to do with the drink, sir. I saw a body yesterday, the old man? And well, I smelt him too, and it kind of… well, you know, it upset my delicate constitution.”

  “Can’t you afford a new tie?”

  Mick stepped forward, placed a slim wad of printed paper on Rochester’s desk. “That sir, depends on you.”

  Rochester took his time in looking at the story and then paused. “Would you please throw that tie away; it stinks to high hell and I can’t concentrate. God knows how you’ve managed to work with it dangling right under your nose.”

  “Oh, yes sir, no problem.” Mick slipped the tie off, crept around the desk and dropped it cleanly into Rochester’s big stainless steel bin.

  “I was thinking of a bin in another room.”

  * * *

  “How long have I known you, Mick?”

  He stood there, hands crossed in front, and he shrugged, not daring to stand on Rochester’s shadow this time. “Ten years?”

  “And would you say I have a reasonably keen eye for a good story?”

  “Without question, sir, yes.”

  Rochester leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers behind his thinning mop of grey hair. “And that in turn means I have a flair for picking out the odd dud story. And let’s be honest, Mick, since your career with my paper rests on it, more than a few of those duds belong to you.”

  Mick’s shoulders slumped. He imagined himself walking from this big old building, the door grating closed after him for the last time, the place reserved in his wallet for his press card, now empty.

  “Is this a dud, Mick?”

  “No.”

  “Do the police think this old man was murdered?”

  “Yes.”

  “By whom?”

  “I don’t think they know, sir.”

  Rochester’s eyes narrowed into their customary slits – the lie detector slits. “Do you?”

  “Well… no, not really.”

  “You sound as though you do, but for some reason are reluctant to share it with me.”

  This was the moment of truth, as they said. This was the time when either he would hand the press card over and sign the security book for the last time, or he would cr
ack open a fresh crate of the good stuff. He whispered, “Do I buy myself a new tie, sir? Or not?”

  At last Rochester smiled. “It’s well written. Does it have anything to do with The Rules, this old man’s killing?”

  “I have an idea that it might, sir.”

  “Is this actually leading somewhere?”

  “Somewhere very big, I think. Exclusively too.”

  Rochester tapped the wad of paper. “I always preferred silk ties, myself. Paisley.”

  — Two —

  She watched him dress and then she watched him leave. The old corrugated door squeaked across the kitchen floor and then clanked. Christian couldn’t abide being cooped up in here all day with just a whinging woman to annoy him; it turned his thoughts rancid and nothing good came of rancid thoughts, nothing good ever appeared on canvas when he was cooped up. Wonder where he’s gone, she thought.

  Anyway, what did it matter where, so long as he was out for a long time. Alice had things to do. She threw back the duvet, wincing at the throb in the crook of her left arm. It had bruised; the whole inside of her arm. Max had paid her handsomely for the painting yesterday. Fifty quid. She patted her jeans pocket and pulled out the change. Just over ten left. “Shit.”

  She stood and stretched, then reached under the table in the corner, her long hair tickling her thighs as she bent and retrieved the small black box from underneath a scrunch of newspaper. Just to get her into the swing of the day, she injected roughly a quarter of Christian’s painting back through the bruise in her left arm. The world swam and Alice rolled over backwards, feeling the warmth flow through her, feeling her own kind of inspiration come to the surface like a fisherman’s float. Alice lay there naked on the dirty floorboards, arms outstretched, gazing in wonder at the black ribcage of the ceiling.