The Third Rule (Eddie Collins Book 1)

by Andrew Barrett

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why aren’t you bothered that he’s dead?”

  “None of your fucking business. Now hurry up and die, Collins, so I can get out of here.”

  “You got anything against Mick Lyndon?”

  “Is that Mick Lyndon?” he nodded towards the man laid half on the desk and half in the chair.

  “That is Mick Lyndon. Not guilty of any crimes whatsoever.”

  “Then I have nothing against him.”

  “That twat shot him dead.”

  “That twat shot an old guy a week ago.”

  “He shot Mick because he’d found something out about the Government, and he’d found out who killed the old guy. Lincoln Farrier.”

  “Figures.”

  “That it, ‘figures’?”

  Benson shrugged.

  “You people look everywhere but in the right fucking places. Innocent people die because you fail to do your job properly.”

  Benson stared at him. “This the final speech before you expire?”

  Eddie brought the gun up. He saw Benson’s smile waver. He pointed the gun at Benson’s head; there were maybe three or four yards between them. He pulled the trigger. Benson jumped, banged his head against the wall.

  “You dumb fuck!” he screamed. “Why did you do that!”

  Eddie stared at him. The bullet hole was a foot away from Benson’s ear, and a cloud of plaster dust rose into the air as lumps of it hit the carpet.

  “Any idea how many bullets this thing holds?” Eddie asked.

  “Go fuck yourself!”

  The front door banged against the wall again, and then a voice shouted up the stairs, “Boss? Boss, you okay?”

  Benson closed his eyes, shook his head. Eddie stared at him, gun still pointed at his head. “Fine.” Benson called down the stairs, “Go sit in the car and play with yourself. And when the others get here, tell them to stand by.”

  The front door closed, and the rain grew muffled again.

  “You put me on a Rule Three for killing Stuart.”

  “Taylor put you on a Rule Three, and it was provisional.”

  “You can’t do that, don’t you see? It’s like you put that lad Christian Ledger on a Rule Three before we even finished the scene. I am innocent, and that kid is innocent too.”

  Benson said nothing.

  “Doesn’t that bother you? It might look good for the stats and the little competition you guys have with each other, but it’s wrong. Not only have you accused the wrong men, you’ve left the way clear for two real murderers to go about their business again. And that’s just the two I know of, there’s probably dozens more.”

  “You’re guilty. He’s guilty.”

  “And you don’t know all the facts.”

  “Look, look, Collins. You’re slowly – too slowly – bleeding to death, and all we’re doing is batting shit at each other from across a room with two dead men in it. This is getting us nowhere. I believe you and the lad are guilty, you’re going down, both of you.”

  “How about if I could offer you some evidence to prove my innocence?”

  Benson shrugged again. “Too late,” he laughed, “I mean look around, this place is like a butcher’s shop, and you’re the one holding the fucking gun.”

  “That’s my fucking point exactly! You don’t look beyond the obvious, you blindly accept whatever is presented to you; you need to see the whole picture, and that is precisely why forensic science is there.”

  “Fuck off; I’ve been doing this job for twenty years.”

  “Doing it wrong, obviously.”

  “Like I said, fuck off.”

  “Oh by the way, I forgot to mention: we’re being recorded right now.”

  Benson snapped his head up then. “What?”

  “I was on the phone to The Yorkshire Echo as you arrived. The line’s still open. Say hello.”

  “Lying bastard.”

  Eddie laughed, shaking his head. “Really, it’s true.” And then he took a breath, winced at the pain and said, “I have a proposition.”

  “I don’t do deals with murderers.”

  “Good, so you’ll deal with me. This gun killed Stuart in the SOCO office.”

  “Yes, your gun.”

  “No, Henry Deacon’s gun. He’s already admitted to it—”

  “Henry Deacon is dead.”

  “I know—”

  “And you killed—”

  “Will you shut up!” Eddie flinched as the wound opened up. “And before you say anything else that falls into the category of utter bollocks, let me tell you that he,” he nodded at Sirius, “killed Henry Deacon, and that is implied on tape. And I couldn’t have killed Henry Deacon because the bastard was already dead when I found him!”

  “Fuck—”

  “By about four hours. And you can check that with your man, Taylor. Jeffery did the scene, and he’s no dummy, he’ll have worked it out. And this is Henry Deacon’s gun. I found it at Deacon’s place and I took it—”

  “Why?”

  Eddie was silent for a minute. “I don’t know why. My hand brushed it as I was feeling under a wardrobe, and I grabbed it, brought it out.”

  “So why not leave it behind?”

  “Because by then it had my DNA on it.”

  “So?” Benson shrugged, “If you’re innocent—”

  “Bollocks. No one dare use that old saying anymore.”

  “…you have nothing to worry about.”

  “Take your cuffs off.”

  Benson shut up then, “How can I?”

  “I’m not stupid, Benson. Take them off.”

  Benson slid one hand out of the metal loop, wriggled the key out of the leather pouch and unclipped the ratchet from the other wrist.

  “Here,” Eddie threw Deacon’s gun across the room. It landed with a thump at Benson’s feet, and Benson just looked at him with narrowed eyes.

  “Why?”

  “The only way to prove my innocence to you is to give you his gun. Have the remaining bullets examined for Low Copy DNA, and you’ll find out that Henry Deacon loaded it. It was his weapon; I found it at his house after he used it on Stuart.”

  “Proves fuck all. It might be his weapon, and he may have loaded it, but you could still have shot Stuart with it.”

  “Now you’re bothered about proof! I went to his house on Thursday around midnight, Stuart was killed and the office set alight twenty-four hours before that. Prick.”

  Benson stared at Eddie, mind lost in thought.

  Eddie pulled the memory stick from his jeans pocket, waved it at Benson. “While you’re thinking about that, you can have a think about what’s on here.”

  “Why? What is on there?”

  “Confirmation of my innocence, confirmation that Henry Deacon and that bastard over there did everything that you’ve been running around arresting the wrong people for. Wait till it hits the headlines, then we’ll see who has an appointment with a Home Office bullet.”

  Benson picked up his coat. Then he walked across the room and took Eddie by the shoulders, spun him round and with his fingertips, pulled up Eddie’s shirt. Eddie squirmed.

  “How bad is it?”

  “Looks like someone held a circular saw on your back.” Then Benson let the shirt drop and dug a knuckle into the wound. Eddie screamed and Benson moved close to his ear, “Ever point a gun at me again, you’d better not miss.”

  — Four —

  Chris sat on the shiny wooden floor, staring at the wall full of Christian Ledger’s paintings. He stared at them for some time, but his eyes wouldn’t quite focus on them; he saw straight through them, aware of their existence but unable to comprehend them.

  On the floor at his side, the screen of his radio lit up again, and a voice came out of the speaker. He looked down at it. And then he tried to pick it up but couldn’t. The thumb on his right hand was missing. There was a large tear-shaped space where it should have been. The tear shape ran a
lmost the full length of his forearm, and he could see the remains of tendons in there among all the blood, and some white string-like things that he assumed to be nerves.

  He had held out his hand in a defensive gesture and the knife took it clean off.

  In his lap was a puddle of blood.

  He reached over to the radio with his left hand instead, and appeared surprised at being able to pick it up. He said something into the radio, the acknowledgment of a message perhaps, but afterwards, was quite unsure what. And then he dropped it again as a flood of piercing blue lights lit up the inside of the shop, glancing from the crystals in the chandeliers to make wonderful patterns and tones on the walls and ceiling. The bell over the door tinkled and suddenly, the shop was full of people, full of noise from radios.

  Chris began to cry. “She’s in the back room. Hurry.”

  Monday 29th June

  Chapter Fifty Six

  — One —

  Eddie was out of hospital at nine o’clock on Monday morning. The doctor said the bullet, which had raked out a six-inch long trench of skin and burnt the surrounding tissue, had missed his kidney by a little over three-quarters of an inch. It had suffered some harsh bruising however, and he could expect to pass blood for the next few weeks.

  There was a police car waiting for him and it took them twelve minutes to reach Holbeck Police Station where he was escorted down a corridor and into one of the plusher waiting rooms. Like all ‘waiting rooms’ that were used for interviewing, it had an alarm tape running around the walls, but it had good carpet, padded chairs, decent desks; it was better than the shitty rooms further up the corridor. On his way along the corridor he wondered why the people he nodded to didn’t seem so convivial; they seemed awkward, as though they felt sorry for him. He could see it in their eyes, and in their cautious smiles; the kind of shy smiles saved for when your fly is undone and people are laughing at you when you’ve no idea why.

  Being in the better interview rooms was the first confirmation Eddie had that everything was going to be alright. The second confirmation was the coffee in a proper mug.

  The third confirmation was when Benson knocked and walked in with Taylor; maybe he had tagged along as some kind of moral support. Maybe he was there to remove any smugness or gloating from one Eddie Collins. He need not have worried on that score, there was no smug and no gloat to be seen anywhere.

  “Eddie,” Taylor held out his hand and Eddie reached up, winced, and shook.

  “Eddie,” Benson did likewise, though it must have been difficult for him; the last remaining confirmation that all was well and good. Eddie shook, and the two officers sat down opposite him.

  “We sent Henry’s gun off to the lab for overnight analysis,” said Taylor.

  “And?”

  Benson cleared his throat, “As you said, the remaining bullets had Henry Deacon’s DNA on them.”

  “Am I now off the Rule Three for killing Stuart?”

  “All charges against you have been removed. And I owe you an apology.”

  Eddie could see those words coming out of Benson’s mouth with bits of flesh and blood sticking to them as though they had barbs on them. It must have been painful. But still he wouldn’t gloat because that would not be the right thing to do, ever. “Thank you.”

  “And you were right about Christian Ledger.”

  “About him not killing Alice?” And not once did Eddie even think of saying ‘I told you so’.

  Benson nodded. “We found who the prints at her scene belonged to.” He then surprised Eddie by standing up and heading for the door. He turned. “I am genuinely sorry,” he said. Then he opened the door and left.

  When the door closed, Eddie looked at Taylor, confused. “I never expected that from him.”

  “When he said that ‘we’ found out whose prints were on the cash and easel, what he should have said was that Ros found them.”

  “Oh wow,” Eddie smiled wide. But then he stopped smiling. Taylor was not smiling. “Why aren’t you smiling?”

  — Two —

  Eddie spent the rest of the morning in the station. The first two hours had been getting the paperwork out of the way, and if someone were to ask him now what exactly he had signed, what exactly he had said, he wouldn’t be able to remember. He was knotted up with news of Ros. And then he’d spent until well after lunch in the posh interview room with Taylor, and then with Jeffery, but all the time he spent in there, his eyes were wet. He went through a box of tissues, and two whole boxes of Regret and a crate of Self Pity.

  Jeffery wouldn’t let him go and see her. She’s in a bad way, he said. Over the last two days, she’d had fourteen hours of surgery, and she was in surgery right now. And no, he said, with compassion in his voice, it didn’t look good. Sorry. “Maybe visit her tomorrow, eh.”

  His head ached with grief, and not only grief for Ros. His life of late was literally filled with the stuff, right from Sam, through Mick, all the way up to now, to Ros. And he was beginning to wonder just how much grief you could take before it sank you completely without trace.

  Sometimes he wished life would just piss off and leave him alone; why did it always have to affect him, what had he ever done. And then he sneaked out a small wonderment: why not me? He didn’t get it, why leave him behind?

  And so it wasn’t a blessing that Eddie was still alive, it was nothing short of a curse. Everyone he ever loved had died, and he was still here longing for it. Made no sense.

  He didn’t mean to be rude, but he just got up and let himself out, Jeffery looking on, wondering what he’d done to offend him.

  — Three —

  Someone had been in and tidied his flat while he’d been away, repaired the door and even fitted new curtains up at the window, proper curtains. The smell was gone, too. He walked into the bathroom and the shampoo bottle had shampoo in it. He walked through the kitchen and was surprised to see a new cooker in place of the old thing that was covered in blackened cooking fat.

  And then he came back into the lounge, saw his old chair and the one Mick used to sit in and flick ash across the floor from. Eddie lit a cigarette and tried to remember the old times. The trouble with his old times was they were mostly missing. He had been drunk for a large part of them. Indeed, the doctors at the hospital asked if he was a drinker, because if he was, they said, then he’d better quit, at least until the kidney had healed.

  And then he looked at the mantelpiece, at the NY cap perched there. And then Eddie could hold back the tears no longer.

  — Four —

  Eddie stripped in the bathroom and had a wash at the sink, hair too. The hospital wouldn’t allow him to get the dressing across his back wet, so a bath was out of the question. He made up for the general lack of effectiveness a wash at the sink always has by spraying lots of instant shower, as he called Lynx, right across his body. He shaved and stared at the reflection in the mirror. His eyes were the same red as they always were, except this time it was the tears that made them so and not a bottle of Grants.

  He combed his hair, and then Eddie Collins grabbed the keys to his old car and stepped out of his flat. He had somewhere to go.

  — Five —

  At one time Eddie had been called a romantic. But not today. He had bought Jilly flowers not in order to smooth the path to reconciliation. Eddie had bought her flowers for two reasons: the first because it was a gentlemanly thing to do when one hasn’t seen one’s wife for some time. In reality it had only been what, four or five days, but so much had happened that it felt like he’d been away for weeks.

  And the second reason was by way of a small apology for being a complete wanker. Not only for all the times he was pissed, however expensive one of those particular times was, but also for the times when she needed a good strong shoulder to cry on and he wasn’t there for her. Most likely, he concluded, he was vomiting into his lap at the time of her greatest need.

  As to whether he wanted to get back with her… well, he thought he did at one
point. But not now, and it wasn’t because she had kicked the shit out of him at their son’s graveside; he’d deserved that, and a hell of a lot more. No, he didn’t want to get back with Jilly because she couldn’t move on without Sam. And if she couldn’t move on without Sam, then she could never forgive him for Sam’s death.

  Of course, he could never forgive himself for Sam’s death either, but that was his prerogative, and it was a strictly private feeling. Eddie finally plucked up the courage to get out of the damned car and walk up his driveway – Jilly’s driveway. He stood on the front door step and knocked.

  — Six —

  Just as Eddie was knocking on his own door, Christian Ledger was leaving Yorkshire altogether. He had hired a van, and had very carefully strapped all his recovered paintings into the cargo area. In boxes tethered to the sides were his old easel, some boxes with tubes of paint inside, his brushes and palette knives and his palette too. He was heading south, towards Devon, and a rather splendid studio house on the coast.

  In his pocket was a cheque that would see him alright for years to come, and in a carrier bag in a box in the back, was more cash than he had ever seen before, a generous interim payment from Her Majesty’s Government.

  In another four hours he would approach Sedgemoor services and this time, he would drive right on by without so much as a second glance.

  — Seven —

  Eddie’s smile drifted away.

  He knocked again, breathed in, held out his chest. She was taking a shower, that’s all, or she was, you know, otherwise indisposed. He cleared his throat, rehearsed the lines over in his mind again. ‘Hey, listen, I brought you these, Jilly. They’re just a little token to say I know I’ve been a prick these last few months, but I’m good again now, and if ever you need me…’

  “Where the fuck is she?” he whispered.

  He knocked again, louder, listened at the door.

  Eddie walked around the back of the house, and like the front, the curtains were still closed and everything was locked up tight as a drum. He glanced at his watch, and it said three thirty-five pm. No way would Jilly still be in bed. Ah, she’s gone to see Freaks Inc, of course.