‘You mean if he was dead?’
Felix didn’t know how to respond to that, and finally Geoffrey sighed. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘how can I help?’
Felix was so relieved he could have hugged him. Geoffrey hadn’t berated him, hadn’t told him he’d been stupid, even though he’d been exactly that; he also hadn’t told him he wanted nothing to do with his mess and slammed down the phone. He was just being Geoffrey – practical and supportive, working to help others despite his own illness. A proper Exiteer.
Felix felt moved almost to tears. He cleared his throat. ‘I hoped you might send somebody round there to keep an eye on him. I’d hate anything to happen to him.’
There was a short silence and then Geoffrey said simply, ‘Leave it with me, Felix. I’ll take care of Skipper.’
After he hung up on Felix Pink, Geoffrey Skeet sat for a long moment, just thinking.
Then he picked up a screwdriver, got up from his wheelchair, and walked quickly to the bottom of the stairs.
He crouched beside the stairlift, unscrewed the motor compartment plate, and swung it open. Inside there was no motor. The space where a motor should have been was stuffed with dozens of tightly wadded bricks of fifty-pound notes, and a smartphone.
Geoffrey withdrew the phone and settled down on the second stair, elbows on his knees, and made a call. A small black-and-white cat wound its way around his legs and he scratched its head gently and murmured, ‘Hello, Buttons.’
When his call was answered, the voice that came out of Geoffrey’s mouth was quite different. Less cultured. Less kind. More . . .
‘Shifty?’ he said. ‘It’s Terry.’
Old Salt
Skipper Cann always slept with the curtains open so that he could see the moon.
Sometimes when he woke at night he would half open his eyes on the stars and think himself still at sea, dozing at the wheel of the Susanna while the waves slapped gently at her clinker sides.
This night the ropes strained at the cleats, making them creak creak creak . . .
Skipper opened his eyes.
The moon was thin and the room was dark and it took him a moment to understand that he was not on a boat, but in bed – where he’d been for months, and would be now until the end.
creak . . . creak . . .
He moved his eyes but not his head.
creak . . . creak . . .
Closer. Closer.
Toff quivered against his leg as a shadow arrived at the bedside. There was so little light that if he hadn’t been fifty years at sea and used to the shapes of the night, Skipper would never have made out Reggie – or the pale pillow he clutched to his chest.
‘Skipper?’
Slowly Skipper closed his eyes.
‘Skipper?’
Reggie wasn’t whispering. It was as if he wanted him to wake up and say yes.
But Skipper said nothing.
He knew what was coming and, although his heart was jumbled, his head was very clear.
Don’t fight it, his head said. This is what you wanted before. You were ready then. Let it happen now. Better somebody who loves you than strangers. Better here than a hospital bed where they never turn the lights off. It’ll all be over soon. Out of this life, out of this pain, and on to . . . what? Everybody goes, but nobody knows. Terrifying and magical. Don’t fight it. Let it come. Don’t fight it . . .
But it took all his willpower not to sit up and cry out that he was awake and alive – and planned to remain so for ever!
‘Skipper?’ Reggie said more softly, and this time there was a catch in his voice that made the old man’s heart break.
His boy. His boy’s boy. Little Reggie. Who’d needed him so badly for so long. They’d needed each other, him and Reggie. Wife gone, mother gone; Albert no help. Alone together. Life had been tough for the two of them. And continued that way. But they’d always loved each other, hadn’t they?
They had.
They did.
They still did – Skipper was sure of it, even as he waited for the boy he loved to kill him . . .
Tears rolled silently from his closed eyes and down the ravines of his crow’s feet and into his ears, where they pooled and cooled, and down his cheeks to his lips. He would never be lost at sea, but at least he would die with salt on his face, and the flavour of oceans would comfort him as he drifted away.
One last glimpse of the moon . . .
He opened his eyes a slit, and flinched.
Reggie was gone.
But he was still here.
And Skipper Cann lay back on his damp pillow and wept with relief and disappointment.
Derby Day
Reggie Cann woke early on Derby Day, and with the weight of the world off his shoulders.
When Dead Mike arrived at Ladbrokes to open up, he was already on the doorstep, and when Dennis Matthews came in around nine thirty, Reggie got up and went straight over to him in the middle of the shop.
‘I couldn’t do it,’ he said defiantly, ‘and I’m not doing it. So do your fucking worst!’
He was shaking like a leaf, but he wasn’t ashamed of that. Wasn’t ashamed of not killing his grandfather so he could steal his house to pay off a crook. Let the curly-headed bastard beat the shit out of him if he wanted to. Fuck him.
But Matthews just stood there and frowned at him – as if there was a simple solution to Reggie’s problem and he’d offered that solution to him, but Reggie hadn’t taken it. His big furrowed face said that made no sense to him, and now he looked at Reggie as if he were a crazy street-person and he was debating whether to give him a fiver or set him alight.
‘Won’t wash with Terry,’ he said at last.
Then fuck Terry, thought Reggie.
‘And I’ve got a reputation to think of.’
And fuck you too, Reggie thought, and he trembled, but he didn’t blink. Didn’t speak. Didn’t back down. This was his line in the sand.
And it held.
Dennis Matthews broke eye contact first. Looked at the wall of screens. Then shrugged and said, ‘I wouldn’t normally do this, but I feel sorry for you . . .’ He sighed. ‘You owe me one.’ Then he held out his hand, and Reggie shook it out of sheer surprise.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I do! Thank you.’
Reggie left the shop and walked up the hill to work.
He’d been so scared! So scared that he’d nearly killed Skipper. It didn’t seem real now.
Thank God it was over.
When the front door opened, Toff growled and woke Skipper up.
‘Hayley?’
She didn’t answer. No matter – she’d be up soon. Maybe she’d make him breakfast. Breakfast! He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually wanted anything to eat. But today he’d make himself. Today he needed the energy. Marmite on toast maybe.
Skipper turned on the radio.
So he never heard Dennis Matthews creak across the wooden floor of the front room to the kitchen – pause briefly – and then creak out of the house again.
He never heard the door clicking gently closed behind him.
And he never heard the gas hissing from the hob, where all four knobs had been turned to FULL.
Shifty Sands had been cursed with just enough intelligence to know he was not quite smart enough. Hence, he was a bitter young man.
He’d drifted through life, angry about his underachievements but too lazy to work any harder than he already was. Which was hardly at all. Sometimes he cut grass, sometimes he built walls, sometimes he did odd jobs. Sometimes he did very odd jobs. And sometimes he was too drunk to do anything at all, which was nice while it lasted.
He’d started smoking at twelve, taking a chance that it would kill him by thirty and he might start the next life over with better gifts, more money, and in a warmer plac
e. But he was thirty-six now, and was just starting to worry that – unless he did something uncharacteristically daring – he would soon be a bitter old man.
He’d never been married. Never been in love. Never even in like. Never had a proper job, and never likely to now. His parents were dull renters with no money. The only person he called ‘friend’ was Dennis Matthews.
While most of his friendships only lasted till the end of the bottle, the friendship with Matthews had more substance. Shifty was small and Matthews was big. That was good for Shifty. Shifty never had money, while Matthews sometimes had plenty. That was good for Shifty too. And – most importantly – they shared the dream of winning on horses, and the reality of losing on them.
That dim dream of winning – something, somehow – was the only reason Shifty Sands got out of bed most mornings.
But this morning he’d got out of bed to kill a man.
It would be his first.
He’d done jobs for Terry before. Not beatings – those were Den’s department – but low-level threats, distributing NEED MONEY? leaflets – that sort of thing. It paid better than walls or grass, but was not what he craved. Not the big score.
This was the big score. Ten thousand pounds. Cash. No tax.
And it was an old man that needed offing. An old man who wanted to die. The way Terry told it, it would barely feel like murder at all. It would be like doing the old bloke a favour and getting paid for it.
And, because he was getting paid for it, before he went to Abbotsham Shifty Sands went to Cleverdons in Mill Street as soon as they opened, and treated himself to a full English breakfast.
Shifty took his own sweet time over his eggs and bacon and fried bread, and afterwards he left a pound beside his plate – the first tip he’d ever left anyone – and caught the bus the three miles up the hill to Abbotsham.
He alighted outside the church and walked fifty yards to Black Lane, and another fifty to the last house on the right. Number 3. There was a little red sports car parked in the drive. It was totally wrecked. Someone had really done a number on it and for the first time Shifty began to feel nervous. He hadn’t expected to but he couldn’t help it. He started to shake, and felt as if he were being watched. He stood at the Canns’ front door and looked around.
Across the street a jagged row of gnomes all watched him. Shifty didn’t like it. But there was no human watching him. No excuse not to jemmy open the door and step inside and close it quickly behind him.
He stood in the hallway and let out a long, wobbly breath. When he drew in the next one, he screwed up his nose. Fucking cats! The place reeked of piss.
Shifty didn’t have a weapon with him, so he went into the kitchen to find the knife he would use to kill the old man. It didn’t have to be anything special. A point and an edge. A knife was a knife, and this way it meant that it couldn’t be traced to him. He would use it, wash it, and put it back in a drawer. That was the sum total of his plan, and he thought it a good one, given the short notice.
But his hands were still shaking a little, and he knew he’d have to stop that if he was going to get this done cleanly.
So Shifty did what came naturally.
He lit a cigarette.
Boom!
CompuWiz was like a time warp. It was exactly as they’d seen it last. Not even the dust had been disturbed, and Daz was wearing his Asteroids T-shirt again. Or still. Calvin shuddered at the thought. Daz fetched Reggie from the back of the shop. He came out still holding a tiny screwdriver.
‘We’ve arrested Amanda Bell on suspicion of murder,’ said King bluntly, and Reggie’s face went slack with shock.
‘His girlfriend?’ said Daz. They ignored him.
‘Reggie?’ said King.
‘W–what do you want from me? I don’t know anything about it.’
‘If you’d like to come with us then we can talk about it at the station.’
‘Do I have a choice?’
‘Not really,’ she said kindly, so he walked through the shop with them.
‘This is fucked up, man,’ Daz kept saying. ‘This is so fucked up.’
Calvin made sure Reggie didn’t bump his head as he got into the back of the car. He leaned in to fasten Reggie’s seatbelt because Reggie looked so dazed.
Calvin joined King in the front of the car and they did a U-turn on the broad concrete apron of the fire station opposite the computer shop.
‘It’s not her fault,’ Reggie said flatly. ‘I think Albert wanted to die.’
King stopped on the apron and turned to look at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He owed people a lot of money. Bad people. He put the house up as collateral for the loan.’
King and Calvin exchanged looks. ‘How big a loan?’ said King.
‘Forty grand,’ said Reggie. ‘And when they called it in, I’m pretty sure he arranged the Exiteers for Skipper. Probably talked him into it—’
He stopped talking and collected himself before going on. ‘He knew I’d be out of the house. Would have been easy for him to take the stuff out of Skipper’s room. Skipper was probably asleep. He’s always asleep these days.’
King and Calvin nodded together. They had a fair idea why. It would have been a simple matter for Albert to give his father the Oxycodone he was obviously using instead of his usual morphine.
‘Who are these bad people, Reggie?’ said King.
Reggie hesitated, then glanced at Calvin. ‘He’s from the bookies. Dennis Matthews.’
‘I know him,’ said Calvin.
‘He beat me up,’ said Reggie. ‘Told me I had to pay back Albert’s loan. But there was no money left and that’s when he told me to kill Skipper—’
DCI King’s eyes widened. ‘You didn’t, did you?’
Reggie shook his head. ‘Like father, like son, he said. Before that I only knew Albert had put the house at risk. But that’s when I knew he’d called in the Exiteers.’
‘But why would Skipper go along with it?’ asked Calvin.
Reggie shrugged. ‘He’s old and sick and he’s always felt guilty. He had an affair when Albert was a baby, and his wife left him and never came back. He’s always trying to make it up to Albert. Always defending him. Making excuses for him . . .’
‘And why would Albert change his mind and kill himself?’
‘I don’t know,’ Reggie said. ‘Maybe so he could give everybody the slip – like that old woman said at the funeral. But I reckon he used the Exiteers to kill himself, so I don’t want his death becoming somebody else’s fault.’
DCI King nodded slowly. ‘A set-up—’
There was a visceral BOOM !
‘What the hell was that ?’ said King. She picked up her phone, but before she could call anyone about anything, all hell broke loose around them as the fire-station alarm whooped, steel doors opened, and three shiny red engines roared around them with flashing lights and wailing sirens. Without a word, King tossed her phone at Calvin, jammed the car into first, hit the lights and raced after them – up Abbotsham Road and towards a pillar of smoke and dust that rose from the horizon.
The Cann house was gone.
Just . . .
Gone.
In its place was a huge pile of smoking rubble that spread in every direction, turning Black Lane into a rocky moonscape. Every house in the street had lost windows and the gnomes across the road had gone down in a row, like ducks in a shooting gallery.
King parked at the edge of the debris and Calvin turned to look at Reggie. His mouth hung open, but he was so shocked that no sound came out.
Firemen were already hard at work, clearing a path through the rubble.
‘Check the neighbours!’ King cried, and opened her door. Behind her, Reggie tried to do the same, but the rear locks were on.
‘Stay here, Reggie!’ she said. ‘As soon as
they find anything, you’ll know. I promise.’
Calvin ran to the Moons’ house first. He knocked but there was no answer, so he picked up a flowerpot from the front garden, smashed the glass in the door and let himself in. Despite the sounds of emergency outside, the house felt eerily quiet, and dust darkened the air.
‘Mrs Moon?’ he called. ‘Mr Moon? Donald?’
Several windows had blown in and there was glass everywhere. Calvin crunched and snapped his way down the hall. In the back room Donald Moon sat in the chair he’d occupied last time. Glass in his lap. Glass and blood and dust. The French windows had come in on top of him. He was still holding his binoculars.
‘Mr Moon?’
He looked up, dazed. Calvin had never been more relieved to see a man move. ‘Mr Moon, it’s PC Bridge.’
‘Who?’
‘PC Bridge,’ he repeated. ‘Calvin Bridge, from Bideford Police.’
‘Calvin,’ nodded Donald Moon. ‘I was just watching the birds and the window fell in.’ He sounded surprised more than anything.
‘Right,’ said Calvin. ‘Where’s Mrs Moon?’
‘Shopping.’
Thank God.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘You just sit still a minute, Mr Moon, and I’ll clear this off you.’
‘Thank you.’
He picked slabs of glass off the man until only a single shard remained, buried in his thigh. There was a lot of blood, but it was not pumping, so Calvin discounted the possibility that it had cut through the femoral artery.
‘This is good news, Mr Moon. All you’ve got is this one bit of glass in your leg and it hasn’t cut through an artery. I’m going to go and get some towels to mop up the blood, and an ambulance will be here any minute.’
‘In the bathroom,’ said Donald Moon. ‘Is it going to be all right?’
‘Yes it is,’ he said confidently as he left the room. ‘And how lucky that Mrs Moon is out.’
‘Yes,’ Donald Moon kept rambling. ‘She only went for bread and I said not to bother because we’ve got some in the freezer, but she likes fresh . . .’
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