The Business Of Dying

26

Unravelling. It was all unravelling, so fast that I couldn't keep up with it. With each passing hour, my room for manoeuvre was becoming more limited. The gates to freedom were closing, and unless I made the right decision, and made it quickly, my life was effectively finished and I could look forward to the rest of my days behind bars, segregated from the bulk of the prison population for my own protection. And how long would that be? Thirty years? At least. Triple murder. Maybe even quadruple murder. Thirty years without a single taste of freedom.

Sitting alone that night at a corner table in the Chinaman, the drink doing little to calm my nerves, I tried to consider my options. They clearly had me down as a suspect, I could no longer doubt that. The copper at the roadblock had seen the e-fit and had put two and two together. Doubtless, by now they'd have got hold of a recent photo of me to show their main witness, the girl at the hotel, and presumably she'd picked me out as the killer. The question now was whether this, on its own, was enough evidence to secure a conviction. At the moment they clearly felt there was no point snatching me off the streets and charging me. There could have been several reasons for this, the most obvious being that they wanted me to lead them to whoever it was who had ordered the killing. Another would be that they wanted to gather further evidence against me without my knowing it, then spring their trap. Obviously, given my integral role in the saga, they would know there was no point offering up the carrot of a more lenient sentence for cooperating. I had no incentive whatsoever to tell them anything, however hard they leaned on me, and they'd know that.

It was a potentially embarrassing situation too. A serving police officer in a reasonably high position within the Force, and a background that included seventeen years' pretty much unblemished service, being arrested on suspicion of three counts of murder. No-one in authority wanted that scenario, not until they were truly convinced that I was the man they were looking for. This at least gave me a slight chance of escaping the fate that was otherwise in store. But the fact remained that I was almost certainly now under close surveillance. Even more embarrassing than having me arrested was not having me arrested and news leaking out that I'd been in the frame but had slipped through the net.

I finished the scotch and water I was drinking and casually surveyed the pub, looking for anyone who didn't belong. Police surveillance teams can be good, especially if they're using the best people they've got, but if you're aware that you're under their gaze it makes their job one hell of a lot more difficult. I clocked a middle-aged guy at the far end of the bar in a cheap-looking black suit with his tie askew and the top buttons of his shirt undone. He was talking animatedly to Joan, the landlady, and it looked like he was telling her a joke. I watched him for a couple of seconds, then scanned the rest of the bar. A few stools down from him were a couple of businessmen types I recognized, and down from them were a group of younger blokes, only just out of their teens, clustered around the jukebox. Two couples were at separate tables just in front of the bar: one of them I recognized, the other I'd never seen before. The second couple were sitting there looking bored and not really saying much to each other, so they were probably married. The woman looked up and caught my eye, but there was no momentary sense of concern there at being rumbled. She wasn't police. In fact, she actually appeared quite pleased I'd been looking at her and shot me the briefest of smiles. Her husband, or whoever he was, didn't seem to notice, so I smiled back before turning away.

There were maybe a dozen other people in the place all told, sprinkled across the tables, all seemingly involved in their own private conversations. I didn't concentrate my attention on anyone for very long. The last thing I needed was for the surveillance team – if, of course, there was one – to realize I was on to them. The moment that happened, I'd be straight into custody, and they might even be able to trace my awareness of their operation back to Welland, and I didn't want that to happen. The DI had done me a favour by covering my arse and letting me know what was happening, particularly when you took into consideration the fact that they'd been asking about my firearms experience. A lot of people would have forgotten their loyalties at this point and blurted out everything they knew. But not Welland. He knew the score. Or thought he did, anyway. Thinking back, I was sure that I'd imagined the look of suspicion on his face. There was no doubt that had he realized the full extent of my crimes it would have been a different story. One of the things going in my favour was that few people were ever going to think me capable of mass murder, which probably wasn't something to brag about, but was at least useful.

I lit a cigarette, thinking there was nothing to hold me back from running. This whole thing wasn't just going to go away. Not now. The investigating officers were going to keep sniffing around until they had the information they wanted. Then, one way or another, they were going to pull me in. And if Jean Ashcroft heard about any of this, she was likely to tell the cops about Danny, and then the shit really would hit the fan.

Danny. I'd tried his mobile again when I'd left the hospital, hoping he'd pick it up and tell me he was sitting on the beach sipping a pina colada, but it had still been switched off. I tried it again now, dragging on my cigarette as I waited vainly for a response. The longer he didn't respond to calls, the more I was forced to conclude that something bad had happened, and this left another problem. Raymond and his associates didn't need to keep me alive either. If they too got wind of what was going on they would definitely come for me – if they weren't coming already. Either way, my future looked grim so long as I stayed put.

But running away from everything – my career, my life: it was a big step. And then there was Carla Graham. Maybe she didn't want anything serious, but it was just possible that I could change that. Amid all this, she was the only positive thing keeping me going.

I picked up my mobile and thought about calling her. I was aware I might piss her off, but events were moving too rapidly for me to sit back and be patient. If she rejected me now it wasn't actually going to make a great deal of difference. I stared at the phone for maybe ten seconds, then put it down. I'd wait until tomorrow.

I finished my cigarette, then went up to the bar to get another drink. Joan was still chatting to the middle-aged man, and they were laughing like old friends, though you could tell from the way she excused herself from the conversation that they didn't actually know each other.

'What can I get you, Dennis?' she asked, before turning back to the guy. 'You see this bloke here?' she said, meaning me. 'Changes his drink all the time. You can never tell what he's going to have. Isn't that right, Dennis?'

'A man should never be too predictable,' I told her, and ordered a bottle of Pils, as if to prove the point.

As she turned away to get it, I gave the guy a brief smile. He smiled back awkwardly, then looked away. I noticed he was drinking Coke. Suspicious in a place like this, but not unheard of.

Another youngish couple came in and I found myself eyeing them closely. She sat down at a table near the bar and removed her hat and scarf, appearing not to notice me. Her boyfriend/ colleague approached the bar and I turned away and paid for my drink, careful not to draw attention to myself. Joan asked me if I was dealing with the case of the old lady who was mugged. She told me that the victim was the mother of one of her former regulars. I told her I wasn't, but that I thought there might be arrests soon. 'It was kids who did it, and kids always end up giving themselves away. They can never keep their mouths shut.'

'Little bastards,' she said. 'They should bloody hang 'em.'

Which were probably the sentiments of 80 per cent of the population, not that it would ever make any difference. Usually, at this point, I'd have put on my police hat and tried to convince both myself and my audience that the perpetrators would end up receiving their just punishments, but this time I didn't bother. They wouldn't.

'Don't ever rely on the courts for justice, Joan,' I told her. 'They're afraid of it.' I turned to Coke Drinker. 'Isn't that right?'

'I never talk politics,' he answered, without looking me in the eye. 'It's too easy to make enemies.'

'Well, someone should do something about it,' Joan grumbled, and went off to serve the guy who'd just come to the bar.

I didn't bother returning to my seat but drank my beer quickly and in silence. When I'd finished I looked for Joan but she'd disappeared out the back. I nodded to Coke Drinker, who nodded vaguely back in my direction, and walked out.

The cold spell from Siberia had well and truly arrived, and an icy wind ripped through the narrow street. I pulled my coat tight around me and started walking, occasionally looking back. The parked cars lining both sides were empty and no-one came out of the Chinaman behind me.

After about fifty yards I turned into a side street and waited in the shadows, shivering against the cold, telling myself I was a fool because if they were following me it would only confirm what I already suspected, and would make no difference to my predicament.

But still I stood there. Five minutes passed. Then ten. A car came by slowly with two men in it, but I couldn't make them out properly. It carried on and accelerated away at the end of the street.

An icy rain began to fall and I broke cover, heading for home, but keeping to the shadows, not knowing who was going to be waiting for me when I got there.