Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries 6

Well, we’ll see.

They say the drinking doesn’t help either. I should stop it. Just feeds it.

We’ll see.

They say that if I could just stop living out this fantasy life and get on with the real one then that would be something. That would be progress.

We’ll see.

She got her key out, tried to put it in the lock, dropped it. She bent down.

And then he was on the doorstep with her. Tony. The cunt. Mouth open, hands going, talking to her, explaining something. Couldn’t hear what, didn’t matter. Didn’t want to know.

And then his hands were on her. Grabbing her shoulders, his voice raised.

The cards I had printed. Threat Management. That’s what they said. Got them done at a machine at Elephant and Castle shopping centre. Threat Management, that’s what they say. Then my name. And a contact phone number. The pub’s. Haven’t got one of my own.

He grabbed her, pushed her up against the door. Her bag dropped on the ground. His arms were on her shoulders, holding hard. A blur of something dark and shiny flashed between them. Tony looked down, found the blade in his fist. Her body went towards his, his mouth was up against her ear. Saying something to her. Something unpleasant. They struggled, like two reluctant dancers. Locked together, they moved towards the side of the block of flats, like he was dragging her off.

That second night in the pub. On her own. Said she needed someone to take care of something for her. Someone she could trust.

Threat management.

Tony. The one who gave her the broken arm. Who thought women were there to do what he wanted. Who couldn’t take no for an answer. Who claimed they were never an item in the first place but couldn’t accept it when she dumped him. Who threatened to hurt her even more.

Hurt her bad.

Wanted someone to do that to him.

And once he was gone she would be grateful. Very grateful.

I was out of the bushes, adrenalin pumping the stiffness out of my legs, straight on him. My arm round his neck, his head in a tight lock, I pulled hard as I could, cutting off his air supply. He choked and gurgled. I pulled harder. Got my mouth close to his ear, said something unpleasant of my own.

He kept struggling.

With my other hand I grabbed for the knife, twisted him round. Saw fear in his eyes. Knew that feeling well. Had enough of that in the army. When you’re up against something you don’t know, something that could kill you. For me it was in Basra in Iraq. It was shellshock. It was anger. It was things I did there that I know will haunt me till I die. What I got thrown out of the army for. For him it was someone bigger and harder than him when he was only used to hurting girls.

He let her go. Now it was just him and me.

I heard her voice.

Take him… do it…

I twisted his hand, felt something snap. He dropped the knife. Gave a strangled gasp. I still had him round the throat, didn’t want to let him get away. I pulled harder. Even in the darkness I could see him start to change colour.

I started to pull him away. Just like we planned. Into the bushes round the back of the flats, give him a talking to, get a bit heavy, teach him a lesson. Threat management. Dead easy. I started to drag him away.

Didn’t get very far.

Because she was there, in front of him, on his chest. Calling him stuff that I would never have imagined she would ever say, stuff even I wouldn’t say out loud.

Hissing at him, her voice low, like liquid hate pouring out of her mouth. I was stunned, she was like a whole different person. An angry, nasty, venomous one. I didn’t know her.

The gurgling sound in his throat changed tone. I looked down. She had the knife in both hands and it was buried in his chest, right up to the hilt. Blood pooling round it, running down, staining through his clothes.

She stepped back, stared. Smiled. It wasn’t pretty.

I didn’t know what to do, I was too stunned to react. I left go of him, let him drop. He crumpled to the ground.

Ambulance… I said. Oh, Jesus Christ, call a fucking ambulance…

She gave me a look, shook her head with a look on her face like she was laughing at sadness, then ran inside the block of flats.

I looked at him. Felt helpless. No phone, like I said. Just stood there, with this bloke I didn’t know but was supposed to hate because she had said so, watching the life drain out of him, his face wet with tears and rain.

He flopped and squirmed, like a fish hooked out of water and gasping, trying to get its gills to work properly and failing.

I don’t know how long I stood there. But it didn’t seem long before the sirens arrived. Police and ambulance. The works. Suppose I should have felt important.

She came out of the flat then. In tears. Looked like her old self, the one I had enjoyed being with so much. The pretty one, beautiful and vulnerable.

The one I absolutely, honestly, hadn’t fallen in love with.

I heard her talking to the police. Picked out words.

Delusional.

Alcoholic.

Dangerous. Anger management issues.

Mental problems.

I said nothing. Just stared at her. Stood there in the rain with my parka hood up, face in shadow like some horror movie monk.

Threat management. I could have laughed.

She was a solicitor. A legal mouthpiece.

I forgot that.

She was clever.

They put me in the car. I let them. No sense in arguing. Drove me to the station, processed me, stuck me in an interview room. I told them everything. Everything I’ve said here.

Well, they listened, I’ll give them that.

Then they went out. Left me.

And here I am. I don’t know when they’ll be back, but it doesn’t matter. Because I know what they’ll do with me. I know what’s going to happen. And it’s nothing like the future I was planning a few days ago.

The fantasy future. If anything was delusional, that was.

So what can I do now? Nothing.

But at least I’ve told the truth. I didn’t make it up.

Honest.

I’ve told it exactly how it happened. Exactly.

So I suppose that’s something. I suppose that’s progress.

Robbie Trevine saw Mary Linnet before she saw him. She was standing under the archway, tucked in the angle between the wall and a trolley laden with corded boxes. She wore a dark cloak that belonged to her mother, and she had drawn up the hood, holding it across her face with her hand. Her fingers were white and thin, like bones.

Two trains had recently come in, one of them Robbie’s, and people hurried through the archway to the city of Bristol beyond. He wriggled through a group of soldiers, arrogant in scarlet and gold, and touched her on the arm. She flinched and pulled away, jarring her shoulder on the wall. She glared at him as if he were a stranger.

“Mary, what is it? It’s me.”

“Creeping up like that! You scared the life out of me!”

“What are you doing? Collecting?”

“No.” She looked away. “Not today.”

Sometimes Mary collected money for the Rodney Place Missionary Society, though usually she took her box up the hill to Clifton or down to Queen’s Square, where the pickings were better because the people were rich enough to afford to be generous. Sometimes she was sent further afield, to Bath or Chippenham or Swindon. The railways had made the world smaller, more manageable.

“So why are you here?” Robbie asked.

“Taking the air.”

“Here? At Temple Meads?”

“Why not? The doctor brought a nurse, Mrs. Allardyce. She’s sitting with Ma.”

“How is she?”

“No better. Worse, if anything. And what are you doing here?”