Джеймс Паттерсон - Revenge

Sure enough, the go was given and they clambered into the van: Gurney driving, Bennett shotgun, Shelley and Drake in the back. They sat on pull-down seats on springs, settling in for what during the daytime would be a long journey from Berkshire to the south of London, but at just after 11 p.m. would take them little over an hour.

There were no windows in the van, which only increased Shelley’s sense of being cocooned with Drake, who sat opposite with a look that was weary, doughy, and hangdog, but determined. Once again Shelley became aware of Drake’s grief and how it had calcified into something far more poisonous.

“Guy,” said Shelley over the throb of the engine. Drake looked sharply at him. “I meant what I said. You can still stop this.”

It was gloomy in the back of the van and Shelley wasn’t sure if he read correctly the look that flitted across Drake’s face. It looked like contempt. Maybe even something worse.

“Do what, Shelley? You think I should chicken out of smashing a few computers, do you? I thought you had more gumption, man. I thought there was a bit more to you than that. Maybe I misjudged you, eh?”

“Did Susie? Did Emma?”

“How would I know? This much I can say. If not for Susie you wouldn’t be here.”

“You should be grateful she cares. She just wants to protect you. We both do.”

Drake looked away, unwilling to accept the truth. “She hangs on to you, Shelley. You know that? She thinks of you as some kind of lucky charm. But you’re not, are you? You’re just an old soldier, like them two turkeys up front. Just trying to make a bit of cash out of fellas like me. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? With them two there, Susie hardly gives them the time of day. But you ,” he pointed for emphasis, “you’re some kind of talisman for her. You know why?”

Shelley shook his head. He found he was holding his breath, unsure if he wanted to hear what was coming next.

“Because of what you did, saving them from the kidnap. She practically idolizes you. So did our Emma. You were their hero, Shelley, you know that?”

Again Shelley shook his head, feeling a mix of relief and fresh hurt.

“Oh yeah. You were. And what do you know? On the day she killed herself she called you. Emma rang you. She didn’t ring us, did you know that? She didn’t bother to call her parents before she put that gun in her mouth. Just you.

“That makes you important to Susie. That Emma was reaching out to you then. That’s what she called it, ‘reaching out.’ But that’s Susie for you, wanting to find the good, always looking for that positive angle.

“Me, I just feel hurt. I wanted to know why Emma needed to hear the voice of some bloke who was her bodyguard fourteen bloody years ago— fourteen bloody years —and not the voice of her own father.”

In the dim light Shelley saw the tears of rage and frustration plotting a course down Drake’s cheeks, but he couldn’t find words of support or condolence. Instead he said, “Why did she call me?”

Drake sniffed, embarrassed by his tears, wiping them away. “You what?”

“You’re dead right. What was she doing calling me?”

“Like I say, because she had you on a pedestal, didn’t she? You were her knight in shining bleedin’ armor.”

“Really?” said Shelley. To his own ears he sounded as though he were playing devil’s advocate, but as he spoke it began to sound more plausible. “How much did she talk about me?”

“She cried for a bloody week, mate, when you left,” said Drake bitterly, but Shelley pushed on.

“No, I mean, over the years—how much did she talk about me?”

“Susie often—”

“Not Susie—Emma.”

“I don’t know.” Drake’s jowls shook. “Every now and then, I suppose.”

“So not much, in other words.” He leaned forward with a fizz of sudden realization. “It doesn’t really make any sense, does it, her calling me? Maybe to you and me fourteen years seems like yesterday, but she was only ten at the time of the kidnap attempt. By the time she was thirteen, ten years old would have seemed like a lifetime ago. It’s not false modesty, I’m sure she thought fondly of me. But enough to make me the one she called on the day she decided to kill herself ? It doesn’t quite make sense to me.”

He didn’t mention the gun that only had one bullet in it. He didn’t wonder aloud why if Emma was a smack addict she didn’t use smack to end her own life.

But those questions were still lodged in his head, not planning on going anywhere soon.

“She loved you, Guy,” he said, and saw Drake bite his lip. “She did. She properly loved you and she loved Susie, and if she was going to kill herself—if she needed someone to talk to, it would have been you.”

“So why wasn’t it?”

“Think about it . . .”

“Stop pissing about and say what you’ve got to say.”

“Okay,” said Shelley, “maybe she wasn’t going to kill herself.”

“But she did—there’s film of her doing it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Shelley shook his head with frustration, “but there’s more than one way to skin a cat, know what I mean? Or . . . I don’t know, maybe she didn’t plan to.” He was thinking now, the idea taking hold. “Maybe she discovered something—something that she wanted to tell someone, and that someone was me—and then she killed herself.”

Drake was looking at him with an unreadable expression. Shelley wondered what was least painful: the idea that your daughter took her own life, or that someone did it for her? Either way, it was better to know the truth. Wasn’t that what Guy himself had said?

They were close to Docklands now. Had to be. Perhaps Drake realized the same. He reached down behind his feet and picked up his baseball bat, winding his gloved fingers around the handle.

“Guy,” he said, trying to draw him out of his reverie. “Listen, mate, listen to me, right. Where we’re going—there may be someone there who knows something about Emma’s death. There might be a way of getting answers. Guy?”

No reply from Drake.

The van slowed and the engine noise changed as Gurney hit the brake and downshifted.

“We just need to change our approach here. We might be able to discover what happened to Emma . . . Guy?”

Drake looked at Shelley, a haunting, heartbreaking intensity in his stare. “I couldn’t help myself, Shelley,” he said.

“What do you mean? Couldn’t help yourself do what?”

“I watched the film of her. I watched her do it. You’re sitting there talking about what, and how, and maybe this and maybe that. It doesn’t fucking matter. None of it. Because I watched her sit in that slutty room and put a gun in her mouth and pull the trigger. So you say, ‘Oh, Guy, we might be able to find out what happened to her?’ I know what happened to her. That’s what happened to her. And now they’re going to pay.”

CHAPTER 26

THEY PASSED THROUGH tunnels. The sound of the van changed as they negotiated roundabouts.

Word came back. “We’re approaching the building,” called Bennett, “you might want to put on those balaclavas. Gurney will park close to a side door, just as we discussed. Let’s assume we need to use the big key.” It lay at Drake and Shelley’s feet. The words “knock knock” had been painted on it in white. “Leave that to Gurney.”

The driver chuckled. “I’m an old hand at it.”

“Remember what we said,” warned Shelley, telling the whole van but keeping a close eye on Drake, unnerved by what he’d just heard. “Nobody gets hurt. Damage is limited to computers and cameras.”

“Roger that,” said Bennett, and as Shelley rolled down his balaclava, adjusted the eye holes, watching Drake do the same, he wondered if he should be concerned that neither Drake nor Gurney had replied.