Reginald Hill - Midnight Fugue

And then by one act of stupidity, by a joy-fuelled desire to give thanks, to pour a libation, he had put everything at risk. In that first life, the gods had destroyed him. In this second life, he had come close to destroying himself.

But it was still possible to restore the balance. Gidman was a pragmatist. Once he understood there was more danger in pursuing his prey than leaving it alone, he would call off his hunters. All he had to do was get that message to him, and he knew just the man to act as messenger. But first of all he had to make sure the Delays got the message too, and with Vince still in his devout oriental position, he’d made a pretty good start with that.

Then Gina screamed, ‘Alex!’ and he shifted his gaze and his heartbeat stuttered in fear as he found himself looking at a creature like an escapee from Dr Who with a high polished skull and black staring eyes in a face perfectly white except for the twin rivulets of red streaming from its nostrils.

It took a moment to recognize this as the woman he’d bowled over, dislodging her wig; and another to register that she was holding her brother’s shotgun.

He stood up and stepped away from Gina, partly to keep her out of the firing line, and partly to offer a moving target, though at this range and with this weapon, it wasn’t going to be easy to miss.

He said, ‘Fleur, Miss Delay, there’s no need for this. Ring Goldie, it’s all being taken care of…’ but even as he spoke he knew that yet again he’d let the chance of happiness slip through his fingers and not all the honeyed songs of Orpheus would be enough to soothe this wild beast.

Hendrix was singing ‘Castles Made of Sand’, but at the sight of this new visitor, Goldie Gidman did not hesitate to switch him off.

‘Mick! Good to see you. It’s been a long time. You’re looking well. Sit down, have a cigar.’

‘No thanks, Goldie. Gave up a long time ago.’

Purdy looked at the man seated in a deep leather swivel chair set in front of the huge TV screen. He hadn’t seen him in the flesh for some time. Not a lot had changed. A few more pounds on his belly, a crisping of frost on his tight-curled hair, but he still created the same impression of controlled menace.

‘Fell for the health propaganda, huh?’ said Gidman with a laugh. ‘Flo’s got me dieting, but I won’t give up my smokes. It’s all bull, Mick. You ever notice it’s always the good shit that’s bad for you? Them bible-punchers got this government by the short and curlies. Iran thinks it’s a religious state, they should come here!’

‘That going to figure in the next Tory manifesto, Goldie?’

Gidman laughed again and said, ‘Now how’d I know about that? Politics I leave to the boy. Sorry he couldn’t be around to make your better acquaintance, Mick. Heard you got off on the wrong foot at that committee thing. He’s had to take off with Flo down to Broadstairs. Her sister’s taken bad. Flo’s real worried. Me, I hope the cow snuffs it. Never did take to Flo marrying a nigger. Came round a bit when I got rich and respectable, but I got a long memory.’

‘Everyone’s got long memories since they invented computers, Goldie. I can remember when you had some very bad habits. I shouldn’t like to think you’re falling back into them.’

‘Sure you won’t have a cigar? You won’t mind if I do? This is the only room in the house Flo let’s me smoke in, can you believe that? She got smoke alarms fitted everywhere else so’s the fire brigade will come running the minute I light up. Even got a specially sensitive one over our bed in case I should even dream of daring to smoke in there when she ain’t around.’

He carefully snipped off the end of a cigar and went on, ‘But I know how to turn it off, Mick. That’s the secret to enjoying life, Not having no problems, nobody can manage that; but knowing how to turn them off, that’s the trick. Wouldn’t you agree, Mick?’

He put the cigar in his mouth. Slingsby, who’d followed Purdy into the room and taken up his stance by the door, came forward with a book of matches, struck one and moved it gently under the cigar’s end.

‘Never use a lighter, Mick,’ said Gidman between puffs. ‘You want a gentle flame for fine tobacco. Too sharp a flame and you start a bad reaction. Just enough and you get that slow, relaxing burn. There we go. Thank you, Sling.’

’I’m here to talk about Gina,’ said Purdy.

‘Gina? We’re talking Lollobrigida here?’

‘Don’t fuck about, Goldie. What the hell are you playing at?’

Gidman drew on his cigar and let out a long sigh of smoky satisfaction.

‘Not sure what you’re getting at, Mick.’

‘I’m getting at you faking a photo to get Gina shooting off to Yorkshire looking for her missing husband. And don’t give me that old-fashioned bewildered look. I know your pet pair of psychos are up there looking too. And I know they’ve managed to kill one guy and put a female cop in hospital.’

‘That’s a lot of interesting stuff you know, Mick,’ said Gidman. ‘Let’s suppose just for the sake of argument that I did send Fleur and that creepy brother of hers to have a little chat with DI Wolfe, if that’s where he turns out to be. What’s your problem? You got twice as many reasons as me for not wanting Wolfe to come back from the dead.’

‘How do you work that out?’

Another long puff. The atmosphere in the room was getting a bluey-grey tinge.

‘Well,’ said Goldie, ‘we both might have reasons to be a tad worried in case he started saying bad things about us. But at least I ain’t fucking his wife.’

Purdy took a step towards the man in the chair. He didn’t hear Slingsby move but suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder.

‘That’s right, Sling, get Mick a chair. I think he’s a bit overwrought, he needs to sit down.’

A chair was pushed against the back of his legs and he sank into it.

He breathed in deeply, grimaced at the taste of the smoke, and said in a low hard voice, ‘Goldie, what you do about Alex is your own affair, but I don’t want that pair anywhere near Gina. What the fuck do you think you’re playing at, doing this without reference to me?’

‘First off, didn’t realize you were so serious about the woman. Thought you were just pleasuring yourself there till something better came along. I recall way back when Wolfe went missing, it was you told us all everything you knew about him that might help put us on his trail. Including that stuff he told you when you were pissed one night about the games him and whatser-name, Gina, liked to play. That came in very useful getting her up there to winkle him out. She still like to play that plucky little trooper game, Mick?’

Purdy began to rise, but his buttocks hadn’t got more than a couple of inches off the chair before he felt Sling’s hand on his shoulder once more, this time accompanied by the touch of cold sharp steel at his jugular.

‘Take it easy, Mick,’ said Gidman. ‘Don’t mean to offend you. I consider you a friend. Always have done. That’s why I made no fuss when you made it clear way back we were done, you’d chosen the path of righteousness and wanted to bury the past. I felt the same, Mick. That’s why I respected your choice. You never had to look over your shoulder and see me there, right?’

‘You were there when they set up Macavity,’ said Purdy accusingly.

‘Come on, Mick. I knew that wasn’t the kind of operation you were into. But no harm in ringing up an old friend and asking him if he could think of anyone might be interested in keeping me up to date with what was going on. And you gave me DI Wolfe. No pressure. You just gave him up.’

‘And I’ve regretted it every day since,’ said Purdy quietly.