Питер Мэй - Lockdown

He wondered what someone like Kazinski was doing with Flight’s business card in his wallet, or what his connection had been with the Black Ice Club. The only thing that linked them was extreme art, and Kazinski did not seem to MacNeil like either a connoisseur or a collector. He slipped the card into an inside pocket, zipped up the wallet and returned it to Kazinski’s jacket. He sat back against the wall again and pulled off the latex. His head was pounding less severely now, but he ran his hand down the side of his face and felt a swelling on his cheek and knew that he would be black and blue by morning.

He sat for several minutes before deciding to do something he would never have contemplated in another life. He was going to leave Kazinski there on the pavement. He was dead. There was nothing that could be done for him. And if MacNeil called it in, he would spend the rest of his shift tied up in red tape. In eight hours he would walk out of the door of Kennington Police Station for the last time. And if he hadn’t found the little girl’s killer by then, he was pretty sure no one else would. So there was no time for red tape. This investigation had become something of an obsession. And he was about to cross a line into uncharted territory. A world alien to him, outside of the law, where he would be all alone. With just his angry voice for company.

Pinkie cruised west on Piccadilly towards Hyde Park Corner. He kept his eyes on the red tail lights at the far end of the boulevard, the faintest of pinpricks shining back through the darkness ahead of him. He had extinguished his headlights, and could see perfectly well by the light of the streetlamps. If he was stopped by soldiers he would simply say he was trying to avoid attracting attention. Private vehicles were being attacked in the street by looters every night.

He had a niggling sense that all was not well, and suspected he might know where it was MacNeil was headed. Although how he could have made that connection was a mystery to him. Pinkie could not imagine that Kazinski would have told him.

Poor Kazinski. If only he had burned the bones as he had been paid to do, none of this would be happening. Pinkie would be at home, back in his real world life, where his mother would be preparing supper. Kazinski would still be alive. As would those kids in South Lambeth. And the old lady on the Isle of Dogs. All because the stupid little bastard hadn’t done what he promised he would do.

Pinkie shook his head. It was extraordinary. One simple failure, one unscripted act, and look at the chaos that ensued. Spiralling out of control. This is what happened when you didn’t see a job through to the end. How in the name of God was it all going to finish?

The mobile phone on the seat beside him began to ring. He reached across and pressed the green answer button and clamped it to his ear. ‘Hello?’

‘Hello, Pinkie, how’s it going?’ Mr Smith had such a restful voice. Pinkie could listen to it all day. Even though he knew it was just a veneer, a smoothing over of the turmoil beneath.

‘Kazinski’s dead, Mr Smith.’

He heard the pleasure in Mr Smith’s voice. ‘Well done, Pinkie. That should be an end of it, then.’

‘I hope so, Mr Smith.’

But Mr Smith clearly detected the reserve in Pinkie’s response. ‘Why do you only hope so, Pinkie?’

‘Because the cop got to him first. They had quite a tête-à-tête.’ That was French, Pinkie knew, and he wondered if Mr Smith would be impressed. ‘I don’t know what he told him. Could have been anything.’

Mr Smith was silent for a long time.

‘Hello? Mr Smith? Are you still there?’

‘Yes, I’m still here, Pinkie. What are you doing now?’

‘I’m following the cop. Looks like he might be heading for South Ken.’

Another silence, then, ‘Do you think he knows?’

‘I’ve no idea, Mr Smith.’ He paused. ‘Something odd, though.’

‘What’s that, Pinkie?’

‘He never called it in. Kazinski’s murder. Just left him lying there on the pavement.’

‘I think our Mr MacNeil might be a little out of control, Pinkie. Which could make him very dangerous.’

‘How do you mean, out of control? Why would he be out of control?’

‘It’s his last day, Pinkie. He quits the force at the end of his shift. And it’s been an emotional day for him. He lost his son.’

Pinkie frowned. ‘Lost his son?’

‘He died, Pinkie. The flu. Policemen’s kids are just as likely to get it as anyone else.’

‘Aw, shit.’ Pinkie focused on the distant pinpricks of red light, and now they signalled only grief. ‘That’s a shame, Mr Smith,’ he said. And meant it. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Keep following him, Pinkie. Do what you feel you have to. And keep me informed.’

Mr Smith hung up, and Pinkie felt unaccountably sad. He wondered how his own father might have felt if he had died of the flu when he was just a kid. If his father had known he existed. If he had known who his father was. His mother, he knew, would have been bereft.

Kids didn’t deserve to die. They hadn’t done enough bad things yet to deserve it. What harm had that poor little girl done anyone? None of it had been her fault, but she was the one that Mr Smith blamed. She’d got on his wrong side. And the wrong side of Mr Smith was not a good place to be.

Amy sat out on the metal balcony at the back of the apartment looking down on to the empty concourse below. It was cold, and she had a travelling rug wrapped around her shoulders to keep her warm. But the fresh air was good, and she had left the French windows open to let it blow through the top floor. The skull still smelled. And although she had wrapped it in several plastic bags and taken it down to the bottom landing, it had left an unpleasant odour lingering in the air.

She loved to sit out here on summer evenings, screened from the gaze of her neighbours by the wisteria she had trained to grow all around it. On long, lazy summer afternoons it was a sun trap, and in the evenings it was fanned by the cooling movement of the air. A delicious retreat from life, a place to forget.

Now the wisteria was naked and gnarled, providing no kind of a screen, and it was hard to believe that fresh growth would appear in the spring, cascades of lovely purple flowers falling all around the railings, drawing the first honeybees of the year in search of nectar. This was only her second winter since the accident, and that first year she had found November through March to be the hardest months. Cold days when you wanted to be out walking, striding out with the wind in your face, the cold sting of rain on your cheeks. Hurrying home for a bowl of hot soup, curtains drawn against the night, curled up on the settee with a good book and a glass of soft red wine.

And here she was, huddled bleakly in her wheelchair, cold and depressed and letting dark thoughts creep in to cloud her usual sunny disposition. Her heart bled for MacNeil, and wept for the memory of the young man who had died at the wheel of his car that fateful night just thirty months ago. The young man she was to have married. The young man whose baby she’d been carrying.

It had been just seven days since the test proved positive. They had already decided to marry, and so it was just one more reason for celebration. They couldn’t have been happier. Perhaps that’s why fate had dealt them such a cruel blow. They had dared to be so happy. Happier than anyone else they knew. Happiness had radiated from every pore. She had been so happy she glowed. She couldn’t stop smiling. Had anyone ever been happier in the history of the human race?

David had drunk only mineral water that night. He was driving, he said, and he had responsibilities now that he was to be a father. Amy had kept him company. She was pregnant. No alcohol for mum until after the baby was born. And then they could celebrate. Champagne to wet the baby’s head.