‘Jesus.’ Jumping up from the wall, Kelvin Douglas reflexively reached for his empty weapon. There was a gentle pop and he went sprawling face down into the gutter.
Marv’s not going to be pleased at all. Staring into the middle distance, McGilroy let his eyes lose their focus. Keeping his breathing under control, he concentrated on turning his body to stone.
‘Boss? Boss, are you there?’ The words finally began to penetrate Marvin Taylor’s brain and he jolted himself awake, sending the half-read magazine sliding out of his lap and under the van’s steering column. Hell. How long had he been dozing? What would happen if the bloody clients had seen? Fumbling with the radio, he hit the Call button.
‘Yes?’ he said tersely, trying to hide the grogginess in his voice. ‘What is it?’
James McGilroy’s response was equally terse. ‘We’ve got company.’
‘What?’
‘Contact.’
What? The fog from Marvin’s brain refused to clear. It was dark now. The street in front of him was deserted. ‘Repeat,’ he demanded. But McGilroy did not respond. Instead there was a burst of static from the radio, followed by the soft click of the van’s passenger door opening. Someone slipped into the seat beside him and Marvin felt something going round his neck. Dropping his head to his chest, he gulped as a thin strand of wire tightened against his skin. His brain was screaming at him to fight but his arms would not move. Marvin’s eyes teared up as the wire gently cut into his flesh. How far would they go? Would his head come right off? Gritting his teeth, he willed his last thoughts to be of his daughter, asleep in her bed.
What do you call a crazy chicken?
Closing his eyes, he brought up an image of her earlier in the day, in the supermarket, laughing at his crap joke. Was this dying happy? he wondered. It was as close as he was going to get.
THREE
‘For God’s sake, will you stop coughing? Are you not taking something for that?’
Scratching at his stubble, Alexander Carlyle looked at his son apologetically before launching into another machine-gun bark. It was a relentless, rasping cough that sounded like he was going to deliver his lungs up onto the table at any second. The couple at the next table looked at the old man nervously before turning away.
Lifting his shot glass, Inspector John Carlyle sincerely wished he was still at work. Criminals could be a pain in the arse, but at least he could park them in cells and go home. And they were nowhere near as emotionally draining as his father.
After his mother had died, Carlyle had hoped he would have a more ‘normal’, less stressful relationship with his old man. Instead, he felt more and more like Harry H. Corbett in Steptoe and Son, the frustrated offspring of a hopeless parent. Finishing his whiskey, he gestured towards the half-full pint of Guinness in his father’s hand. ‘Get the rest of that down you,’ he ordered, ‘and I’ll get another round in.’
Alexander placed his free hand over the top of his glass. ‘I’m fine,’ he croaked, before embarking on another extended bout of coughing.
Carlyle scowled as he got to his feet, convinced that at least half of the drinkers in the Princess Louise were now staring at them. ‘Are you sure?’ he enquired, once his father finally got his latest round of barking under control. ‘I’m having one.’ Or maybe two.
‘To be honest, son, I’ve kind of lost the taste for it.’
‘Suit yourself.’ Fumbling in his pocket for some change, Carlyle limped towards the bar. Two days earlier, during one of his increasingly rare visits to the gym, he had sprained his ankle, leaving him hardly able to walk. The sudden, embarrassing incapacity had done nothing to improve his mood.
‘You should get that seen to,’ his father called after him, drawing on all the wisdom of his many years on the planet, ‘before you do yourself some permanent damage.’
You don’t say. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Carlyle hobbled faster. While waiting to catch the barmaid’s eye, he watched the TV at the end of the bar. On the small screen, he could make out the rolling news ticker. A young reporter – they all looked young these days – was broadcasting live from outside a block of flats less than a mile away. Down an alley, behind the oh-so-familiar police tape, there had been some kind of fatal altercation. Details about what had happened were still sketchy, but it seemed to revolve around a dispute between local residents who, as the TV man put it, ‘were not thought to be UK nationals’.
‘Bloody foreigners,’ Carlyle muttered, only half-joking, ‘forcing up property prices and bringing mayhem to the streets.’
Returning to the table with a double Jameson’s – and a half of the black stuff for the old man, just in case – he was dismayed to see his father still struggling to control his cough. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, belatedly trying to show a bit of compassion. ‘Is it the flu?’
‘Don’t know, son,’ Alexander replied, taking a quick sip from his previous pint during a brief lull in the coughing. ‘Had it a while. Been feeling a bit under the weather since the turn of the year.’
‘But that’s been months.’
‘Aye.’
Carlyle looked his father up and down. He was getting on, no question about it, but his health had always been good. And, after Carlyle’s mother had divorced him, he had taken to the single life with a surprising gusto. Still, it was clear that he was now nearing his sell-by date.
Looks like he’s lost a bit of weight; maybe a bit pale. Definitely tired.
How big was their age difference? Carlyle did the calculation. Twenty-three, twenty-four years? Something like that. It wasn’t such a lot when you thought about it. Carlyle realized that he was looking at a picture of himself in the not too distant future and the thought weighed down on him like a concrete slab sitting on his chest.
‘Been to see the GP?’
‘Nah. I’ll be fine.’
‘Dad.’
‘You know what it’s like,’ his father protested. ‘They’ll give you a few tests and tell you to stop smoking.’
Carlyle frowned. ‘But you don’t smoke.’
‘Exactly. The doctor’s a nice lad – quite a bit younger than you – but I don’t like going to the surgery. It’s depressing.’
I know what you mean. ‘You should go, just to be on the safe side.’
Alexander gestured under the table with his glass. ‘Anyway, have you been to see the GP?’
‘Me?’
‘About your foot?’
‘No, but-’
‘Exactly.’
The argument was ended by another bout of coughing. Sitting in sullen silence, Carlyle retreated into his drink. His father could be a stubborn sod – in a passive-aggressive kind of way – and he had never bought into the idea that he could take advice from his son.
Letting a mouthful of Jameson’s linger on his tongue, Carlyle decided that he would need to consult Helen on this one. His wife had always had Alexander’s measure, striking the right balance of daughter-in-law deference and no-nonsense female authority. Finishing his whiskey, he contemplated ordering another. Across the table, his father nibbled ineffectively at the remains of his pint, the fresh half still sitting untouched on the table. It was time to change the subject. ‘I was wondering if you might fancy coming to the Cottage next weekend?’ Father and son had been going to see Fulham together since Carlyle was six. They had given up their season tickets a few years ago but still went to see three or four games a season.