But as Langfranc said it, Jac’s first thought was Durrant. After all, Durrant’s fate had been the main purpose of the set-up: to get him off the scene. ‘Will I get bail?’
‘I don’t know, Jac. I’ll try, obviously. But running off with the gun and hiding it hasn’t helped. And your work-visa situation, too, is going to make it tricky — the fact that you’re not an American citizen. DA will protest like all hell that you could flee.’
Jac had worked with Langfranc long enough to read a ‘No’; Langfranc just didn’t want to come flat out and say it. Like everything else so far and no doubt from here on in, he’d be let down softly, in stages.
Only eleven days left now until Durrant’s execution. ‘I just can’t leave Durrant hanging now, John. Not when I’m so close.’
‘Durrant?’ Langfranc’s voice was incredulous, cracking slightly. ‘You won’t be able to do anything to help him now, Jac. You’ll be lucky to save yourself from sharing the cell right next to him, way things stand now.’
‘I can’t come in, if I’m not going to get bail — don’t you see? He’ll be dead before half this is sorted out — if it ever is.’
‘It’s not just the bail, Jac.’ Langfranc’s voice was stretched; the tone Jac had heard him adopt with difficult clients. ‘Beaton’s going to drop you from the firm quicker than a hot potato soon as he gets wind of all this. You won’t be able to represent Durrant in any case.’
Jac heard Langfranc, but another part of his brain quickly rejected it; the part in denial, still stuck on everything he had planned before it had happened. ‘There’s the BOP hearing tomorrow, and I’ve got that psychiatrist, Ormdern, visiting Durrant a few hours after. I’ve got to be there for those. And, don’t you see — that’s why they’ve done this now. They’ve heard about Ormdern’s visit, and are worried that I might be getting too close.’
‘You can’t be there, Jac. I can’t say it plainer than that.’ Tired, worn tone; shifted deftly from ‘difficult clients’ to ‘insane’. ‘And who the hell are they?’
‘Roche and his henchman, guy called Nelson Malley. Remember, I told you the other day about him following me — the photos that Bob Stratton took?’
‘Yeah, yeah. I remember now.’ Langfranc rubbed his forehead. The Durrant case had gone through so many hurdles that, with his own heavy caseload, at times Langfranc found it difficult to keep track.
Jac continued, ‘I’m convinced they’re behind this now. And, in turn, I’m more convinced than ever that they somehow set Larry Durrant up. That’s the link between the two, right there, don’t you see? The perfect set-up.’
Part of Jac’s thinking came across as totally rational, Langfranc considered; the other part now firing on odd cylinders at wild tangents, totally irrational.
‘Perhaps that’s something you could share with Lieutenant Derminget when you see him,’ Langfranc said, still trying desperately to reel Jac in. Appeal to the rational side. ‘Feed him everything you’ve got. Hopefully save your neck and Durrant’s at the same time.’
Silence from Jac for a moment, as if he was seriously contemplating it, before exhaling tiredly. ‘No, no… it wouldn’t work. There’s still too much for me to piece together — and this Lieutenant Whatever is not going to do all that for me. And I can’t do it while I’m locked up. I need to be out there.’
Langfranc lost his last shred of patience then. ‘Jac, Jac! You’re just not thinking straight! Any minute now there’s going to be an all-points out for you, and you won’t even be able to go to your local seven-eleven without being arrested — let alone walk into a maximum security penitentiary to see Durrant. So how the hell are you going to be able to help him then?’
‘I don’t know, I… I…’ Jac could feel the options — practically feel the cell walls — closing in on him as Langfranc spoke. ‘I need time to think. Get my head clear.’
‘That’s the other problem, Jac — we don’t have much time.’
‘How long?’
‘Derminget originally gave me an hour to talk you in, Jac. But then when the lab came back with the news that it was your prints on the gun, all bets were suddenly off, and — ’
‘How long?’
‘He cut it to half-an-hour, Jac.’ Langfranc sighed heavily. ‘And I’ve used fifteen minutes of that getting back home. He phoned about the prints as I was pulling up outside. And, of course, the six or eight minutes we’ve now been talking. He’s expecting me to literally call right back after talking to you — he wants to know whether you’re coming in, or whether he’s got to set the dogs loose. Put out an APB and feed your photo to local news stations and newspapers.’
‘Photo?’ Barely a gasp. A cramp in his chest made it suddenly hard to breathe.
‘Yeah. They dug one out when they searched your apartment.’
Jac closed his eyes, the continuing freefall now making him feel dizzy, as if he’d lost all orientation of where he was. Closing in. Spending that very night in a cell? It seemed ludicrous, unreal. Though at least from visiting Durrant, he thought sourly, he now knew what that might be like; and the many more nights that would no doubt follow. An icy chill ran down Jac’s spine, though his skin felt hot, clammy, the motel room walls suddenly pressing in; the same hot-flushed claustrophobia that had gripped him when he’d first walked Libreville’s corridors. And now only minutes to make up his mind. Jac swallowed hard, his throat suddenly tight, his voice strained.
‘I… I hear what you’re saying, John, loud and clear. But I just can’t be locked up for the next eleven days — can’t you see that,? Isn’t there some sort of deal that can be cut?’
‘Deal, Jac?’ Langfranc exclaimed, breathless disbelief. ‘I was lucky to get even this from Derminget — the chance to be able to talk to you first. If he’d got his way, he’d have-’
‘One minute, John,’ Jac cut in as a knock came on his door. Holding the receiver away, he called out, ‘Yes, what is it?’
‘Sorry to trouble you, Mr… Mr Teale.’ Desk clerk. Jac had paid cash and signed in as Archie Teale. ‘But I was wondering if you could tell me if you want a paper tomorrow morning, or coffee or tea brought up — because your door-handle card’s not here.’
‘I’ll mark it and put it out later,’ Jac shouted. Jac brought the receiver back to continue with John Langfranc, but he could tell that the desk clerk was still there, as if waiting on something else. And, as Jac listened more intently, the hairs rose on the back of his neck as he heard other muted, mumbling voices in the background. Jac kept his voice low to Langfranc: ‘Are you sure this detective said he’d wait until you’d spoken to him?’
‘Sure as can be, Jac.’ But at the back of Langfranc’s mind something niggled uneasily from Derminget’s mention of hopefully catching a late news bulletin, ‘If McElroy wasn’t going to come in’. ‘Why? What’s happening?’
‘I’m not sure, I — ’
A heavier rapping came then, a booming voice in its wake. ‘Police, Mr Teale. NOPD. We need to clarify something with you, sir.’
Jac’s stomach leapt into his throat. He found it hard to swallow, his voice croaky as he shouted, ‘One minute!’ Then, to Langfranc, an under-the-breath hiss. ‘This doesn’t look to me like he’s waiting!’
‘Shiiit! Swear on my life, Jac — he promised. But look, now that they’re there — just stay calm, do what they say. Don’t do anything rash. And don’t say too much.’ Langfranc’s words urged calm, but his staccato delivery screamed panic. ‘Before you’ve even drawn breath at the station house, I’ll be right there to cover the bases.’
Jac’s whole body started to shake, and he only half-heard Langfranc’s words beyond a sudden buzzing in his head. Closing in. His eyes darted frantically between the door and the window.