During this time, Harlan didn’t hear from Garrett. Not that he’d expected to after the precautions he’d taken to make sure he didn’t leave any physical evidence behind. Of course, there was always the chance someone had seen him hanging around Jones’s house, but if they had it was doubtful they’d be able to identify him. And even if they could identify him, it was unlikely they would, not considering how hated Jones was. The general consensus on the street was that the vigilante was the hero, not the villain.
Susan, it seemed, had been right when she’d said Neil could be trusted. Harlan was beginning to wonder if he was wasting his time following him. More than that, he was starting to feel bad about it. Jim’s words kept returning to him. He’s just some poor kid who got caught in this mess through no fault of his own. Harlan was on the point of accepting that this was precisely what Neil was, and no more, when the number 77 bus chugged into view again. As previously, Harlan had tailed Neil to Susan’s, then to the Baptist church. But unlike previously, this time Harlan saw him board the bus in his car’s rear-view mirror. A little spurt of adrenaline racing through his bloodstream, he tailed the bus, pulling over at an inconspicuous distance every time it did.
Harlan kept thinking about the woods at the end of the line — how easy it would be to hide a freshly dug grave under the thick layer of pine needles beneath the trees. But after only a couple of miles Neil disembarked. Harlan parked up and followed him on foot along a busy road flanked by exhaust stained terraced-houses, pubs, small shops, restaurants and takeaways. Neil entered a rundown bookies. ‘ACE RACING’ read the faded sign over its door. A heavily-built, bulldog-faced skinhead stood behind a plexi-glass screen at the rear of the bookies. Neil handed him some cash, which he counted out onto the counter, before pocketing. Harlan estimated there to be one or two hundred quid. He dodged out of sight into a shop as Neil exited the bookies. What was the cash for? This question was uppermost in his mind as he watched Neil cross to a bus-stop on the opposite side of the road. The most obvious answers were that Neil had either laid a bet or made a repayment on a line of gambling credit. But Harlan doubted for several reasons whether this was the case. For starters, the skinhead hadn’t given Neil a betting-slip or put the cash in the till, which meant the money wasn’t going through any official books. More significantly, if Neil was a serious gambler, there was no way the police wouldn’t have found traces of it on his financial history. There was another possibility, namely that Neil had paid off an instalment of a loan. Harlan knew from past experience that many bookies also ran a profitable sideline in illegal loan sharking.
As Neil waited for a number 77 to take him back into town, Harlan phoned Jim. “I need some information,” he told his ex-partner. “Ace Racing on the Penistone Road. Who owns it? What’s their story?”
“Never heard of it. I’ll make a few calls. Then I’ll get back to you. I assume this has got something to do with Ethan Reed.”
“Uh-huh.” Harlan hung up. He wanted to get a clearer picture before saying anything more. He was in his car, tailing the 77 when his phone rang. He put it on loud-speaker.
“Ace Racing’s owned by a guy called Gary Dawson,” said Jim. “Nasty piece of work, by all accounts. Got his fingers in a lot of pies — dog fighting, fencing stolen goods, loan sharking.”
“Has he got a record?”
“GBH, demanding money with menaces, handling stolen property — all the typical crap you’d expect from a character like him. So are you going to tell me what this is about? Dawson’s a scumbag, but he’s not exactly the type to be involved in something like this.”
Harlan hesitated. He wasn’t sure he wanted to tell Jim. He was pretty certain that the first thing Garrett would do once the information filtered back to him would be to haul Neil in and sweat him for a day or two. Harlan suspected this wouldn’t achieve anything besides putting Neil’s guard up. Under immense scrutiny, Neil had managed to lie successfully to Susan and the police. Whether that lie concerned gambling or illegal loans or both was beside the point. The point was that beneath his timid exterior there lurked a steely resolve that few, if any, others had detected. Harlan wondered what else was concealed in the shadows around and inside Neil. What hopes? What desires? What other secrets? And he figured that the best chance he had to find out was to keep tailing him.
“I tell you something, you tell me something. That was the deal,” said Jim.
“Trust me, Jim, I will tell you. I just need more time to work out what I’m on to here.”
Jim released a nasal sigh. “You’ve got two days, then I want to hear everything you’ve got.”
Harlan knew there wasn’t much chance of finding out the truth behind Neil’s lie in two day. Not unless he got lucky. “I need at least a week.”
“Four days. If I don’t hear from you after that, I’m going to do some digging myself. See if I can’t find out who owes Dawson what.”
Harlan smiled thinly. Jim might be getting a bit past it, but he was still a shrewd operator. From his tone, it was obvious he suspected Harlan’s interest in Dawson had something to do with Neil Price. And, adding two and two, it didn’t require a huge intuitive leap to guess what that something entailed. “Okay. Four days.”
Chapter 13
Time suddenly seemed to be on fast forward. With the speed of a thought that was gone before it was barely formed, one, two, then three days flashed by. Neil’s routine, by now so familiar to Harlan, never once varied — work, sleep, off-licence, Susan’s house, pick up Kane, hand out leaflets, work, sleep…The relentless tediousness of it numbed Harlan’s brain, blotting away all thoughts except those that flowed from the question: why had Neil lied? The question whirled round and round in his head, even though he knew he wouldn’t find the answer there.
On the fourth night, Harlan parked at the hospital, and as had become his habit, after watching Neil head into A amp;E, went for coffee and doughnuts. As he queued, he thought with mixed feelings about phoning Jim. On the one hand, he would’ve liked more time to follow Neil. But on the other, he was acutely aware that Susan deserved to know about Neil’s lying, regardless of what lurked behind it — be it shame, fear or something more sinister. Harlan paid, turned to leave and found himself staring into Neil’s eyes. Both men blinked in surprise. Neil’s watery blue pupils darted about as if looking for an escape. “What are you doing here?” he asked with a swallow in his voice.
Keeping his expression carefully deadpan, Harlan raised his box of doughnuts in answer. He stepped around Neil and headed for the exit. “Fuck, shit,” he muttered under his breath, feeling Neil’s eyes follow him until he was out of sight. The last thing he wanted was for Neil to realise he’d been tailing him. Not only because it would put him on his guard, but because if there was something sinister behind his lie it might panic him into doing something rash. He tried to phone Jim. No answer. “I need to talk to you,” he told the answering service. “Call me as soon as you can.” He waited five minutes, fretfully sipping coffee, then tried again. Still no answer. For fuck’s sake, he thought. Jim was never without his mobile phone, so why the hell wasn’t he answering? “Price made me. We have to get him off the streets as quickly as possible,” he said, then hung up.