‘I don’t understand,’ he said.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ Ed said, ‘your life’s so fucked up, maybe you deserve a bit of advice.’
‘Go ahead,’ Nick said, adrenaline making him accelerate to ninety, before he remembered that he needed to make this journey last as long as possible.
‘If Sarah’s not interested, don’t go after Polly. She might have you, but she’ll lie to you, use you, take what she can, fuck you up and spit you out. She can’t help herself.’
‘Thanks for the warning,’ Nick said.
‘I’m tired of talking. Put radio on.’
Ed didn’t say another word during the journey. When they got to the part of the news where Sarah’s appointment was announced, he turned to Nick.
‘You knew about that?’
Nick nodded. Ed laughed long and hard.
Fifteen minutes later, Nick pulled up outside Departures at Birmingham Airport. They’d made good time. He would be back in Nottingham by six, when the sun rose.
‘You’re really not coming back?’
‘To Nottingham? Never. Police there’ll do me for the smallest thing, first chance they get. I’ll see what I find. I hear word Cuba’s opening up. My money’ll go a long way over there. I might get into tourism.’
‘There’s still one thing I don’t get,’ Nick said.
‘Only one?’ Ed asked, getting out of the car.
Nick put the hazard lights on and helped Ed unload his heavy bags. ‘Killing Terry makes sense. Revenge for putting you inside. But waiting around to kill the wife was such a big risk. It screwed your alibi. The kids could have been with her.’
‘Is that why you drove me here?’ Ed asked. ‘You thought you’d talk me into some kind of confession?’
‘They can’t try you again,’ Nick pointed out.
‘But they can try the real killer,’ Ed said. ‘It weren’t me killed Terry, all right? I’ll tell you one thing about Liv. The photos in the paper didn’t do her justice. She were right fit.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I like it best when they’re frightened.’
Ed loaded his stuff onto a baggage trolley.
‘I can manage from here,’ he said. ‘Hold on. I owe you something.’
Ed reached into his pocket.
‘I don’t want . . .’
‘Did you think I’d forgotten?’ Ed interrupted, as Nick stood, unguarded, in front of him.
He kicked Nick in the balls, hard. When Nick fell to the ground, in agony. Ed leant over him.
‘You’re lucky I’m only wearing trainers,’ he said. ‘If I’d known you were driving, I wouldn’t have packed me boots.’
37
Sarah took the 8.03 train to St Pancras. At least travelling first-class gave her a measure of privacy and peace. She needed quiet after sleeping badly, her mind alternating between excitement at her new job and sadness at being forced to dump Nick so soon after starting things up again. She’d had no choice and he’d understood. That didn’t stop her feeling bad about it.
‘Mind if I join you for a few minutes?’
‘You mean until they come and inspect the tickets?’ Sarah waved Brian Hicks into one of the free seats opposite her.
‘I did a nice piece about you for today’s paper.’
‘I’ll look forward to it.’ The Evening Post had just gone to press. Her constituency office would fax her any important local stories by midday.
‘One story that isn’t in the paper today, I thought you’d want to know. Ed Clark.’
‘What about him?’
‘Got his compensation through. A quarter of a million he settled for. Could have held out for more, given the strong implications that the police fitted him up for killing one of their own, but he was in a hurry for the money, evidently. I’m surprised he didn’t call to thank you.’
‘Maybe he left a message at my office,’ Sarah said, not revealing she already knew about Ed’s ill-gotten gains. ‘Unlike you, he doesn’t have my home number.’
‘Word is, he’s gone to the Caribbean,’ Brian told her. ‘In the air now. I spoke to his mother just before I left the office. She says he bought a one-way ticket, doesn’t know when he’s coming back.’
‘Was he on his own?’
‘That’s what I heard.’
Sarah wondered if Polly knew about the one-way ticket. But she’d exhausted her sympathy for the bereaved sister.
‘I rang the police after I heard about the compo, asked if they’d reopened the case.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ Sarah said. ‘You were given the usual we are not pursuing any other suspects.’
‘No, even they realized that was a bit tactless in the circumstances. They said, off the record, that we’d never know if Liv Shanks killed her husband, or not.’
‘They never proved that those were her fingerprints on the gun,’ Sarah pointed out, angry and a little bored that the police were trotting out a theory she had always avoided as being in bad taste.
‘The fingerprints on the gun were smeared, but a close match nevertheless. She could have shot him, then shot herself.’
‘With the best part of an hour between the shootings? It still doesn’t make sense.’
‘There was a blow to the head before the shooting. Maybe Liv knocked Terry out, then went hunting for the gun. It took her a while to find it, to work up the courage to finish him off.’
‘And the motive? Marital rape?’
‘That we’ll never know,’ Brian said. ‘But it makes as much sense as Ed Clark having hung around to kill Liv. I thought you’d like to know what the police were saying, so you could put it behind you. Congratulations on the job. You’ll be in the cabinet before you know it.’
‘Thanks, Brian. I appreciate your support.’
‘You’d have beaten Barrett Jones easily even without my help. You know that?’
‘Probably,’ Sarah said, aware that Brian was none-too-subtly reminding her she owed him a favour. ‘Water under the bridge. Anyway, if there are any stories I can put your way, I will.’
‘Appreciated,’ Brian said. ‘I’ll let you get back to your work.’ He left for second class. Sarah opened her copy of the Guardian but didn’t read. She thought about Ed in the air. He was gone for good, with any luck. She could put that behind her now. There was work to do.
Nick managed to catch a couple of hours’ sleep before seeing his probation officer. He apologised profusely for missing his meeting of the week before.
‘No problem,’ said Dave Trapp. ‘I expect you were ill.’
Dave liked to treat Nick as an equal. They were two guys with degrees and careers, only Nick had taken a wrong turning: that was Dave’s approach, one that Nick found easy to go along with. He was about to tell the truth when he remembered that failure to provide a legitimate excuse resulted in a warning, three of which would put you back inside.
‘I came down with some kind of fever, lost track of time.’
‘Been to the doctor?’
‘No. I was too ill to go out. When I felt better, it was the weekend so the doctor wasn’t open. Didn’t seem much point in going today. I had a lie-in, but I seem to be on the mend.’
‘You don’t look too bad now,’ Dave said. ‘But, next time, do yourself a favour, get a doctor’s note.’
‘Will do,’ Nick said. He was being treated with respect but still felt humiliated, a naughty schoolboy forced to sustain a trivial lie.
‘Any work?’ the probation officer asked.
‘Just the two private tutees I told you about.’
‘No problems there?’ They had discussed at their last meeting whether Nick was required to disclose his convictions to the parents. He’d have to disclose them were he applying to work in a school. Dave had reached the conclusion that this wasn’t necessary, so long as Nick didn’t lie if asked. Probation wanted him to work. Statistically, Nick was much more likely to reoffend if he was unemployed.