He was a metre away, in stride, both hands on the pistol.
I brought the swing seat around shoulder-high.
It smashed into his forearms, knocked them sideways, he fired, the flat sound, no muzzle flash seen, the shot way off course.
His momentum brought him up to me, I smelt his breath, sweet, his left hand was off the gun…
His right hand was bringing the gun back towards me, not worried about neatness now, just a desire to kill me.
I had the swing seat in both hands, threw it over his head, grabbed the chains, pulled them together, no thought in any of this, wrapped them around his throat, twisted with all my strength. He had a hand at his throat, both hands, I twisted, twisted, maniacal strength in my arms, in my torso.
He went down on his knees in the swing’s depression, making a gargling noise.
I didn’t stop twisting, couldn’t stop, went on…
When I stopped, I didn’t look at him, walked away.
Without a backward glance, I walked home, slowly, little shudders passing though my arms, my shoulders, more like tiny convulsions, spasms, a great feeling of tiredness upon me.
At home, I was sick for a long time, then I rang the police emergency number, told a woman that there was a body in the north playground of the gardens, at the swings, gave her my name, address and telephone number.
It was twenty minutes before they knocked on my door. I was showered, shaved, dressed. My breathing was normal.
He was a weary-looking uniformed cop, blue-chinned, probably at the end of his shift.
‘Jack Irish?’
I nodded.
‘Rang about the body?’
‘Yes.’
He looked at me for a while. ‘Reckon it’s a good joke?’
‘What?’
‘Don’t fuck with me. We don’t appreciate this kind of crap. I can charge you.’
‘At the swings.’
‘No body at the swings, there’s no body in the whole fucken park.’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Must’ve been a dero having a nap. Sorry.’
When he’d gone, I went to the kitchen and sat at the table, my elbows on it, my head in my hands.
41
Someone was sent to kill me. Instead, I killed him.
Had I killed him?
Or had he recovered, crawled away? Perhaps someone had taken him away, dead or alive, because it was less trouble that way? It had been at least fifteen minutes before I’d phoned the police, plenty of time to remove the masked man.
I hadn’t seen his face. I had wrapped a chain around his neck and tried my best to strangle the life out of him, thought I’d succeeded, and I had no idea what he looked like.
Just the silk-masked face in the near-dark, the smell of his toothpaste.
I walked around the apartment aimlessly, made the bed so recently left. Looked at my watch. It was just after 7 a.m.
Who?
Someone who wanted the matter of Marco to stay closed.
Would they try again? They’d have to find another hit man.
Perhaps they had a supply of hit men. Hardly likely.
Who?
The same people who’d murdered Marco?
It was almost certain that WRG had used Bergh to attempt the blackmail of Susan Ayliss. In that case, he’d hired Marco. But the bid had failed, leaving Bergh and Marco as potential embarrassments. Now they were both dead.
And then I came along, asking questions about both men.
Bergh had held the key to everything. He talked to Doyle, to Mick Olsen, drug scam mastermind…
I needed to look at Bergh’s phone bill again.
No.
I needed to do nothing. This wasn’t worth dying for.
Colin Loder would recuse himself from the cocaine jackets trial and, with luck, never hear anything more about his missing album. As for Marco, his death was of no personal concern to me. I had no interest whatsoever in Marco.
Send a message to WRG that I was no longer interested in Bergh or Marco, that was what I needed to do.
Go away for a while. Go far away. Leave now. That would convey the message that I had disengaged from anything that annoyed them.
Ring Cam, ring Linda, ring Wootton, ring Colin Loder on his borrowed mobile. Ring Stan and tell him to pass the message on to the Youth Club that I’d gone away, wouldn’t be picking them up on Sunday. Ring Gus and leave a message for Charlie. Enzio. I’d have to get hold of him.
A life to run away from.
I could do that. I could spend a few weeks with Claire.
No, I couldn’t do that. They might not accept my gesture of submission and send someone to Claire’s house to look for me. I couldn’t go near anyone I knew.
I couldn’t run away from this. There wasn’t any way to backtrack, to undo.
Bergh’s phone bill. Another look at it.
The city hadn’t fully woken yet, only those without a choice were astir: the greengrocer on the corner, the newsagent, dry-eyed shiftworkers going home. I was opening my office door in ten minutes.
There hadn’t been any malice in the job they’d done, but they didn’t care who knew they’d been there.
My one filing cabinet had been emptied, every file taken from its folder and dropped to the floor.
My old Mac’s hard drive was gone.
The in-tray where I’d carelessly tossed Bergh’s phone bill was empty. So was the out-tray.
There was the faintest glow of light from the back room.
I went to the doorway. The door of the small fridge was open and a rectangle of pale-yellow light lay on the floor.
I switched on the light.
Everything had been taken out of the small sink cupboard — ancient dishwashing liquid, a tin of drain cleaner, a few scouring pads, a bar of yellow soap I’d never seen before, two rolls of paper towels, a box of tea bags, the jar of sugar.
They’d looked in the old microwave, left the door open. I went to the steel back door. It was open. They’d left that way, down the lane, carrying the hard disk.
I locked the door, looked around, feeling light-headed, queasy in the stomach.
What else had been in here?
Robbie’s suitcase. I’d put it between the fridge and the sink.
Gone.
If things had gone to plan, I would be dead now, lying in the park, dragged into the bushes, blood seeped into the tanbark, waiting to be found by some early walker’s dog. And there would be nothing in my effects to connect me with Marco or Bergh.
I went to the front room, willed myself to tidy up, failed. What was the point?
Eric the Geek had done the Bergh reversedirectory for me. Would he have kept a copy of his findings? Possibly. There was something distinctly retentive about Eric. I got out my wallet to find the card with his number, searched through the pockets, couldn’t find it. In exasperation, I pulled out half-a-dozen cards.
A small dark-blue object. For a moment, it meant nothing. Then I remembered.
The small plastic torch-like device from Robbie’s jacket, found in the inside key pocket. The device without hint of function.
I held it between finger and thumb, pressed the button, looked at the red light it emitted for a second or so, turned it over. Something had been scratched into the plastic. I held it to the
light. Numbers: 2646.
I thought I knew what this thing did.
42
The Cathexis carpark was in the basement, entered from a concrete driveway on the eastern side of the building. I found a park two blocks away and walked back, a cold wind opening my jacket, no-one in the streets.
I didn’t turn in when I reached the driveway. I walked to the far side, then turned right and stayed close to the wall as I made haste to cover the 50 metres to the carpark entrance. The camera above it was stationary, looking down on where drivers would activate the door-opening machinery by communicating with a steel pillar.
Robbie’s device was in my hand as I walked. At the carpark’s huge door, I did a right-angle turn, went up to the pillar, saw the eye set into it, pointed the small torch and pressed the button.