Jackson the thief, I thought.
‘Your friend thought he would take my private shooter from my locker and arm you at the same time,’ Tibbs said. ‘Two birds and one stone, right?
He made no attempt to help me to my feet.
‘Once or twice I even thought he was tailing me,’ he said. ‘But Jackson had me wrong. I always hated you but I was never going to slot you. I’m not that dumb. I thought we could take it to the ring or a car park. Anywhere you wanted it. But I thought we might settle our differences like men.’ He looked at the body between us. ‘I guess we did.’
‘Tibbs,’ I said. ‘You saved my life.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s what I do.’
‘How did you get in?’
‘Well, I didn’t need a bloody shotgun.’
‘I’m sorry about Ray Vann,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry about your friend. I know you blame me. And I’m sorry you hate my guts.’
He shrugged as if it was all behind us now.
He stared thoughtfully at the dead man on the floor.
‘I just think you get it wrong, Wolfe. You and the rest of the world. You think it’s a job.’ He looked at me now. ‘And it’s a war, pal. It’s a war.’
He moved towards the big loft windows, pulled wide open for the last of the summer’s heat.
‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘My war’s over, I guess.’
‘Tibbs,’ I said. ‘We can sort this out. Richard Halfpenny was a serial killer. He was going to kill me. You’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m done. I might get away with topping Bad Moses here. But it’s the Glock with the serial number gone, you see. I can’t explain that. I will never be able to explain that. And that’s jail time. And I can’t be locked up, Wolfe. Maybe Jackson was trying to do me a favour.’ Jesse Tibbs smiled at me for the first time. ‘Maybe he was trying to save both of us.’
Jesse Tibbs stood at one of the big open windows and looked down on the street four storeys below. I could not understand what he was doing. And then suddenly I got it. Checking for pedestrians, I saw, checking for innocent passers-by. And I felt the panic and sadness rise up in me as I got to my feet and staggered across the loft towards him, seeing him slide his right arm between his belt and his jeans, and then the left arm.
The jumper’s insurance policy. Hands and arms locked inside the belt. So the fall cannot be broken. So that the hands can’t be held out at the final moment of life.
So that there is no final chance to change your mind.
And then, with his arms pinned to his sides by his belt, Tibbs sat himself on to the window ledge and I was weak from the serious beating that Richard Halfpenny had given me and I knew that I did not have it in me to stop him.
Then we both stared at the door of the loft as it quietly clicked open.
‘You all right, Jesse?’ Jackson Rose said easily. ‘I knew I would find you here.’
As he crossed the great open space of our loft, Jackson took it all in. The dead body of Richard Halfpenny, the good hiding I had taken, and the last plans of Jesse Tibbs.
Without rushing but without breaking step, Jackson walked calmly to the window and gently pulled Jesse’s arms out from inside his belt. And then Jackson held him tight, the pair of them sitting on the window ledge as if they had all the time in the world, as if it was still a beautiful night, and Jesse Tibbs buried his face in Jackson’s chest so that we could not see him sobbing.
‘You’re all right,’ Jackson told him. ‘And we’re going to take care of you now.’
36
Anne was looking good.
My ex-wife still carried herself like she was late for a photo-shoot at Vogue and was really miffed about it. She still turned heads and kept them turned when she walked – no, she strode – into the small café where we met in the shadow of Southwark Cathedral. She still had the model’s strange magic – that alchemy of height, bones and skin – of appearing to be slightly different to the rest of the human race.
An adorable alien, then, running late.
She waved to me from the door and she had checked her phone twice before she reached the corner table. Here was a woman who was moving on, ready for whatever was coming next, fitting me into a very small window.
‘Thanks for meeting me,’ she said.
‘No problem,’ I said.
Oh, the excruciating formality of former partners.
‘You must be very busy,’ she said. ‘Are they sure that was Bad Moses? The man who got shot?’
I nodded. She shuddered with theatrical horror.
‘But that’s all done and dusted,’ I said. ‘So it’s a slow day at the office.’
She nodded briskly, checked her phone again, placed it face down on the table so that she would not be tempted to peek, and signalled for the waiter. A nice young Australian came running.
‘Did you order?’ she asked me.
‘I was waiting for you.’
We both insisted that the other order first.
We got it done eventually and I reflected that we were never this polite to each other when we were living together. We were never this polite when we loved each other madly.
But we were total strangers now.
Those people we had been were gone forever – the young uniformed cop with no living relations craving a family immediately with the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and the stunning young model whose career was not panning out quite as spectacularly as planned, predicted or expected – for it turned out there were many, many beautiful girls in the world, and some of them were taller, thinner and younger than Anne, even back then.
We were a different man and woman now. I guess we both grew up. It was as simple, as everyday, as that. All we shared now was our past.
And our seven-year-old daughter.
‘Scout,’ she said. ‘She’s such a doll. And she’s been so good at our place. I have just loved the time we have had together. She’s so smart and lovely,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I said, and I saw Anne meant it, and I felt some ice inside me – the ice that had been frozen so hard and so unforgiving against my ex-wife for so long – begin to melt.
She tapped the table with her elaborate fingernails and I remembered that she had been a smoker. She wanted a cigarette now.
‘I’m sorry it hasn’t worked out,’ I said. ‘I know you wanted to make it work. I know that – in your heart – you want to be a good mother to Scout.’
The waiter brought our coffee.
I sipped my triple espresso and waited for him to leave.
Anne blew on her skinny soymilk latte.
‘Since Oliver lost his job, things have not been so brilliant at home,’ she said. ‘There’s the mortgage—’
I held up my hand. ‘It’s none of my business, Anne.’
A flash of defiance.
‘I love her just as much as you do,’ she said. ‘Whatever you may think.’
‘I have to believe it,’ I said. ‘Because I can’t stand the thought of Scout not being loved by you. It’s unbearable to me, that possibility. And I do know you love her, in your own way. But you love yourself more. Please – let me finish. And I think that when you have a child, you either put that child before everything else in the world – everything – or you don’t. Plenty of men don’t – can’t – put a kid before themselves. They think their happiness comes first. Or their fulfilment or destiny or sex life or whatever they want to call it, and however they want to rationalise it. But it happens with women, too. And the children – these children who get left – they get hurt. Of course they do. But the people who do the leaving – those men and women – they get hurt even more. And you have hurt yourself more than you could ever hurt Scout.’
‘Good old Max,’ she said, attempting a laugh. ‘Never knowingly off the high moral ground.’