“My travel agent, he’s recommending Bali.”
“Save your money. There’s still a little matter of attempted murder to attend to.”
“I guess you i’n’t talked to Jason yet? Smart kid. Knows which side his bread buttered.”
The smile still on his face, Resnick brought his hand down onto the covers and squeezed Valentine’s leg. Valentine gasped with pain.
“Jesus, man! That’s my bad leg.”
“Mean and nasty, remember,” Resnick said and squeezed harder. Valentine screamed.
A nurse appeared in the doorway, looking concerned. “Nothing to worry about,” Resnick said pleasantly. “It seems I rested my hand on the wrong part of the bed. No cause for alarm.”
The nurse looked over at Valentine and remembered what he had called her earlier. “Very well,” she said and let the door swing closed behind her.
Resnick relaxed the pressure of his hand, but not too much. “I’m here to tell you something. One way or another, and I don’t know how, not yet, you’ve been able to steer clear of the law and carry on dealing right across the city.”
“I ain’t…”
Changing the angle of his arm, Resnick applied pressure steadily downwards. “Car, clothes, jewelry: you walk around this town with more money on your back than most ordinary folk earn in a year. Up to now, you’ve got away with it. Not any more.”
He gave Valentine’s leg a parting, friendly pat and rose to his feet. “Oh, one other thing,” he said at the door. “That gun you used on Jason, then tossed on to the Forest. We’re going to do better than find your prints on it; we’re going to trace it back to the supplier. Prince, Gary. Ring a bell?”
It was only there for an instant, but the jolt of alarm in Valentine’s eyes was vivid, unmistakable.
Back outside, walking away from the hospital toward Old Lenton, Resnick’s step was springier, lighter. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d struck a blow outside of self-defense; couldn’t recall when he’d last used force of any kind. And although he knew that later his conscience would be giving him gyp, right now he felt one hundred percent better, as if he’d cleared a lot of dead weight from his soul.
Twenty-six
One of the first things Preston had done after they’d arrived at Maureen’s had been to down two large cups of tea laced with brandy; the other was to strip to his skin right there in the kitchen: twelve years of prison slop-outs and prison showers didn’t leave much room for embarrassment. “Burn them,” he said, indicating the pile of soiled clothing.
Maureen looked at him helplessly. “What?”
“I said, burn them.”
“There’s only a gas fire, natural effect.”
“What about the dustbin?”
“Plastic.”
Preston cursed. “Bin bags. You can take them to the dump later.”
Reluctantly, Maureen bent down to pick up the clothes, her head level with his crotch; Preston watching her, a smile playing round the corners of his mouth.
“Well?” he said.
Maureen stood up, blushing, unable to look him in the eye.
Preston laughed and turned away, knowing that she was looking at him as he climbed the stairs, the long curve of his back, his balls just visible between his legs, that tight arse.
The first thing Maureen had done when she moved into her thirties house in Bramcote Hills was to have several acres of moss-green carpet cleared from the floors and the original boards sanded and varnished, polished till they shone with a deep hue that her cleaning lady worked hard to maintain. Layers of flowery paper were stripped from the walls and the whole of the downstairs painted creamy white. Aside from the kitchen, which resembled the stretched interior of a spaceship capsule, Maureen had been keen to mix old and new, the contemporary with items which brought out that original thirties feel. In the living room, a brown leather settee shared the space with a pair of upright Waring and Gillow armchairs; a trio of hand-thrown prewar vases sat on a molded plastic coffee table from IKEA.
It was a beautiful-to Maureen-stylish home. And now she was trapped in it with a man who had killed and could kill again.
While she was waiting for him to be done with his bath, she put food on the table-cold roast chicken, tomatoes, potato salad, cheese, two sticks of French bread. There was ice cream in the freezer, Ben and Jerry’s, three flavors; she kept it there as a lesson in temptation. She thought for the hundredth time about making a run for it; she thought about opening wine. Maureen laughed nervously. Was that what you did when you were kidnapped by your brother-in-law who’d just escaped from prison? Get out the best silver and a bottle of Chilean Cabernet?
She was thinking about him, up there in that oval tub, feet up on the edge most probably, knees spread wide. How easy it would have been for her to slip her mobile from her bag and dial 999; lock the front door from the outside, jump into the car, and drive away. Anywhere. Surely that’s what she should do?
Kill you. Since that first warning, he hadn’t wasted words on another.
Hearing a movement upstairs, she slipped the clear plastic corkscrew over the head of the bottle and began to twist.
Shaved, a comb pulled through thick, short hair, Michael Preston stood in the doorway, barefoot. The clothes Maureen had chosen, the pre-faded denim shirt, the dark olive chinos, fitted perfectly. As they should. It was her job.
“Feeling better for that?” God, listen to her!
“Yeah.” Looking at the food on the table, he grinned. “Been busy, I see.” He pulled out one of the pale, high-backed dining chairs and sat down and poured himself a full glass of wine; as an afterthought, he poured a second for her.
Maureen sat opposite him and unfolded the napkin from beside her fork.
“Your idea, the bath? That shape?”
“Yes.”
“Nice. Lets you spread out.” He reached toward the chicken and, ignoring the carving knife, took hold of the bird with both hands and broke off a leg. “Fit two in, I dare say. At a squeeze.”
Maureen cut the tomato on her plate in half and half again.
“Bit of a luxury for me, lazing about in all that hot water. Bath foam. Body lotion. Not needing eyes in the back of your head. Some bastard who’s signed on queer for the duration; bar of soap in one hand and his scabby dick in the other.” A piece of dark meat threatened to fall from his mouth and he caught it with his tongue.
Amused at her discomfort, he tipped potato salad on to his plate. “Make all this yourself, did you?”
“No, I …”
Preston jabbed the air with his chicken bone. “You know, Maureen, there’s one thing you’re going to have to learn: when I’m serious and when I’m not.”
He lay fully stretched out on the brown settee, eyes closed, enjoying the strangely warm softness of the creased leather, his wineglass on the floor alongside. It was at least ten minutes since he had spoken and, less than comfortable on one of her prize chairs, Maureen wondered if he had fallen asleep. How long was he going to keep her there, a prisoner? Tomorrow, Sunday, the shop was closed. Monday, too. And after …? She looked down at him, so seemingly sure of himself, sleeping. How long did he intend to stay?
She was bracing herself to move when he said, not bothering to open his eyes, “The police, they been round?”
She hesitated. “To the shop, yes. They contacted everyone, I suppose. Everyone who’d been at the funeral.”
“What kind of police? CID? Plainclothes?”
“Uniform, two young men in uniform. Why? Does it matter?”
“Sometimes.”
“They just asked me if I’d seen you since the time at Derek’s house and of course I said no. If I’d noticed anything unusual, that kind of thing. Nothing, well, specific, you know?”
“Not suspicious, then, you didn’t reckon?”
“No. No. I mean, why would they be?”
He startled her by sitting up suddenly and swinging his feet round to the floor. “They haven’t been watching the house?”