‘Shan’t,’ said Punch.
‘Drop him!’ said Walbrook sharply, and Punch let go and Chorley fell to the floor.
Punch dropped to his knees, grasped his daughter around her waist and pulled her tightly to him. His face was buried in her hair, tears streamed from his eyes, and he mumbled continuously something that sounded like Italian but was probably Latin.
Ack, I thought. Melodrama.
Walbrook turned to me and said, ‘You still here?’
And then I was falling through the rain again.
Then we hit. But not the flagstones.
We hit something white and cold that buckled under the impact. Softer than cement, but still hard enough to rattle my brain. And I didn’t have a chance to do anything useful before we rolled off the roof of the Transit van and fell the last metre and a half. This time we hit stone and it was even more painful than I was expecting.
The whole of my left side from shoulder to knee went numb, in that worrying numb-now pain-later way of a major injury, and the air was literally knocked out of my body. I was trying to breathe in but it felt as if my lungs were paralysed. Then I coughed. It hurt, then I breathed in – it was wonderful.
I rolled onto my back and looked up through the gently falling rain to see Lesley frowning down at me from the cornice. Then she vanished and I realised I had about twenty seconds while she ran down the steps. And she’d still have that pistol, wouldn’t she?
The flagstones were slick, so getting up was hard work. And I didn’t like the way my knee hurt. My only consolation was that Martin Chorley was moaning and wasn’t moving any faster than I was. I got to my feet while Chorley was still on his hands and knees. Grabbing him struck me as being too complicated an action and I did consider falling on him, but decided to caution him instead.
I got as far as ‘Anything you say might be’ when he flung out his hand and tried to impello me into the far wall of the cemetery. Fortunately he was in pain and I was ready with a shield – even so, I skidded back on my heels from the force of it. At which point Lesley came out of the main doors and, without hesitating, ran up to Chorley and kicked him in the stomach.
‘He’s not dead!’ she screamed. ‘You fucking fucker! You didn’t kill him!’
This time the impello hit home, but on Lesley not me, and she went sprawling onto her back. Chorley took the opportunity to climb to his feet.
‘That’s hardly my fault!’ he shouted. ‘You can blame your fucking boyfriend.’
The rain was getting heavier and was dribbling into my eyes, but Nightingale has made me train in worse weather. I wondered if Chorley had ever practised in the rain – somehow I didn’t think so.
Lesley got to her feet and that’s how we found ourselves recreating the stand-off scene from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, only wetter, closer together, and in central London.
I caught Lesley’s eye for a fraction of a fraction of a second and tilted my head at Chorley. He didn’t catch the gesture, but was hesitating because he didn’t know which one of us to attack first.
We jumped, as we had jumped belligerent drunks every bloody weekend for two whole years. I went high, she went low, and we had the fucking Faceless Man face down on the ground and wearing my speedcuffs before you could say ‘properly authorised restraint technique’.
Then we both hauled him to his feet and looked at each other, and sniggered.
Chorley started to react but I jerked the speedcuffs up in the approved manner and broke his chain of concentration.
‘What now?’ asked Lesley.
‘You turn supergrass, don’t you?’ I said.
‘You’re not serious?’ she said.
‘I asked the CPS to draw up the paperwork ages ago.’
Chorley moved again and this time I stuck my finger in his ear and wriggled it to disrupt any spell formation. This I knew from conducting experiments with Nicky’s enthusiastic help. The trick is to keep changing the method of disruption – it didn’t hurt that Chorley was dazed and in pain after the fall.
Still, backup couldn’t arrive fast enough – I was listening for sirens.
‘I’m not talking about me,’ she said, and pulled Chorley’s nose. ‘You can’t be serious about arresting him.’
‘That’s the job,’ I said.
‘He’ll escape,’ she said, which reminded me to tweak the cuffs again.
‘We’ve got plans,’ I said. ‘And brand new holding cells.’
‘Oh shit,’ said Lesley.
‘And thanks to you I may even have a—’
Lesley pulled out her pistol and shot Martin Chorley in the head.
I flinched as something that was not rain splashed my face and as, with no more than a rustle of his clothing, Chorley flopped bonelessly to the ground. I looked back at Lesley, who had taken a step backwards so she could point the gun at my face without it being within arm’s reach.
‘Check his pulse,’ she said.
Slowly I squatted down and fumbled in the wet collar of Martin Chorley’s coat. I felt his neck for a pulse. Nothing. Not really surprising, given there was an entry wound where his right eye should have been.
‘Is he dead?’ asked Lesley. The rain was running down her face, but her aim was steady.
I stood and the barrel of the gun followed me up.
‘What now?’ I asked. ‘Am I next?’
Lesley laughed. It surprised me – I think it surprised her too.
‘You pillock,’ she said. ‘I did this for you. If you’d helped we could have done it nice and clean and nobody would have been the wiser. Do you think anyone wanted a trial? Do you really think you could have kept him banged up in Belmarsh without him escaping?’
‘That’s not the point—’
‘That is the point,’ she said firmly, and because she still had a gun on me I didn’t push the matter. ‘And now an avalanche of shit is going to land on your head. If you’re still in the job in a year I will be totally gobsmacked.’ She paused and shrugged. ‘Although if you want I could shoot you in your leg – make your statement look a bit better.’
‘I think I’ll forgo the maiming,’ I said. ‘If it’s all the same to you.’
‘Yeah, OK,’ said Lesley. ‘Besides, Bev would be well vexed if I sent you back with a hole.’
Instead, she made me unlock the cuffs on Martin Chorley and cuff myself to him – using my right wrist. Then she took the key.
‘So what about you?’ I asked, because every minute talking to me raised the likelihood Nightingale would catch up with us.
‘Oh, I’m getting the fuck out of here,’ she said. ‘And you really don’t want to come after me.’
She made me lie down next to the corpse with my hands clasped behind my head. Because of the cuffs Martin Chorley’s cold hand kept on brushing up against my wrist.
The rain fell heavily enough on the cobbles to mask Lesley’s footsteps, but I’m pretty certain she was gone thirty seconds later.
I probably could have sprung up, snapped the speedcuffs and given chase, but I had nothing left. So I lay on the cobbles and waited for someone else to clean up the mess.
34
Gardening Leave
They suspended me. They had to. Martin Chorley had died in my custody, wearing my cuffs and shot by a former colleague of mine. And this time I was plucked from the warm familiar surroundings of the Department of Professional Standards and into the cold embrace of the IPCC. I went to interviews with my Federation rep by my side and gave minimalist answers to their questions with an air of helpful bafflement. I didn’t think they’d charge me especially since, apart from anything else, I got the impression they had more corrupt fish than me to fry.