Danny didn’t even look for a moment. She closed her eyes tightly and said through gritted teeth, ‘Jack, don’t you ever fucking learn?’
‘ Jack? Who’s this Jack?’
God, that voice! Danny’s eyes shot open.
‘ I’m not Jack. My name’s Louis Trent, but you know that, Danny, don’t you?’ He jammed the point of his knife into the side of her neck. ‘Let’s go for a drive.’
Henry Christie rarely drank alcohol before driving. For cops the drinking and driving game was far too dangerous to play. Too many had lost their jobs that way, and Henry wasn’t about to join them. However, that evening, he was parched. He needed something long and cold to wash away the grit. He chose Foster’s lager — a pint — and downed about half in one sustained slurp. It tasted wonderful and partly did the trick. He decided he would drink this, have one more with Danny, then head off home.
He edged away from the bar and sat in an empty alcove from where he could survey the pub. He spotted a couple of crims — low-level drug dealers — who didn’t want to look at him, snorted a short laugh, sat back and waited for Danny.
Danny could hardly breathe. Like she was being suffocated. Like a pillow was being pressed on her face.
‘ Seat belt, Danny,’ Trent said calmly. He pushed the knife further into her neck. Any deeper and blood would be drawn.
She drew the belt across her chest and clunked it in.
‘ Now reverse out of here and drive out of the car park. If you try anything, I’ll skewer you and run. I’ll stick this right into your heart and you’ll fucking die here and now. Got that?’
She nodded.
‘ Good.’ He lowered the blade so it rested against her left breast. He prodded and she jumped like a fork of static had jolted her. Trent laughed. Cruelly he said, ‘I’ll bet you’ve got nice tits, Danny. I’m going to carve them like Christmas turkey. Now drive!’ He prodded her again.
She was unable to stop her right foot from trembling on the pedals. In consequence the car lurched backwards out of the parking space. She slammed the brake on, too hard, unintentionally, and the vehicle screeched to a swaying halt.
Trent reacted angrily. He whacked her across the face with the open palm of his left hand. He struck hard, making Danny’s neck snap round. She glared at him. He held the knife up to her nose and inserted it half an inch into a nostril. ‘Don’t fuck about, Danny,’ he warned her, ‘or you’re dead.’
‘ I can’t stop my legs from shaking,’ she explained, voice quivering.
‘ You’d better get in control of yourself,’ he breathed, staring at her — and she could smell his body odour. It made her want to retch. ‘Now drive away, nice and gently, and in control. Pretend I’m not here. Pretend I’m Jack.’
From one horror to another, she thought, taking a firm grip on the wheel when Trent removed the knife. She took a deep, steadying breath, exhaled shudderingly, slid the gear-stick into Drive and pressed the gas pedal with even strength.
‘ That’s it, Danny,’ he encouraged her. ‘Nice… nice car, too.’ He opened his legs and drove the knife into the seat between his thighs. ‘Be a real mess when we’ve finished with it… sadly.’ He made the opening in the fabric big and ragged by using the knife like a garden trowel. ‘Let’s got for a drive,’ he laughed.
It was the cheapest Casio watch he could find — ?4.95 at the time of purchase — but it had served him well over the years. The cost of replacement straps far outweighed the original cost of the watch. He looked at it and did not feel too happy. Almost eleven.
He had been in the pub twenty minutes. There was about a half-inch of lager remaining in the glass.
Where the hell was Danny?
He emptied the beer down his throat and made a return journey to the bar.
‘ Fosters,’ he told the barman.
‘ Nasty cut, that,’ the barman observed, nodding at Henry’s temple.
They had been driving ten minutes, mainly in silence other than for Trent to give her directions. He told her to drive north up the Promenade, towards Fleetwood.
‘ Pussy got your tongue?’ Trent sneered. ‘You did enough talking when you interviewed me, didn’t you? Do you remember what I said, all those years ago? That time we were alone together? Do you?’
‘ Yes,’ she squeaked.
‘ Tell me.’
‘ You… you said you’d kill me.’
‘ No.’ He jabbed her with the knife. ‘The exact words, Danny. The exact words.’
She knew them. They were branded into her mind.
She spoke softly. ‘ “Guilty or not guilty, Danny, one fine day — or night”,’ — a tear of fear rolled out of her eye as the words came haltingly out — ‘ “I’m going to come back and kill you for this”.’
‘ Yeah. Brilliant. Well done!’ he shouted. He leaned across and spoke into her ear, his lips brushing her lobe. ‘And now I’m here,’ he said in a voice which sounded like the devil’s. He sat back and drew the knife across the dashboard, slashing a line in the wooden veneer.
‘ Right, I’ve had enough of this journey. Turn round, head back to Blackpool.’
Henry found the second pint went down almost as easily as the first — and far quicker. Without much thought he had drunk it in five minutes. He must have been thirstier than he first imagined.
Still no sign of Danny.
‘ Ah well,’ he said to himself. With a show of great reluctance for no one but himself, he pushed himself from his seat and plodded back to the bar. This was definitely going to be the last.
He presented the empty glass to the barman. ‘Fosters.’
‘ It really is a nasty cut, that,’ the man said, indicating Henry’s temple.
They drove all the way back down the Promenade. All the way down the Golden Mile, past the amusement arcades, the Tower, Tussauds Waxworks, the Sea Life Centre, all still teeming with thousands of people. There was much laughter. Lots of rowdiness. They drove through South Shore, past the hotel where Claire Lilton lived, past the Pleasure Beach and the Pepsi Max Big One.
When the Promenade cut slightly inland and became Clifton Drive North and they drove through the Local Authority boundary into Lytham St Annes, Trent said, ‘Pull in here.’ He pointed across the road.
Danny veered across and stopped the car, facing oncoming traffic. She doused the headlights.
Only feet away to Danny’s right, was Star Hill Dunes, an area of grass and sand dunes. On the opposite side of the road was a holiday camp. The dunes were popular with dog-owners, courting couples and, occasionally, murderers.
‘ Nah — too fucking busy here," Trent blurted after consideration. ‘Drive on.’
With relief, Danny accelerated away. ‘I was going to kill you there.’
‘ I know,’ Danny said — but to herself.
There was no reply from Danny’s office phone, nor her home. Henry was perplexed. He hung up the payphone, drummed his fingers on the side of the wall-mounted, bubble-like kiosk which surrounded him. He picked up the phone again, dialled Blackpool comms and asked them. They knew nothing; Danny had not been deployed by them, but she had dropped a misper file off to be circulated about half an hour before. She’d said she was going for a drink.
He hung up and heard his ten-pence piece clatter away down the shute. He picked up his drink from the thoughtfully installed shelf next to the payphone and stepped back into the toilet corridor in which the phone was located. He took a sip from his third pint — almost gone — and walked back into the bar.
He was experiencing that old twinge of the sphincter. It told him, rather like an old woman’s corns forecasting the weather, that something was a little off the beam here… and the towering spectre of Jack Sands loomed into Henry’s thoughts. A man with a bagful of resentment. Someone who had already shown he was capable of violence.
Maybe he was being over-dramatic.
Yet Danny had clearly said she would come for a drink.