“You’d better reel in Jackson then.” He wasn’t asking, he was telling. He went to the door. “You’ve a very impressive career. Don’t blow it. Charge Jackson, bury everything else.”
When he’d gone she sat thinking for a while. Why was her career in danger of being ruined if she didn’t nail Jackson, and what else lay buried at the bottom of this crock of shit? She could have cheerfully murdered for a cigarette.
Haskons unzipped his pants and breathed out a sigh of relief. He looked at Otley, two stalls along. “You’ve not said anything, Bill. What d’you think?”
“About him being an iron? Doesn’t worry me.” Otley gazed with hooded eyes at the ceramic wall. “Iron” was Cockney rhyming slang: iron hoof = poof. “We had one at Southampton Row, he didn’t last long.”
He zipped up and turned away. Ray Hebdon was standing by the wash basins. Otley walked straight past, ignoring him, and went out. Haskons finished, and made a studious effort at looking everywhere but at Hebdon. He fastened his jacket, giving a little furtive smile, and went to the door. “See you in the pub…”
Hebdon washed his hands and wiped his face with his wet hands. In the mirror he saw Dalton come in.
“Is it true?”
Impatiently, Hebdon propped both arms against the basin. “What, that I’m gay?”
He sighed heavily and went to dry his face on the towel.
“I just don’t believe in this day and age, everybody making such a big deal of it.” He returned to the mirror, and started combing his hair. Dalton hadn’t moved. His face bore a sullen expression.
“What you looking at me like that for?” Hebdon asked.
“I just don’t understand. I thought I knew you.”
“You do,” Hebdon said.
“Why?” Dalton was angry and mystified. “Ray… why?”
“Why? Are you asking me why I’m gay? Because that’s the way I am. I’ve always been.”
“Queer?” Dalton said, blinking painfully as if recovering from a kick in the stomach.
Hebdon rammed his comb into his top pocket. “Yes! Queer, poofter, woofter, screamer, screecher-yes, they’re all me. I’m gay, I don’t apologize for it, I just don’t feel I need to broadcast it-for obvious reasons.” He raised his hands, clenching and unclenching his fists helplessly. “Look at you! The other two will come out with infantile, puerile cracks from now on…”
“I don’t believe it,” Dalton said, squinting at him. “Do you live with a bloke?”
“Do you?”
Dalton exploded. “Of course I bloody don’t!”
“What difference does it make? My private life is just that. I don’t poke my nose into yours, what gives you the right to…”
Dalton grabbed him by the lapels and shook him.
“Because I work with you!”
Hebdon dragged himself free. He pulled his jacket straight, breathing hard. “I was gay when we first met, did I start touching you up? Propositioning you? Did I? I respect you, why don’t you fucking respect me? Now back off!”
He stormed to the door, but then stopped. When he turned he was still white in the face, but he was smiling.
“I was a great rugby player, what I got away with in the scrum…” He held up his hands. “Just joking! Look, Brian, I know you are probably going through it, I’m referring to the bite, okay? I just want you to know that if you need to talk to someone, a lot of my friends have been tested and-”
“Piss off.”
Dalton barged past him. Left alone, Hebdon stared at his own reflection, and the look on his face was transformed as the bravado crumpled.
15:00. Manchester Piccadilly. Platform 6.
Tennison and Dalton ran across the concourse of Euston Station and reached the barrier of Platform 6 just as the train was pulling out.
“Shit!” Tennison stood there, panting and fuming. She’d never been able to figure out how British Rail got their trains to leave dead on time and arrive late.
“What time is the next one?”
“An hour’s wait,” Dalton said, looking at the timetable.
“Okay, go and ask the station master if we can use the Pullman lounge. Might as well wait in comfort.”
“What’s that?”
Tennison said with tart irritation, “It’s the lounge for first-class ticket holders. Go on, I’ll meet you there.”
On the main concourse she glanced up at the indicator board to make sure of the next train. 16:00. Manchester Piccadilly. Platform 5. No chance of missing that one.
Passing behind her, not twenty feet away, Jimmy Jackson was carrying a plastic holdall belonging to a young girl of about twelve years of age. She had pale blond hair, pulled back into a ponytail, and the healthy look and ruddy cheeks of someone brought up in the country. She seemed nervous and lost, gazing around at the milling crowds, her first time in the big city.
“So where you from?” Jackson asked, a broad friendly grin plastered across his face.
“Near Manchester.”
Jackson was hugely surprised. “Well, there’s a coincidence!”
Tennison hoisted her briefcase and turned, heading toward the Pullman lounge.
“You from there?” the girl asked him.
“No, but I was waiting for a mate, he must have missed the train.” Jackson pointed to the sign: Passenger Car Park. “You want a lift?”
The girl hesitated for a second, and then she nodded.
Reaching the glass-fronted entrance to the Pullman lounge, Tennison dumped her briefcase and looked around for Dalton. She couldn’t see him, but then she froze. She stood on tiptoe. Jackson and a girl. Walking toward the steps leading down to the underground car park. Lugging her briefcase, Tennison weaved in and out through the crowd, fumbling for her portable phone. Jackson and the girl were turning the corner at the bottom of the steps as she reached the top. She set off down.
Returning from the station master’s office, Dalton got the barest glimpse of Tennison’s blond head as she disappeared down the steps. He legged it after her.
The girl was giggling at Jackson’s chat-up line, Tennison saw, which must be good, whatever it was. She watched from a distance, peeking around a concrete pillar, and saw him take out a bunch of keys and approach a car. He looked up, and Tennison slid out of sight. She couldn’t see Dalton, who was scuttling between the parked cars, ducking and diving to get a look at the number plate.
Tennison cupped her hand around the mouthpiece. “It’s a dark blue Mercedes, old four-door saloon. I’ll get you the number… but is there a car in the area? Suspect is James Jackson. Do not apprehend, just tail to destination.”
Dalton returned, panting slightly, and eased in beside her. He had the number written on the back of his hand. Tennison passed him the phone. “I told them to look for him at the station exit.”
Over the speakers, booming in waves through the concrete cavern, came an announcement.
“THE TRAIN ON PLATFORM FIVE IS THE MANCHESTER PULLMAN EXPRESS. WE ARE SORRY TO INFORM YOU THAT THERE WILL BE NO BUFFET CAR FACILITIES ON THE FOUR O’CLOCK TRAIN TO MANCHESTER DUE TO STAFF SHORTAGES. BRITISH RAIL APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE…”
At the wheel, Hall kept a sharp lookout on his side of the street while Otley did the same on his. They were somewhere north of Euston-Camden Town, Chalk Farm-Hall wasn’t sure where exactly; he was lost in the maze of streets. He pulled into the curb and stopped behind a rusting Skoda with both rear tires flat to the ground. The dark blue Mercedes was parked on the opposite side of the street. Otley pushed his nose up to the windshield to get a good look at the house.
It was four stories with cracked and peeling stucco showing red brick underneath. The windows that weren’t boarded up were swathed in thick dark curtains. The entrance porch was supported by one stone pillar, the other a crumbling stump. On the surviving one, the numerals “22” could just be made out in faded black paint.
Hall reached for the radio handset. “See if we can get more info on the house.”