Henry and Jane spent a further couple of hours in the hostelries of South Shore, but Henry could not weed out any more of his informants, registered or otherwise. Obviously word had got round he was out on the prowl. Just after 11.30 he suggested that they drive back to central so he could drop her off at her car. She agreed and they headed back north up the promenade in companionable silence. He drove to the police station and she directed him to her car, a neat little Toyota.
With her fingers looped around the door handle, she hesitated. ‘It’s been nice to see you again, Henry. I’m glad we’re working together.’
‘Me too.’
‘You’d better be getting home to the missus.’ Jane smiled painfully. ‘She’ll be wondering where you are.’
‘Not tonight. I’m going to crash out at the flat so I’m nearer to the action. She’s not expecting me home.’
‘Oh. Anyway, good night, Henry, see you in the morning.’
‘Yeah. Bye.’
He waited until she was in her car before driving away with a quick salute. He drew up outside the flat a few minutes later and called Kate on the mobile. She was in bed, sleepy, and the conversation was short. When it was over, he sat at the wheel of his car, mulling things over and sighing occasionally.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when someone tapped on the window.
‘Jane,’ he said, surprised, or maybe not so surprised, as he wound down the window.
She leaned in and, without a word, kissed him full on the lips. Their mouths seemed to be a perfect fit. She was wonderful to kiss and Henry wanted it to go on for ever. She bit his bottom lip, then slowly drew away, her hand on his face, her eyes fixed on his.
‘Take me to the flat,’ she said quietly. ‘You can do anything you want to me, so long as you wear something.’
Henry was stunned. ‘Okay. . I’ll keep my socks on,’ he said with a squeak. They both burst into a fit of giggles which lasted all the way up the back stairs to the flat.
Six
‘And you’ — Ray pointed with a forefinger, which, if it had been a dagger, would have shot through the air like a missile — ‘you come waltzing back carrying fish and chips as though nothing had happened. Ffff. .!’ he hissed and shook his head irately at his half-brother, who hung his head in shame. ‘Fish and chips! You’d gone for fish and chips and four armed men come in and rob me of a week’s takings. So there’s two stiffs that need taking care of, two bastards who got away and my money washed down the bleedin’ river.’
‘It’s not my fault,’ Marty bleated plaintively.
‘No, maybe not, but somehow it feels like it.’
‘Yeah, well, it always does, doesn’t it? I can’t do anything right — except shoot somebody for you, y’know? Murder somebody, something you seem to forget so very bloody easily, Brother.’
‘Yeah, yeah, right. I need to think.’
They had left the counting house and were parked in a picnic area on the Grane Road, the winding A-class road which snakes across the moors from Haslingden to Blackburn. It was pitch black and very cold. Sleet had started to slant across the sky.
Ray got out of the car and paced round the car park before climbing into Miller’s motor. The heater was turned well up.
‘You did well, Miller,’ Ray admitted.
‘Still got away, though, didn’t they?’
‘Only two of the four of them, though, and’ — Ray laughed frostily — ‘they didn’t get the money, did they? That’s somewhere down the river attached to a probably very drowned Dix. Little hope of getting that back.’
‘You never know.’ Miller shrugged. ‘He might’ve got out alive. But, just a bit more pressing, what’re we going to do about the two bodies?’
‘Good question. Dispose of them — we’ll sort it. And in the meantime I want you and Crazy to do some asking around. I want to find the people behind the people who dared to rob me. I reckon it’s too big a job for four knuckleheads to take on alone. They must have a backer.’
‘You don’t recognize the two dead ’uns?’ Miller asked.
‘Nope. I’ll bet they’re from Manchester or further south.’ He thought for a while. ‘I wonder. . maybe the Midlands would be a good starting point. I want you two to do the digging for me. I’ll pay, and pay good.’
‘Okay, I’m game,’ Miller said.
‘Me too,’ Crazy concurred.
‘You and Crazy’d be a good team, I reckon, having just seen you in action. I’m annoyed I didn’t see it before. .’ Ray paused for a few more moments of thought, then pulled his mobile out and looked at his two men. ‘Those two bodies — had a thought — we might not know who they are, but the cops would find out for us, wouldn’t they? If we make sure they get dumped somewhere a bit public, we could wait for the cops to ID them. That’d give you something to work on, wouldn’t it? You know, I’m full of good ideas.’
Henry stopped what he was doing and gazed down into Jane’s face beneath him.
‘Oh God, that feels good,’ Roscoe breathed, her jaw line rotating.
‘Feels wonderful.’
‘Oh God.’ — She said ‘Oh God’ quite a lot during lovemaking, Henry observed. ‘We fit together very well.’ She smiled with a depraved curl of the lips and dug her nails into his flesh just hard enough to send something very sensational though him.
‘Oh God!’ he uttered, falling into her trap, ‘not long now. . oh. . ohh.’
‘Yes,’ she said and bit his neck. ‘Come on. It feels fantastic.’
Henry lost it then. All semblance of technique and coolness went right out the window as his primitive urge took over. Underneath him, Jane responded with a wild passion she had never known before as the feeling inside her exploded with an unbelievable relaxing warmth.
They lay quiet for a long time, breathing heavily, their hearts pounding.
Eventually he propped himself up on his arms, kissed her neck, ran his tongue across her breasts, then rolled off, but still held on to her, hugging her close so he could feel her body from top to toe.
‘That felt so right,’ she said quietly and bit his earlobe.
‘It did.’
‘I’m glad you decided to take your socks off.’ She grinned, tickling his feet with her toes. ‘It wouldn’t quite have had the same magic.’
‘No, true.’
‘I’ve never been unfaithful,’ Roscoe admitted.
Henry said nothing.
‘It was wonderful,’ she said.
‘Yes, it was,’ he agreed and kissed her slowly on the lips, not wanting to admit how many times he had been unfaithful to his wife in his life. Too many.
Harry Dixon had been convinced he was going to drown. The irony of it was that it would be in a river less than twenty feet wide and three feet deep and he had a bag with him containing a small fortune. Yet the surging flow was so powerful, it constantly knocked his legs from under him so he could not stand up and wade to the bank. Every time he thought he was getting somewhere, he was toppled over again and sent spinning downriver like a twig. The weight of the bag strapped to his back did not help matters, but something would not let him let go of it.
Eventually he found he could no longer fight the current. The sheer cold, the power of the water, sapped all his energy. He decided that the icy river could have him.
‘Suppose I’d better go,’ Roscoe declared sleepily. She sat up and stretched. It was 1 a.m. and the bedroom was still nippy even though Henry had turned the central heating on as soon as they had come in.
Henry looked at her body and thought it was wonderful. He rolled on to his side and laid his hand on her tummy between her belly button and pubic hair. She juddered at his touch.
‘Think you can make love to me again?’ she asked.
Henry glanced down. When he saw his penis as erect as it had ever been, he thought he was nineteen years old again.
‘It’d be rude not to,’ he said, and put his mouth around one of her hard, dark, purple nipples.