And maybe she was, at that, but hot, sweet tea wasn’t going to help her out of it. She had to get away from solicitous bystanders and professionally neutral cops, and work out for herself what all this meant.
The Judas People. The Judas People running headlong into her and Emil Gassan. How could such a thing happen? What mechanism could even begin to explain it?
She had to call Izzy. Make sure Izzy was okay. Okay, maybe it didn’t make too much sense, when you looked at it closely — why wouldn’t she be? — but the instinct was too strong. Impatient of getting herself discharged from the hospital, or of persuading the friendly, inquiring detectives to tell her she was free to go, she went to the bathroom and called from inside a locked toilet.
Izzy didn’t answer and Kennedy started to panic. But as she was in the process of dialling again to leave a message, the phone registered an incoming call.
‘Sorry, babe,’ Izzy said. ‘Missed you by a second, there. Everything okay?’
Everything wasn’t, but Kennedy was suddenly tongue-tied. Izzy was still safest where she was. And telling her what had happened would mean an argument, because she’d want to come back and look after Kennedy, be there for her, and that was the last thing that Kennedy wanted right then. The assassins of the Judas People didn’t work alone, they worked in twos or threes. The man who’d called himself Alex Wales was down and he wasn’t getting up again, but there could be — would be — others.
Kennedy stammered through a few minutes’ worth of banal lies about how everything was okay and how nothing at all, either good or bad, had happened to her.
‘Well, God knows, I can sympathise,’ Izzy said, sounding glum. ‘A game of Trivial Pursuit with Hayley and Richard has been the highlight of my trip so far. And it was the family edition, babe, so they took me to the cleaners. Have you ever heard of Frankie Cocozza?’
‘No,’ Kennedy said. ‘Izzy, I’ve got to go. Someone just came in.’
‘Okay. What’s that echo? It sounds like you’re in the loo. If you’re in the loo, and someone just came in, you’ve got a harassment suit right there.’
‘I’m … in a hallway.’ Kennedy’s mind was still firing randomly and she realised suddenly that the next day’s papers would be full of the violent suicide at Ryegate House. There was no way Izzy wasn’t going to get to hear about it. So she switched horses in mid-banality, came clean and gave Izzy a heavily redacted version of recent events that amounted to: someone died.
‘Right in front of you?’ Izzy demanded. ‘Someone just died, with you standing there? I don’t get it.’
‘It was … it’s hard to explain, Izzy. But I’m fine. I’m totally fine. He killed himself.’
‘He what?’
‘He killed himself. It was the guy who broke into the museum storeroom. We caught him. But he killed himself.’
‘Oh my God.’ The long silence at the other end of the line indicated how nonplussed Izzy was: silence wasn’t normally her thing. ‘So it’s over?’
‘That part of it’s over.’
‘Then it’s safe for me to pack up and—’
‘No. No, it’s not. Give me a couple more days.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously.’
‘A couple of days is how long I’m gonna last, Heather, with the wicked witch giving me the evil eye every time I use a bad word.’
‘All right.’
‘You know how many bad words I use.’
‘All right, Izzy.’
‘No, babe. It’s not. It’s not all right. You’re telling me you’re fine, but you don’t sound fine, and I know how you lock things down inside. God knows, I paid a lot to find out. Say the word and I’m there. I’m there right now.’
‘No, Izzy. Stay where you are. I’ll call you tomorrow.’
‘Okay. Okay. Heather?’
‘Yes?’
‘Call me tomorrow.’
‘I will.’
‘Promise.’
‘I promise I will.’
‘You know, some people find dirty phone calls cathartic. If you need my professional services …’
‘Oh, for the love of God! Tomorrow, Izzy.’ Kennedy hung up, even more restless and distracted than she’d been before the call. She missed Izzy, still resented her, was afraid for her, wanted never to see her again and wanted to see her right then.
And then there were the Judas People, who still made no sense. No sense at all.
When the doctors and nurses were done with their scattershot solicitude, they reluctantly agreed to release Kennedy on her own recognisance.
Before she left, she asked about the others. Both Gassan and Thornedyke were unconscious, one was stable, and there wouldn’t be any more news before morning. Rush had been released a couple of hours before.
But he hadn’t gotten far. When Kennedy walked out onto the street, he was waiting for her right by the entrance — leaning on a sign which told her that this was University College Hospital, on Euston Road. She hadn’t even thought to ask, and if anyone had told her, the news hadn’t sunk in.
Rush looked haggard and punch-drunk with tiredness. The right side of his face was swollen, the eye mostly closed.
‘I want to talk this over,’ he told her.
‘Tonight?’ Kennedy asked.
‘Tonight.’
‘It can’t wait?’
Rush shrugged — a gesture that took in his injury, hers, the hospital, the whole crazy situation. ‘Well, you tell me.’
Kennedy hesitated. Of all the questions he might ask her, there were only a few she’d be happy to answer. But she had to admit that there were a whole lot more that he was entitled to ask. She looked at her watch: it was 9.30 p.m. The night was — grotesquely and impossibly — still young.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Let’s talk.’
They took a cab back into town. Kennedy had it drop them off at a pub on Upper St Martin’s Lane, the Salisbury. They could have walked, but the presence of the cabbie constrained conversation and gave Kennedy time to think about what she was going to say to Rush.
The boy tried to buy the round. Kennedy sent him to find some seats instead, got the drinks — a pint of lager for him, Jack Daniels over ice for her — and went and joined him. He’d chosen a corner table, was sitting with his eyes on the door. His hands, as he drank off half the pint in one long swallow, were shaking. His battered face was drawing more than a few curious or uneasy glances from people at the tables around them.
‘So how are you holding up?’ she asked.
Rush just shook his head. She took that to mean that the jury was still out.
‘You saw it coming,’ he said. ‘Some of it. You knew what Wales was going to do.’
‘I had no idea what he was going to do.’
Rush took another sip, put the mostly empty glass down. ‘But you knew he was dangerous. That he had a weapon. You were moving towards the alarm before he pulled those knives. So I’m thinking you could tell me what the hell it was I saw today. Because right now, I feel like I’m drowning. I don’t know what just happened to me. I almost died, and it’s like a meteor fell out of the sky and hit me in the head, or something. It makes about that much sense to me, you know?’
Kennedy swirled the glass, let the ice clink against its sides, but felt no inclination to drink. Her stomach was as tight as a fist.
‘You’re in mild shock,’ she said. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t go back into work. If I were you, I’d take a few days off. What you’ve just been through wasn’t business as usual.’
He stared at her, bemused and unhappy. ‘Is that what you’re going to do? Take a few days off?’
‘No,’ Kennedy admitted.
‘No. Because there’s something bigger behind this, isn’t there?’
‘Yes.’
His good eye widened. ‘I knew it. I knew it from your face. I want you to tell me about it.’