I sank down on the edge of the bed. It seemed impossible that it was only that morning I’d heard of Tom’s death. I’d intended to call Mary again, but it was too late now. I put my head in my hands. Christ, what a mess. Sometimes it seemed I was dogged by ill luck and disaster. I wondered if events would have followed the same track if I’d never come out here. But I could almost hear what Tom would say to that: Stop beating yourself up, David. This would have happened no matter what. You want to blame someone, blame York. He’s the one responsible.
But Tom was dead. And York was still out there.
I stood up and went to the window. My breath fogged the cool glass, reducing the world outside to indistinct yellow smudges in the darkness. When I wiped my fist across the pane, it reappeared with a squeak of skin on glass. The street below was a bright neon strip, car headlights creeping along in a silent ballet. All those lives, busily going about their own concerns, all indifferent to each other. Watching them made me acutely aware of how far from home I was, how much I didn’t belong.
Whether you belong or not, you’re here. Get on with it.
It occurred to me that I still hadn’t eaten. Turning away from the window, I reached for the room service menu. I opened it but only glanced at the gushing descriptions of fast food before tossing it aside. All at once I couldn’t stand to be in the room any longer. York or no York, I wasn’t going to hide away until Gardner decided what to do with me. Snatching up my jacket, I took the lift back down to the lobby. I only intended to go to the hotel’s late-night bar to see if they were still serving food, but I found myself walking straight past. I didn’t know where I was going, only that I needed to be somewhere else.
Outside, the rain had stopped, but the air was still freshened by its recent fall. The pavement was slick and shiny. My shoes raised small splashes as I set off down the street. The skin between my shoulder blades twitched, but I resisted the impulse to look behind me. Come on then, York. You want me? Here I am!
But my bravado soon burned itself out. When I came to a diner that was still open I went inside. The menu was mainly burgers and fried chicken, but I didn’t care. I ordered at random and handed the menu back to the waitress.
‘Anythin’ to drink?’
‘Just a beer, please. No, wait—Do you have any bourbon? Blanton’s?’
‘We got bourbon, but just Jim or Jack.’
I ordered a Jim Beam with ice. When it arrived I took a slow drink. The bourbon traced a gentle fire down my throat, easing away the lump that had formed there. Here’s to you, Tom. We’ll get the bastard soon, I promise.
For a while I almost believed it myself.
The straps and cogs gleam in the lamplight. You polish them after every time, waxing the leather until it’s soft and supple and the tooled steel gleams. There’s no real need. It’s an affectation, you know that. But you enjoy the ritual. Sometimes you think you can almost smell the warm beeswax scent of the saddle polish; probably just a faint trace memory, but it soothes you all the same. And there’s something about the sense of preparation, of ceremony, that appeals. Reminds you that what you’re doing has a purpose; that the next time might be the one. And this time it will be.
You can feel it.
You tell yourself not to get your hopes up as you lovingly burnish the leather, but you can’t deny the tingle of anticipation. You always feel it beforehand, when everything is possible and disappointment is still in the future. But this time it seems different. More portentous.
Special.
Leaving the skin on the car windscreen was a calculated gamble, but well worth it. They were bound to realize what you’d been doing eventually; better for it to be on your terms, when you can use it to good effect. You’re still in control, that’s the main thing. By the time they realize what’s happening it’ll be too late, and then…
And then…
But that’s something you shy away from. You can’t see that far ahead. Better to stay focused on the job at hand, on the immediate objective.
It won’t be long now.
You gently turn the winding mechanism, watching the leather strap tighten as the cogs turn smoothly, their teeth meshing with a clockwork whisper. Satisfied, you breathe on them before giving them a final rub. Your reflection stares back at you, distorted and unrecognizable. You stare at it, obscurely disturbed by thoughts that never quite break surface, then wipe it away with a sweep of the cloth.
Not much longer now, you tell yourself. Everything is in place and ready. The camera is loaded and in position, just waiting for its subject. The uniform is brushed and cleaned. Well, if not cleaned, exactly, at least clean enough to pass a first impression. And that’s all you’ll need.
It’s all a matter of timing.
CHAPTER 19
I WAS LINGERING over my second coffee in the hotel restaurant next morning when Gardner called.
‘We need to talk.’
I glanced guiltily around the busy tables, conscious that he’d told me to stay in my room. I’d considered having my breakfast sent up, but in the bright daylight that didn’t seem necessary. If York could spirit me out of the hotel in broad daylight then I was in real trouble anyway.
‘I’m in the restaurant,’ I said.
I felt Gardner’s censure down the phone line. ‘Stay there. I’m on my way over,’ he told me, and hung up.
I sipped my cooling coffee, wondering if this was the last breakfast I’d be eating in Tennessee. I’d felt out of sorts all morning. I’d slept badly, waking with a heaviness I couldn’t place at first. Then Tom’s death came back to me, followed a moment later by the recollection of the skin left on my car.
It wasn’t the best start to a day I’d ever had.
Gardner couldn’t have been far away when he’d called, because he arrived within twenty minutes. Jacobsen was with him, looking as untouched and untouchable as usual. The late night seemed to have left no mark on her, but if her vitality held shades of Dorian Gray, then Gardner was the portrait in the attic. The senior agent looked worn out, the skin of his face a network of fine lines and grooves. I reminded myself that it wasn’t just the pressure of the search for York that was weighing him down; Tom had been a friend of his as well.
But he held himself as straight as ever as he strode across to my table, Jacobsen a pace behind him.
‘Can I get you a coffee?’ I asked, as they sat down.
They both declined. Gardner glanced around the other tables to make sure no one could overhear.
‘Security cameras show someone by your car at eight forty-five last night,’ he said without preamble. ‘It was too far away to pick out much detail, but the dark clothes and cap look the same as on the footage from the phone booth. Also, we checked with hospital security. It wasn’t one of their employees you saw in the car park.’
‘York.’ There was a bitter taste in my mouth that had nothing to do with the coffee.
‘We couldn’t prove it in court, but we think so. We’re still trying to identify the fingerprints we lifted from your hire car, but there’re so many it isn’t easy. And York probably wore gloves anyway.’ Gardner shrugged. ‘No luck with the sloughed skin, either. Its prints don’t match either Willis Dexter’s or Noah Harper’s. From the small size it could be off a woman or an adolescent, but other than that we can’t say.’
An adolescent. Christ. A skein of congealed milk lay on top of my coffee. I pushed it away from me. ‘What about the photographs you found at York’s house? Do you have any idea who the people in them are?’