When the ambulance arrived, Resnick had been given the news that Boxer was alive but critical. Ignoring Fuller’s bored expression, he ordered him to drive straight to the hospital.
Resnick had rushed straight to the ICU, where the attending doctor told him that Boxer Davis was defying all medical expectations. They now knew that it wasn’t a beating, but a hit and run. Boxer had suffered horrific internal injuries and broken virtually every bone in his body. He wasn’t expected to live — and, if he did, he’d never walk again.
‘Listen, doc, this wasn’t an ordinary hit and run,’ Resnick had said. ‘Both you and I know he was hit more than once before they ran. It’s important that I speak to him.’
The doctor shrugged. ‘You’ll be lucky.’
‘Well, I gotta get lucky at some point... it might as well be tonight,’ Resnick growled.
Hours passed, but the Intensive Care Unit corridor remained empty. Although he knew Boxer wouldn’t wake up, Resnick couldn’t bring himself to leave. As long as Boxer Davis breathed, he would stay. Boxer was the key to it all, Resnick was sure of that. Questions swirled round his head. Why was Boxer leaving town? Was he scared? Was someone else scared and paying him to leave? Who did Boxer willingly leave his flat with the night before? One thing was clear: the man who had beaten up Fran didn’t know that someone had already tried to kill Boxer, so it couldn’t have been the same person who had left the flat with Boxer and led him straight into the trap. There were two men. Two men, both after Boxer for some reason. Why?
Resnick again thought back to his conversation with Green Teeth. He’d insisted that Boxer was flashing the cash and parading round in Harry Rawlins’s cast-offs. He’d also implied the ledgers were being talked about as though they might be up for grabs to the highest bidder. Resnick screwed up his eyes in frustration. He felt he was so close to knowing everything, but, once again, he was about to lose the one person who could break this case wide open. First, Len Gulliver had died before he could spill the beans, and now Boxer Davis looked as if he was about to do the same. Surely it was not possible that Rawlins was alive? Even the thought made Resnick’s blood boil. Nevertheless, he had to get this vital information out of poor Boxer’s bastard mangled brain before the doctors decided to turn him off and clear the bed for someone else.
One packet of cigarettes and eight cups of coffee later, Resnick was still slouched in his chair with his hat over his eyes. It was 5 a.m. when he was woken by the doctor gently shaking his shoulder. He didn’t have to say anything. The look on his face said Boxer was dead.
Resnick walked away, a small squat figure, head bowed, shoulders down, leaving behind him a mound of squashed coffee cups and dog ends and a faint lingering odor of BO. The doctor watched him go. It was a wonder the man was still on his feet, the number of hours he’d sat there without eating, and the amount of nicotine and caffeine he’d consumed. He hoped Resnick was off home for a nice bath and some much needed sleep, but he thought it unlikely.
Back at the station, slumped in his office and contemplating his woes, Resnick ate half a stale pork pie before tossing the rest in the bin. He opened a fresh packet of cigarettes, lit up and flipped open the surveillance reports. He was annoyed that they hadn’t been filed since yesterday; he’d tear a strip off his team when they arrived for work tomorrow. Resnick wasn’t going to let any messy paperwork let him down. His team was under instructions to scour the streets for information on the hit and run, which meant no weekend leave for anyone. He knew this wouldn’t go down well, but he was including himself in the extra legwork, so he didn’t give a shit. If he didn’t give the Super something soon, he’d be taken off the case, and that would mean no more chances at promotion. His case needed to be beyond reproach — especially as he’d missed his review with Saunders.
He burped, tasted the stale pork pie in his mouth and dragged heavily on his cigarette. Tapping the desk with a pencil, he acknowledged that the only tangible witness he now had to work on was Boxer’s landlady, Fran. But she was so scared he doubted she would ever tell or even describe who had been responsible for assaulting her. He had to get tougher with her. Boxer was dead; this was now a murder inquiry. Being frightened wasn’t a good enough excuse. He’d get her down the Yard as soon as she was released from hospital and make her go over every mug shot of every known associate of the Fishers or of Harry Rawlins until she came up with the man who beat her up and scarred her face for life.
Opening a bottle of Scotch, Resnick poured a large measure into a dirty coffee mug on his desk and almost swigged a bit of green mold floating in it. He winced as he tried to pick it out, mulling the details of the case over again and again. He kept returning to the identity of the fourth man, the man who had walked safely away from the armed robbery and the exploding Ford Escort van. Eventually, he gave up chasing the mold round his Scotch, picked up another slightly cleaner mug and poured another measure. As he drank he got up and stared at the row of photographs stuck up along his office walclass="underline" all known associates of Harry Rawlins.
‘One of you is my fourth man,’ he mumbled to himself. ‘Was that why Boxer was silenced, because he knew who you were?’ Dear God, it couldn’t possibly be Harry Rawlins!
Resnick was confused by the cash strewn all over Boxer’s bedsit. Boxer had been telling people that he was back on Harry Rawlins’s payroll, which would explain why he had money, but why did the thug who turned his place over and half-killed Fran just leave the cash lying around? He can’t have been interested in the money; he was after something very specific. Did he think Boxer had the ledgers?
Another interesting detail Resnick had noted was that whoever had taken Boxer out on the night he was murdered had washed and wiped clean one chipped mug; the one he had used, no doubt. It had been the only clean thing in the whole place. So, this mystery person was someone with whom Boxer was happy to have a drink and go out on the town. ‘Careful bastards,’ Resnick whispered to himself, ‘are careful for a reason.’ He moved along the wall to the mug shots of the three dead robbers and stared at the image of Harry Rawlins, the most careful bastard he’d ever known. ‘Was it you, Rawlins?’
Resnick doubted Rawlins was Boxer’s mystery drinking companion, or the frenzied attacker of Fat Fran or the hit and run driver. If he really was alive, he wouldn’t be out in the open like that. But he might pay someone else to be... Boxer’s killing bore all the hallmarks of a professional, and Rawlins knew plenty of them.
Picking up three darts from his desk, Resnick took aim with one and threw it at the wall. It bounced off and he had to jump out the way as it flew back toward him. He picked it up again and threw it harder. This time it stuck with a thud in the wall just above Terry Miller’s photo. He smiled, poured another drink and swigged it back in one go.
In early for work, Fuller saw the light on in Resnick’s office. With no one else around, this was his opportunity to vent his frustration at all weekend leave being canceled. He’d already arranged to go out with his wife and he was damned if he was going to miss out just because Resnick was trying to save his already ruined career. As Fuller marched to Resnick’s office, he tried to control his breathing; he would start by asking Resnick nicely to keep the weekend clear for him.
Fuller knocked and at Resnick’s barked ‘Enter!’ stepped into the untidy office. Resnick was sitting staring at the three photos on the wall aiming another dart. He threw it across Fuller’s path instead.