Chill Factor (36 page)

“Oh, and which was it?”

“Fate, definitely fate. So where are you going, young lady, at such a late hour. Didn’t you know that the streets are not safe in this town?”

“It’s the start of Statis week,” she reminded me. “There’s a concert in the square, followed by fireworks. Why don’t you come? I could see you there.”

“Who’s playing?” I asked, as if it mattered.

“It’s an Irish band, called Clochan. They’re pretty good.”

“Right. Great. Where shall I meet you?” I like Irish bands, but I’d still have gone if it had been Emma Royd and the Piledrivers.

Annette was standing at the edge of the audience, near the Sue Ryder shop as arranged, with the hood of her
waterproof
down even though it was raining. She looked pleased to see me, and I kissed her on the lips and put my arm
around her.

“Good weekend?” I shouted into her ear, in competition with ‘Whiskey in the Jar.’

“Mmm,” she mouthed in reply. “And you?”

“So so. They are good, aren’t they.” I sang along with them, to show how hip I’d once been:
As I was going over the Cork and Kerry mountains, I met Captain Farrel…and I shot him with my pistol.

We caught the last three songs, finishing with a
tour de force
rendition of ‘Marie’s Wedding’ that slowly built-up and carried the audience along with it: first swaying to the tune; then clapping and foot-stamping; and eventually dancing wildly, arms and legs flailing. Annette and I looped arms and dozey-do’d, exchanging partners with the couple next to us, until the music stopped and we all ground to a breathless halt. I stood with my arms around her and the rain running down my face as she and the others applauded them from the stage. If the devil really does have all the best tunes he must be a Celt.

The bang startled me. I spun round, heart bouncing, but all I saw was a sea of upturned faces, washed in pink and then lilac as the firework filled the sky with spangles. Annette joined in the chorus of “Ooh” and “Aah” as chandeliers of fire blossomed above our heads, each burst of light a giant chrysanthemum, illuminating the smoke trails of its
predecessor
until it faded to make way for something even brighter. I looked around at the jostling crowd, their eyes shaded by hoods and hats, as explosions rippled and
crackled
through the sodden sky. The noise of a machine gun, never mind a .38, could easily have gone un-noticed amongst all that cacophony.

A single desultory bang signified the end, leaving us with fading images on our retinas and the smell of cordite in our nostrils. “Thank you for the dance,” I said to the complete stranger that I’d been whirling around two minutes earlier.

“I’ll save one for you next year,” she laughed, and her
husband looked embarrassed, as if he couldn’t believe it had all happened.

Annette and I picked our way through the crowd heading towards the car parks until I eased her into a side street and steered a course down towards the canal, where it was
quieter
. “I’m in the multi-storey,” I explained. “But let’s take the romantic route.”

“I’d hardly call Heckley Navigation romantic,” she laughed.

“I know, but it’s the best I can do. I think hot cocoa at your place is called for. How does that sound?”

“It sounds very inviting,” she agreed, squeezing my hand.

The alley down to the canal is the one where Lockwood and Stiles had come to grief, four months earlier. As we approached the end I sensed Annette looking around her, realising where we were.

“This is Dick Lane, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Mmm,” I replied.

“Where Martin Stiles got the panda stuck?”

“That’s right.” Through the day it is blocked with
delivery
vehicles servicing the shops that back on to it, but at night only courting couples and glue sniffers use it,
sheltering
in the doorways and behind the dumpsters. Tonight the rain had kept them away, but it was still early. We’d reached the iron posts that prevent the egress of anything wider than a stolen Fiesta. “And these,” I said, fondling one of the rounded tops, “are the items in question.”

“Oh God!” Annette giggled, letting go of my hand.

“What?” I laughed.

“I just…I just…”

“What?”

She shook her head and made gurgling noises.

I put my hand on her shoulder to steady her. “You just what?”

“Nothing!”

I engulfed her in my arms and felt her body shaking as
she tried to control her giggling. It was a pleasant
experience
. “What?” I demanded, turning to shelter her from the rain.

“I just…I just…”

Now I was giggling. “You just what?”

“I just realised…I just realised why they call it…Why they call it…”

I completed the sentence for her. “Why they call it Dick Lane? It was named after the Methodist minister who built this church.” I flapped a hand at the building to my left.

A respectable stream was running down the middle of the alley, and up at the top the cobbles shone yellow and orange with the lights from the square. Halfway along a movement caught my attention, so brief that I wondered if I’d imagined it. A figure stepped out of the shadows and stepped straight back into them.

“If you say so,” she replied, finding a tissue and blowing her nose. “But I don’t believe it.”

“I’m appalled,” I told her. “I can’t imagine what sort of people you mix with. C’mon, I’m soaked.” I grabbed her hand again and pulled her towards the towpath.

The canal was a black hole, devoid of movement or form apart from where an occasional rectangle of light fell on to it and the surface became a pattern of overlapping circles,
piling
on to each other as the rain increased in force. I stepped into a puddle and said: “I think this was a mistake.”

Annette stopped, saying: “That’s where Darryl Buxton lived, isn’t it?” She was looking at a mill across the canal, converted into executive flats. Buxton was a rapist that we jailed.

“That’s right,” I agreed, looking behind us. I hadn’t
imagined
it. A figure stepped cautiously out of the end of Dick Lane and merged into the shadows again. He was hugging the wall, gaining on us, and the next opening was nearly a hundred yards away. “Do you have plenty of milk?” I asked, tugging at her arm.

“Milk?”

“Mmm. You know, comes from cows. I like my cocoa made with milk.”

“Oh, I think we’ll be able to manage that. Except mine comes from Tesco.”

“That’ll do. C’mon.”

“The canal looks spooky, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. Not as romantic as I’d thought. Perhaps I was
confusing
it with Venice.”

“How deep is it?”

I looked back but couldn’t be sure if he was there. “I don’t know.”

“Did you swim in it when you were a child?”

“No.”

“You didn’t?”

“No. We went to the baths.” This time I saw him, and he was much closer, moving purposefully but still keeping to the shadows. I stopped to pick up a stone and tossed it towards the water. It splashed somewhere out in the
blackness
. When I looked, he’d stopped too.

We were nearly at the end of the next alleyway, similar to Dick Lane but without the dicks. It was another service road, cobbled and narrow, and not illuminated. I patted my pockets, feeling for my mobile phone, knowing I wouldn’t find it. “Do you have your phone with you?” I asked, but she didn’t.

“Listen, Annette,” I said as we approached the end of the wall. “When we reach this corner I want you to do exactly as I say.”

She sensed the urgency in my voice. “What is it, Charlie?” she asked.

“Just do as I say. When we get round the corner I want you to run as fast as you can towards the town centre. There’s a pub called the Talisman at the top of the street. Go in and go straight to the ladies’. Lock yourself in for five minutes. Then come out and order two drinks at the bar. I’ll
join you about then.”

“What are you talking about?” she demanded.

“Just do as I say.”

“Why? What is it?”

“We’re being followed.” We reached the corner and turned it. Two big green dumpsters were standing there, just as I’d hoped. “Now run!” I hissed, pushing her towards the lights.

“And what are you doing?” she asked.

“Just run!”

“I’m not running without you.”

I heard the
tch tch
of his trainers on the wet floor, fast at first, as if he were jogging, then slower, cautious, as he reached the corner. I grabbed Annette’s arm and pushed her behind the dumpster, bundling her deep into the corner. A rat squealed a protest and scuttled away.

The footsteps paused as he surveyed the empty street, then started again, striding out. I heard his noise, sensed his shadow as I anticipated his position, predicting the exact moment he would emerge. As he passed the dumpster I took two rapid strides forward and hurled myself at him.

Priority was to stop him finding his gun. I threw my arms around him in a bear hug and knocked him to the ground. He kicked wildly and we rolled over, first me on top, then him, followed by me again. As he rolled over me I felt water running down my neck. He shouted something I didn’t catch and Annette joined in, flailing at him with her fists, trying to hold his head. Next time he was on the bottom I risked letting go with one hand for sufficient time to smash his face against the cobbles. He jerked and went limp.

Neither of us had handcuffs with us. I felt his clothing for a gun but he was unarmed. I rolled him over and moved to one side so my shadow wasn’t on him. His lips were
moving
and a trickle of blood ran from his forehead until the rain diluted it to almost nothing.

“Oh shit!” I said.

“It’s me,” he mumbled. “It’s me, Mr Priest.”

“Do you know him?” Annette asked.

“Yeah, I know him.” I grabbed his lapels and pulled him, still mumbling, into a seated position. “I know him all right. I’d like you to meet Jason Lee Gelder: until recently chief suspect in the Marie-Claire Hollingbrook case.”

It was Les Isles’ fault. We led Jason to where there was more light and cleaned him up. He was more apologetic than I was, and refused to be taken to Heckley General for a
check-up
. He wouldn’t even let us give him a lift home. “It’s my fault, Mr Priest,” he kept insisting. “I shouldn’t have
followed
you like that.”

When they’d decided not to oppose bail, poor old Jason had interpreted this as implying that he was no longer in the frame for Marie-Claire’s murder. He’d attempted to thank Les, who’d said: “Don’t thank me, thank Inspector Priest,” and told him that he owed me a pint. Jason took him
literally
. When he saw us at the fireworks he thought he would pay his debts, and followed us into Dick Lane. He said he was going to catch up with us there, but when we stopped “for a snog” he thought better of it and waited.

I believed him. Jason wasn’t a crook, but he certainly qualified as a
client
, and some of them get funny ideas. They come into the station and see us in court, and start to see themselves as part of the organisation. We see them as the enemy, they regard themselves as our colleagues. I told Jason to call into the nick tomorrow and report the incident. He said it didn’t matter, but I insisted. I’d do a full report, to keep myself and Annette in the clear. He was slow but
well-meaning
, and destined for a lifetime of holding the dirty end of whatever stick was offered him. I imagined him at the slaughterhouse, doing every obscene job that his sick
workmates
could find, and felt sorry for the Jasons of the world.

It was only a five-minute drive to Annette’s, and we did it in silence. I doused the lights outside her flat and turned
to face her. She stared straight ahead, unsmiling and pale in the harsh light. Under the street lamps the rain was falling like grain out of a silo.

“You’re soaked,” I ventured, and she nodded in
agreement
.

“The, er, evening didn’t quite turn out as I intended,” I said.

“No,” she replied.

“But the music was good. I enjoyed that.” Annette didn’t respond, so I went on: “We used to go to the Irish Club, years ago. Had some great nights there. It was the headaches next morning that put a stop to it.”

She turned to face me, and said: “You thought it was him, didn’t you?”

“Who?” I asked, all innocence.

“Him. Chilcott. The Chiller, whatever you call him. You thought it was the Chiller following us.”

“No I didn’t.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I thought he was a mugger. He’d seen us and decided we’d be easy prey, so he followed us. I thought we’d give him a surprise.”

“So I had to run as fast as I could to the pub and lock myself in the toilet? For a mugger? I don’t believe you.”

“Yeah, well,” I mumbled.

“I saw the look on your face, Charlie,” she told me. “When we were behind the bins. You were…
eager
. You were enjoying yourself. You were about to tackle someone you thought had a gun, who wanted to kill you, and you were enjoying yourself.”

“I wasn’t enjoying myself,” I protested. “I was scared stiff and I was worried about you.”

“But you admit that you thought it was Chilcott?”

“It crossed my mind, Annette, in the heat of the moment. But now I see the idea as preposterous. He’s a long way away and I’m just history to him, believe me.”

“I don’t know what to believe.”

After a long silence I said: “Shall we cancel the cocoa?”

“I think so,” she replied. “If you don’t mind.”

I shrugged my shoulders. I minded like hell. I minded like a giant asteroid was heading towards Heckley, and only a cup of cocoa in her flat, listening to George Michael CDs, would save the town. But who was I to make a decision like that?

As she opened the door I said: “You’re upset, Annette. It was a frightening experience. Go have a nice hot bath and stay in bed until lunchtime. I’ll make it right. Have the whole day off, if you want.”

She looked at me and sighed. “I think it’s you who needs some time off, Charlie,” she said, opening the car door and swinging her legs onto the pavement. “I’ll be there,” she stated. “Bright and early, as always.”