Down into Darkness (42 page)

The procedure was keep your distance, observe, follow if necessary, don't approach, call for back-up. She took out her phone, turned to face away from him, pressed a speed-dial number, spoke two sentences, then turned back. He was still there, sitting quietly, his hands in his lap, his forearms upturned as if to catch the sun. As she walked towards him, he leaned back on the bench, looking up at the tree, and Stella followed his eye line to where a breeze shifted the leaves and the leaves scattered sunlight.

She sat down next to him. She said, ‘I know who you are.'

The train pulled out.

Aimée watched it until it was out of sight. The platform was empty, but if she looked hard enough, if she refused to look away, there was a ghost train with two ghost passengers, the only two aboard, sitting in a window seat and watching her as she watched them leave. She raised a hand to wave, but the image wouldn't hold.

Something kept him. Something prevented him. Something not his fault
.

She knew it wasn't so.

She went through the concourse at a dead run, howling. She teetered in a wild arc, her arms outstretched, her mouth wide open, as the other travellers, the ones with somewhere to go and someone to go with, moved away, amazed.

There was no one near her as she ran, spinning, arms out, a mad woman, shouting his name, over and over, as if he might hear her, as if, even now, he might come.

Stella Mooney and Gideon Woolf, side by side on the bench.

She spoke to him in a voice that was both soft and low, and he nodded, listening carefully, because she seemed to know all sorts of things, and understand them too. His life seemed clearer to him when she talked about it, his needs more obvious, his reasons more credible.

After a while, it was his turn to speak, his voice barely more than a whisper, letting her in on secrets, sharing hopes, answering all her questions, his new-found friend, his patient confidante.

Gideon Wolf sat in a holding cell at Notting Dene. It was daylight outside, but dark in the cell and a light high on the wall threw a pale shadow. His shadow. His own.

He stood up and extended his arms and the shadow flew. He smiled because things had turned out well.

Now he wouldn't have to kill Aimée, which was good.

Now the world would know him for himself, which was good.

Now there would be no more talk of cowardice or betrayal.

He would tell them everything. He had already made a start with the woman who had sat with him on the bench. When the others arrived and had driven him to this place, he had continued to talk. He was anxious to let them know who he was and what he was capable of, because the more he explained the more he understood.

The only thing he would keep from them was the moment when Silent Wolf stood on the prison wall, searchlights scanning the towers, the siren blaring, guards with rifles running this way and that, the Wolf's silhouette stark and clear for just a moment before he swung down into the city streets and was lost to sight.

It was as if the house had exhausted most of its oxygen.

Aimée's breath came short and shallow. There were tiny silver spangles flickering at the corner of her vision, and she felt as if each step might pitch her forward on to her face. She took the note from the mantelpiece and opened it, going
line by line, as if she were reading it for the first time. Then she burned it.

It was ten to six. She sat on a kitchen stool and looked round – everything just as she'd left it, everything as it should be – and wondered how it could be possible that she was there in that utterly strange place.

Somewhere the hiss and rumble of a high-speed train.

Somewhere a landscape beyond a window.

Two people looking out, side by side, lovers in love.

When Peter came through the door ten minutes later, Aimée was preparing dinner. There were days when he brought her flowers, and this was one of them.

A day like any other.

Rain came in from the west.

It rained for three days without stopping, which slowed the city down. The tailbacks were longer, tempers were shorter. The
AMIP
-5 squad wrote reports and signed off, one by one, the job done. Brian Collier was a happy man. There was still the catch-up paperwork, of course, but he'd already vowed ‘never again'.

Stella hadn't ever taken a liking to Collier, but a corner had been turned when he'd got shot saving Donna from a certain gang-rape. And at least he hadn't been hitting on her, a fact she shared with Maxine Hewitt.

‘No,' Maxine said, ‘he's been hitting on me. He tells me he's blessed with a gigantic cock.'

‘I can't vouch for it,' Stella said. ‘Did you tell him you're gay?'

‘Oh, sure.'

‘He didn't believe you.'

‘Apparently, I need a gigantic cock to change my life. Is our man still talking?'

‘As if he'll never stop. His life is one big adventure in which the bad guys go down and justice is served.'

‘His brief will go for post-traumatic stress disorder.'

‘All this could have been avoided,' Stella observed, ‘if he had simply done his job.'

‘His job?'

‘Killing people.'

Stanley Bowman didn't really notice the rain, he was too busy dealing and playing, playing and dealing. Just now he
was in a West End casino looking at ace/king of diamonds in the hole and two diamonds in the flop.

He had received the call from Vanechka and given the code word. The call had proceeded just as Bowman had expected, but what he didn't know was that the code word had sent a little shock-wave down the line. It was the word he'd been given by Ricardo, but it was a bad word: not the wrong word, but a word that meant
Deal this guy out and fast
; that meant
This money is tainted, this money is cutting a pathway that will take you straight to jail
.

He caught a high diamond on the river and went all in. At just the same moment his dirty money was travelling at terrific speed back up the laundry line and making a noise like a lit fuse. The people who had received Stella's tip-off would see it and know what it meant. They would intercept the money and reroute it, just to keep things flowing, just to keep Bowman sweet. When they'd got everything,
everything
, then they'd make their move.

A player with three jacks thought he saw a bluff and matched the bet. Bowman flipped up his ace/king. He smiled the smile of a man who expected to win.

A Rich List smile.

Lawyers had asked questions and doctors had given the answers: they didn't expect Neil Morgan to recover his faculties. Candice wondered what unbelievably, unspeakably, unchangeably shitty luck had brought her to this. She sat at his bedside and asked him for the numbers of the offshore accounts; he responded with a wet grin. She asked him again; he grinned again. She was surprised to find just how deep hatred could go.

The lawyers had taken note of a clause in Morgan's papers that read ‘if I die or become incapable of managing my affairs'. The instruction concerned a woman named Abigail
Gray, and the file contained a letter that should be delivered to her. There were clear instructions to the lawyers that all this should be dealt with as a matter of the strictest confidence. When Abigail opened the letter, which she would, three weeks later when clearances had been secured, she would find the names of several banks, each with an account number beside it. The number alone was authorization for withdrawal of funds.

Beyond the rain-streaked window, planes were dropping out of the cloud-cover, one every half-minute. Candice thought Barbados would be nice. For Neil, a day nurse and a night nurse; for herself, sea, sand and sex. She would take the flight a week later, sharing business class with Sekker and his girl, who were beating the hurricane season, just as they'd planned.

Stella touched base with Mike Sorley and got him on his mobile. He was taking a walk by the river, and Stella could hear the sound of rain rattling his umbrella.

‘Should you be out in this?'

‘Light exercise is what the doctors said.'

‘You got my report?'

‘They'll go for post-traumatic stress disorder.'

‘That's what DC Hewitt said.'

‘What was it with the MP – Morgan?'

‘Pro-war, like Martin Turner, but we now know that he was mixed up with a company that deals arms, a non-executive director.'

‘A fixer.'

‘That would be it, yes. And recipient of a fat backhander.'

‘You think Woolf knew?'

‘It's doubtful, Boss. Any idea of when you'll be fit for work?'

‘Soon. Definitely. A week or so. I heard DI Collier hasn't enjoyed his time behind a desk.'

‘You heard right.'

‘But did he do a good job?'

‘Ask the SIO,' Stella said, ‘but, look, it's a piece of piss, isn't it – shuffling a few files around, issuing memos.'

Sorley sat on a bench under his umbrella and watched the rain dimpling the water. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.

Just this one
.

When the rain stopped, the summer came back in: clear skies, a hot sun. Everything dried off and London moved back outdoors. In the square by Machado's restaurant, tables had been set out and strings of white lights hung in the trees.

Stella and John Delaney were drinking champagne and sharing a seafood platter. The champagne was because Delaney had signed off on his Rich List. Editorial tact had removed Neil Morgan from the series.

Stella said, ‘Any of them you liked?'

‘No. Well, Bowman, classy sort of guy, you know… cool operator.'

‘Not a job you enjoyed.'

‘It paid well.'

‘Yeah, sure.'

‘It wrote easily.'

‘You hated it.'

Delaney laughed. ‘Okay, I hated it.' He poured champagne, then upturned the empty bottle in the ice bucket and signalled for more.

Stella tapped the back of his hand. It meant ‘listen'. She said, ‘I know what you're thinking and I know why you're not sharing it with me.'

‘Think so?'

‘You're thinking of a war zone.'

He looked genuinely surprised. ‘Shit-hot Detective Mooney.'

‘You're thinking of the old life, and you're thinking that feature articles are for has-beens.' He was silent. She asked, ‘Seen anyone yet?'

‘A couple of people.' He didn't mention Martin Turner; it seemed unnecessarily complicated. ‘Look, Stella –'

‘Any takers?'

He shrugged. Then: ‘Well, yes…'

‘Will you go?'

He drank the last of his champagne. The swifts were back, circling and banking, their cries lacing the night air.

‘The reason I quit,' he said, ‘was because I came too close. I could have died – not just once, three times, four… I was frightened; I was so frightened I vowed I would never go back.'

‘So what changed?'

‘Nothing changed. I know how stupid it is even to think this way.'

‘But…'

‘It's a cliché. Being close to death makes you feel more alive.'

‘So you're thinking – what? Start again, or just one more time?'

‘Just one more time. But I don't know… Look, there's us, there's moving in together, there's buying a house.'

‘Yep. There's all that.'

‘So, listen, you decide. It's up to you.'

Stella laughed. ‘No it's fucking not, Delaney. Definitely not. I'm not making your decisions for you. But look, you want my
opinion
? Go. Go, for Christ's sake. If you don't get killed, I'll be waiting for you when you get back.'

‘You'll be waiting.'

‘Yes. That's what I'll be doing. Waiting.'

‘Is that new for you?' he asked.

‘Yes, it's new.'

‘Well, it's new for me too.'

She woke just before dawn and he was sleeping sweetly, as if dreams could never trouble him again.

In the kitchen she made coffee, then went to the home-made white-board and took the items down one by one. The picture of Bryony slipped from its pin and fell at her feet.
Dirty girl
. An echo came back to her, and she thought she remembered hearing those words before; they had arrived with a slap and, for a second, she saw her mother's face, lips tight with anger, her hand raised for the second blow.

Little Stella Mooney, home alone for hours, darkness coming on, and trying to make herself something to eat – things spilled, things broken.

Dirty girl!

It's all chance, she thought. It's all risk. God knows, the smallest choice changes everything. She wondered what Delaney's war-zone choices might be: this road not that, go on or turn back, the difference between whether she'd ever see him again or not.

For all she knew, Gideon Woolf's choices might have been much the same.

There was the merest flush of light in the eastern sky. She took her coffee to the window and watched the dawn come up, London's glow giving way to a tinge of aquamarine, the sky above a deep, vibrant blue. Between the two, growing ever sharper, ever harder, the city skyline.

She could almost imagine his silhouette, etched there a moment, as he looked down on the wakening streets.

The End