Last Rites (25 page)

“Why, Michael?”

“What?”

“Why are you here?”

He glanced around. “Why not? It’s perfect. Perfect place for us to meet.” He laughed softly. “You don’t have to worry about Maureen, I can handle her.”

Does that mean you’re sleeping with her? Lorraine wanted to know. Fucking her? She was angry at the thought. Surprised at her own jealousy.

“I haven’t laid a hand on her,” Michael said, reading her mind.

“Haven’t you?”

He stared back at her, daring contradiction. Lorraine retrieved the brandy, but one swallow was enough to burn the back of her throat and make her cough.

He took the glass from her hand and stood close, their bodies almost touching, actually touching when they both breathed out.

“Why didn’t you go? Like everyone thought. Why didn’t you get away while you had the chance?”

“Come on, Lo, I couldn’t go without you. What’d be the point?”

“What d’you mean? You’re not making any sense.”

“Sense? ‘Course I’m making bloody sense. If it wasn’t for you, I might as well’ve stayed in jail. Done my time.”

“But you can’t think …”

“What?”

“Michael, you can’t … You can’t think we can just …”

“Can’t what? Can’t nothing. We can do anything.”

He believed it; she could see it in his face. “Oh, God!” She moved away and he caught her by the wrist, and she looked back at him through tears. “Michael, it’s just not … it’s crazy, that’s what it is. Insane.”

He kissed her eyes and then her mouth, the slow fleshy warmth inside his lips and then the thrust of his tongue, forcing her. His hands moving her back against the wall, clumsy on her breasts, not the way she remembered them, pushing too hard, kneading. Needy. Edging her legs apart with his knee, a hand between her legs.

“No-o!” She bit down on the thickness of his tongue and when he pulled away she tasted blood. Her eyes suddenly fiery, threatening.

“All right. Okay.” Michael, one hand out, backing away. “I know we can’t … just like that … it’s my fault, I shouldn’t have rushed.” He wiped his hand across the corner of his mouth. “I know it’s gonna … it’s going to take time. It’s just, you know, thinking about you all this time. Banged up. Inside. Thinking about you so long.” He was moving slowly back toward her. “Lo, believe me. I understand. I do.”

She covered her face with her hands.

“Lo?”

“Oh, Michael, you don’t understand anything.”

“I can’t hear you, what you’re saying.”

“You don’t understand anything. At all.”

Silence, the room, the whole house wrapped in cotton wool.

Michael standing there, waiting for her to look at him again. “Derek,” he said. “You don’t love him. I doubt you ever did. You told me. And you do love me. You know you do. You always have.”

“Michael, that’s not …”

“Not what?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Of course it’s the fucking point!”

She stumbled back, frightened by the anger, the intensity of his voice.

“What else d’you think it’s all about. What else has it always been about? What I did, then. What I’m doing now. It’s for you. Us. That’s all that matters. All that counts.”

Tears running down her face, she leaned toward him and he held her in his arms, allowing himself to cry now, laugh a little, yes, that too, but crying most of all. The two of them like great kids, grinning through their tears.

“Come over here,” he said. “Come on over here and sit down while I tell you. I’ve got it all worked out, all planned. Passport, everything, it’s all fixed. Turkey, that’s where we’re going first. Travel separate, of course. No way round that. After, we can go anywhere. Anywhere we want. Just about. Send for the kids. You see, they’ll love it. Sandra, specially. She’s lovely, isn’t she? A sweetheart.”

“Michael …”

“Just a couple of things I’ve got to take care of first, couple more days and then we’re away. Out of here.” His face so serious, naive. “All you have to do, be ready, you know, ready to move. I’ll let you know, as much notice as I can. Okay? Okay, Lo, okay?”

She let him kiss her then, her face, neck, tips of her fingers, palms of her hands. Lorraine unable to look at him, afraid she’d be blinded by the joy on his face, the light in his eyes.

As soon as she felt she could, she pulled away. “Michael, listen. I’ve got to go, get back. The kids. And Derek. I said I’d not be long. They’ll worry. Come round. You don’t know Derek. He’ll have Sandra and Sean in the back of the car and be round here, double quick.”

Pushing herself to her feet, she brushed her hands down the front of her clothes, straightening herself out as best she could. Her hair would need a comb through it and then some. Her cheeks felt as if they were on fire.

“Lo, you’re okay, right?”

“Yes. Yes, of course. I’m fine.” She smiled and he smiled back, doing that thing with his eyes.

Lorraine turned toward the door.

“A couple of days, Lo. Three at most.”

“Yes, yes, all right.”

He followed her out into the hall, but when he went to kiss her again she moved her head aside. “You’d best stay away from the front door,” she said. “No point in risking being seen.”

“Round here?” Michael grinned. “That’s a laugh.”

But he stood well back, and when Lorraine turned the catch he said, “I do love you, you know.”

“I know.”

Her hands were shaking so much it was all she could do to fit the car key into the lock, switch on the ignition.

Thirty-four

Carefully, methodically, Millington and Naylor had been questioning Gary Prince, Ben Fowles sitting in, listening and learning. And as they went through incident after incident, one set of stolen goods after another, Prince had talked himself into corners from which it was more and more difficult to escape. The one thing he hadn’t admitted, nor even come close to, was selling a weapon to Valentine.

“Look on the bright side, Graham,” Resnick said. “There’s a dozen burglaries, more, some of them going back years—all those files marked closed. Do wonders for the crime figures.”

“Aye, happen you’re right.”

They were stealing twenty minutes’ sunshine, sitting on a bench in the tiny rectangle of public gardens at the end of Newcastle Drive.

“Besides, most likely thing,” Resnick said, “’less the gun’s at the bottom of the Trent, it’s been sold on a couple of times by now.”

Millington shook his head. “We’ve had feelers out and plenty, no word.”

“Not to worry, Graham. Be thankful for what we’ve got.”

Millington considered a cigarette, then thought better of it. “Raymond Cooke,” he said. “Took over that place Bobbers Mill way when his Uncle Terry killed himself.”

Resnick nodded. “What about him?”

“Name’s come up a couple of times. Jobs we thought Prince might’ve had a hand in. One in particular—break-in out at the Science Park. Computer stuff up the wazoo.”

“And he’s suggesting Ray-o was involved?”

Millington shook his head. “Not directly. Fenced the stuff, that’s all. Think there might be something to it?”

“Possible, Graham. Depends how closely he’s following in Terry Cooke’s footsteps.”

Millington snapped the spent match in half. “Often thought about that, you know. That whole business. Cookie topping himself the way he did. That girlfriend of his …”

“Eileen.”

“Yeah, right next to him in the bed.” He decided to light up after all. “Stripper, wasn’t she? What? Twenty-three, twenty-four? No dog, either.” Millington held in the smoke, then exhaled slowly. “You’d have thought, something nice like that alongside you, last thing you’d want to do, put your brains all over the pillow.”

Resnick stood and stretched. “I might take a walk down there, Graham. Haven’t had a word with young Ray-o in a while.”

Millington grinned. “One of your waifs and strays, isn’t he? Along of the Snapes.”

“Time to be getting back, Graham,” Resnick said.

“That social worker you went out with a while,” Millington said, smiling broadly. “Five or so years back. Rachel, was it? Left her mark on you and no mistake.”

But Resnick, striding away, was no longer listening.

At lunchtime, Lorraine left work and was crossing toward her car when she saw Evan, smoking a cigarette, over by the dividing wall. For just a moment, she stopped in her tracks and Evan dropped the cigarette and ground it out with the underside of his shoe. Lorraine put her keys back in her bag and headed straight for him. “What the hell d’you think you’re doing?”

“I told you yesterday …”

“And I told you. If you don’t keep away from me, stop following me …”

“Tell me what I need to know.”

“You need to know nothing.”

Evan shook his head. “I thought I’d explained all that.”

“Listen,” Lorraine said, not wanting to make a scene, conscious that someone else from her work could come out at any moment. “Listen, there’s this law. Stalking.” She jabbed a finger against Evan’s chest. “You keep this up and I’m going to the police.”

Evan looked hurt. “But that’s not what …”

“Not what?”

“What I’m doing.”

“What else would you call it?” She rounded on her heel and strode toward her car. Before getting there, she turned again and headed back to Evan. “Which is yours?”

“Huh?”

“Which is yours?” Her head was half turned toward the line of other vehicles.

Evan didn’t answer, but she could see where he was looking: a Vauxhall Carlton, dark blue, a hire car with last year’s registration.

She took a pen and a slip of paper from her bag and made a show of writing down the number. “Okay, Evan, I’m telling you this. If I see either you or that car, anywhere near me, here or at home, I am going to call the law.” And she stared at him till he lowered his head and scuffed his feet on the floor.

When she caught sight of him in her rearview mirror, he was still standing there like some overgrown kid in the playground, stubborn and close to tears.

Raymond hadn’t been back in the shop much more than half an hour when Sheena Snape waltzed in. Sheena with her hair tied back, one of those skimpy sweaters that buttoned up the front and stopped several inches above the navel, black jeans that clung to her like a second skin. When she spoke, a smear of red lipstick shone bright on her front teeth.

“Ray-o, listen, I’ve been thinkin’.”

“Yeh?”

“What we was talkin’ about yes’day, you know.”

“Yeh, what about it?”

“I was thinkin’ maybe I should never’ve come here, right? Maybe I should’ve gone to someone else all along.”

“Why? What …? What you on about? What …?”

Sheena looking around at the second-hand tumble-driers, third-hand fridge-freezers. “I mean, you know, I don’t want to be rude, Ray-o. Insulting. But, you know, somethin’ like this, it’s a bit out of your class, know what I mean?”

“Bollocks!”

“Charming.”

“I can handle it,” Raymond said, puffing himself out. “No problem, you see.”

Sheena stood looking at him squarely: the watery eyes that never seemed quite true, the pallid skin that was always damp with sweat. “You got a buyer, then? That what you’re saying?”

“Yeh.”

“Yeah?”

“Almost.” Raymond held up finger and thumb to illustrate how close he had come. “I was talking, just now, just before you come in. This bloke, dead interested. Exactly what you’ve got. Exactly.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeh.”

“Two hundred.”

“At least.”

“So when you seeing him?”

“Couple of days, tops. Relax.”

Sheena sucked at her bottom lip; she didn’t know whether to believe him or not. But when she’d tried talking to the others about it, Diane had been preoccupied with Melvin, who was throwing up all over everywhere, and Lesley—Lesley was so far out of it, she didn’t even know who Sheena was. Which left Sheena herself walking round town with a handgun that could, in all probability, be tied into a shooting, even attempted murder.

“Sure I can trust you, Ray-o? You’re not winding me up, stringin’ us along?”

“Course not.”

“Here. You’ll be needing this, then.”

She had unsnapped her bag and lifted out the Beretta and was passing it across into Raymond’s willing hand, when Raymond saw, in the corner of his eye, Resnick briskly crossing the street toward them.

“Fuck!”

“What? What’s up? What?”

Raymond barely had time enough to tuck the weapon underneath the loose flap of his shirt, down inside the back of his jeans, before the bell above the door rang and Resnick walked in.

Seeing him, Sheena’s face set like sour milk.

“Sheena. Ray-o.” Resnick smiled, sniffing the air between them.

“Mr. Resnick,” Raymond stumbled, balance shifting from one foot to the other.

Sullen, Sheena said nothing.

“Didn’t know you two knew one another,” Resnick said pleasantly. “Though if I’d thought about it, I suppose I should.”

“Sheena was just looking for something for her mum,” Raymond said. “For the kitchen, like.”

Sheena’s look cut him off at the knees.

“How is Norma?” Resnick asked.

“Fine,” Sheena managed. “Better wi’out seein’ you.”

“I dare say.”

“You reckon the microwave, then?” Raymond said. “This one over ’ere.”

“Sod off, Ray-o,” Sheena said, turning toward the door. And, with a parting look at Resnick, “I don’t know what he’s on about. I was passin’, that’s all.”

The shop door closed with a slam and left Resnick and Raymond staring at one another, Raymond aware of nothing as much as the cold metal hard against his spine.

“Nice lass,” Resnick said.

Raymond carried on staring, open-mouthed; he had to be taking the piss.

“Seeing one another, are you?”

“Am I buggery!”

Resnick shrugged easily. “Just a thought.”

“Slag like that.”

“She wasn’t in here for the microwave, then, not like you said?”

Raymond could feel himself beginning to blush. “She were, yeh. ‘Course she were. What she said, just, you know, showin’ off.”

Resnick smiled benevolently.

“Girls.” Raymond laughed. “Who can fathom ’em, eh?”

“You wouldn’t have anything in the way of computer software?” Resnick asked. “Fresh in. Top-of-the-range stuff, mostly. Adobe Photoshop. QuarkXPress.”