The Catch (6 page)

‘Piss off. Always bossing me around, like you’re so bloody superior.’

‘That’s bollocks, Louis, but I’m not going to argue with you.’ Dan had him backed up to the corner of the house. ‘Got your keys?’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘Then in you go. And keep the noise down.’ He propelled his brother away with enough force to cause Louis to stumble. Dan hated laying down the law, but any amount of bad feeling was preferable to having Louis dragged into this ...

Conspiracy
, said a voice inside his head.

With his brother fumbling to unlock the front door, Dan got into the car. Starting it up, he over-revved and had a vision of hurtling into the garage, slamming the Fiesta against the rear wall.

That might not be such a bad thing: writing the car off would obscure the earlier damage. But the thought shocked him.

He was thinking like Robbie.

****

Hiding the car brought only temporary respite. Dan regarded it as a breathing space, an opportunity to think through his options before making a calm, careful decision.

Tomorrow. If it was already too late to expect a decent hearing from the authorities, then sleeping on it couldn’t make the situation any worse.

He locked the garage and remembered there was a spare key in the house. He’d have to put it somewhere Louis or Joan couldn’t find it.

The front door had been left open. There was no sign of Louis, but his aunt was descending the stairs, wrapped in a thick pink dressing gown.

‘Your brother’s in a dreadful state. Did you bring him home?’

‘Someone dropped him off. I don’t know where he’s been.’

‘He’s in the bathroom, being ill. I’m just fetching the ibuprofen.’

‘Perhaps a bad head is what he needs.’

She gave a wistful sigh. ‘He just seems so young ...’

‘He always has,’ Dan said.
And he always will
.

Joan kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘Did I hear you putting the car in the garage?’

‘Yeah. The engine was cutting out.’

‘Oh, goodness. It’s one thing after another, isn’t it?’

He nodded, stepping back to let her go into the kitchen. He had hung his jacket on the peg when he remembered the bloodstained tissues. He retrieved them from his pocket, revolted by the crumpled, sticky feel of them in his hand.

With the bathroom upstairs occupied – he could hear Louis retching noisily – Dan went into the downstairs toilet and dropped them into the bowl. A pink tinge began to spread through the water and it came to him, the stark knowledge:
This is the blood of a dead man
.

He shut his eyes, fighting back nausea of his own. Then he scrubbed his hands clean while staring at the haunted soul in the mirror above the sink. Louis was right: he
did
look like shit. Bags under his eyes, just like his dad’s.

Joan had gone back to bed by the time he emerged. He climbed the stairs and knocked gently on the bathroom door.

‘All right?’ he whispered.

Louis replied, in a subdued tone: ‘Yeah. Are you?’

For a second Dan was gripped by an almost delirious need to confess. Call Joan and his brother on to the landing and tell them everything.

Then the moment passed, and he said, ‘Uh-huh. Night, Louis.’

On into his bedroom, where a sudden crushing weariness bore down on him. Without bothering to switch on the light, he wriggled free of his shirt and stamped out of his jeans, mashing them into the carpet as he collapsed on to the bed.

He didn’t expect sleep to come easily, but it was virtually instantaneous: more like passing out than dozing off. His very last fear, the one he carried into oblivion, was that the evening’s tragedy would feed into the nightmares that had stalked him since childhood: his parents’ fatal accident re-imagined in endless gory detail.

But it wasn’t the accident he dreamed of, or Hank O’Brien, or Mum and Dad. It was Cate. He dreamed that she had loved him all along, and it broke his heart to know he wasn’t worthy of her.

The call came at just after three a.m. The dead hour.

The landline extension was on Gordon’s side of the bed. He jerked awake, registered the time on the clock radio and knew immediately that it was bad news. Nobody phoned with good news at three in the morning.

Even as his hand reached out to pick up the phone, he was praying:
Please don’t let it be about Lisa.
He thought it unlikely. His daughter was a plain, undramatic woman in her late twenties, in good health, not given to risk-taking. Even so, he felt a frisson of alarm which didn’t entirely fade until the phone was at his ear and he heard and recognised the caller’s voice.

It was Jerry Conlon. And Jerry was nothing to do with Lisa; had never set eyes on her.

But Gordon was still right about one thing.

****

He listened to thirty seconds of explanation. Jerry Conlon was pushing sixty, a lifelong drinker and smoker, and on the phone some of his words got lost in the phlegmy South London growl. Fortunately Gordon knew the man’s speech patterns well enough to fill in the gaps.

Afterwards, Gordon couldn’t think of much to say. Part of his mind was still rejoicing that Lisa was safe. So he said, in a cautious whisper: ‘Yes, yes, absolutely,’ and after Jerry had spoken some more: ‘No, you were right. Yes. Do that.’

And then, because it seemed there was nothing else to be discussed, he terminated the call. But as he leaned out to replace the handset there was an ominous stirring on the other side of the bed, and Gordon knew with a familiar sinking feeling that he hadn’t got away with it.

****

The bedside light snapped on: Patricia, wide awake and springing into action, pushing back the old-fashioned silk eiderdown and reaching for her glasses, as though there might be documents to read, orders to give.

‘A problem?’

‘Could be. That was Jerry.’

Patricia sat bolt upright, her expression fierce enough to boil water. Gordon flexed the muscles in his arms and legs, trying to stay relaxed, but he could feel the sleep oozing from his veins.

‘He’s concerned about O’Brien,’ he told her. ‘He hasn’t been able to reach him this evening.’

‘You mean he’s not answering his phone, or he’s gone missing? What, exactly?’

‘Both. Jerry wonders if he’s out on a bender, but Hank hadn’t said he was planning on anything the last time they spoke.’

‘And when was that?’

Gordon flinched. He had enough self-respect not to wriggle out of sight beneath the covers. He could try it, in a light-hearted fashion, but Patricia wouldn’t see the funny side.

She thrust out her hand. ‘Phone.’

****

While Patricia dialled the number, Gordon found himself wondering if her first concern, like his, had been for Lisa, or whether it had even crossed her mind that her daughter might have been in distress.

‘Jerry, it’s me. The full story, please.’

Closing his eyes for a moment, Gordon imagined he could feel the body of his wife thrumming with a furious energy; almost enough to make the bed vibrate. Then he realised it was actually his own body trembling, probably because he was tired, and anxious – and fearing his wife’s overreaction.

Sighing, Patricia said, ‘And what time was this?’ Gordon strained to hear the other side of the conversation, but all he could make out was a distant low-pitched rasp, like someone sweeping concrete with a stiff broom.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Go at seven. Make sure you’re not seen. You have keys, don’t you?’

‘Hasn’t he looked inside?’ Gordon hissed.

Patricia held up a hand to command silence. ‘Seven o’clock. If he’s there, you should be able to rouse him. If not, you call me.’

She passed the phone back to Gordon, who went to say goodnight to Jerry, only to find that the line was dead.

‘Well?’ he said, because some degree of analysis was now unavoidable.

‘This could be bad.’ Patricia had crossed her arms and was staring intently at the far wall. ‘This could be very bad.’

****

Patricia Blake was a large woman, although Gordon preferred to think of her as ‘solid’. She had always been that way: solid, well-built, wide at the hips and shoulders. Thirty years ago there had been a softness in evidence as well, in her eyes and her skin; even in her manner when the occasion called for it. But time and bitter experience, rather than wearing her smooth, had instead created furrows and ridges in her character, had made her coarse and abrasive.

She remained a handsome woman, however, and Gordon knew he wasn’t the only one who thought so. She took great care of herself. Her hair and nails were regularly and discreetly maintained, so that from one month to the next her appearance barely changed at all. Her hair was longer than many would consider appropriate for a woman in her mid-fifties, but in public she wore it piled up in a chignon, which lent her a somewhat sexy, girlish quality. In a certain light – admittedly a rather low light – Gordon fancied that she bore a resemblance to Leslie Caron in her middle years.

To many people, Gordon was aware, his wife was regarded as a sour old battleaxe. He could understand that. What successful middle-aged woman didn’t attract such epithets? And Patricia was never one to hold back her opinions: she had pricked a fair few egos over the years, and made enemies as a result—

‘Gordon! I hope you’re not dozing off?’

‘No. Sorry.’

‘I was saying, Jerry last spoke to him yesterday afternoon. O’Brien didn’t mention any plans for the evening beyond a drink at his local pub.’

‘Perhaps he met a friend and went on somewhere?’

‘Mm. Jerry said there are lights on at the house, but no sign of Hank.’

‘Do you think he might have been taken ill? A heart attack, or a stroke?’

‘I hope not.’ Patricia shuddered. ‘Not after everything we’ve invested in him.’

‘But if he could be in the house, unable to call for help ...’

‘Jerry suspects the alarm code has been changed. Hank mentioned upgrading his security a few weeks ago.’

‘Then why didn’t—?’

‘Why didn’t Jerry action it there and then? That is a question we’ll address when this present crisis is resolved. He didn’t say anything to you about it?’

‘About the security? No, of course not.’

Patricia nodded, but her eyes were narrowed, as though some doubt lingered. ‘If necessary he’ll have to disable the alarm. But if O’Brien’s in there, sleeping off a night on the tiles, he’s going to wonder how and why Jerry obtained a set of keys.’

****

Silence for a minute or two, mulling it over. It was three-fifteen, and Patricia had told Jerry to call again at seven. Gordon tried to calculate how many hours were left for sleep, but his brain refused to do the arithmetic. Three or four – and then only if Patricia agreed that nothing could be achieved by staying awake. Sometimes she enjoyed batting a problem back and forth, the way a cat will toy with an injured bird, not to find a solution but for the sheer pleasure of it.

‘There’s no sign of a disturbance at the house?’ he asked. When Patricia shook her head, he said gently: ‘Then let’s not get too despondent. Perhaps Hank has acquired a lady friend.’

‘I sincerely hope not. If he’s seeing somebody and we don’t know about her, it raises the question: what else don’t we know?’ She exhaled loudly, nostrils flaring. ‘This comes back to Jerry. If O’Brien’s hiding something, it means Jerry isn’t doing his job properly. And he’s going to suffer for that.’

Wisely, Gordon said nothing. For Patricia, issuing threats was a form of therapy. It helped to purge the anger from her system.

He shifted across the bed, snaked out one hand beneath the covers and located her thigh, which he began to stroke. ‘Lie down.’

She cast him a glance. ‘You’re not seriously expecting ...?’

‘No. No, I’m not.’ Gordon was hurt. She didn’t have to sound quite so appalled. ‘Let’s go back to sleep. If there is a problem, we need to be fresh and alert in the morning.’

She made another huffing noise, but he could sense that he’d won her over. She turned off the light and shuffled down, coming to rest with her head lying sideways on the pillow. He could just make out her eyes, shining with a malevolent glow.

‘All these years,’ she said. ‘Everything we’ve put into this, and just when it’s coming to fruition—’

‘Ssh, I know. I know, my darling.’

‘I won’t stand by and watch it fall apart. I mean it, Gordon. I won’t let anything stop us from getting what’s rightfully ours. Anything,’ she said again, much too vehemently for a quiet bedroom in the bleakest hour of the night. ‘Or anyone.’

Dan couldn’t remember much about his dreams the next morning; only that they had involved an intense desire for Cate which, upon waking, provoked a nanosecond of guilt – before such trivial concerns were obliterated by his first clear memory of the previous evening.

I ran down a pedestrian and left him dead at the roadside
.

He buried his face in the pillow and held out until his heart was pounding, his body awash with an almost delirious need for oxygen. Then he flipped on to his back and drank the air in hungry gasps, watching black spots dance across his vision. It was a vain attempt to solve his problem. There was only one decent thing he could do now.

Confess
. Call the police, or better still hand himself in. There was a station in Hollingbury, just across the road from the Asda supermarket where they did the weekly shop. Probably less than a mile away.

Dan had only a vague idea of the procedures, but guessed it would be far from pleasant. Would he be released upon completion of his statement, or held in custody? The thought of confinement – and more than that, confinement in the company of violent, dangerous men – tempered his enthusiasm for the idea.