The Final Minute (7 page)

I thought back to the dreams I’d had when I was asleep on that exposed ledge. Visions of terrible violence; of staring into the eyes of men I was trying to kill, and who were trying to kill me, our faces so close we breathed in each other’s sweat; of being held down in a cold, dark room while different men stood above me, with cleavers and axes, and mad, terrifying expressions, like monsters in a child’s nightmare. And that big, strange house from earlier dreams, with its marble floors and abstract artwork on the walls, and its corpses and dying women littering the rooms and hallway …

I could conjure up every one of those images, and the thing was, they felt real. As if they’d definitely happened. Scattered pieces of a nightmarish puzzle that seemed to be my past life. Yet I was supposed to have been a police officer. Police officers didn’t get involved in the things I was dreaming about. No one did.

I sat in the car another ten minutes. During that time I heard two separate sets of sirens coming past on the road, heading in the direction of the peninsula, and when I looked out of the car window I thought I could see a faint orange glow on the horizon. It was then I realized that I needed a drink. I still had Tom’s wallet with his money, and by now Pen and her buddy would have made themselves scarce. It might not have been the best use of the cash I had, but after what I’d been through that day, I figured I deserved a cold beer.

The moment I walked in the door, I knew that in my past life I’d been a pub man. The bitter smell of the hops, the steady buzz of conversation, the clink of glasses on wood, the booze-fuelled laughter. It all felt so familiar. I’d done up my jacket and tried to tidy myself up, but I still looked far too much like a man who’d got himself into trouble recently, although I doubted whether too many of the drinkers would guess that I’d almost been killed at least twice tonight.

It had just turned 9.30 and the pub was busy. The punters were mainly male and of all ages, ranging from the barely legal to the barely alive, with a sprinkling of wives and girlfriends mixed in. Most of them looked my way as I walked over to the bar, and some blatantly stared. I ignored all of them and ordered a pint of Foster’s because, just like I knew how to handle a car, I instinctively knew that this was my drink of choice in a pub.

The barman was red-faced with a near-white handlebar moustache that made him look like a walrus. He inspected me like I was some kind of alien life form masquerading as a human being. ‘English,’ he said dismissively, and I wasn’t sure whether he meant it as an insult or a question.

I took it as a question. ‘Yeah,’ I said, looking him in the eye. ‘I guess I am.’

He turned away without another word and poured the pint, and I paid him with cash from Tom’s wallet before moving to the end of the bar as far out of the way as possible and taking a long gulp of the beer. It tasted good. I’d drunk beer back in the house a couple of times (although Jane had always discouraged it, claiming it wouldn’t be good for my recovery), but it tasted a lot better out of a tap. Or maybe it was simply the sense of freedom I was tasting.

There was a folded, crumpled newspaper on the corner of the bar. It didn’t look like it belonged to anyone so I picked it up and leafed through it. Jane never kept papers in the house. She always referred to them as media propaganda, so I tended to get what news I got from the TV – not that I’d been paying much attention of late. The pages were filled with stories of disaster, murder, cheap politics and the drunken antics of young, strangely artificial-looking celebrities I didn’t recognize. It was only when I got to the features section towards the back that I came across something that caught my eye. It was an interview with a woman called Tina Boyd. There was a photo of her sitting behind a neat desk looking at the camera. She was what you’d describe as striking – late thirties, dark hair cut just above the shoulders, good-looking, with nicely defined cheekbones. If it hadn’t been for her eyes, I’d have had her down as an actress or businesswoman, but there was a hardened glint in them that gave her away as someone who’d seen too much.

Having been drawn to her photo, I read the article. She talked about her career as a detective in various branches of the Met, during which time she’d been kidnapped, shot twice, come under suspicion for murder, and earned herself the nickname the Black Widow because her colleagues seemed to have a habit of dying around her. Luckily for them it seemed she’d left the force for good now and was working as a licensed private detective in London. She spoke briefly about the case she was currently working on, the hunt for a twenty-eight-year-old woman who’d been missing for almost six months, and appealed for help in finding her. At the bottom of the article was a small photo of the missing woman’s face. She was blandly pretty, with perfect features that seemed to have been taken from an artist’s mould, but a mould that had clearly been used plenty of times before, because she looked exactly the same as all the small-time female celebs who peppered the rest of the paper. But there was also something familiar about her.

I squinted in the dim light of the bar, bringing the paper closer to my face. I stared at the photo for a good five seconds, wondering if I was mistaken or not.

But I wasn’t.

I took a deep breath and steadied myself, finding it difficult to believe what I was seeing. Because the woman in the photo was one of the two women in my recurring dream, the one lying naked and dead on the bed. Which simply confirmed for me something I already suspected. That it wasn’t a dream.

It was a memory.

There were details about Tina Boyd’s website at the bottom of the article which I ripped from the page, shoving the piece of paper in my pocket. Now at least I had a plan of action. I needed to find Tina Boyd and speak to her. If she was as good a detective as the article suggested, maybe she could help to unlock my memories.

But, as I stood there, oblivious to the noise of the conversations around me, I wondered if this was really such a good move because I was becoming increasingly worried about what I might find out. I remembered Pen’s question back at the house as she’d pointed the gun at me: ‘Where are the bodies?’ Did I really want to know? And was it me who’d killed them?

‘Fancy buying me a drink?’ said a voice beside me. It was husky and female, with the hint of a slur, and accompanied by a heady smell of perfume.

I turned to see a larger lady with thick, lustrous curls of black hair, a bust that was pushing the tight top she was wearing to the absolute limits, and way too much make-up.

‘I haven’t seen you round here before,’ she continued, leaning just a little too hard on the bar. ‘What’s your name?’

Good question. I didn’t even know that for sure. ‘Matt.’

‘I’m Lucy. I live across the road.’ She seemed to notice the mark on my face where I’d been hit by the big guy and ran a finger gently along it in a pretty suggestive manner. As she leaned in closer, I could smell the booze on her breath, and something else not quite so pleasant. ‘What happened to your face?’

‘I hit it on a door earlier,’ I said, leaning back.

A part of me was tempted to keep talking to her. I liked the idea of some female company, and wasn’t really too bothered where it came from, but I could see a group of three guys in their twenties staring over at me with less than friendly looks on their faces. Another siren blared outside as the vehicle it belonged to came past, and the pub was temporarily illuminated by a flashing blue light. It was time to put some more distance between me and the burning house.

‘Come on lover, how about that drink?’ she said, with what I think was meant to be a sultry pout.

‘Another time,’ I said, finishing my drink.

Her expression darkened. ‘Not good enough for you, am I?’

‘It’s not that. I just need to be somewhere, that’s all.’

‘Well fuck you then.’ She turned away and banged her glass on the counter to get the barman’s attention.

The three young guys were looking at me with downright hostility now, so I decided to beat a retreat. There was a payphone in the corridor outside the main bar with a notice board pinned with business cards just above it. I found the number for a local taxi service and dialled it. There was no way I could risk driving Jane’s car to Pembroke Station, not when it was peppered with bullet holes and with part of the windscreen missing.

An old guy answered on about the tenth ring and I told him where I was and where I wanted to go. He sounded like he’d just woken up but said he was just down the road and would be at the pub in a few minutes.

As I put down the phone, I heard the door to the main bar open and the three young guys who’d been staring at me emerged. The one in the front was the biggest. He was wearing a tight T-shirt and hooded top and looked like he spent a lot of time in the gym.

‘What are you doing in here?’ he demanded, jutting out his chin as he came towards me.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’m just leaving.’

‘You insulted our mate in there. Who do you think you are, eh? Strolling in here like you own the place.’

As he drew closer, his friends crowding in behind him like school kids egging him on, I stepped back and noticed that I’d automatically raised my arms so my hands were resting on my chest, palms inward. It wasn’t an aggressive gesture, but it was clearly a defensive one.

‘Look, I don’t want any trouble,’ I told him, and started to back away.

‘Well fuck off then,’ he said, coming towards me.

I didn’t like turning my back on them but figured it would be best just to leave as quickly as possible. When I walked out the door into the cool night air, though, I heard them coming out behind me.

‘See, you’re a fucking coward as well, running away like that,’ continued the big guy.

As the adrenalin coursed through me, my mind computed the various possibilities. Out in the open, they’d be able to come at me simultaneously from three sides. Even if I was in top condition, I wouldn’t stand much of a chance; tired, out of shape, and having already had more than my fair share of injuries today, I’d be annihilated.

So I swung round fast, while he was still in the doorway with his mates behind him, and punched him twice in the face with two lightning-fast jabs that surprised me as much as him. He fell back against the guy behind him, but I didn’t stop. Instead, an intense, all-consuming rage seemed to sweep across me, and before he could recover I’d driven him back inside the building and was all over him, landing a rapid succession of blows.

He went down, and his mates both jumped out of the way as he crashed to the floor. I could see he was already beaten. His eyes were vacant and blood was pouring from his mangled nose, but the rage didn’t leave me. I was loving this sudden feeling of power. I wanted to hurt this bastard. To make him pay. So I took a step back and kicked him hard in the face, my shoe connecting perfectly with the underside of his chin, shunting him along the floor.

Now he was no longer moving and, just as quickly as it had arrived, the rage left me, and I stood there panting with exertion. The whole attack – because that was what it pretty much had been, an attack – had lasted no more than ten seconds and been carried out in complete silence as I’d channelled my anger as effectively as possible, like I knew exactly what I was doing.

I turned my gaze on the other two, neither of whom had made any move to intervene, and who both suddenly looked very pale. ‘Either of you two want any trouble?’ I asked.

They both shook their heads.

‘Good. Then get your friend some help, and be careful who you pick your fights with next time.’

This time they both nodded.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ asked one of them in tones that came dangerously close to awe.

‘I have no idea,’ I told him, and left them to it, thinking that I might have made a mistake by drawing attention to myself like that. It was becoming clear to me I had a pretty vicious temper when provoked, and it was something I was going to have to learn to control, and fast.

Thankfully, when I walked outside this time, the taxi had pulled up. I clambered in the back, gave him a friendly smile, and told him my destination.

As he pulled away, I looked back over my shoulder and saw a group of irate and shocked-looking locals pour out of the pub door into the car park. Then, just as quickly, they disappeared as we turned a corner.

It was time to find Tina Boyd.

Eight

‘I’m doing everything I can to find your daughter, Mr Donaldson,’ said Tina Boyd, leaning forward in her office chair and looking the man opposite her directly in the eye so he would know she wasn’t trying to avoid any of the difficult questions. It was only nine a.m. but Alan Donaldson had been waiting for her when she’d arrived that morning with her regular takeaway double espresso and blueberry muffin from the coffee shop round the corner. He was half an hour early. Tina had been hoping to enjoy breakfast in peace in her cramped little office, as she did every morning, but she hadn’t kicked up a fuss or told him to come back later, as she might have done if he’d been anyone else (client or not).

But Alan Donaldson was a broken man. You could see it in the haunted, pained expression in his eyes, in the way the brightness seemed to have left them; in the greying pallor of his skin and the hollowness of his cheeks. He must have been handsome once, Tina was sure of that. There were traces of the easy charmer about him, and Tina had known a few of them in her time. His face was lean and sculpted with the remnants of a strong, well-defined jaw, and he still had the tall, confident bearing that suggested a man used to getting his own way.

But things hadn’t worked out for him. Exactly one week earlier he’d come in to see her and explained how, fifteen years earlier, his wife, tired of his constant infidelities, had thrown him out of the family home. Donaldson hadn’t wanted to go. In fact he’d begged to stay, but his wife had had enough and so, conceding defeat, he’d moved in with the girl he’d been seeing. This had angered his wife no end and, according to his version of events, she’d turned his two children, Ben and Lauren, against him, and his relationship with them had become steadily more distant.