Inside Straight (17 page)

"When can I go home?"

He scribbled something down on a piece of paper, didn't look at me as he spoke. "Probably best if we keep you in one more night, just to be on the safe side. You still look a little scrambled. Don't want you wandering off and dying somewhere."

"So tomorrow, then?"

He looked at me, apparently surprised that anyone would want to leave. "Yes, tomorrow. If you have anyone you'd like to pick you up—"

"I don't."

"-- feel free to tell the nurse." He smiled and took another crust of toast on the way out. He stopped at the door as two men appeared. He nodded to both of them, then squeezed past the larger of the two.

The smaller, a gym rat in a good suit, brown from the beds and sporting a careful head of hair, stepped forward with a grin. "Morning, Mr Ellis. And how are we feeling today?"

One of those Scouse accents that went through me like a drill. I couldn't help myself; I bristled at the sound. "Do I know you?"

The Scouser showed me his identification. "Detective Inspector Colin Kennedy." He gestured to the beige, bearded mound behind him. "Detective Sergeant Brian Hammond. Mind if we ask you a few questions about last night?"

"I don't know. I don't feel—"

"It's okay. Nothing too difficult. Oh, hey ..." He snapped his fingers at Hammond, who reached into his coat pocket and brought out a bottle of Sprite. Kennedy took it from him and handed it to me. "They didn't have any Lucozade, but I reckon Sprite's better for when you're feeling a bit sick, anyway."

I took the bottle, put it to one side. "Thank you."

"Sometimes you just need a little prompting, you know?" Kennedy tapped his chest and pulled a face like he was about to belch. "To bring up the wind. Makes you feel better. Tell you, you
look
better, doesn't he, Brian?"

The sergeant nodded.

"Have we met already?"

"Last night."

"I don't remember."

He waved it off. "That's okay. You were in quite a state."

"Really?" I shifted in bed, sat a little more upright. "I don't remember anything about it. Hope I didn't say anything too stupid."

"Say anything?"

"I was concussed."

"Yes." Kennedy nodded. "That's what the doctor told us. So you're feeling better then?"

"Yes."

"No lingering headaches, nausea, nothing like that?"

"Not at all."

"That's great to hear. You feel sick, feel free to pop that Sprite."

"You wanted to ask me some questions?"

"Eager." Kennedy smiled. "I like that. It's a nice change."

The sergeant raised his eyebrows. "Unusual."

"Very unusual. People don't like talking to us normally."

"Well, I'm sure most of the people you talk to have something to hide, don't they?"

"That's right enough." Kennedy tapped his notebook. "Alright, well, how about you just tells us in your own words what happened last night."

"Okay."

"As you remember it."

I nodded and told them exactly that. I told them that I arrived for the night shift, early as usual, and I went through the highlights of the shift right up to the count. Then I told Kennedy that I'd been having trouble with the count door all week.

"How do you mean?"

"It wasn't locking properly. Which was the case again last night, unfortunately."

"Something wrong with the mechanism?"

I smiled, shook my head. "Something wrong with
me
, most likely. Nobody else seemed to have a problem with it." I gave him a laugh that I hoped sounded suitably self-depreciating.

He matched my smile, but I didn't think it was genuine. "Maybe it's one of those things."

"I can't blow bubblegum bubbles, either."

"Neither can I. That's been holding me back all these years." He looked at his notes. "So you're in the count room, you've just had trouble with the door. What then?"

"Then we did the count. As per usual."

"Nothing different about it that you can remember?"

"Not at all."

"You're sure?"

I frowned. "No, there are procedures we follow. There's a process. If there was any deviation from that, we'd notice immediately."

"Okay, so nobody was acting weird or anything?"

"Weird? Yes. But that's just the way our staff are."

"I meant different."

"Suspicious, I know. And no, nobody was acting suspicious. Not until the robbers came in."

"How did they come in? Do you remember?"

I opened my mouth. Hemmed and hawed. "I'm not sure."

"Well, did they use an implement on the door, did they kick it open—"

"No, they just came right in."

Kennedy nodded, wrote something down. "So it wasn't a forced entry?"

"I don't remember."

"Okay." More writing.

The sound of pen against paper made me itchy. "He could've kicked it open. I remember getting a fright, so it must have been
sudden
."

"Right, but would you say that your fright came from the intrusion or the gun?"

"The gun? I don't know. I don't think I can separate the two."

"That's fine." More notes.

"I'm sorry, I thought I had this."

"Sometimes these things just need a little time to ferment." He smiled. It was one of his winning ones, most likely, guaranteed to put the other person at ease. It almost worked. "So the guy comes in. Then what happened?"

I wet my lips and carried on. I told him that we were hurried out of the count room and forced out into the pit, where we were then held under armed guard.

"How many of them were there?"

"Out in the pit?"

"Yes."

"I'm not sure. I mean, I saw one mostly. Then there were two in the cash desk, and another one who turned up later when they needed to get out. He had a sledgehammer."

"Anyone else?"

I shrugged. "I assume there were a couple of drivers."

"A couple?"

"A getaway driver. There was a car outside."

Kennedy watched me, waiting for me to explain the presence of a second driver, but I didn't because, technically, there was no way I could know about the second driver unless I'd tried to run out the back way. "So there were four inside that you know of."

"Yes. And we were sat there for a while. I told Jacqui and Tintin—"

"Tintin?"

"Sorry,
Douglas
. He's our head cashier. You've probably already spoken to him." I smiled. "I just see him and I think of Tintin."

He nodded. He could see the resemblance. "So what did you tell them?"

"I said that we should keep quiet and look after ourselves. The company policy is to protect staff first. We didn't want any heroes getting themselves hurt."

"I see." Kennedy made a note.

"And then Jacqui went and got herself hurt. She had a spray or something in her hand – a pepper spray?"

Kennedy nodded.

"And she went for one of the robbers as they were leaving."

"They were leaving by this time?"

"Yes. Sorry. The two who'd done the cash desk came out, and then the one with the sledge hammer put through the glass, and then as soon as the one who'd been watching us – the one with the gun – as soon as he turned to leave, that was when Jacqui went for him. And me, idiot that I am, I tried to stop her. And that's where it gets a bit hazy, I'm afraid."

Kennedy leafed back a few pages in his notes. "The gun went off, didn't it?"

"That's right. It went off in the struggle, I think. Jacqui was hurt."

"You saw her get hurt?"

I shook my head. "She came in to see me last night."

"And did the gun go off again after that?"

"I don't know. I suppose so. It must have."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I'm still alive. And if it hadn't, he would've shot me, I know it."

"How do you know?"

I stared at him. I wasn't smiling anymore. I was someone who'd been through a traumatic experience the likes of which Kennedy would never understand. "You just
know
."

"Okay." Kennedy shrugged, appeared to accept it. "Any distinguishing marks?"

I thought of Jez's DADDY tattoo. I stuck out my bottom lip and pretended to think. "All wearing ski masks and Man City tops as far as I could tell. Is that right?"

"That's the consensus."

"Is it a clue? I mean, do you think it's an M.O.?"

"An M.O.?" Another capped smile from Kennedy while Hammond chuckled in the corner of the room. The sergeant sounded like a slow-draining sink.

I maintained my dumb innocence. "Like, have there been other robberies with the same get-up?"

Kennedy smiled, shook his head. "A football strip's just a cheap and disposable uniform, Mr Ellis. Probably don't even support City."

"Ah, okay." I glared at the sergeant, who was still laughing to himself. "It was just a thought."

"No, that's good." Kennedy frowned at Hammond, whose face became straight once again. "You keep thinking. Anything you think might help, doesn't matter how trivial you think it might be, let us know. You never know what's important at this stage. How are you doing otherwise?"

"Not bad. I'm leaving tomorrow morning."

"That's good. No lasting damage, then?"

"Just a knock on the head."

"Good to hear it." Kennedy put his notebook away and glanced across at Hammond, who made a move for the door. "We'll let you get on and convalesce then, eh?" He plucked a business card from a holder and handed it to me. "I know we always say this, but really, anything you remember, just give us a ring. Like I said, doesn't matter how trivial."

I looked at his card. It was minimal, tasteful. "You having trouble?"

"Excuse me?"

"Finding them. The people who did it. You sound as if they didn't leave you much to go on."

His smile looked fixed and sore. "Well, they were professionals, let's put it that way. They didn't leave us much, but sometimes it doesn't take much, know what I mean?" He nodded at the card. "Like I said, anything you remember. We'll find 'em anyway, but it's the little details that secure the conviction."

I nodded. I bet it was.

Against my better judgement, and because I didn't have enough money on me for a cab, I called Clive that afternoon and asked him to pick me up the next morning.

Clive was my only real friend. We'd both started around the same time, grown up on the tables with each other, but while Clive had jumped to the ships the first chance he got, I'd stayed where I was and ground away at promotion. Clive was always the less career-conscious of us. In fact, I always secretly considered Clive to be my shadow self. I knuckled down and did the hard work of learning my craft; he gallivanted off around the world. I eschewed the party life for one of quiet geekery and careful saving; he drank and whored and gambled his money away seconds after the cheque cleared. People thought me humourless, a bit of a stick-in-the-mud; there weren't many people who didn't like Clive, and those that didn't were normally management so they didn't count. When I thought about it, having Clive as my confidant was about the saddest thing in the world, and there was a part of me that was positive he took the mickey out of me behind my back. As a result, I didn't think about it very much, and I never told him anything too personal.

After I'd dressed and discharged myself, I went out to the main reception and waited for Clive's Fiesta to pull up alongside the taxis. Fifteen minutes after the agreed time, I was about to grab a cab and to hell with the money, when Clive turned up. He didn't apologise. Sorry was not a word in Clive's vocabulary. He opened up the passenger side door and waved me on, the engine running. I got in the car, slammed the door behind me. He gave me a crooked grin and pulled away from the hospital.

"Thanks, Clive."

"Pleasure's all mine. Never sat next to a
hero
before."

"Leave it alone, will you?"

"No, serious, man. You saved someone's life. You're big news. You were in the paper and everything."

"Shut up."

Clive kept one hairy hand on the wheel and twisted in his seat, scrabbling around in the back for something while he kept one eye on the road.

"Clive—"

"It's alright, I kept the paper."

"The
road
. I just came out of the hospital, I don't want to go straight back in."

"There." Clive straightened back up, a copy of the
Manchester Evening News
in his hand. He slung it across onto my lap. "Get on that, son."

I looked at the paper. Sure enough, there I was, front page material. An old photograph from a promotion at the Palace back in the day. I looked young, fresh-faced and slim. Quite a difference to how I currently felt. I scanned the story and, again, Clive was right. I was being promoted as some kind of hero, the brave pit boss who stood in the way of a bullet in order to save his manager. And of course it was noted that my manager had been a woman. If it had been Dave Randall, I had no doubt that he'd be dead. I folded the newspaper.