The Losing Game (5 page)

“I can see you’re thinking about it,” Adam continued, seeming more and more excited. “Come over here. Take a look at this.”

Adam picked his way over the scarves and shoes and magazines littering his floor, to the low chest of drawers beneath the window. “It’s pretty old, but it’s not registered, and I have a box of bullets.”

Sweat broke out on Lucas’s palms as Adam removed a brightly patterned satin toiletry bag from the top drawer, unzipped it, and extracted a palm-sized handgun with a scratched handle.

“Here. Try it.”

Lucas turned the tiny weapon over in his hands. Its lightness was astonishing. As astonishing as the fact that it was a gun. A real-life gun. That could kill someone.

If Lucas was going to use it, he’d have to search out some online tutorials on how it was done. He’d be firing at close range. He wouldn’t need target practice.

God. I might actually have found the way to take out Shaw. Pure and simple. Permanent.

Lucas cradled the gun to his chest. “Are you serious?”

“Are you?”

Adam closed the drawer, as if to make his point.

“That depends on what you’ll take. I can give you what’s left of my cash—about sixty pounds—and my coat. I’ve only worn it once. It cost me five hundred. You could easily sell it for two or three.”

“Or I might want to keep it. Can I try it on?” Adam added his dog end to an already-overflowing saucer serving as an ashtray.

Lucas placed the gun on the chest of drawers and lifted his coat by the shoulders. Adam slipped his arms in the sleeves. Lucas buttoned it to the neck and turned Adam to look in the long mirror on the wardrobe door. Adam turned this way and that, smiling.

“It’s gorgeous. And so warm.”

“It looks gorgeous on you.”

“You’re a sweet man. I think we have a deal.” Adam pointed to the gun. “Be careful with that, won’t you?”

“Believe me, I will.”

Adam went to the wardrobe and pulled out a loose waterproof jacket. “You can’t go walking about showing off a gun and a box of bullets, even in Landport. Tuck it into your waistband. Like this. And put the bullets in one of these pockets. Once you’re under the cameras, try and resist the temptation to feel for it over the jacket. It won’t fall out.”

“Thank you. For everything.”

“No worries.” Adam paused, hands clutching the fluffy edges of the coat collar at his throat. “If you’re passing, you’re welcome to come and see me again.”

“It might be best if I don’t.” Lucas touched his fingers to his side, where the gun was wedged inside the waistband of his trousers and his belt.

Adam returned to his chair, settling his gaze on a magazine he’d picked up from the floor. Lucas let himself out, only remembering when he got to the bottom of the stairs that he’d left his gloves in his coat pocket.

He didn’t go back for them. Adrenaline had pumped a fresh surge of heat into his blood, and his hands felt warm. They positively tingled.

Lucas clenched his fists and thrust them into the pockets of his newly acquired, rather drab and ordinary rain jacket. As he walked, the box of bullets bumped against his left side, with no more weight than a full wallet and a handset. The gun pressed into his hip, beautifully out of sight.

After a few minutes, the sensations became comfortable and familiar. Even as Lucas crossed the Landport Road, toward the neat, sanitized, camera-lined streets of Roseport Quay. Even as he boarded one of the island’s newly purchased hydroelectric buses and sat in full-filmed view of the security camera.

The bus driver didn’t spare him a second glance. None of the passengers looked at him askance or otherwise. No one paid him any mind.

All his life, Lucas had considered himself rather plain. Rather ordinary. He hadn’t minded too much—he’d had his family and he still had friends who loved him well enough. He hadn’t considered before, that perhaps his blandness was a gift.

THE COURT
transcripts Lucas had given Dante made a depressing read. Dante persevered from start to finish, as well as scouring the online news for the media’s take on the Grace Green case. She’d been a primary school teacher, by all accounts well-loved by her colleagues and pupils. She was survived only by her brother Lucas. There was no mention of a partner or family.

Dante wasn’t a lawyer or a judge. He hadn’t been to university. Yet it was plain as day to this layman that back in October, a little over a month ago, six months after Grace Green died, a devastating miscarriage of justice had taken place at Winchester Crown Court. Richard Shaw’s mockery of a sentence weighed on Dante’s mind. As did Lucas.

A surge of anger that Dante couldn’t fully explain coursed through his veins.

Above, the house was quiet. Kit was out parkour training. Lois was in the shop with his assistant, Selena. In his office, after finishing a cup of honeyed oolong, Dante searched for Avery’s number in his list of contacts and hit the Dial button.

She answered after a single ring. “Darling. How are you? How are the girls?”

“Well, we’re all well. And you?”

“I’m all right,” she said decisively. “Dreading the winter, but what can you do?”

“I hear it’s going to be another cold one.”

Chitchat wasn’t their usual style, but Dante wasn’t sure how to broach the subject of Lucas Green. Avery must have realized. “I take it Lucas came to see you.”

“Yes. He did.” Dante sighed. “What were you thinking?”

“That he could use a good lay, and if your situation hadn’t changed since I saw you six months ago, you probably could too.”

“Then why on earth did he come here asking me to plan him a murder?”

“A murder?” A lengthy pause followed. “Sweet Jesus, Dante. I didn’t think he was serious. We’d had a few drinks. He said something about wishing he could kill the bastard who’d killed his sister. The same thing anyone would say in his situation.”

“
Avery.
You must have said something.” Dante pushed his chair away from the desk, tilted back the seat, and looked to the ceiling for strength. Or the crack that would send the building crashing down around his ears.

“I told him that you could help him. I meant by way of a distraction. When I gave him your card, I thought it would be obvious I was sending him to you for some porn.” She groaned. “What a shame. I take it from your tone you didn’t oblige.”

“No. No murder. No porn. Just one very unhappy man who needs psychiatric help. Next time you see him, why don’t you suggest therapy?”

“Don’t be angry, darling. Technically speaking, you could plan him a murder if you wanted.” She laughed, and its insouciance grated on Dante like nails down a chalkboard. Mainly because, in a sense, she was right. But where Avery missed the mark, by a country mile, was that planning burglaries like the one at Rashid’s was nothing like planning a murder.

Avery interrupted the lengthening silence. “I’m sorry. I’ve got to go. I have an appointment in an hour. And don’t worry. I’ll speak to Lucas and make sure he’s all right.”

Dante remained in his chair after Avery hung up. He flexed his fingers, stared at the backs of his hands and the rising map of veins under his skin.

Lucas Green has no love for Richard Shaw. Perhaps he could do it. Perhaps if I showed him. I could make sure he wouldn’t get caught. I know how.

Why shouldn’t he?

Breakfast beckoned. Pushing back from his desk, Dante headed into the hall and put on his long coat. A tête-à-tête with Jim, his friend, mentor, and long-time proprietor of the Rose and Crown, would complement his eggs nicely.

The sun shone on Dante’s back. Joggers and eager shoppers crisscrossed the street. The dull stink of the harbor was barely a tickle in his nostrils, and somewhere out of sight, the melodious oscillations of a violin meandered through the air. All in all, this should have been a perfect Sunday.

Dante walked briskly, attempting to stamp out his disquiet. During shopping hours Mill Street was closed to cars, electric or otherwise, and he therefore didn’t pause when he reached the junction with Haven’s Yard.

Stepping off the curb, the dark flash of a limb whisked past his line of sight, just above his head. He scanned the façade—

“Hi, Mr. Okoro!”

Ten feet off the ground, skimming along the upper ledge of what used to be a carriage entrance, Dante caught sight of a young man he knew only as Sharps. No surprises, he saw Kit higher up, leaning over the edge of the roof, with two others that Dante didn’t recognize.

Kit and her parkour crowd usually stayed away from Old Roseport during its busier hours. Between his teeth, Dante mouthed, “Get down from there.”

“All right.” Kit blew Dante a kiss and disappeared behind the ridge of the roof.

Sharps grabbed the top of the stone window surround, over the arch, jammed the tip of his shoe into the tiny space between two bricks and launched himself over the gutter to join his friends.

Dante took a step out into the cobbled street, enough to see the roof, in time to see the four youngsters running along the ridge tiles, before disappearing over the top of the building. His blood boiled. He ran through the arch. To his right, the crew of four swung over the rails on the metal stairs zigzagging the side of one of the buildings. They hit ground in the courtyard running.

Kit turned, held up her arm, grinned, and shouted, “See you later.”

Dante watched helplessly as they leapt over the bollards in the next carriage arch, on the other side of the courtyard, and disappeared into the next street.

Parkour, the movement through a designated city route in the most efficient way possible, was now officially considered a sport. Next year, parkour would feature in the Olympic games for the first time. Since then, the number of kids using every ledge, step, and rail like a piece of gymnasium equipment had exploded. Dante might have admitted a certain level of admiration for the way they flung themselves with reckless abandon from pillar to post, but that didn’t mean he advocated them doing it
here
.

On light summer evenings, the kids sometimes practiced down by the harbor or farther along on the island’s sandy beach. Rather than scaling buildings or leaping across underpasses, the traceurs became free-runners, using tumbles and gymnastic flourishes to traverse the coastal defenses. Dante had been to watch a few times.

The beach was where parkour belonged. Dante tactfully never mentioned to Kit that he couldn’t abide seeing the balloon-trousered, feather-haired youths cluttering the Old Roseport neighborhood benches and walls. He knew what sort of response that would get him.

Kit and her friends were long gone, probably halfway to Roseport Quay by now. Dante returned to the street, head down like a bull about to charge.

When he’d been Kit’s age, skinny jeans had been all the rage. Dante hadn’t liked those either. He’d never understood the appeal of wearing trousers so tight they couldn’t be pulled all the way up. And he certainly had no interest in letting his underpants show above his waistband. But by the same token, none of his contemporaries had grown up over a boutique sex shop specializing in custom couture for the discerning and sexually adventurous.

Dante hurried on, past the last few shops between Haven’s Yard and the Rose and Crown.

When Dante entered, Jim came over at once, all six and a half feet of him, angling and tiptoeing his soft bulk through the narrow gaps between the tables. “All right?”

“Yes. Very well. You?” Dante’s heart rate slowed. The smell of eggs and bacon soothed him like a balm.

“Good.”

Jim held out his left hand—the good one. He didn’t like to shake with his prosthesis. Though Dante kept the sentiment to himself, he didn’t like the feel of it either. Not because of the synthetic skin or the mechanics beneath. He was discomfited by the potential power held in the amped-up components. Jim could crush bones with that hand without breaking into a sweat. Not that he would ever willfully hurt Dante, or anyone for that matter. Not these days.

“Usual table?” Jim said.

“No. Not today. Could I have this one?”

Dante pointed to the small table at his side, just vacated, near the window.

“It’s all yours.”

Dante sat. “Have you got a minute?”

Jim wedged into the seat opposite and signaled for one of the wait staff. The young woman who came over was Jim’s niece, earning some extra cash during a gap year.

Jim said to her, “Eggs Benedict for Mr. Okoro and a pot of…?”

“English Breakfast.”

“You’ve met Janine before?”

“Indeed.”

She smiled broadly and tapped the order onto her electronic notepad. “What about you, Uncle Jim?”

“Just a coffee for me, love.”

Jim watched her walk to the kitchen hatch with obvious affection. When his gaze returned, Dante asked, “She’s Nina’s girl?”

“Yes. Bright as a new pin. Got a university place at Cambridge for next year. Don’t suppose she’ll be back to work for the family once she’s got her qualifications.”

“You never know.”

“Yeah, I do.” Jim’s jowls lifted. “What’s on your mind, Dan?”

Dante scanned the restaurant, waiting as Janine brought the tea and coffee. When she left, the two men drew closer. The restaurant buzzed with chatter, but the absence of background music meant unguarded conversations could carry.

As Dante recalled his meeting with Lucas and his subsequent assessment of the court case, Jim nodded sympathetically, lining up a row of sugar packets across the table as if he wasn’t paying too much attention.

“Poor sod. No wonder he wants that Shaw bloke dead.”

“Would you do it? In his shoes?”

Jim folded his arms over his belly. The buttonholes on his shirt strained against his girth. “Yeah. I would. But you already knew that. You’re not thinking of helping him, are you?”

Dante’s immediate answer was meant to be yes. He’d been unable to stop thinking about helping Lucas for two days, and that was as good a reason as any to give it serious consideration. Only Jim’s wide-eyed look of horror derailed his train of thought.

He replied with fervor, “No. God, no.”