Verdict Unsafe (12 page)

The last time she had got out of that car, the garage door had slammed shut, someone had grabbed her, and she had been plunged into a nightmare of pain and terror. She sighed. Would there ever come a day when she didn’t think about it?

But life was a bit easier now than it had been back then, without so many money troubles to add to the tension that had existed between them for over two years. She had offered to leave, offered to let him go, and start again with someone else, but he didn’t want that.

She had some hotpot that she could heat up in the microwave; he preferred an evening meal after his night’s work.

Lennie dried the dishes and the pots and pans, putting them away neatly, all except his mug. He put his hands around the teapot to test the temperature; hot enough, he decided, pouring himself another, spooning in sugar, splashing in milk, stirring it soundly, remembering to put the spoon on the little dish that Ginny used for the purpose, and not on the worktop. She was a good girl, Ginny. She looked after him and the house like they would wither away and die if she didn’t tend them daily.

He lit his second cigarette of the day, picked up his mug, and
turned the paper to the back page, contentedly drinking his tea and reading the football reports as the bedsprings creaked rhythmically and unmistakably above his head.

“SHE’S OVERREACTING, LIKE ALL BLOODY WOMEN,” said Case. “I’ll tell you who his next bloody victim’s going to be. It’s going to be us. Do you know how much he’s suing us for?”

Lloyd didn’t know, and didn’t care.

“Drummond’s lawyers have lodged an official complaint,” said Case. “The Police Complaints Authority are going to order a second inquiry into the circumstances of his arrest. They don’t think the internal inquiry after his trial was conducted vigorously enough.”

“Neither do I,” said Lloyd.

“Quite. Some very slimy stones are going to get turned over, believe me. Why do you think the CID function was headed up here as soon as Drummond’s appeal was allowed? Because your lads are the Baron von Richthofens of criminal investigation?”

Lloyd opened his mouth, but he didn’t get the chance to speak, not a situation in which he often found himself.

“No,” continued Case. “It was because the last thing the top brass needed was Malworth investigating anything worth a damn when it all hits the headlines.”

Lloyd knew exactly why Crime Detection had come to Stansfield, why both Malworth’s Superintendent and DCI had decided on early retirement, why its small CID complement and several uniformed officers had been transferred, scattered throughout the county. He had had his doubts about how Malworth was being run long before the first lukewarm inquiry into the circumstances of Drummond’s arrest.

“I take it you will see DI Hill when she comes back from court?” he said. “Before deciding on your course of action with regard to protection?”

“I’ll see her, all right,” said Case. “Put her wise about a few things. If she wants to play boys’ games, she can’t come running for help when she gets out of her depth.”

“And you have no objection to my being present?”

“Suit yourself. You can give her all the protection you like. Just don’t expect me to.”

Judy wouldn’t need protection from any male chauvinist dinosaur, Lloyd was sure. But he wanted to be there, all the same.

“If that’s all?” said Case. “I have to attend a meeting at HQ.”

At half past nine, Lloyd left the Chief Superintendent’s office, wondering if he would waken up soon, and be able to consign Case to the oblivion of other long-forgotten nightmares. But he had a nagging suspicion that he was, after all, awake, and that Chief Superintendent Len Case was
real
.

Rob Jarvis threw the condom in the bin and sat on the edge of the bed in his white tee shirt, feeling dirty, like he always did.

“Drummond’s back,” he said, twisting around to look at the skinny little prostitute who sat cross-legged on the bed.

“Yeah?” said Ginny.

“Doesn’t that worry you?” he asked. She had stood up to Drummond in court. If she hadn’t, he might not be here; he could never have gone looking for a whore. But he had picked her up one night, and he had remembered her from when she’d given evidence. He hadn’t had any money, but he’d had her for the price of the post-midnight fare to Malworth, and things had developed from there.

“Why should it worry me?” she asked. “I never set him up.”

“I just think you should watch yourself, that’s all,” he said.

Ginny shrugged. “Yeah, well,” she said. “I’ve got protection this time.”

Rob gave a sour laugh as he picked up his underpants. “Lennie?” he said.

“Better than Lennie.”

“Oh?” He turned to face her again.

She hesitated for just a moment before getting off the bed and crossing the room, pulling open the drawer of the dressing table.

Rob walked over, shaking his head slightly as she rummaged through the collection of handcuffs and whips and studded leather G-strings. “Do people actually use these things?” he asked.

“Some,” she said.

“So what’s this protection?”

“This,” she said, drawing out the gun, turning to face him, pointing it toward him.

His eyes widened, and he automatically turned her hand so that the gun was pointing elsewhere. She did have protection more lethal than Lennie, then. “Where the hell did you get that?” he asked.

“Someone gave it me.”

“People don’t just
give
you semiautomatic pistols.”

“Well, I’ve got it, and it’s loaded. I can protect myself now. Only—don’t tell Lennie I’ve still got it. He gave me a hiding for taking it.”

“Why?”

“He was like you,” she said. “He said no one gave something like that away. He said I was a stupid cow for taking it. He reckons it was used in a job, and they were dumping it on me. He told me to give it back.”

“He’s probably right,” said Rob. “Why didn’t you give it back?”

“I feel safe with it,” she said.

“Is that right?” he said, and he put one hand around her small neck, slowly increasing his grip. “How safe do you feel now?” he asked.

“Stop,” she said, her voice distorted by the pressure of his fingers on her throat. “I can’t breathe.”

“That’s the idea,” he said. “I’m strangling you. You’ve got a gun—use it. Because I’m not going to stop. You’re going to have to stop me.”

She really couldn’t breathe now, and she began to panic, trying to pull away, but he tightened his grip further. She held the gun up to his face, her hand shaking, her other hand pulling vainly at his wrist, as she gasped for air, her struggles growing weaker. The gun waved in his face, and he smiled at her, his hold on her throat not slackening for an instant. She was trying to scratch him, unable to summon up the strength to do any damage.

Pull the trigger, you stupid little bitch Can’t you see I’m not going to stop?

She was barely struggling now.

Pull the trigger, for Christ’s sake. Pull the bloody trigger!

Lennie jumped as a firework exploded in the street, echoing through the alleyway. Jesus, they got louder every year, these things. He smiled at himself, and lit his third cigarette. Maybe he just got older every year, he thought. He used to put them through people’s letterboxes, throw them at cats. Now they were a loud, dangerous nuisance. He looked at his watch, and sighed. He was shaved, ready to go when Jarvis was, but Jarvis was showing no sign of leaving. He was usually cruising by now.

The deal was that Rob had Ginny for as long as he wanted, any morning he wanted, which was usually a couple of times a week. In return, Lennie drove his cab during the day, keeping one third of the takings. Rob paid for the cab’s upkeep, diesel, insurance, all the rest. At first, he’d wanted Ginny in the evenings, but Lennie had put his foot down about that. Evening was her busy time; he wasn’t having her lose custom over the deal.

Mornings, he’d said, or no deal. Ginny could have killed him, but it was business, and he’d told her to stay out of it.

Now, though, it was the waste of his own time that he resented; Rob’s cab was a goldmine. He got a third of everything on the clock, and all of everything that wasn’t. You could do deals all the time—people got a bargain, and he got the cash. Stansfield people took taxis everywhere—they reckoned there were more taxis per head there than anywhere outside London.

There were other perks, too. The punters liked having a cab to pick them up, and Ginny had a small but growing regular clientele. And Stansfield had a big new conference center and hotel; visiting businessmen got cabs all the time after their high-powered lunches—often boozed up, always flush, and sometimes looking for a bit of action to while away the afternoon. Lennie knew where all the illicit gambling went on, and the other sort of action he could provide for them, with a door-to-door service into the bargain.

Ginny was the best move he’d ever made. He’d got talking to her after that business with Drummond, and he’d taken her in hand. Her main asset had been that she looked way below the age of consent, and that effect had been lost when she had slapped on makeup and wiggled about on high heels with her matchstick legs, so he’d put a stop to that. She was skin and bone, and the usual tarty clobber didn’t make her look any better. Small, skinny—he could still pass her off as fourteen in a curtained room, and charge through the nose for her, which was what he did, when he got a customer that wanted that sort of thing. And she was experienced, unlike Rosa, who had taken the huff, and jacked it in after a couple of months.

He’d married Ginny six months ago when they’d moved into this place. That still surprised him a bit; he’d told his mates down the snooker club that it was so they couldn’t make her give evidence against him. It got a laugh. But she’d wanted all that. The Mr. and Mrs. bit. So why not?

She was a good kid. She kept him in food and cigarettes, and he kept her out of trouble. And she had got him the cab, which was worth its weight in gold. So it wouldn’t do to upset Rob, but it was after ten, and he’d been up there an hour.

Jarvis was paying as much for her, if he did but know it, as he would for a high-class call girl, but not if Lennie couldn’t get the cab on the road. He wished the bastard would hurry up with her.

Ginny was on the floor, dizzy, gulping precious air, and from somewhere far away, she could hear Rob’s voice.

“If you’re going to use a pistol for protection, you should learn how it works,” he said, sounding as though nothing had happened at all.

She lay breathing heavily, her eyes closed, the blood singing in her ears, her heart pounding so hard it hurt. “Bloody thing
doesn’t
work,” she gasped, her voice hoarse. “That’s why they gave it away.”

“Sit up,” he said.

She opened her eyes and saw him crouching beside her, holding the gun loosely in his hand. Reluctantly, she sat up.

He pointed to something on the left of the gun. “This,” he said, “is the safety catch. It was on.” He slid it away from him, and pointed the gun up at the dressing table. “If I were to pull the trigger now, it would work, believe me,” he said. “That mirror would be history.” He slid the catch back again, and got to his feet. “Stand up,” he said.

“I can’t.” Her knees were still like jelly; her chest was still heaving. She shook her head. “I can’t.”

“You can,” he said.

He still had the gun, so once again she did as she was told, and stood on shaking legs.

“Hold it in both hands, with your finger on the trigger,” he said, handing it to her. “Go on,” he urged, when she hesitated. “It’s quite safe as long as the catch is on.”

She looked at him. “What if the catch had been broken or something?” she said. “When you made me pull the trigger?”

“The way that gun was waving about, you’d have been lucky to hit the ceiling.”

Ginny didn’t say anything. She tried to do what he’d said with the gun, but there seemed to be too much hand and too little gun.

“Like this,” he said, standing behind her, putting his arms around her, down her arms, his hands over hers, directing their position on the gun. “You always hold it with both hands. That steadies it, helps you cope with the kick. Hold it away from you and toward your target,” he said.

He extended her arms further than they wanted to go, his
own being longer, pointing the gun at their entwined reflection in the mirror. “And remember two things,” he said. “One—if you’re not used to handguns, never try to hit anyone or anything that’s any more than three feet away from you, or you’ll miss, and two—never point a gun at anyone unless you intend to use it.”

“You would have done it,” she said. “Wouldn’t you? If I hadn’t tried to pull the trigger. You would have strangled me.”

“You wouldn’t have let me,” he said. He looked back at her reflection. “Self-preservation, Ginny—it’s the strongest instinct there is. You learn that much in the army, if nothing else.”

“You were in the army?” He had never talked to her about himself; never talked to her at all, really. Had never called her Ginny before. But if she had thought that that moment of friendliness had changed the way he felt about her, she was wrong.

“Whores don’t ask questions,” he said. And then he just stood there, not looking at her, not looking at anything. Forever.

“Let me go, Rob,” she said eventually, when her arms had started to quiver. She looked at him in the mirror, at his eyes, far away, and she knew he hadn’t even heard her. And they stayed like that, like a double statue, his arms bent, but hers outstretched. “My arms hurt,” she said, after a while, but he ignored her. Then, in desperation, almost in tears, as her arms ached for relief, “Let me go, Rob, please.” But he still stayed there, for so long that she would have sworn he’d forgotten she was there, except that something was making him hard again.

A firework cracked outside the house, and his eyes snapped back to hers. He released her arms, and turned her to face him as the gun fell from her hands, throwing her back against the dressing table, scattering the stuff on top of it as he pushed into her.