Half Moon Chambers (4 page)

"You had a better one. You were right beside
me
."

Jack went pale. As always by this point of
summer
he was attractively tanned, and the
alteration
left him grey. "Yeah. I put the warning
through
to Bill, and I saw some other guys
--
Maric's men
--
heading up towards our van. I had
to
go after them, Vince." He hesitated, then banged
his
fist lightly off the arm of the chair. "Shit. I
knew
this would come up."

"Why?"

"Bill made a huge fuss about it as well. Said I
should
have stuck with my partner, no matter what.
Like I didn't feel the same way! But..."

"But there were no other guys. The freighters
took
off again the second the gunfire started."

"All right, Vince Carr." He was pissed off
now
. That was better
--
far more reassuring than
his
evasions. "Bill was pussyfooting around with
this
too. Why don't either of you have the guts to
come
out and say what you think?"

I couldn't. To say it would disgrace both of
us
. It was too mean, too low.

"You think I ran away."

The words were so simple. Jack, delivering
them
, sounded like no-one I'd ever heard before.

Certainly not himself. Defeated and empty and lost.

My common sense reasserted itself
--
my daily
-
bread
belief in the way things were. "No," I said
fervently
, reaching for him. "Jesus, Jacky. I was
down
. I didn't know what the fuck was going on,
but
not that. Not that."

He jerked his head up. When his eyes met
mine
I could see the wash of his sudden surprise
and
hope. "You don't believe it?"

"Of course not. Not for a second."

"I did see those other gunmen. I..."

"All right. All right." I pulled him down to sit
on
the bed, and I caught him when he pitched
forward
to bury his face in the blanket. I stroked
his
hair. "Oh, my God, you big pansy. Don't you
dare
bloody cry!"

* * *

He came to see me less often after that. The
visits
didn't stop all at once
--
it took weeks, with
one
day missed and then another, his excuses
always
good. I was locked in battle with myself,
my
pain and a five-foot ogre of a physiotherapist
who
marched me daily from one end of the
hospital
to the other and back, and at first I hardly
noticed
the change. When he was there, our
conversations
were carefully ordinary. We never
again
plunged into memories of that night by the
river
, and he never made another improper grab
for
me under the sheets. One afternoon all we
could
find to talk about
--
all that felt safe
--
was
the
weather, and after that he didn't reappear for a
fortnight
. At first I missed him, and then I was
relieved
.

In the last week before my discharge, I had
two
other visitors. One was Bill Hodges. I was
glad
to see him. He was a nice guy, the kind of
senior
officer you pray for as a rookie, barely
notice
when you're up there flying in your big
ambitious
sky, and thank God for when you fall.

He'd organised everything
--
my sick pay, my bills,
my
insurance. He'd even hired a cleaner to water
my
plants and run a hoover round my flat. Some of
that
, I'd supposed, might have been handled
by
Jack, but we weren't on those terms, not really.

We'd run the streets together like wolves
--
a
bright
,
knife
-blade
partnership
--
and
we
'd
screwed
.

Bill was very awkward. He fussed around
with
my water jug and plastic cups until he upset
one
, soaking the bed. "Oh. Damn, Vince, I'm
sorry
."

"It's all right. We'll just say I had an
accident
."

It was a poor effort at humour, and he just
looked
horrified. "Oh, no. I mean, you're not..."

"No! No, not at all. Fully functional in that
regard
. In fact I'm almost back on my feet again." I
smiled
at him and plied a handful of tissues over
the
blanket. "I still have to spend a few hours a day
flat
on my back, but... Sit down, sir. What's the
matter
? Did my healthcare plan run out?"

"No. Um, it's Jack."

Jack ran out
. That was my mind's first absurd
response
. That was the dream that played in my
head
every night. Rainbow lights on the Tyne, and
a
concrete pavement, and my partner running past
me
, away from me into the dark. Well, he'd been
chasing
his gunmen. "Is he okay? I haven't seen him
since
..." Christ, I could hardly remember. "I think
it
's been nearly a month."

"Yes. I mean
--
no, you wouldn't have. I don't
know
how to tell you this, son. DS Monroe left us.

It was four days ago. He didn't turn up for work,
and
when we checked his flat it was empty. And a
few
days later
--
yesterday
--
I got an email from
him
saying he was in New York." Bill rubbed his
face
. "Not the mining village off the A19. The
big
New York. On a stopover on his way out to
Los
Angeles."

I took this in. It didn't seem so bad, not by
contrast
with my first understanding of
DS Monroe
left
us
. "Okay. Right. Has he taken some leave?"

"That's the thing. No. He said he's got a job
with
a big US security concern, and he's staying.

He apologised for skipping his notice, but he'd
repaid
his last salary cheque into our accounts,
and
... that was it. I'm sorry, Vince. He's gone."

* * *

My next visitor wasted no time getting to the
point
. I'd slept a lot in the couple of days since Bill
had
been to see me, which my doctors said was
natural
, part of the healing process. For me it was
one
more way of staying numb. I surfaced
reluctantly
at the sound of my name. A girl was
sitting
by my bed. It took me a moment to recognise
her
. "Chrissy?"

She looked awful. Her hair was in rat's tails,
her
eyes rimmed red. Vaguely I recalled someone
telling
me
--
Bill, Jack, someone
--
that my
brother
Phil was still on the loose. It hadn't really
impinged
. Phil spent more time AWOL than at
home
. Chrissy had backed a bad horse there
--
bad
enough
to carry her off with it into the swamps of
addiction
once more, it looked like. I was sorry.

She was a nice woman when she was clean, and
she
'd done her best with Phil. We hadn't been
close
. It was good of her to come and see me.

"Vince, you bastard."

I sat up. Doing so was no longer a grinding,
minute
-long tussle with unbearable pain, but it still
wasn
't easy. Okay. I wasn't in the mood for social
niceties
myself. "Hello to you too," I grated out.

"How's my feckless brother?"

"Your feckless brother is dead. They fished
what
was left of him out of the Tyne at
South
Shields. He'd been in there for about eight weeks,
they
reckon, though it's hard to tell from the bits."

Her eyes were red from tears, not dope. I had
been
a good beat copper before the drug squad had
hired
me, and I knew the difference. The only other
certainty
I could grasp was the time frame. "Eight
weeks
?"

"Yeah. About the time he first went missing. I
called
you, Vince. You promised to look for him.

You never did."

A tiny spark of childish resentment flew up
through
the black wasteland opening inside of me.

I clung to it. "Chrissy, for fuck's sake. I was
working
. I... I got shot."

"I know." Abruptly she got to her feet. I
waited
for her to brain me with the water jug, or
grab
a pillow and ram it down over my face.

"You're still a bastard. I just wanted you to know
that
."

She turned and walked away. I wanted to call
her
back, but my throat had dried to dust. I watched
her
skinny back, her bony, proudly held shoulders.

In the doorway she stopped. Not looking at me, she
said
, "The dumb thing is, if you'd done what you
promised
, you wouldn't have been on that raid.
You stupid bastard, Vince
--
you'd never have been
shot
at all."

Chapter Three

December

"V
ince, I reckon you can handle this one for
us
."

I looked up from the papers on my desk,
quickly
flipping the page. I didn't want
Bill
Hodges to see I'd been staring at the same sheet
since
he'd last popped his head round my door. I
nodded
, reaching to take the file from his hand.

"No problem. What is it?"

"That flighty witness in the Half
Moon
Chambers case. A lad called Rowan Clyde, works
down
the city gallery in their restoration wing.
Hargreaves and Watts have been chasing him all
over
town, but he doesn't want to know. I thought I
might
send you along to his place of work. He can't
run
away from you there."

I didn't flinch. Bill did, though, and I was
sorry
for him. Quickly I opened the file, drawing
out
the papers. "I thought we didn't need a third
witness
."

"Most probably we won't. The first two are
nervy
, though, and if they flake out I want a backup
ready
. Now we've got Maric in custody, I want to
keep
the bastard. You know what depends on it. If
we
can keep him, he might give up Val Foster on a
deal
."

"Yes, sir." Goran Maric had finally blown it,
not
on a raid but in the transaction of a piece of
private
justice. A couple of Chinese students,
quietly
trading heroin out of their basement flat,
had
pushed their enterprise far enough to tread on
his
toes. Maybe he'd only meant to warn them, but
things
had got ugly fast. The screams had alerted
the
couple next door, who'd come out in time to
see
one of the kids dragged back into the flat by the
hair
and shot. Maric had made it out the fire exit.

Not far this time, though - the neighbours had
given
enough of a description for officers to run
him
to earth and bring him in.

Other officers. Other firearms men, healthy
and
fresh to the fight. Bill Hodges had brought me
the
news like a gift, and I'd done my best to
unwrap
it gratefully. "Do we know if this Clyde
guy
saw anything useful?"

"He lives in the Chambers. Up on the top
floor
, but our scene-of-crime guys think they saw
him
in the ground-floor hall immediately after it
happened
. He vanished when they tried to
approach
him, and they had their hands full."

I examined the black-and-white photo clipped
to
the front of Clyde's papers. It was a decent
surveillance
shot of a young man emerging from
the
central archway of the Half Moon block.

Impassively I picked out the features I'd need to
identify
him
--
lean build, verging on skinny,
about
5'10", very dark close-cut hair. Nothing special.
When I'd gathered the details, I looked away. "All
right
. I'll go up there now."

"Vince, would you like your desk moved
back
now? You'd be able to see better."

I considered. I'd suffered from blinding
headaches
when I'd first come back to work,
and
I'd asked for my desk to be shifted from its old
place
by the window. There wasn't much room for
manoeuvre
, but now I could sit with my back to the
light
. A waste of a good window, of course,
and
I'd told Bill he could put someone else in there if
he
chose. He'd left me alone, though, and I'd taken
the
opportunity to have a bit of a clear-out.

Souvenirs I'd collected like a teenager
--
comedy
drinks
mats, that ridiculous paperweight of a little
glass
man conquering his little glass mountain. A
couple
of inexpertly framed photos. I didn't miss
my
view. There was nothing to see on a day like
today
, when freezing fog hung heavy
in
Northumberland Street and the panes were still
frosted
at noon. "No, thanks. It's fine."

"Right. Mind you take a cab up to the
gallery
."

"It's not far. I'll walk it. I could drive myself,
for
that matter, if you'd let me take a car from the
pool
."

"Not while you're still popping those
painkillers
, no."

I looked at the squat white jar on my desk. My
clear
-out had left remaining objects a bit
conspicuous
. "It's my last batch. After these I'm on
aspirin
and gritted teeth, like everybody else."

Bill pulled a sympathetic face. "Sorry. Still,
at
least we can review you for driving next month.
Be nice to young Mr Clyde, won't you? I think
we
're the sensitive, artistic type."

"I'll be the soul of tact." Bill was turning to
leave
when a thought snagged at me. "Bill, can I
ask
you something?"

"Fire away."

"Why are you sending me on a job that
particularly
requires diplomacy? I wouldn't have
thought
I'd be your first choice."

"Well, Ban Ki Moon was busy today, so..."

He leaned his shoulder on the doorframe. His
smile
faded. "Vince
--
don't take offence. I can
understand
your concerns about having more
surgery
. In your place I'd hesitate too. Mind, in
your
place I'd also be looking outside the police
force
for work. You're right, you're not my first
choice
for diplomatic missions." He shook his
head
ruefully. "Far from it. But..."

"But I won't risk the op that might make me fit
to
do the work I used to, and you're trying to keep
me
busy."

"I feel like a shit for talking to you like this. I
know
how hard you've worked to get back here.
But I've got yet another bloody departmental
-
efficiency
survey coming up, and..."

I got up. I could do so quite easily now. I'd
gone
from a geriatric-style walking frame to
crutches
, then one crutch, then an aluminium stick,
all
in the space of six weeks, and for the last
fortnight
I'd left the stick at home. I was doing fine.

"Don't say any more. I get it."

"If you knew how much we value you,
Vince
--
how much I do personally
--
"

"I do know. Look, shove as much lightweight
interview
work as you need to my way. And I'll
start
thinking about alternatives, like you say."

"Good man." He glanced at his watch. "You
can
make this your last job of the day. Get what
you
can from Clyde, then knock off."

When he was gone, I leaned on the desk and
stared
out into the bleak winter day, or as much of
it
as showed through the condensation and the wild
extravaganza
of ice-ferns and flowers crowding
over
the glass. After a moment I went and drew the
blinds
. Unlike the flighty Rowan Clyde, I wasn't
subject
to artistic tendencies. All I had ever
wanted
to be was a copper. But yes, I really was
doing
fine. As my physiotherapy ogre told me three
times
a week, and as I told the occupational
counsellor
once a month during my obligatory
sessions
with her, I was making a remarkable
recovery
. There was just nothing out there any
more
I particularly wanted to see.