back to sleep, love,’ and was surprised when she obediently closed her eyes.
‘Who are you speaking to?’ Rhoda asked sharply. He adjusted the arm that was holding the phone and pain shot through his body like a lightning bolt. When he was a child his mother had never comforted him if he hurt himself, instead she always held him responsible. (‘Well, you wouldn’t have broken your arm if you hadn’t jumped off the wall, Andrew.’) If she’d kissed and cuddled him, his life might have turned out differently. He whimpered quietly. ‘Is that you making that noise, Andrew?’ Rhoda said. ‘What are you doing? Did you remember to get the kippers? Are you there? Andrew?’
‘Yeah, I’m here,’ Andy sighed. ‘Don’t worry, I got the kippers. I’ll be home soon.’ In a body bag most likely, he thought. ‘Bye, love.’
Those were probably his last words to her. He should have told her where all the cash was stashed. She’d never be able to sit by the pool with her pina colada now. She’d be surprised when she found out where his life had ended. Or perhaps she wouldn’t. It was hard to tell with Rhoda, she was like Lottie in that respect.
He was either going to die here or he was going to have to try and get help and risk Vince shooting him – in which case he would die anyway. Staying and waiting to be killed didn’t feel like much of an option, so, inch by painful inch, he began to caterpillar along the floor towards the door. He thought about Maria and Jasmine. One had stayed, one had run. He wished they’d both chosen to run. He wished he could wind time back, to the Angel of the North, to the Quayside flat, to the airport, the plane, the moment they had googled ‘recruitment agencies UK’ or however it was that they had found Anderson Price Associates. He wished they were still sweating over sewing-machines in Manila making Gap jeans, dreaming about a better life in the UK.
His agonizingly slow progress towards the door was impeded by the Polish girls. He had to climb over them, mumbling an apology all the while. ‘Sorry, love,’ he said as Nadja woke again. She struggled to a sitting position and he could see that her eyes were no longer black holes. Her pupils had narrowed to pinpricks, designed to bore into his soul. She frowned at him and said, ‘You’re shot?’
‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘Seems like it.’
‘With a gun?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where is it? The gun?’
Thisldo
A Browning 9mm, the standard Army-issue sidearm until a few years ago when it was replaced by the Glock. Royal Signals. In another lifetime. That’s what Vince Ives had said as they fell off the cliff together. He must have smuggled his pistol home, on an Army transport probably, after his last deployment. Jackson knew guys who’d done that – more as a souvenir than a weapon. Something that reminded you that you were once a soldier. There was always the feeling – usually confirmed later, unfortunately – that when you left the Service you were leaving behind the best days of your life.
Vince had said something about Kosovo. Or was it Bosnia? Jackson couldn’t remember. He wished he could, because it might have helped the current conversation. It was one thing to talk a guy out of jumping off a cliff, but it was quite another thing to persuade him to put down the gun that he was pointing at you, especially when he had a wild look in his eye, like a horse that had been spooked.
‘Vince,’ Jackson said, raising his arms in surrender, ‘it’s me, Jackson. You phoned me, remember?’ (Call me, if you need to talk.) Perhaps he ought to stop distributing his card so liberally if this was what it led to.
He’d received a panicked phone call some half an hour ago, Vince giving garbled instructions about how to get to this place, saying that he was in trouble – or that there was trouble, Jackson wasn’t sure which. Perhaps both, he thought. Was Vince having a breakdown – standing on the edge of a cliff again, about to jump? Or perhaps he’d been arrested for his wife’s murder. The last thing Jackson had been expecting was that the guy would have a gun or that he’d be holding it straight and level directly in line with the invisible target that was Jackson’s heart. A gun’s visceral enough, he’d said yesterday to the Sam/Max/Matt guy