‘A couple more drinks and I lead him by tie up to room – executive suite, nice, thank you – like dog on lead. More drinks from mini-bar. We watch TV, I say I can’t miss Collier. He lie down on bed and start turn white and say, Love, I’m not feeling great. Blood sugar’s dropped. I’m diabetic, you see. Shouldn’t have drunk so much. Let’s just stop a minute.’
‘Oh, and interrupt our fun? I say, straddling him on bed like I’m rider and he horse. (No sex, don’t worry!) No, please, love, really, he say. His voice fade. He really not well. And then I pull medicine into syringe and jab him – jab! jab! – with needle and he say, No, no, what is that? It’s not insulin, is it? That’s the last thing I need, love. And then he pass out and I get off bed and wipe everything clean. Then sit with him. Vigil. Until sure he gone.
‘Da, Mrs Trotter, definitely. Dead. Final curtain. Show over. Bye-bye! Condolences, blah, blah, blah. Pleasure doing business with you, Mrs Trotter. Recommend me to your friends.’
Kill the Buddha
‘You’ll have to give the tiara back,’ Jackson said.
‘I suppose. And it’s a shame about the honeymoon. The Maldives. Would have been nice,’ she said wistfully.
‘Maybe Jago can take Waldo?’
‘Or Lollo?’
‘The future’s in your hands,’ Jackson said. ‘That’s what Madame Astarti says.’
‘Who?’
They had hidden out for a couple of days at a hotel in Harrogate. ‘So I can get my head together,’ she said. ‘I feel like a criminal.’
‘Me too,’ Jackson said, although of course he actually technically was a criminal as he had covered up an unlawful killing. Twice. First when Dr Hunter killed her abductors and next when the Polish girl killed Stephen Mellors. He had no regrets. None. He wasn’t a vigilante. He really wasn’t.
He was saying goodbye to Marlee on the platform of York station. She was going back to London to ‘face the music’. He wanted to urge her to tell Jago about the baby, but he was working very hard at not giving his daughter advice. He thought of how Julia had kept Nathan a secret from him. History repeating itself. But then that was all that history ever did, wasn’t it?
She was going to keep the baby, she said. He hadn’t even known there was a question on the table. She was going to bring up a baby on her own at the same time as pursuing an incredibly demanding career?
‘Listen to yourself, Grandad,’ she laughed. ‘You’re such a Luddite.’ But at least this time it was said with affection. ‘Besides which, I’ll have great child-care. The almost-in-laws will fork out huge sums of money to keep their brood mare close.’ She gave him a dig in the ribs (quite painful) and said, ‘Here’s my train coming.’ And then she was gone. She was brave, he thought. He must keep her close too from now on.
He checked into a budget hotel for the night. He didn’t need anything fancy, just clean sheets and no hairs in the shower. He needed to be fresh for the fight tomorrow.
Jackson set off early next morning. He put on Miranda Lambert. ‘Runnin’ Just In Case’. There’s trouble where I’m going but I’m gonna go there anyway. Sounded like the story of his life. He made a phone call from the road. He didn’t have a number for her any more. She had moved jobs and he googled her new workplace and asked the switchboard at her station to put him through, which they did, although it took some persuading on his part – she was senior now, she didn’t just take phone calls from strangers, because that was what he was now. A stranger to her. There’d been something between them once – a spark, a possibility. They could have been great together, but they were never together. He wondered if she still had the dog. He had given it to her instead of giving himself. (‘Fair exchange,’ Julia said.) It seemed a long time ago now.
He didn’t use his own name. He said he was DC Reggie Chase, because he suspected she might remember Reggie and would take that call.
She answered after a couple of rings. Cool and efficient. ‘Superintendent Louise Monroe. Can I help you?’ So perhaps she hadn’t clocked Reggie’s name after all.
He realized he had no idea what he wanted to say to her or whether he