The Getaway - By Tom Barber Page 0,33

a moment longer, then pulled open the fridge door. It was sparsely filled, just a carton of eggs, some milk and some preserves on the shelves.

No beer.

Closing the door, he moved out of the kitchen into the living area on the right. A table was pushed against the wall facing the kitchen, knick knacks and odd items placed on the desktop. Standing by the table, Archer saw something he recognised resting there and picked it up. It was a wallet. Jim Archer had used the same one for twenty years. He felt the soft leather in his hands. The texture. The smell. Memories flooded back. His dad giving him money to spend at the weekend with his friends. Buying his son a bottle of Coke then sitting outside a pub in the English summer, the leathery wallet resting on the wooden table. Asking his dad for some spare coins for sweets, and seeing him pretend to consider refusing, knowing he’d always end up saying yes and helping him out.

He flipped it open and saw a New York State driver’s licence.

James Anthony Archer. D.O.B: 05/10/1957.

He thumbed through the bank cards and other I.D cards. He found a couple of pictures of him when he was a kid and his sister, Sarah, tucked into the back. He stared at them for a moment then returned them, putting the wallet back where he’d found it, not wanting to disturb anything.

He turned and moved to the main bedroom. This too was surprisingly tidy, the bed made, the sheets white and clean. He pulled open the closet. A series of suits hung there, lined up neatly on the rail alongside some shirts with ties hung over the coat-hangers. Several pairs of shoes had been lined up side-by-side underneath, some of the laces still tied. Clothes and shoes that would never be used again by their owner, Archer thought. Like everything else in this apartment.

He sat back on the bed. It was comfy and springy. He turned his attention to the nightstand by the bed and reached for the top drawer, curious. It was jammed. He grabbed the side of the stand with his free hand and pulled hard, and the drawer suddenly opened. There were a couple of books in there, with the memory card to a digital camera laid on top. It had a small square of tape on the underside, as if it had been stuck to something. Archer ignored it as something else caught his eye. There was a steel pistol in there, resting on the small stack of books towards the back of the drawer. Archer reached inside and took it out. It was a Sig Sauer P226, FBI issue, well-maintained, smelling of gun oil. His father’s service weapon. It was still here in the drawer which meant he hadn’t taken it the night he had been murdered.

Possibly meaning he hadn’t been expecting any trouble.

It was unloaded, no round in the pipe, no magazine in the base. Archer pulled the drawer open all the way and found three mags at the back, each one fully loaded. He took one of them out and thumbed the bullets out of the clip one-by-one, each round landing in a metal huddle on the bed, dinging as they dropped onto each other on the pile. Fifteen bullets in total landed on the bed. He pushed them all back into the magazine one-by-one, then slotted it into the base of the weapon and pulled the slide, loading it and checking the safety catch was on.

The gun in his hand, Archer lay back on the bed. Everything that had happened in the past two days suddenly caught up with him. He realised he was pretty worn out.

Learning of his father’s death, the flight, the funeral, the meeting with Gerrard and the collective weight of it all on his mind had left him way more tired than he thought. He stared up at the ceiling, his arms stretched out to the sides, the pistol in his right hand, the soft mattress supporting his back.

And before he knew it, he drifted off to sleep.

A sudden noise brought him back to consciousness and he stirred awake. Opening his eyes, he stared at the ceiling, briefly wondering where he was. The phone on the bed-side table was ringing. He blinked, looking at it sleepily, then glanced at a clock on the dresser.

7:00 pm.

It was Gerry.

Archer reached for the receiver, and grabbed it off the handle, sitting up.

‘Yeah?’

‘It’s me,’ Gerrard’s voice said.