The Third Rule (Eddie Collins Book 1) Read online

  “Fill it yourself, Henry, would you?” Deacon sat, slackened his tie. “So what did you have to attend to that was more important than my after speech party?”

  “Personal things.” Henry sat, readied himself for the interrogation.

  “Am I not your father? Can’t you tell me personal things any longer?”

  “I’m surprised you have the time.”

  “Was that a flippant remark, Henry?”

  “Yes, it was, strike that from the minutes, would you.”

  The dictionary struck him on the knee and fell to the floor. Henry jerked, banged his bandaged hand and spilled his drink. He stared at Deacon, and in that instant, hated him.

  “Would you like to start being civil to me, Henry? As you can see, I have no shortage of books.”

  Henry refilled his glass again.

  “You should have come to the speech,” Deacon’s chest expanded. “Though I say it myself, I was wonderful, even Sterling commented upon my performance.”

  “I’m sure you did a wonderful job, father.”

  “I gave a heart-rending speech about the Criminal Justice Reform Act, Henry. Do you know anything about it? The Rules, some people call it.”

  Henry shrugged, kicked aside the book and retook his seat. He saw something in his old man’s eye; something that said he was playing games. The tone of voice, the insinuation threaded through the question like a certain track near a certain village threads through certain slag heaps. “No, I don’t…”

  “The Rules, Henry, are a radical new way of dealing with criminals. Basically, you get three chances to reform, three chances given to you by society to keep your nose clean.”

  “My nose? You say it as though you’re—”

  “Bear with me.” He said this with a smile that was far too warm, far too friendly to belong to idle chat, more in the vicinity of ‘the end is nigh’. “However, the rule of three only applies to petty criminals, or rather to those who do not pose a serious personal threat to anyone. It does not apply, in its fullest form, to those who kill, or to those who have killed and have not yet been caught.” He stared directly at Henry.

  Henry looked away.

  “For those people, there is the gun.” Now Deacon did not smile.

  That comment was aimed directly at him. Being an estate agent gave you an instant Malice-ometer; you knew when people hated you enough to talk to you while drawing the dagger behind their back.

  Or in this case, the gun.

  But that wouldn’t bother you, you bag of shit. They could break down the doors to this place, drag me screaming out into your manicured grounds and put a bullet through the back of my head, and your only concern would be for the damaged door and the blood on your roses. “Why have you called me down here, father? You never call me down here.” And then he thought more about it. And he could see why his father would be bothered, not because of the death thing, that wouldn’t cause his heart to flutter – did he have a heart? – he would be bothered because his reputation would be soiled. He recalled, after his last little excursion from the path of righteousness, how dear Daddy had him up against the wall, threatened to smear his face across it. He wouldn’t risk the PM crossing him off his Christmas card list.

  “I never call you down here while I have government business—”

  “Or while there are people here I could embarrass you in front of.”

  Deacon’s eyebrows rose. “True,” he said.

  “So why have you summoned me? I’m busy with the business, I can’t—”

  “You can’t take an evening off and spend it with your father? What kind of son are you?” He sipped his drink, staring at Henry over the rim with cold eyes. “I’m what, thirty miles away from your home? That’s nothing to a man who drives like you do.”

  Ever seen a trap door, Henry thought, and gone over to have a look anyway? He swallowed. “I don’t drive quickly.”

  “Quite,” was all Deacon said. “What about the business? Gone bust yet?”

  “What a thing to ask! No I haven’t gone bust yet; it’s doing alright considering the climate we’re in.”

  “So you’re nearly bust.”

  His hand throbbed.

  Deacon laughed and reclined in his seat, arms folded, enjoying his son’s visit.

  “Okay,” Henry said, “cards on the table, why do you want me here?”

  “Cards on the table? Right, I see.” Deacon reached into a drawer and pulled out a blue folder, all the while keeping his dark eyes on Henry. From the folder he took a sheet of printed A4 and slid it across the desk to Henry. “Treat yourself,” he said, “read that.”

  It was a copy of the statement he made to the police two weeks ago about some nasty scrote who relieved him of his beloved Jaguar. Astonished, he looked into Deacon’s stare. “How did you get hold of this?” Henry’s chest grew tight over a hammering heart.

  “I am the Justice Minister, Henry. I pull so many strings, they call me the Puppet Master.” Deacon laughed at the expression on Henry’s face. “I’m only kidding about the title, I just made it up, but it has a certain ring, wouldn’t you say?” Deacon stood and marched around the desk, and Henry pushed into the back of the chair. “I like to keep a discreet eye on what’s happening in your life, Henry. To an extent, we are estranged, and well… I don’t want you getting up to any mischief; I don’t want your old tricks to re-emerge.”

  “You’re keeping tabs on me!”

  “Steady,” Deacon said, “this isn’t Nineteen Eighty Four, you know.” He smiled at Henry. “I take an interest, that’s all.”

  “Bollocks!”

  Deacon swung his fist with such ferocity as to knock Henry sideways out of the chair. The chair crashed on top of him and hadn’t come to rest before the study door burst open with Sirius filling its frame. Henry looked up and screamed. Deacon waved Sirius away and when the door closed, reached down and pulled the chair off his son. His foot had unhindered access.

  As each blow struck his back, all Henry could think of was that he wished he were in the SAS, because if he were…

  Henry curled up on the floor and Deacon took the opportunity to stamp on his bandaged hand. That brought Henry’s mind round from the greyness it was sinking into, and he surfaced with venom in his veins and hatred in his mind. He rolled over just as Deacon was about to lay another well-aimed foot at his kidneys. “Stop!” He made it to his knees, and Deacon, grunting like a boxer about to deliver the killer blow, pulled back just as Henry’s fist made contact with his balls.

  Deacon stopped dead. His spindly old legs buckled, and he sank to his knees, groaning and clutching his balls.

  Henry brought his reddened face within inches of his father’s and hissed at him through clenched teeth, “If you ever touch me again, you old fuck, the world will find out what a hypocrite you are. You’ll go from a seat in Westminster to a seat in the slaughterhouse in record time.”

  Deacon’s eyes widened with surprise, both with pain and at the sudden display of a spine from his wimp of a son. But behind the surprise was something else. Fear.

  “What do you know?” Deacon’s words fell out of his mouth in a rush, blurred together by that fear. He stood, propping himself against the desk, and then shuffled back to his chair, trying to hide his astonishment by looking down through the whole journey. “Well, out with it!”

  Henry climbed to his feet. “You bastard.” He held out his bandaged hand and saw the blood seep through it. “It was beginning to fucking heal!” He spat blood onto the carpet and looked reproachfully at Deacon.

  Deacon arranged his shirt, pulled his tie back into position, and said, “Tell me what you think you know.”

  “I don’t think I know anything.” The smile resurfaced. “I do know.”

  Deacon stared in silence for what must have been a minute, possibly two, at his son, paying particular attention to his eyes. Henry’s eyes matched them second for second, and towards the end of the competition, he found the power to smile a li
ttle, to pit his wits against him, a challenge.

  “What happened to your hand, Henry?”

  This was turning into the best fucking day of his entire life – except for Launa Wrigglesworth! – and he wondered why he hadn’t used the threat before. It was two years old, he’d had it in him for two whole years, and in all that time he had taken the beatings and the humiliations, rather than use the old man’s tactics against him. And now that he had used it, it worked better than a razor blade chastity belt. But he did not gloat.

  “I burnt it.”

  “Why did you burn it, Henry?”

  There was a tentative understanding in Deacon now, almost a grace that Henry had never seen before; and he wondered if this was how politicians dealt with everyday life, whoever had something over someone got the prize. And when someone had something on you, you obliged, you conceded gracefully and you never mentioned it again. That’s life in the great game of politics. Deacon wore an expression that Henry had never before seen: compliance. He really did have him by the balls.

  “You know why my hand is burned; you know how I burned it too, I guess.”

  “I want to hear it from you, boy. You tell me exactly what happened, and I’ll try to help you.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because, for the time being, I believe your threat is real, and I have a lot at stake at the moment. Things that I would rather not lose. You mess things up, and I end up looking tainted.” He looked derisively at Henry, like he was a piece of shit. “And you know,” he said, “if they catch you for this, you’re going to die for it? Sure, I’ll look bad, may even be voted out, but you’ll die, boy!”

  “So what’s the deal,” Henry leaned forward, bandaged hand resting over the broken arm of the chair, “you help me out this once and next time I fuck up, you kill me?”

  Deacon shrugged. “I hope there will not be a next time.” Now Deacon leaned forward, and his voice dropped to a bare whisper, “This is the only time this threat of yours will work. The next time you try to use it, be prepared to die. Do you understand me?”

  He stared into Deacon’s shifty eyes. “Yes.”

  “I mean it, Henry. Next time it kills you.”

  Henry nodded. They understood each other for the first time since Henry ploughed his clumsy way through adolescence. And it was something to be celebrated. “Drink?”

  “Did you kill that man on Leeds Road?”

  Henry turned, nodded, and went on pouring the drinks.

  “Why?”

  Henry sighed, gave Deacon his glass, and rubbed the back of his hand. “He was annoying me.”

  “Did the twelve year old boy annoy you too?”

  Henry blinked. He held his head high, breathed in deeply though his nostrils. “That, sir, was an accident, pure and simple.”

  “You sounded as though you were giving your pre-prepared answer from the dock of a courthouse then.” Deacon tipped the glass. “You were travelling at fifty-eight miles an hour. You were in a thirty zone. That’s two deaths in one day; quite a feat.”

  “Spare me the funnies, please. I have been over it a thousand times, and there’s nothing I can do now that will change either of those deaths, the wanker or the kid.” Henry sipped and then winced as it bit into his cut lip.

  “You almost sound as though you care?”

  Henry shrugged. “No, I don’t care. It’s sad that the kid died, but,” he shrugged again, “shit happens. I need extricating from this mess before it turns around and bites me.”

  “Have you destroyed the car?”

  “No.”

  “What! Why the hell not?”

  Henry held up his hand. “I tried to burn it,” he said. “But it burned me instead.”

  “How did you explain that to the police when they asked for your statement?”

  “Said the car thief slammed my hand in the door.”

  “They believed you?”

  “I was in pain! They believed me, why would they think I was lying, carjacking happens all the time.”

  “I can’t believe no one saw you kill either of them, especially the man on Leeds Road, in rush hour!”

  “It all comes down to witness statements, and you know how unreliable they are. My story stands.”

  “So what if they find the car and it’s got your prints all over it?”

  “It’s bound to have my prints over it, it’s my damned car!”

  “Steady on, Henry; we have an agreement, that’s all. It doesn’t turn me into your underling.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’ll have Sirius destroy it.” Deacon searched the ceiling, looking for some kind of answer, and in relief, Henry sat back down and let him work it out. “Can’t be tomorrow or Monday, I have places to go,” he looked back at Henry, “we’ll have to make it sometime on Tuesday.”

  “Why wait, though? Why risk anyone finding it? I mean, if you’ll help me, then we could sort this whole thing—”

  Deacon shook his head. “If anyone had found the car we would know about it, the police would have knocked on your door by now. Another couple of days won’t hurt. In the meantime, keep going as though nothing has changed.”

  “Well,” he said, “if you’re sure.”

  “Where is the car?”

  Henry smiled. “Remember Great Preston?”

  Saturday 20th June

  Chapter Thirteen

  — One —

  Christian breathed hard, holding a wad of cash; maybe five or six hundred pounds. He stared at the man on the floor who groaned and writhed about in the glass from the smashed ceiling lamp. Standing above him in the doorway was Mrs Golfer, wearing a towelling dressing gown, eyes furious with what she saw.

  “Get out of our house.” Her voice was strangely calm as she looked from her husband to her burglar, her own private burglar. “I have called the police.”

  “I would have done that too.” He looked down at the wad, wondered if they could get by without all this money. “What was this for?” he asked Mrs Golfer.

  “That’s none of your damned business, my lad.”

  “I’m not your lad,” he whispered. “I only—”

  “Get out!”

  Christian limped across the lounge, heading for the kitchen, hoping to find the keys dangling in the back door. As he passed Mr Golfer, he looked down, saw the pain in his eyes, the embarrassment.

  “You’ll fucking hang for this, you bastard.”

  “Don’t think so.” Christian stuffed the cash into his jeans pocket and quickly left the house. He was a quarter of a mile away on Kirkstall Lane in Headingley, near the stadium before he saw two police cars speeding past, blue lights flashing, but no sirens. After another quarter mile, he suddenly remembered his shoes in the hedge at the bottom of the garden.

  Che sera, he thought. Christian walked home.

  — Two —

  The candle was weak, the darkness oppressive, claustrophobic. And Alice could feel the beginnings of a panic attack coming on. And no, she didn’t have her fucking pills on her either. She was naked and cold, hunched up, a little afraid, and now she could imagine her demise down here in a bastard dank cellar, could imagine the candle rolling away across the gritty floor as she sucked at the dust for the air that couldn’t get past her constricted throat.

  And then she calmed. She stopped moving forward, brought the small flame closer, and watched it flicker. She heard the wax hiss, and could see the small trail of smoke that curled its way up to the ceiling. Best of all was the sparkling glow around the flame itself, the way it sprouted a thousand piercing shards of a rainbow’s light into the darkness. And then she blinked and realised the shards of light were caused by the moisture over her eyes and probably had nothing to with anything else. Hmph, she shrugged and then she realised how much better she felt just for pausing in her journey and watching the candle.

  She held the light at arm’s length again and crouched, looking past its glow and into the gloom, towards a set of drawers, wo
nky old wooden things not fit for the tip, and she wondered if that’s where he kept her stuff. It made sense, but it was a little unimaginative. She pulled the brass loops on each of the drawers, and wasn’t the slightest bit surprised to see them full of nothing more sinister than painting equipment.

  She slammed the drawers shut, heard paint tubes and palettes rattle around inside, and then turned, looking for more…

  And there it was; the perfect hiding place for a swatch of drugs. And she had forgotten that as well as hiding them from her, he had to hide them from the police too, and they were probably a damned sight more adept than she was at locating them. There was a dark, tongued-and-grooved door with a rusty latch, standing right before her. A hundred years ago they had tipped sacks of coal through the grate at the back of this old house, and this was the place it landed. And this is where the stash would be. Alice smiled.

  A quick sweep with the candle assured her she was alone. Except, there was an easel just to her right. On it, facing away from her, was a canvas stretched over a frame and held in place by some kind of clamp. A protective sheet of plastic hovered above it, suspended from the ceiling by lengths of twine. She bit her lower lip, noted how low the candle had burned and wondered how much time she had left before the candle died, or Christian came back home expecting to find her tucked up in bed. She decided she could look all she wanted at the pretty picture, after she got her gear.

  And that’s not funny, girl, either.

  He likes painting, that’s all.

  Yeah, he likes painting, but the painting ain’t the end product, kid. The painting is his way of stating where he is in life, of telling the person looking at the damned thing what’s going on inside. And it’s those feelings, kid, that people pay big money for.

  Alice lifted the latch and the door pulled noisily outward, scratching an arc in the dirt on the stone floor. She nearly screamed as the candlelight wafted in its breeze and dipped into a dark blue before recovering and illuminating the web hanging like a net curtain before her eyes. In its centre was a long-legged, skinny, hairy fuck of a spider. It looked at her, unmoving, unfrightened, it looked at her through big oily eyes as if to say, ‘Your move, sister, watcha gonna do now?’