The Third Rule (Eddie Collins Book 1) Read online

  “Now are you going to tell me the truth?”

  “I need to save my job.”

  Eddie laughed.

  “I kind of said that I thought this murder was linked to someone big, that it had something to do with The Rules.”

  “You really are a dickhead. And what if it doesn’t? Thought of that?”

  “No. I daren’t.” He squinted through the strata of smoke floating around the room. “It is kind of personal. That’s why I care. When I found the old man with his brains dripping down the wall, when I saw his old wrinkled face splashed with his own blood… I don’t know. It made it personal, finding him, I mean, rather than being shown photos or just being told about it.” He took a breath. “Have you any idea what I’m talking about?”

  Eddie only nodded. He did.

  — Two —

  Eddie shook his hand, sat down behind the battered old desk, and appraised him as discreetly as he could. The man wore no black cape, and there were no golden stars or pentagrams sewn into his jersey. He had the eyes of a man, not a cat, and his teeth and nails were… regular teeth and nails. Eddie was a little disappointed.

  “Could I have your watch?”

  Eddie looked at him through the corner of his eye and smiled. “I thought you took cash these days?”

  The man smiled out of politeness.

  Maybe this wasn’t the place for Eddie Collins. “Sorry.” He handed the watch over and looked around the community hall with its scratched parquet floor and stack of chairs up by the stage. All the curtains were drawn against the early evening light; the eight or so tables just like this one, each manned by its own psychic freak, were arranged evenly across that floor, and each was lit by its own small table lamp. Very intimate. Very becoming. Very production-line. They should have banners around the hall, adverts in the local press: ‘Come along and meet the dead! Roll up, roll up, Psychic Freaks Inc brings you close to your stiff!’

  The bums of the needy and hopeful, mostly women, who all seemed to know each other, who all gabbled incessantly and sipped cheap coffee from Styrofoam cups, filled a row of chairs at the edge of the hall. They were the type that came here week in, week out, hoping for some juicy revelation that would keep them going for seven days until their next spiritual top-up; they came for the entertainment, the gossip; they came to fulfil the need; they came to find Grandpappy’s lost treasure and they came to see people in tears. Whatever, thought Eddie, they didn’t come for the fucking coffee!

  The man held the watch and closed his eyes. For a reason he could not understand, Eddie’s heart kicked up a gear as he waited for some kind of response.

  “You’re a sceptic, Eddie.” The man smiled triumphantly.

  He looked back towards the collection of women, hoping to see her.

  “You’ve suffered a loss recently, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.” He looked at the freak.

  “It was a boy.”

  A prickle ran down Eddie’s neck, and suddenly the psychic freak had Eddie’s full attention. “Yes.” He watched him, waiting for the next tasty instalment.

  The man turned the watch this way and that, feeling its texture, yet taking something from it maybe. He smiled, closed his eyes momentarily and then opened them again quickly. “He’s here, you know.”

  “Who? Who’s here?” Eddie nervously looked around.

  “Sam.”

  He went cold. The colour seeped from his face and sweat glowed on his forehead. Swallowing, he tried and failed to regain some composure. “Erm,” was all he could muster. And in the pause, he collected himself, made himself not believe – the way he had always not believed, reminded himself of the ridicule he threw at Jilly, and of all the good reasons not to believe these freaks.

  What newspaper have you been reading, he wondered, what obituary column have you memorised. Yeah, but he seems to know… that’s just it, he seems to know. But he doesn’t. Remember that. Put your barriers up.

  “He thanks you for his shrine.”

  “Sorry?”

  Gotcha! No one, only Ros and maybe Mick if he took the blindest bit of interest could know about the shrine.

  “The baseball cap? The one with NY stitched on it. He said thanks for keeping hold of it and putting it on the mantelpiece.” The man didn’t seem particularly interested in scoring points, in converting a sceptic.

  Eddie swallowed again, and was that - no, surely not - a prickle of tears behind the eyes? It’s bollocks, Eddie, he told himself. You remember that dammit, it’s all brainwashing shit! He’s reading your mind! Block it, man, block thoughts of it.

  I don’t know how to.

  Think about… think about Stuck-up Stuart.

  He thought about how good it would feel to hear Stuart’s jaw cracking under the weight of his booted foot. And he did it because he could just about grasp the possibility of someone being able to read his mind; it was an easier concept to grasp, a safer concept to grasp than the dead coming through a medium on some short-wave receiver that no one but Psychic Freaks Inc could decode.

  “And he says he’s glad you’ve started to think of him as Sam instead of Sammy. He says it’s okay that you were late picking him up, and he forgives you.”

  Eddie opened his dry mouth, but absolutely nothing came out.

  “He says you should work on forgiving yourself now.”

  “I… I can’t, I…” Eddie stood, grabbed the watch and in a blur, he began to walk away, oblivious now to the chatting ladies and the cute table lamps.

  “Eddie.” The voice echoed.

  He stopped, didn’t look around. How’s he know my name?

  “You have got to stop the booze.”

  He walked quickly across the wide open floor, wiping his eyes, feeling but ignoring the women staring at him, listening to the silence that just crushed the hall. He was just trying to put distance between himself and the Psychic Freak and the monkey’s tea party.

  His eyes were a blur, his heart hammered in a chest that had begun to heal the misery of loss and had tried to put things into pigeonholes, locked away for the safety of his mind. The pigeonholes had been plundered by a medium who could read minds.

  Eddie was in bits. His mind reeled. For the revelation that Sammy – Sam, dammit! – liked the shrine and had an expanse of love deep enough to forgive the unforgivable. It was like sucking on a live mains cable.

  He ran out into the rain, into oblivion in his haste to get out of there, and wouldn’t have noticed if a herd of bulls was about to cross his path, let alone the scrabbling, clutching, thin hands of his estranged wife. He didn’t see her; tears spilled across his face and all he thought of was running; there was nothing else, nothing else existed. Eddie was frightened half to death, but even the numbness in his legs couldn’t stop him running from the ghosts that followed at the speed of thought. And it took a mighty slap to bring him round and allow his eyes to see again.

  She was here. He saw her. His breathing was laboured, his face hollow and pale, but at least his eyes could focus. And they focused on Jilly. He saw the horror on her face, the shock at meeting him, and then the understanding of why he was here. And then it wasn’t a massive jump for her to conclude what had happened in there.

  His numb legs let go and Eddie collapsed onto the wet tarmac. She knelt beside him, pulled his chin up and forced him to gaze at her. His hair clung to his forehead, his flimsy jacket already shiny with water. His lips trembled, and then Eddie shrieked and cried, folding his head into Jilly’s neck.

  A crowd gathered at the doors. They clasped Styrofoam cups in their hands, exchanged glances and hushed words. But none stepped outside the dryness of the community hall. The rain came heavier, bouncing off the tarmac; he could hear it battering the roofs of nearby cars and could even see it cascading across the car park, a shallow river going downhill – a little like himself.

  Tuesday 23rd June

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  — One —

  Christian sat huddled in the c
orner by the dustbins. They shielded him from most of the rain but occasionally the wind whipped it into his face and he’d pull his head into his shoulders even further.

  He spent hours crying. He mourned two deaths: Alice’s and his own. For when the police caught up with him they would kill him too. He wondered if the protestors would hold a demonstration in Leeds for him.

  His mind shuffled the day’s events, trying to make sense of them. But there was no sense Who would kill her? Who would want to kill her? And why? She had become a little too brave for her own good over the last few days, had mixed with the wrong kinds of people; the kind who would take advantage. She was naïve, and crazy, literally insane, and she had been since the day they met – well, no, that’s not right; she’d been crazy since the day she miscarried. Spencer, they were going to call him. If he’d lived.

  Christian let the tears fall and hoped the police caught her killer before they took the easy option - him.

  He thought of the paintings – and of course he couldn’t go back for them because the place would be crawling with coppers by now, and even if it wasn’t, how would he carry so many without a car – and to where?

  There was only one objective now: survival. And to survive he needed to get away from the city, needed to head for solitude in the hills or somewhere out in the country away from Vidiscreens and bounty hunters and bureaucracy. Away from the police.

  Rain beat down on the plastic bin bags lying in a crumpled heap, their innards spilling across the pavement – rat food and cat food – and he knew two things: that no matter how far he ran, they would always pursue him; and no matter how hard he ran, he would always carry his guilt with him. Always.

  He coughed, pulled his shirt tight around his shoulders and stood, wincing at the pain in his left arm. The light was poor, contrast low, and now would be about the right time to head off into town to get some transport. If he waited until darkness proper, then the clubbers would catch him, but if he went now, people would be far more concerned with getting out of the rain than watching some bedraggled creature steal a car. Even the demonstrators would have dwindled and scattered by now; the shoppers wouldn’t be shopping and the coppers wouldn’t be copping, well, hopefully. The streets would be empty. Christian began walking.

  — Two —

  “Your father has instructed me to collect you.”

  Henry held the phone away from his face, stared at it as though he wasn’t sure what it was. “He has? Why?”

  Sirius made a point of ensuring Henry heard him tut. “Because it’s time to kill the cat.”

  “What? Will you speak English, man?” And then it hit him: kill the cat, meant destroy the Jaguar – of course; it was code-speak. “Ah, you mean torch—”

  “Stop!” He shouted. “Be ready at two.”

  Henry listened to the hum of a dead line and rocked his head side to side, “Be ready at two,” he mocked, and slammed the phone down, dragged a hand over his chin. Henry sat in his leather armchair, sipped his coffee and turned the TV off. Why did he have to go along? What could he possibly contribute?

  He stood, knocked the coffee over and didn’t even notice. “It’s a set-up. It’s dear old Daddy’s way of getting me out of the way – permanently.” And it was a way of preventing disclosure of Henry’s secret. “Bastard,” he whispered. “Bastard!” he shouted. Whatever happened to giving him the one chance they’d agreed on?

  Henry walked into his bedroom, pulled open the under-bed drawers and reached inside the hollowed-out bed frame. It was good to feel the reassurance the handgun gave him. Henry slid it into his belt, patted it and smiled. And now for the paperwork that needed attending to.

  — Three —

  The rain pounded mercilessly, and Christian wandered through the deserted streets of a city centre. Thunderclouds gathered, and the storm rolling into town from the west promised all kinds of magic and fireworks. The light had receded into a kind of opaque greyness tinged a rich ochre.

  He walked with his head down towards Burley where the students and the drop-outs lived – where the cars were older and easier to steal.

  Fear tiptoed alongside, making him snatch his breath as he remembered seeing her lying on the stairs with blood all over the place. Her face stared accusingly at him, and he remembered standing there feeling guilty at what he’d done, but feeling totally vindicated at the same time. But the guilt was worse – he almost felt as though he had killed her.

  Enshrouded by wet jeans that clung like a second skin, his cold legs brought him into Burley and the land of the Victorian terrace; back-to-back prisons that crushed families within their confines as effectively as a razor wire fence, where each window looked out onto more bricks and where gutters tipped the rainwater down the walls. His shoulder throbbed, his ear stung like a burn, and he discarded the sodden bandage and felt the warm trickle as blood flowed again.

  There were few people about, and those he saw paid him no attention. The light dimmed so much so that the street lamps came on, bathing the weeds and the rusting cars in a disgusting orange glow that saddened him further.

  Old cars lined both sides of the street. They were rust-spotted, had cracked windscreens, smashed door mirrors and damaged door locks – this was the car thieves’ training ground. He turned right onto a road called Turner Avenue, and was only a third of the way along it before his hand came away holding an open door. Quickly he ducked inside, heard the rain drumming on the roof and looked at the damaged ignition, hanging down into the footwell by its wires.

  Church bells, three chimes, cracked into the sodden air, and then disappeared without so much as an echo.

  He rifled the glovebox, looking for a screwdriver, something to stick in the ignition and get the fucker going, but came out with nothing more than CDs and a can of de-icer. The ceiling lamp poured its light over him, and in the darkness outside, he stood out like a lighthouse. He pulled the diffuser away and flicked the festoon bulb out from its holder. A quick glance up and down the street told him he was still okay, and so he snapped the diffuser in two and jammed a sharp corner into the ignition.

  — Four —

  Henry closed the door. “What kept you?”

  Sirius said nothing and drove off.

  “Talkative, then?”

  “All I need from you is an address.”

  The windscreen wipers grated intermittently across the screen. The hire car headed north into Leeds, and into a looming black cloud so big it was like a tidal wave in mid-air. The sunlight shrank away from it and an eerie calm fell upon the crowds they drove through.

  “All I need from you is an address,” he mocked. And then Henry looked across at Sirius. He could see a bulge beneath the flimsy summer jacket he wore, just in front of his left bicep. Gun? “You don’t like me much, do you, Sirius?”

  “You have it all wrong.”

  “I do?”

  “I don’t like you at all.”

  “And why’s that, then?”

  “Just shut it.”

  “Frightened I’ll run and tell my dad if you upset me?”

  Sirius stared forward. “Your father knows how I feel about you.”

  “Really?” He knew they both hated him in equal amounts; he wasn’t stupid.

  “Bailed you out more times than you’ll ever know.”

  This was going to be a fun afternoon. “Where’re we going?”

  “We’re going to get someone to help bail you out – again.”

  “So long as I’m keeping you amused.”

  “You’re not keeping me amused, Henry; you’re just pissing me off.”

  “So if I fuck up again, you’ll be even more pissed off, wontcha?” Henry smiled wide; while ever the money kept appearing in nondescript brown envelopes, Sirius would keep on bailing. Men like him were ten a penny.

  “Wrong! You fuck up again and…” he looked forward. “I’m sick of holding your hand.”

  Henry understood in that one moment what Sirius had wanted to say, what
he almost did say, and it reinforced his father’s threat – the ‘get out of jail free card’. “So if all you need me for is an address, why am I here?”

  “Ask Sir George.”

  He sneaked another glance. He had a neck that came out at the ears and blended into the cliffs of his shoulders. Henry grew worried. Who were they going to meet? Was he to help Sirius dig a grave for Henry? Did he do things like that? Kill people? Bet he does. Anything to keep politics running smoothly.

  This made Henry edgy. As they headed for the less respectable part of town, the daylight shrank away from the dark clouds even further, and the rain came down so heavily that the wipers struggled to keep the screen clear.

  Out of the side window, Henry noticed a road sign. “Burley? Why are we going to Burley, of all places?”

  “We’re meeting someone there.”

  “Who?”

  Sirius smiled. “Don’t know yet.”

  “You make no sense at all.” Henry shifted in his seat. “You know this is where all the dross hangs out don’t you? This is about as bad as it gets.”

  “Don’t you ever shut up?”

  “If all you needed from me was an address—”

  “Shut up.”

  “No.” Henry did shut up. For the rest of their journey – another ten minutes spent easing the hire car through narrow streets. The rain was a muffled roar on their roof. “Are we heading somewhere in particular,” asked Henry, “only I think we’ve been here before.”

  “We have been here before, and you need to keep quiet.”

  “Only asked.”

  * * *

  There he was. Out on his own.

  Sirius glided in for a closer look. He went by a few minutes ago, and this kid was just rounding the corner onto Turner Avenue, and now he was trying his hand at vehicle recovery. He drove past the kid and stopped in the street fifty yards away and killed the engine. He reached over the seat for his GoreTex and noticed Henry looking at his chest – or more precisely, at the bulge of steel on his chest. Henry looked away. “Yes, it is.”