The Third Rule (Eddie Collins Book 1) Read online

  “The long and the short of it is that my boy went to jail because someone else was doing something they shouldn’t have been.”

  Deacon moved his foot away from the panic button. “And how do you think killing me might help you exactly?”

  “Don’t get flippant with me. My hand gets awful shaky when I’m angered, and I’ve known my index finger, which is the little bugger curled around the trigger, twitch ever so forcefully when I’m enraged. Do you see my point?”

  “I see your point very clearly.”

  “Don’t think you’re home and safe cause this old guy don’t know nothing about guns. I know that where I point the tube end is more or less where the bullet is gonna go.”

  “Don’t you think your methods a little extreme? For a man who thinks so highly of morals—”

  Lincoln rode over the question like it was road kill. “My son was rejected for early release because – and this will pull your sense of justice right back into the Stone Age – because ‘he was still a danger to burglars.’” Lincoln said the words very slowly. “He was still a danger to burglars. I went wild. This is where an old man’s Victorian way of thinking gets in the way of progress, but hear me out; if a fellow is burgling your house, then he is doing something fundamentally wrong. If he didn’t do this fundamentally wrong thing, then he could never expect to be hurt by law-abiding citizens. Am I talking bollocks or does it make sense?”

  “Well, yes I—”

  “Where is the logic in locking up a man trying to prevent a crime in progress when the criminal shouldn’t be there!” Lincoln was almost screaming now, and he slammed the butt of the gun into the beautiful desk. “Inside, the burglars get a bloody VD player,” he hissed, “and I can barely afford my fucking TV licence!”

  Deacon ducked to one side. He almost leapt from his chair but someone knocked on the door instead. “Sir George? Everything okay in there?”

  * * *

  The gratitude Deacon felt at the interruption was like the relief of finally reaching the surface when you thought your lungs would burst. But he kept his demeanour level, like he’d just stepped out of a freezer; stick an ice cream on his head and it would stay there, solid, unmelting.

  He pressed the intercom and cleared his throat. He stared at the frail old man who was as proud a man as he had ever met, and said, “Everything’s fine; we were just having a heated discussion. No need to panic.”

  Totally unforgivable. Utterly punishable.

  * * *

  Lincoln looked through his slits at Deacon and wondered if he’d just been buggered by some kind of secret word. He gave it ten seconds, and when he found himself still sitting in the chair and still breathing, he thanked Deacon for his benevolence.

  “I understand your angst, and I agree with your sentiment entirely.”

  “You do?”

  Deacon only nodded.

  Lincoln sat up straight and said, “I don’t even know if this thing works.” He offered the briefest of smiles before pride snatched it away. Then he spun the barrel. “But it’s still got six in the hole.”

  He saw a flash of fear claw through Deacon. “I’m not going to kill you; I had to make myself heard over the do-gooders who’ve never been burgled or robbed or had their property set on fire.”

  Deacon defiantly reached forward and poked a finger into the barrel of Lincoln’s gun. And then he watched old man swallow. The threat looked decidedly more feeble now than it did a moment ago. The path to victory was paved not with bravery, but with calculated risk.

  Lincoln pulled the gun away, steered it around Deacon’s finger, the one with a fading red circle on the end, and reasserted his point.

  “You disgust me. You come in here talking about decency, preaching at me like a law-abiding citizen. You point that thing at a Minister of Her Majesty’s Government! At the successor of a Minister who was shot dead!” Deacon slammed his fist on the desk.

  Lincoln jumped; the threat was dead, if ever it had drawn breath to begin with. “You could go to jail for having that thing. You could be in the cell next to your boy.”

  When he’d composed himself, he apologised for smashing the fine furniture, “For putting a dent in the…” Lincoln felt the edge of the wood. “Chipboard?”

  Deacon shrugged. “It’s the way of the world.”

  Lincoln flicked the safety catch, and slid the gun away nonchalantly. “My dad was a soldier. He died so that the burglar could smile at my boy while he stole from him. And then that burglar laughed at my boy, and that burglar pissed his pants when he got Legal Aid to sue my boy. And that burglar got himself a VD player and three squares a day for less than half the time my boy is doing. Is that fair?”

  Lincoln grabbed the chair and made an effort to stand. “I know perfectly well that I sound like an old fool with nothing better to do than whine to busy people like you, but the world today really is what the last generation made it. So maybe they ought to be more grateful to us and our fathers.”

  “Mr Farrier,” On shaking legs, Deacon was at his side, helping the old man stand, “Though your methods were crazy, I got your message.”

  “I’m not sure what you can do but,” he shrugged, “I would be pleased if you could do something to help us.” He retracted his hand from Deacon’s helpful grasp, and said. “I’ve been foolish,” he patted the jacket over the old lump of WWII iron. “I shouldn’t have—”

  “No, you shouldn’t, Mr Farrier.” His stare was grave, and Lincoln feared the worst.

  “You gonna call the police?” he asked. “You have every right.”

  “I don’t work like that.” Now Deacon’s eyes moved away, unable or unwilling to stare at him. “I’d be tempted to destroy the gun, Mr Farrier. It is very dangerous.”

  “Will you see what you can do about my situation Sir George?”

  “Count on it.”

  — Two —

  Deacon closed the door behind the old man. He blinked and then he wished he loved his own son as much as Lincoln obviously loved his; wished he loved his own son at all. He returned to his desk, picked up his expensive fountain pen and made notes on Mr Farrier’s unusual visit, very detailed notes on what was wrong with a society that valued freedom above all else and then butchered that freedom and abused it so much that everyday people took action like that to make people like him understand how strongly they felt.

  He had shaken like a pneumonia victim when Lincoln pulled the gun; could see his career ending very abruptly before he’d achieved his ambition. And that, more even than the fear, caused him to stab the English-made fountain pen straight into the desk blotter. Ink splashed across his crisp white shirt and the pen’s nib stuck in the cheap veneer of the chipboard desk.

  He pressed the intercom, “Sirius. In here.”

  Moments later, Sirius appeared in the doorway. “Sir?”

  Deacon closed his jacket over the splashes of blue ink, and looked up at his ‘protection’. “The old man who just left?”

  “Sir.”

  “He pulled a gun on me.”

  “Sir?” No change of expression. Though the tone had raised an octave.

  “Make him have an accident with it.” Deacon put his spectacles on and looked back at his notes, providing no elaboration on the request, except to say, “His son, Stephen, is in jail, and he misses him terribly.”

  The door closed.

  Deacon took out a Bic. He ignored the intercom and screamed, “And next time search everyone, you imbecile!”

  Thursday 18th June

  Chapter Seven

  — One —

  “Thank you,” Lincoln stepped down off the bus, shielding his eyes from the glare of sunlight.

  He respected Deacon for listening to the drivel coming out of an old man’s mouth. On the surface, he seemed okay. But there was something beneath the ‘okay’, something that left a trail like a slug did; Deacon was slime. And this wasn’t a generalisation; Deacon came across as your good old fashioned baby-kissing politic
ian, but there was something strange underneath it all.

  And he respected him for not overreacting; to say he wouldn’t involve the police was good of him. It had been a ridiculous thing to do, but somehow he had to get someone to listen! Over the last two years he’d written to every parole board, each tier of governor at Stephen’s jail, to the old PM and the new PM, to the late Roger King and anyone else he thought might listen.

  Yet there was still one institution left to raise the issue with, and he patted the letter in the left breast pocket of his best tweed jacket.

  He set off walking from the bus stop, and headed for the small red post box set into the wall outside Allied Postal. He paused with the letter in his hand, when Mrs Walker appeared in the doorway and called him over.

  She was poking her head around the white doorframe, hand clasped there as if holding on.

  “Mrs Walker,” he smoothing down his tweed jacket; felt the bump under the right breast pocket, and successfully ignored it.

  “How you doing, Lincoln?” her smile revealed a perfect set of dentures.

  “Better, Mrs Walker,” he made his way into the little shop that fronted Allied Postal. “Just come from seeing Sir George Deacon.”

  Mrs Walker’s face lit up and she stepped closer. “I wondered where you were going when I saw you get on the bus. Oh I am pleased you finally went to see him. How did you get on with him? Was he a fair man?”

  “Well,” Lincoln shifted uncomfortably, “I think it went alright; said he would see what he could do, but the wheels of politics turn slowly—”

  “But he must have given some commitment?”

  “He said they were reviewing this law and that law, and there was some good stuff coming out of some select committee or another, but you know—”

  “Were you persuasive, Lincoln, were you forceful? You know these fellows won’t do anything unless you put a gun to their heads.”

  Lincoln stared at Mrs Walker, and for a second wondered if she actually knew something. “Oh, I was very forceful. You’d have been proud of me.”

  “And?”

  “I was posting this, and I thought you—”

  “Oh, give it here, Lincoln, it’s what we’re for. You don’t need to use the box unless we’re shut.” She took the letter and sneaked a glance at the address scrawled in Lincoln’s old man forward-slanted writing.

  Lincoln leaned against the counter, felt the gun bulge against his jacket, and stood straight again.

  “I have something for you.” Mrs Walker slid around the counter, locked the door and took out a letter from beneath the counter. “I knew who it was from,” she said. “I wouldn’t let Ricky take it back to the depot.”

  Lincoln reached out for the envelope, looking at Mrs Walker’s eyes all the time. “What do you mean?”

  “It has to be signed for,” she said in a high, excited voice. “It’s from Stephen.”

  — Two —

  He parked the car in Methley pub car park. The Blacksmith. Sirius pulled out the paper with Lincoln Farrier’s address on it, memorised it and climbed from the car. The place was busy; holiday-makers filled the beer garden with laughter; kids played on the slide and the squeaking swing out back, and the main street, out to the front, was a throng of colourfully-clothed shoppers weighed down with bags, calling at their entourages of misbehaving youngsters as they frolicked in the bright afternoon sunshine.

  Sirius took off his tie and tossed it back into the car, slung his jacket over his arm and closed the car door. Five minutes later, he left behind the hustle of the main street, its shops, the pub, the restaurants, and ice cream parlours in exchange for serenity and peace. Cottages lined the roadside.

  He left the road, turned down a dirt track in between two cottages and let himself into the back garden of the one on the right. It was the last dwelling as you headed out of the village and it was secluded.

  Through a well-kept gap in the hedge at the end of the garden was a wooden structure that looked like a small barn, and from here he could just make out through the darkness inside, the bellows of an old furnace. Over the door was a sign: The Farrier’s Den.

  The garden was picturesque; a clutch of trees at the bottom and a small pond in the middle. Birds sang in the trees and bees flitted around the flowerbeds scattered either side of the lawn. The shadows were short but dark, the day hot, a day you’d choose to sit out in such a wonderful garden with a cold beer watching the shadows grow longer.

  Sirius knocked on the door. There was no reply. He tried the door handle, discovered it was locked, and peered through the keyhole.

  He stepped back, looked at the old building, and noticed the window to his right was ajar. It took Sirius no time at all to get inside Lincoln Farrier’s neat little house. And it was neat; it didn’t seem like the kind of place an old guy living alone would keep. It was free of bric-a-brac, and it was clean and tidy as though there was a female influence. Either that, he thought, or army discipline.

  Everything was just so; the TV newspaper was squared away on the tiny coffee table in the centre of Lincoln’s lounge, the curtains were tied neatly back, and although the carpet was threadbare in places, it was clean. And the strangest thing perhaps, he noticed, there was no smell of piss you’d normally associate with elderly people; it smelled of…nothing at all.

  With gloved hands, Sirius searched the polished bureau and the sideboard drawers, looking for something with the old man’s writing on.

  These were the kinds of jobs he enjoyed. They gave him a lucrative challenge. He was an officer of the Close Protection Squads run by SO19, a reclusive department based in New Scotland Yard. The job involved Sir George’s security, clearing potential hazards, and cleaning up his mess. Each CPO knew his host almost intimately, and often did little ‘favours’ like this for them; though not all officers carried out favours quite so extreme.

  Deacon trusted Sirius to be discreet, and he knew Sirius would administer the favour with skill, making it appear accidental, or in the case of this old guy, self-inflicted.

  He pulled out a letter from the House of Commons. It was from People Against Crime founder Emily Cooper. Stapled to the letter, which promised to look into, ‘this kind of thing’, was a hand-written note from Lincoln. Sirius sat in the bureau’s chair and studied the letter, paying attention not to the actual words used, but to their construction, their fluency and style.

  In the same bureau, he found the pad on which Lincoln wrote all his correspondence; a textured fawn paper that added elegance to his remarkable way of writing. And next to the pad, the old guy’s fountain pen, and a book of stamps and a wad of envelopes. Sirius slid out the bureau’s writing desk.

  — Three —

  Mrs Walker had practically barricaded Allied Postal until Lincoln opened and read the letter. Letters written on proper paper were so few these days that both of them knew it had to be important news. And so it was, too. The parole board, those demigods with the power of granting freedom had finally agreed to let Stephen walk at last.

  Lincoln’s heart fluttered alarmingly when he read his boy’s news, and Mrs Walker had guided him to the wooden bench in the corner of the shop like he was an old woman. “He’s coming home, Mrs Walker,” he said with a voice that was crackly, breaking with the strain of happiness. The letter shook so much it was almost illegible. But he’d made out the important words: freedom and home. “Next month,” he said.

  It took a full ten minutes for Lincoln to regain his composure. He stood with his chest out, feeling proud once more and feeling that there was a God after all.

  Lincoln bid Mrs Walker farewell and left with Stephen’s letter tucked into his trouser pocket, eager to read it again in private this time, to really get a feel for it. His hurried journey home was a blur.

  He closed the back door behind him, grasped the lounge door handle, and stopped dead. Lincoln breathed deeply, trying to figure out where the strange smell was coming from. Something was wrong here, and he had half a mind
to turn around and let himself back out. The other part of his mind told him to stop being an idiot. It told him to go sit in his armchair, take out the letter and savour it. He swung the door open and looked at his lounge.

  It was just as he’d left it this morning. Except for the fragrance.

  “Hello, Lincoln.”

  Lincoln shrieked, and his heart cracked. The adrenaline surge damned near made him faint.

  In the corner by the kitchen door stood a large man. He stepped forward, his jacket over one arm and sunglasses tucked neatly into his shirt pocket.

  “Who are you?” Lincoln backed himself into the edge of the lounge door. “What’re you…” and then he stopped. “You’re that fellow from Sir George’s surgery, aren’t you?”

  His face held no expression at all; no friendliness, no hate, nothing. He advanced.

  Friday 19th June

  Chapter Eight

  She screamed at him, right up to his bloody face, she screamed at him like a sergeant major screams at a recruit. She beat him, and they all looked on, everyone stood by and watched her attack him. The vicar shook his disgusted head at Eddie and then turned away.

  Jilly pounced on him, and Eddie’s face hit the gravel, grazed his cheek until the blood formed in tiny spots. She kicked him in the back and he rolled over, grunting, bringing his hands up to protect his face, and he could see through his fingers a kid, no more than twenty, laughing at him, pointing something at him.

  Eddie closed his eyes and began to scream. Jilly kicked him again and again, screaming the word murderer at him until it reverberated around his echoing head. He tried to turn away but couldn’t; something stopped him and he screamed again to be set free, but it had him. And when Jilly kicked him again, he felt the brandy bottle slip. He tried to catch it but it fell out of the pocket of his new black suit, tipping end over end, spilling brandy the colour of tea into the sunlight only to darken as the shade inside the hole grabbed it and swallowed it. The bottle banged on the coffin, bounced, banged again.