part0033

‘I’M NOT HER,’ Lydia said, cutting off the flood of Evan’s desperate warnings as he answered his phone, didn’t even say hello . A stunned silence filled the void between them for a couple of beats. ‘It’s Lydia.’

‘I’d worked that out,’ he snapped.

Then he asked the question he didn’t want the answer to, his mind full of thoughts he didn’t want to think. Of Kate Guillory lying crumpled on the ground, what was left of her head lying in a pool of blood. Lydia rifling through her bag and pockets, finding her phone. Calling him to gloat.

‘How did you get Kate’s phone?’

She ignored the question as if he hadn’t spoken.

‘You shouldn’t have made it so easy for me to get the Vanquish back.’

And he ignored her taunts, the mention of the sniper’s rifle. He couldn’t shake the image of Guillory lying dead on the ground, the denim-blue eyes flecked with blood, staring sightlessly at the sky. All her worries and fears proved right and taken mercifully away with the same sharp crack of a high-powered rifle. All of it his fault. Because she still hadn’t said whether Guillory was alive or dead. His voice when he found it was a dry rattle.

‘Where’s Kate?’

It seemed to him that the silence that followed lasted a lifetime or more. He felt himself growing old and weak as he waited, the phone growing heavy in his hand, while she kept him twisting in the wind. In truth it was no more than a split second, the time it takes an unbalanced mind to decide that the time for games is over, the time to get down to business has arrived.

Her voice had lost all of its mocking quality when she spoke.

‘We’re in the Bluebird Diner.’

With that one small word, the we and not I , his legs became rubber hose, unable to sustain his weight. His whole body sagged. As if it had been his own head that had taken a direct hit from the Vanquish leaving him suspended for a brief moment before he collapsed to the ground.

He knew it was only a temporary reprieve, too early to allow the relief to dull his senses. He shook the lethargy from his limbs, pushed all thoughts of what might have been from his mind.

‘It doesn’t sound like it.’

‘I stepped outside to make the call.’

In the background he heard a sound like somebody rapping their knuckles on a window, pictured her grinning smugly at Guillory inside, the sour grimace she’d get back.

‘What do you want?’

‘You. Here. Right now.’

A confused silence came down the line.

‘Why did you go outside to make the call? There must be something you don’t want her to hear.’

She laughed, a recognition of his perception mixed with pleasure at the devious workings of her own mind.

‘I’m not going to tell her how I got hold of the Vanquish, that’s all. It’s up to you whether you want to. Seeing as it’s aimed at her head right now.’ Then she snickered again. ‘I don’t suppose we’re going to be able to keep her from finding out how I got the earring though.’

GUILLORY WASN’T SURPRISED when Evan slid along the seat opposite her. She’d guessed that was why Lydia wanted her phone. They exchanged a small, almost shy, smile as Lydia followed in after him, didn’t say anything. For once, their minds were aligned along the same track. They both knew the shit was about to hit the fan. Even if neither of them knew of the other’s complicity.

‘What’s he here for?’ Guillory said to Lydia instead.

Lydia smiled the smile of the person with all the answers at her.

‘In case you decide you’re in it too deep, might as well go down in a blaze of glory and try to jump me. We’ll shoot him instead.’

As one, they looked out of the window at the buildings opposite, two of them wondering if there really was a man with a gun trained on them, the other one knowing. Evan avoided Guillory’s eyes, the guilty knowledge eating away at him that if there was, it was his fault. If he’d left the Vanquish in Todd Strange’s van where he found it, it would be locked away in a police evidence room somewhere. Not aimed at their heads.

‘Now tell me,’ Lydia said. ‘How come you’re alive and Todd isn’t? And it better be good.’

She spread her hands wide towards Guillory, over to you. Then folded her arms across her small chest, leaned back in her seat. Sitting next to her, Evan felt like he was on an interview panel and his colleague had just delivered the killer question to the hopeful applicant. Except in this case a lot more than a new job rested on the right answer. A vein in his neck was throbbing, muscles rigid from the strain of not looking sideways out of the window.

Still his guilt stopped him from looking at Guillory for fear that she might see it flicker in the depths of his eyes, like a small stray fish sensing the approach of a predator. So he looked out of the window anyway, kept his eyes down. Watched the passers-by on the sidewalk, didn’t look up at the windows opposite. Then wished he’d just sat with his eyes closed, hadn’t looked anywhere at all. A sharp intake of breath like his coffee was too hot burst from his mouth.

Lydia mistook his reaction. Thought it was a play of some kind.

So did Guillory. Anger and astonishment at Evan’s stupidity collided in her features.

An urgent hiss at both Evan and Lydia. To stop him from doing anything stupid. Stop her from giving the signal to blow her or Evan away, splatter them across the walls of the diner and the other customers happily eating and drinking, unaware of the unordered side dish that might at any moment land on their plates.

Evan and Guillory expecting the window to explode inwards, not knowing whose head would follow, maybe both.

It didn’t happen. Nobody relaxed. Hearts sprinting, mouths dry. Sitting staring at each other in silence. As if it might still happen if somebody broke it.

Then Evan looked out of the window again. Hoping he was mistaken. He wasn’t.

‘What?’ Lydia said sounding as shaken up as the rest of them.

This to Guillory more than Lydia.

‘He’s headed this way.’

Lydia looked, not knowing who Ryder was. Then a smile curled the corners of her mouth. Evan felt the shitstorm gathering strength over his head. She’d recognized Ryder from when she ambushed him in his car.

‘The fat detective.’

Confusion clouded Guillory’s features momentarily. But there was no time to ask anybody to explain how come Lydia knew who Ryder was. She leaned over the table towards Lydia, her voice low and urgent.

‘Let me go to the ladies’ room unless you want this to turn into the biggest clusterfuck ever.’

Lydia’s gaze flicked from the brisk rolling gait of Ryder’s approach to the nervous tension in Guillory’s face and back again, indecision in her eyes. Evan upped the pressure.

‘He’s definitely coming in.’

Guillory stuck her hand out, palm-up on the table towards Lydia.

‘Give me my phone. So you can let me know when he’s gone.’

On the other side of the room the door opened, the sounds of the street adding to the noise inside.

Guillory hissed at Lydia, thrust her hand more insistently at her.

Lydia snapped out of her indecision. Shook her head.

‘Go! But no phone. I’ll get you.’

Guillory slid out of the booth as Ryder turned the other way towards the counter. Head down and hunched over, she scooted across the room to the ladies’ room. Concentrating hard on the door ahead, she didn’t give her immediate surroundings her full attention. Her thigh crashed into the corner of a table as she weaved her way across the room. Bolted to the floor, it didn’t budge. But the empty plate pushed to the side after the guy sitting there had finished eating went flying. The crash that followed sounded to Evan like Lydia’s partner in the building opposite had gotten bored and shot out one of the windows just for the hell of it. He almost ducked, expected to feel a shower of glass rain down on his head. The guy at the table had his nose in the newspaper. He jumped at the sudden noise.

To Evan it sounded as if he’d just leapt onto the table and yelled across the room.

But Ryder was too busy digging his wallet out to pay any attention. Guillory stepped over the pieces of broken plate and left-over food and dashed for the safety of the ladies’ room.

With Guillory gone, it left Evan sitting next to Lydia on one side of the table with nobody on the other side. Nobody to shield them from Ryder’s view should he turn to look around the room while he waited for his order to be filled. Which he did. Just as Evan was about to tell Lydia to move seats to block him from view. Or so that he could go to the men’s room. Or whatever. It didn’t matter because Ryder had already seen him, was already making his way towards them, negotiating his bulk between the tables a lot more adroitly than Guillory had.

That was when Evan noticed Guillory’s coffee cup on the other side of the table. A momentary spike of panic went through him. But why shouldn’t there be a third person at the table? There was nothing to say it was Guillory. It was only his guilty conscience. It didn’t make the smile he managed to put on his face feel any less strained.

‘Good to see you, Detective.’

Ryder did a small double take, then recovered.

‘Don’t be an ass all your life, Buckley. I just wanted to say, don’t forget to come in and make a formal statement.’

Evan wasn’t sure if Lydia had slipped something into her coffee while he wasn’t looking or whether she just liked to have fun at his expense, but she joined the conversation, a look of surprise-cum-excitement on her face as she turned to Evan.

‘What have you been up to?’

Ryder seemed to notice her for the first time, gave her a patient smile. She looked up at him overshadowing the table, stuck out her hand.

‘Hello, I’m Lydia. He’s not in any trouble, is he?’

She could never have guessed the thoughts going through each man’s head. Ryder thinking, no, but I’m working on it. Evan thinking now would be a good time for the window to explode as Lydia’s partner took a shot at a target a six-year-old child couldn’t miss.

Ryder shook her hand, a spasm of irritation rippling across his face when she wouldn’t let go.

‘No, it’s just a routine matter.’

Lydia’s face fell as she continued with her charade. She still hadn’t let go of Ryder’s hand.

‘Oh. So it’s not something exciting. Like a murder.’

Ryder wrenched his hand out of hers, gave her a strange look. He shook his head without bothering to answer. Then he noticed the third coffee cup on the table. Lydia saw him looking.

‘Our friend is in the ladies’ room. She’ll be so sorry to miss you. She’s got a thing about police officers. Why don’t you have a seat?’

By now Evan’s fingers which had been resting on his thighs had gone through his jeans and his skin and the first layer of muscle and would soon touch bone. But he didn’t know what to do to shut her up. He considered throttling her, taking his chances with a bullet through the window. In the end he decided if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

‘Kate not with you?’

That shut Lydia up, a look of genuine surprise taking the place of all the faces she’d been pulling for Ryder’s benefit.

‘No. She called in sick.’

His expression suggested she’d been acting so strangely recently he wouldn’t have been surprised to find her here with Evan and his unusual friend.

‘Who’s Kate?’ the unusual friend said.

The slight pause that followed them both answering at the same time was broken by the sound of the ladies’ room door opening. Evan’s head had snapped around before he could do anything to stop it. The suddenness of the movement registered in Ryder’s face. He turned to look, see what had caused such a violent reaction.

Lydia was watching the door now as well. Like Evan, she was pale with worry. Worry that all her careful plans were about to go up in smoke as Guillory came out of the ladies’ room and told her partner everything.

The door stopped moving when it was halfway open. The person behind it wasn’t visible. Everybody’s heart was in their mouths, all for different reasons. Then the door slammed decisively shut again. Evan slumped into his seat as if somebody just pulled the stopper out of an inflatable mattress. He’d have expected Lydia to do the same, but she was back to her game.

‘Looks like she didn’t want to meet you after all,’ she said to Ryder.

But Ryder wasn’t paying any of them any attention. From the other side of the room somebody was yelling that his order was ready. He glanced briefly at the third coffee cup on the table, then left with a final reminder for Evan to come in to give a formal statement. Evan and Lydia sat side by side without saying anything until he’d collected his order and left. The moment the door banged shut he turned to face her.

‘What the hell was that all about?’

Lydia gave him a look like he was simple.

‘Just a little demonstration of how easy it would be for me to bring your friend Kate’s career to an end.’ She put a lot of mocking emphasis on the word friend , like it was something to be ashamed of. ‘That’s if she doesn’t end up in prison for the murder of the pedophile. I’m sure you know police officers don’t have such a great time in prison. Just think how old and wrinkly she’ll be by the time she comes out. I was her, I might even choose a bullet in the head, get it over with. I’ll go get her now. Then we can have a proper talk.’

She slid out of the booth, stared out of the window for a long moment. A satisfied half smile appeared on her lips. His back was still towards the window. He didn’t bother to turn around to see what had put the smile on her face. He didn’t need to. Maybe her partner had just waved to her, given her the thumbs up. What did he care?