Sitting in the kitchen, Stone sipped his whisky, but it did not taste good. He would try to sleep for a couple of hours, but persistent pain was again returning to his hip – it left his shoulder just numb. He quickly changed for bed; he threw his torn shirt into a waste bin; and as he found it impossible to settle down comfortably in the bed, he knew the night would be long. Within half an hour, he was walking around the bedroom; he walked around the sitting room, and what was left of the night passed very slowly.
It was just past seven that he began to feel restless about the unknown of what he had to do and where he was going today. In the kitchen, he started a small breakfast. Sitting in a bathrobe before his shower, almost for the first time in his life, he was suddenly feeling lonely. There was a stillness of early morning and there was no one to talk to.
He looked up to a noise at the window in the back door. He froze. There was a policeman staring back into the kitchen at him. Stone could not hide. Coffee cup in his hand, he opened the door tentatively. There were two officers, lacking in smiles this early in the day.
‘Mr Stone, Harry Stone?’
‘What do you want?’
‘We’re calling to see if you’re okay. You walked out of hospital in the middle of the night and, as we’re told you had been admitted as an emergency with a nasty gash to your shoulder, we thought we should call. Just to make sure everything’s alright with you.’
‘My shoulder’s fine – I had a fall, no real damage. And I thought I would be better in my own bed, that’s why I left the hospital early.’
‘The hospital told us they thought your shoulder was something more than just a fall. So, is there anything more we should know about your accident?’
‘No. I’m okay.’ Stone spoke quickly and stared at the officers as he took a step back into the kitchen.
‘The hospital would like to follow you up. Your wound in your shoulder will need attention so you should call back to see them. In the meantime, we’ll alert our patrols to keep an eye out on Marine House for you. We don’t want you blacking out on your back doorstep again with another hospital visit, do we?’
The officers turned away. Stone felt his heartbeat quicken. One of the officers was a face he recognised. He had been part of the six-strong raid on Marine House just a year ago. What did he know that he was not saying?
Stone stared through the back door as the officers left. This was not how he had wanted to start the day, with urgent business to complete. Questions were unwelcome. Time was rapidly running out. But today he would never have a better chance to get even with the gangster who had held a snarling, slobbering dog over him in his bed just a year ago. He felt for the scar, a wound on his ankle that was written like a tattoo, deep into his skin.