FIFTY SIX

The sign on the door read Chief Furlong.

Oddly, that made Rudlow smile. It reminded him of the last time he had smiled, over in Koy Town, stood over the body of Paul McBride. But that smile had faded quickly.

What Rudlow had really wanted was to kill McBride himself. In fact he’d wanted it for so long that its denial carved him from the inside out. And now, stood at the door to his old office, the box in his arms holding decades of his life, Rudlow was still in mourning, grieving his own loss, saddened by what was left of himself when McBride was gone.

Take a look at what you’ve become, what you’re letting him turn you into, Dolly had said.

And she was right.

An uneasy feeling settled upon him. There was something unnerving about a man like Paul McBride being bettered. The old phrase ‘better the devil you know’ came to mind and McBride, while proving to be a formidable foe, had still been a predictable foe. He was a structured man who thrived on discipline and routine, a man who brought regulation to the underworld.

His death changed everything.

It allowed Rudlow, for the first time, to entertain the idea that McBride had enemies, and strong enemies at that. The old bastard had been brutally torn, his neck ripped open, his face ravaged almost beyond recognition, blood drained from his body.

Live by the sword.

And so Rudlow had buried himself in his job once more, hunting the man who’d taken McBride down. But what he found turned out to be something of a disappointment. The trail ended in the Village area of Lark, with a mutilated Kenny Fee, torn face buried in his mother’s bosom as he wept.

Rudlow and the boys stood waiting for her to give him up.

It had been a long wait.

And now Rudlow didn’t want it anymore. It was pointless, endless. McBride’s death had left him empty.

And so he quit, handed the reins over to Furlong.

And to hell with it, he thought now, to hell with the consequences.

With Furlong in charge, Lark City PD would become a lynch mob. His recent curfew had shown just how the man intended to do business.

Outside, the rain fell hard.

Rudlow stood for a moment, drinking in the moist air, letting the water cool his face, closing his eyes.

When he opened them again, amidst the crowds of revellers heading for Tomb Street, Rudlow spotted a woman in a plastic red raincoat.

She was waiting for him.

Rudlow set his box down.

He walked to the woman, placed his arms around her, pulled her close. He felt her nails dig into his back, clawing at him, her body shaking as she sobbed.

‘Is it true?’ she asked, finally, still holding him.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I quit, Dolly. I damn well quit.’

She looked up, still not ready to believe him. Rudlow had no doubt that she, along with everyone else he’d met through the years, would be wondering what an old veteran like him would do if he weren’t a cop no more.

But right now, he didn’t care.

Right now he was enjoying the rain beating against his face and the feel of the woman against his body; the woman who’d been there for him all long; who’d known more about him than he himself knew; who’d suffered because of his blatant selfishness, and this obsession that had infected him for far too long.

Tonight he belonged to Dolly.