We’re on the M32. Middle lane. Passing the concrete towers, shuttered shops, factories, pawnshops and ‘For Lease’ signs. There are hookers walking up and down Fishponds Road: women who are women and men who are women and crack-heads who will be anything you want.
‘When you were following Carl Guilfoyle - you said it was strange, you said he seemed to know he was being tailed. Maybe we were meant to find the photographs.’
Ruiz looks at me askance and back to the road.
‘Why?’
‘Novak couldn’t guarantee an acquittal, but he could guarantee what happened today.’
‘You’re saying he wanted the trial abandoned?’
‘He needed more time.’
‘More time for what?’
‘To silence Marco Kostin.’
‘I thought he was under police guard.’
‘He was until this morning.’
Traffic lights. Amber then red. Ruiz brakes heavily.
My mobile chirrups. Julianne.
‘I’ve seen him.’
‘Marco?’
‘No, the man with the black tears.’
My heart lurches.
‘I saw him outside WHSmith.’
‘Was he following you?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t find Marco.’
I tell her to stay calm. ‘I’m going to hang up now and call the police.’
‘What should I do?’
‘Where were you going to meet Marco?’
‘At Brasserie Blanc.’
‘Go there. Sit outside. Somewhere public.’
My heart is banging in my ribs. Cray’s number is engaged. I try again. Monk answers. I tell him to get the boss. It’s an emergency.
The DCI replaces him.
‘Carl Guilfoyle is going after Marco Kostin. They’re both at Broadmead Shopping Centre.’
‘Is anyone with Marco?’
‘Julianne is looking for him. We’re almost there.’
‘Don’t approach Guilfoyle. Get them out of there.’
The lights are green. Ruiz accelerates. Seventy miles an hour. Chasing tail lights and leaving them behind.
My mind is zigzagging ahead, like a small furry creature darting through undergrowth, following a scent, switching direction, moving away from me. We’re going too slowly.
Ruiz leans on the horn as we get caught in traffic on the Old Market Roundabout. He swings across two lanes, braking hard, the tyres screeching. We almost sideswipe a lorry and he wrenches the wheel, correcting twice. The pine-scented air-freshener swings violently from the mirror.
We’re in Quakers Friars. Ruiz pulls over. Hazard lights flashing. I’m already out the door and running across the flagstones, dodging pedestrians, shoppers, office workers.
Julianne is standing alone outside the restaurant in her buttoned-up trench coat and the boots she bought in Milan. Nearby there are children running in and out of water jets that spout like molten silver from the slick pavers.
‘We were supposed to meet here,’ she says, wide-eyed, anxious.
‘Where did you see him last?’
‘In Merchant Street.’
‘How long ago?’
‘He should have been back by now.’
Ruiz arrives. We’ll split up and search. Somebody should stay here in case Marco turns up: Julianne.
‘Call if you see him.’
I start moving, my scalp itchy and damp. There are hundreds of shops over almost six blocks and three levels - department stores, boutiques, speciality shops, restaurants and cafés - the biggest retail centre in Bristol. As long as Marco stays somewhere public. As long as he’s in the open . . .
Weaving through the crowd, I keep looking at the faces, expecting to see Marco or Carl Guilfoyle. There are too many people. He could walk right past me and I might not see him.
Pushing through the doors of BHS, I jog up the escalator and weave between racks of clothes. The window overlooks the intersection of Broadmead and Merchant Street.
I scan the crowd. Young mums with prams, joggers in Lycra shorts, a hooded youth with a skateboard, an elderly couple, hunched arthritically, moving in slow motion. A juggler in a clown’s hat has drawn an audience by tossing coloured balls in the air and bouncing them off the pavement.
There are so many people, a sea of moving heads. That’s when I see Marco on the edge of the crowd watching the juggler. He’s wearing a red baseball cap and carrying a glossy carrier bag.
Retreating down the escalator, through the automatic doors, I emerge on street level. A toddler runs under my feet. Half catching him as I fall, I bounce up and spin around, planting the boy on his feet. His mother gives me a foul-mouthed tirade, but I’m looking past her for Marco.
I can’t see him. He was on the far side of the square. Pushing through the crowd, I look for his red baseball cap. In the periphery of my vision I catch sight of Julianne. What’s she doing? She must have seen Marco too.
Suddenly, someone collides with me from the front on my right-side and continues walking. I glimpse his features - the marks on his cheeks, more like scars than tattoos, as though his face has been sewn together from discarded pieces of skin.
I can hear my breath escaping as I watch his right hand slip into his coat pocket. He moves away. I know I have to chase him. Stop him. Instead I feel an overwhelming sense of fatigue. One step. Two steps. Three steps. What’s happening?
I glance down. A red plume spreads out from my ribs down to my trousers. The blade slipped in so easily that I didn’t feel it enter beneath my ribs, rising towards my heart and into my lungs.
I’m staggering, falling to my knees, frantically trying to stay upright. My head keeps bobbing and weaving but it’s not one of Mr Parkinson’s cruel jokes. The pain has arrived, a dull throbbing, growing in intensity, screaming at me to stop. It’s as if someone has driven a heated metal rod into my chest and is jerking it from side to side.
My shirt is sodden, sticking to my body. I look up and around, frightened. Through the forest of legs, I can’t see Marco. Maybe he’s gone. Maybe he’s running. Julianne must be close. I see her first. They’re together.
In that instant, I recognise Guilfoyle’s hooded sweatshirt. His right hand comes out of his pocket. The blade is flush against his forearm. He’s moving at pace through the crowd.
I try to yell, but it comes out as a groan. Guilfoyle is only a few paces away, passing Marco on his knife-hand side, his arm in motion, using his momentum to drive the blade beneath his ribs, aiming for the heart.
At that moment a girl in a pink skirt and candy-striped leggings loses her helium balloon. Marco spins on one foot and tries to catch the trailing string. The blade slides through his shirt and into his flesh, but the angle is wrong.
Guilfoyle knows it. The speed of the thrust has carried him two paces from Marco and he turns. Julianne has seen him. She screams, open-mouthed, terrified. Head down, hands in his pockets, Guilfoyle carries on, pushing through the crowd.
Marco drops to his knees, holding his side. I can’t see him any more. People are stepping around me and over me. A woman trips over my legs and almost falls. She has tight blue jeans and a huge arse. Another face, upside down. Her husband - he’s wearing an AC/DC T-shirt.
‘Are you all right?’ he asks.
I can’t answer.
‘That’s blood!’ says his wife.
‘He’s been shot,’ says someone else.
‘Do you want me to call an ambulance?’
‘Who shot him?’ asks another voice.
‘It could have been a sniper.’
‘A sniper! Where?’
‘There’s a sniper!’
It’s like watching a rock being thrown into a tranquil pond, rippling outwards. People scatter. Yelling. Running. Falling down. Dragging children. Fighting to get away. There are cries and yells and scuffles.