I put on the television to watch the news, but I kept the sound down to a minimum so as not to disturb the patient.
The gunman in a London newsagent’s was the lead story, and, true to their word, the police had convinced the TV company to play the whole video clip of Herb’s killer coming into the shop, looking around, and then leaving again. They even showed a blown-up still of the man’s face as he had glanced directly up at the camera.
Just looking at his image made me nervous once more.
The news reporter then warned the viewers not to approach the man if they saw him but to report his presence to the police. The man is armed and very dangerous, the reporter said, but he didn’t mention anything about Herb Kovak or the killing at Aintree.
Did the news report and the video make it safer for me or not?
I also wondered if it put Mr. Patel at risk. After all, he was the one who’d had the best view of the gunman. I suddenly went quite cold just thinking about how much I had placed Mr. Patel in mortal danger by hiding behind his counter. But what else could I have done? Stayed out in the street and been killed?
I switched over to another channel and watched the whole thing once more, trying my best to recognize the face staring out at me from the screen. I knew I didn’t know him, other than at Aintree and in a Finchley street, but I tried to find some semblance or likeness. There was none.
Thankfully, Claudia slept soundly through both bulletins. She had enough worries on her own plate for the time being without being burdened with something else. After all, there was nothing she could do about it.
While she went on sleeping, I tried to work out where I could spend the night. I wasn’t going back to Finchley, that was for sure, but a second night sitting upright in the chair in Claudia’s hospital room wasn’t a very attractive proposition either.
As I still had the key in my pocket, I thought of going to Herb’s flat in Hendon, but I didn’t want to turn up there late at night and frighten Sherri after her traumatic trip to Liverpool. So instead I used my phone to find a cheap room near the hospital in a hotel located around the corner in Euston Square Gardens. They had plenty of availability, so I didn’t leave my name. I just planned to turn up there when I left the hospital. That somehow seemed safer.
One of the nurses came into Claudia’s room to once more take her vital signs and to settle her in for the night. I took it as my cue to leave.
“Night-night, my darling,” I said. “I’ll be back in the morning.”
“What about your job?” she said sleepily.
“I’ll call the office and tell them I’m not coming in,” I said. “The work will have to wait.”
She smiled and laid her head back on the pillow. She looked very vulnerable with her pale face almost matching the slight grayness of the hospital linen. We had to beat this impostor within her body, this cancer that would eat away at our happiness. If chemotherapy was what was needed, so be it. Short-term discomfort for long-term gain, that was what we had to think, what we had to believe.
I checked in to the hotel using a false name, and I paid for the room in advance with cash that I had drawn from an ATM in Euston Station. As the superintendent had said, I’d probably been watching too much TV. I didn’t really believe for a minute that the gunman had access to my credit card accounts, but I was taking absolutely no chances.
I had left the hospital by the main door only because there were no dark shadowy corners as there were outside the back entrance, but not before I had stood for a while behind a pillar watching the road, checking for anyone lurking in wait for me with a silenced pistol.
And I hadn’t left the building alone but had waited for a group of cleaning staff going off duty.
No one had fired a shot or come running after me. But would I even know if they did? I was certain Herb had been dead at Aintree before he realized what was happening.
I locked my bedroom door and then propped a chair under the door handle for good measure. I then relaxed a little and ate the takeaway cheeseburger, fries and milk shake that I’d bought from a late-night burger bar in the railway station.
It was the first thing I’d eaten all day. My mother would not have been pleased.
I removed my computer from my bag and logged on to the Internet to check my e-mails.
Amongst the usual bunch from various fund managers wanting me to contact them about their latest investment offering was one from Patrick expressing his disquiet over recent happenings both inside and outside the office.
It hadn’t been addressed solely to me but had been sent to all the Lyall & Black staff, but it felt like I was the main target.
“Dear colleagues,” Patrick had written. “At this time of seemingly major upheaval within the firm, it is important for us all to concentrate on why we are here. While we are, of course, greatly saddened by the tragic loss of Herb Kovak, it is our clients who we are here to serve. It is they who pay our salaries and we must not give them cause to look elsewhere for their investment advice. We need to conduct our personal affairs with the highest degree of probity and not give them any reason to doubt our honesty and integrity. I am sure that you will be asked by clients to speculate concerning the reason for Herb’s untimely death, as well as on the nature of it, and on the other unfortunate event that occurred in these offices last Thursday. I ask that you refrain from any comments that may in any way place Lyall & Black in a bad light. If in doubt, please refer the clients to Mr. Gregory or myself.”
I assumed that the “other unfortunate event” referred to was my arrest.
It made me wonder how Billy Searle was faring in the hospital and whether the police had made any progress in finding his attacker. Claudia’s cancer revelation and her operation, coupled with the minor matter of finding an assassin on my doorstep, had kept my mind somewhat occupied elsewhere.
I went on to the Racing Post website.
“Billy Searle,” it said, “was reported to be making steady progress. In fact, doctors at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon are amazed by the swiftness of his recovery from what were thought to be life-threatening injuries.”
They shouldn’t really be surprised, I thought. Jump jockeys were made tough and a breed apart from normal human beings. Broken bones and concussion were accepted as normal hazards of their employment, to be endured and recovered from as quickly as possible. All jockeys were self-employed-no rides meant no pay. It was a powerful incentive for quick healing.
There was nothing in the report about his attacker other than the stated hope that Searle would soon be able to be interviewed by the detectives investigating the incident about the identity of his assailant.
I wondered, meanwhile, if Billy was getting police protection.
The night passed without incident, although I lay awake for much of it half listening for someone climbing the drainpipe outside my bedroom window with gun in hand, and murder in mind.
I also spent the time thinking.
In particular, I spent the time thinking about the note I had found in Herb’s coat pocket. I knew the words of it by heart.
YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE WHAT YOU WERE
TOLD. YOU MAY SAY YOU REGRET IT, BUT
YOU WONT BE REGRETTING IT FOR LONG.
I had told DCI Tomlinson that I thought it hadn’t been so much a warning as an apology, even though he’d pooh-poohed the idea.
However, it did mean one thing for certain: Herb had known his killer, or at least he knew someone who knew he was going to die. That was assuming that the “won’t be regretting it for long” did, in fact, refer to him dying soon. It could, I suppose, have been from a girlfriend who was dumping him for not doing as he was told, but somehow I doubted it. Notes from girlfriends are never written in stark capital letters without a salutation of some kind, and a name.