‘Of course you don’t deserve it!’ shouted Quill. ‘This is something she’s doing to you, not something you’re doing to yourself! None of us is!’ The other punters were openly staring at them now, the two yelling drunks in the corner.
‘Come on,’ urged Harry’s dad. ‘We’ve got to be off soon, son.’
Harry took some deep breaths, and seemed to steady himself. ‘You’ll get her, won’t you, Jimmy? You’ll nick her?’
‘Mate, don’t tell me it-’
‘You heard him. I don’t have a choice.’ He looked at his dad again, and then looked guilty. ‘I’ve failed so much. . all my life, Jimmy. Now I’ll never get to be as good as you.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Shut up and listen. I don’t have much of a sitrep for you. The woman I take to be your prime suspect was in here. . looked like an old woman, late seventies. .’
‘She can look like anything, Harry. I should have explained.’
‘. . and then she looked like. . something terrible. And I could see nobody else was looking at her, and I got up, I tried to go for. . No, I tried to run. And she pointed a finger and twisted something in the air, and. . all of this happened. And then he seemed to come out of my head and right into the middle of what I was seeing. . and she. . she put my hand in his. . and it feels just like his real hand, Jimmy. It feels like when. .’
‘Compose yourself, Harry. Take your time.’ Quill looked dangerously at Harry’s dad, wondering if there was any gesture he could make, just a random pass of his hands, that might harm the thing, or might save Harry.
Harry looked around the room, as if savouring the real world for the last time. All he’s got, thought Quill, was that bloody awful distance shown by the British when they don’t want to relate to something. Maybe, being a copper, the familiarity gave him comfort. Then Harry started speaking again, quickly, as if afraid his courage would fail him. ‘She said that she’s got power to spare now, so she’s going to kill anyone who scores even one goal against West Ham. She’s going to keep taking the children. Jimmy, you’ve got to tell my Sal-!’
‘And that’s your lot,’ said his dad, and let go of Harry’s hand.
Quill shouted something and flung up his arms, expecting an explosion of blood. But Harry was floating on the edge of the cosmic weirdness, light blazing around him, his suit starting to flare at the cuffs and elbows, his arms cartwheeling helplessly, his gaze still finding Quill as if he could hold on through that connection.
‘Don’t worry, son,’ said his dad. ‘I’m coming with you. I’ll always be with you now, always there to egg you on.’ And he vanished.
Harry’s face erupted with blood.
Quill stumbled over to the body and sat there, dazed, for quite a while. There were screams and shouts all around him. A barman arrived and was staring at Harry, not knowing what to do. But Harry was dead. . and the punters were leaning over to look or stumbling back.
Quill made himself stand up, and found that he also was covered in blood. Again. He noticed his friend’s blood on his lapel, and looked at it, curiously unaffected by it, everything too big for it to sink in now. Quill saw that, coming round the bar, a couple of paramedics had run in and were moving towards them. He stood up, swaying.
He got home hours later, again having tossed all his clothes into a forensics bag, the last traces of his closest friend with them.
Lofthouse had arrived at the pub and had tried to offer words of support.
‘Every goal scorer.’ He said to her, repeating the words to her, until she realized what he was talking about. ‘She’s escalated her threat. Now she’s going to kill every player that scores even once against West Ham.’ Lofthouse promised to get on to it immediately. Quill got his phone out, and tried to text the news to his unit, but his fingers couldn’t find the keys, and he asked Lofthouse to get that done instead, and if he could leave the scene now, please. People began talking about Losley’s poisons again, and he didn’t want to hear it.
A marked car took him home. Slumped in the back seat, he managed to get minutes of something which felt a bit like sleep, but never quite left him unaware. He just about fell up against the door of his house, and paused there.
He so wanted to tell Sarah. He wanted to tell her everything. But she wouldn’t believe him. That had to be an excuse; surely he could make her believe him? But there was still something other than that, shouting at him — an emptiness, something he was missing. He kept using those words to himself, but what did they mean?
He fumbled for his key.
He could hear Sarah was in now, typing away upstairs. ‘I’m home,’ he called, and there came a muted call back. She obviously hadn’t heard about what had happened to him. Right, because he’d asked not to be named. She just thought something big had happened in his case, so would be surprised he was home. He himself was surprised he was here.
He wandered into the kitchen, intending to make tea and then sit down somewhere, try to sleep. Harry. . bloody Harry. . after all these years.
Oh!
We smell death near you soon.
That was what whichever small fish had left that note had meant: Harry. They’d felt it coming. Quill felt a stab of guilt over his relief at the thought. It was Harry when it could have been Sarah, could have been. . who else? No answer to that.
God, the kitchen was a mess. What were all these junk-shop novelties lying everywhere? Was this really what the two of them were making of their lives?
Maybe he should quit. Nobody would blame him. Not now. He could just not go in any more. She could quit too. No future in her job. No future in his. They could get out of London, make a new life, and he wouldn’t have to deal with seeing. .
And let someone else, less able, entirely vulnerable, deal with Losley. Like the way Harry had. Quill leaned against a kitchen unit.
Sarah entered. ‘Are you making tea?’ she was already asking. And then she saw him and stopped. ‘What’s happened?’
He shook his head. He didn’t want to come out with the lie version now.
‘Oh God, when Losley killed that copper tonight, were you. .?’ He went over and held her tight. They held on to each other together, and she let him stay silent.
But there was something else in him. Something that needed to be asked. ‘Why is the house in such a mess?’
‘Quill, don’t start a row just to-’
‘No, I mean. .’ He was aware that the copper part of his head was working at this, working and working, gears still missing each other — not something he was used to when at home. ‘The two of us, okay, we seem to be living these. . distanced lives. Around something. . that was there but now isn’t. Was that always how it was? All of those things that might have been you and me together, that might have been. . exciting or interesting, they seem to have been channelled into. . something else.’
‘Our careers, you mean. What are you, a teenager?’
‘No, something else. It’s like a. . black hole, like something that’s taken loads of our lives, and now we can’t see where it’s all gone. And it seems to have happened so suddenly, so. . recently.’
‘It happens to everybody.’
‘No, this isn’t. . This isn’t something you can talk about with reference to. . something that always happens. This is. .’ He didn’t have a word for it. He gently let go of her, then he led her by the hand — as if they were two stumbling children — back into the lounge. He pointed at the piles of DVDs with colourful cases, the bizarre nick-knacks and odd books that were everywhere. ‘Why do we have all that stuff?’ She frowned at him, her own brain working. And all he could think of were the gaps in what Harry had said. The things he hadn’t been allowed to hear. There were the same sort of gaps here too.
He led her to the rear of the house, towards the door leading to their little back garden, but beside which was another door. He couldn’t even remember what was in there, he realized, but it seemed to be the centre of what he didn’t feel like he should be looking at. That’s why he’d brought her here, so he could see it again, so he could. . He didn’t know why he was doing this, just letting the deductive part of his brain make it happen. Feeling its way. And it was like bloody crawling uphill.