She’d never met his family, never been to his home—Christ, they were a dysfunctional bunch, the slow horses; in each other’s pockets half their lives, but never taking the time to share the other moments.
And now they’d be diminished, smaller, less of a unit. Marcus, apart from anything else, had probably been the only thing keeping Shirley Dander from going postal on a daily basis.
“You okay?” Emma asked.
Louisa nodded, and blinked her vision clear.
“This is Patrice we’re hunting?”
“One of his team.”
“Good enough.” Emma unbuttoned her coat, and checked her weapon.
“I thought you’d lost that.”
“I took Devon’s. He’s not going to need it in A&E.” She thought about that. “He’s probably not going to need it in A&E. How much further?”
“Blackfriars Bridge,” Louisa said. “Next one.”
Emma squinted through the windshield. “There’s some kind of commotion up ahead. That’ll be our stop, right?”
There were roadworks, metal fencing dividing the road in two. On the river side, there was no road surface, and plastic bollards blocked the way. Temporary traffic lights herded traffic into single file, shepherding them left. Louisa pulled right instead, ploughed through a row of bollards, and hit the brakes so hard the back of the vehicle was briefly airborne.
“Jesus!” Emma shouted.
A cluster of people at the end of the dazzle ship’s jetty were examining the water below in a manner suggesting emergency. Despite being winded, Emma was out of the car first. Something about her—the bruise on her face?—must have conveyed authority, because the crowd parted for her, offering overlapping commentary:
“We can’t see him!”
“He’s gone under!”
“There were two of them—”
“The other one legged it.”
“What happened?” she said, and was echoed immediately by Louisa:
“Who’s in the water?”
A man in a blue coat said, “There were two of them out here, acting odd. An older bloke and a young man, fairish hair—”
“Who’s in the water?” Louisa repeated.
“The old one tipped the young guy over the side. I saw him from the bar window.”
The water below was black and rained-on and furious.
“Oh, fucking hell,” said Louisa.
An orange lifebelt bobbed lonely on the surface. There was no sign of anyone reaching for it.
Louisa pulled her coat off.
“What?” said Emma.
“Go after him—the old guy. Find him. Stop him. Now.” Then she said “Fucking hell” again, and peeled her shoes off.
Emma said, “Which direction did he go?”
The man in the blue coat pointed, and Emma ran.
Louisa climbed onto the wall and scanned the water. There was no sign of River. The rain was pummelling down, and she was already as wet as she’d ever been—she waited one second for someone to tell her not to be stupid, but the group had fallen unaccountably silent. There was a police car approaching, and police cars were famously loaded with heroes, and would soon deliver someone more professional, more trained, and more prepared to jump into the Thames. But the longer she hung here, the longer River spent underwater. Fucking hell, she thought again. But before the second syllable had formed, she was airborne, and then she wasn’t.
When he’d hit the water, his lights had gone out. Not far to fall, perhaps, but a little too far to be thrown: any surface was going to welcome him the way gravity welcomes the apple—it rattled him to the core; stole his breath, then swallowed his body, wrapping him in a bone-numbing cold that somehow held the promise of warmth later. And he didn’t know which way was up. He kicked, and seemed to move, but his lungs were bursting—he tried to turn, but everything felt heavy, his shoes, his coat, his limbs. Every action pushed him further into darkness. He couldn’t tell if his eyes were open. Soon his lungs would give up, and he would be forced to inhale. After that, the darkness would be complete.
His hand brushed something, he didn’t know what. He reached for it, but it was gone. And then he felt his body slowing down. Why fight it? He was in the river. It had been bound to end this way. He was drifting face down, and there was a light somewhere but it couldn’t reach him. He’d gone too deep. Slowly, slowly, River gave up. He breathed deep, and filled himself with water. After that, there were only two possible directions he could go. It was with some relief that he noticed he seemed to be heading upwards.
Most times of day the Thameside Path was kerb-to-wall joggers, only slightly less cavalier than cyclists in regard to legitimate pavement-users, but Emma was on her own as she hared under Blackfriars Bridge, its ice-cream colouring lost to the night and the weather. Everything was shades of grey, barring the odd blur in her peripheral vision—she was regretting those tequilas, regretting the beer they sandwiched, but was propelled onwards by the thought of having someone in her sights; a way to reclaim the day. Success would mean the sack of woe she’d laid out to Louisa in the bar could be knotted and dumped in the river.
Thoughts of Diana Taverner being dumped in that same sack, maybe with a couple of angry weasels for company, were a comfort . . .
Her breath was heavy, blood hammering in her ears, but there was a figure ahead of her so she ratched it up a notch, her footsteps echoing against the underside of the bridge. He must have heard her, but didn’t turn; he stepped, instead, into a halo of streetlight which transformed the rain into a torrent of gemstones, then disappeared up the flight of steps leading roadward.
Emma slipped, crashed into the wall, just managed to keep her balance—Christ, she could have ended up in the water too. She shouted after the vanishing man, and didn’t realise until she’d heard herself that the word she shouted was Police. She was so winded it sounded more like a bark. Reaching the stairs she took them three at a time, her legs rubbery. Round the dog-leg corner, more steps, and she was on the bridge itself, where everything was louder, noisier—a bus passed; a big red box of curious shapes behind steamed-up windows, but the pavement was bare as a singleton’s cupboard: no vanishing man. She turned, checked the other direction: the same. He’d come up the stairs, but hadn’t reached the top.
Think.
A blue light was spinning on the other side of the road, a police car turning onto the bridge from the Embankment. A black van, too. The nasty squad. They’d be alert for mischief after Pentonville Road, and she had a gun in her pocket. Entirely legitimate, but accidents happened. She turned and went back down the steps. Level with the landing, upright in the Thames, sat a temporary structure bearing a winch or crane of some sort, alongside a workman’s hut and assorted junk impossible to make out in the dark. Whatever it was for, bridge maintenance or riverbed dredging, it was the only place the vanishing man could be. He must have jumped, and given how close behind him she was, must have done so without hesitation. Reached the landing, saw the platform, climbed onto the wall and jumped. Some nerve.
She peered across. There was one light, set into the deck, illuminating the bridge. Everything else was in shadow, and there was no movement that couldn’t be explained by the rain and the rocking of the river. Here, leaning out over the water, the rain sounded different. It hit the river with a constant hiss, as if large machinery were operating nearby.
The gap between the thigh-high wall enclosing the staircase and the edge of the platform was a couple of yards at most.