‘’Oo’s there?’ said Jones, sounding fearful. ‘’S’goin’ on?’
Though deadened by the trapdoor and rug, shouting and banging now became audible above. As Barclay and Wardle were outnumbered by more than two to one, Strike doubted he could count on immediate assistance. Taking his hand off Griffiths’ mouth, because it didn’t much matter if the fucker yelled now, he aimed a punch at the place he knew Griffiths’ face to be and heard his yelp of pain. Blood continued to rain down from the knife wound to Strike’s ear.
‘Wha’s going on?’ repeated Jones, and Strike felt a large hand grope for his shoulder, which was covered in blood. ‘The fuck are you?’
‘STRIKE?’ came Wardle’s voice.
‘DOWN HERE,’ bellowed Strike.
‘Wha?’ said the unseen Jones, and Strike heard him stagger to his feet then his cry of pain as his head smacked into the low ceiling.
The trapdoor opened and Strike saw Wardle looking down at him.
‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ he said in alarm, and Strike realised his left shoulder was drenched in shining scarlet.
‘Need assistance,’ panted Strike, still sitting on Griffiths.
‘Barclay!’ yelled Wardle, before dropping into the space without using the ladder.
Had Barclay not slid into the cellar then, Strike doubted things would have gone well for Wardle, because young Jones, though still groggy, appeared to have realised the strangers didn’t have his good at heart. His attempt to rush the ex-policeman was frustrated by the Scot, who, seizing the ladder off its legs, swung it round, narrowly missing Strike’s head, and knocked Jones sideways, upending the table on which the dildos were sitting.
‘Knife, somewhere,’ panted Strike, pinning the struggling Griffiths to the floor.
‘Got it,’ said Wardle, snatching it up from the floor before going to assist Barclay, who was attempting to cuff Jones’ hands behind his back.
‘What’s happening up there?’ asked Strike.
‘Three of ’em legged it soon as we got through the door,’ panted Wardle. ‘We’ve got the slowest two cuffed, but I don’t know if any of them’s—’
‘This is the main man,’ said Strike, still fighting to subdue Griffiths.
‘Did ye know yer ear’s hangin’ off?’ Barclay asked Strike.
‘You’ve got a daughter, right?’
‘Yeah,’ said Barclay, looking understandably perplexed by the non sequitur.
Strike, who had a confused idea that the father of a daughter was the next best thing, in the absence of a woman, nodded towards Sapphire.
‘She’s tied to that bloody pipe. Can you get her loose?’
‘Nae bother,’ said Barclay, straightening up as far as was possible, Jones now safely handcuffed and lying on his front. ‘Ye’re all right, hen,’ he told Sapphire, advancing on her. ‘We’ll have ye oot o’ here in no time.’
‘Help me get these cunts upstairs,’ Strike panted to Wardle, as Griffiths continued to struggle.
123
We intuitively understand what justice is, better than we can depict it. What it is in a given case depends so much on circumstances, that definitions of it are wholly deceitful.
Griffiths stopped resisting once Wardle had got the handcuffs on him. Strike was pleased to see he’d broken Griffiths’ nose, which was spread across his face and bleeding profusely, although nowhere near as copiously as the wound to Strike’s left ear, which was causing him excruciating pain. He could feel a weird coldness, as though flesh that had never been exposed to fresh air was meeting it for the first time, and this contrasted unpleasantly with the continuing flow of warm blood.
‘You need a hospital,’ Wardle told Strike, as they manoeuvred Griffiths up the ladder Barclay had replaced at the hatch. ‘Fast.’
‘Later,’ said Strike.
He wasn’t in such agony that he failed to noticed Griffiths’ pigeon-toed walk as they dragged him alone, a peculiarity Strike had attributed to Griffiths’ trip over his guitar the first time they’d come face to face. This small, extra confirmation of his theory was enough to make Strike determined to see the thing through himself, because he was worried that Ian Griffiths might yet get away with the murder of Tyler Powell. ‘Not proven’ was the verdict he feared. Even if the killings of Sofia Medina, Jim Todd and Todd’s mother could be pinned on Griffiths, even if the man was rightly sentenced to multiple life sentences, that wouldn’t be enough for Strike. He wanted justice, even vengeance, for Tyler Powelclass="underline" a young man who’d suffered an inordinate amount of bad luck while living, and who most certainly hadn’t deserved the fate he’d met at Griffiths’ hands. The ingenious, complicated and outlandish nature of his murder might yet prevent a jury believing it could have happened as Strike was certain it had, but Powell had become real to him lately: a little lost, as Robin had said, but brave, resourceful and determined, not the fool people might have thought him; a young man who, Strike believed, had been ‘proper good’, and whose biggest mistake had been to believe that a man who held out a helping hand was doing so out of kindness.
The sitting room was in disarray. A keyboard had been upended and the poster of the pot-smoking Jesus had been knocked askew. Strike kicked aside the Rastafarian teddy bear lying face down on the carpet. It was a room tailor-made for a man who liked drawing in teenagers and young women, a room that spoke disingenuously of an offbeat charmer who remained young at heart. Strike despised it.
Two men were sitting on the floor, cuffed back to back. One was a scrawny youth whose mouth was hanging open, revealing very bad teeth. The other was a middle-aged man with a heavy beard, who was sobbing.
‘Get the other one up here,’ Strike told Wardle, as he shoved Griffiths down onto the mandala-covered sofa. ‘If he gives you any trouble, Barclay’ll help.’
‘Strike—’
‘Get fucking Jones, I want him here for the interrogation!’
‘You could fuck up the whole prosecution,’ said Wardle in a low voice. ‘We’ve got to call the police now so they can see what we saw, and you need a hosp—’
‘He could still fucking weasel his way out of the silver vault,’ said Strike. ‘You said it yourself: the footprint’s not enough. Get fucking Jones!’
With clear reluctance, Wardle left the room.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ Strike growled at the sobbing bearded man, who subsided into whimpers.
In addition to being angry at Wardle for having intimated Strike might be endangering their case in front of the captives, Strike was having difficulty hearing, because his left ear was full of blood; he inserted his index finger into it to clear it, which was so painful he nearly threw up. From what he’d just felt, he suspected Barclay hadn’t been joking when he’d said it was hanging off.
Griffiths was sitting silently on the sofa, his nose still swelling and breathing through his mouth. Strike didn’t doubt the man had come to believe himself untouchable, which was why he’d permitted himself so many risks, to gamble for such high stakes, to play with naked flames, and Strike suspected Griffiths hadn’t quite lost faith in his own invincibility, even now, with his nose so discoloured and swollen it was looking increasingly like a beetroot, and drenched in the blood of the man he’d just slashed.
Wardle reappeared with a truculent-looking though still faintly dazed Jones, with his huge red forehead, double chin and mismatched eyes. Wardle forced Jones down onto the floor and cuffed him to the two already sitting there. A large lump was burgeoning on Jones’ forehead, where he’d headbutted the edge of the hole in the floor before falling into the basement.