Wingate shifted in his seat, uncomfortable and bored. “Well, I guess if I ever wanted to go back to Twenty-one, that bridge is pretty much burnt.”
“Oh, it’s ashes,” she said. “I doubt there’s even a tunnel now.”
He laughed. “Do you really trust Ilunga to run those prints against the oars? What if he loses something on the way to the lab?”
“No,” she said. “This is his chance to pin everything on Goodman. If he gets a match to the oars off Eldwin’s hand, he saves face and buries his nemesis all at once. He’s a hero. How’s that inconsistent with his sleazy personality?”
“It isn’t. I just hope he doesn’t play you.”
“I’m done being played.”
They watched the street a while longer. “That was some good detectiving, by the way. I never said.”
“Good for a has-been, huh?”
“You old folk have something to teach us after all.” He gave her a warm smile.
“I like you, James. I’m glad you’ve chosen the slow lane.” “This is the slow lane, huh?”
She looked at the clock display on the dash. “Jesus,” she said. “My stomach is turning acid.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t wait anymore,” said Wingate. “If they’ve been one step ahead of us this long, maybe they’ve already dealt with this eventuality. What if they’re both gone?”
“If we bust in there and Dana Goodman isn’t there, we’ll never see him again. Give it another half-hour.”
“But what if they’re moving him, Hazel? They’re putting distance between us if that’s the case.”
She thought about it and his point was solid. “We should have patrols further af -”
“Wait,” he said. “Look at that.”
A light had gone on in a window at lawn-level. A basement light. Even in the dark of the rain, it looked like a beacon. “Okay,” she said, “okay.”
“Okay what?”
“One of us goes, the other stays and keeps an eye out for the van. We stay in contact on the walkies, low volume.”
“I’ll go,” he said.
She put a hand on his wrist. “No. She knows me. If she’s alone there, I might be able to talk her into giving up Goodman.”
“What if she’s not?”
“You’ll hear shots, no doubt. Come flying.”
He was shaking his head, nervous. “I don’t know, Hazel. I don’t like you alone in there.”
“I don’t think he’s here, James. I think she’s alone. He’s come up empty…”
“Is that necessarily a good sign?”
“I don’t know.” She checked her gun. It had a full clip in it. “I’m going to go. Keep an eye out.”
He didn’t protest, but she could tell he wasn’t happy. “Shoot first,” he said.
“Stay on channel six.”
She stepped out into the downpour and hunched her shoulders up. The wind drove the rain sideways and upwards into her face. She looked up and down the street for any sign of Goodman’s van, but the street was empty. Only she and Wingate had lacked the sense to stay indoors today. She crouch-ran across the street to the even-numbered side and sheltered under a silver maple. She could see a side-window now from her vantage, also lit, but there was no movement she could make out from within, not even shadows.
She crept along the east side, throwing looks back up the street and toward the unmarked. Wingate’s voice came in low from her belt. “Anything?”
“Another light, but I don’t see anyone inside. The street is clear. I’m going.”
Twenty-four, twenty-six… she was at the property line. There was a repetitive sound coming from the back of twenty-eight, like something being hammered, and her pulse rose. She could see the back corner of the house now, and she moved slowly along the wall of the neighbouring house to reveal the back of twenty-eight. There was a garden back there. No van, though. The hammering sound was louder. It was an irregular clacking noise. Wingate asked what it was and she told him it sounded like a shutter being swung back and forth in the wind.
She still wasn’t sure if the missing van was a good sign or not. She had to presume that Cameron and Goodman were in constant touch if they weren’t together: she’d have little time to roust Cameron before she made contact with her partner, and even less time if they were, in fact, together in there.
She knew the risk she was walking into a trap was high. She’d chosen not to share this with Wingate: she had to get into that house and see what was there for her own sake. She’d been led by the nose for this whole case, but this one time she felt fairly certain she’d caught the two of them out in a loose end. But not totally certain: Goodman had proven clairvoyant in these matters. The possibility that she’d go into that house and not come out alive had already occurred to her. He’d had one chance to kill her and she doubted he’d pass up a second. She crossed to the back of the neighbouring house and got a perspective on the rear of twenty-eight. As she’d thought, there was an entrance in back of the house, and a loose screen door was making the whacking noise. From this vantage, she also inspected the side of twenty-eight, but there didn’t seem to be any live surveillance: no cameras, no electronic equipment at all. She began to feel a tiny wave of hope. “Okay,” she murmured into the radio. “I’m going over.”
“I’m calling for backup.”
“Don’t,” she radioed back. “If Goodman’s on his way here from somewhere, I don’t want him encountering cruisers on his street. He’s likely to see it as a not-very-good sign. We’ll lose him.”
She ran low to the cover of the corner of twenty-eight and flattened herself against the back of the house. Now she wouldn’t be able to see the front or the street and Wingate would have to be her eyes. She knew he wouldn’t let her down. She dialled the radio volume to one and pushed herself toward the door. The screen door might act as sound cover, she realized, glad to catch even a small break, although the closer she got to the door, the more it also felt like such a loud noise could blow her cover if anyone inside got sick of listening to it. Or if it suddenly stopped.
The wind was holding the door open and then crashing it shut. She waited until it was open and tried the handle on the inner door. It was locked. She got her truncheon out of her belt and held the thick side at the ready. The screen door slammed twice and then blew open again and she got in and put the base of the club where the knob was attached to the door and delivered a single blow to the top of it with the side of her gun. She twisted out of the way to let the door slam shut and then inserted herself again and pounded the knob. The screen door smashed her in the back, and she took one more swing with the flat of the gun and the cheap knob broke off, revealing the inner workings of the lock.
She stepped back again to catch her breath and stand at attention in case anyone was able to tell the two noises apart. The explosive clapping of the screen door was like thunder in her ears, competing with the sound of her blood roaring in her head. It felt like the rain was falling through her: she was drenched. She could hear Wingate’s questioning voice trying to raise her, but she ignored him and held the screen door open with one leg as she worked an index finger into the hollow space behind the missing knob. She was able to move a metal bar within the workings of the lock and open the door. It swung in and she stepped into the dark at the top of a set of stairs. She quietly closed the door behind her and pushed the catch back into place with her finger. Dialling the walkie down to zero, she stood in the dark, waiting for her eyes to adjust. There was a faint line of light at the bottom of the stairs in front of her.
Hazel unbuttoned her jacket and took it off, leaving it on the landing as she began to descend. She leaned over and used the tail of her shirt to wipe her face, but the rainwater in her hair was sluicing down her face, carrying some residue of hairspray into her eyes. She blinked away the stinging and stood silently on the stairs, trying to hear past the door below. Someone was moving around in there, slowly shuffling. She heard a voice – Cameron’s, she thought – but couldn’t make out what she was saying. It was getting hard to breathe normally now, she was too worked up; it felt like her heart was going to burst out of her chest. Foolishly, she’d failed to check the gun when she had some light: it occurred to her now that hammering the truncheon with it might have damaged it. If the Glock didn’t work, she’d have no protection at all, and no matter how fast Wingate could run, her nagging anxiety about her life ending in this basement might come true after all. She had a flash of herself lying on the concrete and Goodman advancing on her with his whetted knife and she considered remounting the stairs and checking the mechanism. But she’d come this far, and now she could hear faint sobbing, and she decided she could do nothing but trust the gun.