edited to back that up, if that’s okay?’
‘
‘He expects Candaret to finally spill forth in about two weeks. But apparently the Board of Pardons will haul your ass in front of ‘em four or five days before that. So they’ll be the first you’ll hear from.’
Larry arched an eyebrow. ‘What the hell will they expect from me? Show I’m a literary buff by quoting from Poe and Shakespeare?’
‘Yeah… yeah. “Justice…
‘I’ll try.’ Larry smiled lazily.
22
Jac gave the e-mail one last read through, then pressed SEND.
He’d felt increasingly uneasy just leaving everything on that final, flawed note with his mystery e-mailer: very likely spooked and so no further contact. And when the night before he’d shared his thoughts with Alaysha, finally told her the whole saga, she’d urged him on.
‘Don’t just give up with him there, Jac. Keep pushing, send him more e-mails, try and draw him out. If he
Jac had nodded a slow acceptance, her words in that moment seeming
Four calls he’d put in to Truelle’s office, leaving messages, before he finally got a call back. Now there was a further forty-two hour delay — early the day after tomorrow — before he’d actually be able to see him.
‘Sorry. That’s the earliest, I’m afraid. I’m up to my neck with things — that’s why the delay in getting back to you.’
And Dr Thallerey, Jessica Roche’s old obstetrician, was away at a medical convention in Houston till the end of the week.
‘He doesn’t like to be disturbed at these things, so we have strict instructions not to do so unless it’s an absolute medical emergency. Does it fall into that category, sir?’
‘No… no. It’s okay. I’ll contact him when he gets back.’
Jac felt the clock ticking down against Durrant like a tight coil at the back of his neck.
Superficially he looked fine after his accident, except for a slight limp in his right leg. A thigh gash had taken fourteen stitches and his calf muscles had been heavily bruised, probably from when he wrenched his leg free. The doctor said that within a week it should have healed enough for the limp to subside; but what was going on inside Jac’s head was another matter.
Now that the clemency plea had been filed, he was back assisting John Langfranc with other cases and was meant to spend no more than four man-hours a week on the Durrant case, for what Beaton described as ‘residual maintenance’. But Jac found it hard to concentrate on the fresh files before him, and more than a few times he’d noticed John Langfranc look up at him through his glass screen: a searching appraisal that hadn’t yet fully verged into concern;
Sometimes, when Jac tried to focus, the words would swim and merge and become little more than a blur; a grey blur that seemed to draw him in, becoming deeper, darker as he sank through it… and suddenly he’d back in the lake again, lungs bursting
Jac’s line buzzing broke his thoughts.
‘Lieutenant Wallace for you,’ Penny Vance called across the office.
‘Thanks.’ Jac swallowed and took a fresh breath, noticing John Langfranc look through his glass screen as he picked up: the police mechanic’s report on his car dragged up from Lake Pontchartrain! Jac’s brow knitted as he tried to disentangle Wallace’s description of brake fluid pressures and condition of joint threads. ‘What exactly does all of that mean?’
Wallace took a fresh breath. ‘It means that the findings are inconclusive. But if we had to put money on something — it’d be on it being caused by a fault or wear and tear rather than on tampering. Otherwise the thread on the brake fluid joint would have been clean and in perfect condition. It wasn’t — the thread had shorn off.’
‘I see.’ Jac knew that he should have been relieved, but that emotion still felt out of reach, along with any clarity on Wallace’s account. All he felt was numb.
‘Perhaps the joint simply got weakened with time and wear and tear — then with the sudden jolt of you braking hard, it sheared off.’
‘But what about that truck alongside swinging in? And the fact that he didn’t stop?’
‘I know. But it might have been a driver simply distracted or falling asleep, rather than purposeful. And once he’d straightened up, he’d have been past you by then. Might well not have seen what happened to you.’
‘Yeah. Possibility, I suppose.’ Jac sighed resignedly. Might, might, might. He wasn’t convinced. Langfranc came out of his office as Jac thanked Wallace and signed off.
‘Accident,’ Jac said, looking towards Langfranc. ‘Doesn’t look like brake tampering. At least, that’s what he’s putting the money on.’
‘Well, that’s a relief.’
‘Yeah.’ Jac nodded dolefully. ‘That’s a relief.’
The monotony of the windscreen wipers was starting to wear on Dr Thallerey’s nerves, might have got close to sending him to sleep, if he hadn’t stopped just forty minutes back for a strong fresh coffee and popped a Ritalin straight after.
He’d decided to drive, because since 9/11 he just couldn’t abide airports any more. One-and-half to two hours before check in, with invariably more delays on top. By the time he’d sat for three hours bored mindless at an airport, he could be halfway there in his car.
He tried to keep to 55 mph, but invariably he’d edge up to sixty on clear, flat stretches. Two hours more, and he’d be home.
Thallerey peered through the intermittent film of water on his windscreen at the murky road ahead. A quarter moon was there somewhere, drifting in and out of heavy cloud cover. His squint suddenly widened, hands gripping tighter to the wheel, as out of nowhere — not there in one sweep of the wipers, there in the next — red tail lights loomed ahead and he had to brake sharply.
Thallerey’s speedo plummeted. He glanced at it as it bottomed out: twenty-two miles an hour!
