She sensed the urgency in my voice. “What is it, Charlie?” she asked.
“Just do as I say. When we get round the corner I want you to run as fast as you can towards the town centre. There’s a pub called the Talisman at the top of the street. Go in and go straight to the ladies’. Lock yourself in for five minutes. Then come out and order two drinks at the bar. I’ll join you about then.”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded.
“Just do as I say.”
“Why? What is it?”
“We’re being followed.” We reached the corner and turned it. Two big green dumpsters were standing there, just as I’d hoped. “Now run!” I hissed, pushing her towards the lights.
“And what are you doing?” she asked.
“Just run!”
“I’m not running without you.”
I heard the tch tch of his trainers on the wet floor, fast at first, as if he were jogging, then slower, cautious, as he reached the corner. I grabbed Annette’s arm and pushed her behind the dumpster, bundling her deep into the corner. A rat squealed a protest and scuttled away.
The footsteps paused as he surveyed the empty street, then started again, striding out. I heard his noise, sensed his shadow as I anticipated his position, predicting the exact moment he would emerge. As he passed the dumpster I took two rapid strides forward and hurled myself at him.
Priority was to stop him finding his gun. I threw my arms around him in a bear hug and knocked him to the ground. He kicked wildly and we rolled over, first me on top, then him, followed by me again. As he rolled over me I felt water running down my neck. He shouted something I didn’t catch and Annette joined in, flailing at him with her fists, trying to hold his head. Next time he was on the bottom I risked letting go with one hand for sufficient time to smash his face against the cobbles. He jerked and went limp.
Neither of us had handcuffs with us. I felt his clothing for a gun but he was unarmed. I rolled him over and moved to one side so my shadow wasn’t on him. His lips were moving and a trickle of blood ran from his forehead until the rain diluted it to almost nothing.
“Oh shit!” I said.
“It’s me,” he mumbled. “It’s me, Mr Priest.”
“Do you know him?” Annette asked.
“Yeah, I know him.” I grabbed his lapels and pulled him, still mumbling, into a seated position. “I know him all right. I’d like you to meet Jason Lee Gelder: until recently chief suspect in the Marie-Claire Hollingbrook case.”
It was Les Isles’ fault. We led Jason to where there was more light and cleaned him up. He was more apologetic than I was, and refused to be taken to Heckley General for a check-up. He wouldn’t even let us give him a lift home. “It’s my fault, Mr Priest,” he kept insisting. “I shouldn’t have followed you like that.”
When they’d decided not to oppose bail, poor old Jason had interpreted this as implying that he was no longer in the frame for Marie-Claire’s murder. He’d attempted to thank Les, who’d said: “Don’t thank me, thank Inspector Priest,” and told him that he owed me a pint. Jason took him literally. When he saw us at the fireworks he thought he would pay his debts, and followed us into Dick Lane. He said he was going to catch up with us there, but when we stopped “for a snog” he thought better of it and waited.
I believed him. Jason wasn’t a crook, but he certainly qualified as a client, and some of them get funny ideas. They come into the station and see us in court, and start to see themselves as part of the organisation. We see them as the enemy, they regard themselves as our colleagues. I told Jason to call into the nick tomorrow and report the incident. He said it didn’t matter, but I insisted. I’d do a full report, to keep myself and Annette in the clear. He was slow but well-meaning, and destined for a lifetime of holding the dirty end of whatever stick was offered him. I imagined him at the slaughterhouse, doing every obscene job that his sick workmates could find, and felt sorry for the Jasons of the world.
It was only a five-minute drive to Annette’s, and we did it in silence. I doused the lights outside her flat and turned to face her. She stared straight ahead, unsmiling and pale in the harsh light. Under the street lamps the rain was falling like grain out of a silo.
“You’re soaked,” I ventured, and she nodded in agreement.
“The, er, evening didn’t quite turn out as I intended,” I said.
“No,” she replied.
“But the music was good. I enjoyed that.” Annette didn’t respond, so I went on: “We used to go to the Irish Club, years ago. Had some great nights there. It was the headaches next morning that put a stop to it.”
She turned to face me, and said: “You thought it was him, didn’t you?”
“Who?” I asked, all innocence.
“Him. Chilcott. The Chiller, whatever you call him. You thought it was the Chiller following us.”
“No I didn’t.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I thought he was a mugger. He’d seen us and decided we’d be easy prey, so he followed us. I thought we’d give him a surprise.”
“So I had to run as fast as I could to the pub and lock myself in the toilet? For a mugger? I don’t believe you.”
“Yeah, well,” I mumbled.
“I saw the look on your face, Charlie,” she told me. “When we were behind the bins. You were…eager. You were enjoying yourself. You were about to tackle someone you thought had a gun, who wanted to kill you, and you were enjoying yourself.”
“I wasn’t enjoying myself,” I protested. “I was scared stiff and I was worried about you.”
“But you admit that you thought it was Chilcott?”
“It crossed my mind, Annette, in the heat of the moment. But now I see the idea as preposterous. He’s a long way away and I’m just history to him, believe me.”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
After a long silence I said: “Shall we cancel the cocoa?”
“I think so,” she replied. “If you don’t mind.”
I shrugged my shoulders. I minded like hell. I minded like a giant asteroid was heading towards Heckley, and only a cup of cocoa in her flat, listening to George Michael CDs, would save the town. But who was I to make a decision like that?
As she opened the door I said: “You’re upset, Annette. It was a frightening experience. Go have a nice hot bath and stay in bed until lunchtime. I’ll make it right. Have the whole day off, if you want.”
She looked at me and sighed. “I think it’s you who needs some time off, Charlie,” she said, opening the car door and swinging her legs onto the pavement. “I’ll be there,” she stated. “Bright and early, as always.”
I braced myself for the inevitable door slam, but it didn’t come. She held the handle firmly and pushed it shut, so it closed with a textbook clunk. She didn’t slam it. I watched her sashay across the little residents’ car-park and punch her code into the security lock. A light came on and she went inside. She didn’t slam that door, either, but turned and held the latch. For a few seconds I could see her shape through the frosted glass and then she faded away, as if she were sinking into a deep pool. She didn’t slam the door, and that’s the moment I fell in love with her.
On Tuesday afternoon, when Somerset Bob sat her in an MGB, Eileen Kelly went bananas. The poor woman had never really recovered from the attack and had drifted from one unhappy relationship to another. At the moment she was alone, living in rented accommodation and working in the kitchen of a department store in Bath. He said that she was pleased, at first, to have a change in her routine and go along with him to the house of a Bath traffic cop who had a much-cherished model of the car. On the way there she reiterated her story, glad that at last someone was listening, and no doubt encouraged by the change in attitude over the last eighteen years.
Her attacker’s car had been parked at the roadside, and she hadn’t realised which it was until he opened the door for her, so she never really saw it from the outside. Bob said he opened the passenger door and beckoned her to get in. As soon as she dropped into the low seat she started shivering and shaking. He climbed in next to her and
