obvious strain.
Over the top of her head he demanded, “What the hell is going on?”
“Remember Susie Hollins?” I nudged the inert form on the ground with my boot, none too gently. “I think this is the bastard who killed her.”
Surprise and awareness leapt in his eyes.
I dropped down by the side of the man and reached for the edge of the balaclava.
“Now then, shithead, let's have a look at you,” I muttered. I yanked off the mask, to reveal a face that was horribly familiar. The silence that followed screamed at all of us.
Before I could move to block her, Ailsa had peered down over my shoulder. She let out a single wailing cry, then collapsed totally. Dave tried manfully to keep her on her feet, but he was fighting a losing battle from the outset. In the end, the best he could manage was a kind of controlled descent.
Looking back at the figure on the ground, lying bleeding and unconscious, I could understand Ailsa's reaction completely.
After all, it's not every day that you take on a terrifying masked intruder, armed with little more than a marble rolling pin, and discover that the man you've just knocked halfway into next week is your own husband . . .
***
This time, the police arrived at the Lodge much quicker than they had when Ailsa had summoned them before because we'd spotted a prowler in the garden. In fact, Tris was only just starting to come round when they rolled up with lights and sirens blazing.
We didn't get much out of him before he was bundled into the back of a police Transit, other than a single quiet apology to Ailsa.
Somehow, that made it worse.
Right up until then, I suppose I'd still been hoping that he might deny it, that there might conceivably be another reason for him to be running through his own garden, heavily disguised in a manner designed to spark panic, and confusion. In the end, I had to face it, there wasn't.
The idea was taking me some getting used to. OK, so I hadn't known Tris for more than a couple of years, but he was the last man I would have had down as a sadistic rapist and murderer.
My mind re-ran recent scenes like a video that was stuck on “play”. Memories that made my scalp break out into a sweat, and my stomach churn. It was as much as I could do to stay on my feet and functioning until the police took over.
I remembered Tris's soothing hands gliding over the skin of my back. Had he spent all the time he'd been giving me a massage wondering what it would be like to run a knife blade across my throat?
The concealed voice on the other end of the telephone the night Joy had died. I tried to match up Tris's gentle tones with the malicious spite that had hummed clearly along the wires. How could it be one of my friends who had done this?
I tried hard not to let it get to me. Not until the police had carted Tris away, and Ailsa had been given a sedative by her doctor. Dave had ducked out as soon as the emergency services had reached the scene, relieved to hand Ailsa over to the professionals. The Shelseley girls banded together to offer comfort in such a way that I felt like an outsider among them. It wasn't hard to make my own excuses, and slip away.
I rode home slowly, and with great care. It's difficult to watch where you're going when your eyes are burnt with tears.
I stopped on the way to stick another few gallons of juice into the Suzuki. The tank on the RGV is pretty small, and if you're giving it some serious beans you go onto reserve after less than a hundred miles.
I was just squeezing the last few drops into the filler when there was the roar of a Norton pulling in alongside. I looked up to see Sam's big brown eyes crinkling at me through his open visor.
“Hi, Charlie. I thought it was you,” he said, pulling off his helmet and stuffing his scarf into it. “Didn't you get my message?”
“Yeah.” I vaguely remembered Sam's voice on the answering machine. It seemed like years ago. I hung the nozzle back into the pump and locked the filler cap back down. “Sorry, I've had a bit on my plate.”
“What could be more important than talking to me?” he demanded with an irritatingly cheeky grin.
“A friend of mine was murdered,” I dropped on him, just to watch his smile fade. I knew I wasn't being fair, but what the hell? Life's like that, and I wasn't feeling very fair right now.
He made all the usual noises of shock and commiseration, but his eyes had that twitchy look of someone searching wildly for a suitable change of subject. He opened his mouth, but only succeeded in changing feet. “So, what happened to that lap-top, then?”
As he spoke it suddenly occurred to me that it was probably only Terry’s ignorance of Sam’s full name and home location that had prevented my unwanted visitors from paying
He looked stricken. I was almost beginning to feel sorry for him. “Jeez, Charlie, I’m sorry. And about your friend. What happened?”
I gave him a brief precis of how Joy had met her death as he filled up the Norton’s tank. He took it in pale silence, and we went in to pay together. There were a couple of people in front of us, dithering with chequebooks. The girl behind the counter looked hard-faced and bored.
As I stood there in the queue, I knew I still hadn’t really taken it in that Tris, my friend, was a cold-blooded murderer. That he was responsible for three vicious crimes. I couldn’t begin to understand what had driven him to do it.
I idly watched another car pull up to the pumps, catching the monochrome echo of it on the security monitor behind the cashier’s head. Sam must have been following my gaze.
“It’s a shame there weren’t any closed circuit cameras at that Shelseley place where you teach,” he said. “They might have spotted who did it.”
“Oh, we know who did it, and they’ve got him,” I said automatically as I stepped forwards to pay.
I waited while Sam handed over the money for his own fill-up, then we walked back to the bikes.
When I’d said the words, it all sounded so cut and dried, but somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain there was a stirring of unease, of apprehension.
There was still a connection with the lap-top Terry had given me that I hadn’t figured out yet. Otherwise, how had my voice changer got from the flat on the night of the burglary, and into Tris’s hands? And where did Angelo fit in to all this?
Something wasn’t finished, wasn’t over, but I was damned if I could put my finger on exactly what it was.
***
I pottered the rest of the way through the dark and busy city streets and down onto the quay. I was surprised when I got back to the flat to find Marc's sleek BMW waiting outside. I don't know how long he'd been there, but he was still sitting in the driver's seat when I arrived.
As I parked the bike up, he climbed out, leisurely, pulling on a superb long wool overcoat against the bitter wind.
“Hi,” he said. “Are you OK?”
I found myself smiling as I took off my helmet. “Yeah,” I replied, unsettled to find how pleased I was to see him. He was slipping under my skin. I wasn't sure if that was really where I wanted him.
Heedless of the dirty weather, he stood waiting for me to pull the cover over the Suzuki, then followed me up the stairs.
I bunged the coffee machine on, and went to change into some dry clothes. Waterproofs over the top of leathers make you look like the Michelin man and rustle so alarmingly when you walk that you have to resist the tendency to raise your voice to be heard over the noise.
When I came back, having hastily thrown on some clean jeans and a shirt, Marc was standing by one of the windows, staring out across the river. Everyone seems to be fascinated by the view. I must admit it was one of the things I most liked about the flat when I moved in.
He offered to take me out for dinner, but I passed on that one. I didn't feel much like eating out. In the end I
