stop himself from running away down the street.
Now he was trying to make his meagre supplies last, but it was hard without a fridge or a cooker. A diet of stale sandwiches and cold sausage rolls was beginning to take its toll: every day he thought with greater longing of the breakfast that his mother had cooked for him on the morning after his escape, and he was even becoming nostalgic for the stodgy food they served in the prison canteen, but for the present his fear remained stronger than his hunger, and he wasn’t prepared to risk a cafe or a restaurant.
He’d been lucky up to now. He knew that. He’d driven away from his mother’s house in a panic, without any kind of plan, knowing he couldn’t stay in the car too long: every policeman in Oxford would be looking for it once Ben had phoned the police with the registration number. And so he’d driven frantically through the Oxford suburbs looking for a place where he could lay low for a while, but he’d seen nothing suitable until he made a random turning off Botley Road onto an entirely unmemorable street called Parnell Avenue and came to an abrupt halt outside the Bella Vista Hotel. The house was not ‘bella’ and it certainly had no ‘vista’. It was run-down and in bad need of a coat of paint, and the view across the road was of a builder’s yard bordered by a piece of waste ground. But it was perfect for what he needed, and inside, the half-asleep man behind the reception desk didn’t even ask him for ID once David had taken out his roll of banknotes and volunteered to pay two weeks in advance.
Upstairs he’d sat in his room and waited for nightfall, and then, under cover of darkness, he’d driven the Ford Anglia over to the railway station and abandoned it in the car park yards from where Eddie and he had got into the red Triumph the night before, overdosing on adrenaline. And then he’d walked back to the hotel through the deserted side streets. And he’d been there ever since, lying on his bed looking at the wall, eating stale sandwiches, listening to the radio that came with the room.
Two days ago he’d heard on the news about Eddie’s arrest in London. That had shaken him. He’d be next. He knew that, unless he could come up with a plan. But he couldn’t, however hard he tried. He still had the gun. His mother had told him to get rid of it, but he’d hung on to it. He couldn’t face them taking him alive because he knew what they would do to him in the end. David was under no illusions: he knew what would happen. He’d be charged, he’d be tried, and he’d be convicted just like before, but this time they wouldn’t send him to prison for the rest of his days. No, they’d truss him up like a turkey and hang him from a gallows, break his neck with the snap of a noose. It was the punishment prescribed by law for killing with a gun, and David knew he’d get no mercy because this was his second time around. For a second murder he’d definitely swing.
The rope: David had nightmares about it every night, waking up in the small hours, screaming for air with his hands outstretched, pushing away invisible black-masked strangers; and then, turning on the light, clutching his racing heart, he’d catch sight of Robbie the Robot on the night table gazing back at him out of his protuberant android eyes and remember where he was.
David thought about his half-brother often. It gave him a strange but intense comfort to know that the little boy with the oversized glasses and the utterly serious view of the world was out there only a few miles away, arranging his toys and creatures in the room that had once been David’s own. David thought that the moment at the end when Max had come out of the house holding Robbie the Robot in his outstretched hands was one of the best in his whole sorry life. But then he also wondered whether he would have any more moments like that. He wondered when his luck was going to finally run out.
The quiz programme that he’d been half-listening to came to an end, and now Frank Sinatra was singing: ‘New York, New York…’ David changed stations, irrationally irritated. He’d always wanted to go to New York and climb the skyscrapers, and now he was about as likely to go there as the moon. But Radio Luxembourg was no better — more stupid music. David twisted the tuning knob again and went rigid. A man with a cold, Scottish- sounding voice had just spoken his name.
‘David Swain… a change in direction… taken over the investigation from Inspector Trave, who had for personal reasons formed the mistaken impression that Mr Swain was innocent… we will redouble our efforts to find Swain… appeal to the public for their help…’
David only caught the words in snatches. His head was suddenly full of a great rushing wind and he swallowed hard, thinking he was going to be sick.
The noose was tightening. He could feel it. It wouldn’t be long now unless… unless maybe this policeman, Trave, the one with the sad eyes who thought he might be innocent, could help him…
Trave had taken Creswell’s advice the previous evening: he’d gone home and had a couple of drinks; and then, when that didn’t help, he’d had several more, sitting morosely in his living room armchair in front of an unlit fire, feeling sorry for himself as he mechanically turned the pages of dusty photograph albums, looking at old pictures of Vanessa and his dead son. Eventually, soon after he’d reached the halfway point in the whisky bottle, he’d fallen asleep in his clothes and had then woken up in the first light of dawn, feeling like death. But it wasn’t in his character to give in to adverse circumstances for very long. He’d always been one of those who carry on struggling until they reach the finish line even though the race is already over. He remembered at school how he’d had so much trouble learning to swim that his parents had despaired of him, but he’d carried on flailing and failing on his own until the day finally came when he’d been able to stay afloat.
And so he fortified himself with two cups of strong black coffee and took a brisk walk around the deserted golf course at the end of the road, filling his lungs with the cold sharp air of the early morning before returning home to work for hours in the garden in the autumn sunshine — weeding the flower beds, mulching the roses, raking the leaves from off the lawn — until he felt almost human again. He slept well on Sunday night and took the day off on Monday to complete his recovery. And he’d just come in from the garden and was sitting down to a late lunch in his shirt sleeves when the telephone rang.
‘Turn on your radio. Two o’clock news,’ said an oddly familiar voice.
‘What? Who’s this?’ said Trave, but the line had gone dead, and he couldn’t put his finger on where he’d heard the voice before. It was frustrating, but he stopped thinking about the mystery caller once the voice of Hugh Macrae came on the air.
Trave couldn’t believe what he was hearing. For reasons best known to himself, Macrae had taken it upon himself to tell the entire country that Trave hadn’t done his job properly for personal reasons. Trave felt the same boiling anger that he’d felt outside Osman’s house two days earlier. He ran upstairs and pulled on his suit and tie and then drove at breakneck speed across town to the police station, running two red lights on the way.
The car park was full of reporters and media men leaving the press conference. Several of them recognized Trave and called out to him, asking for a comment, but he pushed past them up the steps without replying and found himself face-to-face with Clayton in the foyer.
‘Did you hear that? Did you hear what he said?’ asked Trave. He was red in the face, breathless with indignation.
‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ said Clayton. He seemed embarrassed by the situation, almost tongue-tied.
‘What the hell’s Macrae playing at?’ asked Trave. ‘Do you know?’
‘I can’t talk about the case,’ said Clayton, looking stricken. ‘I said I wouldn’t.’
‘But I’ve got a right to know…’
‘No, you haven’t. You’ve got no right at all,’ said Macrae, coming up behind Clayton’s shoulder and planting himself squarely in front of Trave. ‘You’ve been taken off this case once and for all. I’m sure you can find something else useful to be getting on with…’
‘You bastard,’ shouted Trave, clenching his fists, his reason overwhelmed by another surge of fury.
‘What? You’re going to hit me as well now, are you?’ asked Macrae with a sneer. ‘First the star witness and then one of your fellow officers — where’s it going to end, Bill? That’s what I’d like to know.’
Trave couldn’t contain his rage. He hated Macrae just as much as he hated Osman. He wanted to smash them both, pummel them into oblivion. But not this way, protested a small, half-smothered voice somewhere inside his brain, and Trave realized suddenly where he was going: he was destroying himself, not his enemies, with his mad anger, and so with a supreme effort he fought to regain his self-control, willing his fists and his teeth to unclench. Breathing deeply, he looked Macrae in the eye. ‘This isn’t over,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s only just begun.’ And then he turned his back on his adversary and walked away toward his office without waiting for a response.
He passed Jonah Wale in the corridor. Noticing the smirk on Wale’s face, Trave realized who his mystery caller had been. He thought of turning back to have it out with the man but then decided against the idea, realizing that he’d only demean himself by such a confrontation. Ten minutes later the switchboard put through a call from a public call box. It was David Swain.
‘Can I trust you? How do I know I can trust you?’ The voice on the other end of the line was rushed,
