Banks turned to Annie. “Let’s go and talk to Mr. Mellor,” he said. “I could do with a bloody stiff drink.”
Annie looked at her watch. “It’s after closing time,” she said.
Banks smiled. “Well, I think being a copper ought to have
Mark ran fast, away from the fire, until he was exhausted, and then slowed to walking speed. All the time his mind was filled with echoes and rage. The voices of Lenny and Sal became those of his mother and Crazy Nick as they argued about him drunkenly downstairs, getting louder and louder until they ended in blows and screams.
Mark put his hands over his ears as he ran, but it didn’t do any good. The voices went on, from inside.
Mark knew right there and then that he was fighting for his life, so he laid into Crazy Nick with all he’d got, punching and kicking until Nick was on the floor gargling blood, and Mark’s mother was beating on his back with her hard little fists. He smashed a chair over Crazy Nick’s head and that was it, the last night he spent at home, the night he ran, with his mother’s screams of revenge and hatred burning in his ears. Just as he was running now.
He stopped for breath and looked around, realized he didn’t have a clue where he was. He had headed east from Lenny’s, he knew that much, beyond the town limits, so he was out in the country now. If he looked behind him, he could see the lights of Eastvale, even hear a distant train going by. He wished he had enough money to take a train somewhere. Or a plane. That would be even better.
He was on a dark country road with trees and drystone walls on either side. The flames were well behind him now, and he thought he could hear the sirens of fire engines. Good luck to them. They didn’t do Tina much good. He thought of her fragile, pretty face, her slight form. Tina hadn’t had a chance. Tears stained Mark’s face as he felt the waves of guilt tearing him apart for the hundredth time. If only he hadn’t gone chasing after Mandy; if only, if only, if only…
Dark winter fields stretched away from him on both sides of the road, bare branches clawing like talons at the starlit sky, and now and then he could make out the lonely glow of a distant farmhouse or the clustered lights of a small village. For a moment, Banks’s words of warning came back to him, that he might be in danger, that he might be the next victim, and he felt a tremor of fear. Shadows moved and rustling sounds came from behind him. But it was only the wind in the trees. Why would anybody want to kill him? He didn’t know anything. But Tina hadn’t known anything, either.
Mark didn’t know where he was going; all he could do was keep walking. If he kept going on, eventually he’d end up at the seaside. Maybe he’d live there. It was easy enough to get a job at the seaside, no questions asked, with all those tourists to take care of. Drake from the squat had told him that. Drake had lived in Blackpool and worked at the Pleasure Beach on one of the rides. Made a fucking pile, he said, and pulled plenty of talent, too. But not in January. Blackpool was a cold and lonely place in January. Still, maybe there’d be some building work. There was always building. And there was the sea. Mark loved the sea.
Running had warmed him up, but now, as he slowed his pace, he realized he was cold, cold as the night he’d watched the fire on the boats. Was it only the other day? It seemed like years ago. Tina had only been dead for two days. And was the rest of his lifetime without her going to be as miserable as it was now? Maybe he should just do away with himself. That would serve them all right, wouldn’t it? His mother – bless her miserable little soul and may she rot in hell – Crazy Nick, Lenny, Sal, the police, the lot of them. That’s what he’d do; he’d top himself. Join Tina. Even save the bloke who’d killed her from having to kill him, too. But he knew he didn’t really have the guts to do it. Besides, no matter what the religious people said, Mark didn’t believe in reunions beyond the grave.
He pulled the fleece-lined coat tight around him, tightened up the collar around his neck. Wearing a copper’s clothes. That was one for the books. It would serve them all right if he did die, though, wouldn’t it? He wasn’t even sure anymore whether he cared or not, whether it wasn’t such a good idea after all. Everything inside was going numb, like his feet, and he realized he didn’t even need to do anything painful to die. It would be easy. All he had to do was find an out-of-the-way spot – plenty of them around here – and lie down in the cold. They said it was just like falling asleep. You got cold, then numb, so you couldn’t feel it, then you went into a coma and died. Especially as he was halfway there already. He saw a stile and the silhouette of a ruined barn in the next field, a little moonlight shining through the empty windows. That would do, he thought, at least for the night. That would do just fine. And if he died there… well, that would serve the bastards right, wouldn’t it?
It was well after official closing time when Banks and Annie joined Jack Mellor at the table nearest the fireplace in the Fox and Hounds, but the landlord was not in any hurry to lock up as long as the police were drinking there.
Banks dismissed PC Locke, who had been baby-sitting Mellor since his initial questioning at the scene, and ordered three double brandies, breaking any number of laws and police rules in doing so. He didn’t give a damn. It was bloody freezing out there and he needed something to warm him up. Annie seemed glad of the fire, too, and sat as close as she could. She didn’t seem to mind the brandy, either, judging by the way she knocked back her first sip. Only Mellor, the dog sleeping curled on the floor by his side, let his glass sit without touching it, but he’d had one already, and his moon-shaped face was looking a little less pale than it had at the scene. The landlord tossed a couple more logs on the fire. They crackled and spat, throwing out enough heat for Banks to take off his overcoat. Annie crossed her legs and took her notebook out, giving Banks a look when she caught him glancing at the gold chain on her ankle.
“Can you start by telling us exactly what happened tonight?” Banks asked.
Mellor stared into the flames. “It’s still quite a shock,” he said. “Seeing something like that… even from a distance… someone you know.”
Thank God he hadn’t seen the body close up, Banks thought. “I’m sure it is,” he said. “Take your time.”
Mellor nodded. His cheeks wobbled. “I was walking Sandy here as usual. We always drop by the Fox for a couple of jars of an evening, ever since my wife died.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” said Banks.
“Well, these things happen.” Mellor reached forward and took a sip of brandy. “Anyway, as I said, it was habit. Creatures of routine. Boring sort of life, I suppose.”
“And tonight?”
“I saw the fire through the trees. I think Sandy must have smelled it first because he was acting strange.” He leaned over and stroked the dog’s glossy ruff. Banks could see from the light ginger fur how he had got his name. Sandy stirred, opening one brown eye and cocking an ear, then drifted off again. “Anyway, we hurried over there, but… I could see immediately there was nothing I could do.”
“What time was this?”
“I usually set off at nine, pretty much on the dot, and it’s about ten minutes from home, so…”
“Ten past nine, then?”
“About that, yes.”
Banks knew that the emergency call had been logged in at 9:13 P.M. “Where did you call from?”
“Phone box down the road. It’s only a short distance. I hurried as best I could, but…” He patted his stomach. “I’m afraid I’m not built for speed.”
Banks had seen the phone box and estimated that Mellor’s timing was pretty much accurate.
“I don’t have a mobile phone,” he explained. “No need for one, really. No one to call and no one who’d want to ring me.”
That didn’t stop most people owning a mobile, Banks thought, remembering the sad, pointless conversations he’d overheard during the last few years: “It’s me. I’m on the train. We’re just leaving the station now. It’s raining up here.” And so on, and so on.
