‘No,’ he murmured. ‘I know everyone in the room.’
York plucked his hat from the table and perched it on his head. ‘Here’s what I want you to do. Head upstairs and look around. Take your kit so it looks official. If you spot anybody you don’t recognise, find me.’
‘What will you be doing?’
‘Same thing. And Jonathan, not a word, okay? Keep this between us. If these people knew there was a cat amongst the pigeons, they’d freak. Not to mention our guy, who knows what he’d do to get out of here.’
York began moving casually away, but he paused beside Will Graham. The forensics man was covering Newport with a plastic sheet. The en-route Charles Kilroy would need to clear the body before he could examine it further.
Pushing through the ensemble of uniforms gathered in the kitchen, he scanned each of their faces. They looked back at him sceptically. He recognised them all. ‘Come on, you fucker,’ he muttered to no one. ‘I know you’re here. You wouldn’t miss this for the world.’
He left the kitchen through the side door and stepped into a dining room. Devoid of furniture, devoid of anything, it looked like Holly and David had been in the middle of decorating. The walls were bare plaster, the floor carpetless. The room lay bathed in shadow, and only one man resided. Back to York, he was examining something in his hands.
York stepped further into the room. ‘What’re you doing in here, son?’
The figure didn’t respond. He remained motionless, focused on whatever was in his hands.
Another step. ‘I’m talking to you, constable…’
York inched further forwards. Touching distance.
‘I’m going to ask you one more time,’ he warned. ‘Who are you, why are you off-post?’
Reaching out, he grabbed the figure’s arm and spun him around. The young officer freaked, pager in hand. ‘Oh my god, I’m so sorry, guv. I know I shouldn’t be in here.’
He took in the kid’s mid-twenty-ish face. ‘Why didn’t you answer me, what’re you playing at?’
‘It’s my girlfriend,’ he stammered.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Barlow, sir. Colin Barlow.’
He reached down and took the device from the officer's hand. ‘Want to tell me what’s going on, Barlow?’
‘It’s my girlfriend, sir, she's sick. I know I shouldn’t be in here but I just needed to see if she’d contacted me. I was only gone for a minute.’
York sighed and handed Barlow the pager back. ‘In future when somebody’s talking to you, Colin, answer them! I had images of me explaining to your parents why I put you in hospital.’
‘I will, sir,’ Barlow nodded. ‘Sorry, sir.’
‘Go on, get lost.’
As Barlow scampered from the room, York moved to the patio doors overlooking the back garden. He peered out into the heavy leaf of shadow overlapping the fence, the hedges. The evening was calm.
He took a deep breath, the aromas of bare wood and plaster filling his nostrils. A cat sauntered idly across the black blades of grass. The large oak in the far corner ebbed in the gentle breeze. Nothing else moved.
He squinted and looked back to the oak, the base of its trunk swallowed in the oily dark. Something was moving out there. Unhitching the lock he stepped outside, narrowed eyes locked on the tree. He wondered if it had been an illusion, nothing more than a trick of the mind brought on by an impossibly long day, and narcotics in the mix.
A few more steps.
Only ten or so yards from the tree now, he paused to glance over his shoulder. He could see officers inside the house; likely he was invisible to them.
He turned back to the oak and right there, in full view was the silhouette of a man standing with his back to the fence, eyes glinting in the moonlight. York held his ground, held the stare, his heart in his mouth. Perhaps twenty seconds passed. It seemed like a week. The silhouette’s eyes altered, turned up at the corners.
He’s smiling, York thought. The bastard is smiling.
As quickly as he appeared, the figure turned and scrambled over the fence with lightning agility. No hesitation, York plummeted forwards and thrust himself up, vaulting the fence and landing in a narrow alleyway, cats scarpering at the sound of his slapping feet.
Left.
Right.
There. Towards the end of the passage his target disappeared into a garden. He gave chase, dashing along the alley to find the gate locked. He kicked it hard, the flimsy lock shattering away from the jamb.
In time to see the figure disappearing into the house and locking the patio door, he sprinted through the garden picking up a cracked gnome as he ran. The glass door erupted inwards as the ornament struck it and he followed the debris, the crunch of glass under his feet.
Passing quickly through a living room, TV blaring out a rerun of some Australian soap, homeowner cowering against the back wall, he found the front door swinging on its hinges. He ran for it, realising the mistake, the red herring.
The target hadn’t left that way. He hadn’t left at all. He turned in time to catch the silhouette emerging from the shadows on the staircase, arms raised. York threw his hands up in time to deflect the swing of something solid and fell backwards through the open front door. He collided with the concrete path as the figure stepped over him and sprinted for the main road.
Back on his feet York lunged on, arm burning from the attack. Across the main street, heavy streams of traffic surged back and forth, killing machines made of steel and glass. In a screech of tyres and a blare of horns he ran out into the road, slid across the bonnet of an emergency stop and fell onto the opposite pavement, hip aching from the collision. Up
