‘Good evening,’ said Fleet, and he made to keep walking. The lion – a match for Fleet’s height and build – stepped across his path.
Fleet raised his chin. ‘Can I help you with something?’
For some reason this was considered funny. The men’s laughter carried with it a stench of lager. From somewhere nearby Fleet heard a drunken babble of conversation, rising and fading, as though a door had been opened and then shut again. The Hare & Tortoise – the pub Anne had told him about when he’d checked in, and from which the men in front of him had no doubt recently spilled.
Fleet took a moment to survey their faces. Three of them he didn’t recognise. One, he did.
‘Looking for someone, were you?’ said Lion, who to match his status within the group had a mane of unkempt hair, long enough that he would probably have been able to tame it into a ponytail – though Fleet had to wonder what the bloke’s mates, who hardly seemed in touch with their feminine side, would have made of that.
Hyena One – spotty and shaven-headed – cackled again. Hyena Two, thickset and bald, belched. The fourth man stood twitching quietly in the background. The one Fleet recognised: Mason’s father, Stephen Payne.
Fleet, who’d dealt with plenty of drunks in his time, found Payne’s manner difficult to read. Was he nervous? Excited? Afraid, perhaps? And if so, of Fleet’s temper – or of whether he’d be able to control his own?
‘Shame what happened to your sister,’ said Lion, prodding his chin towards the river. ‘It was before my time, of course. Must only have been ten when it happened. When she topped herself, I mean. But Stephen here remembers it. Don’t you, Steve?’
Excited. Stephen Payne was definitely excited. He’d started nodding and seemed to be finding it difficult to stop. His pupils were dilated, too, meaning it perhaps wasn’t only lager he’d been indulging in this evening.
‘Still, some people round here say it was justice. Say that’s what happens when you go around telling lies.’
‘Is that right?’ said Fleet, focusing on Payne. ‘So how come you’re still knocking around, Steve?’
Which was stupid. But stopped Payne nodding, at least. A memory came back to Fleet, of a situation similar to this one. Fleet had been outnumbered on that occasion, as well, though back then he’d known exactly who he’d been dealing with. Stephen Payne, obviously, a year younger than him, though at the time half a head taller. Nigel Sullivan, built like a post box, with an intellect to match. Matthew Morgan. Morgue, to his friends – as in, shit with him and he’ll happily put you in one. And James Cooper. Little Jimmy Cooper. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. Unless that fly happened to be a fourteen-year-old girl he’d taken a fancy to, but who’d made the dubious decision not to fancy him back.
When Fleet had confronted them – thirteen days too late for it to have made any difference; hell, a year too late, it had turned out – they’d kicked the living shit out of him. And Fleet had welcomed it. Self-flagellation: when Holly had used the word, she’d known as well as Fleet did that he knew exactly what it meant.
Looking at Payne now, Fleet saw nothing about the man that came as a surprise. He was tall, and carried weight, but nevertheless managed to look malnourished. There was a hollowness to his cheeks and a pallor to his skin that suggested it had been years since he’d last sat in sunlight, and longer since he’d come within a fork’s distance of a vegetable. But none of that made him look weak, exactly. Maybe he would have struggled to lift a barbell at the gym, but in a pub brawl his fists would no doubt land quick and heavy. Or even in his son’s bedroom at home.
What surprised Fleet more than Payne’s appearance was his own reaction to being in his presence. It was the first time since Fleet’s arrival back in town that he had been. Predictably enough, Payne hadn’t come to the police station with his son – probably because he’d been worried that if he set foot in there, they wouldn’t let him back out. But he’d been on Fleet’s mind. Of course he had. And seeing Payne now, Fleet felt an old familiar rage – a readiness to risk his reputation, his career, his freedom, for the chance to rip the man’s throat out.
‘Different faces, same old story. Eh, Steve?’ said Fleet, gesturing loosely around the group. ‘The only difference now is that people in this town seem to have cottoned on to what a lowlife you are. Is that why the buddies you had back in the day decided to ditch you? Just like your old lady, from what I heard.’
‘No one ditched me,’ said Payne. ‘I ditched them. Waste of oxygen, the lot of them. Decided it was time to get me a new life.’
‘A neat trick, that,’ said Fleet. ‘Moving on without moving anywhere.’
Out of his old gang of four, it was only Stephen Payne who hadn’t left town. Fleet knew because one of them had written to him. The post box, fittingly: Nigel Sullivan. Five, six years ago now, this had been. In shockingly bad handwriting and with spelling that would have foxed the Forensics lads, Sullivan had not only revealed what his former friends had amounted to (Jimmy Cooper, the ringleader, was an accomplished housebreaker – or not so accomplished, arguably, given the amount of time he’d evidently spent in prison; Matthew ‘Morgue’ Morgan was dead), he’d also apologised for everything he’d been a part of. He’d listed things Fleet hadn’t even been aware had happened, though they didn’t fundamentally alter the
