In the Still of the Night

Mike’s eyes widened. He tried not to sound too eager. ‘What?’

‘Not over the phone. And I want something in exchange.’

Mike smiled cynically. ‘Oh, blackmail, is it? If she doesn’t pay up you’ll go to the press with what you know? You’d better talk to her, not me – or to the company’s lawyers.’

Again he was about to hang up, but the man quickly said, ‘No, you don’t understand. I don’t want to talk to any lawyers. Look, I’m just around the corner from your place – I can prove what I’m saying.’

‘Who is this? How do you know where I live? Where did you get my phone number? Do you work for the company – is that it? Do I know you? Is that why you’ve rung me instead of contacting the company or Annie herself?’

‘Yes, I know you, and I think you’ll be very interested in what I’m going to show you. You hate her, don’t you? If I go to the press they’ll probably swindle me. I’m not a famous actor; they won’t dare pay you in peanuts, though. I think we can make a deal, don’t you?’

Mike hesitated only a second or two. It wasn’t so much the money, although that could be useful; it was more the sheer enjoyment of dragging Annie Lang even deeper into the mud. She had sneered at him once too often.

11

Tom Moor rang Sean on his mobile phone at eight o’clock. ‘Where the hell are you? I’m at your place.’

‘I’m sitting outside Annie’s house, waiting for her – she’s vanished again. Have you found Keats yet?’

‘I’ve found out too much to talk over the phone – I’ll come there. Wait for me.’

He hung up and Sean yawned, stretching and looking at his watch. It would take Tom a good twenty minutes to drive here. Sean needed to stretch his legs, he was cramped and he needed to go to the lavatory. He got out, locked his car and walked up the road to a pub he had noticed on the corner. A sign swung over head, creaking in the wind – a very shabby-looking lion, the red paint largely gone.

Opposite on the other side of the road which made a T-junction with Annie’s road stood a few shops; a butcher’s, a greengrocer’s, a newsagent’s. They were all shut now. There was nobody much about in this suburban street. People were home from work and watching TV or eating supper. A memory stirred in Sean’s mind – hadn’t Annie mentioned that her mother once ran a shop just round the corner from their house? Maybe it was one of these? None of the shop fronts carried the name Lang. No doubt it had been changed when her mother sold out.

Sean walked into the pub; it wasn’t busy, just a few regulars playing darts and listening to a juke box. They looked round at Sean hopefully. ‘D’you play? Want a game?’

He shook his head. ‘Sorry, not stopping.’ He bought a couple of cans of ice-cold beer to take back with him, used the lavatory, then walked down the road again. In case Annie was back he rang her doorbell; the house was still dark, no sign of her.

Five minutes later, Tom Moor’s car drew up and he got out and came to sit in Sean’s Porsche. He looked tired. There were flecks of red in the whites of his eyes and a telltale muscle jerking beside his mouth, noticed Sean with contrition.

Tom talked as fast as ever, though, and didn’t complain. Much. ‘God, I’m dead on my feet. Why can’t you bring me nice quiet cases I can follow up on the telephone sitting in my own chair in my own office?’

Sean offered him one of the cans of beer, still dewy from the pub fridge. Tom drank it as if it was milk, his eyes closed.

‘Man, that was good. You can read my mind.’ He scrunched the can and dropped it on the floor. ‘OK. Still no news of Roger Keats. Chorley’s people are on his trail since his wife told them he’d confessed to killing Derek.’

‘Who’s your line into Chorley’s office now?’

Tom laid a finger along his nose. ‘Ask no questions, hear no lies. Anyway, so far they haven’t found this guy Keats. Meanwhile I’ve checked out Johnny Tyrone for you. Now he was easy. The magazine were very open about his background. In fact, they’re proud of him. They boasted about where they’d got him from. He’s just done eight years for attempted murder.’

‘What?’ Sean hadn’t expected that. His jaw dropped.

Tom Moor

grinned at his visible surprise. ‘Yeah. He stole a car, was stopped by a police constable, and bashed his head in, left him for dead. He got away, but later the same night he was arrested after a car chase and charged with attempted murder in the furtherance of a crime – the poor bastard he hit didn’t die, but his brains never worked so good since. Tyrone was found guilty, got ten years, should have got out on parole after about six – he was a model prisoner, it seems, no trouble at all – until there was another incident. He had a fight with a prisoner and injured him pretty badly. No explanation, neither of the men would talk, but it set his parole back, which is why he did eight years. Seems he was a journalist before he went to prison and while he was there he edited the prison magazine – that’s how he met the editor of this crime magazine, he wrote articles for them about life in prison and some on big-time criminals, the editor liked his stuff and he was offered a job when he got out.’

Ignoring all the career details, Sean said, ‘So he’s violent and dangerous.’

He couldn’t help a quiver of satisfaction; his instincts about the man had been spot on. Once a cop, always a cop, he thought. I knew. I just knew.

And Annie was with this man somewhere. Did she have any idea about all this? Surely she wouldn’t be seeing the guy if she did?

‘He has a rather sad family history, too,’ Tom said.

‘Par for the course with types like that,’ said Sean, not wanting to be forced to have any sympathy for the man at all. ‘I’m a great believer in genetics. I don’t hold with all that stuff about it being society’s fault.’

‘Fifty-fifty,’ argued Tom. ‘Genetics and environment, they’re both important. Even a basically good kid can turn bad if he gets kicked around all his life – I’ve seen it, time and again. They get mad because they aren’t getting nowhere however hard they try, and it’s damned unfair, and then they start on drugs and next thing their whole lives are a mess.’