DEATHLOOP (23 page)

At his first interview with Zack Fortune he was rather perturbed that he did not display any give away signs of guilt until mention of the text message stopped him in his tracks, but this time, Brian did not need to do a refresher course in body language to tell him what he already knew, that Zack Fortune was as guilty as hell, it was written all over him.

“Would you know anything about that meeting?”

“No comment,” said Zack, his mind racing.

“Well perhaps this might jog your memory,” said Brian.

From some contraption somewhere came a recorded telephone conversation, between a police controller and a breathless Zack. It went like this:

“Emergency… which service do you require?”

“Ambulance… someone’s drowned in the river at Grey Pike Fell.”

“Where exactly are they?”

“There’s er… there’s a group of rocks sticking up, like… a bit like a dam, he’s there, wedged between them.”

“Can I have your name please, sir?”

Everyone waited for the reply which did not come. Three seconds later the phone disconnected. Josiah leant forward and flicked a switch as silence settled. Zack looked defeated which made Brian smile.

“I need time to consult with my client,” said Tracy, “we will make no further comment until we do.”

Brian loathed defence lawyers, every last one, but female defence lawyers he loathed the most. What sort of woman earned a living defending the rights of killers and rapists? This kind, that’s who, a fully paid up member of the pc brigade who banged on about the civil liberties of the very people who so readily deprived others of theirs, but he had dealt with Ms Tracy Bright before and once had made the mistake of underestimating her - never again. Begrudgingly, Brian agreed to move their interview, managing to imply that the postponement would do Zack no good at all.

On the way out of the police station Tracy advised Zack to consider his position very carefully before he spoke with her. Zack knew the score. If he admitted to being with Russell on the bridge that night she would have to inform the cops, he hadn’t forgotten all his criminal law.

“Thanks Tracy,” said Zack, just before she turned to walk away.

“What for?”

“Oh I don’t know… just being there I suppose…”

Zack’s sudden show of humility took Tracy completely by surprise. “It never rains but it pours, eh?” she said, flustered, and clutching at the first inanity that popped into her head, but touched none the less by what Zack had said.

Back home Zack fell asleep on the couch fully dressed. A few hours later the Dambusters march sounded from his top pocket. He snatched at his phone and answered straight away, hoping it might be Veronica.

“Zack? It’s Geoff. How goes it?”

“Oh… Geoff… yes, fine thanks.”

“Couldn’t pop in to see me could you, tomorrow at 2 would be good for me.”

Zack agreed to the request, managing to sound fully recovered and raring to get back into the saddle, but the thought of sitting across from Geoff and meeting his piercing gaze filled him with dread. Geoff Turner missed nothing, despite drifting around the office making out the modern world and all its accoutrements defeated him it was a façade. Geoff possessed a fearsome intellect that could pick up inconsistency and pretence at twenty paces.

Zack was curious as to why he had brought their meeting forward, but getting back to work would be no bad thing, he decided, if that was what Geoff had in mind. “The devil makes work for idle hands,” Sam had said to him archly at Cambridge once, when, within a couple of hours between lectures, Zack had managed to dump his girlfriend, down a handful of amphetamines, break into Justin’s flat and write ‘Sad Poofter’ across his bedroom wall in red paint. “He asked for it,” was all Zack would say about the incident, which followed Justin’s refusal to make him any more acid, but Zack took the point. Historically, Zack could remain on the straight and narrow only providing he stayed focused on tasks in hand, so working long hours for Nyman’s was helpful in that if nothing else.

The next day, on the way in to see Geoff, Zack tried calling Veronica again, but as usual it went to voice mail. He had one image in his mind that he could not shake off, and that was of a brooding, half naked Italian god flinging Veronica round his chichi Venetian villa in an orgy of rough sex and it just would not go away. Why else couldn’t he get through to her? Why else hadn’t she responded to the messages he’d left? But no more, he’d rung her seven times now, and that was enough. If she couldn’t be bothered to return his calls then he couldn’t be bothered to keep making them.

At Nyman’s, Sam was surprised to see Zack crossing reception and heading down the passageway towards Geoff’s office.

“Padre?” called Sam, a little bewildered.

Zack turned to face him and shrugged. “An audience with the king,” he said, “fingers crossed, huh?”

Sam put up both hands and crossed as many fingers as he was able. He remained looking after Zack as he continued to the end of the passageway and as he knocked on Geoff’s door. When Zack disappeared inside, Sam turned away, worried now at this new development. He hoped it wasn’t bad news, but the way things were panning out for Zack lately he couldn’t bank on it.

“Come on in,” Geoff said as Zack stuck his head round the door, “come on in and pull up a pew.”

Zack did as he was told and waited as Geoff took his seat opposite, his vast desk littered with adult toys and gadgets, always Geoff’s thing.

“So, how goes it?”

“I’m okay, rested, keen to get back to work.”

Zack saw Geoff pick up on the lie straight away. He had done his best, but when the hollow words came out he knew that he had failed. He decided to try again. “I’m really sorry, Geoff, I appreciate your patience with all this. I guess I went into overload or something,” said Zack, wondering if he had said enough.

“Not like you, I thought you thrived on stress.”

“Yes, that’s what I thought too.”

Geoff took his time before coming back. “Read much do you?” he said.

“Not as much as I should.”

“Join the club,” said Geoff, with an indulgent chuckle, “join the club… but I was reading this book the other day about human behaviour… about how we devise a
persona
for ourselves which is often far removed from who we really are, and what’s more we go to elaborate lengths to conceal this deception not only from others but essentially,
from ourselves
, with all the anxieties that involves.”

Zack brooded on this for a moment. It wasn’t small talk, Geoff didn’t do small talk, it had a very specific meaning or he would not have made mention of it at all.

“Sure, we delude ourselves all the time, and you’re right, it is curious… although….” Geoff looked up, interested now at the hesitation. “Maybe not,” said Zack.

“No?”

“Well, civilization has a vested interest in those who… succeed for instance, so it’s understandable for us to make out we are actually better than we really are.”

“But I would never have said it exercised you too much… fear of failure, that is.” Geoff stopped speaking suddenly and looked at him. “Am I right?”

“It’s never been a particular preoccupation, no.”

“But it’s not just that, apparently there are many more
bewildering aspects
to the theory… the compassionate man who makes out he’s a tyrant, the organized who make out that they’re anything but… curious don’t you think this self-deception?”

“I suppose it is,” said Zack eventually, looking straight at him, longing for the abrupt silence to end.

“So, young man, are we
ready to rumble
?” said Geoff, changing gear and gazing across at Zack now with a tight, rather condescending grin.

“Yes, I think we are,” said Zack, with much more conviction this time.

“Good. I’ve spoken with the Wahlbergs and they are as keen as mustard to get the show on the road, so we’ll say Monday next, shall we, as per…”

“Monday it is.”

Zack knew Geoff still had something else to say, it hung in the air and was palpable almost.

“We had a visitor here the other day, a young man by the name of Jason Heart,” said Geoff, trying to sound unfazed by the event and almost pulling it off.

“Yes I heard, I’m sorry about that, it was a mistake.”

“A word of advice, Zack…” said Geoff, coming round his desk now and leaning on it, “if you run with the hares
and
the hounds… you end up alienating just about everyone in both camps.”

Zack knew he wouldn’t get away completely unscathed and so was not surprised to hear Geoff’s warning. It wasn’t so much what he said, it was the look in his eye when he said it, and Zack was under no illusion that it was just an empty threat.

Zack was keen to find Sam and so made his way to his office as soon as Geoff’s door closed behind him. Sam too was itching to get the low down, so when he appeared at Sam’s open doorway, Sam led him off towards the lift without saying a word.

Zack and Sam’s favourite haunt in Fleet Street, The Two Bells, had stood on the same spot since about the time Dick Turpin embarked on his career as a highwayman. Tall people had to stoop to prevent them hitting their heads on oak beams that supported the sagging ceilings, and the 60 year old eccentric landlord, William Brocklebank, who ran the place like a boot camp, would only serve beer in half pint glasses, so The Two Bells was not for the casual drinker, or tourist, in fact anyone without an English pedigree was made very unwelcome indeed. However, Zack and Sam ticked all the right boxes with William who admired Zack’s insouciance and who had a soft spot for Sam, in thrall to his handsome friend and who, in comparison, looked even more like a fair ground attraction than he really was.

William shouted over to Zack and Sam from the other side of the bar and made the appropriate welcoming signs. He hadn’t seen them in a while and had wondered whether they had shifted their allegiance elsewhere. William would have been sorely disappointed had that been the case. It was not their money he was after, William was so wealthy money had long since lost its meaning, he just could not abide flakes and had these two turned out to be duplicitous in their drinking habits, not only would he have questioned his judgement, he would have considered it a personal slight.

Zack and Sam perched in their usual corner and contemplated their drinks for a few moments before speaking. “So how did it go?” said Sam who had agreed to wait until they were settled and with alcohol in front of them before getting the gen.

“Third strike and I’m out,” said Zack, “that’s the bottom line.”

Zack watched Sam’s brow furrow a little, like it always did when he hit him with bad news.

“Did he mention our friend, Jason Heart?”

“Oh yes, made it clear he didn’t think it a good idea to be involved with anyone or anything other than Nyman’s.”

“Which is fair enough,” said Sam.

“Listen, Sam, I’m sorry about last night,” said Zack, “I had no right to barge in on you like that… is Clarissa okay?”

Sam shrugged, but the look on his face told Zack he really didn’t want to talk about Clarissa. “What did Tracy want?” he said, trying to sound casual.

Zack was debating whether to tell Sam about Russell. He had never kept anything vaguely important from his old friend but he felt that maybe it was expecting too much of Sam to support him on a possible murder charge along with everything else. “Oh, nothing really,” said Zack, aware as he said it that he wouldn’t fool the village idiot with such a response, let alone his best friend.

Sam smiled. He knew Zack would tell him eventually, he always did, so why he even bothered pretending otherwise remained a mystery.

“I can take it you know… I’m a big boy now,” said Sam with a grin, “metaphorically speaking anyway.”

Zack looked at him for a moment then across at William who was being extremely rude to a couple of unwitting Germans, struggling to make themselves understood up at the bar. “Something happened when we were away,” said Zack tentatively, “more weirdness actually, and it ended in someone’s death.”

“Whose death?” asked Sam, alarmed.

“A medium, an old guy called Russell Garrity.”

“Okay, mate, probably best to start on page one.”

So Zack told Sam everything. It took quite some time but he soldiered on, refusing to answer Sam’s questions until he had finished.

“Ye gods,” said Sam, finally, not knowing quite what else to say.

Nodding over to the bar and breaking a rather depressed silence, Zack said: “The Japs had better watch out, those Germans have got his blood up by the looks of it.”

A party of Japanese students had foolishly ventured into the snug, keen to experience the pub’s special ambience and experience it they did. William told them that the bar was “full” and herded them out again in seconds flat.

“So how come he had your gym card?” asked Sam.

“I must have dropped it I suppose in the scuffle outside the church, I can’t think how else he got hold of it.”

“So why kick you out like that?”

“He was scared of me, Sam, terrified would be more accurate. Look, the guy was probably a con artist, they all are… but how come he knew about the regression without me saying a word about it?”

“But he didn’t provide any answers, did he, this know-all?”

“No, he didn’t, not one.”

“You know what I think?”

“Tell me.”

“I think it’s the drugs, mate,” said Sam, simply, “the acid in particular.”

“Yeah, well we’ve been through that, plus I haven’t had acid in fifteen years…”

“Three years ago, your birthday, remember? And anyway, apparently it doesn’t matter how much time has elapsed it can all come back with stress, or maybe in this case the hypnosis… hell I don’t know, but this is something
within you
, I’m convinced of it, not something that’s happening
to you
.”

“Please God you’re right,” said Zack quietly.

“You thought about a shrink?”

“
A shrink? Ha!
I never thought I’d hear you say that.”