The Stone Gallows (28 page)

‘You want me to tell that man you're awake?'

‘Not really,' I told her. ‘But I suppose you better.'

9.11.

The first thing my visitor said when he saw me was, ‘Jesus, don't tell me you've got a room of your own, you lucky bastard.'

The day just kept getting better and better. I hung my head and tried to look sicker than I really was. ‘Joe.'

He grabbed hold of my hand and squeezed it like he was checking to see if it was ripe. ‘You'll do anything to get a bloody day off.'

I raised a ghost of a smile. His response to stuff like this was predictably macho: lots of jokes to distract the victim from the emotional and physical pain. Although glad to see him, I wasn't sure that I would survive. ‘How did you find out?'

‘When I couldn't raise you on your mobile phone, I went round to your flat… or rather, what's left of it. Did we leave the grill on again?'

‘Something like that.' I told him what had happened, going over the details the way I had done last night with the two coppers. I concluded with our dramatic escape.

Joe said, ‘Fuck me, Mr Bond. I suppose you'll want to refer to me as ‘M' now.'

‘I have another nick-name for you.' I said. ‘Several, actually.'

‘I'm sure you do.' He patted me on the arm and sat down on the edge of the bed, despite the fact that there was a perfectly good chair less than three feet away. His thigh accidentally brushed mine and he jerked it away as if it had burned him. Although a fundamentally good man, Joe is ill at ease with how tactile society has become, especially between two men. Anything more than a handshake was conclusive proof of rampant homosexuality. I was actually glad of the accidental contact; Joe was much easier to handle when he was uncomfortable than when he was firing on all cylinders.

He slapped his own thighs to confirm his masculinity. ‘So. . . the police interviewed you.'

‘Yes they did.'

‘Any names come up?'

‘Dozens. I'm not a popular man, Joe. You know that.'

‘Anybody in particular?'

I shrugged. It didn't fool Joe for a second. He dipped his head and looked me dead in the eye. ‘Anybody whose name you didn't feel like sharing with the police?'

Yeah. Jason Campbell. I'd given the matter some thought, and come up with a feasible explanation of how he could have done it.

After he high-tailed it away from our little after-school discussion group, I'd sat in my car for a short while. No particular reason; I'd tapped out a quick text message to Liz, then phoned my service provider to buy some more air-time credit. I'd checked the log book of the car, wanting to know when the next MOT was due. All in all, maybe five minutes. Not long.

Long enough.

Jason could have driven around the corner and then turfed the girlfriend out on the street. From there, it would have been a simple matter to follow me home and figure out which flat I stayed in. Then it would be a case of waiting for darkness. Hell, he could even kill a little time by making a quick trip to a nearby petrol station and invest-ing in a length of rubber tubing and a petrol can. There were two such places within half a mile of my flat, open twenty four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-three days a year.

As the kids say,
Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy
.

I had good reasons for not mentioning his name to the police.

Firstly, I didn't want to have to explain why he might have a grudge against me. A decent lawyer would make mincemeat of my claims to have seen him fleeing the scene of the crime – it was dark, the distance was significant, I was under extreme stress; was it not possible, ladies and gentleman of the jury, that Mr Stone
wanted
to see the accused?

The bottom line was, the police might be able to build a solid case against him, but only while simultaneously doing the same thing with me.

Second was Harper. There may have been little love lost between us, but I had absolutely no intention of dropping him in it. Especially as I had yet to collect my money.

Lastly, there was the nature of the crime itself. Arson is a sneaky, cowardly act; easy to commit because you don't make direct contact with your victims. It's simply a more extreme version of harassment, like slashing somebody's tyres. Jason probably hadn't even considered the potential consequences of his act.

But he would. I planned to make sure of that. For Liz's sake as well as my own peace of mind.

I told Joe everything. I told him about the work I did for Harper. I told him about meeting Jason outside the school, and how I had branded his hand with his own cigarette lighter. Turned out, Joe already knew most of it anyway, and was somewhat less than impressed. ‘You want to watch Harper. He's a bastard.'

‘He says equally complimentary things about you.'

‘I just bet he does.' Joe's right hand crept into the inside pocket of his jacket and then stopped. I knew what he was reaching for: his cigarettes. Yet another habit that alienated him from today's accelerated, health-conscious society. ‘So when are you getting out?'

‘Can you buy me some clothes? And let me stay in your spare room?'

He nodded.

I pushed myself upright in the bed. ‘Today.'

9.12

When I told the staff that I planned to discharge myself, Harriet the Nurse quickly turned into Harriet the Spy, wasting no time in reporting my intentions to a member of the medical staff. I had a terse conversation with a Senior Registrar called Dr Dilawari about how irresponsible I was being. Didn't I know that I needed at least another twenty-four hours observation before they could give me the all-clear? Didn't I know how hard all the staff had worked looking after me? Was I not grateful for that? Did I not want to express my gratitude by staying until I was fit for discharge?

Probably, yes, very, and no. In that order. Dilawari sat in a hurt silence for a few minutes, possibly hoping that he could guilt me into staying. When he finally accepted that hell wasn't going to freeze over, he produced a disclaimer so comprehensive that it would absolve the Hospital Trust of liability under just about any circumstances; if I were to collapse within a week of leaving the hospital, and the attending medical staff, instead of loading me into an ambulance and driving me to hospital, accidentally amputated my head, then it would be my own sweet fault. I signed his disclaimer without protest, hoping that whoever was trying to kill me would take at least seven days to plan the next attempt.

The truth was that I was very much aware that I was discharging myself against medical advice. Although I felt like shit, I didn't have time to lie about in bed waiting to get better. I had to find the person or persons responsible for last night's shenanigans. Also, I had no intention of forgetting about Susan McPherson. Agreeing to help her may not have been my wisest decision, but that didn't alter the fact that she was in a world of trouble and I had given my word.

While this was going on, Joe made a brief shopping trip and returned with new clothes for me. Just the basics: plain black T-shirt, blue jeans, socks and underwear. While he waited outside, I dressed as quickly as I could. The T-shirt was a size too small, making me look like I had more muscle tone than I actually had, and the jeans were about an inch too short. Luckily, the shoes he had bought were hi-tops which came all the way up my ankles, so it wasn't obvious. I dressed as quickly as I could, desperate to lose the feeling of vulnerability caused by wandering about in NHS-issue pyjamas. The new clothes might have been a gift, but they were mine, and I could be reasonably sure that nobody had pissed or died in them.

I thanked the nurses and said my goodbyes, making sure that they knew that my decision to leave had absolutely nothing to do with the care I had received. A few of them didn't recognise me; all of them were too busy to do anything more than wave.

9.13.

Liz had also been given a single room. I found her sitting upright in bed concentrating on something that might have been shepherd's pie.

She was in a standard hospital night-gown – yellow roses on a pink background - but somehow she still managed to look good. When she saw me standing in the doorway she put down her fork and smiled. ‘Hi.'

‘Hi. How are you?'

‘I'm fine. I'm just peachy. It's a fairly standard fracture of the tibia.

I get to take the next two months off work. Paid, of course. I can catch up on my reading.' She noticed my outfit and gave me a searching look. ‘Please tell me you haven't discharged yourself.'

I nodded without enthusiasm. Something told me that she was going to give me the same lecture that Dilawari had. Only difference was, I cared about what Liz thought of me.

She didn't waste any time letting me know. ‘You arsehole. I was trying to sort us out with a shared room. We could have had nooners.'

I looked at her leg, which was hanging from a sling six inches above the bedclothes. ‘I think we're a while away from that.'

She winked at me. ‘You would be surprised at what you can achieve when your heart's set on it.'

I was shocked. Well, not quite shocked. More surprised. I'd wanted to see her, not just because I wanted to reassure myself that she really was alright, but because I wanted to give her the chance to dump me quickly and cleanly. ‘Doesn't it bother you? That somebody tried to kill us last night?'

She picked up the fork and shovelled more of the pie into her mouth. ‘Actually, I find it rather a turn-on.'

‘You can't be serious. Because of me you're going to spend the next. . .' I waved a vague arm in the direction of her leg, ‘. . . two months in a cast. We both very nearly died last night. Are you seriously telling me that you're still interested?'

She pointed at the chair next to her bed with the fork. ‘Sit down and shut up.'

I did as I was told. She shovelled the final piece of pie into her mouth, making me wait for what she had to say.

‘First of all, it's four weeks, not two months. Second, yes I do find it a turn on. You should have realised by now that if you were an accountant or an Internet Support Engineer, I wouldn't have the slightest interest in you. I like bad boys. I'm not proud of it, but there you are. It might get me in trouble sometimes, but I can't help it. And thirdly. . . ' she looked at me archly, ‘. . . interested in what?'

‘Interested in. . . me?' I said. ‘You and me? Us?'

She clutched her hands to her breasts and fluttered her eyelashes.

‘As in, do I want us to live together in a little house and have identical twins and a Labrador called Binky? I could bake cakes and you could mow the lawn at weekends? Is that kind of what you had in mind?'

I wasn't sure how to answer that, so I didn't. She put her hand on my arm. ‘Look, I'll admit that the idea is not without its attractions.

But let's not get carried away. We hardly know each other. Just because we're sexually compatible doesn't mean we can go planning a future together. So let's just go on as we are – two people who are more than friends and less than partners.'

‘Why did you say that you loved me?'

‘Because. . . I was scared. I've never said those words to a bloke before. People say stupid things when they're frightened. I thought I was going to die, and I didn't want to die without having said it.' She shook her head. ‘Look, don't go reading too much into it. I say it to my friends all the time. Let's not be one of those stupid couples who break up because one of them says the wrong thing at the wrong time.

There's more important things in the world.'

People did do stupid things in times of stress. I could testify to that.

I decided to let the matter drop. ‘So what happens now?'

‘We carry on as we were. Boyfriend and girlfriend. We can go out on dates and rent videos. You can bring a bottle of wine over and I'll cook for you. But let's not put so much pressure on ourselves that we screw things up before we've had a chance. How does that sound?'

‘It sounds good to me. But aren't you worried you'll get hurt?'

‘Don't flatter yourself, pal.'

‘I mean physically.'

‘I know.' She shrugged, the nightie slipping off one of her shoulders and showing off pale, perfect skin. I was suddenly extremely grateful that she didn't want to break up with me. ‘Of course I'm worried. But let's not forget: you saved our lives last night.

You kept it together when every other man I've been with in my life would have dived underneath the bedclothes and hid. That makes me a very lucky girl. Besides, I'm quite sure that what happened last night is a fairly infrequent occurrence.'

I decided not to tell her about my near-miss on the stairwell two days earlier. For all we knew, I could just be having a run of bad luck.

Instead, I bent over and kissed her cheek. She turned her lips to mine, and we stayed like that for a few seconds. When we finally separated, she whispered in my ear, ‘Besides, you just might be worth it.'

10.1.

Joe was waiting for me in the car park, behind the wheel of the Jag he had owned for the past thousand years. He watched me climb into my seat, noticing the smile on my face. ‘You know, for a man who lost his home and all his possessions in a fire less than twelve hours ago, you seem awfully chipper. Who is she?'

‘She's just a friend.'

‘Who is she?'

‘She's just a friend.'

‘Who is she?'

‘She's. . . just. . . a. . . friend.' I repeated. ‘Is this how you used to question suspects? Hammer away at them until they finally cracked?'

‘Who is she?'

I tried to distract him. ‘What the hell happened between you and Harper?'

‘Who is she?'

‘Joe, I swear to God, let it drop. Or I'll kill you.'

‘Don't do that. You might get blood on your fancy new outfit.'