The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime 08 by Maxim Jakubowski (ed)

Author:Maxim Jakubowski (ed) [Jakubowski, Maxim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: detective, mystery, British, anthology, crime
ISBN: 9781849017619
Google: 7ACEAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Constable & Robinson
Published: 2011-04-21T23:55:59+00:00

“At least,” he said, re-hooking her bra, “let me come in with you. Just so he knows you’re not alone.”

“So he knows there’s someone like him, just ready to go.”

“Fuck sakes, Janey … ”

“You can come in,” she said. “If you can admit that you need to come in for you, then you can come in.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’m only doing it for me. So my conscience is clear. Happy?”

“No,” she said. She walked to the car barefoot.

He drove up past the canal, out through Donnybrook, taking the N11 all the way to Foxrock. He vaguely remembered the estate from the house-warming party. When they pulled in to the kerb she stared into the setting sun, face immobile below the sunglasses he’d given her.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said.

“See the icebergs?” she said.

“What?”

She nodded, and he turned to look. Light wisps of orange-tinged cirrus hung suspended above the sun. And it was true: three small, hard, glittering clouds had the appearance of icebergs floating in a patch of light blue sky. “How would that happen?” she said. “What are they?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

She couldn’t reach up far enough to open the front door and so she handed him the key. They walked through the downstairs, then checked upstairs, but he wasn’t home. She didn’t want him to wait.

“Not here,” he said. “But I’m going to wait down the road. And when he comes home, I’m coming back in. Someone needs to tell him what’s what.”

“And what’s that?” she said. They were standing in the hall, the front door ajar.

“This isn’t about you,” he said. “It’s about him.”

“It’s about you,” she said.

“He has to learn. I’m only going to warn him.”

She bit her lip and looked down. “It wasn’t Sean,” she whispered.

He frowned. “Then who?”

“I don’t know.”

“You were jumped?”

“Jay,” she pleaded, “trust me.”

But he was adamant, insisting. She backed away into the corner behind the door and when he took a step towards her the words tumbled out as if they might fend him off. Job. Lost. Mortgage. Sean. Friend. Company.

“No fooling around, though,” she said. She sounded dull, a sleepwalker. “That was the deal. Just company. For the races at Leopardstown. Just drinks and company.”

And all he could think to say was, “You walked all the way in from fucking Leopardstown?”

“There was another girl,” she said. “In the room. I think she was Thai.” She reached up and removed the sunglasses, holding them out for him to take. Her right eye was closed behind a blackening bruise spreading from forehead to cheek. “They preferred her.”

He swallowed dry. “Where is she now?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“What room, though?”

“I don’t fucking know,” she whispered.

He didn’t believe her.

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