The Quorum by Kim Newman

Author:Kim Newman [Newman, Kim]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781781165553
Publisher: Titan
Published: 2013-09-03T22:32:00+00:00

* * *

The police would be there inside five minutes, which didn’t give her long with Salt and Pepper. Katie let her use a stockroom and even agreed to watch over the Invader. The Shoplift Twins sat on cardboard boxes of canned spinach.

‘New Year’s Eve,’ she reminded, ‘after midnight but before one. Muswell Hill Road.’

‘The nutter,’ Pepper said, remembering. ‘You were his girl.’

‘Not quite,’ she snapped.

‘Fucking weird, sister,’ Pepper shook his head, dazed and embarrassed. He would like to be a professional. Salt was just a stack of humiliated resentment. Katie had stripped off his shell-suit in public and hauled a frozen steak out of his shorts.

‘What kind of neon slime has nothing better to do on New Year’s Eve than beat up strangers?’

‘Weren’t no stranger,’ Pepper said.

‘Shut up,’ Salt put in. ‘Just shut up.’

‘Neil wasn’t a stranger?’

‘Neil?’

‘The nutter you call him. The man you thumped.’

‘His name was Neil?’ Pepper asked.

‘Fucking nutter,’ Salt said.

‘Where do you know him from?’

‘Tin Woodsman.’

‘The pub?’

‘Yeah. Met him in there pissing it up on New Year’s Eve. Bought us drinks, gave us money, bought us off.’

‘And you beat him up? You guys are liquid filth.’

‘He paid us,’ Pepper insisted.

A dizzying chasm yawned. Her mind stood on the edge, looking over. Miles below, jagged rocks waited, washed by foamy tide.

‘He paid you to beat him up?’

‘Shut the fuck up, Bendy,’ Salt said. ‘She’s Old Bill.’

‘Your name is Bendy?’ she asked Pepper. ‘I’m a private detective. I don’t give Shit One about Sainsbury’s. The prices are extortion, anyway. I’m interested in New Year’s Eve.’

Pepper tried to explain. ‘This bloke you call Neil. The nutter. He paid us to put a bloke in hospital. Told us where, told us when, told us what the target would be wearing...’

‘He had on the same kit in the Woodsman,’ Salt said, joining in. ‘Only we never noticed. Fucking nutter, John.’

‘We took his drinks and his dosh and did the job. When we twigged, we scarpered. He paid us for more than a couple of bops and a lick, but we didn’t want no more of it. In the Woodsman, he said the blowlamp he wanted done over was picking on him, screwing him over all the time. He told jinx stories, about losing gaffs, having his melts nicked. Broke your heart.’

‘You’re sentimental, Bendy.’

‘Fuck you, sister.’

‘You wish,’ she said, pouting a kiss-mouth. Katie let two policemen in to make the formal arrest.

Sally watched Pepper and Salt get read their rights. She had plea-bargained with Katie, getting out of making a statement. The supermarket had enough evidence to make a case without her. One of the policemen already knew both parties and greeted them like old friends.

He paid you to beat him up. She felt shed been sent back to Go and robbed of her £200.

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