Twist of Fate by D. L. Mark

Author:D. L. Mark [Mark, D.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803287720
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

15

Mikel Klein seems like an entirely different person now that his chemical balance is hovering around his sweet spot. He’s the right level of intoxicated and medicated to be able to access most of his memory and find the right sounds to make the pictures in his brain into words. Billy is enjoying his company. Of the two of them, Klein looks the smarter. He’s wearing a blue hoodie and a long grey cashmere coat. Billy’s still in the same suit. It’s been soaked and dried out so many times today that it’s starting to look like scrunched-up tracing paper. Billy can’t help but feel as though it suits him.

‘…stress, innit? Proper stress. You don’t know you’re self-medicating, you don’t realise that the things that get you through are the things that are starting to kill you, trying to kill you, and then there’s a point where you’re not trying to sustain your life any more, you’re trying to sustain your addiction and all your priorities change and next thing you’re stealing from your wife… stealing from your wife… and your mam and you’re begging outside the offy trying to get the three quid you need to take the edge off the hangover, to soften the day… and then you realise that you’re not just taking some time out, you’re not just on a bender, you’re homeless and… you’re homeless and… you’ve got nowhere to go and if you don’t find a blanket… find a blanket, you’re going to freeze to death but that isn’t too bad because at least the pain will be over…’

Savage has stopped taking notes. Klein has a way of talking that even the finest of secretaries would struggle to transcribe. He’s talking while taking bites of a huge glazed doughnut, managing to cram the confection into his mouth without in any way impeding the flow of words. He’s got a bottle of ginger wine sticking out of the pocket of his coat. Billy keeps looking at it with envy.

‘You said you’d remembered Jethro,’ says Billy, trying to nudge him onto the right conversational track. They’re leaning against the railings, looking out onto the water, the Tower of London to their rear. It’s bitterly cold but the rain has let up long enough for Billy’s clothes to stop sticking to him, even if his shoes still squelch with every step. They’ve had to watch the six p.m. briefing on their phones. They haven’t got time to stop what they’re doing just to make sure that every bugger else knows exactly what they’ve been working their backsides off to uncover. The top team know that they’re following up something useful and that’s just about enough to excuse them the tedium of doing things by the book.

‘Picture in the paper, picture in the paper,’ says Klein, nodding and spraying crumbs. ‘Better picture, more like himself, if you get me. You should have said… should have said. My pal Gordo told me it was Jesus who got done. If you’d said it were Jesus, I’d have known from the off.

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