interview room saying nothing to anyone about anything. The hired help he and Dean had brought along couldn’t speak English, or wouldn’t, and the police were still trying to figure out what language he was refusing to answer questions in.
Asked if I wanted to press charges, I said no. I had no lawyer, and I was sure that Sherwood retained someone to look after his chimpanzees. By the time he or she had finished plaiting the facts into decorative knotwork it would look like I had laid into two big-hearted blokes who had been washing cars for charity. The legal system wasn’t there to establish the truth, I knew, just to bang someone up and be done with it, and I wasn’t going to risk that someone being me. I didn’t check the statement over, of course. I just scrawled a squiggly line at the bottom so I’d finally be free to go.
As I stepped out of the nick and down its wet steps into the night, an ice-cold breeze sliced into me. I had no idea where the hell I was or which direction was home, but a longsquint at a map in a nearby bus shelter gave me my bearings, and I pointed my feet east and started to run.
OK, so I’d been wrong—Nicky had left the country and taken my money with her. But why? The cops didn’t seem to think that part was important. Who exactly had split her lip and blacked her eye the night she left? She had been thumped in the ring that morning, yeah, but with blows to the body, and she’d been wearing a sparring helmet. The last time I saw her face it was as pretty as it had always been, if a little pale and tense. She hadn’t fled the country of her own free will—she’d been frightened out, and whoever had done that to her had screwed me in the process.
I wondered if McCoy had asked Nicky’s husband Harry Anderson about his wife’s battered face. Anderson would have denied knowing anything about her injuries, I was sure, and that would be that. Even those photographs didn’t constitute enough evidence to charge him, if the witness, and the victim, wasn’t around any more. But I didn’t need the same standard of proof as the cops. Maybe I should interview Anderson my own way.It might not get my money back, but I really wanted to have a go at somebody, and Nicky wasn’t here, and he was.
It was late at night and the suburban streets were broad and dark and silent as I ran east. Eventually I began to recognize a few landmarks: the spires, parks and crossroads that had once marked the villages on London’s fringes, before the city had sprawled outwards, submerging and drowning them in a flood of dirty yellow brick. Buses blazing with cold blue light rumbled past, empty but for wilting shift workers and scruffy students who had run out of drinking money, and I let them all pass me, and kept running.
The gym doors were unlocked, and although I was breathless and sweaty I took the stairs two at a time, half expecting to find Dean and another bunch of hired knuckleheads trashing the place. But the place was empty and silent and neat and tidy, and the floor had been mopped. I saw Delroy emerging from the direction of the kitchen, weary and demoralized, like a big old bull nosing around a meadow for shelter and rest.
“Delroy?”
“Finn, hey. I thought those bastards would keep you locked up all night.”
“Thanks for earlier. That was one hell of a punch you laid on that guy.”
“Ach, he was out of condition, and all over the place. Boy learned his fighting off Hollywood movies.” But for all his bravado there was a sad and bitter edge to Delroy’s voice that I had never heard before. I tried to lighten the mood.
“You’ve done a great job cleaning up. I might have a lie-in tomorrow.”
“We both can, I think,” said Delroy. “It’s about time.” He was moving from workout machine to workout machine, pretending to wipe them down, and avoiding my eye.
“Del?” I said. “You OK?”
“I never said thank you, Finn,” said Delroy. “For the chance to get back to
Asked if I wanted to press charges, I said no. I had no lawyer, and I was sure that Sherwood retained someone to look after his chimpanzees. By the time he or she had finished plaiting the facts into decorative knotwork it would look like I had laid into two big-hearted blokes who had been washing cars for charity. The legal system wasn’t there to establish the truth, I knew, just to bang someone up and be done with it, and I wasn’t going to risk that someone being me. I didn’t check the statement over, of course. I just scrawled a squiggly line at the bottom so I’d finally be free to go.
As I stepped out of the nick and down its wet steps into the night, an ice-cold breeze sliced into me. I had no idea where the hell I was or which direction was home, but a longsquint at a map in a nearby bus shelter gave me my bearings, and I pointed my feet east and started to run.
OK, so I’d been wrong—Nicky had left the country and taken my money with her. But why? The cops didn’t seem to think that part was important. Who exactly had split her lip and blacked her eye the night she left? She had been thumped in the ring that morning, yeah, but with blows to the body, and she’d been wearing a sparring helmet. The last time I saw her face it was as pretty as it had always been, if a little pale and tense. She hadn’t fled the country of her own free will—she’d been frightened out, and whoever had done that to her had screwed me in the process.
I wondered if McCoy had asked Nicky’s husband Harry Anderson about his wife’s battered face. Anderson would have denied knowing anything about her injuries, I was sure, and that would be that. Even those photographs didn’t constitute enough evidence to charge him, if the witness, and the victim, wasn’t around any more. But I didn’t need the same standard of proof as the cops. Maybe I should interview Anderson my own way.It might not get my money back, but I really wanted to have a go at somebody, and Nicky wasn’t here, and he was.
It was late at night and the suburban streets were broad and dark and silent as I ran east. Eventually I began to recognize a few landmarks: the spires, parks and crossroads that had once marked the villages on London’s fringes, before the city had sprawled outwards, submerging and drowning them in a flood of dirty yellow brick. Buses blazing with cold blue light rumbled past, empty but for wilting shift workers and scruffy students who had run out of drinking money, and I let them all pass me, and kept running.
The gym doors were unlocked, and although I was breathless and sweaty I took the stairs two at a time, half expecting to find Dean and another bunch of hired knuckleheads trashing the place. But the place was empty and silent and neat and tidy, and the floor had been mopped. I saw Delroy emerging from the direction of the kitchen, weary and demoralized, like a big old bull nosing around a meadow for shelter and rest.
“Delroy?”
“Finn, hey. I thought those bastards would keep you locked up all night.”
“Thanks for earlier. That was one hell of a punch you laid on that guy.”
“Ach, he was out of condition, and all over the place. Boy learned his fighting off Hollywood movies.” But for all his bravado there was a sad and bitter edge to Delroy’s voice that I had never heard before. I tried to lighten the mood.
“You’ve done a great job cleaning up. I might have a lie-in tomorrow.”
“We both can, I think,” said Delroy. “It’s about time.” He was moving from workout machine to workout machine, pretending to wipe them down, and avoiding my eye.
“Del?” I said. “You OK?”
“I never said thank you, Finn,” said Delroy. “For the chance to get back to
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