Page 25

TWENTY-FOUR

There’d been an instant, no more than a fraction of a second really, when it had seemed as if Stuart Needham was looking right at him. Like their eyes had met through the spiderweb of the windscreen’s cracked glass, right before he’d rolled off the bonnet into the road.

Hello, goodbye, thump .

It wasn’t like Needham would have recognised him and the arsehole might well have been dead by then anyway, because the car was going at a fair old lick, but it was a nice moment, all the same.

He’d remember it for sure, same as he’d remember the look on Callaghan’s face when he realised where he’d seen that girl in the park before.

And Tully, of course, especially Tully, when him and his mates finally opened that box and saw what he’d left them.

A small token of appreciation from a grateful member of the public.

Grateful, hateful, close enough.

He’d been watching from behind the tape. The four of them grinning like idiots and high-fiving each other like it was the best thing that had ever happened to them. It was only doughnuts, for Christ’s sake.

Funny thing was, he hadn’t even intended to do Needham the night before.

He’d gone along to check the bloke’s routine again, that was all, have another look for cameras and what have you, but everything had lined up so perfectly, he would have been daft not to take his chance.

Needham had come trudging across the road – which was every bit as dark and deserted as it had been the previous night – bang on time, so he’d decided he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He did have one final look to make doubly sure there wasn’t anyone around and then he’d put his foot down.

He’d actually been wondering where that expression had come from – was it something to do with a horse’s teeth?

– when Needham had turned, far too late, obviously, and seen how comprehensively fucked he was.

Then there was only him shouting, with that high-vis jacket making him impossible to miss.

Frozen to the spot and screaming something nobody would hear, his last words drowned out by the roar of the engine before he was flying across the bonnet and their eyes had met.

Might have met.

He’d never believed any of that ‘life flashing before your eyes’ stuff, but he knew that if former PC Needham had been granted a super-quick recap of his old life on the thin blue line, it would not have made for comfortable viewing. A proper little horror film.

What was the name of that album his old man used to play?

Power, corruption and lies .

He decided to google the gift horse thing and was pleased to discover that he’d been right.

All about looking at a horse’s teeth to figure out its age.

As he was there anyway, he googled ‘hit-and-run Stoke Newington’ and ‘fatal car accident Hackney’ but nothing had made the news as yet.

So he googled ‘awkward family photos’ and looked at a few of those for a while, because they made him laugh.

His tea was all but cold, but he downed what was left of it anyway and rolled his chair across to a different screen.

Half a minute later he was happily scrolling through the latest posts in FUCK THE FILTH and STAB UP DA COPZ when he got an alert from his private chatroom.

It only took a few more clicks before he was looking at the series of messages that had arrived overnight from ButterflyGrrrl.

Sorry for being a bit shit and not getting back.

He didn’t know what to think, because even though he was pleased enough to find himself smiling, he was also pissed off.

Considering everything he’d done for her, ‘being a bit shit’ really didn’t cover it.

Not even close. He’d reached out to her and she’d chosen to ignore him, so he didn’t care how sorry she was, because it wasn’t sorry enough.

What the hell had she been doing for the last three days, anyway?

Granted, he hadn’t got a clue who she really was.

He didn’t know what she got up to when she wasn’t online or watching him stab rapists in the park.

She might have family commitments or a full-on job that kept her busy, though he seriously doubted it.

Judging from the look of her that night, she’d have spent all the time since walking the streets, or off her face on something or other.

She wasn’t a high-flyer, he knew that much.

It had crossed his mind, of course, that she might have decided to tell someone, but he wasn’t losing too much sleep over it.

He was fairly sure she wouldn’t, because of how involved she’d been, which meant she’d only be getting herself into serious trouble.

If she decided that she’d do it anyway, and more fool her, what could she actually tell anyone?

She knew no more about him than he knew about her.

While he made himself another tea, he tried to make up his mind about whether or not he’d respond.

If he chose to ignore her, it would be no less than she deserved, a taste of her own medicine.

If he banged out a reply right now and was all ‘hey, it’s great to hear from you’, he’d be letting her off the hook and she’d never learn to appreciate him properly.

By the time he sat down again, he’d decided, after carefully weighing it all up, that he would get back to her.

Not yet, though.

It wouldn’t hurt to leave her hanging for a while.

He read through her messages again and thought he could smell a bit of desperation.

He’d always had that feeling about her and guessed that she didn’t have a lot of people to turn to.

Nobody she could trust. He did understand that it would be hard to trust anyone after what she’d been through, but even so, he didn’t have her down as much of a party animal.

She wasn’t a social ButterflyGrrrl.

So, what’s next?

To be fair, it was a very good question.

Though who would have been a better one.