Also by David Jackson and available from Viper
The Resident
THE RULE
DAVID JACKSON
For Irene
PROLOGUE
‘Bloody hell. Not you lot again.’
The furious manner in which Suzy Carling was drying her hands on a faded tea towel threatened to peel off her skin. She turned away from her front door and marched back into the gloomy interior of her terraced house.
Detective Inspector Hannah Washington looked at her colleague standing next to her.
‘I think that’s her way of inviting us in.’
Detective Constable Marcel Lang nodded. ‘She’s obviously in a rush to get the kettle on. I do like a friendly welcome.’
They entered the hallway. Marcel closed the front door and said, ‘I hope she’s got some Hobnobs in. Or KitKats. I’m not fussy.’
‘Didn’t I just see you wolfing down a pasty and chips in the canteen?’
Marcel rubbed his belly, which belied what he shovelled into it on a regular basis. He was one of those people who was always charged to capacity with nervous energy. He could cram in a four-course meal, then burn it off within the hour. He was neither tall nor stocky, but in a fight he was tenacious and ferocious. A darting, snapping terrier rather than a lumbering Rottweiler.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m sure Vera was a bit stingy with the chips today.’
The hall was papered in busy patterns that made Hannah’s eyes wobble. It was like one of those optical illusions where you had to look at it a certain way to make it pop out in 3D. She was glad to get past it and into the living room, where Suzy had plonked herself down on an armchair and was lighting up a cigarette. The room already reeked of stale smoke.
‘Mind if we sit?’ Hannah asked.
‘I don’t care if you do handstands if it helps get this over with. Ask your questions and get out.’
Hannah lowered herself onto the sofa. It was upholstered in a floral fabric that didn’t match the chairs. A stack of interior design magazines was balanced on one of its arms, although it was clear that the advice within their pages had not been taken on board. To Hannah’s right, a gas fire was fixed to the wall on an obvious slant, as though it might fall off at any second. Behind Suzy, a large window with failed double-glazed units offered a fogged view of a garden crowded with weeds and junk.
Marcel didn’t sit down. He hardly ever relaxed in other people’s houses. Hannah didn’t mind on this occasion. His steady pacing, coupled with the occasional surprise launch of a question, would unsettle Suzy.
Hannah studied the woman for a few seconds. She was thirty-nine. Coffee-coloured hair that she’d endeavoured to make more interesting with some blonde streaks. Trim figure and a push-up bra straining against a vest top. Cartoonish doodles of eyebrows. Inflated lips that made it look as though she’d stick fast if she walked into a plate-glass window.
‘This doesn’t have to be difficult,’ Hannah said.
Suzy snorted out two streams of smoke, like an angry bull.
‘Try saying that when a gang of hairy-arsed coppers breaks down your front door at four o’clock in the morning and then rips your house apart.’
Hannah sighed. She could do without the attitude. It was wearying, draining. She didn’t have the patience for this shit anymore.
‘We didn’t rip it apart. We searched it. And we were acting on information received that Tommy was here.’
‘Well, he wasn’t, was he? Which just goes to show how crap your information is. He wasn’t here then and he isn’t here now, so why don’t you just sling your hook?’
‘Have you seen him recently?’ Marcel asked.
‘Not since the last time you asked me, no.’
‘Has he phoned you?’
‘Nope.’
‘What, not a single call? I thought you two were inseparable. Suzy and Tommy sitting in a tree.’
She showed him her middle finger. ‘Don’t take the piss, all right? You’re the ones who are keeping him away. Don’t know if I’ll ever see him again now.’
Hannah shook her head. ‘My heart bleeds for you. Not as much as his fiancée’s, mind.’
Suzy stabbed her cigarette into the overflowing ashtray on the table next to her and jumped to her feet.
‘That’s it!’ she yelled. ‘Get out of my house.’
Hannah stayed put. ‘You need to talk to us, Suzy. You’re not helping him or yourself.’
‘I said get out!’
The command was followed by a thunder of footsteps rolling down the staircase. Hannah saw Marcel’s eyes widen. He dived for the doorway to intercept whatever was heading their way. Hannah had faith in him. He would handle it. And if he didn’t . . .
