‘Shit,’ said Tom. If the bolt had been here, they’d have found it. ‘We have to check the trailer at the site.’
Hapgood agreed readily, much to his relief – he was so drugged up he didn’t think he could drive. Tom picked up the trailer key from Jan Ryland, and Hapgood drove him to Crossways.
They both splashed through the mud to the trailer, Tom clutching his big pants in front of him to avoid losing them. He needn’t have bothered with the key. They could see the door was ajar from twenty paces.
‘Shit,’ said Tom again.
Inside everything had been scattered, broken or stolen. Paperwork had been thrown about and trodden into the muddy floor. Disconnected laptop cables told their own story.
Hapgood held one up. ‘Computers?’
Tom thought of the work that would have to be painstakingly repeated and could only nod mutely.
He kicked a few drawers aside but knew there was no point in looking for the bolt. If it had been here, they would have found it.
But that didn’t mean they had found it. The wan hope flickered in him, even though he couldn’t think where else it might be.
The painkillers the jolly doctor had given him were wearing off: his leg ached and his face burned.
He dragged himself through the mud back to Hapgood’s car and was embarrassed when the cop shook him awake at the Holiday Inn.
By the time Tom finally slid between the fresh hotel sheets in his good-smelling shorts, the experience had lost a lot of the comfort he’d expected from it a bare six hours before.
*
A knock at his door woke him at eight a.m. and he felt a hundred years old as he stumbled out of bed on his stiff leg, with a head like a hot, ringing bell.
Pete LaBello stood in the hallway. ‘You look like shit.’
Tom saw the truth of that in the genuine shock on his boss’s face. He stepped back from the door to let him in, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
Pete took the armchair. ‘Jan called me.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I can’t believe it. Lenny Munro.’
‘Yeah.’
‘It’s fucked up.’
It certainly was. ‘You want a coffee or something?’ Tom offered vaguely.
‘No, thanks.’
There was gaping silence as Pete picked at the stitching on the armrest, avoiding Tom’s eyes until he could no longer hold it in. ‘You think it’s about the bolt?’ he asked quietly.
Tom started to nod – and before he knew it he was crying like a kid lost in a supermarket, tears running down his nose and dripping from his chin, his chest heaving with sobs born of tension, frustration and guilt that had been going on for months before he’d marked Lenny Munro for death by the one altruistic gesture he could ever remember making.
He pressed a hand to his stomach, as if he could somehow force it all back inside, but it made no difference. Even the embarrassment of crying in front of Pete LaBello couldn’t make it stop. All he could do was sit there and wait for it to end.
When it finally did, he blew his nose into yesterday’s T-shirt and murmured, ‘Fuck.’
Pete got up, sniffed and cleared his throat. He still sounded a little hoarse when he said, ‘I’m taking Lenny’s wife to the morgue to ID the body. I’ll see you later.’ He briefly laid a hand on Tom’s bare shoulder, then left.
It was only after he’d gone that Tom finally got round to wondering whether the bullet had been meant for him.
After all, he was the one who wouldn’t let the Pride of Maine go. Even when Stanley and the Weasel had as good as told him to drop it, something inside him had dug in its heels and refused. Maybe the only reason he wasn’t lying dead on a slab right now was because they hadn’t known he was going to be here. Lenny had called and he’d left. Hadn’t told anyone. Not even Ness.
Tom frowned with the effort of making sense of it all and slowly came back to Stanley and the Weasel.
He pulled on his only other pair of jeans and called Halo, who answered sounding like a confused drunk. ‘Yeah. What?’
‘Halo, it’s Tom.’
In an LA where the dawn was only just breaking, Halo Jackson leaned over to check his alarm clock. Tom beat him to the verdict.
‘It’s six a.m. I’m sorry.’
Something in Tom Patrick’s voice made Halo more concerned than angry. ‘’S okay. What’s up?’
‘The guy who grabbed you outside Vee’s house that night.’
Halo frowned, readjusting. ‘Yeah?’
‘What did he look like?’
‘He was white. Strong. Big.’
