“Should I go on?” asks Eddie. “Are you bored? Is it bad?”
Rosie D’Antonio drapes an arm across Eddie’s naked chest. “I’m not bored yet, and it isn’t too bad yet. You have me where you want me.”
“You’re sure?” asks Eddie.
“You’d better hook me quickly, though,” says Rosie. “So far you’re a better lover than writer.”
Eddie looks disappointed.
“Buck up, soldier,” says Rosie. “You’re a very, very good lover.”
Eddie returns to reading.
• • •
Thereare sirens in the distance, normal as birdsong around here. But it’s all too late. A woman is kneeling to help him, red dress, kind voice. If Archer could have told her what he finally knew, he would. But, cheek on pavement, and the neon lights of the Soho sex shops reflected in the plum-black pool of his own blood, he has already spoken his last words.
When he first hit the ground, Archer had seen the man walk away, nice and slow, his whistle echoing along the high alley walls. He saw the man’s knife slip from his sleeve and clatter down a storm drain. That’s when Archer noticed it. The sole of the man’s left shoe. Archer knew, finally, who he was. And knew, finally, why they’d never been able to catch him.
• • •
“No way?” says Rosie. “The sole of his shoe?”
She motions for Eddie to continue.
• • •
Wouldanybody ever catch him? This cool-cat killer? Archer’s son, Eric Junior, is two years into his Met career. Archer knows how this will go. His son or his killer: only one of them will survive what’s to come.
The sole of the left shoe. It was all there. And now Archer’s son must spend a lifetime finding out what Archer knows but can no longer say.
• • •
Eddie closes his laptop. “That’s just the prologue, really, just rough.”
“What does Archer see, Eddie?” Rosie asks. “On the sole of the guy’s shoe?”
“You want me to tell you?” Eddie asks. “I think you’ll be surprised.”
“No,” says Rosie. “I want to read it. The whole thing. And I want Archer’s son to kill him, and to tell him why while he’s doing it.”
“You’ll have to wait and see,” says Eddie. “I didn’t think I’d ever finish it, but then I’ve been sitting on private planes to South Carolina, to Hawaii—”
“Sorry about Hawaii,” says Rosie.
“Nah,” says Eddie. “Got a lot of work done, and at least it wasn’t Alaska.”
“You clever thing,” says Rosie.
“Then Ireland, then England, then Dubai, nothing else to do but write.”
“And then you caught me,” says Rosie.
“Do you think anyone will read it?” says Eddie.
“I think lots of people will read it,” says Rosie. “And I’m very lucky to be the first. After that it’s going straight to my agent. What’s it called?”
“It doesn’t have a title yet,” says Eddie. “I’m no good at titles. I want to name it after the guy with the shoe.”
“The killer?” says Rosie. “Causes havoc wherever he goes?”
“And then some,” says Eddie.
“Then I’ve got a title for you,” says Rosie.
“Go on,” says Eddie.
“Write this down,” says Rosie. “A Cat Called Trouble.”
98
From Heathrow, Bonnie went straight back to her mum’s. Told her the job was canceled. The look on her mum’s face was awful, but imagine what that look might have been instead?
Now, three days later, she, Felicity, and Tony are in Felicity’s office.
The holdall is gaping open on the floor between them, padlock cut open by the bolt cutters Tony bought from the B&Q just off Junction 18 of the M25. The money they’d found inside is piled up on Felicity’s desk. Just over a million pounds.
“I just…” starts Felicity. “And hear me out here. I just wonder what use it would be, Bonnie, handing it over to the police?”
