Big Sky Read online

  Once upon a time, Tommy had been the solution for Crystal. Now he was the problem. You were before Tommy’s time with them, Fee had said. Tommy had no idea about his youthful shared history with Crystal. It would be funny, wouldn’t it—funny peculiar, not funny ha ha, as Harry would say—if for a moment in time in those bad old days their paths had crossed, slipping past each other like sliding doors. One of them into that life, one of them out of it. Tommy might even have arrived in Bridlington on the same train that she had left on. Perhaps they’d walked past each other on the station platform, him all cocky with his new job with Bassani and her with her cheap Miss Selfridge handbag stuffed with Carmody’s dirty money. Crystal running away from her past with Bassani and Carmody, Tommy running toward his future with them. But then she remembered that he said he’d gotten his first motorbike when he was seventeen. “My first set of wheels.” And just look at him now. He was all wheels. Wheels spinning everywhere.

  She thought about that second phone. Fresh stock due to dock at 4:00 a.m.… Consignment on its way to Huddersfield… Unloaded cargo in Sheffield, boss. No problems.

  Haulage, Fee had said. That’s the nice word for it.

  Nothing to do with the trucks at all, or the cargo they carried. Tommy was dealing in a different kind of trade.

  Which was worse—Bassani and Carmody’s old regime of abuse and manipulation or the cold-blooded lies of Anderson Price Associates? Apples and oranges. Two sides of the coin. Pleasure and business. Tommy, Andy, Stephen Mellors, they had all worked for Bassani and Carmody after she got on that train that took her away from them. Tommy had been young, almost a kid himself, when he hooked up with Bassani and Carmody. Did that make him less to blame in some ways? He had been a bit of muscle for them, someone who could lean on people and keep them in line, keep things running smoothly for the big men at the top. Now he was one of the big men at the top and blamelessness didn’t come into it.

  Crystal heard Tommy leave, in the S-Class this time, by the sound of it. A man getting a fresh horse to ride out on. The house settled back down into sleep, but within its walls Crystal remained wide awake. High Haven. A haven was a safe harbor. Not anymore.

  What a wally. Didn’t he realize that she could see him on the CCTV? Jackson Brodie was nosing around outside. He even disappeared into the old wash house for several minutes. God knows what he was doing in there, he’d better not be disturbing the bats, Harry would be very upset. Harry had woken up late and insisted on going to work at the theater this afternoon, even though the idea of him being out and about made her nervous. “Once you’re inside, don’t leave,” she said. “Get that big trans bloke to keep an eye on you.”

  “I don’t think he’s trans,” Harry said.

  “Whatever. I’ll come in and pick you up later.”

  She gave him a lift to the bus stop and saw him onto the bus and then tracked him all the way on her phone. He had been surprised to be reunited with his own phone, even more surprised that it had journeyed to Flamborough Head without him. “Who were those men?” he said with a frown as they waited for the bus to come into view.

  “I don’t know, Harry,” she said. “I think it was maybe a case of mistaken identity.”

  “But why wouldn’t you call the police?”

  “Didn’t need to, did I? Look, here comes your bus.”

  As the bus sailed away with Harry safely on the top deck, she held Candy up so she could wave goodbye to him. He wasn’t stupid, he was never going to stop asking questions. Perhaps she should tell him the truth about everything. Truth was such a novel idea to Crystal that she found herself still staring after the bus had disappeared up the road.

  And here was Jackson Brodie back, trying the doorbell again. Crystal watched him in close-up on the little screen on the entryphone system. He had a shifty look about him. He thought he was being helpful, but really his presence just made things more complicated. Mostly because, like Harry, he never stopped asking questions.

  Crystal had kicked him out this morning as swiftly as she could, but you could tell he was like a dog with a bone now, not willing to let things go, and lo and behold, she was right, because here he was sniffing around as if he might find her hiding somewhere on the property.

  He gave up eventually and she listened to him drive off, leaving her free to make plans. It was going to be a busy day.

  Showtime!

  The yellow and black crime-scene tape that had wrapped Thisldo was still there, although it had come loose in several places and was flapping about with a life of its own. There was an air of desolation about the house, as if it had been standing empty for years rather than days.

  Vince was supposed to be going in for another police interview this morning. Perhaps they planned to arrest him today. Inspector Marriot was going to be disappointed not to see him, but he had better things to do with his time.

  There was no sign of the police at the house, so Vince used his key to open the front door. He felt like a burglar even though it was still his house, or at least half his house, and as the owner of the other half had been killed while still technically married to him, he supposed it was all his now. He had been going to give Wendy his share in the divorce settlement. “Mm,” Steve said yesterday as they made their way to the police station (how long ago did that seem!), “you have to admit it looks suspicious, Wendy dying just before you lose the house, before you lose half your pension, your savings.”

  In the divorce settlement you brokered, Vince thought. You had to wonder how Steve had managed to do so well for himself when he seemed like a pretty crap lawyer. Only of course, no, he didn’t have to wonder anymore, did he? Because now Vince knew how Steve’s good fortune had been earned. (Plenty of money in the bank and always more to come. Do you know what that feels like, Vince?)

  The keys to Wendy’s Honda were still hanging in the hallway next to the ugly barometer that had been a wedding gift from one of Wendy’s relatives, its forecast stuck relentlessly on “Poor.” If there was one gift worse than a barometer, it was a barometer that didn’t work. “Perhaps it does work,” Wendy had said a few weeks ago. “Perhaps it’s the barometer of our marriage.” She had gone through a particularly spiteful period when the divorce papers were being drawn up, a barrage of communications about the division of their marital possessions, “division” as in Wendy got everything and Vince got nothing. Not a peep of complaint out of her since she was bludgeoned with his golf club.

  “You must admit, Vince,” Steve said, “that you were provoked by her. It’s understandable that you would kill her.” What was Steve—the witness for the prosecution? Wendy had haggled for custody of the dog but she didn’t want the barometer. “You can have it,” she said, as if she were being generous. Tell you what, Vince, I’ll keep the dog and you take the barometer. No, she hadn’t actually said that, but she might as well have done. He must try to get Sparky back. He would have no idea what was going on. Neither did Ashley, of course. Still no word from her. Where was she? Was she all right? Was she still with the orangutans?

  Ashley would return to this house, her childhood home, and find it had been transformed into a murder scene. He ought to leave her a note in case he wasn’t here. He tore a piece of paper off the pad they kept by the telephone and scrawled a message for his daughter on it. He propped it up in front of Wendy’s bonsai. The little tree already looked bigger, as if it was free of the straitjacket of its jailer.

  Wendy’s car was in the garage. The route to the garage took you past the lawn and Vince couldn’t help staring at it. This was where she died. She must have been running, trying to flee from her attacker. For perhaps the first time since it had happened, Wendy’s death felt real to him. It had been only a handful of days (he had lost track of time) since her murder, but the grass had already grown higher than she would have found tolerable.

  In the garage he found the small stepladder that lived on a hook on the wall and positioned it beneath one of the joists. To anyone watching, he mig
ht have looked like a man about to hang himself. The image of the girl’s face in Silver Birches flashed up before him and he wobbled precariously for a moment, but then he regained his balance and ran his hand along the top of the dirty joist. A splinter jabbed into his palm but he carried on searching until he found what he was looking for.

  He got in the car, started the engine, and backed out of the driveway. I’m in the driving seat now, he thought. He laughed. He knew he sounded like a maniac, but there was no one to hear. He surprised himself by remembering the route to Silver Birches.

  When he arrived, he marched inside without any trepidation. He was a man on a mission. The first person he encountered was Andy. Andy stared at him in horror. “Vince?” he said. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Vince? Vince?”

  Sometimes You’re the Windshield

  Andy had picked up the requested kippers on the way to Silver Birches. He was starving, he couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten, although not starving enough yet to eat a cold kipper. Could you even eat them cold—like some kind of weird sushi?

  He was meeting Tommy here—he could see his Mercedes slewed casually in the drive. Tommy was an arrogant parker. Silver Birches appeared to be in the calm after the storm. There was still the problem of the missing Jasmine, but apart from that, the hatches seemed to have been securely battened down, ready for decommissioning. If they were going to move the girls and shut down the place they would need Vasily and Jason, but there was no sign of their vehicles.

  It was as quiet inside the building as it was outside. It was suffocatingly warm, as though the good weather of the past few days had entered and been trapped in here and had transformed into something torpid, an almost tangible thickness in the air. The place was deathly quiet too—the whole atmosphere was beginning to make Andy feel uneasy. There was no one in the rooms downstairs. Where was Tommy? Where were Vasily and Jason? Where were the girls, for that matter?

  And here was—not Tommy, but Vince. Vince, who was striding purposefully along the corridor toward Andy, aiming a gun at him. A gun! Vince!

  “Vince?” Andy said as Vince continued to advance. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Vince? Vince?”

  Without any warning, Vince pulled the trigger. The force of the shot propelled Andy backward, sending him flying in a kind of comedy cartwheel, arms and legs flailing, until he dropped to the floor. He’d been shot. He’d been fucking shot! He screamed like a rabbit in its death throes. “You fucking shot me!” he yelled at Vince.

  Vince paused for a moment, regarding him dispassionately, and then he was on the move again, still coming toward Andy, still with that mad look on his face. Andy scrambled to his feet and stumbled on, despite the burning pain in his—in his what? Lung? Stomach? His heart? He realized he knew nothing about the anatomy of his own body. Bit late to start learning now. Fired by nothing but fear, he lurched along the corridor, bounced off a couple of walls, into another corridor, and then dragged himself up the stairs, all the time expecting a hail of bullets to follow and finish him off. None came, thank God, and now he was taking shelter in one of the rooms. A room that, to his surprise (although for surprise nothing could top being shot), was also housing all of the girls. Tommy must have herded them in here, like cattle, to make moving them easier.

  The girls were still handcuffed with their plastic ties and were in various states of lethargy, which was a relief to Andy because he was the prey now, wasn’t he? Foxy had gone to ground. If they had been in better shape the girls might have turned on him like hounds and ripped him to pieces.

  The two Polish girls from last night were huddled together by the window. They felt like old acquaintances, but he didn’t suppose they would give him help if he asked for it. One of them, Nadja, half opened her heavy-lidded eyes and gazed sightlessly at him. Her pupils were great black funnels. He was frightened they might drag him in and swallow him whole. “My sister?” she murmured to him. “Katja?” and he said, “Yeah, yeah, love, she’s right there next to you.” Nadja muttered something in Polish and then fell asleep again.

  He took out his phone, very slowly, while trying to disassociate himself from the excruciating pain—and dialed Tommy. The signal was always terrible inside Silver Birches. He wondered if it was something to do with the walls being so thick. It was the kind of thing that Vince would know. No answer from Tommy. He dialed Steve and got his voicemail. (Did no one ever answer their phone anymore?) “Steve, Steve,” Andy whispered urgently. “Where are you? You’ve got to get to Silver Birches. Right now. Vince has gone postal. He’s got a gun. He fucking shot me. Get here, will you? And find Vasily and Jason.” He muted the phone, he’d seen enough horror films to know that your phone always rang loudly and signaled your whereabouts just as the deranged killer was about to give up hunting you. Vince on the rampage. Jesus, who would have believed it? Wendy, perhaps. Rhoda was right, he must have killed her as well. All this time they’d been playing golf with a psycho murderer. One with a crap handicap.

  He heard the sound of a car engine starting up and managed to get himself over to the window in time to see Tommy’s Mercedes crunching gravel and gears and disappearing around the drive. The bastard must have heard the gunshot, surely? And now he was leaving him here alone to die. So much for friendship.

  He could actually see the blood pumping out of his side like an uncapped oil well. He had nothing to stanch it with, but then he remembered the pieces of Maria’s scarf, still in his pocket. He managed to extricate them, every little movement an agony, and pushed them up against his wound. He regretted not keeping her crucifix as well. He had forgotten about God during the course of his life. He wondered if God had forgotten about him. He knew every sparrow, didn’t He? But did He know the rats?

  His phone vibrated angrily and Lottie’s poker face flashed up on the screen. He wished it was Lottie on the other end of the phone, she’d probably be more helpful than Rhoda, she’d certainly be more sympathetic to his current predicament if he tried to explain it to her. (“You’ve been shot? By Vince Ives? Because you’re a sex trafficker? Because a girl is dead? Well, good luck with that, Andrew.”)

  The conversation now raised Katja from her apathy. She started muttering in Polish and Andy whispered, “Go back to sleep, love,” and was surprised when she obediently closed her eyes.

  “Who are you speaking to?” Rhoda asked sharply. He adjusted the arm that was holding the phone and pain shot through his body like a lightning bolt. When he was a child his mother had never comforted him if he hurt himself, instead she always held him responsible. (“Well, you wouldn’t have broken your arm if you hadn’t jumped off the wall, Andrew.”) If she’d kissed and cuddled him, his life might have turned out differently. He whimpered quietly. “Is that you making that noise, Andrew?” Rhoda said. “What are you doing? Did you remember to get the kippers? Are you there? Andrew?”

  “Yeah, I’m here,” Andy sighed. “Don’t worry, I got the kippers. I’ll be home soon.” In a body bag, most likely, he thought. “Bye, love.”

  Those were probably his last words to her. He should have told her where all the cash was stashed. She’d never be able to sit by the pool with her piña colada now. She’d be surprised when she found out where his life had ended. Or perhaps she wouldn’t. It was hard to tell with Rhoda, she was like Lottie in that respect.

  He was either going to die here or he was going to have to try and get help and risk Vince shooting him—in which case he would die anyway. Staying and waiting to be killed didn’t feel like much of an option, so, inch by painful inch, he began to caterpillar along the floor toward the door. He thought about Maria and Jasmine. One had stayed, one had run. He wished they’d both chosen to run. He wished he could wind time back, to the Angel of the North, to the Quayside flat, to the airport, the plane, the moment they had googled “recruitment agencies UK” or however it was that they had found Anderson Price Associates. He wished they were still sweating over sewing machines in Manila making
Gap jeans, dreaming about a better life in the UK.

  His agonizingly slow progress toward the door was impeded by the Polish girls. He had to climb over them, mumbling an apology all the while. “Sorry, love,” he said as Nadja woke again. She struggled to a sitting position and he could see that her eyes were no longer black holes. Her pupils had narrowed to pinpricks, designed to bore into his soul. She frowned at him and said, “You’re shot?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Seems like it.”

  “With a gun?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where is it? The gun?”

  Thisldo

  A Browning 9mm, the standard Army-issue sidearm until a few years ago when it was replaced by the Glock. Royal Signals. In another lifetime. That’s what Vince Ives had said as they fell off the cliff together. He must have smuggled his pistol home, on an Army transport, probably, after his last deployment. Jackson knew guys who’d done that—more as a souvenir than a weapon. Something that reminded you that you were once a soldier. There was always the feeling—usually confirmed later, unfortunately—that when you left the Service you were leaving behind the best days of your life.

  Vince had said something about Kosovo. Or was it Bosnia? Jackson couldn’t remember. He wished he could, because it might have helped the current conversation. It was one thing to talk a guy out of jumping off a cliff, but it was quite another thing to persuade him to put down the gun that he was pointing at you, especially when he had a wild look in his eye, like a horse that had been spooked.

  “Vince,” Jackson said, raising his arms in surrender, “it’s me, Jackson. You phoned me, remember?” (Call me if you need to talk.) Perhaps he ought to stop distributing his card so liberally if this was what it led to.

  He’d received a panicked phone call some half an hour ago, Vince giving garbled instructions about how to get to this place, saying that he was in trouble—or that there was trouble, Jackson wasn’t sure which. Perhaps both, he thought. Was Vince having a breakdown—standing on the edge of a cliff again, about to jump? Or perhaps he’d been arrested for his wife’s murder. The last thing Jackson had been expecting was that the guy would have a gun or that he’d be holding it straight and level directly in line with the invisible target that was Jackson’s heart. A gun’s visceral enough, he’d said yesterday to the Sam/Max/Matt guy who played Collier. Certainly was.