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  ‘How is Sharon?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s getting better. Like I said, she made a full statement to the police. Told them how you got her away from Grant, cleaned her up, and then rescued her again when he recaptured her.’

  ‘He didn’t,’ I said. ‘She went back to kill him.’

  He looked at Judith again. ‘Do you want me to go?’ she asked.

  Then he looked at me. ‘No,’ I said. ‘She stays. Anything we’ve got to say she can hear.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Ray Miller. I know what she was going to do. She told me. But we don’t have to tell the cops the whole truth, do we? Not after what Grant put her through. If I’d’ve known I would’ve tried to kill him myself. The cops want to see you too. If your stories back each other’s up, who’s to know any different? Anyway, I’ve instructed my solicitor to be present. He’s very good. And very expensive. I’ve got his card here.’ He handed me an oblong of pasteboard printed in gold. ‘He expects you to have some memory problems after that knock you took,’ Ray went on. ‘Know what I mean?’ And he winked. ‘He’ll take care of everything and send me the bill. And talking of bills …’ He took an envelope from his inside jacket pocket. ‘There’s a cheque in here for ten grand. That’s the least I owe you. And I’ve instructed him to pay for this room here for as long as you need it. And any consultancy fees or anything else that might come up.’

  ‘That’s very generous. But you already paid me out front to find Sharon.’

  ‘Forget it. Call it a retainer. This settles the account.’

  ‘And what about Albert?’ I said. ‘The last thing I remember is him hiding behind Sharon and getting ready to shoot me.’

  ‘Sounds like what I’ve heard about him. Dead, I’m afraid. No, I’m glad. He perished in the fire along with his two mates. An accident. That’s what Sharon said.’

  ‘But the other two had bullets in them.’

  ‘Grant was murdered by Freeze, then you killed him in self defence. Then Albert shot at Grant’s dead body. And all this was happening while the building you were in was burning in an unfortunate fire.’

  ‘Sounds a bit far-fetched to me.’

  ‘But it’s the truth, isn’t it? That’s what Sharon told me.’

  I had to agree. It was more or less.

  He placed the envelope on the bedside table. ‘Take this,’ he said. ‘You deserve it. Take your daughter on holiday. She’s been worried.’

  I looked at Judith and she smiled and I could see the love in her eyes and I knew everything was going to be all right again, even though it had taken a bump on the head and a week in hospital for me to make it so. Suddenly I remembered. Maybe I was having trouble with my memory. ‘What about the girls?’ I said to Miller.

  ‘What girls?’

  ‘Matty and Maddie. Twins. They helped get Sharon through cold turkey and turned up at the pub. They got me out of the car. Without them I’d be dead. And God knows what would’ve happened to Sharon.’

  ‘Sharon didn’t say anything about any girls.’ He looked genuinely puzzled. ‘Just you and her.’

  ‘Where is she? Can I talk to her?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, Nick. I don’t think that’s a very good idea. She’s still a bit uncertain. Anyway, you can’t. She’s gone.’

  ‘Gone? Where?’

  ‘New Zealand. Her and her mum and little Liam. They flew out a week ago. I only stayed till you came round properly. I wanted to make sure your stories matched. Now you’re awake I can join them.’

  ‘New Zealand.’

  ‘It makes sense, Nick. All we have here is bad memories. New Zealand’s like England. Same sort of climate. And it’s as far away as you can go before you start coming back. We’ve got the money. Plenty. And we need some time together to get over all that’s happened. We’re going to buy a farm. A big one. Raise horses maybe. I’ve always fancied that. Maybe you can come and visit sometime. But not for a while, eh, Nick. Listen, I’ve got to go. I’ll send you my new address. We’ll talk.’

  ‘No, Ray. I need to know some things—’

  But just then the doctor came in and Ray left. I never saw him again, and he never did send his address.

  The doc gave me the once-over and seemed as pleased as doctors ever are. Then he left Judith and me alone.

  ‘You had another visitor,’ she said as she pulled her chair up close and sat holding my hand.

  ‘Who?’

  She smiled. ‘Her name’s Melanie.’

  I’d forgotten all about Melanie.

  ‘She’s a bit young for you, isn’t she, Dad?’

  ‘Don’t you approve?’

  ‘Course I do. She was nice. She left you a present.’ She opened the drawer in the locker and took out a small parcel. ‘Want me to open it?’ she asked.

  I nodded.

  She peeled off the paper and, looking puzzled, handed me a silver referee’s whistle on a leather thong. ‘She said you’d know what it was for.’ I laughed, though it hurt a bit, and said, ‘I know what it’s for.’ That Melanie. What a joker.

  ‘And what’s all this about things to wear round your neck?’ said Judith.

  ‘What?’

  She reached back into the drawer and brought out the crystal on its chain.

  ‘You were wearing this when they brought you in. It’s not like you, Dad. Are you turning into a geriatric hippie?’

  She handed me the pendant and I felt a tiny shock as I touched the jewel.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It was given to me for luck. And it looks like it worked too.’

  64

  Ray Miller was as good as his word about his solicitor. The police interviewed me a couple of days later. Right there in the hospital room with me sitting up in bed looking a little dazed and dribbling orange juice down my jim-jams the whole time. Ray’s solicitor, a wide boy from Lincoln’s Inn named James Walpole, had briefed me on that. He wanted me to appear a little out of it. Which wasn’t difficult, as I was. He also told me to check with him before answering any questions. One shake of the head and I was just to say ‘No comment’. I’d seen the papers by then and Judith had been right about me being a hero too. For the first time in my life.

  There were two Old Bill. A DS Ryker and a DCI Barrett with two ‘t’s’. He made a point of mentioning that. They brought in chairs and Walpole hitched up the legs of his immaculate pin-striped strides to save the crease and perched on the edge of my bed.

  I had my orange juice ready in a plastic beaker, and Barrett said, ‘Well, Mr Sharman. We’re sorry to bother you here in hospital, but there are one or two things we need to clear up.’

  Sorry, I thought. That’s a new one. Normally the police are only too happy to see me banged up with something seriously amiss with my health. ‘Whatever I can do,’ I said. ‘But I’m afraid ...’ I touched my temple, pulled a pained face and slopped some liquid on to my chest. ‘... My memory isn’t what it should be.’

  Walpole narrowed his eyes as much as to tell me to lay off the histrionics, but I was enjoying myself too much.

  ‘On the day of the nineteenth,’ said Ryker, ‘you went to the Druid’s Rest public house for what reason?’

  ‘What happened on the nineteenth?’ I mumbled and Walpole coughed.

  ‘That was the day of the fire at the pub. The day Raymond Miller was shot at three times and the day that Albert Courtney, Jack Neal and Christopher Grant were killed,’ Ryker said through gritted teeth.

  ‘Chris Grant I remember,’ I said. ‘But the other two ...’

  Ryker gave me a dirty look. ‘Courtney and Neal were better known as Adult Baby Albert and Mr Freeze respectively.’

  ‘Of course,’ I replied.

  ‘Well,’ said Ryker.

  ‘Well what?’ I asked, slopping more juice.

  ‘Why did you go there?’ said Ryker.

  ‘I thought Sharon Miller was in danger.’

  ‘You’d spent some time with her previously,’ said Barrett.

  ‘That’s right.
When I met her she was addicted to heroin. I helped her kick the habit.’

  ‘Where did you meet her?’ asked Ryker.

  Here we go, I thought. Someone’s put two and two together about the incident in the restaurant on Shad Thames. ‘You must know Ray Miller hired me to find her,’ I said.

  Barrett nodded.

  ‘I made certain enquiries and diligently followed them up and that led me to her apartment by the river. I waited for her to come out, introduced myself and she entrusted herself to my care.’

  ‘As simple as that,’ said Ryker sardonically.

  ‘Just about,’ I said. ‘I told her I was working as an agent for her husband and she seemed to accept it.’

  ‘There were no guns involved at this time?’ said Barrett.

  ‘No,’ I said innocently.

  ‘Only we had a report of an incident at a restaurant in Shad Thames involving a young woman, a man who gave his name as Christopher Grant and another man. Armed. Who answers to your description and possibly was later involved in a car chase across London. You don’t own a Suzuki Vitara convertible, registration number R143MMS, by any chance?’

  ‘Perish the thought,’ I said.

  ‘Or know anyone who does?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Who’s it registered to?’

  ‘That’s the problem. No one.’

  ‘Bit naughty that.’

  Walpole nudged me.

  ‘Now Mrs Miller has made a statement to the effect that Grant kidnapped her, took her to his pub and told her that he intended to kill her husband and blackmail her into handing over most or all of the winnings he had won on the lottery. Twelve million quid or thereabouts.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’

  ‘Then Neal shot Grant and you later managed to kill Neal using his own gun. How did that happen?’ asked Barrett.

  Tricky subject. ‘I don’t remember,’ I said.

  I saw Walpole nod and I knew I’d given the correct answer.

  ‘Mrs Grant says he was trying to kill you.’

  I shrugged. ‘I believe what she says. She struck me as a truthful sort of woman.’

  ‘Even though she’s a whore and a junkie,’ said Ryker.

  ‘Sergeant,’ said Walpole, ‘I object most strongly to you referring to my client in such terms. And she is my client, as you know. Has been since the nineteenth of last month. Now Mr Sharman is just trying to help. You see he is still under medical care. He was struck on the head. I have a slew of eminent medical practitioners who will tell you he may suffer short- or even long-term loss of memory about events on that unfortunate day.’

  ‘I’m sure you have,’ said Ryker.

  ‘I certainly have and will if necessary.’

  ‘You and Miller’s twelve million.’

  ‘John. Leave it,’ said Barrett.

  ‘And Courtney shot Grant after he was dead,’ said Ryker. ‘Now why would he do that?’

  I shrugged again. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But the place was on fire. That I do remember. Maybe he thought Grant was after him.’

  ‘When he was already dead?’ said Ryker sarcastically.

  ‘“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,”’ I said. ‘Maybe he went crazy. Maybe he always was. He liked to dress up as a baby, remember. You can’t tell me that’s normal.’

  ‘Who’s Horatio?’ said Ryker.

  Barrett sighed, and I knew I was home free. But he had to make one last try.

  ‘And you have no knowledge of where all these guns that were on the premises came from?’ Ryker asked. ‘You must know that possession of a handgun is a very serious crime these days.’

  ‘I do,’ I said. ‘And I don’t. Know where the guns came from, that is. I don’t have any truck with them these days.’

  Barrett shook his head sorrowfully. ‘Mr Sharman. From what we know of you, the idea of you without a pistol is like Troilus without Cressida, Rosencrantz without Guildenstern.’

  Very Shakespearean, I thought. He obviously knew who Horatio was. Ryker of course looked even more confused.

  ‘OK, Mr Sharman,’ Barrett went on. ‘That’s all for now. You’ve come out of this very well. Mrs Miller has made a statement to the effect that you acted in self-defence throughout. Ray Miller held a press conference that has you as a knight in shining armour. Me, I’m not so sure, but there’s nothing I can prove. So we’ll leave it at that for the moment. We know where you are. There may be charges brought at a later date, but frankly I doubt it.’

  The coppers were all right, as it goes. The solicitor hardly had to raise any objections about their questions. Mind you, the three that had died at the Druid’s Rest were hardly model citizens and wouldn’t be missed. Not by Old Bill at least.

  When they’d gone I asked Walpole where the Miller family were staying, but all he would tell me was that they weren’t settled yet. And afterwards, whenever I rang the number on the card Ray had given me, he was always in a meeting with a client and never returned my calls until in the end I stopped bothering.

  But I had the flak jacket for a memento, and the cheque for ten grand was good, otherwise I’d believe I’d never met Ray Miller or Sharon or Angela or little Liam.

  Or Melanie Wiltse, who became a regular visitor once I’d come back to the land of the living, and would continue to be one for quite a while after that.

  And as for Maddie and Matty. Well …

  EPILOGUE

  I never saw the twins again. Sometimes, now, I still wonder if I ever did, or if they were just an elaborate dream or hallucination. But at night, when they haunt my sleep, I know.

  When I finally got out of hospital, before I took Ray Miller’s advice and went for a long holiday in the West Indies with Judith, I drove down to Notting Hill Gate to look for them. It was a filthy day, with black clouds hanging low over west London, and occasional bursts of squally rain that almost defeated the windscreen wipers on my car.

  The warehouse where they’d had their loft apartment was different than I remembered. Deserted. Abandoned.

  The front gates were locked and the entryphone was missing, so I simply climbed over them. The lift door was pulled down tight and fastened with a chain and padlock, and looked as if it hadn’t been opened for years. Above the cover a faded FOR SALE sign was nailed.

  I went round the back of the building and behind a half-full skip that stank of piss I found a door. I forced it open and climbed endless flights of concrete steps to the top.

  The space where they’d lived and where I’d stayed with them was just that. A massive, filthy, empty space with broken windows, that only wild birds made their home.

  No one had ever lived there. At least not for a long time. And even though I should’ve been surprised, I’d more or less expected it.

  But there was one weird thing. One in particular amongst many weird things that had happened that summer.

  In the middle of the loft space, on top of an upturned tea-chest, was a vase that contained two fresh red roses.

  As I walked across the dusty floor that held no footprints except those I left behind, I saw that the flowers were moist and new and their perfume overcame the rank air.

  As I reached the chest, the sun suddenly broke through the thick black clouds above London and filled the loft with a warmth and glow that reminded me of my first night there, and I smiled. They’d been real all right, but where they were now I’d never know.

  I reached up and removed the chain from round my neck and touched the crystal that hung from it and draped it over the flowers.

  Then, without looking back, I left the warehouse and drove home and opened a fresh bottle of brandy and drank it until finally I could sleep.

  All The Empty Places

  by Mark Timlin

  The Seventeenth Nick Sharman novel

  It’s the oldest story in the world: Boy meets Girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. But when the boy is Nick Sharman, and the girl has a violent ex-
jailbird as an old boyfriend, who promises extreme retribution on anyone who gets involved with her, it’s never going to be that simple...and both Sharman...and the girl are looking at a lot of trouble. What with a bent brief planning an audacious multi-million pound robbery with a bunch of heavy duty thugs in tow, a beautiful sister who’s a fast track CID officer, and enough ordnance to stock the Woolwich Arsenal, the scene is set for a savage and bloody confrontation under the streets of the City of London which ends literally explosively, with only one man standing. And guess who that is. The latest Sharman shows there is life in the old dog yet, if only just.

  ‘Mean streets, sleazy bars, brutal bent coppers . . . as British as a used condom in a fogbound London taxi’ – Observer

  978-1-84344-909-6

  Stay Another Day

  by Mark Timlin

  The Eighteenth Nick Sharman novel

  Could it be the end for Sharman?

  For seven years, ex-cop Nick Sharman has lived in ‘exile’ on a Caribbean island with no UK extradition treaty – his life of luxury funded by the proceeds of a bank robbery where he was the last man standing. Then a phone call out of the blue from London changes everything. The voice from the past belongs to the only woman that he loves, his daughter Judith. Like father, like daughter, she’s a police officer, but the family resemblance doesn’t stop there – Judith is in big trouble with the law, and has no one to turn to except her father.

  Returning under an assumed name to a bleak mid-winter England, Nick finds things have changed, and so has he. He’s grown older, but perhaps no wiser and finds his once beloved London moving too fast for him. Vowing to clear his daughter’s name by any means necessary, Sharman finds himself enmeshed with blackmailers, murderers, the security services, and Russian gangsters all baying for his blood – until he, Judith, and his old sparring partner Jack Robber, take on all-comers in a dramatic finale on the mean streets of the capital.

  ‘Sharman dishes out his ususal sleazy fast-read fun with tons of profane wit’ – Maxim Jakubowski, Time Out

  978-1-84344-942-3