The meanest Flood

go further than a cough. ‘You killed her,’ he said. ‘There isn’t anyone else.’
    Sam walked away from him. He rang JD again and this time he didn’t get the engaged tone. He left the big man on the pavement and leaned back on the shop window with the phone pressed to his ear. The women took some steps away. The phone carried on ringing. Sam watched the big man struggle to his knees as JD’s message service kicked in.
    Sam switched off in case he had to listen to it again. He went back to the guy who was on his feet, but limping.
    ‘The man who killed Katherine,’ he said. ‘He’s in my house.’
    The big guy shook his head. ‘I’ve just come from there. There’s nobody answering the door.’
    ‘He’s waiting for me to show,’ Sam told him. ‘He’s got a woman with him and when he sees me coming down the street she’ll get the same treatment as Katherine.’
    ‘A woman went in there,’ the big man said. ‘Duffel-coat and a long scarf.’
    ‘That’s Alice,’ Sam told him.
    ‘Why’re you telling me this? It was you killed Katherine. You lied to the police.’
    ‘I didn’t kill her,’ Sam said. ‘If I’d told the police I was in Nottingham that night, what d’you think would’ve happened?’
    ‘They’d’ve banged you away,’ the big man said. ‘And fucking whoopee.’
    ‘I need help,’ Sam said. ‘And I need it now, or another woman is gonna die.’
    ‘You’ve done for my leg. Even if I believed you I wouldn’t be no use.’
    ‘You could hold the guy’s attention at the front while I go round the back.’
    ‘Why should I believe you?’
    ‘If I’d killed Katherine,’ Sam told him, ‘I wouldn’t be standing here. I’d walk away and disappear. I don’t have anything to gain by asking you to hammer on the front door of my house.’
    The big man thought about it. Eventually he said, ‘If you’re shitting me, I’ll strangle you.’ Then he said, ‘One other thing.’
    ‘Yeah?’
    ‘This guy in the house, the one you say did for Katherine... I want him.’
    Sam shook his head. ‘No way.’
    The big man didn’t move. ‘No deal then.’
    Sam shrugged. ‘You can have him for two minutes, max.’
    ‘I’m not going to shake your hand,’ the big man said. ‘Because even if you didn’t kill her you gave her a shit time.’
    ‘Have it your own way.’
    ‘But you can call me Ruben. And if it turns out you’re taking me for some kind of ride, every time you hear that name it’ll be me getting closer to you.’ He took a couple of steps and almost fell over. ‘Why’d you do that?’ he said. ‘Kick me in the shin. Jesus, I was already on my back.’
    ‘Sorry,’ Sam said. ‘I was motoring. It seemed like the right thing to do.’
    Ruben shook his head. ‘You never hear of Queensbury Rules? How’m I gonna deliver milk on one leg?’
    ‘This isn’t our immediate problem,’ Sam told him. ‘Not for you it isn’t. But it’s gonna be my problem tomorrow morning. Plus there’s the depression, and I was just getting on top of that. Something like this could bring it all back.’
    Sam held up his hand. ‘You wanna do this thing? Get the guy?’
    ‘Sure,’ Ruben said. ‘How we gonna work it?’
     

42
     
    The magician put tape over Alice Richardson’s eyes. It was something to do with the way she looked at him. The others had looked at him and he hadn’t minded too much, but with this one it was unnerving. He wondered if it was because she was a mother. He wondered how his own mother would have looked at him if it had been her tied to the bed instead of Alice Richardson and he thought she would have had the same look.
    These were not the kind of thoughts to be having. He had to be professional about it. It was a performance, like any other, and it was coming round to the finale. If it worked right he would kill the woman as Sam Turner came into the house. The detective would come up the stairs and Danny would give him time to see that she was dead. Then he would plunge the bayonet into Turner’s stomach.
    He would watch Turner die. He would wipe the handle of the bayonet and place Turner’s hands around it, so that his prints were all over it. And then he would take the life of the blind woman, the detective’s last love.
    The police would see that Turner had killed again and committed suicide. Danny’s mother would be avenged. The case would be closed. The illusion would remain.
    The magician stripped in readiness. He folded his clothes neatly