“My professional opinion, based on all of the evidence is, you will live. There, you have been seen by a doctor, now piss off.”

  “I can’t stand, I’m dizzy.”

  “Sean, feel free—”

  “Fuck off man, I’m going. Bitch.”

  Sean moved forward, but he was looking at me, and I shook my head. I did not care what Daniel said. I knew that he would get braver the more he moved away from us. That was Daniel. By the time he reached the end of the street, he would be a lion.

  He hesitated at the door. “Not my gun,” he said. “Rented it.”

  Sean laughed. “You think we’re going to give it back? Piss off.”

  “Nutter,” Daniel mumbled, staggering through the door. “Bitch. Deserve each other.”

  “Daniel,” I said, before he went. “One last thing. If Corgan finds out that Sean is back, I tell him why you came here today.”

  “Think he’d believe you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “He knows what you are like.”

  Daniel muttered something else and made his way down the alley. Sean stood in the doorway, watching him. When he was certain that Daniel had gone, he came back in.

  “Are you going to put that fucking thing down?”

  I looked down at the ugly thing in my hand, and then I laid it down, very gently, on the top of the sink. “Is it real?” I asked.

  Sean shrugged. “Asking the wrong person. Looks it. Christ, what are we going to do with that?”

  “Shoot people,” I said, and he looked at me hard to make sure I was joking. And I was. Mostly.

  “We could throw it in the river,” he said, bending down and looking at it without touching it.

  “No. We should hang on to it for a day or two. Just in case.” If Kav or one of the others found us we’d have no choice. With luck we would not have to use it, just point it. But Kav was not Daniel, and anyone else that Corgan would send was not Daniel either, and just pointing it might not be enough.

  “He’ll tell him,” Sean said. “That wanker, Daniel. He’ll tell Corgan about me. Or find a way of doing it.”

  “I do not know if Daniel will tell him or if he will not,” I said. “He is scared of Corgan. If Corgan knew that Daniel was going to pass information to Lomax...he wouldn’t think twice about killing him.”

  “Maybe you should tell Corgan,” Sean said. “I’m serious. Then he’d get what was coming to him for touching you.”

  I shut my eyes, shook my head. “I cannot.”

  Sean pursed his lips, made a face as if he had tasted something sour. “Still feels like he gets away with it.”

  “I don’t think so. Not in the long run. All Daniel wants is to be something. He has got a long life to live, knowing every single day that he is nothing.”

  “I’d rather he had a short life to live,” Sean said. “We need to get out of here.”

  He was right. So we did.

  ~

  We sat on our scribbled-on bench in the park. There were still no ducks in the pond. The sun was almost gone from the sky, and the shadows of the trees were being eaten up by the dusk. Now and then people walked dogs, or jogged through the dog shit. Normal lives, just going on all around us. We were just two scruffy people on an ordinary bench, in an ordinary park. The weather was not one thing or the other. I felt as though the world should look different, be changed by the drama of our lives. But it did not. It just went on the same.

  I could feel the heavy weight of the gun in my coat. Or the weight of it in my mind. I was not sure. No matter what I had said to Sean, I knew that Daniel would find some way of letting Corgan know that Sean was back, that he was with me. He would not do it himself, he would be too scared, but he would tell Paul, or someone else. There would be a way. And once Corgan knew that Sean was back, and that he was with me, it would all be over. I could not let that happen to Sean.

  There was another way. If I followed it, things would be all over, but in a different way. One that would not be so good for me, but would at least save Sean. I do not know why I said if I followed it, because there was no if. It was the only way. Life had been many possibilities, once upon a time, with many choices to make. All that had happened over the last few days had taken away those choices, one by one. And now there were none left to me.

  “We ought to look for this room,” Sean said. “If we’re going to rent one.”

  “We will live in luxury for one night,” I said. “We will stay in a hotel tonight. A cheap one, maybe the cheapest one, but a hotel all the same. We can look for the room tomorrow.” But tomorrow everything will be different, I thought. And you must not be with me. “Here,” I said, and I held out the money that Peter had given me. Sean looked at me, puzzled.

  “You look after it,” I said.

  “OK,” Sean said. “And why?”

  “I just feel better if you do,” I said. “Does there always have to be these questions? Anyway, it is your job to go and find us this hotel.”

  Again the look. “Are we not going together?”

  “No,” I said. “I have one last thing that I have to do. I have to see Alice, who lives with me. I have some information she needs, and I want to say goodbye to her too.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Sean said. “Then we can go look for the hotel together.”

  I shook my head. “What I have to see her about is...she won’t want you there. No offence. It is...women’s things. Yes.”

  Sean shrugged. “I’ll wait outside.”

  “No,” I said, and I was annoyed because he was making this much more difficult than I wanted it to be. “I do not need a bodyguard, and if you are seen, all this is for nothing. Why can you never do as I ask you, Sean? It is just a simple, little thing.”

  “OK, OK,” he held his hands up in defeat. “So where will we meet? You have any idea how long you’re going to be?”

  “Meet back here,” I said. “In two hours. That gives you time, and gives me time.” He will be here all night, I thought. If I do not come back. “But it may take longer, so wait for me ten minutes, no more. And if I am not here, write down the hotel on a piece of paper and stick it in the side of the bench, and you go there, and I will come when I am done.”

  “Like spies?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. “Like spies.”

  Sean looked at me for a very long time. I wanted to cry. I wanted to tell him what to do, if I did not come back at all. I wanted to tell him how important he was to me. I wanted to tell him that I had to do this, but it was for him. I wanted to hug him and not let go for a very long time. Instead I just smiled and said, “OK, then, best go. See you later,” and I walked away. In such stupid ways do people part. If it went wrong, and it probably would, that would be all I left him with. OK then, best go, see you later. It was not much.

  Halfway along the path I stopped and turned back to check that he was not following me. I was going to wave, but he had gone already.

  “Goodbye Sean,” I said. Just in case. Then I walked on. It would take me half an hour to walk to Corgan’s. I did not know how long it would take me when I got there.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I heard footsteps inside the flat, and then the door opened.

  “Well, well,” Corgan said. “Who are you collecting for then, love? Oxfam?” He had no shirt on, and shaving foam on his face. His body was big, but there was muscle under the fat. He saw me looking and I looked away very quickly. He smiled.

  “I have something very important to tell you,” I said.

  “I’m on my way out. What tosser let you in the front door?”

  “I watched you put the code in when you brought me here. What I have to tell you can’t wait. It is important.”

  “Important to you or important to me?”

  “To you.”

  He looked at his watch, then back at me, a long look from his dead shark eyes. “It better be worth it.”

  “It will be.”

  He looked at me again, and I held my breath. “Yes,” he said. “I think it will be. One way or another.” He walked back into the flat. I did not close the door properly, in case I needed to get out quickly, and I followed him in.

  Corgan was nowhere to be seen. After a couple of minutes, he came out of a room, rubbing his cheeks in that satisfied way men do when they feel to see how smooth they are. He wore a pair of dark trousers, and a very white shirt that was unbuttoned at the sleeves and at the neck.

  “So,” he said. “Our doctor.”

  “Medical student.”

  “Listen, if I call you a doctor, you’re a doctor, so enough with that ‘medical student’ bollocks because it’s starting to get on my tits.”

  “I have to tell you something,” I began.

  “I’m not ready yet,” he said. “So you wait. Take your coat off, make yourself comfortable.”

  “No,” I said. “I think I will keep my coat on.”

  He disappeared into another room, and then came back a minute later with a tumbler in one hand, ice cubes clinking in it. He did not offer me a drink. Corgan stared at me for a moment, saying nothing. I just sat on the soft leather of his couch and stared out into space. He laughed, took a swallow of his drink, and then put it down on the glass coffee table in front of the couch.

  “You must be psychic,” he said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s good timing, you coming here now. I would have been sending for you tomorrow anyway. Got a new project for you, doctor,” he said, stressing the last word.

  I did not react, I just waited.

  He fished in his pockets, found a pair of large gold cufflinks and began threading them through the cuffs of his shirt. “Elena was a big loss,” he said.

  “I bet you miss her very much,” I replied. My policy of remaining silent and not saying anything to provoke him had not started very well.

  “Now, don’t be cheeky,” he said. “Because you’re the one with the friend all mixed up in that. If I was you I’d be keeping very quiet on that one, you know what I mean.”

  “I told you I was not involved.”

  “Oh, well, if you told me...fuck it, go in. Here, do this for me.” He held out his arm towards me. I hesitated. I did not want to touch him, let alone dress him. “Go on,” he said. “I haven’t got all fucking night.”

  This is about power, I thought. Showing me, he can make me do whatever he wants. He stood right in front of me, his crotch at the level of my head. I could smell the musk of his aftershave. I took the cufflink in my hand, and did it as quickly as I could. I knew he was looking down on the back of my head as I bent down before him. I knew what it would be making him think. The world felt very close, and very hot.

  “The other,” he ordered. I did that one too. He stood there before me for a moment, when I had finished, inches from me, not moving, and I did not breathe.

  Then he turned away, picked up the glass from the table, and took another drink.

  “I have to tell you about—”

  “I’ve not finished yet,” he said. “So wait. I want to be out, got dinner with some very important people and I want to make a good impression, proper people, so shut up while I tell you what I want. Elena kept someone important to me happy, and I want to keep on making him happy. It’s cost me an arm and a leg, and too much bloody effort, but I’ve got a girl coming in tomorrow, going to be just the job. I want you to give her a good going over, make sure she’s in tip top health, not got anything nasty going on, you know what I mean. She’s young, fresh, so there shouldn’t be, but I want her checking. You hear me?”

  “I hear you,” I said.

  “Good.”

  “I hear you but I do not listen to you.”

  He sighed. “Now don’t tell me we’ve got to go through this again, Anna. I thought I made it clear to you last time. What is it, you want money now? Getting greedy?”

  “I will not do it,” I said. “I do not care what you do to me. I will not do it. That is what I have come here to tell you.”

  Corgan was suddenly in motion, slamming his drink down so hard on the glass table that I thought that both would break. I jumped to my feet, walking backwards as he came towards me, and trying to get my hand into my coat pocket.

  “Will not? Will not? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

  I did not walk backwards quickly enough, or put my hand in my pocket quickly enough, and Corgan punched me in the face. The blow caught me on my cheekbone and sent me sprawling over the back of the couch. My face felt as if it was on fire. Corgan leaned over, lazily, grabbed my hair in his hand, and dragged me back to my feet.

  “What was that, my dear?” He cupped a hand to his ear. “I don’t think I quite heard that right.”

  “You heard it,” I said. “I am not going to work for you any more.”

  “Oh,” he said. He sounded very calm, a little puzzled, as if I had just set him a particularly puzzling sum to do. He let go of me, and wandered back to pick up his drink. “Oh, is that a fact?”

  “Yes, yes it is,” I said.

  “I don’t think so,” Corgan said. “And you know it, Anna. Is this another of your little tantrums, stamp your foot at me, tell me what a bad man I am? I don’t think so. I’m going out, haven’t got time for any bollocks like that. You’re attitude has been amusing for a while, but I’m bored of it now. So piss off, there’s a good girl.”

  “Don’t talk to me like that,” I said. “Like I am just some girl, worth nothing. You are an evil man.”

  He grinned. “Evil’s for fairy tales, Anna. I’m the real world. You have no idea.”

  “Oh, I have,” I said. “I know the real too.” And I pulled Daniel’s gun out of my coat pocket and I pointed it at his face.

  He stood very still. Then he grinned. “Well, you’ve got more balls than I thought. Put that down now, and we won’t say anything more about it. In a way, it makes me admire you. Wish more of my lot had your balls.”

  “Elena,” I said.

  Corgan shrugged. “What about her?”

  “You killed her.”

  “Not me.”

  “One of your men, then. Makes no difference.”

  “Why would I do that?” Corgan said, his voice soft. “She earned good money for me. Was important to me for reasons you wouldn’t even know. Or would you, Anna? I wonder now.”

  “Oh, I know,” I said. “You killed her because you thought she was going to ruin your little plan with Budden.”

  Corgan’s eyes widened. “Well, you are a dark horse. You’re going to tell me how you found out about that.”

  “I have the gun, I am not going to tell you anything.”

  “We’ll see,” he said. He was very calm. “I didn’t kill her, you know. Didn’t even learn that she was up to anything until after she was dead, when Danny told me about her and your friend.” He looked at me, smiled. “See you know about that too. He left you out of it, the worthless little cock. I’ll be seeing him about that. Guess he wanted to keep you for himself. You are a clever one aren’t you? So what were you going to do, the three of you?”

  “Who killed her?”

  He shrugged. “Occupational hazard. Budden’d been to see her that night, did his stuff, went away, drank some more, came back early hours of the morning wanting another go. Over-did it a little, what with the drink, lost control of himself, got carried away, and that was that. So I get a call, but not until the next lunchtime, because the stupid bastard had only gone back home and had a kip, hadn’t he, didn’t even call me straight away. Just remembered there’s a bit of a mess, he says. Needs cleaning up. Sorry, but I broke the toy. So I sent my lads round to clear up. And there you go, I didn’t kill her, you can put the gun down.”

  “You did kill her. As good as. And every day, there are girls like her, others, far from their homes, on their backs under disgusting men making money for people like you.”

  “Supply and demand,” Corgan said. “I don’t kidnap anyone and make them come over here. Put the gun down.”

  “No, you just tell them they will work in a bar, or in a club as a hostess. Then you make them junkies and you make them sleep with men and then after a time they have no choice. I know how it works.”

  It was then that I knew I was different from Daniel. I knew that I could. And just for a moment, Corgan knew too. He ran his tongue over his lips, looked pale.

  “Leave her alone,” Sean said.

  He stood at the end of the passage from the front door, with a knife in his hand. It was one from the boiler room, half covered in plaster and left in the sink. He must have taken it while we were there. Oh, Sean, Sean. You were not meant to follow me. You were meant to find the hotel, and then if I did not come back because Corgan had me, or I had killed him and the police had me, you would have been safe.

  “And who,” Corgan said, “the fuck are you, and what are you doing in my fucking flat?” He did not appear to notice the knife, or be afraid in any way.

  “Anna, get over here,” Sean said.

  I looked over at him, and Corgan reached out and grabbed my hand, twisted it so hard I nearly passed out from the pain. I dropped the gun, but the moment he let go of my hand I stepped forward and kicked it away before he could pick it up

  “Stay there,” Corgan said. “And you,” he turned to Sean. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, coming into my home—”

  “I’m the one,” Sean said. “I’m the one you’re looking for.”

  Corgan stood very still for a moment. “Oh,” he said, in a quiet voice. “You are, are you?”

  “Sean, get out,” I said.

  “I’m the one who helped Elena,” Sean said. “I’m the one who set everything up for her.”

  “Thought you’d run away,” Corgan said, moving slowly around the coffee table, so slowly it was almost as if he was not moving at all.

  “I don’t leave my friends,” Sean said, holding the knife out and waving it unsteadily towards Corgan.

  “Oh,” Corgan said. “Oh, that’s lovely. So sweet.”

  “Sean—” I started to shout, and I dropped to my knees to find the gun, but I could not see where it had gone. Corgan was moving fast, out from behind the table and towards Sean, his left hand lifting into the air, and Sean looked up at it for a second, and then Corgan’s right hand came chopping down on Sean’s wrist, and the knife was on the floor and Corgan’s left hand was in a fist and in Sean’s face and Sean was down on the floor and it was all over, and Corgan was not even out of breath.