Ascension Day (70 page)

But when he got back there, Truelle’s secretary said that he wasn’t in. He barged through to Truelle’s office in case she was lying, then asked where he was and what time she expected him back.

‘Don’t know… he didn’t say. For either.’

Faint ring of truth about it, but it wouldn’t get him anywhere pulling out
her
fingernails. Truelle wouldn’t get back any quicker. He’d just have to sit it out.

Another flat-handed bash of the steering wheel as he got back into his car…
fuck
! Two more as an hour rolled past and Truelle still hadn’t returned, three each at the two and three hour marks, and then finally, as it got close to office closing time and Truelle still wasn’t back, a machine-gun roll of them as Nel-M felt his nerves finally snapping.

He daren’t even phone Roche or answer his call if he rang. If he told Roche he’d lost
both
Ayliss and Truelle and that Ayliss’s wife had ended up in hospital, the resultant incredulous gasping fit would send Roche into seizure; one good result from the afternoon, perhaps, but not the one he was after.

He waited another hour in case Truelle was late getting back to his office, left with another flat-handed
fuck
, one more as he arrived in front of Truelle’s apartment building and saw no light on at his window, and was halfway through another couple at the one hour mark with Truelle still not back, when his cell-phone rang. Vic Farrelia.

A slow smile crept across Nel-M’s face as Farrelia related the call that had just come in on Truelle’s line. Truelle’s second, so far elusive, insurance policy: Chris Tullington, wife Brenda; Vancouver, Canada. Shouldn’t be too hard to track down. Now they had them both: full house. 

Nel-M checked his watch. Both would have to be taken out at the same time, no question, and if possible that very night. But which one did he take himself and which did he leave to Tommy Garrard, who’d so effectively taken care of Dr Thallerey? Vancouver or upstate New York? Not much to choose between them travelling-time-wise.

He called Roche to tell him the good news and see if he had any preferences. Leave him with that last bit of power and decision-making he so coveted.

Every joint and muscle of Melanie Ayliss’s body seemed to scream and ache as she made her way up the steps of the Eighth District station house and approached its front desk at just after 10 p.m.

‘I have a complaint to lodge.’

‘Oh,
really
?’ A bright-eyed young sergeant called Brennan quickly killed his faint smile and the surprise in his voice as he realized his sarcasm had been lost on the sour-faced woman before him. Rule fifty-eight of the police manual: never joke with heavily-bruised women in neck-braces. He lowered his voice an octave; feigned gravity. ‘And what would that be ma’m?’

‘I had an accident earlier...’

‘
Oh
?’

She looked at him sharply, unsure whether he was still kidding or not. ‘And part of the reason for it was that I’d just been told that my ex-husband – who in fact I haven’t seen for the past seven years – was on a certain street. But when I looked at who I thought was my ex-husband, it wasn’t him.’

‘And this…
this
caused the accident?’ It was hard for Brennan to keep the incredulous tone out of his voice, but he kept his face serious, slightly furrowed. Striving to understand.

   ‘Yes…
yes
. Because when I saw that it wasn’t him, I braked.’ Melanie Ayliss was striving equally hard to emphasize, make her point. ‘And the car behind went straight into me.’

It was taking every bit of Brennan’s willpower to keep a straight face. Any of the phrases rolling through his head at that moment – ‘
Fancy that
?’ or ‘
Why on earth would they do a fool thing like that
? – would have sent him into raptures of laughter, rolling on the floor.

‘The main point I’m trying to make,’ she said, her voice getting testy for the first time, ‘is that someone is driving round impersonating my ex-husband.’

‘Oh, right. I see.’ Brennan was glad she’d extracted the main point from all of this; it might have taken him a while. ‘So this man doesn’t
look
like your ex-husband, but is nevertheless passing himself off as him?’

‘No, no. It
does
look like him – well, a close-enough resemblance. But it wasn’t him.’

Brennan blinked slowly. ‘Oh, right. You actually spoke to him?’

‘No,
no
. I didn’t.’ Testiness quickly verging into annoyance at this wet-behind-the-ears desk sergeant still grasping the wrong end of the stick. Or was he purposely being obstructive? ‘Just that two-second look before… before the car behind went into me.’

This was getting harder by the minute. Brennan ran one hand through his hair, sighing. ‘And you haven’t seen him, you say, for seven years?’

‘That’s right.’ She went to nod, only then realizing that she couldn’t with the neck brace. 

‘Yet you’re sure it wasn’t him… even though you say it actually
looked
like him and you were only able to eyeball him for a couple of seconds?’

‘Yes,
yes
… a hundred per cent
sure
.’ Her voice practically a hiss, her eyes narrowing. Having spent two hours unconscious and the rest of the day being scanned, probed, stitched, strapped, and jabbed with a succession of needles, the last thing she needed was another prick. ‘Believe you me, when you’ve been married to someone for twelve years, you know it’s not them in the first millisecond, let alone two seconds. Even after seven years.’

‘Oh… okay.’ Brennan wasn’t about to argue with that.

Her eyes flickered briefly to one side. ‘Also, there… there was no recognition on his face when he saw me.’

What, he didn’t suddenly slam on his brakes as well
? But from the glint in this woman’s eyes, her patience worn, Brennan knew that he’d be taking his life in his hands to show even the trace of a smile. He’d be joining her in wearing a neck-brace. ‘And any idea, ma’m, why this other person might be impersonating your husband?’ Brennan made sure, too, to keep any further doubt out of his voice; his best formal procedural.

‘No, uuuh… not really.’ One thing she hadn’t thought about. She smiled tightly. ‘Hopefully that’s something you’ll be able to tell me…
when
you’ve caught up with him.’ 

Spinning city lights… spinning all around
.

Floating. The sensation pleasant. But suddenly Truelle sensed that something was wrong. The lights were spinning rapidly towards him… and now that horrible, gut-wrenching sensation of falling…
falling
! Nel-M had taken off his hood just before throwing him from the building!…
falling… falling…

Truelle’s eyes snapped open and he sat bolt upright at the jolt of hitting the ground, his breath short, heart pounding like a jack-hammer. And there was a woman’s voice in the background, coming from the lounge – ‘…when you get this message, Lenny… if you could call me…’ – leaving a message on his answer-phone. He jumped out of bed, legs unsteady, everything still spinning slightly around him, ran towards it. ‘Strangely enough, when… when Alan spoke to you a couple of weeks back and got that letter of yours, he talked about us all getting together again and–

‘Hello…. Maggie. I’m
here
. It’s Lenny… what is it?’ He could tell from her voice that she was distraught, almost as breathless as he was at that moment, sniffling slightly. Then he felt his legs almost give way completely, still
falling
, as she related the horror of what had happened earlier that night: Alan shot dead. Her and the kids were out at the time, she’d gone to pick their son up from a Scout’s evening and had taken their daughter along for the ride. The police, putting it all together, believe that the alarm on Alan’s car in the driveway was set off to get him outside, then he was taken inside by his assailant and some papers rifled through in his office before he was shot.

‘I… I found him when I came back with the kids.’ Fresh breath to fight back the tears. ‘But the crazy thing is, there doesn’t seem to be anything of value taken.’

Falling… ‘Oh, Maggie…
Maggie
. I’m so sorry.’

‘Something like this, it’s… it’s
unbelievable
.’ She forced an ironic snort through her shaky voice and sniffles. ‘That’s why we moved upstate, because we thought it would be safer.’

‘I know… I know.’
Falling
… the breath grunting out of him as his legs finally gave way, sinking to his knees as he clung to the telephone table with his other hand.

‘I started my calls at six, not long after the police left. Relatives, friends… and I called you, Lenny, not only because you’re a good old friend of mine and Alan’s, but because I wondered what you wanted done now with that envelope you sent –
if
I can find where Alan put it?’

‘
Oh
?’ Not daring to tell this mother of two – this
widow
–that it probably wasn’t there any longer and that her husband had very likely been killed because of it. Truelle looked towards the clock for the first time: 8.08 a.m.

She forced an awkward, tremulous chuckle. ‘I remember him smiling about it at the time, because you’d given instructions of what to do if anything happened to you… but not what to do if anything happened to
him
.’ 

‘Well, I… I hadn’t really thought about that.’ He swallowed hard, closed his eyes. City lights still spinning in his head, along with an image of Alan being shot and Maggie screaming and spilling tears over his prone body when she found him, her two children shaking and fearful in the background. ‘And I… I can’t really think clearly about it now.’ He took a fresh breath. ‘And you… you’ve got other things to worry about right now.’

‘I know.’ Sniffling, the tears close again.

‘There… there’s no urgency. I’ll give you a call in a few days time when I’ve thought about it and things have settled down more your end.’ He sighed heavily. ‘And again, Maggie, I’m sorry…
so sorry
. If there’s anything I can do over these coming days,
anything…
don’t hesitate to contact me.’ 

But Truelle found it difficult to stand up again after they signed off, still gripping to the table as if it was that last raft or the edge of a high building. Oh God…
Oh God
! 

But why
now
? If they’d known of Alan’s whereabouts all along, then why not just after he’d first sent the envelope? Or maybe it was just a terrible coincidence. People got shot in upstate New York too. Or was it because of Ayliss visiting him yesterday and him then going AWOL. Nel-M fearing the worst and not able to catch up with him, so…

Truelle got up then, in fact leapt back a full two paces from the phone as if it had given him a high-voltage shock, staring back at it accusingly as he recalled the message that had come in the night before from Chris Tullington in Vancouver.

‘
Be careful where you call from with anything too juicy or incriminating. Your phones might well be bugged
.’ McElroy too had warned him earlier, but he’d already had his lines checked and cleared! Office
and
home.

He’d also spoken to Chris two weeks back when he’d first sent the envelopes. He racked his brain for what might have been said then, shaking his head after a moment; it hardly mattered now. If for whatever reason everything was going down
now
, Chris was in danger, and himself: if his line was bugged, they’d now know he was back at his apartment. Nel-M could be on his way already.

He shrank back another pace from the phone, then rushed over to the window, looking out. No Nel-M in sight, nothing else that looked out of place or worrying. He grabbed his keys, a handful of coins from a side-drawer, and leapt breakneck down the apartment building steps. He gave the street a furtive each-way scan, then ran round the corner, finally settling on a kiosk three blocks away, in case Nel-M meanwhile pulled up by his place.

His hand shook wildly as he anxiously fed in the coins and dialled Chris’s number.