The Caller (27 page)

Joe was absolutely still, paralysed. He couldn’t breathe. He felt a new throbbing pressure in his jaw. His eyes streamed. He slowly sensed warm concrete against his face. He pulled himself up from the pavement. Too many emotions flooded his body. The radio on his belt crackled to life. It was Maller.

‘We lost him. He’s in the park, heading your way, along by the playground.’

Now one emotion overrode all others: rage.

***

‘I don’t think your mommy was a good girl, Hayley, I don’t think your mommy was a good girl,’ Riggs was howling, ranting, rocking wildly, bent over, his face contorted. He clawed desperately at the inside pocket of his coat. Joe burst through the trees, suddenly faced with this deranged display, but ready, his Glock 9mm drawn.

‘Put your hands where I can see them.’

He couldn’t remember his name. Riggs looked up; his arm jerked free, swinging wildly to his right and back again, as Joe pumped six bullets into his chest. Riggs fell backwards, landing to stare sightless at the sky, arms outstretched, palms open. Joe walked over, looking for a weapon he knew did not exist.

But something did lie in Riggs’ upturned palm – a maroon and gold pin: a hawk, wings aloft, beak pointing earthwards. He had been gripping it so tightly, it had pierced his palm.

Ely State Prison, Nevada, two days later

‘Shut up, you fuckin’ freak. Shut your fuckin’ ass. I got National Geographic in my fuckin’ ears twenty-four/seven, you sick son of a bitch. Who gives a shit about your fuckin’ birds, Pukey Dukey? Who gives a fuckin’ shit?’

Duke Rawlins lay face down on the bottom bunk of his eight by ten cell. Every muscle in his long, wiry body tensed.

‘Don’t call me that.’ His face was set into a frown, his lips pale and full. He rubbed his head, disturbing the dirty blond hair that grew long at the back, but was cut short above his chill blue eyes.

‘Call you what?’ said Kane. ‘Pukey Dukey?’

Duke hated group. They made him say shit that was nobody’s business. He couldn’t believe this asshole, Kane, knew what the kids used to call him in school.

‘This hawk has that wing span, this hawk ripped a jack rabbit a new asshole, this hawk is alpha, this hawk is beta, and this little hawk goes wee, wee, wee, all the way home to you, you sick son of a bitch.’

Duke leapt from his bunk, sliding his arm from under the pillow, pulling out a pared-down, sharpened spike of Plexiglas. He jabbed it towards Kane, who jerked his head back hard against the wall. He jabbed again and again, slicing the air close enough to Kane’s face to let him know he meant it.

The warden’s voice stopped him.

‘Lookin’ to book yourself a one-way ticket to Carson City, Rawlins?’ Carson City was where Ely’s death row inmates took their last breath.

Duke spun around as he unlocked the door and pushed into the cell. The warden smoothed on a surgical glove and calmly took the weapon from a man he knew was too smart to screw up this close to his release.

‘Thought you might like to read this, Rawlins,’ he said, holding up a printout from the
New York
Times
website.

Duke walked slowly towards the warden and stopped. The pockmarked face of Donald Riggs jumped right at him. KIDNAP ENDS IN FATAL EXPLOSION. Mother and daughter dead. Kidnapper fatally wounded. Duke went white. He reached out for the paper, pulling it from the
warden’s hand as his legs slid from under him and he slumped on to the floor. ‘Not Donnie, not Donnie, not Donnie,’ he screamed over and over in his head. Before he passed out, his body suddenly heaved and he threw up all over the floor, spraying the warden’s shoes and pants.

Kane jumped down from his bed, kicking Duke in the gut because he could. His laugh was deep and satisfied. ‘Pukey fuckin’ Dukey. Man, this is quality viewing.’

‘Get back to your business, Kane,’ said the warden as he turned his back on the stinking cell.

Darkhouse

Alex Barclay lives outside Dublin. Her debut novel
Darkhouse
was both a
Sunday Times
and international bestseller.
The Caller
is her second novel.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.co.uk for exclusive updates on Alex Barclay.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are
the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is
entirely coincidental.

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A Paperback Original 2007

1

Copyright © Alex Barclay

Alex Barclay asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work

Daphne Du Maurier quote reproduced with permission of
Curtis Brown Group Ltd on behalf of the Estate of
Daphne Du Maurier copyright © Daphne Du Maurier 1938

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is available from the British Library

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ePub edition June 2008 ISBN- 9780007279425

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