Dead Men's s Boots — читать онлайн бесплатно полностью

’ He was already walking past the next cab in line as he spoke, and now he pulled open the door of the third.

‘You’ve got to go from the front of the-’ the driver began.

‘Just drive,’ Nicky snapped. ‘I’m not paying you to fucking talk at me.’

Nicky skootched over and I climbed in beside him, putting the briefcase at my feet. This driver was – fortunately – older and less solidly built ³ soandthan the first. His balding head, wispy hair clinging in loose tufts around his ears, and his bulbous nose made him look like a moonlighting circus clown. He turned a solemn gaze on Nicky, then on me, weighed dignity against discretion and went for the easy option. We pulled away while the cabbie in front of us in the rank leaned on his horn in futile protest.

‘Where to?’ our driver demanded.

‘Walthamstow,’ Nicky said. ‘Top end of Hoe Street. And turn your radio on.’

The driver leaned forward. Tinny country and western music filled the cab.

‘Louder,’ Nicky said. ‘All the way up.’

I’ve got to know Nicky’s moods pretty well over the years, so the paranoia came as no surprise. His coming out here to meet me, in spite of the fact that he saw me as the source of his troubles, was more revealing: something heavy would have been needed to counterbalance his spectacularly overdeveloped survival instincts. The only thing I knew that was heavy enough was his spectacularly overdeveloped ego. He wanted – really wanted – to tell me what he’d found.

‘So go ahead,’ I invited him, as plunky guitar noises echoed around our ears.

‘Make your day?’

‘If you think you can, Nicky, yeah. Make my day. It’s going to be a pretty tall order, though.’

‘Well, how’s this for starters?’ He threw the newspaper in my lap: The Sun. With the pressure of his hands removed it started to unroll. I smoothed it out and read the headline. PREMIER MANAGER IN BUNGS SCANDAL. Okay, that was the sports page. I flipped it over.

TWO DIE IN M1 INFERNO.

And a photo – an old photo, too flattering by about thirty pounds – of Gary Coldwood.

‘Oh Jesus!’ I muttered.

‘Guy was a friend of yours, wasn’t he, Castor? And it seemed like only yesterday he was promising you “something juicy”. I’m assuming that was work-related rather than some freaky outcrop of your love life. Then he jumps the barrier on the M1 northbound at one in the morning and hits a car coming the other way. Hundred-and-fortymile-an-hour collision. Boom. Smoking spark plugs come down half a mile away. Two people in the other car, mother and ten-year-old daughter, both dead. Coldwood hauled out of the wreckage with both legs broken, stinking of booze. Funny how things work out.’

I couldn’t answer. I was still staring at the photo. Coldwood was wearing an expression I’d seen on his face at least a hundred times: a tough-guy cockiness that he copied from John Woo movies and never managed to get more than half right. He really wanted to be the scourge of evildoers. If he could have got away with wearing a cape and mask to work, he would have done it.

Nicky was still talking. ‘I checked this stuff out afterwards, you understand. After I got broken into in the middle of the fucking night. Two guys, both carrying guns with no serial numbers on them. No ID, no pack drill. Deadfall trap got one of them, and the other died when I routed the mains power through the lock he was trying to pick to get in to me. Coincidence? I asked myself. Old friends getting nostalgic? My fucking batshit family, coming in for another pass? But no. After five minutes on the internet I turn up this Coldwood thing, and then I know it’s you.’

‘Nicky-’ I didn’t even know what I was going to say. There was a tight, wound-up feeli³ wo821ng in my chest that felt like it was climbing upwards. This was my fault. John Gittings and Vince Chesney counted as negligent homicide, but this was worse, somehow. I’d pushed Gary into the line of fire and then I’d ducked.

‘So now I’m interested,’ Nicky was saying. ‘Hey, pal, you want to turn that radio up? It’s not reaching us in the back here. So now I’m looking for patterns. The first one I find is that Coldwood wasn’t the only stubborn stain that got wiped out on this pass.’

‘There was someone else in the car with him?’

‘Nope. But there were some other cops dying that night and they were friends of his. A detective constable and a forensics guy named Marchioness. What kind of a name is that for a guy to wear? One of them jumped out of a window, the other was pushed in front of a train. Busy night for the reaper, last night was. Unsociable hours, the whole fucking deal. He should talk to his union.’

I turned to Nicky to tell him to get to the fucking point, but the dry black pebbles of his eyes met my stare with implacable calm.

‘One more and then I’m done. You ever hear of a guy named Stuart Langley?’

‘Of course,’ I said.