A Fistful of Knuckles Read online

  Sam, Ray and Chris spoke as one: ‘Yes, Guv.’

  ‘The man we’re after is a boxer – a boxer with small hands,’ said Gene.

  ‘How small’s small, guv?’ asked Ray.

  Gene grabbed Sam’s hand and forced his finger straight.

  ‘Our measuring stick,’ Gene said. ‘The width of the killer’s knuckles match the length of Sam Tyler’s pokey-finger.’

  ‘What bit of the boss can we use if we can’t get to his finger?’ asked Ray, grinning at Sam. ‘You see, my finger’s too big. Way too big.’

  Chris tried his own finger against Sam’s and was delighted to find that they matched exactly – ‘Look at that! Peas in a pod!’ – but then Sam forced his hand free from Gene’s grasp.

  ‘This is my last word on the matter for tonight, gentlemen,’ said Gene. ‘Tomorrow, I want leads – I want information – I want the name of the killer and where we can find him and what he likes on his chips – everything. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, Guv.’

  ‘Very well. Sam, your dopey bit of crumpet’ll be gagging for her ouzo by now – bugger off and entertain her.’

  ‘Will do, Guv,’ said Sam. ‘I’ll see everyone first thing in the morning, then.’

  And as he made for the door, he heard Gene drain his pint, slam his empty glass down, and say: ‘Right, let’s talk about birds and football and motors.’

  Sam stepped out into the deep, dark Manchester night, pulling his jacket around him tighter to fend off the cold. Away in the distance, across a bleak expanse of open ground, he saw coloured lights whirling and flashing, heard a cacophony of screaming and amplified voices and raucous music. For a moment, he felt a sudden sting of fear, as if he had glimpsed the outskirts of Hell.

  Don’t be such an idiot, Sam, he told himself at once. It’s just the fairground.

  Tony Barnard’s Fair. He recalled standing high up on the rooftop of CID and seeing the planes trailing their banners across the sky. And then, in the next instant, he recalled her – the Test Card Girl – goading him, mocking him.

  ‘Don’t you want to know the truth, Sam? Don’t you want to know what I know … about Annie?’

  Round and round she went, buzzing through the inside of his head like a trapped wasp, tormenting him with vague doubts and unnameable fears, poisoning his feelings for Annie.

  Resolutely, he marched along the street, his back to the noise and colour of the fairground.

  There is no dark secret about Annie. It’s all lies. It’s just some crap from deep in the subconscious rising to the surface. A waking nightmare. It’s nothing. It’s less than nothing.

  Less than nothing. But could he be so sure? If the Test Card Girl was less than nothing, why did the mere sight of her freeze the blood in his veins? Why did he even now, just thinking of her, feel as if the shadow of death had fallen across him? Why, only moments before, had he glimpsed the far off lights of the fairground and thought – of all things – of hell?

  He stopped. He listened. The city had fallen silent. Unnaturally silent. Nothing moved except for his heart, which he now found was pounding furiously.

  And then, up ahead, he saw her – the Girl – bathed in the unearthly orange glow of a sodium streetlamp. She was standing motionless, watching him, dressed in her little black dress, her face pale, her eyes filled with the pretence of sadness. She hugged her bandaged doll, then, mockingly, slipped away into a dark alleyway.

  Sam rushed after her, tore down the alley, and burst out into the street at the far end. The shops were shut up and dark. The street lights were all out. The whole street sat in an unnatural, smothering gloom.

  And there, just visible as a pale shape in the darkness, was the Test Card Girl standing motionless, staring back at him.

  ‘Why are you doing this?!’ Sam bellowed at her. His muffled, echoless voice was swallowed by the filthy blackness. ‘What the hell are you trying to tell me?! Why don’t you just come straight out with it?!’

  He began striding towards the Girl, his shoulders back, his jaw firmly set. Just as the darkness smothered his voice, so it seemed to cling to his body and limbs like treacle, slowing him, dragging him back, entombing him. He forced his way forward.

  ‘I know this isn’t real!’

  He could barely move, so heavily did the cloying darkness weigh down on him.

  ‘No more mind games, you little brat! Spit it out. Get it off your chest. Then bugger off out of my head forever and leave me in peace!’

  The Test Card Girl moved not a muscle. Her pale face glowed dimly.

  ‘My place is with Annie! And her place is with me! And when I chose to come back here, to this time, to 1973, I did the right thing! And there’s nothing you can do or say that’ll make me change my mind!’

  He tried to reach her, but now he was being forced to his knees by the invisible pressure that bore down on him. He fought against it, but it was too great for him. It felt like he was being engulfed by a great avalanche of damp soil, crushing his body, filling his mouth, choking his lungs.

  It’s like being buried alive …

  And then, quite suddenly, everything changed. The waking nightmare vanished. The deserted high street was now bustling with people and traffic. He could see the lights of late-night newsagents and off-licenses, the illuminated windows of restaurants and chip shops, the brightly illuminated front of a cinema showing Jesus Christ Superstar. The Test Card Girl was nowhere to be seen. Manchester was just Manchester again. And there, standing outside Eleni’s Greek taverna, was Annie, stamping her feet to keep warm as she waited for him. In that moment, she seemed like an emblem for Life itself. Sam pushed from his mind the horrible memory of suffocation and death – he pulled his jacket straight and ran a hand through his hair – and then he strode forwards, resolute, uncowed, undefeated by the worst nightmares the Test Card Girl could throw at him.

  Tonight isn’t for that little brat with the dolly in her arms. Tonight is for me … Me and Annie.

  When Annie turned her head and caught sight of him, her sudden smile swept all horrors and fears before it, like a steel plough through snow.

  Eleni’s Taverna was authentically Greek only in as much as it had moussaka on the menu and the theme from Zorba playing on an endless loop in the background. There were empty bottles of sangria hanging on the walls and a pair of castanets dangling from beneath a sombrero, all of which suggested a very confused concept of Greek life and culture. But for all that, the food was passable and the atmosphere was warm and Annie was happy and relaxed there, and that was all Sam cared about.

  ‘I don’t think our waiter’s really Greek,’ he confided, pouring Annie a refill of wine.

  ‘He sounds Greek,’ said Annie.

  ‘Sort of. In a strange way. But only with customers. I heard him in the kitchen shouting at the chef. He sounded like Bobby Charlton.’

  ‘They’ve got a model of some old buildings,’ said Annie, indicating some tourist tat sitting in an alcove.

  ‘Annie, it’s a model of the Colosseum,’ said Sam. And then he added: ‘You know, we should go and see it. Together.’

  ‘But we can see it right now, Sam, it’s just over there.’

  ‘No, no, I mean the real thing. In Rome.’

  But she was smiling at him, teasing him.

  ‘I’ll take you to Rome,’ Sam declared. ‘How does that sound?’

  ‘It’s a long way, Sam. And expensive!’

  Sam opened his mouth to say they could easily pop over for a weekend – and then reminded himself that here in 1973, flying visits to Rome were out of the league for humble DI’s like himself to afford.

  ‘I’ll get you there one day,’ Sam promised.

  ‘First Greece, then Italy,’ Annie said, raising her eyebrows. ‘You must have ants in your pants.’

  ‘I lead a jetset playboy lifestyle. Play your cards right and you could be part of it.’

  ‘A chance to live the dream, eh? How can I refuse?’

  Live the dream.
Is that all Sam was doing – living a dream, a fantasy? It was the thought that had been haunting him for so long, that none of this existed outside of his own head.

  It exists, he told himself. It’s real. It’s more real than life in 2006, anyway. Stop thinking about all that. Don’t let the doubts gnaw away at you like this.

  He was determined to rid his mind of all the poison planted there by the Test Card Girl. When he was with Annie, the world made more sense. It seemed right and natural to be sitting with her in a restaurant – even in this place – sharing a bottle of wine and just joking around. His place was with Annie. He knew that, deep inside, without reservation. And he was damned if he was going to let anyone or anything destroy that feeling. To hell with the Test Card Girl and her song-and-dance routines; they were nothing – wisps of smoke rising from his subconscious – bad dreams to be woken up from and forgotten.

  And yet. And yet.

  ‘Tell me about your past, Annie,’ he said, topping up her wine glass.

  ‘My past?!’ exclaimed Annie. ‘Oh, it’s one big riot of glamorous people and exotic locations.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about your family, your parents …’

  Annie rolled her eyes. ‘I haven’t come here to talk about all them!’

  ‘I’m interested. What are your mum and dad like? Have you got brothers or sisters?’

  ‘You’re starting to sound like an immigration officer.’

  ‘I just want to know,’ said Sam. ‘How were things at university when you did psychology? Did you have lots of friends? And lots of boyfriends? And what was it like when you started in the police, before I showed up?’

  But Annie just smiled and waved all that away. Why? Why wouldn’t she engage with him about her past? Was she genuinely not interested? Was she hiding something? Or was there some other reason?

  Suddenly, their waiter – who went by the name of Stavros – paused at their table.

  ‘Is-a every-a-thing-a all-a-right-a?’ he enquired.

  ‘Si, grazie mille,’ said Sam.

  ‘Ah, you-a speak-a da Greek-a!’ Stavros beamed.

  ‘I’m fluent,’ said Sam, fixing him with a look.

  ‘Ah! Good! Good!’ grinned Stavros, his face locking into a strange rictus. ‘Moltos bonnos, monsieuro. Avanti, avanti.’

  And with that he vanished back into the kitchens, sharpish.

  ‘I take it all back,’ said Sam. ‘He’s 100% Greek. Absolutely.’

  ‘I haven’t been out like this for ages,’ said Annie. ‘I know it’s a silly place, but it’s doing me the world of good. Work’s been getting me down.’

  ‘Are you still trying to get that girl to speak to you?’

  ‘Tracy Porter? No. No, she’s refusing to name her boyfriend as the bloke who beat her up. She’s discharged herself from hospital and gone back to him. So that’s that. Case closed … until she turns up in A&E again, beaten to a pulp once more. And then I suppose we’ll go through the same song and dance all over again.’

  ‘Like I said before, you can only do what you can do. But Annie, I didn’t come here with you to talk about work. I wanted to talk about us.’

  ‘Of course, Sam. Sorry. My head’s been so full of that stuff.’

  ‘I know. No need to apologize.’ He smiled at her, and she smiled back. ‘Do you remember, Annie, a little while ago – I told you I had a strange feeling of needing to be somewhere important … but I didn’t know where or why. Do you remember that?’

  ‘I remember it,’ said Annie. ‘Of course I do. I told you then that I felt the same thing.’

  ‘And do you still have that feeling?’

  ‘Sometimes. And you?’

  ‘Often,’ said Sam. ‘Most days, in fact. It won’t go away.’

  ‘What does it mean, Sam? Are we going slowly bonkers together?’

  ‘I don’t think so. And if we are … well, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather end up sharing a padded cell with than you.’

  ‘How very romantic,’ said Annie.

  ‘I’m not sure that came out quite right. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because I’m pretty sure we’re not going mad.’ He tried to push out of his mind memories of coming here to the restaurant – mad memories of the Test Card Girl and the hallucinatory worlds she kept dragging Sam into. ‘Do you believe in Fate, Annie?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s not something I think about. Why? Do you think it’s Fate that’s making us feel the way we do?’

  ‘That’s how it feels.’ He looked for the right words and completely failed to find them. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I can’t express it.’

  ‘Can I tell you something, Sam?’ Annie asked, dropping her voice.

  ‘Something confidential?’

  ‘Yes. It’s about that girl who got beaten up – Tracy Porter – but it’s about me too.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Annie thought for a moment, then said: ‘There was something about her that kept playing on my mind. I lost sleep over it. I thought it was just one of those things … you know, pressures of the job … but now I’m not so sure.’ She paused, looking for the words, then went on slowly: ‘I can’t express it any better than you can, Sam, but … it’s like … it’s like when I looked at Tracy, I felt I was somehow seeing myself … or … a version of myself. No, that’s not quite it. It’s … it’s like …’

  ‘It’s like you needed to save Tracy Porter in order to save yourself,’ said Sam.

  ‘Maybe. Something like that,’ said Annie, looking intently at him from across the table. ‘But … it doesn’t make any sense. Save myself from what?’

  ‘The million-dollar question. I feel the same. And I ask myself the same question, Annie: what is it that’s out there that I’m so afraid of?’

  ‘Because there is something out there … isn’t there, Sam.’

  Sam nodded, and said: ‘God knows what, but yes, I think there is.’

  Instinctively, they reached for each other across the table. Their fingers interlaced.

  ‘Whatever it is out there that’s so frightening,’ said Annie, ‘it’s not the likes of Patsy O’Riordan. It’s something … something very different.’

  ‘Patsy O’Riordan?’

  ‘That’s Tracy’s boyfriend,’ said Annie. ‘That’s the thug who works at Barnard’s Fairground. He’s the one who beats her up.’

  ‘Patsy O’Riordan …’ muttered Sam to himself. He knew that name. Dammit, he’d heard it somewhere before. But where? When?

  ‘I’m not frightened of men like Patsy,’ Annie went on. ‘They’re just cavemen. What’s really scary is something else, something I can’t put my finger on.’

  ‘Patsy O’Riordan … Patsy O’Riordan …’ Sam was whispering to himself.

  ‘Sam? Are you listening to me?’

  The image of Stella in her stilettos and zebra-striped top, handcuffed in the Lost & Found room with Gene slapping her about appeared in Sam’s mind.

  ‘Denzil and Spider went up against some right hard bastards,’ Stella was saying.

  ‘Names! Names!’ Gene was insisting, smacking her head back and forth. ‘Give me names!’

  ‘Lenny Gorman, Bartley Shaw, Patsy O’Riordan out of Kilburn. Big men … real men … hard men …’

  ‘Patsy O’Riordan once fought Denzil Obi!’ Sam said, his mind working fast. ‘Patsy arrives in town with the fairground … and at the same time Denzil Obi winds up dead. That’s it! That’s our lead! That’s our first real lead!’

  Instinctively, Sam let go of Annie’s hand and he began searching his pockets for his mobile. He would ring the guv’s office, leave a message on his machine for him to pick up first thing in the morning and …

  But then he stopped searching for his mobile and recalled where he was. Some old habits died very hard.

  ‘Annie – you said you were meeting Tracy when she comes for her hospital appointment, right? Let me come too. Let me speak to her. Maybe she’ll speak to me, or at the very least start to trust me. I can use her
to get closer to Patsy O’Riordan. What do you think, Annie? Do you think that would work?’

  He looked across at Annie and saw at once that the intense mood between them had been broken. He had broken it. Not even the theme from Zorba being played for the millionth time could bring it back.

  ‘This job, eh, Sam?’ said Annie.

  It was cold and very dark when they left the snug of the taverna. Sam offered to walk Annie home, but she said it was better to get a cab.

  ‘You’re not off with me are you?’ Sam asked. ‘When you mentioned the name Patsy O’Riordan a light came on in my head. I suddenly saw a connection.’ He shrugged. ‘You know how it was when you’re working on a case. Sometimes your brain just won’t switch off.’

  ‘I know what it’s like,’ Annie said. ‘And no, I’m not off with you. It was a lovely evening – almost like being in Greece for real.’

  ‘Um. Maybe.’

  ‘And I won’t be offended if you ask me out again sometime.’

  ‘Would you be offended if I did this?’

  He leant forward and kissed her on the mouth.

  ‘Well?’ he asked. ‘Was that … offensive?’

  ‘Not sure,’ said Annie. ‘Try it again.’

  He did.

  ‘Jury’s still out,’ said Annie. ‘One more. Just to make my mind up.’

  ‘If you absolutely insist.’

  As they kissed for a third time, they were interrupted by howls and wolf-whistles from across the road. They looked round, half expecting to see Gene and Ray and Chris – but no, this time it was just a group of lads, tanked-up and overexcited, rolling back from the fairground.

  ‘We never seem to get a moment,’ said Sam.

  ‘Well, at least you can look forward to the red hot date I’ve invited you on.’ And when Sam looked at her blankly she pinched his cheek playfully and added: ‘Tomorrow. At the hozzie. Meeting with Tracy. Remember?’

  He hooked his arm around Annie’s and walked her in the direction of a taxi rank. Away in the darkness, they saw the spinning lights of Terry Barnard’s Fairground. The screams and heavily amplified music rolled through the night and became a filthy mush of sound like something rumbling up out of a nightmare. Momentarily, Sam glimpsed a figure standing silhouetted by the coloured lights. Tall, straight-shouldered, motionless. Was he watching them?