The Trawlerman, стр. 69
She pulled her arm tighter, the back of his neck in the crook of her elbow, forcing his head into her armpit, and heard him rasp for breath.
‘Let go,’ he whined.
She started to laugh. Only days ago he had lain like this, on top of her. Tired, wet and wrung out from the last few weeks, she laughed like she hadn’t done for a long time.
She held him a whole minute longer until he stopped struggling, then slowly loosened her grip.
‘Bitch,’ he gasped again, so she reasserted her grip a second time, this time a little tighter until she heard him start to choke.
‘Don’t ever call me that.’
When she guessed he had finally had enough, she released him again, pushed him off her, then sat up and pulled Zoë’s bike off her legs and stood, leaving him lying on the floor. She would have impressive bruises in the morning. He too, she hoped.
She propped the bike back up where it had been, switched off the light, and then stood by the open door. ‘Get out of here,’ she said.
He sat up, rubbing his neck. ‘You stitched me up. You gave the police some cock and bull story about me killing a man seven years ago.’
A light came on outside, shining on the ground behind her. She turned to see a man in grey tracksuit bottoms emerging from one of the back doors with a broom in his hand, held like a weapon.
‘Who’s there?’
Alex emerged from the darkness of the shed and did her best to smile reassuringly. In the light she could see he was wearing the same T-shirt he’d been wearing the last time she had seen him. ‘Sorry. Me again. I fell over while putting the bike away.’
‘Is that the woman from number seven?’
‘Yes. Sorry to have disturbed you again.’
‘Your face is bleeding. Are you OK?’
‘Is it?’ She held her hand up and touched the cheekbone where Terry Neill had hit her; when she lowered it, she saw blood on her fingers. ‘Just a scratch. I’m fine. Go back to bed.’
She waited until the man had closed the door behind him, then returned to the shed. ‘Go home, Terry.’
He was sitting cross-legged on the concrete floor. ‘They took my bloody car away. They took the cash from my house.’
‘Yes. If we’re lucky, they’ll start looking into your banking affairs too.’
‘I told them you gave me the cash.’
‘And if I deny it, as I will, and tell them I have no idea what you’re talking about, who do you think they’ll believe? A police officer who’s always had a stick up her arse, or you?’
He grunted. ‘You’re trying to set me up for a murder I didn’t commit. I did nothing but treat you well.’
She took the light off her handlebars and switched it on again, to full beam, pointing it right at his face.
He stood up, shielding his eyes from the light with his hand.
‘You’re framing me for murder,’ he said.
‘Because you are a murderer.’
He stared back at her, pupils shrinking from the glare.
‘Let’s get this absolutely straight, Terry. You are a murderer. You killed Bob Glass.’ He blinked at her, scared now.
He shook his head vigorously.
‘Bob Glass was squatting in the field when he heard you and Ayman Younis arguing. I guess that was you telling Ayman he wasn’t ever getting his money back. He would have been pretty hurt, wouldn’t he? When you heard about that, you figured that Bob Glass was the only person with real evidence to identify you as the one who had conned everyone out of their money, so you killed him. Given your past, I don’t think you’d have found it hard buying some street methadone. Something way stronger than he’d have been used to. How did you make him drink it? Did he want to? Or did you force it down his throat? What? Is that “No comment” again?’
He found his voice again. ‘That’s crazy.’
‘Isn’t it though? I think it was you all along. I’m pretty sure of that.’
‘I told them you gave me the money.’
‘And I’ll say you’re lying. Know what? I’ve never put a foot wrong as a copper. I’m as straight as they come. Always have been. I even shopped one of my best friends. You, on the other hand, were a known associate of Frank Hogben, someone who bought drugs from him at the time, someone who lost their job because of their addiction and then lied about it. You’re really asking the police to believe that someone like me would plant money on you?’
She switched off the torch, leaving them in absolute darkness.
‘So which murder do you want to go down for, Terry? A seven-year-old murder of a drug dealer who nobody really missed very much, back when you were an addict and not in a good shape and not in sound mind? Or the premeditated murder of an ex-serviceman to cover up a financial fraud? It’s your choice. The more you tell them I gave you that money, or you don’t know where that money came from, the more they’ll dig into your finances. And I know you’ve covered your tracks, but what if they find something, and it all starts to unravel?’
Her eyes adjusted to the darkness. He was still standing at the back of the shed, his face a dim moon in the blackness.
‘I’m going to bed now. Go home.’
She turned and walked back into the overcast night.
‘I thought you were nice,’ he called out from the shed, like a boy who had had his toy taken away.
‘So did I,’ she said. Heart still thumping, she made sure she was at the door of her house, and her key safely in it, before she let herself turn to see him slink out of the shed.
Letting herself in, she made her way through the dark house and upstairs to her bedroom. Through the window, she watched him walking