The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries Read online

  “If it wasn’t for everything you’ve taught me I’d never have been able to love Sophie as she deserves. I couldn’t do it when I first knew her because I didn’t know enough. It was you who taught me how to know people and let them know me. It’s all your doing, Penny. You’ve shown me how to be all the things she wanted me to be then and I couldn’t. We owe it all to you and we’ll never forget it.”

  I won’t either. Not ever. You see, that was when I did want to kill him. But even then, if I hadn’t been jointing the chickens when he said it and had a sharp knife in my hands, we’d still have been all right. I know we would.

  THE KILLER BESIDE ME

  Allan Guthrie

  “We’re long past our sell-by date.” Trevor switched his grip on his cane. He’d been clutching it hard for ages now and his hand was clammy. What were the bastards up to, taking so long to get here?

  “Bollocks,” Harry said. “We’ve got a good couple of years in us yet. We’ve defied the odds so far. I’m looking forward to old age. Has its perks. You can spit on the floor and beat nosey children with your cane.”

  “But after a while,” Trevor said, “you’ll get tired of lying in a pile of your own shite.”

  “Or somebody else’s.”

  “What’re you saying? If anything, you’ll lose control of your bowels before me.”

  “At least I can still get it up.”

  “Fuck you. Anyway, that’s not what I mean. Just making a point,” Trevor said. “We shouldn’t be here. Not at our age.”

  “Fuck, we’re not in our seventies yet. Don’t write us off. I can see the day when we’ll need special adult undergarments. I long for that day.”

  Trevor didn’t move. He couldn’t, not without his brother’s help. The settee was too deep. A faded old two-seater, that’s the best the fuckers could come up with. Stuffed out of the way in a room that was some kind of cleaning room. A hoover, mop in a bucket, stink of furniture polish. The bank manager had had to move a cardboard box full of rubber gloves and dusters before they’d been able to sit down. When he left, he’d locked the door behind him.

  Where the fuck were the police?

  Trevor said, “I once gave a blind man a blow job, you know.”

  “You did not.”

  “Did.”

  “Not.”

  “You were asleep.”

  “Shite.”

  “You were.”

  “I’d have woken up.”

  “You were drunk. Paralytic.”

  “Then you must have been too.”

  “You can’t hold your drink. Anyway, it’s true. Back at Aggie’s—”

  “I don’t want to hear about it.”

  “Well, I’m telling you.”

  “I’m not listening.” Harry started singing. But he couldn’t drown out Trevor’s voice. Especially after Trevor started shouting. Harry gave in, asked, “What happened?”

  “He wandered into the bedroom by mistake. I heard him scuffling around, banging into things. I put on the light.” Trevor adopted a high-pitched voice. “I spoke like this,” he said. “Made him think he’d walked into a lady’s room. Completely fooled him.”

  “But why?”

  “For fun.”

  “No, why did you blow him?”

  “He asked. Completely up front about it. And I felt sorry for him.”

  “That’s fucking disgusting.”

  “A selfless act,” Trevor said. “Some might say it was noble.”

  “Wonder what he’d think if he knew you were male.”

  “He’ll never find out.”

  “I could tell him.”

  “But you don’t know who it is.”

  “Bet I can guess.”

  Trevor said, “How the fuck?”

  “How many blind people stayed at Aggie’s?”

  “Three. At least.”

  “One was a woman, so it wasn’t her. So there’s a fifty-fifty chance of me getting it right.”

  “Well, I’m not going to tell you.”

  “But I know, anyway.”

  “No way.”

  “Do too.”

  “Ah, away and shite, you old fuck.”

  The two old men were silent for a while. The sound of traffic seeped through the walls behind them.

  “Who was it, then?” Trevor asked.

  “Not telling.”

  “You don’t fucking know. You were asleep. You don’t remember it. So how can you know? You can only guess.”

  Harry shrugged. Well, as much as he was able to. “This conversation is over.”

  “Fine.”

  “Yeah, fine.”

  “Good.”

  “Well, shut up.”

  “I will.”

  “How did you turn out gay, anyway?”

  “I’m not fucking gay.”

  “You gave a blind man a blow job.”

  “So?”

  “That’s pretty gay.”

  “You think so? How do you explain Edna, then?”

  “Okay, so you’re bisexual.”

  “At least I’m sexual.”

  “What’s with you today? You’ve done nothing but pick on me from the minute we woke up.”

  Silence.

  “The surgeon’s in town.”

  “Huh?”

  “The surgeon.” Trevor stared at Harry’s annoying blank face. “The surgeon. Our surgeon.”

  Harry looked away. “Shut up about that. It’s not happening. You want to end up like Carslaw, back in ‘98?”

  “Don’t remember him.”

  “Yeah, you do. Big guy. Talked about cars all the time?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Went into hospital for a hip replacement,” Harry said. “Never saw him again.”

  “Died?”

  “Escaped. Outran the bastards, him and his dodgy hip.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Course not, you thick twat. He went under the knife. Didn’t have the heart for it. Went to sleep and never woke up. You don’t remember?”

  “Nope.”

  “Jesus. Maybe you’re senile already.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Can’t speak to you. Don’t know why I bother.”

  Trevor said, “Leave me alone then.”

  “I will.”

  “Give your pecker a tug.”

  “You sure you don’t want to?”

  “Fuck off, you dirty bastard.”

  “Well,” Trevor said, after a while, “I expect an apology at the very least.”

  “For?”

  Trevor crossed his arm over his chest. Said nothing.

  “Huh?” Harry said. Shook his head. “Okay, I’m sorry I said you were gay.”

  “Not that. I don’t care about that.”

  “Thought you wanted an apology.”

  “I do. But not for the gay remark.”

  “Well, what, then?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Fuck’s sake, how am I supposed to know?”

  “Take a wild guess.”

  “No,” Harry said. Thought for a minute. “Nope. Nothing.”

  Trevor looked him in the eye.

  “Well, maybe,” Harry said. He looked down at his hand. He was better with his hand than Trevor was. Maybe because Harry was right-handed.

  “Say it.”

  Harry sighed. “The robbery? Us ending up here?”

  “Great fucking guess. You’re a fucking genius.”

  “Sarcasm’s unbecoming.”

  “Oh, but robbing a fucking bank without telling me is okay?”

  “Didn’t think you’d mind.”

  “Like I had any choice.”

  “You knew about the gun.”

  “Yeah, but how was I supposed to know what it was for?”

  “What’d you think if was for?”

  “I dunno. Self-defence?”

  “Oh, yeah. You really believed that.”

  “Lots of kids about, what’re they called, hoodies. You know they’ll f
uck us over, pair of old codgers like us, joined at the hip. Anyway, that’s what you said.”

  “I lied. You always know when I lie.”

  “Not this time.”

  Silence. “So, you’re claiming you had no idea? Not even an inkling?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Up until what point?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “At what point did you realize what was going on?”

  “Once you got the gun out and said, ‘Everybody freeze. This is a robbery.’ ”

  “Pretty fucking cool, that.”

  “No, it wasn’t. You’re not cool. You’ll never be cool. It’s not even a proper fucking gun. You’re retarded.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  “Thanks, I will.”

  “So what’s going to happen now?”

  “Dunno. They’ll fetch the police. And they’ll probably come and handcuff us. Lead us off to some pokey room somewhere in a police station and bombard us with questions.” Trevor paused. “I’m going to tell them the truth.”

  “Which is?”

  “I was coerced into it.”

  “Coerced? Cofuckingerced? I hate it when you know words I don’t. How do you do that? I’ve never seen you so much as pick up a dictionary.”

  “You forced me to do it. That better?”

  “Suit yourself. Doesn’t bother me what you say.”

  “You’ll back me up.”

  “I will?”

  “Sure. You know it’s the truth.”

  “But why should I?”

  “Because you don’t want to go to prison.”

  “What’s you getting off with it got to do with me going to prison?”

  “Everything. Think about it.”

  Pause.

  “Well?”

  Harry said, “I’m thinking.”

  “Nothing clicked?”

  “If I’m guilty, they’ll send me to prison.”

  “Yeah. But if I’m innocent, they can’t send me to prison. So how do they arrange that, short of an operation?”

  “Ah, I’m with you. Fucking nice.”

  A key scraped in the lock. Harry and Trevor got to their feet. Took a well-timed joint effort. A difficult operation, but they’d had lots of practice. They waddled forwards a couple of steps as the door opened. A young guy in a suit walked in tucking his bleached blonde hair behind his ear.

  “Hi,” Harry said. “You’re the manager, right? I’m Harry. This is Trevor. Nice bank you’ve got. Don’t like this room much, though. Smells like a summer breeze.”

  The bank manager ignored Harry, looked at Trevor.

  Trevor said, “I’m innocent.”

  He nodded. “It’s clear you weren’t a willing participant. I could see you trying to get your brother to put down . . . this.” He held up the gun. “Whatever it is.”

  “I was coerced.” Trevor looked sideways at Harry.

  “Don’t you mean co-arsed?” Harry said. “Fucking cockjockey.”

  “So can I go?”

  The bank manager said, “That may be problematic.”

  “But I’m innocent.”

  “I dare say.” He pulled a face. “You’ll have to wait for the police to decide.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Harry can stay.”

  “That’s impossible. Even if I could let you, it’s physically impossible.”

  “But you’ve no right to keep me here.”

  “You have to stay till the police get here.” The manager tucked his hair behind his ear again. “I have every right to insist on that.”

  “You’re fucked,” Harry said. He started laughing. “I robbed your bank. I pulled out my gun and waved it around and threatened people with it and there’s fuck all you can do because I’m a Siamese twin and my brother’s innocent.”

  “I thought,” the bank manager said, “that the correct expression was ‘conjoined twin’.”

  “To you,” Harry said, “it is.”

  Trevor lashed out with his cane, struck the bank manager on the temple.

  “Oh,” Harry said. “Nice fucking shot.”

  “Thanks,” Trevor said. The bank manager was sprawled on the floor. He groaned. “After three,” Trevor said.

  Together the conjoined twins lurched out of their seat. They bent over and Trevor picked up the gun. “You okay?” he asked the bank manager.

  The bank manager opened his eyes, saw the gun in Trevor’s hands, flinched.

  “Know what it is?” Trevor said. “Humane killer. Used for killing livestock. Place the weapon to the animal’s forehead like this.” He placed the gun to the bank manager’s forehead. “And then when you pull the trigger, it fires a steel bolt into the animal’s brain.”

  The bank manager said, “No. For God’s sake.”

  Trevor shrugged, straightened up. He turned, smiled at Harry. Placed the gun to his brother’s forehead and pulled the trigger.

  Harry jolted. A red circle beauty-spotted his brow. Blood began a slow trickle downwards. His eyes closed.

  Trevor dropped the gun. “Jesus,” he said.

  Harry slumped to the side, dragging Trevor sideways. They fell on the floor, landing on top of the bank manager.

  The bank manager cried out. Trevor struggled to get his wind back, then said, “Sorry.”

  No point trying to get back to his feet. That was an impossibility now.

  The bank manager struggled out from beneath them, sat with his back to the wall, hugging his knees. After a while, he relaxed, gently massaged his temple. He moved forward, slowly, eyes on Trevor. Then he examined Harry. “You’ve killed him,” he said. He picked up the gun, stared at it.

  “Yeah,” Trevor said. “Can you call an ambulance? Tell them they’ll need to perform an emergency separation on a pair of conjoined twins. And they’ll need to do it now. There’s a number in my back pocket. They’ll need to phone it. It’s the number of a surgeon who can perform the operation.”

  “You planned this?”

  “Harry would never agree to the op. Too risky.”

  “So you did agree to the robbery? You weren’t as innocent as you claimed?”

  “I’m admitting to nothing. Just call for an ambulance. And get the surgeon. He’s in Edinburgh at the moment. But he’s on standby.” Trevor paused. “Hurry. I think I’m going into shock.”

  “What if I refuse?”

  “No matter.” Trevor was short of breath. “The police’ll bring an ambulance with them. Where are they?”

  “Ah, Trevor,” the bank manager said. “You really believe a couple of geriatric Siamese – forgive me – conjoined twins having a public argument constitutes a serious enough threat for us to call the police?”

  “But my brother asked for your money.”

  “And you told him to be quiet.”

  “But he waved his gun around.” Trevor glanced at the humane killer in the bank manager’s hand.

  “And you took it off him and gave it to a teller.”

  “So, what are you saying? You didn’t call the police?”

  “Nope. No police.” He paused. “No ambulance.” He walked towards the door.

  “Fuck,” Trevor said. “I won’t survive longer than a couple of hours on my own. Harry’s dead. Don’t you understand what that means?”

  The bank manager turned in the doorway, said, “I understand completely.”

  “Come on,” Trevor said. “What kind of a sadistic fuck are you?”

  “I’m a bank manager.” The door closed.

  UNCLE HARRY

  Reginald Hill

  “What I need to make clear and you need to get clear is, any resemblance between me and a real terrorist is purely coincidental.

  “We’ve nothing in common, me and those guys. My thing was personal, not ideological. The only common ground was putting the thing together, which did teach me one thing about their line of business that I’d never realized before.
>
  “The trouble with being a terrorist is that you experience a lot of terror!

  “Not perhaps if you’re one of those mad sods who reckon that blowing up a busload of people on their way to work is a first-class ticket to a world full of warm sunshine, sweet music, soft couches and doe-eyed virgins.

  “But for a middle-aged, rationalist, atheist humanist who claims to believe that this life is all you get -finito – good night Vienna – this is the end, there is no more – then sitting in your flat trying to follow the instructions on your laptop that will turn the motley assembly of chemicals, wires, batteries and clock parts strewn across your kitchen table into a lethal weapon is fraught with terror, believe me.

  “You will note I say claims to believe.

  “It never really goes away, does it, all that religious stuff you get drummed into you when you’re a kid? Mature logic and experience may seem to wash it all out of your mind, but scrub as hard as you like, if you look carefully under a bright light you can still find the faint outline of an indelible what if?

  “And a laptop screen showing a DIY bomb recipe casts a very bright light indeed.

  “Now this may not be so bad if your what if? tunes in images of all that sweet music and doe-eyed virgins stuff. The trouble is no matter how I cut it, the what if? my upbringing has left me with produces pictures of fires that burn but do not consume, grinning devils, souls in paroxysms of pain, eternities of agony.

  “Killing people is wrong, my dad used to say. Doesn’t matter who, how, why, when or where, take a life and your soul belongs to Satan.

  “Of course being a preacher, he would say that, wouldn’t he?

  “Not necessarily, you may think. There are plenty of preachers able to trot out any number of exceptions to the sixth commandment. Where would politicians be without them? But my dad was a fundamentalist, which was surprising, seeing that he was C of E from a good old traditional Middle England background. When he got up in the pulpit you’d have looked for skeins of soporific platitude followed by a pre-lunch sherry at the vicarage. Instead he made most Welsh chapel sermons sound like Christopher Robin saying his prayers.

  “‘Ten commandments there are!’ he’d thunder. ‘Just ten. Not a lot to remember, not a number to over-tax even the mind of a poor stockbroker wending his weary way home on the five-fifty-five after a long hard day breaking stock. No! God reviewed his Creation and He thought, these humans look all right, most of them, even the stockbrokers, but I’ve got to face it, I did skimp on the brain power. So best keep it simple. Ten fingers they’ve got, so surely they’ll be able to count up to ten? And that’s how we got the Decalogue. Ten simple commandments. No riders, no sub-clauses. You do what they say, or else! There’s no Fifth Amendment saying, honour thy father and thy mother until you become a teenager, then any thing goes. There’s no Six-and-a-halfth Commandment that says, Thou shalt not kill except in the following circumstances. NO! These are God’s rules!! Break them, and, believe me, YOU WILL BURN!!!’