Page 89 of Ticket Out

“I think so.” She began stacking the dirty dishes next to the sink and then turned on the hot water tap. While it infuriated her to play maid to him, doing something helped keep her nerves at bay, helped give her space to think.

“You weren’t lying. It does take a lot of time.”

She didn’t answer him.

“Lucky we have time.”

She was afraid of that. “What is your plan?” She didn’t ask him his name, even though she wanted to know what to call him. She was frightened that if he told her, that would be confirmation that he planned to kill her.

She needed to face up to reality, though. She scrubbed hard at a plate with a stubborn streak of egg yolk on it. He was going to kill her, no matter if she knew his name or not.

“The plan originally was just to take over Johnny Crane’s heroin operation.” He was still paging through the recipe book with interest. “That turned out to be incredibly easy to do.”

It didn’t sound easy to her.

“I’d worked my way up the ranks, and he trusted me, but Mrs. Crane.” He shook his head and closed the book with a snap that made her flinch. “Mrs. Crane told Johnny I was a creep.”

She wondered what he’d done or said to Mrs. Crane to make her say it, but Gabriella didn’t ask.

“Johnny treated me a bit different after that. He didn’t know I heard his missus slag me off, but he definitely believed her. I was getting less respect. And so I decided to mutiny.”

He smiled as he said the word mutiny, as if it was a private joke.

“I killed a few of the boys I knew would stay loyal to the boss, then I killed Johnny. But it was Mrs. Crane that was the revelation.” He moved over to where she was washing the dishes, and leaned in, too close to her.

She was glad her hands were in the soapy water, so he couldn’t see them trembling.

“It was fun killing her. I hadn’t realized I wanted to so much until I was actually doing it. But it was over too quickly.” He drew in a sudden, agitated breath. “And Patty was even quicker.”

She swallowed down the bile that rose in her throat, and turned her attention back to the sink.

“I killed Sam Nealy because it needed doing, but Patty . . .” he was still agitated. “I was in the mindset that I was killing for a purpose, but after I got Patty in the car, I remembered Mrs. C. and I was just driving around with her, drawing it out because it was going to be so good, and then Patty tried to jump out.” He was quiet for a long time. “I didn’t mean to stab her somewhere where she would die so quickly. I was robbed.” He trailed off. “The only good thing to come out of it was me admitting I’d been lying to myself. Patty didn’t need killing. Mrs. C. wasn’t really necessary, either. I just wanted to do it.” He smiled. “But that’s not a problem I’ll have with you. I’m not going to make that mistake again.”

He had held the knife the whole drive, his long fingers easily holding it pressed to the gear lever as he changed gears, and he hadn’t let go of it once since they’d come into the house. Now he lifted it up. “This is the knife I used. I didn’t care about the knife I stabbed Sam Nealy with, he was just business. Patty, though . . . Patty should have been more. And I have great hopes for you.”

chapterthirty-seven

John Crane’shouse was large for London, built on a plot that had probably once contained two or three smaller single family dwellings that had been knocked down to accommodate the faux Tudor mansion James was looking at.

It was still firmly in the working class neighborhood where John Crane had grown up, a symbol of his rise for all his peers to see.

The locksmith DI Drummley had hired to open the house up stepped back from the glossy black door. “All done.”

“Thanks, Pete.” Drummley shook his hand and then motioned to James. “Ready?”

James nodded, glancing back to the four Clubs and Vice officers Drummley had brought along. They were standing back, talking quietly beside their cars.

The front porch was covered in newspapers, and Drummley was clearly having some trouble opening the door.

“Too many letters through the post flap,” he said, then staggered back, hand over his mouth and nose, as the door finally gave way. “God.”

James caught a whiff of the stench, which caught the back of his throat. He took out a handkerchief to cover the lower half of his face as he coughed, and saw Drummley was doing the same.

They shared a look and then stepped in cautiously, leaving the door wide open to help clear the air.

But there would be no clearing this air, James saw. Directly to the left of him was a formal sitting room, and a man lay dead on the floor in a puddle of unmentionable goo.

He was so bloated by decomposition, James couldn’t guess who he was looking at.

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