Page 56 of Inbetweeners
Emmett raised his eyebrows. “Do we actually have a plan? All we’ve been doing is going to an address Tar has given us. A lot more people than the ones we’ve been told about have died. So don’t they matter? Does Tar know who’s been targeted by Mr Bad? How? Wouldn’t knowing be a help to us? We’ve not been given all the picture. Not only that, why did the guy not linger and try to take me?”
“Maybe you don’t fit the list of what he wants. Whatever that is.”
Emmett stared at him.
“What?”
“I’m waiting for the insult. I’m too old, too boring, not good-looking enough.”
Phoenix laughed. “Fishing for compliments?”
“I wouldn’t waste my time.” Emmett chewed his lip. “We’re too slow to stop the killings. I wonder if the police have linked the deaths.”
Phoenix shrugged. “They don’t know as much as us and we can’t see the link apart from the victims being stabbed. But this many young men being stabbed? It must have raised questions.”
“We’re one step ahead of the police because Tar is telling us where to go. But our job isn’t to stop people dying. It’s to make sure they move on. Yet that feels wrong. We should be stopping Mr and Ms Bad from killing anyone in the first place.”
“At risk of sounding like a broken record—How? We’re told when people are dead. We get there too late.”
“We need to follow him or her.”
“If we see them. And avoid getting killed.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose.” Emmett glanced at Harry. “We’re not even good at persuading people to leave.”
“We’ve done okay.”
“Only where we’ve found the key to what was making them want to stay.”
“Unfinished business.” Phoenix chuckled. “That sounds such a cliché. I had unfinished business, but I didn’t get to stay. I died and…then I was in hell.”
Emmett waited to see if Phoenix would say more, but he didn’t.
“Unfinished business covers a lot,” Emmett pointed out. “Maybe they’re pissed off they’ve died. Maybe they love someone too much to let go. That fits Malcolm Patrick. Or like Harry, they want to know who killed them. But usually, those thoughts just go with a person into the next life.”
“Unless they choose not to remember.”
“Fuck you. At least I wasn’t burdened with regrets.”
“Weren’t you? No regrets that you chose not to remember?”
Emmett bristled.Sharp bastard.
Phoenix put his hand over Emmett’s.
“Wow, is that a gesture of comfort?”
“Oh shit, am I touching you?” Phoenix scowled and moved his hand.
But Emmett caught the look in Phoenix’s eyes and knew it wasn’t really a scowl.
“Nowyou’re smiling at me?” Phoenix asked.
“Involuntary muscle twitch in response to an arsehole.”
Phoenix chuckled. “So, I am growing on you?”
“Like Japanese knotweed.”
