Page 11 of Indefensible
“Sure you are. How long do you think you’d last round here if they knew about you?”
Deryn shrugged. Standing up to Phillip meant standing up for all of himself, DerynandDee. He felt a smile begin to form and didn’t bother to suppress it. “It may come as a surprise to you, but there are other places I could live. Unlike drug dealing, cross dressing isn’t actually a crime. Just saying.” The smile broke through as he felt lightness in his chest and the weight of lies lift from his shoulders. He winked at Phillip, or possibly that was Dee.
Phillip lunged for the knife block on the top of the marble breakfast bar and spun round to face Deryn with the knife held out in front of him. It was one hell of a big knife; a long slender triangle of gleaming steel reflecting the sun from the window and sending the light skittering round the vast space. But he wasn’t holding it with confidence. Phillip paid other people to do his thuggery and he was badly out of condition. Deryn wasn’t.
“You’ve forgotten how to use that, if you ever knew. You may as well put it down and tell me what I want to know,” Deryn said.
“Wotchu going to do if I don’t? Hit me with your handbag?”
Deryn could almost admire his brother-in-law’s determination not to realise things had changed. Almost. It was the same determination to deny he had anything to do with leaving baby Joe an orphan.
Rage blazed in Deryn’s body. He clenched his fists, wanting to see his brother-in-law’s blood on the shiny tiles, his face smashed, his bones broken.
A telephone started to ring, and Deryn realised it was his. The stupid tune, drilling into his head, pulled him back frommurder. He breathed slowly and uncurled his fists. Phillip’s knife hand sagged a little.
There was a torch on the twelve-seater glass table behind Deryn, of the sort issued to the police: a foot long of shiny metal. He picked it up, rolled it in his hands, and waited for Phillip to make his move. He didn’t wait long. Phillip ran at him with his knife hand outstretched. Deryn stepped out of the way and jabbed the metal cylinder into Phillip’s kidneys. Then he jabbed it into Phillip’s right shoulder, hard enough that Phillip dropped the knife. Deryn kicked it out of the way and hit Phillip across the face with the torch, slicing through the skin of his cheek. Blood bubbled out of the wound, smearing onto the gleaming white tiles, making them slippery. But Deryn’s muscles were moving as if oiled. The decision to stop complying seemed to have released something inside — anger, yes, but something else, something bigger. He might be smaller than Phillip, but Deryn knew he would win the fight.
“I’m going to fucking kill you,” Phillip gasped. He was still on his feet, and Deryn didn’t like that, so he kicked him in the balls, and as he crumpled, in the ribs for good measure. There was an ominous crack as Phillip went down. It was either one of Phillip’s bones or the chair he fell onto.
The phone started ringing again. He ignored it in favour of another kick in Phillip’s ribs. Phillip was groaning and his face was bloody. Deryn dragged a breath of blood-scented air into his lungs, feeling sweat under his shirt.I could happily kick you for hours.Phillip had jeered at Dee, and Deryn wanted revenge. Not an idea he was comfortable with. But there were more important things, so he slowed his breathing as he squatted next to his brother-in-law.
“It’s never a good idea to assume that someone who likes women’s clothes doesn’t know how to fight. You’ve learnedsomething today. You can tell me what happened to Abruzzi, or I can hurt you some more. Your choice.”
“Fuck off,” Phillip said, so Deryn kicked him again as the phone started once more. This time he answered. The display readDI Glover.
“Kent,” he snapped, moving away so that she didn’t hear Phillip’s moans.
“There’s been another death,” Glover said. “I need you there asap. I’ve called the circus, but you’re closest.” She recited an address.
Which was when his sister came in and screamed.
“What’s that noise?” Glover asked.
“Children’s playground,” Deryn lied. “Sorry, but I can’t hear myself think. Could you text me the address?” The call ended and there was a bleep as the address arrived. “Shut up,” he told Branwen. “I’ve got to go. You’d probably better take your pond scum husband to A and E. Though I’d rather he went to jail, and you with him. His drugs have killed three people, and I’m pretty sure he kidnapped the American. You can tell him I’ll be back.”
Branwen began crying in great gulping sobs, falling to the bloody floor next to her husband.
“Take him to the hospital,” Deryn said again, turned his back on the miserable pair and went to see his family’s latest victim.
CHAPTER 9
DAY TWO
The dead man had lived in another small two-up, two-down terraced cottage. From the outside, it looked the same as Mason Abruzzi’s house, but with none of its internal individuality. Everything, from the paintwork to the furniture, was battered and worn out. The carpets may once have been beige, or even cream, but now they were worn smooth and dark by legions of shoes grinding in dirt and grease. Half-empty mugs and empty beer cans stood on every flat surface, along with crumpled chip papers and overflowing ashtrays. An old-fashioned television was propped against the wall in one corner. There was the same underlying smell of weed as in the house he’d just left. And on the pockmarked sofa a man lay, surrounded by more crumpled paper, a tipped over beer can and the things he had needed for his fix: spoon, needle, cigarette lighter. A sobbing woman sat on a kitchen chair, holding a used syringe, being comforted by a paramedic in green uniform scrubs. The familiar yellow packaging of a naloxone kit was on the floor beside her feet.
“It didn’t work,” she said, holding the syringe out when Deryn entered. “It didn’t wake him up. It should have woken him up.”
The paramedic stood up straight. “We were too late,” he said to Deryn. “This lady did everything right, but sometimes one dose isn’t enough. We gave him another, but he’d already gone.” He started to gather up his equipment and eased the used syringe from the woman’s hands. “It needs a sharps bin, love.” The woman continued to sob.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Deryn asked her. “Do you live here?”
The woman shook her head wordlessly.
“Let me have a quick word with the paramedic,” Deryn said and flicked his head to indicate outside. “What happened?” he asked once they were alone.
“The victim’s friend says he’d been off drugs for a while, so it wouldn’t take much for the poor bloke to OD. Or it could be a particularly pure batch of heroin, but most likely it’s another fentanyl mix. A single naloxone jab should have brought him back if it was just heroin, fentanyl takes a lot more. I hear this isn’t the first overdose round here?”
Deryn nodded. He was regretting not having kicked Phillip harder. “We’re putting the word out where we can.”
