‘Course there’s a fucking signal, you usele…’
MacFarland smiled to himself as Harry’s voice petered out. Despite his mood, it seemed that even Harry didn’t relish the idea of having to stand around waiting for yet another cab.
By shifting his position slightly in his seat next to the driver, MacFarland managed to glimpse Delia’s profile in the mirror. He was staring fixedly out of the side window and appeared to be lost in thought. Come to think of it, he had spent most of the journey from Sheffield doing much the same thing, gazing out of the carriage window and barely speaking unless Harry addressed him directly. Once, he had left his seat to go to the toilet but hadn’t returned for several minutes. Harry had even commented on his lengthy absence and made some remark about how Delia might benefit from a good dose of Ex-Lax.
MacFarland guessed that Delia had realised long ago that the best strategy for dealing with Harry in situations like this was to say as little as possible for fear that whatever he said might set him off on yet another rant. All the same, he couldn’t help wondering what was going through Delia’s mind. Keeping your gob shut to avoid incurring Harry’s wrath was one thing, but there was something about his body language and the faintly furrowed brow which seemed to suggest that something was troubling him. Maybe he was anxious about what they might find when they got to the flat, or maybe he was just mentally going through the runners and riders for tomorrow’s big race at Haydock Park or wherever.
Then again, Delia’s behaviour had struck him as particularly odd when they’d stepped off the train at Temple Meads Station. He’d been strangely agitated and had looked repeatedly up and down the platform as if he was trying to spot someone he knew amongst the throng of disembarking passengers.
‘How much further?’ said Harry from the back seat of the taxi as he pressed the redial button yet again and held the mobile phone to his ear.
‘Not far,’ said the driver, gently revving the engine while he waited for a traffic light to turn to green.
Harry leaned forward a few inches. ‘That’s not what I asked you,’ he said quietly but in a tone that was heavy with menace. ‘How – many – minutes?’
The cabbie eyeballed him briefly in the mirror. ‘Dunno. Ten? Five maybe if the traffic’s not too bad and we don’t get too many more red lights.’
Harry slumped back into his seat, clicked the cancel button on his phone and tossed it onto the space between him and Delia. ‘Useless fucking twats.’
This time, the driver glared at him in the mirror. ‘What you say?’
‘It’s okay, pal,’ said MacFarland, deciding that an immediate diplomatic intervention was called for. ‘He wasnae talking to ye.’
‘And you can fuck off an’ all, ‘Aggis Bollocks.’
* * *
Once they’d spotted the dark glasses and the white stick, most of the people in the queue for taxis outside the station were insistent that he should go in front of them.
How quaint, he thought. Almost restores one’s faith in human nature.
But Julian Bracewell had no intention of getting too close to the head of the queue until he saw Harry and his companions were safely aboard a taxi of their own. As soon as this was accomplished, however, he became rather more proactive in getting himself to the front of the line, tapping his white stick loudly on the pavement to attract the attention of anyone who had so far failed to notice his disability. A young Nordic-looking man with an enormous rucksack helped him into a cab that had been five cars behind Harry’s, but even though these had already driven off, Harry’s hadn’t moved an inch.
‘Where to, guv?’ said the cabbie.
‘Milton Street, please. Cabot Tower.’
The cabbie clocked him in the mirror. ‘You sure about that, guv?’
‘Oh absolutely.’
The driver pulled away from the taxi rank, and Bracewell was surprised to see the passenger and rear doors of Harry’s cab suddenly open and all three men getting back out again.
What’s he playing at now? he wondered, but quickly decided that arriving at the flat before them was probably not such a bad thing after all.
* * *
Logan stamped on the brake pedal and gave a long blast on the horn. The taxi had pulled straight out of the station car park and directly in front of them.
‘Bloody taxis,’ he said. ‘Idiot wasn’t even looking.’
‘We could always pull him over, sarge.’ Maggie Swann wasn’t entirely serious, but she had a vague notion that Logan might actually take her up on the suggestion if only to vent some of the anger that was threatening to resurface once again.