The Fall of Winter Read online

  "Your mother would be proud of you."

  Bedlam Boy stayed still, the gun pointing at his enemy's face. But everything was fading.

  Dad liked listening to folk music, selected from the shelves of vinyl in the front room. Michael Lewis never bought into the digital revolution. His old record player fed two speakers as big as upended coffins, his favourite chair positioned opposite.

  Tom lay in bed reading a Batman comic. Dad's music provided the soundtrack as he turned the pages. He put the comic down. He wasn't getting the usual kick out of it. Batman was cool, sure, because he did everything without special powers. Unless being mega-rich counted as a special power. But Tom no longer looked forward to the part where the Dark Knight beat up the villains. That wasn't cool. Not anymore.

  His mother's voice broke the spell. She was saying something to Dad, and he disagreed, his tone harsh. Defiant. Her voice stayed low, unwavering. They'd argued before. All parents argued. It meant nothing. This one went on, though, and Tom opened his door, creeping along the landing towards the stairs, staying away from the bannisters.

  "He's in his room," said his dad. "Reading comics, or doing Lego, even though he says he's too old for it now. He's just a kid, Irene."

  "He's the same age as me when I stole my first car, Michael. And I don't want to keep lying to him. He deserves better."

  Tom's eyes widened. His crawl along the landing had seemed like a game, Batman creeping up. Not anymore. He didn't want to listen, but they kept talking.

  "He's not like you, Irene. When are you going to realise that? He's getting on great at school, his teachers say he's Oxbridge material."

  "So? What's your point? You think he has to choose? That he can't get a good education and learn to run the business? You're wrong, Michael. And that's not all you're wrong about. What about the kid he beat up?"

  Tom wanted to swallow. His mouth dried. He couldn't move. How did she know about that? Steve Conway had pushed him over in the last week of term. Tom waited for him after school, and Conway ended up in hospital, Tom kicking and punching even when the other boy stopped moving. He was suspended the next day. In the holidays, Conway changed his story, said a boy from a rival school jumped him, that he wanted to get Tom in trouble. Conway never came back. Tom hated himself for what he'd done. He took Conway's change of heart as a second chance and swore never to hurt anyone again. He thought hurting a bully would feel good, but he'd thrown up after the fight, ran home, and, before exhaustion claimed him, cried with shame and guilt. For days, he kept to his room. He dreamed about the fight. In his dreams, he felt no guilt. He enjoyed it. Only when he woke up did the horror descend again.

  "What he did isn't important, Irene. It's the way he reacted afterwards. Jesus, the kid puked for a week. He hated himself. He doesn't want to be like... "

  "Like what? Like me? Fuck you, Michael. What, you're ashamed now? Ashamed of me, you coward? Ashamed of the money, the holidays, the cars, you ungrateful bastard? If I hadn't visited that little shit's father, Tom would have been expelled. No exams. No Oxbridge. You didn't complain then."

  Tom wished there was a way to un-hear this. His father crossed the front room, and he tensed, ready to crawl backwards at the first footstep on the stairs. But Dad stopped in front of the record player. He turned the volume up high, and Tom scurried back to his room, picked up his comic and pretended to read, while the song pursued him down the hall and through his closed door.

  My staff has murdered giants, my bag a long knife carries

  For to cut mince pies from children's thighs, with which to feed the fairies.

  Still I sing bonnie boys, bonnie mad boys,

  Bedlam boys are bonnie

  For they all go bare and they live by the air,

  And they want no drink nor money

  Winter blinked blood out of his eye. "Rhoda tried to save you. It's how I convinced her to betray your folks. Did she tell you about her own kid?"

  The Boy should never have let Winter speak. He tried to pull the trigger again, with fingers made of stone.

  "N-no," he stammered. Winter smiled. He actually smiled.

  "Stillborn. Rhoda was fourteen. She ended up on the streets afterwards. That's where Irene found her. She saw something in her. Or maybe there was some compassion in your old mum after all, eh? Probably she just wanted a free nanny. Either way, she took Rhoda in. You were a toddler. She fell in love with you, didn't she? Of course she did. And you loved her back, right?"

  Bedlam Boy fought to regain control. He wrestled with a cloud, Tom's presence a fine, misty rain that seeped through his skin.

  The gun barrel dipped, moving away from Winter's face.

  "Mm. Rhoda, mm, Rhoda helped you."

  Tom had borrowed enough vocabulary to assemble a sentence. The Boy weakened, his rage diminishing. This was like reading the Batman comics, when the fun had gone. But he had to finish it. One final effort.

  The gun now pointed at the floor. Winter looked at it, then back up to the man holding the weapon.

  "When I told Rhoda your mum expected you to run the trafficking business one day, she already knew. She wept for you, Tom. She was heartbroken. Helpless. I told her she didn't have to be. She could stop it happening."

  "You, mm, lied. Lied to, mm, Rhoda."

  "I didn't lie, Tom. Not that it matters. Lying's a tool, like everything else. I'm sure you appreciate that. But I did stop you taking over. All right, I promised not to hurt you, I grant you that. If Marty had been a better shot, that wouldn't have been a lie either. One good, clean head shot. No pain. Like your dad."

  Tom's presence faded as a fresh wave of rage brought Bedlam Boy back to the fore. Strength returned to his arms and shoulders; the familiar joy coursed through his veins. The words from Dad's record danced around his brain, and a smile twitched at his lips. His fingers became flesh again, the metal of the Glock's trigger cold against his index finger.

  Winter had one last thing to say. "You've become what your mum wanted you to be, Tom. But Rhoda didn't want this. She wanted to save you. It broke her, thinking you were dead. I wonder what she thought when she found out. I wonder what she thought just before you killed her. What did she think of what you've become?"

  The Boy raised the gun and pulled the trigger.

  Chapter Three

  "Debbie Capelli."

  "Happy Christmas! Are you well, my love? Celebrating? At a party?"

  Debbie frowned at her mobile phone in its dashboard cradle, as if blaming it for letting the call through. Beyond the windscreen, the empty motorway glistened with frost. A gritting lorry's yellow lights pulsed across the opposite carriageway.

  "Fabio. How drunk are you?"

  "Debbie. Come on. Do I have to be drunk to speak to my wife?"

  "Ex-wife. And yes, experience suggests you do. What do you want?"

  "Want? Why should I want anything? It's Christmas. A man's thoughts turn to his life. The wrong turns, the bad decisions. And he wonders if anything is ever irreversible, if something so beautiful as our relationship is ever truly broken."

  "Two things, Fabio."

  "Call me Fab."

  "I don't think so. First, why do you always start talking about yourself in the third person when you're bullshitting me?"

  "I do not! I mean, I am not. It's just, well, a man's thoughts turn to—"

  "Yes. Exactly. And you already said that bit. That was my second point. You've written this down, haven't you?"

  During the pause that followed, Debbie passed a sign. Next Services 12 miles. Not far now. She had left in a hurry, pulling on a pair of jeans and the footwear closest to the door, which turned out to be wellies. Underneath her puffa jacket, she wore a pyjama top.

  "S". I wrote it down. Only because English is my second language, and I wanted to get it right. Italian is the language of love."

  "Really. And where was I on the list of calls tonight?"

  "Scusa? When a man—"

  "Of your three ex-wives, where was I
on the list? I imagine you called Maria first, but I'm curious to see where I rank in the sad, lonely, drunk, desperate Christmas list of calls. Are you currently between slappers?"

  "There is only room in my heart for you. A man must declare his feelings. Think about what you are saying, my only love. There is no list. Do not throw our future away, Charlotte."

  "Debbie."

  "Ah. Shit."

  "Goodbye, Fabio."

  The satnav claimed she would reach her destination in eight minutes. Debbie didn't want to spend the time in silence. She found an eighties radio station and sang along to Human League. Single, a few years away from possible early retirement, and she was spending the holiday alone. At eleven thirty-two p.m. on Christmas Day, she was driving up the M1 in her pyjamas.

  She turned up the radio and sang louder.

  Tom Lewis wasn't difficult to spot. Other than three generations of an Asian family, and two truck drivers, the food court in the services was deserted. The truckers and the family sat at one end, as far from Tom as possible, eyeing him warily between sips of overpriced drinks. The staff members of the only fast-food outlet still open kept looking over at the solitary figure, and Debbie noticed that Tom occupied an invisible twenty-foot circle, where no tables were cleared, or floors mopped.

  He didn't look up as she approached. His hands stayed on the table's plastic surface, and he stared at the floor.

  Her police-trained brain ran its own report. Male, Caucasian, early thirties, bald. Heavy scarring on head. The scars are old, but there are fresh injuries. The right cheekbone is grazed and bruised. Both hands are cut, and the knuckles are scraped, suggesting a recent fight. He is wearing soft black cotton jogging bottoms and a sweatshirt. No shoes. Both feet filthy, cut and grazed, soil and grass between the toes. Suspect shows no sign of aggression.

  "Tom?"

  The big, bald head didn't move. He blinked, but his eyes remained unfocused.

  Debbie slid into the seat opposite. The staff members and other customers shifted to get a clearer view. She supposed if you spent some of Christmas Day in a motorway service station, you'd want to make the most of any free entertainment.

  Tom looked bad. His demeanour reminded her of the weeks after he came out of his coma, when he showed no interest in anything. The doctors thought it unlikely he would speak again. Tom's progress over the next few years surprised everyone. Not Debbie, though. The kid witnessed his parents' murder, was shot in the head, and crawled out of a first-floor bedroom window, dragging himself thirty feet away from a burning house. Tom was the strongest person she'd ever met.

  He didn't look strong today. He looked lost, beaten, confused. A little boy again. Debbie reached across and slid her hands under his, thumb on top. He had the biggest hands of anyone Debbie knew. They were builder's hands, thick and tough, like the hard skin Debbie pumiced away from her heels in the bath. His knuckles were swollen and cracked. She stroked them with her thumb.

  "Tom? It's Debbie. You called me."

  The first tear dropped onto the table. Tom didn't seem to notice.

  "I'm here now. And I'm not going anywhere."

  Three more tears fell. The room was so quiet, the sound they made as they hit the table was audible, like a dripping tap in an empty house. Debbie watched the tiny puddles they made. Then Tom squeezed her hands. He looked at her. The contrast with his demeanour of a few minutes earlier was so marked that she gasped. He was present. Tom Lewis was here, not wandering the labyrinth of his damaged mind.

  "Tom?"

  "Mm." His eyes flicked away, then back to hers. A common gesture for most people when they tried to remember something. She'd never seen Tom do it before. "Mm. Tell me. My, mm, my… "

  She waited. No point pushing him. Tom understood questions, and responded to them, usually in monosyllables. He never asked one of his own. Never initiated a conversation.

  "Mother."

  Oh crap. Not a subject she wanted to discuss with him.

  In all her meetings with Tom, his past had never come up unless she raised it, and when she did, he had been unresponsive. The psychiatrist assigned to his case believed the shooting provoked a mental break more permanent than the physical damage. For Tom Lewis, little existed before the coma. The boy who opened his eyes when he emerged was a newborn, remembering little more than dreamlike fragments from his first twelve years of life. Debbie had asked for a second, then a third opinion, but only one of the three suggested Tom might ever recover enough memory to testify. That slim possibility was enough for Debbie. Tom had surprised the doctors already. He could do it again. Connections in his brain were still active, even if he couldn't yet consciously access them.

  Debbie's hope had always been that Tom might remember enough to point the finger at Winter. John Strickland, too, the probable shooter. She hadn't considered that Tom, if he ever remembered, might have questions of his own. Questions about why an organised crime boss targeted his family. Questions about Irene 'the Butcher' Lewis.

  "Tell me, mm, ab-, about, mm, my mother."

  Tom trusted her. Debbie didn't want to lose that trust. She told him about the Butcher. Not all of it. Telling the truth was one thing. Cataloguing that woman's horrors was another. DNA evidence found at the scene of the Richmond fire linked Irene Lewis to a murder in East London the month before. An eyewitness picked out her photograph a week after she died. They'd identified the mastermind of London's flourishing slave trade, too late to bring her down. Too late to stop Robert Winter taking over, and Winter hadn't made his move until confident he had enough politicians and police in his pocket.

  Tom listened. She suspected she was confirming what he already knew. He seemed to understand every word.

  When it was finished, they sat in silence. Debbie didn't look at her watch. When a skittish staff member with a name badge and a set of keys told them he was closing up, she showed him her police ID and waved the man away.

  Finally, Tom said the words she'd waited twenty years to hear.

  "I, I, mm, remember, Debbie. I remember."

  The scared-looking manager waited by the doors, keys in hand, while Tom went to the toilet.

  Debbie called the office. She recognised the desk sergeant's voice.

  "Hi Julie, it's DC Capelli. I know the boss won't be there until next week, but I need to bring someone in—"

  "Have you heard, Debbie?"

  Debbie let the use of her first name slide. In interviews with a suspect, she always played good cop. People at work liked her. They took her for granted, too, but she chose to be herself over being a dick, so she could live with that.

  "Heard what?"

  "Winter's place. His gaff at Elstree."

  Debbie knew it. They all did. On paper, Robert Winter had nothing to do with that house, and his name didn't appear on any records. But they all suspected he lived there when in London, in his modern palace.

  "What about it?

  "Blown up. Well, not the whole thing, but a lot of it. It was an organised hit. Military style. Lots of bodies. Ooh, you'll never guess who's dead. Go on, have a guess."

  "Julie, people have died. It's not a game."

  "Oh, come on, Debbie. It's Christmas."

  "Fair enough." Debbie ran a list of names through her mind. Then she thought of the photos on the corkboard next to her desk. Marty Nicholson. Rhoda Ilích. Both involved with Winter at the time of the Lewis murders.

  "John Strickland."

  "Oh, bollocks, someone told you. There are loads of journos buzzing around. We haven't released a statement yet. It's a bloody war zone, I tell you. Before you ask, no sign of Winter's rotting corpse, more's the pity."

  Tom came out of the toilet. Debbie managed a weak smile, holding up a finger. Julie's voice cut into her thoughts.

  "Did you say you wanted to bring someone in?"

  Strickland. Of the people CID thought they could place at the scene twenty years ago, only Robert Winter and Tom Lewis were now still alive. She looked over at Tom, at h
is bruised face. His cut knuckles. She shook her head. She'd known Tom since he was a child. And a thirty-two-year-old man barely capable of tying his own shoelaces would hardly take on the most dangerous crime organisation in the city. So what was going on?

  "Debbie? Are you still there?"

  Winter still had police officers on the payroll. If she brought Tom in, he'd be in the system, logged onto the database. And the more people who found out he was a credible witness, the more danger he'd be in.

  "Hi, Julie. Sorry. Got my wires crossed. Forget it. Thanks for telling me about Winter. Have a good Christmas."

  "Yeah, I've got a mince pie and a bottle of sherry for breakfast when my shift's over. Whoop de do."

  Debbie thought fast as she and Tom walked out to the car park. The only other vehicle was a Jeep, which the relieved manager headed towards. How the hell had Tom got here? Hitched a lift? Who would pick up a barefooted, bruised, bald giant on Christmas night?

  "In you get." Debbie held open the passenger door, and Tom sat down. The Fiat sagged. He looked like he was wearing the car. She got in the other side and started the engine. Tom had to lean away to allow her to reach the gear lever. Good job it was an automatic.

  She let the car move forward a few feet, then braked. If she was going to be paranoid about protecting him, she should do it properly.

  "Tom?" She looked across at him. Tom Lewis, the lost boy. And maybe the only chance she had of ever securing a conviction for Winter.

  "Do you like the seaside?"

  Chapter Four

  Cold. Not cold enough to bring on hyperthermia, but too cold to spend the night under a tree. He'd better get moving. Particularly with a cut that needed stitches. Quickly, too, considering the gaping hole in the motorway barrier, two damaged cars a dozen yards away, and the fact his name topped the UK police wishlist of unconvicted criminals.

  Dark. Still dark. It might have been minutes, or hours, since his confrontation with Lewis.