Eoin Miller 01 - Faithless Street by Jay Stringer Read Free Book Online

the mob.
    I could see behind
Bennett’s eyes he was debating whether or not to put up an argument, but that
was enough to tell me I was right. He came out fighting from a different angle.
    “What? You’re going
to arrest me? It’s them who started
it, him and his fucking wife-”
    I heard an animal yell
and was pushed out of the way. I hit the floor and rolled as, again, the crowd
followed through. Things got crazy for a couple of minutes, jostling, screaming
and clawing, until the uniforms managed to wade in and split the crowd in two
like parting the red sea.
    Three officers were
pinning Sean to the ground, a bloody knife being wrestled from his right hand
as he kicked and shouted.
    Becker was kneeling
over Bennett, his hand pressed down onto his neck, blood covering them both.
Two uniforms were knelt beside him, calling for medical aid. As Sean’s hands
were twisted up into the handcuffs, I saw his father staring deep into me.
    Traitor.
    ***
    The house was dark
when I got home.
    I’d stayed at the
hospital long enough to see Sean Shannon’s assault charge turn into murder. The
paperwork could wait for tomorrow, as could all the shit I was going to catch
over it.
    I shut the front door
and leaned against it for a while in the darkness, then went through into the
living room and settled onto the sofa.
    Laura came in,
wearing her dressing gown. She sat beside me and rubbed my hand. “Becker called
to tell me. Want to talk about it?”
    I turned to look at
her, shook my head.
    She ran her hand over
my suit, “You’ve got blood on you.”
    “Yeah.”
    She leaned in and
kissed me on the cheek, then again on the lips, “Come to bed.”
    I nodded, said, “I
will, in a minute. Just need to chill out first.”
    She got up and walked
to the doorway, then turned back for a second and offered a sad smile, “I got
my period today.”
    I nodded, trying to
gauge what she was feeling. She smiled again and went to bed. I sat in the
darkness long enough for her to fall asleep.



The Lost Profits

 
    Tony was watching his hand move. No
kidding, he’d been doing it for twenty minutes. Ever since Fuller had arrived.
Word was he’d been drinking the punch, which Bobby Buddha had said was safe.
Bobby’s a cunt like that. The only time Tony paused was to cock his head to one
side to say, hey, “what’s that noise?” But nobody was listening to him.
    Adele Wright had been taken home an hour
before, she’d been found in the kitchen, pale white with a bloody needle in her
hands and cling film tied around her forearm. Nobody had ever seen the cling
film thing before, what was it, a celebrity diet? Someone, maybe it was Toast,
bundled her into a car and drove her home, and Bobby handed out a few more
drinks to get the party going again.
    Most people were crowded into the front
room, the one Alex had turned into a games room. A crate of lager and a stolen
air hockey table made for the best games room in the street. Alex said, “I’ll
always have the coolest flat in the street, even if I have to move.” It was one
of those parties.
    Fuller wasn’t really there to listen to
Alex, or to watch Tony’s hand move. He was there for Lee Owen. Owen had turned
up at the start of the evening and set up camp in the bathroom, calling it his
office. Then, except for some thoughtless idiots who needed to piss, he spent
the night selling to everyone who walked in. Tens and twenties, black bulls and
stingers. He promised it was the good shit, that your belly would melt after
taking it, and nobody came back to complain. Bobby Buddha backed him up, said,
look what the bull did to the punch. Fuller was usually the guy who turned up
and sold at these parties, but he was low key, he’d sell a few bags out of his
coat pocket then party. Owen’s business style just messed things up, attracted
attention. Fuller stepped into the bathroom and shut the door before saying,
“Hey, what the fuck?”
    Owen looked around the room, making a
show of it,