On the Loose by Christopher Fowler Read Free Book Online Page B

use,’ he said, lowering himself back into his chair with a grimace. ‘First the unit, and now our home. Nowhere to go and nothing to live for. I’ve notgot the energy to fight anymore. Let them do their worst. I’m sure they can find us a flat you hate just as much as this place.’
    Alma had never expected to find herself living in a semi-derelict toothbrush factory at her time in life. The tumbledown building gave the rest of the neighbourhood a bad name. Last weekend several slates had come loose in high winds, and an upper corner of Alma’s bedroom now boasted a water feature, but neither she nor Bryant was in any fit state to get up a ladder and repair the damage. Perhaps a modern flat with easy access would be better after all.
    With the ironing balanced in one broad hand, she took stock of her old friend. He looked smaller somehow, as if he had started shrinking on the day the unit closed down. His world was diminishing, too. She wanted to take his hand and softly stroke it, to tell him that everything would be all right, but found herself wondering if he had reached that part of his life beyond which there was no going back. Bryant had always been a noisy fidget, pulling down books, setting up experiments, fiddling and whistling and interfering with things that didn’t concern him, but this new placidity was the most disturbing change of all.
    ‘Why won’t you let John come and see you?’ she asked gently. ‘You know he wants to.’
    ‘He’ll try to convince me to go to Whitehall with a begging bowl,’ Bryant complained. ‘He’s an eternal optimist; he thinks we’ll survive by calling in a few old debts, but we’ve used up all our favours. Our work together is over and there’s no point in pretending it isn’t. I don’t want to end my days arguing with my oldest friend.’
    For once, Alma was stumped for an answer. Her mouth opened, then shut again.
    ‘I think I’ll have a sleep now if you don’t mind,’ he said,lowering his head onto a cushion and closing his eyes. ‘Leave me alone. I feel tremendously weary.’
    He had taken the news that they were to be thrown out on the street with alarming equanimity. She needed to shock him out of his complacent attitude, but could not imagine anything working, short of attaching her van’s jumper cables to him. His fire was fading, like a setting sun. She resolved to summon John May against his partner’s wishes, even though Bryant had expressly forbidden her to invite him over.
    ‘Suit yourself,’ she told him finally. ‘Do as you wish. But you can get rid of that skull on the mantelpiece. It stinks.’
    ‘That, Madame, is a religious artefact. It was smuggled out of Tibet.’
    ‘Yes, and it’s going to be smuggled into the dustbin. If you need me, I shall be upstairs. I have some urgent ironing to attend to.’ Slipping the telephone into her pocket, she beat a hasty retreat to the kitchen, wondering what on earth she could do to save her old friend from himself.

8
STALEMATE
    C olin Bimsley was smudged with thick white dust. It was matted in his cropped fair hair and even falling out of his ears as he hopped about on the kerb outside the derelict takeaway at the end of the Caledonian Road. He seemed inordinately excited about something.
    ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d got my message,’ he called to the approaching detective. ‘I tried Mr Bryant but his phone was switched off.’
    ‘Yes, it would be,’ agreed John May. ‘The last time we spoke, Arthur told me he was getting too many phone calls from the dead. Apparently he subscribed to a psychics’ hotline and is now being pestered by people wanting him to avenge their murders. It’s a scam to make him use premium phone lines, but he doesn’t realise that. What are you doing around here?’
    ‘This is Rafi.’ Bimsley introduced his new friend. ‘I called you first. Rafi’s got a serious problem, and I thought he’d be better off talking to you.’
    ‘Let’s go inside.’ The