The Convenience of Lies by Geoffrey Seed Read Free Book Online Page A

won’t believe it. She’ll be overjoyed.’
    ‘Then you two should go across to Norfolk and keep the place aired for me. I’ll give you a key.’

 
    Nine
     
    Malky Hoare lived in a shoebox of a service flat near King’s Cross Station. Each evening, he looked down on the toms - brown girls, white girls, aimless, shameless girls in the wide, wet streets which were their market place. They’d caught trains from the north or coaches from the west, each believing they’d make it big, make it better.
    None ever did. So now they click-clacked their way from one litter-blown corner to another or sheltered in doorways to be serviced with a French-kissed rock of crack cocaine from the pimps whose creatures they were.
    For Hoare, all was noise, dirt and traffic. Buses, cabs, cars, users and dealers, fast food, human flesh, human weakness – this was life as it had become, coarse and transitory and weighed nightly against how it had been before.
    Only in the confines of this expensively rented privacy was he obliged to confront all he had given up for the career he’d had. The mirror foretold an unhappy ending. This much he knew from his ex-wife - a nursing assistant. The pains in the heart he didn’t have and the tiny yellow deposits of fat beneath his whisky-brown eyes were evidence of coronary disease. He should beware. His clock was winding down.
    But old habits, like addiction itself, were hard to break. Sitting on his single bed, he wrote three A4 pages of notes for an old-style reporter’s aide memoir of everything he’d learned about Ruby’s case that day.
    Hoare added these to the manila folder in which he had already put copies of all the confidential internal briefings, pictures and material he’d snaffled from the Ruby investigation - and from her flat, too. It was a sacking offence but something about Larry Benwick - and the whole Ruby affair itself - puzzled him and brought out his need for insurance. How interesting that McCall was onto it, too.
    It was almost midnight. He should be attempting to sleep while the city outside refused to try. But he heard footsteps coming up the stairs, scuffing and deliberate like a drunk’s.
    They got closer and turned along the bare wooden landing outside. Hoare felt a rush of guilt and slid his folder under the mattress. He waited for whoever was outside to pass along to the only other bed-sit on that corridor. But the footsteps stopped outside his door. Then a key was inserted into the lock.
    Hoare gripped an empty wine bottle by the neck. He couldn’t figure out how this could be happening but knew he was too unfit to fight some drugged-up burglar. He’d have only one chance to strike. He was already imagining the headline in tomorrow’s Evening Standard.
    Then the door was pushed open and Hoare only stopped himself braining the intruder when he recognised Benwick.
    ‘What the hell are you doing breaking into my flat?’
    ‘I didn’t break in. I’ve got a key.’
    ‘Where’ve you got that from?’
    ‘I’ve got keys to lots of places.’
    ‘Like hell you have. And you’re pissed, too. Why didn’t you go to a hotel?’
    ‘We’re colleagues, aren’t we?’
    ‘So what? You can’t just steal into my place like this.’
    ‘Do I detect some grumpiness, Mr Hoare?’
    Hoare stared at his uninvited guest, angry but ashamed, too. Someone had blagged their way in to his private world and looked upon what was never intended to be seen.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Benwick said. ‘Life’s a bit complicated at the minute.’
    ‘So is mine so I’m right out of sympathy.’
    ‘Sure you are… got any tooth mugs?’
    The detective reached inside his leather jacket and pulled out a flat, quarter bottle of whisky. As he did, Hoare saw something heavy and darkly metallic, tucked by his left armpit.
    ‘For Christ’s sake! You’re half cut and running round London with a gun.’
    ‘No, that’s just my new portable phone.’
    ‘Don’t treat me like a fool. You’re