The meanest Flood by John Baker Read Free Book Online Page A

hand and led her to the couch. ‘That Coltrane?’ he asked, nodding towards the speakers. Angeles didn’t reply, waiting for him to answer his own question. He smiled as he recognized Bill Evans’ fingers dancing over the piano keys. ‘“Kind of Blue”. That how you’re feeling?’
    ‘I thought they’d locked you up.’
    ‘Not this time. It was close, though.’
    ‘Why didn’t you tell them you were in Nottingham?’ He shook his head. ‘Cops don’t believe in coincidence. I don’t believe in coincidence. I didn’t want to give them an excuse to fit me up. If I’d come clean I’d be spending the night in a cell. When the cops haven’t got a main suspect they get desperate.’
    ‘Do they have anything? A motive?’
    ‘Not a thing,’ Sam said. ‘She was knifed in her bed. As far as they can tell nothing was taken from the house. She was living a quiet life. She had a boyfriend with a shady past, but they reckon he’s reformed. He’s not in the frame.’
    Angeles shuddered. ‘So a complete stranger comes in the middle of the night, kills her and then fades away? Is that credible?’
    ‘No. The police don’t believe that either. They’re looking for someone with an old grudge. Someone out of her past.’
    ‘Like you?’
    ‘Yes, exactly like me.’
    ‘But you didn’t know she was in Nottingham. You were there to do a job.’
    ‘Tell it to the judge,’ Sam said. ‘I already know it wasn’t me.’
    Angeles moved closer to him. She drew her legs up under her on the couch and placed her head on Sam’s shoulder. ‘What was she like?’
    He squinted down at her, stroked her cheek with two fingers. ‘We were both wild. I’d do anything for a drink in those days — steal, cheat, lie. Katherine was the same, or I thought she was for a while. But she was stronger than me. She wanted conventional things; a family, some kind of regular income. We mauled each other, we were each of us someone the other could blame.’
    ‘There must have been more at the beginning,’ Angeles said. ‘When you met, when you decided to get married? A bond of some sort? Love?’
    Sam shook his head. ‘Maybe. There’s a period of several years when I wasn’t available. I would drink myself into a coma and when I came round go looking for another drink. Katherine was one of the things that happened during that time. She was there, we lived together, but I can’t remember who she was. I don’t have a memory of tenderness, or even of us being on the same wavelength. We were always daggers drawn. Then one day she got up and left, stopped drinking and started rebuilding a life. Not long after that we lost touch.’ He smiled ironically. ‘Language is strange,’ he said. ‘We never had any touch to lose.’
    They were quiet for a while. He listened to her heartbeat. Angeles said, ‘What did you think when they told you she was dead?’
    ‘Strange,’ he said. ‘You go through life and you think you know who you are and all the time there’s parts of you come into view that you never saw before. Katherine was someone I lived with and never knew, and I’m the same. I live with myself but there’s huge areas of me I’ve never managed to negotiate with, never managed to meet or come to terms with.
    ‘I thought, when they told me, and later in the car when they took me to the police station, I thought it was like discovering that a part of me had been murdered, part of me that I’d never known had been killed and wouldn’t be available to me any more. Felt like a waste. An opportunity squandered. One of those moments when all your good intentions have come to nothing and you can’t do anything about it.’
    Sam had intended to stay at Angeles’ house for an hour or so and then go to a midnight AA meeting. A dry alcoholic can get through the everyday but stress leads to an overbearing thirst.
    He didn’t get to the meeting, though. Around 11.30 Angeles got to her feet and took him to her bedroom. He felt her cool