wanted to get her, not me.’
Max drew a breath. ‘Who’s Moira?’
‘My landlady.’
‘Right. So where’s Redmond Delaney?’
That took a minute or two to sink in. ‘Redmond? What? Well… I ain’t seen him. Nobody has. Not in years.’
‘Wrong answer,’ said Max, and started sawing at the rope.
‘Wait!’ screamed Dickon.
Max stopped sawing. ‘God’s honour, Mr Carter, he ain’t been around in years, no one’s seen him, and you can cut that rope but I ain’t seen him, that’s God’s truth, that is.’
‘He set a bomb on a car. On Annie Carter’s car.’
Dickon was shaking his head. ‘No! It couldn’t have been him.’
‘Or you’re covering for him,’ said Max, handing the knife to Steve so that he could think this over. Now Steve applied himself to the rope.
‘No! I ain’t!’
Steve swiped the blade down, cutting into Dickon’s scrawny calf. Dickon screamed.
‘You tosser, you better start telling the truth or you’re well and truly fucked,’ snarled Steve, waving the knife and throwing off droplets of blood from its razor-like tip.
‘I’m telling the truth! On my life!’
Max sighed and leaned against the bridge, gazing down at Dickon as Steve started sawing again. Was there anything in the world worse than a nonce?
Yeah, there was. A filthy little nonce who’d been within a hundred miles of his – admittedly adult – daughter. Like this one obviously had.
The rope was fraying now, quite badly.
‘Start talking,’ said Max, his mind consumed with disgust at the thought of Layla being anywhere near this scum. And that car blowing up. His wife – ex-wife, he reminded himself, and Layla’s mother – could have been inside it. He felt rage at that, ungovernable, unstoppable. Layla being pursued through a park, barely escaping. Who knew what could have happened to her, if she’d been caught?
‘I don’t know nothing…’ Dickon cried.
Steve sawed and the rope frayed.
‘Only about Rufus Malone…’
Screaming, Dickon plunged forty feet to the cobbles below and hit them with a wet, meaty whack.
Steve stared down there for a long moment. Then he drew back. ‘Oops,’ he said.
He handed the knife to Max.
Max shook his head. ‘That’s a bit inconvenient,’ he said, tucking the knife away. Rufus Malone? he thought.
‘Can’t stand nonces,’ said Steve.
‘Let’s sort that mess out and get on to the next one.’
‘Precious,’ said Layla next day as they sat on the bed chatting. They’d made up, they were friends again.
‘Hm?’
‘I need your help,’ said Layla.
‘To do what?’
‘To… well, do myself up a bit. You know?’
Precious grinned and clapped her hands together. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah, really.’
Precious jumped to her feet. ‘About bloody