Free Lets Drink To The Dead by Simon Bestwick Page A

the year’s longest night. It was a bitter one, too; the streets grew icy and quiet.
    There was no-one waiting on the platform at Kempforth Railway Station when the Manchester train pulled in, slowing to a creaking, hissing halt, and only one passenger emerged, stepping with almost dainty care onto the platform and moving into the shadows of the waiting room. He stood watching, waiting, until the train began to roll forward again. Light shone off thick, round spectacle lenses, like the luminous eyes of a deep-sea fish.
    The train carried its warm yellow lights off into the winter dark. Shoes clicked on cold stone as the passenger stepped out of the shadows and down the platform. A black coat flapped around him; light glinted from a bald, bulbous head. He carried a briefcase.
    The passenger went out of the station and stopped at a telephone kiosk. He slipped inside. A car swept past on the road; its headlights briefly lit the booth’s interior. The man’s face was smooth and bland, lips pale and moist. The eyes were pale grey and large behind the spectacle lenses. He put his case down, took coins from his pocket with one hand, picked up the handset with the other. He wore tight black leather gloves. He fed the coins into the machine and dialled.
    The phone rang twice and was answered.
    “Hello?”
    “Detective Sergeant?” The passenger’s voice was thin and cold. Metal. A sharp blade.
    “Yes.”
    “You know who this is.”
    “Yes.”
    “You know what I’ve come for.”
    “Yes.”
    “You know what you promised to provide.”
    “Yes.”
    “Well?”
    “I have it. Them.”
    “When shall I...?”
    “I have to go and fetch them. They’re not in the town. They’re in–”
    “I’m not interested. When?”
    “Eight o’clock.”
    A sigh. “Very well.”
    “The usual place?”
    “No. There is an abandoned railway platform nearby. At Ash Fell.”
    “Ash F–”
    “Is there a problem, Detective Sergeant?”
    “No. No problem at all. Sir.”
    White teeth glinted in the dark of the phone booth; a mirthless grin. “I didn’t think so. Leave them on the platform, suitably secured. I’ll leave your payment there for you to pick up.”
    “But–”
    “Yes?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Good.” Silence. The line hissed. “Was there anything else, Detective Sergeant?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Then don’t let me keep you from your task.”
    The man replaced the phone and picked up his case again, then exited the booth. As he did, he stopped for a moment and looked about him. For a moment he thought he had heard a sound; something like a voice, whispering a single word: Shrike .
    After a moment, he shrugged, dismissed it, then walked on and crossed the road, ignoring the pubs, the chip shop, the Indian restaurant. He didn’t feel the cold, and he had no desire for food or drink; he desired only one thing, and that would come to him later. He would pace the streets of Kempforth for a while, keeping to the shadows. That was all he needed; the dark was light enough.
     
     
    5
     
    M YFANWY HAD SPENT the day, after parting with Bronisław, with David and Shelley and their children. That had helped, in more ways than one; a distraction from what was coming, and a reminder of why it had to be. The thought of Martyn, or worse, little Anna, in the hands of the Shrike was something she couldn’t contemplate, but she couldn’t wholly banish it either. Especially not when she’d gone home and there was nobody else there.
    She went to bed. She was tired after last night’s fitful and disrupted sleep, and she’d have to be awake and alert tonight. She was afraid of tonight; she was an old woman now and the days when she might have faced something like this without quailing were long gone. If there’d ever been such days. And Bronisław, come to that, was hardly a spring chicken.
    The alarm shrilled at six o’clock. The house was dark. From outside, in the distance, she could hear carol singers. Hark The Herald Angels .