Die Alone

voice.
‘It’s me.’
‘I didn’t expect this. Are you OK? What happened?’
I sighed. ‘It’s a long story, and I can’t tell you about it right now, but I need you to do something for me.’
She didn’t argue. I knew she wouldn’t.
‘Start talking,’ was all she said.

8
Tina put the burner phone back on top of the bathroom cabinet, out of sight.
It had been up in her loft for most of the past year but when she’d heard that Ray had been broken out of the prison van, she’d taken it down and recharged it in case he attempted to make contact. She’d checked it repeatedly in the first forty-eight hours but gradually, as hope had faded that he was even alive, let alone in a position to call her, she’d started checking it less and less, and she hadn’t looked at it for a couple of days before today. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to hear from him. In the end, Ray represented the danger and violence of the past. In the few weeks they’d been together, she’d almost been killed twice.
Tina had ridden her luck too many times over the years and she knew with certainty that at some point, and probably soon, it would run out.
And yet she couldn’t help feeling a frisson of excitement at hearing his voice again. Her date with Matt had been OK. He was a nice guy, and funny too, and he looked like he did in his photos, but she couldn’t help feeling he was just a little bit lightweight. There were no rough edges to him. He would, she knew, be a pushover, and halfway through the date when he leaned forward and said ‘I can’t believe I’m sitting here having a drink with the Tina Boyd’, she knew that there was no future for the two of them.
Because that was the problem. For most men she’d always be the Tina Boyd. The killer cop; the Black Widow who’d lost two of her close colleagues in the line of duty; the one who’d been fired from the job twice, shot twice, and involved in some of the biggest cases in UK criminal history.
But Ray had never seen her like that. To him, she was a woman; an equal; a partner. He wasn’t in awe of her, because he’d been through the same things. And for the past year she’d thought she’d lost him for ever.
And then, just like that, he’d reappeared.
If she helped him, Tina was taking a huge risk. The maximum sentence for assisting an offender was ten years, and if she got caught they’d throw the book at her, so she’d definitely be looking at the upper end of that. It was a prospect that filled her with dread.
She went back downstairs and out into the garden, lighting a cigarette and pondering her next move. She knew Ray wouldn’t hold it against her if she didn’t help him. He’d said as much on the phone.
But the problem with Tina was that she’d never been able to turn her back on someone in trouble, even if it meant getting into a whole load of trouble of her own. And she owed Ray, there was no question about it. He’d only been arrested on that fateful night because at the time he’d been in the process of rescuing Tina from two people who would have killed her given half the chance. Ray had killed them, and been charged with double murder as a result, taking the rap so Tina didn’t have to.
It was for that reason more than any other that she made the fateful decision to get involved.


9
It was just before 10.30 p.m. on my first night in the apartment when I slipped out the front door of the building. I’d been watching the street below for the previous hour and was certain there was no one down there watching me. Very few cars came past and those that did all seemed to stop further down the road at the brothel, disgorging their passengers before driving off again. There were no pedestrians and, as far as I could make out, no one in any of the nearby parked cars, which were all in Residents Only bays. It would be almost impossible for Lane and her associates to keep me under surveillance 24/7, especially with only three of them, and I suspected they were relying on the chip they’d planted in me to monitor my whereabouts.
It was a warm evening and I headed off to Connaught Street where the pubs and restaurants were busy enough that there were a fair few pedestrians about. None of them gave me a second glance. My new look of shaved head and full-face beard was clearly working, helped by the fact that it was now more than two weeks after I’d gone on the run, and my face was only now rarely appearing in the media.
I turned off onto a residential road after about a hundred yards, taking up a position in a doorway out of sight.
Three minutes later, as I waited, a black Ford Focus turned into the street. I recognized it and the driver immediately. As Tina slowed the car, I stepped out of the doorway and raised an arm to show it was safe for her to stop. Our eyes met, and I experienced something I hadn’t felt in a year. It took me a second to realize it was excitement.
I jumped inside and she pulled away.
‘Jesus, Ray, you look different,’ she said, glancing over at me. ‘The bald look really doesn’t suit you.’
I smiled. ‘It’s temporary, I promise. It’s good to see you, Tina.’ I wanted to lean over and touch her but held back. She looked beautiful. Her skin was pale and flawless beneath a jaunty-looking bob cut I hadn’t seen before, and she