Widows

Harry checked out the car, sat back in his seat and shook his head. ‘No matter how many times you swat some flies, they always come back for more.’ There was real hatred in Harry’s voice. The other two didn’t ask for further details.

‘Do I keep going?’ said Bill. Going to Dolly’s house in broad daylight was a bad idea, especially if someone was tailing them.

‘Nothing changes,’ Harry growled. He looked in the rearview mirror again, just to be sure, and spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Jesus Christ, I thought I’d done his legs and seen the last of him years ago. He followed me about for years like a bloodhound on the scent of his biggest kill. He got close, real close.’

‘And now he’s back,’ said Bill.

Harry wondered how on earth Resnick could be on to him. How could he know he was still alive? Maybe he didn’t... maybe he was watching Eddie and Bill over the murder of Boxer Davis? Harry pulled the scarf a little further up his face. He was confident he hadn’t been seen when they left Jimmy’s flat and he doubted Resnick would recognize him from just his eyes, not after so many years. He smiled behind the scarf. If Bill and Eddie got nicked for Boxer, that wasn’t his problem.

Bill couldn’t hold back any longer. ‘He’s filth then, is he?’

‘The bloke on our tail is none other than the infamous Detective Inspector George Resnick.’

‘Shit! What we gonna do, Harry?’ Eddie bleated.

‘Don’t worry, son, Resnick’s luck just ran out for good,’ Harry said.

Bill pulled up a good fifty yards from Dolly’s house and Resnick had no choice but to drive on past them. His intention was to go round the block, double back on himself and park up at a safe distance without, he thought, being seen. But as Resnick drove past, Harry taunted the old man by pulling the scarf down to his chin, revealing his face. The inside of the car was too dark for Resnick to be certain; but the speed at which his heart rate increased told him that the man he’d just seen was Harry Rawlins...

Harry was quick to bark his orders. ‘Eddie, open the garage. Bill — he’s all yours.’ Eddie raced across the street as instructed; Bill got out of the car and hid behind the hedge; Harry slipped across to the driver’s seat and drove the BMW into the garage.

Now parked opposite, Resnick sat staring at the Rawlins house. His fists gripped the steering wheel and, when he unclenched them, his hands trembled like jelly. He watched Eddie close one garage door behind the BMW, and then another man came out of the garage and closed the second door. This man paused, looked straight at Resnick and lit a cigarette. Briefly, the flame illuminated every feature of the face Resnick had been chasing for so many years. ‘Rawlins!’ Resnick whispered. A broad smile crept across Resnick’s face. He was right! He was always right!

He was taken completely by surprise when the driver’s door was yanked open and blow after blow from Bill’s knuckle duster rained down on his face. Trapped by the steering wheel, Resnick couldn’t get away or defend himself properly. He raised his hands to try and deflect the punches but it was too late. His head reeled backward and forward from the savage attack and then he felt a hand grab his hair and repeatedly smash his face into the steering wheel. As he started to slip into unconsciousness, lights flashed before his eyes, reds, blues, yellows, a mass of bright rainbow colors. He heard the sound of his nose crunching and breaking as Bill’s fist slammed into his face again. And all Resnick could do was wait to pass out, so the terrible pain would end.

Eventually, he went limp and he fell sideways, his upper body hanging partially out the car. Bill stepped back and kicked out as hard as he could at Resnick’s head, causing it to snap back and shift over toward the passenger’s seat. Looking up and down the street, Bill slammed the car door shut, slipped his knuckle duster back into his pocket and casually crossed back toward the house. The vicious attack on Resnick had taken less than thirty seconds.

Although Bill thought he’d slammed the car door shut, Resnick’s right arm had been caught in it. The blood streamed down his fingers, his face was covered in blood, but he felt no pain now, just the cool air as the door slowly, inch by inch, swung open and away from his shattered fingers. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t cry out. Unable to open his swollen, bleeding eyes, Resnick simply sat and waited to be found.

As Bill jogged across the road and disappeared into the darkness of Dolly’s garage, a man out walking his dog headed toward Resnick’s car.

When Bill slipped in through the gap in the garage door, Eddie was already searching.

‘Harry’s upstairs,’ he said to Bill.

Bill went through to the lounge, where he opened a flick knife and started to cut into the sofa and cushions, the same cushions that had already been slashed by Tony Fisher and neatly sewn up again by Dolly. He was getting Resnick’s blood on the fabric, but he figured that didn’t matter now.