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“Move to strike,” said Jack. “That’s not a proper question to put to a medical examiner. It’s pure argument.”
“Sustained,” said the judge.
Jack appreciated the ruling, but the prosecutor had made his point to the jury simply by asking the question. In the trial lawyer’s parlance, the bell had rung, and no ruling by a judge could unring a bell.
“I withdraw the question,” said Owens, seemingly satisfied that the bell was still tolling.
Chapter 34
Theo made another pass by Judge’s flat—not too close, just to see what was going on. Metro Police were gone, but the flat was padlocked and marked as a crime scene. Madeline Coffey had taken his tip seriously.
Two days had passed since Gigi had spooked and bolted. Filing a missing person’s report would have been useless. He didn’t even know her real name. What would he say, “A runaway ran away from me?”
“Carpenters Arms,” he told the taxi driver.
Theo spent the afternoon doing “research” as only the proprietor of Cy’s Place could do research. East End pubs had a colorful history, and Theo found it particularly amusing the way so many establishments claimed a connection to Ronald and Reginald Kray, the East End’s kings of organized crime in the 1950s and 1960s. The claim by Carpenters Arms, his fourth stop on the pub crawl, was more credible than most. Once upon a time, it was owned by the Kray twins and run by their dear old mum. Somehow over the years the tiny old pub had avoided conversion to flats, and it stood in refurbished splendor at the corner of Cheshire and St. Matthew’s Row.
“Try the Greene King IPA or Staropramen lager on draft,” the barkeeper told him when he asked for a recommendation.
Theo tried both.
It was dark by the time Theo left the pub, though not nearly as late as it seemed. There was no such thing as 4:30 p.m. sunsets in Miami, and no matter how long he stayed in London, Theo would never get used to just nine hours of daylight. His flat in Bethnal Green was withinwalking distance. He zipped up his jacket and breathed in the cool night air. Afternoon air.
Whatever.
The walk took him down the old brick streets of Vyner, past the picnic tables outside the Victory Pub, and past the whitewashed buildings spray-painted with gang graffiti. He wasn’t drunk, but a few pints made it harder to recognize his neighborhood landmarks. Then he spotted “Smash the Reds”in big, red graffiti letters on the sidewalk, and he knew his flat was just around the corner. He stepped into the zebra crossing and slammed straight into an oncoming pedestrian. It was Gigi.
“There’s a man waiting for you in your flat,” she whispered. “Behind the front door.”
Before Theo could say a word—before he could even react—she was off and running.
“Gigi, wait!”
Theo sprinted after her, trying his best to keep up. Two minutes into the chase, he was digging for a gear he didn’t have. He owned socks older than Gigi and, with legs like a gazelle, she was pulling away, the distance expanding between them.
“Gigi!” he called out.
She never looked back, never broke stride. Theo had never logged a five-minute mile in his life, and Gigi was bettering that pace on a cracked and buckled sidewalk. He pulled up at a zebra crossing to catch his breath. In the glow of the streetlight at the end of the block, he caught one last sighting of Gigi as she turned the corner and disappeared. It was no surprise that a girl on the run could run like the wind. Theo hoped she would keep right on running, at least until she got past Somaal Town, where gangs had been known to crack skulls just to protect their turf. Closer to his flat, up around Wadeson Street, was a slightly better area, where a steady increase of trendy clubs and restaurants like Bistroteque and Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club drew crowds from all over the city. Theo turned and started walking.
A man waiting behind your front door.
It had to be Judge. He’d come to reclaim his “property,” and make sure Theo stayed clear of her. Theo would have something to say about that.
He had a knife holstered to his ankle, a little self-defense he’d acquired after the death threat. The flat next door had a tiny garden outside the front door, and Theo took the liberty of borrowing the six-foot length of chain that the neighbor had hung between two posts to protect the flowers from trampling. With that, Theo’s plan was fully formed. First, he had to make his attacker think he was in no condition to put up a fight. Three concrete steps led to his front door, and as he climbed them, he sang the old drinking song made famous in the movieJaws.
“Show me the way to go home...”
He was intentionally clumsy in putting one foot in front of the other, scraping his shoes on each of the steps.
“I’m tired and I want to go to bed.”
He unsheathed the knife from his ankle holster and tucked it inside his jacket. He gripped one end of the chain tightly, ready to employ it. With his other hand, he aimed the key at the lock, tapping it several times around the metal cylinder, as if he were too drunk to find the slot.
“I had a little drink about an hour ago...”
The key slid across the tumblers, the deadbolt clicked. His attacker was probably waiting for the sound of the key sliding out of the lock, so Theo left it right there, adding to his element of surprise.
“And it went right to my—”
