The City Trap Read Online Free Page A

on unfaithful wives could be over. Mickey Mouses ain’t supposed to have criminal records.’
    ‘Ha bloody ha.’
    ‘So, we’d better get the charge sheet filled out, and a statement written down.’
    * * *
    There comes a time, in the stages of splitting up, when lost love becomes hate. When all those yearning touchstones of desire are turned on their head and become foul urges to
destroy. As he walked out of the police station, Des got a sense of that, like a sudden spurt of acid through his veins. But, valiantly, he clung to hope and dived for the first phone box he
found.
    ‘Is Miranda there, please?’
    ‘It is me.’
    ‘Yeh? Well this is Des, I’ve just got out of the cop shop!’
    ‘You mean they haven’t locked you up?’
    ‘Come on, Miranda. I was pissed and angry.’
    ‘I don’t want you harassing me. I don’t want you anywhere near me!’
    ‘Look, I’ll pay for the windscreen and everything.’
    ‘I don’t want this phone call, Des.’
    ‘You’re not really going to press charges, are you?’
    ‘Oh yes I bloody well am! I’d press for the death penalty if I had the chance, anything to get you out of my hair.’
    ‘Jesus, you don’t have to be such a shit. I could lose my PI licence and be stuck down the Fedora for the rest of my life.’
    ‘Look, Des, I’m sorry, but it is over, and your day in court will hopefully make it plain to you that it is finally and totally finished. So please, just get off the phone and get on
with your own life.’
    Des stared at the silent mouthpiece and the streaks of grime around its rim. He sensed something within him that was becoming familiar. A draining away inside, a feeling that the ground beneath
his feet was turning liquid.
    ‘I’ve got to do something!’
    Des dashed up the road, clambered into his rusty old Lancia and sped off.
    He knew where he was going but didn’t want to admit it to himself. Instead, he began to wonder whether he would lose his licence and whether or not it was worth having anyway. Business was
barely ticking over. He hadn’t actually been properly paid since he’d sorted out Calvin Westmoreland, the guy with the gammy leg who’d ripped off Sister Bethany’s savings.
True, he did have a case on the go, if only he could get round to working on it.
    ‘I’m sure my husband is having an affair, Mr McGinlay, and I just need the proof. And if he is, I’m going to get a divorce. I’m going to bleed the rotten bugger
dry!’
    Fine. Posh Rebecca had the means and Des was keen to provide the ammunition. But Rebecca’s prospective ex proved to be slippery as well as rotten and Des had yet to get conclusive
proof.
    ‘What am I paying you for, Mr McGinlay?’
    ‘I’m sorry, but your husband plans his shagging like he’s a frigging spook in the Kremlin.’
    ‘You have two weeks or I go elsewhere!’
    ‘I’ll do it,’ Des grumbled to himself. ‘Miranda may have stabbed me in the back and left me writhing, but I’ll bleeding well do it.’
    That was a week ago and Des had barely been sober since.
    * * *
    Night was falling fast around the Kings Road Estate. Already towerblocks were dark monoliths, and menacing stars were piercing the clear sky. Des shivered in the exposed grass
spaces he roamed across. The towers, as their lights came on, began to seem almost homely. Kingswood, Kingsriver, Kingsacre (renamed Kingsarse by some local hood) and then, finally, Kingsvale. Des
clutched his little pink card and looked up. No desperate face at the window, no balloon escaping to the stars, but Des chose to remain optimistic and blind.
    Empty corridors and landings. Resolutely closed doors. There’s something ferociously hostile about a towerblock, as though when entering you defile the dead or taunt their living, ghostly
spirits. Des had always hated towerblock calls when he drove his taxi. Standing on a cold landing late at night, hearing dogs growl, feeling eyes at spyholes, screams and laughter echoing down the
pipes.