Another Life Read Free Page A

me?’
    Gwen snapped her eyes back to the street, suddenly self-conscious. ‘Yeah.’ She fumbled for her palmtop computer, and called up the image that Toshiko had sent them earlier. The screen showed her a badly lit, flat-featured picture – a face with the rictus grin that characterised any security photo. Guy Wildman, early forties, grey suit collar to match his hair. What made him the killer of four vagrants in Cardiff?
    What made anyone?
    She and Jack observed the pedestrians flowing through the street. An old lady in a patterned headscarf hobbled along, a Tesco bag in each hand. A pinstripe suit beside her flicked a finger at the city types on the next table, who jeered a boozy chorus in response as he joined them. A blue one-man dustcart paused outside the café to empty a waste bin. Jack was on his feet immediately, getting an unobstructed view, shooing the driver on, watching the street beyond. Watching a tired woman struggle with a squealing preschool child along the opposite pavement. Watching two teenagers as they idly peered through a newsagent’s window, their shirt tails stuck out below their school pullovers and each with their backpacks slung low over one shoulder. Watching a bleach-blonde woman in a too-tight skirt and fuck-me shoes totter in the opposite direction with a supermarket trolley full of groceries. Watching a crumpled man thread his way through the thinning crowds on his way north. Watching him shoot looks to left and right. Watching him clasp his briefcase firmly in one hand, and clutch his collar tightly to his throat with the other.
    The man’s demeanour drew attention to him. He was short, maybe five foot six, broad rather than athletic. He was in a hurry, but trying not to look it. He was grey-haired, dishevelled, on a mission. The way he grasped his beige raincoat collar, it was as though the weather had already worsened and he was walking through a non-existent rainstorm. He was Guy Wildman.
    ‘That’s our boy,’ said Jack. He swerved around the dustcart, and manoeuvred into the street thirty metres behind the target. Gwen fumbled her palmtop computer into her jacket, and started after him. As she did, her sleeve caught the half-empty glass of lemonade. The glass fell, rolled across the table, and smashed on the pavement. The city types at the next table cheered and clapped sarcastically.
    Wildman heard the noise. Turned and saw Gwen.
    She flicked a look at Jack. Immediately cursed at her own tactlessness.
    Wildman was already looking back at Jack. Seeing Jack’s hand reach beneath his greatcoat for a weapon. A panicky look of disbelief. And Wildman darted into a side street and away.
    Jack was after him in an instant. Pedestrians scattered like a flock of startled pigeons as he burst through their midst.
    Gwen launched herself after him, half-colliding with the woman pushing the supermarket trolley. She ignored the woman’s stream of obscenities, resisted the temptation to stop and give her a hard slap, and chased down the narrow side street after Jack. She could see the tail of his grey greatcoat twisting behind him as he shimmied between a couple of shoppers. Far ahead of them, Wildman was rounding the next corner.
    As she approached it at a run, Gwen could hear angry shouts and swearing. She turned into the alleyway, and found half a dozen school kids gesticulating after the disappearing Jack. A ginger-haired lad had been knocked down in the rush. One of his friends was helping him to his feet again, and another was recovering his scattered ciggies from the gutter.
    ‘Watch where you’re fucking going,’ bellowed the ginger lad.
    Gwen hopped around them, still staring down the alley at Jack who was about to turn another corner. ‘Smoking can seriously damage your vocabulary,’ she told them before haring off down the alley.
    She had dropped well behind now, fifty metres at least. It was obvious from the way Jack was running that he’d taken out his revolver, a curiously