Bombproof Read Free Page A

scar across his neck where someone once tried to slice open his throat but didn’t cut deep enough. Hopefully they were more successful at cutting their own throat because you’d want to die quickly if you crossed Ray Garza.
    Ruiz is one of the few people to know about Garza’s true nature. Others seem to have forgotten or chosen to ignore the evidence.
    Garza is now a pillar of society, a member of the establishment, rich beyond counting. He is invited to dine at Downing Street, given gongs by Her Maj and gets mentioned in newspaper diaries as a philanthropist and patron of the arts.
    Yet every time Ruiz sees a photograph of him at some charity function, or film premiere, he remembers Jane Lanfranchi. It was twenty-two years ago. She was only sixteen. A wannabe beauty queen.
    Garza was going to make her a page-three sizzler, the next Sam Fox. That’s before he sodomized her and chewed her cheek open to the bone.
    Such a beautiful face, destroyed. Such a sweet girl, traumatised. Ruiz promised Jane that he’d protect her. He promised that if she were brave enough to give evidence against Garza, he’d put him in prison. He made promises he couldn’t keep.
    Jane Lanfranchi committed suicide two days before the trial, unable to look at her face in the mirror. The charges were dismissed. Garza went free. He smiled at Ruiz on the steps of the court. His crooked mouth lined up when he grinned and his acne-scarred cheeks looked like lunar craters.
    Ruiz has always been a pragmatist. There are bad people in the world - rapists, murderers, psychopaths - many of them nameless, faceless men, who are never caught. The difference this time was that he knew Ray Garza’s name, knew where he lived, knew what he’d done, but could never prove it.
    One of Ruiz’s mates, a psychologist called Joe O’Loughlin, once told him that some dreams solve problems while others reflect our emotions. Carl Jung believed that ‘big dreams’ were so powerful they helped shape our lives.
    Ruiz thought this was bollocks, but didn’t say so. History showed that whenever he disagreed with Joe O’Loughlin, he ended up looking stupid. Ruiz knows why he had the dream. It happens every year. Just before his birthday. He’s sixty-two today. In a couple of hours the first post will arrive. There’ll be a birthday card from his son Michael and daughter Claire. Twins. His ex-wife Miranda will send him something funny about him being only as old as the woman he’s feeling.
    There’ll be another card, one from Ray Garza. He sends one every year - a goading, vindictive, poisonous reminder of Jane Lanfranchi, of broken promises, of failure.
    Ruiz looks at the clock beside his bed. It’s gone six. He doesn’t feel rested or rejuvenated. One of the annoying legacies of old age is the copious passing of water and learning the odours of various vegetables and beverages.
    Pain is the other legacy, a permanent ache in his left leg, which is shorter than his right and heavily scarred. A bullet did the damage. High velocity. Hollow pointed. Painkillers were harder to recover from. Even now, as he lies in bed, it feels as though ants are eating away at his scarred flesh.
    The pain always wakes him slowly. He has to lie very still, feeling his heart racing and sweat pooling in his navel. The hangover is entirely expected and nothing to do with pain management. Ruiz drank half a bottle of Scotch last night and almost fell asleep on the sofa, too cold to get comfortable and too drunk to go to bed.
    Now it’s morning. His birthday. He wants it to be over.
     
    Ruiz gets out of bed at seven. Runs a cold tap in the bathroom. Fills his cupped hands. Buries his face in the water. He dresses slowly, methodically, as though working to a plan. Socks, trousers, shirt, shoes. There is order in his life. He might be retired but he has his routines. He goes downstairs and puts on a pot of coffee.
    Sixty-two. When you reach such an age, you don’t so much stop counting birthdays