Solomon Creed: The only thriller you need to read this year. Simon Toyne

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      His phone buzzed in his pocket and his heart clenched in his chest like a hand had taken hold of it and begun to squeeze. He looked down at the crumpled jacket, the black material shivering where the phone vibrated inside it like some large insect had crawled in there and was now trying to get out. There was a small hole in the fabric and the sight of it made him burn with anger. Damn moths, the house was plagued with them. There had been a Cassidy living in this house ever since Jack Cassidy had built it and now it was all being eaten away, pulled apart fibre by fibre, everything unravelling. He felt embarrassed knowing that he had stood in front of the assembled town with a hole in his jacket – their shabby, moth-eaten mayor.

      The phone stopped buzzing and silence surged back into his study. It could have been anybody calling. There was a wildfire burning on the edge of town, all kinds of people would be trying to get hold of him, wanting him to lead, wanting him to reassure them, wanting – something. Everyone wanted something, but there was no one there for him. Not any more.

      He glanced over at the photograph on his desk of Stella in the garden standing under one of the jacaranda trees, Stella with the sun glowing in her long hair, taken about a year before the cancer wore her away to nothing and took her hair along with everything else. He still missed her, six years after he had stood over her grave, and never more than in these last few months when he had badly needed someone to talk to and share the burden of all he’d had to bear, someone to tell him that it was OK to do a bad thing for a good enough reason, and that God would understand.

      The phone buzzed again at his feet, like the last effort of a dying insect, then fell silent again.

      He tipped his head back and let the cool air wash over him. He felt done in. Defeated. He wanted to lie down on the floor next to his crumpled jacket and go to sleep, close his eyes on his crumbling, moth-eaten world and slide away into blissful oblivion. He half-wished he were a drinking man so he could grab a bottle and disappear into it. But he was a Cassidy and his name was written across half the buildings in town. And Cassidys did not drink, nor did they lie down on floors and close their eyes to their responsibilities. And this was his responsibility, all of it – the town, the people, the widow he’d left standing alone by her husband’s grave, the fire out in the desert – everything. He was trapped here, bound by blood, and by the name he carried, and by the generations of bones lying buried in the ground.

      He looked up at the portrait hanging above the great stone fireplace, Jack Cassidy’s eyes staring sternly back at him across a hundred years of history as if to say, I didn’t build this town from nothing only for you to run away and let it die.

      ‘I’ve got this,’ Cassidy whispered to his ancestor. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

      The desk phone rang, sharp and sudden, its old brass bell cutting right through the silence. It echoed off the oak panelling and leather-bound books lining the walls. Cassidy plucked his jacket from the floor, slipped his arms into the sleeves and stepped out from beneath the cool flow of air. It made him feel more official, wearing the jacket, and he felt he would need authority for whatever conversation he was about to have. He took a deep breath as if he was about to dive into one of the cold-water lakes up in the mountains and snatched the phone from its cradle.

      ‘Cassidy.’ His voice sounded as though it was coming from a long way off.

      ‘It’s Morgan.’

      Cassidy collapsed into his chair with relief at the police chief’s voice. ‘How bad is it?’

      ‘Bad. It’s the plane.’

      Cassidy closed his eyes. Nodded. The moment he’d seen the smoke rising he’d feared this. ‘Listen,’ he said, naturally easing into command. ‘I’ll call our associate, tell him what happened here. We’ll work something out, some sort of compensation. Accidents happen. Planes crash. I’m sure he’ll understand. I’m sure he’ll …’

      ‘No,’ Morgan said. ‘He won’t. Money won’t work here.’

      Cassidy blinked. Not used to being contradicted. ‘He’s a businessman. Things go wrong in business all the time and when that happens there has to be some form of restitution. That’s all I’m talking about here. Restitution.’

      ‘You don’t understand,’ Morgan said. ‘Nothing can make up for what happened here. There is no amount of money that can fix this, trust me. We need to come up with another plan. I’m not going to talk about this on the phone. I need to head back out to the fire, but I’ll swing by your office first. Don’t move and don’t call anyone, OK – not until we’ve talked.’

       12

      Mulcahy eased off the highway on to the up ramp of the Best Western.

      They were driving through Globe, a mining town that had seen better days and was clinging on in hope that it might see them again.

      Javier kissed his teeth with his oversized lips and shook his head at the grey concrete-and-brick motel complex. ‘This it? This the best you could manage?’

      Mulcahy drove slowly round the one-way system then swung into a parking bay outside a room he had checked into the previous night under an assumed name. He had avoided all the independents and franchises because he didn’t want some over-attentive owner manager giving him that extra bit of service you didn’t get from the chains. He didn’t want good service and he didn’t want the personal touch, he wanted the impersonal touch and some bored desk clerk on minimum wage who would hand over the room key without glancing up from their phone when he checked in.

      He cut the engine and took the keys out of the ignition. ‘Give me five minutes, then follow me inside.’

      ‘Five minutes? The fuck we got to wait five minutes for?’

      ‘Because a white guy entering a room on his own, no one notices. A white guy and two Mexicans, everyone notices because it looks like a drug deal is going down and somebody might call the cops.’ He opened his door and felt the dry heat of the day flood in. ‘So give me the five minutes, OK?’

      He got out and slammed the door before Javier had a chance to say anything then walked over to a solid grey door with 22 on it. With the engine and air switched off it would become stifling in the car fast. He’d give them maybe three minutes before they followed him in. Three minutes was all he needed.

      He unlocked the door and opened it on to a dim, depressing room with two lumpy beds and an old style wooden-clad TV. There was a kitchenette in back leading to a bathroom – the standard layout of pretty much every motel he’d ever stayed in.

      He pulled his phone from his pocket, checked the WiFi connection then opened a Skype application, selected ‘Home’ in the contacts and raised it to his ear.

      A coffin of an A/C unit rattled noisily beneath the window, moving the grey sheer curtain above it and filling the room with cool air and the smell of mildew. Outside Mulcahy could see the Cherokee with the outline of Javier in the front seat. A dark blue Buick Verano was parked next to it, covered with a fine desert dust that spoke of the miles it had travelled to end up in this nowhere hub of a place. Salesman’s car.

      The phone connected and Mulcahy’s own voice told him he wasn’t home. ‘Hey, Pop, if you’re there, pick up.’

      He listened. Waited. Nothing. He hung up, found a new contact and dialled.

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