“Yorath,” I said, staring at the card. “Anyone I know?” I looked up.
Jack Whitehead said, “I just hope it’s from a woman.”
“What do you mean?”
“I heard you were hanging around with young boys,” smiled Jack.
I put the card inside my jacket pocket. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. With orange hair.”
“Who’d you hear that from then, Jack?”
“A little bird.”
“You stink of drink.”
“So do you.”
“It’s Christmas.”
“Not for much longer,” grinned Jack. “Boss wants to see you.”
“I know,” I said, not moving.
“He asked me to come and find you, make sure you didn’t get lost again.”
“Going to hold my hand?”
“You’re not my type.”
“Bollocks.”
“Fuck off, Jack. Listen.”
I pressed play again:
“I couldn’t believe it was her. She looked so different, so white.”
“Bollocks,” said Jack again. “He’s talking about the photo graphs in the papers, on TV.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Her face was everywhere.”
“Ashworth knows more than that.”
“Myshkin fucking confessed.”
“That means fuck all and you know it.”
Bill Hadden sat behind his desk, his glasses halfway down his nose, stroking his beard and saying nowt.
“You should see all the shit they took from the little pervert’s room.”
“Like what?”
“Photos of little girls, boxes of them.”
I looked at Hadden and said, “Myshkin didn’t do it.”
He said slowly, “But why make a scapegoat of him?”
“Why do you think? Tradition.”
“Thirty years,” said Jack. “Thirty years and I know firemen never lie and coppers often do. But not this time.”
“They know he didn’t do it and you know he didn’t.”
“He did it. He coughed.”
“So fucking what?”
“You ever heard the word forensic?”
“That’s bullshit. They’ve got nothing.”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” said Hadden, leaning forward in his chair. “It seems like we’ve had this conversation before.”
“Exactly,” muttered Jack.
“No, before I believed Myshkin did it, but…”
Hadden raised his hands. “Edward, please.”
“Sorry,” I said, staring at the cards on his desk.
He said, “When are they going to remand him again?”
“First thing Monday,” said Jack.
“More charges?”
“He’s already coughed to Jeanette Garland and that Rochdale lass…”
“Susan Ridyard,” I said.
“But I’ve heard there’s more in offing.”
I said, “He said owt about where the bodies are?”
“Your back garden, Scoop.”
“Right then,” said Hadden, being Dad. “Edward, you have that background piece on Myshkin ready for Monday. Jack, you do the remand.”
“Will do, Chief,” said Jack, getting up.
“Nice piece on those two coppers,” nodded Hadden, ever the proud father.
“Thanks. Nice blokes, I’ve known them a while,” said Jack at the door.
Hadden said, “See you tomorrow night, Jack.”
“Yep. See you Scoop,” laughed Jack as he left.
“Bye.” I was on my feet, still looking at the cards on Hadden’s desk.
“Sit down for a moment, will you,” said Hadden, standing up.
I sat back down.
“Edward, I want you to take the rest of the month off.”
“What?”
Hadden had his back to me, staring out at the dark sky.
“I don’t understand,” I said, understanding him exactly, focusing on one small card tucked in amongst the rest.
“I don’t want you coming into the office like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like this,” he said, turning and pointing at me.
“I was on a building site this morning, getting the story.”
“What story?”
“Clare Kemplay.”
“It’s over.”
I stared at the desk, at that one card, at another cabin made of logs in the middle of another snow-covered forest.
“Take the rest of the month off. Get that hand seen to,” said Hadden, sitting back down.
I stood up. “You still want that Myshkin piece?”
“Yeah, of course. Type it up and give it to Jack.”
I opened the door, last ditch, thinking fuck ‘em alclass="underline"
“Do you know the Fosters?”
Hadden didn’t look up from his desk.
“Councillor William Shaw?”
He looked up. “I’m sorry, Edward. Really I am.”
“Don’t be. You’re right,” I said. “I need help.”
At my desk for the last time, thinking take it fucking national, sweeping the whole bloody table-top into a dirty old Co-op carrier bag, not giving a fuck who knew I was gone.
Jack fucking Whitehead slapped an Evening News on to the empty desk, beaming, “Something to remember us by.”
I looked up at Jack, counting backwards.
The office silent, all eyes on me.
Jack Whitehead right back in my face, not blinking.
I looked down at the folded paper, the banner headline:
WE SALUTE YOU.
“Turn it over.”
A telephone was ringing on the other side of the office, no-one answering it.
I turned over the bottom half of the paper to a photograph of two uniformed coppers shaking hands with Chief Constable Angus.
Two uniformed coppers, naked:
A tall one with a beard, a short one without.
I stared down at the paper, at the photograph, at the words beneath the photograph:
Chief Constable Angus congratulates Sergeant Bob Craven and PC Bob Douglas on a job well done.
“They are outstanding police officers who have our heartfelt thanks.”
I picked up the paper and folded it in two, stuffing it into the carrier bag, winking, “Thanks, Jack.”
Jack Whitehead said nothing.
I gathered up the carrier bag and walked across the silent office.
George Greaves was looking out the window, Gaz from Sport was staring at the end of his pencil.
The telephone began to ring on my desk.
Jack Whitehead picked it up.
At the door, Fat Steph, with an armful of files, smiled and said, “I’m sorry, love.”
“It’s Sergeant Fraser,” shouted Jack from my desk.
“Tell him to fuck off. I’ve been sacked.”
“He’s been sacked,” said Jack, hanging up.
One two three four, down the stairs and through the door:
The Press Club, members only, going up to five.
At the bar, a member for now, a Scotch in one hand, the phone in the other.
“Hello. Is Kathryn there please?”
Yesterday Once More on the jukebox, my money.
“Do you know when she’ll be back?”
Fuck The Carpenters, my eyes stinging from my own smoke.
“Can you tell her Edward Dunford called?”
I hung up, downed the Scotch, lit another cigarette.
“Same again please, love.”
“And one for me, Bet.”
I looked round.
Jack fucking Whitehead taking the next stool.
“You fucking fancy me or something?”
“No.”
“Then what the fuck do you want?”
“We should talk.”
“Why?”
The barmaid set two Scotches in front of us.
“Someone’s setting you up.”
“Yeah? Big fucking news, Jack.”
He offered me a cigarette. “Who is it then, Scoop?”
“How about we start with your mates, the Two Bobbies?”
Jack lit a cigarette for himself and whispered, “How’s that?”
I swung my right hand round, waving the bandages in his face, toppling forward and shouting, “How’s that? What the fuck do you think this is?”
Jack moved out of the way, catching my bandages in his own hand.
“They did that?” he said, pushing me back into my seat, eyes on the black wad at the end of my arm.
“Yeah, in between burning down gypsy camps, stealing post mortem photos, and beating confessions out of the retarded.”