‘The attacker broke in through the back door, and went out through the front, leaving it open behind him. Your SOCOs will probably find a blood trail to the door. He couldn’t have done that without stepping in it and being splashed. Surmise: Church may have been in bed and heard the glass break or…’
‘He was watching a video,’ Martin interposed. ‘I took a quick look in the living room while you were heading for the kitchen. The telly’s on, and the player’s on pause. Porno,’ he added.
‘One of his remaining business interests,’ the DI said. ‘I’m thinking the same man as the Seagull. Are you?’
‘Absolutely,’ I replied. ‘Whoever hired them for the Edinburgh job isn’t leaving any traces behind. This was our only lead and it’s been well and truly closed off.’
‘Was he killed before or after the South Shields pair, d’you reckon?’
‘He wasn’t worried about being covered in blood, so I reckon it had to be after. He broke in here, so he wasn’t expected this time.’
‘But why, sir?’
Martin’s question took me by surprise. ‘What do you mean?’ I challenged.
‘Isn’t it a bit extreme?’ he asked. ‘They were hired hands, supplied by Church. Okay, but why kill them all?’
‘Somebody’s being super-cautious.’
‘Or… you’re looking at this from the wrong angle?’
‘You what?’ I snapped, then realised what he was getting at. ‘Shit!’ I exclaimed. ‘I told Tony Manson we were looking in Newcastle. I even mentioned Milburn by name. But no, Andy, no fucking chance. Manson’s more subtle than that. Mind you, if Bella was leaning on him
… Shit, shit, shit!’ Out of nowhere, I could see my fast-tracked career about to be derailed. I turned to McFaul. ‘Ciaran, DC Martin might be pushing his youthful luck here, or he may have a point. There’s an outside possibility at our end that I’ll need to look into, if only to eliminate him. I’ll get back to you when I’ve done it.’
‘Okay.’ He looked up at me. ‘This place is going to be overrun in a minute, and very soon after that my boss is going to arrive. If he finds you two here… well, he’s a bit of a stickler and he might want to know why two Scottish officers were active on his patch. If you’re not here, there’s no reason why I should tell him. Your choice.’
I thought about it. ‘The book says we should give your SOCOs our prints for elimination,’ I pointed out.
‘Did you touch anything in there?’
‘I don’t believe I did. DC Martin, how about you?’
‘I was careful not to, boss.’
I laughed. ‘Boy, if you don’t stop being perfect you’re going to make a lot of enemies. Come on, Ciaran’s right. We’re out of here.’ I shook McFaul’s hand. ‘Thanks, Inspector; I’ll be in touch. You keep me in your loop as well, okay?’
‘Will do.’
We cleared the exit from the Crescent just as the first of the Northumbria cars arrived. ‘By the way, Andy,’ I said as we headed for the A1, ‘you can be as clever as you like and you won’t ever make an enemy of me. But don’t ever put me on the spot again in front of another officer, or you will.’
He nodded. ‘Point taken, boss. I’m sorry.’
In truth I was far more angry with myself than him. I had told Manson far too much, in the hope that if he had any ideas, he would share them. I’d thought that I knew him; if I’d been wrong, I could have signed three death warrants. Either way, it was a big mistake, reckless. The saving grace was that Martin had been there as witness to the knowledge that I had given the gangster, and that of itself would have been a constraint on him. I might have let the business lie quiet, undisturbed, but by mentioning it in front of McFaul, my young DC pal had taken that option away from me, and that was his real transgression.
Suddenly, without warning, my mind was dragged back to that kitchen. I’d hit my ‘detachment’ button before I walked in there, for I knew it was going to be bad. That normally worked, but it wasn’t a hundred per cent effective.
The things you see: the mind has ways of managing them. If you’re properly professional, and experienced, it allows you to take the humanity out of the situation, and to accept the inanimate as what it is. In extreme cases, it will block out the memory altogether. But every so often, in my case at any rate, even back then when I was at my most battle-hardened, I’d see something that would return to me later, and sneak under my emotional guard. For example, something like Winston Church, his face cut almost in two, half-naked and eviscerated on his kitchen table, severed fingers in the pool of blood beneath him. I wondered how long it had taken him to die, and at the thought of it my stomach started to heave.
I looked ahead and saw in the headlights, for darkness had fallen completely by that time, that we were approaching a parking place. ‘Pull over, Andy,’ I said. He did, I jerked open the door and swung myself out of his awkward little bastard of a car, gulping in lungfuls of cool night air, retching violently, on an empty stomach with nothing to bring up but a little bile.
The spasms took a little while to subside, but they did. My face was covered in a cold sweat, and I was shaking slightly, but I was back in control. Martin had stayed in the car, discreetly. I wasn’t ready to get back in myself; instead, I took my phone from my pocket and pressed the ‘menu’ key. I found Mia’s number on the illuminated keyboard and called her. ‘Hi,’ she murmured, and at once I felt warmer. ‘Twenty to eleven. The light’s still on and I’m still awake. Are you close?’
‘I’m the best part of two hours away.’
‘But are you coming?’
I considered my options. Go home to an empty house. Crash out in the office. Call Alison and probably cry on her shoulder, since she would understand why. Go to Mira’s starving, exhausted and shell-shocked, and let her see me at my worst. Why the hell not? I decided. As good a way to start as any.
Martin made good time, but even at that, it was almost twelve thirty by the time I arrived, after I’d picked up the Discovery from Fettes. The gate in the garden wall creaked, a curtain twitched, and before I could ring the bell, the door opened and she pulled me inside by the lapels of my jacket. She closed it again, with her foot, put her arms around my neck and kissed me. Fortunately, I’d refuelled on Lucozade and sandwiches from a filling station just short of Belford, and swallowed an entire box of Tic Tacs afterwards, otherwise God knows how I’d have tasted.
She looked up at me as we broke off. ‘Poor man,’ she murmured. ‘Have you had a rough night?’
I hugged her again and let myself relax against her body, feeling hours of tension leave me, and realising that she was wearing a silk robe and nothing else. ‘The strangest of the strange,’ I murmured. ‘The queerest of the queer.’
‘Hey, I played that this afternoon,’ she whispered. I knew that; I’d heard her. ‘Remember how it ends? “You can touch me if you want.” Well, do you?’
I let her lead me into her bedroom. It was lit by at least a dozen candles. The silk whispered as it fell to the floor, and her bare skin seemed to shimmer in the flickering light as she slipped my jacket from my shoulders. When I was naked too, she stood back and appraised my body, running her fingers over my pectorals, my abdominals, and then down. ‘How old are you?’ she asked.
‘Thirty-six, for a few weeks more.’
‘You’re in pretty good shape,’ she conceded, ‘for an old guy… although that shape is changing by the second.’
She had found the condoms in my jacket. I let her put one on me, and then I let her do everything else too, lying on my back, looking up at her as she straddled me and moved, very, very slowly, smiling, until she stopped smiling and began to moan, a sound that grew in intensity until it became a howl of pure pleasure, tailing off and ending in a long soft sigh.