‘I don’t have to listen to this.’ She turned on her heel and stomped back towards the house.
‘So, Lucy poisoned Mr Bitey.’
She stopped.
Silence.
‘I did not poison someone’s dog!’
A sigh. ‘The neighbour wanted to press charges, but there wasn’t enough evidence to do anything about it. Then, a couple of months later, Lucy’s mother died. Coincidentally, she’d consumed a large quantity of rat poison, too.’
‘You’re lying.’ The heat turned to ice, spreading out through Lucy’s lungs. ‘Mum had cancer; she wasn’t poisoned!’
‘Lucy’s dad told everyone his wife had been depressed for months. Which was sort of true. She was pregnant, you see, so they thought it must’ve been antenatal depression; she couldn’t cope, so she took her own life. But she didn’t, did she?’
‘Shut up.’ Lucy’s hands coiled into fists. ‘Shut — your — lying — mouth.’
‘Like I told you: I did my homework.’ The soggy lawn squelched beneath his feet. ‘When I said you identified with Benedict Strachan, I meant it. You and Benedict are a lot more alike than anyone else can ever know. That’s why you’re so obsessed with him. He’s you.’
Everything trembled. Each word forced out between clenched teeth. ‘I am not obsessed. We are nothing alike.’ Spittle glowing in the sunlight. ‘And I didn’t kill my mother!’
‘The only difference is: you got away with it.’
Her right fist lashed out, hard and fast, smashing straight into Charlie’s nose, lifting him up off his feet and sending him sprawling on the trampled grass, blood spurting out in gobbets of bright red.
40
Lucy stormed through the kitchen, every muscle in her back twitching, jaw aching. Blood beating a thunderous rhythm in her throat and head.
‘Sarge?’ The Dunk stood in the doorway, holding a pile of junk mail. ‘Are you OK? Only you look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘AAAAAARGH!’
He jumped out of the way before she mowed him down.
‘Sarge?’
‘YOU CAN TELL THAT PRICK HE CAN SHOVE HIS INSIGHTS UP HIS ARSE AND SET FIRE TO THEM!’ Thumping her way down the hall and wrenching the front door open.
‘Sarge, are you all right?’ Chasing her down the path to the kerb.
‘No, Dunk, apparently I’m some sort of sodding monster!’ Lucy clambered into her ugly-pink van and slammed the door shut again. Stabbed the key into the ignition. ‘Lying BASTARD!’
‘Sarge?’
She cranked the engine and jammed the Bedford Rascal into first, letting the gears scream in protest, because why should she have all the fun?
‘Sarge!’ The Dunk thumped his palm against the passenger window. ‘You forgot to unlock my door!’
The van juddered into a messy three-point turn as the Dunk retreated to the safety of the pavement.
Behind him, Charlie emerged from Christianson’s house, blood streaming down his face, arms waving about, as if that was going to make her heel, like a good doggie, so he could spout his crap again.
The Dunk looked back towards the house and Charlie gave him an exaggerated women-what-ya-gonna-do? shrug. Patronizing dick.
‘Sarge!’
She put her foot down.
So Dr McNaughton thought she was unravelling, did he? Thought it was OK to go blabbing to Professional Standards and breach patient confidentiality? Thought he could lie about her being mentally ill? Thought she’d let him get away with that?
Well, he was in for a great big sodding shock.
Lucy blinked. Frowned. Then climbed out of the van onto rainbow-slicked setts. Wincing as an electric drill screeched hole after hole through her skull.
How...?
She was on Woronieck Road again, down by Queen’s Quay, where the dilapidated warehouses and boarded-up businesses were. Back in the same part of town where she’d chased Dr Christianson through that Polish meat-processing plant.
‘Bastard...’ That’s what happened when you wound someone up to breaking point. When you lied to their face and dragged their dead mother into some sort of twisted fantasy. And if she was having an aneurism or a stroke, right now, it was bloody Charlie’s fault.
Probably way too soon to have another lot of painkillers, especially a double dose, but she swallowed the last four paracetamols in the pack, shuddering as they caught halfway down.
Bet he was back at DHQ, squealing bloody murder to his boss at Professional Standards. Look at my nose, look what she did to me! She’s unhinged. Unbalanced. She can’t be trusted. You have to suspend her. Throw her off the force!
The air was thick with the iodine-and-diesel scent of the river, a sharp-iron tang coming from somewhere upwind.
Her right hand throbbed — still curled in a fist — and when she forced it open, that set of keys sat in her palm. The ones she was meant to hand in to Lost and Found. All seven of their outlines pressed into the aching skin.
Well... maybe she should make a complaint about him. Go back to DHQ right now and tell everyone what an utter lying piece of shit Charlie was. See how he liked being on the receiving end of a Professional Standards investigation for a change.
Off in the distance, the clang, clang, clang of someone pounding metal with a big hammer rang out like a funeral bell.
Deep breath.
Lucy hissed it out.
Who the hell did he think he was, lying about her mother like that?
It was his own bloody fault she’d broken his nose. Lucky she hadn’t broken his jaw as well.
Lucy turned and thunked back against the van’s side.
Covered her face with her hands and groaned.
They were going to fire her, weren’t they? Do her for assault, and fire her.
And all because of sodding Charlie.
‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’
She lowered her hands. Sagged.
The Bedford Rascal was parked outside what looked like an old chandler’s warehouse — all the windows boarded up with mouldy bloated chipboard. A ‘FOR SALE’ sign drooped on rotting supports, sticking out from an upstairs window frame.
The only difference is: you got away with it.
Was it supposed to be some sort of joke?
Ha. Bloody. Ha.
The chandler’s door was one of those steel-reinforced ones, peppered with rivets. The kind beloved of drug dealers on housing estates everywhere. And above it, carved into the red-brick frontage, was a lion’s head. The weather and years had blurred its features, but it was still clearly a lion, its mouth open in a silent roar...
Lucy looked down at the keys in her hand. At the chunky silver one with ‘DO NOT DUPLICATE’ embossed on it; at the one that looked a bit like an anvil; the rectangular security key with dimples recessed into its straight blade; the three Yales, each with a different coloured plastic cap; and the old-fashioned barrel key — its thick round bow stamped with a crude lion’s head; all bound together on a brass ring.
The lion was pretty much identical to the one above the door.
OK...
Well, that was self-explanatory, wasn’t it? Someone with access to the chandler’s dropped their keys, and she found them when she was here three days ago. No mystery there.