Beneath the Bleeding

by Val McDermid

  ‘And who’s this, Carol?’ the shaven-headed man in the black leather jacket said.

  Tony frowned, cocking his head back to take in the newcomer’s full height and breadth. ‘I’m Tony Hill,’ he said. ‘Dr Tony Hill. And you are?’

  ‘That’s none of your business, really,’ he said. Then, to Carol, ‘What is he doing here? There’s nothing for your tame profiler to do on this one.’

  Carol turned to Tony. This is David. He’s with CTC, as you’ve no doubt worked out for yourself. I’m told they don’t do manners.’ She stood and faced up to David. ‘He’s not working on this one. He’s working on another one. It may have escaped your notice, but we’ve got a poisoner on our patch. That’s what Dr Hill is helping us with.’

  ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t involve getting anywhere in a hurry,’ David said. ‘Mind you, from what I’ve heard of your exploits, it’s probably just as well you can’t get around. Carol, say goodbye. We need you next door.’ He turned on his heel and walked out.

  ‘Christ,’ Carol exploded. ‘What is it with those people?’

  ‘He almost certainly has a small penis,’ Tony said. ‘And he’s most likely read the briefing paper I did for the Home Office on what CTC should consist of.’ He smiled sadly. ‘If they’d listened, it wouldn’t be run by people like him.’ He winked at her and was relieved to hear her snort of laughter.

  ‘Come on, I’ll walk you to the lift,’ she said.

  ‘You’re sending me away?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, but not because of that twat. Because you should be in bed. You look like shit. I’ll try to come and see you later.’ She helped him to his feet and walked ahead of him so she could open the door. They moved slowly down the hall, Tony conscious that his energy was dwindling fast. ‘By the way,’ she said. ‘You asked me where Tom Cross went to school. Paula had already checked it out. Harriestown High. So there’s your link, I guess.’

  ‘Yes, Kevin told me. That’s one link,’ he said, leaning against the wall by the lifts.

  ‘There’s more?’

  ‘Luck, Carol. They were all lucky.’

  Carol looked incredulous. ‘Lucky? They were all poisoned. They died horrible deaths. How is that lucky?’

  The lift arrived and Tony staggered in. The luck came first. And I think it might be what got them killed.’

  It was late and Carol was tired of CTC’s antics by the time she made it to the hospital. The night nurse tried to say something to her as she shot past, but she was in no mood for conversation. She knocked softly on Tony’s door and opened it quietly, hoping not to disturb him if he was sleeping. If he was out cold, she’d just leave the bundle of print-outs relating to the stadium bomb victims and go.

  There was a pool of light over his bed table, and Carol could see Tony’s hand holding a pen, resting on top of some papers. He was groggy from drugs and sleep, his head lolling on his shoulder. But his were not the only hands on the table. Holding the papers still, guiding his hand to the right place was a perfectly manicured claw with scarlet talons.

  ‘Good evening, Mrs Hill, Carol said loudly.

  She tried to snatch away the papers, but Carol was too quick for her. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Vanessa demanded. ‘This is none of your business.’

  Carol snapped on the overhead light. Tony blinked furiously as he came round. ‘Carol?’ he said. She was too busy scrutinizing the papers Vanessa had been trying to get him to sign. Vanessa herself was lunging at Carol, edging round the bed all the while, desperate to get her hands on the papers.

  ‘I should remind you that I’m a police officer, Mrs Hill,’ Carol said in the tone of voice she normally reserved for the more contemptible of the criminals she dealt with. ‘Tony? What do you think these papers are? The ones your mother is trying to get you to sign?’

  He rubbed his eyes and struggled to sit up. ‘It’s to do with my grandmother’s house. I half-own it. I need to sign the papers so we can sell it.’

  ‘Your grandmother’s house?’ Carol wanted to double-check before she delivered what she suspected would be a bombshell.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He doesn’t know what he’s saying,’ Vanessa protested.

  ‘I do so,’ he said, stroppy as an over-tired toddler. ‘You’ve been on at me to sign them ever since you tracked me down in here.’

  ‘And was your grandmother called Edmund Arthur Blythe?’ Carol said, feigning an innocence that was calculated to infuriate Vanessa.

  ‘How dare you,’ she hissed at Carol.

  ‘What?’ Tony said. ‘Who’s Edmund Arthur Blythe?’

  Vanessa lunged at Carol again and she straight-armed her away without a moment’s compunction. Vanessa staggered back, hitting the wall. She stood there for a moment, face stricken, hands to her mouth. Then she slid down the wall like a drunk and huddled on the floor. ‘No,’ she moaned. ‘No.’

  Carol stepped over to the bed and said, ‘Someone who thought he was your father.’

  Monday

  Tony didn’t want to think about Edmund Arthur Blythe. He’d asked the nurse for something stronger than usual to make sure he slept, because he didn’t want to lie awake thinking about Edmund Arthur Blythe. Tony Blythe. That would have been his name if Vanessa had married him. He wondered if he would ever know why that hadn’t happened. With a different woman, he’d either have been able to make a reasonable guess or he’d have been able to ask. But he couldn’t ask his mother. And guessing was pointless because there were so many possibilities. Maybe he’d been married to somebody else. Maybe he’d taken fright at the idea of being married to Vanessa. Maybe she’d never told him she was pregnant. Or maybe she’d told him to bugger off, she’d be better off on her own. For forty-three years Vanessa had kept his identity and the circumstances of their relationship secret. He didn’t think she was suddenly going to feel the need to change that any time soon.

  Before Carol had thrown her out last night, Vanessa had claimed her only motive was to protect Tony from the trauma of discovering his father was dead. ‘Protecting him to the tune of a few hundred thousand pounds,’ Carol had pointed out coolly.

  Because of the drugs, it had taken him a little while to get his head round what Vanessa had tried to get him to sign. The papers were nothing to do with his grandmother’s house. They were a formal renunciation of his claim on the estate of his late father in favour of his mother. An estate which, according to Carol, amounted to a house in Worcester, fifty-odd thousand in savings and a boat. ‘She’s a criminal, Tony,’ Carol had said. ‘That was attempted fraud.’

  ‘I know,’ he’d said. ‘But it’s all right.’

  ‘How can you be so understanding?’ Carol said, frustrated.

  ‘Because I understand,’ Tony said simply. ‘What do you want me to do? Bring charges against my mother? I don’t think so. Can you imagine how much damage she could do to the pair of us under cover of court privilege?’ It had taken Carol about two seconds to understand the force of what he was saying.

  ‘Let’s forget it, then,’ she’d said. ‘But if she dares to show her face again, don’t sign anything.’ And she’d gone, taking the papers with her for safe-keeping and leaving a stack of information about the victims. He’d been glad of it. It took his mind off Edmund Arthur Blythe.

  And that was why, at seven o’clock sharp on Monday morning, he had filed his request for company information on B&R at the Companies House website. While he waited for them to send the fruits of their search, he began to work his way through the list of Yousef Aziz’s victims.

  It was a devastating catalogue. Eight colleagues from an insurance company, celebrating the birth of a child; a primary head teacher and his wife, the guests of executives from the company who had donated his school’s computers; three musicians from a local band who’d just released their first CD; a motivational guru and his two teenage sons, along with the CEO of the mountain bike manufacturing company who had invited them; three men who had been friends since child
hood, part of a group of successful businessmen who had a season ticket for the box they occupied. The heartbreaking list went on-the youngest, the seven-year-old son of an MP: the oldest, a seventy-four-year-old retired car dealer.

  At first glance, there was no obvious candidate for assassination. But then, nobody had done any serious background work on the victims because nobody was seriously considering an alternative explanation to terrorism. He couldn’t understand why Carol wasn’t more enthusiastic. They’d worked so closely together for so long, her first instinct should be to trust him. But it was as if she was using his accident as an excuse for dismissing his professional opinion. If she didn’t want to take on CTC, fair enough. He could understand that. What he couldn’t understand was why she wasn’t saying that to him, to explain why she was so lukewarm about his ideas. All these years they’d worked together, all the intimacy that went with bouncing ideas back and forth, all the support they’d shown each other. Sure, Carol had seen off his mother. But what had happened to their professional relationship?

  His laptop gave the discreet click that told him a new email had arrived. Eagerly, he opened it. There, laid out before him, was the company information relating to B&R. The company secretary was the accountant whose address Stacey already had. The two directors were Rachel and Benjamin Diamond. With an address in Bradfield. Tony drew his breath in sharply and reached for the victim details.

  Hastily, he riffled through the sheets. At last, he pulled one page free. His pulse was racing and he could feel the fizz and pop of adrenaline shooting through him. He’d remembered right. No matter what Carol thought, his brain was working just fine. He knew exactly where he’d seen that name already that morning. He spread the paper out on his laptop, devouring the words. This was beyond coincidence. Carol was going to have to listen to him now.

  Carol barely recognized the HOLMES suite, so thoroughly had CTC colonized the space. Their information boards broke the room up into segments, their computers and peripherals covered every desk. The air was pungent with male sweat and cigarette smoke. Clearly, the building’s smoking ban did not apply to the chosen of the gods. As she walked in the door, she felt the atmosphere shift. It had been the same every time she’d entered what had been her own territory. A moment of immobility, like dogs scenting strangers; the stillness before the hackles rise. They didn’t like having her here, they wanted her to be afraid of them and their masculinity. She wondered, as she always did, how many of them knew her own history, knew about the rape, knew John Brandon had brought her back from the brink. She wouldn’t mind betting that, even if they knew about the assault, they wouldn’t have heard about the betrayal that had gone hand in hand with what had happened to her. Because the betrayal made men like them look bad.

  ‘I’m here for the meeting,’ she said to the grunt nearest the door.

  Stony faced, he logged off from his terminal and walked her to the far end of the room, where David and Johnny had set up camp behind baffle screens. Before she’d even sat down, David leaned forward, elbows on knees, and said, ‘We’re not having a very good time here, Carol. We’ve rounded up everyone in your fair city that we had any intel on. And it seems like nobody knew our friend Yousef. His brother is a complete waste of time. He’s about as politicized as a toilet seat. As are the so-called mates of our suicide bomber.’ He jumped up and started pacing, pulling a cigarette packet from his jacket as he prowled.

  ‘This is a non-smoking building,’ Carol said.

  ‘What are you going to do? Arrest me?’ David sneered.

  ‘I thought I might just pour the water over your head.’ Carol pointed to the jug on the table. Her smile could have slit a sack from top to bottom.

  David tossed the cigarette on the table in frustration. ‘I can’t be arsed arguing with you,’ he said. It wasn’t a bad attempt at face-saving, but Carol knew she’d scored a small victory. Doubtless she’d pay for it down the line, but right now it felt worth it.

  ‘We wondered if you had any intel we’ve not been given,’ Johnny said. ‘Not necessarily about Yousef, but about Islamic militancy generally.’

  Carol shook her head. ‘We leave that to you. Anything we get, it comes to us incidentally, in the course of other stuff. And we pass it on routinely. We’re not holding back any terrorist-related intel.’

  ‘So what are you holding back?’ Johnny said, pouncing on her careful words. ‘Come on, Carol. We’re not stupid. Lines are for reading between.’

  She was saved by the arrival of the third member of their cabal. The one who hadn’t even bothered to give her an alias. He cocked an inquiring glance at Carol.

  ‘It’s all right,’ David said.

  ‘Forensics,’ the third man said, tossing a folder on the table. ‘On the bomb. They got lucky. The configuration of the room meant the mechanism stayed relatively intact. Totally what you’d expect. Except for one thing. They say there were two trigger mechanisms. One to be set manually, the other to be activated remotely.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Carol said.

  David picked up the folder and skimmed the sheet of paper inside. ‘They don’t know. It’s not something we’ve seen before. We’ll have to run it past the cousins and see if they’ve any experience of it.’

  ‘You mean the Americans?’ Carol said. David nodded. ‘Why don’t you just say so?’ She rolled her eyes. Boys and their toys. ‘So, with all your experience, would you hazard a guess as to what this means?’

  The third man dropped into a chair as if he was punishing it for offending him. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We don’t do guessing. We do inference and deduction. Me, I think he was going to set the manual timer and get clear. Then if it didn’t go off, he could use his mobile to trigger the device remotely.’

  David gave him the look priests normally reserve for heretics. ‘Are you saying you don’t think this was meant to be a suicide bomb?’

  ‘I’m looking at the evidence and trying to make sense of it,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t mean he’s not a terrorist. Fucking Provos managed to create mayhem without blowing themselves up. Makes sense. You go to all the bother of training somebody to do this shit, you might as well get more than one mission out of them.’

  It did make a kind of sense, Carol thought. ‘Funnily enough, we’d been wondering something similar,’ she said.

  All three heads swivelled towards her. ‘You what?’ David sounded indignant.

  ‘In fact, we were wondering whether it was even terrorism,’ she said. ‘Dr Hill suggested Yousef might be a gun for hire, as it were.’

  The third man exploded in laughter. ‘You are a fucking tonic,’ he said. ‘I love it. I mean, you need a hit man. Who’re you gonna call? A clothes factory manager. Stands to reason.’ He slapped his thigh. Plus, who’s going to kill thirty-five people for one hit? That’s not how gangsters work, sweetheart.’ He laughed again. ‘Priceless.’

  ‘That’ll do,’ Johnny said, his voice soft and his eyes dangerous. He turned to Carol. ‘Bottom line? Yousef Aziz was a Muslim. There’s a significant tranche of Muslims who hate us. They want to blow us to kingdom come and impose Sharia law on what’s left. They don’t want peaceful coexistence, they want to destroy us. That’s enough, surely? That’s all that’s going on here, Carol.’

  ‘Hit man,’ the third man repeated. ‘I love it.’

  Carol stood up. ‘There’s just no point talking to you, is there? You live in your own little bubble. If you need a comedy break, you know where to find us.’

  She marched out of the room, head high. When Tony had called her just before the meeting, she’d wondered if he was losing it. Seeing ghosts in the natural coincidences of life. Now, she really wished he could be right. She’d like nothing more than to ram an alternative, correct conclusion down their arrogant throats.

  Trouble was, she lived in the real world. The one where wishes tended not to come true.

  Tony rang Sanjar Aziz, hoping the CTC had decided he was harmless. Otherwise he was going to have to trac
k down the rest of the family to see if they could shed any light on B&R. He didn’t want to face Rachel Diamond without some preparation. This time, Sanjar answered his own phone. ‘Yeah?’ he said, sounding harassed. Tony felt a surge of relief.

  ‘It’s Tony Hill, Sanjar. I was sorry to hear they’d pulled you in.’

  ‘Bound to happen sooner or later, innit? At least they let me go in time to make it to Yousef’s funeral.’ He sounded surprisingly calm for someone who had just spent the night in the cells rather than supporting his grieving family.

  ‘That’s today, is it?’

  ‘This afternoon,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be pretty weird. Apparently there’s not much left to bury.’ Tony could hear him breathing heavily. Sanjar gave a weak laugh. ‘I dunno how we’re going to work out how to get him facing Mecca.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Are you doing OK?’

  ‘What do you think? My mum’s devastated, my dad won’t open his mouth and my little brother’s heart-broken and terrified at the thought of going back to school.’ He sighed. ‘Sorry, you didn’t deserve that. So, what did you want? Why are you calling me?’

  ‘I need to ask you a couple of questions. To do with work.’

  ‘Work? You mean First Fabrics?’

  ‘Yeah. What can you tell me about a company called B&R?’

  ‘B&R? They were Yousef’s big idea for how we could change the way we did business.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Margins have got so fucking tight, man. So we needed to cut out the middleman to increase our profits. B&R’s a wholesaler, they sell direct to the retail trade. They’ve got some pretty good accounts. They’re a great match for us.’