‘You’ll be a happy man then, Harkins. Probably get a few free Chinkies out of this. Close the door on your way out – I’ve got fuck all to say to you.’
Harkins relished the moment, wanting to enjoy it while it lasted. ‘Wee bit to do yet, Billy. The boys from Glasgow are here and they’re going to charge you with the murders . . . enjoy.’ He moved to leave the room but turned to face Drew again at the door. ‘By the way, I may be getting fucking old, but I’ll be on the outside while you, my friend, will be eating stewed fucking cabbage for your Christmas din-dins.’
Colin Jack decided that he would try and carve a few years off by making a full statement blaming Billy, claiming that he’d lost the plot and there had never been a plan to harm the victims. Harkins loved that one.
Frank came apart when Harkins went in to tell him the story so far – that in all likelihood his brother would try to kill him. He already knew that though and started to blub like a five-year-old. Harkins wrinkled his nose and looked under the table to see that Frank had pissed himself, and not from laughing.
‘You really are a fucking tragedy, Frank. Have you any idea what some of those lifers are going to do to you in the showers?’
Frank blubbed even harder and Harkins took a shot at the open goal.
‘You could help yourself by telling us all about it – and while you’re at it, all those other tie-ups and break-ins across the country.’
Foolishly, Frank believed him and sold everyone down the river. He’d have shopped his granny if he’d ever met the woman.
Back in the office Harkins shook his head and summed the boy up.
‘That boy is so fucking low he could walk under a snake’s belly without waking it up.’
25
O’Connor was man of the moment in the Chief’s office; he played the story to maximum effect, and his bonus came with the order to front the statements to the press and media. He was born for it and made sure that every reporter who wanted a story from him was welcome. The boys from the Glasgow murder squad were full of praise in public but they knew the MCT had kept information back from them.
O’Connor made sure that Macallan was mentioned in the right places but always with just a touch less stardust than he gave himself. She didn’t mind; knew that’s how the big boys’ world spun. She would probably have done the same thing herself. What O’Connor forgot was that crime reporters spend an awful lot of time, and expenses, cultivating parts of Her Majesty’s Constabulary that other people can’t reach. Macallan had been in the dirty war over the water, was a class act and on top of all that had links to the tragedy on Ormeau Road. That made her news, and the more talented hacks were as interested in her as they were in O’Connor.
No successful police operation ends without a drink, and Harkins had arranged a takeover of a friendly pub. The Drew brothers and Colin Jack were safely remanded in custody and there had been a nice touch of drama when Billy had tried to attack Frank at court. As far as Harkins was concerned life didn’t get any better, and he called his informant to make sure he was okay. ‘The boys were safely remanded,’ he said.
‘What they deserved. It was completely out of order what they did. Now shouldn’t I get expenses for once? Don’t want you drinking them without me.’
Harkins smiled at that one. ‘You’ll get the drink, my friend; just wait a bit till I hand in my ticket. Won’t be that long because I’m getting past it – I can’t keep up with the new generation.’
‘You and me both.’
The MCT took an early finish on O’Connor’s orders and had retired to the pub to let off steam. The mood was high; O’Connor was as good as his word and had agreed to pay for the first couple of rounds. Macallan watched the orders going over the bar and shook her head, knowing he would likely have to take out a second mortgage to pay for it all. Harkins joined in, ordering a large eighteen-year-old malt.
‘It’s the privilege of rank, Grace,’ he told her, ‘and anyway he can afford it.’
She decided he was right and told the barman to make hers the same. ‘He’s doing a TV interview as we speak and then he’s going to join us.’
They touched glasses and sipped the malt, feeling the soft heat melt on their tongues and dull the edge of their stress. Harkins looked at Macallan and gave her the compliment. ‘You did a great job. I don’t say that very often, but you deserve it. You’ve got the team eating out of your hand – they’ll do anything for you now.’
They clinked glasses again and threw the remaining malt back in one.
‘Thanks. They’re a great team and I think we can do good things. JJ does a good job as well, gets us resources and that makes him worth his weight. At some stage he’ll lead on a bigger case and have to get his hands dirty, so he deserves our support when it comes.’
Harkins was a natural when it came to reading people; he’d never been trained in non-verbal communication and didn’t need to be. He saw the look in Macallan’s eyes when she mentioned O’Connor, and not for the first time it worried him. He’d seen the same look in O’Connor’s eyes.
‘He’ll get all the support we can give him because at some stage he’ll need us,’ Harkins said. ‘You know better than anyone that you’re just as good or bad as the last job in this game, and the snakes are always just a bite away. I know that you don’t like me saying it, but I’ll say it again anyway – don’t get involved. He won’t march you up the aisle and live happily ever after. Cheers.’
He nodded to the barman to fill them up again and put it on O’Connor’s bill.
‘I know what you mean, and I’m not saying anything will happen, but we’re both adults, both single, so surely we’re allowed to take a chance, and if we make a mistake then that’s life. On top of everything else that happened in Northern Ireland I had an affair, got badly burned and I haven’t been involved with anyone since – unless getting pissed with you counts.’
She laughed, realising that the malt was stripping away her natural reserve and the cares of the day. It was time to enjoy the moment.
‘I’m talking to you about things that are normally restricted to girl chat. What would your fans think if they knew you were a closet agony aunt?’
Harkins lifted his glass to his lips and realised it was true. He looked sideways at Macallan then joined in the laughter. ‘Fuck me, you’re right. I’ll stick the head on someone later to get my credibility back.’
They slapped the glasses on the bar again and ordered a third round on O’Connor’s tab. The noise level was rising; it was the way of squad celebrations that the hard discipline the job required could be left at the door. Everyone knew that someone would make a complete arse of themselves and others would wake up in the wrong bed. That was how it worked, and anyone above sergeant needed to leave after the first couple of hours so they didn’t get the chance to fuck up their career. Macallan knew this – but she was going to enjoy those two hours.
She kissed the side of Harkins’ head and clapped as one of the guys got up on a table to sing the only song he knew the words to. It was a tradition: he sang ‘Mac the Knife’ badly and after the first two lines he was pelted with crisp packets, peanuts and anything else the crowd could get their hands on.
O’Connor walked in the door, smiled and shook his head at the same time, wondering at the capacity of cops to fall overboard when the chance came along. He headed for Macallan and Harkins.
‘I suppose I’d better get a drink before I’m bankrupt. The TV interview went well. Get a few of the more sober types to come in early, let the rest start around midday and we can get things tidied up. We need to make sure we’re ready, because there’s a report of a missing prostitute and a concern that it’s tied to the previous attacks. Hopefully not, but it would mean we’re not going to get much time to pat ourselves on the back. But let’s forget that for the night and the team can move on with getting the best hangover my money can buy.’
O’Connor ordered a red wine and Harkins nodded to the barman to pass him
the bill so far. He raised the glass to his mouth as the slip came over the bar then looked at the numbers at the foot of the paper. ‘Jesus!’
He scanned the list of drinks and spotted the eighteen-year-old malts – and knew that Harkins and Macallan were the culprits. ‘I should have known.’
Harkins ordered another round and slapped O’Connor on the back. ‘The privilege of rank and, yes, you should have fucking known after all these years in the job. Anyway I’m going to mix with the guys before I get a bad name.’
He left the two of them at the bar, and O’Connor turned to Macallan, happy to have her to himself. ‘So what do you think of the show so far?’ he asked. ‘If you’re up for it, why don’t we get away from here and I’ll buy you a nice meal before we get a line of drunk detectives telling us their theory of life?’
Macallan was on her third drink and knew that if she stayed, her head would regret it in the morning – and one more drink would mean that she wouldn’t want to leave anyway.
‘Can you afford it after the drinks bill?’
‘I’m not sure, but I know it’s time to leave the guys to it.’
She put her hand on his forearm. ‘Okay, as long as we agree not to talk about police work. I’ll get my coat.’
She looked across at Harkins as they left the pub, and he raised his glass to her. He was still staring at the doors that had closed behind them long after they were gone.
Macallan and O’Connor sat in a beautiful sixteenth-century restaurant in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle, where candles flickered and a sense of history bathed the diners as the food was served.
Macallan hadn’t felt like this for a long time, and it was good to be away from the job – to remember that there was another world away from the killers and nasties out there in the shadows. O’Connor knew his food and wine so she let him take the lead. The deep red Malbec he’d chosen peppered the back of her tongue, and the soft candlelight made her forget that she was a detective sitting opposite another detective. He began to tell her about his family, and she was surprised by his candour – this was, after all, a man who spent most of his day behind a stiff professional image. Certainly the polar opposite to someone like Harkins, whose message to the world was ‘accept me or fuck off’.
He asked her about Belfast and she told him. She wanted to tell him; wanted him to know who she really was. He listened intently and hardly broke eye contact with her. He ordered a second bottle of wine, and for Macallan the other people in the restaurant had disappeared. There was only John O’Connor.
When she described the day she walked onto the ferry that would take her away from Northern Ireland, she was unprepared for the tears that welled up and stung the corners of her eyes. She apologised. He ran his thumb under her left eye and realised how difficult it was to know people – this was another Grace Macallan he was seeing. There were still people in Northern Ireland, some from her old force, who would toast her ruin, and he wondered what they would think of her if they could see what he saw now. He told her she’d done the right thing and realised that saying it meant nothing.
‘The truth is that hardly a day passes that I don’t wish I’d kept my mouth shut and carried on with my life.’
She straightened up and noticed that his hand was still on her side of the table. She took it and they turned their palms to grip each other. Her face broke into a smile. ‘If you tell Mick Harkins I cried, I’ll never forgive you.’
‘Okay.’ He paused for a moment, hesitant. ‘Look, we’ve both had a big day and you must be shattered. What if I order a taxi and see you home?’
She paused and tried to make the right decision but the combination of malt, red wine and human need made it a no-brainer. ‘Well, my place is like a shoebox, and I’d guess that you live in some kind of show home. You make me coffee at your place and it’s a deal.’
As the taxi rattled over the high-street cobbles John O’Connor leaned over to kiss Macallan and she did nothing to stop him.
She was running up the Ormeau Road and it was dark – very dark. There was no sound, and her feet were dragging; for some reason she couldn’t get speed and something was coming for her. Those dark shapes that lived in the Belfast shadows. She tried to call for help, but her voice was a long way off and no one could hear her.
She broke through the surface of the dream gasping for air.
‘It’s all right, Grace. You’re safe and with me,’ O’Connor said.
She realised where she was and put her head back on the pillow. The protective comfort of his presence was overwhelming, and she pulled his arm round her like a child before they both drifted back to sleep.
26
They were both woke early but lay without speaking, trying to work out the situation in the reality of the dull morning light. Macallan felt a small knot of panic but this was calmed by the tactile warmth of another human being beside her – the close contact she’d missed so much since Jack Fraser had last held her in Belfast. She knew O’Connor must be turning his own thoughts over in his head. He wasn’t someone who normally did humour, but someone had to speak first so she turned and flicked the edge of her hand along his cheek. ‘When will we announce the engagement then?’
His smile wasn’t quite wide enough and there was no light in the eyes. It wasn’t that funny, but he should have come back with a smile at least. Instead he kissed her cheek. ‘It was a good night, and I think we both needed that.’
She thought about ‘we both needed that’ for a moment. He’d gone back behind his cover and they weren’t even out of bed yet. She tried to find the warmth that had wrapped them both up only hours earlier. ‘There’s no rush – we can go in later.’
But he was already sliding out of bed, and she felt the cold air invade the space where they’d lain together. She leaned up on one elbow and heard Harkins in the back of her thoughts. ‘Is that it then, John? One night and thank you, ma’am. Couldn’t you have just done that with one of the junior staff? They’d have loved it.’
He pulled a dressing gown round him and tied it tightly. ‘Don’t be daft. I want to have something with you but there’s no rush. I haven’t done commitment so far; you must know what I’m like. The truth is that you’re the first person in the job I’ve felt attracted to, and you’re something special. You’re already becoming a bit of a celebrity with your background so let’s not rush. We both have the same problem in sharing with other people – the difference between us is that I know it, and you’ve still to find out. But what you need to know is that people describe you in much the same way as they describe me. Think about it. Now I’m going to cook us a nice breakfast and just take last night for what it was . . . wonderful. This is today, and there’ll be another set of problems when we get into the office.’
She thought about it and decided that O’Connor might have a point. He cooked her the perfect breakfast, and they both relaxed, discussing the latest bad news coming from the Middle East. They were on their second coffee when O’Connor got the call. Macallan watched his face harden and knew that his mind was now a million miles away from breakfast with the woman he’d made love to half the night. He put the phone down and pushed his cup to the side as if it was in his way.
‘They’ve found the second prostitute. They think it’s linked to Pauline Johansson and they want us to take it on. Problem is that this one is dead so we have some hard days ahead. Can you get a hold of Mick if he’s not in hospital getting his stomach pumped and get him into gear? Ask him to rustle up as many of the troops as he can find. No doubt some of them will still be lying with their legs up in the air.’
She found her phone, called Harkins’ number and let it ring.
Harkins wasn’t in hospital as it turned out. He was completely fine and in bed with Felicity Young, who’d turned out to be a complete revelation. He’d been surprised to see her arriving at the bar – then even more surprised later when she’d pushed in beside him and asked if he wanted a drink. At first he’d panicked, thinking
that she wanted to talk about analysis or badminton, and everyone knew that he didn’t do boring bastards. Fortunately he’d not had enough alcohol to just insult her there and then, and the realisation that she was interested in him had been a pleasant surprise. Under the businesswoman look was a very attractive and much softer human being – he’d just never noticed it before. She was from another world, but he’d shrugged and decided that if she wanted a bit of rough, well Mick Harkins was just the boy. She’d got what she’d asked for.
When he took the call from Macallan, Harkins knew without being told that O’Connor and the MCT were about to be tested to the limit. He put the phone down and looked at the woman next to him, shaking his head. ‘I never would have believed it – Felicity Young and Mick Harkins falling madly in love.’
She laughed and he thought how little people knew about each other. Whoever this was lying next to him was not the woman who’d talked about nothing but analytical theory in all the time he’d known her.
He slapped her backside gently, just to remind her that he was a born-and-bred sexist. ‘We’ve got work to do so why don’t you rustle us up some nice bacon sandwiches?’
She explained about her strict vegetarian diet and offered muesli and some fruit.
‘Fucking muesli! You realise this could finish us?’
She rubbed his arm. ‘I love it when you do that unnecessary swearing thing.’
They got dressed and Harkins gave the muesli a miss. He decided that he’d head for the canteen at HQ and get an artery buster there before going into what would probably be a very hard day – which was just how he liked it.
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