by David Mark
Fucking Colin Ray!
He pushes himself back from the toilet. Rinses his mouth and splashes water on his face. He looks at his reflection in the tiny mirror above the sink. He has cuts and bruises to his handsome face and a big scab on one elbow. The bandages and padding that cover the lacerations to his back form a slight bump in the lining of his T-shirt, but he doesn’t look as bad as he feels. He uses his thumb to check, one more time, that none of his teeth are wobbly, then opens the door.
The smell of the hospital ward offends his nostrils, so his actions are quick. He crosses to the bed where he has been a patient these last couple of days. He picks up his copy of his release paperwork, feeling a half smile crease his face. He knew he’d get bail somehow. He just didn’t expect to have to get his head kicked in to achieve it. Still, he trusts that his new employers had no alternative. He’s just grateful they kept their promises. He always intended to keep his.
Downey takes another quick look at the room. He’s pleased to be leaving. He doesn’t like being cooped up, and the succession of uniformed constables who kept him company were not great conversationalists. Anyway, he hasn’t really wanted to talk. His mind has been elsewhere. On getting out. On getting paid. On getting her.
The last uniformed constable has gone. Downey is a free man, for now. He can walk out the door and do what the fuck he likes. And he knows exactly what he’d like to do.
Gingerly, painfully, but refusing to yield to his injuries, he gets himself ready. The trash bag which contained the possessions he had brought with him from the custody suite is lying on the bed. The T-shirt he was wearing when they brought him into the emergency room was too ragged and bloody to be kept, but he slips into the same jeans he had on when Colin Ray beat the shit out of him. The T-shirt he is wearing was torn fresh from a cellophane packet. It had been inside the trash bag. He doesn’t know if it is a present from somebody. Perhaps it is some kind of apology from the police for what happened to him. If it is, they can fuck off. He doesn’t wear plain T-shirts. He likes a label. Downey stands in the doorway to his hospital room. He takes a breath.
Young, fit, and energetic, Downey would normally be able to walk the mile and a half to his Victoria Dock home, but he’s feeling a bit banged up and doesn’t fancy walking through the city center wearing this T-shirt. He pulls out his phone to call a taxi. There’s probably a rank of them somewhere around here, or a pay phone with a free link to a local firm, but Downey reckons there’s no point running a taxi firm if you can’t get yourself a lift. Besides, it will be nice to give the drivers a real job for a change. He might request Hakan. The lad will have been shitting himself these past few days and it will be better all-round if his punishment comes quickly.
He opens his phone. He’s surprised to find that it’s already ringing. The number has been withheld.
Downey feels a tongue of nausea licking the inside of his throat. He knows himself to be able to hold his own in a fight, but his confidence has taken a little knock and he’s weak as a kitten. If the call is from the man he thinks it’s from, he knows he needs all his faculties, and right now he’s not himself. He’s had his arse kicked twice in the past week—once by an old bloke and once by a girl. It’s the girl who’s hurt him most. She took his money. Got him caught. Acted like he was a nobody. Oh, he has such plans . . .
“Hello,” he says, focusing on the call.
“Mr. Downey,” comes a familiar voice. “I hope you are well.”
Downey closes his eyes. He leans against a circular column that supports the front of the hospital. He looks around him. There are people in wheelchairs, people holding IV drips. On the grass, beyond the little shop, is a grassy area where patients and visitors alike sit and smoke; some holding cigarettes in hands that are wrapped in bandages or skewered by a cannula. A husband and wife pass a cigarette between them. She’s in a pink dressing gown, both eyes black. He’s in jeans and a Manchester United shirt, and his right hand is in a cast. To his left, Downey sees the maternity hospital. New life. New hopes. New customers, someday.
The vista of real life makes his head reel. He doesn’t want to be a part of it. Of them. He’s above it all. He reminds himself who he is. What he had to do to prove himself to these men. The voice at the other end of the line scares him. But he has earned their respect and they owe him a favor. He tells himself to get it together.
“I’ve been better,” he says, trying to sound casual. “But fresh air feels nice.”
“Excellent. I can assure you that we had several stratagems for securing your release. The one that was successful came at a high price to your well-being. I trust that when the physical wounds heal, no festering resentment will remain?”
Downey finds himself smiling. He likes how this man talks. He wishes he could picture him.
“I’m out, that’s what matters.”
“A pragmatic and sensible approach, Mr. Downey. You repay our faith in you.”
There is a pause. Downey expects more, but nothing comes. Nervous again, he fills the silence himself.
“Look, what happened . . . at the shop. One of my lads thought he was going to get pulled over. He didn’t want to lose the gear. The sewing shop was his idea. I did my best. It just got out of hand . . .”
The voice is placating and soft. “Hush, Mr. Downey. We fully understand that sometimes our employees do not represent us in the way we would represent ourselves. You have been an asset to us during your brief time in our employ. We have no inclination to rebuke you for this minor blot on your otherwise impressive curriculum vitae. I would, however, prepare yourself for some distressing news about one of your drivers. Hakan is no longer available for night shifts. Or day shifts. Or walking around and breathing. I trust you will not grieve too much for this loss to your staff?”
Downey screws up his eyes. He’d planned to give Hakan a slap. Maybe cut his take. He tries not to let himself picture what they did to him. He knows it will have involved a nail gun and a blowtorch. He knows Hakan’s skin will have bubbled like sugar in a pan. Fuck.
A memory comes, unbidden. He and Hakan had talked about football. They’d watched a Champions League game together. Hakan’s team, trying to get past the group stages. They’d both cheered and laughed when they stuck one past Barcelona. They might even have bloody hugged. Christ, Hakan had given him a Galatasaray scarf to wear. They were never mates. But they’d laughed together. Shared a few cans of beer . . .
Downey gives a little cough, which becomes a retch. He swallows down what comes up.
“Mr. Downey?”
“It’s okay,” he says, and hopes it is.
“Excellent. Now, as you can see, we are calling on a mobile phone number that is open to abuses and eavesdroppers. I hope you do not distress yourself over this. We have taken steps to ensure that we can talk freely. However, there is always the possibility of the unforeseen hiccup, so I will keep the remainder of this conversation brief. You should know that Colin Ray is currently suspended and under observation by ourselves. The seamstress will soon be withdrawing her statement. The loss of our product is not of huge concern at this time. You will soon be free to resume deliveries. There remains just the one frayed thread for you to pick at.”
Downey focuses. Feels his lips twitch. “The girl.”
“Precisely. I do not want you to feel too emasculated by her involvement in your predicament. However, you are a young man with pride and an ego and I know you will not sleep well until you have demonstrated to this young Romany that you are not to be treated thusly. It would also be a useful marketing stratagem if you were to make an example of the penalty for such transgressions.”
“You’ve found her?”
“I am confident the information will be with us swiftly. For now, I would advise you to go and reassert your authority with your workforce and perhaps offer a little financial incentive to anybody who wishes to relieve their fru
strations by assisting you in remonstrating with the young lady.”
Downey bites his lip. Holds in vomit and a smile.
“How far can I go?”
For the first time, Downey hears the man give what might be considered a laugh. “Mr. Downey, you are a young and vigorous man, watched over by powerful friends. I should imagine that by now it has occurred to you that you can do whatever you want.”
The nausea subsides. Downey finds himself grinning. He likes this. Likes the feeling. He’s untouchable. The sea of humanity may not part as he walks through, but here, now, it feels as though he can point and nod and dispatch life or death as he sees fit. He matters. He’s going to show his guts that he’s got what it takes . . .
“Blowtorch?” he says softly.
The line remains silent, as if the man is weighing things up.
“Perhaps not. This is not our regular business. This is a perk. I leave it to your discretion. We will be in touch.”
Downey hears the call being terminated, and stands, unmoving, for a moment or two. He looks around him. At the people. The plebs. He feels sick and decides he doesn’t give a damn.
He decides to walk. Suddenly, he is a young man with energy and a sense of purpose.
More than anything, he is a man with a bitch to kill.
FOURTEEN
Everybody thinks the rain will come today. The sky is a mountain of cold ash, but the sun still burns through and the air is thick and greasy. Hull yearns for a storm. People watch the skies the way they used to watch the seas. Then, it was to glimpse a returning trawler. Today, it is in the hope that the clouds will finally part and the tensions that fizz and crackle across the city will be swept away in a flood of healing rain.
In his ten years in Hull, McAvoy has never known its residents to actively yearn for a downpour. On this flat landscape, rain is something to be feared. In 2007, the city was almost lost to floods. An extraordinary deluge left Hull half-submerged. The city had sloshed and skidded to a halt as an ocean of water tumbled from the sky onto bone-dry streets and poured into drains blocked by rubbish and leaves. McAvoy, in his last few days in uniform, had barely slept for three days as the city’s emergency services worked round the clock to drain the water and help stranded motorists and residents make it to high ground. McAvoy was even shown on the local news, carrying a pensioner and her dog in his arms, the water up to his waist, a look of grim determination upon his red face. If it had happened in London it would have been a national catastrophe. But it happened in Hull, and barely made the national news. All these years later, there are still people living in mobile homes in the driveways of their houses, gradually repairing the damage to their properties. Every time it rains, there is a sense of mild panic in the city. Even so, most would risk a downpour now. It’s just too hot. Too oppressive. Too bloody muggy by half. And with three murders in and around the city inside a week, Hull is feeling twitchy. It is as though the air is charged with something. People are aggressive, and scared.
McAvoy is feeling ill. He feels like he’s coming down with a cold. His bones ache from yesterday’s long drive, and though he made it home to Roisin by eight p.m., there was unpacking to be done, and Lilah had not settled in her new bedroom, so there was little chance to rest and groan the way he had wanted to. The baby’s cries began around five minutes after McAvoy’s eyes finally closed, having spent restless hours trying to get Sebastien Hoyer-Wood out of his mind. Roisin had told him to stay in bed, to leave it all to her, but he couldn’t be that kind of dad. He got up. Sat with his wife and child on the front step of their new home and watched the black waters and the distant lights. It had been nice, at the time. Roisin had closed her fingers in his, and Lilah had been happy enough to sit in Daddy’s lap and pull his chest hair. But it meant that he got little more than an hour’s sleep. A breakfast of scrambled eggs and homemade tomato sauce now sits uncomfortably at the top of his stomach, refusing to go down, and he doesn’t know if it’s sickness or the heat of the day that is making him sweat.
It’s midmorning and McAvoy is walking over to the small playground that sits near the police station at the edge of the Orchard Park estate. The schools break up for the summer holidays in a day or two and soon the place will be packed with kids from the estate. Coppers looking for a place of quiet reflection will not be made welcome. It will be teeming with shell-suited yobs necking energy drinks, and younger kids trying to play games without appearing to act like children. McAvoy has chatted to a few of them in the past and knows the locals are far from all bad. Though some of the preteens can be obnoxious, most are just normal children who happen to have been born somewhere that offers more bad influences than good. There are good people here. They just seem to get swallowed up.
He couldn’t have stayed in the office any longer. For the past couple of hours, McAvoy had been briefing his small team of officers on what he learned yesterday. As he spoke, he heard how halfhearted and far-fetched it all seemed, and he could see from their reactions that they were losing faith. It is clear that the victims are all linked to Hoyer-Wood, but McAvoy’s half-formed idea that somebody is punishing those who saved the man’s life is starting to provoke doubt from the team. While McAvoy mumbled and stumbled through his notes, the junior constables began to throw out fresh theories. Perhaps the victims simply met through Hoyer-Wood. Perhaps they became friends. Perhaps their deaths were nothing to do with him. Would it be worth checking their Internet histories to see if they were in some kind of relationship? Was there a weird three-way love triangle at the center of it all? McAvoy had pointed out the nature of the injuries. He had tried to make them see. But when they asked him whom he had in mind as a suspect, he had nobody to offer. He’d agreed to let Neilsen run with the alternative theories. He told them that Trish Pharaoh would be back in charge before the end of the day and they would all meet up for another briefing at teatime. He had bolted for the exit like a frightened horse, not knowing what to do next.
He thinks, again, of the words Neilsen had so carelessly tossed into the pot.
“The thing is, you might see serial killers everywhere, Sarge. After what you’ve been through . . . after that shit at Christmas. Not everybody is killing for cosmic reasons, Sarge. Some people are just stupid or horrible or evil little bastards . . .”
McAvoy had stood there, face so sallow and motionless as to look halfway decomposed. He’d wanted to run. Wanted to sprint from the room before he was reminded of any more bodies from his past.
While he tries to get ahold of himself and fit some of the pieces of it all together, the basic police work is continuing. Door-knocking, fact-checking, forensics, and CCTV may well provide the lead that they are seeking. The Allan Godber murder had clearly not gone as the killer planned. The team is working on the assumption that the killer had planned to electrocute Godber with the defibrillator machine, but had not reckoned with the complexities of the device. Constable Daniells had done a quick crash course on defibrillators yesterday evening, and this morning told the team what he had learned. Over the past couple of years, a charity had seen to it that thousands of the damn things were given to community centers, leisure centers, and various neighborhood groups, for use in emergencies. The serial number of the device found with Godber’s body showed that it had been stolen from a swimming pool in North Yorkshire. The staff there presumed it was still locked safely away in the cupboard they had installed for it, and nobody had looked inside for at least three months. The reason that it had not been used to stop Godber’s heart was because it simply would not activate on anybody still alive. The machine is equipped with sensors that can detect any sign of a pulse, and in those circumstances, the electric current cannot be activated. The killer had been unable to use it for what they wanted, and in their frustration they had used the case to batter him to death. They had left a footprint in his blood; the same kind of boot that had been near Philippa Longman’s corpse. They had also been haph
azard in wiping down the garage door handle. While there were no usable fingerprints, there was a smear of blood that contained an animal fur and some other organic material. It has been sent off for testing. The team is optimistic that this kind of detailed forensic work will lead to a breakthrough. They need one. The national press are starting to arrive, sensing something big. McAvoy knows that it will be only a day or more before some tabloid discovers the link between the victims. At present, ACC Everett is refusing to allow Pharaoh to make that link public. In the eyes of the locals, the three crimes are being treated as separate murders. Everett wants to hold off on using the phrase “serial killer” for as long as he can, even though by doing so, he runs the risk of increasing the number of victims. Pharaoh wants to alert the public. Wants to tell anybody who helped save Sebastien Hoyer-Wood’s life that they are in danger. Everett is insisting on softly-softly. Those who may be in danger are getting a gentle knock on the door from a uniformed officer or a phone call from Ben Neilsen. They are not getting protection; just being told to be on their guard. Those who have been contacted are not reacting to the news particularly well.
McAvoy can sense the case getting too big. Too unwieldy. Too many people, too many interfering self-interested parties. He just wants to catch a killer and stop them hurting anybody else. He doesn’t know if he is in the process of doing so, or just wasting time and resources on suppositions and hope. He doesn’t know if he is being a good policeman or a loose cannon. He just hopes that the answers lie in the bundle of documents that had been waiting for him on his desk when he returned from the briefing.
Here, now, McAvoy takes the envelope from his bag. Weighs it in his palm. Feels the pleasing heft of the pages within. He takes a bottle of Roisin’s elderberry cordial from the bag as well. It’s good for his chest and for preventing colds getting worse. He takes a swig as he empties the sheets of paper, and begins to examine the notes of Lewis Caneva’s counseling sessions with Sebastien Hoyer-Wood. It had been a surprise to receive them. Despite the veiled threats he made in the ex-shrink’s house yesterday, he figured Caneva would stubbornly refuse to assist. Perhaps McAvoy had scared him more than he meant to. He hopes he didn’t. Although he knows Caneva is holding back, he would not like to be that kind of policeman. He would rather people just did the right thing. He consoles himself that Caneva did just that. Nothing in the file will be admissible in any court case, but McAvoy needs to better understand the mind of a demon, and fancies that he will get an unrivaled glimpse when he sees what makes Hoyer-Wood tick.