Sorrow Bound

by David Mark

  Jen stops what she is doing and turns to him, drying her hands on her jeans.

  “You said you were a copper, yeah?”

  “I’m investigating several murders. It really is important.”

  Jen seems to be weighing things up. This is an estate where talking to the police is only acceptable when the community officers are running a booth at a family fun day, or providing safety checks on your children’s bicycles. Jen seems about to clam up.

  McAvoy decides to help her see sense.

  “You heard about the murder off Anlaby Road, I’m sure . . .”

  Jen nods, then drops her voice, as if it’s wrong to say “murder” in front of children.

  “I heard he pulled her heart out, or something. Sick bastard.”

  McAvoy looks at the kids, then gives a gentle jerk of his head to tell her to come closer. She does so. Her head only comes up to his chest, and from here he can see her gray roots and smell her perfume. He can breathe in the sunflower oil and fabric softener of her hair.

  “He didn’t pull her heart out,” says McAvoy quietly. “He caved it in. He performed CPR on her body until her rib cage cracked open and he turned her insides to mush. Then he sliced open the femoral artery of a nice mum over the water. Her kids found her. Then he battered a bloke to death with a defibrillator machine in a rage because he couldn’t electrocute the poor sod to death. Last night he abducted a surgeon and left an unidentified corpse at the scene. All that these people had done wrong was save the life of a man who was far worse than they were. It really is important I speak to Nicholas, or Angelo. Please, Jen, what can you tell me?”

  There is silence in the room, save for the gleeful chattering of the toddlers and the rain beating hard against the glass. The kitchen feels too dark, and Jen switches on a light. It breaks the spell. McAvoy recoils from the light like a vampire. He feels too exposed. Too visible. He’s aware of his scars and scrapes and creases, and knows that Jen must see them, too.

  Jen looks him up and down a second time.

  “Sick bastard,” she says again, and McAvoy hopes she is referring to the killer.

  “Please, Jen . . .”

  The woman gives a little shrug, and seems to make a decision. She doesn’t seem overly horrified at what she has heard. Just grimly accepting of further proof that the world can be a horrible place.

  “I’ve lived here two years,” says Jen. “Nick’s lived next door the whole time. He has a little girl. Well, I say he has . . .”

  McAvoy leans closer, wondering if he should suggest they go into another room or put the kids somewhere else. He does neither. Instead, he asks her about Angelo Caneva.

  “His friend,” he says softly. “Angelo.”

  Jen smiles. “Little chap, yes? Slightly built. Big brown eyes. Very shy. Yeah, he lived there for a bit. Bit of a weird setup. Two grown men and a little girl, but you get all sorts on this estate . . .”

  McAvoy wants to pull out his notebook but fears spoiling the moment. He concentrates on breathing and listening.

  “What do you know about Nicholas?”

  “Nice enough chap,” says Jen. “Helped me out a couple of times. My boiler went out and he came and fixed the pilot light, and I once got locked out and he jimmied the bathroom window. Brought me a bottle of something on New Year’s. Yeah, nice enough bloke if you could stop him talking about football.”

  McAvoy pauses. Thinks hard. “When did you last see Angelo?”

  Jen looks up and to the left. “Few weeks, maybe? Maybe more. I don’t know.”

  “And Nick?”

  “Oh, just a couple of days back. He always says hello. He tries to stay cheerful, but it can’t be easy after that bitch waltzed in and took his daughter . . .”

  McAvoy looks up at the ceiling. There is a damp patch spreading out from the corner above the sink. In it, if he squints and cocks his head, he fancies he can see a leering, sunken-eyed face.

  “His daughter?” asks McAvoy.

  “Nick’s ex-wife won custody of little Olivia,” she says, looking as if the information pains her. “Broke his heart, I reckon. She’s such a lovely little girl, too. Big eyes and the cutest smile. She’ll get a nicer tan over there, of course, but it was Nick that brought her up . . .”

  “Over where?”

  “Benidorm, I think,” says Jen. “Somewhere sunny, anyway.”

  McAvoy looks down at the floor, hoping it will give him something more than the ceiling.

  “How did Nicholas take that?”

  “His world fell apart. He must have been hell to live with because I never saw Angelo much after that . . .”

  McAvoy rubs at the bruise on the back of his hand.

  “They worked together, yes? Nick and Angelo?”

  “Well, it was Nick’s business,” says Jen, back to full volume again. “Builder. That sort of thing.”

  Inside McAvoy’s mind, images drift together. He sees the new railings outside Philippa Longman’s house. The flat roof at Yvonne Dale’s. Dimly recalls that Allan Godber’s bank statements showed a hefty withdrawal recently that his wife said had gone to repointing the brickwork.

  McAvoy purses his lips. Feels water trickle down the back of his shirt.

  He suddenly sees it all. Can imagine Philippa bumping into her builder in the street and stopping for a chat in the glare of a lamppost, moments before he dragged her into the darkness and caved in her chest. He sees so many perfect opportunities for surveillance. For near-invisible proximity to victims.

  McAvoy pulls out his phone. The screen is blank, and as he curses, Jen hands him her own. He manages a smile and a thank-you, then dials Elaine Longman from memory.

  “Elaine? Aector McAvoy. Fine. Yeah. Yes, possibly. Look, Elaine, your mum had had some new railings put in, hadn’t she? You said somebody had bodged the job . . . Yes? Okay. No, thank you. Thank you.”

  McAvoy hangs up. He imagines the tap on Philippa’s door. The appearance of a passing tradesman who had noticed the railings in a poor state. Willing to finish them off for a bit of cash in hand . . .

  McAvoy apologizes and makes another call.

  When he hangs up, he looks at his own phone for a while. Tries to smooth out the crack on the display using his thumb. Tries to make the picture whole again.

  “I don’t suppose you have a photo of Nick or Angelo, do you?” he asks quietly.

  Jen shakes her head.

  McAvoy stares some more. Smells baking bread and wonders if a pizza crust is burning at the back of the open oven. Hears the older child ask Jen who the big man is. Hears little Colin shit his pants and sit in it.

  Eventually, Jen’s phone bleeps. The forensic report he has requested flashes up in her Hotmail account. She had hastily spelled it out to him as he spoke to Ben, and McAvoy had turned crimson as he’d spelled out Tygerpants69.

  He scrolls through the report. It’s accompanied by a list of Angelo Caneva’s associates from his time in the young offenders institute. There are no names that sound familiar, but one was incarcerated for crimes committed within the Hull boundary.

  McAvoy flicks his fingers across the screen. Finds the section he was looking for. The organic matter, found at the crime scenes. It has been identified as sap from lime trees; the sticky, corrosive substance that eats through the paintwork on expensive cars parked down shaded avenues.

  McAvoy breathes in, hard, as if trying to fire more oxygen into his brain.

  Where?

  Think, you silly fucker, think!

  He sees the name of the gamekeeper’s cottage, written in bright letters across the shifting cloudscape of his thoughts.

  Tilia Cottage. Tilia. Latin for “lime.”

  He flicks back to the list of Caneva’s associates. Returns to the name of the lad sent down in Hull. He has a sudden flash of recognition.

  H
e turns to Jen. Gabbles something almost unintelligible and nearly steps on Colin as he begins to pace the small room.

  “I’m sorry, just one more call . . .”

  For the next ten minutes, McAvoy watches the rain run down the glass and listens to the thunder grow closer.

  He waits for a call that could mean everything.

  Finally, Ben connects him to a sleepy, angry woman in Benidorm.

  “No, of course not,” she snaps, in answer to McAvoy’s question. “She’s with her dad in Hull. Bastard won’t let me see her. Why, what’s—?”

  As lightning tears through the sky, McAvoy throws the phone to Jen.

  He blunders through the door and into a day turned to midnight by clouds that hangs as sackcloth over a city that fears the rain.

  TWENTY

  Roisin’s face is sore and tender to the touch, but she still makes the effort with her lipstick. She twitches a little as the frosted pink gloss bites into the wound on her mouth, but she will feel better when she looks better, if her mother’s wisdom is to be believed.

  “He’ll come back,” says Mel, gently, from the doorway. “He adores you. He’s just gone to work.”

  Roisin slept with her face on a black trash bag full of old clothes, with her children curled up in her arms. Aector was not here when she woke. His phone won’t connect. Her stomach is climbing up her rib cage and all she wants to do is hold him and say “Sorry” a thousand times.

  He’d said he forgave her. He’d held her and kissed her sore places and wiped her tears with his bruised fists, and then he’d left her to a fitful sleep, peopled with dreams of loneliness and violence.

  “I don’t know why I took it, Mel. I’m so sorry.”

  Roisin has apologized endlessly to her friend and Mel has told her it’s okay. She is still a little shaky after what happened last night, but despite the violence she witnessed and endured, she seems to feel safer with Roisin than anywhere else and has shown no desire to return to her own home. She would rather be here, in an empty house on the Kingswood estate, with its crying children and echoing rooms.

  “It was just there,” says Roisin again. “He’d offered it to you. He’d made you sad. It was your money. I just picked it up . . .”

  “Ro, it’s fine, I understand.”

  Roisin falls silent. She finishes applying her makeup and checks her reflection in the small compact mirror she has plucked from her handbag. They are sitting on the floor in the living room of the empty house. Fin is playing a game of football in his head, passing an imaginary ball to himself and scoring goals at the far end of the room. Lilah is asleep in her baby carrier.

  “Why won’t he answer his phone?” asks Roisin despairingly.

  Mel gestures at the living room window. The rain is coming in off the Humber in waves and it’s dark enough for the streetlights to come on. “He probably can’t get a signal. And he’s a murder policeman, Ro. He’s up to his eyes. He’ll be sorting it all out. You said that’s what he does.”

  Roisin touches her fingertips to her bruised face. She wants to know what was said to him. What the voice at the other end of the phone had whispered in his ear. She wants to know if Aector would have killed her attackers had the voice not stopped him first.

  “He went through them like they were made of paper,” says Mel blankly, as if examining a memory. “He looked like he was from another time. Like, an old king, or something. I don’t know. I’m talking shit, aren’t I?”

  Roisin smiles, then shivers at the pain. She gives her friend a little hug.

  “Will you come with me?” she asks. “To the new house? I don’t want him to see it in a state when he gets back. There’ll be blood. Mess. I want to put this behind us. All of it.”

  Mel looks uncertain. “He said to stay here. To keep our heads down.”

  Roisin points at the scene beyond the window. “It’s chucking it down. Nobody who’s going to do anything will do it in weather like this. We’ll only be an hour. We’re fine. It’s important, Mel.”

  Mel sighs and smiles, and together they begin getting the kids ready for the short journey across the city to the new house on Hessle Foreshore.

  They fleetingly appear in the large, curtainless window at the front of the house.

  • • •

  A few feet away, an angry young man spits on the mist on the inside of the stolen car.

  Bitches!

  Despite the rain and the darkness and the water that slashes diagonally across the windscreen, Adam Downey recognizes the two women who have fucked it all up.

  He lowers his head. Sniffs another line from the mountain of cocaine in his lap.

  Feels himself filling with fire and rage and sunlight.

  He looks at the hammer on the passenger seat. At the grenade that rolls in the coffee holder.

  Downey watches the girls load the children into the car and reverse out of the driveway in the driving rain.

  He turns the key.

  Drifts along behind them, his vision marbled and opaque, his quarry a blue blur beyond the cascading water on the glass.

  This is his chance.

  His last opportunity.

  He’s going to show them who he is and what he can do. He’s going to make the gypsy bitch pay.

  • • •

  11:14 a.m. Courtland Road Police Station. An incident room buckling under the weight of paper, people, bustle, and noise. A long, unwelcoming office, painted in puke and buttermilk, that stinks of sweat, fast food, and fly spray.

  Leaning her head against the cool glass, Trish Pharaoh watches the light die.

  Sees the clouds swallow the pale halo of the sun. Sees rain fall like the blade of a guillotine. The dying light puts her in mind of an old halogen bulb, covered in dust and dead flies, that seems to be giving out precious little illumination up until the point it gives out none.

  “Bloody hell . . .”

  Wind tears in through the open windows. Wind and water and the dirt of the city, and in a moment the incident room is a storm of billowing paper. Officers hang up phone calls to lunge for errant forensics reports and witness statements. A carton of milk tipples over on a civilian officer’s desk and spills across keyboard, lap, chair, and floor. Trish’s hair tangles in her earrings and as she runs to the window, the rain plasters loose strands across her features and dampens her breastbone and neck.

  “Ben! Ben, Christ, get that one. Fucking hurry up . . .”

  A row of harsh lights flicker into life overhead and the last sash window slams down.

  “Jesus, it’s bloody biblical out there!”

  The officers crowd around the glass, watching the tempest beat upon the city. The darkness beyond the window turns the glass into a mirror and each man and woman has to squint through it to make sense of the furious scene. Already, gutters are being turned into streams and waterfalls by the deluge, and the few cars that had been negotiating this quiet area of the Orchard Park estate have slowed and then stopped. It is as if the sea is trying to reclaim the land.

  “Come on, come on, it’s only rain,” she says, turning away and clapping her hands. “Killer, yes? That’s what we’re here for. Nasty man, killing nice people. Remember him? Could we catch him, please? It would be such a help. Thanks.”

  Muttering and apologizing, the team disperses back to their individual desks. Somebody begins mopping up spilled milk with a tea towel, and DC Andy Daniells has his head in his hands as he tries to put the papers that have blown from his desk back into some semblance of order.

  “Ben,” says Pharaoh, looking around. “Helen? Word.”

  Pharaoh’s office is down the corridor, near the head of CID, but she is happier here, in the engine room. She remains by the window and is joined by Ben Neilsen and Helen Tremberg. Ben looks fit and wide-awake, though he has likely spent the night engaged in one of his sexual
marathons. He’s wearing the same shirt as yesterday and hasn’t shaved, but still looks stylish and presentable. Helen looks worn out. Her eyes are red, there are crumbs of chocolate on the lapel of her dowdy blazer, and she seems to be limping as she walks.

  “You okay, Helen?”

  Pharaoh looks up into Helen’s swollen eyes. This is how she leads. How she inspires. In this moment, the killer is forgotten. She cares, here and now, whether her constable is okay.

  Tremberg seems about to speak and then clams up again.

  “I wish you’d been on this from the start,” says Trish softly. “Nice that Everett noticed you though, eh? You must have been doing something right. Bloody good to have you with us now. We wouldn’t have got to this stage without you. You should feel proud of yourself.”

  Pharaoh hopes for a smile or a thank-you but gets neither. Helen just looks down at her feet. Pharaoh reaches out and strokes her arm. “We’ll talk later, yeah?”

  Helen nods. Swallows, and closes her eyes.

  Pharaoh turns her attention to Ben. “Talk to me, handsome.”

  Neilsen gives his face a slap on both cheeks, then shakes his head back and forth. His lips wobble a little, then he slaps his face again. Trish has no idea why he does this. He seems to be awake enough already.

  “Well,” says Ben animatedly. “Caneva may as well have a big sign around his neck with the word ‘killer’ on it. We’ve got his description to all units within the force boundary and beyond. The vehicle from the hospital has fake plates, but the description has still been sent out for all to see. We’ve contacted Dr. Pradesh’s relatives and appraised them of the situation, and Andy is using every resource to warn everybody who was in the operating theater with her when she operated on Hoyer-Wood. The operations she performed on him are bloody complicated, but let’s just say that if Caneva is planning to carry them out on her, there won’t be any happy ending.”

  Pharaoh takes it all in.

  “Caneva,” she says, then lets her thoughts drift to the information McAvoy had blurted down the phone before he lost his signal. “Nick Peace,” she says, turning to Helen. “You’ve been back on the facility where Caneva was an inmate, yeah?”