Everyone gasped.
Argyle hauled him out of the tram’s way a split second from death.
As the two partners rolled across the concrete, the world witnessed only Bermuda sprawled in the rain.
Unable to remove the Retriever in time, Argyle felt the chain tightened followed by the wrenching of his right arm, dislodging itself from its socket.
The tram wobbled, the sudden jolt freeing it from its set tracks and causing the driver’s carriage to jack-knife slightly, shooting into the wet, Christmassy air in a burst of sparks like a pyrotechnic show. The rest of the tram followed, with the civilians screaming and running in a wild panic as the entire tram flipped onto its side, its occupants rattling inside as the metal slid to a stop on the wet concrete.
The power lines above were wrenched downwards, cables snapping and electric wires flickering with imminent danger.
After a few moments the entire square was quiet, the public gathering around as the emergency services rushed onto the scene, a few police officers pushing the public back as a few people rushed to the upturned carts of the tram to help those inside.
The city of Glasgow was in chaos.
Bermuda sat up, his head, jaw, and spine all competing for his attention. With a grimace, he turned and looked at the carnage. The backlash from Strachan would be like hellfire.
From Montgomery Black, brimstone.
With a deep sigh, he reached up to the outstretched left hand of his friend and saviour, the right arm hanging loosely from the armour. Argyle helped him to his feet, and the two nodded to each other through the rain.
Bermuda watched as his partner scanned the destruction with horror.
‘Bet you a fiver that Monty is gonna be pissed.’
Before Argyle could respond, a police officer roughly wrenched Bermuda towards a police car and to what would inevitably be one hell of an arse-kicking.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The hum of the halogen bulb gnawed into the back of Bermuda’s skull like a woodpecker, adding to the throbbing pain from his collision with concrete. He sat at the empty metal table with a cold bag of peas pressed against his head and the glaring eyes of Detective McAllister burning through him.
For all its noise, the bulb was doing a poor job of illuminating the room, the corners draped in curtain-like shadows. Beyond the door to the room, the walls were blank besides the ‘mirror’ that sat adjacent to where they sat. Bermuda was pretty sure that Nicola Strachan was pressed against the other side, salivating at the idea of ending Bermuda’s career.
After Argyle had saved his life, two police officers had roughly pulled him away from the crash scene, slapping the metal cuffs roughly around his wrists and then manhandling him into the back of a car. The tram carriages had zig-zagged across the street, sprawled randomly like a child’s playset. The passengers had been helped out, some of them requiring medical attention.
From what Bermuda had heard, there were no deaths, which he took as a tick in the win column. The resulting damage to public property and general panic were not. As he sat dabbing at his skull, he felt the pain dance along his jawbone from the crushing blow that Kevin Parker had delivered, the quickly appearing bruise at the base of his spine the proof of the wall that had caught him.
He could already feel his body healing itself.
The Otherside taking over.
Shuddering to himself, he slowly turned on his seat and faced McAllister, her glare tightening around him like a boa constrictor.
‘Do you have any idea how irritating you are?’ Her words were firm, laced with menace.
‘I have a fairly good idea, yeah.’
His response only enticed a larger snarl.
‘Look, we have some bastard out there killing innocent women. We had another call come in last night and—’
‘Whoa, wait. Last night?’ Bermuda interrupted, slamming the ice pack on the table and realising his hands were no longer cuffed.
‘Yes. Last night. Her name was Rosie Seeley.’ McAllister’s voice softened with sadness at the name.
‘How long was I out for?’
‘You sustained quite a blow to the back of the skull. You lost consciousness in the back of the car and have been asleep for over sixteen hours. It’s now two p.m. Tuesday.’
‘Fuck.’ Bermuda sighed, slumping back in his chair.
‘What were you doing at the Necropolis?’ McAllister’s voice was firm and authoritative, as if this was any other interview.
‘Jesus Christ, you’re not going to read me the riot act again, are you?’ Bermuda shuffled slightly, but she just stared at him. ‘I was doing my goddamn job.’
‘Your job?’ Her tone was mocking. She shifted the paper in front of her, Bermuda realising he hadn’t noticed it beforehand. ‘Your job is to, and I’m only reading what has been provided by eye witnesses, assault cyclists and steal their bikes, ignore a direct order to pull over, cause a traffic collision by dangerous driving, cause widespread panic with erratic driving, and then, of all things, and we still don’t know how, derail a tram?’
McAllister raised her eyes to Bermuda, a smug look on her face.
‘Have I missed anything else?’
‘You forgot to mention shit in bed,’ Bermuda joked, smirking. The glare he got in return told him it wasn’t appreciated.
‘Look, Jones. I’m not going to refer to you as an agent because I don’t think you are one. But we have real police work to do. I don’t have the time or the resource to chase after you. Now somehow, your little phone call you made when you got here has got you off all charges and we have to release you. I don’t like it. Strachan, she is fucking furious about it. But can you do me a favour? Just stay the fuck out of this?’
Bermuda shook his head, the small prick of pain slowly evaporating like a single line of smoke from a candle.
‘I can’t do that,’ he uttered quietly.
‘I’m asking you nicely. We have a killer who is targeting women at random and butchering them. We have no leads. A few witnesses have stated they saw the victim and this gentleman every evening of the murders. Although we have CCTV footage, we are unable to match it to anyone on our databases. We have no information, no name, no prints, no nothing. And the last thing I need is you destroying the public transport system, understand?’
‘Am I free to go?’ Bermuda asked, ignoring her question.
With a heavy sigh laced with hatred, McAllister nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Good.’ Bermuda pushed himself up slowly, feeling every single one of his vertebrae click together like snapping pieces of Lego. ‘Oh, and by the way, I found a print.’
‘Bollocks,’ McAllister snapped, pushing her metal chair back, causing the legs to shriek against the hard floor.
‘It’s true. I’ll get it sent over from the lab when we’ve done our analysis.’ Bermuda walked towards the door, stopping before he gripped the handle. ‘Oh and another thing: it may be worth widening your database. Despite what your little report says, I spoke face to face with the man responsible for this, and I’ll tell you right now, he isn’t from here.’
‘Glasgow?’ McAllister queried, her hand scrawling notes on the paper that fanned out over the desk.
‘No. Our time. Wherever he is from, he’s a long way from home.’ Bermuda frowned, reliving the troubling words Kevin Parker spoke. ‘He’s looking for someone and he’s done it before. Back in the eighties.’
‘The eighties?’
‘Yeah. Have someone go through your archives and pull up any murders from those times. There was a small burst of them where the victims were found heartless.’
McAllister noted it down again but then stopped. She turned a sceptical eye towards Bermuda as he flung open the door.
‘How the hell do you know this, anyway?’ she asked, her accent thick with annoyance.
‘Like I said, I’m just doing my job.’
Bermuda flashed a handsome grin before turning towards the one-way glass that adorned the wall. With
great relish, he raised a middle finger, the thought of Strachan going redder than a tomato with fury filling him with joy. He stepped out into the corridor of the police station, the outside chill inviting itself in. He walked past a few police officers who grunted in his direction, undoubtedly wanting to rub the smile that he wore off his face.
He wore it all the way to the front door before pushing them both open and stepping out into the freezing cold winter’s day.
Back in the interview room, McAllister gathered her notes and stormed back towards her desk, her anger outweighing her confusion. A few officers nodded their respect towards her as she marched through the open office, a few of her colleagues were glued to their desks, phones to their ears as they worked their cases.
McAllister reached her desk and dumped the folder on top of the rest. Each folder encased details of the departed, the unfortunate women who had lost their hearts.
Literally.
She sat down in the uncomfortable chair and rummaged through the messy drawers that sat next to her desk. It had been four years since she had passed her detective’s exam; the certificates were pinned to the wall before her, surrounded by cheap plastic frames. It was all she had ever wanted to be from a young age – to be able to help people and solve cases.
Make the world a safer place.
The stack of files next to her made a mockery of that. Three women dead in three evenings. All three with their hearts removed, all three hearts delivered to the Necropolis. Not only that, some annoying agent from some secret organisation had been assigned to the case and was really getting under her skin.
She regretted sleeping with him.
It only added to the annoyance which made her head pound.
Under some paperwork pertaining to a driving offence she would never get round to investigating, she found some paracetamol. The previous evening’s hangover had wrapped its fingers around her skull and was slowly squeezing her brain like it was trying to make fresh orange juice.
She popped the pills into mouth and sent them sloshing down her throat with a gulp of water.
She really should stop drinking.
Get things back on track.
Her heart spasmed in her chest and her green eyes fell upon the picture on her desk. The handsome smile belonged to David, his powerful arms wrapped around her in a photo that captured a pleasant, love-filled memory.
A memory long since passed.
Her heart had taken control of her body and her hand reached for the phone on her desk, her ears longing to hear his voice. She just needed to hear it once more.
Her head took control, and she slammed the phone back down.
Angrily, she turned the photo of her husband down onto the desk with such force that it sent a crack through the glass between them.
Just like everything else had.
McAllister pushed the seat back and stood up, massaging her temples. The hangover would go, slowly but surely, but that wasn’t the issue. It was Agent Jones. As annoying as he was handsome, she scolded herself for letting him get under her skin. Their one-night stand, as drunken as it may have been, was ill advised and was only adding to the fact that he was possibly the most irritating man she had ever met.
There was something not right about him.
He didn’t think the killer human? It was something else?
Not from our time?
As she angrily ran through the vague comments he had made, her sometimes-partner DC Greg Butler tapped her on the shoulder, causing her to jolt and spin.
‘Woah, easy, guv.’ He opened his palms in surrender. ‘You okay?’
‘Aye.’ She looked around the room, losing herself in the hustle and bustle. ‘I’m grand.’
‘Do you need anything?’ he offered, his admiration for the dedication and toughness of his colleague apparent.
‘Yes actually, I do.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Bring me any files we have from the archive room for murders in Glasgow in the 1980s that involve any damage or removal to the heart of the victims.’
‘Aye.’ Butler made the note in his book. ‘A hunch, guv?’
‘Yeah, sort of.’ She shook her head. ‘A really annoying hunch.’
After returning to the Premier Inn for a shower and a change of clothes, Bermuda sat on the edge of his bed, phone in hand. The screen was smiling at him, his daughter’s beautiful face etched across the glass. His thumb hovered over the button. He chuckled to himself as his body was gripped by fear. He had come face to face with many monsters, been hurled through the roof of a boat, willingly driven off the edge of the Hammersmith flyover, and even fought the most dangerous creature in two worlds to the death at the top of Big Ben.
Yet nothing scared him more than calling his ex-wife.
He pressed the call button. It only took a few rings.
‘Franklyn.’ The voice was deeper than usual.
‘Angela. You sound different.’
‘It’s Ian.’ Angela’s husband and Chloe’s stepdad. Although he wasn’t a laugh riot, Bermuda respected the man for being everything he wasn’t. He was a good husband, and regrettably, a wonderful role model for his daughter.
‘Hey, Ian. Is my daughter there?’ Bermuda asked, pinching the bridge of his nose and trying hard not think of the life he could have had.
‘Let me check with Angela.’
‘I don’t need permission,’ Bermuda snapped. ‘Sorry, mate.’
‘It’s fine.’ Ian’s voice was soft and reassuring. ‘I’d just rather leave this between the two of you.’
‘It’s my daughter’s birthday, for crying out loud. Let me talk to her.’
The words registered with no one as Ian had obviously passed the phone across. A stern cough, like a head teacher ready to dress down a naughty student, echoed down the line.
‘Franklyn. What do you want?’ Yep. She was pissed.
‘Hey, Ange. Can I speak to our daughter please?’
‘Why?’ Angela sounded angrier than usual. ‘She’s upset as it is.’
‘I know, but she knew I couldn’t make it to her party. We spoke before I left.’
‘But you couldn’t call her first thing? Like you promised.’
The pain in the back of Bermuda’s head returned, stabbing at the top of his spinal cord and at his heart at the same time. He was pretty sure it was guilt.
‘Ah fuck.’
‘Yeah, fuck, Franklyn!’ She angrily continued. ‘Why do you make promises to her that you never keep?’
‘Look, about this morning, I was—’
‘Drunk? Hungover? Fighting monsters? Which of your wonderful list of character defects do you want to select?’
The words cut through him like a knife through butter. Not because they were harsh. Because they were true.
‘I was unconscious.’
‘Brilliant.’ Angela applauded sarcastically, the faint sound of clapping echoing around her voice. ‘Why this time?’
‘Would you believe me if I told you I derailed a tram?’
The phone went dead. Bermuda sat still for a few moments, the dial tone echoing in his ear like a life support flatlining. A symbol of his relationship with his daughter.
A single tear slid up and over his eyelid and cascaded down his stubbled cheek.
He had done so much over the past six months, from the moment Angela and his best friend, Brett Archer, had duped him into ‘fixing her car’. That moment, outside his local watering hole the Royal Oak, seemed so long ago. He met his daughter properly for the first time, falling in love with her as she accepted him as her father.
Since then, Angela had been begrudgingly indulging him and his ‘curse’, agreeing to let Bermuda and Chloe meet in secret, out of the eyesight of the world.
It wasn’t our world he was worried about.
Knowing that the Otherside both craved him and hated him in equal measure, Bermuda had pushed his family away to protect them, especially since he had escaped the mental institute and joined the BTCO. With
enemies in both worlds, the last thing Bermuda wanted to give them was leverage. He would never forgive himself if anything, from this side or the other, hurt his Chloe.
But the need to be her father had led them down a path where Angela let them speak, even spend the odd day together.
He finally had a daughter.
But now, as the rain slammed against the window of his lonely hotel room, his bloodshot eyes met his own reflection, and in a snap of pure self-loathing he launched his phone at his own face. The mirror cracked, and a few small pieces of glass clattered on the small dressing table. His phone burst into a number of pieces, random segments of technology joining the shards of glass and inevitable hotel bill.
His daughter had been heartbroken.
He had done the one thing he promised he wouldn’t.
He had hurt her.
Bermuda’s teeth gritted together and his fists clenched, the angry tension tunnelling through his muscles until he erupted in a furious roar that almost shook the room. After a few moments he stopped to catch his breath as angry tears rolled down his cheeks and splattered the carpet below. Calming himself with deep, long breaths, Bermuda wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve.
‘I need a drink,’ he said to no one.
And at that moment, for the first time he could remember, fate conspired in his favour as the hotel phone rang.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
‘This town is a shit-hole.’
Bermuda chuckled as he tipped his head back, allowing the last remnants of his Doom Bar to bubble in his throat. Brett Archer, his best friend, did likewise. The busy pub, the one where he had met McAllister two nights previously, was rammed with the locals, the noise levels consistently rising as everyone got a little drunker, and ergo everyone spoke louder.
They both put their empty pint glasses down on the table between them at the same time, the force shaking the menu holder and the promise of cheap, barely edible food.
‘Another?’ Bermuda offered.
Bermuda Jones Casefiles Box Set Page 49