by Jo Bannister
It was a vicious and petty jibe, uncharacteristic of him, and perhaps already regretting it Shapiro turned away. But Donovan had shot to his feet, shaking off Liz’s hand. ‘Is that it?’ he demanded, his voice climbing. ‘Is that why you won’t do anything I ask? You blame me for Alan’s death? My God, is that why Marion won’t see me – did you tell her I got him killed?’
Shapiro shook his head irritably. ‘Of course I didn’t. Sergeant, we’re tired – we’re all tired—’
‘You’re damn right I’m tired.’ Liz thought Donovan was actually shaking with passion. ‘I’m tired of being the scapegoat every time something goes wrong. I’m tired of trying to do my job and getting damn-all in the way of back-up. I joined CID to catch criminals, not to exercise my elbow in the local pub. We could catch this man: now, today. But you’re not going to, are you? It’s easier to let him be and hope he’ll do the same for you.
‘Well, if you’ve lost interest in catching criminals you won’t be needing detectives any more.’ He threw something on to the table. It was his warrant card and it landed with a splash in a shallow pool of spilt beer. ‘Write a report about that. You’re good at writing reports. Not too much of a risk element; not too much to go wrong.’
Shapiro eyed him wordlessly for a long moment. Then he picked up the card, wiped it carefully with his handkerchief and held it out. ‘You give me this thing one more time, Donovan,’ he said quietly, ‘and I shall keep it.’
‘Keep it,’ echoed Donovan, the accent thickening round the words. ‘You might as well, I’ve no more use for it myself. If I can’t do the job it empowers me to do it’s just so much excess baggage. Keep it. File it. I’ll manage without.’
Shapiro came to his feet angrily, throwing the card down on the table. It landed in the beer again. ‘I’m warning you, Donovan, stay away from Carney. If you won’t work with me you have no further interest in the case. Keep out of my way. If you obstruct my investigation I’ll see you behind bars, by God!’
‘Bars?’ snorted Donovan derisively. ‘Dear God, the only people you ever see behind bars are barmaids! A man could die of old age waiting for you to arrest him!’ With that parting shot, and with every eye in the place on him, he turned on his heel and stalked out.
Somebody whistled. Somebody else said, ‘He’s done it this time.’
Liz stared into her glass, mainly to avoid looking anywhere else, and breathed lightly for a minute. Then she said, ‘That was edifying.’
Shapiro had sunk back in his chair. Discomfiture was etched on his face and he shuffled his shoulders inside his coat. ‘I don’t think I handled that very well, did I?’
Liz kept her eyes glued to the sliver of floating lemon and said nothing more.
Chapter Four
She was a working girl. Actually she was a woman of close to middle age and because of the work she did she looked older than that. Not at first glance. At first glance she looked like any other twenty-five-year-old waiting for her date, long legs stretched between a short leather skirt and high heels, masses of unruly black hair piled on her head, ear-rings that jangled audibly as she moved.
Close up, though, the deception was obvious. She wore more make-up than twenty-five-year-olds. Thick mascara gave her a surprised expression. Under the make-up, behind the mask, was a tiredness that had nothing to do with the lateness of the hour. She wore a tight leather waistcoat, no blouse, and a velvet jacket that fell from her bare shoulders with practised ease whenever she sat down. She was a working girl, but it was midweek and the work wasn’t coming easily. By the time she walked into the Rose and Castle she was looking for a sit-down and a drink more than a customer.
And a sit-down and a drink were all she was likely to find in the Rose and Castle that evening. Half an hour before closing time the place was already emptying. There was a single man at the bar but he was drinking too seriously to be worth chatting up. A little muscle relaxant oils the wheels nicely but a real drunk is a pain in the neck to a working girl. They take too long doing what they can do, some things they can’t do at all, and even if they don’t fall asleep on the job they tend to think they’ve got a bed for the night.
But it had been a very quiet evening, Friday was still some way away, and perhaps he wasn’t as drunk as he looked. She eased herself on to the stool beside him and ordered a lager and lime. The man didn’t look at her. He had both forearms ranged along the bar in front of him and one long-fingered hand wrapped round a pint mug. The other wore a grubby plaster.
‘Been in the wars, love?’
He didn’t answer. He dropped his chin on his arms and went on staring at the half-empty mug as if he could see something more than chains of slowly rising bubbles in the straw-coloured liquid.
The woman shrugged, pulled her coat back over her cold shoulders. ‘Pardon me, I’m sure.’
The barman brought her change and a little advice. ‘Save yourself the trouble, ducky. He’s a cop.’
The woman startled, her painted eyes widening dramatically. She hauled the coat tight around her as if to keep out more than the cold. Then she looked again. ‘Are you sure?’
Donovan gave a silent laugh and nodded. ‘He’s sure. But he’s wrong.’ His voice was thick with accent and alcohol.
The woman didn’t understand. ‘Then you’re not a cop?’
Donovan looked at his watch. He took time working it out. ‘Not for the last three hours.’
She should have known better but she was intrigued. ‘How come?’
‘I got fired. No,’ he said then, carefully, as if it was important to be accurate, ‘I got myself fired. You keep throwing things at your chief inspector, sooner or later he’s going to throw something back.’
The woman grinned. The dark lipstick on her wide mouth was like a slash across her face. ‘What did you throw at him?’
For the first time he looked at her. His eyes were sunk in the hollows of his face. He looked more ill than drunk. His voice was languid, weary and half amused. ‘About the worst thing you can throw at your governor: the truth. I told him he wasn’t up to the job.’
The woman whistled softly into her drink. ‘I can see how that’d make you popular.’
Donovan’s lip curled. ‘You get no prizes for popularity in this job. You can’t do it if you’re worried about collecting flak. You got to be ready to kick ass.’
‘And you were, and he wasn’t?’
‘Oh yeah. Donovan’s always ready to kick ass,’ he slurred. ‘No matter what the consequences. No matter who gets hurt. He can afford to: it’s never him.’ He drained his glass. ‘But oh God, I get so tired always being the lucky one.’
She looked at him without much sympathy. ‘Are you always this sorry for yourself?’
He gave a little snort of laughter. ‘Yeah, I think maybe I am.’ He bought refills for them both. ‘You got a name?’
She did the easy, practised smile and let the coat slip once more from her shoulders. ‘You can call me Tina, love.’
He acknowledged that with a lift of his mug, and when he put it down it was half empty again. He drank savagely, without enjoyment, as if it were medicine for a hurt he had.
She watched him for a minute longer, plainly wondering if it was worth the effort. Then she made her play. ‘Listen, dear, many more of those and you’ll be sleeping in your own cells tonight. Why don’t you come with me instead? We’ll have a bit of fun, then you can sleep it off. What do you say?’
Donovan laughed queerly, more at himself than her. ‘I lost my job today. I lost my chance to nail the bastard who killed my friend. I was right, but I cocked it up just the same. Now I got nothing. I wouldn’t be much company for you tonight.’
She put a long arm round his shoulders. ‘That’s all right, dear. I’ll cheer you up, see if I don’t.’
He shook his head doggedly. ‘Tomorrow I have to think what to do. See if I’ve any friends left; see if my enemy’ll settle for anything less than my head on a platter. The hell for it: tomorrow can wa
it.’ His eyes groped for her. ‘You got a car?’
She looked surprised. ‘Sure. Why?’
‘They’ll be closing here. You want to go for a drive?’
There was no enthusiasm in her response. ‘I don’t know, dear, it’s getting late.’
‘I’ll pay. For a driver.’ He held up his damaged wrist. ‘I’m a cripple, I can’t drive myself. Come on – it’s easier than turning tricks.’
For a moment she wavered, undecided. Then she nodded. ‘Where do you want to go?’
He finished the beer with a grimace. ‘Just drive. I need to think and I think better on the move. Wait a minute, I know a place. Yeah, OK, I’ll tell you where to go.’ He swayed as he got down from the stool and she steered him outside.
They walked for five minutes through the centre of town. A light rain was beginning to fall slick on the grimy pavements when they came to where her car was parked under a street light, as improbable a survivor in that rundown place as the dinosaurs at Crystal Palace.
It was a very ordinary car. Not pink; not upholstered in fake leopard-skin; not even a pair of furry dice hanging from the rear-view mirror. It was a car for shopping in, for visiting her mother, for the occasional luxury of a long drive alone in the countryside with nobody’s whims to satisfy but her own. It was part of her private life, nothing to do with her job.
For a moment Donovan forgot himself and headed for the driver’s door. The woman diverted him with a hand on his shoulder. ‘Oh no you don’t. The state you’re in I wouldn’t let you drive me on the dodgems.’
He chuckled darkly and walked round the bonnet, pausing as he did so to look back up the street the way they’d come.
The woman looked too. ‘What is it? What can you see?’
‘Nothing. Just thinking, it’s a good place for an ambush.’
She leaned across the car to open the passenger door. ‘You’ve been watching too much telly, dear.’
Donovan folded his long legs inside. ‘No,’ he said pontifically. ‘Telly makes sense. Telly plays by the rules. It’s real life that beats the hell out of me.’
He told her where to go. For a time they drove beside the canal. Then the black buildings looming over them began to shrink, to separate, to space out and admit the sky. Soon the town fell behind them and Castlemere Levels spread out ahead.
They hardly spoke. Donovan slumped in his seat as if half asleep, except that every time the car went round a corner he looked back. Sometimes there were headlights behind them, sometimes not.
It was a clear night with a gibbous moon climbing. The slow meanders of the river gleamed like a silver ribbon dropped in careless loops, meeting the road and wandering away again. There was a sheen of dew and gossamer on the water-meadows.
Lying back with his eyes half-hooded Donovan still saw the turn-off in time to warn his driver. The trees closed in as they bumped down the gritty track. The moon penetrated the branches overhead unevenly or not at all.
The track ended in a clearing in the woods shaped like a wine-glass, with the rim of the glass a shallow escarpment dropping down to the Levels. The river was quarter of a mile away and the meadows stretched as far as the eye could see.
The woman stopped the car, wound her window down, and exclaimed into the open night, ‘I know where we are. Why—?’
Donovan shrugged. He opened his door and let one long leg dangle outside. ‘Why not? It’s a beauty spot, isn’t it? Where else would a man take a woman?’
‘You’re a romantic, Donovan,’ she said, not unkindly. ‘If you’d ever been with hookers you’d know there are three places and none of them’s a beauty spot. A cheap hotel, the back of a car, a dark alley. Strolling in the moonlight is strictly for lovers: working girls do it with an eye on the clock.’
The Pages had come here as lovers. Time had meant nothing to them. They had parked and walked down to the river by moonlight, and coupled in the long soft grass to the murmur of the water. Then they strolled back to the car and sat in companionable silence until George Swann stepped out of the darkness and blasted Kerry Page to bloody fragments through the windscreen.
The woman shuddered. ‘You really are a bit weird, aren’t you? Fancy wanting to come here.’
Donovan was undisturbed. ‘It’s quiet. It’s pretty. And the killer isn’t coming back here, and even if he did he wouldn’t give us any trouble. He saved my neck once.’
Because the passenger door was open the interior light was on. Apart from the moon and the cold sharp pricks of stars it was the only light they could see.
Nothing happened. After a while, a shade petulantly, she said, ‘How long do you want to stay?’
He didn’t open his eyes. ‘You rushing home?’
She snorted. ‘Hardly.’
‘A bit longer then. OK?’
She shrugged. ‘You’re paying, I’m just the driver.’
‘Yeah.’ With his lazy grin and his eyes shut and one long leg trailing into the car park he looked as switched off, as relaxed, as she felt uneasy.
Finally she’d had enough. She opened her mouth to say, ‘That’s it, I’ve had enough – I’ll take you back to town or you can damn well stay here,’ though the words had yet to form, when she became aware that he was no longer drowsing with his eyes half-hooded but staring into the blackness of the wood ten metres away. She touched his arm and he was rigid, the long muscles tense. ‘What is it?’ she whispered, a thread of fear puckering her voice. ‘What can you see?’
The darkness moved and separated, and a piece of it came towards them – black against black the shape remained amorphous but it moved like a man walking. It said, ‘He’s seen me, love.’
The woman moaned. ‘Oh, God. I thought you said you’d caught him – the man who killed that girl. You said it was safe, God damn you!’
She was clutching his sleeve. She felt him shrug. He slurred, ‘There’s more than one fish in the sea. More than one shark in Castlemere. And baby – what’s your name again? – nowhere’s that safe. Once the sharks are after you, they find you someplace.’
She said, ‘Then who—?’ and her voice shook.
The man interjected quickly. ‘Tell her, Donovan, and you’re both history.’ Donovan said nothing. ‘All right. Who is she?’
The drunken grin was audible in his voice. ‘She’s a hooker. Her name’s Gina.’
‘Tina,’ the woman corrected him indignantly, then wondered why. She addressed the other man, urgently, the words tripping over themselves in her hurry. ‘Oh listen, mister, I don’t know who you are and I don’t want to. I didn’t want to come here. He paid me to drive him, that’s all. I don’t want to know your business, I just want to go home. Let me go home. Please?’
‘I’ve got some business with Mr Donovan,’ said the man, explaining carefully. He did not seem to share her haste. ‘I don’t want to be interrupted.’
‘No, sure, I understand,’ babbled the woman. ‘Look, I’ll go. I don’t want any trouble. I won’t talk to anyone. Anyway, what could I tell them?’
‘All right then,’ said the man kindly. ‘But you’ll have to leave the car.’
‘My car? But it’s miles back to town! I can’t walk that far.’ Then it seemed to strike her that she was putting her convenience ahead of her safety and her tone changed abruptly. ‘No, sure, that’s OK. Keep it. I’ll walk. Jesus, mister, please let me go.’
The man nodded. ‘That’s OK, Tina. You go now. Go through the woods and you’ll hit the road in about quarter of a mile. Wait half an hour, then you can start thumbing. If I come along and see you before that, I’ll carve you. You understand?’
She understood perfectly. It was the kind of talk, and he the kind of man, she had no difficulty understanding. It was too dark to see if he carried a weapon but she believed him implicitly. If she disobeyed him he would do as he said without compunction. She knew he would cut her throat with a smile on his face if it would serve his purpose. He was letting her go only because she couldn’t harm him.
‘Thanks a bunch, Gina,’ Donovan said slowly.
‘Tina!’ she yelled back as she stumbled out of sight.
When she was gone the man said, conversationally, ‘You’ve done your good deed for the day, Donovan.’
Donovan squinted up at him. There was just enough light from the open door to illuminate the lower part of his face. ‘How’s that, then?’
‘You didn’t tell her my name,’ said Terry McMeekin. ‘If you had, I’d have had to kill her too.’
Chapter Five
‘Come on, Terry, who’re you trying to impress?’ Donovan yawned. ‘There’s only you and me here and we both know your limitations. You’re not bad at putting the frighteners on people but you haven’t the stomach for murder. Not even women. Not even hookers.’
‘You reckon?’ McMeekin’s voice was barred with irritation. ‘Then why do I keep tripping over you? Why do I keep having to say where I was while you and your governor were playing chicken under the viaduct?’
‘Because you were there,’ insisted Donovan. ‘I don’t know who was driving – like I say, somebody tougher than you – but you were there. I heard you; I saw you from the waist down. Who the hell else dresses like that round here? You’re going down, McMeekin. You aided and abetted the murder of a police officer and you’re going to pay for that. The best thing you can do now is give us the driver. That’s got to be worth three years to you.’
McMeekin chuckled. ‘You’re still talking like a policeman, Donovan. From what I hear you’re in no position to be making promises.’
‘I can get you a deal,’ swore Donovan. ‘Give me Carney, and the driver, and I’ll get you a deal if it’s the last thing I do before I sign on the dole.’