He reappeared into the hallway, noting that Argyle was stood in the front room, arms folded and surveying everything. It reassured him.
He wasn’t alone.
With slow, soundless steps, Bermuda climbed the stairs, his mud-spattered Converse squelching slightly from the rain. The landing was small but proudly displayed a photo frame branching out to hold multiple photos – family, friends, and memories all pinned to one wall. All belonging to a person who would no longer remember them. To the right, the bedroom was shut tight, another cross of brightly coloured police tape tacked to the frame.
Bermuda ducked under and pushed open the door.
Thankfully Katie had been moved, her body respectfully taken to a police morgue for an autopsy from a leading forensic pathologist – although Bermuda was sure the gaping hole in her chest was an answer enough. Slowly he entered the room, careful not to touch too much, even after forensics had dusted every nook and cranny.
They would find nothing.
Hopefully Malcolm wouldn’t take too long with that print. An image of Kelly spinning on her chair while her mystery technician readjusted his telescope gave him a brief moment of joy. A smirk almost came across his face.
The bloodstained bed and walls before him brought him back to reality with a bump. And what a reality it was. This other-worldly creature was preying on the women of Glasgow, wrenching out their still-beating hearts in their own homes.
They must have known him.
Or at the very least trusted him.
Bermuda drew his lips tight, his brow furrowing with frustration at the helplessness. This man could strike at any moment at any woman in the city. He had been assigned to stop him, but all he could do was wait for a technician he had never met to provide a print he might not be able to match.
Perhaps Vincent had a book back at the HQ that had everyone’s finger prints, an Argos-esque solution to their identification problems. It could sit proudly next to the tome, where their two known Exceptionals were documented.
Perhaps this was the other Exceptional?
Bermuda hoped against hope that wasn’t the case. The one Exceptional he knew about was Barnaby, and he came a doorway away from ending the world as he knew it.
If this creature – this heart-stealing Absent Man – was even a tenth of what Barnaby stood for, then everyone was in trouble.
Bermuda almost jumped out of his skin as his thoughts were pierced by an unfriendly tone drenched in a thick Scottish accent.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’
He spun. The angry, snarling face of DS Sam McAllister glared at him as she stood in the doorway, her fists clenched and pressed against her hips. Her suit hung tightly to her skinny frame, and her hair was wet and messy.
Bermuda sighed. ‘I dunno,’ he offered, his hands out in a pathetic shrug. ‘Maybe there was something we had missed.’
‘Oh, good point. My team of expertly trained SOCOs have already swept this house like Cinderella’s, but the super-agent may just find something they didn’t.’
Bermuda forced a smile, refusing to rise to the goad.
She glared at him with disgust, stepping to the side as a clear indication for him to leave. He held his hands up in surrender, trying to edge past her in an overly elaborate way which she found as annoying as he did amusing. As Bermuda ducked under the tape, he wondered if antagonising the lead detective was a smart move.
Sleeping with her certainly wasn’t.
Just as Bermuda was about to embark on a revolutionary journey into his poor life decisions, McAllister emerged into the hall, slamming the bedroom door shut. She descended the stairs at pace, ushering Bermuda towards the front door and effectively frog-marching him from the property. As he passed the living room, he locked eyes with an apologetic-looking Argyle. Bermuda scowled at his partner as he was hurried through the door and into the unforgiving elements. As the wind clattered against him and dampened the side of his face, he turned to the furious McAllister.
‘Look … we completely got off on the wrong foot.’
‘We don’t need to address it. We were drunk. It was shite. End of discussion.’
‘Thanks.’ Bermuda swallowed his pride. ‘But if we are going to work together, we should at least find some sort of common ground.’
Taken aback by his level of maturity, Bermuda instantly wondered if Montgomery Black had assigned him for this entire reason: for Bermuda to mature, become the agent they all knew he could be. As his trail of thought started to venture to whether ‘Monty’ in fact wore a wig, Bermuda realised his thoughts of maturity were slightly premature.
‘We are not working together,’ McAllister stated, not even looking at him. Her eyes gazed beyond the parked cars to the road. ‘You have been sent here by a department we have never heard of. I have zero intention of seeing you again after today.’
Argyle eased his way under the police tape, his mighty frame gently grazing one of the strips, ripping it from the doorframe. McAllister, damp and frustrated, let out a sigh and reached for it.
‘With all due respect, that isn’t your call to make,’ Bermuda insisted, refusing to raise his voice and, in doing so, the tension.
A car slowly pulled up and stopped in the road opposite the house. McAllister reset the police tape and ensured the door was locked. She turned, facing Bermuda and admitting to herself that he wasn’t the worst-looking one-night stand she had had.
Just the most irritating.
She barged past him. ‘I know it’s not.’ She nodded to the car ahead. ‘It’s Strachan’s.’
DI Nick Strachan was McAllister’s superior and who Bermuda assumed had been handed the order by the BTCO. It couldn’t have been easy for Strachan. Spending your whole life working up a chain of command, dedicating yourself to your profession, and then being dictated to by an organisation that you realised you weren’t ‘important’ enough to have heard of. Bermuda expected what he always expected when he met senior people within the many police services he had pissed off.
Pure resentment.
Bermuda had managed to read the file Vincent had given him on his arduous train ride and got the impression that Nick Strachan wasn’t thrilled at their involvement. In fact, the file quoted him saying they were a ‘Saturday morning cartoon!’
With a sigh, he watched as McAllister strode through the drizzle, turning from the gate and heading towards her own car parked further down the street. Slowly, footsteps approached, and Argyle blocked some of the water from attacking Bermuda.
‘You had one job, Argyle.’ Bermuda spoke, staring ahead at the car.
‘I apologise,’ Argyle instantly replied, conflicted to tell his partner why he had been distracted.
Bermuda chuckled and looked up at his partner. ‘Meh … on the law of averages, I’d say you are owed a fuck-up now and then.’ He flashed his partner a smile. ‘Right … now for a bollocking.’
With a surprising spring in his step, Bermuda bounced down the path, through the gate, and towards the black BMW car that waited. The rain clattered the roof and Argyle watched as his partner flung the door open and lowered his drenched body into the warmth of the vehicle. He solemnly lowered his head and vacated the premises also, sure as he could be that he had seen the cloaked figure again.
As Argyle waited in his noble, invisible silence, the peering eyes of the hooded stalkers pierced their white masks and locked onto him and the car that contained his partner.
From deep within the shadows, eight of them lined the streets, stalking them both.
With both Argyle and Bermuda surrounded, they watched.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The BMW welcomed Bermuda with a warm hug, the white leather seats that lined the back compartment of the car shiny and clean. He almost felt guilty as he slid in, his drenched, secretly armoured coat sliding all over the leather. But he then remembered that they would probably charge the cleaning of it to the taxpayer and regretted not stepping in dog shit on the way in.
‘It’s cold out, isn’t it?’
Bermuda jumped suddenly, oblivious to the small, portly, middle-aged woman who was sat in the back of the car with him, her uniform immaculate. Small spectacles rested on the end of her nose, which she gazed over like a put-upon teacher. In her hand was a notebook, biro scrawlings that would take days to decipher. Her brown hair, streaked with grey, was tied up in a neat bun. In his excitement of warmth, Bermuda had completely forgotten to introduce himself.
‘I’m Agent Jones,’ he offered, extended a hand that was completely ignored as she scribbled notes down.
‘Yes, we know.’ She didn’t look up. At the word we, she nodded to the front of the car. A burly officer sat, hands clasped to the steering wheel, his knuckled worn from years of never losing a confrontation. Chances were, Bermuda thought, his record wasn’t in danger.
They sat in silence for a few moments, the introductions clearly over. The rain rattled against the car window as if someone was showering it with rice. The police radio cackled, but the driver turned it down before the orders came in.
‘So, can we go see Strachan now?’ Bermuda asked. ‘I hear he is a pain in the arse so I’d rather get my spanking over and done with as soon as possible.’
The woman sighed, clicking her pen closed and placing it on the pad. She turned, her green eyes peering over her spectacles and fixing Bermuda with a condescending look.
‘I am Detective Inspector Nic Strachan.’ Her voice was flat and uncaring.
Nic. Not Nick.
Bermuda shook his head in disbelief, especially after mistaking McAllister for a man. Just as he was starting to lose faith in naming conventions, Strachan broke his thought pattern.
‘We didn’t ask for you to be here, Mr Jones. In fact, I thought you would be nothing more than a hindrance.’
‘Thank you for your vote of confidence, Ma’am.’ Again, Bermuda questioned his life decisions.
Strachan ignored it. ‘Quite. I told the senior officers who told me of your impending arrival that you were not needed, and as I had never heard of this BCTO—’
‘BTCO,’ Bermuda corrected, shocked by his loyalty to the organisation.
‘Whatever. I said you were a mock detective and would do more harm than good. Now I have given you access to the crime scenes because I, for one, don’t want to tarnish how hard I and my team have worked to get to the position we are in. However, you are becoming a nuisance, and one that I will not tolerate.’
Bermuda checked the outside, sure he would be meeting the weather again soon. The rain had picked up, clattering the surrounding cars with a wild fury.
‘Are you listening to me, Mr Jones?’
‘Yup,’ he replied nonchalantly.
‘Good. So we are understood, I expect you to return to your hotel, enjoy our fine city for a few days, and then head back to London. We will take it from here.’ Strachan straightened her skirt and then lifted her pad, the biro clicking into action. Her resuming of her task indicated the conversation was over.
Bermuda clicked the door handle and then ignored the part of his mind begging for an easy life. ‘Actually, we are not understood.’
He firmly shut the door. The large officer swivelled in place and Strachan held up a hand, effectively telling her attack dog to heel.
‘No?’
‘No. You see, I don’t give a fuck if you want me here or not. Do you think I want to be stuck in a shit hotel in this shit-hole city? I’m here because what is going on, neither you nor your hard-working team could possibly grasp. If they thought you were capable they wouldn’t have sent for me.’
‘I will NOT be spoken to like this,’ Strachan yelled, clicking her chubby fingers.
The brutish driver flew his door open, the rain hitting the inside of the car and echoing like chattering teeth. With his heavy footsteps, Bermuda expected to be hauled from the car within a few moments.
Three …
Two …
One …
Just as they heard the door handle click, they heard a grunt of pain and the sound of a body collapsing to the ground. Both looked concerned and Bermuda turned back to an irate Strachan.
‘Get the fuck out of my car,’ she demanded, her language defying her previously calm demeanour.
‘With pleasure.’ Bermuda pushed the door open, the metal panel bumping against what he assumed was the body of her hulking minion.
Before he stepped out into the wonders of the Scottish wintertime, he turned back.
‘I will solve this case. With or without your help.’
‘You will receive no help from the Glasgow Police Service,’ she said sternly while running a wiping cloth over her glasses.
Bermuda offered her his most charming smile. ‘No change there, then.’
Strachan’s eyes lit up with anger and Bermuda waved as he pushed himself out of the car. His Converse trainers splashed against the ground, the water soaking through to his socks. He slammed the door shut and looked at the large officer before him, hunched over on his knees and wheezing heavily.
The wind had been driven cleanly from him.
The officer groaned in agony. The sudden influx of stomach cramps had been instant and disabling, bringing his huge frame to its knees. It was like he had been hit with a sledgehammer, the cramps crushing his gut in one go.
Bermuda observed for a few moments with zero inclination to help. He looked to his right, where Argyle was stood, gently shaking his hand as if to shake out the pain.
Bermuda smiled warmly against the cold rain.
Argyle had clearly clobbered the officer straight in the stomach. Knowing the sheer power and accuracy of his partner, Bermuda felt just a twinge of sympathy for the victim, but turned back to his partner.
‘I am shameful,’ Argyle uttered, his voice sad and honest. ‘I have struck a man of nobility.’
‘Believe me, Big Guy,’ Bermuda said, patting his friend on the arm and ushering them to walk away, ‘there is nothing noble about that man.’
Argyle spun his head back as they walked, watching as the large lawman was hauling himself up, fingers grasping the wet vehicle. The woman inside had made no effort to help.
‘Are you not mad that I struck a man of law?’
‘Mad?’ Bermuda chuckled, spinning his e-cig in his hand like a drumstick. ‘I’m bloody ecstatic.’
The two walked down another rain-soaked road of Glasgow, identical to all the others. Bermuda summarised in his head how they were no closer to catching the killer and he had now effectively burnt the miniscule bridge with the police. Word would reach the BTCO, Montgomery Black would be furious, and the fingerprint they had left with the mystery technician would probably lead to nothing.
Just another day in the life of Bermuda Jones.
However, after Argyle’s intervention a smile cracked across his face. The two walked through the suburban streets, soaked through. Bermuda admired the houses, all of them set back slightly from the pavement, guarded by small courtyards. Inside each house lived a family, a story of how they came to be in the lives they now lived.
Within the shadows of the city, some creature was looking to snatch that life from them.
A feeling of helplessness covered Bermuda, and he looked away from his partner, hoping Argyle didn’t notice. He did. Of course he did, Bermuda thought.
Argyle noticed everything.
Well, except DC McAllister when she was on the warpath.
As the rain slapped against his skin, Bermuda’s mind raced back to the previous night. Flashes of McAllister’s naked body came and went, their sexual adventure coming to an abrupt and volatile end. She was an angry woman, there was no denying that, and Bermuda was sure there was more to it than just their failed intercourse.
He knew a self-hater when he saw one.
It takes one to know one.
They carried on down a few more streets before they came upon Partick Station, one of the fifteen stops on the Glasgow Subway, an underground metro train service that had wrapped itself around the city for well over a century. The station was the first above the River Clyde, the track looping round and travelling clockwise around the city. The route, a bright orange loop printed on a map, was nicknamed ‘the Clockwork Orange’.
The owners of the train company were obviously keen to move away from that nickname.
Bermuda carefully descended the steps, turning back to find that Argyle had left him to it. As bemusing as it was, Bermuda had grown accustomed to Argyle’s travel arrangements.
He didn’t understand them. But he was beyond questioning them.
As he approached the platform, he shuffled quickly to the train that was waiting impatiently, the shrill beeps indicating its imminent departure. With a quick dash, he slipped through the doors as they closed. Feeling pleased with himself, he dropped into one of the seats that lined the train, forcing the grumpy commuters to face each other.
Bermuda spent most of his time in London. He was well-versed in the unwritten law that ‘a commuter shall not look another in the eye, let alone speak to them’. He slid the soaked beanie hat from his head, his hair bursting out in every direction, gasping for air. He wrung the hat out like a flannel, watching the rainwater clatter to the sticky floor of the metal tube.
He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, the top of his skull gently bumping off the glass window.
He needed something.
Anything.
A clue. A lead.
A pint of Doom Bar.
As he contemplated indulging his thirst, he felt a twinge of guilt. Not just for the heartless women, but for their families. Fathers who had lost their daughters. Knowing his beautiful Chloe was safe and sound, he couldn’t imagine what losing her would be like.
To see her ripped from him by the shadows of another world.
He sat upright, his eyes blinking wildly as he realised he had nodded off. A flash of the recurring dream, the nightmare of losing those he loved, had jolted him like a cattle prod.
The Absent Man: A Bermuda Jones Case File (The Bermuda Jones Case Files Book 2) Page 12