by Max Hardy
‘G.t .w.y. She .ot .way!’
‘She got away?’ Tait repeated.
Bentley nodded. ‘B.tch g.t away. T.o f.st f.r me.’
‘Fuck!’ she shouted, her expression crestfallen. ‘Shankers isn’t going to like that. She is going to want someone’s balls. Come on, let’s get back to the station and I’ll give her the good news.’
Tait supported Bentley back to the car slowly and helped him into the passenger seat. She climbed in and gunned the engine then reversed the car out onto Baltic Street and headed off towards the centre of Leith in the direction of the Headquarters.
‘Take deep breaths and just relax. Open the window and let some cool air onto your face.’
Bentley did as instructed, head back against the neck rest, taking deep gulps of the Edinburgh air, looking out of the window, watching the evening wear darkness well, searching every doorway, every side street, every window for a black cat suit clad woman.
‘Sorry Tait, she was just too fast for me.’
‘I thought we had positioned officers at the back door to stop anyone getting out.’
‘We did. She just slammed the door into them, knocking them down and legged it. She was out of sight in a minute, over a fence and down a backstreet and when I got there, she was gone.’
‘It’s not your fault. I should have gone after her. High speed pursuits for an old fart like you are well and truly over.’ she replied with strained humour.
‘No, if I hadn’t butted horns with fuckface back there, I would have had time. It’s me who has let you down, again. Has he said anything?’
‘Only that Rebecca is not Madame Evangeline.’ She saw Bentley try and turn in his seat, anger bleeding into his already ruddy face. She slapped an arm over his chest and pushed him back into the seat. ‘Leave it Bentley. Let’s do this by the book. Don’t let me down again.’ she instructed, her eyes throwing daggers at him. He relaxed back into the seat.
‘Right, can I trust you to check him in and bring him up to Shankers office? She will want a word before we officially question him.’
‘You can trust me.’ Bentley answered as they pulled into the Headquarters car park. Tait and Bentley got out of the car in tandem, Tait proceeding to open the door for Saul.
‘Right Saul, Bentley is going to check you in and then Cruickshank will want a word. I’ll see you there in a few minutes.’ she said, pushing him forward towards the building as he stood. Bentley grabbed the cuffs as Tait headed off in front of them.
Bentley slowed his walk, waiting for her to get out of earshot, then twisted Saul’s cuffs until he grimaced in pain. He walked close in to Saul’s back, and put his head right up to Saul’s ear.
‘What do you know Saul? What do you know about me?’ Bentley hissed into his ear, pushing him forward towards the entrance of the building. Around them, other officers were also leading those arrested at the club from the vans into the headquarters.
Saul looked perplexed in amongst the pain of the tightened cuffs. ‘I know that you are a bigoted, bullying twat with no real comprehension of proper police procedure if that’s what you mean?’ he answered, smarting as the cuffs tightened again.
‘That’s what I mean, that’s exactly what I mean.’ Bentley said, his words sounding empty and deflated as he loosened his grip on the cuffs, stepped back from Saul slightly and directed him into the building, towards the Duty Sergeant. Towards a long line of people being booked in by the Duty Sergeant. Bentley pushed past them all, right up to the front of the queue.
‘Come on Bentley, you know how this works, first come, first serve, back of the queue.’
‘Sorry Fred, Shankers wants to see this one straight away. Can you do basic info and I’ll bring him back down for full processing.’
‘As long as you bring him back, I know what you are like.’ Sergeant Fred Calvey replied. He took Saul’s personal information. Bentley then walked Saul up to Cruickshank’s office in silence, his features lined with worry, his head downturned and his body slouching as he shuffled behind.
Cruickshank’s office door was open as they approached. The sound of raised voices echoing down the corridor.
‘It just isn’t good enough Tait, do you hear me. I would hate to think his incompetence is rubbing off on you!’
Bentley pushed Saul into the office, a spark of fire entering his tired eyes as he saw Tait looking small and vulnerable under Cruickshank’s verbal onslaught.
‘I don’t know what she has told you Ma’am, but it was my fault that we lost Rebecca Angus, not Tait’s. If you want to have anyone’s bollocks, then have mine. They’ll go nicely with your own.’
‘Nice try Bentley, but Tait was in charge of the operation, Tait was accountable for ensuring that the correct resource was doing the correct job, so Tait is accountable for any bloody cock ups. Trying to antagonise me doesn’t help her either. It just shows me she has no control over you. It shows me that perhaps she doesn’t have what it takes to make it as a DS. Now, can we stop washing our dirty laundry in public and see why the hell DI Saul here was at the club!’ Cruickshank finished angrily.
‘Sorry Ma’am.’ Both Tait and Bentley said in unison, both of them sitting down, Bentley directing Saul to sit as well.
‘Well Saul, what do you have to say for yourself? Bear in mind our very last conversation. I thought that I was very clear about not wanting to see you anywhere near our investigation and here you are right in the thick of it talking to an escaped criminal, someone who could be our prime suspect.’
Saul sat calmly in his chair and looked Cruickshank directly in the eyes, holding her infuriated glare.
‘Sorry Ma’am, as I told you earlier, I am just trying to find out what happened to my life. I went to the club because it was somewhere that I knew Jess…Madame Evangeline had been. I wanted to find out if anyone knew anything about her. I was searching the rooms and came across a woman who looked like Jess. It was Rebecca Angus.
‘And you expect me to believe that do you, that you were both in the same place at the same time? Bullshit, you are going to have to come up with something eminently more plausible if you don’t want me to charge with you with obstructing an investigation at least, being complicit in the whole thing at worst.’
Saul said nothing for a moment, just held Cruickshank’s unwavering, challenging glare. In the silence running footsteps grew in velocity from the corridor, the slapping feet getting closer to the office until PC Campbell came running in, slightly out of breath.
‘Ma’am. Sorry for interrupting but we need you urgently.’ he puffed.
‘What is it Campbell, you better have a bloody good reason for interrupting.’
‘I think you want to know about this Ma’am. It’s the people we have arrested.’
‘Yes, the lowlife scum who frequent illegal sex clubs, what about them.’
‘Well Ma’am, that’s just it. They aren’t lowlife scum. There are seven politicians, three gentry and another ten high profile business people in amongst those we arrested. There’s an army of first class lawyers just about to descend on us.’
Chapter 18
Moonbeams stream in through the open window, teasing the darkness, scaring it to scurry away from the sullen light. I watch the shadows crease and fold, shifting with the movement of clouds in front of the moon, with the movement of the netting at the windows swaying in the breeze. All of these things inspiring the darkness to live, to have form, shape and substance, showing me glimpses of the time Jess and I spent in the room. My thoughts live in those folding shadows, mostly dark, sometimes grey and occasionally light.
A beam strays towards the Edwardian chair I sit in, rolling shadows over the table top in front of me, chasing them past the open whisky decanter and the dishevelled pile of notes to pause for a second on the revolver beside them, before being absorbed by the darkness once more.
A noise from outside the window distracts my mind from painting with shadows. A larger shadow, a head, blocks out some of th
e moon and then a body climbs over the sill and strides silently over the floor towards me.
I pick up the decanter and pour a shot of whiskey into an empty, waiting glass and place it opposite me, where the curvaceous slice of darkness sits down, her face enlivened in a moonbeam.
‘They let you out then?’ Rebecca asks as she picks up the glass and takes a sip of whiskey.
‘Eventually. Although there was a lot of waiting around while everyone was being processed. The DCI isn’t stupid. I told her in the end that I had been left a card asking me to meet someone at the club. I gave it to her and then got summarily bollocked for withholding evidence. She believes that I didn’t know it was you. I didn’t tell her what we talked about. I said as soon as I got there, they arrived. I think she believes that.’
‘Did you hear anything on the grapevine or in the cells about Madame Evangeline or the Fallen Angels?’
‘No. The police have you tagged as possibly being Madame Evangeline. It didn’t help that you were there while they were looking for her.’
‘I don’t think that will ever stop until they see us in the same room together.’ She tilts her head. ‘Even for you?’
There she goes again, reading every thought flowing through my mind. I’m back in a world where there is what I know and what I feel and at the moment both are dancing in the shadows, trying to avoid the light. She picks up the gun from the table as she waits for me to answer and watches me weigh her up.
‘I’ve watched all the video’s Dr Hanlon made. Everything I saw in them tells me you are not Madame Evangeline. In the earlier ones, he had to talk long and hard to convince you not to try and kill yourself, to bring you back from the brink. You are here, sitting in front of me now. How did he do it? How did he convince you to want to live, to not let the darkness consume you?’
She raises the gun to her eyeline and pops the barrel, taking out the single bullet and holding it up in front of me.
‘He walked me through everything that had happened. He made me confront my fears. He put a weapon in the hands of a psychopath and gave me the choice either to use it, or to walk with him on a journey of redemption. He made it absolutely crystal clear that if I chose to use it, it wouldn’t trouble him in the slightest. And I believed him when he said that.’
She puts the bullet back in the gun, spins the barrel and instantly smacks her hand on it to stop it, then holds it out to me.
‘Tell me the worst thing that has happened to you. Tell me how it made you feel and I will tell you if I think it is worth a shot.’
I stare at the gun in front of me and stare up into her wide challenging green eyes, my mind in turmoil. What is she doing? Tempting me? Testing me? Teasing me? Or trying to help me? The worst thing? How do you quantify what is worst: losing your son, your wife or your lover? It is all the worst. I take the gun from her and run my fingers along the barrel, thinking. A tear springs to my eye as I speak.
‘Betraying my wife and son. The worst thing that has happened to me is betraying them and watching them die at my hand. With the seconds counting down to their inevitable destruction, knowing that it was me who had put them both in that position, knowing that it was me who killed them. It made me feel like a murderer, like a monster, like I should be dead.’
I thrust the gun into my forehead and pull the trigger.
Click.
Sixteenth time, chance is still with me.
She looks at me impassively, studying my features.
‘You didn’t blink. You didn’t think for one second what the impact of blowing your brains out in front of me would be. Neither did you wait for me to tell you if I thought it was worth dying for.’
‘Was it?’
‘Yes it was, but I don’t think it was the worst thing that has ever happened to you.’
She reaches over and takes the gun out of my hand, not taking her probing eyes off mine.
‘I fucked my own son and at the time it was happening, I absolutely loved it. I sat astride him, taking the full length of his throbbing cock into my tight wet cunt and it was sheer ecstasy. He was the first man I had ever had and it was heaven. Then Madame Evangeline took off his mask and showed me who he was and my world exploded. In that second, in that instant I felt like scum, like a maggot, like the scourge of the earth and I wanted to be eradicated from all existence. I didn’t just want to die, I wanted that whole experience to be wiped from the whole of eternity. Is that worth a shot?’
Tears stream down her cheeks, the heavy make up running in rivulets, exposing the scarred face below. I can’t even comprehend what that must be like, to find that you had done that, to know that you had enjoyed it. I nod my head.
She puts the barrel of the gun into her mouth, sucking it in with her lips, watching me intently as she pulls the trigger.
Click. She didn’t blink either. Seventeen.
Is this chicken? Is she testing me? Trying to show me that whatever might have happened to me, she has had it worse and is still alive? She’s right, I didn’t think about her. I’m not thinking about anyone but myself. I haven’t been for a long time, a very long time.
‘I betrayed my wife, the woman I had loved since we were at Uni. The woman who I had given my solemn oath to be faithful too. I did that because I couldn’t cope with her agony, her guilt. I’ve only just found out that years ago she was pregnant and had an abortion late in the pregnancy. She lost her innocence, her youth, her baby and the man she loved. And I wasn’t the person that she could talk to about any of that. I wasn’t the person who she could talk to about how that impacted our son and our marriage. I am a coward. Too wrapped up in my own world and in my own problems to help the one person in the world that needed my help.’
My body is shaking, not at the thought of the gun to my head, but at the thought of the impact my actions have had on others. Rebecca is looking at me with open empathy as she hands me back the gun, nodding.
I put it to my forehead again and pull the trigger.
Click. Eighteen.
‘Hannah was my childhood sweetheart. We had been going out since school, since Purple Rain in 1984. She was pregnant with Michael and we were having a home birth. There were complications and I decided to take her to hospital in the car. We crashed, it was my fault. She was bleeding but in the last stages of labour and it was a choice of either saving Hannah or saving the baby. I chose the baby and she died in my arms, with my wonderful baby boy screaming as we cuddled him. The same boy I fucked and killed years later. She made the ultimate sacrifice and I promised her I would look after him. I betrayed her.’
My stomach sinks. I had heard the full story on Dr Hanlon’s tapes, but it made it no less wrenching, even more so as she sits crying in the shadowed moonlight. I hand her the gun, worried.
‘I have to say yes, but I have to say stop. Too many people have died because of us. I don’t want you to be the next.’
‘Not your choice. If you think yes, I take a shot. Simple as that.’ she says through tears.
‘Yes.’ I answer, honestly, passing the gun back to her.
‘She puts it under her chin this time, caressing her jawbone with the barrel before pulling the trigger.
Click. Nineteen.
‘I wanted Jacob to die. I wanted to help him die. I kidded myself that it was for him. All I saw in his eyes was the emptiness of forever and I just thought that death had to be better than the non life that he had. But it wasn’t about Jacob. It was about me again. It was about me not being able to cope with a son who had an empty, endless life. It was my fears that I was trying to end, my fears of loneliness, my fears of rejection, my fears of an empty life. I didn’t want that for him. But I didn’t want it for me.’
She passes me the gun and strokes my hand as I take it from her and put it to my forehead.
‘Thirty three and a third percent chance that I will die now.’
‘So pessimistic, that’s a sixty six point seven percent chance you will live.’
I pull the t
rigger.
Click. Twenty. Fifty/fifty chance now.
‘I never knew who my parents were. I was told they abandoned me when I was born. I vaguely recall being a very sick child, spending lots of time in hospital. After that I remember lots of foster homes, lots of transient families who never really opened up and let me in, just took the money and interacted as little as possible. Even friendships were hard because I was always the new girl. Always having to start from scratch. Always having to learn to trust people again. Always fearing I would be leaving again very soon. The worst thing, the very worst thing that has ever happened in my life is never knowing who my parents were and never knowing the love and warmth of their hearts. I have always been alone.’
Tears stream down my face in time with hers as I feel her agony, feel the anguish infused in every single painful word. I feel it because I know it. Rickety doors in rickety rooms burst open and the floodgates of my fears are breached. I hand her the gun.
‘I don’t know why we are here, I don’t know why she has involved us in her life, but if I had anything to do with your pain, I am truly sorry.’ she says as she puts the gun straight to her forehead and pulls the trigger.
Click. Twenty one.
Not even a fifty/fifty chance now. Chance has run out just at the right time. I speak.
‘I never knew who my parents were. I don’t know what happened to them. For a long time I didn’t even know what a parent was. I was a very poorly child and spent the first six years of my life in an isolation room, shut away from everyone apart from doctors and nurses. I remember every single day, every single pain, every single injection and extraction from the marrow in my bones. I remember the emptiness, the mind numbing emptiness. To this day I have no idea what was wrong with me, I just remember the agony.’
Rebecca leans over the table and puts the gun into my hand, tears freely flowing down her makeup stained face. She lifts my hand to my forehead and then leans her head right in next to mine, in line with the trajectory of the gun.