Blood Tracks

by Paula Rawsthorne

  Mrs. McManus nodded solemnly.

  “So, Mr. Sissouma, if you’re there, love, would you come to the door? I can’t be bending down like this all day, I’ll seize up.”

  Sissouma came rushing out of the living room and opened the front door.

  “I’m Mr. Sissouma,” he said, helping the elderly lady straighten up.

  Bridie’s magnified eyes twinkled. “Well, aren’t you a strapping fella?”

  “You said that you have a parcel and message from Gina Wilson?”

  “We do indeed,” Mrs. Mac said, waving the fluffy purple pencil case.

  “Then please, come in.”

  Mr. Egon gathered his equipment from the kitchen table and beckoned Sissouma out of the living room.

  “So sorry to interrupt you, Bridie, but my colleague needs me for a moment,” Sissouma said, as he stopped the old lady mid-sentence and walked into the hallway.

  Egon wore a broad smile across his gaunt face.

  “How nice to see you looking so happy, Mr. Egon. Have you got some good news for me?”

  “Oh yes, Mr. Sissouma. I can verify that we have in our possession quite exquisite specimens. The finest that I’ve ever seen.”

  Sissouma clapped his hands together in delight and stepped back into the living room to address the gathering.

  “Well, ladies and Master Wilson. I would love to stay and hear another of Bridie’s stories of her triumphs in the bingo hall but, unfortunately, Mr. Egon and I must bid you au revoir.”

  “Oh, what a pity. I could talk to you all day. What charming friends you have, Mrs. Wilson,” Bridie trilled to the nervous woman and her rather rude son, who sat glaring at Sissouma.

  “Thank you very much for your hospitality, Mrs. Wilson,” Sissouma continued. “We will leave you good people in peace, now that order has been restored.”

  Clare looked at him in confusion and relief. “That’s it? It’s over? Gina will be left alone?”

  Sissouma bent down and whispered in her ear. “Yes, I promise that we won’t bother you again as long as you don’t report anything to the police. So you see, ‘All’s well that ends well’, except, of course, for Mr. Cotter.”

  The phone in Tom’s pocket beeped. He got it out, his breathing ragged with nerves, like the accused standing in the dock, awaiting the verdict.

  He opened the message from Sissouma. Gina and Declan watched as Tom’s face paled, his eyes closed. He’d been found guilty as charged and handed down a death sentence. He knew there would be no form of appeal.

  “Is it from Sissouma?” Declan asked.

  Tom’s eyes darted around like a hunted animal. “I’ve got to get as far away from here as possible. The man is going to kill me.”

  “Then hand yourself in to the police. It’s the least you can do for Gina; it’s your safest option. Sissouma can’t get you if you’re banged up.”

  “I wouldn’t be safe in prison. I’d be a sitting duck. He has contacts everywhere. All it takes is for him to call in a favour, grease a few palms and I’d have my neck broken in the shower, or my back stabbed in the exercise yard.” Tom began to stride away.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Gina shouted after him. “You don’t get to walk away from this. That’s not justice!”

  “No, but it’s survival, Gina. I’m sorry.”

  “You’d better stop, right now,” Declan shouted.

  Cotter turned round; a sneer played on his face. “Or what? Are you going to stop me, Declan? Are you trying to play the knight in shining armour? It’s not going to work. Gina knows that you’ve been making a fool of her, lying to her, using her to get at me.”

  Declan glanced, shamefaced, at Gina.

  “Gina, don’t listen to him,” Declan begged.

  “Why? Is he lying?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Well…no, not exactly, but now’s not the time to talk about this. He’s just trying to distract us; divide us. He’s the enemy, Gina, not me. I’m not going to let him get away.”

  “You stay where you are,” Tom barked. “Just remember your little dip in the sea.”

  Declan charged at him, ramming his shoulder into Cotter’s stomach, wrapping his arms around the man’s legs and pulling his feet from under him. Cotter hit the ground like a felled tree. Groaning, Tom struggled to release his legs from Declan’s grip. He delivered sharp little kicks into Declan’s stomach until the young man could hold on no longer. Cotter scrambled away from him, but Declan pounced on him again, straddling his waist, raising his fist, ready to hit Tom in the face. But he wavered – he’d never hit anyone before, not even in a playground scrap.

  Declan’s hesitation cost him dearly, as Tom powered a right hook into Declan’s side. Declan’s breath was trapped in his throat and a searing pain from his kidney travelled through his body. He fell backwards in agony and Tom wasted no time in exchanging positions. Now Tom sat on top of him, grinding his knees into the crooks of Declan’s arms, pinning them down. Declan let out a yelp.

  “Never hesitate,” Tom hissed, delivering a vicious punch to Declan’s face. The skin above his left eye split. Warm blood began to trickle from it, getting caught in his eyelashes.

  “Stop it!” Gina screamed, trying to drag Tom off him, but Tom flung her away, effortlessly.

  “By the time I’m finished with him, he won’t be able to get up, let alone come after me,” Tom promised, landing another punch to the side of Declan’s head.

  Gina looked around frantically and saw the bottle of aftershave on the ground. She picked it up and pulled out the stopper. She heard the dull, sickening thud of another punch. She approached the kneeling man from behind; reaching her hand under his chin, she jolted his head back. Tom’s startled eyes looked up at her as she poured the aftershave into them.

  He let out a howl, rolling off Declan and staggering around blindly, his hands over his burning eyes.

  Declan mumbled to Gina, “Run down to the main road. Get help. I’ll phone the police.”

  Police cars and an ambulance arrived at the bridge within minutes. Gina had grabbed a passer-by to help, but Tom was in too much pain to put up any resistance. The paramedics tended to his eyes. They were hidden under an angry mass of swollen skin.

  Gina did a double take as “Uncle” Stevie emerged from one of the cars.

  “Your uncle is a copper?” she said to Declan, in surprise.

  “He’s not my uncle,” Declan admitted.

  “But I am a copper,” Stevie added, shifting the paramedics aside to get at their patient.

  “Thomas Cotter, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Martin Wilson, assault and the smuggling of illegal diamonds.”

  Tom tried to open his eyes to find Gina. “Hey, Gina,” he shouted out. “Now we know what your little friend is. Declan Doyle is a grass! The lowest of the low.”

  “I think you deserve that title, Mr. Cotter,” Stevie said drily, slapping the handcuffs on him.

  “I’m going to accompany Cotter to the hospital but I need you two to come down to the station. I’ll get the duty doctor to have a look at you. You both look like you’ve been in the wars.”

  “Am I under arrest?” Declan asked nervously.

  “No! I’m a happy bunny, Declan. I’ve got my result. We’ve got Sissouma and Egon. We had unmarked cars on Gina’s street. We waited until they left the house and then we picked them up, diamonds and all, and now we’ve got Cotter – that’s what you call a full house!” He grinned smugly.

  “Then just give me a few minutes with Gina,” Declan said. “I’ve got some explaining to do.”

  The detective looked at Gina’s stormy face and took a sharp intake of breath. “Well, good luck with that. I’ll see you both later; that’s if you survive, lad.”

  Gina and Declan slumped against the wall in stony silence, watching the cars and ambulance pull away.

  “Go on, I’m waiting,” she said ominously.

  Declan cleared his throat nervously. “Okay,
but before I begin I just need to remind you that I have been beaten up already today, so go easy on me.”

  “Shut up! Just tell me what you’ve been playing at.”

  “Right, here it is.” He swallowed hard. “The other month I was caught nicking lead off a church roof.”

  “Charming,” Gina said curtly.

  “The place was derelict. It was about to be stripped and bulldozed anyway,” he protested. “It was me and a couple of mates, thought we could make some easy money. I was sick of having no job, no cash. Anyway, my mates were down below and they legged it when they saw the security guard but I was left stuck up on the roof, with no way to escape. I ended up down the cop shop. I was booked in, fingerprinted, locked in a cell for hours – it stank; I was freezing and hungry.”

  “My heart bleeds for you.”

  “Okay…I don’t deserve any sympathy. But after a couple of hours I was taken to one of the interview rooms and this scruffy, wild-looking fella comes in, no uniform. I’ve never seen anyone who looked less like a cop. Anyway, he sits down at the table, doesn’t turn the tape on. I asked for the duty solicitor and he just said, ‘All in good time, lad. We haven’t started official business yet. This is just an informal little chat.’

  “So, then he says that he doesn’t usually deal with this kind of case but that he’s taking a special interest in me because he’s been informed that I used to go to Rylands High. I told him that I left last summer. Then he mentions your name. Says you’re a pupil there, wants to know if I know you, especially as we live in the same neighbourhood. Well, I told him that I only knew of you, used to see you around the school, heard about your dad killing himself.

  “Then he asks if I knew a bloke called Tom Cotter. I’d never heard of him. So he sits, staring at me, stroking his stubbly chin; he was freaking me out. ‘You know,’ he said eventually, ‘I think you’re going to get a custodial for this. Caught red-handed.’

  “I panicked. It was my first offence. I’d never been in trouble before. Anyway, he tells me that magistrates are coming down hard on lead strippers, wanting to make an example of them. ‘This lead theft business has become an epidemic,’ he says. ‘The magistrates are upset about it, especially when it’s nicked from a place of worship.’

  “‘The church was going to be demolished!’ I said.

  “‘It was still God’s house.’ He gave a phlegmy chuckle, amused with himself.

  “Then he starts asking me all about my family. When he finds out that they’re in Ireland and I’m here on my own, he seems pleased. He was really getting to me, putting on a pathetic Irish accent, saying ‘What would your mammy and daddy think about their lovely Catholic boy nicking from a church?’

  “I told him to get lost. I told him that I wanted to be interviewed by someone else, but he just carried on, saying, ‘Listen, Declan. I’d hate to see you locked up in a young offenders’ institute. You’d be mixing with some nasty pieces of work – violent, disturbed, drug-addled. They’d stab you with the cutlery if it wasn’t made of plastic. You’d come out a different lad…ruined. You know what I mean, don’t you?’ He was being sadistic.

  “I was trying to look like I didn’t care but I felt like I was going to burst out crying. He stood up and leaned over the table, his cigarette breath in my face, saying, ‘Don’t worry, Declan. I think that we might be able to help each other out of this mess. Let’s put you back in the cells for a while and I’ll make a few phone calls.’

  “He left me in the cells for hours with nothing to think about but how I’d survive being locked up with a bunch of psychos and the shame on my family of having a son in the nick; all my job prospects gone before I’d even earned my first wages. By the time I was taken back to the interview room I was a wreck. So when he breezes in, telling me it’s my lucky day, he’s got an offer for me that I shouldn’t refuse, I was so grateful I would have agreed to anything. He told me the terms – he wanted me to keep an eye on Cotter. He said that Cotter was friendly with your family, had been your dad’s boss. The plan was for me to get in with you, get as much info out of you as possible about Cotter and use you to try and get a job at the warehouse.”

  The blood leached from Gina’s face. “So that day when you saw me on the bridge – was that a coincidence?” she asked in trepidation. “You said that you’d been at a mate’s house on the next road?”

  Declan cringed. “I followed you from your house. I’d been keeping an eye on you, working out your daily routines; you’ve got time to do that kind of thing when you’re unemployed. I was waiting for a good chance to accidentally bump into you. So when I saw you limbering up for a run that day I thought that I could just run after you and pretend I was jogging too, but once you got into your stride you were so fast that I almost lost you when you turned off the canal. I stood at the end of the street catching my breath and watching you. I nearly died when I saw you climb up on that bridge. I thought you were going to jump. I really did come over to help you.”

  Tears of anger and humiliation welled up in Gina’s eyes. “So, all the time we’ve spent together! All the attention you’ve given me! Oh my God…that night in the warehouse!” Her hands flew up to hide her face. “No wonder you didn’t want to kiss me. That was beyond the call of duty, wasn’t it? I’m sure it was bad enough for you, having to pretend you liked me, without having to actually have physical contact with me.”

  “It has been terrible, Gina, because I like you, and I mean I really, really like you. I was dying to kiss you that night, but I couldn’t. It wouldn’t have been right. I felt a complete shit.”

  “That’s because you are a complete shit,” she hissed at him. “Have you been having a good laugh about me with your ‘Uncle Stevie’? And have you told him how you got into my family’s good books. Coaching Danny, being Mr. Nice guy with my mum?”

  “No, it wasn’t like that. Danny’s a great kid. I want to help him with his footy. And your mum, she’s so nice. Please, Gina, I love being with you and even if I wasn’t being forced to do this, even if I wasn’t being paid, I’d still want to be with you.”

  Gina’s eyes widened, her nostrils flared. “You were getting paid?”

  Declan grimaced. “That sounds bad, doesn’t it? But really, I would have been daft not to take the money. It’s completely legit. ‘Covert Human Surveillance Operatives’, that’s what the police call them; they pay you! It’s like a proper job, isn’t it?” he said in desperation. “Stevie said that they wouldn’t press charges if I helped him. I’d be let off, but even then I didn’t say yes straight away. I stalled, said I needed time to think. I hated the idea of spying on people…being his informant. He gave me until midnight that night. If I refused to help him or he didn’t hear from me, he’d make sure I was charged and that it went to court.” Declan put his hands together as if in prayer. “Please believe me, Gina. I didn’t want to do it, but what else could I do?”

  She didn’t speak. He couldn’t read her face. An unnerving calm seemed to have descended on her. He flinched as she turned towards him, but she put her arms out, as if to embrace him.

  He gave a nervous smile as she held his shoulders. She pulled him towards her, whispering in his ear, making the hairs on the back of his neck tingle. “Thanks for your help today.”

  His aching face cracked into a relieved smile.

  She understands! She forgives me! God, that wasn’t so bad.

  “I never want to see you again,” she continued in the same low tone. “You don’t call me, text me, you don’t even get to walk down my street. Do you understand?”

  The smile dropped from his face. “Gina, don’t say that. Give me a chance, please.”

  “No,” she said with conviction. She hauled herself up and walked away from him, her head held high.

  Gina, Kylie, Danny and her mum stood, arms linked, surveying the allotment. The sun shone on the transformed plot of land. Months of back-breaking work, tilling tons of topsoil, had turned the barren earth into fertile ground.
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  Now, fragrant sweet peas climbed up garden canes. Blooms of bright dahlias swayed in the warm breeze. Patches of wild strawberries ripened under green netting and the first shoots of carrots had broken through the soil. In the far corner stood a large pitch-roofed shed, its flower-filled window boxes lending it the air of a countryside retreat.

  “This is all down to Declan,” her mum said. “He’s worked so hard. He even insisted on paying for the shed.”

  “Well, I’m sure he could afford it with all the money he got for spying on us,” scowled Gina.

  “Gina, you should have come to help. Me and Declan have had a right laugh working on the allotment,” Danny said.

  “No thanks, I’m not going anywhere near that boy.”

  “Oh, come on, Gina,” Kylie pouted. “Declan has been like a lost puppy. He’s pining for you, babe. And you’re just making yourself miserable without him.”

  “Yeah, give him a break!” Danny lectured.

  “You all seem to have forgotten that he was spying on us, conning us,” Gina said indignantly.

  Her mum shook her head. “He was spying on Tom, not us, and if anything we should be grateful to him.”

  “Grateful?” Gina protested.

  “Yes. Listen, Gina, you know how sorry I am for not believing you. You were always right about your dad, and you didn’t give up until you got to the truth, but Declan helped you. Without each other you wouldn’t have found out what Tom Cotter was really like, what he did.” Her mum’s face went ashen. “I was so taken in by him.”

  Kylie put her arm around her. “Come on now, Clare. He fooled everyone. Don’t think about him. He’s where he belongs. Banged up for years, frightened of his own shadow. I even heard that he’s asked to be put in isolation for his own protection.”

  Gina squeezed her mum too. “Kylie’s right. This is Dad’s day. He would have loved to see the allotment like this. I can’t think of a better place to say a proper goodbye to him.”