Truth Lies Bleeding

by Tony Black

Brennan nodded. ‘She looks like she’s been hit with a steamroller.’

  They stood staring at the door for a moment, then the handle dropped and the doctor appeared. He was putting a pen in his top pocket, removing his white coat. As he greeted them he threw the coat over his shoulder.

  ‘Sorry about that, gentlemen. There’s a way I like to do these things – you get a bit tetchy as you get older.’

  Brennan nodded, blinked. ‘How is she?’

  The doctor pinned back the sides of his mouth, sighed. ‘I can’t say there’s any improvement. She’s coming round and she’s in a lot of pain. I’ve given her something for that but she has lost a lot of blood and there’s always so much you just can’t know when someone’s been so badly hurt . . .’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Inspector, she’s lucky to be alive.’ The doctor took a few steps down the corridor, turned. ‘Don’t spend more than five minutes in there – she needs to rest.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor.’

  Brennan walked back to the room. The WPC was sitting down beside Melanie McArdle; the woman’s head was turned towards the window. She seemed to be strapped in by the tight white sheets and blankets.

  McGuire spoke first: ‘Melanie, my name’s DC Stephen McGuire and this is Detective Inspector Brennan. We’d like to talk to you about what happened.’

  Brennan waved the DC away, moved round to the other side of the bed and sat down in front of Melanie, blocking her view of the window. He could see her eyes were bloodied, dark fraught tangles of ruptured capillaries. There were tears too, welling below the irises, waiting to roll down her face.

  ‘Hello, Melanie,’ said Brennan. ‘Can you speak?’

  She opened her mouth slowly, a whisper: ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t want to tire you out, so let me know if I am asking too much . . . Can you tell me, did Devlin do this to you?’

  She seemed to sink deeper into herself at the mention of her husband’s name. Her eyes misted some more, then a tear ran down her cheek. ‘He . . . stabbed me.’

  Brennan watched her slow breath; each gasp seemed to be an agony. He edged closer. ‘What happened?’

  Melanie’s breathing reached a sibilant wheeze. ‘The baby . . .’

  ‘What about the baby?’

  She looked directly at Brennan. ‘Where is she?’

  Brennan caught McGuire’s eye. He turned back to Melanie. ‘We don’t know.’

  She curled her lower lip; it trembled for a second or two and then her whole body seemed to shake as she descended into tears.

  The WPC leaned over, touched her hand. ‘It’s okay, Melanie, it’s okay.’

  ‘No, he’s taken her . . . He’s taken her.’

  Brennan spoke: ‘Where’s he taken her, Melanie?’

  She paused. Then: ‘I don’t know.’

  Brennan watched her in misery. He could see it was painful for her to think of what McArdle must have done with the child. ‘Do you have any idea?’

  ‘No. No.’ The tears continued.

  ‘Melanie, you must have heard something. You must have seen something . . . Who was he holding the baby for?’

  Melanie pushed away the WPC’s hand; she brought her fingers to her eyes, wiped away the tears. ‘The news . . . he saw the news on the television and went mad. He was panicked.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  She seemed to be trying to retrace her steps. ‘We fought, over the baby. I had the knife – he took it off me.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Melanie’s words gathered power. ‘He came after me, stabbed me.’

  ‘Then what?’

  Her breathing seemed to have stilled. ‘I fell. I lay on the ground. I could feel the knife in my stomach.’

  ‘Where was Devlin?’

  ‘He was in the kitchen, then the living room . . . He was shouting, speaking to someone on the phone.’

  ‘Who was he speaking to?’

  Melanie curled her fingers, touched her lips with the tips of her nails. ‘It was the German . . . Günter.’

  Brennan nodded to McGuire; he wrote down the name. ‘Carry on, Melanie, you’re doing fine.’

  She removed her hand, looked at Brennan. Thoughts and memories seemed to spark behind her eyes. ‘He said . . . he was going to . . . Liverpool.’

  ‘Liverpool?’

  Melanie turned her face towards the pillow. She looked exhausted now. ‘Yes. I heard him say it – he was meeting the German in Liverpool.’

  Brennan got out of the chair. He touched Melanie’s hand. ‘You’ve done very well, love. Now get some rest.’

  She opened her eyes again; they were thin slits as she spoke: ‘What about the baby?’

  Brennan couldn’t answer her.

  Chapter 46

  DEVLIN McARDLE HAD DRIVEN THROUGH the night with a screaming child and a sense of the world closing in on him. In the space of a few hours the comfortable life he’d known in Edinburgh had ended. He knew there was no way back; even if he offloaded the baby, took full payment and moved on he would be running for years. The plea on the television by the minister played over and over in his head. ‘Fucking telly,’ he roared. ‘Fucking telly’s onto me.’

  He gripped the wheel tightly. There was a hint of rain in the air, the sun was up and that made him feel even more nervous. In the dark, at night, the blackness made you feel safe. He’d never understood people who were afraid of the dark, he thought; dark was good. No one could see you in the dark. It was when the place was all lit up, when people started to take to the streets that you got nervous – that’s when you got caught.

  ‘Bastards stitched me up!’

  He cursed Tierney and Vee for getting him involved; it was all their fault. He’d told Tierney if he was up to something it would be the last trick he ever pulled and he was right about that. ‘Told you, didn’t I, Barry? Told you nobody messes with the Deil.’

  Tierney got his, and Vee, he thought.

  Stupid pair of bastards, out on the razz when the television folk are all over them. Out drinking it up, smashed out their heads. What were they thinking?

  If the police had got hold of that pair, they’d have been coming down with the sweats in a few hours, begging for a hit. They’d have told the filth anything they wanted to know. They knew he wasn’t going to take that chance.

  ‘No way. No way.’

  The road ahead narrowed as McArdle came off the motorway; he kept his eyes alert to the signs for the turn-off he’d been told about. There was a service station, a Little Chef, with a big car park and a BP garage somewhere on this road. If he could find that, one of his problems would be solved.

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ he yelled at the child in the back seat.

  The baby screamed louder, kicked her feet.

  Did she know? Had she been listening to all his talk on the phone with Günter?

  ‘What you on about?’ McArdle wondered if he was cracking up, losing his mind. Of course the baby couldn’t understand – she had no idea what he was doing.

  But he knew.

  ‘Not my problem. No fucker looked out for me.’

  Life was hard, you had to be hard. He couldn’t afford to think about what he was doing; it was survival of the fittest. He’d heard that phrase once before and it made sense to him. Life was survival – it’s what his had been all about.

  When McArdle spotted the sign for the turn-off he dropped a gear, went into fourth and brought the needle under fifty. He was surprised to see so many cars, and trucks. Lots of truckers. Lazy bastards, truckers, he thought. All those mad murders he’d read about in the papers were truckers. Beasts and murderers. Had to be mad to be a trucker, spending all that time driving up and down the same road day in, day out. And then, sleeping in a cab the size of a bloody toilet cubicle. They were all beasts and murderers, that’s what they were.

  As the thought subsided, McArdle’s mind returned to the moment when he’d put the knife in Melanie’s back. For a second he felt something for h
er – was that shame? Hurt?

  He blocked it out. ‘The bitch asked for it!’

  The baby screamed louder.

  He turned, roared, ‘Shut it! Shut it!’

  She did ask for it, Melanie. She’d taken a knife to him; he couldn’t have that. He was Devlin McArdle, the Deil. People knew him. He couldn’t have his own wife showing him up.

  But what would people say about him if they knew?

  ‘Nothing. I’m the Deil! Who would mess?’

  There was a voice in his head that jeered him. The voice taunted him with what he’d done. He’d killed his wife, Melanie. He’d had Tierney and Vee killed too. And he’d taken a child, a child he didn’t know a thing about, and was going to hand it over to a gang of paedophiles.

  ‘So fucking what? It’s not my lookout! It’s not my kid!’

  Did it matter whose kid it was?

  He didn’t think about the baby he’d taken from Tierney and Vee, two junkie lowlifes from Muirhouse. Why would he think about a kid like that? So what was it that was different about this kid? Was it because she had been talked about on the television? The minister, on the news. The police, everyone looking for her. This was big news – big, big news.

  McArdle smacked the side of his head with the heel of his hand. ‘No. No.’

  He wanted the rolling of thoughts to stop. He knew if he was caught now, he was finished. He’d be in Peterhead. He’d be in with the beasts.

  ‘I’m not a fucking beast!’

  He’d be in with the beasts, because that’s what they’d say he was. He’d have to be separated from the other prisoners because every day someone would be trying to kill him, stab him. That’s what they did with beasts.

  ‘I’m not a fucking beast!’

  As McArdle lowered the speed, put the needle under thirty, he steered into the car park. The Little Chef was open but there didn’t seem to be anyone inside. He drove around to the BP garage. There was a green Skoda being filled up by a man in a grey suit. A sales rep; there were always sales reps about these places, no matter what time of the day it was. McArdle felt comforted by the sight of the man – he was a connection to the safe, normal world. A rep, just a salesman. Someone like him, sort of. That’s all it was – a transaction. He would hand over the child and take the money, then disappear. It was a sales job, that’s all.

  He drove round past the overnight truck stop and spotted what he was looking for. The silver Citroën estate, with German number plates. He could see Günter behind the wheel, staring out from behind those thick dark glasses of his. He wore driving gloves, brown leather ones with rope backs. As he spotted McArdle he raised a hand, waved.

  McArdle nodded, put in the clutch and selected third gear.

  The German didn’t move again as McArdle drew up beside him, rolled down the window.

  ‘Günter,’ he called out.

  The German kept eyes front, pressed a button to lower the window.

  ‘Put the baby in the back with Frank.’

  The child was screaming. McArdle didn’t want to go near her but he wanted rid. He removed his seat belt and then turned to open his door. When he got out of the car he felt his knees buckle; his legs had grown weary after the long journey but he stamped some life back into them.

  The baby screamed louder as he removed the fastenings on the cradle carrier. Her face was red and her eyes tightened as she wailed out. ‘Christ Almighty, can’t you shut the fuck up?’ It was almost at an end; he was about to hand the child over. He felt relieved – why couldn’t she be quiet? The baby let out an ear-splitting shriek. How could something so small make so much noise? And why? Did she know? Why did he keep thinking that? Why did the thought keep pressing on his mind?

  The man in the back of the Citroën leaned over and opened the door; McArdle passed in the screaming child. Her face was scarlet as the man called Frank took her. McArdle caught sight of the smile he gave to the child and then he watched him wet his lips and place a small kiss on the baby’s mouth. McArdle didn’t look back after he saw that. The sight of the red-faced howling baby with the smiling beast made him feel uneasy.

  He moved towards Günter. ‘Well, that’s that.’

  ‘Is it?’ said the German.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean you failed to inform us of the current situation with the police.’ Günter touched the rim of his glasses; the lenses were dirty.

  ‘Look, you wanted the fucking kid, you got it, now turn over the cash or I’ll have to get nasty.’

  Günter looked in the rear-view mirror, seemed content with the noisy bundle back there. He reached under the front seat and removed a small package. ‘Here it is. Less than we agreed.’

  ‘It better fucking not be—’

  Günter raised a hand. ‘We will incur some expenses to evade the police on our return – we now have to drive back through France. We have deducted the extra costs, and something for our inconvenience.’

  McArdle leaned in, grabbed his throat. ‘You never fucking said anything about that.’

  The German choked out his words: ‘And you never said anything about the police. If you like, we can give you the child back and go our separate ways.’

  McArdle turned for a final glance at the noisy baby. As she roared, her round cheeks darkened and her tiny fingers pressed the air. As quickly as he had turned, he looked away. McArdle wanted to strangle the beast where he sat, but more than that he wanted to leave. ‘Get out my fucking sight.’ He grabbed the money and then, stepping back, he pushed the German’s head against the steering wheel.

  The Citroën sped off. McArdle watched the fumes pouring from the exhaust. He tucked the small bundle of notes inside his jacket and headed back towards his car. The rain had started to get heavy.

  Chapter 47

  DEVLIN McARDLE WATCHED A LORRY manoeuvring through the car park. It looked awkward as the cab reversed its giant tail through more lanes than he could count. He could see the driver struggling to right the truck, make sense of where he had come to rest, and McArdle felt at ease. He was over the worst of it, surely. The child was off his hands; all he had to do was lie low for a time and then he could think about his next move. He had some money; he had no ties. McArdle knew he had always done okay on his own. He didn’t need Melanie. In fact it was better she was out of the way because she would only go blabbing to the police.

  ‘She had it bloody well coming,’ he mouthed to himself. ‘Better off without the bitch.’

  McArdle started the car’s engine, rolled slowly through the gears until he hit the small network of roads that connected up the service stops. He spotted the Little Chef – he was hungry now – and pointed the wheel towards the front bays. He could see there was a drive-through hatch but it was too early in the day to be manned. He parked up, listened to the engine cooling for a moment and then he went inside.

  The restaurant seemed instantly familiar, although he’d never actually been there before; it was like every other one of a thousand restaurants like it. Blond-wood laminate flooring, geometrically arranged tables and chairs with wipe-down menus everywhere. He spotted the sign for the gents and made his way past what looked like an artificial plant to get cleaned up.

  The toilet room was bright, harsh lights reflecting off clean white tiles. At first he felt uneasy there, as if he was in a spotlight, but after he’d relieved himself, washed his face and neck, splashed water on his scalp, McArdle started to feel calmer, more like his old self.

  The bandage he’d put on his hand had begun to seep blood again. He scrunched his fingers into a fist and watched the red ooze from beneath the cotton. He knew it would need to be replaced; the cut probably needed stitched – the worst one on his arm definitely did – but he would live without that. He couldn’t risk visiting a hospital and being questioned by the medical staff about how he’d come by such serious wounds.

  McArdle put his hand under the dryer, let the warm air remove the moisture. When he was satisfied he tipped his he
ad under the dryer, let the hot jets massage his aching neck for a few minutes. McArdle’s hand still needed attention. He went to the cubicles and removed a roll of toilet paper, wrapped a long stretch round his hand. It looked bulky now. He tried to pat down the tissue paper but it only sprang back. He looked at himself in the mirror: he seemed to be wearing one white boxing glove; it made him laugh. He fronted up to his reflection and started shadow boxing. ‘Yo! Rocky! Rocky!’ He laughed as he swung a final hook on his way to the door.

  The restaurant staff were stationed behind a long counter. As he approached he checked out the menu. There were a lot of breakfast combinations: beans, bacon, toast, eggs. As he made his mind up he became aware of a television playing to his left, a small screen like the one Melanie used to have in the kitchen. He tried not to think about home, but when he turned to have a look he couldn’t help but be reminded.

  The staff in the Little Chef were crowded round the end of the counter as they watched the breakfast programme’s newsreader going through a spiel. McArdle had little interest; he watched desultorily as the young reporter talked about a Liverpool murder hunt. If she had said Edinburgh, he might have been more interested, but who knew he was in Liverpool?

  ‘Hey! . . . Any chance of some service here?’

  The staff turned away from the screen in unison, then one of them separated from the small pack of bodies and slouched towards McArdle, glancing back at the others as she went.

  ‘About time,’ he said. ‘My belly thinks my throat’s been cut.’

  He made his order but the waitress struggled with his heavy Scots accent, made him repeat it.

  ‘Beans. Toast. Bacon.’ He said the words slowly, as though he was talking to an infant, or an imbecile. ‘And coffee . . . You get all that, or you want me to write it down?’

  He rolled his eyes, caught sight of the rest of the staff watching him. He’d raised his voice and attracted attention to himself. They looked at him and he raised his bandaged hand in a salute, touched his right eye and smiled before ducking and weaving for show. ‘Rocky, innit!’