As a stroke of pure luck occurred, on the fourth cul-de-sac and I spotted a shadowy figure marching through a series of cars parked for the night. Paul, from what I could tell. His hoodie was up, a strange choice of attire for not the youngest of men. His head was bowed, and he had thrust his hands into his pockets.
I stayed behind. So long as I had Paul in my sights, he could lead me to his home without realising. At least, I hoped he was heading home. Paul must’ve heard my footsteps, for they seemed to get louder whenever I tried to be inconspicuous.
He turned around for a split second, paranoia written all over his cast features. The only source of illumination on the newest cul-de-sac was yellow-tinged street lamps, giving Paul an insecure expression. I had to pretend to tie my shoe, ducking down behind a tiny car. My coat was black, and I hoped I blended into the late night well.
Paul seemed satisfied enough to continue walking, and I too hung back, gradually inching bit by bit. To disguise myself, I rifled in every pocket to find a cigarette. It lit up, sending subdued billows of ash high into our sky.
Diverting my attention onto Paul, he’d entirely faded from sight. I paused, spinning to check behind. Nothing. The street didn’t unfold anywhere else. The only viable option was for Paul to have resided inside a house. The problem was, which one?
I swivelled on my heel, with the full intention of traipsing every lawn to find him.
I didn’t need to. An unexpected blow smacked me straight in the face, knocking me to the floor.
26
My nose gushed pure blood, dripping onto my leather gloves as my eye already started to swell. Paul didn’t punch lightly, credit where credit’s due. I too, could hold my own, had his attack been honourable and not surprised me from behind.
Wincing, I tried to get up fast, for Paul was already on his feet and running.
“Paul Roberts?” My voice spread through the darkness faster than wildfire, and the man crooked around. A deer in the headlights. My ID badge rested waiting in my hand, and I fiddled with the wallet. I undid the wallet and began to hold It up, inhaling readily whilst attempting to stench the blood flowing freely.
“DI Cooper.” I suspected he already knew, otherwise my face would not have gotten an almighty beating. “Shit.”
I leant over, my head gradually getting dizzier. He’d sucker-punched my wits out of me. Paul Roberts didn’t hang around for long and raced up a garden path, fumbling with a set of keys. They jangled uncharacteristically compared to the peaceful street where only Paul’s laboured breath and my pained groans could be heard.
He dealt with his own situation, getting what could only be his own house unlocked and scrambled indoors. I watched through slitted eyes as I staggered to my feet, having bruised the entirety of my leg from the sudden fall. I couldn’t let Paul get away. Regardless of anything else, he had assaulted an inspector in the line of duty.
I copied his exact route but stayed at the end of his own pathway. I didn’t dare knock on the actual door, in fear he’d open it with a different kind of weapon, something more weighty than his bare hands.
“Paul, we need to talk!” I shouted loudly, well aware of his neighbours twitching curtains. If they didn’t know who I was, they’d probably call the police on me, for harassment. “I don’t want any trouble!”
What I meant was I didn’t want to be injured again, but I’d be ready for him this time. My voice sounded nasally, because I couldn’t let go of my nose.
“Why are you scared, Paul?” I shouted, knowing he could hear me as he switched off the inside lights to hide away. All of his curtains were already shut, keeping his life private, shielded away.
I waited for twenty minutes, attempting to make conversation with Paul Roberts or even get him to pay attention to what I had to say. He was dangerous, that much was evident. Nothing worked, Paul Roberts refused to bow down to my clear instructions.
I gave in, phoning the one person who would sort this mess out immediately in a no-frills approach.
“What?” McCall replied, in a massive hump. “I’m not interested in--”
“McCall, I need help,” I moaned at the pain it took to talk properly. “Real help.”
McCall didn’t reply for a moment, shocked into stunned silence at my openness. “What did you say? I couldn’t hear you properly. Dodgy reception here.”
“I can’t do this alone,” I revealed, whispering so nobody could ever hear me admit that weak statement freely.
“And what would this be?” she asked, wondering if I was genuine.
“I can’t explain over the phone, but it’s serious. This could be our guy, McCall. I’m outside his house, but he’s refusing to open the door. He’s dangerous, and I can’t go in without backup. He attacked me once already.”
“What do you want me to do?” McCall was keen to help.
“I want you to call for backup whilst I wait here. You have to come too. I’ll explain when I see you. Just make it sharpish.”
“This changes nothing between us, Cooper,” she forewarned me. “I’m helping for the case only, not as a favour to you. Give me your address.” She snapped orders over the phone like a stern mother who’d beat you if you overstepped a mark.
She stayed true to her word, and within ten minutes, my backup had arrived with McCall leading them. “You look like crap,” was the first thing she said to me.
“I noticed.” I rolled my eyes at her unforgiven nature.
“The guy did that?” She handed me a screwed-up Kleenex, the best she could find.
“Yes,” I insisted, fooling nobody. “His name is Paul. Paul Roberts. He purposely ignored Mandy because I was talking to her--”
“Mandy from the sailing club? Down boy,” she teased, knowing Mandy’s true intentions for wanting to see me.
“Not now, McCall,” I warned. “She saw Paul and Laura talking down at the bay on the day she died. I presume they know each other from the church, for he used to be a priest there before his wife died.”
“How did his wife die?” McCall said, intrigued.
“I don’t know. That’s why I’ve been standing out here to ask,” I noted sarcastically. “He matched the exact description that the shopkeeper gave us. It’s hard to believe he’s stayed so low under our radar, even for a statement.”
“And he did punch you. That’s not the best sign of his innocence,” she included.
“Exactly.”
“Check the back, make sure he’s not pulling a Jack Harper on us,” McCall shouted to a couple of officers tagged along for my benefit. “He’s got to admit to injuring you now too.” She found another tissue and dabbed at my face. I withdrew in pain, her touch firm but effective. “Stop being such a baby.”
“I can do it myself,” I checked the tissue to see the blood starting to thin out. At least it wasn’t dripping as bad as before.
“Your eye’s purple, puffed up to twice its size too. Not your best look,” McCall informed me, a tinge of worry in his voice. I’d never had a problem defending myself in any other case, or week.
“Least of my worries. I’m more concerned that the bastard gets what he deserves,” I sniffed gingerly, pacing closer to Paul Robert’s window, assured that there were enough people at hand to help, should further trouble arise. “Here goes.” I thundered against the locks, heavy-handed and unforgiving. We waited a while for a possible reply, even now receiving nothing back. McCall rang the doorbell over and over, holding her finger down on the buzzer.
“We don’t even have a warrant,” she reminded me.
“But he did attack me, so whatever else, he is guilty of a crime.” A clear and distinct shattering sound erupted from the inside. “He’s still there,” I repeated the obvious fact.
McCall bent down to her knees, poking open the letterbox hesitantly.
“Carefully,” I reminded her. “He’s got it out for us.”
We all heard an unmistakable noise of shattering glass. My jaw set in stone, having it up to here with Pa
ul Roberts. If Paul denied me the first time, he wouldn’t feel inclined to answer us now.
“Paul Roberts? It’s DS McCall from CID,” McCall called through the rusted letterbox, peeking through the flap to try to spot Paul hiding away. “Can’t see him.” She directed the last part to me. “We have to talk to you.”
My observant eyes narrowed in on a gap in the curtains, near the top. They hung low, half off the rail. Allowing someone tall to peer inside. I stalked over to the window, past a few officers shining flashlights around the rear entrance of Paul’s house, but I soon discovered I wasn’t even tall enough to peer over.
“Lift me up,” McCall scared me slightly, knocking me out of my calculations. “You’re tall enough for me to be able to reach once you’ve boosted me.”
I nodded, kneeling to create a stirrup-style grip by lacing my hands together. McCall planted a foot in my grasp and glanced down at me.
“Ready? Don’t drop me,” she counted us down from three.
“I would never,” I assured sincerely, planting my feet firmly.
McCall stepped up without fear, my arm muscles steadying her, though not with ease. For a small woman, by God, was she heavy. To keep a good balance, she held one hand close to the wall.
“Up a bit higher,” she asked.
I strained enough as it was but ended up managing to lift her an inch higher. My abs trembled, threatening to fall, but I couldn’t just yet, for McCall glared inside.
“Pass a torch.”
“Really?” I grumbled, her leg nearly kicking me in the face. “You couldn’t have sorted that out before you went up?” I nodded to another officer, who handed a small LED torch up for her to grab. She shone the beam through his window. “Well?”
“Absolute dump. Probably infested,” she half-messed around. “Oh, my God.”
McCall heaved back in shock, startling us both, for our structure crumbled immediately. McCall braced herself to tumble to the floor, opening her eyes tensely when she didn’t.
“Told you I wouldn’t let you fall,” I grimaced. “Ouch.” Whenever I attempted a faint smile, my swollen eye didn’t agree.
“Someone’s lying on the floor. I couldn’t see their face, but it’s similar to the clothes you described,” McCall revealed, shaking from her climb. “They’re not moving.”
“Kick the door down,” I commanded the nearby officers hurriedly. “Phone an ambulance. Now.”
McCall was already on it. Time couldn’t be wasted in a situation where a person requires medical assistance.
“We’ll have to go in without a warrant, under section seventeen,” I made a snap decision and informed the officers, well-versed in their sections. Section seventeen allowed forceful entry inside, providing reasonable grounds to suspect a life is endangered. The goal: to save life and limb.
The back-up officers saved us by taking on the most practical and stamina inducing activities. They set about locating the door hinges. It would be game over if the door opened outwards instead of inwards, for doors can’t be kicked in by those designs. Then the officers kicked close to the lock, only using front kicks. We were trained to use the heel of our foot for the motion. An embedded crunch and movement of the door signified our cues.
“For crying out loud,” I complained to the officers disappearing from view, without checking for danger inside first. House calls were the most threat to everyday officers. The residents know the street, know the exits and set up exotic plans to fight back.
A billowing, familiar scent whacked me in the face. Alcohol and a lot of it. From Paul’s entrance hall, McCall spoke hurriedly on the phone to the ambulance service.
Skewwiff frames adorned his dirty walls, Paul present in nearly all of them. A beautiful woman hugged him tightly in some, and in others, they shared romantic kisses. Sunsets and parks surrounded the backdrops, and in a few, the church. Presumably, this was Paul’s late wife, Linda.
A figure lay in the corner of the living room, the one which McCall spotted from outside. I immediately recognised the shoes as Paul’s. They were stomping boots coated in a thick layer of mud. His body stayed dead still, and that’s exactly what I feared he was. The officers surrounded him like bees to honey, doing some form of emergency procedures on Paul Roberts. They had far more experience than me, in that regard, so I let them go at it.
Thousands more pictures littered his living room walls, though these kinds were not beautifully framed. Instead, these stuck to the wall with sellotape. Messy and downright hideous. Hand-drawn triangles were scribbled into the plastered ceilings, and notepads laid opened at random, filled to the brim with ink drawings. From a glance, they were occult scribbles and momentos, drawings of creatures, and lists of nonsense which nobody but the writer could decipher.
Not a typical priest in the slightest. His entire house suggested rebirth in some form. The man who married Linda in those photographs was entirely different, worlds apart. Sensible and average. Now we were left to deal with an erratic, converted Satanist who transferred to the dark side instead of peace and tranquillity.
“Paul, can you hear us?” one of the officers urged. “Paul Roberts? Stay with us, Paul, keep breathing.”
Packets of emptied tablets resided close nearby to explain the cause of Paul’s state. I stooped low to pick up a package and read their labels. Paroxetine. Although he showed no sign of consciousness, the man’s face seemed unusually alive. Strands of broken, dead hair flicked unevenly to frame his uneven face shape. His regular frown lines were magnified by the dozen, leaving lines covering the bridge of Paul's nose, around his eyelashes and even the very corner of the mouth area. Even the colouration stayed similar, extremely pink and translucent. He can’t have been unconscious long.
“What do these do?” I questioned nobody in particular.
“No idea,” McCall replied. She huffed at the sight of Paul Roberts, praying he’s not gone too far to recover. We had burning questions. “Ambulance is on their way.”
There was not much McCall or me could do to help the officers out without getting in the way. We only hoped Paul would survive long enough to open up to us, as dehumanising as it sounds.
“Geez.” McCall slowly paced around the dirty, uncleaned room, overfilled from junk and pieces of paper. As well as pentagrams scrawled and scratched into his wall, there was also scribbles of sentences that spoke no sense. She rifled through his notebooks noisily and even touched a few piles of wooden junk scraps, getting a sense of how Paul Roberts lived his sinister life.
“Finlay?” McCall’s lower register caught my attention, and she didn’t even glance away from the sight she stared at. I walked over, avoiding a lot of rubbish on the floor and managed to miss an especially grim chunk of mould. The house, though picture perfect on the outside, held a lot of secrets inside.
In the gloomy mist, my own eyes took a while longer to adjust. When they did, my body tingled from a mixture of fear and strange relief. Underneath the half-ruined sofa and situated in the gap between floor and furniture, the tip of a sharp knife pointed out. Quickly hidden by a careless man, stashed not too dissimilar from Jack Harper’s efforts. It didn’t take a brilliant detective to notice the dried blood pattern staining the sharp point.
“If that’s our murder weapon, we need to get this to forensics. I’ll tell DCI Campbell to send them our way,” I noted duly, touching nothing else in fear of staining the scene.
“He didn’t wash it away then.” McCall’s voice held a mixture of concern and excitement. If the knife held blood from our victims and prints, we might have solved the case.
“Bloody hell,” I said in disbelief under my breath, still staying with Paul for the time being. Our relief was shared in peace before the rush, and streams of medical professionals began. Moments of extreme euphoria, of adrenaline made all the strife’s of our occupation worthwhile.
“Looks like you got him, Finlay,” McCall’s face tilted to meet mine, euphoric from relief but also undertones of excitement. We were
exhausted, that much was true.
“I’m not counting my lucky stars just yet, McCall. I learnt that from last time. Anything could happen.” I swallowed thickly, a red band of pain rising in my lungs. This case felt within reach but also threatened to be another letdown. “And I didn’t do it alone.”
I thrust my bruised hands into my pockets, awkwardly. McCall stared at the weapon, unable to stop staring at it.
“There was Mandy and the team.” I overheard the officers giving Paul Roberts CPR in vain. “And you.”
Paul put into perspective how fragile and easy life could be taken away. From something as simple as an accident, or deliberate attempts to take someone’s life.
“You’re tired. There’s no way Finlay would be saying this on a normal day.” McCall nudged me exhaustedly, leaving me to offer the officers help until their ambulance arrived. I glanced around, seeing Paul's fall from priest to drugged up, vicious creature strewn all through his home. The rest of our team barged in a while later, joined by SOCO to offer assistance now that the hard work was over.
I stayed close to Paul Roberts until the ambulance arrived to cart him to hospital, the last thing I noticed was a smirk flushed across his grey lips.
It’s a mad and hectic life.
27
Two days after Paul Roberts' discovery, McCall and I stepped side by side, holding forbidden hospital food in one hand and properly brewed tea in the other. If one of the ward nurses caught us, they would lecture us to Timbuktu. Passing a dozen other patients who groaned or miserably whined in pain, we found the police guard outside Paul’s room.
“He’s awake?” I asked. “Someone notified us this morning. Apparently, he’s able to listen and speak clearly. Tell me it’s true.”
The Devil's Due: A Cooper and McCall Scottish Crime Thriller Page 24