A Bleeding of Innocents (2 page)

Shapiro knew. When Alan's sons had arrived at the hospital to sit with their mother he had slipped away for a spell to see Donovan. He wanted very much to know what had happened, what they'd been doing round the back of the gasworks, what Donovan had seen before the car sent him reeling. But Donovan was unconscious. The doctor said he was in no danger, he'd wake up in the next few hours. But while Shapiro was there all he did was mumble and make loose, uncoordinated pawing gestures at his bandaged head.

Then a nurse came to say he was wanted in the intensive care unit and a woman still in theatre greens broke the news that they'd lost DI Clarke. They'd done all they could but realistically his injuries were too great for him to recover. Shapiro took Marion and the boys home, and stayed as long as he was needed, and when he returned to the hospital Donovan was awake and already knew about Clarke.

Shapiro rather regretted that. He had not been looking forward to the job but Clarke had been a copper and Donovan was a copper and he should have heard it from another copper not a doctor who, however well-meaning, could not understand the kind of relationships forged on the streets where men routinely saved one another's skin. In two years at the sharp end Clarke must have owed his life to Donovan, and Donovan his to Clarke, perhaps several times over.

Shapiro said, ‘I don't suppose.…' and stopped.

Donovan looked at him, the dark eyes haunted. ‘What?' The Irish accent was always more pronounced when he was tired. Today he sounded as if he had just got off a potato boat.

‘That anything more's come back.'

Bitter and somehow ashamed, Donovan's gaze licked his face before returning once more to the middle distance. ‘There is nothing more. I told you. Do you think I'm lying?'

‘Of course not,' said Shapiro. ‘But a bad concussion can leave your memory disjointed for a while. If you keep going over it, sooner or later you may find something else. You're a detective, for God's sake, you know that.'

Donovan nodded. He went through it again. There was nothing new. It was told in a few sentences. He spoke the words as if they tasted bad. ‘We went on foot from the railway depot. I watched our backs: nobody followed us. We went under the viaduct and suddenly there was a car behind us, headlights full on, coming fast. I don't know what make: light coloured, but you know that from the paint chips.' He meant the ones picked out of Clarke's flesh. ‘Anyway, it's no help: it'd be stolen specially for the occasion.' Shapiro said nothing.

‘We were in close to the wall, there was plenty of room for him to pass. But he hit us. Then he stopped the car and walked back. I didn't see his face, just the movement against the tail-lights. He walked to where DI Clarke was lying. Then he stood over me for a couple of seconds, then he went back to the car. The reversing lights came on. Then another vehicle came into the tunnel behind us and he drove off. Then I passed out.'

Shapiro nodded. The first time he'd heard this Donovan had been shaking, whether from shock or fear or fury he couldn't tell. ‘I know you couldn't move. But when the man was standing over you, what could you see?'

‘Striped trousers, leather shoes, knee-length coat. Smart.'

Still nothing new. ‘What did he say?'

Donovan frowned. ‘He said something? I don't remember.'

Shapiro shrugged. ‘It's likely he said something. If it was an accident he'd be shocked, that can make people babble. And if you're right and it wasn't an accident he maybe wanted to crow a little. For his own satisfaction, you know? He couldn't know you were still conscious. He probably thought you were both as good as dead.'

The edge on Donovan's voice sharpened. ‘He didn't think I was dead. He thought he had to run over me again to be sure.'

‘Well, maybe,' allowed Shapiro. ‘Or maybe he hit reverse when he wanted second gear. Have you never done that?' Perhaps Donovan never had. ‘Well, I have. Without being in shock.'

Donovan was still frowning, his brows drawn together under the rather long black hair that the wind was whipping in his face. The autumn day was swinging between Indian summer and bleak midwinter depending on whether the sun was breaking the clouds. ‘He could have said something,' he said slowly. ‘I don't know. He stood over me and—' Then his face cleared, surprise smoothing the skin. He had thought there was nothing more to remember but there was. ‘He rolled me over with his foot. And he said … And he said …' But it wouldn't come.

Shapiro caught his breath. ‘He kicked you?'

‘No, not really. I was on my face, and he stuck his toe under my shoulder to turn me over.'

‘And he said something?'

Donovan's profile was hatchet-sharp against the scurrying clouds. There would be no more sun that day. He shook his head as if to clear it. ‘Yes, I think so. I don't know what he said. But I can – you know – hear his voice almost. I just can't get a grip on it.'

‘Don't worry about it,' said Shapiro. ‘Just give it some thought. If it's in there it can be got out. It may not help, but you never know. Whoever he was, whether it was an accident or not, I want this man. I don't like burying my officers, and I particularly don't like doing it while those responsible are still at large.'

Donovan said, ‘Has anyone been to see—?' and Shapiro cut him off in mid-sentence. That was not a matter he wanted Donovan taking an interest in.

‘Yes,' he said shortly, ‘I have. He has an alibi.'

Donovan's eyes kindled. ‘Of course he's got an alibi. He'd have that fixed up first! You can't believe a word he says. He knew we were on to him, there's nobody in this town had a better reason for turning Alan Clarke into hamburger!'

‘That's enough,' snapped Shapiro. More gently he added, ‘I do know the background, Sergeant. I know the kind of man he is: he's a liar and a thug, and I'm not going to rule him out of the enquiry just because he throws up his hands in well-feigned horror. But I'm not going to try and fit him up either. Before I charge him I want some evidence, because if you're wrong and this was just a happy accident for him I could end up losing both of them: the one through trying to frame him for the wrong crime, the other – the driver – through not looking for him at all. Trust me, Donovan: I've been in this business a long time, I know how to do it.'

He looked at his watch then and it was time to make his appearance at the Clarke house. ‘Look, I have to go now. And you should be at home. Can I drop you?'

Donovan had been leaning, string-thin, against one of the young trees with his hands fisted deep in his pockets. Now he pushed himself upright and shook his head. ‘I've got the bike outside.'

Shapiro shuddered. ‘Do as I say. See if you can coax up any kind of memory – what he said, something about how he looked – from that half-minute before you passed out. Call me if you think of anything. Otherwise, try and get some rest.'

He watched Donovan walk away, stiff and slow, his thin shoulders hunched in the black leather jacket, his head down, no sign of the restless energy that had irritated Shapiro so often in the past. Two thoughts competed for his attention. One was that Donovan didn't look well enough to ride a bus, never mind a 750cc motorcycle.

And the other was that while anyone might have an accident, and almost anyone might panic and hurry away, there was a degree of deliberation about turning an injured man over with your foot that gave a sort of credence to Donovan's conspiracy theory, after all.

Mr Wilks claimed there was a thief in the nursing home who had stolen his left slipper. Mr Prescott and Mr Fields agreed: Mr Prescott's right slipper had disappeared, as had the twelve-foot rock python which Mr Fields had left watching
Neighbours
on the dayroom television. Sister Page faced the challenge of solving the crimes before she left for the weekend.

The python problem was readily disposed of. There was no snake; or rather, though it was perfectly real to Mr Fields it remained obstinately invisible to everyone else. Kerry Page asked gently if Mr Fields had thought to look in the bathroom; and when she saw him a minute later there was a seraphic smile on his well-scrubbed face and she supposed the python was back where he wanted it. Mr Fields spent his boyhood in India and had kept snakes there. Now he was over eighty and living in a geriatric home. His wife was dead and his children lived at the far end of the country; when they did manage to visit half the time he did not recognize them. So it was to those sunny far-off days he turned for respite from the dreariness of old age. The imagined python was his security blanket.

The Great Slipper Theft did not detain her much longer. She looked in Mr Wilks'locker, then in Mr Prescott's. She gave Mr Prescott the slippers she found there and he, rather shame-facedly, gave the slipper off his left foot to Mr Wilks. She wished them a pleasant weekend and said she'd see them on Monday.

In the office she completed her paperwork before handing over to Sister Kim. But there was still no sign of the blue and silver 4x4 in the car park so she settled on the edge of the desk for a bit of a gossip while she waited.

‘Where are you going this weekend?' asked Sister Kim. Kerry Page had arranged to leave early; she assumed there was some reason.

‘Oh, only down to the cottage,' said Kerry. ‘But David said he'd be finished by three o'clock so we thought we'd make an early start and miss the traffic.'

‘Traffic?' exclaimed the Chinese nurse. ‘I didn't think they had
roads
down there.'

‘I meant, getting out of town,' smiled Kerry. Actually there was a perfectly good road to the cottage. The 4x4 was an affectation.

‘One day, when I'm old and rich and married to a jet-setter,' sighed Kim, ‘I shall have a cottage in the country. In the mean time I'm trying to persuade my landlord that hot running water is not a passing fad.'

Kerry grinned. She had visited her colleague's flat often enough to know it was perfectly comfortable. ‘I keep telling you, David is not a jet-setter. He flies a plane for a living. It's a very small plane. It'll take three passengers if they're good friends. Cabin service consists of one packet of crisps each and a supply of paper bags.'

Kim sniffed. ‘If my husband was a professional pilot I'd weekend in Monte Carlo.'

A soft-throated rumble reached them from the car park where the blue and silver car was turning under the trees. Kerry stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder. Then she looked at the Chinese nurse with a serious expression and a twinkle in her eye. ‘If your husband was an aerial taxi-driver, and you'd been married less than two years, and he was younger than you and hadn't yet got over the thrill of being able to stay up all night without his mother getting on his case, you'd want to spend the weekends somewhere a lot closer than Monte Carlo.'

Brian Graham stood in the middle of the room, turning slowly on his heel and shaking his head. It had been described to him as a studio flat but Graham had been at teacher-training college: he knew a bed-sit when he saw one. ‘You need more space than this just to empty your briefcase.'

‘I shan't be working here. I shall be sleeping here. There's the bed, there's the wardrobe, there's the cooker, and the bathroom's through there. It's all I need. I shan't be here long.'

‘How long?'

‘I told you, I don't know,' said Liz. ‘A fortnight, maybe a month. Until they get themselves organized. It's a big blow to a small division, losing a DI and having a detective sergeant put out of action in the same incident. All I'm doing is filling in till they can make a permanent appointment.'

Graham sniffed. ‘It sounds a bit irregular to me.'

Liz smiled at his petulance. It wasn't like him, She thought with a warm glow of satisfaction that he was missing her already. ‘It
is
irregular. At least, the way it was arranged was. But I've known Frank Shapiro for ten years, he's been more help to me than anyone else in the Force, it really isn't asking too much for me to step in and help him now. It's not as if I'll be missed. There are DIs coming out of the woodwork at Headquarters but Alan Clarke was the only one Frank had. I can put up with' – lacking a word for it she waved a hand round the comfortless room – ‘for a month if it'll help him out.'

‘But you'll be home weekends?' Inflected as a question, it was actually a statement of intent.

Liz sat on the bed beside him and linked her arm through his. She was a tall, good-looking woman with a lot of fair hair that for work she wore in a French pleat but which at present hung down her back in a thick girlish plait. ‘Exigencies of service permitting' – it was the formula which said that effectively police officers were on duty any time they were needed – ‘I'll be home at the weekends.' Her smile turned impish round the corners. ‘If not, you can always come up here on Saturdays for a bit of how's-your-father. You could sleep on the sofa.'

Graham looked at it. It was a typical bed-sit settee, two-seater if one was anorexic, an adequate put-you-up for a dwarf. Graham was six feet tall. He gave Liz a censorious frown. ‘What, and miss the Middle School soccer friendly?'

Graham unpacked her things while she changed, then she drove him to catch his train – they'd left his car at their local halt – and went on to the police station. She'd promised to let Shapiro know when she arrived. She wasn't sure if she'd find him in his office on a Saturday but someone would give her a cup of tea and show her round.

Shapiro was not only in his office, he'd been watching for her. The desk sergeant showed her up but Shapiro met her on the stairs. His eyes were warm with welcome. ‘Liz. I'm glad you're here.'

They had known each other for more than ten years. In another division, almost it felt in another life, she had served as DS to Shapiro's DI. He was the first to treat her as a police officer rather than a police woman. Everyone else complimented her on making sergeant not in Community Relations or Traffic Branch but in the male-dominated world of CID, but Shapiro encouraged her to take her inspector's exams, and to take them again when she was initially denied the promotion. He wanted her to show results that would shame the board into giving her her due. He knew she was a good detective: if the police force could not recognize a good detective when it saw one it wasn't as good a police force as it ought to be.