A Bleeding of Innocents (24 page)

‘A doctor saw him half-dressed at Carney's house ten minutes after the event! He wasn't just up, he was just back!'

Shapiro shook his head. ‘Maybe. Maybe we can even prove it to a jury's satisfaction. Tomorrow we'll start picking at the knots, see what we can unravel. But tonight we're taking a break.'

‘Tomorrow may be too late,' said Donovan through clenched teeth. ‘Sir. Look, it was a botched job. They got interrupted: they didn't mean to leave me alive. OK, it's taken till now for me to get my head together enough to know I can nail him. But Carney's known it all along: he must have decided what he'll do if I say I saw McMeekin under the viaduct.'

‘Then perhaps you shouldn't,' suggested Shapiro. ‘At least not so loudly; at least not in public.'

Liz frowned. ‘What can he do? He can hide McMeekin away for a while. But if he's keeping out of our way he's not doing his job. If Carney's any sense he'll stand his ground and invite us to prove something. I don't think we can.'

‘We can so!' exclaimed Donovan. Liz blinked. ‘Sorry, ma'am, I don't mean to shout, but— We can have him, if we do it now. You're right, he won't want to hide McMeekin: Terry's his right arm, he won't trust anyone else with the things he needs Terry for. I should have known it was him I saw: how many heavies dress like that? I underestimated him, I thought he wasn't ready for the big time yet. But Carney
is
big time: there's not that much difference between breaking legs for him and breaking necks.

‘What I want to know is, who was driving? Was McMeekin there as an observer, looking after Carney's interests, or did he do the job himself? We can have McMeekin, we can have Carney. But if there's a third man, he's the one who took money to smash up a man he'd never met, and I want him too.

‘OK, so what I remember won't convince a jury. But we weren't idle these last three months: Alan scraped together a lot of information before they got him. We know who we have to talk to. Once they see that we're going to do this, that we mean to make it stick, somebody's going to come down off the fence. Now we have something to work with it'll only take a bit of a shove to start the dominoes falling. You know that, sir.' The appeal to Shapiro won a slight nod, that was all. ‘Anyway, it doesn't have to convince a jury. We can use it another way.'

Despite her misgivings about its author, Liz was getting interested in the theory. ‘How?'

‘The first thing we do is put an armed guard on Page.'

‘What?!'

‘Oh no you don't,' said Shapiro sharply. ‘That young man's been through enough. You're not using him for bait.'

‘I don't need to. We can protect him, make sure nobody gets near him. But by God it'll put the wind up Carney. He'll think we've got our case. He'll have to do something about it.'

‘He'll come after Page. If it's that or going down he'll give it his best shot, and you know as well as I do that you can't
guarantee
anybody's safety. I'm not risking Page's life so you can panic a dangerous man into a desperate act. We'll get him, but we'll do it by the book. That way nobody gets hurt.'

‘And maybe nobody gets caught either,' spat Donovan.

Liz neither raised her voice nor significantly dropped it, but there was no mistaking the warning in her tone. ‘Sergeant, you're out of line again. Operational decisions are not your province. We've heard you out: if Mr Shapiro doesn't think the end justifies the risk, there's nothing more to be said. Sit down and have a drink.'

‘I don't want a frigging drink!' he exploded. ‘Listen to me. I don't want to risk Page's life. I don't have to. If Carney knows he's safe he has to come for me. He has to break the chain of evidence, yes? It takes both of us to put McMeekin at the scene: if I'm dead it doesn't matter what Page heard. So it doesn't matter which of us he shuts up. If he can't get to Page he'll come for me.'

‘And what'll you do?' demanded Shapiro. ‘Hit him with your plaster?'

To Donovan it was no laughing matter. His eyes flashed angrily and his lip curled. ‘I kind of hoped I might get some back-up. Sir.'

For a long minute it seemed as though Shapiro was considering it. His eyes went distant and seemed to follow the flight of an invisible butterfly across the heads of his officers at the bar. Liz waited with interest, wondering what she would have said if it had been her decision.

Finally Shapiro's gaze found its way back to Donovan and, half apologetically, he shook his head. ‘It's too risky.'

‘It's a risk I'm willing to take!'

‘It's not a risk you can take alone, though, is it?' Shapiro snapped. ‘Whoever gets the job of covering you is at risk too. If Carney comes mob-handed somebody'll get hurt. However many people I can spare for you, however well armed and well prepared they are, if Carney thinks his safety depends on killing you there's going to be bloodshed.'

‘And if we don't get him there'll be bloodshed too! At least we're paid to take the risk. If we let him stay in business a whole lot of ordinary people who have the right to our protection will suffer instead. That's not fair. They pay the piper, we play the tune.'

Then, his temper rising as their voices had risen in the heat of the argument, Shapiro said something unforgivable. ‘It's easy for you to talk. We all know what'll happen if we set you up as the target. The poor sod next to you'll get smeared all over the pavement.'

Liz flinched. She saw the words hit Donovan in the face and the shock-wave ripple through his eyes. For a second he was literally breathless. Then he gasped, ‘You bastard!'

Liz leaned quickly between them, laying a hand on each man's wrist – or Shapiro's wrist, Donovan's plaster. ‘Sergeant! Sir. That's enough. If either of you has any more to say, let's go back to the office where at least we can be offensive in private.'

It was a vicious and petty jibe, uncharacteristic of him, and perhaps already regretting it Shapiro turned away. But Donovan had shot to his feet, shaking off Liz's hand. ‘Is that it?' he demanded, his voice climbing. ‘Is that why you won't do anything I ask? You blame me for Alan's death? My God, is that why Marion won't see me – did you tell
her
I got him killed?'

Shapiro shook his head irritably. ‘Of course I didn't. Sergeant, we're tired – we're all tired—'

‘You're damn
right
I'm tired.' Liz thought Donovan was actually shaking with passion. ‘I'm tired of being the scapegoat every time something goes wrong. I'm tired of trying to do my job and getting damn-all in the way of back-up. I joined CID to catch criminals, not to exercise my elbow in the local pub. We could catch this man: now, today. But you're not going to, are you? It's easier to let him be and hope he'll do the same for you.

‘Well, if you've lost interest in catching criminals you won't be needing detectives any more.' He threw something on to the table. It was his warrant card and it landed with a splash in a shallow pool of spilt beer. ‘Write a report about that. You're good at writing reports. Not too much of a risk element; not too much to go wrong.'

Shapiro eyed him wordlessly for a long moment. Then he picked up the card, wiped it carefully with his handkerchief and held it out. ‘You give me this thing one more time, Donovan,' he said quietly, ‘and I shall keep it.'

‘Keep it,' echoed Donovan, the accent thickening round the words. ‘You might as well, I've no more use for it myself. If I can't do the job it empowers me to do it's just so much excess baggage. Keep it. File it. I'll manage without.'

Shapiro came to his feet angrily, throwing the card down on the table. It landed in the beer again. ‘I'm warning you, Donovan, stay away from Carney. If you won't work with me you have no further interest in the case. Keep out of my way. If you obstruct my investigation I'll see you behind bars, by God!'

‘Bars?' snorted Donovan derisively. ‘Dear God, the only people you ever see behind bars are barmaids! A man could die of old age waiting for you to arrest him!' With that parting shot, and with every eye in the place on him, he turned on his heel and stalked out.

Somebody whistled. Somebody else said, ‘He's done it this time.'

Liz stared into her glass, mainly to avoid looking anywhere else, and breathed lightly for a minute. Then she said, ‘That was edifying.'

Shapiro had sunk back in his chair. Discomfiture was etched on his face and he shuffled his shoulders inside his coat. ‘I don't think I handled that very well, did I?'

Liz kept her eyes glued to the sliver of floating lemon and said nothing more.

She was a working girl. Actually she was a woman of close to middle age and because of the work she did she looked older than that. Not at first glance. At first glance she looked like any other twenty-five-year-old waiting for her date, long legs stretched between a short leather skirt and high heels, masses of unruly black hair piled on her head, ear-rings that jangled audibly as she moved.

Close up, though, the deception was obvious. She wore more make-up than twenty-five-year-olds. Thick mascara gave her a surprised expression. Under the make-up, behind the mask, was a tiredness that had nothing to do with the lateness of the hour. She wore a tight leather waistcoat, no blouse, and a velvet jacket that fell from her bare shoulders with practised ease whenever she sat down. She was a working girl, but it was midweek and the work wasn't coming easily. By the time she walked into the Rose and Castle she was looking for a sit-down and a drink more than a customer.

And a sit-down and a drink were all she was likely to find in the Rose and Castle that evening. Half an hour before closing time the place was already emptying. There was a single man at the bar but he was drinking too seriously to be worth chatting up. A little muscle relaxant oils the wheels nicely but a real drunk is a pain in the neck to a working girl. They take too long doing what they can do, some things they can't do at all, and even if they don't fall asleep on the job they tend to think they've got a bed for the night.

But it had been a very quiet evening, Friday was still some way away, and perhaps he wasn't as drunk as he looked. She eased herself on to the stool beside him and ordered a lager and lime. The man didn't look at her. He had both forearms ranged along the bar in front of him and one long-fingered hand wrapped round a pint mug. The other wore a grubby plaster.

‘Been in the wars, love?'

He didn't answer. He dropped his chin on his arms and went on staring at the half-empty mug as if he could see something more than chains of slowly rising bubbles in the straw-coloured liquid.

The woman shrugged, pulled her coat back over her cold shoulders. ‘Pardon me, I'm sure.'

The barman brought her change and a little advice. ‘Save yourself the trouble, ducky. He's a cop.'

The woman startled, her painted eyes widening dramatically. She hauled the coat tight around her as if to keep out more than the cold. Then she looked again. ‘Are you sure?'

Donovan gave a silent laugh and nodded. ‘He's sure. But he's wrong.' His voice was thick with accent and alcohol.

The woman didn't understand. ‘Then you're not a cop?'

Donovan looked at his watch. He took time working it out. ‘Not for the last three hours.'

She should have known better but she was intrigued. ‘How come?'

‘I got fired. No,' he said then, carefully, as if it was important to be accurate, ‘I got myself fired. You keep throwing things at your chief inspector, sooner or later he's going to throw something back.'

The woman grinned. The dark lipstick on her wide mouth was like a slash across her face. ‘What did you throw at him?'

For the first time he looked at her. His eyes were sunk in the hollows of his face. He looked more ill than drunk. His voice was languid, weary and half amused. ‘About the worst thing you can throw at your governor: the truth. I told him he wasn't up to the job.'

The woman whistled softly into her drink. ‘I can see how that'd make you popular.'

Donovan's lip curled. ‘You get no prizes for popularity in this job. You can't do it if you're worried about collecting flak. You got to be ready to kick ass.'

‘And you were, and he wasn't?'

‘Oh yeah. Donovan's always ready to kick ass,' he slurred. ‘No matter what the consequences. No matter who gets hurt. He can afford to: it's never him.' He drained his glass. ‘But oh God, I get so tired always being the lucky one.'

She looked at him without much sympathy. ‘Are you always this sorry for yourself?'

He gave a little snort of laughter. ‘Yeah, I think maybe I am.' He bought refills for them both. ‘You got a name?'

She did the easy, practised smile and let the coat slip once more from her shoulders. ‘You can call me Tina, love.'

He acknowledged that with a lift of his mug, and when he put it down it was half empty again. He drank savagely, without enjoyment, as if it were medicine for a hurt he had.

She watched him for a minute longer, plainly wondering if it was worth the effort. Then she made her play. ‘Listen, dear, many more of those and you'll be sleeping in your own cells tonight. Why don't you come with me instead? We'll have a bit of fun, then you can sleep it off. What do you say?'

Donovan laughed queerly, more at himself than her. ‘I lost my job today. I lost my chance to nail the bastard who killed my friend. I was right, but I cocked it up just the same. Now I got nothing. I wouldn't be much company for you tonight.'

She put a long arm round his shoulders. ‘That's all right, dear. I'll cheer you up, see if I don't.'

He shook his head doggedly. ‘Tomorrow I have to think what to do. See if I've any friends left; see if my enemy'll settle for anything less than my head on a platter. The hell for it: tomorrow can wait.' His eyes groped for her. ‘You got a car?'