Hard Girls (28 page)

Danny nodded. There wasn’t anything else he could do. He had the apology he craved and he knew that if he pushed it, their partnership was over. They shook hands and were both extremely glad that the episode was behind them. They were adult enough to draw a line under it now.

‘So, you heard about Desmond then?’

Danny nodded and smiled at the glee in Patrick’s voice. ‘God pays back debts without fucking money. The O’Learys are over the moon.’

Patrick grinned. ‘I bet they fucking are. Us Micks, for all the jokes about us, are shrewder than the average person. My old mum always said that the Mick mentality, when used to its fullest extent, is the equivalent of a locomotive. It steams along and runs over anything in its path.’

Danny laughed, but he couldn’t stop himself from thinking,
I’ll tell my sister that
.

‘Now then, Danny Boy. Down to business. When do I get my money back?’

Colin Charter was a heavily built man in his forties. He had a bald head, merry blue eyes, and the arms of a bodybuilder. Kate liked him at once.

‘James has lived at Buxton House for about nine years. When the illness allows him to be, he is
very
intelligent. It’s a shame really, without the disorder he could have made something of his life. If you look at him properly, full on, you can see where he was operated on. At nineteen, he took to his own face with a cut-throat razor.’

Colin waited for Kate to compose herself after that little bombshell but shrugged when he noticed that, unlike most people, she didn’t wince.

‘Go on.’

Colin sighed. ‘I checked the list of dates the murders occurred on. James was here on all but one of them. He plays Monopoly for hours with another resident, Andrew Spark. They are obsessed with it, and argue all through the game.’

‘Do you know where he was the other night?’

Colin nodded. ‘Because he had refused his medication, something he does occasionally, he was in hospital, so that when he had his break with reality we were ready for him. We can’t make him take his medication if he chooses not to, we’d need to get him sectioned first.’

‘Did you know he used prostitutes?’

Colin shrugged. ‘He’s over eighteen and we understand that he is a fully functioning male in that department. We can’t stop him from doing anything unless it’s dangerous.’

Kate understood that the doctor’s hands were ti black and white. ft to lookyed in many respects. ‘It turned out to be very dangerous for the young women involved.’

He shrugged. ‘We can’t watch him twenty-four-seven, and he isn’t currently sectioned.’

‘Has he ever attacked anyone here before? Only today, he went on the rampage twice in three hours.’

Colin shook his huge head and said sadly, ‘He is a paranoid schizophrenic. If you surround him at any point then I think we can safely say that he would attack. We know better than to do anything like that though. He was frightened, the voices were telling him God knows what. Like anyone who felt threatened, he attempted to defend himself. It’s not rocket science. He won’t wash because he believes there are drugs in the water that will sink into his skin and dissolve him from the inside out and he cut his face off because he thought he was someone else, he believed a stranger was taking over his body. Not just any stranger, an extraterrestrial stranger at that. So, no, he’s never attacked any of us. But we are always prepared and we know how to deal with people with his condition.’

‘Prepared, like the boy scouts?’

‘More like the CIA and the FBI combined. But listen, Miss Burrows. James is not your guy. We’ll review his care plan in the light of what you’ve told us though.’

‘Thank you for your time.’

Colin nodded. ‘You’re welcome. I know this sounds strange, but he can be good company when he’s on his best behaviour.’

Kate didn’t answer him, she just didn’t know what to say.

Annie and Margaret Dole sat in the canteen drinking coffee.

‘She’s a bit concussed, but she’ll be all right, bless her.’

‘Poor Miriam. I bet it was funny in a sick kind of way though!’

Annie grinned. ‘It was. I mean she took that poor little solicitor down with her. She’s a big girl.’

They laughed again at the image.

‘He really looked good for it.’

Annie nodded. ‘Kate didn’t think so though. She said at the outset that he was too disorganised, too manic, and she was right.’

Margaret smiled slightly. ‘She’s
always
right from what I’ve heard.’

Annie knew she could take the comment in one of two ways. She could either agree with Margaret in a nice way, commenting on Kate’s experience and years in the job. Or she could decide to be a bitch and remark on Kate being a know-all and hard to work with. Neither of which were true. It amazed Annie that she even had to think about which way she was going to go and proved that her jealousy was far deeper ingrained than she had realised. After everything they’d been through together, of late, and she
still
felt jealous?

‘Look, Margaret. Take a tip from me. Kate was the one who got you on this gig because, to be totally honest, I didn’t want you. You’re a marler, and you need to develop a bit of loyalty. You can learn more from Kate Burrows in a few hours than you could from anyone else in the police force if you shadowed them for the rest of your career. So save the innuendo for someone else.’

Margaret’s wide blue eyes were stretched to their utmost. She knew s their nearest and dearest,3 in the yhe had just made a really bad move, and she was desperate to cover it up.

‘I was only joking around, Annie. I mean, come
on
.’

Annie stood up then and, smoothing down her trousers, she said nastily, ‘If that’s your idea of a joke, Margaret, I’d rethink me whole comedy standpoint if I was you.’

As Annie left the canteen, she knew that her reaction had been so vehement because she felt just like Margaret, and it galled her.

Jealousy was such a destructive emotion. Kate said that to her about eighteen months ago, when they attended a homicide to find three young children crying hysterically and their young mother stabbed to death by their own father. The father had believed that she was having an affair, a rumour that turned out to be totally false. Jealousy had destroyed five lives, and been the cause of one life being ended brutally and viciously. It had been Annie’s first run-in with the aftermath of a jealousy-fuelled murder and she knew that it would not be her last.

The image of those poor children still haunted her. As did the images of those poor young working girls, tortured and dying in agony, not even able to make a sound.

Jealousy had nearly stopped Annie from doing her job to the best of her ability and getting justice for those girls. She knew they were
all
very lucky to have someone of Kate’s stature on the case, as it were. So she determined to learn everything she could and maybe one day, some young up-and-coming murder detective would feel the same way about her. The thought made Annie smile.

But it still didn’t make her feel any better. Whoever was out there, preying on these girls, was still at large. It was like he was invisible. Why did no one see him come or go? He had to have been seen by somebody at some point, surely? But, as Kate said, some people blended in so well they were like wallpaper, no one noticed them after a while. Well, this bloke had to make a mistake soon and, when he did, they would be waiting for him. As Kate said, sometimes you had to play the long game. Without any forensics or sightings they could only wait and hope. But knowing all that didn’t make it any easier.

Kate saw Patrick’s name flash up on her mobile phone screen and cut him off. She felt thoroughly satisfied by doing so.

As she steered the car into the hospital car park, she wondered what poor old Miriam had inadvertently done to be targeted by James Delacroix. She could only assume it was her sheer bulk. In the tiny room she must have looked even bigger than normal and with her wacky hair and open-toed sandals she could look very intimidating.

As she parked and walked up to the ward she made a point of not smiling, Kate wanted to look contrite and concerned for the woman’s physical welfare. After all, Miriam had taken a major blow to her head. As Kate walked on to the ward she saw Miriam immediately, she was hard to miss, after all.

She approached Miriam’s bed with a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates purchased from a nearby petrol station.

‘Is that you, Alec? Where have you been, dear? I’ve been waiting for hours.’

Kate felt a deep sorrow suddenly overwhelm her. This woman had lost the only person in the world who seemed to care for her. It occurred to her just how lonely Miriam must be. Neither she nor Alec had been what you would call popular. But for all that, they seemed happy enough with each other, it appeared that they didn’t need anyone else.

‘It’s Kate, Miriam. Kate Burrows.’

Miriam’s eyes cleared and she was once more lucid.

‘Oh, Kate. How kind of you to come.’

She saw the flowers and chocolates Kate had laid on the bed, and her eyes filled up with tears.

‘Are these for me? How kind of you to think of me in here when you have so much else to do.’

Miriam was visibly shaking with emotion and, instinctively, Kate put out her hand to grasp Miriam’s. The gesture was interrupted by Miriam slowly and painfully pushing herself up in the bed. Sitting upright, the huge lump on the left-hand side of her head was clearly visible.

‘You took quite a blow there.’

Miriam nodded. ‘It hurts like hell. But I’ll be out before the morning. Just a precaution, they said.’

‘Well it’s better to be safe . . .’

‘. . . than sorry.’ Miriam finished the sentence with her and they both laughed.

Kate was amazed at the difference in Miriam’s demeanour. That crack on the head must have done her good. She was ashamed by her thoughts, but felt them just the same. Miriam was easier, light-hearted even. Kate wondered if it was because she had had a bit of attention, because someone had bothered to see if she was all right.

‘Well, it’s an old saying, but a true one.’

Kate smiled her agreement.

‘How’s that poor man?’

Kate filled her in on James Delacroix and his condition. Miriam tutted and shook her head sadly. ‘They do a great job there, you know. People don’t like having those kind of people on the streets, and I can understand that to an extent. But, at the end of the day, Kate, we all have to live somewhere, even those poor unfortunates.’

‘I suppose so, Miriam. Not everyone is as generous-hearted as you though.’

Miriam sighed gently.

‘Have you anyone to look out for you, when you get home?’

Miriam shook her head but replied gaily, ‘Oh, I’ll be fine, it’ll take more than a knock on the head to stop me from doing my good works.’

Kate felt her heart sink, she had a feeling that the holy Joe part of Miriam was about to burst back on to the scene. Miriam seemed to read her mind. ‘Why do people find religious belief so distasteful? Religion is the founding block for all the great civilisations of the world. I devote my life to the Bible because that is exactly what it tells you to do. If you live by it, you will be rewarded. Not here, not on earth, but in the afterlife. I just want to help people, Kate. That’s all. People who have been written off by society for one reason or another.’

‘And you
do
help people, Miriam. You are a good person.’

Miriam looked almost tearful again. ‘I try to be, Kate. Especially now my Alec has gone. It’s been hard without him.’

‘I’m sure it’s been terrible for you, Miriam.’

‘I still listen out for his key in the front door, I still expect him to walk in as if nothing bad had happened and he was still alive their nearest and dearest,3 in the y. He won’t, I know that. It doesn’t stop me from wanting it to happen though, does it?’

Kate sighed. She was humbled in the face of such abject sorrow and determined to be nicer in the future. It took all sorts and she, better than anybody, knew the truth of that old nugget.

‘Well, ring me when you can leave, and I’ll pick you up, OK?’

Miriam started to object but Kate waved her protestations away. ‘iriam, who she

Chapter Sixteen

Kate was tired out although she tried to stay awake in case the hospital called. She regretted her offer of a lift to poor Miriam, but she was determined to make good on it. She
did
feel sorry for the woman but, at the same time, she didn’t feel the urge to be in her company unless it was deemed really necessary.

She knew that she was being unfair - Miriam was one of life’s misfits and, as such, should be entitled to some kind of compassion. The trouble was, Kate only felt that compassion for short periods of time. It might be unjust, but that was how she felt about it all.

Annie had already turned in. After the emotions of the day - the excitement and then the disappointment they all felt - it seemed they all needed some well-deserved space from all that was going on.

It didn’t help that Lionel had issued a press statement saying that they had apprehended the murderer. He was a fool of the first water, a fucking moron, but then he always had been, so why she was feeling surprised at this latest balls-up, she wasn’t sure.

She had precisely ten missed calls from Patrick. Well, he could whistle ‘Dixie’ for all she cared now. When she had spoken to him before she could hear a hangover in his voice and she mentally shrugged. It looked like he needed a drink before he could trump Eve. Well she was welcome to him. He was a two-faced ponce, and that was something she would tell him to his face if she ever saw him again. The hurt was easing though. With all that was going on, it certainly put her own problems into perspective.

Kate opened her eyes and realised that she was on the verge of dropping off. She shook herself awake, then picked up the phone, called the hospital, and asked for Miriam’s ward. She assumed as it was evening that Miriam was still there. She put the phone down five minutes later. Miriam had discharged herself and gone home earlier. She sank back on to the sofa and cursed her under her breath. However, she did hope she was OK, and considered calling her, but it was late and she knew Miriam would be an early-to-bed kind of girl. She would call her first thing, that was all she could do for now.