Taking Pity (5 page)

1966
, thinks McAvoy.
Bad year to be a Scotsman
.

McAvoy was not born until a decade after the events he has been tasked with investigating. His mother and father had not yet met. His dad was still working the family croft near Aultbea. Still not sure who or what he wanted to be. Never sure whether he should flee the croft for adventure or stay and work the land where so many McAvoys had lived and died. Still a bit of a bastard and a bugger for trouble when the drink was in him. It would be another few years before he met and fell in love with the wild, bright-eyed, and very-English student on a backpacking holiday in the Highlands. Still a few years until he became a father to two strapping sons. Still a few years until he had his heart broken by a woman who left him because his big, strong arms and his brooding intensity were nowhere near as attractive as her new lover’s money.

McAvoy considers the man his father is today. He and his dad have little to do with each other. Haven’t seen each other more than a dozen times since he left the croft at the age of ten and went to a boarding school paid for by his mum’s new man. His dad sends Fin a letter each month, filled with details about life on the croft. Sometimes they include little pencil sketches of views that make McAvoy dizzy with nostalgia. He always asks after McAvoy’s health and even threatened a visit during Aector’s stay in the hospital. But the visit didn’t happen. Fin has still only met his grandfather twice. Lilah has never met him at all. Probably never will. Neither of them have met McAvoy’s older brother or visited the low-roofed, tumbledown property that Aector owns in Gairloch or the snug, well-tended family croft a few miles away. McAvoy wonders what his dad was doing in 1966. Whether he watched England’s triumph in the World Cup that year or spent the evening by the fire with a book, refusing to acknowledge the cheers from the English sailors who docked their warships in Loch Ewe and headed into the towns and villages like marauders.

McAvoy rubs crumbs from his fingers and ponders the name of the church mentioned in the top report. St. Germain’s. It seems familiar. Had he heard about this case when he first moved to the area a few years back? Had he taken a trip to the remote patch of Holderness with Roisin? Did it have some significance to his studies? His training?

He nods, pleased to have remembered.

Andrew Marvell.

When he moved to Hull as a uniformed constable, McAvoy had been single and lonely and had spent his spare time reading up on the area’s history. Andrew Marvell was one of the city’s most revered sons. He represented the city as MP for more than thirty years and became one of the closest confidants of Oliver Cromwell, before making himself equally invaluable to the restored monarchy under King Charles II. More than that, he was a poet who epitomized the metaphysical ideals. And he had been born at Winestead and baptized in St. Germain’s Church, where his father was rector.

McAvoy is pleased he has not had to say any of this out loud. Pharaoh makes fun of his ability to recall odd facts and dates. Reckons he would be a pub-quiz champion if he would just let himself cheat on the questions about popular culture. Laughs at the idea he would be fine on the rounds about astrophysics and literature but would let himself down on
EastEnders
.

McAvoy winds down the window and breathes in the cold, damp air. He needs to order his thoughts. Needs to lay out every piece of paper on a bare wall and input every fact into a database. Needs to see which pieces of data are incontrovertible and which need to be reassessed and validated. But more than anything, he needs to feel a connection. Needs to see where this family met their deaths.

It will take him around forty-five minutes to get out to Holderness. Through the city and on into nowhere. He will learn nothing he can put in a database. Will find nothing of forensic evidential benefit. But he will at least feel something. For these past months, the only pain he has felt has been his own.

He turns the key. Feels the wind on his face.

Drives, through the wind and the rain, to a murder scene built on bones.

9:18
A
.
M
.
The chain pub opposite Hull Crown Court.

Traffic nose to tail, turning the leaves in the gutters into a paste of orange and gold.

Solicitors and coppers, criminals and clerks, hurrying through the sideways rain; illuminated by the reds and yellows of headlights and streetlamps.

Detective Chief Inspector Colin Ray sits on one of the high bar stools, looking out through rain-lashed windows. Watches as the driver of a white van beeps his horn at the tall black woman crossing between the motionless cars, dragging a briefcase on wheels that were not designed to deal with the potholes and cobbles of Hull’s city center. Watches as she jumps at the sudden noise, then gives a nervous wave to the fat prick behind the wheel.

Ray spoons up a last mouthful of hash browns and scrambled egg. Takes a sip of wine and wipes the grease off the rim of the glass with the end of his tie. Takes a look behind him at his fellow diners. It’s mostly men. Old boys. Retired trawlermen with missing fingers and chapped faces. Workmen in luminous yellow jackets and steel-capped boots. A shaky-looking bloke holding a tall glass of gin and orange is leaning on the bar. His shoes are polished to a shine and his blue suit is neatly pressed, but his right leg is shaking in a way that suggests he is due before a judge this morning and is sinking his drinks like somebody who is not expecting to get the chance to do so again for a while.

No new faces,
thinks Ray.
Same shit. Same pricks and nobodies. Same friends
.

He takes in his surroundings. Up, at the exposed air-conditioning units, all coiled steel and polished copper. The walls, with their modern art and blocks of color, their history posters informing him of the rich heritage of this old building, which served Hull as a post office for decades. Down, at the sticky wooden floorboards and blue carpet trodden flat.

He drains his wine. Takes his electronic cigarette from the pocket of his crumpled black shirt and inhales. Scowls at the weak, anemic hit the gadget provides. Wishes he could just flash his warrant card and tell them he wants a fag. A proper fag. Three inches of nicotine and tar, smoke billowing upward in a greasy cloud, masking the stench of men.

He sniffs. The bar smells of damp carpet and clothes dried in musty rooms. It smells of brick dust and mud, mildew and spilled ale. It smells of stifled burps and cigarettes. It’s a place where men in their eighties place their daily budget on the table in front of them and keep drinking until it’s gone or the fruit machine pays out. It’s a pub that caters to the sort of clientele who like their fried breakfasts with a whiskey chaser. It starts serving pints at nine a.m.

The double doors bang open, bringing in rain and wind and traffic noise. Two solicitors with a pretty, little thing. One of them is fat and bearded, leading with his belly and looking around him like he is thinking of making an offer to buy the place. His colleague is a step behind; short and skinny, twitchy and beige. The blonde looks halfway familiar. She’s got on a business suit and flip-flops and has mud streaked up her pale calves. She’s wearing big spectacles and cheap jewelry. She looks fun. The trio order coffees to go. The blonde asks for a muffin. Says it with a giggle and a hint of innuendo and gets nothing back from her colleagues. Sighs, saying, “Tough crowd . . .”

This has been Colin Ray’s routine for the past three months. He has been suspended from work since slapping the piss out of some mouthy little prick in the cells. At fifty years old, he should have known better, but he was goaded into it by a slimy bastard who knew which buttons to press. The victim is dead now but Ray still hasn’t been invited back into the fold. He feels like an outcast. The police have been his life since he was twenty-one. He doesn’t know how to be anything or anybody else. He hasn’t the money to retire—his ex-wives see to that. His various families want little to do with him. He has a teenage son in Bristol whom he last met when the kid was still in nappies, and his last wife has gone back to Singapore with the daughter he gave her. That one hurt. He always did his best by the kid—right up until the point her mum closed her knees for good and sent him on his way. He misses that one. Liked looking after her. Liked the way she squeezed his face and did silly drawings and laughed when he swore. She’ll be nearly ten now. Probably doesn’t remember him. Probably doesn’t know why she looks a bit less bloody foreign than her bitch of a mum.

“Can I take that, sir?”

Ray turns to the handsome young lad who is hovering by his stool.

“Your plate, sir? Can I take it?”

“No, lad, leave it a bit. There’s something almost artistic about the way the bean juice is congealing. I want to look at it a bit more.”

“Oh,” says the barman acceptingly. “No problem . . .”

“Take the fucking plate,” says Ray, pushing it away. “Christ.”

The youngster looks confused but has enough experience of dealing with the breakfast drinkers to know that he shouldn’t make a scene. He takes the plate and retreats. Ray sits back in his chair and returns to scowling at the scene beyond the glass. He can see St. Mary’s Church across the way. Its chimes used to waken him when he first moved to the city center. Now he finds them soothing, like an infant’s mobile, playing gentle lullabies over the grind and fizz of the city’s soundscape.

“Getting poetic, Col,” he says to himself with a twist of his lip. “Be taking it up the arse next.”

He coughs. Sprays spit and undigested food onto his shirtfront and the tabletop. Wipes it with the palm of his hand.

Behind him he hears the doors bang again. Turns around to see that the suits have fucked off. Probably on their way to a trial across the road. Probably going to make a fortune for pushing bits of shit around the judge’s chambers like dung beetles in expensive shoes. He has no time for lawyers. Doesn’t like the way they talk. Doesn’t understand what would compel somebody to do such a job. Feels the same way about parking attendants, traffic wardens, and prison guards. He has a lot of hate inside him. Reserves most of it for coppers who don’t know how to play the game. Despite his own poor disciplinary record, he considers himself to be a passable detective. He’s not bent. Not on the take. He’ll accept a few free pints or a bottle of whiskey as a thank-you or a sweetener, but he would never make the kinds of deals that some of his colleagues have done over the years. It was the head of the Drugs Squad who let the Headhunters take root in the city—exchanging a blind eye for good headlines and ready information. Ray can’t abide that approach. He thinks of a villain as a villain. Hopes he has passed some kind of moral backbone on to the few protégés he has helped out over his long career.

That thought makes him contort his face afresh. Pictures his friend Shaz Archer. She’s been riding his coattails for years and he has enjoyed her company all the way. She’s from money. From good stock. She’s good-looking, fashionable, and sexy as hell, though Ray has never entertained the notion of bedding her. He cares for her. Thinks she could make a good cop. Admires her tenacity and willingness to do whatever it takes to get ahead—even if that means undoing a couple of extra buttons on her blouse while interviewing reluctant witnesses. But she’s let him down during his suspension. Fallen in love with some slick bastard she hasn’t even had the courtesy to introduce him to. Left him lonely and ignored while she has been throwing her legs over her shoulders and making pretty eyes at some ponce from London. Silly cow should know better. She’s got a case of her own that could be the making of her. Lorry driver, stabbed to death while on remand at Hull nick. She’d even known the prick. Had interviewed him months ago while the Headhunters were in the ascendancy and got nothing more for her trouble than a cup of piss to the face. His status as prison hero didn’t last long. Within six weeks, he’d had his throat cut with a sharpened phone card and been left to bleed out in the urinals.

Colin watches the street. Tops up his wine and takes a sip. Wipes his nose with a knuckle and wonders why the fuck he still bothers to put on a tie when the most exciting thing he will do today is go to the market for a couple of slices of cold meat and a six-pack of beer . . .

His phone rings. He doesn’t hear it at first. It doesn’t ring very often, so he barely recognizes the tone. Finally, he pulls the old-fashioned, coffin-shaped phone from his trouser pocket. It’s from a withheld number. He holds his breath. Reaches into his pocket for the battered old pocket tape recorder. Begins recording even before he answers. Wonders. Sneers . . .

“Col Ray,” he says, settling back into his chair and putting the electronic cigarette to his lips.

“Well, hello, Detective Chief Inspector.”

It’s a voice Colin Ray last heard months ago. It’s accentless but refined. Posh without giving much away. It belongs to a man whom Colin Ray has spoken to twice before. The first time it contained promises, and then threats. The second, it adopted a superior, mocking tone, and goaded him into taking a key chain to a drug dealer in the cells. Some people call him Mr. Mouthpiece, but Colin files him under the mental heading of “Gobshite.”

“Well, I never,” says Colin, scratching his armpit with the edge of a laminated menu. “I was just thinking about you. I had dog shit on my shoe, you see, and my mind wandered . . .”

“Excellent, Detective Chief Inspector,” the man says in reply. “I’m pleased to see you have lost none of your spirit. That’s commendable and remarkable, considering the sorry state of your life. You would think, would you not, that if your colleagues really wanted you back they would have resolved the uncertainties surrounding your suspension. One would have expected you to be back at your desk, making a nuisance of yourself, and providing me with the occasional, albeit almost infinitesimal, problem.”

“I’ve missed you,” says Ray, blowing out a tiny puff of smoke. “I knew you’d ring, like. Knew that eventually you’d have to have your say. I hear things are going well for you. Branching out. ‘Expanding,’ I believe is the word you would use. Hope you’re staying on top of things, son. You must be having to recruit faster than you did in the beginning. You sure no bad apples are slipping in? I’m not fishing around for information, you understand. I’m being conversational. Truth is, I’ve heard the rumors. A lot of people have. You’ve made some mistakes, eh? Recruited some right dangerous bastards. You can’t keep a shark on a leash, you know that, don’t you? Comes as no surprise to a tolerable old twat like me. That’s villains for you. Bad lads want to do things their own way. Nobody wants to take their orders from some invisible prick at the end of the phone.
Charlie’s Angels
was a long time ago, mate. People like face-to-face these days.”

After a spell, Mr. Mouthpiece speaks again. There is an edge to his voice that Ray has not heard before.

“There are no problems within my organization, whatever you may have heard. Any business enterprise suffers from the occasional recruitment miscalculation, but I assure you and your colleagues that steps are being taken to remove those obstacles.”

Ray sits forward. He had been stabbing in the dark. Had not expected to hit a nerve.

“That’s the thing with villains, mate—they’re not to be trusted.”

“I did not ring you to discuss the structure of my organization,” says Mr. Mouthpiece sharply. “I rang because I have been informed of the pitiable picture you currently present and wondered if you might at last see the good sense in receiving a regular stipend from my associates in exchange for occasional helpful behavior and information. I hate to think of you sitting there in your shabby clothes, eating a fried breakfast, drinking wine, barking at the poor barman for trying to do his job . . .”

Ray looks around him. Takes in the sea of average men and women. Looks at tabletops covered with crisps packets, empty glasses, and the occasional mobile phone.

“You’re watching me?”

“We watch everything, Detective Chief Inspector. A lot of thought has gone into this operation. We are expanding at precisely the speed we had planned. And as I have always tried to explain to your accommodating colleagues, we do not plan on being here forever. We are a temporary migraine for your officers. Simply look in the other direction for a while and soon you can go back to catching the imbeciles and thugs who have run organized crime so ineffectually for so long.”

“Who you got watching me?” asks Ray, temper flaring. “There’s nobody in here would fucking dare . . .”

Mr. Mouthpiece gives a little laugh. As he speaks again, the faint sound of a siren drifts from the phone.

“Can I presume then that whatever I say to you, you will persist in being obstinate? You will continue to bumble on with your shambolic existence just because you find the nature of my operation so distasteful? Have I not been a better friend than an enemy? I have done what I can to keep bloodshed to a minimum. I have always kept my word. I have brought you good headlines, and though you may not know it, I am actively taking steps to keep one of your number from serious harm. I would expect a little gratitude.”

“Expect away. I just think you’re a knob.”

Mr. Mouthpiece’s next words are drowned out as an ambulance turns right onto Lowgate and whizzes past the window. Colin freezes in his seat. He heard that siren a few seconds ago, coming from the phone. It had passed Mr. Mouthpiece.

Fuck
, he’s somewhere nearby!

Ray hears the line go dead. Realizes that Gobshite, that most cautious of men, has just fucked up.

Ray plays back the recording. He’s been waiting for that call for three months. Been carrying around a tape recorder like a fucking journalist ever since he spoke to the oily bastard and realized that a tape recording of his voice would be a hell of a good bit of evidence if it ever came to court.

He takes a huge sniff and swallows the last of his wine. Wipes a smear of egg from the tabletop and sucks his finger thoughtfully. He’s too old and knackered to start running around the block looking for suspicious characters. But the city center cameras may do the job for him. And he knows a man who owes him a favor.