The Blood That Stains Your Hands (13 page)

'Tell me about it.'

'It was ugly. Political factions everywhere, splinter groups, people meeting in each other's houses to plot and connive. Incredibly messy. I don't know, maybe it was because of our background, but Tony and I used to say to each other, someone's going to die over this. When there's this much anger, this much resentment and this much passion, someone usually dies.'

'And it was Maureen.'

'I don't know. That part just seems kind of odd. I mean, she was a horrible old witch. Really nasty. Used to write all sorts of letters to people.'

'We have copies.'

Go on, tell her everything, why don't you?

'But why now? Believe it or not, things have settled down. St Stephen's broke away, the other three came to whatever accommodation finally worked for them. If someone was going to kill her, you'd have thought they'd have done it a year ago.'

'She was still sending letters. She hadn't given up.'

She shrugs. 'Well, maybe that's it. It just seems not of its time. I wouldn't have been surprised a year ago. Now, well I'm sure I know a lot less than you about it, but I'm more inclined to think she probably killed herself.'

'You know a kid named Tommy Kane?'

She nods. Finishes off her flapjack, takes a sip of tea.

'I know
of
him. I heard what happened. But I don't think I'd ever spoken to him. It's not possible their suicides are connected, is it? That'd just be too weird.'

Have to be careful. I've fallen for her. Right here. Well, not right here, it was during the first minute standing at the church hall yesterday. The dangerous thing is, she feels like someone to talk to. Someone on the inside off whom I can bounce ideas. That's what I want her to be. The person off whom I bounce ideas, while we're chatting over a post-coital cigarette.

But what do I know about her? Nothing. Even all that Red Cross stuff. She could be making that shit up. That's what people do. They lie. Maybe she's trying to impress me, because she's sitting here thinking the exact same things that I'm thinking. Or maybe she's telling the truth, the slight flirtatiousness about her is nothing more than her being pleasant, and this attraction is entirely one way. Wouldn't be the first time.

I manage to stop myself telling her that Maureen and Tommy had had sex, even though it'd be a great way of introducing sex into the conversation. Actually, given the context, not so great. Perhaps, ultimately, that's the reason I don't mention it.

'Investigations are continuing,' I say. 'I know this might be awkward for you, but is there anything you feel able to mention? Anyone who ever openly voiced anger at Maureen for the letters she wrote...?'

'That would be everyone, pretty much.'

'Anyone who looked like they might take it beyond anger? Anyone, any thing, out of the ordinary? I guess, at any time over the last two years, but more pertinently the last week or two.'

She takes her time, then eventually shrugs.

'Sorry, I don't think so. Things have really settled down with us now. We're detached from the mess. David – Rev Jones – is really throwing everything into getting St Stephen's up and running as a single entity, making sure it thrives in the community. He's doing some good stuff. It feels like... you know, I know more about what's going on in Syria now, because of the news, than what's going on down at St Mungo's.'

'You ever get people coming from St Mungo's to your place? Defectors?'

'Been a couple, I think. Not many. David's not trying to be in competition. He wants to get people back, get people that haven't thought about coming before. He's reaching out to the community, not to the opposition.'

I stay for another twenty-five minutes. We talk about the churches, talk about her time in the Red Cross. She senses enough to not ask me about my time abroad. She has nothing else to tell me that's of any relevance to the investigation. Eventually I tear myself away. It's not until I'm almost back at the station that I realise she'd invited me over, saying she couldn't talk at the church yesterday because she had things to tell me in private when she didn't really have anything particularly sensitive to say at all.

*

'Y
ou getting anywhere with the angel's wings and the rat's ribs in the throat?' asks Taylor.

Morrow and I look up. I know we've both tried, although it's been pretty half-hearted on my part. Shake of the head from me. 'Sorry, sir,' from Morrow.

'Yeah,' says Taylor, nodding. 'Me neither. Need to ask some church freak, just not anyone from around here.'

I laugh and shake my head as I turn back to looking through Maureen's paperwork. The endless search.

'What?' says Taylor.

'Basically we need a Bible scholar, but you describe them as a church freak. Funny, that's all.'

'Humph,' he mutters, turning away.

Could have asked Philo Stewart. Wanted to ask. Kept my mouth shut. Taylor stops a couple of yards away, turns back.

'One of the two of you find a Bible scholar and find out if there's any connection between an angel's wings and the ribs of a rat, will you?'

Mock salute. He loves that. He turns. I look at Morrow.

'Yes, sir,' says Morrow.

––––––––

8
.31 p.m. Sitting down to dinner. Stopped off at Tesco, bought a meal for two for ten pounds. In all likelihood I will eat all of it. Cottage pie. Vegetables. New York cheesecake. A bottle of South African Sauvignon Blanc.

I probably won't eat both pieces of cheesecake.

Worked until just after seven. Not much doing on the double suicide/murder/whatever case. Busied myself with a couple of alcohol-related assault cases. Can't get enough of them. Neither of the alleged perpetrators seemed in the least repentant.

One blames alcohol for everything, but I think these two would have been up for the fight regardless, contrition be damned.

First mouthful of cottage pie. Cooked to perfection. Ha! Well, heated up to perfection at any rate. Got Bob playing in the background, not too loud.
Tempest
. I love his voice now. I love the snarling, croaking wreck that it's turned into. Yes, his throat must be completely fucked, but it's magnificent all the same. Seriously, who would you rather hear sing
Make You Feel My Love
, Bob with his other-worldly growl, or simpering Adele, bursting into tears at the drop of a hat?

Adele, you say? Well, fuck you.

So, I've got Sauvignon Blanc, I've got cottage pie, the cheesecake awaits, Bob's on the CD player. What else?

There's the small book, the one I ignored last night, before me. I decided I would look at it over dinner. It feels like work, which is why I'm sitting at the table instead of slumped before the TV. The book that was given to me by the strange little girl. Perhaps strange isn't quite right. She didn't appear strange at the time. Yet I'm sure I've seen her somewhere before, and she becomes strange in my imagination.

The Book of Daniel. I know nothing of the Book of Daniel. Taylor said he thought it was one of the apocalyptic ones, but that was all he knew. One of the apocalyptic ones... That'll be a fucking laugh-riot then. Only one way to find out. The Book of Daniel it is. Right, what have we got? I open the book, turn to Chapter 1, Verse 1.
In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem and besieged it.

OK, not a bad start. War, straight from the off. No messing around, no drawing your audience in by making them care about the characters. Doesn't look like there are going to be any comedy sidekicks.

And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.

Have to re-read that one a couple of times, and still not sure what it means. That's the trouble with the Bible. You start reading it with the best intentions, but before you know it you come across a paragraph that just makes you think, what the fuck?

And the king spake unto Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel, and of the king's seed, and of the princes;

Children in whom was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans.

All right, I'm bored. I mean, if Maureen had written this to some geezer at the church I'd feel compelled to read it. But this? Because some crazy kid hands me a copy outside church?

And the king appointed them a daily provision of the king's meat, and of the wine which he drank: so nourishing them three years, that at the end thereof they might stand before the king.

Now he's giving the kids wine? Nice. I bet these freaks don't talk about this in church. Hey kids, get the fuck boozed up. It's cool, this shit's in the Bible!

Close the book, push it away. The king's seed... Batshit crazy, fucked-up shit.

An apocalyptic book of the Bible. A strange kid in a cardigan that fitted her last year. A minister who reminded me of Hitler. Four churches. Two suicides, more likely murder. Extreme cross-generational sex. Hate mail. An architect, the genius behind the 1950s shit-tip winning the selection war against the more attractive Victorian building. And another man's wife, who used to work in war zones, and now lives in my town. Not to mention the beautiful silence of sitting in that old Victorian building up the road, accompanied by the woman who sits there with me.

I left Philo Stewart with the old familiar phrase,
if you think of anything else
. Usually I don't care if they call, or if I do, I'll hope it's something of significance. This time, I hope she calls about anything. To remind me to tie my shoelaces, to tell me to get my car serviced before winter kicks in. Anything. Just call.

But then, it hardly matters, because I'm going to call her.

The cottage pie comes and goes. I work my way through the bottle of wine. The CD comes to an end, and then automatically kicks back to the start. Bob croaks on. I finish the wine. I eat a piece of cheesecake. I try to think about the case, but all I think about is Philo Stewart.

*

I
wake in the night, troubled by something. I was talking to someone, I'm sure I was.

Who was I talking to? Talking in my sleep. Must have been talking in my sleep. Was there someone else here?

Lie awake in the night, staring at the ceiling, feeling cold, listening to the occasional car on the road outside.

––––––––

T
uesday morning. Me and Morrow, at our desks, working away like good little soldiers. Filling in paperwork. Digital paperwork, that is. Completing reports. There's a new system, which pretty much goes without saying. There's always a new system. Computer systems are like football managers. There's always another one just around the corner, and no one ever seems to realise that the best thing to do is to pull an Alex Ferguson and leave the same thing in place for as long as possible.

Budgets seem to disappear when it comes to funding police on the streets or serious crime units, but when it comes to computer systems, the government is ever willing to be taken to the cleaners by large commercial organisations who push their new hardware that will revolutionise policing or health care or border control or whatever.

So we've had another new system to learn in the last couple of months. Another new password to remember. There are, naturally, teething problems that haven't been sorted out yet. The last system never got over its teething problems before it was binned. Now, because we've got the new system to make things easier, they've cut some support staff. We have to do more of our own paperwork as it's all so much easier.

In all, we have very little time for policing. This is how government-funded jobs now work. More with less. That doesn't make any kind of sense, not in reality. You can't do more with less, unless you were fucking around before. But no one's been fucking around for years.

More with less is just management wank, that's all. And it's inherently insulting. It's saying, you have the capacity to work much harder than you have been doing. You have the capacity to do everything you've been doing up until now, plus all this other shit, plus getting to grips with a new computer system every two months.

My thoughts on how big a bunch of wankers these people are, are always at their most virulent when I'm attempting to update something on the new system and it's not letting me, keeps throwing me back a stage and making me start all over again.

It's a good thing I'm so cool and even-tempered,
or I'd fucking throw this dumb-ass stupid fucking piece of computing shit out of the fucking window
.

Calm. Calm.

Taylor appears, stands beside our desks.

'What up, diggity dawgs?' he says.

We look at him. The slight smile leaves his face and he waves away the flippancy and, frankly, absurdity of that line.

'Got laid last night, then?' I say. Morrow can only aspire to that level of humorous contempt of one's superior officer.

'Not saying,' says Taylor.

'You don't have to.'

'Moving on,' he says bluntly, and you can see that now he's let that little bit of good humour at last night's successful campaign out into the world, he can relax, stop smiling, and get back to normal. 'Either of you any further forward?'

We both shake our heads.

'Sorry, sir,' says Morrow. 'Spent the last hour on here trying to upload one report.'

'Ditto.'

He nods, stares at our computers.

'I suppose they'll work out the glitches over the coming years,' he says. 'It might be up and running properly before it's replaced. Look, just been in with Connor.' He hesitates, shakes his head. 'We need more than we've got. We all know how this looks, but it's been four days since the last murder, death, suicide with bones in his throat, whatever you want to call it, and we've nothing definite. Sure, the church thing is a nest of vipers, but really... That in itself isn't a crime. It's not for us to judge these people. If we've nothing else, Connor's looking for us to wrap it up for the time being, release the bodies.'