The Blood That Stains Your Hands (24 page)

1.15 a.m. Standing with Taylor and Balingol over the cadaver. She's naked. The ten small spikes banged into her head to mimic the ten horns of the fourth beast, have been removed. Her hair is a tangled mat of blood. There are no other noticeable wounds or injuries.

I feel sick. I want to run away, go back to my place and drink vodka from the bottle. I want to be bent over the toilet, puking up. I want to puke up everything. The vodka, what's left of the breakfast she made me eighteen hours ago, I want to puke up my feelings and the self-hatred and the guilt and the fear. I want to vomit and go on vomiting until every part of me is in the toilet and can be flushed away.

'Same dose of sleeping tablets used to sedate her and then, well, impossible to tell, but it could have been the first spike hammered into her head that killed her. Who knows? Pretty sure it wouldn't have been the tenth. Somewhere in between.'

'No attempt to fake suicide this time,' said Taylor.

'Obviously not.'

'Could be that the killer knew the game was up after they were interrupted the last time.'

'Not for me to say,' says Balingol.

Taylor turns to me.

'You're the Daniel expert. Any thoughts?'

I don't look at him. Still staring at the pale, cold face on the slab.

'Maybe you're right,' I manage to say, every word a struggle. 'It could be his original intention was to fake suicide and place some sort of headgear on her, something to indicate ten horns. Then when he was rumbled before, he just thought... this,' and I indicate the matted hair and the dried-in blood.

'Anything else?'

'She'd had sex in the last twenty-four hours,' says Balingol. 'Seems that everyone I see on this damned slab has had sex in the last twenty-four hours. There's all this bloody sex going on... if I ever end up on this damned slab, the pathologist is going to think I'm a virgin, it's been so long.'

Taylor gives him a glance – no one wants to think about Balingol's sex life – and then turns to me.

'Interesting. The husband's away, and she gets to play. Any ideas?'

I don't need to worry about my face giving anything away. I'd already known. Balingol never fails to find out when someone's been having sex. There was no shock when that was mentioned, no, 'holy fuck, man, I've been exposed.'

He's already said that time of death was around midday, an hour either side. That means I had sex with someone the night before they died, and breakfast with them about five hours before they were killed.

I need to tell Taylor. I should have told him already. There's not a good time to do it. There's not going to be a moment when it will be all right, no moment when Taylor will say, 'Gee, thanks, Sergeant, that's valuable information that we can feed into the investigation going forward.'

I just need to get it out there, but I know what's going to happen. My jacket's been on shaky enough a peg for some time now, one shitstorm of hopelessness after another, on and on, with me completely incapable of getting off the rollercoaster.

Rollercoaster? Seriously? Rollercoasters also go up. Where's the up been with me for the last three years? The last twenty years?

I need to tell him. Not in front of Balingol, but as soon as we walk out the room.

Shake my head.

'We just talked about the church,' I say.

'What was her angle?'

'That it was like Syria.'

Balingol barks out a laugh.

'She wasn't far fucking wrong, was she?' says Taylor.

Fuck. As soon as we get out the door.

'Any clues to the age of the guy?'

'Not yet. I'll let you know in the morning.'

Taylor nods, taps Balingol on the shoulder.

'Thanks, Bill.

Balingol grunts. Taylor turns away and I follow.

This is it. Career down the toilet. You know, sure, I didn't have anything to do with it. I didn't kill her. I wasn't to fucking know, was I? But I couldn't just fucking wait, could I? And coming on top of everything else that I've been piling up for the last year.

Jesus.

The door opens. Connor. Looking like I feel. Oh, the poor bastard. Must have so many of his friends upset at him.

'Dan,' he says.

'Just heading back to the station,' says Taylor.

'Stay and talk me through it,' says Connor.

'Of course.'

We turn back. My spirits have slumped so far into the pit, that the presence of Superintendent Connor makes no difference to them. They couldn't go any lower anyway.

'Go home, Tom,' says Taylor.

'No, it's OK. I'll speak to you after.'

Taylor looks at his watch.

'We're going to be a while,' says Connor. 'Go home, Sergeant. It's an order. You look terrible.'

––––––––

M
e and Grace Kelly. One of us dead, one of us might as well be.

What's it going to be? Tomorrow morning, I get in there and I tell Taylor that I fucked the murder victim. That I was in love with the murder victim. Do I tell him that?

I thought I might come home and tip the vodka down my throat, straight from the bottle. Glug vodka until I threw up and passed out. Instead I got home, feeling unbelievably tired, but agitated with it, so that I knew there was no point in falling into bed. Opened the vodka, got a glass, got some ice, got the tonic, got a bag of crisps. Poured a large one. Drank it while I was still standing in the kitchen. Poured another, went through to the sitting room, slumped into my usual seat in front of the TV. Didn't turn the TV on.

An hour later. Still sitting here. The ice has long since melted, the vodka and the tonic have flowed in and then back out the glass. The crisps are long gone. That was dinner. Crisps and vodka. Bob playing on the CD player.
Oh Mercy
on a loop. All those slow songs dredged in warm, sticky mud. Sucking me in, drawing me down to their level.

The small red light is flashing on the phone. There's a message, but I don't want to hear it. I don't want to listen to the sound of anyone's voice. No voices, no conversation. Just the sound of Bob crawling through my veins.

So, what now, Slim? Ready for bed yet?

I don't think so. I don't want to go to bed. If I lie there, I'll be lying where she was. The bed might still smell of her. And she's dead.

Drain the glass. Bitterness washes through me.

Is that what we want, the tragic poets of the world like me?

Did you just call yourself a tragic poet?

Hopeless, doomed love. So much better than that other thing, where you get to move in with the person you fall for, and everything goes smoothly, so that eventually, with nothing in the way, it grows stale and old and tired.

I can see her smiling at me from that table. Just over there. The table just behind me. Maybe if I look round, she'll be there now. Perhaps I can imagine her there forever. Sitting at that table as I looked over my shoulder on the way out the door. What was the last thing she said?

Of course
.

That was it. Her final words to me. Of course. Hardly eternally romantic. Doesn't matter. The thought of her, the sound of her voice, her body beneath mine, the smile across the breakfast table, it's all there and the wave of grief floods over me, breaking down the walls and I bend double, face crumpled, and Bob's singing
Most Of The Time
, and oh fuck, he wasn't singing about someone who was dead, but he might as well have been, and I can see her and feel her and touch her and her body is next to mine, and that agonising, tortuous pain that comes with grief, the one that makes you think you can't possibly bear to be alive for even another fucking second, the one that fills your head and rips out your heart and tears you to bits and spits in your face and crushes you, it fucking crushes you, consumes you, pummels you so badly that you can barely breathe, that pain is squeezing me, crushing me into a tiny, helpless black ball, one that is nothing but pain, and I can't think of the next morning, or the next minute, and I fall forward off the chair onto my knees, lift the bottle and now I'm tipping the fucking thing into my mouth, pouring it so that it's glugging out, as much dripping down my face as is getting in my mouth, come on you fucking piece-of-fucking-shit drink, take it away, take away the fucking pain.

Please.

Please, take it away. That's all I want. I had someone to take away the pain and now she's gone.

You can do the job. Come on vodka, you fucking piece of shit, come on!

I know. I know, it's not the vodka that's the piece of shit.

Finished. Throw it at the TV screen. Misses, hits the wall. Breaks.

Fall forward, tears flowing, great retches.

Bent double, knees at my face, lying on my side.

Take me away.

*

'Y
ou need to get up.'

Cold. Have been shivering for some time, but haven't been able to move. Too tired. Feel terrible. Arms around my knees. How long have I been like this? It's still dark. Did I set an alarm? Of course not. I need to set an alarm. I should have set an alarm. I feel sick. That's why I'm not moving. I feel sick. When I move, I'm going to throw up.

'You need to get up.'

What?

Who said that?

The girl's voice. The young girl. Who is she? Why does she keep showing up? She wasn't there the night I spent with Philo Stewart.

Philo Stewart.

'You need to get up. Get up now. Please.'

Sharply drawn breath.

I sit up quickly. Look around the room. There's no one here. Street lights still on, no sign of the dawn.

Fuck, here comes the sick.

Bathroom.

––––––––

T
he night before was one of those that could have led to me having a day off, but I couldn't afford that. Knew it as soon as I was awake. Knew it as I was leaning over the toilet, throwing up everything that had ever been in my stomach.

Didn't even check my watch, just knew that I had to get up and get on with the day. Drank two large glasses of water. Walked through to the kitchen, made myself some toast. Ate the toast. Back to the bathroom, threw up the toast and the water.

Showered, for half an hour. Began to feel better. The vomiting was over. Shaved, got dressed. Shirt and tie. Made myself some coffee and ate a bowl of granola. More water. Cleaned my teeth, gargled with mouthwash for a minute and a half. Hoped the stench of 1 a.m. vodka was gone.

Now walking into work. 8.15 a.m. Sunday morning, the streets are quiet. The utter desolation of the night before has gone. The sorrow has been washed away by the morning. The walls are back up. I don't know what's going to happen, but I need to tell Taylor. Get it out there. I suspect it's going to be a very short day on the job. He just can't leave me on the case when I slept with one of the victims. That's the kind of thing that the papers say causes outrage.

Outrage As Randy Copper Fucks Victim!
they'd cry, without actually being able to specify who exactly is outraged by it.

Along Main Street, with its pound shops and charity shops and boarded-up windows. I always think of Springsteen as I walk along here. Not Bob. Just the Boss, with his songs of urban decay. Same thing this morning.

Nod at some old guy I helped out once, and who I often see on Main Street. He nods back. He doesn't wince at my appearance, thank God, so there's that. After a night like last night, the following day could be so fucking awful. Head in the right place for this, head in the right place.

Taylor worked late, so hope I get in before him. I want to be waiting for him, get him alone in his office. He won't get mad. He doesn't get mad about this. He'll think about it. He'll tell me to go home. But I'm not going home. I don't know where I'm going, but not home. Not today.

Home is the last place I saw her. Home is where the sheets will still smell of her, where a red light flashes relentlessly at me on the phone, with some message from Peggy or my mum with news of a dead relative or God knows what. I don't want to think about home. I don't want to think about anything.

Maybe I'll just go away somewhere completely different. That might be what I need. Up north. See some snow. Taste some different air.

Up the hill, into the office. Collins is on duty. I nod, he nods back. Again, nothing exceptional. I've pulled it together. There are practically commentators in my head, as though they're describing my comeback to the football pitch from a bad injury, or drug rehab.

Into the office. Morrow not in yet. Well, that's good. The Detective Constable has been looking better than me for the better part of two years now. I need to take these minor triumphs when they come.

Change of shift, the office slightly busier than normal as people come just before people go. Stand at my desk, to which nothing new has been added, and look at Taylor's office. No one there yet.

Right, need to do something useful before he gets in.

The Book of Daniel. Get back there. There's got to be some clue in it, but no one else is looking. I don't
think
anyone else is looking.

Hear footsteps first, and then suddenly, as I begin to turn my head, the cup of warm coffee explodes in the side of my face, the words, 'You fucking idiot, Hutton, get into my fucking office!'

Coffee across my desk, down my jacket, over my shirt and tie. The office stops. Taylor walks past me, looking straight ahead. Catch a glimpse of his face, filled with anger. He kicks his door open, barks out, 'Fuck!' kicks his desk, and stops by the window.

I'm still standing by my desk. Coffee drips from my face. The office is quiet. Pin drop. How many people are in here at the moment? Fifteen? Twenty?

They all stare at me. I look up. Catch the eye of Mrs Lownes. Her look is not at all judgemental. Sympathetic perhaps.

'Hutton!'

I wipe a hand across my face and go through to Taylor's office. Close the door. Stand just inside.

Taylor doesn't turn. Outside the door I can hear the office start to come back to life. They'll remember this. The last day that wanker Hutton came to work.

'What the fuck were you doing, Sergeant?'

I don't answer. He doesn't turn. I don't think I've ever seen Taylor this pissed off. This enraged. This is my level of rage, although I get angry at all that crap that's in my head, and at old people in the supermarket and at old people driving too slowly.