Tick Tick Tick (14 page)

‘Could you have been any slower?’ he says.

‘You know I always do my best.’ I flick him a smile.

‘I don’t doubt you.’ A fake smirk, along with tired eyes — he’s as fed up as me.

‘Smart man.’ I say, patting his back. ‘So what are we have supposed to have missed?’ My tone is disbelieving, and I don’t bother to try to hide it.

‘Who the hell knows?’

‘Well let’s go see, shall we?’

We don the usual protective suits, not usually needed after the search has already been completed, but if someone says we missed something it’s better to be safe than sorry. I’m pretty sure this is a complete waste of time that only professional crank callers knew how to throw our way; but hey, you never know.

One step at a time – the clues are always there, you just need to find them.

Detective Davies, head of the forensic team follows us inside. We move carefully through each room; it’s as though an air of desolation has overtaken the house, the soul of it ripped out with Frankie’s death. I can see nothing new. We search the sinks, the bath, and even remove the panels. Forensics move around with the Luma-Lite, but nothing else is there.

Jesus Christ, when are we ever going to get a damn break? I move through to the back bedroom and remember this is where the dismemberment took place. The sheets are still covered in stains, already checked again by forensics, but it’s still like a goddamn bloodbath. The walls have blood splatters indicative of the severing of the head, the arteries must have still been pumping to have reached that high up on the wall. I notice that his collections of memorabilia have been ransacked.

‘Your guys?’

‘Nope,’ replies Davies.

‘Get them bagged and down to the station,’ I reply, suddenly paying more interest.

I pick up an old photograph album and flip through the pages. For the first time I can see what the old man actually looked like through the years. Looks like he had a nice family, happy – they would be happy no more, not one single solitary day would go by when they don’t remember Frankie, and the way he died. Not for the first time since the Kathy Garland case, I feel utter despair wash through me.

I’ve seen all I needed to see; yes, some nutter had got back into the house to see what he could find, but apart from ransacking the joint, we’ve turned up nothing fresh – I knew it was a crank call. Davies is already out the front door, with Mack close behind him. I’ve just put my hand on the door frame when the phone inside starts to ring. I glanced back, unsure whether to go and pick it up. That moment’s hesitation saves my life.

The resounding bang of the bomb rips through the building, catapulting us out of the house. Flames lick at the walls as the windows blow out, glass flying like shrapnel, hailing down on us. I see Davies being hurled onto a car, then bouncing into the street. The noise is deafening; a roaring fills my head as another explosion rips through the house, fire raging through the ceiling and licking the night’s air. Response cars quickly arrive at the scene, with their sirens blaring, and I can hear the ambulances in the far-off distance. Coppers rush at the house from all angles.

‘Stay back,’ I scream. No one can hear me above the flames.

Another bang, and this time the whole house starts to crumble. I manage to crawl on my hands and knees to what I think is a safe distance, but others aren’t so lucky. I can hear the screams of coppers on fire, their hair matted in flames, their flesh being melted from their bones. It is total carnage and utter chaos. I struggle to get to my feet, my breathing laboured. A car draws up beside me and I feel a hand grab my jacket and haul me in; the accelerator pedal is floored and we disappear into the night. I strain through smoky eyes and see Mack’s face sitting beside me.
Holy God
, I think,
we were nearly killed.

CHAPTER 15

I glance down at the multitude of bruises on my legs and arms; already they are erupting into a variety of colours, a dull green intertwined with blues and the occasional red. Parts of my skin are lacerated with the shrapnel from glass; I try not to wince when the nurse with Bambi eyes carefully pulls each shard out. Christ it hurts though. I feel like my head has been pounded off a brick wall about a dozen times, and I can feel a small egg-shaped bruise at the front on my hair line. My ribs feel as though I’ve gone twenty rounds with Muhammad Ali – who am I kidding? I’d only last about two, and even that’s if I did a lot of running.

I glance over at Mack. He’s taken a beating just like me; the full, normally ruddy face is pale, almost whitewashed. Two vivid scars run down his left cheek, like a woman’s talons have left their mark. His trousers are covered in impaled glass and his breathing comes slow, but steady; he’s still in shock.

Davies looks the worst; he’s laid out on a trolley while a team of nurses hook him up to IVs, heart monitors and try patching up his ribs. It looks like he has a punctured lung, judging by the rasping, rippling noise coming from the back of his throat. His hair is singed, as are his legs. The stench of burning skin pervades every pore, every fibre of my being, and I feel physically sick. Some son of a bitch set us up. I want to know who, and I want to know why.

Coppers are wheeled past me at speed; some screaming in absolute and utter agony, others are burns victims, sedated so that the medical teams can get their clothes off easier. One goes past and he simply stops breathing; a cardiac team pounces on him from nowhere and proceeds to jump-start his heart back into the land of the living. It nearly gives me a heart attack just watching. Once Bambi has finished with me, I’m helped over to Mack, and we sit on the hospital bed just looking at each other. We both know how close it was, and there’s no need for words at that moment. We both know we were set up –
we should have been killed.

Connie runs through the casualty department doors, her hair flying behind her, her face drawn, anxious. I think she really cares about me, you know. Her hands fly to the now rather large, egg on my head, her fingers gently stroking my face. Silent tears slide down her face and her worry lines crease as she glances at Mack. He manages a nod in her direction; she blows him a kiss.

‘What the hell happened?’ she asks.

‘A bomb, or rather several bombs, at Frankie’s house.’

‘Why the hell did you go back in?’ she fumes.

‘An anonymous tip-off, said we’d missed some forensics. It needed checking.’ God, my head hurts.

‘You could’ve been killed.’ Her hands grab mine tightly.

‘I’m okay.’ Macho man bravado, I know.

‘No one’s okay while this piece of garbage is still on the loose.’ I know she’s right, but there’s sod all I can do about it at the moment.

She helps me into her car, a rented PT Cruiser, all alloys, burgundy metallic paint, and stainless steel. I still wonder why she likes it; perhaps it reminds her of home?  I slide along the back seat and try to get comfortable, or at least a position that doesn’t hurt like hell every time the car moves. The traffic is light, and I’m grateful that the flat is only a fifteen minute ride back home; each corner and every pothole, inflicts a little more pain. Connie frequently glances in the rear-view mirror, but doesn’t question me anymore, just keeps checking that I’m still alright. Once back home, she helps lie me down on the couch, props some cushions behind me, and a large glass of whisky is thrust into my hand.

‘Drink, you’ll feel better.’ Now who am I to argue with a good woman? I don’t tell her about the painkillers I’ve already had. I figure she doesn’t really need to know.

 I flick on the TV and there on good old Sky, and even the BBC, is the breaking news. Goddamn it, I hate giving them a story. Pictures flash by showing the fury of the fire that ravaged the house and nearly killed, me, Mack and Davies. It was a ruin of burnt mortar and ashes. I sit watching what could have been my own funeral – now isn’t that a nice sobering thought? I take a large gulp of whisky, and then another.

‘I think it was probably your killer,’ she said.

‘You and Sherlock would’ve made a great team.’ She actually smiles. ‘But why change the methods now?’ I say.

‘It was a warning.’ She sits beside me, stroking my neck.

‘What do you mean?’ I think maybe the pills and whisky are kicking in.

‘What triggered the bomb?’ she asks evenly.

‘Who knows … I didn’t see anything, only the damn phone rang.’ I look at her as it dawns on me. ‘The son of a bitch was there?’

‘Oh yes, you can count on that. He watched every move that you made, counted you all in and back out, then just as you were leaving, he triggered the bomb in the phone, and probably set the others off as well.’

I can’t believe the son of a bitch was there. He had been so close, watching every move that we made. Fury rages within me again, as if I’m going to burst. I try to recapture the faces that had been standing outside, but then he could’ve been sitting in a car watching us. A warning – why not just send me a death threat? Bastard. But I know one more thing about him – he has a damn good knowledge of explosives.

I can’t sleep tonight, even though I’ve popped a couple more painkillers. Pictures of Kathy Garland, Raymond Brick, Frankie Bush and Mandy Arthur play through my head like a video on constant rewind. Mutilated bodies lying on slabs, being dissected by pathologists, forensics sifting through looking for a shred of evidence where none is to be found. I feel like it’s happening all over again. I don’t even want to go down that route, but the thought of the past failures haunts me; it always has and it always will, no matter what anyone says.

I must have finally dozed off, for when my eyes flicker open Connie is leaning over me with a breakfast tray, and boy does it smell good. Thick toast with lashings of butter, grilled bacon, mushrooms, warm, buttery scrambled eggs, and a pot of hot coffee. God I love her.

‘Dig in, hero.’

I ignore the hero, but start stuffing my face anyway. She sits on the bed sipping a mug of coffee, watching me. It’s always slightly disconcerting when you have an audience watch you eat, but hell I don’t want to offend her. After I’ve finished she places the tray on the bedside table, and I yank her back down beside me.

‘You’re injured.’

‘Only if my legs had been blown off, or if I’d died, then I’d have an excuse. But right now I want you, in this bed, naked beside me.’

She smiles. ‘Are you sure you’re up to it?’

‘Why don’t we try and see.’ Her dressing gown slides to the floor, as I think I’ve died and gone straight to heaven.

She lies in my arms, her breathing soft and steady, dozing after a pleasurable sating of the body. My ribs still ache, but even the bruises and cuts seem a little easier now; it’s amazing what a woman’s touch can do for you. Just as I’m about to let my hands wander down to her ripe breasts, the damn phone on the bedside table breaks into the silence. I snatch it up with my free hand.

‘Downey?’ It’s Mack, and I don’t like the tone in his voice.

‘How are you feeling old man?’ I ask.

‘Like someone ran over me.’ There’s a pause, too long a pause.

‘What’s up?’ I know the answer before he tells me.

I hear his intake of breath. ‘We’ve got another body.’

I sit bolt upright. ‘Who reported it?’

‘A friend of the deceased.’

‘Where?’

‘Ten streets down from Kathy Garland.’ Shit, there’s going to be a media frenzy now.

I’m already getting out of bed. ‘Name?’

‘Lucy Watts, aged forty eight, separated, husband now living in Lenzie, near Glasgow, daughter in London.’

‘I’m on my way.’ I smack the phone down.

Connie is awake and listening to my responses, she knows what’s happened.

‘He’s working faster,’ she says.

‘I know.’

She looks at me in confusion. ‘You can’t go in your state.’

‘I have to.’ I start shrugging on some clothes, trying to ignore the pain. ‘It’s my patch, and he wants me to see the body, I have to go.’

‘Be careful.’

I kiss the top of her head. ‘I’ll try. In the meantime, keep the doors locked, don’t open them for anyone.’ I grab my jacket and keys.

She shakes her head. ‘He won’t come here.’

I stop and stare at her. ‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because it’s you he wants.’

CHAPTER 16

I haul myself into the car and swing into the heavy traffic. The words keep resounding over and over in my head.
It’s you he wants.
Is it me? Were all these brutal killings just a means at getting at me? Or was I supposed to die as one of the victims? An old woman and her balding husband in a silver Jag pull out in front of me, nearly slicing my own car in two. I swing hard and press the pedal to the metal, at the same time I flick on the lights. She can’t be a day less than seventy, grey haired and wrinkled skin, and is oblivious to the blue flashing light. I thump my horn at her, but he simply turns, smiles and pulls up the victory sign as she grips her steering wheel and mouths obscenities at me. Now aren’t the retired just a polite bunch? I make a mental note of her license plate and am determined to have her scrawny arse hauled in later for obstructing a policeman – that’ll teach the old bird.