White Rage (39 page)

‘You asked me to be discreet.'

Perlman checked the wing mirror. ‘And?'

‘I was discreet.'

‘So why is Sandy Scullion right behind us, Dennis?'

Murdoch blushed, a boy with his fingers caught in the sweetie tin. ‘Okay. I told him. He asked me if you'd called. I suppose he guessed you wouldn't stay in hospital.'

Perlman sat back, fell silent, sensed encroaching blackness. He thought of his pain, and then all the pain in the world, the whole sharply vibrating pulse of pain that held the planet captive. Babies dying for want of food and medicine and water, people mutilated by shells and shrapnel in stupid wars: the world was a great big globe of misery spinning pointlessly. I'd like to stop it, save just one child, just one small sad undernourished child –

Aye, the hero again, always the hero.

‘Sergeant? Hello?'

Perlman opened his eyes, confused a moment. ‘I must have dozed.'

‘You were muttering,' Murdoch said.

‘I was dreaming of something. I can't remember. Something unpleasant …' He stuck his hand in his pocket and fingered the painkillers. Now? No, wait, postpone the moment.

‘Let me take you back to the hospital, Sergeant.'

‘No.'

‘Then just tell me which way we're supposed to be going.'

‘Take me here.' Perlman gave Murdoch the slip of paper he'd received from the Samaritan.

Murdoch looked at it. ‘If that's what you want.'

‘It's what I want.'

Murdoch turned his car around, changed direction; in the wing mirror Perlman saw Scullion's silver Citroën, a metallic glint reflected in the glass. Murdoch glanced in the rearview mirror, presumably checking that Scullion was still keeping track. Satisfied, the young constable relaxed into his seat, his hands loose on the wheel.

‘How you feeling, Sarge?'

‘I think I'm alive.' Perlman felt his eyelids weighted, but this time he fought sleep off. He concentrated on the street. Tenements, small shops, cafés. People stared in windows, women pushed prams, toddlers clutched parental hands. A café door became a flash of light as it swung open. He glimpsed a black-haired girl frothing milk under the spout of a cappuccino machine, then the door shut and she was gone. A drunk stared in an estate agent's window, a shoe on one foot, the other bare. Laundry hanging from a clothesline came and went. Old men and stout women walked dogs in a park, and children dipped their hands in a fountain and splashed. Perlman thought he saw a Dalmatian, but wasn't sure.

‘We're almost there,' Murdoch said.

He turned off the main drag and parked his Ka under the dense branches of a broad-leafed tree. Scullion slid his Citroën in behind the Ka. He got out, hurried to open the passenger door of Murdoch's vehicle, and stared at Perlman.

‘Explain this, Lou. Why are we here? Why the hell are you out and about?'

‘Last night a man was generous enough to take me to the Royal after the … let's call it the incident.'

‘And?'

‘He gave me this address.'

‘Who was this man?'

‘Never told me his name. All he gave me was this paper. Why does he want me to come here, Sandy?'

‘To thank him. He wants a medal. Who the hell knows?'

‘I don't get the feeling he was looking for rewards. I think he had something else in mind. I don't know what.'

‘So we check out this address and then …?'

‘We'll see.'

‘Lou, for Christ's sake, you're not up to this.'

Perlman got out of the car, trying to make it look easy, he didn't have a care in the world. He took a few steps away from the vehicle. He was steady, balanced perfectly in an imperfect world. ‘See, Sandy?'

‘Great, you can walk a couple of steps.'

‘Be impressed, laddie. Share my joy.'

‘I'm over the moon, Lou.'

Murdoch locked his car and pointed to a row of sandstone tenements that overshadowed a bowling green. ‘We're looking for number fourteen.'

‘Ready?' Scullion asked.

Perlman was about to say yes he was ready, yes he was sharp, when he paused and stepped back, leaning against Murdoch's little car. ‘Wait.'

‘You okay?' Scullion asked.

‘That woman.' Perlman nodded his head in the direction of the street that ran alongside the railings of the bowling green.

Scullion asked, ‘What about her?'

Perlman studied the figure. She was about a hundred yards away, her eyes fixed to the ground as she walked,
trudged
, with the foot-weary manner of a person whose life has been one of rejection; broken hearts, strangers' beds, jobs that never lasted more than a week or two. She had a scarf pulled up around her head and she wore small round glasses. Her jeans were three or four sizes too big. She stopped, as if she'd heard a sound that troubled her. She stood in a cowed way, a half-stoop that suggested she expected to ward off a blow from an unseen assailant.

‘What is it, Lou?' Scullion asked.

Perlman peered hard through his lenses, one of which was smeared with a pale rose spiral of dry blood.
Good act. One of the city's downtrodden
. ‘It's her.'

‘You sure?'

‘It's her,' Perlman said again. ‘I'm sure.'

‘Let's pick her up,' Scullion said.

‘Wait. See where she's going first.'

The woman stopped outside a door and rang a bell. Immediately, the door opened and she entered the tenement.

‘She went inside number fourteen,' Murdoch said.

Scullion was impatient. ‘We could have stopped her, Lou.'

‘Right. We could have. Now my bet is she's going to see the guy whose name is on the paper.'

‘Oyster,' Murdoch said.

‘So we get them both,' Perlman said.

‘What makes you think we
want
them both?' Scullion asked. ‘This Oyster might be an innocent bystander. He might even be the guy with the eyepatch, Lou.'

‘I don't think anything Celia does is innocent. I don't think any of her acquaintances would be innocent either.'

Scullion stared at the sandstone building. He shook his head in the manner of a man who never knows where his partner's impulses will lead him. ‘Okay. Let's go.'

They walked alongside the bowling green. When they arrived at a spot opposite number fourteen, they crossed the street then stopped outside the security door where Murdoch looked at the buzzers and the nameplates.

Perlman saw the name:
J K Oyster
.

Scullion asked, ‘I assume we don't ring the buzzer and wait out here politely to be invited inside, right?'

‘Agreed.'

Scullion hesitated. ‘Okay. You make the decision, Lou. You're the one who wanted to come here. This is your connection.'

Perlman thought for a moment. He knew there was only one course of action, and that was to enter the building now. What was the alternative? Wait in the street for Celia to come out? No. What if there was a rear exit she could use instead, a door that led to back courts, an escape route that gave her access to the nearby park? If she left that way, she could vanish entirely.

They had to get through the security door.

Perlman examined the names of the other tenants. There were eight in all. Choose at random. He pressed a button marked Quinn. No answer. Next name down: Clayne. He pressed this button also.

A woman's high harsh voice came over the intercom. ‘Who's there?'

‘Police,' Perlman said.

‘Oh aye? Polis, eh? Prove it.'

‘We need access to the building, Mrs Clayne. If you can come to the front door, we can show you ID.'

‘I've been conned before,' the woman said. ‘All kinds of rascals in the streets these days. And far worse besides. They scunner me, so they do. I'm no opening the door to a stranger.'

Scullion pushed his face towards the speaker. ‘I'm Detective-Inspector Scullion, Mrs Clayne. I understand why you're reluctant, and I don't blame you. You're welcome to check my ID. Or, if you like, you can telephone Force HQ at Pitt Street, and they can verify I work there before I show you my card.'

‘If I come down, can you slip your ID under the door?'

‘Gladly,' Scullion said.

‘I'll phone the polis office first and make sure they've actually got somebody called Inspector Scallion –'

‘That's Scullion.'

‘Aye. Right. Whatever. Stay where you are. Gimme a few minutes.'

Scullion thanked her, then looked at Perlman and sighed.

‘We should've kicked the bastard door in,' Scullion said.

Oyster and Scallion, Perlman thought. Items on a menu.

He wondered about the eyepatched man again, but then any questions he had just slid out of his mind. It was enough, he thought, to stay upright and keep going. Which he was managing: just about.

She stood at the window with her arms folded and her back to the room and said, ‘I can go after him again.'

‘Maybe,' Oyster said.

‘I don't like to fail, Jack.' She turned to look at Oyster. He had the distracted expression of a man calculating. She wished she could read his mind. He seemed distant, and disapproving, and she felt she'd let him down on a profound personal level, failed him as you might a friend. But that was daft, there was no friendship between them. They used each other. They were in a partnership whose limits hadn't been well defined, but she knew how the deal worked anyway: either you succeeded, or you went your own way.

‘I'll get him,' she said. ‘I've never failed twice.'

‘Why did it happen?'

‘I was flustered. People came to the door.'

‘Amateurs get flustered,' he said.

‘I felt pressure,' she said.

‘Professionals work best under pressure.'

Fuck you, Oyster. You weren't there. You don't know.

‘Maybe you need more direction,' he said.

‘From you?'

‘Is that so ludicrous?'

‘I don't know.'

‘You think I don't do violence?'

‘I think you're capable of it.'

‘Why?'

‘Something in your eyes I can't read. Something you hide. I don't know.'

‘It's best you don't know,' he said.

He scared her suddenly. The light in his eyes went out and she found herself looking into a substance that resembled an icescape with no end to it.

She said, ‘Then don't tell me.'

‘Then don't underestimate me,' he said.

She walked round the room. ‘Another chance,' she said.

‘I'm not stopping you.'

‘I lost the gun.'

‘You're a careless wee thing,' he said.

‘I was running. It slipped out of my pocket.'

‘Now you need a replacement.'

‘It would help. If I'm to finish what I started.'

He stepped behind her. Unexpectedly, he put his arms round her body, closed his hands over her breasts, held her this way for a moment. She shut her eyes. She realized she'd been waiting for this; hoping. She felt his breath on the back of her neck. He lowered one hand to her outer thigh, then moved it slowly inward, and she parted her legs a little to give him access to her, if that was what he wanted. His lips touched her neck so lightly she could barely feel the pressure. There was an inevitability about this. She covered his hand with her own, and forced it into her groin. He undid the zip of her jeans. His touch was sure. He edged aside the material of her underwear, and slid his fingertips inside her gently. She reached behind, opened his zip, felt how hard and swollen he'd become.

‘Jack,' she said. ‘Do me, do me from behind.'

She took his cock in the palm of her hand. She bent a little, tugging her clothes away from her body, sliding her jeans down, waiting for him to enter her.

Her voice had become wispy. ‘Jack, do me, do me now.'

‘Turn around,' he said.

‘Any way you want it.'

‘Let me see your eyes.'

She turned, mouth open, legs apart, clothing at her feet, and looked at him. ‘Fuck me, hurry, fuck me, please.'

‘Baby baby,' he said.

She shut her eyes and waited. She spread her legs wide.

He slid open the drawer of the lamp table at his side and removed a silenced gun and held it to her lips. She opened her eyes and said, ‘Oh Jack, do we need special effects?' and he used the heel of his hand beneath her chin to push her away before he shoved the gun hard against her teeth and pulled the trigger.

She was blown back and fell, limp and suddenly heavy, tangled in her clothes. He looked at her for a time, then arranged her jeans and underwear to cover her nudity.

Too bad, he thought.

Perlman saw Scullion's ID card vanish under the door, but the woman didn't open up, nor did she return the ID.

‘How do I know this is the genuine article, eh?' she asked.

‘Just open the door and check the picture against my face,' Scullion said.

‘I'm not opening. You could be these racist killers for all I know.'

‘What would a racist killer want with you, Mrs Clayne?' Perlman asked. He was having a strange shivery spell. Floating in space. He fingered one of the painkillers in his pocket. Maybe this was the time.

‘How do you know I'm not a Paki or something?' the woman asked.

‘You don't exactly sound like it,' Scullion said. ‘Did you phone Force HQ?'

‘They said there was a Scullion, aye, but how do I know that's you?'

Murdoch made a lunging gesture with his shoulder; he'd break the damn door down if he was given the signal. Scullion shook his head. ‘Naw naw,' the woman said, her voice muffled by the thickness of wood.

Perlman asked, ‘Mrs Clayne, you a Catholic?'

‘Aye.'

‘As one good Catholic to another, I'm asking you to open the door.'

‘What church do you go to?'