Beneath the Bleeding

by Val McDermid

  Paula stopped in her tracks, shocked to hear Tony speak that way about Carol Jordan’s pride and joy. She didn’t think he had it in him to be so blunt about them. ‘You’re wrong,’ she said. It wasn’t even defiance, just an automatic denial.

  ‘I’m not wrong. Every one of you, you’re desperately trying to prove something. You live the job. And you all want to be the best, so you all go off on your own little missions.’ He sounded angry now. ‘When it works, it’s great. And when it doesn’t…’

  ‘Don Merrick.’ Paula fought to keep her voice cold and emotionless.

  Tony smacked his fist into the mattress. ‘Damn it, Paula, let it go. It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘He wanted to show us all that he deserved his promotion. That he deserved to be one of our elite little band.’ Paula looked away. There were some things she still didn’t like Tony to see. ‘You’re right. We are a law unto ourselves.’

  ‘So help me here.’

  He was, she thought, utterly implacable. It made him a great clinician, that refusal to take no for an answer. But it made him a right pain in the arse sometimes too. She wondered how Carol dealt with it. ‘If I can,’ she said. ‘No promises.’

  ‘No demands,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important, Paula.’

  She nodded, conscript and unwillingly complicit. ‘And if it all comes on top, I am blaming you.’

  Tony laughed. ‘Of course you are. After all, if she tries to sack me, I can always evict her.’

  Friday teatime on the Al was an experience guaranteed to fray the nerves of the most patient driver. It had been a long time since anyone had accused Sam Evans of patience and Carol Jordan was no better. Like most passengers, she was convinced she could get them there faster than the person behind the wheel. As they approached the Washington services, the traffic slowed to a halt. Lorries, vans and cars formed a frustrated clot of traffic, made worse by the opportunists who kept trying to peel off into another lane that seemed to be moving more quickly. Silver, white and black in the gathering gloom of the late afternoon, they formed a monochrome blot on the landscape. ‘This makes the decision for us,’ Carol said, waving at the wall of vehicles around them.

  ‘Sorry?’ Sam sounded as if she’d dragged him back reluctantly from a faraway place.

  ‘Whether to hit him at work or at home. It’s taken so long to get here, there’s no point in considering anything other than home.’ She flipped through the map sheets she’d printed out before they left. ‘We should have brought my car, it’s got GPS,’ she muttered as she tried to make sense of where they were in relation to where they wanted to be.

  It took them the best part of an hour to find Rhys Butler’s address, a red-brick two-up, two-down in the middle of a terrace in one of a dozen identical streets leading down to the Town Moor. The house had an air of depressed dilapidation, as if it were only held up by the sheer willpower of its neighbours on either side. There were no lights visible and no car parked outside. Carol checked her watch. ‘He’s probably on his way home now. Let’s give it half an hour.’

  They found a pub a few streets away. Busy and friendly, the atmosphere made up for the length of time since it had last had a makeover. It was packed with three distinct groups–young young men drinking pints of lager and wearing short-sleeved shirts with the tails hanging over their jeans and chinos; older men in sweatshirts and jeans, beanie hats crammed in their back pockets, hands rough from manual labour, drinking pints of bitter and Newcastle Brown Ale; and young women in outfits that would have looked optimistically skimpy in midsummer, their make-up inexpertly applied, necking Bacardi Breezers and vodka shots like they hoped to hell there would be no tomorrow. Everyone who noticed Carol and Sam stared, but not in a hostile way. It felt more like the look a naturalist would give a previously uncatalogued oryx–a bit exotic, but nothing to get too excited about, we’ve seen the likes of this before.

  Carol pointed Sam at a table in the far corner and returned with a large vodka and tonic for herself and a mineral water for Sam. He looked at it in disgust. ‘You’re driving,’ she said.

  ‘So? I could still have had a lager shandy,’ Sam complained.

  ‘You don’t deserve it.’ Carol took a drink and gave him the hard stare. ‘I had time to think while we were driving up here. You’ve been up to your old tricks, haven’t you?’

  His look of injured innocence was so on the money she nearly gave him the benefit of the doubt. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You didn’t dig this up this morning. You got too much too fast. You sneaked a peek when you were searching Robbie’s flat, didn’t you?’ She was guessing, but the shift of his eyes to the side told her she was right.

  ‘Does it matter?’ he said, stroppy as he could be with his boss. Which wasn’t really very belligerent at all. ‘I didn’t try and keep it to myself. I brought it to you once there was something to go at.’

  ‘Fair enough. But why wait? Why keep it to yourself at all? The only reason I can see is that you wanted more than just the credit for finding the lead. You wanted to show Stacey up at the same time. Because this was her part of the inquiry. So, her miss. Is that what it was about?’ Carol spoke so softly he had to lean forward to hear her. She thought she saw a blush colour his coffee skin but it could have been the warmth of the pub.

  Sam looked away, apparently fascinated by the navel piercing of a woman at the next table. ‘I knew she was over-stretched. I wanted to make sure we didn’t miss anything.’

  ‘That’s bollocks, Sam. We’ve had inquiries with IT elements five times the size of this, and Stacey’s coped. Stacey would have caught this. Maybe a day or two later than you, but she would have caught it. You wanted to be the hero and at Stacey’s expense. We’ve been over this ground before.’ Carol shook her head. ‘I don’t want to lose you, Sam. You’re bright and you’re a grafter. But what I need more is to be able to trust everyone in the team to work together. I once saw a cheesy greetings card that said true love wasn’t about gazing into each other’s eyes. It was about standing shoulder to shoulder, facing in the same direction. Well, that’s what being in MIT is supposed to be like too. This is truly your final warning. If I catch you at this kind of thing again, you’ll be reassigned.’ She downed the rest of her drink in one without taking her eyes off him. ‘And now I’ll have a vodka and tonic, please.’

  Carol watched him go. The anger was clear in his movements. She hoped there was something beyond the anger, something that would make him pause and consider his future. She wished there was a way of reaching out to him, to explain why she was being so tough on him. But she also knew that he would read it wrong, coming from her.

  When he came back with her drink, he’d buried the anger. There was nothing in his demeanour to suggest he was anything other than the dutiful subordinate. ‘I was out of order,’ he said, not looking her in the eye. ‘At school, I was a runner, not a footballer. I never got the hang of it. Know what I mean?’

  ‘Oddly enough, I do.’ She sipped her drink. The single measure was so weak, it hardly seemed worth the bother. ‘What do you think? Time for another look?’

  Ten minutes later, they were back outside Rhys Butler’s house. It was fully dark by now. And still no sign of life. ‘You think we should take a walk round the back?’ Sam said.

  ‘Why not?’ They walked down the street, almost to the corner. A break in the houses led them into the alley that ran the length of the back yards. Sam counted the houses as they went, stopping at last outside the back of Butler’s home. He tried the handle of the door in the wall and shook his head. Carol put her fingers behind her ear. ‘Did you hear that, Constable?’

  Sam smiled. ‘Would that be the scream or the sound of breaking glass?’

  ‘Probably the scream,’ Carol said, stepping back to let Sam have a clear run at it. To hell with equality when the alternative meant you could escape the aching shoulder. He rammed the door, simultaneously turning the handle. The soft wood aroun
d the lock splintered and the door fell open.

  The back yard seemed even darker than the alley because of the shadows cast by its high walls. No light came from the house. Carol reached into her bag and took out a rectangle of plasticized cardboard the size of a credit card. She flexed it and a narrow beam of light spread out from it. ‘Nifty,’ Sam said.

  ‘Christmas stocking.’

  ‘You’ve obviously got an in with Santa. I got socks.’

  Carol moved the light around. The yard was more or less empty. An outside toilet occupied one corner, its door half-open. ‘He’s not been here long enough to accumulate much crap,’ she said. The back of the house had an L-shape, the kitchen jutting out towards them. Windows from the kitchen and the back room both looked on to the empty yard. Carol crossed to the kitchen window and angled the beam inside.

  The kitchen was fitted with the dark wooden units popular in the seventies. It looked untouched since then. Carol could see an electric kettle, a toaster and a breadbin on the worktop opposite. In the sink, she could make out a bowl, a mug and a tumbler. On the draining board, a noodle bowl and a wine glass. Looking over her shoulder, Sam said, ‘Looks like he still hasn’t found Ms Right.’

  Looks like home to me. Carol thought with a pang of recognition. She turned away and did her best to illuminate the other window. It looked as if the walls were a giant collage stretching right round the room.

  ‘Fuck,’ Sam said. ‘Looks like we hit the mother-lode.’

  Before Carol could reply, she heard a noise behind her. The ticking of an idling bike wheel stood out against the steady thrum of traffic noise. She whirled round in time to see a man and a bike silhouetted in the doorway. ‘What the fuck?’ he shouted.

  Sam charged, but he was too slow. The door slammed shut in front of him. Carol ran across to help him pull the door open but there wasn’t enough room for them both to gain purchase. ‘You’re too late,’ the voice from the other side yelled. ‘I’ve chained my bike to the door. You won’t be able to get it open. I’m calling the police, you dirty thieving bastards.’

  ‘We…’ Carol clamped her hand over Sam’s mouth before he could come up with the hackneyed line so beloved of comedy writers.

  ‘Shut up,’ she hissed. ‘If we tell him who we are and he’s guilty, he’ll be off into the night and we’ll have a hell of a job trying to find him. Let’s just chill until the local boys get here and sort it out then.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘No buts.’

  They could hear the faint chirp of mobile phone keys being pressed. ‘Hello, police please…’ This was a nightmare, she thought.

  ‘You could give me a leg-up on to the toilet roof. It’s lower than the wall,’ Sam murmured. ‘At least I can keep an eye out, make sure he stays put.’

  ‘Bloody Keystone Cops,’ Carol muttered.

  ‘Yes, I’ve just caught two people trying to break into my house. I’ve got them trapped in my back yard…Butler. Rhys Butler.’ He gave them the address. ‘Like I said, they can’t get out, I’ve got them trapped…No, I won’t do anything silly, just wait till you get here.’ A pause then the voice shouted, ‘See? The police are on their way so don’t try anything stupid.’

  ‘We are never going to live this down,’ Carol sighed.

  ‘Help me to get up on the roof,’ Sam urged.

  ‘You just want to get a new suit on the firm,’ Carol said, following him round to the end of the toilet furthest from the gate. Nevertheless, she braced herself and made a cradle of her hands. She bent so Sam could get his foot anchored. ‘One, two, three,’ she breathed, straightening as he pushed himself off the ground.

  Sam hit the roof at chest height, using the strength of his shoulders and upper arms to lever himself higher and on to the roof as Carol shouted, ‘You’re bang out of order, mate, you’re going to be so sorry,’ to cover the scrabbling of his body against the tiles.

  ‘You shut up,’ Butler shouted back. ‘The cops will be here soon and then you’ll be sorry you messed with me.’

  It was, Carol thought, the bantam cock bravado of the small man with something to prove. Even in that short glimpse, she’d seen how slight Rhys Butler was. Taking on Robbie Bishop in a fist fight had been madness. All the more reason to take him on at arm’s length. ‘We’ll see who’s sorry,’ Carol shouted. ‘Little big man.’

  She leaned against the toilet, pissed off and cold. She wasn’t given to standing on her dignity, but an episode like this would rocket round her own force and likely end up on somebody’s blog. Carol Jordan, captured by the villain she’d gone out to arrest.

  It didn’t take long for the local bobbies to show up. Two of them, by the sounds of it. Butler, sounding over-excited as a birthday child, told them what he believed had happened. ‘I came home and there they were, breaking into my back room. They already broke the gate down, look, you can see where it’s all splintered, I had to chain my bike to the handle.’

  Butler kept repeating himself. One of the cops evidently decided he’d had enough. ‘This is the police,’ he shouted. ‘We’re going to open the door now. I advise you to remain calm and stay where you are.’

  Sam stuck his head over the edge of the roof. ‘Up or down, ma’am?’

  ‘Stay where you are,’ she grunted. ‘This is going to be very embarrassing.’ She took out her warrant card and held it in front of her. Various metallic noises came from the other side of the wall, then the door inched open. A very large man filled most of the doorway, his torch held at shoulder height and blinding her.

  ‘What’s going on here, then?’ he asked.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Jordan from Bradfield Police,’ she said. ‘And that-she gestured up to the roof; the torch beam followed her arm, ’-is Detective Constable Evans. And he-’ she pointed over the PC’s shoulder to where Butler was frowning next to the other uniformed officer, ‘-is Rhys Butler, whom I am about to invite to return to Bradfield with me to answer questions relating to the murder of Robbie Bishop.’

  Butler’s mouth fell open and he took a step backwards. ‘You’re kidding,’ he said. Then, seeing the look on her face, he said, ‘You’re not, are you?’ And, predictably, he took to his heels.

  He’d taken two steps when Sam landed on top of him, knocking the breath out of his lungs and two teeth out of his mouth.

  It was going to be a very long, very farcical evening, Carol thought wearily.

  Paula ran her thumb and index finger down the glass, making a path in the condensation. ‘So you see, I don’t know what to do for the best,’ she said. ‘On the one hand, I owe Tony for the help he gave me after…after I got hurt. On the other hand, I don’t want to go behind the chief’s back.’

  Chris had a pile of photographs they’d printed from the emails Stacey had solicited. All of the subjects had been at school with Robbie and none of them had alibis other than partners or spouses for the previous Thursday. She sorted through them again, rearranging them according to some set of criteria known only to her. ‘You could always run it past her,’ she said.

  ‘According to Tony, she’s already blown it out of the water.’ Paula reached for the photos and looked through them critically. Most of them had printed up pretty well. They looked like people, as opposed to police mug shots.

  Chris shrugged. ‘What you do on your own time is your own business. So long as you don’t do anything to jeopardize an existing investigation.’

  ‘But should I be doing it at all?’ As the evening had worn on, Paula had grown less convinced of the appropriateness of what Tony was asking.

  Chris put her hands flat on the small bar table, thumbs underneath, as if she was going to tip it over in one swift movement. She looked down at her neatly manicured fingernails. ‘Once upon a time, there was somebody I thought I owed a favour to. Kind of like you with Tony, but for different reasons. She asked me for something. Just a phone number, that was all. A number I could get easily and she couldn’t, not without questions being asked. Anyway, I di
d the needful. And that was the first step on a journey that got her killed.’ Chris sniffed hard, then looked Paula straight in the eye. ‘I do not blame myself for what happened. If I hadn’t done her that favour, she would have found another way of getting what she wanted. What’s important to me is that when she called on me for help, I was there. When I think of her now, I know I didn’t let her down.’ Chris let go of the table and gave Paula a rueful smile. ‘It’s up to you. You know what it is to live with consequences. You have to think about where you might be with this six months, a year down the road.’

  Paula was touched. Chris didn’t often share personal stuff, not even with her. She knew everybody else thought there was a special bond between the two of them because they were both lesbians, but they were wrong. Chris treated Paula exactly as she treated everyone else. No special favours. No secret intimacy. Just a sergeant and a constable who respected each other professionally and liked what they knew of each other. Paula was comfortable with that. She had friends enough outside work and the one time she had succumbed to a close friendship at work it had ended up causing her more grief than she cared to think about. But tonight’s revelation was a reminder that she still had a lot to learn about her sergeant. She nodded. ‘Point taken. The only question is when I’m going to be able to follow it up. It’s not like this is going to ease up any time soon.’

  Chris glanced at her watch. ‘You could be in Sheffield by nine if you left now. That would give you time to talk to people in the pub. And if you check into a cheap motel, you could talk to the housekeeper first thing.’

  Paula looked surprised. ‘But I’m supposed to…’

  ‘Kevin and I can manage Amatis. It’s probably a waste of time anyway. I’ll cover for you in the morning. If Carol gets lucky in Newcastle, she won’t even notice you’re not around.’

  ‘If she’s doing interviews, she might. She likes to pull me in on those if they get sticky.’