by Val McDermid
For the briefest possible time, she looked concerned. ‘Take care of yourself, KB.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ I lied. I waved goodbye and headed for the lifts. As I drove out of the car park, I stared up at the grim concrete façade of the court building and tried not to think about Richard sitting in a windowless cell, nothing to do but stare at the walls and sweat with fear. I’d once been behind the heavy iron bars of the CDC, while I’d still thought that being a lawyer was a fit and proper job for a grown-up. A criminal solicitor friend had let me shadow him for a day’s duty. I’d woken up sweating for weeks afterwards.
Luckily, fighting with the city traffic didn’t give me much opportunity to brood. It was just after eleven when I tucked myself into the little parking bay that gave me a perfect view of Terence Fitzgerald’s town house. The black Supra was still sitting on the drive, and the bedroom curtains were still shut.
I took my Nikon out of the glove box and fitted a stubby telephoto lens to it. Then I settled back to wait and watch. God knows, it was a thin enough lead. But it was all I had. I’d give it today and see what turned up. If nothing did, it looked like a bit of breaking and entering might be on the agenda.
11
I have friends who believe we can transmit psychic energy that reaches out and touches other people, impelling them to follow certain courses of action. They’d reckon their theory gained credibility when Terence Fitzgerald’s bedroom curtains opened five minutes after I took up station outside his house. Me, I think it probably had more to do with Terence’s alarm clock than the waves of anxiety and urgency I was generating.
Twenty minutes later, Terence emerged, hair still damp from the shower. He wore a chocolate leather blouson over baggy brown trousers, cream shirt and splashy tie. I banged off a couple of shots as he got into the car, then I started my engine. He passed me without a second glance, and I tucked into the traffic a couple of cars behind him as we hit the main road. He headed towards town, turning off at the big new Harry Ramsden’s fish and chip shop at Castlefield, an area on the edge of the city centre which the powers that be are desperately trying to transform from post-industrial desert into tourist attraction. So far they’ve got the chippie, a couple of museums and Granadaland, Manchester’s dusty answer to Disneyland and Universal Studios. And, of course, the expensive hotels that British tourists can’t actually afford.
I pulled into the garage just beyond Harry Ramsden’s and pretended to check my tyre pressures while I kept watch. He came out of the takeaway section a few minutes later with an open package which he carefully laid on the passenger seat as he got back into the car. Just the thought of the fish and chips had me salivating.
He shot back into the traffic again, and we were soon belting down the Hyde Road. No grandad driving today. The only time my speedo dropped below forty-five was at the traffic lights. I nearly lost him when he went through an amber as it turned to red but I put my foot down and caught him at the next set of lights, just before the motorway. It looked like we were heading over the Woodhead Pass to Sheffield. There was no chance to take in the magnificent scenery today. I was too busy concentrating on keeping the car on the road as I powered round the bends and up the long moorland inclines in the wake of the Supra. We hit the outskirts of Sheffield around one, and Terence slowed down, clearly less familiar with the steel city than he was with Manchester.
We skirted Hillsborough, driving more carefully now since the police were already out in force for a Sheffield Wednesday home game. I can’t understand how anybody can bear to go there to watch football these days. I know I’ll never forget those newspaper photographs of dying Liverpool fans, nearly a hundred of them, crushed to death on a sunny spring afternoon just like this one. I tried to clear the morbid memories by focusing on the Supra’s rear end, twitching now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t round the next corner like a rabbit’s tail.
We cut through backstreets lined with blank, silent buildings, monuments to an industry that once employed a city and made Sheffield steel world-famous. The captains of industry tell us that Sheffield produces more steel than ever before, and with a quarter of the old workforce. It just doesn’t feel like it, driving through what appears to be an industrial graveyard.
Beyond the mills, we climbed steeply. Like Rome, Sheffield’s a city built on seven hills. Difference is, you get better pizzas in Sheffield. Soon, we were engulfed by a sprawling council estate, sixties terraces and low-rise maisonette blocks as far as the eye could see. Terence seemed to know where he was now, for he speeded up again, scattering mongrels as he went. It was becoming more difficult to maintain an unobtrusive tail, since virtually every car in sight looked like it had at least one wheel in the grave.
The Supra signalled a right turn as it approached a large asphalted area beside a low, square building. I carried straight on, turning into the first side-street. I gave it a few minutes, then I headed back the way I’d come. A couple of hundred yards from the building, I parked the car, made sure the alarm was on, and walked the rest of the way on foot. As I got closer, I could see a battered sign which told me that Suzane was a slag, that Wayne shags great and that Fairwood Community Centre had been opened in 1969. All the casual visitor needed to know, really.
There was a blackboard outside the centre, surrounded by a knot of teenagers who looked like Sheffield’s entry for the Wasted Youth of the Year contest. I’d have felt threatened if I didn’t know I could kick the feet out from under any of them. As it was, I was wary, avoiding eye contact as I glanced at the blackboard. On it was written in sprawling capitals, ‘Q Here 4 Sale. 3pm and 6pm. Bargins Galore.’ Stapled to the corner was a bundle of flyers. I detached one as I walked on by and stuffed it into my pocket.
I rounded the corner of the community centre to the sound of a wolf whistle and a couple of suggestions as to what the youth of Sheffield would like to do to me. In the car park, as well as the Supra, there was a Cavalier and a three-ton truck. The truck was reversed hard up against the hall, its doors opened back parallel with the wall. I crouched down to tie my shoelace and sneaked a look under the van. Beyond it, the double doors of what was obviously the hall’s fire exit were open. Short of crawling under the truck and into the hall, there was no way I could see what was in either of them.
I was about to walk back to the car when my phone chirruped. I felt incredibly exposed, answering a mobile phone right there, so I hurried round to the far side of the truck. At least I was out of sight from the road now. Irritated with myself for not having the sense to remember to leave the phone in the car, I barked, ‘Brannigan,’ into the phone.
‘Kate? Where are you? Are you near home?’ It was Alexis, but Alexis as I’d never heard her before. Even in those few words, I could hear panic. And panic meant only one thing.
‘Davy?’ I said, my fear rising instantly to equal hers.
‘Kate, can you get home? Now?’
‘What’s happened?’ I was already skirting round the back of the community centre, crossing a scrubby playing field and heading back to the car. ‘He’s not…gone missing?’ My immediate terror was that, somehow, someone had discovered who had driven off with the drugs and that Davy was either a hostage or the potential victim of a vicious reprisal.
‘No, nothing like that. It’s just…’
I could hear Chris’s voice saying in the background, ‘For God’s sake, Alex, give me the phone, you’re only winding her up.’ Then Chris’s voice replaced Alexis’s. ‘Don’t panic,’ she said. ‘Davy’s come back to the house and he’s in a bit of a state, like he’s high on something. I think he might have been given drugs or something, and I think we ought to take him to hospital. How long will it take you to get home?’
I was at the car, switching the alarm off, shoving the key in the ignition, all on automatic pilot while I digested what Chris was saying. I felt as if I’d been punched in the stomach. Taking Davy to hospital was the nightmare scenario. There was no way we could do it without everything coming on top.
Angie would discover that not only was her ex-husband in jail but her son had been put at risk by said ex-husband’s fancy woman and her lesbian friends. The chances of Richard ever seeing his son again without a social worker shrank to the size of a terrorist’s conscience.
Chris cut into my racing thoughts. ‘Hello? Kate? Are you still there?’
‘Yeah, I’m here,’ I said, powering down the street and heading back towards the Manchester road. ‘Look, you can’t take him to hospital. Oh shit, this is the worst possible thing…Give me a minute.’ I thought furiously. On the other hand, if he was really ill, we couldn’t not take him to hospital. The one thing Richard would never forgive was if I let anything happen to Davy. Come to that, I’d have a hard job forgiving myself. ‘How bad is he?’ I asked.
‘One minute he’s shivering, the next he’s sweating. He keeps going off into crazy giggling fits and he keeps pointing at nothing really and giggling and then cuddling up to us,’ Chris said. There was a note of desperation in her carefully controlled voice.
My brain had finally accessed the relevant information. ‘Give me five minutes, Chris,’ I said.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘He’s not at all well, Kate.’
‘Please. Five minutes, max.’ I cut off the connection before Chris could argue any more. I pulled up with a screech of rubber and the blast of a horn from the car behind. I flipped open my filofax and found the number I was looking for. I punched the number into the phone and moved back into the traffic. Sinful, I know, but getting to Davy was a greater imperative than the interests of other road users.
If anyone could help me, it was Dr Beth Taylor. Beth divides her time between an inner-city group practice and a part-time lectureship at the university in medical ethics. A few years ago, she had a fling with Bill which lasted about three months, which is probably a record for my business partner. Now, she’s Mortensen and Brannigan’s first port of call whenever we’re investigating medical insurance claims. She also repairs broken bits of Brannigan from time to time.
The phone answered on the second ring. ‘This is Beth,’ the distant voice said. ‘I’m not here right now, but if you want me to call you back you can leave a message after the tone. If it’s urgent, you can try me on my mobile, which is…’ I keyed the number into the phone as she recited it, then ended the call and dialled her mobile, praying to God she not only had it with her but was also in a decent reception area.
The phone rang once, twice, three times. ‘Hello, Beth Taylor.’ I’d never heard a more welcome sound.
‘Beth? It’s Kate Brannigan.’
‘Hi, Kate! Long time no see. Which I suppose is a good thing, in your case. Is this a professional call? Only, I’m on my way to play hockey.’
I bit back the frustrated sigh. ‘It’s an emergency, Beth.’
‘What have you done this time?’ Underneath the warm humour in her voice, there was no mistaking the concern.
‘It’s not me. It’s my partner’s son. The friends who are looking after him think he might have been given drugs.’
‘Then it’s not me you want, Kate, it’s the casualty department at MRI. You should know that.’
‘Beth, I can’t. Look, I can’t explain now, not because I’m not prepared to, but because there isn’t time. Please, Beth, I need this favour. I’m on my way back to my house now, and as soon as I get there, I’ll tell you why I can’t take him to hospital unless it’s a matter of life and death,’ I pleaded.
‘If it’s drugs, it could well be that,’ Beth warned.
‘I know, I know. But please, you’re the only doctor I know well enough to trust with this.’
There was a moment’s silence. ‘I shouldn’t do this,’ she said with a sigh. ‘It’s against all my better judgement.’
‘You’ll go?’
‘I’ll go. Where is he?’
‘He’s at my house. You remember it?’
‘I remember,’ Beth said. ‘I’ll be there in about ten minutes. Oh, and Kate?’
‘Yeah?’
‘You owe Crumpsall Ladies Hockey Club a round of drinks for every five minutes I’m late for the game.’ The phone went dead before I could tell Beth it would be worth every penny.
I rang Chris straight back and told her Beth was on her way. The relief in her voice told me exactly how much fear she’d been hiding when she’d spoken to me before. ‘Thank God!’ she exclaimed. ‘He’s just been sick. We’re really scared, Kate.’
‘It’s not your fault, Chris. This would have happened whether Richard had been there or not, believe me. Look, phone me if there’s any change, OK? I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
I might have broken all records driving to Sheffield. But I shattered them driving back.
I barrelled through my front door like the Incredible Hulk on speed. There wasn’t a sound from anywhere, and it took me less than ten seconds to discover they weren’t in the house. I ran through the conservatory and yanked open the patio doors leading to Richard’s living room. Still no one. By now, I was convinced they’d had to rush him to hospital. All the way home, I’d been plagued by a vision of Davy lying in the subdued lighting of intensive care, more tubes than Central London coursing in and out of his little body.
I crossed the room in half a dozen strides and hauled the door open, cannoning into Chris, who stepped backwards into Beth, who continued the domino effect with Alexis. ‘Ssh,’ Beth said before I could say a word. I backed into the living room and the other three trooped behind me. Alexis shut the door.
‘How is he? What’s happening?’ I demanded.
‘Calm down,’ Beth instructed. ‘Three deep breaths.’ I did what she told me. I even sat down. ‘Davy’s going to be fine. I’ve just given him a mild sedative and tranquillizer which have calmed him down and sent him to sleep. He’ll probably be more or less zonked out till morning. He might feel a bit groggy tomorrow, but basically he’ll be OK.’
‘What was the matter? What happened?’ I asked.
‘He presented like someone who has absorbed a significant amount of an hallucinogenic drug,’ Beth said. ‘Nothing life-threatening, thank God.’
‘But how? Where did he get it from? He only went out to play with a couple of other kids from the estate! Who’d feed drugs like that to kids?’
‘I said “absorbed” advisedly,’ Beth said. She ran a hand through her spiky blonde hair and frowned. ‘You know those temporary tattoos that kids use? They wet the transfers and the pictures slide off on to their skin?’
I nodded impatiently. ‘Yeah, yeah, Davy loves them. Some nights he gets in the bath looking like the Illustrated Man.’
‘Did he have any transfers on his body this morning when he went out?’
‘Not that I noticed,’ I said. ‘Did either of you notice last night?’
Chris and Alexis both shook their heads.
‘He must have thirty or forty on his arms or chest now,’ Beth said. ‘And that’s the source of the problem, I reckon. I’ve heard of a couple of cases like this, though I’ve not actually seen one before.’
‘But I don’t understand. It can’t be something in the transfers, surely. He often has them covering the whole of his arms and his chest. He’s crazy about them, like I said. He’ll put on as many as Richard will buy for him.’
Beth sighed. ‘You’re right, it’s not the transfers as such. It’s what’s been done to them. They’ve been doctored. They’ve been impregnated with a drug not unlike acid or Ecstasy, probably one that’s been designed to provide a feeling of mild euphoria, general friendliness and energy. But taken in the dose Davy seems to have absorbed, it also produces hallucinations. We dumped him in the bath and washed them all off so he won’t absorb any more, and luckily he seems to have had a pleasant trip rather than a terrifying one.’
Beth’s words seemed to reverberate long after she’d finished speaking. None of us seemed able to come up with an adequate response. Finally, it was Alexis’s journalistic instincts that hit the ground ru
nning ahead of my private investigator’s. ‘What do they look like, these transfers?’ she asked.
‘Some are geometric. Blue and gold stars, about the size of a 10p. Red and pink triangles, too. Others have pictures of clowns, cars, Batman and Superman logos and dinosaurs. The only difference between them and the straight ones is the packaging, so I’ve been told. Apparently the dodgy ones come in little foil packets, like those individual biscuits you get on aeroplanes. Sorry, I don’t know any more than that.’
‘I can’t believe I’ve not heard about this on the grapevine,’ Alexis said, outraged.
‘She’s a journo,’ I explained to Beth.
‘Why haven’t there been any warnings about this?’ Alexis continued. ‘It’s scandalous.’
‘Presumably, the powers that be didn’t want to start a panic,’ Beth said. ‘I can understand why, since it seems to be such a rarity.’
‘Never mind the story, Alexis. What about Davy? Will he definitely be OK?’ Chris demanded.
‘He’ll be absolutely fine, I promise you. In future, make sure he finds another bunch of friends to play with. Look, I’ve got to run. My hockey match starts in ten minutes. I’ll swing by tomorrow morning, just to be on the safe side, but the best thing you can do is let him sleep it off in peace.’
Beth’s departure left us in an awkward silence. Alexis broke it. ‘It’s nobody’s fault,’ she said. ‘We’re all going to beat ourselves up, we’ll all be fighting each other to take the blame, but it’s nobody’s fault.’
‘I know,’ I said. I got to my feet. ‘I just want to take a look at him.’ I walked down the hall to the spare room and pushed the door open. Davy was lying on his back, arms above his head, legs in a tangle of kicked-off duvet. There was a smile on his sleeping face. I leaned over and pulled the cover up over him. He stirred slightly, grunting. I didn’t know what else to do so, feeling awkward, I backed out of the room and closed the door behind me.
