'Can I no'? You think I give a fuck what some polis says?'
'You think, just because of my badge, I give a fuck about you and your neighbour squabbling like kids? Sort it out between yourselves, or come back to me when one of you's in hospital. I'm going next door.'
Look at Wallace, nod in the direction of the door.
She throws a 'fuck off!' at our backs as we walk out.
Down the short path, through the gate. Stand on the pavement, looking across at the trees of the park. Hands in pockets. Don't really feel like going next door and delivering the same pointless message, but pretty much have to now.
'What'd you think?' I ask.
'Sir?'
'What'd you think? Of me telling her she had to take responsibility for her own actions?'
'Thought it was well-judged,' says Wallace.
'Did you really?'
'Yes, sir. If it was obvious one-way harassment then it would have been inappropriate, but since it's apparent that both sides are as bad as each other...'
'Hmm.'
I'll take that. A bit of brown-nosing from a constable. As if that's going to get him anywhere.
I look at the next house, the frames of the door and the windows peeling blue paint, a tricycle lying forlornly on its side by the front path.
'Word of warning, sir,' says Wallace, as I open the gate.
'Go on.'
'Mrs Walker makes Mrs McLean look like Donkey from Shrek.'
40
I let Wallace drive back to the station on his own, while I walk through the park.
I wonder how long I can keep that up. Moving from complaint to complaint, telling people they need to sort out their own problems. Chances are that by the time I get back to the station either Mrs Walker or Mrs McLean will be dead, and whichever one is still alive will be able to say that I more or less encouraged her.
Cold, damp day, bit of a chill wind. Not a good one for walking. Cut down to the path at the lower end of the football pitches rather than taking the longer high road, the path round the top end of the gully. I know where I'm going. Back to the church. Not part of the investigation any more, so what exactly is it that I'm doing?
I need the peace, that's all. Like sitting looking at the waves in Golspie.
I need to work it out. It doesn't matter that I've been kicked off the investigation, doesn't matter whether I get booted out the police. I need to focus for a day, or a week, or however long it takes, and work out what's going on here.
There is surprise that it's happening now and not two or three years ago. Perhaps it's as a result of lingering resentment over the merger, but if that's the case, then I need to leave it to Taylor. He's thinking about that, and trying to collect evidence in the case against Cartwright.
I need to cast aside thoughts of the old enmities and decide what else there could be. A group of five. The architect, the doctor's mum, the pupil, the granny porn star, the ex-war zone Bible study teacher. What could possibly bind them, and could it be that Cartwright is due to be the next victim rather than the one who killed the first four?
I emerge up the hill from the park back onto the road and walk round to the church. The gate is open, and once again there is one of our lot on duty beside the new grave of Maureen Henderson. Constable Webb.
I walk over, glancing casually at headstones as I pass.
'Marcie,' I say. 'Quiet morning.'
'Dead quiet, sir,' she says.
I stop beside her and look around.
'Anyone coming or going?'
'There's a woman in the church. She had the keys.'
'OK, thanks.'
I stand there for another moment or two, and then move away. The graveyard is not too large, sloping away at the back down to a fence, the railway line beyond. I walk further in amongst the graves. A low, grey light, and somewhere a crow cries mournfully against the cold morning.
I look at the names on the headstones, worn and battered by time and the weather, many of them difficult to read. Simple messages in memory of the departed. Nothing elaborate or mawkish or maudlin, just Victorian austerity of language.
Hey, Sergeant, what the fuck do you know about the Victorians and their language?
Yes, good point, whoever that is in my brain. The language is simple, unassuming, sometimes biblical. That's all.
Get a shiver as I pass a grave near the far end of the cemetery. I shake it off, stand for a moment. Look down at the headstone.
In loving memory
Charles McMann
Born 14th January 1821
Died 27th October 1897
And they that be wise shall shine
as the brightness of the firmament
Fuck. I recognise that quote, which means it can be from only one place. I'm not so well read up on the Bible that I can tell one quote from another. The fact that this rings a bell can only be because I read it a few days ago. The Book of Daniel. Fuck, fuckity-fuck.
Keeps cropping up, and this one gave me a shiver before I'd even looked at it.
I stand over the gravestone reading the lines a few more times. Memorizing it, as I know where I'm going next.
I finally lift my head and look around the graveyard. Constable Webb is still in position. I don't see the girl, hadn't expected to, yet I get the feeling that she was watching. The gate is slightly open, the way I left it, yet looking at it from across the other side of the graveyard, it feels almost as though there's something missing. Something that was there a moment ago is gone, and has left a part of itself behind. An invisible part.
I walk back up the slope towards Webb. 'Did anyone come in?' I ask, as I come alongside.
'The graveyard?' she says.
'Yes.'
'No. No, I don't think so. There was someone, a young girl maybe. I saw her standing at the gate, just outside, but she never came in.'
I don't need to ask what she was wearing.
'OK, thanks.'
I turn. Stand and look around. I've learned that there's no point in sprinting out after her. She talks to me when she needs to.
She talks to me?
Why is there always so much to think about? Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.
'Sir?'
I turn back, having started to walk away.
'The girl,' says Webb. 'There was something weird. I mean... I can't... can't put my finger on it.'
'I know.'
What else am I going to say? Hey, don't worry Constable, the kid's fine. She turns up every now and again in my apartment and gives me a kick up the arse.
I want to say more, but there's nothing else. I attempt to give Constable Webb some sort of reassuring smile, but I probably just look like Gordon Brown during that absurd five minutes of the 2010 election campaign when someone suggested he tried grinning, then I turn and walk towards the church. Glance at the gate as I come to the church doors, but the feeling is gone.
*
Back in my position. Fifth pew from the front, right hand aisle, sitting at the end of the centre pew. Looking up at Jesus in blue. Perfect stillness.
I need to leave, that's all. The police. This town.
I feel a bit of a mess today, yet strangely it's not the mess I'm usually in. A different mess, but not the same intrinsic, black, cancerous mess that usually exists in the pit of my stomach. Philo cured me of that. Snap of the fingers, pretty much, that was all it took. She crept inside my head and sorted me out.
Today's mess is because the woman I'd fallen for is dead. That's all. Jesus, that's the kind of mess that thousands of people, millions of people, are dealing with every day around the world. Right now, this second, there are millions of people grieving. And I'm one of them.
At least it's normal.
I'm alone. The door to the church was open. Constable Webb said that Mrs Buttler had come in here, but I haven't seen her. In the vestry perhaps. I haven't gone looking for her.
Jesus isn't saying much up there in his window. Doesn't speak to me. Thank God.
Ha!
Dylan said that he started writing all those religious albums after experiencing a vision of Jesus in a hotel bedroom in Tucson, Arizona.
Yeah, I know.
I was glad when Jesus turned back up in Bob's hotel room in Glasgow one night and told him to go back to writing about women making him miserable.
The wooden door at the end of the aisle opens and Mrs Buttler emerges. She smiles when she sees me, then comes and sits in her usual spot on the other side of the aisle.
'Here to interrogate me about the burial?' she asks. Light in her voice. I suspect what we have here is a woman who's quite happy that Paul Cartwright has been arrested for murder. If happy's the word.
'Off the case,' I say.
'Didn't expect that,' she says.
'Reassigned,' is all I say. No requirement for details.
'Just here for the peace, then?'
'Yes.'
'You'll need to start coming on Sunday mornings,' she says, smiling again.
'I'd have to listen to people talking about God,' I say, and then stop myself getting more flippantly profane. 'Anyway, there aren't any services here at the moment, are there?'
'We'll see about that.'
'What does that mean?'
'Well, I'm just saying, that's all. With that man in jail for those murders, the lot down the road are going to be on the back foot. Now would be as good a time as any to strike.'
'You think he did it?'
She seems surprised by the question, which is fair enough, given that I'm part of the organisation that arrested him in the first place.
'You surely didn't just arrest him because he's an odious creature, did you?'
'I didn't arrest him at all. I was off the case before the arrest was made.'
'Did you speak to him?'
'Yes.'
'What did you think?'
Look away from her and back to the front before I answer. I'm not one for sophistry and obfuscation. Might as well get it out there.
'After hearing so much about him, I was expecting not to like him, but you know, there was something there. Pompous, yes. But he was clinical and focussed. He had a plan, and he executed it perfectly.'
I glance back at her. She's not looking too impressed. I don't think I even get a look of grudging acknowledgement.
'The man was dreadful, and if that's what being a Christian means, then I want no part of it. I'm glad he's gone.'
'There's the difference, I suppose. I'm not looking at it from the point of Christianity or the Church.'
'Well, under the circumstances, Sergeant, forgive me if I do.'
Look down at the floor. The nagging doubts are breaking through the barricades of wilful blindness. Words come out, even though I ought to be keeping them to myself.
'It doesn't make sense, though, does it? He has this immaculate plan which he carries out to perfection...'
'I wouldn't use the word immaculate.'
'He'd been bang on in everything he'd done, didn't care whether or not he made enemies. You can see that he was the kind of man who accepted antagonism and bitterness as part of the way he carried out his business. So, why now? Now that he had what he wanted, he'd won, everything was settling down, why now avenge himself in such a public way? Why, when you've done all the hard work, open yourself up to ruin?'
I turn and look at her. She doesn't seem impressed.
'Well, whether it was you personally or not, Sergeant, it was your lot who arrested him, so maybe you want to go and speak to that policeman who was on the television last night.'
Perhaps not him.
'No one will thank you if you get Cartwright released, however,' she adds.
I should shut up about the case. Every name is on the table, after all, and why wouldn't Mrs Buttler be on the list? The e-mail thing reeks of a scam or a set-up.
'There's a headstone out there,' I say, moving the conversation off the contentious subject of Cartwright. 'The lettering seems clearer than most of the others. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament. I mean, it's not been done particularly recently, just looks...'
She's nodding.
'I know the one,' she says. 'It's always been like that. I mean, the thirty years or so that I've noticed it. I presume one of his family had it added at some point. Maybe after the war? I don't know if anyone ever looked into it.'
'The quote is...?'
'Daniel 12:3.'
'Daniel. There's a lot of Daniel.'
'It's one of the popular books,' she says, smiling. 'Sometimes even when people don't realise it. Stories of oppression and apocalyptic visions.'
'A box of frogs,' I say. 'I know, I've read it.'
'Frogs?' She shakes her head, smiling.
'That's what they say,' I reply, returning the smile.
I sit for a little while longer. I think I just about rescued my relationship with Mrs Buttler. She might still welcome me back the next time.
Out the church and stand for a few moments in the late morning tranquility of the graveyard. Look over at Webb, who is there with her hands behind her back, a long few hours ahead of her. Take a few moments, check the time, and then decide to extend the offer of a fifteen-minute break that I previously gave to Wallace.
She accepts, and I stand at the graveside of Maureen Henderson while Wallace grabs a coffee.
41
In the coffee shop across the road from the station. Lunch. Went back in, filed my report on the angry neighbours; wrote it in fifteen minutes, spent close on forty-five before I finally managed to upload it. Made a couple of calls in relation to a small betting shop stramash from a couple of nights ago, will have to follow up one of them with a visit later this afternoon. Sat and stared at my desk for five minutes trying to think what we'd do about the toilet vandalism situation. Contemplated dipping further into the melancholic world of lost children. Finally decided to come across the road to grab a sandwich.
Mind is blank as Taylor pulls the other seat out at my table. My mind was blank because Philo Stewart keeps intruding, and I'm not ready for that yet. I'm not ready to embrace the tragedy of doomed romance.
'Tom,' he says.
I nod. 'You looking for me in particular, or did you just come out for a break and think it'd be rude not to sit down?'
He gives this a little thought and then shrugs. 'Neither,' he says. 'How's your morning been?'
'The usual kind of thing. A bit of UN peacekeeper, a bit of paperwork, a lot of getting fucked off at the dumb-ass, piece-of-shit filing system.'
He smiles briefly.
'You all right? At a guess, I'd say you're wearing the same clothes as yesterday, which is rarely a good sign.'
'I'm fine. Just couldn't bring myself to go home.'
'Why?'
He waves away the question almost as soon as it is out of his mouth, a slight look of guilt on his face at the intrusion into my grief. Perhaps an acknowledgement from him that that's what I'm suffering. Grief. Unlike the usual suffering.
'Went to the Premier Inn over at the zoo. Watched some TV. Got up this morning, came into work. I should go home tonight. Just need to get on with it.'
'I heard you were at the church.'
News travels... well, you know the rest.
'I was just along the road. Still getting my head together. Went in for a moment's peace.'
'Did you get it?'
'Yes.'
'Have you found God, or are you just going to start listening to Slow Train Coming and Saved?'
'Funny. Neither.'
'Thank God for that. You speak to anyone while you were there?'
'Mrs Buttler, the church warden.'
'You discuss the case?'
'A little. You pissed off about that?'
He shakes his head. Takes a sip of coffee. Black filter. Hot as fuck, it looks like. He takes the regulation glance over his shoulder to see who else is around. There's no one that we particularly need to avoid.
I
take a bite of my cheese and tomato ciabatta with Italian basil, whatever the fuck Italian basil is compared to any other kind of basil.
'What did she think about Cartwright?'
'She's delighted. She hates him. Immediately, and you know, this is what bothers me about it, immediately you can see she's thinking, maybe this'll be the catalyst for us to get our church back. So why would Cartwright do it now? Why crack now? He had everything where he wanted it. He'd nailed the fucker with an inch-perfect, geometrically precise plan. Every eventuality thought of and schemed for. Nailed it. Absolutely fucking nailed it. So, why now? Why do this thing where he's not only taking a chance by murdering people, but he's doing it in this ostentatious manner, this balls-out, look at me you fuckers, look what I'm doing with all my fucked-up, crazy Book of Daniel shit? Makes no sense whatsoever.'
Taylor doesn't answer. Looks at the table, winces as he burns his lips.
'You get any more out of Cartwright?' I ask.
'Not a huge amount. Sticking to his story which, if it's true, slightly contradicts your perfectly reasonable assertion that he would've been stupid to risk anything else, because he'd already won. This guy had let the glory of success get to him. Still chasing St Stephen's. He even had actual architectural plans for how he'd redesign St Stephen's church to allow him to get planning permission, with a view to selling it off. This guy was ahead of the game. Which doesn't mean, of course, that he killed anyone, because there's a difference between scheming and, as you say, balls-out murder.'
'But what about the rest of the gang? At least two of those people hated him. And the kid? He was there because he liked granny porn?'
'He called them a committee of all the talents.'
'He didn't.'
'He did.'
'Wanker.'
The Blood That Stains Your Hands Page 22
