As Argyle waited in his noble, invisible silence, the peering eyes of the hooded stalkers pierced their white masks and locked onto him and the car that contained his partner.
From deep within the shadows, eight of them lined the streets, stalking them both.
With both Argyle and Bermuda surrounded, they watched.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The BMW welcomed Bermuda with a warm hug, the white leather seats that lined the back compartment of the car shiny and clean. He almost felt guilty as he slid in, his drenched, secretly armoured coat sliding all over the leather. But he then remembered that they would probably charge the cleaning of it to the taxpayer and regretted not stepping in dog shit on the way in.
The heater was in, warm air pumping through the vents and laying siege to the cold that had invaded his body. He felt the numbness leave his fingers, listening to the bones crack as he stretched them.
‘It’s cold out, isn’t it?’
Bermuda jumped suddenly, oblivious to the small, portly, middle-aged woman who was sat in the back of the car with him, her uniform immaculate. Small spectacles rested on the end of her nose, which she gazed over like a put-upon teacher. In her hand was a notebook, biro scrawlings that would take days to decipher. Her brown hair, streaked with grey, was tied up in a neat bun. In his excitement of warmth, Bermuda had completely forgotten to introduce himself.
‘I’m Agent Jones,’ he offered, extended a hand that was completely ignored as she scribbled notes down.
‘Yes, we know.’ She didn’t look up. At the word we, she nodded to the front of the car. A burly officer sat, hands clasped to the steering wheel, his knuckled worn from years of never losing a confrontation. Chances were, Bermuda thought, his record wasn’t in danger.
They sat in silence for a few moments, the introductions clearly over. The rain rattled against the car window as if someone was showering it with rice. The police radio cackled, but the driver turned it down before the orders came in.
‘So, can we go see Strachan now?’ Bermuda asked. ‘I hear he is a pain in the arse so I’d rather get my spanking over and done with as soon as possible.’
The woman sighed, clicking her pen closed and placing it on the pad. She turned, her green eyes peering over her spectacles and fixing Bermuda with a condescending look.
‘I am Detective Inspector Nic Strachan.’ Her voice was flat and uncaring.
Nic. Not Nick.
Bermuda shook his head in disbelief, especially after mistaking McAllister for a man. Just as he was starting to lose faith in naming conventions, Strachan broke his thought pattern.
‘We didn’t ask for you to be here, Mr Jones. In fact, I thought you would be nothing more than a hindrance.’
‘Thank you for your vote of confidence, Ma’am.’ Again, Bermuda questioned his life decisions.
Strachan ignored it. ‘Quite. I told the senior officers who told me of your impending arrival that you were not needed, and as I had never heard of this BCTO—’
‘BTCO,’ Bermuda corrected, shocked by his loyalty to the organisation.
‘Whatever. I said you were a mock detective and would do more harm than good. Now I have given you access to the crime scenes because I, for one, don’t want to tarnish how hard I and my team have worked to get to the position we are in. However, you are becoming a nuisance, and one that I will not tolerate.’
Bermuda checked the outside, sure he would be meeting the weather again soon. The rain had picked up, clattering the surrounding cars with a wild fury.
‘Are you listening to me, Mr Jones?’
‘Yup,’ he replied nonchalantly.
‘Good. So we are understood, I expect you to return to your hotel, enjoy our fine city for a few days, and then head back to London. We will take it from here.’ Strachan straightened her skirt and then lifted her pad, the biro clicking into action. Her resuming of her task indicated the conversation was over.
Bermuda clicked the door handle and then ignored the part of his mind begging for an easy life. ‘Actually, we are not understood.’
He firmly shut the door. The large officer swivelled in place and Strachan held up a hand, effectively telling her attack dog to heel.
‘No?’
‘No. You see, I don’t give a fuck if you want me here or not. Do you think I want to be stuck in a shit hotel in this shit-hole city? I’m here because what is going on, neither you nor your hard-working team could possibly grasp. If they thought you were capable they wouldn’t have sent for me.’
‘I will NOT be spoken to like this,’ Strachan yelled, clicking her chubby fingers.
The brutish driver flew his door open, the rain hitting the inside of the car and echoing like chattering teeth. With his heavy footsteps, Bermuda expected to be hauled from the car within a few moments.
Three …
Two …
One …
Just as they heard the door handle click, they heard a grunt of pain and the sound of a body collapsing to the ground. Both looked concerned and Bermuda turned back to an irate Strachan.
‘Get the fuck out of my car,’ she demanded, her language defying her previously calm demeanour.
‘With pleasure.’ Bermuda pushed the door open, the metal panel bumping against what he assumed was the body of her hulking minion.
Before he stepped out into the wonders of the Scottish wintertime, he turned back.
‘I will solve this case. With or without your help.’
‘You will receive no help from the Glasgow Police Service,’ she said sternly while running a wiping cloth over her glasses.
Bermuda offered her his most charming smile. ‘No change there, then.’
Strachan’s eyes lit up with anger and Bermuda waved as he pushed himself out of the car. His Converse trainers splashed against the ground, the water soaking through to his socks. He slammed the door shut and looked at the large officer before him, hunched over on his knees and wheezing heavily.
The wind had been driven cleanly from him.
The officer groaned in agony. The sudden influx of stomach cramps had been instant and disabling, bringing his huge frame to its knees. It was like he had been hit with a sledgehammer, the cramps crushing his gut in one go.
Bermuda observed for a few moments with zero inclination to help. He looked to his right, where Argyle was stood, gently shaking his hand as if to shake out the pain.
Bermuda smiled warmly against the cold rain.
Argyle had clearly clobbered the officer straight in the stomach. Knowing the sheer power and accuracy of his partner, Bermuda felt just a twinge of sympathy for the victim, but turned back to his partner.
‘I am shameful,’ Argyle uttered, his voice sad and honest. ‘I have struck a man of nobility.’
‘Believe me, Big Guy,’ Bermuda said, patting his friend on the arm and ushering them to walk away, ‘there is nothing noble about that man.’
Argyle spun his head back as they walked, watching as the large lawman was hauling himself up, fingers grasping the wet vehicle. The woman inside had made no effort to help.
‘Are you not mad that I struck a man of law?’
‘Mad?’ Bermuda chuckled, spinning his e-cig in his hand like a drumstick. ‘I’m bloody ecstatic.’
The two walked down another rain-soaked road of Glasgow, identical to all the others. Bermuda summarised in his head how they were no closer to catching the killer and he had now effectively burnt the miniscule bridge with the police. Word would reach the BTCO, Montgomery Black would be furious, and the fingerprint they had left with the mystery technician would probably lead to nothing.
Just another day in the life of Bermuda Jones.
However, after Argyle’s intervention a smile cracked across his face. The two walked through the suburban streets, soaked through. Bermuda admired the houses, all of them set back slightly from the pavement, guarded by small courtyards. Inside each house lived a family, a story of how they came to be in the lives they now lived.<
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Within the shadows of the city, some creature was looking to snatch that life from them.
A feeling of helplessness covered Bermuda, and he looked away from his partner, hoping Argyle didn’t notice. He did. Of course he did, Bermuda thought.
Argyle noticed everything.
Well, except DC McAllister when she was on the warpath.
As the rain slapped against his skin, Bermuda’s mind raced back to the previous night. Flashes of McAllister’s naked body came and went, their sexual adventure coming to an abrupt and volatile end. She was an angry woman, there was no denying that, and Bermuda was sure there was more to it than just their failed intercourse.
He knew a self-hater when he saw one.
It takes one to know one.
They carried on down a few more streets before they came upon Partick Station, one of the fifteen stops on the Glasgow Subway, an underground metro train service that had wrapped itself around the city for well over a century. The station was the first above the River Clyde, the track looping round and travelling clockwise around the city. The route, a bright orange loop printed on a map, was nicknamed ‘the Clockwork Orange’.
The owners of the train company were obviously keen to move away from that nickname.
Bermuda carefully descended the steps, turning back to find that Argyle had left him to it. As bemusing as it was, Bermuda had grown accustomed to Argyle’s travel arrangements.
He didn’t understand them. But he was beyond questioning them.
As he approached the platform, he shuffled quickly to the train that was waiting impatiently, the shrill beeps indicating its imminent departure. With a quick dash, he slipped through the doors as they closed. Feeling pleased with himself, he dropped into one of the seats that lined the train, forcing the grumpy commuters to face each other.
Bermuda spent most of his time in London. He was well-versed in the unwritten law that ‘a commuter shall not look another in the eye, let alone speak to them’. He slid the soaked beanie hat from his head, his hair bursting out in every direction, gasping for air. He wrung the hat out like a flannel, watching the rainwater clatter to the sticky floor of the metal tube.
He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, the top of his skull gently bumping off the glass window.
He needed something.
Anything.
A clue. A lead.
A pint of Doom Bar.
As he contemplated indulging his thirst, he felt a twinge of guilt. Not just for the heartless women, but for their families. Fathers who had lost their daughters. Knowing his beautiful Chloe was safe and sound, he couldn’t imagine what losing her would be like.
To see her ripped from him by the shadows of another world.
He sat upright, his eyes blinking wildly as he realised he had nodded off. A flash of the recurring dream, the nightmare of losing those he loved, had jolted him like a cattle prod.
He rubbed his hand on his stubbled jaw and caught a glimpse of himself in the window, the reflection set against the blackness of the tunnel. He looked older. His skin, pale and tight, sat across a face that used to turn many a head. Bags hung from his eyes.
He didn’t need a beer. He needed a coffee.
And to catch the goddamn heart-stealing bastard.
The train whizzed around the tracks, eventually alighting at St Enoch, right in the city centre. Bermuda departed and stomped up the steps of the station, ignoring the whipping chill of the evening and the bursting brightness from the streetlights that greeted him. Darkness had fallen, his eleven-minute train journey had felt longer, the night sky stealing the sun as easily as this killer had stolen those hearts. He stuffed both hands in his pockets, one of them to retrieve his phone.
The other for his Tic Tacs.
As two mints sloshed their way around his mouth, he held the phone to his ear, impatiently tapping his foot in a shallow puddle. After a few more rings, the phone clicked off.
The BTCO Glasgow Office had closed for the evening.
He stared at the screen, droplets of water splattered randomly against the glass as he contemplated calling the London office. Montgomery Black would have certainly have received Strachan’s complaint. On reflection, Bermuda decided having his arse verbally kicked wasn’t good for his increasingly downbeat mood.
He contemplated calling Chloe. The thought of his daughter’s voice warmed his body, defying the freezing cold of the winter’s evening.
Angela would answer the phone. Again, he decided that a verbal arse-kicking wasn’t the solution.
He thought about calling Sophie Summers.
Instantly, with his heart aching, he scorned himself, refusing to let his mind drift to her, to all the exquisite details of her face.
The radiant smile.
The beautiful eyes.
The jet-black eyes of Barnaby!
Bermuda shook the thought, a quick flash of the piercing, burning holes that sat in the skull of the most dangerous Other he had come across. He could still see the smirking face, lined by the three scars that marked him as a traitor.
Barnaby had nearly destroyed all life in this world.
Somewhere in Glasgow, in the wet, dark concrete jungle surrounding him, another force of evil was threatening humanity. It had happened before, Bermuda recalled. The news clippings from the Nexus had revealed that a series of murders that matched his case had happened years ago.
This Absent Man had been here before.
Bermuda ducked into a Cafe Nero, queueing patiently before stepping back out into the busy high street of Glasgow, his hands wrapped around a piping-hot flat white. The caffeine was warm and welcome, following the path well-worn by ale and Tic Tacs to his stomach. His eyes flickered around the town. The premature colours of the Christmas lights lined the gothic buildings, the festive season being forced upon the city earlier every year.
The Christmas Square, marred by a tragic driving incident a few years previously, was bright and busy, the memory of those who had lost their lives that year being honoured by the celebration of family and fun. He strolled through the square, watching as kids battled the cold to ride the cheap, fun-fair rides while their parents partook in watered-down alcohol from the pop-up bars.
The smell of hotdogs wafted through the rain from a small van that looked like a health code violation on wheels.
The main event, the ice rink, encompassed most of the square, with couples and children flying by, all trying their best to outdo gravity. A few kids collided, one of them bursting into tears as panicked parents tried their best to keep their feet.
An overweight man took a corner too quick and slammed into the barricade. A video would likely be on YouTube within minutes. Bermuda scorned the world they lived in now, where instead of reaching to the man, who looked in considerable pain, the audience reached for their phones.
Randomly, an Other skittered through the crowd, coasting along the ice with the grace of a majestic swan. It sauntered through, its movements fluid before it cast its one jet-black eye on Bermuda and abruptly stopped.
Bermuda nodded, as if to grant permission. He turned and headed to the exit as the Other continued its rather bizarre passion for skating.
After a few more moments, Bermuda exited the square and turned right, heading back down a parade of shops. With Christmas less than six weeks away, every shop was bursting with colour, signs tacked all across their large, floor-to-ceiling windows that beckoned consumers in with promises of tremendous discounts. Shoppers danced around each other with less grace than the Otherside’s answer to Torvill. Bermuda passed a number of clothing outlets before he stepped out on the road.
The deep blast of a horn rocked his body and caused him to leap back. The tram, a hulking metal people-carrier, glided past, sticking rigidly to the tracks that were indented into the pavement. The sides were littered with advertising boards, again, promises of severe discounts and seasonal delights.
Bermuda’s hand shook as he finished his coffee.
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He took a moment to compose himself and then began laughing loudly. He had spent too long being called crazy to be concerned with people glaring at him with concern. As the laughter echoed out of his chest, he thought how he had been chased only a week before by a monster bigger than a bus. How six months earlier he had fought Barnaby to the death with the fate of the world on his shoulders.
How over three years before, his fuzzy memory of the Otherside had seen him narrowly escape the deep red eyes and the screams.
He had survived all that.
It would be just his luck that he would get killed by a tram.
While his laughter died down to a chuckle, his hand still shook. A flash had danced across his eyes before stepping back, images of beautiful faces he knew he couldn’t see. With a grumble he turned on his heel, facing the rain, and headed back to the hotel.
The dark eyes of the two hooded figures, watching from separate sides of the street, had witnessed his near-death experience.
The streetlights bounced off their white masks as they stared at Bermuda.
Argyle stood outside the Premier Inn, his hands behind his back with one resting in the other. His broad chest, plated with armour, stood puffed out, the stance of a proud soldier. His grey eyes flickered up and down the street.
He scorned himself for his lack of vigilance earlier.
Argyle prided himself on his ability to sense Others, but also his strict attention. He should have seen McAllister barge into the house, but he had been distracted. He had been staring at the alleyway.
Were they there?
Had they finally come for him?
Argyle shuffled uncomfortably on the spot, readjusting his stance and ensuring he stepped back as close to the wall of the hotel as possible. The last thing he wanted to do was scare a human. Being an invisible wall tended to upset people.
The rain was relentless, smashing against the concrete city with a fury that Argyle found beautiful. At least it meant fewer people would be out.
Bermuda Jones Casefiles Box Set Page 46
