‘Aye. I am hardly likely to go jet-setting, am I?’ he motioned to his body and mishmash of loose possessions.
Bermuda smiled. ‘I will come back for you. I promise.’
Bermuda pushed himself back up and made for the door. McAllister already had images of Parker from CCTV. But now, with this piece of evidence, she might finally believe him that Parker wasn’t what they thought. That the man killing those women wasn’t a man after all.
He was something else.
Bermuda gripped the handle of the door and pulled it open when Gordon called after him.
‘Just catch this bastard.’
Bermuda stepped out through the door and into the rapidly fading sun, determined to do just that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
McAllister sat at the desk opposite the incident board, her head planted firmly against the wooden table and the will to live dripping away like a leaky tap. The photos of smiling women were pinned symmetrically across the wall like trophies. Below them, photos of their nightmarish ends.
The desk before her was a makeshift pillow of paperwork and hard wood and she squeezed her eyelids harder together, willing herself to come up with the answer.
Strachan had already read her the riot act; her disdain for Agent Jones was apparent, and the fact he was still actively investigating the case was clearly pissing her off. McAllister had reported in to Strachan for over two years now and knew full well the wrath of her superior. If Jones was to solve the case before them, she was pretty sure Strachan would have a heart attack.
What she gathered from the monumental roasting from her boss was that she needed to start coming up with viable leads quickly as staking out the Necropolis and waiting for another woman to die were not good enough. The press had smelt a story and Detective Chief Inspector Alex Fowler wasn’t one for shying from the cameras. Strachan had her orders, and with gravity usually the deciding factor in which way the shit travelled, her anger was taken out on McAllister.
She sighed deeply, slowly rising up from the desk. A sheet of randomly scrawled notes and messy doodles flopped from her forehead, the sweat sticking to the paper. McAllister peeled it off and dropped it onto the rest of the paperwork, none of it making any sense or pointing in any direction.
The entire case was like a constantly spinning compass.
DC Butler had gone to follow up a potential eye witness to the murder of Emma Mitchell. A fifteen-year-old girl had watched in horror from behind the curtains of her bedroom as this killing machine had brutally removed the woman’s heart in front of her.
Two other neighbours, whose craving for the spotlight far outweighed their bravery, also spoke about the murder to the local news team.
Both had said the killer had removed her heart with his bare hand.
Both had been scared shitless by McAllister when they were sat across from her in the interview room.
Slumping back in the chair, her body ached for a glass of wine. McAllister knew it was becoming a problem but refused to acknowledge it. There were more important things to worry about right now than her ever-increasing reliance on several bottles of wine. Or her need to confront anyone who possibly rubbed her up the wrong way. Or to seduce and screw random men at a second’s notice.
She snapped back to the room, locking her long list of character defects away along with the reasons for them.
Focus on the now.
Focus on finding this bastard.
After what felt like a few more hours of staring blindly at the wall and seeing nothing, she looked around the office. A sea of blank screens and empty chairs. The team had slowly filtered out and home to their lives, all of them with something or someone to care about.
There was nothing waiting for her except several glasses of wine and another evening under the overarching wing of failure. Rubbing her temples, she sighed again, pushing herself up from the uncomfortable chair and slipping her arms into her blazer.
She was doing no good to anyone sitting here.
With a heavy heart, she walked out of the incident room, clicking off the light and accepting the failure of the day.
Another day where they had failed to catch Kevin Parker.
Another night of murder awaited them.
It was just after eight o’clock. That would mean there was roughly three to four hours before another innocent woman was ripped from this world, and all McAllister could offer was an apology and a toast from her wine glass.
It was days like to today when she questioned whether she was the detective her superiors thought she was. Maybe she had been once – before everything that happened. When she had had Ethan in her corner and an entire future riding on her. But now, her job was just a place that surrounded her with horrors while she waited to drink them all away again.
She had no hope of catching Kevin Parker. She was just too scared to admit it.
Resigning herself to failure and taking on the responsibility of the deaths still to come, she strode through the doors to the police station and stopped at the top of the concrete steps. A couple of officers walked out from behind her, sending her an unreciprocated greeting as they marched towards their beat and another freezing night watching over the city of Glasgow.
She slowly descended the steps, unsure of how to greet the handsome smile that welcomed her at the bottom of the stairs. McAllister shrugged it off, pulling on her armour and taking purposeful steps towards Bermuda Jones.
‘Very brave of you. Coming here.’
‘I have something you need to see.’
His response had her intrigued, and she followed him as he turned and walked off, heading towards the one place they both knew as sanctuary.
McAllister settled into the booth at the back of the bar. The red leather seat that lined the wall had seen better days. The table, old and scratched, wobbled gently, a number of folded coasters stuffed beneath it. Two chairs, both on their last legs, sat opposite her. She watched as Bermuda walked over, his fingers clutching a pint of Doom Bar and a glass of wine along with a manila envelope.
There was something about him that was different.
A spring in his step.
He set the glasses down and removed his jacket, draping it over the back of one of the chairs before lowering himself into the other. She noticed the flashes of ink that lined the bottom of his neck and the cuffs of his sleeves. She had a blurry flashback to their night of misguided passion, remembering the tattoos that covered his body.
And were there scars too?
‘Cheers.’ Bermuda broke her concentration, gently tapping her glass.
‘Aye.’ She took a deep sip, the frustration of the day disappearing as quickly as the wine. ‘What’s got you all excited then?’
Bermuda tapped the envelope.
Curiously, she gently eased it open and slid out the tatty paper clipping. She scanned the article, some nonsense about a new bar opening in New York, when suddenly her eyes bulged.
It was him. The same man from the CCTV.
Kevin Parker.
McAllister’s eyes flashed to Bermuda, who raised his eyebrows and nodded. He calmly sipped his pint as she stared in amazement. A fruit machine somewhere behind them sprang to life, followed by a few cheers as money fell from it. A lucky punter scraped it out, promising his supporters a free drink as McAllister slowly lowered the photo, her hand shaking slightly.
A few more moments of disbelief passed in silence.
‘How?’ she finally managed.
‘Remember how I told you that there is more going on than what you can see. And how I told you that I work for an agency that monitors and maintains a truce between our world and another.’
She nodded slowly.
‘I wasn’t lying.’
‘But … but …’ McAllister stared at the paper.
‘Yeah, I know. It’s like that moment all over again when you find out Santa isn’t real. Everything I told you was true.’
‘But it can’t be.’ McAllister spo
ke, more to herself.
‘This isn’t the only world,’ Bermuda offered. ‘And it certainly isn’t the most dangerous one. There are creatures and things I have seen from the Otherside that would haunt your dreams.’
‘The Otherside?’
‘That’s what we call it. It has some official name, but I leave that to the higher-ups. The creatures that come from it, they are all clumped together and known as Others – except Neithers.’ He had lost her, causing him to sigh. ‘Basically, this guy right here, he looks and acts human. But he isn’t. Not by a long shot.’
McAllister necked the rest of her wine and rocked back on her seat, the beaten leather providing little comfort for her back. She ran her fingers through her matted hair and stared in disbelief. Her eyes watered; the realisation that her reality had been shattered by a single photo was beginning to overwhelm her. She placed a hand on the table to steady herself, trying her best to breathe heavily. Bermuda’s fingers slid over her hand and she grasped it tight.
‘It’s okay.’ His words were calm.
She breathed deeply and wiped away the tears with her other hand before shaking her head and returning to him. His handsome face greeted her with a warm smile and he stood, striding across the empty pub to the bar and getting them another drink. She gratefully clutched it upon his return, the glass shaking as she battled the fear and excitement of having her mind blown. A few more moments passed in silence when she finally looked up at him.
‘Please explain.’
‘What do you want to know?’ Bermuda took a big swig from his glass, wiping the foam moustache that optimistically clung to his lip.
‘Everything.’
Bermuda nodded and started from the very beginning, telling her how for his whole life he had seen monsters. How he had told his alcoholic mother, who had just dismissed him and blamed it on his deadbeat drug addict father that he had never met. How he had tried to hide from them, that he had seen monsters sitting on the end of his bed, their eyes shiny and grey.
The years spent as an outcast until he met Angela, their whirlwind love and marriage, the birth of his beautiful daughter – which he noticed caused her to fidget on her seat. How his wife had slowly turned on him, worrying that his behaviour and beliefs were putting their daughter in danger, and the soul-crushing sound of a padded cell being shut with him on the wrong of it.
The months spent in a cell protesting his sanity that he could see the truth that encompassed this world and that everyone else was blind. The realisation that all he was doing was pushing his family away and vindicating their diagnosis.
The divorce.
Before he could continue, Bermuda felt a tear trickle down his cheek. The painful trip down this heartbreaking road had caused him to finish his drink.
McAllister slid out from the booth and returned moments later with a fresh drink for them both. She settled back in, her face and eyes filled with wonderment, as if listening to a ghost story around a campfire.
Bermuda wet his whistle and continued, telling her about the doorway which had opened in his cell and beckoned him through, the dark, ashen world that had flickered to him like a grainy TV with a dodgy aerial. The eyes that had latched onto him, the moment he had realised he was going to die. Everything had still been fuzzy, but he had felt himself being carried back to the light, and he had crossed the divide once more and was in a small town in Morocco.
The BTCO had come then, instantly locating him, expunging his medical records and putting him to work tracking down people and dealing with crimes that our world could never comprehend. As he spoke about his job, McAllister cut in.
‘What’s an Argyle?’
‘Argyle is my partner.’ Bermuda smirked. ‘He has been at every crime scene with me.’
‘Wait. Has he? I can’t see him, can I?’ Her words came out slowly, as she remembered the rules to the world.
‘No, because you don’t have the Knack. Also, you would have remembered him. The guy isn’t exactly the most inconspicuous.’
‘Well none of us can see him. So he ain’t too bad!’
They clinked their glasses together.
‘Touché.’ Bermuda took a sip. ‘I owe Argyle my life so many times over it’s become almost redundant. If he hadn’t have been there the other night that tram would have killed me. If he hadn’t have helped me stop Barnaby, I would have died in Big Ben.’
‘He’s like your guardian angel.’ McAllister smirked, sipping her wine.
‘No, he’s my best friend.’
Silence sat between them for a short while as McAllister dealt with the discovery of another world. She scolded herself a few times, convinced that Bermuda must be a charlatan of some sort, a con man with an ulterior motive. But she found herself leaning towards him.
She wasn’t sure if she fully believed him.
She did know that she wanted to.
It had been a long time since she had felt she could trust someone. Her heart was yearning for Ethan but she immediately shut it away, refocusing on the chilling truth of another world and the case in front of them.
‘So Kevin Parker is an Other.’ McAllister returned to the picture. ‘Why is he doing this?’
‘I haven’t the foggiest. He asked me if I was the voice in the dark.’ Bermuda frowned, remembering the painful night. ‘He wanted to know where “she” was.’
‘Who is she?’ McAllister’s tone was all detective.
‘Beats me. All I know if that whatever Parker is, he isn’t going to stop until we find him.’
They sat in silence, the gravity of their task pulling them downwards. Bermuda felt tired, the pain of the last week or so hanging from his neck like a weight. McAllister quietly sipped her drink and placed the empty glass back down, her entire body screaming for another.
Bermuda cast a curious eye in her direction, watching as her finger gently caressed the stem of the glass.
Addiction had never been so blatant.
‘You know, Bermuda isn’t my real name.’
She turned and faced him as he spoke.
‘It’s actually Franklyn.’
‘Oh.’ McAllister’s eyes fell back to the empty wine glass.
‘I was nicknamed Bermuda after a few of my first cases. I found missing people.’ He looked at her, seeing if she got the reference.
‘Well we are not dealing with missing people. These women have been murdered.’
McAllister’s words were curt and Bermuda leant back in his chair, his toned arms folded tightly across his chest.
‘I wasn’t talking about them.’ He braced himself. ‘I’m talking about you.’
Suddenly McAllister’s head snapped up, and the fury he had seen during their drunken tryst and the anger that had exploded within her the night before gleamed from her eyes.
Bermuda refused to break her stare. ‘You are lost, Sam.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Look, you keep telling me I’m not a detective. But I don’t have to be one to see the signs. The bottles of wine. The anger. The nursery. The downturned pictures of your husband that litter your house.’
Her head dropped.
‘Whatever it is, it’s pulling you deeper and deeper underground.’
She lifted her head, her eyes glistening with fresh tears that began to barrel down her cheeks.
Bermuda, despite the guilt, maintained his gaze.
‘I don’t know what to do.’ Her words were hopeless.
‘What happened?’ Bermuda finally leant forward, placing a hand on top of hers. ‘What did this to you?’
Sam took deep breaths, the pain and torment rising up and crashing inside her like a tidal wave. After a few composing exhales, she gritted her teeth and shot Bermuda a bloodshot look.
‘Ethan and I got married two years ago. He’s a really good guy – too good for me and this job.’ She sniffed a few times, trying her best to pull back the tears. ‘All he wanted was to love me. And our little girl.’
Her voice cracked, bu
t she breathed through, Bermuda watching silently.
She needed to speak it.
Confront it.
‘We were going to call her Emily.’ McAllister swallowed her sadness. ‘We picked out her nursery together one Saturday. Ethan was so sure it would be a girl, and so he bought everything before we even knew. Then a week later we had our sonogram, and they said he was right. He squeezed my hand so tight …’
She broke off, the memory calling to her and causing a fresh batch of tears to rise up.
Bermuda watched, his heart slowly breaking for her. After a few more moments and some sharp breaths, McAllister turned back to him with a measure of calm.
‘When I was just over seven months, I woke up one morning and I felt wrong. Worse, I felt alone. I couldn’t feel her.’
Bermuda raised a hand to his mouth, the horror of her story causing his stomach to turn.
‘When I got to the hospital, she was already gone.’ Silent tears lined her face once more. ‘There was nothing they could do. She just didn’t make it. My poor, sweet Emily.’
‘Sam, I’m so sorry.’
McAllister lifted a hand. She hadn’t finished.
She needed to finish.
‘I had to carry her for four more weeks, and then they removed her from me. They took away my baby girl. She was so tiny, Jones. She was so delicate, and for some goddamn reason I will never know, she never got to feel the air in her lungs. Or feel my heart beat next to hers.’
McAllister sobbed a few times. A few other customers peered over at the emotional outburst and quickly decided to look away.
‘She never got to hear me say, I love you.’ She took a deep breath, the pain finally leaving her and a sense of relief bursting through. ‘After that, Ethan and I spent six months trying to pick up the pieces of our shattered lives, but I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand to look at him and see how damn devastated he was every time our eyes met. So I started drinking, we started arguing, and eventually I told him to leave.’
‘Did you want him to go?’ Bermuda asked, his own eyes shiny from sadness.
‘Of course not.’ McAllister shook her head. ‘But it was easier to push him away than deal with the pain. Soon we lost contact, and I just started doing whatever I could to punish myself. Drink, men, whatever. None of it matters.’
Bermuda Jones Casefiles Box Set Page 54
