‘You got to wear the horns. You got to!’
Let me die now, Hayley thought sadly.
All she had wanted to do was crawl into bed and forgot everything that had happened in the course of this terrible day. Instead, she was stuck making nice with her sister Cheyney. Her younger sister Cheyney. Who, to Hayley’s horror, was now clad in the full fishnet stockings, clingy basque and pushed-up cleavage cliché. She looked like wassername from Cabaret. Sally Bowles. But with more flesh on her bones, admittedly. And in fairness, the devil horns looked great on her. They were bright scarlet. Wrapped around with black fur. Cheyney danced to an imaginary Rihanna song and jiggled her head and twerked and the horns tottered on her head.
Hayley stared at her baby sister with a despair honed by years of practice. She’d come home early for this? She felt like a cow having its throat cut in the abattoir.
‘I mean – Jesus, Chey – this is not my – I don’t go for this kind of –’ she said, and ran out of words.
‘You don’t like to be sexy?’ Cheyney taunted her.
Nasty. Hayley never looked sexy. That was her ‘thing’.
‘This is not sexy, it’s slutty.’
Cheyney rolled her eyes. ‘That’s the, like, point?’
‘You look like a whore!’
‘The word is ‘ho’!’
‘That’s what I said!’
‘You so did not,’ Cheyney mocked her, as if her magic ears could tell the difference.
Hen Parties. They actually call them Hen Parties! Cluck cluck cluck!
‘Why do women want to dress like whores? ‘Ho’s? Whores!’ Hayley said, with the same degree of stunned bafflement she had applied to algebra and computational analysis, back in Barton Street Comp.
‘Cause it’s funny?’
‘Sexist!’
‘Can’t be sexist, cause I’m a woman!’
‘Can be, too, you’re just pandering to the –’
‘Don’t say patriarchy. I mean, for fuck’s sake, it’s Twenty Nineteen, no one says ‘patriarchy’!’
That’s so not fair, I wasn’t – okay, well maybe I was going to say ‘patriarchy’. Is that so terrible?
‘I didn’t say –’
‘Well don’t.’
‘But if I did –’
‘Just don’t. Or you’ll never get –’
‘I’ll wear the horns. Not the rest.’
‘It’ll be a right laugh.’
‘It’ll be a stupid embarrassing piss up from Hell and I’ll end up puking in the front garden, again.’
‘Don’t be so sad, chuck.’
‘I’m not sad. I’m not your fucking chuck.’
‘We’ll still –’‘You’re my sister. Get married. See if I care.’
Cheyney grinned. Irrepressible. She pranced around the bedroom to some fresh Rihanna moves. It was ridiculous! Though she did have the look for it, in fairness; the sisters had the same black dad but Cheyney’s skin was a glorious rock star coffee colour, while Hayley was so pale she might as well be white.
‘We’re good?’
‘Yeah yeah.’
‘And you’re happy for me?’
‘Course.’
‘And you love Liam almost as much as I do?’
No I fucking don’t! He’s a lying thieving womanising piece of –
‘Yes, of course I do.’
‘I love you, bro.’
‘Not your bro!’
‘Sis, then.’
‘Not cis, that means the opposite of –’
‘Whatever.’ Cheyney grinned.
Oh Cheyney, how do you do it? How do you manage to be so bloody happy all the time?
Cheyney was full-bodied and beautiful. Her smile could cut the hardest heart at a thousand paces. Hayley felt tired and sexless just looking at her.
‘I just want you to, you know, enjoy yourself.’
‘Whatever.’
‘You need to join in a bit more.’
The words hurt Hayley, like knives in the heart.
‘I will. I said I will.’ Hayley became aware that she was stony-faced, and her voice had a shriek of desperation. ‘I will. I fucking will, all right!’
Join in. Why should I want to join in? What’s so great about –
Oh fuck it.
‘Yeah. Great.’ Cheyney blew her sister a kiss; but Hayley didn’t catch it, or blow one back, like a proper girl would have done.
‘Where’s the stag night going to be?’ Hayley asked, grudgingly.
‘Oh he’s not having one. You think I’d fucking trust him?’
‘DS Smith, DC Barraclough.’
The bald-headed weird-looking man stared at them. ‘Yeah?’
‘Are you Tony Riley?’
‘I am.’
‘We want to talk about the accident you had yesterday.’
‘Do you now? Ah. Right. Well. I guess so. Come on, sit down. Are you Smith?’
‘I’m Barraclough.’
‘I’m Jack. You must be Smith then?’
‘That’s correct, sir.’
They all sat down. They were in the staff canteen of the tobacco warehouse outside Leeds where the lorry driver worked. It was just after 7pm. He was Tony Riley, thirty-four, born in Doncaster. Back at work despite being involved in a fatal accident less than twenty-four hours ago.
Riley was young, shaven headed, Hebrew phrases tattooed on his neck. He had a twitchy intensity. And an obsession with avoiding eye contact that screamed ‘paedo pervert’, though in fact he was not.
Out of habit, Barraclough sniffed him. Out of habit, Smith shot him a look. Barraclough shook his head, so faintly you had to be a student of micro-gestures to recognise it as a shaking of the head. But Smith was expert at reading his chattel’s signs. He visibly relaxed.
The canteen was half-full, over-lit, furnished with garish red plastic chairs, plastic tables and colour-coded recycling bins.
‘You know that the other driver died in hospital.’
Twitch; stare; rueful look. ‘Yeah they told me that.’
‘We just want to ask some questions.’
‘Weren’t my fault. Weren’t.’
‘We’re not saying it was, Tony.’ Barraclough gave him his full bluff Yorkshiremen-together smile. ‘She was driving too fast, it’s cut and dried.’
‘You’re not going to arrest me for manslaughter then?’
‘Hell no, Tony. She came round the corner like a bat out of hell, didn’t she?’
‘She did that.’
‘That was your phrase, wasn’t it?’
‘Might have been. I was coming from here, see. Out of the depot. We have three miles to drive on a country road before we hit the main drag. Not much traffic though. But I turned the bend, a blind bend, and there she was. Coming right at me like –’
‘Did you see another vehicle?’ Smith said abruptly.
‘What?’
‘Did you see another vehicle behind her. In pursuit?’
‘No. Was she being –?’
‘Just answer the question.’
‘No.’
‘So what happened? After you saw her?’
‘I braked, and thought about swerving, but I didn’t have time. So I hit her, like. Front on collision. I ended up in the hedge, lorry slewed right along the road, and when I got out, her car was, well, it had crumpled.’
‘And then what?’
‘And then I called the ambulance.’
‘No, back up. One moment at a time. Your lorry crashed. Then what?’
‘Airbag inflated. I deflated it. Got out of the cab. Got me bearings back. Then I looked around, saw her car. Then I called the ambulance. What else can I say?’
‘You can say what you saw.’
‘Nothing. Car was crashed. She was –’
‘She was what?’
‘Alive. She was alive. I pulled the door open. Pulled her out. She was alive. Blood was gushing out of her throat, and she was puking up blood too, big gobbets of it. Blood was everywhere.
I tried to put her in the recovery position, but I couldn’t –’
‘You have first aid training?’
‘Aye I do. But I’ve never seen anything like this. She was –’
‘Head on collision. Severed artery in the neck. Internal bleeding. She was still alive when you reached the car. That’s pretty straightforward,’ Smith said coldly.
‘Must have been traumatic,’ said Barraclough, soothing.
‘You’re not listening to me. I’ve never – she puked blood. On the road. And she looked at me. And the blood –’
‘What?’
‘I can’t say it.’
‘Say it.’
‘The blood was on the ground. But it started to, like,’ He whispered the word: ‘move.’
‘Move?
‘Boil. Her blood was boiling, like a mist, like.’
‘That’s not possible, blood cannot boil at normal atmospheric -’
‘It fucking did, aye? A mist of blood, dancing like bloody – whatever – in front of her body, then she opened her mouth and the blood flew up into the air and she drank it in. Drank her own blood.’
‘Now that didn’t really happen, did it?’ said Barraclough gently.
‘I’m saying what I saw. It was blood like – like it had a life of its own. Like – gnats – you know, in Scotland you get the midges. Hovering in the air like –’
‘She inhaled some of her own blood, that can happen.’
The driver shook his head, stubborn. ‘I’ve googled it, it’s happened before. It’s a recognised ‘strange’ phenomenon. It’s –’
‘You’re talking Fortean Times bullshit, sir, you’re talking what is basically nonsense.’ Smith’s tone was scornful, unprofessionally so.
‘It’s not nonsense. In Mexico, a woman was stabbed. And the blood came out of her body and formed a halo in the air. A halo! And it stayed there, for minutes, until she died. Two old women saw it, the paramedics too. It was a miracle, the Catholics said. There’s one thread that argues –’
‘I think, sir, you need counselling, it’s been a very traumatic time for you .’
‘I know what I saw.’
‘You’re stressed, sir.’
‘Happen I am. Even so –’
‘We’re done here,’ said Smith, abruptly.
He stood up. Barraclough reluctantly stood too.
That night, Barraclough wrote up his notes in the old school exercise books he had purchased from a Ragged School in Lancashire. In his immaculate copperplate handwriting he wrote a detailed diary of everyone he had met that day and everything they had said.
His notes included an account of the mobile phone conversation Smith had in the lorry park of the tobacco warehouse, after their interview with Tony Riley. Barraclough had been banished out of earshot, of course, but he took the precaution of spitting on his finger and wiping it on one of the lorries.
While Barraclough paced around the lorry park, his saliva had listened intently to Smith’s side of the phone call with the powers that be. Smith had sounded agitated. He was clearly under criticism for allowing CARTER, JANE ALLISON to escape from the high speed pursuit. Now that she was in a public mortuary, it would be much harder to retrieve her body. But retrieve it they would – though Barraclough had no idea why.
There was some internal politics going on, too, among the various factions of the Powers that Be, Bararclough had gleaned that from some of Smith’s sardonic mutterings. He wrote all that down too.
Drummond – who is he and why does no one like him?
The old chief, mentioned twice now. That must be Rothbury, Marlowe used to know him. Cruel man. One of the worst I have known. Not seen him in a good while, I wonder why.
A large nest in Bradford. Near the Midland Hotel. That’s news to me.
Smith said ‘Yes sir’ twice in that emphatic tone of his, and I’m guessing he has been given his Actions. My guess also is that they are loose end Actions. Retreival First. Then Tony Riley is TWP. And after that or concurrently, Hayley Bradly will also be Terminated.
Shame, I liked her.
Hayley was suffering. Sandpaper mouth. Stomach howling for sausage roll, or cold pasty, or something, anything, to fill the void. Head pounding. The god of temperance was banging her skull rebukingly upon a hard marble floor.
‘Right, love? Christ, you look like death warmed up.’
Larry was smiling at her. She’d warned him not to smile so much when she had a hangover but there was no restraining some people.
‘Hen night go okay, did it?’
‘What do you think?’ Her tone was insolent. But Larry let it slide.
‘I expect it was great,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘I bet everyone had a fabulous time. After all, women dressed like sluts, cheap supermarket booze, what could go wrong?’
‘Uh.’
‘You did talk to people, didn’t you?’
‘Uh.’
‘Did you?’
‘A bit.’ But her body language said no.
‘Oh Hayley.’ Larry was still smiling. His bald head was shining. His cheeks were rosy. Even the deep furrows in his brow seemed smiley.
Hayley knew that Larry was up at six every morning in the park, walking the dog, before coming to work. The best part of the day, he always called it.
It was now ten am.
‘You’re late,’ he said gently.
‘I’ll mop the floor. I’m not opening up any bodies today,’ she warned him. ‘Or putting any organs in, yuk.’
‘You can mop the floor.’
She shrugged, grudging.
There is one thing,’ he added lightly.
‘Yeah? Wazzat?’
‘That woman. The cadaveric spasm woman.’
Hayley shrugged. ‘Made a fool of,’ she mumbled, not finishing her sentence; that always drove Larry mad. But today he kept smiling.
‘Maybe it wasn’t,’ he said, cheerily.
Huh?’
‘Maybe she, you know.’ He winked.
He was winding her up, she realised.
Oh boy.
‘Sorry, okay? Sorry, sorry –’
‘Oh, I had a call from the seventh floor.’ Larry’s tone was still casual.
‘Yeah?’
‘The seventh floor,’ he prompted.
‘I know where the seventh floor is. It’s on the, ah.’ She let it go.
‘Apparently they had a security alert yesterday.’
‘Well, nothing to do with me. I was down here.’
‘A computer security alert. Someone accessing medical files without authorisation, and without a credible reason.’
‘You’re kidding me?’
‘They think it was me.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
Oh shit. Who would have thought they’d have noticed?
‘It wasn’t me, though,’ Larry explained.
‘No.’
‘It was someone –’
‘I get it – I get it – it was me. No harm done.’
Lighten up for fuck’s sake, Larry, it’s not like I was checking out your porn collection.
‘What were you playing at, Hayley?’
‘I just wanted to – I was curious.’
‘You looked at the virtopsy for Jane Carter.’
She wriggled. ‘I was curious.’
‘Why, Hayley?’ The kind tone still: that was the killer.
‘It just seemed odd.’ Hayley glared at him. She saw him flinch from her dead eye gaze. ‘You see, it wasn’t really a –’
‘What?’
‘Spasm.’
‘No?’
‘She spoke.’
‘Dead women tell no tales,’ joshed Larry.
‘I didn’t imagine it.’
‘Of course you imagined it.’
Hayley made a face.
‘The virtopsy,’ Larry chided.
‘Yeah, well, I thought,’ said Hayley. ‘When I saw she’d had one, I thought – take a look, why not?’
&n
bsp; The virtopsy – the virtual autopsy – was a state of the art technique being trialled at Wetherby General. The technique offered a way of ascertaining cause of death without the need to open up the corpse. Larry hated it on principle: his life’s work was opening up corpses.
‘And what did it reveal?’
The findings had seemed, to Hayley, to be bizarre. The dead woman’s heart was abnormally large, half again as large as one would expect from a woman of that size. The alveoli in the lungs were over-developed. The musculature was astonishingly dense. These were results you might from a marathon runner who was also an Olympic gymnast. But the dead woman, so the notes said, was an office worker from Harrogate.
‘She kept herself fit.’
‘You’re not allowed,’ said Larry kindly, ‘to access medical data. It’s a sacking offence, you know. And on top of what you did earlier yesterday, calling the police in for no reason, well, you could be for the high jump. Considering you’re only temporary in the first place. And considering, too, that a lot of people don’t see things as – generously – as I do. They don’t have my – deep-seated interest in your wellbeing, hmm? Do you grasp that, flower, do you follow what I’m saying?’
He twinkled. And waited. He let the silence do his work for him. Hayley’s bafflement started to fade, to be replaced by anxious dread.
Larry was still waiting for her to concede that she grasped what he was saying. She finally nodded.
‘I didn’t mean any harm.’ Her little girl voice; she hated it.
I’m such a fucking fool.
‘I could get you in serious trouble,’ said Larry. ‘Or I could, alternatively, get you out of serious trouble. Those are the two options really.’ She was acutely aware that Larry was totally bald, apart from those wisps of grey in front of his stubby ears. And aware too, vividly aware, of his wrinkles, the thick set ridges in his rhino flesh. And aware also that he was old, fifty at least. Hayley steeled herself.
‘I’m so sorry, please don’t get me into trouble, Larry, hmm?’ There it was again: a scared little girl someone burst my balloon voice.
If he touches me I’ll kick him in the fucking balls.
‘Well I’ll try my best. I like you, Hayley.’ Larry got up. He seemed unnaturally short because his body was so wide, but even so he towered over her. ‘But this is an official warning. Don’t access medical files. Don’t snoop. You’re just an assistant to the assistant, never forget that.’
Morpho Page 3
